Friday 30 April 2010

Talk to the head of the ibex

So far in NY: I prefer Brooklyn to Manhattan. Love Highline Park enough that I may have even written a thing about it. Lailey's place is nice, old ceilings, thinking maybe, say, 1930s? Last night we ate out with her friend Johnathan and then met Jordan (the bf) at a bar called Clems, which was playing a compilation of psychedelic musics that were just fine and dandy. Clem's definitely had, above the bar, a stuffed capuybara (sp?) and the head of an Ibex. Real? Your guess is probably better than mine..
With PBR's scenester-ubiquity, Budweiser is once again the cheapest thing on the block. We drank that.

Tuesday 20 April 2010

Still owe money to the money to the money I owe

I'd be pretty happy if my tax return decided to direct deposit sometime soon. Preeeeettttty happy.

Dreams lately: pretty weird.
"Dreams" lately: what?

Saturday 17 April 2010

Better than Rhinos!

Me: So what should I write about?
Wanda: Hippos!
Kamili: Cheese!
Karly: Milking hippos for their cheese!


Milking the Behemoths.
You have to get right in there, right under there.
Wear gloves, a rubber facemask. Pull hard, like
you would on a raincoat stuck in a car door.

Experts-- and there are experts-- recommend
you go at night, dressed as some sort of parasitic bird.
(this works better on rhinosceroses, but still a damn site better
than the crocodile suits we tried first)

It helps to be able to breathe in mud,
to be impervious to crushing weights on your chest,
to think only of the profit in certain parts of New England
or the Pacific Northwest where this will be the hot new thing,
to never, as you're slid between sweating, grunting beasts
think "there has to be a better way."

Sunday 11 April 2010

Nanowripomo (more more more)

(In response to SCB(BHMED)

Ask yourself again, waiting in line for coffee
three minutes late for work
Ask yourself again on the plane ride over
once the buildings disappear
all that are left are clouds
and movies starring
jessica alba and a talking dog.
Ask yourself when Home comes
Sign the date on the rent check
you've not filed, depending on the kindness
of parents, friends, siblings.
Ask yourself when you are too tired
to finish a chapter
of the classic novel
you should have read by now.
Ask yourself when the seven is
rolling like squares and your eyelids are crumbling city halls.
Keep yourself in check when you want to proclaim
the end of bad habits, the ways you like to love, the crash courses
you claim you've completed. Ask yourself again how long it will take
when you cannot stop the chatter wearing down your ears,
when your knees give way on everyday hills that turned downward escalators.

Satans Hands of Hats or
All I Ever Wanted to Know About Macrame Remains a Mystery

It'll burn your hair clean off,
the way they throw the drambuie in this place.
across the room like a frisbee
(if you can dodge a flaming drink, you can dodge a ball)
"I don't know why we come here," she says everytime,
though she's the driver.

We danced when there was the bone-music,
the head-swivel rock.
We billed the waiters for their poor service
and vomited on the still-young
indoor rhodedendrons, but they shook us down
for the last scrags of change
their ever-widening eyes nothing but wheels of rotating flame

we tipped our wigs to the devil in the corner,
who knew he was such a good accordionist?

Holy, Holy, Holy (sing along now)
or I Responded to the Altar Call and All I Got Was this Stifling, Guilt-Inducing Relationship

They have such reverent stances. Fresh blue tennis-shoes on
convention hall carpet. The boys in the worship band used
to be bartenders, espresso machines, hired killers, but now
their freshly-strung guitars and eyes-half-closed toward heaven
beckon you forward, after, they do the conversion strut,
would high-five if it weren't so worldly.

They drink stouts over bible studies, where they bear the weight
of the lost around them with deep sad brown eyes, don't suscribe to
a theology allowing jokes, there is no time for joy not derived
from the sharp curves of their arms on acoustic guitars,
their plate-passing, their entire bodies are the cross, the nails,
you can make them holy

and when they walk with you, you are the bride of christ,
the heat of their hands burns hot into your side, when you
pass other men they draw you tight like lost little lambs,
faces imploring you to ask them about their tears; they quote
St Augustine or Shane Claiborne and have money set aside
for charity once house payments are done.

