The moon is a shut eye. Abraham Harvey, 16 January 2012 (extemporaneous, as dictated to his father)

for Riv My friend, I cannot watch you, miles away, intubated, awash with medicine, cordoned amid a hush of mechanical saviors. I cannot sing with you, your unabashed heart brimming with life in dark nights of karaoke and root beer. I would rather have offered parts of my body, to keep you encompassed among us. [...]

Lord, we cannot lift up our hearts today. The hot breath of chaos draws tears from our eyes. We crouch in silent playgrounds trembling as little ghosts tumble by in wakes of leaves. We stare hollow-eyed as we enumerate the paths of could have lead to anywhere but here. We press against the door, hide [...]

In this time of trial I ask not for the emptied skull of my enemy, your intercession in flame and retribution, the cessation of bloody palms, or a salve for all the skin-stripped and salted breathless held souls of America. I do not ask for the return of a Savior whose death for our sins [...]

there are many holes too wide and deep to be filled by eyes they are stepped around gingerly of heels placed with pains taking care a blind dance of fissured eyes averted of shaking hands circumscribing the void piecemeal at this pit of botched communique silent static and dead children no one looks up while [...]

Three named clothespins play daily hopscotch on three sheets of construction paper. The dog is on red. We caught her on the couch. My son (on green) is the arbiter of her color and mine. I choose his, but he moves the pins. I should probably be on yellow every day. I’m lucky he’s in [...]

It derived from the blown and cratered gristle of Sinai, oral lore codified by relentless centuries of infant skin scraps, torn hair, and bloody stones yet, now, once, we upon a time saw a singular sheep, fresh sheared, in-penned, dulled by childish pats, ever beshepherded. once seen, but not since. and, told we are sheep [...]

I’ll see your vegan feminist organic fair trade vertically farmed locally sourced free range kale and raise you one nuke a godless communist gay baby seal for Christ. Whether driven in frenetic asceticism or buzzed in actinic economics everybody seems pissed off in these days of judgment. There are two kinds of triggers. You’ve been [...]

even if a tremble of portents are assuaged by the dark children of future decades even if we dodge probability with some nimble mathematics barely apprehended even if our final balance of dawdling fills no more than a thimble even if we are forgiven I say: if combatant claims divide our attempts to hold close [...]

Everywhere I go there are rules – different ones for my homes and my school. My mom tells me yes and my dad tells me no – I’m either going too fast or going too slow. I shouldn’t throw toys – unless it’s a ball I’m outside – and it’s summer – or fall. I [...]

We tend to things apparent to us. Sit and look or stand and look and shape a rabbit out of cloud, a wolf out of lurking shadow, whispers in the leaves. Bring me a cup of water and a cup of wine and I shall drink both, mixing chaos out of order in my brown [...]

All the ungainly bits of your body passed over for the bole of your ear, the pulse at the back of your jaw, the rolling round And I’ve done it again, ignored the pointed joints that swing your arms around me, the tendons pulling your fingers down my back, palms forgotten by wrist proximity, your [...]

To describe silence with sound is an irony profound: words are filaments. Better: with emptied chest, closed mouth. Head and hands cupped – night branches for lambent birds to rest upon. Almost all my poems have jokes in them. There are two here: both are the obvious rhyme in the first stanza, a sort of [...]

I stood in a puddle, copper wire twined round my fist, vined down my arm, and sought to conjure some false spirit with a jar of fireflies, an old key, a wisp of your hair. and when the bolt shot I felt nothing but ensconced in deaf air, unsinged, a permutation of static yet, overhead [...]

The light turned green a white cane appeared in my periphery I slammed my foot and the blind man backed to the curb. Did he sense some subtle shift of engine sound an altered emission taste on the tongue? I drive wary at dark and I’m wrong when I say lights blind me, my sight [...]

My beast fears me as we fear the Lord. Its only sins inherent, strewn across my days in hair and den scent. I do not care for this, but I care that it trembles when I come to it; howls when I walk away. It roams my home, avoiding me. It hackles at any approach [...]

rustled, prone in to cacophony, O knave of swords gagged by sharp iron down gullet you cannot shout around your nature there must first be time for dehiscence despite the all around voices dinning to oblivion like trees pilloried by the wind. Tilt of chin back, mouth spat tongue, two fingers reach in for a [...]

despite the heat advisory, I brought my son to swim. ninety-four degrees on July 4th and Cleveland has been grilling ribs since 9AM and bottle rocket blasting since June 15th. My son runs off – but Antonio, thumbprinted mark of Cain beshouldered, ever-belligerent, redmopped stutterer with metal-backed teeth – comes to spit self-conscious impudence. He may [...]

Today I’ve given up attempting to read at poetry open mics. I attended the quarterly open mic held at the Cleveland Public Library and thought it was going to be great, no familiar faces, lots of first timers – hesitant, unpolished, earnest. Thus, I tweeted. At the @cleveland_pl for a #poetry #openmic. I recognize no one. [...]

the clouds are whitest at night as I pretend cricket rasps change their shape. My illicit cigar, a scent of bourbon in my empty glass, dog’s fur under hand, a filament for numb fingers fumbling while cicadas sing.

Today I wrote my 50th poem in my Poetry 4 Free project. It’s been great fun so far; despite the heavy mocking from my coworkers and the obvious & unspoken doubtfulness from certain folks I know, it has fulfilled, at least in part, all of the goals I had in mind when I started this [...]

Sunday morning: brake lights flash, hold, then flicker, cars flank, accelerate down Scranton Avenue around a wet ball of lint, twitching in a puddled gutter, erratically jerk in grey and white, wet by the curb. I pull over, and get to the kitten just before the children. “Stay away!” I say. “You don’t want to [...]

a lateral bone knobbled ends akimbo space enough for dog’s mouth split or shatter a tenon pulled hunger constructor bearer pushed weight shudder a dragged last audacity forms aldehydes of sweat flaring to nosedove a burst spread eye absorbed from the girded light ray a new last push begun mythic stickened daughters apply arithmetic each [...]

Music creates order out of chaos: for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous. – Yehudi Menuhin we writhe with words a space within each letter, between each word a kern to our ken, an inpouring an imploding, our voices warp and weft [...]

bright sun and lace shadows the bird bones of your back we trace delicate tracks on a table top a drop of wine sucked from your finger as you speak in tongues for me later, i will want to press your shoulders against those rough stone pillars to swell together a bite under your jawline a [...]

This summer, at the very least, I’ll be erratically planting myself in various semi-populated places around Cleveland where there is foot traffic with a sign that says “Poetry 4 FREE” and a typewriter. I’m hoping that folks will stop and ask me for a poem. They give me the subject and I write it for [...]

