1969 Hartford art school is magnet for exceedingly intelligent over-sensitive under-achievers alluring freaks congenital creeps and anyone who cannot cut it in straight world it is about loners dreamers stoners clowns cliques of posers competing to dress draw act most outrageous weird wonderful classrooms clash in diversity of needs some students get it right off while others require so much individual attention one girl constantly raises her hand calls for everything to be repeated explained creativity is treated as trouble and compliance to instruction rewarded most of faculty are of opinion kids are not capable of making original artwork teachers discourage students from dream of becoming well-known until they are older more experienced only practiced skilled artists are competent to create ‘real art’ defined by how much struggle or multiple meanings weave through the work Odysseus wants to make magic boxes without knowing or being informed of Joseph Cornell one teacher tells him you think you’re going to invent some new color the world has never seen? you’re just some rowdy brat from the midwest with a lot of crazy ideas and no evidence of authenticity another teacher warns you’re nothing more than a bricoleur! Odysseus questions what’s a bricoleur teacher informs a rogue handyman who haphazardly constructs from whatever is immediately available Odysseus questions what’s wrong with that? teacher answers it’s low-class folk junk  possessing no real intellectual value independently he reads Marshall McLuhan’s “The Medium Is The Message” and “The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci” he memorizes introductory remark of Leonardo’s “i must do like one who comes last to the fair and can find no other way of providing for himself than by taking all the things already seen by others and not taken by reason of their lesser value” Odysseus dreams of becoming accomplished important artist like Robert Rauschenberg Jasper Johns Andy Warhol he dreams of being in eye of hurricane New York art scene he works for university newspaper and is nicknamed crashkiss the newspaper editor is leader in student movement and folk singer who croons “45 caliber man, you’re so much more than our 22, but there’s so many more of us than you” Odysseus grows mustache wears flower printed pants vintage 1940’s leather jacket g.i. surplus clothes he makes many friends his gift for hooking up with girls is uncanny he is long haired drug-crazed hippie enjoying popularity previously unknown to him rock bands play at art openings everyone flirts dances gets ****** lots of activism on campus New York Times dubs university of Hartford “Berkeley of the east coast” holding up ******* in peace sign is subversive in 1969 symbol of rebellion youth solidarity gesture against war hawks rednecks corporate America acknowledgment of potential beyond materialistic self-righteous values of status quo sign of what could be in universe filled with incredible possibilities he moves in with  painting student one year advanced named Todd Whitman Todd has curly blond hair sturdy build wire rimmed glasses impish smile gemini superb draftsman amazing artist Todd emulates Francisco de Goya and Albrecht Durer Todd’s talent overshadows Odysseus’s Todd’s dad is accomplished professor at distinguished college in Massachusetts to celebrate Odysseus’s arrival Todd cooks all day preparing spaghetti dinner when Odysseus arrives home tripping on acid without appetite Todd is disappointed Odysseus runs down to corner store buys large bottle of wine returns to house Todd is eating spaghetti alone they get drunk together then pierce each other’s ears with needles ice wine cork pierced ears are outlaw style of bad *** bikers like Hell’s Angels Todd says you are a real original Odys and funny too Odysseus asks funny, how? Todd answers you are one crazy ******* drop acid whenever you want smoke **** then go to class this is fun tonight Odys getting drunk and piercing our ears Odysseus says yup i’m having a good time too Todd and Odysseus become best friends Odysseus turns Todd on to Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar” and “Ariel” then they both read Ted Hughes “Crow” illustrated with Leonard Baskin prints Todd turns Odysseus on to German Expressionist painting art movement of garish colors emotionally violent imagery from 1905-1925 later infuriating Third ***** who deemed the work “degenerate” Odysseus dives into works of Max Beckmann Otto Dix Conrad Felixmulller Barthel Gilles George Grosz Erich Heckel Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Felix Nussbaum Karl *******Rottluff Carl Hofer August Macke Max Peckstein Elfriede Lohse-Wachtler Egon Shiele list goes on in 1969 most parents don’t have money to buy their children cars most kids living off campus either ride bikes or hitchhike to school then back home on weekends often without a penny in their pockets Odysseus and Todd randomly select a highway and hitch rides to Putney Vermont Brattleboro Boston Cape Cod New York City or D.C. in search of adventure there is always trouble to be found curious girls to assist in Georgetown Odysseus sleeps with skinny girl with webbed toes who believes he is Jesus he tries to dissuade her but she is convinced

