Emperor of Ice-Cream Cakes: Poems Are Jokes

POEM FOR J FRANZ

2012-01-31T11:07:00.000-08:00

Poem for Jonathan Franzen,
Poem Called "Death of the Book"

And they cried for it was called a Kindle,
and they cried for it came to burn books,
and burn all books like a first-growth
.........forest. Made by wizards! And full,
they claim, of magic e-ink, that assembles
itself in the dark like crowds. Because
someone’s getting burned on the bonfire
later, and his name is Book, The Book.
Some homeless guy. He’s gross. We hate
him. Stay in your cardboard box, old man!
The Book sleeps in his box and dreams,
and dreams of dirty oral, and is awakened
by big hands lifting him out. The crowd
of e-ink whispers to itself, the crowd of e-ink
huddles together, held in the hand of some-
one larger. And there goes the match,
...............and there goes the newspaper.
To read the first Kindle by the light
...........................of a homeless trashcan
fire – the experience beggars description!
Makes description a beggar wearing finger-
less gloves. He got holes in his pockets and
holes in his socks and the soles of his boots
they open to speak. Every time he reads
a word it slips out of him somewhere. It slips
out and the beggar cries. He just wants to be
able to hold again what happened to Anna
Karenina. Killed by the train of progress,
beggar. Killed by the demon belching smoke.
The arms that would hold her own book
lopped off! And the reader staring down
at the tracks, watching the e-ink assemble
around her, “Oh the youngest technology,
Anna Karenina!” cries the crowd out to her body.
“Oh she is cheap and light and everywhere!”
And all of her penny-elongated, and 99 cents
...................................................on the Kindle.

It Is Not Really Necessary

2011-10-22T17:56:00.000-07:00

Someone left this comment in response to my poem over at Poetry Northwest and I am posting it here because I love it so helplessly much:

***

Hi,

I guess I am too old, and not familiar at all with the poet’s expression that is called poetry. It seems that putting lines into a narrow column is the criteria. Poetry of old was written in Stanzas that bore complete thoughts or at least were followed by a stanza that completed the above stanza. Some of the poetry by exquisite poets at least had a rhythm, were not typical, but at least understandable to a limited degree depending on the times in which they were written. There is also such a thing as free verse, and maybe that is what it is all about. I really don’t know what the poet above is driving at: the past atrocities of whitemen??? Maybe. Is she of Native American descent??? If so, perhaps I am right. I would like to have known what point was she trying to put across. It is not really necessary. I don’t understand and I don’t care for the overall composition.

Maybe it is because I am rather limited in my degree of knowledge of this country or of far past times. I mainly majored in Science, not social, but biological. I just don’t get modern poetic expression because it seems to follow its own rules. That is about it,and I do write poetry most of it with a degree of recognizable old fashioned rhyme. I am not saying because of that it is good.

I suspect my poetic expression would not be of any interest to a publication of your nature. Thanks for reading, hope I did not offend anyone, not meant too.

An Old Guy in His 70′s,

Tony

***

TONY I LOVE YOU

I LOVE YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH

Dear God in Heaven,

When will you transfigure me into an Exquisite Poet

Signed,

A Past Atrocity of Whitemen???

If You Are Gonna Post a Photo of Yourself, Why Not ... Post ALL the Photos of Yourself

2011-09-29T18:15:00.000-07:00

PEOPLE.

EVERYTHING HAPPENED

WHILE I WAS AWAY

My little sister got married and I was

a Bridesmaid

The night of the rehearsal I looked normal

THE DAY OF THE WEDDING I DID NOT

Look at that rat

She is a rat who is hungry for Bride

And then of course I fell down:

It happens at about minute 2:14

YES that was a Hummer Limo

why would I NOT

ride in a Hummer Limo

every second of my goddamn life

What are you, jealous

Now let us Refresh our Palates

with some Boxcar Children Art

Oh no

The perpetually-five-year-old

dumdum Benny is completely

overwhelmed by cupcakes

He scream to know how many cupcake

there are in the world

THEN

I did a reading with Lemony Snicket
IN A VETERAN'S HALL
and this is the only photographic
proof anyone has of the event

what is WRONG with me

I am a angel from heaven

and my big chubby knee is coming

to kill you Daniel Handler

(Buy his books he loves poetry

and carries poems in his wallet)

I hate you

I am the Devil

I think here I was trying to fake cry.

