For Sabra
Fanar
asylum
devoid
of reason
and
Librium
Adela
speaks
in tongues
and half-doses
bedclothes
soiled
in sulfur
force de joie puissante
Joie de fatigue de fin de journée
bien travaillée
Rêve, non pas d'un livre avec ses plans-pages superposés
mais de rouleaux infinis en lignes droites
qui se croiseraient
ici, là, là-bas.
bien travaillée
Rêve, non pas d'un livre avec ses plans-pages superposés
mais de rouleaux infinis en lignes droites
qui se croiseraient
ici, là, là-bas.
pOUR vOUS mONSIER cD7*
I ate, no goblet(ed) a bologna sandwich this evening on primpknuckle and lye, a soft whereabouts in the labium of me mouther. She, she did, tied a lariat round the wattle of my neck(tyke), cinching it tight with a Scout’s knot, fleche(ing) the knead to butter me wrongsideup, like a sideplate of melbas, cracked wheat and wry. Fucking cough medicine’s going to be the end(son) of me. Beckett’s crockpipe finger between thumb and fore, no endgame for Ham or Plink or some ruffian in a tackman’s hat; now tell me please, if you might, whereabouts the clubmaster with the frottage cheese and cowslip lip, the one with the baby tuk tuk and Dedalus smile, and wee Aquinas first principle, be that Muslix or Cripper, or a vicar’s surplice fleeced with hopscotch, applejack, or a Eucharist Jell-O in a firkin’s jampot, wrongsideup(son).
Damn Mouth
We sat across the table, she looking over her Caesar salad at me, and me looking over my scrambled eggs at her. We talked about, of all things, me.
There was a surreal quality to the background hum of other eaters-and-talkers and I watched as smoke curled around the etched glass-disk earth that served as a wall to stop my smoking habits from offending the puritans beside us. (Amusing. Just moments earlier we'd been discussing dead babies, and that complanate planet was no more sound proof than air tight - nor was it impervious to shocked or saddened or dirty looks.)
There was fear in my breast pocket, fear that I'd relinquish some tidbit of information that I'd, in retrospect, consider a secret. My mouth and heart often act without consulting my brain, and I struggled to keep the three parts working in unison. A more difficult task than I like to admit.
And then she asked.
She asked me when I'd begun writing poetry and I thought, what a crazy question. It would have been like me asking her when she started being female, or when her eyes became blue, or at what point exactly had she turned human. Writing is not something I do, but rather, what I am....
My mouth commenced to answering, true to form, without the benefit of my mind, for it was busy wandering, tonguing it's way through its own corrugations. And there it found a tidbit, a word or two once spoken by someone, another someone unbelievably interested in talking about, of all things, (what's up with these people?) me. It tasted like Rock and Roll, butterflied, and sauteed in burnt umber acrylic. It was like finding an errant red pepper flake in my Sesame Chicken, (Zhong's - menu item #3) unexpected, tearing at my eyes and catching my breath. It was the memory of the moment when I first believed that someday, someone might actually consider me a poet.
I wish that had been my answer. Damn mouth.
There was a surreal quality to the background hum of other eaters-and-talkers and I watched as smoke curled around the etched glass-disk earth that served as a wall to stop my smoking habits from offending the puritans beside us. (Amusing. Just moments earlier we'd been discussing dead babies, and that complanate planet was no more sound proof than air tight - nor was it impervious to shocked or saddened or dirty looks.)
There was fear in my breast pocket, fear that I'd relinquish some tidbit of information that I'd, in retrospect, consider a secret. My mouth and heart often act without consulting my brain, and I struggled to keep the three parts working in unison. A more difficult task than I like to admit.
And then she asked.
She asked me when I'd begun writing poetry and I thought, what a crazy question. It would have been like me asking her when she started being female, or when her eyes became blue, or at what point exactly had she turned human. Writing is not something I do, but rather, what I am....
My mouth commenced to answering, true to form, without the benefit of my mind, for it was busy wandering, tonguing it's way through its own corrugations. And there it found a tidbit, a word or two once spoken by someone, another someone unbelievably interested in talking about, of all things, (what's up with these people?) me. It tasted like Rock and Roll, butterflied, and sauteed in burnt umber acrylic. It was like finding an errant red pepper flake in my Sesame Chicken, (Zhong's - menu item #3) unexpected, tearing at my eyes and catching my breath. It was the memory of the moment when I first believed that someday, someone might actually consider me a poet.
