Time for a Photo-Essay? YES

My brother came to visit, and he came with a gift in his hand:

Blown-glass cockatoo statue,

shot through with the colors

of the Ocean

$16.99

WORTH EVERY PENNY

My face is huge, but not compared to the face 

of the terra-cotta pig behind me

Can't see it? LOOK HARDER

Don't ask me what I'm doing. Don't ask me

what I'm wearing. Above all don't ask me

about my hair. DO ASK ME

HOW DRUNK I AM

WE WENT TO HOGWARTS

SO FULL OF FREAKS

We also went to Toon Lagoon, 

which is decorated with giant art 

of Krazy Kat, Little Nemo, Pogo,

and of course a spread-eagled

Cathy sitting on a chocolate

ice cream cone

WHY AM I PUTTING THIS

ON THE INTERNET

A drowned rat prostitute

(very low price)

is excited to get her picture taken

with a Popeye statue in America

MISTY OF CHINCOTEAGUE: A MEDITATION ON DEATH

I read Misty of Chincoteague when I was a child -- even lacking as I did that nine-year-old desire to bareback a pony any pony -- but it must not have been this edition or else I would be dead today, so squarely does the horse's ass of it sit on you.

WHAT.

IS THIS WHAT HAVING A HORSE DOES TO A WOMAN. I'm going to make a bold claim: this is the largest most encompassing horse's ass that has ever appeared on paper. It almost seems to spread, or to change shape from second to second like a cloud, now seeming to shift into a president, now seeming to shift into a hippopotamus. Never seeming to shift into a horse. A column of tail pours out of it like a column of terrible light; it is the light that no one wants to see by! Also, my sense of humor generally sees no place for base scatology, but here I will make an exception, BECAUSE. What unspeakable vantage point is this? I feel like the picture was composed to put the viewer in the exact position of a magnificent dump the horse just dropped; it says you are the magnificent dump of a horse, this is the view you get always. 

HORSE BOOKS ARE DANGEROUS FOR YOUNG GIRLS TO READ. They teach them about sex, and how to sit hard on an animal that sooner or later is going to whinny. And here is a horse book that goes even further, and teaches a lesson deeper and darker: that all of us one day will be spread in the fields. The foal stares at us, youthful as we are not youthful, her back legs as yet the legs of a ballerina who has mated with a drumstick. The reader alone is a crap, and it knows: the teeth and the chew they will come for her too.

Recent Keyword Activity, Or: Set My Blog on Fire

Okay, I'm not trying to JUDGE anyone, but: we need to talk about what you people are searching for these days.

how does my mother look -- she looks really good

human vagina mutation -- I am a human vagina mutation, mine grew like this whole WOMAN around it

no bikini -- seems like an incredibly roundabout way to search "naked"

lizard vagina -- I wrote a poem about this, of course I did

throwin up cartoons -- the jauntiness charms me. Throwin up cartoons! Yeah! Who wouldn't want to see one?

harp girl, harp erotic, teen harp -- OH MY GOD. The hunger for harp photos grows, and somehow I am the only person on the internet working to feed it. Are all you dudes from Wales or what

anime wolf eating at bone -- I have no idea

pressing and sucking bare breasts -- yesss PRESS THEM, bare breasts simply love to be "pressed"

Chris Onstad Come Back We Love You

I miss Achewood. I miss miss miss miss miss miss Achewood. Let's tell the man what he needs to know.

LOVE POEM FOR CHRIS ONSTAD

Chris Onstad come back we love you

Chris Onstad are you okay we love you

We would shine your shoes with our tongues we love you

Alive stuffed animals are gathering dust, they pile

on our beds and keep us from sleeping, how are we 

supposed to have any kind of sex with these 

stuffed animals staring and saying nothing

Roast Beef is spreading like a fog over the world

His smaller font crawls in the fields; there are very few fully-

ended sentences; we are all from his Circumstances now

Philippe is no longer just five, he is five and one month of silence

Soon he will be able to sound out a few words, soon

he will know you have stopped writing words for him

One lamp for sadness is called the Sun, it reaches down

its what to touch us, I steadfastly refuse to use the word ray, 

the light is good and we can read, please come

Outside Chris Onstad

BOOK REPORT: Mike's Mystery

Begin, as we always begin, with the cover.

