Jul 31, 2003

I'm down with the Mars-watching party as posited by Shin Yu, I'd offer to host at my apartment for said purpose, but I don't have a yard. So it would be sort of hard to see the sky. I have a fire escape, but it's not very big.

Come to think of it, I don't know if I know anybody who DOES have a yard.

Ah, Generation X. Who's got my BeeGees lunchbox?
New ASTROMETRY ORGANON:



ACHERNAR

When I was
under the river I
could see maps
of fission
bright on
the hooks
of dusk

When I was
under the river I
could see pain
like a piston
pump in
each splendid
chest

When I was
under the river I
could see my
face from out
the back of
my head

When I was
under the river I
could see the eyes
of my love from
the bottoms
of my feet
staring back
at me

When I was
under the river a
ghast sang
in the drastic
hours, sang
a thing I won't
tell you

When I was
under the river
the birds
made a home
in my femur
I won't tell you
what the birds did
there

When I was
under the river I
heard sounds
wearing the mask
of other sounds

When I was
under the river
the fields
were in the lights
there was a black
tanker aground
in those fields

When I was
under the river
the ocean remained
in place, that is
all I can tell you
about the ocean

When I was
under the river
my mouth
was a dolphin
the dolphin
had an egg
in its mouth

When I was
under the river
the ghast painted
its name
on those
very stairs

When I was
under the river I
was my brother
and he ain't
having any

Jul 30, 2003

Thanks to Jordan for the link to www.openbrackets.com, a Canadian translator's blog, and very interesting from what I have read so far. Very dangerous to the work ethic.

The site has some great links, too, including the online etymological dictionary, which is BETTER THAN SEX. Also perilous for the work ethic.
Great "Mis-Translation" from Anne Herbert over at Christopher Rizzo's blog.

Though semantically, the idea of a "mistranslation" is sort of strange to me. I understand exactly what Shin Yu and Christopher are talking about, but the concept for me breaks down when one accepts the fact that no translation is perfect; ergo, every translation is a "mistranslation." It's possible to make translations with varying degrees of "static" or "interference," with varying degrees of fidelity to the author's original "intent." But I don't think one can necessarily apply the binary "properly translated" vs. "not properly translated."

My undergraduate thesis at Marlboro College was all about translation. A defense of translation, specifically. The spine of the argument concerned Kristeva's notion that poetic language is a sort of "carnival" (in the let's-kill-the-king sense) where identity, syntax, meaning, gender, etc. are plastic and easily changeable. Things wear the mask of other things. So a translation is just another mask in that sense, there's no reason "meaning" or "intent" need to hold from language to language, since those things are only dubiously defined in the source text, anyway. That's sort of an oversimplification, but you get the idea, hopefully (the paper itself is about 100 pages long (and about 10 years old) so I won't post it here).

Jul 29, 2003

There have been lots of Danes visiting the site today. Is that you, C. B.?
I suppose I need to get to work, myself. "Translating," that is.
Many, many thanks to Joel Sloman who sends the following stunning translation from Trakl:

IM OSTEN (EASTERN FRONT)

Wild organ winter storms
Gloomy dark folk
War's purple wave
Telescopes weeds

Broken minds, raising silver arms
Soldier night winks star bends
Ashy herb shades
Sicken ghosts' sighs

Donkey wildness girts city
The moon hunts shocked women
from bleeding steps
Wolves, necessarily wild, breach gates.


--after Georg Trakl

Jul 28, 2003

So here's the collaborative project (in toto here) that Christina and I read from at the zinc. All l/c is Christina all caps is me. For those of you not present, it's an exquisite corpse that we did at the People's Republik one afternoon, getting into trouble...:


FUCK'D UP


SORDID TRAJECTORY
BLASTED GHETTO LOGIC
SNARE.

* *

the world is my ________
I love you, violent blue
eyes

shelter & skelter

taste it

he wears a t-shirt of ________

& a pause & lock the door
behind you

beak in a bar
jam in a can

* *

BARCELONA
ICICLE COMA

GRIM FACTOIDS
&
MIRRORS
IN
THE
BLOOD

* *

I was a trigger
I was a flash in the pan

you wish I wish I was
I were

the future inhabits & I hear
you laughing
from a mile away. . .