You have a dream that you’re running and the harder you run, the slower you move. Or you are ever colder, each moment you feel is the limit but then you are colder still. Or hot: The bead of water rolls down the rock face, a wet trail on sun-burned stria that never quite reaches [...]

I You were born with a nest full of eggs in your chest laid by some alien queen mother at the dawn of time for that right resonant frequency and when her daughter speaks it an egg will wobble, microwave words heat it to hatching and a phoenix! and my chest is full of hot [...]

there is an electrical gremlin in my car I turn the key and a cough laugh gasps dials wild clock resets stranded in mid-Ohio my son asks “are we there yet?” I tell him “sometimes it’s okay to be lost.” (9 line poem written in 9 minutes at SPIT open mic)

of hands pausing hovering above] the tips of fingers the arch and whorl pad callus capillarian beating] the encompassing round palms hoarding of sound] of wooden boards planed for resonance, wires taut and twisted too wound about to quiver] the ordered rank of keys as yet unplayed] every knuckle angle precise] an ex] halation

What happens when you take apart a radio? You get pieces of a radio and no music. Me He found it half-buried in the sand. It looked like an old argument. It still glowed green when he plugged it in and for a moment all was well. But its static ate at talk like ocean [...]

The rain threw itself upon the white cotton tents and rolled off, drops heaved in soil to a rich mud smothering woodsmoke from the fires of men in full wool. Up since 6am reveille, both blue and grey drilled in mist and drizzle. The dirt track became a mud river, whether horse dung or peach [...]

Topic provided by Miles Budimir was: “2nd law of thermodynamics (entropy, etc…)” Writing time: 47 minutes. Discarded ideas: empiricism/mysticism, using wryneck form Kept ideas: catalog, light tone with serious topic I shall fall off a cliff and die and like a blind dog falling off the same cliff, my son will die, and his son; [...]

It is neither the flag that moves, nor the wind that moves. It is your mind that moves. Zen Koan she is drunk as the moon shining above her arms bracket face she is wayward with some beat some hit forgotten forgot to pull up and pull down her too small tube dress breast ass [...]

[I]f it concerns anything not in our control, be prepared to say that it is nothing to you. – Epictetus, The Enchiridion as translated by Elizabeth Carter O, yes I saw how you said what you said to him. That flirt to fuck and sweet hip shook once. I gave a glower. Tense mute brow [...]

On the first day we’re free to be together, on a beach that won’t be sand anytime soon, I’m sifting weathered bits of glass from the scree. A shadow beside me, you pick at pebbles. We hunker over everything together. A BLAST from the last lift bridge presses air around each leaf on Whiskey Island. [...]

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or, being [...]

Yesterday he was given a mound of slow-release tranquilizers, grease-drizzled. Today, still stupefied, he will be made to prognosticate. Not that it matters; his shadow or lack of shadow; six weeks of winter either way. All the rodent knows is that it is too damn early and too damn cold to get the hell up.

Haven’t done any creative writing in a long while. Years, in fact. First, I ran out of gas and inspiration from being too immersed in the poetry scene, and then, life intervened. I stopped writing poetry regularly in June of 2007 (By Brakhage), only two poems since then (Tide Line, This Dominion), both over two [...]

I evict. The most I must kill is a mouse. A rat. Just a tray of clear glue. And then squealing. It is said: dirt is matter out of place. How long did it wait, unknowing, for me? Unable to free its paws. I need pliers to clean it. Reset it. It squealed. It took [...]

13 weeks after tears and trepidation, it happens quickly. You wrought to sound; she the seashell woman you hide inside. The day you first spoke to me; I put my ear to our blood ontology. like first steps, like the sea.

Hollowed, the body upon a table; no verbs for the inanimate, a cicada shell. And men in long coats have removed them; peeled flesh – skull over face – sawn through bone cracking walnuts for the meat inside; each soft and hidden part apprised; the inside of your breast, the open boat of your body [...]

For Cleveland So that others need not follow my example. So that we may no longer be called Job’s children. So the spoor of our smokestack heart can be impaled by its steeple surrounds. So there shall be a reckoning. So what buoys is more than memories from a generous pour. So sinister becomes dexter. [...]

I’d completely forgotten that April is National Poetry Month. Usually I throw a contest and try to write a poem a day, but I’ve been so damn busy lately that it completely slipped my mind. I would offer a poem by way of apology, but I’ve got to get going to a meeting. Woops.

a wryneck for ronv and James Agee When our best effort grips no pen, last-falling ink illegible; When deconstructed grins edge tooth and bone; When graves or ash scatter truth; When the day drone mutes; the night downs around; When the fluted thrust of grass or hands evade autopsy; When: forget roses; When the breath [...]

a wryneck for Wascovich If we were rust brothers before the rain and salt   Before there were no scarcities of tanks to tread Before the slow toe    warehouse of sound was a real knife in my head   Before the shine of steel nativity Before we trussed the tracks for holocaust   Before sanctity forest murder black-coat cacophony If we [...]

Probably my favorite thing about Rafeeq is that he tells his truth and damn you if you can’t handle it. The other night at his reading at the Lit he told us that unless we write from personal experience and belief our stuff is going to continue sucking. I’ve been really struggling with writing lately, [...]

I signed up for a membership at the gym two blocks from my workplace yesterday and got up at 5:30am this morning and rode the 23 in for my first workout. I feel like I’m in the worst shape of my life, and I likely am, so I made sure to take it easy. There [...]

     At first, a hip sway a bough bending in the wind reiteration. Fishmarket lovers wrapped in classifieds fingernail collarbone leg slide naked, up past our bedtimes. Our laughter has sticky fingers and a sudden sunrise. When I look at her I feel like a man. That old crutch called objectify. Still,      when she talks I [...]

I liberated this idea and made little books of my shorter poems. I didn’t want to invest too much time into it, and since I’ve been going through another Eric Gill phase I thought to make it a limited edition. It is a limited edition of 25 +1 and I’m going to sell them at [...]

The city is tired and the people are watching                             tired of watching the city’s collision           bend sinister, with the same sorrow and the same song and the same              sometimes. We, the city,               harrowed, the valiant             hence. Kookaburras             watch and     laugh and     wonder why nothing             happens. Why time is laconic;                      abrupt. Performance note: Wear “who the [...]

Since I know a bunch of people who do Meet The Bloggers they asked me to come to their silent auction and read some poetry along with 10 other folks. The space was in the amazing Tower Press building, which also houses Artefino. The first floor artist spaces are reduced rent [$625/mo], but for the [...]

Because I don’t watch TV, all women [except skinny ones] become more interesting. People ask: “How do you keep up with the news?” and I say “She could use another 10 pounds.” At the creek I found the older boys’ stash of beer. Cans sailed over rocks like drunken philosophers, beards floating on the water. [...]