I wish that had been my answer. Damn mouth.
mAKING kITES7*
I sit
in the murder
of your thoughts
making kites
and parallelograms
without tails
or string
in the murder
of your thoughts
making kites
and parallelograms
without tails
or string
walk into the sea
...just as the orange bear funeral pyre at sea flicked out, in the distance coming out of the sunrise across the desert was a dot, that disappeared and reappeared, until it was no longer a dot, but a monkey and as the monkey grew closer and closer it grew smaller until it was life size and we all could see that this was the saddest monkey who ever walked out of the desert into the sea.
our chimes
in the deep dark cool green
of the forest
where the trees played woodwinds
i, in search of my giraffe man
you, in search of your mouse lady
~peekaboo~
we, frozen as a myth
in sepia.
saints sang their righteous tunes
as we knelt, side by side,
on the pew
reciting the lyrics of our encounters
from unfolded papers bound
for a book we have yet to write.
on my ~straat~ and on your ~rue~
we tiptoe, ~unmasked~,
with coins and chestnuts in our pockets,
to the rhythm of rain puddles
as we reach out to the unknown,
(shaky hands with prickly pins)
trusting our lips
curling against the gravity towards
the soft maracas beats in the air.
(kiss me quick)
of the forest
where the trees played woodwinds
i, in search of my giraffe man
you, in search of your mouse lady
~peekaboo~
we, frozen as a myth
in sepia.
saints sang their righteous tunes
as we knelt, side by side,
on the pew
reciting the lyrics of our encounters
from unfolded papers bound
for a book we have yet to write.
on my ~straat~ and on your ~rue~
we tiptoe, ~unmasked~,
with coins and chestnuts in our pockets,
to the rhythm of rain puddles
as we reach out to the unknown,
(shaky hands with prickly pins)
trusting our lips
curling against the gravity towards
the soft maracas beats in the air.
(kiss me quick)
Grey Mare's Blood was Never so Red, Edward
effervescently pragmatic, team of years united. it must be a cold world, to anchor us so. the war years are our years, except they differ not at all from any other boil to be mentioned by the knowing. the days are as long as they are abandoned, or do you agree in the valley there, dear Reader or what's left?
home is home, the natural thing. for us now, just another death blizzard amidst the plume of jetstream invigourated snow. and lifting up from the perimeter, it really was Yeti long and short sludging across some makeshift permanent noise of snow on a forcefield slope. we greeted with distraction, glad to have hampering pushed aside. are we friends to the end? who can say? we make what we can of the pure windy noise and leave it at that..
Tundra sips a tin cup, its contents the miracle of tea. tented with dismay but willing all along is Excellent English. I need not put stripes and logic to my own ill ease. I missed many signals, and the script here tells of many more. Shorty knows our days, or says so much. love is a pretty name for what we could do. Reader wait, stop turning away. I'm not alone and shouldn't paint that tale, we narrate at the junctions. specification makes it all sound real, these stories of banging pots together. the energy of losing possesses a transfixion beyond belief.
but what, now a quorumed committee, is the practical side of enduring the divide? can we fill the trench with answers?
rude endeavour of ritual deaths, poised on fine points, blurred with reason. there's this escutcheon, known for a primal power, looks good on the wall. topic of story goes surrounds it, guided by many moods and the need, after all, to generate an inheritance. epic of empire, masked as traces ready for division. world as extruded orb, or just ore, elected for the highest limitation of life. well, none of this is for us to understand, we're cold to the bone and maybe beyond. still, we see each other, taken our rare breaths together. blood in the sand, blood in the snow: what's the difference when you ride the storm?
Mallory and that young companion stuck it out, thru shades of death and determined to be right. right's a way of exit, surely. nestled in some presidential murdering we can all assay some bit or bitterness. luminous destruction as a pattern thru rubber jungles and oil fields. the merrie tune insists its ways and means, elegiac in some quarters, heaving as dampening needs to be. I see this as an awful trial, when I discuss bitter roots while toasting the evening sun. here in this bland expanse of dying urges we have populations to hear. those who froze, those who couldn't freeze enough. yes, out little company fits that 2nd aegis well. that's no excuse, just as Paris Hilton can't be blamed for Tom Cruise's doddering fineness. we can finish our assailing ways another day, in other deserts. now makes an interlude, strange as that may seem, with yet more bodies frozen stiff and dumb. we know Shorty's on the mountain, wishing ways to top it all. it's a Moctezuma sort of trial, sung anciently. here's where the story gets good, and gets it good. Reader please: get excited!
home is home, the natural thing. for us now, just another death blizzard amidst the plume of jetstream invigourated snow. and lifting up from the perimeter, it really was Yeti long and short sludging across some makeshift permanent noise of snow on a forcefield slope. we greeted with distraction, glad to have hampering pushed aside. are we friends to the end? who can say? we make what we can of the pure windy noise and leave it at that..
Tundra sips a tin cup, its contents the miracle of tea. tented with dismay but willing all along is Excellent English. I need not put stripes and logic to my own ill ease. I missed many signals, and the script here tells of many more. Shorty knows our days, or says so much. love is a pretty name for what we could do. Reader wait, stop turning away. I'm not alone and shouldn't paint that tale, we narrate at the junctions. specification makes it all sound real, these stories of banging pots together. the energy of losing possesses a transfixion beyond belief.
but what, now a quorumed committee, is the practical side of enduring the divide? can we fill the trench with answers?
rude endeavour of ritual deaths, poised on fine points, blurred with reason. there's this escutcheon, known for a primal power, looks good on the wall. topic of story goes surrounds it, guided by many moods and the need, after all, to generate an inheritance. epic of empire, masked as traces ready for division. world as extruded orb, or just ore, elected for the highest limitation of life. well, none of this is for us to understand, we're cold to the bone and maybe beyond. still, we see each other, taken our rare breaths together. blood in the sand, blood in the snow: what's the difference when you ride the storm?
