and I sang myself to sleep among the locust-trees

so. i'm taking the next big leap. i'm winding up for it, casting about in all corners. like a piece of spring, or an oil-stained scrap of cloth. it's something that's been prowling around in the back alleys of myself, pawing at trinkets and hissing at the bright light, eyes shining like iridescent schocks.

the first big leap was: so, not follow all things to their conclusions: so let go the sharp atrocity of it all, in silver steel: so fuzz and blur the at the edges of categories and similitudes: so sing and burrow, and recess the sharp-honed blade that split the world in jagged two, and leaving cracks. so trust to the sleeping mind, to sort and nudge and intuit. so bring a god outside inside, a waking stand of shadow. so worship there, at the unspeakable, and so when called upon to speak of it, unable.

shadow and mist, and foolery. there is none within us which is not us, nor without. it came to me in metaphor: i have yet to reach maturity as an artist. i have not endowed brutal utility with thought. i must enjoin the nameless with the named.

so. i am assembling. the Way is dead; also the sage who rides the buffets of the Way, is dead. the ten thousand things are distinguishable, and distinguished, and distinguished, and distinguished. i will hold this infinity on the tip of my finger, and narrow down my eyes until it fills all things.

gripping the hammers, striking molten constellations

was thrilled and was thrilled

was pushed out by air the bellows

this unmistakeable feeling that i have to run, head west, dig my feet into the dirt for a while. hop rails, hop trains, get into fistfights, light fires in the desert. survive.

i am throbbing

is full of is reserved, brimming is molten
love a great destroyer turning hitches
into presspoints, hurling bits of
hesitation over cliffs, and all caught
in three words, what vice is caught
around that etymology, what basal grunt
is captured that piece of earth, that insecurity,
that crushing leering force, lip curled,
that utters kill and love with equal force

let's cut a path twelve miles wide composed of diamonds, tearing the grey crackling asphalt beneath our tires — let's light it all on fire, say fuck it to you, brooklyn, to you, square corners so sharp, let's pour kerosene over it and light a match, let's see how it burns. the secret to the bonfire gas is tightly kept, the primer, but the empty warehouse with trusses rusting catching yellowed dust and no voices, holding the stillness of a thousand days or hours, keeping

or dig twelve miles underground, burrowing in the deep red earth to succumb to the nature of digging, grit gets under your fingernails, the dirt feels rich and full of particles, your hand is separated from itself, filled with dirt, filled with bits of roots your fingers catch and move forward irregularly, steady, full of purpose, every part of you is concentrated on digging

or just breathe in the air and just to taste it and focus, realise the staleness of containment, running, testing the walls with iron fists making cracks, splinters, dust, shuddering faster than eyes can see the staleness of escape, suddenly encapsulated and understood and no longer full of vitality

the stars shine their own answers tonight, but even that is insufficient, irreconcilable, contained, for once you have captured the universe and you are bored with it, it is not enough, it is understood, all is vanity

but now dig twelve miles underground, burrow, claw at the grey matter encased in your skull (ganglion and subthalamic nucleus) dig it out with your fingernails, here everything is smooth and unrestricted, here your fingers cut like butter, here is comfort and resolve

you know, some days, confidence is all
i have left.

Armchair/Shotgun is a new journal that publishes emerging and established artists. Twice per calendar year we publish a collection of engaging and provocative writing, unhampered by strict theme or literary attitude. We hope that the styles, forms, and genres of our pages will be eclectic, but of a common spirit: direct and earnest.

All submissions are due by April 30th, 2009!

( Submit for Fall 2009! )

I sing naked, glistening,
fists upraised but wrists tied
behind my back; this chair
is a burden to me, this gravity
lifeless. My body glows, as
if rubbed with oil balm, tingling
in waves from my toes
shivering
slowly up my calves, across
knees and into my spine, from there
electricity moves into my brain
and shorts, tickles, scintillates.

Last grasping breath of immediacy,
ten years ago, ragged,
I don't close my eyes and
sink into the syrup sea
but
entertain them open, wide,
pricked with needles. You
are a spectre, composed of flesh,
and body radiant with electricity this
curve of your spine Saturn
round the sun eternal,
this upward lift under your breast
the hidden place of my impulse,
unseen and overlooked and my refuge
delicately,
curved, I see the sparks of
electricity aching your
torso, you have forgotten
everything that
came before, even
this speech I am giving, this
posture full of form and fury,
you have forgotten your
east coast fervor, let it
discharge and melt slowly
into the asphalt

but god-damn why is everything SO GOOD.

the bus shuddered

between Red Lodge and Cooke city, an endless climb between two nowheres

cocked her head to the side, made her neck like a swan

shrugged away from the windshield

shattered into a hundred constellations

sharp like lemon-acid, reminded her of

La la la la la la,
la la
la la la la la la la la
la la la la la
la la "la la
la la la"
la la, (la la la la
la la, la la) la la. La la
la la.

La la, la la
la la la. La la la,
la la. "La la,
LA la, LA LA, la
la." la la (la la la la la la
la la la la)
la,

la la. la, la
la la
la, la la.
la:
la.

hey KID, what the
FUCK do you think you're
doing, huh? jesus FUCK, what
is this shit? what, seriously? you
think this BULLshit is palATABLE?

jesus, you think it will last
THIRTY years, even? PRESUMptuous
FUCK, i wipe my ASS with this
shit, and you think this IS POETRY?

to run out the door, get in an old red pickup
(pay for it in cash)
truck and break it down just
south of the carolina border, and
strike out for the hills, with a
camera and a handgun, half a
dozen apples

then, maybe just walk, towards
the west, following the setting
sun (it always pierces my side
more deeply than any thing,
this sense, this atmosphere)
until it dies, maybe just to the
ocean. then, maybe just swim
out, into the great warm mother
of a sea, grey and unforgiving,
just touching

this is getting harder
to ignore.