Take my advice; tell a story. Two men set across a valley, have many adventures and return home safely. If you still have loose jaws after— that is the moral there remains a cauldron inside you—your speaking grew less or more than you wanted as I grew less or more or differently than she wanted. [...]

Hate breeds Hate. I write         catch! on  a shell  and             throwit         at         theFuture. pass  it  on play Death      Tele      phone the only game        where last picked is             best.

I went to a cabin in back-country Pennsylvania this weekend to read poetry. 4 Tremont folks [Kate Sopko, Nick Traenkner, Steve Goldberg and me] made the trek out to a cabin in Rockland to stay up all night and share our stuff with other writers. The guilt-by-associations were all through Kent State connections and smatterings [...]

children stone window haring       off. ———- v2.0 children stone window haring       off. laughter time is laconic       abrupt. we ex/ins/ res/pers -ist in       singularity    .

-for Nick Traenkner There is alcohol in me tonight, alcohol and yes I have breathed in smoke and breathed it back out out to you surrounded by words unctuous, bombastic, evangelical. Dress me in horse hair, the hair what was once a horse and a belt of leather from what was once a cow so [...]

          -for Eric Alleman He works at the Record Exchange.   I didn’t know this until I saw him there. I knew him despite his lost play-off beard.   He did not know me.    He was not friendly, this man of intent gesture. His voice:    a thumb    holding your face    to the wall. Outside         you hear something    howling. I’m writing [...]

I am going            outside and there is              nothing you can do about                  it.

racecar  rraceca    acecarr  racecar    cecarra  acecarr     weres ecarrac  cecarra     awari carrace  ecarrac     rends arracec  carrace    rraceca  arracec    Writing something where every vertical and horizontal is a word is much harder than I thought.

flckr shdw ftprnt thndr rmbl trnchct wckr rstv bmbl b wnch thrt cght cgh mth rhthm pm slp drk ngl wth grs fr wngs Do me a favor, buy some vowels, fill ‘em in above and tell me what you think it says. Y’r m gn pg.

I have always been better at tactics than strategy and I’m not trying a new tactic at poem writing. Instead of putting it down fastlike, I’m working on it micro-sized for the mini-times a milli-muse comes stalking. Writing by attrition.

Martin Luther King has got better things to do than put his hearse here.

You are pretty with birds on your arms. One day I will startle them and they will carry you into the sky to see the heart laid out below and feel my smile in your hair. v.2 You are pretty with birds on your arms. One day — startled into the sky — A heart [...]

At Sterling Pond the reeds are old women whispering; the redwinged blackbird a priest with a martyr’s stole. It will not cease to preach nor the wind kill its wild sermon. This is where you were beautiful all those years ago, when we walked along the shore listening to small waves and tree frogs, hand-in-hand. [...]

My first key had no keyhole but I felt grown up anyway. I had responsibility now, and secrets though even I did not know what lay behind its lock. I would play with my parent’s keys and ask them to tell me stories about each, this one opens the door to work, where things I [...]

     for Megan I don’t trust the postman. My letters arrive in a certain order on certain days where the shadows of limbs cross on the mailbox like a lock. I never hear him arrive; I try to watch for him but always something makes me look away—Nicodemus wanting water, flickering leaves, a strange noise from [...]

He saddled his Sopwith Camel and went on a milk run for some cheese.        snap trap! No more Ace in his hole.

Billy the Bully, a school-yard terror, likes lunch money shakedowns and pulling girls’ hair. He’s mean and mad and rude and big. Even the teachers think he’s a pig. But I’m his friend.

Sisyphus and Tantalus are arm-wrestling on their coffee break. One has cracked and dusty fingers hard as rolled stone. One has algae in his hair and lips like the Gobi. Sisyphus is stronger, but Tantalus talks good fish- tongued trash. They’ve got a bet. Each wants what the other has, but break time is over. [...]

When the siege and assault had ceased at Troy, Aeneas paid me a visit. I offered him some plantains and he told me “vegetables are what food eats.” He strode around my wattle and daub, grimacing. Pulled on white gloves as if it were inspection day, my billet a master work of jackleg engineering. He [...]

Every  ime I wri e  his  ll of  he  s,  s, and  s dis ppe r. I  hi k  here mus  be       e  er hidi g be ween  he li es.

A great cloud of smoke hanged over town. The color of my mother’s lungs, orange-dawned sky, white birds ravelled like thread. The Goodyear clock hadn’t been lit in months and even then it only flashed the wrong time.

Okay, so Tom Waits, Roberto Begnini and John Lurie are in a jail in Lousiana and they’ve got one cigarette left. The concrete walls sweat with humidity and the mattresses stink like stale sweat and dry urine. These guys have one cigarette and a pack of cards. Begnini don’t play gin and Lurie won’t play [...]

oh, [it is like leaping once from a mountain, then kneeling at the earth's core; with wind still whistling past your ears] yes.

I have cut them three times and they are still too short. I will force it. Save me a dollar my matreshki, work bigger in smaller. When I steal your sheep, thank me for doing it. Say: “Verily! Ye corporate gods.”

jet fuel does not burn at first; there must be that first spark there must always have been a first spark, like when we greeted each other our hellos collided and there was a flash but no clap of thunder           though there should have been and the sound of trumpets or at least something more [...]

The entryway always smelled like something rotten in late summer. We didn’t have time to do more than wrinkle our noses, Billy and me, those double-glass doors with the wire inside were just part of the distance between mom’s apartment and the street outside, like the torn and curled rubber on the stairwell like the [...]

¿ is a naked lightbulb always a good idea – When she walks her hips curl like smoke and back room deals – old now bent like a question mark – she bends from ? to ! in his arms then . – imperative? imperative. imperative! – What you say? Just a little experimenting?

there is a caul of dust on the stairs where, past his bedtime, he used to watch freedom through banister rungs the feet on handmedown pajamas too large; sleeves too short.          he still wonders what they meant                by “you’ll grow into it.” If you can’t tell already, this is speed poetry week. I’m spending [...]

When the bell rings he comes from all angles, short water drop jabs to face and shoulders; feet cat-confident sly-eyed with years of training. later, a single uppercut undercut slips by and while he takes it standing, the judges declare defeat by decision. This one goes out to anyone who has ever worked extremely hard [...]

rail spli tter tall like pine thin like reed lick  any  man that will  wet  his horns. you’ll talk’em down first if you can or if you cain’t you’ll put fire on the mountain and in our bellies teach us to speak lead lead us to speak of your speaking as of prophets and martyrs [...]

heartbeat hear  eart h      beat      be he r  ear   art      bea    r    t he hea t I woke up in the dead of night, and for once it was completely silent. No changes in air pressure from the furnace causing the ductwork to flex, no rattle of my upstairs neighbor’s furnace, no truck rumbles from 490 or creaks [...]