Mallory and that young companion stuck it out, thru shades of death and determined to be right. right's a way of exit, surely. nestled in some presidential murdering we can all assay some bit or bitterness. luminous destruction as a pattern thru rubber jungles and oil fields. the merrie tune insists its ways and means, elegiac in some quarters, heaving as dampening needs to be. I see this as an awful trial, when I discuss bitter roots while toasting the evening sun. here in this bland expanse of dying urges we have populations to hear. those who froze, those who couldn't freeze enough. yes, out little company fits that 2nd aegis well. that's no excuse, just as Paris Hilton can't be blamed for Tom Cruise's doddering fineness. we can finish our assailing ways another day, in other deserts. now makes an interlude, strange as that may seem, with yet more bodies frozen stiff and dumb. we know Shorty's on the mountain, wishing ways to top it all. it's a Moctezuma sort of trial, sung anciently. here's where the story gets good, and gets it good. Reader please: get excited!
nM4*7*
I prefer, he said, a sideplate of toast smeared with oleo of lard, perhaps, he said, a curd of allspice with a Burgee’s nM4*, or a pumpernickel, black as the ace of spondees: Or, for that mutter, a skim of tappet simmered with oil of egress and oxblood soupcon [he said] the kind that sullies the palate and vectors the wee Tilley. I ambulate, he said, with polio boot and ashplant striking the pavewalk like a firewood match, sulfur yellow and quidbrown like Blazes gobspit, Mully’s thingwort slathered with allornothing. No: he said: a marmalade compote, or a measure of jamjelly scone(d) on the farplate next to the cinderbox powdery with oldperson’smints and the odd biscuit, chewed from the insod out. Mansebevel hidden in the rector’s closet, where a knockabout of wee Tully’s eat macadam bread patted with aster of Goethe, Writher’s head shorn clear off his shoulderigging: Or, [he said] a barilla of tin biscuits, the sort that me great aunt Alma made with recto cloth cinched round the coop of her reddress, the (verily) one she wore on Somedays and those that fell between heathen and haycock. Barging that, he sod, a wedge of the bluecheese, the allsorts that grandmamma pressed in briecloth, the wee buggers playing the loop-de-loop in the barrows of her skirts. [He said] nary muck of impute [he said, saying], I prefer a Burgee’s nM4*, or a cold August night boiled in a samepot with boxthorn and pumperknuckle, a sideplate of skimming and quillworst.
pARAPET, bALUSTRADE, mARTELLO tOWER7*
A coal dust blackwinged morning, an assassin of crows caw cawing outside my parapet, balustrade, Martello Tower, Molly’s bloomers twilled round collar and shank, and me, a fugue in x-minor, the volcano, Babel(ed) into submission, a yardstick without a measure. I am somewhere, not here not there, somewhere in Montreal eating supplicant’s biscuits and too-sweet wine, a transubstantial reification, replete with hogsheads, melbas and corn whiskey. I am a specter, a ghostbody, a kidney stone Braille with quillwort and tungsten, a cooper’s awl, a firkin without a bunghole or stopper. I am a foolscap, a tam-o-shanter, a wooly toque with a Hob’s face encircled in a red nimbus, a Hockley stick flat to the mouth, lips prepuce and bloodied. I am here, somewhere here, where here is, is a mystery to me.
untitled piece by Yurek
A friend was keeping this for my safe return from the wilds of british columbia. Apparently I made it back.
I love you
L'Amour * comme Anse *
Préhension fort possible *
Cela * CON * pulse *
D * I * R * E *
Mon lisse Sire *
L'Ame * Qui se dynamite *
Rythme à résonance *
Passions * Putrides *
Dé-mettre * Dé-missionner *
D. m' Anse * Et * m' en Saigne *
La coupe * a * Ton Cœur *
Ce * sera * toujours *
Mon Sang *
Les * corps * tombent *
Dans la bouche *
Des corbeaux *
Des * Tours * A * chaque * Lettre *
Implosent * La * Tome * Démo *
D. * E.moi *
miss dangerous
an original creation by siobahn ysabel
photograph, text & treatment by elaine
anti-copyrighted 2k6
Breathing August
Breathing August
Summer stole my breath,
poured it into a mug
and handed it back like coffee,
steaming - a fog falling
on a world turned upside down.
It is always August,
humid and bloated, grey-blue
coming and going and coming again.
It's wilted breezes, untied ribbons
tree bound kite strings
and long nights with nothing to do
but fight with trying to remember
and trying not to forget.
