Monday, November 7, 2011

Send Me Home Damaged and Wanting





Listened to the below half an hour ago before seeing the above just now. Not claiming serendipity, not claiming synchronicity, not claiming anything but my reflexive habit of association and claiming these are the strangest days of my life, that I need start making more of them or at least stop making less of them....



Posted by at 1 comment:
Labels: , , ,

the dresses of monday through friday swallow the long hips of weekends












FLOATING TREES

C.D. Wright

a bed is left open to a mirror
a mirror gazes long and hard at a bed

light fingers the house with its own acoustics

one of them writes this down
one has paper

bed of swollen creeks and theories and coils
bed of eyes and leaky pens

much of the night the air touches arms
arms extend themselves to air

their torsos turning toward a roll
of sound: thunder

night of coon scat and vandalized headstones
night of deep kisses and catamenia

his face by this light: saurian
hers: ash like the tissue of a hornets’ nest

one scans the aisle of firs
the faint blue line of them
one looks out: sans serif

“Didn’t I hear you tell them you were born
on a train”

what begins with a sough and ends with a groan
groan in which the tongue’s true color is revealed

the comb’s sough and the denim’s undeniable rub
the chair’s stripped back and muddied rung

color of stone soup and garden gloves
color of meal and treacle and sphagnum

hangers clinging to their coat
a soft while bulb to its string

the footprints inside us
iterate the footprints outside

the scratched words return to their sleeves

the dresses of monday through friday
swallow the long hips of weekends

a face is studied like a key
for the mystery of what it once opened

“I didn’t mean to wake you
angel brains”

ink of eyes and veins and phonemes
the ink completes the feeling

a mirror silently facing a door
door with no lock no lock

the room he brings into you
the room befalls you

like the fir trees he trues her
she nears him like the firs

if one vanishes one stays
if one stays the other will or will not vanish

otherwise my beautiful green fly
otherwise not a leaf stirs


Posted by at 3 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Sunday, November 6, 2011

I Am Working on a Specimen So Pale It Is Like Staring at Snow from the Bow of a Ship in Fog

Are you an anarchist? Some questions!

  • If there's a line to get on a crowded bus, do you wait your turn and refrain from elbowing your way past others even in the absence of police?
  • Are you a member of a club or sports team or any other voluntary organization where decisions are not imposed by one leader but made on the basis of general consent? 
  • Do you believe that most politicians are selfish, egotistical swine who don't really care about the public interest? Do you think we live in an economic system which is stupid and unfair?  
  • Do you really believe those things you tell your children (or that your parents told you)?
  • Do you believe that human beings are fundamentally corrupt and evil, or that certain sorts of people (women, people of color, ordinary folk who are not rich or highly educated) are inferior specimens, destined to be ruled by their betters? 

That last question, if he's asking what I think he's asking, is fucked constructually. That last question, if he is asking what he's asking, is fucked categorically.

Hey! The Glands reunited? I love The Glands.




The Glands - Mercury Lounge, NYC by brooklynvegan




The Glands - 2 - Mercury Lounge, NYC by brooklynvegan









[white spring]

Lisa Olstein

I am working on a specimen so pale it is like staring at snow from the bow of a ship in fog. I lose track of things—articulation of wing, fineness of hair—as if the moth itself disappears, but remains as an emptiness before me. Or, from its bleakness, the subtlest distinctions suddenly increase: the slightest shade lighter in white begins to breathe with a starkness that’s arresting and the very idea of color terrifies. It has snowed and the evening is blue. The herders look like buoys, like waders the water has gotten too deep around. They’ll have to swim in to shore. Their horses are patient. They love to be led from their stalls. They love to sharpen their teeth on the gate. They will stand, knees locked, for hours.


Posted by at 5 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Saturday, November 5, 2011

I've pressed so far away from my desire that if you asked me what I want I would, accepting the harmonious completion of the drift, say annihilation, probably.




