Cobalt Lone

Severed Autumn's
browns and greens
were splintering
the auburn trees
of siren leaves upon the vines

The option of
a cup of tea
or practicing
it bitterly
precipitating asian dyes.

The Beginning of the Year

Lets you and I
just sit a while
and try to wile
away the hours until

the foreshadowed event's
accords
descends upon us
a riled horse

acantering
agallop.

Under sodden blankets
the weighty force,
like a stainless steel
recourse

practicing excision
in Portland Maine.

Will Young in Linen Pants

In your maroon oxford shirt
and linen pants

your represent all that is good in this world, and plain

And you
could've been a Roman legionary
with you handsome
and squared off toes
if you weren't
anglophone.

And your patina
though superficial
is diachronic
and far-reaching.

[Oh afternoon]

Oh afternoon
of sitting doom
after hungry
baseful boon

like a Vomiturium
the evening looms

there in a smokey
parlor game
the fractures set
and vector lain

through the wobbling
stumbling stall
labyrinthine
topping sprawl

finding the fairest way
to main.

A new endeavor

For a photographic component to Kosure, please visit our sister-site http://www.kosurephoto.blogspot.com

A work in progress

"Afternoon"

Just quietly
let me away
and calmly stay
your spraining spray.

The embattled
give and take
is like a razorclam
or hidden skate

and the sunset virtues
that often try
upon the mountainside
as day declines

are your blunted crimson glitters
afternoon Martini bitters.

Being Careful

I was
so glad to kiss him by the train
now main
recompense is to complain.

All silences
and liquors an
immuting drain.
A tepid bane

whose frantic indecision
would come to nothing on a plane.

On the End of New Rock

New Rock, sometimes referred to as Post Rock is a musical genre pioneered in the early to mid-nineties. It is typified by an in-classical use of classic rock instruments and instrumentation. Often realized through an electronic, or heavily effect-driven guitar New Rock espoused an almost Futurist disdain for the current state of rock. It's solution to it's contemporary problem of grunge, and brit-pop was to eschew the lyrical content of said forms. As a side-effect of New Rock's songs spindled and careened out of control length wise. Bands like Sigur Ros, and their Disaster Rock counterpart Godspeed! would frequently have track lengths of over ten minutes. Taking a cue from then contemporary Jam Bands often songs were not set in stone, and multiple live versions would increase a songs length interminably. Track lengths fed the dual result of softening New Rock's near Manifesto-driven nature by associating it with happy-go -lucky stoner-rock, and by assuming audiences cared to listen to a thirty-five minute song, increasing their intellectual elitism.
As the nineties wore on, New Rock grew increasingly derivative. By the time Mogwai released the near-perfect New Rock album Happy Songs for Happy People in 2003, the long-droning crescendo, and resolution formula was so well known the album hit a sour note. With little room to grow New Rock bands began reaching into different Post Punk styles searching for a way to reinvigorate the genre. By the time of Mogwai's 2006 release Mr. Beast New Rock was already in a state of decline. Frustrated by the genre's inability to evolve, groups began moving away into Art Rock, or disintegrated into Electro-Pop or Prog-Rock. Tracks like Acid Food, and I Choose Horses brought in such disparate elements as Country to become as unrecognizable as New Rock as anything else. The final nail in New Rock's coffin however would come from the unassuming Canadian octet Do Make Say Think. What had been a sweetheart of the genre in 2007 released the enjoyable, but disappointing You, You're a History in Rust . Do Make Say Think, in attempting to recreate ultimately destroyed. The divergent instrumentation of its forebears had disintegrated into passable but uninspired Canadian Indie Rock. Songs like A With Living have transparently classical lyrical structure, complete with verse and refrain.
New Rock was nice while it lasted. Like so many revolutionary genres what made it new and exciting was its limiting parameters. Unfortunately those limitations proved too great and led to it's own downfall. What we have now is not bad. As with most types of evolution, changes are usually for the greater good. The Art-Rock we have now though decidedly not New Rock, has not destroyed it. Instead New Rock lives on inside it, if in a reminiscent state only.

