Rennie Solis Photography. This dude is going to do tasteful nudes of me soon. JK
New work coming soon!
the importance of anger and apathy.
a poem for Zachary Cohen
your footsteps are like echoes
a ticking clock in an empty house
hours earlier the sun has fallen
and strolling down an avenue towards
infinity you no longer care about wallets
and missed calls
questions or the unbearable need for answers
do you remember that night
when we drank whiskey in Brooklyn
and you flirted with some Puerto Rican girl
who was married with kids
I tried speaking Spanish
to her, but all I really wanted
was to black out and wrap myself
twice in that tweed coat
I’d bought
and so maybe it’s important to love
or be loved
to not be the same as your parents
but to maintain a certain moral turpitude
like the villagers of days yore
but I remember evenings
wine stunk in pocket park
reading poems from a memo
pad and imagining Che Guevara
was riding in my ephemeral sidecar
another night, San Francisco breezes
the ocean’s stink and seals bark
as I lay on a bench and drank straight
out of a bottle of sweet 2 dollar port
a whole poem in my blood
and negative space upholding my neck
to care is something different I think.
money is a curse of adulthood
someone should shout fuck you at the banks
I spit on the ATM and pee in garbage cans
buy leather shoes and stick them in the fire
whilst still on my feet
Driving through Nebraska at 18
all I could imagine was something that never could be
do you remember the smell of pages
the stacks of I.O.U.’s and the rivers
of filth flowing through the crescents of our moons?
Do you recall the thunder of rain on
air-conditioner units?
Do you say I love you to the meanings?
in queens she was raped while all the neighbors
watched, but a recent study proved that it wasn’t
apathy, it was faith in others that allowed it to go
unreported
faith that someone else will do what you wish you might do should you do anything
I listen to music
I write novels
I make money
I am a poem
I drink because I have nothing better to do
I drink to black out
I drink to drink
Whiskey and wine remind me that America
can cushion a fall as long as you admit you’re falling
Europe will burn
and so will New York
remember 1977
and the world is all a cycle
nothing is new
money money money
better make sure they pull the net
I want to fall into the abyss
do you smell the rivers mush
the refineries cough
and the powerplants whirr?
On 1st avenue
it’s easy to fall in love
if you don’t try to
I walked all night
until my toes bled and my body ached
across bridges and under
highways searching for a reason
to believe
at the end of it
all I heard were footsteps
and the echoes of those footsteps
and the sound of my voice
reciting a litany of verse
from the columns of my mind
A Poem On A Friday
It’s hard sometimes, writing poems on the fly, a night time bender, the moon hidden behind lights and clouds with puffed out chests, the inherent violence of life, incumbent charm, a father in a chair sleeping to college football, weather the whether will be weathered
noontime drinks in the yard, kicking dry leaves, autumn chill and gray clouds, a wind whipping eastwards towards the sea, the smell of chimney smoke and cinnamon and dust. the water of the sewers singing like a waterfall
The word “and” can be used like an accelerator pedal, dumping words like fire on the dry eyes of a dimly lit house, thimbles full of tears, drinking the salt like wine. God never called and if he did would you even take the call, when elevators ascend the midnight hustle of your lowly lived life.
silverware, and candles, the blur of conversations and how the voice can grind one’s own ears when at the end of a sentence he can truly hear himself trailing off. The news on a nationally broadcast station reporting terror to two year olds, lives dumped in the wreckage of a medium.
another night spent thinking
Under the lights
everything reflects
blindly
a morning like afternoon
afternoon like night
night like sleep
and no sleep
The ocean used to be close
now it is far
a forest used to rest by my back door
now a single tree sways under California sun
grass used to smell like stale cereal
now it feels plastic and looks too green
And even though thunder
is invisible
the thickness of its sounds
send shudders through our vision
another night spent thinking
about lives worth living
Though the list isn’t a list
I miss the smell of wind
the feeling of sea water
the smile of a copper beech
and the luxury of tall grass dancing
in the gusts of late spring and
early autumn.
the evening dances
orange light bouncing timber
analogous tearful faith
Even if she were true…
Texas radios
telecaster guitars
the element of chance on a
subway ride home from Brooklyn
with some fat bike messenger type
with tattooed legs and a chain
loosely belted around his waste
you’re in new york city kid
from the day you arrive
til the day you die
no salt water pacific sunset
is gonna change that, the N
train on September 11th
nursing a monster hangover
after another
night spent at the Cedar
some freckled girl angrily awakened
in a red morning sun rise
end of summer gaminess
and the responsibility
of early adulthood
commenting on your sore back.