     - thanks to Joseph Campbell “Through me; the way to the woeful city;”1 a hero with a thousand faces;2 a story you always wanted to hear. We continue though we know we continue ending. A desolation of hope. That is the story. and I say: This must be a prophetic life- Why else cry to [...]

we wrote love poems before pomo. now, all must          represent,          symbolize. not just           your body under mine its             t            w             ist; but also,            a hand;           under the     table.

A run across Carnegie Bridge, I see for miles. The north rock towers, Lake Erie distance. Underfoot swans tack the Cuyahoga snow crust. Art deco, overhead eyes swaddling Cleveland, steel carved in stone on steel under stone. Traffic is light. There is silence even in my stride. The pace a great muffler: my girl, her [...]

     -for r.a.washington These are- granite days, they demand- hard men, fortifications of strange shapes watchwords- must blend in We split the rift wider- brother gives grift- but my words are foreign currency in his hands. The songbirds The long words spill into our ears- “from whence came ye, wanderer? to loiter in the eaves of [...]

Bachelorhood: I have four different kinds of mustard in my fridge but no mayo.

Today is for you; for today is you; euphoria is to dance more enhance your glory; ignite incite rewrite history; trust mystery; reform horror storys and remind all to recall today; for today is you if you are for today. Doggerel helps dust out the bats in the belfry.

In which Adam writes yet another poem about fishing.

In which Adam writes a poem that is an experiment in form, and which ultimately fails, in his mind.

You beat me again          and again I run and again I return to the familiar comfort of terror and the bruises you leave      and I leave      on you      on me. [no this is not about my life, for] we jump not toward the sky but away from the earth; a moment of tearing, a primitive [...]

A poetry night recap.

In which another entry is made into the annals by our hero concerning poetry, pot and deliberate word abuse.

In which Adam shares a present difficulty with writing a poem.

In which Adam writes a poem about the car accident he saw this morning.

“Truth is that monster in the closet that, when your parents turn on the light and open the door to reassure you, eats them.“

An experimental meditation poem about something I know nothing about.

A poem.

In which Adam writes a poem about growing up.

In which, in a pique of boredom, the author tells a story with maybe only one grain of truth in it.

In which the reader will read about a poetry reading.

In which Adam writes a poem about living in Cleveland.

In which the author writes a poem about an excess of relativity.

Charles “Choo Choo” Justice built Ohio’s only electric chair at the turn of the last century, a bright machine of seasoned hickory, stiff leather and the gunmetal smell of fear. Unlucky thirteen years later he was executed in the same chair. Here lies Chuck Justice, killed by irony. The best way to perform a humane [...]

 These days, people complain about “gas prices” and “poli tics” and how nothing makes they veins pump with flames except  ”reality  television.”  That makes me  so mad. I want to shakem  like bad rat tles, dammit. I want to plug they noses with  Duracells to light that bulb   in they head.  Folks want others to [...]

we all say things we don’t mean   to mean until they are   said. the clouds over the switchgrass  swear they are just passin’ thru. today they are the only orators in Oz. Our words dissolved like a dusty  jackrabbit— too proud to lie in the rain.

they say you are always an alcoholic always addicted to nicotine that after you cease smoking desist drinking each day starts from scratch and when you see someone else drinking or smoking or doing those things they do when they need a drink or smoke you get that itch in your gut or lips and [...]

A sunflower is grown tall between the path stones. A month ago I paid it no mind. Now it sheds pollen in my hair. Come here, chuckling bees.

Here I am,   again Orion. Orion again I   am here.   Here Orion again am I. Empty field witness   dark under night sky   small watchings   small noise silent.  Hail al-Jabbār! chronic-combatant star-clouded   rigid Rigel taut cudgel, hoof, rudius. Orvandil, Osiris   all name none; famous heaven-belted, celestial celebrity…   [...]

there are four men inside of me and they are always at war. the boys drink their whisky and plug big round red holes of hate in each other. when they get low on ammo they patch each other up, pass around the bottle and take potshots at passerby. after awhile they make enough to [...]

At 5am the gulls outside my cabin sound like an army of clown noses. [previous title: Canadian Alarm Clock]

I dreamed I was a butterfly buffeted about my meadow with tired wings and memories of leaf-eating before wrapping myself in silk to sleep. I awoke as Chang-Tzu under silk sheets and ready for breakfast on my windriven mountain. but wait. Am I Chang-Tzu dreaming I am a butterfly or am I a butterfly dreaming [...]

three kestrels are towing the sun about the wide smile sky magisterially as it were their insistent incessant incandescence that made it atomic in the first place Horus’ houris herding old sol— who is always still grouchy like a watery-eyed man telling kids off his lawn aiming for evening not evening.

This was inspired by a comment by Jef, elsewhere. Workshop away, o my brothers.

The 4th Annual Organic Mechanic Poetry Contest is over. The results are in and Everybody Wins a Mix CD. I received so few entries this year that I decided everyone wins. There is still Mega-Jumbo-Super-Happy-Joy-Sauerkraut Grand Prize winner but all the other entries are now ROFLMAO-Indigo-Kielbasa-Opium-Heavenly-N-People-Tied-For-First-Runner-Up First Runners Up. Details past the hippityhopotamus.

First you’ve got the prime the engine, one, two, three—and if you’ve got the right idea, and pull that cord so hard your shoulder jolts, you’ll get its attention. That blade’ll turn and growl. It is best to mow the lawn in a rectangular spiral, four corners sharking in on that last king dandelion. Circumscribe [...]

This may not turn into a poem, it mayn’t even turn into song lyrics. It might just be a writing exercise, but I’m gonna beat that metaphor! If you can think of something in this vein that I missed, feel free to add it. I think this sort of reminds me of Short Skirt, Long [...]

This is a reminder that my Poetry Contest is over on April 30th. So get writing people!

This one took a bit longer than a half hour, but I wanted to finish it. Still needs workshopped/reviewed/edited.

This poem is pretty bad, but my half hour is up. Oh well.

Yesterday I became enthralled with James Tate’s poetry. Thanks go out to this MeFi post. I’ve got to get my mitts on a book of his stuff and then maybe he’ll grab a spot next to E.E. Cummings and Richard Brautigan. Here is a poem of his.

Four pigs and a goat went a-hunting dressed in white ribbons and bunting the pigs were all dead from hooves to the head for the goat got tired of their grunting.

By request from Wait in the Lobby.

