so long marianne

xxx/xxx: I THOUGHT EVERYTHING WAS GOING TO BE OKAY FROM NOW ON

The surgeon's saw: all the livelong night.

     I lay coins on my eyes.

   Eh? What dream?

poem dedicated to accuracy for Chall Gray

xxii/xxx: QUATRAINS THAT EXACTLY TRANSCRIBE MY EMOTIONAL MATRIX FOR FUTURE HISTORIANS

ha ha ha ha oh shit ha ha jeez
goddamn fuck sigh sigh sigh
ha ha ha oh wait no wait don't
yes ok wow that's hot that's hot

that's um wait oh mmm mmm shit
sigh sigh sigh ha ha oh wait
goddamnit ow shit okay mmmm
man oh jeez sigh sigh ha ha

god wait hmm mmm yes no wait
okay ha ha shit oh sigh ha ha
heh heh oh wait fuck okay okay
mmmm ha ha that's you you

you you you you you him her
nevermind it's okay nevermind
if okay not right shit oh man
okay hmm ha ha ha oh wait okay

***

This is just a normal space of three/two minutes. It seems like a sex monologue or something. I didn't intend that, but that's funny, I guess.

can we hurry up with this cloning bit?

Let's say I took some DNA off my knuckle and used it to make a small, productive army of interns. That would be nice. I would like that.

In the meantime, author, chef and cool person Kelly Spitzer was kind enough to profile me in her Writer Profile series two days before my birthday. I am embarrassed and proud at the same time.

Overheard two seconds ago:

"Rational. Be rational."

"But it's not. It's romantic."

ridiculous lowrider song for Kelly Spitzer

xviii/xxx: TAKE A LOW, SLOW RIDE WITH ME

v1
Country singers die in the back of classic cars.
Chisel flingers lie about the necks of spastic whores.
Gristle eaters try not to suspect their pasta drawers.
Whistle needers cry and find the flecks of silence poor.

chorus
Take a low, low ride with me.
Take a low, slow ride with me.

v2
Country singers die in the back of classic cars.
Swizzle sticks are fine if you are slapped inside a war.
Your kicks are being tracked by very sly and fascist boars.
Even licks of pine tar lead to sticky sorts of cores.

chorus
Take a low, low ride with me.
Take a low, slow ride with me.

bridge
A low rider, train rider, cow rider calls.
A NASCAR driver, pile driver, really really
hot and dead Egyptian diver falls.

v3
Country singers die in the back of classic cars.
I had a Singer die once when I fastened on a pearl.

spoken interlude
I saw a singer die months after being sarcastic about Pearl.

return to song
If all the singers die then we shall fast and drown and twirl.

chorus
Take a low, low ride with me.
Take a low, slow ride with me.


***

I really don't know anything about lowriders. So I did what I usually do when I lack knowledge: I made up rhymes. Poo.

currant apricot bread

If you read this blog, you probably already read Tao Lin's, but if you don't, you should read this essay of concrete language and logic and some productive ideas for solutions.

Also, re: NaPoWriMo. I know. I know. I will finish. I have it all lined up. It may came in a slurry. A flurry? Something like that.

Paris Hilton Fall Out Boy Denis Johnson is Tao Lin and Tao Lin is Paris Hilton Fall Out Boy Denis Johnson.

bad tom waits song imitation napowrimo surprise

xvii/xxx: WARS AND WELLS

Handsome as an ax
Through a history of ice.
Scribble your condolences;
I wrote your number down on mine.

I lent a drag of Lucky Strike
To the son of Jesus Christ.
Marigolds and piccolos
Been bothering me all night.

Everyone's so friendly here:
It's a beggar's hand's wet dream.
But I think I lost my opera specs
When somebody's parrot sneezed.

Muddy, muddy ship
Won't you bring me home my son?
I've fever dreams of wars and wells,
But I have not my little one.

I slept with my landlord
When he came to fix the fridge.
So he wouldn't find the crucifix
Out in the hawthorn hedge.

He stole and sold my sailor's boots
And I tracked him back to Maine.
We made up in the snowy pines,
But it ruined his good name.

Now I'm fixing sushi at
A bar in the Midwest.
No one even knows I'm here:
I grow my beard and make my bed.

Muddy, muddy ship
Won't you bring me home my son?
I've fever dreams of wars and wells,
But I have not my little one.

Frankie came to visit once,
That half besotted queen.
He wept upon my deerskin rug
And lapped up all my Irish cream.

I pawned him at the edge of town
For a blanket and a root beer float.
I sold his coat to Benny's kid
Who struts around like a baby doe.

But Frankie dear my only friend,
I miss the fear of your charade.
Home is how the cabbie man
Can point to where you're bleeding, babe.

Muddy, muddy ship
Won't you bring me home my son?
I've fever dreams of wars and wells,
But I have not my little one.

Brothers, won't you storm the gates
Of this lonely Kansas bar?
No one even knows my name,
But they know enough to talk.

***

Those waiting for dedicated poems, they are coming. Fear not. I have been singing this song thing in a Tom Waits voice at my workplace. Imagine the melody as any Tom Waits ballad ever. It should fit. Liberation!

blame K Silem Mohammad

xvi/xxx: DEAR CUTE-TUSHED, JUBILANT, RESOURCEFUL AND PARADOXICAL HUMAN BEINGS: THIS POEM IS WORSE THAN MARMITE

Ryan sautéed me some fine-ass crepes. (And I've had
me some squirrel, big thumbs downtown to that!)