* *

RUDE BINARIES
FUELING
BINARY ELIPSIS

NAUSEA
FISSION

CAUSAL DRAINAGE
ILLICITS

FLUTTERING
WALL
I'D

* *

magic hat kiss me pass tee
basket

we can talk about class & poetry
all night
over coffee
& beer

& still I will miss will wish
for an over-turn
of
homeland security positions
& the basis
of a new fan

* *

BRAZEN CLAMOUR
YIELDS
PRETTY OROBOROUS
PANGS

JUST RIDE
THE CLOSURE
BOAT

TO GODHEADS
HEAD SHRUNK
DEFTLY

I FORSAKE I
IN MELTDOWNS

* *

to process information
you & I
need a proper art-form
a proper location

swap meet

give up an ego
& give me shelter
a shoulder

steady blue eyes

* *

LIQUOR POULTICE
RAVAGED FRAME
OF REFERENCE

O GOOD & PINK
DEMONS

FLUTTER, YEAH

PINK DEMONS
LOOK AFTER I

* *





I'm lonely & will fuck anyone
w/ a ten speed bicycle

only kidding
five speed will do

* *

CLOUD FRACTURES

I ATE THE TEMPLE
THE TEMPLE

IS METAL FLOWERS
THE TEMPLE
SPURTS

IRREVERANT
REVERANCE
SANCTIFIED

SANGUINE ORCHARD S'OKAY
I'M A ROCKIN' HORSE

* *

I am rocket man
cool down w/ a corona
imported from ireland
hemmings motor news
people's republic of Cambridge
comb your hair w/your fingers
bring your mail to the bar
crossword puzzles
puzzle me this
endless pratter
pray for me dear yonder
as you leave the church
of your undoing
we walk suitcase in hand. . .

* *

ORIGINAL
GUTTERSNIPE

I SHRUG OFF
SUGAR DAMAGE

* *

enter & leave
front door only

think of fire
& the paragraph spaces
in between

& pause of the horror

I could let myself & you
& I

& an ashtray bt us
wishing of bars in NYC

* *

APOTHEOSIS
ECSTATIC
RECTIFY

CARNAL DEFICIT--

I TORTURE I

SICK FLOWERS
IS WHERE
I GO

* *






I grind
my teeth
& think of
fallout shelters

everyone wants
to be in the groove

spell & grammar eschewed

* *

SQUID FIRES

A LONG BLUFF

MY BLACK TURTLENECK'S
MADE
OF
RETICENT
FIRE

* *



I watch
your hands
pick up that
glass mug cup of
& think of


never want to not stop desire
no matter the cost

old man owns a boat docked in
the harbor

* *

WRECKED LEDGER

PUT THAT
LOVELY
HOURGLASS

IN MY SLEEP
WHAT SANDS
MOVE

IN YOU MY
MOST HIGH
HAIRSHIRT HELEN

* *

guitar twang
sun comes in

not in my space

woke up twisted @ 4 am & I am
& someone complains of birds
& makes it messy

take a nap in the afternoon
shows of all

& lost in afternoon & train of
thought. . .

* *

LET ME

A DISCO BALL IN
ONE HAND
& A SPEAKING TORCH
IN THE OTHER

CULTURE LEPER
PERCEPTION LIONS
LIE DOWN

WHEN I GESTURE
DYNAMO ORIGIN
I LOSE & I'M
FIRE TOO

* *

american vernacular
pre & post pix vocab

synthesize through a moog

you wore an excel table
a social security number

& I was flesh walking around
drama

no theater major, I

* *

OCHER PALIMPSEST

A DODGE DART
& A THESIS

VIELED SHADOWS
ON THOSE ROADS
I THOUGHT
I'D LOST

MURDERED BRIDES LAUGH
ON THOSE ROADS
I THOUGHT
I'D LOST

* *

WHO'S ABSENT
IS IT YOU?

cd in bar

a generated feeling

false patriotism
& camaraderie
we have in here
in our love for. . .

* *


ALL LOOPED

YOU WON'T HOLD
YOUR LIQUOR

YOU WON'T HOLD
ME



MAYBE

* *

top story
in Roxbury

up in flames in malden

I was homeless at one point

do you know massachusetts

like I know Massachusetts


complain & bicker of the good life

* *

KARYATID DAMES
IN THE
ESCUTCHEON

TRAUMA MAGNET
&
FUCK IT ALL
BLISS

* *

I want to be a filler
of your desire
& rage

what coin were we talking about

the us postal service has stamps
made of our 50 states
& still I am not
represented

beer guitar again hostage stance

* *

SWAP MEET
TODAY

* DESIRES
* EGOS
* SECRETIONS

PLEASE TELL ME
HIEROPHANTS
WILL COME
TO MY MOVIE

* *

dart board ever present
overhead fan
promise not to pre-turn pages
the loss is gone
you only had one he says
that was by far
& someone laughs
he has hair the bartender says
& scurry off
try not to think of
I used to
bad influence & when does
a real auto-bio-graphy
come in the pix. . .