The early sunrises of Santa Monica
come on like a bad cold, gradual
and gentle, nothing like those
blistering summer Sundays
on Avenue A with Doc Holidays and
Niagara pouring 2 for 1s
and little hip chicks
wearing spaghetti tops
and jean shorts,
waiting for the brunch in some
outdoor cafe
heads floating like balloons
and their eyes dark and sunken
like jack-o-lanterns
on a humid indian summer night.
I am alone
i was alone
i will always be alone
even when you are in my arms
even when i can hear you in the other room
even when you’re banging pots and pans and making a squash soup
even when you weep and i stare blankly at the cracked paint on the wall
even when you leave and you say you just need time to figure it out.
and oh those new york city nights
when i’ve walked the 40 blocks home
and I have cold sweat on my back
and the apartment is hot and dank and
looming
miles above the taxi cabs and car horns and pedestrians
smoking and screaming and stumbling with hands knotted together all fumbly and weird
like copper wires in an old home wired by a cataract-ed ex-marine named Carl
and still, drunken and stumbling and slurring words
at the typer there was purpose, she was in the bathroom
and you sat down and just started telling a story
with no purpose but to make something up no matter
how ugly or depressing or pointless it was,
just to create the rhythm of phrases
jagged
and butting up against one another
like a fevered fight when everyone is screaming
like a pack of wolves.
She is gone, the memory of her
isn’t even real, it just was something
you/I made up and even if she were true
she’s back in New York City or more likely moved out to a brownstone
in Brooklyn with her new husband
and they baby they dressed up like a pumpkin
for Halloween.
~ Craig A. Platt, 11.1.2010
New Poem: SOUNDS
Life is an experiment.
the senses, a stack of
moments collected
& laid to rest some-
-where obscure
and meta-
-physical, waiting to
be triggered back to
life
in a shocking
moment. These thoughts
& impressions are
collected into the
mind and spatially
they lie in the most
uncomfortable crawl
spaces of the
mind.
tiny little details,
sunken pleasures,
that
wet
cracking
sound
of paint peeling
off
a
roller
the feeling of
water
soaked
through the cuffs of
pant legs
the
smell
of
tobacco
when it’s first lit
a
warm
sweatshirt
a spider web
walked
through
and tangled
up on
finger-
-tips
traffic
rain
the
whistle
of a train
cash
registers
and typewriters
a
standup
Bass
someone
w
e
e
p
i
n
g
softly
on of those
bells on
the door
of a
retail store
a
cold
greeting
SPLASH.
It’s only in aging
where we realize
the incredible predictable
nature
of time
humans
and the society we live in
so to emerge from a
collector’s Deco apartment
on West End Avenue
to a freezing
New York night,
a cocaine burn in the nostrils
and trailing red lights
one remembers the simplicity of action:
dig you hands deep into the
pockets
lower head
raise shoulders
and march persistently
towards the nearest
subway station.
~ Craig A. Platt
10.12.2010
http://bit.ly/9yD1dD
Fabrication of the Morning, New Poem
Guessing a scribble
today Los Angeles
as I drove down your
narrow streets
searching for something
William Blake might
say about your
parked cars
crooked like broken
noses
A poorly manicured hedge,
bright green artificiality
in this town there’s
no telling what’s real and
what isn’t, like fractured
relationships, mistresses
and madames, hotel bars
and dives with over priced
drinks, a hollow
facade chased into
the psyche of your residents
Los Angeles, unafraid of
the lie
that hazy glow of
windshields, milky and
oil smeared
washed out paint-jobs
on deep green volvo
car hoods
like a tied dyed
badge for the
painfully disenfranchised.
In this pair of hips
i’m spying, a
dramatic cartoon-like
sway, jeans black
as their intention,
spied through the steam of
my coffee, now tasting
rich and sweet
a kiss to my stomach
in a white room washed
by sunlight
my morning read, like
exercise to my mind
the sun begging
for this cool breeze
red peppers infinitesimal
with an other worldly
glow, another
fabrication of the morning
of rhythm and recovery
every ounce of concentration
lost through the luxury
of the day off
coming back to the notebook
with the U.S. Open
in the background
gladiators
on the green
commentators whispers filling
silence
the pop of synthetic strings
a roar and a break
and the fanfare on
network television
and my inspiration
slowly
lost.
C. Platt, 9.11.2010
Silver Lake, CA
New Poem: Our Intellectual Satchels by Craig A. Platt
That book that I was
reading wasn’t very
good and I’m sorry that
i snapped at you when
you were only trying
to be helpful by
turning on the
lights and offering me
a beverage
I was alone, for
the first time in a
while, and you came
up from behind
scaring me
half to death.
