Marquise

Marquise (10/31)

In the corner table her legs are resting she is raising tonic

Gin smells of moth balls and the table is sticky

She's smoking or would be if she did and her tits look great

The corner is dark enough you can't tell how old she is and she can't either

It's late someone needs to go home with her

Her torso is leaning and her head is watching the room cycle

Her fingers slide over glass but think skin on skin

The air clings and waits a moment before separating

Zombie

Zombie (10/30)

Tracing ourselves we reinvent the wheel then fire

We reorganize our closets by season then color

Gravity only exists because we start recognizing its existence

Our eyes roll endlessly as we talk about our newness

Blood in out and over they say lick their wounds lick

This circle is for believers only this other one is for something else

Gravelly

Gravelly (10/29)

Late at night I am walking through the kitchen
always bare feet and stepping on cold tiles
Just before the fridge and after the oven there is
always the push of sand on toe
There are always the bathroom paw prints of cat litter

Forget

I often wonder if poetry can exist in a similar realm to John Cage.


Forget (10.28)

Imagine everything you have forgotten -

repeat until it rains
if it's raining repeat until it snows
if it's snowing repeat until it is August 25th
if it's August 25th repeat until an eyelash falls on the page -

right here ___

Sturdy

Sturdy (10/27)

Even on three legs even
on a sloping plane

They say sheep are infected
with the sturdy

And I do get giddy when
touching your surfaces

The tilting bedchamber is
antecedent to our lying

Even on three legs this
table top rests our elbows

We eat then fuck
endlessly flat against -

Microscreen

Microscreen (10/26)

Light in the puddles makes rainbows and again each drop arches a thousand times then sinks
The slick of road turns everything milky the oil stretches and brightens
The don't walk sign flashes its message a muted attempt at language that manages

Rachis

I've discovered it is very hard for me to update on the days I work late...I will get better at this.


Rachis (10/25)

1.
from each finger tip a spine - a jab
hollow - that fills with ink

2.
I become a sparrow - soot covered flapping
making a dust bath of this bowl

there are spots spreading over my wings
darkening - alphabets appear on feathers

3.
in the wind some
leaves unlatch

only the yellowing
of paper and skies

acknowledges that
some passing occurred

4.
each spine is a detuned plucking - filling
the room with unnamable noise

with the sounds of trees - wind in trees
each pinion is bone on concrete

these spots - spreading - burn holes
iron-filled red - each a whisper

they flap incessantly about the room
they cannot understand their own language

Denude

Denude (10/24)

Under the inscriptions there are bricks - uneven and ugly
cracking - there are pieces on the sidewalk turning to dust

The thing about inscriptions - that enraptures - infuriates
is the finality - the supposed enveloping intelligence

the bubble of space around them - that space
is fragile - is a film of soap over a wire

A bending universe that stacks itself - possibility and emptiness
It all pushes into one small spot of time and melts into foam

We cover that spot with stucco and want and desire
The houses in our minds are creaky with it - haunted with it

Flummery at BAM

Yes, another late post yesterday. I was sad.
I went to BAM for "Songs of Ascension" by Meridith Monk.
And it was kinda dull and pretentious.

Which is what this is about, in a way.
How does it relate to "flummery"?
Well...I guess in my mind pretension is bland, like oatmeal. And it's always nonsense.


Flummery (10/23)

His honor is still king - prancing nakedly
going on about how it was back in the day

The always melting yet never melted deity whispers
'I paid for all of this with borrowed money'

There is laughter - sudden quiet - then a band
Waltzing Matilda - and the boat sinks on the horizon

Because the best parties happen on boats
The best parties happen as the world ends

They always slink over the red line of the sunset
Never coming back into view once twilight takes hold

90s

90s (10/22)

1990 was 19 years ago and it feels lost - feels like an end
There is something coming? - something

I stand at the corner of 13th and 6th and watch people
going into the bagel place
I wonder what kind of fresh hell this is

I know that slowly my body conspires to turn against me
I bullet - racing just as everyone else - towards death
I make some gesture at longevity - page immortality - I take vitamins
I make metallic balloons and then conspire ways to pop them

I am the sun - I repeat myself too often to actually be immortal
Those that survive say everything once

This flower will barely prepare its nectar - and a bee - if any are left
will only just be able to make out the sex from across the fields - if there are any left