* *

BOOKLENGTH
EXQUISITE CORPSE
THEN A ZOMBIE
MOVIE

* *

halt
curtail
ego
biography



& someone has hiccups
& my fingers cup the page
like spider legs

you're a poet you understand
metaphor

**

FRANTIC RECKONING

A GLADIOLA
IN FORMALDEHYDE

TAKE THAT SECOND
WHERE I SMILED

& FREEZE IT

PASTEURIZED

A BUDDHA IN OCTOBER
A BLACK VOLVO DRIVES
INTO SOMONE ELSE'S DUSK

* *

love you violent blue eyes

or something you burn w/

& just ingest meaning. . . ?


comfortable
some thin clouds

* *

PUMA JISM ADS

WANNABES
CAN'T MAKE ENDS
MEET

IN TIMES OF TRAUMA
CAROLINE RECOMMENDS

THE WU-TANG CLAN

* *

discourage behavior
adam was telling me
of the first seed

could not have been an apple
or a pomegranate

who can forget a question
origin?

* *

OFFER UP YOUR
BEST DEFENSES

I WON'T NEED CIGARETTES

WHEN I'M WITH BUDDHA

* *

I name or face
a logo
everyday

hear the background
singers

& I have not heard
anything so banal
heard the word "banal"
from some band or another

we could sit here for hours
name names. . .

* *

CERTAIN THINGS RELEGATED
TO ANIMAL SPIRITS

ALL THE GUIDES LIVE
IN GREEN JADE

NOT WHITE JADE
LIKE SOMEBODY'S ARMS

IN OU-YANG HSIU

HAN SHAN RECOMMENDS
TAKE
WHAT YOU'RE GIVEN

* *

I no longer recognize leisure or
pleasure

watch people walk down the street
toward wherever

drive toward wherever

is it & does it come easy
& if so easy
I don't want it

die hard drink not just a
slogan of another wasted
night

* *

DON'T LOOK
SO DEMURE

WHEN YOU WANNA
WANNA

SPARK-THROWER

IN THE BASEMENT

* *

a click of the pen


not another thing to write about. . .

* *

FALL DOWN
IN SOME
AIR-CONDITIONED
WARD

EVERYBODY WANTS
A STEADY
SUPPLY
OF CHEERIOS

& A PLACE
BY THE OCEAN

* *

the cause gets taken away
w/ another
sip
or spill
& hover

you like how that & I not I
like to hide & hover
misspell what it was
my intention. . .

* *

FAT AL SAID HE BELIEVED

ALL LIFE CAME FROM THE
SEA

* *

helicopters hover over
hover over

nyc
boston
sf
sydney
berlin
dublin [crossed out]
belfast
& cross out the obvious

they wish to cross out
to make some metaphor of
our political situation. . .

* *

I WANT A BIG PARTY
WHEN I LEAVE

ALL MY LOVES
WILL WEEP

UNTIL THEN
GIMME
GIMME

K'UAN-YIN &
A FULL DECK

ASK ME IF I'M OKAY
I'LL SAY I'M OKAY

* *

bradford phillipe
borther of the deceased
lives in faux brick
& aluminum siding

flag over casket
to tragedy over pain
in 10 second soundbites

& there is to be made
a connection
to all this

to remember myself home. . .

Back from poetry wiffleball in NYC. It was alot of fun. It was good to meet and/or re-meet many poetry comrades in NYC. I'm sorry to say that Boston poetry (e.g. myself, Christina Strong and Jim Behrle with David Kirschenbaum and Jen Coleman ringing) were soundly trounced by the hitting machine that was Alison Cobb, Ethan Fugate, Jordan Davis and Sarah Manguso. It seems that in matters involving the hitting of little spheres with cylinders, the laws of physics will forever turn upon Bostonians in New York. Perhaps the enchanting Brenda Iijima enchanted their bats during her brief appearance prior to the game. I don't think the Yankees and the Red Sox gather together at the Zinc Bar following their games to read poems, though. Maybe if they did I'd have more interest in baseball. It was lovely to hear all read following the game. I'm glad for the Fung-Wah and it's $20 gateway to NYC. I'll post some of the collaborative project that Christina and I read from later this evening.