But most of all it's breathing,
the swirl of cream in my cup
and missing you.
mONKY'S tHUMB7*
Mr. Ramsey’s Shoe
Mr. Ramsey had one of those orthopedic shoes with the extra heel that looks more like a boot than a shoe. It was black, shiny black with equally black laces that he tied in a double bow around the top of his ankle. He generally dragged his bad leg to one side, like he was off balance or trying to make a quick getaway. He hung around the public swimming pool, and wore boxer shorts that you could see creeping up the crack of his ass and up the small of his back. He was always sweating, his handkerchief always at the ready to mop his forehead or wipe the white mint crumbs from the corners of his mouth. He always carried a pocketful of those white mints that are hard on the outside, but soft and chewy on the inside. Every time he fished in his pocket for a mint, he’d end up pulling out a mint tacked with tissue paper and pocket lint. He would suck on one for a while, then crunch down on it cracking it in two fairly equal half-moons, like a Joe Louis, but without the cream inside.
He helped out the scoutmaster’s with his troop of young men, and taught us how to knot our kerchiefs without cutting off the air to our lungs. I always seemed to cinch mine up too close to my Adam’s apple, or get the woggle snap snagged in a buttonhole or on my shirt pocket flap. He also taught us how to do the three-fingered salute without wavering our hands, and how to tie a sheep-shank or a figure eight, the best keeping something in place. I never did use the sheepshank, never really understanding what it was used for, or why it was called a sheepshank to begin with. Mr. Ramsey got caught tugging a boy’s swimming trunks down in the Pointe Claire pool, the indoors one, and put on 18 months probation along with a restraining order ordering him to stay clear away from anyone under the age of eighteen. The scoutmaster, who lived five houses down from Rupert’s house, found another assistant scoutmaster to help him with the young men, this one with bad breath and a tiny malformed arm with two fingers and what looked more like a monkey’s thumb than a human one.
Mr. Ramsey had one of those orthopedic shoes with the extra heel that looks more like a boot than a shoe. It was black, shiny black with equally black laces that he tied in a double bow around the top of his ankle. He generally dragged his bad leg to one side, like he was off balance or trying to make a quick getaway. He hung around the public swimming pool, and wore boxer shorts that you could see creeping up the crack of his ass and up the small of his back. He was always sweating, his handkerchief always at the ready to mop his forehead or wipe the white mint crumbs from the corners of his mouth. He always carried a pocketful of those white mints that are hard on the outside, but soft and chewy on the inside. Every time he fished in his pocket for a mint, he’d end up pulling out a mint tacked with tissue paper and pocket lint. He would suck on one for a while, then crunch down on it cracking it in two fairly equal half-moons, like a Joe Louis, but without the cream inside.
He helped out the scoutmaster’s with his troop of young men, and taught us how to knot our kerchiefs without cutting off the air to our lungs. I always seemed to cinch mine up too close to my Adam’s apple, or get the woggle snap snagged in a buttonhole or on my shirt pocket flap. He also taught us how to do the three-fingered salute without wavering our hands, and how to tie a sheep-shank or a figure eight, the best keeping something in place. I never did use the sheepshank, never really understanding what it was used for, or why it was called a sheepshank to begin with. Mr. Ramsey got caught tugging a boy’s swimming trunks down in the Pointe Claire pool, the indoors one, and put on 18 months probation along with a restraining order ordering him to stay clear away from anyone under the age of eighteen. The scoutmaster, who lived five houses down from Rupert’s house, found another assistant scoutmaster to help him with the young men, this one with bad breath and a tiny malformed arm with two fingers and what looked more like a monkey’s thumb than a human one.
Hawkesley Square Renga
Nikki Pugh's photographs of the Hawkesley Square Renga - part of the 100 verses for Three Estates projects that Gavin Wade and Alec Finlay are undertaking with Paul Conneally as Master Poet
The next renga is Saturday 5th August in the grounds of Cadbury College, Kings Norton, Birmingham, UK
See more of Nikki's work HERE
=========================
The next renga is Saturday 5th August in the grounds of Cadbury College, Kings Norton, Birmingham, UK
See more of Nikki's work HERE
=========================
tHE eND rESULT7*
I am a montage, a collocation of this and that, that and this, a rhizome without an exit hole, a Heideggerian leap, I am oedipalization and Grammatik patricide; MOMMY DADDY chider (ren), blather, blither mater; a staccato censoriousness with flutes and oboes, Frenchman’s horn and tubing. I am neither either or, nor am I either neither or. I am a Derridian gramophone, Joyce’s patchy-eye, Beckett’s dustbin, a sandbox full to brimming with scats, a savant with a mind for figures, and calculus and logarithms, and vectors that go onto and out; a slide Muller, a cuckolder without a cuck. I am a demy-colon, a comma-lot, and a Shakespearean Moor shoeblack with envy and bad manners. I am all of these, yet none; I am a montage, a collage of this and that, that and this, a cuckoldry of word and text, a poet with a fancy for dissonance and bad manners.
