discount mantra

lubovitcher tank
w/very too loud
platform shaking music
inna foreign language
with a gd oompah to it
drives below.

sun's goin down
onna way to work.
last night ws a lunar eclipse
& something else altogether.

clouds are lit
w/apocalyptic linings.
cloud shapes provided by chaos.
lighting brought to you by god.

the vampire state bldg
cuts like a stake into a bright
cloud background. the buildings
themselves are not directly hit
by the sun.
nor the bridge.

only the clouds are
fully lit. the city lies
in impartial shadow.

oilcan noise: 2 new tracks

eddie & angela of lone vein came over to the aquacade last week to do an edgar allan poe track & an edgar oliver track. well, i rather like both those edgars so i pressed the record button. to hear 'ligeia' & 'making love to the dead' look there

http://www.myspace.com/oilcannoise

to check out and buy angela & eddie's many other creations:

http://www.myspace.com/lonevein

psychometeorology: primordial facts of mind

new geographies

a poem by edgar oliver

a page from 'a portrait of new york by a wanderer there' by edgar oliver. published by oilcan press

that means i made the art and edgar wrote the poem.

to tom in ink

red umbrella plant [orange]

red umbrella plant [orange]

grows, usually, in the imagination.
colored a bright red-orange delight.
found amidst fantasies. nexto dim meanders.
light streams that flow in the dark.

if it were those wet years in the future the red umbrella plant (var. orange) wld be found beside the bridge on the tiny islands surrounding its stanchions.

the umbrella plants would observe the lush overgrowth & the decimated ruin of post-civilisational metropolis. crumbling decaying blocks & spires. tiny remnants. vast remnants. this mannahatta of no humanly untouched centimeter. retouched by destruction & encroaching nature. even if it be mostly previously alien nature. migration. the evolution of place. resolution of space. the forward motion of species of trees that creep well. ailanthus altissima or trees of heaven first brought to philly from china in the 17th century. great giant fast spreading weeds. fast burning & pulpy but not especially useful for structures of any durability. but it is easy to work with.

the red umbrella is known for its prominence amongst the greens of trees of heaven. the orange umbrella would make a great hairdo or hopping bug or cornbeef hash. the wood is hard and longlasting if not plentiful. any number of totems may be carved from it & potions derived from the shavings. the roots may be boiled into a richly flavorful tea. a disturbingly odd redgreen luminescent color. like beet tea if the beet were more wiggly. a soothing tea that makes you say things that wont make sense til later.

a little bird lives in there. it's blue more like a kestrel than a songbird. and it has tentacles atop its little noggin & enormous eyes. these squirds are after more than a worm. less it's one o those great big green umbrella worms. but they are exceedingly rare.

this bird o prey scoops things from the scurrying night streams of light in the form of motion in the dark. the little squird deftly returns to the red umbrella plant(orange) with captured prey. fish & bunnies & slow night birds & such. at night it's best not to be the brightest bunny in the field.

the squird rules the tiny night & roosts in the orange thorny bonnet of the red umbrella.

nothing really eats birds of prey. even if they have tentacles. it's dangerous to cut down a red umbrella plant because of the squirds. hope they're hunting or they dont live there.

harvesting the umbrella at the end of the season is acceptable. uprooting a dead red umbrella is permissable whereas the harvest of an entire red umbrella plant at once can only take place in an umbrella grove. a rare conglom of multiple plants growing together. where often the many of blue squirds can be found.

squirds are too smart and too viscious to kill. so humans have no choice but to befriend them as best they can by planting a squird plot nearby any cultivated red umbrella patch. which patch the squirds will choose is up to them.

dear tom

dear tom--

i lost adam strange.

500 black & white pages
of his intergalactic adventures.

i ws 200 pages in.
deeply engrossed
in the radioactive menace
when it struck me
i hadnt emptied the mop bucket at work.

i had my bag fulla hockey equipment
& two sticks. which i keep at work.
but i had just wanted to go home
& sleep. endorphined up as i was
sitting in the 1st ave L station
contentedly reading adam strange
complacently enjoying adam strange
beat another unbeatable foe.

like grampa sd about louis lamour
'a horse that cant be rode
& a man that cant be th'owed.'

adam strange mentions that
evry time he's teleported 25 trillion miles
to the planet rann via zeta beam
there's a menace waiting
for him to vanquish.

fuck!

the mop bucket.

it's not like this'd get me fired.
or in actual trouble
but it wld be mentioned
& i'm usually on top of that shit.

but i ws quietly reading adam strange
happy i'd survived the ride to 14 st
from the drunk
i'd been at the bar with.

my lazy decision to go home to sleep
& take equipment there manana
cost me a cab ride
& adam strange.

i've always thought he must be cool
i had some 'mystery in space' comics
from the 50s & 60s i got secondhand.
my introduction to frank frazetta & al williamson.
space cabby ws a favorite.