Early morning, early Spring, in the wet woods, crunching sticks. Searching for a mushroom ring to fill our buckets. Hunching under a cobweb lanyard, the first line of a spider doily, dripping, unmarred. Steaming earth and wild onion, mud and prickle-thistle scents and our difference of opinion- last evening’s rents- mending as we make our [...]

A milk maid and farm boy went dancing, the stars in the sky did their prancing, nine months later that maid, gave birth to a babe; there is more to this tale than romancing.

via Scrumbling.

I locked myself out of my apartment last night for several hours and then had an night filled with wakings and half-sleepings and noises that made me think the neighbors were getting raided and standard 3am dry-throat-get-a-drink activity that wasn’t standard because someone was quietly arguing with someone else about leaving someplace. Some of that [...]

Peppermint told me to write a poem about a sandwich. I think this one should be made into a much longer poem, but that’ll have to wait till I have more thyme.

I’ve got to post an excerpt from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, since I like it so much. I can’t find an online excerpt of J.R.R. Tolkien’s translation [my favorite, duh] so this inferior version must do. Middle English version here. Groovy painting here.

Two poems in 45 minutes today. Boo. Haunted House the wind charges down-alley kicking newsprint an[d]other penumbra bric[a]brac over the gate through a cleft chin and past gabled cheeks. the old empty house buckles [down] as first rain drops plaster yesterday’s headline: [unreadable] to a shu[td]er a drop of red drips around the edge where [...]

All of these are from The Last Night of the Earth Poems by Charles Bukowski.

This week I’ll post poems by other folks as well as some from myself time and again, along with other normal stuff maybe if I feel like it. Today’s poem is by James Agee and comes from the excellent book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. My manifesto also comes from that book: “Isn’t every [...]

I wrote this poem a month or two ago, and since I don’t want to sit and write at my computer on a day as pretty as this I’ll post it.

I wrote this about four years ago, but it still seems a bit applicable now. Especially today. Here is another go ’round it. I’m only allowed thirty minutes, remember.

I shall post random haiku/senryuu here as they come to me. Friday is a day for relaxing. Feel free to do the same.

I busted out my saxophone last night and played it for awhile. Since my guitar skill has plateaued for the time being, I thought tossing another instrument into the mix might increase my skill-to-hours-practiced ratio. Since I have a tape deck now, I can listen to my blues method tapes that I’ve had for so [...]

I hate motherfucking, here jump-through-this hoop, and this hoop, and this hoop, fill it out in triplicate with a virgin witness and then so sorry we’re closed come back when it isn’t The Feast of St. Bureaucrat, cock-blocking red tape. So here is a not good poem.

It is National Poetry month, stimpy. So I’m gonna crap out poems from time to time in lieu of writing other crap instead. I make no claims on the quality of anything that appears, since I’m going to give myself no more than a half hour on each. Workshop ‘em if you want; rewrite ‘em [...]

I’m going to learn myself some poetry and poetics this month, it being National Poetry Month and all… I’m going to inflict upon you my learnings and the path I tread along the way. I came across this great haiku link awhile back, and have been browsing it ever since. Most of the content is [...]

It is that time of year again. I find it hard to believe that this is the 4th year that I’ve had a writing contest. The first three years were haiku contests, this year I’m broadening it in form and being a bit more specific in regard to content. I hope you like the prize. [...]

Flint on steel today from a random babble on making a eunuch out of Vin Diesel. A fellow friend fellow teaches an English course to college frosh, they’re doing poetry and now think everything is a symbol. I’ve been there.

The 4th Annual Organic Mechanic Haiku contest is approaching. I’m trying to decide whether or not I should keep it strictly haiku, change it to a dirty limerick contest, or make it a poetry contest proper. What would you like?

Any brother can dream. Ego fraternity grates his id. “Just kidding!”, laughed my niece, opening presents. Quietly reading, sister turned up very well. Xeroxed years zip.

Achilles became calm. Defeating efforts from great heroes is just killer. Leaning momentarily near occidental pornstars, quite relaxed, supine—terrible undulations volleyed within xeric Yiddish zealots.

At the end of another long and apparently fruitless day doing what he did in the fleshpots, the last thing Andro wanted was another maintenance call. But it came anyway, a flashing light glaring into his eyes and a noisome chirrup nesting in his ears. “BLING BLING BLING!” “Fuck.” He put down his burrito, shot [...]

BFD posted a notice for The Daniel Thompson Poet Stone Fund benefit that is happening on February 12, in Little Italy. Here are some of his poems and some other press. The event is free, billed as “an evening of poetry, polemics, and performance,” and the rest of the details are past the jump. I’ll [...]

I uploaded all of my poetry last night. Verbal Impotence no longer exists, I’ve just got them shoved into a subcategory on the main site. I don’t like any of my poems. Some are just blobs of words, some are too mental, some just plain suck. Still, they need wrenched from me every now and [...]

There was once a clown who worked at a circus factory that made clown parts. This clown was a quality tester at the factory.

It happened that three men died at the same time. Since this occurred in such a synchronized manner, they decided to travel together to the realm of the dead.

In my dream of an anti-gravity rocketship lived the Scarebear. It was crashlanding on Earth because it was out of solid fuel and its pile drive[r] was fidgety. It was good, [I suppose] that it flopped crunchingly right into the assembly bay of Amalgamator.

One of my coworkers is a poet. Last week we assigned each other an assignment: to write a poem to be workshopped by the assigner on Monday. My assignment was to “write a muscular poem about masculinity.”

I can’t seem to write stuff any longer. Ideas are few and far between and when they do appear, attempting to make something come of them is always abortive. There are many possibilities that could be causing this. I’ve thought of a few.

I once knew someone in college who used the jokers from decks of playing cards when he left notes for people. Unfortunately, he was the most boring person I have ever met. I thought the joker was the only creative idea he ever had.

Dear, Everything is going to be alright. I finally understand. Yesterday I had an epiphany and reached enlightenment of a sort. I know you are madly in love with me; and that is okay. I’m writing this to tell you that being totally consumed by the fires of your ardor is a good thing. You [...]

Once upon a time, in a galaxy, far, far away, there lived a small and determined band of heroes who fought evil for reasons concerning Truth, Justice and the American Way. Since Truth and Justice are, at best, subjective terms whose definitions change depending on who has power and since no one who they fought [...]

Here are the winners, the placers, the showers and the rest of the magnificent few who were privileged to enter the 2004 Organic Mechanic haiku contest. All entries are the copyright of the authors, they just happen to be here.

The Haiku contest ends tomorrow. This is your last chance to submit entries. Some of you have only submitted one haiku so you can submit one more. Others [B?rd, Phil, epm] have not submitted anything. You, I think, are commies. So click on the damn contest picture over on the side and submit something. Winner [...]

