Day 30 At Last

Not that I've been keeping up.

The zig-zag chair by Reitveld. I totally forgot he designed it today. I figure if I post that info, I will remember it from now on.

Here is a list poem, we'll call it #30:

A pair of $105 sunglasses, zippered wallet, Blondie t-shirt,
slice of pizza with the walls opened up and a medium diet coke.

Some puppies and a haircut, a pint of beer, a martini, pork chops
and french fries. Wafer cookies, a Dean Koontz novel,

2 iced teas and some very pricey makeup. 5 "so secure" hair clips,
a round brush, Glade air freshener, double double your enjoyment
Double-Mint gum.

Late Sunday Nite

#22

Never the grey blur,
that cunning trick. Slick
horizons, false and faint,
touch the dope of legends.
Artifice defines
our eyespan; a more
Southern spot clipped the
image and vanished.
Morning made fashionable
such a plastered look.

Remix

The Eater of Meaning made this of my poem; I'm making it my poem.

#21

thieve is thirdly is
thimble is thanking
thermometers onetime
this thrashed
thickets pomp pompadour
thing greekize
thickens greensville
is thanked boric
thankless pompously pompously
is thinkable yellowknife
is thinness greekize
thrusts greer
think is a strangler
a stricter
a thicken

I think it was a law

Blogspot isn't doing too well with the pictures right now.
Here is another trasnslation of the O'Hara. Thanks, again, Nathan.

#19

Get back, not more than the length
of a modernist heap. A table

comes feathered like wooden
veins, joints all foldable

and swishy lines, crossing to
and fro. These average rectangles

embrace me, a burst of shape
is the chase we made. Calm as

a reaction to speech, meeting
wild and rare veneers on every side –

sliced threat wide open. The adage
is a home version of me.

Sanjaya Malakar's Reign Ends

I will post a pic as soon as Blogspot allows it...


I stole Nathan's idea and translated the same Frank O'Hara poem. His are way better, but this is my first one...

#18

A crease subtracted from the plain
sours this art party scene.

Around the bric-a-brac: fallen angles
or the chartreuse fruits among you

press down the present ghost light
leave it to more reverent shoulders.

The holding is this: the grey here
slightest chance of meringue.

Richard McBeef

For the record, Nathan is no monster and Steve - thank you for the toe sympathy.
Today, I feel like Cho Seung-Hui gives poetry a bad name. He's a good example of why I don't like emotion in poetry - it invites the worst kind of emotional folks - the ones who think it's there place to make others experience/suffer from their feelings.
Anyhow, here's a doozy of a poem that I unknowingly dictated to Nathan during a rousing game of the Wheel.


#17

Linguine with
red claw
sauce.
Just claw
sauce.
Red claw
sauce.
Oh – but
red is
purple. How
‘bout that?

Return to the Blog

Blogging got hard. So I quit. Again. I'm just not an obligation person.
Friday night was rough - then I broke my toe. Then I tried to write a poem and Nathan didn't like it. Total devastation. Maybe I'll get back on track...

#16 (because I get to skip the days I don't post)

neon swamp
climb on up
we were here in secret
making the make
out of town
swept away
more reflective
tea paper
the swingline
jetty
that’s the
ticket
sweaty left hook
upholstery of
this alley
this white-out
this soda jerk

Designed to stand the test of time

#12

The more fragrant of these
species outwitted us all.
Snaking around ghost forms,
film on fire
the layer goes more silver.
As if the perfect shot was
from below; clean
cut out the side body.
A simple act of lift taken
straight outta space
as if the perfect shot
swung side to side.
And stopped.

"This" Day

I miss color theory. I need to get back to reading these fantastic lessons by Josef Albers on the subject. Especially when you are trying to discern one slight yellow from another.
Happy b-day, mom.

#11

this is this is
this is that
the one
this thread
this pom pom
this green
this green
is that border
that pom pom
is this yellow
is this grey
three greys
this is a stripe
a stripe
a this

First day with no poems

Sorry. no poems today. I gave up. Today at least. The 10th one broke me. Hope you enjoy the collage...

Can't Trust that Day

Just in case you were wondering what an interior designer does, I got to remake this beautiful Gerrit Rietveld lamp to scale today out of foam core scraps and packing twine. I'm not sure you can call my creation De Stijl.

#9

zip zip slipper
smoke screen culture
lips slipped shut
a more horizontal rift

smack tank zoom
look left impression
go-go rib cage
spread open blast

shape of shade
thing lines the time
take take talk
swear growth right

Posting later and later...

#8

Suspense sounds make for an eerie bull riding session –
he’ll never do a height job again.