I'm busy
too many obligations
are you an obligation?
can't respond
can't connect
can't stop digging
can't hear you
Focus focus focus
got work to do
dirty fingernails
scratching out a hole
weary, tired
zombie taking over
too many obligations
slowly diminish
are you an obligation?
can't respond
can't connect
can't stop digging
can't hear you
Focus focus focus
got work to do
dirty fingernails
scratching out a hole
weary, tired
zombie taking over
too many obligations
slowly diminish
You see it
You see it’s you not me
It’s me not you
It’s we not him
It’s her not me
It’s us and you
It’s two and three
It’s Christ and me!
Scooping
Working together to sort you out
It’s you, sorting yourself into bits
Bits you can keep!
Only for as long as you name them
My understanding has come circling into itself
CRASH
And out into the world again
Where we play
Two and three
It’s us versus them and you versus me
Stop! Dominoes!
Can’t you see?
This thing’s not one or two or three
It’s in and out and in and out
My European Vacation
My European Vacation
A gaggle of angry Seneca’s is circling the gates of the city. The lead Indian has a flute on which he is playing the theme from “The Love Boat”. The city is famous for its exports: Technology, cotton underwear, and melancholy. This will not have a happy ending. The walls will come down, there will be bloodshed.
The city is already erecting a memorial. It will be made of concrete, glass, and unread Russian novels. It will climb to heaven. God will smash it down. Everyone will be very confused, they will scatter, they will think of another idea.
In the spring of 1142 a man showed up in our town with a piece of the true cross, but by the time we all got around to observe it, it was already 1200, and we had moved on to more important things. Jerusalem was abandoned to the second Intifata. We knew this because a series of flags were raised over the city. God was pleased by our decision to slink back into Europe, and continue our slaughter there.
In 1356 Madame Curie invented a vaccine for traveling to into the unknown, for opening up boarders. The vaccine tasted like a circuit.
Before the invention of the radio people used to have to put their ears to the ground to listen to what the earth had to say. The news was always the same.
In 1511 a bird flew over the city, the shadow of its wings convinced everyone that the Dark Ages had returned. We consulted the texts that had been hidden way in the labyrinth for just such an occasion, only to find that all the books contained were various recipes and commentaries on Germanic cooking.
At the beginning of the Second World War I was in my room listening to Johnny Cash, when I heard that the Germans had crossed into Poland. Then the house across the street disappeared in a cloud of dust. No one seemed to notice as house after house evaporated. Then came Hiroshima. It was all over very quickly, I never even had a chance to get out of bed. I felt like a telephone that was ringing, that no one would answer.
At some point the city disappears, or changes its name, no one is sure which; all that remains is a man who goes from place to place putting up fence, he is re-erecting the monument. This time, he has been assured—by someone—it will be indestructible.
A gaggle of angry Seneca’s is circling the gates of the city. The lead Indian has a flute on which he is playing the theme from “The Love Boat”. The city is famous for its exports: Technology, cotton underwear, and melancholy. This will not have a happy ending. The walls will come down, there will be bloodshed.
The city is already erecting a memorial. It will be made of concrete, glass, and unread Russian novels. It will climb to heaven. God will smash it down. Everyone will be very confused, they will scatter, they will think of another idea.
In the spring of 1142 a man showed up in our town with a piece of the true cross, but by the time we all got around to observe it, it was already 1200, and we had moved on to more important things. Jerusalem was abandoned to the second Intifata. We knew this because a series of flags were raised over the city. God was pleased by our decision to slink back into Europe, and continue our slaughter there.
In 1356 Madame Curie invented a vaccine for traveling to into the unknown, for opening up boarders. The vaccine tasted like a circuit.
Before the invention of the radio people used to have to put their ears to the ground to listen to what the earth had to say. The news was always the same.
In 1511 a bird flew over the city, the shadow of its wings convinced everyone that the Dark Ages had returned. We consulted the texts that had been hidden way in the labyrinth for just such an occasion, only to find that all the books contained were various recipes and commentaries on Germanic cooking.
At the beginning of the Second World War I was in my room listening to Johnny Cash, when I heard that the Germans had crossed into Poland. Then the house across the street disappeared in a cloud of dust. No one seemed to notice as house after house evaporated. Then came Hiroshima. It was all over very quickly, I never even had a chance to get out of bed. I felt like a telephone that was ringing, that no one would answer.
At some point the city disappears, or changes its name, no one is sure which; all that remains is a man who goes from place to place putting up fence, he is re-erecting the monument. This time, he has been assured—by someone—it will be indestructible.
buddha-box in my head
when i see death coming
i cross the road
she waves at me
and yells, you dropped your purse
la la la la la
la la la la la
when i lose the stench of her appearance
i pull the fingers from my head
and go on my way
though i see from afar
how effective she's become
i walk with fingers clenched inside my head
merciful buddha-box, if it isn't Amerikan Hegemony!
i cross the road
she waves at me
and yells, you dropped your purse
la la la la la
la la la la la
when i lose the stench of her appearance
i pull the fingers from my head
and go on my way
though i see from afar
how effective she's become
i walk with fingers clenched inside my head
merciful buddha-box, if it isn't Amerikan Hegemony!