From: Zombies

I pulled the truck around a copse of four or five trees to see a mostly deserted cityscape. Nancy stopped laughing. The streets were unfamiliar to me, I’d never really been this far north. The sun was out, and everything was lit up brightly, but it still looked grey. There was a semi-circular drive coming up to a parking lot before a baseball diamond and chain link dugouts. Beyond, large divided roads intersected the one road I could see heading straight west, unfortunately it looked like there were lots of abandoned cars on it. In between the buildings streets and signs were zombies. They were stooping, or shuffling slowly. They moved plaintively and looked pained, or bored, or anxious. There were some in the outfield, some crossing the roads farther west.
Two of them, in the ATM vestibule of a bank nearby began banging on the glass when they noticed us. Strength left my arms when I saw how their frenzy was still sedate, and I almost let go of the wheel in the middle of a turn.
“I hope they’re sitting down back there.” I said, gassing the truck, and preparing the clutch to shift up a gear. The truck, or the trailer made a horrible scraping sound when we went over the curb and back onto the road, drawing attention of a small knot of zombies in the bleachers. The starting hobbling toward us, some dragging what looked like feet, broken at the ankle.
“Oh God.” Nancy said as her hand shot to her mouth, her breathing quickened. “I can’t take this.”
“It’s okay,” I said, “look at how slow they are.” I glanced over at her, to see that her face’d turned pale. Her lips were clutched in her right fist and her left hand clenched onto the hammer. “We could out-walk them.” I said, leaning back into my chair. I swung the truck onto Springer, a street I’d never heard of before, and began to weave around the abandoned cars, and crumpled bicycles that littered the road.
As Springer became more tangled, getting around the wrecks became more of a problem. It was nearly impossible to maneuver the huge streamline, and the truck didn’t like the back and forth. At one point, during an ill fated three point turn, one of them got too close to the window and Nancy started crying. I began to hear banging coming through the back of the Streamline. I swore under my breath and dropped the truck into drive and plowed into a car with the gas on the floor. There was a great rending sound, and soft tinkling of broken glass audible over Nancy’s quiet sobs, but the little Volkswagen gave way, and swung out of our path and into the shoulder.
“Alright.” I said.
Nancy shook her head, forcing in short quick breaths.
“We’re okay.” I said, looking over at her, grabbing her hand and patting it into her lap. I looked back at the road and had to swerve to miss a zombie who was standing in the middle of the road. My breath got caught short, and a lump began to grow in my throat. “We’re okay Nancy.” She shook her head.

About The Nationalist

The Nationalist was intended to be a strongly metaphorical morality tale. Whether fortunate or not--I leave the reader to decide--it was thereby accursed with the same drawbacks (as I feel many first novels are) of narcissism, and overt sentimentality. Camden Greenburg is his own man, with uniquely his own eccentricities.  He is also me, in some fundamental and primary ways.
Still the novel focuses and expounds upon some basically human concerns such as governance, populism, and the absolute effect that culture can exert on society. Setting the novel in a decidedly contemporary 'near future' acts both as commentary on our specific predicament as agents in culture, but also metaphorically as near-parable. Essentially: the ideas in The Nationalist are good, and significantly well rooted in culture to fairly be chosen as the subject of a short novel, if delivered somewhat heavy-handidly
Reading The Nationalist now reminds me of a very specific time in my life. I'm thankful for that hint of nostalgia though, because in remembering better, more idealistic times in my life, the novel reflexively hints at their return.

"Today."

I wake up and stumble to the bathroom and halfway through my shower I decide that I can't leave the house today because I'm in so weak a state. I linger in the shower because the white noise of the water on the belgian tile and my skin makes it easy to forget myself. My head hurts. I shut off the water and make it--I don't know how--over the lip where the glass door meets the ground. I look into the mirror any my nose-hair is surprisingly long but I don't have any scissors or a razor in the bathroom. I've got a day and a half of growth on my face and neck. I think 'I'm hungover.' I can't remember any of last night at all. I don't care. I don't care.
I decide that I am hungover. I fix myself a drink and get back in bed naked and wet. I turn on the television to have some noise. I notice my telephone on the bedside and pick it up to call Rita to tell her that I'm not going to be in today but can't find the strength, and I couldn't deal with her shit anyway and so I send her a text message and shut my phone off and throw it across the room without aim. It plunks into something in a screech of static that drowns out the television for a moment and I start to cry.
Between heartfelt sobs I finish the drink in a few hungry gulps, gagging a few times, but I get it down and slam the glass on the bedside with a gasping sigh.
The television cycles itself through the channels but doesn't find anything. Sit-com reruns are on. Old Charlie Rose, for some reason. A fashion magnate.
I get up, mostly to refill my glass. The kitchen is cold, and I'm reminded of my nakedness. Thankfully theres an old Dartmouth sweatshirt rolled into a navy and lavender ball near the sink but when I pick it up and put it on its inexplicably cold and wet and provides nothing.  My flaccid penis flaps around in a manicured bed of velvety black pubic hair at my crotch as I stand up and walk to the liquor cabinet in the living room, after getting the ice cubes into the glass. I suddenly have to pee very bad. I pick a bottle at random from the already open chestnut cabinet and fill the glass halfway. It's amber.
I set the glass on the counter near the sink and plop down on the toilet and break down into heavy sobs in the release of urination. When I'm finished I'm completely empty and go back to the drink.
The bedroom's dark when I get back--not how I left it--but I leave them off anyway. I set down my drink on the bureau and take off the college sweater and drop it on the ground by my side. In between dashes to the drink for a sip I find and slip on a white pair of underwear.
I sit back down, or roll into a ball on the bed or chuch over the the desk and hunch in the leather high-back. As the television cycles I finish my drink and put some thought to what exactly is bothering me so much today. Some of the nausea and all of the throbbing subside and the roof of my mouth begins to throb as I edge my way into drunk. My eyelids tend toward being closed and my limbs grow heavy and I close my eyelids and try to, but can't fall back asleep. The television stops cycling and I open my eyes to a silent image of a small pale white boy covering his ears, eyes closed, shaking his head. The sun is rising. Almost as soon as I open my eyes the speakers click on with a droning, ear-splitting siren.

