Max and his friend were in their lair in the basement. Stella and I were in our lair in her room. We hid under the blankets. We received this letter. So we were like, bring it, bitches!
Mar 27, 2011
Mar 16, 2011
Better Person
Perhaps I could drink less or do the laundry more. I may be able
to more frequently extend gracious gestures to strangers.
I could be a better teacher, father, husband, brother, and son.
I could be a better musician, lover, graphic artist and writer.
When at a restaurant, a person could always leave a larger tip
and I am certainly a person. Today, I saw a person flagrantly
litter and I did not
get up and retrieve the litter, but I did condemn her
in my mind, thinking, I was better than she was. I could be a better
person than that. I should probably be more gracious
with my forgiveness and should probably be less
hopeful for apologies. I'm really awful on the whole.
I should probably purchase less gas, less energy, less water.
I should do so much less. I should do less so much more
often. It's impossible to catch the guy who is leading
this race. But I could try harder. That's what I'm doing, Tina.
Motherfucker! What do you think this is about?
Mar 15, 2011
Meeting Arrangements
Arranging meetings is part of life and must
be attended to with
the same diligence applied to other aspects of life that are likewise
attended to. First, there must be a person elsewhere and
he or she will have to find a spot in the universe
coinciding with your spot in the universe
and at a specific hour, etc. In a perfectly namable
set of coordinates. How nice it is to have numbers! or not, especially
when they mislead you
into thinking an equal sign that might not even be possible.
You have hopes!
You make phone calls!
You do this stuff in anticipation of something, man!
This isn't just good times until it becomes something more.
A whole lifetime happens and is gone, in a sad way,
out of the door over the dirt floor.
You are alone with memories and voices through communication
devices
and just a small, still drop of water falls through
your beard.
A tear in your beard is a very great country song.
Though the education one receives about song-yness
is lacking, one must trust in something
to be pure about. Without some sense of self-rightousness
we'd all be naked little imps with no hard on.
Believe me, I'm open to certain possibilities! Trying!
Mar 14, 2011
Loving the Affected
I was standing there, like, no way! I'm not fucking kidding!
No way!
But there was another reality and that was a real deal happening
that was, like, not "no way," but, like, "yes, man, do it."
This terrible place in life that we move into, it's not ours for the taking,
rather, it's just ours.
Imagine the way police cars screech through traffic in a 1970's cop movie.
Imagine the reality television shows that show you humans who are worse
than yourself.
When you really consider the details, it's staggering. Or not. How do
you appreciate an older movie star actor or actress?
Do you like blue jeans and strut? Or satin and suave? It's not an
important question,
but not asking it would be a dereliction of duty. Course, there is
no duty, only empty fainting sounds.
The whole cast of faintees is semi-upset by their involvement, while
they understand there is no choice.
The ape in the circus is fake!
The cape and the top hat are fake!
Your little moon is beautiful!
Mar 13, 2011
Around the Area
The area around the area is the place
you're trying to find. You want to find this place,
lay down in it, rest your head or whatever
and then, man, you just deal with it.
This area, this placed area, is between the
verge and dirge of something else.
Many lonely people have witnessed and wrestled
with an extremely fast blue grass song, so much
so that there's nothing left at all to hear, even
the fiddle player who rattles in a number of
different directions at once, even that sound
couldn't be emptier. My whole life, with
people around me, many of whom I love a lot
and some of whom I get very tired of, we are
like cabins in a forest, drifting through the woods
only because none of us are real. Dear red-headed
children, dear lost little robins, dear poor deers,
rabbits, strong avian types, and whiskery cats, please
hear these problem I am trying to pinpoint. You know,
consider yourself a fucking dobro if you have to,
but the point is that you elaborate toward
something very funky and right-thinking. It doesn't
matter to any of us if you live or die. That's
not really the issue. There's something more to
consider, just understand what you're getting into,
Tina.
Mar 12, 2011
The Crime
Being a criminal is situational. Either
the situation or the act happens or
other things may happen. It's often awfully
ambiguous. The situation or action is
often palpable but also possibly not
happening. What doesn't happen happens
often. Often, the non-happening is happening
so frequently that you can't even feel it.
That's when the law gets involved and
they start hassling or not hassling you,
or taking you into to custody or not, and,
my friend, there you stand as a regular asshole.
