A sudden deadness
accompanies satisfaction,
and nothing else
satisfies.
February 19, 2013
Antiepithalamia III
February 14, 2013
A Lover’s Plea
I want you to want to give me pleasure.
I want you to be satisfied by my satisfaction.
I am excited by the thought of your being excited by me.
Please understand that these feelings you inspire in me
are a tribute to your qualities.
February 14, 2013
Disambiguation
Maybe it should be accepted, even if it is unwanted.
After all, it is a gift, wrapped in expectation
and filled with hopelessness: a delicately dull grind.
Just give up, let go,
let the low hanging fruit die on the vine.
February 4, 2013
A Shameless Display
A selection of Victorian Choking Paintings will appear in a group show –
ATTRACTION The Science of Love. The Gallery at 3517.
3517 W.Sunset Blvd, Silver Lake, CA 90026. Feb 8th – March 24th
Opening reception: February 8th 7-9pm
February 4, 2013
Redemptive Half Measures
I always assume that people I admire are single
and experience a sinking sensation
when I learn they are not. They drop
in my estimation – for what that’s worth –
from wishful thinking to cold hard earth.
January 31, 2013
Antiepithalamia Valentine’s Offensive
If you feel like dragging your ass across town on a Monday evening to listen to a splenetic misogamist repeat himself, this might just be the place. Come one, come all…
January 28, 2013
Let Me Ruin Your Night
I will be appearing at these star-studded Valentine-related galas.
Beyond Baroque. 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA. Saturday Feb 9th, 8pm
Standard Hotel. 8300 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA. Tuesday Feb 12th, 7pm
January 27, 2013
Doghouse Epiphany
The object of this restlessness that puzzles you
is solitude: a loneliness for loneliness,
a wistfulness for restlessness,
a straining back to what comes naturally –
the way things used to be
when I had only me.
I miss myself madly.
I long to be romantically involved
with myself again, like old times:
dependent only upon independence,
demanding only temptation.
January 25, 2013
Love Story
I cannot locate the source of the disturbance
that has blossomed between us.
It seems, possibly, real… untranslatable.
At best it can be mumbled incoherently,
requiring a different language:
one that you can only feel.
And a different form of currency,
in which I lack sufficient means.
Nevertheless, a situation has arisen
that demands my complete attention:
You persevered beyond the numbness,
even after your jaw cramped, to induce
a state of constant sickly anticipation
of something sweet: an impatience to wallow again
in a mutually tacit sense of wonder, to swoon
into a different kind of loneliness,
from which I restlessly await recovery
and the long snarled return to a serene apathy.
January 21, 2013
The Measure of a Man
A long time ago I made a decision
to become a failure. It wasn’t
as easy as I thought: browsing through life
from one distraction to the next, while waiting
for the last lost moment to become unseizable.
As if there were some fundamental honesty
to not striving: There wasn’t.
I suspected it all along.
John Tottenham 