an entirely insular post

we are going to fuck the world up tomorrow.

Portrait of a Booze Booze Body, Late December Something, Indiana Somewhere Near Chicago

I had the Christmas thoughts
I didn't like them
I had the beer thoughts
I liked them

hey muncie

i'm posting this here because i'm guessing there are more muncie people who read this blog than there are muncie people who read my own personal blog.

flyer by peter davis. reading graciously set up by peter davis.

Portrait of a Rich Poet, December 19th, 2009, Indiana

I read fifty pages of my assets record.
I laughed at all meanings of the word "poor".
I fit into several of my racecars.
I spent ten minutes sorting Fabergé eggs on my desk.

Portrait of a Poor Poet, December 19th, 2009, Indiana

I read fifty pages of Everything is Illuminated.
I contemplated all meanings of the word "poor".
I fit into several of the definitions.
I spent ten minutes sorting change on my desk.

Here is a list of things that I like about christmas

Getting stuff from my relatives
Eating ham
Seeing people I haven't seen in a long time that I want to see

That is probably it.


One time my grandma gave me
a remote controlled race car
and I drove it in her apartment building
off the cliff that was the third floor
overlooking the canyon of the foyer
and it still worked when I rescued it.

I found a blog that owns

http://thisiswhatfameis.blogspot.com/

it does this






that's all for today

Here is an amazing two word combination

RAPTURE BONERS



It's fun to use as a unit of measurement, as in, "You're hair is beautiful, but it's not the most beautiful hair I've ever seen, so I only have 289 rapture boners."

Now it's your turn. Pick two words.

(this reminds me of FUCK THIS GAY EARTH)

Here are some song lyrics I wrote with a couple friends when I was in high school

(This is funny after Dan's post because his is a long attempt to try and capture something huge, and I'm going to quote some unaware kids writing something funny. Although, it was pure expression, even if it was from high school students.)

I used to be in a band called Artichoke's Last Breath. We played ridiculous music with ridiculous stories and sometimes did sketches on stage as well. I was thinking about one song we made and I was laughing really hard thinking about the lyrics. So here are the lyrics to a song called The Tanks from the North:


The tanks from the north are rolling my way
Crushing the earth with fierce guns today
The tanks from the north are rolling my way
Delivering death to all in their way
The tanks from the north are rolling my way
Delivering death to all in their way

Henrietta, the clown, jumped out of her plane
While doing a stunt we all thought was insane
The weather was rough, with tornadoes and rain
She was kangaroo boxing on the wing of her plane
The clown took a blow direct to the brain
Now her corpse plummets down into the terrain

The tanks from the north aimed their guns at my face
But they saw a strange object plunging from space

Incoming fire! Troops take your place!
So they pointed their cannons at Henrietta
Oh look, she's not dead, she whipped out a grenade
But her fuse was too short so she dug her own grave
Nice try Henrietta, but I'm still dead meat
Nice try Henrietta, but I'm still dead meat
Nice try Henrietta, but I'm still dead meat

No One Has Ever Believed More than This Mother Fucker Right Here: an Arse Poetica on God, Sincerity, Belief, and Dead Baby Deer

Lorca refers to the duende as “a struggle.” It is not the muse, a concept that always seemed rather quaint and cheesy to me. The muse always conjured images of pixies and baby deer and children and flowers, whereas the duende forces us to deal with dead baby deer on the side of the road or the child who stabs his fourth-grade teacher with a pencil. The duende is the struggle of our souls hanging on, yearning against death and heartache, against the seething desire of this world to fuck us over.

Lorca tells us that the duende will not appear without the possibility of death. I feel as though the possibility for death is everywhere. Therefore duende. I often wonder how I’ve managed to survive to the age of twenty-five, a quarter of a century. That’s a long time to not get hit by a bus, or attacked by a rottweiller, or to simply have my heart burst because of some minor flaw. A quarter of a century is a good amount of time to accumulate worries and fears.

And this is where poetry begins. Poetry, more intimately than any other art form, is concerned with the human experience and its may flaws and complications, the way we as creatures of this world interact with such an unknowable vastness of knowledge and experience to be gained, a vastness that we will never even walk into, the smallness of who we are.

Our smallness next to God or whatever.

Our smallness next to the love in our hearts.

Our smallness when we realize our hope is too big for its own good.

I think Lorca would advise those of us that are afraid of death or those who don’t like to dwell on death to avoid poetry, or the arts in general. If you don’t want the struggle then don’t struggle. But I find “the struggle” to be a rewarding and beautiful thing, if only because when the struggle is over I feel as though I have added to the worth of the world in my expression and communication of all that I’m struggling against.

Which is a lie that I tell myself to justify my writing poetry.

The poem is a method of communicating with the cause of all of our fears and anxieties. It is a way of communing with death. In a way, poetry becomes a form of therapy. It allows for the I to be freed from the heart (or maybe the heart freed from the I). It allows the heart to stand up and shake the dirt from its walls, the dirt that has gathered from all that time spent balled up inside the ribcage. But the removal of the heart from the body only exposes the heart to newer anxieties, newer and more complicated, more foreign dirts.

I’m aware of how I’m mixing the physical with the metaphysical. This, too, is the turf of poetry. Even the spiritual.

It is possible for God to exist in a poem. It is possible for the Devil to exist in a poem. It is even possible for an unborn, never to be born, deer to exist in a poem and for this deer to look you straight in the eye and tell you that you are fucked, that you will be ok.

If I wanted to talk to God I would buy a gun. If God wanted to talk to me he/she would have. If there is a need for prayer then there is a need for poetry, and that need is in the exhale, not in the inhale (or maybe the inhale too). Rather than write another poem, I should just chop off my hands and remove my tongue. I don’t know what a poem is. That is another reason I should chop off my hands. These last few years I’ve been stealing basketball cards from a small shop in Abu-Dabi. I have been chattering where I should have been shivering. A good way to start a poem is to say “I FEEL...” or “I BELIEVE.” I say this knowing that nothing I say is true or can ever be proven to be true, and even the things I believe, I will abandon very soon.

Another way to write a poem is to lick a hotplate and scrape the burn scales from your tongue and onto a piece of paper.

A lot of things have happened since I was born and before I was born and a lot of these things are maddening. I can’t reconcile my hope with my fear and that is what a poem is for. The most inexpressible muddy qualities of life expressed through language, the most muddy and impossible to trust thing to have ever come out of my mouth.

I want to say that a poem should encapsulate a true thought, but what is a “true thought?” We are all bi-polar. We are all schizophrenic. We are all messes of human beings and shouldn’t poetry, which I have always felt should capture each shake of the human heart, work in the same way? I want a poem that is imperfect, a poem that can let the threat of death or heartache fuck its way through a poem, no joke. A joke, to me, being very similar to a poem.

Here is a joke that I love:

Our Father who art in Heaven,

And that is the ultimate joke that I have repeated, many times to myself, in earnest, when I was younger, but I still have yet to understand its humor or even if it’s humorous. Maybe it’s funny because it is not. Does a joke need a punchline? Does a belief need a foundation?