Y’all live like pigs, rootin’
around for individual snacks:
cornbread, bricks n’ burgers.
A physical honky tonk.

Sunny yellow fashion crept onto our food
splashed all around the man-sink,
picking up what we put down, married
woman don’t belong to you, Tattoo.

Trailer’s a pretty obvious place to live
in this pickup west.

Grindhouse Day

It was as if the April 6th release date would never come.


#7

How does a hand go so floppy
and cold in this hothouse? Speak
easy spring, a series of clicks.

Stranded along a strange vector. The wrist
remembers everything, telling
the future to a busty blonde/brunette. The lead

fans his golden beef onto the screen, as if
he could contact time. Escape road
is thickly oiled, darting out toward the same
hands: a knitted construction. Listen closely.

Steps swoon, sky heavily seasoned.
Sworn trees tossed tender – a secret lift.

Yes, I spelled "smorgasbord" correctly the 1st time

Yesterday was the kind of snow that gives snow a romantic reputation - for ten minutes late in the afternoon, my humble New York City turned into a cinematic snow globe. Then I got to see the metal hardware that is going to be used to hang Robert DiNiro's curtains - what a weird perspective I'm starting to have. They were very Art Deco.

Here's #6:

This is one of them Holly-wood sets where the world is painted up,
sourcing sky-lips out of time. A certain still.
Chain linked message all swirled up into
a wild world where nothing happens.

Squishy goodness of A-merica sandwich time, the
plastered sensation of a table, a plain setting.
Flattering outlines all let go on
this slab, much like the blue blood in my first DiPalma.

Tremble goes to flotsam.
Flotsam goes to sleep, smorgasbord of the undead.
Heaping mess of Dazzleberry pie. Up to our arms in
canoe berry.

Toughest Post Yet

Writing poetry is a lot like fasting. Days 1-3 are fine. 5 & 6 are unbearable and the rest...we'll see.

Day 5 is for Bob Clark. He was an amazing director who died yesterday with his 22 year old son when a drunk driver in a Yukon hit their vehicle. One of my favorites is Deathdream (thank you, Steve Burhans, for showing it to me) but Clark will be the most remembered for A Christmas Story (which my mom makes us watch every Xmas for 24 hours, with commercials, on TBS). So, none of my art today, but a fantastic still from Deathdream instead. And, of course, the lovely, emotive poem:

5
(for Bob Clark)

Fearsome flesh monster – you are the monkey’s paw of the plot. You are the simple blood junkie with a heart of gold. You are a broken lawn chair, the forgery of speech and this town’s own self-made, fucked-up paramedic. You are a walking soldier hamburger with a miniature U.S. flag toothpick stuck in the center. Foreign policy has kidnapped your blood but you can still feel your wormy astronaut body.

Day 4 and still going strong

I think my kitchen is haunted. Nathan says I'm probably right. The window shattered (but because it has 2 panes, our landlord is ingnoring it), the fridge got really weird and loud, the radiator squeals and shoots out water and there are oh, so many mice coming to eat trash!
But, the poetry continues...



4

Terror finds us underground.
Begs for a classic tongue-lashing.
Light rain or a filtered voice answers –
flood of 20 electronic questions.
The studded gypsum quickly decomposes
and is reborn as fierce torpedo boats.
Pull those supplies close to your heart
and form a real live quiver.
Never stop clawing the eyes of
each neighbor, not until every account
is accounted for.

Poetry day 3

3

Nighttime grid defines this manhunt,
a heavy splatter on the concrete.
How the heavens stir!
Like being licked, little pot roast?
Are you still up, lambchop?
Wrap your hands around this
soft, raw fruit of our wet city.
Stacks of light follow both directions,
unbound, a more expressive
horizon.

NaPoWriMo Day#2

So it's not a collage but it is the crazy sleet storm that I lived through March 16, 2007. In all my 5 snowy years, i have never experienced such unrelenting sleet. Photo: Sleet, by Callalillie.

2

Hanging overhead: negative of
the solar dream we dreamt.
What’s so tentative about the
icy skies and the even icier sequence?
Blast of weather descended today,
Written on all the surfaces:
the structure of sky,
falling open to reach
the room, traces along the rail.
Shuddered internal walls –
cahoots with their weather
which whisper past, line to line.

New month, time for poetry

April is poetry month - a bougie little invention that i will use to fuel my entries to this little blog. Every day i will try to post a new poem paired with one of my collages.

1.

Modern house-planning left a space
for us here. A pixilated magic, four
colors make a ghost a ghost, a chair
a chair. Slight proportion stretched
along an architectural seam: a peep-
hole is revealed and you are already
there. How should a modern house
proceed? Dissarrange ornament
and re-light the drawing room.
A quick fix.