Crocodile tears

of the Tricky Filthy One

EVERYTHING HAPPENED
AND THEN IT WAS OVER

THE END

The News

2011-08-17T13:02:00.000-07:00

Well, it happened. There is going to be a book. Octopus Books called me and said, we would like to publish your first book Balloon Pop Outlaw Black next summer, and I said go to hell I hate you, an octopus can't even read, how does it know what books are good, and they said your book is made of bubbles, underwater, and we read it and we liked it, and I said WELL FINE THEN, and then oh my gush are you kidding me, I am going to have a book.

There's a time when you're shut up in a room all day writing long crazed metatextual poems about Popeye when you do not think this will happen. You are mostly happy and crazy and flying on the power of writing a book but when you aren't you are thinking, "This will never happen, I am alone as the ants under the rock (ed. note: you are mixing your animal metaphors, change this to something about barnacles on a shipwreck's hull later) and no one will lift it up to see," but then they do. And it does. But the book did not happen because anyone was looking, it happened because you were shut up crazy in a room all day thinking really hard about what if ... Popeye ... HAD INK FOR BLOOD??? So it goes.

The official announcement is here. Enormous congrats to Ben Mirov also!

NOW FOR THE GOOD PART

Choice Reactions from My Mother

"Looks like the Octopus ... latched on ... to you with all 8 arms!"

"Well, I think you're going to make poetry popular again."

"You're going to bring poetry to the young people."

"Balloon Pop Outlaw Dark is a great name. It really sticks in the mind."

"One way or another, you caught ... the eye ... of the Octopus!" (She then paused, seeming to realize that "the eye of the octopus" was not a thing.)

"You're blowing up like a train going downhill and no one can stop it. Tell everyone to get out of your way, because if they don't, they will be killed."

MEOW

2011-08-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

I am not a Trekkie but maybe I am the biggest Trekkie in the world if I am the only one who's ever noticed that this man has an evil cat-face on his forehead:

It evilly grooms its whiskers!

It holds a tiny evil paw up to its mouth!

It just ate a small raw morsel of human being --

and that small raw morsel was --

your Gaze

Obscene Freeze-Frames from Fraggle Rock: The Animated Series

2011-07-19T13:34:00.000-07:00

The oldest Doozer spreads for you, he is naked

and unashamed, even in still photographs

his antennae seem to quiver,

his whole body is one sex organ

and he is smooth between the legs

My guess is this is a blowjob monster?

A bj monster. A buzhay monster

(my pronunciation of a French sex act)

Why do nightmares always

come in through the ceiling

FYI

2011-07-19T13:21:00.000-07:00

I have two poems in the new issue of PANK, about rubies and hell and alphabet machines, so you can go look at those if you like! ALSO, I should have posted about all these a long time ago, but I forgot and then it seemed too late but the magazines are so nice to print you in the first place so I will say it here: I have poems in the last or the current issues of Denver Quarterly, AGNI, Poetry Northwest, RATTLE, Hayden's Ferry Review, New Orleans Review, Notre Dame Review, and The Journal. (The Journal actually has a new website, and you can read "The Perfumer's Nose in Profile" here.) Thank you magazines! I love you very much. OH, and the graphic designer Anne Bryant illustrated one of the poems that appeared in Poetry Northwest, and that has never happened before, and you can see it here. THANK YOU ANNE BRYANT THE WASP LOOKS REAL

A Toilet Is a Rose Growing Out of the Sea

2011-07-08T13:53:00.000-07:00

Like millions of American's, I do have trouble toileting myself? I have trouble wiping. However, I also consider myself an aesthete, and so I am holding out for a toilet in the Tuscan style, ringed by leaping fish, presided over by King Triton. His trident shoots a jet of water to clean you where you need it most. Tourists want to visit this toilet. When you see it you'll want to swallow a penny and then eject it from your bottom into glittering water as you make a wish, and your wish is: may this toilet time never end ...

