Locomotive Worm

Locomotive Worm was once titled Dumb Kid Stuff. I liked the sound of it - three strong syllables. But I needed words for something that would make an appearance shortly, so that title was never its intended. I was in between love affairs, in between cities and countries, in between art approaches. When I was still using the word sensibilities, I was employing it for the transformation, telling people, "My art is going through a change of sensibilities." I was dropping my preoccupation...
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Locomotive Worm was once titled Dumb Kid Stuff. I liked the sound of it - three strong syllables. But I needed words for something that would make an appearance shortly, so that title was never its intended. I was in between love affairs, in between cities and countries, in between art approaches. When I was still using the word sensibilities, I was employing it for the transformation, telling people, "My art is going through a change of sensibilities." I was dropping my preoccupation with philosophy (that intellectual activity) and wallowing in loss and emotions (under the guise of pure stupidity). When the transformation was complete, I was another train-traveling necktie in a river of like-minded inmates, making my way through the closing vistas of Japan.While writing these poems, my time in Japan was something to love and to hate. Suddenly, the twin towers were annihilated. I was watching the news in a language I did not understand, witnessing history shape the beginning of the century. And this didn't stop my going concerns with writing and art; it recolored it. But on a personal level, I distracted myself by following my urges for sexual encounters and transmuted my shifting appetites into less base materials.These poems were each originally formed inside the parameters of a single page; the rule was I had to stop when I ran out of space. It was an exercise. It created interesting possibilities. In time, some of the poems grew, and I couldn't sustain this idea. However, it made me think about having to turn the page in longer pieces. It is an involuntary break based on typographical concerns. And I didn't like it. So, to retain the discrete object piece, every poem or section of a longer poem is either one page or two facing pages, holding all parts of a piece right before your eyes.