Mistah_Kurtz_HeDead: Daniel Ridges

Just when I'm certain
I have nothing left to say:
cloudburst speaks for me


red-eyed cicada:
seventeen years sans mating -
'swhy he can't fly straight.

• Jun 14

I need to force a line, and another; yet another...

I'm making poetry, ma! Quit sending cookies to my brother!

I'm a poet, goddamn it!

Where's my money?

Where's the honeys?

Where's Mos Def to assure me I ain't a phoney?!

I've lined up words; I've choreographed my stance; where's the fuckin' publisher? Send me my advance!

I'm pumping sentences into this void, hoping for return; I'm a rhyme scholar, but, I still have a lot to l(earn)!

I can't be a straight-up MC, y'all would smirk: I'm thirty-five, with four kids: two of them twin girls.

So, I can't sow my royal oats; No, I can't bust a nut, on some fly honey's breasteses, or across her naked butt.

Nah, that ain't me: I ain't that kind of guy; I've been with my wife for ten years now, It's beyond me to even try.

I haven't even approached the page in months, hell! Maybe years! However; Nevertheless; Furthermore; On the other hand,

I still posses a tad more moxie

than our good friend

Britney Spears.

This is a semi-autobiographical fiction piece written in the format of a Chicago Reader personals submission.

This is the closest I've come to a publishable piece, but any comments of suggestions are welcomed.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007 2:44:31 PM To: visti.chicago@esteri.it Subject: URGENT: VISA situation. Please return this message! Standard Header|Full Message View Daniel Ridges

To Whom It May Concern, My name is Daniel Ridges. My family has had an Au Pair, Linsay, from South Africa working for us since August of 2006. An opportunity arose in the past month for her to travel to Milan during the dates of May 25 to May 30, 2007.
She tried to contact the Italian Consulate in Downtown Chicago numerous times, but kept getting referred to the website. She used the function of the website entitled, "Do you need a Visa?" http://www.esteri.it/visti/home_eng.asp She entered her home country (South Africa) and the country of residence (United States of America), and for the choice of why she would be traveling chose "work vacation", because, as she figured, she is working here in the United States, and taking a vacation in Italy. She tried many, MANY times to contact someone in person at the consulate in Chicago to verify what the website said, but was repeatedly referred back to the website. Nowhere on the website does it give a definition of what "work vacation" means.
She was not granted permission to enter Italy, and had to return to the states on the next flight home. As you can imagine, she was devastated. Linsay asked the police officials at the airport in Milan to check the consulate website, so she could explain how she made the decision to travel with what documentation she DID have. They would not grant her that respect.
One of the only people at the airport who did not treat her poorly stated that if there was a mistake made by them, a reimbursement of air fare would be made to Linsay for the inconvenience.
Today, she repeatedly tried throughout the morning to contact someone by telephone, and could not get through. When she finally did, the person who could help her was at lunch.
Please contact me as soon as possible. I would like to know if there was, indeed, a mistake made on the part of the police officials at the airport, and what the procedure is to receive a reimbursement of air fare.
You can reach me at (_) _-_____. I would very much appreciate speaking with a human being.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,

Daniel Ridges
Tuesday, May 29, 2007 2:44:31 PM To: daniel.ridges@yahoo.com Re: URGENT: VISA situation. Please return this message!
Dear Mr Ridges,
before we call you, it's better to clarify this point:
please go to the website: www.esteri.it/visti click on "English Version" and on "Do you need a visa".
Select "South Africa" for Nationality, "United States of America" for Residence, more or less than 90 days for Duration of Stay and finally "Work Vacations" as Reason for Visit. After you click on "Confirm" that is what you obtain:
" Query Response In the absence of specific agreements between Italy and your country you may not request this type of visa. "
We believe this is quite clear. If she wanted clarifications she could have contacted as also by e-mail or coming in person at our offices. The telephone is not the only option. As you can see you have reached us and you are getting a specific answer. We strongly suggest to verify all the requirements before buying tickets and boarding a plane.
Best regards, Visa Department

Tuesday, May 29, 2007 4:23:19 PM To: daniel.ridges@yahoo.com Re: URGENT: VISA situation. Please return this message!
Dear Mr. Ridges,
as per our telephone conversation, the following is the answer if you put "up to 90 days" in "Duration of Stay": "
Query Response On the basis of the data entered there is no type of visa corresponding to the duration and reason for the stay indicated. Please check that the data entered are correct and repeat your search. " Again, the answer to the query is pretty self-explanatory.
Best regards, Visa Department
From: Daniel Ridges
To: Ufficio Visti - Consolato Generale d'Italia a Chicago Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 4:22 PM
Subject: Re: URGENT: VISA situation. Please return this message!