Full of daughters,
Full of rats, full
of posture.

Stacked of shadow, New
York, strung together
with skeletal wires, visible
in the mirror, she
powders her nose, over her
shoulder cocks her head,
"What's wrong, huh? What
exactly did you do all day today
anyway?" Did you
peer at skeletons, spectral,
composed of electricity, only
visible in the mirror?
Did you run screaming
from the bowery, manhattan
sprawled every which way
and staggering, struck with livid
intoxication, and stumbling,
silent throat throwing bile
onto the curb, studded with
cigarettes?

Did you guard your fashions and your
stipulations, conditions, did you
guard them close, in secret,
did you hold them in close to your
chest?

And on the piers how well
did you pretend to see the true
thing, steeper than
the banks of the hudson?

Tell me, "Tell me, darling,
what is it? You haven't been
sleeping." Do you think that
maybe
it's a bullshit town, hung
on a bullshit frame, mobilised
by bullshit
electricity?

splitting photographs with an axe, or a
finely-honed knife;
I've become cinematic, flush
with desire, anticipation, with
suspense.

it is cold in the center. it is sandwiched between glass plates. it is looking under a microscope. it is splattered with flour and baking grease. it is overheated. it is right behind you!

it is in bunches. it is curled up and curdled. it is inverting the colors in the rainbows. it is bound up tight with wire. it is listing slightly to starboard. it is shiny with oil and perspiration. it is lounging on the beach. it is ordering strawberry daiquiris. it is sipping through a brightly-colored straw.

it is shivering in the noonday heat. it is squinting at the solar eclipse. it is looking under the rocks. it is poking about in streambeds. it is catching pneumonia.

it is slowly travelling in flocks. it is wheeling in arcs across the landscape. it is driving at high speed across the desert. it is cutting corners. it is thickly caked in red-brown dust. it is outrunning the highway patrol.

it is quietly closing its eyes. it is holding the purple sky. it is pricked with stars. it is listening to the yellow foam thrown up on the beach. it is tripping lightly over driftwood. it is feeling grit between its toes. it is swimming out to sea. it is pointing to the sun.

night falls fast and personally,
twitching shadow's edge
like a halting knife,
swarming
the creeping moon's rise
like a monolith, like
a metronome

and in the gathered bundles
gathered clusters of darkness,
lack of light, everything
exists just as it was—
plaster lacquer marble
bone sinew tendon
yet startled the
lack of illumination
gathers softly in clusters

night is like a splinter,
forces my left from my
right, my arm shakes,
and personally

bolder than eyes are
my lips and tongue, open
wider and more directly.
more struggle, they push onto this
barren silence. I vomit an
itch that hangs at once
frozen and lively, thrusting
and scratching into
your ear. you smile and
mishear me. I perhaps mishear
myself, made of plastic and
painted over with wax.

The force of inertia is
related proportionally to the
mass of an object, but
nobody knows quite
why this should be.

glory, to be full in
color and light, lift
up my eyes, and let my


that giddy sensation, gilded
sensation, as if flying, as if never
let to touch the earth, as if
memory were manifest, tangible,
run your fingers around it

stay cling, hanging around my neck your
fingernails rasping leaving marks,

and sink, here, into such blue air as
(rarefied air, as)
and such as it is


her perfume, ancient, bitter, clings
and tugs but only
as the word, tugs, and not
as a thing that pulls

and large lurch sway, stagger, comfort,
screaming with hoarse throats

tired and wore tired. all wore out now, and tired. no words, no. nothing doing, none.

good days
and
bad ones.

I.

Once the stars died she
didn't know what to
do with her hands so
she laid them gently on
the table

Times up, and then
he breathed in the yellow
ragweed,
coughing, it burned his throat,
and he sat on the rough
ragged bench, buttocks
squishing and sighing
to each other like
willow
leaves.


II.

On the first night that
there were no stars she
went out and out with
them and marveled.
On the second night she
played scrabble with her
mother and drank chamomile
tea, her mother's hands delicate and
paper-thin, worn, golden
On the third night she
read alone in bed and
watched the soaps.


III.

Wheezing, he squished
and spelched along, shifting
from one side to the
other, trying to settle his
two tempestuous buttocks
onto the rough wooden
bench.

On the fourth day she
walked out of her house and
down the narrow
lane to put down
a few bills and in exchange pick
up some eggs, milk,
bread.

Their eyes did not meet because
this is not a love story.

"a painting succumbed to the
crisis of faith, the luminar-
ies stooped in starlight set in
desperation yielding sweetly
without words to whispering
tongues of morning gentle fire
licking orange manuscripts
unburnt curling yellow stained
spot of wished a sky born of"

Yes I sank swimming in the wine-deep with legs like lacewings. Yes the syrup soothes and balms, yes three scratches left by rasping twigs (and the red spilled out within the water) and the spreading of the fire-snakes and tendrils, yes they did subdue. Yes in the winter with the fern-coils softly curled and cusped and yes, I swim in deep red embryonic.

And from this point of clarity I hibernate. Oh yes I long for younger days with their bars of iron clearly strongly with the air to pass between an iron gate the greatest gift of heaven (his eyes are sunken deep within their sockets and his skin is damp and sallow, his ricket leg shakes like a fencepost wrapped in razor wire) and a gate of glass the greatest gift of hell. This frame entwining eggs and seashells, sand and crablegs.

And I enduring sang myself to sleep among the locust-trees. The limits of my limbs are circumscribed by roots, my fingernails are shining.