If I call this square I stand on perfection - this watching the bagel square
Does it make perfection real

I leave it to the waves - which are coming - if the movies are to be believed
I leave nothing to myself -

Puffy

Puffy (10/21)

Your eyes are wounded - I would balm over your pains -

In the mirror your face watches - a ritual - I take your hands and run
them under cold water - I clean the cuts

The reflection studies the process - a surgeon inside yourself

My reflection also - writing it down

The four of us wrap the room in walls


Later I paint your portrait as you watch re-runs of the Golden Girls - it takes a lot of
effort to think of you nude and smiling

Pinion

Pinion (10/20)

My heart is a rope - around my ankles - wrists
It prevents me - I can see the world moving outside
All I can do - is struggle - against interminable beating

Caesar

I liked the idea of everyone looking up the words themselves...but starting today I will link to the lesser (but unlike the OED, free) Dictionary.com definition of each poem's word.


Caesar (10/19)

I am the sun.

My arms create fields of wheat.

The smell of damp grass right after plow - it is October
everything is muting in the throat of the swallow
are travel songs.
Red vibrates the trees.

I am the universe.

My voice invents the name of stars - I breathe the dark cosmos
nebulae inside my gaping maw are going to planet
sooner or later each will swirl.
A blue eye - vortex calling itself earth.

I am everything ever ever.

The words fall off my tongue and are water - taste the clear
of the mountain's highest peak in glacier
pack of centuries huddled for warmth.
They are men in dark coats waiting for me to say 'go on

climb'.

Background Rankine

Surreal poem today.
Yes, I know it's late, I can explain.
I was on a bus tour of the Bronx.
A bus tour of the Bronx led by Claudia Rankine.
That was a poem.


Background (10/18)

There is a road that goes over a bridge - it begins
on your shoulder - wonds among the dusty shoals of your collar
The dirt kicked up by travellers moves behind your ears
they will come out from under the lobes and cross
It is a stone-arched one-lane townie sort of bridge

The river is wider going back - it hovers
oddly placed onthe horizon
Your hair waves and rolls like foam and treats
your neck like boulders
Wide but soft spoken this river

Somewhere high up a forest begins and brushed
the sky and everything recedes into cream
All of this happens while you sit still watching a man
with a paint brush doing your face on a canvas
He's put a mirror on the back to keep you entertained

You make faces at yourself and watch pilgrims fall from your ears

Performance

Performance (10/17)

They wear top hats with peacock feathers and do the Volta
After wards retire to the loft of some Bernard and smoke till the windows curl
They read Apollonaire out loud and talk about the New York School like churches
There are Banksy's on the walls and frames with nothing in them
Here they all sleep on piles of red velvet blankets in footie pajamas
Their asses hang out they make toast over kerosene camp stoves int he bathroom
It's all so tre so something ambient and adorable
They powder themselves and pretend to be fops while sunning on a roof
Breeches and high heeled in the park in late October they eat ironic hot dogs
They talk in isms and manage a smile only for Facebook
So wonderfully tedious and so beautifully perfect - let's raise our glasses
Everyone - put your hand on the pubis and lift now -
no -
now

Span and Maddow

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

It has nothing to do with my poem...or maybe it does:

Span (10/16)

You
are orbiting

The gulf opens
around our heads

Between us

a golden thread

Pintupi

Pintupi - A Blue Streak (10/15)

It soon became clear that ballistics were essential.

The missiles used liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants.

Missiles take 15 minutes to fuel.

To protect the missiles against pre-emptive strikes underground sites were developed.

The best sites for silo construction were in southern England.

Enormous economic, social, and political cost.

A test site was established at Woomera, South Australia.

The last aborigine populations were relocated.

Around 84m had been spent.

The British purchased Polaris from the Americans, carried in British-built submarines.

Everything was abandoned abruptly.

Rustication

Rustication (10/14)

The hills are piled blankets are broken teeth
The hills are piled of broken teeth on messed blankets

Grass is fluxing in the wind is a steady green smile
Grass is a steady smile fluxing happily and menacing

A shack a hovel a log cabin
leans into the wind mostly managing to stay upright

The periods between gusts is enough for mice to remake
Enough time for a baby to be born and grow to have children

Where the rock lays bare everything goes quiet
A sudden upturn in the weather turns to storm at sea

Iftar

A lot of these poems become caught up in whatever I was thinking about at the time of writing. In the fall of 2007 I was very dissatisfied with relationships. Romance. Cliched love. I guess I still am, this poem still resonates.