Tuesday 6 April 2010

Nanowripomo and other notes.

NANOWRIPOMO is a lot like NANOWRIMO but with poems. Like, because April is "national poetry month" writer types are encouraged to try to write a poem a day this april. So far I've only missed one day. This is fine; I'm shooting for "produced or significantly revised a poem on the majority of days in april." It's not a literalist interpetation of the law.

Also: been picking up shifts at the RHH Cafe/Bar during events. This is good. Keeps me in incidentals/coffee/incidentals. Placed my chapbooks in a couple of indie bookstores-- Left Bank and Pilot.
About a week ago did a gig at New Crompton with Deerseekingheadlights, My Printer Broke, 1985 and Cat Band. We broadcast the whole thing live on Chatroullette to a smattering of confused 15 year old girls and a Sea of Penises (band name!) I did brief sets between the bands and everyone was bundles of friendly and it was good to see DSH with Peter and hear 1985 again.
Talks of more such gigs.

Other things have happened, or not happened, but I'm not too concerned. Below you'll find two of the things I wrote for Nanowripomopomopwripomo and the setlist for the above show. Enjoy.

The Bar You Like Will Come Back Into Style
Hours: From two hours before you admit you drink
to three hours after its legal.
86ed: the guy with the silver soul patch who always came in with
those two girls who looked way younger than him, reeking of gin at 3pm.
He had a deep voice and perpetually open wallet; the sort you like in every night
until he mistook a server for one of his ladies, darting hand, cheek-slap, escalation.
Now when the girls show up they are drearily sober,
order one drink before hailing taxis.
Benny, the sports nut. Welcome enough to watch the game, but touchdown
re-enactments cost Old Jim his prosthetic leg.
The frat boys who kept trying to hump the moose head.
Loose Mary.

Todays Lunch Special: A burger. A big burger, with bits of meatgrease smeared on the side of the plate. A big huge salty burger you have to unhinge your jaw to eat. A big huge salty burger you have to unhinge your jaw to eat and a whole fuckoff mountain of fries covered in pigsweat and sitting in the meatgrease smeared to the side of the plate, paintchips and stringlets of the fry-cooks curly beard between the bun and pickles. You will have to order a second drink to finish and by then
happy hour is over.

Weekend Events: Friday: A band. Almost good. No, almost GREAT. Almost phenomenal. They know good jokes to tell between songs, you laugh loud but their friends still shoot you dirty looks when they realize they don’t recognize you.

Saturday: Karaoke, magic tricks, dancing clowns, abyss-staring.

Daily Drink Special:
Gin and Paint thinner. Scraped and melted from the counter. Whisky and motor oil, straight from the moose’s mouth. Ten bucks extra for some rusty nails. You pay extra to sit here, the last shitty bar in a renovated side of town, wondering if today you’ll finally get to start a fight.

Kids Stuff
In the poem I write about Childhood
I stand in a field with adults and prophets,
running out ahead, hugging the wind
face beaming, I am cute and precocious
and wise like a child in the bible.
In the poem I write about Childhood
we are angelfaced, shedding light
innocent and smiling, positively goddamn beatific,
-- I’ve even got the last half of the end line:
“we knew so much. . . then.”

a little more wistful, a little more pure
instead of the grubby little shits we were,
clawing to the top of the slide,
punching eachother out for bits of snickers.


setlist for 3/28
Rucksacks
Ryan Johnson Asks Me Why Chris Gusta Got a Vasectomy
Little Red Corvette
When Saying Mean Things About Strangers
Cavities
_________
Rules For Riding the King County Metro
_________
Explorer
Pack Mentality and Your Tenderloins



then there was lots of noise and trumpet-raping.