Metropolitan Diary
Fountain of Youth
I was sitting on the number 7 crosstown bus when the older gentleman in front of me began to vibrate. I knew what that meant, but before I could get out of the way, sure enough, he exploded. Bits of flesh flew everywhere and the blood ruined the bag of feces I was carrying (a memento of my nephew's first communion). I looked across the aisle at a stylish twenty-something blonde who had chunks of organ meat all over her obviously expensive dress. "Old people!" she laughed, as she twisted her body to spray me with a stream of warm urine.
Out of the Mouths of Babes
Belle Moskowitz, a woman of a certain age, and her great-granddaughter Emma were playing one of their usual games, "Eat Grandma," when things went too far. "She had her mouth on my clit like a pitbull clamped onto a drug dealer's balls," reports Belle. "I was bleeding like a virgin on a date with Ted Bundy. I finally realized I'd have to hack her head off with Moishe's meat cleaver to make her let go. Just as I was about to bring the blade crashing down, Moishe screamed, "Stop, that's a fish knife!"
Family Affair
As per usual on a Sunday evening, I was fellating my father-in-law. Just as I was running my tongue in little circles on the underside of the head and had him squirming and ready to pop, my wife walked in. "Oh, you men with your sports," she clucked, ducking to miss an arcing stream of cum.
I was sitting on the number 7 crosstown bus when the older gentleman in front of me began to vibrate. I knew what that meant, but before I could get out of the way, sure enough, he exploded. Bits of flesh flew everywhere and the blood ruined the bag of feces I was carrying (a memento of my nephew's first communion). I looked across the aisle at a stylish twenty-something blonde who had chunks of organ meat all over her obviously expensive dress. "Old people!" she laughed, as she twisted her body to spray me with a stream of warm urine.
Out of the Mouths of Babes
Belle Moskowitz, a woman of a certain age, and her great-granddaughter Emma were playing one of their usual games, "Eat Grandma," when things went too far. "She had her mouth on my clit like a pitbull clamped onto a drug dealer's balls," reports Belle. "I was bleeding like a virgin on a date with Ted Bundy. I finally realized I'd have to hack her head off with Moishe's meat cleaver to make her let go. Just as I was about to bring the blade crashing down, Moishe screamed, "Stop, that's a fish knife!"
Family Affair
As per usual on a Sunday evening, I was fellating my father-in-law. Just as I was running my tongue in little circles on the underside of the head and had him squirming and ready to pop, my wife walked in. "Oh, you men with your sports," she clucked, ducking to miss an arcing stream of cum.
Postcards from Lake Agassiz
On the hottest prairie days, sometimes
I can nearly feel a fine light spray
teasing my parched lips and tongue
whipped up from the windy water
of a lake that is no longer there
and that hasn't been for perhaps
eight thousand or so years.
From places close by, I nearly feel, too
the cool breathing and deep muttering grind
of glaciers the size of continents
abrading an adolescent land down to its bones
and melting rivers into water vast enough
to meddle with whole prehistoric climates
somewhere across a different-shaped Atlantic.
If you ask me where they come from,
these teasing postcards of memories I can't have,
I cannot tell you, yet I am preternaturally aware
that among wheatfields I walk the dry bed of a lake
great enough to swallow all of the great lakes
now belted across the wide belly of this country
drowning them deep, denying them daylight.
And when bright noon sun is highest and driest
I can close my ancestral eyes and remember
sitting serenely on a worn canvas deck chair
beneath a gaudy coloured beach umbrella with
a tall iced tea, sunglasses and a bamboo pole
fishing for extinct Pleistocene creatures
from the rocky shoreline of a young Lake Agassiz.
I can nearly feel a fine light spray
teasing my parched lips and tongue
whipped up from the windy water
of a lake that is no longer there
and that hasn't been for perhaps
eight thousand or so years.
From places close by, I nearly feel, too
the cool breathing and deep muttering grind
of glaciers the size of continents
abrading an adolescent land down to its bones
and melting rivers into water vast enough
to meddle with whole prehistoric climates
somewhere across a different-shaped Atlantic.
If you ask me where they come from,
these teasing postcards of memories I can't have,
I cannot tell you, yet I am preternaturally aware
that among wheatfields I walk the dry bed of a lake
great enough to swallow all of the great lakes
now belted across the wide belly of this country
drowning them deep, denying them daylight.
And when bright noon sun is highest and driest
I can close my ancestral eyes and remember
sitting serenely on a worn canvas deck chair
beneath a gaudy coloured beach umbrella with
a tall iced tea, sunglasses and a bamboo pole
fishing for extinct Pleistocene creatures
from the rocky shoreline of a young Lake Agassiz.