Only 12 more days in the Haiku Contest. So far I have 12 haiku. Paltry folks. Paltry. feh, deh, teh, meh and beh. my knee is creaky sometimes it tries to kill me it really hates the rain ignoramuses with screen doors on submarines in North Dakota horseradish and more haba?ero peppers please torpedo sandwich

Here is the Mad Lib that everyone helped on: There was this wheelbarrow, see. He is the one who did it. No no no. Pay attention. It was yesterday dawn and I was about twenty-six yards from the nearest coffee when suddenly there was this terrible sound. It was like 66 llamas mating in unison [...]

I’m making a sort of Mad Lib thing and you, my dear reader, have to supply me with the missing words. I’ll take what you give me and post them all tomorrow. 1. Thing 2. Time of day 3. Number 4. Noun 5. Number 6. Animal 7. Musical instrument 8. Direction 9. Color 10. Noun [...]

Percival comes. If I pretend he is not here He grows larger in the barn, filling all the shadows, And then I cannot go in to feed the cows And I hear those who give milk crying for milk And I see their hearts, like children’s palms, Opening and closing in the garden. Even in [...]

It is time for the second annual [and this time organized a bit better] Organic Mechanic Haiku contest. Go here if you want to educate yourself a bit on haiku. The Prize The winner will receive A Glimpse of Red : The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku and a compilation CD of randomness made [...]

Each day I see men driving their cars like the dead. Tearing down the highway, sometimes I dream I am my grandfather in the 2nd World War. He sweats on Leyte and shoots at the Nips, as if he is his grandfather forced into the fens but still killing Saxons. A smooth-tongued Welshman who wishes [...]

Once Upon a Time there was a monster called the Great Purple Murple. You might have heard of the murple as a small rodentic pet, this was not that kind of murple. This beast was distinguished from the standard household murple by its gigantic size and overwhelming purpleness, and people feared it because of this. [...]

I once spent an entire day driving a penguin around New York City. I didn’t exactly ask to do this but I’ve been paid to do stranger things. My boss was a six foot four inch Samoan with a chipped incisor and permanently affixed antique aviator glasses. I was only allowed to call him Mr. [...]

Jack was the last one in the office. As usual, as soon as the door cut off the view of Ms. Cramer’s mini-skirted backside, a stream of muttered expletives issued from around the cigarette in his mouth. Too many distractions. Jack spun in his chair and glared out the window at the lone streetlight illuminating [...]

A very long time ago there was a boy named Jerry who had magic. He lived in a brown house in a brown town between a brown river and a snowy grey mountain. No one in the town knew that the Jerry had magic; so he was raised like most boys. When he was hungry [...]

Today’s issue of Organic Mechanic magazine features a rare interview with one of the most fascinating and controversial figures in the early twenty-first century. A master of faux pas, feng shui, and the fox trot; the defender of all things tasteless: Captain Spacepants. OM: Captain Spacepants, I must say that it is an honor to [...]

there was a man who had a goat. this goat was like any other goat. it could eat tin cans and do complex algorithms with little or no paperwork. one day, while the goat was walking around in circles, the man chucked a piece of polyethylene glycol at it – thereby pissing the goat off. [...]

a man with a cane sits on a bus. some dirty snow at his feet a gift. it melts. he limps off the bus. his knee hurts. – a woman with wispy hair in a bun kneads dough. she has seventeen pet cats – two are pregnant. today is her birthday. she is baking them [...]

For years, you asked me to write you a poem. You who gave me life ? I cannot say no any longer ? but do you know how hard this is? Try to remember exactly how I slept warm in your womb ? or the simple way I brought you tiny fistfuls of wildflowers. How [...]

Let’s tell the sweet story about the day Nikos, Wandering around with his donkey and saddlebags, Turned up one day at a farm of Godseekers. The Godseekers all came out when he knocked. They welcomed him, gave him tea, brought His donkey to the stable for oats and water. “Stay for supper,” they said. How [...]

e.e.cummings it may not always be so;and i say that if your lips,which i have loved,should touch another’s,and your dear strong fingers clutch his heart,as mine in time not far away; if on another’s face your sweet hair lay in such a silence as i know,or such great writhing words as,uttering overmuch, stand helplessly before [...]

Smober the Sock Goblin lives under your stairs if your home doesn’t have them still he is there. He’s clammy and dusty and a little bit mad not angry – but crazy – and little bit bad. When Smober the Sock Goblin comes out to eat he crosses the floor with slapping bare feet. He [...]

Fight – Carl Sandburg Red drips from my chin where I have been eating. Not all the blood, nowhere near all, is wiped off my mouth. Clots of red mess my hair And the tiger, the buffalo, know how. I was a killer. Yes, I am a killer. I come from killing. I go to [...]

Unless I have something of import to write, this week is hereby designated as Adam Puts His Favorite Poems on His Website Week. Ode to Melancholy – John Keats

My whisky sour leaves rings on the old bar’s oak. Absentminded in this dusty place two locals argue over nothing. Wars of logic drown in weak beer without grace or urging. Drunken muscle insults – brace for impact – barefisted opponents glare. The leering bartender will get a taste another runaway led to his lair. [...]

I have a very difficult time writing sonnets. This would probably explain why I have only written two. I don’t have much problem with meter or rhyme, but its that damn iambic that sticks me each time. I’d be much more competent writing in dactylic pentameter or hexameter. I think I tend to speak in [...]

the pedals go the pedals go a     r        o         u        n     d huff pump lean go pedals go a     r        o         u        n     d a     r        o         u        n     d ROCK    a…    i…    r… gravelgreen grassgrunt    b    r    e    a    t    h    e burn shins bleed snicksnicksnick the wheel goes the wheel goes a     r [...]

new to cities, i imagine the man at the fruit stand does he know there are places where the time doesn’t change? where apples grow on trees instead of carts? has he ever sat on a porch swing and watched the moon rise to cicada song? even in the city i can miss the stars [...]

In Castle-town at the salty docks the pirate rats sit on the rocks and peer about the piers in search of a certain longshoreman known as Lurch. Who has often been known to provide some cheese to these rats?on the side. It is easy to find him, you?ll know him on sight in every tavern [...]

Lurch

In Castle-town in the groping slums where rats hope for food, for crumbs there is a house, a hovel dark of toadstools and crumblebark. Lives in it a hag of terror fame Miz Grumblewort is her fearsome name. Her eyes are yellow, her teeth are green her warts are hairy and quite obscene her cat [...]