 Henry is HUNG, maybe in a bad way

That dog is peeing from his FRONT

Violet's foot continues to be Impossible, 

and it looks like Benny's hand is so fucked up 

because his own brother is his father

BUT WAIT

At last the mystery of the Boxcar deformities is solved! I mean, that's the real mystery here, right? Fuck the Pet Shop Mystery and the Dinosaur Mystery and the Ferris Wheel Mystery and the supremely lame-named MIKE'S MYSTERY that we turn our attention to today, the real mystery here is how did the Boxcar Children knit together so wrong in the womb of their author, one Gertrude Chandler Warner? BECAUSE:

Jessie nodded at her older brother. "Yes, we will get off at Yellow Sands now. I think that is a beautiful name. Our uranium fields looked just like yellow sand."

MYSTERY SOLVED. Of course the Boxcar Children own a uranium mine. OF COURSE THEY DO.

 Those aren't fingers

 

 That's...not a nose

One question is answered, other questions are raised. We're on Book 5 now, and summer after summer has passed, and the children are no older, and still wherever they go follows Mystery. What is so different about the pink flesh of the Boxcar Children and Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys that it attracts such mystery to it? Are they lit from within, are they lamps set out for it?

Allow me to summarize. So far as I can tell, this mystery is about a fire, a dog, a uranium mine, and a woman who compulsively bakes pies. Repeat: a fire, a dog, a uranium mine, and a woman who compulsively bakes pies. That's like...the four classic elements of a Mystery right there. If I ever read a Mystery that didn't contain at least one of those things I would set it on fire with the very fire it did not contain, I would hurl it to the next Retriever who passed my way, I would spill my uranium and deform it for life, I would chew and swallow each page one by one and think blueberry, cherry, blackberry, apple. THIS JUST GOT EPIC.

Now you're probably wondering, who the fuck is Mike? I read the book and I don't even know. All that seems clear is that Mike is a playmate, a special playmate for our boy Benny, conceived in the hot fevered mind of Gertrude Chandler Warner to be his perfect foil.

"Benny is a great talker. He's a fine boy. It does Mike good to play with him." 

"It does Ben good to play with me," said Mike loudly.

And

"Oh, Aunt Jane, thank you!" said Jessie. "You are very kind. But I don't think you want Mike. He would upset everything." 

"I don't mind being upset," said Aunt Jane. "Benny and Mike would be something amusing to watch."

"You can say that again!" said Henry, laughing.

"I ate an egg," said Benny. "Can I go now?"

Classic Benny. Classic, sexy Benny. I ate an egg. Can I go now? Not till this book is over, my sweet. Not till you solve...Mike's Mystery. Mike owns the dog, the fire burns down the house of Mike, the pies are baked by the mother of Mike, Mike owns the mystery, and Benny is seized with a passion to solve it. Consumed by forbidden love for each other, Benny and Mike fight constantly.

The man looked at the four of them. "I wish I had as many good friends as you have, Mike," he said. He looked at Benny. "This one here is a wonderful friend."

 "He don't always stand up for me," said Mike.

"Doesn't," said Benny. 

"Now look here, Ben!" said Mike. "Don't start that again!"

So you get to call him Ben, do you, Mike? You and you alone call him Ben. It is Love. But in the permanent year 1960, heterosexism reigns, and now we must return to talk of pie. Talk of your mother's pie, Mike.

"My mother likes to make pies the best," said Mike. "On pies she is a wizard." 

The next fifteen pages were like a gift to me, a gift set directly on my lap, where a hot pie sits always and never cools. Behold:

"We've thought of a good job for her, said Mike. "She loves to make pies. So why not make pies and sell them? She gives away millions of pies." 

"Now, Mike," said Benny. "Mr Carter won't believe you, if you say millions." 

"Well, dozens, then," said Mike. 

"Good for you, Mike," said Mr. Carter laughing. "I do believe you, for I have eaten many of those pies myself."

This is what a man

who eats so many pies looks like

And

"I'd never be tired of making pies, my dear!" cried Mrs. Wood. "I love to mix them up, and roll them out, and fill them with cherries, apples, peaches, or blueberries. And best of all I like to see people eat them." 

A man behind them said, "I'd rather eat them than watch other people eat them." Everyone turned around. 