I Went to a Party
I went to a party
And talked to a beautiful girl
And sometimes her boyfriend
My own girlfriend was at home
With the flu
In bed and surrounded by what looked like the wreckage of a tissue airliner
Crashed into the rolling farm fields of her blanket
No survivors
Meanwhile, at the party
I am talking to the beautiful girl
Sitting on the arm of a couch
Because I have had enough beer by now
To make this seem comfortable
And we laugh about something
That I will try to remember
The whole drive home
And talked to a beautiful girl
And sometimes her boyfriend
My own girlfriend was at home
With the flu
In bed and surrounded by what looked like the wreckage of a tissue airliner
Crashed into the rolling farm fields of her blanket
No survivors
Meanwhile, at the party
I am talking to the beautiful girl
Sitting on the arm of a couch
Because I have had enough beer by now
To make this seem comfortable
And we laugh about something
That I will try to remember
The whole drive home
Hopping Flight
Through the tumultuous clouds,
A jittery touchdown-
Army helicopters,
Grey whining sky, grey ground
Of this city now torn
Apart by rage and fear,
Somewhere, on the outskirts
Lies the place where you are.
Perhaps I swooped over
Its walls as we flew in-
Did you gaze upwards at
The plane's descending din?
The doors open, faces
Impatient, jostling, vexed,
I pull out the mobile
And punch in a quick text:
"I am at the airport,
Stopping over" and then
I ring, but there is no
Response, I ring again.
The same. Now the doors close,
I must switch off the phone,
Waiting for departure
And finally airborne.
The ground recedes, and you
Remain somewhere, unseen,
Leaving me to muse- what
And how much you must mean
To have thus been able
To invade the dense
Labyrinths of my mind
Through proximal absence.
As the plane carries me
Away across the miles
I think of your smokerings
And your tearbrimmed smiles.
A jittery touchdown-
Army helicopters,
Grey whining sky, grey ground
Of this city now torn
Apart by rage and fear,
Somewhere, on the outskirts
Lies the place where you are.
Perhaps I swooped over
Its walls as we flew in-
Did you gaze upwards at
The plane's descending din?
The doors open, faces
Impatient, jostling, vexed,
I pull out the mobile
And punch in a quick text:
"I am at the airport,
Stopping over" and then
I ring, but there is no
Response, I ring again.
The same. Now the doors close,
I must switch off the phone,
Waiting for departure
And finally airborne.
The ground recedes, and you
Remain somewhere, unseen,
Leaving me to muse- what
And how much you must mean
To have thus been able
To invade the dense
Labyrinths of my mind
Through proximal absence.
As the plane carries me
Away across the miles
I think of your smokerings
And your tearbrimmed smiles.
wHERE’s mY pENCIL?7*
Pencil prehensile, Damsel washerwoman, scullerywhore, impetigo, Tobago, that fucking Winnebago you bought for a song, dirge(y) bastard, scant knowledge of vectors and algebra, logarithms are the devil’s work, Samuel Johnson ate mutton jerky, sicker than Hemmingway’s cow(lick), my proctor, doctor greatcoat soiled with Cooper’s oil and jampot jemmies, silly fuck with a tonsure cut round river runs past and on, patchy cunt with a satang bunnyclip(ity) clop goes the rector’s closet full to brimming with wafers and jamjuice made from plums and civet seeds cowl(ed) from the boot of me daddy’s Buick with the fiveanddime beebonnet on the fader’s mirror image of Mr. T. Mann’s postseminal chappings, sad mixed up Buddenbrooks with the blackest pair a lungs you(will) ever see.
Dear God
Please take my one dick and make it into five dicks so that my underwear will fit like a glove. Amen.
Blogging in the morning
The light grey, thin little laptop is switched on,
the screen a shape all light in the dark room.
The would be pianist is playing on his keyboard,
trying to make sounds, harmonious sound,
instead of the monotonous tap, tip,
tap of the keys on the board.
............................I, the pianist
isn’t quite there, sound not yet created.
Rhythm not quite achieved yet. No
intensity, no flood of imagery, just the drip,
drip of the tip,tap, tip of the drop
by drop rhythm and imagery of the laptop
keyboard.
the screen a shape all light in the dark room.
The would be pianist is playing on his keyboard,
trying to make sounds, harmonious sound,
instead of the monotonous tap, tip,
tap of the keys on the board.
............................I, the pianist
isn’t quite there, sound not yet created.
Rhythm not quite achieved yet. No
intensity, no flood of imagery, just the drip,
drip of the tip,tap, tip of the drop
by drop rhythm and imagery of the laptop
keyboard.
lIPS cHEWED pURPLE7*
What is morning, but the absence of night? I am older, more aged than I look, from the outside. It’s the inside, the viscera, entrails, messed, as they are, that is where the real work is done; all else is deception. No two ever the same, so it is. Sleeping is life, wakefulness, death. This, so I have come to learn, unhappily, is the way it is, or should be, or will be, the world as it is. Consciousness, this whorish inconvenience, is much overrated. Perhaps all this, this whatever it is, is a clever illusion, nothing more. Who’s to say? A phantom or a ghostbody, they have no say in the matter, whatsoever. Flesh yielding to flesh, nothing more, I suspect.
