Tuesday, December 30, 2003
"I could really hear their absence, and it kept me awake..."
posted byJack 1:27 PM
Monday, December 29, 2003
My Women
Bodies of work change ways the world
Sleeps, even when it jumps up and down
In fog shoes. (Here's where I lost them.)
Just not me. Clouded yellows take
A gas station giving hunger to like events
Clinging to objects. What to listen for
And the return of painting dance on raisons
Lives (& death) barely cede covering.
Love poems never miss an issue
Like unwashed hair, maybe
Unduly rum-soaked exclaiming
"You'll have my support." What state
Of mind sweats turning disturbance, a do-
Nothing gait, cry of a wave, tall
Bristles and prior wear which old Miami
-- the place has been wiped clean. Only a
Style remains within hand shadows
What lions and lambs rarely mine
In their slangy hypotheticals, haberdashery
And herbal stress. Leafless aerospace is
The transmitter. Collectively, it's set on
The common spy's need, bone just above
Paddle, mars disarmed so it reveres caraway
Liquor and nerves committed to memory.
posted byJack 10:56 AM
Friday, December 26, 2003
TOMORROW NIGHT IN NADA'S KITCHEN
It's not often that poets get to take the stage in Nada Gordon's Kitchen, which is kind of the last bastion of 80s performance art. (Adeena Karasick just performed there--and one of the few times I went there in the last couple of years it was to see Fatimah Tuggar, Emilie Clark, and Mitch Highfill.)
Tomorrow night, however, as part of their Xmas-New Years Transitions series, Nada will present "Goddess of Sufism: An Evening of Modern Soup and Poetry"--essentially a book party/reading for Jack Kimball's Art in America.
Well, but, see: There will be Certain Problems. The first is that Jack is apparently bed-ridden with a new beau. He will not be able to make it. Second, Douglas Rothschild, the star reader from Albany, NY for the evening, did not get his visa. The Brooklyn Embassy in Albany was bombed recently, as you no doubt know, and Douglas hadn't gotten his visa prior to that. Laurie Price, another reader from outside the borough will also be absent: While traveling in Mamaroneck, she was reportedly bitten by a rabid raccoon. (Cyndi Lauper's tune going through my head now: "Raaabid Raccoon, checked into his rooooom, only to biiiite Laurrriiie, Laurrriiie.")
So, Price gets on a bus to Brooklyn, but discovers that the rabies shots are phenomenally expensive in NYC. (Like all of health care here.) So, she gets on another bus to Albany.
If that weren't enough, the cooks with their soups haven't arrived yet. They were supposed to have gone on first. And ... hey! Where's the salt? You won't see salt anywhere. Well, the salt hasn't arrived yet, either--and won't, reportedly, until January.
Despite all of that, Brendan Lorber, Kimberly Lyons, and a couple of people whose names I don't now remember, will run the show anyway. It will be actually an exciting evening, especially when Brendan and Kimberly read from Kimball's "Tory Hole" or, maybe it's "Pilgrim Tail" they'll be pissing on. Brendan, reportedly, will make a point of saying that while the original New English-language version of "Hole" or "Tail" (the original moniker of which escapes me) is a high-point in recent Boston poetry, Kimball's rap English-language version is a masterpiece itself. And, you know what? I usually roll my eyes at statements like that, but the work--Kimball's--is truly brilliant. I lack the critical language to describe it, unfortunately. But, come January, when Art in America finally makes its way into the world, you can judge for yourself.
At the reading look for: Simon Pettet, Pun Sing Lui and Sean Killion, Ange Mlinko (sp?), and dozens of people I don't know--many, though not all, of them speaking New English.
Get out of bed when you can, Jack.
posted byJack 8:43 AM
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
posted byJack 3:54 PM
posted byJack 10:01 AM
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Blogging is no place for Hobbits.
posted byJack 6:41 AM
Monday, December 22, 2003
Murakami Takashi turns right.
posted byJack 3:21 PM
The worst Xmas greeting so far includes, "...we find ourselves grateful for Oxfam, the Boston Food Bank, ACLU..." etc.
posted byJack 2:57 PM
I think a few bloggers are tired of their own formulas.