But what is funny if not everything? and hurtful too? and nothing is right! nothing is the way anything should be! which is why a poem that is a cut up hurt bad leg of a marathon runner in some inappropriate season is the best poem of all. Contrasted with a news story about a plane crash in Nepal, a story about a middle school’s production of A Death of a Salesman followed by a commercial for hot tubs, it is the most incredible thing.

Sometimes I feel so worried that God lives in every poem that I write, and so what if God is there? What is a poem if not a prayer?

A prayer is real. A prayer is sincere. Can we be sincere? I think we can be sincere. I think we can create new words while being “sincere,” whatever that means.

I believe in the honest-to-God.

I think sincerity should be a given in art of any form. I can appreciate irony at times, but irony doesn’t stick to the walls of my heart the way that sincerity does. Imagine if Daniel Johnston had written a bunch of ironic pop songs instead of Songs of Pain. I feel like I’ve been affected in a positive manner because of Daniel Johnston’s unabashed sincerity. In fact, I don’t know if I would’ve had the courage to write anything that I’ve ever written, to embrace all that is hurtful to embrace, without seeing that it’s ok to be vulnerable and sincere in art, without Daniel Johnston as an example of that.

Oh sincerity, hello. You are impossible.

Every poem that I love is a love poem. Every poem consumed with love is hurtful. I don’t know what to do with this conundrum, this catastrophe.

In his essay about the art of the love song, Nick Cave responds to Lorca’s essay on the duende. He has this to say, “The writer who refuses to explore the darker regions of the heart will never be able to write convincingly about the wonder, the magic and the joy of love for just as goodness cannot be trusted unless it has breathed the same air as evil – the enduring metaphor of Christ crucified between two criminals comes to mind here – so within the fabric of the love song, within its melody, its lyric, one must sense an acknowledgement of its capacity for suffering.”

And that suffering, being the most universal element of humanity, inseparable from love, is what drives the poem that is real and made of flesh in a way that is not flesh but it could be.

One-thousand feet above my head right now, an airplane is bursting a cloud of ducks into a cloud of duck meat and feathers. Why are we not having a feast? Because we cannot fly. Therefore, we must eat the baby deer off the side of the road.

I wonder what is meaningful.

The meaningful. Can we find it?

Can we kick it?

I don’t believe in words also um dumb sentences get put out window would not own ok but ok left outside out fuck dildo

I don’t want to know how deep this can get. It will not be deep.

I don’t want to know any damn answer.

Art is made in the lack of control. Duende. Harm. Violence and chaos are major factors in life. They surround us. Nature is composed of violence and chaos. A baby deer eaten by a wolf. A forest fire and then life happens again. We can try to control the world as much as we want, but we cannot control it. In art we attempt to control, we attempt to create something like a shield or a helmet that will protect us from everything that we find wrong. What is the point of realist fiction? Why not make a documentary?

The most beautiful thing I have ever witnessed was a time-lapse video of a dead rabbit decomposing, or maybe it was actually a video of all the small things consuming the rabbit, the bacteria and the maggots feasting and really maybe that’s what was so beautiful. I have no way of knowing.

A few weeks ago I drove by a mountain, and I thought to myself, “That is beautiful!” And then I thought, “Why is that beautiful? Why am I labeling that mountain as beautiful without knowing why?” I tried to think of reasons why the mountain was beautiful. I could not think of a single reason why I should call the mountain beautiful.

Now I would like to talk about the surreal.

In his essay “Manifesto of Surrealism,” André Breton begins by saying, “So strong is the belief in life, in what is most fragile in life---real life, I mean---that in the end this belief is lost.” So what does one do with that lost belief? The only option is to create a new belief, a belief that cannot be lost because it is too slippery, too much a part of the reason the belief in life that we had to begin with became lost, because it is not really real.

Try to define what is real. It is even more difficult than defining what is beautiful.

We must fill this lost space or we ourselves will become lost, so in that space we put our art, our poetry. That is the new belief in life, our art. Art is our new religion. Breton talks about “the madness” that is left in the lost space and what to do with that. Breton suggests that this “madness” is what keeps us grounded in a world where the “real” is so harsh and relentless, that we must let this madness become our art. Let reality become a clay for our minds to mold, not a bank from which to draw. Who can afford the burden of reality anyway? Who can afford the lost space. It is so vast and expansive. It would take at least fifteen million dead baby deers to fill even a corner of that lost space.

I don’t believe anything that I say.

I plan on contradicting myself as many times as I can in my life. I want my poems to go against everything I have said and claimed to have believed. It would be dishonest to do otherwise. What is a belief if not something to learn how to disbelieve? Shouldn’t we get over ourselves? Shouldn’t we move on?

I want to claim as my anthem the last two stanzas from one of Frank O’Hara’s many poems entitled “Song.” These lines read as such:

how I hate disease, it’s like worrying
that comes true
and it simply must not be able to happen

in a world where you are possible
my love
nothing can go wrong for us, tell me

These lines tell of the fear and the promise of the fear’s actualization, which is the end result of disease, which is death. Frank O’Hara is dead. The “you” from these lines, probably dead. How can we escape anything? We can’t. Except through, maybe, a few lines of poetry. Frank O’Hara is alive in those lines. Frank’s “you” is alive in those lines. That’s enough, I think, to justify poetry.

There is something in O’Hara’s voice that is not afraid, though the word’s express an ultimate fear of an ultimate guarantee, a guarantee that soon we will not exist. Which leads me to think, why do I bother doing anything? Why find joy in anything? Why believe in anything? When I was a child I went to Sunday school. I was so afraid to sin because, at that age, at that level of innocence and naivety, Hell was a real place. It was more real, to me, than the state of Colorado (a state I had yet to visit). In order to ensure that I never had to visit Hell, or anywhere like it, I prayed. I don’t remember what I prayed. I don’t think it matters. I think, at that point, I was simply praying prayers that I had been taught, prayers that were imitations of those prayers prayed aloud by Sunday school teachers, prayers of thanks for family and forgiveness and for the weather outside being as nice as it is and for Jesus dying on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins and that we don’t have to live in a place quite as awful as Hell. And now in the absence of prayer, in defiance of Hell, there are poems. And these poems must speak to all things real and all things unreal. The poem, for me, has become a place of surrender, where I can drop my shield and let myself believe in myself or anyone else, against the fear, against the impending doom that is just another part of being a living thing in a world that will eventually end all living things.

When you see a baby deer dead by the side of the road, that is something. There is an unfearing fear that must be made real through language, through the uncertain and chaotic structure of language, in order to express our true belief (in whatever) and want and even love and our wanton love (for whatever). That is what we must discover.

Breton writes, “we, who have made no effort whatsoever to filter, who in our works have made ourselves into simple receptacles of so many echoes, modest recording instruments who are not mesmerized by the drawings we are making, perhaps we serve an even nobler cause.” The filter is the failure of all things that would be honest. It’s like trying to puke through clenched teeth. Why would you want to keep that inside you? The unfiltered creation will be littered with things that seem like mistakes, for sure. But in these mistakes we will find some truth that could not be revealed through a carefully thought out process.