I seem to be better at telling stories than anything else in my poetry, everything else seems a bit too forced, whereas telling stories comes a naturally. I don’t really have the inclination to write long things like novels or even short stories, so instead I am going to work with what many pompous people [...]

when I was young thedays seemed short as I was I would take old radios apart how did theywork? I stank of dust, ofburnt wires. someone gave me a brokencamera. I scraped off green corrosion, it worked again. they took it back ? I was that young now, I am old. twenty-two ? obsolete I?ve [...]

My mind is worst when      [waxed and buffed like a black marble lobby] it gives no purchase to feet or rede. I’d liefer leave and slide across its sable-shine rind and reck after the janitor’s jangle-bone key ring to Sub-basement b with the concrete call      [sepulchral, into distant directions] of ru      [m] ination swoll into [...]

With the slightest touch, a sleeping dragon awakes. Odin’s ravens, Thought and Memory, croak. They eat mushroom clouds for lunch, dark rain for dinner. Gorged after this meal, they hear What the Thunder Says: ‘All the world has aged.’ Immolated in Inextinguishable Fire, Megiddo is quiet. Two men lay like sleep, bowing to once fertile [...]

I have redesigned, updated, and converted to MoveableType, my aptly named writing section: Verbal Impotence. As added features, the useability has increased and it has commenting. New Look, Same Crappy Writing. I even added a new poem to it. So I suppose it is New Look! More Crappy Writing! Anyway, I stole this link from [...]

When boys tread upon anthills it is Golgotha all over again, the people run about like ants who have sold their souls for a bite of apple. When a dairymaid churns milk into sweet butter Proserpine is tumbled into the land of death. Winter and virginity are not quite opposites. Before I knew poetry was [...]

This reflux is astonishment The immediacy of their terror short-circuiting even disavowal?s detour- This too is but a train of shadows. The ungraspable phantom of life. A strange flicker passes through the screen and the picture stirs to life. A vacillation between belief and incredulity- a terrorist mood setter, like a fairground barker, caused women [...]

look that homeless babbler stands on the mailbox as usual, speaking nonsense (salvation thru self government) in his tattered tartan. We’re out on Saturday nights dressed to kill- (accomplices in bombing starving brownskins) and our (consumption means extinction) (silence is assent) Cadillac Escalade gleams up to the club ? there he is. Someone (should self-actualize) [...]

I will be with her tonight and tumble her on the trails. I will take her. Let her fight. I am stronger. She can thrash and bite and tear with teeth and nails. I’ll still be with her tonight. If she’s passive in her fright with no shrieks no screams no wails I will take [...]

Angler sits on riverbank waiting for friends to call one has Whiskers one a Lantern Jaw. A line in deep waters clouds, time stream by for company squirrels, a hawk in the sky. Watching, waiting checking Worm on hook day flows to dusk and shadows the brook. Night gently falls Angler packs up, leaves. No [...]

As daybreak wakes the grimy checkered street, failure emerges – as a manic Czar of Russia shambles past the Bishop’s Bar – with an automaton’s ungainly feet. The crumbling curbside has become his seat of power. Routed in a white queen’s war, he lost his forces fighting from afar and endgame, great rooks swarmed to [...]

my poems swirl about with dustdevil balance the lack middling beginnings and anemic endings they should be sealed in a plastic bag with a great orange seal and incinerated i’ll clothe myself with sackcloth and rub their ashes into my hair perhaps, then i won’t be too near to hear the breath of their whispers

i miss the woods of my youth and the enchantments contained therein adventure and errantry fighting gods and monsters with the self taught woodcraft of an imagination gone native i miss its stream and the chuckling bubble of the crawdads nipping at my beagle’s paws as she raced through the rasping reeds after another elusive [...]

on the first bright day of spring the boys strap on their sandals the girls let down their hair the sun washes their faces the green grass saturates their blood a day for frisbees and nameless conversation games of catch and leisurely naps in swaying hammocks until the bustle of life material returns for now [...]

confusion reigns and with shadowy steps trods the wellworn ways and breathes the faerie air of muddled love. nimble wraiths flit about amid the dusky hued scents, leaving lightstreaked trails into abyssal happiness. Where to follow? each path twice tempting, heading back only brings muffled stereophonic giggles and spirals deeper into the cloudy landscape of [...]

a man may walk in rain and still fly through the clouds a woman may run in fields and yet fall out of love a man can fear his life but also say no to death a woman can hate all men but want to feel their hands who knows our minds our means who [...]

Peace is a dream few find to be content is to be God a child’s grin is brief paradise I am still running home

too hot to move the bugs are quiet Charlie is out there- waiting he’ll come out tonight but i’ll be inside watching reruns. shazzam.

there are omens mutants, misfits, hallucinations caused by debauched somatic conjurings (yes, always a chemical to make it better) then the earth rebels fire, brimstone, ash, and grease a pangaeaic binge and purge of frustration and polluted skies scarred by purple lightning bloated by nebulous clouds (it is only el ni?o) flora and fauna implode [...]

You make no sense. What do you mean ‘Its not me its you?’ I was there when you dropped the stone in the pond. v.2 You make no sense. What do you mean ‘It’s not me it’s you?’ A dropped stone. The silent pond.

[Cat sits in a birdbath empty except for the cat] Roll your nine striped tail and blink ? one eye slower than the other. A shipwreck if a redbird comes bathing and finds you instead of bathwater. Swagger and turn, wind in jaunty tail. Close your last varnished eye. Put harpoon teeth away, swab fur [...]

FEED ME THUNDER DRINK ME RAIN WASH ME WATER KEEP ME SANE SONGS OF FIRE POEMS OF SNOW RITES AND ROTES EBB AND FLOW EYES OF JEWELS HANDS OF CLAWS WIND OF WISDOM WITHOUT PAUSE EARTH AND TREE GUST AND GALE LIFE AND DEATH WITHOUT FAIL OTTER AND TROUT ROOK AND LARK FROST AND CRYSTAL [...]

the dagger eyed snarky spy and rancid skinned enemy within went out across the tracks where janked up dreams live in sunken shacks and fast forward girls fuck for a rewind fix the subtle stars in bullethole cars flish-flash lights come closer spotting misty children flying mish-mash kites catching stranglehaired night with an ancient movie [...]

