Minnesota Poet:
David Laterre

they drove for miles, ended up in a ravine & called themselves
America. gas stations were cold-water kitty-litter boxes &
transport-cafs/dry humping: i cried at a film you never saw & kept it
from you. then i hoarded arcane knowledge & looked like a fool when i
tried to express it. when i was good & jealous of everyone &
everything around me, i shot myself but didn't die. metaphorically i
shot myself everyday & unlived. all that went before was unliving
too/also: in films they always say 'he's lost a lot of blood,' but i
no longer cared. i bled & bled & eventually stopped. 'what's a lot?' i
asked. a billboard featured you with a washboard stomach but flat
stomach sounds better. i sure got tired of how everything i loved
sounded trite & pretentious. when all you had to do is wear a neo-nazi
leather jacket to get laid. -put on our song while you're at it. if
you were my mom when you said all those things i wouldn't have hit you
so hard. how could i impersonate you with this big Catholic face &
these loud clothes?  you're a winner even in that ravine. cuddle up
with that girl while i'm watching. go ahead, i'm not looking/i'm
looking 

what can i tell you of my time here? there was a girl. there was an
ocean. there was a job. there were snatches of music. ships came &
went. airplanes. busses. come from dorkville. there was a corridor &
it looked like this: 10 X 12' - some 25-30 meters long; window at the
end. there was a room, about 280 cubic feet. couch. posters. TV;
window. in it i lived like Jean Genet. there was some sort of scene &
it went on for a while. there was a street, some ten blocks, where
young people randomly rose & fell, ascending & descending like the
German kids in Christianne F. the sky hung like tea leaves. it's
ominous wake. my time was then finite. exchanged eventually to another
place, another time; an ocean & the dreamy mystique of change. there:
other corridors, other rooms. there would be a phone receiver(perhaps
in the room) in which i haven't been introduced;a newsvender yet
met/kitchen cupboards & vague sites. a timecard my look different. it
may look entirely the same. & the girl(as there's always a girl):
you'll always have SCENESTERS/me you won't have ALWAYS. what can i say
of my time here? -the street, the house; the room: dorks still coming
off the tram. they will be bespeckled. they will wear a Melvins shirt.
they will bring their girls. won't. there is an intimidating fire now.
i see it behind the eyes of souls here. there. i look away. it is not
my scene. it is not my scene after all. my feet, they are dancing.
moving toward the sidewalks. out of the windows. out from all the
windows. dancing like birdage. that it goes on & on. invisibly
dancing. & i tell no one of this