& what a title: 'mystery in space'

therein originates adam strange
& his ray-gun.

the unbeatable hero against unbeatable foes.

heroes win.

i wonder if,
in the remaining 300 pages
anything different ever happened?

did alanna his intergalactic sweetheart
get tired of his disappearances
right after the climax
of the story?

i really wisht they'd included the filler
stories from mystery in space

and the science--
wow

i ws just getting into the stuff
inked by murphy anderson.
what an important hack.
i met him once
when i wento the san diego comiccon.
he & his wife sat behind a table
in the far-reaches of obscurity
friendlily smiling & talking.

even his brush & pen
didnt break up the monotony
of adam strange's predicament.

fuck! the mop bucket!

so, i sd fuck a few times
threw in a sumbitch
& caried sticks & equipment
up the steps to the street
into the cab that ws right there.

tosst the bag in the trunk
& got in the backseat with the sticks.

yessir i need to go downtown
that's very gd-- very gd
sd abdul

his night ws so so.
mine ws gd.
but i didnt rub it in.

took the fdr dwntwn
paid. tipped well.
grabbed the bag & sticks
thank you thank you
inside took care o the mop bucket.
finisht mopping. emptied it.

got to looking around.

fuck. where's adam strange?

maybe
it ws the little man
who lives in the cabbie's trunk.
some might call him a jinni
but i know it's a tiny tiny man
in a hat.

he makes his way, right now,
stealing things from bags
in the cabbie's trunk.

i'm sure the smell
of the equipment kept him at bay
initially.

so all he got ws adam strange.
i'm not sure where
my banana went, either.
but adam strange
definitely split.

so, i carried yr book around.
you remember the one.
it's green. against the day.
the first time in months
i've touched it
with the intent of reading it.

i carried it around all day
but i havent opened it yet.

& jeff gave me some more modern
adam strange graphic novels.
they're in my bag too.
i dont know what to say
about what i'll read.

so far today
having decided to read
your book
i've not read at all
but blathered on
about the situation
& wrote this letter to you.

keeping along, though,
most of these letters seem shorter
but this one keeps along
filling the many pockets
of these pages
& adam strange
is disappeared again.

spirited away from luscious
perky-breasted alanna
by the effects of zeta-beam teleportation
wearing off.

once the teleportation has worn off
where are you left?

adam strange has gone.
disappeared in the night
lost to 25 trillion miles
of accidental zeta-beam riding.

aswirl in cosmogony,
a

a constant state

a constant state
a consistent stroke
for any feat.

an upward screech rattle climb
in the grey day
that has lost some
of its oneness.

single clouds can now be
distinguished in the sky.
tiny pockets of light
shine almost white
while the mist thickens
over brooklyn.

the river is grey
as newspaper
or pavement
or sky.

angles of wonder

up & over
another day.

not sure last night's worn ovff.
noon. haze across islands.

the way over
into town
not that evrything
for miles & miles
isnt a town.

passing pillars flash
each a new frame
of the same city
or another that must be
along these tracks.

clathunk clathunk clathunk.

up & up

up the hazy incline.
rain's comin.
i saw a guy with an umbrella.
not too warm or cool.

but later
the chill falls
& you wish it ws a sunny bridge
to cross in flashes
of angled shadows.


but it's haze
& most subtle muted colors
& perspective silhouettes
into the distance.

down & down
into the co-op forest
of brick trees
filled with homes
beside the bridge
over a river.

the train

sun sinks o'er yonder
past lower manhattan
& the harbor.

the fat red orange orb
atop the lady's torch.

it is stuck atop
evry pointy building
in the financial district.

a fat rolling orange
that draws lines
& bleeds luscious
sweet juices of warmth
over all topography.

the train sinks
below below
where all is shadow
& the sun's juices
do not run.