Toby Mantis is visiting New York City artist at Hartford art school he looks like huskier handsomer version of Ringo Starr and women dig him he builds stretchers and stretches canvases for Warhol lives in huge loft in Soho on Broadway and Bleeker invites Odysseus to come down on weekends hang out Toby takes him to Max’s Kansas City Warhol’s Electric Circus they wander all night into morning there are printing companies longshoremen gays in Chelsea Italians in West Village hippies playing guitars protesting the war in Washington Square all kinds of hollering crazies passing out fliers pins in Union Square Toby is hard drinker Odysseus has trouble keeping up  he pukes his guts out number of times Odysseus is *** head not drinker he explores 42nd Street stumbles across strange exotic place named Peep Show World upstairs is large with many **** cubicles creepy dudes hanging around downstairs is astonishing there are many clusters of booths with live **** girls inside girls shout out hey boys come on now pick me come on boys there are hundreds of girls from all over the world in every conceivable size shape race he enters dark stall  puts fifty cents in coin box window screen lifts inside each cluster are 6 to 10 girls either parading or glued to a window for $1 he is allowed to caress kiss their ******* for $2 he is permitted to probe their ****** or *** for $10 girl reaches hand into darkened stall jerks him off tall slender British girl thrills him the most she says let me have another go at your dickey Odysseus spends all his money ******* 5 times departing he notices men from every walk of life passing through wall street stockbrokers executives rednecks mobsters frat boys tourists fat old bald guys smoking thick smelly cigars Toby Mantis has good-looking girlfriend named Lorraine with long brown hair Toby Lorraine and Odysseus sit around kitchen table Odysseus doodles with pencil on paper Toby spreads open Lorraine’s thighs exposing her ****** to Odysseus Lorraine blushes yet permits Toby to finger her Odysseus thinks she has the most beautiful ****** he has ever seen bulging pelvic bone brown distinctive bush symmetric lips Toby and Lorraine watch in amusement as Odysseus gazes intently Tony mischievously remarks you like looking at that ***** don’t you? Odysseus stares silently begins pencil drawing Lorraine’s ****** his eyes darting back and forth following day Lorraine seduces Odysseus while Toby is away walks out **** from shower she is few years older her body lean with high ******* she directs his hands mouth while she talks with someone on telephone it is strange yet quite exciting Odysseus is in awe of New York City every culture in the world intermingling democracy functioning in an uncontrollable managed breath millions of people in motion stories unraveling on every street 24 hour spectacle with no limits every conceivable variety of humanity ******* in same air Odysseus is bedazzled yet intimidated