Hope anyone and everyone at the Grand Cafe on Sunday had a good time.

Jul 25, 2003

Am also thoroughly enjoying the eeksy peeksy posts for the last couple days.
After reading the very cool translations of the Akira Tatehata poems, courtesy of Shin Yu, as well as the Ilya Berstein translations (see below), I got to wondering why nobody seems to be translating anything these days. Well, OK, by 'nobody' I mean nobody from the writers I find myself hanging out with, in this little "scene" of Boston poetry. I'm sure we can't all be monoglots. Does that mean we really are as provincial as some might accuse us of being? You'd think with all of this blogging that more cross-cultural or cross-linguistic ties could be made. I propose a project to all you fellow poetry bloggers of somehow locating a poetry blogger another country and doing a translation with them (it doesn't have to bee good, necessarily), with all of the translation engines out there, it shouldn't be so hard. OK, well maybe it's a little harder than I'm imagining, but it shouldn't be too hard.

There's also the vehicle of the blog itself. So if anybody out there is reading this and is a non-English speaking poet, let's get to work...
Be sure to check out Attention and Man by Ilya Bernstein and Selected Writings by Cedar Sigo, two lovely new books from Ugly Duckling Press.
According to the site meter, someone from Russia got to the blog via a Google search for "peace + cigarette + emoticon."

Jul 24, 2003

It's good for me to work in a bureaucratic environment. This way, when I feel like I'm going to start weeping at my desk, I can pretend that I need to bring an important 'document' to the other side of campus. This is better than going into the bathroom to weep, because when you come out of the bathroom sniffing, people sometimes think that one is snorting coke in there. Outdoors, redness and sniffling can be blamed on allergies, noxious fumes from the unending construction on campus, cosmic rays, or the sun, goddamn the sun...
I remember the righteous outrage on the part of people in the U.S. when the bodies of the pilots of a downed helicopter were dragged through the streets of Somalia. Somebody tell me in what way we're any different? Only insofar as the street through which the U.S. drags its bodies is the global media. A severed head on a pole in the ghost city. More new ghosts for the hard city of Mosul and the nation of Iraq.
Mike County on Wieners' soft city. When we die, does the soft city follow shortly thereafter? I suppose it's more like decomposition, parts of it fade away, some quickly, some slowly, until only the skeleton remains, and then only shards. Relics. Wieners' apartment on the spine of the underground railroad. The work remains though, the piles on which all three cities stand, each a penumbra of the other.

But what hardships the soft city endures in life...it bruises and recoils. Under every church, temple, library, a rabbit hole. What does the soft city look like, isolated from the frame of its concrete brother? An amoeba fanning its wings. Walt Whitman's unquiet apparition doing the zombie waltz, forever searching for his lost, beloved head...
New show at Gallery 108 starting this weekend. Everybody go see fab local artists.

SUMMER IN THE CITY
Group Show June 26 - August 25

108 is featuring a group show of artists including Alice Denison, Paton Miller, Paul Richard, Kate Ledogar, Jill Comer and Boar Glass. Summer gallery hours are Wednesday 12-6, Thursday 12-3 and 6:30-9, Friday 12-6 and Saturday 12-5, or call for an appointment.
Where do my umbrellas go, anyway?

Jul 23, 2003

Makura-no-soshi: Finding myself therapist-less of late I too have considered the meditation instead of therapy route.

Once I was with a friend of mine at a zendo in Long Island. I did not actually go in to sit, but rather just to see the place since at the time I was very interested in the idea of sitting. When we went in, I noticed that there was a rabbit sitting in front of the Buddha statute in the "yard" or whatever you call it.

"Are there a lot of rabbits around here?" I asked her.

"I've never seen a rabbit here in my life."

We went in to the zendo for awhile, and when we came out the rabbit was still there. I took it as a sign of some sort, but have always shyed away from actually embarking on formal practice. It seems difficult not having any kind of cultural basis in it. Particularly as the son of a Lutheran and an Atheist: doubt and guilt are in my blood...

But I at least take solace in the notion that life is suffering, and the more one suffers, the more one is alive...


If you do nothing else online today, check out the amazing piece at xtina.org. You won't be sorry...