The nightmares
continue to wash
over me like warm
water in a dirty swimming
pool, you and I
and all the people
we used to know
when we were social
and interesting
and interested in
the ideas in the atmosphere
that we could snatch and stuff
into our intellectual
satchels. This
is not an apology
mind
you
but an admission
that perhaps life
hasn’t turned out
as we’d planned
and come to think of
it
whose really does,
right?
the book I was reading
when you surprised me
with your voice, which used
to sound like a song bird,
and now like a siren,
was not very good
despite the rave reviews
and the websites dedicated
to its excellence
the author wears sportscoats
i bet, while teaching at an expensive
University with talented students
thinking he’s a Jesus-y type
able to teach them
how to turn
words
into
wine
and wine into
residencies
and then they can buy
their own sports coats
and smile at their
minions. When you surprised
me I guess I was
lost in the filth and
the dirt
and the waste of time
I had been convinced
to partake in
by the cute bookstore girl
that looks like a pixie
you know the one.
So while I am not sorry,
why should i be?
I will say that when you surprised me
i was reading another book
I wish I’d never
bought
but couldn’t
put
down.
http://laexperiment.blogspot.com/2010/09/our-intellectual-satchels.html
The Importance of Sitting in One Place and Reading
There is a slight breeze. There are people all around. The trees sway gently, the air is growing cool in the shade, in the sun I can feel every corpuscle in my skin, the pink forming on me neck, the matted brown hair on my head hot to the touch. I am leaned over, right leg resting on top of the left, chin parallel to my chest and my eyes are moving from left to right at a solid marathoners pace. I am reading. My mouth slightly bitter from the drink I am enjoying. This is a true feeling of calm.
Recently while traveling to Italy I was reminded of something I had learned several years earlier while living in New York City. A time before text messaging, when I would sometimes leave my cellular phone at home, and just read. I would read in Union Square, in Washington Square Park, on a park bench along the Hudson River or on my lunch break while watching the boats from Battery Park. In Italy I sat in Piazzas with a cool beer and read. Dogs running wildly, little children playing in a fountain. I didn’t worry about appointments or bills or what time to be back at the office. I read. I read for hours, while the sun set and the street lights came alive.
In my early twenties there could be a storm outside or a light flurry, the red of tail lights would trail through foggy windows. I would sit and devour words. There is this strange sensation when you sit and read. The mind becomes clear, at least for me. These ideas present themselves, big ideas, things you are afraid to think about when you don’t want to be distracted. And then those ideas vanish and there’s a peace that settles. And you keep reading and then the imagination really kicks in. A city or a nature reserve can materialize in three dimensions.
I find myself transported to the world I am reading about. And I read and read and read. And when I finish the book, or it’s time to go somewhere, I feel something, what I imagine the skydiver feels after he lands and hits the bar for some conversation. An exhilaration and a clarity that I don;t normally feel. Also, a level of inspiration and understanding of the world. Or at least that’s how I perceive it.
And here’s what this really is about. Sometimes you want to have a conversation, an interaction, and the real life one’s don’t fulfill those needs. Well, sitting with a book at a cafe, in a plaza or a park, a hotel room or in bed, these are the conversations I need to have. It is sitting with like minded people, or with people I look up to. It’s an opportunity to see new parts of the world, new perspectives, experience emotions and situations I may never experience. And most importantly it puts my own life in context. Helps to sharpen my intellect and my wit and to help me write. It’s reading for me that inspires writing.
So when I talk about the importance of sitting and reading, what I mean to say is that sitting and reading is as important as breathing for me. I will never be normal, this I know. I will never be at peace. But, when I sit and read for an hour or two I feel more like myself than at any other time in my life. From the day I moved into an apartment on Calhoun Street in New Orleans and sat on the front portch swing and read Hemingway, to this weekend when I say on my lawn and tore into some Murakami. I have made my best friends in the world while sitting quietly and reading. Kerouac, Miller (Arthur and Henry), Hemingway, Ginsberg, Vonnegut, Bolano, Carver, WH Auden, William Carlos Williams, Thoreau, Joyce, Thomas Wolfe, Joseph Heller and Carson McCullers and so many more.
Reading on subways, reading in bars, reading over coffee, over whiskey, reading over rainstorms and heatwaves, snow drifts on large acreages. I love to read. And I love to sit quietly on any type of day and read, finding a gentle peace that can only wash over me at these times.