A Poem for Everybody About My Life

A wind can blow
and does

and so

you know I know
that this has sown
discordant chords.
My whole is low.

and rapt and blown
around the horn
a peninsula of doubt

erodes to show
that nothings shown
to be kept in my strength's redoubt.

from: "The Problem with Rosalind Krauss: Avant Gardism and Trite Ideologies"

"The grid both hides and (inherently) exhibits the naturally human spiritual dilemma by covering it with an opacity that refers, but really only seems to refer, to hard mathematics thereby multiplying the opacity by showing our own inability to represent it, and our stupidity in trying."

New Books

Non-Fiction:

How to Kill Yourself and Everyone Else

Some Unfinished Poetry

It seems I've found,
although abound that,

Illustrative means compound

the steepled pinching of your brass shorn rooves.

My straining serenade
echoing around
to no acclaim

and gentle brew
in whistling kettles.

_

The sub-response
of rusted pots
is tentative, and so ersatz.

To live well then,
and live within

_

Every time I see a head
I want to kill you freshly

Facial hair, a shirt, a pair
or rounded shapes, you rush me,

I'm getting by, but brusquely

and all my movements are to date
good typographical design

metered by a strange embrace
earnest still, but cutting.

J. S. Leifheit

Every time I see a redhead
I want to kill you freshly

Facial hair, a shirt, a pair
of rounded shapes, you rush me,

I'm getting by, but brusquely

and all my movements are to date
good typographical design

metered by a strange embrace
earnest still, but cutting.

The Pressure Pattern's Millibars

The clear delineations
between scar tissues
and lesions.

are converging like a myth
upon a comfortable bazaar.

The yellowed and bespeckled nature
of your oxidizing paper

still bound by your
gilded arms.

Hey, Moisturize! (notation)

(couplets)

3A _ _ |
4B_ | _ |

4C_ | _ |
4B_ | _ |

6A_ | _ _ | _
4D_ | _ | ?

4x_ | _ |
4E_ | _ |

8 /E _ | _ _ _ | _ _
2 /E | |

5x_ | _ | |
4F | _ | _

6x | _ _ | _ |
3F _ | _ ?

The Man-Hero

In
a temperate climate
sit down.

Perpetual alignment
a biased stricture

Your humid clippers
on the hedges

your meager waist
and your Sambuca.

A Morse code report

a list.

For Camden.

I get a haircut that leaves me nearly bald and crying in the plaza outside Auto de Fey. I spy across the street the plop art in front of the Harrison Building, and it starts to drizzle slightly, as if on cue. My new haircut slowly gets wet as a I make my way back to the car thats parked somewhere here on O. By the time I find it my head is a sopping mess. Wiping at my forehead tentatively produces something dark, like the color (that I didn't have put into my hair because I'm still young, Mom never went grey) is leeching out, and running down my face in streaks. I try to get worked up about it but can only muster a heavy sigh. I get into my car with a regular speed and my hands are covered in this diluted black rain water. When I flip down the visor (which I had a mirror installed into before purchasing it) and inspect my forehead there's nothing there. Just bangs that are way too short plastered to my forehead, and my face looking back at me.

I start up the sedan and pulling out of the parking spot and into the weak stream of traffic flowing by I think of Adam who still exists, I assume somewhere in the wasteland that is Maryland. As I make my way down 4th back to K I'm surprised by the lack of traffic on the roads. I thought it was the weekend but not I'm not so sure. Instead of taking a right onto K I continue south to Constitution trying to decide If I'm headed to the office or the Capitol. I end up at the gate to the parking garage underneath the Hill and after a frantic few moments (which lead me to believe that something sinister is going on) they let me through and I park on the south end near the elevators because the garage is nearly empty too.

The florescents that light up the concrete emptiness are bright and the pale concrete is almost hard to look at. The elevator spits me out in the private lobby, and I nod the the security guard who looks at me questioningly. I realize that I'm still quite wet from the rain. I pass him unsympathetically and pass into the public lobby, under the dome, which is comfortingly still abuzz with tourists. There isn't anybody attractive that I can see. I check.

I break into a jog when someone notices me, and calls my name in a loud Boston accent. "Senator, Senator." I'm through the front doors and down halfway down the steps and running across the lawn before he even gets close to me. I'm welcomed by the surprisingly warm rain and the relatively empty vista. The rain is coming in small drops with little force but the surface of the Capitol's reflecting pool is a nearly white trapezoid of psuedomotion.

Hey, Moisturize!

To truncate,
to moisturize

the verdant field
of your insides.

A lathe to liberate
some weakened thing.

A rusted cone
upon a berm

a sample of conditioner
upturned.

A bolt of plain black
cotton poly

Tonight, a statue park
a folly.

[An elephant]

An elephant
has a sweet sweet taste besides

the riverbanks
and soaked in lye

a litmus strip
of paper reads

the luscious dollop wavering
recedes.

The roundness of
a nipple crest

the whorl of hair
upon a chest or else

or otherwise another
group of things together

less—somehow—
than their sum in leather.