Hello again,
First, thank you very much for the prompt reply. Secondly, I apologize for the terseness of the first email, now that I have more of the facts.
It has not been my experience where I would get a quicker reply through email than telephone, so that was an error on my part.
Regardless of my family's experience, I'd like to point out that the message that appears (which you outline in your follow-up response) may be misleading to someone else in the future.
The opportunity came up quickly. Linsay made her travel plans quickly, and read the message as stating that there is not a visa needed for a work vacation. If the same message that appears in the "more than 90 days" choice appears at the "under 90 days" choice, there may be less of a chance of this mistake happening in the future.
Again, I apologize for the nature of my first correspondence.
Sincerely,
Daniel Ridges
From: Ufficio Visti - Consolato Generale d'Italia a Chicago
To: Daniel Ridges Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 9:48:34 AM
Subject: Re: URGENT: VISA situation. Please return this message!

Dear Sir,
there is no way the following message can be misleading (unless you specifically want it to be that way): "
Query Response
On the basis of the data entered there is no type of visa corresponding to the duration and reason for the stay indicated. Please check that the data entered are correct and repeat your search. "
This clearly means (there is no other interpretation possible) that for the information entered (duration and reason for the stay indicated) it does not exist any visa. As a matter of fact the message continues: "Please check that the data entered are correct and repeat your search. Under no circumstances this sentence can be interpreted as "you do not need a visa". It it extremely clear and we hope to have clarified any doubt about this episode.
Best regards,
Visa Department

From: Daniel Ridges
To: Ufficio Visti - Consolato Generale d'Italia a Chicago Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 3:27 PM
Subject: Re: URGENT: VISA situation. Please return this message!

Happy Wednesday,

This has been a very emotional experience for our friend, despite her mistake. Seeing her as upset as she was compounded by the fact that I also felt like she was being given the "run-around" by your office, prompted me to write the first email. (My experience with American government agencies has made me cynical, I guess.). I apologized for my behavior in that email because I was wrong. Obviously, you do respond promptly and efficiently, especially when you feel that the person with whom you are corresponding is unequivocally wrong.
In this last email I sent, I was only offering a suggestion that maybe you set up the website so that the same response may come up for both the under 90 day stay and longer than 90 day stay because, despite your detailed response, the message was misinterpreted (albeit, by someone who most likely did specifically want to read it that way).
We'll get over it.
Thank you for your continued attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Daniel Ridges
From: Ufficio Visti - Consolato Generale d'Italia a Chicago
To: Daniel Ridges Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 5:02:12 PM
Subject: Re: URGENT: VISA situation. Please return this message!
Dear Mr. Ridges,
for your information the database available at www.esteri.it/visti has not been set up by this Consulate General but directly by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome. All the Consulates' wesbites, as for visas, must refer the public to the foresaid database. We do not have control over it. Only Rome can modify it. As per your friends' experience, once again (and we hope for the last time), the result of the query is inequivocable: "
Query Response On the basis of the data entered there is no type of visa corresponding to the duration and reason for the stay indicated. Please check that the data entered are correct and repeat your search. "
It's impossible that such a statement was misinterpreted. It just means that there is no visa on the basis of the information entered. It also tells you to please check if the information entered is correct and to repeat the search. The sentence is so simple and clear that cannot be misinterpreted. Certainly it cannot give applicants the permission to purchase tickets and board on a plane to enter a foreign country without permission (unless, as you say, someone wants to use his/her imagination and fantasy to change it at his/her will, if they want to transform it in their mind in any way they want). At this moment we do not have further information to provide on this matter so we will not answer other e-mails regarding this case.
Best regards, Visa Department
From: Daniel Ridges
To: Ufficio Visti - Consolato Generale d'Italia a Chicago Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 8:16 PM
Subject: Re: URGENT: VISA situation. Please return this message!
Perhaps if you are more a little more condescending, that would make it more clear.

Bob Saget is a liar and a pervert!
His voice comes to her
from the McDonald's drive-thru speaker;
he tells her things -
not Columbine things, no.
Information. He tells
her things.

She smiles, and there is silence.
She says at least she's not a danger
to herself or others;
at least not now,
not this week.
She smiles: silence.

Besides, she adds,
it is October:
the ground is getting too cold.

I love her with the ferocity
of a young boy
who has never heard
the creak crunch of someone
tearing herself from existence.

She says she feels more comfortable with guys.
The girls hate her. They call her crazy:
a slut with the boys at her public school,
say she likes the blacks and the Mexicans.
We do not know one way or another.
We are Catholic school boys.
She says we are her protectors;
she would marry each and every one of us,
if she were marriage material,
which she is not, and, look!
Full House is on the television!
turnitoffturnitoffturnitoff!

We love her with the ferocity
of young boys
who have never
truly possessed anything.

After an awkward dating situation
with one of us, (Really, it could have been
any of us), she disappears mid-summer.
We say we are happy for the break.

There is a party in autumn;
someone's parents are gone.
The guys get together for a card game.
Someone comments on when was the last time
we were all together without beer,
what are we, old ladies?
We smile; silence.

Suddenly, she is there,
splay-legged akimbo,
goofy-gorgeous.
I realize that I have
missed her with the ferocity
of a boy becoming a man.

She is there, breathing,
living in this room,
becoming this room.
She wants everything
in the room, but does
not know where to put it.

She tells us that,
as a young girl,
she was made to remove
all the snow from
a Colorado driveway
with a teaspoon
by one of her stepfathers.