Iftar (10/13)

We hold hands and walk in the park- it becomes a joke
I tire of this back and forth - my feet hurt
It all lost appeal years ago became a must a do

But here we go locking fingers like vines on telephone poles
And we walk in some park near some fountain
We may as well be on a beach - really get those cliches going

I've convinced myself that your eyes were all I've known
That I could swim in them - goddamn that's dull
I don't know how to swim - I scream about floating

Somewhere a field is sighing as winter sets in - without us
A sort of joke I leave unanswered - a field of dying
It all lost its appeal years ago - became a must do

Here take my hand and lets walk counter clock around the park
Instead of clockwise
You know - for a change

Whirligig

Whirligig (10/12)

This pen winds up the world
clocks the birds and makes heaven tilt

On the back the key slowly spinning
A hole is an iris then an opening then a flower in bloom

Inside the world are springs
this language is making the universe darken
then lighten

It comes back on itself
this pen will write into a corner then invent
the corner and then make a door then invent
the opening of the door

This pen is its own key
it has teeth and eyes and knows

This pen is a deluge of piranha in your bathtub

Trolley

Trolley (10/11)

Over Brooklyn the metal grooves are listing
are mapping out where people used to go

A clacking happened here

There were wood carts and wheels and people
moving over this land

A bell was ringing and there was such a great moving

The grooves list there is no end to the listing they want
their history to end

They are old men in rocking chairs being ignored at family reunions

Modulation, dance dance dance

On Thursday I went to BAM to see Decreation by William Forsythe. From BAM's website :

"a work that challenges our notions of dance in the 21st century and asserts his place as one of the world's most innovative choreographers. A piece on love, jealousy, and the soul, Decreation explores the forces that shape and rend our relationships—with one another and ourselves."

The show was all kinds of amazing. It's hard to explain in words. Which is equally amazing. The work is based on the essay "Decreation" by Anne Carson (my favorite living writer). The essay is about a trio of women dissecting God, love, jelousey, heartache, etc. The dance is definitely about these same things, BUT it holds to a fairly straight-forward narrative of two characters int he midst of a breakup/breakdown.

The show's use of language and space definitely recalls the forms of Carson. The dancers moved about on stage in broken thought patterns, they swapped rolls, they suddenly yelled. They had mics. The room would vibrate from the noise one moment, then go deathly quiet for huge periods of time. The entire cast froze silently for what felt like eternity.

It was all over the place, a storm, but a perfect one.

65min, no intermission
Tickets: $20, 35, 50, 70

Go. Now.

Modulation (10/10)

I hear that you are telling me this -
See that park over there - the one with the yellow bars and the fence
I know a man who was beaten in that park -

I hear that you are telling me this -
Have you seen the blood - it was a clear day really shockingly beautiful
He was wearing a blue sweater -

I hear that you are telling me this -
Move - sit on the swings with me and let's never talk about it again
Hold my hand and swing -

Microlens

Microlens (10/9)

The leaf is a field cupping the air

Beetle back is grooved vinyl a hair is needling the sound out

Inside the drop of water a universe expands then falls

A city is collapsing under the forces the buses are with child

There is one giant eye floating overhead - passive

Turkey!?!

This is up late because I went to a show. I will discuss later.

Turkey (10/8)

You are a mister aren't you all spread out showing foliage
Mister brown mister tumor-neck mister pin spiked stepper

You hobble and your fly is heavy but puff that shit out anyway
This is a fly bird and a gracious forest buzzer just try to un this mother

Multistate

Multistate (10/7)

Folding in we take this place and push it into playdoh molds
It gets flowers on its ass and smells like plastic and salt
Thos little crumbs of green are sticking hard and are crumbling

This is where the flower shapes mash and the petals go clear
There are thousands of feet going crazy marching like footsoldiers
We are taking this storm to the oceans to the front doors of everybody

Taking this storm folding pressing we will have lightbulbs over every head
It's turning off and on a meal on every plate and then an empty plate to clean
The molds are breaking there will be no more salt lick shapes in any color anywhere