I'll be picking up coat and blanket donations in Laurel this afternoon and the Peoples Republic of Arlington Sunday morning (thanks!), please send me an email if you want to help with either product or delivery or if you want my cell in case you might want to play but can't commit to a time yet - I'll be offline much of today after twelve. Drop-off at Freedom Plaza tomorrow needs be by one at the latest.

And a slight defense of old complicit fucks like me: I haven't internalized my external knowledge that all is past repair, meaning I haven't internalized that nothing has broke that could ever be repaired. Everything has always been and will always be brute negotiation. I think any moment is as good as humans can do and think any moment is as good as humans can be, as shitty as both often are.












CONTINUITY

A.R. Ammons

I've pressed so
far away from
my desire that

if you asked
me what I
want I would,

accepting the harmonious
completion of the
drift, say annihilation,

probably.


Posted by at 5 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Friday, November 4, 2011

Time to Give Ourselves to Strange Gods' Hands

Posted by at 1 comment:
Labels: , , , ,

Once They Are Elected They Are Given a Bowl of Cream and a Puppy Clip




Please play that while reading the rest of this post, being careful to open each link in a new tab so you don't have to start the song over over and over. David Thomas' music has one of two permanent chairs in my sillyass Desert Island Five game.

At Thursday Night Pints, K especially, but D and L too, wanted to talk about blogging, macro/micro, general/particular, both why I do it and, more importantly, what do I hope to accomplish, I mean, why do I do it the way I do? so I told them.

Then we talked about Occupy. Like everyone else, none of us have anymore of a theory of hope than anyone else. Also, if you live in Metro DC and have blankets/old coats you don't need and want to donate to Occupy I'll come pick them up sometime Saturday afternoon and take them Downtown Sunday. You're welcome to join me.












HOW THE POPE IS CHOSEN

James Tate

Any poodle under ten inches high is a toy.
Almost always a toy is an imitation
of something grown-ups use.
Popes with unclipped hair are called corded popes.
If a Pope's hair is allowed to grow unchecked,
it becomes extremely long and twists
into long strands that look like ropes.
When it is shorter it is tightly curled.
Popes are very intelligent.
There are three different sizes.
The largest are called standard Popes.
The medium-sized ones are called miniature Popes.
I could go on like this, I could say:
"He is a squarely built Pope, neat,
well-proportioned, with an alert stance
and an expression of bright curiosity,"
but I won't. After a poodle dies
all the cardinals flock to the nearest 7-Eleven.
They drink Slurpies until one of them throws up
and then he's the new Pope.
He is then fully armed and rides through the wilderness alone,
day and night in all kinds of weather.
The new Pope chooses the name he will use as Pope,
like "Wild Bill" or "Buffalo Bill."
He wears red shoes with a cross embroidered on the front.
Most Popes are called "Babe" because
growing up to become a Pope is a lot of fun.
All the time their bodies are becoming bigger and stranger,
but sometimes things happen to make them unhappy.
They have to go to the bathroom by themselves,
and they spend almost all of their time sleeping.
Parents seem to be incapable of helping their little popes grow up.
Fathers tell them over and over again not to lean out of windows,
but the sky is full of them.
It looks as if they are just taking it easy,
but they are learning something else.
What, we don't know, because we are not like them.
We can't even dress like them.
We are like red bugs or mites compared to them.
We think we are having a good time cutting cartoons out of the paper,
but really we are eating crumbs out of their hands.
We are tiny germs that cannot be seen under microscopes.
When a Pope is ready to come into the world,
we try to sing a song, but the words do not fit the music too well.
Some of the full-bodied popes are a million times bigger than us.
They open their mouths at regular intervals.
They are continually grinding up pieces of the cross
and spitting them out. Black flies cling to their lips.
Once they are elected they are given a bowl of cream
and a puppy clip. Eyebrows are a protection
when the Pope must plunge through dense underbrush

in search of a sheep.