Jul 22, 2003

Am posting this for Kasey Mohammad. I wish I could go out there and take your Zombie class. I don't really think you'll like this poem very much, but it's the thought that counts, as they say...


BIOGRAPHY OF A REVENANT

Behind a veil of rain, the buds
of his favorite indigo tulips, forced open
like dark stars.

Removes his shirt to try to
feel the torrent's gift spurting
from skies once called
unomniscient.

This he had said:
Bring me the rain that breaks the flowers.

Branches droop, not in absolution
but recollection, a knot of spectres churns
overhead, unperturbed.

Strange, unquelled by phenomena,
the stuff underneath the skin
that still steams and bleeds.

This unsaid:
The wounds are so deep.

Quickened, stung to singing,
scratches on his back
where one couldn't
claw through:
I can't hide me
inside of you.


A hand held over the eyes
eclipses
only the brilliance of the blast,
the shockwave fills around him
like the drone of days.

Bring me the flowers that break the rain.

I don't care that the shed petals
are like snow on the now-living grass,
that shoots erupt from branches
called dead: the coils of the brain cannot
follow suit, limbs vanished & remembered
cannot be coaxed to bloom.


Already felled, he goes on walking
as if toward something,
arms outstretched as if
in defiance; finally drops
to his knees, as if
in prayer, lips forming, though,
only curses and names.

THEY EAT THEIR OWN...

Officials See Threat in Bush Newspaper Cartoon
Mon Jul 21, 8:51 PM ET

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Secret Service is studying a pro-Bush cartoon in the Los Angeles Times, showing the president with a gun to his head, as a possible threat, U.S. officials said on Monday.

Cartoonist Michael Ramirez said the drawing, which ran in Sunday's paper, was only meant to call attention to the unjust "political assassination" of Bush over his Iraq policy.

The cartoon, based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph from the Vietnam War, depicts Bush with his hands behind his back as a man labeled "Politics" prepares to shoot him in the head. The background of the drawing is a cityscape labeled "Iraq."

"We're aware of the image and we're in the process of determining what action if any can be taken," John Gill, Secret Service spokesman, said.

An official who asked not to be named said: "The Secret Service does take threats against all of their protectees very seriously and they have an obligation to look into any threat that's made against any of their protectees." The official did not elaborate.

The 1968 photograph on which the cartoon is based showed the instant before South Vietnam's national police commander pulled the trigger in a summary execution of a Vietcong prisoner on the streets of Saigon.

The brutality of the image was credited by many with helping to turn U.S. public opinion against the war.

In a statement issued through the newspaper, Ramirez said that he used the image because it represented to him the "political assassination" of Bush.

"President Bush is the target, metaphorically speaking, of a political assassination because of 16 words that he uttered in the State of the Union," he said, referring to the controversy over Bush's accusation that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa.

The White House later disavowed that statement, saying it was based on faulty documents. Critics of Bush have accused him of hyping intelligence to build a case for war in Iraq.

"Those with political motivations are using the uranium story as a method to attack the president," Ramirez said.

A spokesman for the Times said the cartoon represented the cartoonist's opinion and not that of the paper.
While we're on the subject, here's a section of my poem "Gin Angel" that deals with the hard city and the soft city. In this case both "cities" have become in a certain way sinister, but for different reasons. (I won't post the entire poem, because only the particular section is relevant to this discussion).

From GIN ANGEL

This one for the soft city, its boneless muck
& poison spit. Restaurants leer & cobbles
buck; autopsy of footprints, chalk lines indicate
residual damages. Kick drum,
kick drum, kick drum on the headset.
Tired of G3s and yoga books, House Blends
& the village idiots.
It's a mascaraed face at best, these days
it all sags away with the rain.

This one for the hard city, the wind-snore
through bare girders, bleep of the traffic-
dance, prosthetic limbs propped up on the Liberty
Tree: dollar-scum, bulb winks, panel
skywards. Music mid-chorus, a sheer thing droops,
hides its eyes from the eyes, somebody
jiggles & coughs & someone's
scratched on my back, "It can't be wrong
if it helps my heart to die." Cease to speak.

This one for my man of twists & turns,
Henry & Hermes Trismegistos, sunlight
in the ward & on a book, handprinted, India
ink, penscratch on finger-webs. The swell
of undoing vibrates down the mainline.
Did I tell her the trains were singing?
My mistake--it's just the brakes--they're
going. In a satchel the mobile bleats.
Please save my mail in a jar.

Is one supposed to publicly respond to something publicly stated in a blog? Somebody needs to draw up the charter of this ghost city.