Creation or intention fused with chance and mistake is the big ??? of what are we doing here, so why shouldn’t our art reflect this? In my dream last night I held a frog with a scalpel growing out of it, which seemed like something real, like it is the next step in frog evolution. And I held the frog. Here are some typos I deleted from that last sentence: helld, dearm, fro]]]]]]]]]]]]]]. Breton calls a key to surrealism “the following of thought,” which I maybe failed to do by not deleting those typos. But what good does “following thought” do? I believe that thought is a different reality, as abstract and untouchable as the language we use to express thought. We have an opportunity through words (nouns) to make an image that is real if impossible in actual reality, a representation based on reference points that we have accrued through experience. And there is an emotional truth in the unreal (for some reason, I don’t want to use the word “surreal”) just as poignant as the emotional truth that comes from the real, i.e. hearing the words “I love you.” After all, emotion is abstract. Truth is abstract. God, belief, love are all abstractions. We must speak without fear, without pause in our voices that come from a place unknown, sent out to unknowns or into ears, to speak like fangs ripping through a baby deer, like our words can do that, like that can happen, like that is our belief.

here is a thing we are going to do

So everyone was down for the live poem thing but finding an appropriate time for us all to iMeet will be a pain in the ass so instead we will make exquisite corpses. if you don't know what those are then that last sentence sounds way more badass than it is, but not really, because this is a badass idea.

We're going to (yes we are going to do this, you are going to do this, i am bossing you around) write a poem where we don't get to see what the others wrote until i compile it, except for the last 6 words. the first one will be a basic experiment so it'll have a little more structure to it than later ones to see what we come up with.

The first one: you get three lines and the poem will altogether be in first person but there can be other characters and things in it too so it ain't so lonely. we'll go in reverse alphabetical order, so it's joe then ryan then me then jeremy then dan. the theme for this first one will be death because as we are DEATHMARCH it should be a good jumping off point, also for it being an exquisite corpse it is a neet theem.

Joe if you e-mail me your lines, then i will email ryan the last six words, and then ryan email me, and so on until dan sends me his three lines, then i'll compile it. this requires very little effort on anyone's part except mine, it requires an easy-to-intermediate amount of effort on my part, and i look forward to doing it so it should be fun okay go

a thing that made me really happy

Here are some questions that we can all shoot a gun at

I once read (and am now twisting into my own claim) that the job of the poet is to transcend the logical use of language. In most other contexts, the goal of language is to share information with as little ambiguity as possible. But poets are often purposely ambiguous. It is more expressive that way, as you can try to incorporate more shit into what you are saying.

For example. Metaphors. Your asshole is a flaming bag of dog shit. The information you wanted to share is "the egress of my digestive system feels uncomfortable," but rather than talking like an idiot with a cork blocking the heart from the respiratory system, you compared it to something different. This means when someone reads it, they are not just responding to one thing. They are responding to assholes, fire, dogs, shit, the act of leaving a flaming bag of dog shit on someone's porch, and the intensely hoped-for stomping of the bag. By saying one thing, you can say a lot of things.

I have had numerous conversations with people who are frustrated by the fact that poetry is ambiguous. I argue that this is typically the goal, so you should not try to read it as if the language is trying to be only logical. You shouldn't try to read it literally and understand the point, as if the poet hid a moral inside the poem. This can sometimes be the case, but more often, you will enjoy a good poem not because it makes you think something, but because it makes you feel something.

That being said, here are some questions. These are in the context of poetry and I guess flash fiction/prose poetry. Answer some or all. Whatever.

1) Do you like to write ambiguously and why or why not?

8) Do you like to write logically and why or why not?

116) Assuming your answer could be premeditated, and you had huge balls, what would you say to someone who interrupted you during a poetry reading and said, "that doesn't make any sense"

&) Why do many people not "get" poetry?

F5) When is using logical language in poetry a good idea?

Caps Lock) When is using ambiguous or figurative language in poetry a good idea?

Dog) How many different dogs have you petted in the last week?

shaun and i just wrote a poem

here is how to read the poem.



and a response from shaun

Chris Newgent got a thing published

So Chris Newgent got a thing published. The thing is a short story on Everyday Genius. It's a nice thing and can be found here.

He's a Ball State alum living in Indianapolis, if that's something you want to know.

Good job, Chris.

Here is a list of things to do in front of indifferent house cats

This blog is leaning toward a thing where we talk about writing so I'm going to write a list and then talk about how I wrote the list. (here's an early hint: makin' jokes)


Here is a list of things to do in front of indifferent house cats

Get naked, rapidly
Scream while pointing at your crotch
Beat box
Call that one guy who said you should call him back about that job
Leave a shitty rambling voicemail message for the job guy
Curse at yourself and the job guy
Swallow an unopened beer bottle
Rub goldfish crackers in your eyes
Stretch a fat broccoli rubber band around your neck and yell "I am not important"
Repeat as necessary until you get a job


So there's the thing. Now, here is a line-by-line analysis of how I wrote it.

Get naked, rapidly:

This is a funny thing to do, cuz cats don't care.

Scream while pointing at your crotch:

This is an even funnier thing to do cuz cats don't know how strange it is.

Beat box:

This is also funny cuz cats don't give a fuck about beat boxing.

Call that one guy who said you should call him back about that job:

Again, this is funny because cats don't know what jobs are, or what it is like to be a human searching for a career, which, by the way, is one of the worst things to have to do.

Leave a shitty rambling voicemail message for the job guy:

Funny because it elaborates on what it is like for a human to try to sound "professional," which cats could not care less about, because it doesn't pertain to cat food or getting massaged.

Curse at yourself and the job guy:

It's funny to juxtapose the human feeling of rage at the thought of being inferior to all of the competition in the job market, with a cat's blatant indifference.

Swallow an unopened beer bottle:

This would just be a crazy activity, and a cat would maybe even get a little bit spooked. That's how crazy it would be. A cat possibly getting spooked is funny.

Rub goldfish crackers in your eyes:

Cats don't understand melodrama, so it would be funny.

Stretch a fat broccoli rubber band around your neck and yell "I am not important":

Elaboration on the melodrama. Once again, cats don't give a fuck, so it's funny. This line is also about self-awareness, which cats don't have, so it would be hilarious to mention something pertaining to self-awareness in front of a thing that could not care less.

Repeat as necessary until you get a job:

This last line leaves the list "ambiguous" and leaves it open for future lists, so it is mysterious and cool and all that. There's another level of humor because a cat would not remember the other items in this list if you did them, so you could do the same exact thing and the cat would be like "whatever" and "gimme food" but you'd be getting naked rapidly all over again and ignoring its desires, cuz fuck things that don't care.

brown mfa

a link to the brown mfa blog was posted on htmlgiant yesterday. i read through the whole thing, accomplishing less than i wanted to accomplish before seeing the link. i laughed many times.

Here is a good short story by brian evenson

It's called Windeye.

fffffffffffffffffffffffffff

Look at this fucking book review snippet for James Tate's "Worshipful Company of Fletchers: Poems."