Posted by at 6 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, November 3, 2011

The Landlord's Control of Terror Is Implicit







Magnetic Poetry - Follow Me by yvynyl


ALBANY

Ron Silliman

If the function of writing is to "express the world." My father withheld child support. forcing my mother to live with her parents. my brother and I to be raised together in a small room. Grandfather called them niggers. I can't afford an automobile. Far across the calm bay stood a complex of long yellow buildings, a prison. A line is the distance between. They circled the seafood restaurant, singing "We shall not be moved." My turn to cook. It was hard to adjust my sleeping to those hours when the sun was up. The event was nothing like their report of it. How concerned was I over her failure to have orgasms? Mondale's speech was drowned by jeers. Ye wretched. She introduces herself as a rape survivor. Yet his best friend was Hispanic. I decided not to escape to Canada. Revenue enhancement. Competition and spectacle. kinds of drugs. If it demonstrates form some people won't read it. Television unifies conversation. Died in action. If a man is a player, he will have no job. Becoming prepared to live with less space. Live ammunition. Secondary boycott. My crime is parole violation. Now that the piecards have control. Rubin feared McClure would read Ghost Tantras at the teach-in. This form is the study group. The sparts are impeccable1 though filled with deceit. A benefit reading. He seduced me. AFT, local 1352. Enslavement is permitted as punishment for crime. Her husband broke both of her eardrums. I used my grant to fix my teeth. They speak in Farsi at the comer store. YPSL. The national question. I look forward to old age with some excitement. 42 years for Fibreboard Products. Food is a weapon. Yet the sight of people making love is deeply moving. Music is essential. The cops wear shields that serve as masks. Her lungs heavy with asbestos. Two weeks too old to collect orphan's benefits. A woman on the train asks Angela Davis for an autograph. You get read your Miranda. As if a correct line would somehow solve the future. They murdered his parents just to make the point. It's not easy if your audience doesn't identify as readers. Mastectomies are done by men. Our pets live at whim. Net income is down 13%. Those distant sirens down in the valley signal great hinges in the lives of strangers. A phone tree. The landlord's control of terror is implicit. Not just a party but a culture. Copayment. He held the Magnum with both hands and ordered me to stop. The garden is a luxury (a civilization of snail and spider). They call their clubs batons. They call their committees clubs. Her friendships with women are different. Talking so much is oppressive. Outplacement. A shadowy locked facility using drugs and double-ceIling (a rest home). That was the Sunday Henry's father murdered his wife on the front porch. If it demonstrates form they can't read it. If it demonstrates mercy they have something worse in mind. Twice, carelessness has led to abortion. To own a basement. Nor is the sky any less constructed. The design of a department store is intended to leave you fragmented, off-balance. A lit drop. They photograph Habermas to hide the harelip. The verb to be admits the assertion. The body is a prison. a garden. In kind. Client populations (cross the tundra). Off the books. The whole neighborhood is empty in the daytime. Children form lines at the end of each recess. Eminent domain. Rotating chair. The history of Poland in 90 seconds. Flaming pintos. There is no such place as the economy, the self. That bird demonstrates the sky. Our home, we were told, had been broken, but who were these people we lived with? Clubbed in the stomach, she miscarried. There were bayonets on campus. cows in India, people shoplifting books. I just want to make it to lunch time. Uncritical of nationalist movements in the Third World. Letting the dishes sit for a week. Macho culture of convicts. With a shotgun and "in defense" the officer shot him in the face. Here, for a moment, we are joined. The want-ads lie strewn on the table.



Posted by at 7 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

The Andromedans Hear Your Voice Like Distant Amusement Park Music Converged on by Ambulance Sirens and They Understand Everything

I could pick Herman Cane out of a line-up but I've no idea what he sounds like or what he says. Since POTUS12 will be the first time I've played POTUS as an ever-recovering .06% less-shittierier, I can ask .06% more dispassionately, why the media shit-funnel aimed at Cane now? This sexual harassment story, primed and trip-triggered years ago, why the detonation now?