Improv out.
posted byJack 2:48 PM
Today's topic-picks from the spam folder:
slaver fertile
mandolin ennoble
spade wattle
posted byJack 11:03 AM
Saturday, December 20, 2003
I just hope this woman is coming out for the right reasons. I'm not going to welcome her with open arms. It's too much to accept right now.
posted byJack 8:05 AM
This is more about the future and less about being a secret agent.
posted byJack 6:52 AM
Friday, December 19, 2003
I have some things you need to be worried about.
posted byJack 5:16 PM
Wait just one manilla.
posted byJack 5:15 PM
My father's name was James Strom Thurmond.
posted byJack 5:15 PM
I still haven't heard the downside.
posted byJack 5:14 PM
I have a degree in psychology.
posted byJack 5:14 PM
My arms are tingling.
posted byJack 5:13 PM
Thursday, December 18, 2003
This just in:
Univocal to a vault, driver of not a blog but an INJUN
(internet journal underway now) how would I know,
what's happened to the frequent bloggers.
Analemma
What's happened to blogging?
Why's winter got to have such
a crypt-like bosom
The spike downward in blog posts previews something.
cb radio's & hulahoops, daylight shavings and if you are like me...
What?
Its all ideas and no things, just wait till that chip delaney day in April
you realize its 6 oclock and still light out them words then watch em
burble yonder its as seen on TV, aren't long drives nor incessantly
chatty people don't double space enough!
Although I don't like snow, you have a great show
bye now -- Chris Sullivan
posted byJack 4:44 PM
Yessir, agree with Tim's defense of blogging as "open" and "welcoming" as a medium for writing. The 'shop' metaphor that he disagrees with might better be tagged to editorial control of a given blog. I see nothing wrong with this metaphor as an entry-level description of the proprietary values that can be ascribed to a poet making her ideas available as a limited, come-inside-and-look-around set of offerings. Of course, there's nothing for sale, as such, unless we want to talk about those abstract currencies. (And I don't.)
Meanwhile, what's happened to the frequent bloggers. What's happened to blogging? The spike downward in blog posts previews something. What?
posted byJack 11:35 AM
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
Meet Carl Thayler, Brooks Johnson, Andy Dvorak, and some old pals (KJ, AY) in Dale Smith's "Illinois/Wisconsin Notes."
posted byJack 7:27 AM
Jean Vengua keeps scanning the hippest range of materials. "Various forms of subterfuge," yes.
posted byJack 7:02 AM
BKS has been blogging two days in a row. A note on Brian's readings of Pound from Mike Kelleher, and "For Tulsa," a new poem by Brian channeling O'Hara and quite a few others. Here.
posted byJack 6:55 AM
Tim Yu reports from Stephanie Young's salon on Maggie Zurawski and Mary Burger. Décor, discourse, jaw dropping. Here.
posted byJack 6:27 AM
Monday, December 15, 2003
A Line from Cincinnati Pike
Hi. It's time for this. I repeat this. This in my pet. This and that -- looking for no more metric a slant to government than to settle down and grow a multinational with just my pet and me with ample opportunity to overcome my fears of illegality, and share a donut with someone like you over the mulled cider of the Coromandel, sleeping with the unknown which all together you may think sounds offensive and depraved but I call this bid an offer in the manner of addressing that I'm changing as I am abutting solidity apart.
posted byJack 9:53 AM
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
So this is it. I seized the Queen of snow.
Gondola anyone? Snow
is a cool dresser and still fits in my wallet. Snow
more than rewards working in the arts of snow
Always coming up to us, surrounding us, snowing
because it's hard to imagine atoms, hard to imagine snow
binding, it'll have to do as snow,
this sky with its snow
clouds, also, and that power line to the left, snow
broken free I guess the snow
lined up in the snow
off the highway will do for now.
I guess that crooked tree also is snow.
I guess this highway will have to do the snowing
for both of us, and the cars stuck in the snow
and the people in them, not on their way through the snow.
Snow has always been the dancers and snow
the iconoclast revered as snow
hangs off the end of an SUV snowing
through the street as the snow
weaves around telephone poles snowing,
straying too far as it leaves part of itself in snow
As it prowls around and steals cars. For the hell of snow.
This coconut represents your head. A posse of coconuts, snow's,
and when it says it's done it all, snow
means the roles it plays and the life snow
leads all night in the dark. Snow
loves its character. Snow
collects photographs and tapes, hoping we'll see snow
the first time just to get the plot out of snow.
That thing I just said spent spring and summer in a small room in snow
in the company of a large black Labrador, Snow.
I don't know what dog wash Snow
worked in before coming here, Snow!
Snow, of the party that questions snow,
Queen of the snows,
whose reign began before the snow
grew older than snowing
You sweep up snow
after finding snow's
way here but this sky with its snow
When you make angels from snow
hiding out for two hours snowing
you seem really spacey against the snow.
posted byJack 7:28 AM
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
Snow remains silent. Was it snow?