Odysseus spends summer of 1970 at art colony in Cummington Massachusetts it is magical time extraordinary place many talented eccentric characters all kinds of happenings stage plays poetry readings community meals volleyball after dinner volleyball games are hilarious fun he lives alone in isolated studio amidst wild raspberries in woods shares toilet with field mouse no shower he reads Jerzy Kosinski’s “Painted Bird” then “Being There” then “Steps” attractive long haired girl named Pam visits community for weekend meets Odysseus they talk realize they were in first grade together at Harper amazing coincidence automatic ground for “we need to have *** because neither of us has seen each other since first grade” she inquires where do you sleep? Todd hitches up from Hartford to satisfy curiosity everyone sleeps around good-looking blue-eyed poet named Shannon Banks from South Boston tells Odysseus his ******* is not big enough for kind of ******* she wants but she will **** him off that’s fine with him 32 year old poet named Ellen Morrissey from Massachusetts reassures him ******* is fine Ellen is beginning to find her way out from suffocating marriage she has little daughter named Nina Ellen admires Odysseus’s free spirit sees both his possibilities and naïveté she realizes he has crippling family baggage he has no idea he is carrying thing about trauma is as it is occurring victim shrugs laughs to repel shock yet years later pain horror sink in turned-on with new ideas he returns to Hartford art school classes are fun yet confusing he strives to be best drawer most innovative competition sidetracks him Odysseus uses power drill to carve pumpkin on Halloween teachers warn him to stick to fundamentals too much creativity is suspect Todd and he are invited to holiday party Odysseus shows up with Ellen Morrissey driving in her father’s station wagon 2 exceptionally pretty girls flirt with him he is live wire they sneak upstairs he fingers both at same time while they laugh to each other one of the girls Laura invites him outside to do more he follows they walk through falling snow until they find hidden area near some trees Laura lies down lifts her skirt she spreads her legs dense ***** mound he is about to explore her there when Laura looks up sees figure with flashlight following their tracks in snow she warns it’s Bill my husband run for your life! Odysseus runs around long way back inside party grabs a beer pretending he has been there next to Ellen all night few minutes later he sees Laura and Bill return through front door Bill has dark mustache angry eyes Odysseus tells Ellen it is late maybe they should leave soon suddenly Bill walks up to him with beer in hand cracks bottle over his head glass and beer splatter Odysseus jumps up runs out to station wagon Ellen hurriedly follows snow coming down hard car is wedged among many guest vehicles he starts engine locks doors maneuvers vehicle back and forth trying to inch way out of spot Bill appears from party walks to his van disappears from out of darkness swirling snow Bill comes at them wielding large crowbar smashes car’s headlights taillights side mirrors windshield covered in broken glass Ellen ducks on floor beneath glove compartment sobs cries he’s going to **** us! we’re going to die! Odysseus steers station wagon free floors gas pedal drives on back country roads through furious snowstorm in dark of night no lights Odysseus contorts crouches forward in order to see through hole in shattered windshield Ellen sees headlights behind them coming up fast it is Bill in van Bill banging their bumper follows them all the way back to Hartford to Odysseus’s place they run inside call police Bill sits parked van outside across street as police arrive half hour later Bill pulls away next day Odysseus and Ellen drive to Boston to explain to Ellen’s dad what has happened to his station wagon Odysseus stays with Ellen in Brookline for several nights another holiday party she wants to take him along to meet her friends her social circles are older he thinks to challenge their values be outrageous paints face Ellen is horrified cries you can’t possibly do this to me these are my close friends what will they think? he defiantly answers my face is a mask who cares what i look like? man woman creature what does it matter? if your friends really want to know me they’ll need to look beyond the make-up tonight i am your sluttish girlfriend! sometimes Odysseus can be a thoughtless fool

Laura Rousseau Shane files for divorce from Bill she is exceptionally lovely models at art school she is of French descent her figure possessing exotic traits she stands like ballerina with thick pointed ******* copious ***** hair Odysseus is infatuated she frequently dances pursues him Laura says i had the opportunity to meet Bob Dylan once amazed Odysseus questions what did you do? she replies what could i possibly have in common with Bob Dylan? Laura teases Odysseus about being a preppy then lustfully gropes him grabs holds his ***** they devote many hours to ****** intimacy during ******* she routinely reaches her hand from under her buns grasps his testicles squeezing as he pumps he likes that Laura is quite eccentric fetishes over Odysseus she even thrills to pick zits on his back he is not sure if it is truly a desire of hers proof of earthiness or simply expression of mothering Laura has two daughters by Bill Odysseus is in over his head Laura tells Odysseus myth of Medea smitten with love for Jason Jason needs Medea’s help to find Golden Fleece Medea agrees with promise of marriage murders her brother arranges ****** of king who has deprived Jason his inheritance couple is forced into exile Medea bears Jason 2 sons then Jason falls in love with King Creon’s daughter deserts Medea is furious she makes shawl for King Creon’s daughter to wear at her wedding to Jason  shawl turns to flames killing bride Medea murders her own sons by Jason Odysseus goes along with story for a while but Laura wants husband Odysseus is merely scruffy boy with roving eyes Laura becomes galled by Odysseus leaves him for one of his roommates whom she marries then several years later divorces there is scene when Laura tells Odysseus she is dropping him for his roommate he is standing in living room of her house space is painted deep renaissance burgundy there are framed photographs on walls in one photo he is hugging Laura and her daughters under big oak tree in room Laura’s friend Bettina other girl he fingered first night he met Laura at party is watching with arms crossed he drops to floor curls body sobs i miss you so much Laura turns to Bettina remarks look at him men are such big babies he’s pitiful Bettina nods