And

"Hm-m, I think the men will want so many pies, that one woman can't make enough." 

"Maybe you'll tell the men about the pies?" said Henry. 

"Tell them? I won't need to. The minute they see a sign here saying PIES they will all come over." 

"Sign?" cried Benny. "Did you say a sign? I'll tell you a good sign. Mike's Mother's Place!" 

"Wonderful!" said Jessie. "And what a wonderful name for this place!"

Jessie is clearly of the "everyone gets a medal" school. There is a certain cruelty to her eagerness to assure Benny that he is participating successfully in the world when we can see so plainly that he isn't. That he never can. And meanwhile Benny, whose heart ten pages ago belonged to Mike, is now developing...exotic tastes.

The girls soon rolled out more pies. The boys opened another can of cherries. It was lucky they did so. When the whistle blew at noon, the men came pouring out of the mine. They saw the new sign, and they all wanted hot pies. Soon all the pies were sold. 

"We haven't any left for us," said Mike sadly. 

"Yes, Mike, I saved one pie," said his mother. "It was burned a little." 

"I like pie burned a little," said Benny.

Italics mine. All italics in the world are mine. I like pie burned a little, said Benny. I like pie burned a little, said Benny. I LIKE PIE BURNED A LITTLE, SAID BENNY. Well, Benny, I have good news for you: I hear the pies will be burned IN HELL.

 These dogs will be there, in Hell

Whatever. The mystery gets solved. Who even cares. All the pies get made, all the fires get doused, all the dogs are alive, all the uranium soaks into our bones and our blood. It will make the next generation wrong and hideous, and our children they will be called Boxcar.

The fire seemed to start on all sides of the house. 

No lives were lost, not even the dog. He "spoke." 

He was a "dead dog." He shook hands with every-

body. "Well, he is all our dog," said Benny. 

We follow Benny as usual. Benny has the ideas. 

"He can stand on his head forever," said Benny. 

"Now, Benny, not forever." His voice sounded 

funny, upside down. I don't think he is a very good 

man. He looks rough to me. He put his white teeth 

into something, and sat back with it growling. 

If you weren't here, I couldn't eat my breakfast at all. 

Violet laughed softly. "I was going to say the same 

thing about this blueberry." All this talk about nothing. 

You've got to live somewhere. Don't you know 

...................................................you have no home? 

AWP 11, Or: A Litany of People Lately Stabbed with My Awkwardness

How I Disgraced Myself

This post contains human names; if you are allergic to human names then...then your throat is probably pretty swollen right now

No secrets between us! This is what happened.

We arrived in DC on Thursday, and that first night we went to a nightmarish reading where we all got locked in a gold hotel room for like three hours and no one was allowed to leave and there was no alcohol except like twelve-dollar-a-glass golden wine. Every poet in the world was there and they all read for one infinity each. Saw Elisa Gabbert at the intermission and squealed pig recognition in her face! SHE IS A MARVEL, and the minute we met I felt comforted in the knowledge that there was at least one normal person alive in the world at that moment. As a single female monster we slinked up to Nick Demske and had an impromptu contest to see who could scream a louder compliment at him and he was like Gah I literally cannot decide you both win. 

The Apologies: Lynn Xu I apologize for trying to murder you with a cigarette. Ish Klein I apologize for screaming my head off when you finished reading. Anselm Berrigan I apologize for smiling at you! Rae Armantrout I apologize for somehow giving you the impression that my name was Diane.

The second night we went to the Table X reading, which was held in a crowded room of Blood-Red Night and also started like an hour late. By the time it commenced I was on my second drink, also known as my Sensuality Drink. My sensuality drink causes me to press against people, it is this disorder. Consequently I spent the entire first hour of the reading sensually jamming my elbow into the body of the poor man next to me. Inside my mind I was like, Mmmm my elbow is touching him feels amazing SO SENSUAL. He gamely endured this until whoops, it was time for him to get up and read. Surprise! It was Joseph Calavenna! Sorry, Joey. I think I might owe you a little money.

Dan Beachy-Quick got up to read, and when I saw him I gasped really loudly, "Oh my gosh it's WHALE BOY," which was maybe not the best way to express my appreciation for his work. On the way out I expressed MORE of my precious, precious appreciation to Ariana Reines in a language that approximated English but was not...quite it. Then in a hell elevator I accosted a very famous person named Heather Christle. "Is it weird to have people recognize your face?" You could see her thinking, Um, it wasn't until this very last second, psycho, and then just to finish the job I leaned in and delivered myself of the following truly stunning inanity, "I have seen pictures of you in a furry hat."