What is snow?
A bandage, a father? From time to time snow
sees its bodyweight in snow
liters or snow
pounds, snow
clinging to her diet, snow
is said to have said. Forget me not, snow,
you are never in the same room when snow
said she was the hostess, snow
is a good color for you, snow.
Snow meets us at the end snowing
and most of the glasses are dirty snow.
"Last Call" Snow. What's finished is snow
and what survives is snow
canceling the failed snow
as if it had a freshness from night snow
or living could make snow
unaware of death and the guests arriving in snow
and snow not there.
posted byJack 9:55 AM
Monday, December 08, 2003
Two is a magic number for snow
but there are 10 sets of twins now!
And if you think that doesn't keep snows
guessing, ask the snows
that admit they couldn't tell identical snow
twins apart. The snow
duos know the tricks of the snow
twin game. Snows have trouble telling snow
apart. To this day the snow
twins never try to swap roles in the snow
but only because they're afraid they'll be caught. The snow
will rat you out. The ten sets of snow
twins are identical. These snow
twins fly south, brush with death, dropping into a flake of snow.
posted byJack 10:01 AM
Snow predictions and prophecies, a snow
disaster within hours with visions of snow
appearing in 40 cities at the same time, snow
rendering crops inedible but creating new snow
species, giant off-white eels discovered in the snow.
How snow takes the world by storm! Snow
circles the planet like veins of platinum, snow
wiping the oceans, snow
spreading up rivers and streams, as though snow
had wheels that never touch the ground, while new snows
swarm with a casual light projection, as snow
finds a portal to another world where snow
changes the way we talk when snow
accelerates as the climate burns up, hence snow
becoming embroiled in snow
facing a trial by snow
a colossal earthquake of snow
will rock on the brink of some decorative cold front while snow
extends its life span by snowing.
Snows blast coastlines ushering in lower temperatures, as snow
finds the secret of involving deer flying out at you with pitched whistles in snow
to scare them away from the snow.
posted byJack 9:50 AM
Sunday, December 07, 2003
Snow packing new snow
bound and thronged into purple columns of snow,
herded with it, and suddenly forcing exposures within snows
creeping up on it fast, torquing it, loosening snows
gobbling and nettling it to toss the snows
overboard, splitting them so they drown ahead of the snow
already drenched to the waist, snow
stripped down by the alleyway, along with the snows
standing in the middle of people in the brush, snows
submerged in their footfalls, juggernauts of snow
in gold or emerald mud streaks, crawling snow
meanly rolled in it, erupting from icy snows
rejoindering snow, squaring it, chalking it up, snow
hooping, debranding the prelude to sherbet-like snow
dynamically in a thicker 'debauched' snow
an old garden of topiaries whose snow
bipeds pace on, the fresh snow
straddling an entire day snowing, flapping in snow
now into cold slush and melted snow,
clouds connecting to wet flows in the snow
as though jogging beside the guard boats dulled with snow
and snowing.
There is a lot of snow.
A glob of plaza surrounded by serial snows
improved by the whiplash and other impromptu snows
hung over with pink foams in the snow
like capitals of methane and snow
in unobstructed banks so there's a sliver of snow
a mound collapses in, the snow,
all of it, is a void of snow
three parts wind one part snow
dying from wind within it, snow-
white cattle freezing because it's still snow-
ing, clover clusters off snow
and weasels and attack dogs toughing it out, snow
kneeling before the statuary of white cats, snow
bare assed in the hedges, snow
as euphemism for junk dancing and entering, snow
bleached with moxie, snow
tracing the wood deck in a laminate of cum, snow
as court action, snow
attaining a staying power subduing snow
mums finer than blues, snow
pronouncing the e in Switzerland, snow
and snowing.
A virulent infection, snow
scours what it will, snow's
long lace of willow, a trope for snow
nearing its fate of elastic sprigs, snow
of lavender one moment, snow
the next, a notice within snow,
the sight of less snow
to slight a spork up at the rear, throwing snow
in your face, and snowing.
posted byJack 2:02 PM
Saturday, December 06, 2003
Snow gets demoted to the woods' snow
perched on snow, flaying it, unhinging snow
fingers and thumbs in snow
on top of the blue sidewalk snow
with the dark choke marks, a snow
somewhere between the warehouses and snow
attached to flecks of snow
like a hand to lips snowing
in order to show up on snows
and follow the punch after the big snow
plows at the airport hand it to the snows
thinning into less snow that's still snowing.
posted byJack 1:40 PM
For Joan La Barbara
The snow arrives or keeps snowing.