I approach at a distance to make you unaware, you will not catch me however hard you stare, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a chameleon disguise, figments in your mind of fire and sea and skies. Too small to be detected, vaporous to be ignored, I stalk my newest prey to slay with sharpened sword, [...]

hard concrete and sullen captive holding other cards, still firefly lust eureka, yearn wily muse at relations, failures, balance bound of random blueredges sold for out of bounds fortune a last hymn submit mindsquared soulscraps the fair rascal and wild king no tarot needs culling rest windy paradigm

soul tremble or scratch completion dry stumbling symbolic desire content words dream flowing themselves tongue toss red striving which fizzles further frustration and grasping black inspiration blue lyric writing

time holds pressure less into fifty-two bright strikes grind memory gentle sifting hand station-mold eyes and stretch clouds or steal rain, envy the moment wearing steel gladly, the passing serene rolling grey evening listen thundercrash

spread weight to defeat imps surrender stress throughout feint obstacles crushing chaotic white scream flanking creatures of the night slowing down bloodlust no break stupid filth, a line of black disease taunting (RAGE) frail support, a rotting shield complaints (several) disorganized a wall, or red victory crumbling

dim, often ascetic, evade effort anyone ungodly (hint) a chaotic disease vague struggle, something thinks for trouble is astute seeking, once defeating an oath seeming anchor mean symptoms, anything seethes stupid punk, someone like me

lonestar mirror, redefine simplicity if the bastard, the awkward one serious uptight people (so mundane) sense works without their own unwilling fortitude often points to leftover signals (tired withdrawn blackened) meaning control

I have manic bones breathe machine! a noxious self his standard considers red dollarsigns without jerks doing things behind doors wizened men symptoms of rich pricks foregoing nothing (laughter) the question creaking organic verse here a time coming mirrors worth just penny one

my assignment: tell some sort of story [what it is makes no difference] using an alliterative sentence for each letter of the alphabet. Not all sentences have to be alliterative. Also, use a symbol of some sort. i used to sneak secrets between the sheets when i was young. they were thin things, i could [...]

I’ve been struggling with poetry lately. I feel that mine is too cerebral, I feel I make people work too hard. When I try to open the access, I lose something along the way, and I’m not quite too sure what it is. All that I seem left with is ‘wry.’ Twists and turns of [...]

The old man has no teeth two shoes but no laces, an incomplete look in his eyes. He plays a guitar with only five strings. I imagine him touring, coal pile to steel mill. During the long nights he watches for the glow of another town and rubs the spray-painted door of his boxcar. Before [...]

[Cat sits in a birdbath empty except for the cat] Roll your nine striped tail and blink ? one eye slower than the other. A shipwreck if a redbird comes bathing and finds you instead of bathwater. Swagger and turn, wind in jaunty tail. Close your last varnished eye. Put harpoon teeth away, swab fur [...]

The results of the haiku ‘contest’ can be found here. Below are some things I wrote last night. in a swank hotel a fistfight with Aquinas blood drops on the bar punchdrunk motherfuck stickleback and hackles hook, line and sinker Dear John on paper a list of precise words in the woman’s small hands i [...]

i arbitrarily end the haiku contest as of now. the winner will be announced shortly. so let it be written, so let it be done.

I suppose I will go ahead and make this an annual event. I want some haikus from y’all. You might remember last year…I had to wrangle them out of you with sundry forms of archaic torture. Hopefully this year there will be no need for rending. I’ll even give out some sort of prize, though [...]

I’ve not written any poetry in quite some time. I did manage to get an A in my Advanced Poetry Writing class, but I’m not quite sure how I feel about that. Over the semester I felt myself becoming less and less fresh and creative, instead the poems became steadily more like mass-produced objects with [...]

so… i’m – aahh – i had a poem in the student literary magazine, The Juggler. does that make me a published poet? or does it have to count elsewhere? can i call myself a poet now or is that still premature? i was also inducted into the lambda alpha beta chapter of the Anthropology [...]

yesterday’s poetry feedback group was less than helpful in most ways, but more than helpful in one major way. My writing, and diction, needs to change unless i want to alienate readers and have them dismiss my work. apparently, and i can see this quite easily, my terminology is a bit archaic, people can’t get [...]

it hit the fan today in poetry class, but i do not feel vilified. what i wanted was discussion and by gum i got it. some few were offended, most discussed what exactly i was going for, ranging from satire to prima nocta rights. some wanted me to make the ending different to acknowledge my [...]

i don’t like to toot my own horn but jmay requested what the class thought of my latest. here are some of their comments: cool chess imagery – this is quite an accomplishment. juggler. juggler… once again, your depth of historical or thematic knowledge here is applied and over my head, but in this case [...]

from the Tao Te Ching (50): A person comes forth to life and enters into death. Three out of ten are partners of life, Three out of ten are partners of death, And the people whose every movement leads them to the land of death because they cling to life Are also three out of [...]

With the slightest touch, a sleeping dragon awakes. Odin’s ravens, Thought and Memory, croak. They eat mushroom clouds for lunch, dark rain for dinner. Gorged after this meal, they hear What the Thunder Says: ‘All the world has aged.’ Immolated in Inextinguishable Fire, Megiddo is quiet. Two men lay like sleep, bowing to once fertile [...]

Since today is the busiest day of my week i’m just going to give you my homework assignment for my poetry writing class. the assignment: Write a poem in the third person about an event external to you. The even does not have to be famous or on a large scale. (Do not write about [...]

ladies and genteel men, i give you…winter! ~ s( these out of in finite no where,who;arrive s trollingly :alight whitely and. )now flakes:are;guests;of t wi ligh t ~ the above poem brought to you by e.e. cummings. its snowing!

leafing through autumn equinox epiphany yellow red and orange

there was dialogue at one point. something to do with the Future…or perhaps Contributions to Society. whatever it was, it was heavy. at least I think so. she would relate to me her insecurities about how to Contribute while still being able to do what she wanted to make her happy, or fulfilled or something. [...]

and it seemed that as soon as i closed my eyes they were open again. but the other side: hel/nirvana/heaven/purgatory/hell whatever you call it, was kind of boring. just shades of dead folks walking around looking apathetic. it sucked. i’d rather expected a par-tay. so i went back. and now i’m stuck, ghostwriting in rather [...]

it hurt them more than it hurt me, so of course i would put a brave face on it and lie to their eyes as i told them i was feeling healthier and would see them in the morning. they couldn’t understand that i wanted to die. i was worn out, dying is a rough [...]

well i drove 4 hours home today. i’ll officially be here for three weeks although i am going to spend some time in Chicago. as soon as i got home i began ‘nesting’ as my mother calls it, going through all of my stuff and running around in circles like a dog does to assert [...]

please fill in the blank at the end of this. There was a head in the shower this morning, its hair clogged the drain and when I picked it up the top came off. I turned it over and on the inside stamped in bright green letters were the words:

well today i am working for the majority of the day in computer labs getting in my hours for the week since i haven’t done anything yet. its not so bad really, but with the weather the way it is, i could use any excuse to go outside. i was fiddlyfartin around on the net [...]

i woke up this morning and the sky was the color of a week old bruise, and the air was filled with the noise of thunder. to some people this would be ugly, but for me it is both frightening and wonderful. i love the sound of thunder and the feel of rain on my [...]