Anyway, you're welcome, James. Glad you liked the poems.

The idea of the soft city seems pretty relevant to the Gloucester crew since so much of their lives seem to be split between Boston and Gloucester, thus comprising a sort of macro soft city that extends beyond the confines of the hard city. I suppose in that particular way the ghost city can be a vehicle for the soft city. Now I'm seeing a sort of Lacanian diagram with three circles representing the three players.

I'd agree that the concept of 'soft City' is pretty relevant to Polis, though I'm not sure that Olson would necessarily have recognized the hard city/soft city dichotomy. I reckon Polis (by way of the MAXIMUS POEMS) to be something more akin to terroir in wine, the way particular characteristics of the landscape (hard city) define the properties of the wine (the individual, and by that route, the soft city. Though I'd say that the soft city isn't contained within individuals, but rather comprised by them... Though each person's experience of the soft city is different. But does that mean that each person is a soft city unto themselves? When you look closely, the binary begins to dissolve.)

Jul 21, 2003

I also finally got around to adding the link for the Surf Poetry Collaborative, featuring work by Aaron Tieger, Michael Carr, Christopher Rizzo, and myself.

Additionally, thank you everyone who's linked to my blog who I have rudely not added yet to my links section. I'm meaning to do a complete overhaul of the links one of these days. To be honest, the current links are simply the ones that I can remember the url's of off of the top of my addled head. I will sit down and cut-and-paste eventually.
I finally just got around to hanging this enormous painting by my old pal Ilyas Ahmed in my room. It's a picture of an anthropomorphic rabbit in a suit standing in front of what appears to be a wall of blood. Shadowy men in shadowy suits emerge from the blood. There's a band of orange and then a sort of cerulean blue on which is superimposed a man with a pair of disembodied hands holding a placard with peach and white colored stripes. The painting is on masonite on a wooden frame (badly damaged at this point) and I worry that my apartment's chintzy walls will not hold the weight of it. If it falls ,it will crush the collection of wooden and glass rabbits I have underneath it. I guess I should probably move the rabbits. It should be apparent that I have a thing for rabbits. I always have. I don't know why.

I have sort of a love-hate relationship with the painting. I think it's a great piece of art, but on some days the rabbit-man starts to look a little sinister. The painting also tends to freak people out who spend any significant amount of time in my room (besides me, that is). Sometimes I wonder if the painting is cursed and the source of all of my problems.

Mostly I just hope it doesn't fall off the wall.
Thank you to eeksy peeksy for the archive assistance.

Jul 20, 2003

I *swear* my archives are not working, can somebody tell me what I need to do to make them work? I'd like to try to save the stuff from last week.
A few new Astrometry Organons:

ALPHARD

Hydraheaded toreador
ekes this kid
toward the foam.

Bluejay at center
worried in a whorl.

Bearded homunculi arrayed
in a goose-V aimed at Pluto.

Silver up to here.

Here's where I go offline.

Check the locks.
Check the door.

No-one gets out
or in.

***

THUBAN

Oracle, ventricle:
dilated serpent torc:

the way she moves like a metronome
into and out of
sight:

grasses wilt & rise.

Sunlight
turning to dust
or pollen
on her lips
as if
inside her:
100 years
of peace.

***

SADAL MELIK

Jumbo shrimp boat plasticine:
festive camphor votive

denies egress to the ibis.

A rasp dolled-up
for surgery

in fields of
mueslix chai macchiato,

Joe Dimaggio falun gong
sex martini lexicons &
gumbo ashtanga
utility bombs.

Ikea muzzle
for the afterlife.

Astarte wed to
Ralphie Wiggum:

somewhere in the midlands,
a cootiecatcher
ate the world.


A busy weekend. Don't know how you frequent bloggers do it.

More later.

Jul 18, 2003

Does anybody know where I could get a copy of Panopticon by Steve McCaffrey?

Jul 17, 2003

Pathogolically unremarkable day.

Jul 16, 2003

To think my blog used to be appropriate for children.

Kids love angst.
Good lord, what's happening to me?
Maybe that's why I'm only 37% sexy, as per the sex test.
For instance, I can't think of anything dirty about aardvarks.

Aardvarks are pretty.
Though it is somewhat alarming that I don't know what some of the new words mean.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.
Or interzone.
Like Mercury.
I should go somewhere.
Egads! It seems that I have 3 unused weeks of vacation!