"These new poems . . . deliver the typical Tate-esque trope de grace to all sanctimonious poses and stodgy cogitation, all verdigris-encrusted mental statuary."

Carolyne Wright what the fuck is your problem. nobody talks like this. if you're always writing like this you do not deserve that national book award you won in 1994. i am rarely this disgusted with the literary world.

We need to take back the book review. blake butler knows what the fuck i'm talking about. i will quote him from htmlgiant's mean week right n-

"Things to not say in blurbs or reviews so as to not sound like a tool: tour de force, startling, bad adverb + adjectives like furiously alive or wildly inventive or utterly involving, triumphant, [last name] swings for the fences, like [blank] on crack, like [blank] on LSD, romp, rollicking, breathless, a unique voice, poignant, sexy (horny is OK), well-wrought, death rattle, tongue fart doublespeak like dizzyingly-high-concept debut of genuine originality, any reference to Dada or surrealism, any employment of the phrase experimental, neo-anything, any vague or direct use of the phrase meditation such as resonant meditations, “[last name] really sings,” cautionary tale, anything about Kafka or Carver or Bukowski, any reconjuring of the phrase reminds us what it is to be human…"

ow. if people can't fucking wrap their minds around the two fucking sentences you applied to a book, how do you think that's going to make them want to buy anything you like? THIS IS AMERICA SO SPEAK AMERICAN. we're going to start talking about how words are badass and books are compilations of badass and poets fuck shit up with badass shitfuckers. we need to take our opinions about poetry and blast people in the face with some kind of word shotgun. no more of this faux-intellectual bullshit. no more of the word faux. like i said SPEAK AMERICAN. if i don't start seeing shit that actually makes me want to buy a book instead of throw up, i will start breaking things, expensive things, things that you like. WHOSE STREETS OUR STREETS

Here is a list of places to take a hot date to show them you really think they are hot

A cemetery at night, without flashlights, so the two of you can trample the dead and show them you are better off
A thick forest at night, without flashlights, so the two of you can carve your own chaotic track
An abandoned warehouse at night, without flashlights, so the two of you can stumble over inconsequential machines and merchandise
A zoo at night, with flashlights, so the two of you can see the dark reflections in scared animal eyes
The sun, so the two of you can attempt to grasp the enabler of life, and not survive
A black hole, so the two of you can experience existence with no expectations
A park, so the two of you can slide down slides, especially the spiral kind
A museum at night, with candles, so the two of you can find a dinosaur's ribcage and wine and dine inside extinction
A prison at night, with flashlights, so the two of you can chloroform the guards, release the prisoners, dropkick the circuit breakers, and run like hell
A stranger's funeral, so the two of you can engage in some good ol' schadenfreude, and stop for ice cream on the way home
An unharvested field of corn at night, without flashlights, so the two of you can uproot living things without hearing them scream
A cool Japanese hibachi grill restaurant where the cooks cook and put on a show right in front of you, so the two of you can slyly throw dead bumble bees at the cooks
A school for midwifery at night, with flashlights, so the two of you can wake those bitches up
A candy factory, for obvious reasons
Your bedroom, for obvious reasons
An old folks home, to deliver S&M gear
A date rape drug manufacturing plant, so the two of you can feed the pills to the workers and arrange their limp bodies in sexual positions, so they can all have a hearty laugh when they wake up
A swan paddle boat ride at night, with flashlights, on a city street
A hill that overlooks the valley of Armageddon, so the two of you can throw unlit fireworks into it

your dad went to college

does anyone read this blog other than the five of us?

tomaz salamun

this guy read at csu's art museum last night. he's from slovenia. his poems were very strange and surreal and badass.

i don't know what he's standing in front of in the picture. i think that's what houses look like in slovenia.

he read some of his poems in slovenian, which sounded awesome. booyah.

i feel like a frat boy talking action film tits.

you can read some of his poems here.

GOOD NEWS, EVERYONE

I went to VGR today to look at records and pick up a DEATHMARCH cd because I don't have one(???) and they're all out! WE'RE FAMOUS

serenading charles nelson reilly

Here are two prose poems by Danish poet Carsten Rene Nielsen from The World Cut Out With Crooked Scissors. read them


Elephant
The elephant on the mural in the Church of Birkerod is highly unusual. It has no trunk, but rather a snout in the shape of a horn on an old gramophone. It's slender as a racehorse; its thick tail splits into three. Instead of hoove-like nails, it has on its feet four elaborately curving claws of ivory. In contrast, it has no tusks, and its neck is equipped with large, serrated scales like a crocodile's. Most of all I love its round white eyes, each with a great black pupil, lending it a sad and at the same time utterly baffled expression. Like it knows that it's been painted all wrong.

Winter
We are naming the birds, and to what use: under the ice of the inlet a skeleton swims with eyes wide-open; at the cemetery the much-too-soon dead lie eating themselves. It is winter, and a bare tree scrapes with its branches on the fire door of the gray sky.


have a nice day

Simic to Bailey, Simic to Bailey: I Read You. Over.

I been reading me some Charles Simic dese days. A book of his selected and late pomes called The Voice at 3:00 A.M. Having just finished it tonight, I'm going to post a couple pomes that I really enjoyed from the book's final section entitled New [Pomes].



THE MUSEUM OPENS AT MIDNIGHT

That's why only a couple of people wait outside.
They are strangers and the shadows of columns obscure them even further.
The windows across the avenue are no longer lit.
Everyone else must be asleep or nearly so.
The guard will be along any moment with the keys.
Or he may have come already and unlocked the doors.

At this late hour, they keep the museum dark,
Relying on lit candles in paintings to provide the light.
The Egyptian death masks are waiting.
The statues of naked Greek goddesses
And the Dutch interiors with canopied marriage beds.
You expect the couple to keep close together, but no.
She's off to another wing where there is a show
Of black-and-white photographs of small children
And he wants to see the martyrs in their torments.

It's up to us to divine what happens next.
The woman has found a bench to sit on.
She can't see the photos but she believes she hears
The rustle of the girls' stiff dresses
As they stir slightly before the hooded camera.

Miraculously, the man has been able to discern
The pale sky above some saint's head.
Dawn is breaking, clouds are racing in the sky
While they get ready to torment him.
His eyes, turned heavenward, remain invisible,
And so do his bleeding wounds
Despite all the red paint the painter had used.

In truth, I've no idea what became of the couple.
The museum has a number of paintings
With distant hillside towns no one ever notices.
They may be in one of them, alone or together,
Hugging the walls of narrow, winding streets,
And then, they might not be there at all
Or for that matter anywhere else I can think of.



SEPARATE TRUTHS

Night fell without asking
For our permission.
Mary had a headache,
And my eyes hurt
From squinting at the newspapers.

We could still make out
A few old trees in the yard.
They take it as it comes.
Separate truths
Do not interest them.

We'll have to run for it, I said,
And I had no idea what I meant.
The coming of the inevitable,
What a strange bliss that is,
And I had no idea what she meant.



Next on the reading list is Dan Bailey's (who's that?) Drunk Sonnets.