These Quotes Will Not Cease Till My Mother Goes Mute

2011-07-01T13:46:00.000-07:00

You know I told him he'll do anything to get famous. It was Dick Cheney, and you know one of his daughters-in-law had the first baby of the year. They put her on the front page of the newspaper. And then there was the time with the deer. The two deer that just came crashing through the plate-glass window. They weren't just babies, they were big deer. Well, one of them was a baby. Can you imagine just sitting there eating, these deer come crashing through, running all around and terrorizing the customers. They caught the baby! I said Steve, now you're a pretty big guy, but that's a wild animal. It's injured, and it could be violent. I said what you needed is one of your guns. Then we could all have had venison for breakfast the next day.

*laughs wildly*

Computer Poem for Mary Ruefle

2011-06-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

Picture Mary Ruefle in a forest, alone, her hair nestily

arranged by the birds. Wearing what? A gold wood

grain and a few green leaves. "I have been in the forest

for forty years, it is time to send a message to the out-

side world." She takes her knife and carves a computer

completely out of wood. She raises her hands to type

a poem. When the poem is finished she "prints it out"

on a piece of paper still inside a tree. "Now I need

an email address," she thinks. "It is after all the Modern

Day." Many places in the forest want to be her email

...............address but after much thought she chooses

ababysparrowopeningitsbeaktogetaworm@arealtree.com.

She sends the tree with the poem inside it to The faraway

New Yorker. "I'ma gonna pooblish this," says Paul Muldoon,

running a hand thru his bangs! "I'ma gonna set this poem

to music," he says, and starts strumming a guitar that is

still inside a tree. Inside the tree feels like it's ROCKING

OUT and it trembles like a thing in leaf. Sasha Frere-Jones

reviews the song, he loves it so much and he says it sounds

"like worms being dropped in the mouth of a sparrow, except

this is a metaphor, so the worms are notes and the open mouth

is the public's hunger for excellent music!" Mary Ruefle receives

news of this in her email inbox. "Thank God for the internet,"

she laughs, and by internet she means a living tree

...........sucking silver water up itself from the rained-on ground.

Public Art Continues to Be Terrible, Amazing: Part 2

2011-06-08T14:17:00.000-07:00

OH MURALS

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:

Foreshortening is a disease that affects millions

of children every year. They lose limbs to it

in the sickest way possible. If your children

are painted then THEY ARE AT RISK

What are the two hardest things, in art?

Foreshortening and painting a jean

One day I will have a Tumblr called

Fuck Yeah Jeans Are Hard to Paint

and it'll just be pictures of YA bookcovers

from the 80s and 90s where the artist

failed so hard to paint stonewash

with any realism whatsoever

BUT MAINLY WILL YOU

LOOK AT THAT HAND

Public Art Continues to Be Terrible, Amazing

2011-06-07T09:06:00.000-07:00

This is a local yearbook. OBVIOUSLY this is a local yearbook:

SUP EVERYBODY what are you

I am a muscular jaguar gym teacher

wearing a tight red polo

Question for kids: are you masturbating

to a magazine? No you're not,

you're masturbating to a JAGAZINE

PAWS AND CLAWS

Storybook Bears Fall in Storybook Love

2011-05-30T21:26:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from novel-in-progress:

Paddington Bear and Corduroy lie down on the mattress together. A single lightbulb swings from the ceiling, illuminating the passionate fur of their faces. "What are we doing," Paddington breathes, lifting a paw to Corduroy's lips. "Oh Paddington -- I'll never feel lost again," gasps Corduroy, as the taste of warm marmalade floods his mouth. "Let the night watchman find me in your body." He enters Paddington with a forceful thrust. "Now I am the one who is a ... stuffed ... bear," cries Paddington, as he clutches the flesh of the teddy against him.