This place folds nice and neat an origami of stains on table linens
Lick your fingers and come into the other room let us smoke this day
Look at that globe in the corner and pick a dusty spot with your fingers tomorrow there -

Snarling

Snarling (10/6)

I am trying to be angry about post-modernism

Trying to get my hands dirty again - put the thorns under my nails

I am kicking clay into my own face

I am trying to be angry about post-post-modernism

What if it's all gone on ahead of us ? - our eyes will be red with sand

There will be pearls forming in our ducts

I am trying to be angry about confessionalism

Trying not to admit to liking the Dixie Chicks - not be culturally frozen

I am trying to be angry about poems about poetry

What if there is a loop forming ? - the thorns will run red then will grow

I am picking something from my head it is rotten

I am trying to be angry about meta

Tring to smell ink in the computer - I press my face until it bends

Strand it all together and make a necklace make a -

Skoosh

I rarely go there in my writing. But this is one of those times. Adult moment ahead ya'll.

Or not...guess it's perspective


Skoosh (10/5)

If the dick is wet it is sliding well

Your ass will flatten - turn pink
will open a rotten spot
will hollow

Then there moans a sky

Your balls will purple - rise
prunish - tender - then

The bed will soak in water
blood
shit

Returnable

Returnable (10/4)

Eternity is not in keeping with paper
Horizons too melt into haze - this lead
goos with envy

Or -
I die like everyone else - kept long
on shelves dusting myself hording paper lice

Eternity will envy only eternity plus one

Every line portraits eventually
You can focus hard - squint
Like hands out of the fog - birthmark

Architecture ain't just buildings folks

I am a fan of fashion and architecture. Call me shallow but beautiful things make me feel good. I especially love when the two come together somehow. Structure in fabric, art in buildings...wonderful stuff.

The Atelier Versace fall 09 collection is both of these things. Click that link at look hard at the structure in the fabric. The cut-outs. Everything. The way the clothes form to the body and then suddenly fall away into air.

The green dress I included above obviously looks Chrystler Building-ish but there a re a few there with tiny details that remind me of buttresses and staircases and all sorts of building elements. Not to mention that they are all just awesome to look at.

If I were a rich woman with a perfect body I would wear all of these daily.

Seriously.

Side Note :
I linked to Tom and Lorenzo's blog. I stole those images from them. They are hilarious guys who post about fashion. The blog started life as a Project Runway fan deal and has evolved into a forum for world-wide fashion critique. Interesting place to get a dose of interesting fashion images.

Narrow

Narrow (10/3)

Palms almost touching
the lines make channels
pushing sweat

Fingers rim salt crystals
the ice melts holes
into themselves

Paling, a long one

Paling (10/2)

1.
Again trees

2.
Rounded hills
covered
A yellow blanket, its
shock
colors cause the eyes to
dart

3.
Body remembers waking

3am naked toe touches

First fall leaf, first rain

4.
yellow
drops
the sky is busy being orange

everything is mulled wine
spices over butternut squash

mostly
everything looks ending
a deepish bruise

5
All of this is cliched
Cycles, colors, seasons.
Death, death, death...

But -

When leaves start their jumping,
like baby birds from the nest,
it is hard not to think about
a slow darkening.

The way soil turns
smooth, black.

That damp smell,
subtle chocolate,
parts around leaf veins.

6.
You pull up the blankets.

You pray for smoothness.

Chocolate is the new 80s

This video from Cadbury's is all sorts of awesome.

List as train of thought

This was an experiment. I started out thinking about an episode of Mad Men that featured a Mark Rothko very prominently. In keeping with the nature of the poems I am posting I decided to enter a random color with Rothko into Google. I followed that with the first thing I thought of after that...oddly Jell-O.

Here are the five searches I did, in order:

Rothko Blue
Stained Glass Jell-O
NYC Subway Tiles
Train Maps
Maps Are Art

Exoenzyme

The link in the title takes you to an article about Amylase, which is a protein in saliva that starts to break down food into sugars in the mouth. This is as clear an explanation for the poem I have.

Exoenzyme (10/1)

Take off your shirt let me hold it to my chest

There
is a taste as I spoon you into my mouth

From your ___ to my ___

Beautiful - anything could be sitting
filling those blanks