following summer he works installing displays at G. Fox Department Store besides one woman gay men staff display department for as long as he can remember homosexuals have always been attracted to him this misconception is probably how he got job his tenor voice suggesting not entirely mature man instead more like tentative young boy this ambiguous manifestation sometimes also evidences gestures thoroughly misleading after sidestepping several ****** advances one of his co-workers bewilderingly remarks you really are straight manager staff are fussy chirpy catty group consequently certain he is not gay they discriminate against him stick him with break down clean up slop jobs at outdoor weekend rock concert in Constitution Plaza he meets 2 younger blond girls who consent to go back to his place mess around both girls are quite dazzling yet one is somewhat physically undeveloped they undress and model for Odysseus radio plays Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly With His Song” both girls move to rhythm sing along he thinks to orchestrate direct decides instead to let them lead lies on bed while curvaceous girl rides his ******* slender girl sits on his face they switch all 3 alternate giggle laughter each girl reaches ****** on his stiffness later both assist with hands mouths his ****** is so intense it leaves him paralyzed for a moment

in fall he is cast as Claudius in production of Hamlet Odysseus rehearses diligently on nights o

Just what do we know about
Ward Churchill?
That radical agitator,
That Colorado college professor
Most famous for calling
Twin Tower 9/11 dead technocrats
Little Eichmanns.

Noteworthy is the fact that
The United States Supreme Court
Denied certiorari,
Passed on hearing his claim of
Unlawful discharge.
Unlawful discharge?
Sounds felonious and vile:
Like pus laced with *****,
A criminal secretion, like mucus
Smuggled past Customs:
Vaginal contraband.

Sorry, Ward.
We just don’t give a ****.
Your fake Indian pedigree,
Your bogus Vietnam fairytales,
Your phony combat record,
Your forward ops recon
Way out in ******* Cambodia,
Fall flat like Buffalo turds.
You’ve been slick, Ward.
Hired originally to fill
Some gratuitous affirmative action quota,
Denied tenure in two legitimate departments,
You create some ******* academic discipline
For campus freaks & geeks.
Self-appointed Department Chairman,
A fraudulent college professor from the start,
Once tenured, a courageous warrior for free speech.
Describing Native American history as genocide.
Summing up American history as Holocaust denial.
Professor Churchill was all of these things,
And less.
But using the Holocaust metaphor
To anchor one’s fakakta politics?
That was the proverbial last straw,
The camel buster, if you will.
Especially since most of the
Stockbrokers & market analysts
Crushed in the rubble were Jewish.
Hava Nagila, Babaloo!

One hundred years of solitude
and Marquez still couldn't shut you up,
your words tear down the walls of Macondo,
heckling the Buendías, poking fun at Aureliano
and his golden fishes. The circular history
spins to a halt, and I fold down
the corner of a page, as if closing the book
could save the city built on paper,
on the Formica tabletop
of an old café with a broken clock
A few chapters back,
you were chastising time,
saying one day you'd
crack your watch open,
rearrange the gears, twirl the dials
and steal back from the ticking hands
that steal so much from you. On page 178,
you committed abominations,
spooning sugar into espresso,
and declared your love for Dali because
the man melted time,
didn't care for anything
not molded to the back of a horse.
Cranberry scone finished,
you ruffle the newspaper,
bemoaning the stockbrokers
who grow fat and complacent
on the crumbs of seconds,
chewing chronological cud, you called it,
but you said nothing could ever pin you down,
much less some cheap Timex
on a nylon strap. Cast out of the fourth dimension,
Marquez scribbles graves for the Buendías,
in death, they've forgotten the original sin
and the Colonel forges fish
from the gold fastenings on his casket
ad infinitum.

