TOTAL CHAOS FOREVERMONTH: Walt Whitman

The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn
--"A Woman Waits for Me"

As alluded to yesterday, here is your painting of Walt Whitman--shown here floating in the sky on account of his deadness--giving birth to himself in duplicate. I wish I could have made it triplicate, but I was frankly exhausted. I wish also that I was able to show this duplicate birth taking place on the composite face of my readership, as the line itself dictates, but some things are perhaps better left to the imagination.

Curse My Ambition

Producing a realistic image of Walt Whitman giving birth to himself is somehow harder than it sounds. Stay tuned.

TOTAL CHAOS FOREVERMONTH: Amy Clampitt

I discovered a new kind of brush yesterday, a sort of turd-looking brush whose effect pleased me enormously. "Two words," I said to myself, "CARNIVOROUS RUBIES." And then, "Two more words: HORNY TOENAILS." I snatched this line from "The Sun Underfoot Among the Sundews," which is a poem about being sexually devoured by nature.

A Parable

My apologies for the continuing dearth of drawings; I am working on such a truculent poem. It's like...do you remember that scene in A Little Princess where Shirley Temple is trying to button up her shoe with a button hook, except she can't because she's too rich and entitled? Her dimpled fat tomato face is all screwed up with the effort, and then she accidentally stabs her pudge with the thing, which serves her right. Additionally, God smacks her down for this and other pig-ignorances and brings death down on her father in the form of a Boer. Afterward she is forced not only to button her own shoes but also to button the shoes of others. I don't really know where I'm going with this, except to say that buttoning your shoes with a hook looks really difficult, but if you don't do it God will kill your dad. Kind of like poetry.

Speaking of tomato faces, did you know that when I was in high school, being a phenomenally poor student and entirely unable to concentrate on anything, I passed the time drawing pictures of a sexy character called The Tomato-Headed Seductress? I once drew her in lieu of an answer on a biology test and got partial credit. Anyway, I'm thinking I need to resurrect her for the purposes of this project. Think how sensuously she would interact with Babyfaced Dino, let alone with Breast Cob!

Autobiography: Part One

Today after smoking one cigarette, which I occasionally do because it makes me want to hurl and thus lends urgency to my mind, I decided I might want to call my book Ruin Me with Touching Like Those Cave Paintings, Or Did People Just Breathe on Them, but ultimately decided against it. I almost did hurl this time, actually, but I willed myself to keep the hurl down, because I had made some potato soup earlier--in JUNE, in FLORIDA, I am demented--and I was determined not to throw up something homemade.

I Know, I Know

Do you admire the way I just made myself disappear for a week? Elegant Choice's parents were in town for infinity, and I didn't get to stick my nose into a book and inhale the regimented ants of its text for six whole days. Eventually I felt myself start to go insane and illiterate in equal measure. Every time I thought of the poems I was working on my head would spin and I would break into a cold sweat and scream internally, "What did you think you were doing, comparing thunderclouds to 'brains pulled down through the nostrils with one of those hooks'? Your brain is a herd of tiny gray veals!"

In the meanwhile, so much happened: People won prizes! People got postcards! People had babies! Also, Jilly nominated me as a thinking blogger, which she is so right about--I am thinking right now, if you can believe it. I can't keep track of everyone else who's been nominated, though, so I'm going to nominate some people who don't have blogs: Topol, Jordy, Pope Ratty, Kouichi Toyama, and Munchkin. Get to it, guys.

TOTAL CHAOS FOREVERMONTH: John Donne

This is, I suspect, my most beautiful drawing yet. Do you like th'Emperours stripey ermine? Do you like his anty lov'd snake, that dips a serpent tongue into the opening of an anthill? This evocative line was lewdly ripped from "The Calme"--I'll invert your fable, John Donne!

Irony: I thought that when I finally got a drawing tablet, I would spend less time on drawings; I would have more control over the pen, I reasoned, and wouldn't waste so much time erasing and redrafting. In fact, I take considerably longer now, because I have so many more brush options at my disposal. So, sorry about that, but aren't the results more awesome to the millionth power?

Two Things

Just found out that Many Mountains Moving has taken two poems, one of which has hot primitive Italian glass dildo sex in it. Also, I'm happy because the other poem currently resides in the new manuscript, the whole rest of which hasn't even seen the light of day because it arrived in a series of hot spurts and I've been too busy immortalizing the spurts on the page to actually submit them anywhere. So that makes, let's see, twenty-six poems that need to go out, which is so loco.

I watched Fiddler on the Roof last night and decided that I am going to start worshiping Topol the way other people worship Judy Garland or Marilyn Monroe. Has anyone else had this idea, or am I a pioneer? The domain lazerwolfyouarepwned.com is still available, as is zeromostelwuzarenard.com, so that bodes well. This is what he looked like when he was young, which is to say: majestic and jocular. Majocular. Majesticular! Not to mention patriotic and scientific. I take back everything I've ever said about wanting to meet Gary Busey; I want to meet Topol instead. Also, I think that instead of telling my children about Santa, I will tell them about Topol, who comes in the night and booms in your ear and pours creamy milk into the whites of your eyes, which is better than whatever the hell Santa does.

Otherwise Known As Seabather's Eruption, Part Two: LIP ACTIVATION

Just for you, my fraidy-cats. You'll never dip lips in the sea again!

Otherwise Known As SEABATHER'S ERUPTION

I went to a new beach the other day, and there was a whiteboard by the entrance that told you all about tide and temperature and undertows and killer creatures. It also alerted you to the presence of possible sea pests, and the lunatic lifeguard scrawl on the whiteboard informed me that today I had to watch out for SEA LICE. This was like a nightmare come to life for me, because it combined two of my worst animal fears: sharkiness and lousiness. I visualized the sea louse as resembling a tiny hammerhead, only instead of eyes on either side of its face it had potent suckers for drinking my blood. I swam anyway, because I am intrepid, but as soon as I got home I looked up SEA LICE, and discovered that they are in fact pervy jellyfish larvae that want to attack under your swimsuit. Wikipedia intensified the horror: "It is best to remove clothing before rinsing in cold water or drying off. Inactivated larvae may react to fresh water or lack of water, thus activating." That night I went to put my chapstick on before bed, forgetting that it was in the pocket of my swim shorts while I swam, and then when I felt the residual ocean wetness had a sickened moment of imagining miniscule baby jellyfish activating all over my lips. And who is to say that they did not?

Drawings are coming soon, my pets. I am embroiled in a bonkers poetic triptych at the moment, which takes up all of my time. There are some nasty metaphorical priests in it, which will give you something to look forward to at the moment of unveiling.