Here is a list of last names I always thought would be great to have

Momma
Dogs
Disease
Farnsworth
Van Cuntbucket
Christ
Liposuction
Communism
Kidsmash
Mp3Player
Duracell
Horsecorpse
Muskmelon
Fascism
Bubbletummy
Cockbomb
Juggernaut
Helplessdad
Tittoucher
Pizza
Racism
Patricide
McHughman

Here is a list of lists I am planning on posting

Here is a list of last names I always thought would be great to have
Here is a list of places to take a hot date to show them you really think they are hot
Here is a list of things to do in front of indifferent house cats
Here is a list of activities for when you are babysitting
Here is a list of fun things to jump over

Here is a list of living things that can be really funny if you just let them

Dogs
Bumble bees
Ostriches
Chet Atkins
Saguaro cacti
That's it.

joey git sum wine in him and open up da doors of da brain and let da finger tips tap dance on da keyboard

I guess there's the horrible question
of how the first things ever began
but first, there's the matter of why and how
we even care about the beginning
or what exactly the first things were
and in order to do that, we have to
ignore the gardens our gardeners
gardened inside our souls, but then
maybe we need to talk about souls
and there's not much to say about souls
except that they exist as a concept
but we have no instruments to measure them
or senses to sense them, but sometimes
people say the soul weighs a little bit
and you become slightly lighter when you die
but then that could be a myth
as we know that myths are very common
and then other people say that the soul is where
our emotions are imprisoned, and we feel
emotions all the time, but feel, in this case
is not referring to the sense of touch
because we know we cannot feel sadness
on our fingers, but then sometimes the body
does act funny when we feel sadness
so in some regard we feel something
but sadness does not feel like the dirt
or like hair when the wind pushes it
so where were we? I think we were talking
about gardens and those fallible gardeners
who kept trenching our organs
and walking through the rows of our bones
and you know when you really imagine it
our skeletons are like stalks of corn
but not the exact same, just similar
and our hair is like grass growing on a hill
but that's not really what we are talking about
because we're here to talk about the gardeners
who kept mowing down our crops in the fall
and waited for the freeze to end so they could try
and get us back up to where we were
and that whole thing is crazy because we were
doing so well before they ended it all
you'd think they had no emotions
which brings us to the question of whether or not
emotions have physical substance
and they say emotions are from the heart
but all I know is that hearts throb with red liquid
and I don't think emotions are in the red liquid
they are somewhere else, if they are anywhere
which brings us to whether or not concepts
or emotions or other abstract things
which we have words for, and which we can talk about,
do those things exist somewhere?
do they even have to exist somewhere in order to exist?
maybe things don't need location, they just need thing-ness
and we need to be able to identify the thing-ness
although do we have to be able to recognize a thing
in order for it to exist? many kinds of flowers
existed before we ever saw what they looked like
and before we had names for them
but then we have to talk about whether or not
existing is something that is only important to humans
because, as far as we know, there are no other
sentient beings, but the likelihood is pretty high
but we just don't know, and all of this not knowing
is starting to get really old because I want to know
and I know that you want to know too
and we can will something into existence
in our minds, but not in physical space
which brings us to whether or not something
needs to exist in physical space in order to exist
and when this all piles up into question after question
without an answer, it starts to get to you
so you stop thinking about it because you don't
want to start creating myths to explain everything
but you can't just ignore the questions forever
because then you would be lying to yourself
and that is no way to exist, if we are even existing at all
but it seems we are, so maybe that's not
a good thing to bring up, but to set the record
straight, I say we are existing.

posting poems here

i feel like this isn't the place to post our poetry or whatever. i think we should keep that to ourselves and work on it with our own brains/hearts. i want hearts to come before brains like hearts/brains like the heart is inside the skull and the brain down lower like when you make out with someone their tongue will always be way closer to your heart than your brain.

let's work on being alive and loving some.

do you ever feel worthless?

a beautiful cinquain

i love chicken
i love liver
meow mix
meow mix
please deliver

Hate on One's Head, and also Hair

Here are some people who deliberately existed somewhere and under certain controlled conditions. It has been documented, so please examine the evidence. Wait a second. Who are you? I'll have you know this is a restricted area. Only those involved with the evidence may enter this section of the premises. You are unwanted here, although, perhaps you may want to stay and examine the evidence with me, since you look like a perplexed and reasonable individual with an efficient pointer finger.

Well, what do you think? Do you not agree that those people are existing quite deliberately? It seems self-evident, but we are just double-checking. Direct your attention to the room in which those people are existing. You cannot disagree that rooms are somewhere, so, by default, anything within the room is also somewhere. It just makes sense. Those people are, without a doubt, in the room, and furthermore, they have decorated it with their intentions, which you can observe scattered about the room.

It doesn't matter what their faces look like, nor does it matter how much time they spent preparing for the documentation of their existence in that room. What matters is that we are now observing the evidence, applying fair judgment, and appending the whole analysis to our collective consciousness, in order that we might accurately dislike these people.

Now, let us go have sexual adventures with numerous transvestites simultaneously.

whispering wolf blitzer

Macaulay Culkin Gets a New Job

I step out of the hotel lobby and get hit with the harsh cold of the mean season. It's the type of cold where you wish it would snow just so you could get something out of it. I wait next to the doorman for my cab because the lobby music is too awful to bear. "Vvvvvvvv," the doorman shivers. "Tell me about it," I breathe. "Jesus, it is fucking cold out here. I'm freezing my balls off," he whines. "Heh, yeah." "I'm gonna turn into a girl in this shit. Just have 'em fall right off and clunk down my pants." I give a half chuckle. He isn't done. "I mean my sack is like an underdeveloped walnut right now. It's ridiculous." "Okay, I get it," I say. "They're like two tiny grapes getting stabbed with invisible icicles. They hurt with this sharp stinging -" "Dude, that's enough. That's really gross."

He stares at me. "What's wrong with you?" he asks. "I'm over here trying to commiserate about the weather and build an amicable bond between us and you're just shrugging me off. Is today Asshole Day or something? Fuck this," he mutters. He takes off his hat, throws it to the ground, and storms off. A man in a suit exits the hotel and glares at me. "Did you just piss off Rick?" he asks. "I have no idea, he was complaining about the cold, and then he yelled at me and left." "Look, I can't have a hotel without a doorman. You pick up that hat and get to work." He goes back into the hotel and I stare at the hat. My cab pulls up, and I put the little black cap on my head.

A couple hours later, Rick comes trudging back to the hotel. "Hey, I'm really sorry about that," he starts, "I overreacted and - what the fuck is this?" I'm holding the door open for a young woman with a tiny dog and shopping bags. "Uh... they made me do this." "First you treat me like shit, then you steal my job? Fuck you, man!" Rick stomps away. The manager comes back outside. "Was that Rick?" "No sir, just some lost person looking for directions." "Humph. Well, keep it up," he says as he walks back inside. My cab is still waiting for me. The driver is napping in the front seat. I'm plotting my escape.