Incompatible, haemorrhaging  decimal points - from the hand of greed
Unbeknownst to those without a quant or quality
Death & equality
Money or ******
And if you're asleep, then let's coalesce
An acrid past in an acid bath
Xylem & phloem
Stockbrokers wilting into ordinance through capital
Yet another example of the cyclic futility of inebriation
Built up by *******, encouraged by intolerance
A needle full of cement and a casual whiff towards sentiment
You are a component, insufferable but worthless
The vacant unmeasured tenants of reality
Consumed by a silver lining laced with Ambien
******* won't make you indestructible
Prepare for a weak heart, fat **** and sports cars
Fake tan dribbling from your million dollar dandy
Into the lead-infested neuropolis named 'fertility'
And if we can't 'predict' economic downfall
Then we must 'ensure' it with social prosperity
All watched over by machines of loving grace
Left under clawed toes and prayers with bent backs
Clothen ears, earwax, anxiety and a box full of Vicodin
You...Don't know where you stand because you never knew
No new news, an insemination to propagation, fruitless
Seeded in tongues with an emulsified analogue of the truth
A compound, molecular in structure, stable, nootropic
Gods gift, ink on paper, weightless
Where is the honesty in currency? Money? Trade?
I've made what I've made, you make, you don't make
Energy fades, everything fades
Our lives are mistakes
Ghosts of a digitised embellishment
We're not smart
We are knowledgeable
We are insane
We are a texture in patterns in vibrations
Unprecedented, Eden, monolith
Yemen, Syria, Egypt
Glazed over with apathy, rejecting attentiveness
Global pandemic
Do you think you do enough?
Enough to warrant subjectivity and an opinion?
Social pariah, religious ignorance, indifference
1929, JSOC, Malcolm X, Davidians and al-ʾIkḫwān
It's a self imposed thought crime to embrace authority
Never to question, never to learn and think for yourself
Lay down and let monopolies & psychopathy progress
Complacent, unwilling, lazy and dumb
Why won't you let it change?
Why don't we help one another?
We're all becoming one side of a dice
Immature calves being bred for the slaughter
Becoming secular and ignoring we are but one hand
Abstractions giving light to fireworks at night
Gunfire and depleted uranium polarising dawn
There are two sides to life, consciousness in 0's and 1's
We are binary
π
Uzumaki
Fibonacci
Here is the last of me,
Subject to none.

i only read poetry because it's so accessible, a perfectly formed statue; i only read poetry because it's so accessible, and yet so easily forgettable, so self-embodying in that sense of forgetting; well obviously you will not cradle a culture of poetics akin to a worth of fiction, and canonise people into a sainthood likewise, should they read a major work of fiction and compare it to the same feat having read a scarcity on a page, as based on mass appreciation comparison; a poem isn't exactly a rite of passage, it's a process of embodying yourself, to be dropped into the depths... a novel ensures you're dropped into the shallows (the hugging narration of lullabying a reader to sleep), which is why it's so culturally significant in the medium of replicas / imitations; poems influence the stockbrokers of creativity, and they range from being painters to being philosophers.

liken any period of history
to the days we know
how to scribble down a date for,
i'm sure the glutton vacuum
will lie to you about any time period
of your choosing,
and should it not be a glutton,
it will be a skeletal short-story,
hardly a history book's worth of
storytelling;
but like now, the world in impromptu
satisfying,
opened sylvia plath's collected
poems on the poem *the times are tidy,
started reading it, got caught up
in lizard imagery,
Libras of skin ceramics,
lizard skins akin to well dressed tables -
right now i feel a woman kicking
me in the ******* -
judo chop!
skins of lizards finely attuned to
candlelight suppers...
anyway...
started reading sylvia's poem,
by god the solitary gas chamber of hers,
she was "supposed" to put a chicken in there
to bake at 180° for two hours, not her head!
oh god, not her head!
the entire Auschwitz is lodged in that head of her's!
anyway...
so i started reading her poem
unlucky the hero born,
in this province of the stuck record
and out of nowhere, by the end of
the second form fireworks go off...
i mean it, a neighbour sets off fireworks
on good friday,
phosphorescent blue and yellow,
and that stench of gunpowder all around,
you'd think a horde of mongolians were riding
on the high tide of conquest and hopes of ****...
but you never hear of mongolia in the press,
i guess the communist experiment got the better
of the world, isolated them like Idaho or Alaska...
it started there mind you, i spent an hour
in the u.c.l. library researching the ****...
but i mean... what timing!
pure transcendental ***! starting to read a sylvia
plath poem and then fireworks...
you don't get this much magic even if mermaids
or fairies or godmothers exist.