The sky, even though it is blue, azure, cerulean, is meaningless, at best. Not even an ocean, bluer than God’s eyes, is worthy of metaphor. All miming incoherence, lips chewed purple, nothing more. As children we mimic, like monkeys, little inconsequential apes, what we are fed through the senses of touch, hearing, sight, and smell. We give back, as told, what we have learned, been told to learn, nothing more. Any creativity, imagination, is shamed and beaten into resistance, as compliance, never individuality, is desirous, nothing more. When we reach adulthood, beaten and exhausted, things change, and the miming stops; we give back nothing except our own vomit, a mark of our individuality; lips chewed purple, yet bluer. It is one month, to the day, that this bastard child, a monster, was given birth to. I can’t go on; I must go on. This blue sky, so indifferent to my indifference.
I don’t recall anything, as there is nothing to remember. Memories pay false witness to remembering, adding to the illusion of being something rather than nothing at all. These apertures through which souls and dogsbodies pass unnoticed, scolding this meaninglessness that knows no better, nor cares to. Feeding this insatiable hunger for more (of what) through this gorehole where food and liquids are added and removed at will, so it seems. This too, nothing more than a flimsy illusion of something rather than nothing, a regress into madness. Thirty days passed unnoticed, yet leaving an indelible mark on my thoughts, just thoughts, nothing more. Can it go on? It can’t go on, it must go on. It will go on, or there will be nothing, disguised as something, a memory perhaps, not worth the bother remembering.
Fugitive Pope
Why is the Pope upset? While washing dishes at a retreat for priests, he stumbled upon them watching a porno movie. What would make the Pope happy? If priests realized a clean soul is like a clean plate: You can see yourself in it. Failing this: paper plates.
sILENCED7*
“O Lord, to paradise admit
All of us, who sin and suffer!”
…The polisher with his big spoon
Stuffs his mouth with millet’
And fellows in the street
Sing to the accordeon;
And bitterly the comfort drips
On the souls of all who suffer;
And the boy, half-octopus,
Beneath his blanket shudders.
Moscow,
January 7, 1941
Aleksandr Sergeyevich Yesenin-Volpin
All of us, who sin and suffer!”
…The polisher with his big spoon
Stuffs his mouth with millet’
And fellows in the street
Sing to the accordeon;
And bitterly the comfort drips
On the souls of all who suffer;
And the boy, half-octopus,
Beneath his blanket shudders.
Moscow,
January 7, 1941
Aleksandr Sergeyevich Yesenin-Volpin
fOR thOSE in hARMS wAY7*
flesh builds up a resistance
flesh builds up a resistance
(to touch)
when a scorpion’s tail
or a whoring cry
puts the fear of death
into a heart
cowering, in fear
these battered souls
cursed (to touch)
for being just that, men
for whom a peaceful moment
is but a dream, waiting
for a soft caress, a whisper
nothing more
flesh builds up a resistance
(to pain)
man preys upon man, weaker
than he, men who curse
and pass sentence
on other men
these bones, yet whiter
that charge the night
hands raised up, cursing
the scorpion’s tail, fearless
but in a dream, cowering
for flesh builds up a resistance
(to touch)
putting fear, into the hearts
of battered souls
and men
flesh builds up a resistance
(to touch)
when a scorpion’s tail
or a whoring cry
puts the fear of death
into a heart
cowering, in fear
these battered souls
cursed (to touch)
for being just that, men
for whom a peaceful moment
is but a dream, waiting
for a soft caress, a whisper
nothing more
flesh builds up a resistance
(to pain)
man preys upon man, weaker
than he, men who curse
and pass sentence
on other men
these bones, yet whiter
that charge the night
hands raised up, cursing
the scorpion’s tail, fearless
but in a dream, cowering
for flesh builds up a resistance
(to touch)
putting fear, into the hearts
of battered souls
and men
sOFT-lIPPED kISS(es)7*
What is your motto of life, she asked. That we keep close to ourselves, I answered, like Machiavellian enemies, the capacity to be creative and imaginative. As when we were children, and on those gray, rain-soaked days, which demanded of us that we stay indoors, we created sheeted and blanketed forts and secret societies (where we were King and Queen) to get ourselves through the tortuously long day.
Ask the moon for forgiveness and she will spit in your face; ask the sun for a ripe orange, and she will submit to your pleasures. Ask a woman for a soft-lipped kiss, and she will ravage your mind; ask a whore to assuage your weariness, and she will embrace your soul.
Ask the moon for forgiveness and she will spit in your face; ask the sun for a ripe orange, and she will submit to your pleasures. Ask a woman for a soft-lipped kiss, and she will ravage your mind; ask a whore to assuage your weariness, and she will embrace your soul.
rAN oUT oF cREAM7*
Corn syrup solids, hydrogenated soybean oil, sodium caseinate, dipotassium phosphate, sugar, artificial colour, mono and diglycerides, carrageenan, soy lecithin, artificial flavours, rats’ asses, zithers, monorail grease, machinist’s oil, e, gummy white crap, salver, parturition sweat, an old sweater with tattered cuffs, pre-seminal fluid, a snippet of cocks’ wattle, (yES) a cockscomb, brushed flat, (nO) protein, penicillin, uppers, downers PCP.
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