Old Poem

The pain in his left leg spikes. His cane is made from the roots of oak trees and bound with vines. His beard has lost all traces of red. The old poem drives a buick and eats at Bob Evans once a week. The old poem wishes you would call more. Lawrence Welk is on, why aren't we watching it? The old poem voted for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Gene Kelly makes the old poem feel uncomfortably warm. The old poem thinks this soup is too hot. Turn down that music. He bought this blanket at Target on sale. The old poem can't believe you're going out dressed like that. The old poem has fallen into the love designed by the Lord. Then it got cancer. The old poem is too old for irony and too young for death. The old poem needs some time to make up its mind. We were thankful there was no body at the viewing. The old poem would have wanted it this way. The old poem was cremated in a scented candle. When we scattered its ashes the wind turned towards us.

Fluid Dark Like Womb or Sea

Suck my spider

on a bearskin rug

who's left angry

but flat.

Give me

your lightning

and put it through

my body

like knowledge.

Take my glass

once sand burned clear

to hold booze

swirling like danger.

Hold my

nebula so I

can give you stars

from my

dust blanket.

How to Ruin Legitimate Attempts at Conversation

If I won the lottery, I would just put the money in the bank.

I wouldn't bring any music with me on the island, because I hate music.

We're not going to name the baby; it died.

Let's not do anything this Friday. Please don't call me.

I'm not from anywhere specific. I wander the country seducing people and robbing them in the middle of the night.

Of course I believe in God. He speaks through me during intercourse.

I don't follow sports because my dad beat me as a child.

I don't want you to know my middle name. Let's talk about something else.

I don't read books because my dad beat me as a child.

I weigh less than you because you are fat.

My favorite drink is O'Douls.

I don't have a favorite season of the year, because my dad beat me as a child.

The only time I ever left my hometown was to get special suntan lotion for my back.

My last job was pimping retired women.

That's not a scar.

AMERICA: THE PROSE POEM

this sandwich is a bad person. this sandwich is a bible verse where christopher columbus rapes his wife who is a young west indian woman. i eat the sandwich. i puke out the national anthem. i begin to sweat. my sweat is a guitar solo played by a white man over black music. it is sweet. the sweat soaks into the air and evaporates into a rain cloud just below the ceiling of the mega-church where we have gathered. it begins to rain and the rain is acid rain. there are others. they begin to sing glory, glory, hallelujah. the sun is always shining here. it shines into the roof and through some filters that make the bulbs glow like something swedish. someone shoots a gun at everyone here and we all beat him the fuck up. we eat his body. but first we bless it with the horrible prayer of our horrible hearts. we begin to fuck one another in a messy pile of bodies. whoever cums first is the winner. the winner gets a medal. it is the nobel prize in cumming first. everyone but the winner begins to cry. "i wanted that award," we scream together. we scream all-knowing. we scream one voice channeled through, lifted from the inside of the rain like a stolen vcr with a bootleg copy of the jfk assassination inside it. i will eat your scream screams another scream and this scream is the devil. and the prayer of our hearts is not powerful enough to outscream this evil scream. and we are turned into an inward self-fucking where we are one beautiful body pounding inward on itself with jackhammer force. and what of it we scream like a casserole unbaked. what of it?

The Thing in the Dirt

Please look at that thing over there.
See how it does not move.
You normally do not see it
because you are moving too much.
Become still like that thing
and recognize that in death
you will become just like that thing.
Now return to your trivial
matters, but remember
that thing will be waiting for you.

flogging bob ross

Macaulay Culkin At Dunkin' Donuts

I'm standing in front of the ugly orange counter about to order three dozen bear claws when an old man hobbles up to the counter. "Hey, do you got any milk back there? This creamer's fucking awful," he wheezes. "Sir, this customer was here before you," the tiny lady behind the counter says. I just give an awkward smile, and the man says, "Who, this faggot? He can wait, I've got coffee over there getting cold." The tiny lady seems angry, but she just clears her throat and begins to repeat herself. I try to say "Excuse me" but instead I punch the old man in the stomach and dash out of the Dunkin' Donuts. A couple days later I hear that he died and I feel guilty, especially when I'm reminded that my punches kill people.

brandishing brandy (the singer not the liquor)

Sorry this is a crosspost but oh well. on my blog i explain what i think I AM SHAUN GANNON is doing and talk about which lines are quotes and where they come from. also i'm letting u people know i'm doing another recording of it which will be available for download within 7 days.

have a nice day

burying michael jackson

Macaulay Culkin On His Way To Work

I shake a rock from my shoe. A woman adjusts her wig. A praying mantis hops across the sidewalk. Meteorite dust flies in the eyes of the paperboy on the corner and he is blinded. I look at the sun. I throw up. It is dark red, and I worry for a moment, then remember I had Jell-O for breakfast. The woman with the wig is holding the newspaper boy, who is crying. Her wig blows off and she lets go of the child and runs down the street after the tumbling black mess. The paperboy begins to sob even harder. I walk over to the boy and hold his head. "You will be alright. You've been touched by outer space." He stops crying. I walk to work, but not before throwing up again.

The Most Serious Man Who Ever Lived

He never drank because it cost too much.
He never laughed for the same reason.
Holidays were an excuse to buy discount furniture.
His hobbies included model cars and matchstick bridges
Sex included one or two women he duped into bed.
He never saw a Will Smith movie.
The newspaper told him what he needed to know.
He didn't need to know much to survive.
When he died, no one thought to laugh.
Or they did. And they pitied him.

guys

we should all get together and write a poem in that google pages thing

Not Just a Bag of Bread

The cheap thrill nuclear family
waddles up to the swarming ducks
and each group becomes enthralled by the other.
The humans are armed with unwanted
white bread, and the ducks are trumpeting
hunger songs like battle chants.
The little girl screams as the outnumbering
ducks overtake her and she slackens her grip
on the bag of bread. The dad says
Don't drop it, but she does, and the beaked ones
peck at the bag's opening to extract its innards.
The girl backs up against her father and watches
nature remove her from the equation.

deathmarch got mentioned in an interview with some asshole

link

Be Profound

"Be profound" I told her
in hopes she would comply
but I neglegected,
and much projected,
"Go to hell" she replied

csu has a printshop. it is badass

still to come: glitter out the mouth of the earth spine, dead leaves, accolades.

I'm uncomfortable, literally

is it okay

to piss in conversations

'cause I want to

'cause I'm uncomfortable

Eat Me

Man, so I was at this wedding, right?

And my heart got cut right the damn out of me

but not by love or those creepy flower children

but by Aztecs, and that's okay.

Man, so they take me to the altar all wah-wah, right?

And they's layin' me out and and I'm just takin' it

because they need to appease they's sky lingerers

and I ain't usin' it much except for when I see dogs murdered

or when I heard the squeals of dying rabbits

or my mom tells me my dad's gettin' dead

and I caught a wink from the bride

and then the groom, but they's probably just nervous

or they're attracted to the submissive aspects of sacrifice

but hey who isn't?

Don't answer, it's no one.

So they's cuttin' me real deep and I can feel

their stone knives wrenching through my gut chasms

and it's okay.

I feel it, and it's okay.