It wobbles. Snow does. It vibrates. Snow
shakes so the snow heads under the snow
trembling, boring through snow
it fell from, pale as snows
assemble inside the snows,
dusting up a gray haze over the snow
or trucks going past such snows.
A soft dampness in snow tears down the snow
and closes it down where the snow
cannot stop as if it's before it's snowing,
snowing and heaving more snow
while it sees a shadow rise slowly over the rain from the snow
but containing a foot or more of snow
over the harbor sleet that snow
'pours' ice across as the snow
rustles into place then quivers and bites the snow
so it loses its edge sitting there muffled, mumbling some snow
thing that can't get out of the snow.
It's surging, but the snow
seems funny looking in the house it grew up in -- snow
in the hall snow in the doorway left open from the snow
drift, stinking like snow, and in the kitchen snow
rummaging through flatware while the snow
boils in the water pouring in snow
a smoky showing it hangs around snow
as if the snow
pulls and levers a motion in the snow
causing it to snow even more.
Snows have been made other snows
have nothing do with. Yet this snow
has been served to others although those snows
have not taken any other snow
apart. All the snow wants to be snow
that gets polished by the snow
in which it's refined. This is how snow
points a finger at snow
aggrandizing it, creasing it with snows
chewing snow, blowing snow with snows
and more snow. Outside, the snow
never lasts, but doesn't disappear all at once, as snows
fall in deeper snows until the snow
doesn't stop stoping looking for more.
Kitsch festers in morasses of snow
whose goal is to abbreviate every snow
which hovers fragrantly, snow
shattering the quartrain in snows.
A bog thus of snow capsizes, disabused of snow,
blending in, no longer exterior to snow,
untrusted and tenured, a snow
snapping into randomness.
posted byJack 7:38 AM
Friday, December 05, 2003
For Robert Wilson
Act 3
And it never goes away
I can see them now
though the loved word is far away
I struck a match and said how
A scene unfolds on the fire escape
Jackson continues to paint while
she convinced her parents to go buy
him two videos and her lipstick
The computer mouse got broken
between the Proust and the cursor (idea)
of a bathing suit in flames with only
a table and chairs in the center.
When the nude balked she held him
sometimes with the back of a muff
inside his head less often
the stick he climbed does the trick.
The nude's job is to empower & press
run on but only with a thrash, 'cause,
he says, the air has otters on its wings
and he hits them with a rag.
posted byJack 6:33 AM
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Act 2
Someday we'll talk again
the sky pressure is diffusing.
But things will never say
they bubble over and way out
When everybody has a pointer.
O I hate cordless phones!
Act 1
And it never goes away
I struck a match and said how
was I supposed to know this
was the first time…
But things will never say
I date everything before I freeze
it so of course I had a good day.
If he told you the time, you'd check
It's inside me too,
your watch. Of course I had a good
day. The patio was perched high,
a young guy known as the ballerina…
He and you are okay
I was drunk in no time.
"Not really," she said,
"I feel like burning myself."
posted byJack 7:29 AM
Monday, December 01, 2003
Pardon me but I would like a word with you.
Food tastes better and I notice flowers. What's
wrong with me? Now may I introduce myself?
What are you reading these days? I love food &
haven't had any for a while. Crunchy leaves under-
foot and wearing your panties, walking through
the park I really meant I want to apologize for
sitting on you. Don't be fooled thinking poetry
has to be heavy. It was something I ate. If the
day comes, this should be read aloud to our girls,
Harold, Joe, Jr., & Francis, Blue Moon, Valazquez,
Angela, some people like poetry. Drink to me
Bouguereau. You seem nice.
posted byJack 1:56 PM
Please forgive me and accept my foolishness.
I love driving in your convertible and holding
you even though I can't concentrate. I'm in a place,
a place I've never been before. Your convertible.
posted byJack 1:22 PM
Let's subscribe to a lot of new magazines
so we'll have something to look forward to.
posted byJack 1:12 PM
It was great being with you.
Or was it just me?
posted byJack 11:23 AM
For the first time my habit is my friend.
It reminds me of yours.
posted byJack 11:17 AM
There's a new bar at the mall
with a great back room. Some of
the guys are going there after
work. Would you like to come?
posted byJack 11:10 AM
I like what you did last time.
You brought a lot of us a lot of joy.
posted byJack 11:07 AM
Any chance you'll humor me
and stitch me up for dinner?
posted byJack 11:04 AM
Pill. As a verb.
posted byJack 8:38 AM
The cicadas are in their rooms.
posted byJack 7:41 AM
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