Jul 15, 2003

A blackbird standing on the roof of the building across from my porch and I were watching each other for the duration of a cigarette (American Spirit, important only to indicate burning-time of cigarette).

Blackbird: "Yeah, I know how it is..."
"I'm not retarded."-- Simon to Henry in one of the opening scenes of HENRY FOOL, one of my favorite films.
In 5th grade I once drove a staple into my hand with a stapler to get out of math class...
Aaron reports that there was an informational ad concerning "Fragile X" above my blog.

"Anxiety in both boys and girls manifests itself in various ways. Some persons with fragile X become very worried about changes in routine or upcoming stressful events (e.g., fire drills, assemblies). This is often referred to as "hypervigilance". Parents often report that their children stiffen up when angry or upset, becoming rigid and very tense. Sometimes, they simply tighten up their hands. Tantrums may be a result of anxiety and a feeling of being overwhelmed. Crowds and new situations may cause boys to whine, cry, or misbehave, in attempts to get out of the overwhelming settings."

Jul 14, 2003

Inspired by Aaron's archival urge, I went back and looked for stuff dated 7/14/97, I found one poem with that date, but it sucks. I did find the file of poems from the reading (which I don't think happened until November) in question. (If you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about, follow the link on Aaron's name above and read his post.) Most of those sucked, too, but I did find one that I'm willing to take responsibility for (please keep in mind this is from 1997.):

THE PENITENT KNEELS BEFORE A SUBURBAN AFTERNOON
(after Philip Larkin & Mayo Thompson)

Crouched before the window
a high, thin white light
an arctic light, from the thin-aired
tops of mountains;

bare ceiling, pale walls
a flickering chinese lantern is
a fill-in flash:
my skin is too brittle, stuccoed--

rings of metal beads
around my wrists, the cord that
lights said lamp, that holds
the stopper to the faucet;

(Where do you keep the key?
In an ivory box, between my tongue and my teeth.
How long is the cord to the key?
As long as from my tongue to my heart.)

the lengths of ballchain glimmer:
millenarial light--my scars, my artifacts,
my cubist intersection of bones and skin,
misplaced in this mid-day glow: diagrammatic, medical

and all around, the high, thin light
as if shed by high windows,
implicating.


Happy Bastille day, mes ami(e)s...

Jul 13, 2003

I hope somebody can see it out those little windows.
The moon is huge and orange and beautiful in Boston. Everybody in Boston go look at the moon.
Silver wings, slowly fading outta sight....

--Merle Haggard
Talking to the spirits in the air, I.
Incidentally, I don't think my blog is archiving properly. Can anyone tell me how I should set up the archives? (This looks like a job for an...archivist.)

The biographers will of course not want to miss a phrase of this stuff.
I hope anyone who has not been outside in the past couple of hours will do so soon. The character of the sky and the light in the sky is really singular. A slanted sun, rendering the clouds objects.

It's peculiar how memory works. A given moment (looking at this particular sky, for example) can suddenly open up into another moment and it's almost as if no time at all has passed at all between those moments. Time as a series of linked instances, one piled upon the next chronologically, but somehow in some kind of timeless stasis by way of perception.

In this case, the particular character of the light brought me back to a moment some two years ago where I was sitting on the deck of the Provincetown Ferry, going out to meet my girlfriend at the time, reading Wuthering Heights. I can almost recall a specific sentence, but not quite. I was feeling like Heathcliff (in that bad man loved by a good woman kind of way...) Heathcliff was pretty punk rock. I mean, punk rock for the 19th century, that is. I can recall the emotions I was feeling at the time, though they seem sort of alien now. I suppose only the material character of the moment survives. Some translucent version of the emotions exists, though. More ghosts.

The beach at Provincetown is very nice. I haven't been to a beach even once this summer. Who wants to go to the beach?
Watch out, the world's behind you.

Jul 12, 2003

Don't worry, I'm single...
Another one, by Cath Carroll:

TRUE CRIME MOTEL
--Cath Carroll

Oh Chicago, Chicago's got me doing things I thought
I'd never want to do. The sun's on fire on Lawrence
Avenue, a storm is forecast and it's coming just for
you. Will works the late shift at the all night store.
When tomorrow morning comes, he won't have to
work any more. And outside it's the same old city
scene. People like we might have been, running to get
out of the rain.