Sure my family grew up loving on their potato latkes,
Romaine Lettuce, dog bones, reporters and mint condoms,
but birds and pastry get my "stunt soup" all warm.

So after breakfast, let's organize a robin show for the gigolo who
claims aliens made out with his bag of Goldfish and replaced it
with a potato that resembles Cindy Crawford's poodle. After all,

according to Cindy's ginger-powered research of bovines and their humps,
tiramisu is like having an orgasm and saving the whales! Very nice! A decent
pastry is basically a-hotter-than-expected-53-year-old's "cute dog ploy."

Like the famous potato-devirginizng Japanese macaque monkeys,
I lust after popsicle-stained winged ones, the ones who
whisper: He goes all night like a goldfish. Goldfish?
No, a goldfish. Oh. Hey, look at those pretzels! Damn!

When I first met Ryan, his fingers were covered in pretzel cheese (let's hope),
and I didn't know he was a pastry chef until we rode unicorns back to his Huge Tower.
Now I try to keep my entendres doubled, my fries French, my aardvark stylish:
all to summon the raw animal passion of his fry pan.

Ryan's crepes! O, they make even hamsters O. But if he skimps
on butter (or cheats on me) I shall probably axe a doe.



***

Okay, so Kasey's rule was: 1. Every line must contain an animal, a food item, and something to do with sex, with no one thing serving two roles (i.e. a pig can't be both an animal and food). 2. At least twenty lines. 3. It can't be "crazy."

I used the broadest, most referential senses of "animal," "food" and "sex." As, um, you can probably tell. Some hints: people are animals too. And there are a lot of ways to wink in sex.

sleek taste of napowrimo failure muffins & successful birthday song

NaPoWriMo #14 and #15 are suspended while I recover from a nasty cold. In the meantime, my sister Holly's birthday is tomorrow, April 16th. She lives in Arcata, CA. I wrote a poem for her college graduation: This You as a Wolf With Wings.

And here is the best song about sisters ever, I think:



Happy birthday, Holly. =D

"There's only one rule that I know of, babies -- God damn it, you've got to be kind."

aggressive myth invention

I think I'm trying to break this blog's record for most posts in a single day. My new monologue is up at Juked: "And the Shoes on the Cables Are There For the Angels."

Thank you for reading if you decide to read. You may have already read this in an older form, since it was on the blog not too long ago.

Joe Massey and disembodied voices

In case you missed it, Joe Massey had a bunch of cool people call into his blog .. and me. Go listen if you have listening time in your satchel.

verb modification poem for Elisa Gabbert

viii/xxx: HOW DARE YOU SAY HOW BEAUTIFULLY I SING

Raft pump in the TV hollow there, not so we
can frolic willy-nilly, but for living room
expeditions. Here, no more graves:
my manifest couch destiny. Solamente.
Apricot tea, responsible cheese. Remotely
abandoning the concept of grace. Therefore
distant. So distant! Damn sly you giggle!
I like when you do. Keep it up. Wait. My
apologies on the compliment. Indeed: that
invaded all for which you stand so well.

***

Not much of a poem or whatever. But I used several types of adverbs. At least one in every line. See if you can find all of them.

CRISIS: I am out of rules now. Please comment me some rules. Some rules are harder than others. Like you didn't already know that.

non-word poem for Blake Butler

vii/xxx: FIRMLE ILLICH

lers iz en mi en
zeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeirk-
en-day-lezen-fas.

nuh mer
en zar
umf.

ner zaddle ef zer
ef zaddle ur fich
lerz ez en mi enzoy
mer ir zen! mer ir zen!

no mer
en zar
umf.

nag der un ner mah
nesh nurf en val vulsh.
fishalt zerk en mick
valadu.

leerz ez en mi enzoy!
leerz ez en mi enzoy!

mirrrrrrrrrrrruh
zen.
mirrrrrrrrrrrrruh
zen.

nuh mer.

***

This was hard. I used a lot of z's. It sounds vaguely Germanic. I did this by reversing the MP3 of a song I wrote and transcribing random sounds. A bit of a failure, I think. It would've been more exciting and interesting to do some natural imitation, maybe, or think of some cooler concept of non-language sounds, use of letters as visual signifiers, etc. This just sounds like bad Simmish. Akoutana!

gone but not gregorian

I've spent a nice, musical morning with the following things:

Richard Hawley -- M Ward crossed with '50s suit and tie and smoke ballads crossed with Britain.

Fredrik Ståhl's "When People Go to Work I Go to Bed" -- Um, I kind of resemble this song.

Hayward Williams -- Bark under your fingernails and blear under your eyelids (beautiful) Midwestern singer-songwriter stuff.

Larry Jon Wilson's 1975 LP New Beginnings -- Georgia country. "There's some folks [back there] 'care a little bout me."

poetry mall

If you like small presses and small press poetry, check out Press Press Press, a new centralized blog shop for small poetry press purchases. Like Wal-Mart but without the bouncing face. Or, you know, the evil.