It feels like they's puttin' their sky into me

and I can feel the blue and then I can feel their sun

and their jungle and why they do what they do

and their stoic tears and they put their hard times

and the hard lines of their cheekbones in there too.

So there's still this wedding, man, right?

Everybody was cool and they understood

and so they just combined occasions

and that's cool, 'cause I ain't gonna be selfish

and the priest is cool with it 'cause he studies bible

and so he knows them weird magic weird blood stories

and so this couple was joined in wholly or somethin' matrimony

right as these Aztecs buried all they's rigid faces

into my heart, and that's okay.

skinning shel silverstein

WHEN I BUY A NEW PACK OF CIGARETTES, IT'S LIKE TELLING MY LUNGS
"YOU SNEAKY SMART MORONS, I'LL GET YOU"
AND THEN I DO AND THEY GET MAD AND YELL PHLEGM AT ME
AW SHIT I'M TOAST
MY MOM'S GONNA BE SO MAD
I'M GONNA BE SO NOT
I DESERVE THIS
I DESERVE LOTS OF THINGS, LIKE A SWEET JOB AND A NEW CAR AND A HOT GIRLFRIEND AND CANCER
WHEN I'M REINCARNATED I WANT MY LIFE TO BE A REMIX OF THIS ONE
OR MAYBE A MASHUP WITH YOURS
I WANT TO MASH UP WITH YOU
OH OH OH THUNDER ROAD
OH THUNDER ROAD
OH THUNDER ROAD

Waking Up Tied to a Wooden Chair in the Backyard

Someone unknown is sliding a garden hose down my throat
down the windpipe and I am gagging horribly and that same someone
is grabbing the valve on the water piping next to the house's siding
and is sneering like an evil thing doing evil things and
now he is turning the valve and I can feel the hose tensing up
and the tubing is exhaling a short puff of cool air down my wind pipe
I am gagging horribly before the torrent of cooler water
oh my god it is shooting out of the tubing and into my tubing
and it is filling me up quickly oh my god I can't breathe
I am an honest man and I am always trying not to hurt anyone
why is this happening my eyes are filling
with the shade of trees I can't see
make sure someone feeds Duke.

AW, FUCK IT!

god damnit you know there are a lot of things to say
about how things really are and remember that time
when you could write about anything forever or for
the five minute time limit and that really meant you
could think about anything you wanted like how cold
the carpet felt against your cheek when you lay down
on it and desks made of metal and plastic were cold
and you felt all of these things all the time every time
things were starting to feel old but it felt nice to know
when bad things would happen and when good things
wouldn't touching the stove burns your hand your hands
will get you into trouble more than twice, even then
you wish you had more trouble and more back and forth
stop-the-drama come fuck me don't let me go bullshit
you could cry in a corner but you'd rather have a typewriter

A Used Napkin Pencil Sketch of Meaningful Communication, on a Timeline, Located to the Right of the Invention of Technogadgets

All day, every day.
I must tell you about my insignificance.
Spotlights feel hot on my skin.
My skin is my largest organ and it feels good.
And feeling good feels significant.

a portrait of ryan's mom, october 6th, 2009

monday, midnight.
ryan's mom is hot.
not really, but i still banged her.
it didn't take that long.
that's how hot ryan's mom is.

A Portrait of My Mother, October 6th 2009

Monday, Midnight

My mother is imprisoned by her cat.

She won't ask me to leave it in the woods.

It's been ten years since my parents divorce.

She sleeps with her door open.

FUCK THIS GAY EARTH

FUCK THIS GAY EARTH is an important phrase, despite its homophobic overtones. It is the zen koan of the 21st century. It is as broad as it is specific. It is important to me. The cathartic qualities of the phrase are greater than any other expletive. Say it with me now. "Fuck this gay earth." Do you feel the power? The hatred vibrating in your vocal cords is your birthright, just as it is mine. Savor this feeling. It is yours forever. Fuck this gay earth.

Lung Milk Lament

In my youth

i experimented

like cool

not like weird

i experimented

with the effects

of bumble bee venom

and semen

to increase

potency

and in my lament

i realized

i was

a late bloomer.

a picture of my dick, inside my pants, september 30, 2009

wednesday afternoon.
my dick acts as if it wants to nap.
it dreams about playing the cello.
it tries to put its loneliness into words.
it pours itself another glass of water.

A Picture of Caucasion Culture, United States of Caucasia, September 30, 2009

Wednesday afternoon.
I daydreamed about being MF Doom.
I imagined cubicle walls as dominoes.
I wished my resume was inked on some African flag.
Last night, I had nightmares.

A Picture of the Computer Lab Industry, United States of Whatever, September 30, 2009

Wednesday afternoon.
I watched a girl render herself deaf.
I turned a printer off.
I watched myself fall asleep.
I turned a printer on.

A Picture of The Food Service Industry, September 28th 2009

Monday night
I swept a tile floor
I took part in the creation of one hundred sandwiches.
I turned off three neon signs.
I was paid minimum wage.

a picture of unemployment, union of soviet socialist republics, september 29, 1949

thursday night.
i watched a fly commit suicide in my toilet.
i drank vodka.
i watched my wife pray beneath the window.
i drank water from the sink.

A Picture of Unemployment, United States of America, September 29, 2009

Tuesday night.
I watched Capote.
I drank wine.
I watched YouTube videos of kittens.
I drank wine.

xasthur

listening to xasthur helps me write

kissing morgan freeman

here's the beginning of something i'm doing


I don't believe in 9/11
and I don't trust the Midas touch.
I've got no problems shaking babies and kissing hands.
I'm the straggling goose in a flying V.
I'm a 1,000,000th century man.



where the fuck am i going with this. I think it's going to be part of a poem placed inside I AM SHAUN GANNON because I want to incorporate as many types of writing as possible in it, and splashing it with some longer pieces will break up the encroaching irritation that comes with all my nameyelling.

'Nother Kewl Charles Simic

WHAT THE GYPSIES TOLD MY GRANDMOTHER WHILE SHE WAS STILL A YOUNG GIRL

War, illness and famine will make you their favorite grandchild.
You'll be like a blind person watching a silent movie.
You'll chop onions and pieces of your heart into the same hot skillet.
Your children will sleep in a suitcase tied with a rope.
Your husband will kiss your breasts every night as if they were two gravestones.

Already the crows are grooming themselves for you and your people.
Your oldest son will lie with flies on his lips without smiling or lifting his hand.
You'll envy every ant you meet in your life and every roadside weed.
Your body and soul will sit on separate stoops chewing the same piece of gum.

Little cutie, are you for sale? the devil will say.
The undertaker will buy a toy for your grandson.
Your mind will be a hornet's nest even on your deathbed.
You will pray to God but God will hang a sign that He's not to be disturbed.
Question no further, that's all I know.

2 Kewl Charles Simic Pomes

Charles Simic writes pomes. I've been reading them lately, specifically the book The Voice at 3:00 A.M. He has been writing them longer than we have. We're pretty damn good, I think, but this book is awesome. These two pomes were memorable:


A LETTER

Dear philosophers, I get sad when I think.
Is it the same with you?
Just as I'm about to sink my teeth into the noumenon,
Some old girlfriend comes to distract me.
"She's not even alive!" I yell to the skies.