Not alone in the world, but not exactly as
part of a team. At those moments you freeze
into an idiot that nearly everyone knows. If
they don't know you, they think they do or
want to. It's all the same. Meanwhile,
a goofy quilt of sameness seems ill-formed
and loopy. Like stupid after-dinner mints
and other ideas that aren't good or bad all
on their own. I just make it up. Like you,
a poor imagination.
Mar 7, 2011
Videos! Music! Animation! Just Click!
Above are youtube videos I made of songs from "Horses in the Chest". You know, I know nothing (other than what I learned doing these) about making videos or animation, but it's been a terrific way to waste tons and tons of time!
Mar 3, 2011
Hurts
There is an action in the world referred to as
suicide and people take this action from time
to time and they leave behind friends and family
and loved ones of other colors and then those
people live with the loss of the person who used
the suicide action to leave this place for something
better. I don't mean for heaven, or nirvana, or
some sort of beach resort where there is always
an open bar and open buffet and parrots saying
words and beautiful people walking around in
angelic bathing suits. The something better they
are after is simply something not here, and so
they go, to see what is not here. And what they leave
behind is what is not here, anymore. They leave
this space that was once full of humanness but is
now full of a complete unfullness. And we, the people
looking at this unfullness, feel anxious and scared
because it was all so simple and so easy to accomplish.
To watch the world drain and become empty is easy.
There is suddenly more air everywhere. Everywhere
you look all you see is more air. And air is a good thing
but more air is scary and so you try to breathe it
all in as quickly possible. There is this idea that you
can convert it to life. And you can. It just hurts.
Mar 1, 2011
Kent Johnson Has Ideas about Poetry! Poetry! Poetry!
Kent Johnson was critical of the fact that I allowed some of my poems from Poetry! Poetry! Poetry! to be included in The Best American Poetry 2010. So he wrote me an e-mail and told me. I appreciated his interest. Then he asked me if it'd be cool if our exchange was published in a newish, very cool, journal from Micah Robbins, Sous Les Paves. I said, sure, okay. So that is what is above.
Feb 28, 2011
Good Morning, Poetry
Sitting at at table writing a poem beside
one of my favorite poets while there are birds
and birds and birds making birdy noises and
pidgins on the fire escape and, further into the
distance of the window, there is rain falling
and cars driving and more fire escapes and
more pidgins, (I imagine, though I don't see
more pidgins I'm not afraid to speculate). Besides,
who cares if I'm right or wrong or lying or telling
something that is sort of like a truth? It doesn't
matter. In all of New York City there are only
one or two people, and both of us are here. The
rest of the people who aren't real are out there
and they are living their lives or dying or getting
extra attention from a loved one or getting no
attention at all from a loved one or specially
ordering food, asking that the restaurant not use
this or that sauce, or to add such and such cheese,
or to remove a certain vegetable which is unwanted
or produces halitosis. But my favorite poet friend
is also typing but I'm not sure it's a poem. I'm not
sure this is a poem. I just don't know a thing about
poetry, except that it happens, and then, when it's
over with, we either feel more relaxed or more
uptight, or like a colorful bird trying to find it's
way around the corner and back into the bedroom.
Feb 25, 2011
A Political Poem
Now that I've made my super arrangements,
it seems obvious that I need a change of direction. I would
hate to find myself over a canyon, moaning like a disco, wanting
something very holdy on to me, like an elephant-sized suspender
hanging from a cloud. Lord of mercy, these words are out
to kill me. Good grief! Is there no relief in effort?
Either way, I'm only whining because I have the time to.
If I were struggling in some revolution somewhere, chanting
my little neck into a clogged sausage, I'd probably be
more die-y than whiny. It's awful what the human heart can
accomplish. It can take years to decide what's best, but it
only takes a few moments to let your kids into the basement, where
you might be trying to say something with one of those
fancy suspicions, and meanwhile, triggers are clicking and
people with meat hanging from their knees are trying to stand up.
Feb 23, 2011
The Boxed
The stuff I've said could be stored in a jar and
jar after jar could line the pantry and each jar could
be stuffed full, with word after word. And the words
I haven't said could be stuffed in cans and canned
and frozen and put in the bottom of deep-freeze
refrigerators, or boxed in cardboard boxes and boxed
into a closet or left underneath some basement stairs.
The point is how impossible it is to say anything
worth listening to and how easy it is to try.
Many times, when I was a kid, I felt as if I couldn't
be heard and was rolled into a dough of silence.