Will, I know you're much too young and I'm the one
who's had all of the fun, but don't you see, I can't let
you walk away the way I know that one day you are
going to walk away from me. You look so peaceful, I
swear they'll never tell. Until they try to wake you up
in this true crime motel. And outside, it's the same old
city scene. People like we might have been, running to
get out of the rain.

They'll be no churches in my dreams, just crimes and
conjuring tricks and you and other Christless things.
And I'll turn it up, I'll turn the TV up to mask the
silence of the phone that never rings. You shouldn't say I
can't be happy until I've thrown it all away. Or that
nothing will mean more to me than what I had
yesterday. And outside, it's the same old city scene.
People like we might have been, running to get out of
the rain.
Inspired by the Tindersticks, this evening's theme is love songs where a murder also occurs, or potentially occurs:

UNTIL THE MORNING COMES
--Tindersticks

My hands around your throat
if I kill you now, well,
they'll never know.

Wake me up if I'm sleeping,
by the look in your eyes
I know the time's nearly come.

Wake me up 'cause I'm dreaming.
Well, they'll never believe
what's been happening here.
But caught in my mind, there's a way
to get out.

CHORUS:
Wake me up 'cause I'm dreaming.
Well, they'll never believe it.
So hush now, Molly, please don't cry. Everything's
going to be allright.
Hush now, darling, I can hear you screaming.
Let me hold you until the morning comes.

So tell me this is what you want.
You can whisper it softly,
or you can scream it out loud.
'Cause there's still time to change your mind.
Do it now, before tomorrow comes.

CHORUS

The light is fading, but the stars are dancing by.
My mind is racing, like the clouds across the sky.
How did you make me go this far?

***
The chain that my St. Christopher was on just broke. Is it a sign?
She's My Oblivion
Thank god for the new Tindersticks record.
I may as well post a poem. Bait maybe? I guess I just feel like posting this one. A proposition to the world. Any takers? You know where I live...

PRODIGAL
After Oppen

It is said
the coming of a ghost
stands hairs on end,
by way
of oblivion's hollow chill.
Beware then
the ghosts that come
in heat, still
living, their wrists
dark
with blood.

My father
put the savage sea
in me. Still,
I go tending
to wounds,
my mother's
child at last, but
on the curve
of the world
where emotion prickles,
an orphan.

Unhappy in winter.

Unhappy in summer.

Mucus on the calendar
sphere. Strike there--
where the world moves
in my throat.

Let's Talk About the Internet

LET'S TALK ABOUT THE INTERNET

Ok, on the one hand doing this is giving me a slightly sick feeling inside. On the other hand, what else was I going to do this afternoon? Write? HA!

One of the reasons why I've been reluctant to enter this whole morass of blogging is that I've become very concerned recently about the influence this whole blogging phenomenon is having on our little community. The other night at Charlie's Kitchen, somebody made a joke that we would soon all be sitting around a table blogging to wireless-connected laptops and not actually speaking to one another. Now that will never happen, but I do believe that the internet is having some sort of effect on how people interact socially.

I don't know whose concept it is, but in urban planning there's this concept of "soft city" vs. "hard city". The hard city is the physical reality of any given city: it's buildings, roads, etc. The soft city is any given person's experience of the city, e.g., where they work, how they walk to work, the places they frequent, etc. A "city" is lots of soft cities imposed on one unalterable hard city.

I'm thinking that the net and net-related space represent a third kind of city within that framework, let's call it a "ghost city," because it doesn't really exist. Like the soft city, each person's ghost city is unique, we all visit different websites, blogs, etc. And indeed therein is formed a community of sorts. Within this community one finds people from one's own soft city, but also others not within that sphere, people you don't know, from far away, etc. There's a danger to the ghost city that I haven't quite figured out yet.

Within the ghost city, it is possible to find a kind of ghost intimacy, a feeling of connection with others which is real, but also slightly surreal. It's easy to get sucked into chat rooms, etc. and have a feeling of communion with other people, or to read blogs, etc. and get a sense like you are interacting/communicating with a given person. However, like ghosts, the "people" there are insubstantial, you're not talking to X person, you're not visiting X person when you visit their blog. And no, you're not having sex with X person, either... However, it is easy to fall into that ghost intimacy and think that you're connecting...

As the ghost city grows, does the soft city shrink? Anyone?




I'm only doing this to KEEP MYSELF OUT OF TROUBLE... Blame it on Christopher Rizzo
E.g., I'm never drinking again...
Ok, so you all should know that when I say I'm NEVER going to do something...