The wintry light made me go that way.
I saw beds covered with identical gray blankets.
I saw grim-looking men holding a naked woman
While they hosed her with cold water.
Was that to calm her nerves, or was it punishment?

I went to visit my friend Bob, who said to me:
"We reach the real by overcoming the seduction of images."
I was overjoyed, until I realized
Such abstinence will never be possible for me.
I caught myself looking out the window.

Bob's father was taking their dog for a walk.
He moved with pain; the dog waited for him.
There was no one else in the park,
Only bare trees with an infinity of tragic shapes
To make thinking difficult.


CABBAGE

She was about to chop the head
In half,
But I made her reconsider
By telling her:
"Cabbage symbolizes mysterious love."

Or so said one Charles Fourier,
Who said many other strange and wonderful things,
So that people called him mad behind his back,

Whereupon I kissed the back of her neck
Ever so gently,

Whereupon she cut the cabbage in two
With a single stroke of her knife.

What Was the Name of It?

I was listening to a song that is over ten minutes long.
I was kinda sad while listening to it
then I was kinda sad when it was done.
The song was called I Love You.
No it wasn't.
It was called I Loathe You.
No it wasn't.
It was called I Loath Your Love.
Nope.
These were the names of my sad songs
that I sang while listening to the song
that is over ten minutes long.

On Being Boneman

I haven't contributed as much to this society as others have.
I'll tell you why: I am scared.
Ever since the puberty spurts hit, I grew
more cautious than I did hair.
The balls dropped just fine
but I have always prudently used them.
They lay among the dick like meek mice
huddled in a hole in the wall.
Also, lots of dudes acquired girth and I didn't.
It is obvious that I own a skeleton.

Whatever. At least I'm flexible like a collection of door hinges.
I can run pretty damn fast and am good at yelling.
Everything will probably be alright.

what i thought life meant when i was sixteen and too ugly to fuck

A carefully planned, sensible business;
low investment with high yield opportunity.
Free to submission, open to suggestions
from partner and stockholder alike.
Locally owned, nationally known
Buy two get one half off everything
must go now SUNDAY ONLY

It works because it has to!
Coupon-matching drug-testing required
equal opportunity employer.
No downsizing, no outsourcing
except to fantastic getaways
to sell your timeshare for cash.
Why pay more for less?

csu reading series

csu hosted a reading by the poets g.c. waldrep and john gallaher. it was a great reading. search out some poems by these guys.

john gallaher started a poem with one of my favorite lines i've heard in a while. it went something like, "at times, i feel like a ghost walking through night, believing in people."

i did one of those slight exhales/tiny laughs in disbelief at the line, in how good a line of poetry can be. i heard fellow mfa poet sunshine dempsey have the same reaction.

i want to know, what recent lines or sections from poems have caused you to physically react in disbelief?

these are the original DEATHMARCH word wordies

1st
2nd

eating mick ronson

Here's a thing I wrote last spring. It was before DEATHMARCH but it applies to DEATHMARCH more than anything else IN THE WORLD. I had been awake for 30 hours when I wrote it, which was during a time when I had replaced food and sleep with unhealthy things, which was unhealthy, so I quit.

DEATHLIFE STARES AT THE SUN

DEATHLIFE is the double-murder of diet and sleep. DEATHLIFE is brought to you by Mtn Dew and Camel cigarettes. DEATHLIFE is a dinosaur giving thumbs up as it sinks into the tar. DEATHLIFE does not have friends. DEATHLIFE has stickers. I voted for DEATHLIFE before I voted against it. Do not submerge DEATHLIFE in liquids. Do not tell DEATHLIFE your secrets. DEATHLIFE comes with a swingset, though it isn't very trustworthy. DEATHLIFE is a deal with the devil for the twenty-first century. According to DEATHLIFE, the fastest way to a man's heart is through his sternum. DEATHLIFE is a fast track to word salad. DEATHLIFE does not support alcohol or masturbation; these make you tired. I would not recommend combining these. I would not recommend DEATHLIFE.

MANIFESTO

DEATHMARCH NEEDS NO MANIFESTO.
DEATHMARCH IS A MANIFESTO.
WE ARE DEATH. WE ARE MARCH.
GO FUCK YOURSELF GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Srsly

I drank my willpower in five beers.

I vomited my willpower in five minutes.

I cleaned up my willpower with five towels.

I've got five minutes to get some more willpower.

I won't stop drinking anytime soon.

I've been high for three months.

I can't bench press my body weight.

I can't bench press your body weight.

I have limitations. I am first person.

I can't stop, I can't stop, I can't stop.

Man, Dese Leopard print Shoes are printin' leopards all over sidewalks

I guess my body is horny

and it's uncomfortable.

If I could fuck a cloud, I would do it.

If I could fuck while I'm dead, I'd do it.

I could make an umbilical chord

kinky.

Sometimes I wonder if ants ever get jealous sharing the same girl

like trains in the 1800's. They run a train constantly

like it's the 1800's.

I wonder if Kool-Aid and sugar are cool with having water sex

to make fruit drink.

Some people are into deep water like that.

I don't think I like the motion of oceans.

Is it all about babies?

Babie$?

I hope not.

Sometimes people talk about coke and I don't know what they're talking about.

Sometimes I know what people are talking about.

Usually at night I curl up in a nice matchbox

and there is no fire

but if fire was all the time

I'm sure that would bore me too.

high-fiving ray wise

Hi person looking at this, you should follow the links on the side to our individual blogs and read those. you should also look into our books and buy and read those. i am promoting us and it is shameless because there is no shame in being as awesome as we are, look it up, its on wikipedia with a bunch of other bullshit

More promotion, there's a reading coming up in october at motinis that has 4/5ths of the DEATHMARCH bros. that's all of us minus dan bailey because he's in colorado, which is apache for "state of colours." yes when translating apache into english, you use UK english, not american. i don't know the details of that

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE, we recorded some stuff for BSU's media conglomerate website, god knows when that will be up, but when it is, you'll see the link here. it will probably be really cool. we made a poster of dan bailey and turned it into a picket sign. no he's not really dead, sorry to all those people to whom we said that, okay i'm not really sorry, i lied, sorry

I FEEL SHINY OUT THE MOUTH

HERE IS A POEM THAT MAKES MY HEART WEEP TINY MOTHS

I REALLY WANT ZACHARY SCHOMBURG'S NEW BOOK. HIS FIRST BOOK, THE MAN SUIT, IS INCREDIBLE

OTHER BOOKS THAT I WANT BUT DON'T HAVE MONEY FOR RIGHT NOW:

SCORCH ATLAS BY BLAKE BUTLER

THE DIFFICULT FARM BY HEATHER CHRISTLE

OTHERS THAT I CAN'T THINK OF RIGHT NOW

DRUNK AT NOON

THREE BEERS IN THE VILLAGE

PLUNDER, DEATH, AND PILLAGE

sledding george stephanopoulos

this is the first post
it's pretty short
hopefully that changes soon