My little robot ears heard failure in every sink of
drained water, in every jingle of the car keys,
in every dresser drawer opened. My, my ears were
alert! They were really jumpy! And now, all adultish
and brutal, I still hear my childhood in my whispers
to my children. I hear them walking about the house
and I feel lucky. I also feel stupid because I haven't made
sense of anything and here I am thinking.
Feb 17, 2011
8:51 in The Evening
I should work. I mean I need to get some work done. There's work
I need to do. Like, I should do that work that I've been meaning
to do. There's all that stuff that I haven't done, that I need to do, so
I should do that shit and get it over with. I need to work on
stuff that is related to my job. My job is always requiring me to
work. I mean, seriously, it's always saying
"Dude, get your shit together. Do your work. Get
it done." And I say stuff like, "Yea, I know. I know. I know." I don't
know what to say to work. I mean, I look at it. I think about it.
I know it has to get done and it does it get mostly done, but, then, sometimes
I guess it doesn't. I mean, I know I should do it, but it's hard. Why? is
what I wonder. Why is working on work so hard? I mean, it's
only work. Why should work be a big deal? It shouldn't be. And yet,
every year my annual report is due to my department I think,
my god, you are simply work that is unworkable. I can not deal
with your inconvenient necessity. I sit here thinking about
the work. Thinking about the work. Thinking, what is work?
What is work? Thinking I've got to do work. I mean, I've just got to do it.
Feb 11, 2011
New Stuff
Nice reviews of Poetry! Poetry! Poetry! at Amazon
At Ekleksographia two songs from ATTILA!
Nice thing here from Alyssa Morhardt-Goldstein
Thing on me done by Ball State Students on Indiana Artists
Shout out from Booklist Online
from Bradley Sands, at Big Other
Just barely made the list of No Tell Motel's Bestest poetry Books of 2010
Made Bruce Covey's list
Oded Carmeli is translating Poetry! Poetry! Poetry! in Hebrew. Yedioth Ahronoth is the press.
Very Funny
My daughter talking with her dolls
down the hall
and my son bouncing around making whooshing
and blasting sounds from, like, laser guns or some
sort of weapon noise. And then the Pokemon cards
not to mention the road of doom outside
with all the ice frozen on ice and, then, there's Friday. And that's
a day when something can happen. Often
tragedies become necessary to avoid certain aliments
or certain futures which aren't ever real
but are possible. And what bothers me in this particular
scenario is the great deal of time it takes animators
to complete certain animation cartoon movies. I mean
you most likely have no idea what that's like. That's
like a bunch of time to animate a fucking movie.
And now the weird feeling comes when you
feel outside of your body but not perfectly out of your body.
It's like a dislocated shoulder, it feels very funny.
Feb 7, 2011
Living the Life
It's possible for a dartboard to quiver
in the fashion of a fish, quivering in the fashion
of fish quivering. This isn't exactly something
you want to try and make a living at. Good god!
Even if you try to adjust your collar
so as to make yourself more understandable
to the neighbor lady (or something like that) you
don't get better at anything by practicing the
piano. I mean if you waste all your time with
that shit, you won't get anywhere. You should make
room in your heart for people who live elsewhere
and, if possible, you should allow perfect
strangers to sleep in your cabinets and all throughout
the house. This idea of protecting your family
is nuts! Seriously, by the time I begin to wrap
my head around the thing, it's already unwrapping
and there I go, perfectly off into nothing.
Feb 5, 2011
Crazy
When it snows, the snowflakes just fall
out of the sky and every single one is identical.
That's the thing about snowflakes, no variation.
And the snow accumulating, like baked bread.
I've never understood why God hates yeast so much.
He's always, like, "make that bread unleavened, goddamnit!"
He just fucking hates the yeast. He likes
his bread flat and his meat burned. He likes the
pleasing aroma of a barbeque. There's so much I
don't understand. Like why it snows at all or why
there are seasons or why Gary Coleman had to die.
This stuff is never explained. Instead, we're expected
to just accept it, bury our heads in the identical
snowflakes and come home all frozey-headed. And
there are countries all around the world! And there
are people who are actors and people who are manual
laborers and other people who are other things!
It's fucking crazy! Meanwhile, a saturday afternoon
happens and the snow just falls and falls and finally
lands, on earth, like everything else and just sits
there looking blank and all stupid.
Dec 18, 2010
Dec 10, 2010
Video!
Haven't felt like writing but been making videos for Short Hand songs from Horses in the Chest:
Nov 30, 2010
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