Market logic suggests the timing is nothing more than the story's maximum return on investment re: eyeballs and commercial dollars - Cain will never be bigger than he is now - but may I suggest, a daydream from my romantic pwoggle heart, that Occupy is scaring the 1%, that Corporate felt a need to whack the cracker hive, turn up the siren of the waambulance of Cracker Victimization at the hands of the Great Satan Liberal media bias, this time spiced with accusations of racist Liberal hypocritical Uncle Tomming, give the hippie-hating a jolt demonizing Occupy hasn't.

Plus the bonus that Corporate, Cracker Division, doesn't want Cain as nominee in POTUS12, can both damage Cain's chances when he's at his peak and blame the whack on Corporate, Pwoggle Division, making Corporates' stockholders happy. Maximum return on investment. It'd be brilliant if it wasn't standard operating procedure. Also, this blog's Official Theme Song Two:












THE WHITE FIRES OF VENUS

Denis Johnson

We mourn this senseless planet of regret,
droughts, rust, rain, cadavers
that can't tell us, but I promise
you one day the white fires
of Venus shall rage: the dead,
feeling that power, shall be lifted, and each
of us will have his resurrected one to tell him,
"Greetings. You will recover
or die. The simple cure
for everything is to destroy
all the stethoscopes that will transmit
silence occasionally. The remedy for loneliness
is in learning to admit
solitude as one admits
the bayonet: gracefully,
now that already
it pierces the heart.
Living one: you move among many
dancers and don't know which
you are the shadow of;
you want to kiss your own face in the mirror
but do not approach,
knowing you must not touch one
like that. Living
one, while Venus flares
O set the cereal afire,
O the refrigerator harboring things
that live on into death unchanged."

They know all about us on Andromeda,
they peek at us, they see us
in this world illumined and pasteled
phonily like a bus station,
they are with us when the streets fall down fraught
with laundromats and each of us
closes himself in his small
San Francisco without recourse.
They see you with your face of fingerprints
carrying your instructions in gloved hands
trying to touch things, and know you
for one despairing, trying to touch the curtains,
trying to get your reflection mired in alarm tape
past the window of this then that dark
closed business establishment.
The Andromedans hear your voice like distant amusement park music
converged on by ambulance sirens
and they understand everything.
They're on your side. They forgive you.

I want to turn for a moment to those my heart loves,
who are as diamonds to the Andromedans,
who shimmer for them, lovely and useless, like diamonds:
namely, those who take their meals at soda fountains,
their expressions lodged among the drugs
and sunglasses, each gazing down too long
into the coffee as though from a ruined balcony.
O Andromedans they don't know what to do
with themselves and so they sit there
until they go home where they lie down
until they get up, and you beyond the light years know
that if sleeping is dying, then waking
is birth, and a life
is many lives. I love them because they know how
to manipulate change
in the pockets musically, these whose faces the seasons
never give a kiss, these
who are always courteous to the faces
of presumptions, the presuming streets,
the hotels, the presumption of rain in the streets.
I'm telling you it's cold inside the body that is not the body,
lonesome behind the face
that is certainly not the face
of the person one meant to become.


Posted by at 4 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Visitor from the Ancestral Homeland

My father grew up in a Fayette County PA coal town called Republic, and fifteen minutes ago I got my very first ping from Republic! on the google lackbay ussypay and sslay uckingfay, which brought this result:




Fleabus wept, though, ham of truth, fine bleggal metaphors abound.
Posted by at 2 comments:
Labels: , , ,

Push Your Face Toward November's Glint of Frost













AUBADE

Devin Johnston

A vacant hour
before the sun—
and with it a valve's 
pneumatic hush,
the deep and nautical
clunk of wood,
chanson du ricochet
of rivet gun,
trowel tap,
and bolt drawn—

the moon sets
and water breaks.

Curled within
a warm pleroma,
playing for time,
you finally turn
and push your face
toward November's 
glint of frost,
grains of salt,
weak clarities 
of dawn.


Posted by at 3 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)