WHAT

THE

FUCK

Just send me to jail already, where I can't get at anyone! What else. Davis Schneiderman was dressed like a mime and there may or may not exist a picture of us posing together because we both "looked French." I...didn't, in case you are wondering, but I did look crazy. When it came time to dress for the reading I just completely lost my mind and dressed like some implausible cross between a baby and a maid. A baby maid, from France! Why have I never done a single thing right in my whole life.

The Apologies: I apologize to God and everyone.

The Bookfair. Ha ha ha I did THAT so wrong also. I like humans and I like books so I should have loved it but the whole time I felt like a very small camera was being inserted deeper and deeper up my urethra and the footage was playing on the television of my face. My special thanks go out to Beth Staples and Allyson Boggess and Kathleen Winter of HFR for finding me almost right away and being SO FREAKING NICE TO ME. The whole time we talked I just felt like a prize champion horse being curried by them, making these little contented whuffling noises. There may exist a picture of me nursing their Table Rooster at mine own breast, but you probably don't want to see it. However! As soon as I left their presence I once again took my true form, that of a Public Disaster on two female feet. I actually confessed to K. Silem Mohammad that I was kind of high, and then realized for the first time how extremely much I would like to be high with K. Silem Mohammad. PICTURE IT.

The Apologies: Matthew Zapruder I apologize for pronouncing your name wrong and for stealing a book from your table and shrieking I REFUSE TO PAY FOR THIS YOU RICH KING and for filling your airspace with a bunch of dumb words. Fred Sasaki I apologize for winking at you, my wink is a HORROR and you did not deserve it. Jill Alexander Essbaum I apologize for staring into your golden eyes and being like OMG SO GOLDEN; like I said I was tripping. I apologize to the hotel itself for filling it with the scent of my fear!

Saturday night we went to the Gulf Tolls reading, because ANA B. was reading and she is the best person who has ever been born. She ordered a crabcake and ate it serenely, all the while asking philosophically, "Is it wrong to eat sea creatures at a reading for the Gulf?" Amy King looked into my face and I saw that she is a perfectly tilted cowboy hat in human form. I forcibly spread my napkin in the lap of Alan Gilbert and have never seen a person look so frightened. "IT'S CLEAN," I bellowed, and he shrank from me. Oh, you also need to know that Anne Waldman got up to read and sang manatee noises at us in such a convincing way that I nearly freaked with delight. Afterwards we went to the Fence reading and behaved ourselves quite well for a little while, though it's possible that when the reading was over, instead of mingling as a person ought to do I became mesmerized by the dead-dog cowboy film Open Range which was playing on the bar television and proceeded to read aloud the subtitles in a "Western accent" for almost a full hour.

The Apologies: I apologize to the President who had to be in the same town as me even for a single moment.

THEN I WENT HOME AND EVERYONE WAS RELIEVED. I will lie on this couch all day now, trying not to remember anything I said or did, alternating between hot and cold douche-chills. Can douche-chills kill a person? Will I be the first to die that way?

MORAL: I am never leaving my house again

"The Church of the Open Crayon Box"

Is up! AAAAHHHH GO LOOK GO LOOK

COME SAY HELLO

Here is a disquieting coincidence that has never happened before and will never happen again: I will actually be in DC over AWP weekend, visiting my bosom friend Child-Size Lavender -- she whose face I once so crudely sculpted. I won't be attending the conference itself because it seems to be for crazy people, but I'll be going to offsite readings because why not. You might even glimpse me at the Bookfair on Saturday, wandering white-faced and open-mouthed among the real poets, pupils either large enough to put your fists through or small enough for a mouse to make love to -- I can never remember which way "dilated" goes. My cough persists and I bet trying to breathe in some actual winter will make it worse so I have saved four TussiCaps for the trip which HOPEFULLY I won't have to use; though if I slink up to you and start rubbing my face all over your sweater while like purring, that's what's going on. If all goes according to plan I will be dressed like a deconstructed Episcopalian minister. You'll understand when you see me.