New York, High 34, Low 25. Currently 23, Sunny, Class War.

Following the "elections," we couldn't wait to put our Dick in Iraq...

My new favorite movie is Aeon Flux. Seriously. I will write something more intelligent about it later, but I found it to be absolutely brilliant and gorgeous. An action movie for PoMo theory wonks. Baudrillard meets Logan's Run. Supplanting the latter as my favorite dystopia. Film critics seem to have universally hated it, if that's not an endorsement...

UNFAIREST WHEEL

Over the dark trellis
hit 7 doves & win
a proboscis somnambulist
in the closedown
palace of fun the sweat-
filled little cars
pause before the monkey
automata scrying
kin crowd the thoroughfare
where wanton palm
the fried eyes suspicious
conversations aboard
the Matterhorn implore
the geek with the blunderbuss
Give a guy a goose-
head and he'll follow you
to the dolor booths, or back
along the lovely paved
avenue She's 18 & time
to get underwritten
I am the holes
in the tickets They all
line up to go
upside-down I saw you
under there with a limp
net

Have been busy with end-of-semester shenanigans. More soon.

In the meantime be sure to check out Sean Cole's new December Project from Boog Literature. Quite possibly the best thing ever to come out of December.

SATURNALIA

That the ghosts who haunt our lives
shan't buckle under the sun     of this earth

in the snow in the high stations above
the boulevard      waking to quicksand

the joiner of this life     a grifter of balsa
roods       picker of locks
      in woolen mitts the chill
unlocks the gusts of his breath

barefoot winter light

reflects the pasty skies
in fisheyed vestments       where the Black
Sun hovers above this world

of fact we love         a ship of oars
& no crew               they crash

into our cabals        the white anchors
        of the falling snow

I have 3 poems up at Unpleasant Event Schedule. Thanks, Dan!

In the spirit of Tony Tost's list (and in solidarity so he doesn't have to take all that sh*t completely alone) I have compiled my own "Poets who I seem to like considerably less than my peers for nebulously defined reasons," and "Poets who I seem to enjoy considerably more than my peers for nebulously defined reasons" lists. Note that this list has to do mainly with "unexpected" tastes. E.g. I like Ashbery, Zukovsky, Spicer, Baudelaire, and others about as much as you would expect, or that I am "supposed" to. So these lists refer to personal preferences which may (or may not) surprise people. I have made the "enjoy considerably more" list longer because I think I like more work than I am ambiguous about. I think the usefulness of a list like this is that it helps to dispel stereotypes. Keep in mind that the focus in the first list is "less than others," and *NOT* "not at all." I use "in English" to refer to poets in translation who I am able to read in the original (e.g. French).

Work I seem to enjoy less than my peers for nebulously defined reasons (with all due respect):

1. David Shapiro (sorry, everyone!)
2. Frank O'Hara (or at least my favorites tend to differ considerably from others')
3. Emily Dickinson
4. Allen Ginsberg
5. W. H. Auden
6. Susan Howe
7. Gary Snyder
8. Han-Shan
9. John Godfrey's prose poems
10. Arthur Rimbaud in English

Work I seem to enjoy more than my peers for nebulously defined reasons:

1. Eleni Sikelianos (one of our greatest poets, as far as I'm concerned)
2. Bruce Andrews
3. Walt Whitman
4. Fanny Howe
5. Annie Finch
6. James Schuyler
7. Dorothy Parker
8. Keith Douglas
9. John Godfrey's verse poems
10. James Thomson
11. Jim Harrison
12. Laura Riding
13. Edmond Jabes in English
14. Li Ch'ing-Chao
15. James Merrill
16. Michael Palmer
17. Basil Bunting
18. Homer (but never those crappy prose translations)

Dance dance dance to the radio

Do yourself a favor and check out Scott Glassman's December podcast over at 30 days.

Extremely busy week filled largely with temping, going right from work to school to home to sleep. Thus not much blogging. Next week should not be so busy so I should be able to say more. In the meantime, check out my essay in Fulcrum 4.