She tells us that
exactly one week ago
this night, she was raped
by three college boys
in a rusty Oldsmobile,
that the upholstery smelled
like the McDonald's
drive-thru speaker,
that she will avoid
turning right at all costs.

We boys fashion peacock tails
out of playing cards,
we talk ass-kickings and
Louisville Slugger Sodomy,
we shout questions, puff
our chests, fondle our junk.

She whispers,You sissy Catholic-school pussies.
You won't do anything.
She takes off her jacket and sits on the floor.
We sulk and scowl because she is right.
You couldn't handle them. You probably
can't even handle me!
She begins to crawl on the shag carpet,
her brown hair hiding her face.
She crawls to each one of us,
looks up with the eyes of someone else,
and calls us out; calls us by name.

Do you think you can handle me? Huh?

When she comes to me, her strange
dark eyes challenge me; her mouth
curls into a wolf's grin.
I hear what can only be described by hindsight:

creak crunch

creak crunch

Her lips are not mine,
but they are also not her own.

Someone put his dick in my mouth!
I want you to fuck me, one after another,
Then all at the same time!
Can you handle that?

We don't know what to do,
but figure that doing absolutely nothing
is a step in the right direction.
We exchange glances;
we twist in self-loathing
because each of us considers.

After all, she's a public schooler
After all, she is not marriage material.

Someone suggests we call it a night.
It becomes a night.
Torn from existence.

I walk her home, and
I tell her I love her.
She kisses my eyelids,
and writes a poem on a driveway
with a red rock:

Dan the Man!
You are my Uncle Jesse.
We will never be married,
but I love you, too.

She tells me I will father twin daughters,
maybe with her, but most likely not,
and that they will teach me
how to truly talk to women.

When she shrieks, Niggers!
on the 79th Street bus, plunging deeper East,
I apologize: She's sick. She's retarded.
She's drunk. She's from Scandinavia.
The passengers seem irritated more with my
attempts to smooth things over than with
the insult itself.

An elderly black woman approaches us,
leans close to my love's ear and whispers.
They embrace; the woman leaves the bus,
and we do not speak for hours.

I do not attend her funeral;
instead, I lie on my bed,
weeping with the ferocity
of a young man
who has heard the most
terrible noise of his life,
weeping like a young man
who has possessed
a most wonderful gift
only to lose it to his own reflection.

I do not attend her funeral.

It is October:
the ground is getting cold.

Mary staggers
into the party
and whispers
I fucked Jesus

Under her dress
her flesh is split
from glass and razors
she steals from
medicine cabinets of friends

Sighing,
she parts the crowd
going forth
towards the Chivas
Regal and another
night's suffering.

Jesus Rodriguez
leans against the wall,
arms folded, the way
his Tio taught him
fifteen years ago.

He has a feeling
that a baby grows
in his girl's belly,
and this feeling
is stronger than rice.
It is stronger than the Latin Kings.
It is stronger than the bleary-
eyed magnetism drawing his
tired, damaged mother back
home every time.

On the sofa
Sophie Perez leans
in and giggles in time
to the drunken patois
of the guy she'll let
nail her in his car
later tonight.

Mary watches from the
makeshift basement bar.
She is always
a supporting character,
always some sort of
white bird of peace,
always the one left
with the feelings

She whispers,
I fucked Jesus,
but I am in love with you.

I want to write my life story
on the inside of your eyelids;
Line seven digits
across the small of your back.
Your thighs will be my tablets,
waiting for a masterpiece
to finally emerge.

Our lives,
once stagnant, common nouns,
will lurch daily
(until they do it unprompted)
into one beatific verb.

Cerveza buena
four-ninety-nine at Aldi
drink & write; repeat

When three in a row,
put the Ouija board away!
We'll tell jokes instead.

When thinking of death
one buries himself
in a shroud of pixels,
receipts,
and unfinished paperwork.

There are three of us here
seeking salvation
somewhere along this cluttered desert.

I am the thief, inverted
granted respect and forgiveness
by my Neighbor,
waiting for the message
whispered through the skull's
hollow eye.

four ay yem: tiny
hand snakes past my chin, grabs my
ear; sleep, little one!

I am not that rose's keeper;
a brother by any other name
is still related by marriage,
or by a mother of another color.

Point being

No amount of Black&Tan choplogic
can keep the world from turning
in our favor. There are kids in
France who know they are fated to
assembly line reality and the truth
of the matter is

if you follow me

My child of kindergarten age
is multiplying two-columns,
the tax-base of our school district
could keep a small country running,
and in ten years the schools
will be run by the government.

Education is going corporate, baby!

My kids are going to TheDonald University,
and one day there will be millions just like them
goose-stepping out of some factory in Indonesia.

James Brown said
each time you shake
your best friend's hand
may be the last time.

Reckoning; apocalypse
might be swift
compared to the death soup
slowly rising in the living room.

Pinned to the point
where two walls meet ceiling,
that crevice cradles your head
like a caul.

And all your grappling,
denunciation of Faith and Forever
gives way to a desperate scramble
towards Light and Absolution from Life's

unheeded warnings.

Please.



Please.



Please.


I love You so.