In the corner Pooh silently sits with his camera, recording every move. "Christopher Robin will be pleased," he says to himself. "Christopher Robin will be very pleased indeed."

FOUND PYRAMID POWER POEM

2011-05-24T15:09:00.000-07:00

Do you know what Pyramid Power is? Pyramid Power is what cats would believe if they suddenly found themselves in human bodies. Have you ever seen a cat like perfectly place itself in a doorway so half of it was in and half of it was out? It thinks being like that in a doorway is a magical physical position that's going to help it live forever! That is a fucking Pyramid Power belief in action. Okay, so now that you know the real true facts about Pyramid Power, go ahead and read the Wikipedia entry. It's the best collection of fake information I've ever seen in one place together! It's gold surrounding dead people; it's a wonder of the world; it's a bowl of fruit that stays ripe forever. Let us make a found poem out of it:

Mock the Idea of Pyramid Power

I have built with cardboard
some pyramids you can see,
........which first appeared
in print in 1970. The concept
........of pyramid power is:
an open pyramid large enough
to meditate under! Stand inside
the Great Pyramid as a pyramid
power. Function as a thought-
form incubator. Increase the rotting
ability of one half of the apple.
Sharpen the sharpness of razor
blades. Improve the quality of wine
within. These small carcasses
are not decaying. Their structure
is somehow preserving them.
Small fish and the little piece
of meat still hanging. Stumble
........across a force. Trigger
sexual urges! Convince the Onan
family! Stand inside the Great
Pyramid and release – release
books titled Pyramid Power.
Some people are so energized
they cannot cope with the “dynamo
..........effects” they experience.

A Monologue Straight from the Mouth of My Mother

2011-05-21T20:08:00.000-07:00

*sneezing uncontrollably*

Sorry, it's the Lysol.

You know, we've had four houseguests for a week. What I mean is, each seminarian uses five or six electrical devices. It's a HUGE LOAD. And the electrical system just couldn't take it. So we've got Father Luigi. Don't you think that's quite a name for a South African seminarian from Sudan? He's 6'6" and he says things are pretty rough over there right now. They just bombed a Coptic church in Egypt. Until about a month ago, he hadn't been in contact with his family for eighteen years. Well they thought he was dead. He was a big soccer star, you know, and they thought he was dead. And he talked to them finally, and they found out he's alive, and now he's here, to buy 50 bicycles.

His friend is here next week, so he'll have to sleep on the couch. It's a pretty big couch, but I don't know if it can handle his length!

And now here's something I bet you didn't know: the baby had a fever of 104. 104. They went first thing in the morning to the doctor, but of course by the time they got there the fever had passed. So I went to the Botanical Gardens, and they're having their Asian Festival. You know, tai chi, kites, fireworks, tae kwon do, a lot of Chinese culture. So I walked around taking pictures. I took more than 750 pictures.

Well, most of them weren't usable. I had the motion setting turned on on my camera, but it obviously didn't work. I still got a lot of crotches, though.

It was 88 degrees today.

NEWSFLASH

2011-05-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

FINE EVERYONE WINS I AM ON TWITTER NOW, you can find me here

Late adopter, you say? Why, I'm a later adopter than a man who adopts a baby when he's a hundred years old! (Twitter-type joke)

Anyway, this is happening, I'm on Twitter and I'm ready to "go hog-wild" with a "bird in my mouth"

That's an expression people use, on Twitter

(No it is not)

FYI

2011-05-11T12:19:00.000-07:00

So it turns out that Elegant Choice is a real name. For ... for a CREMATION ARK

Cremation Ark- An elegant choice

Our unique cremation ark provides

an elegant way for pallbearers to participate

in the procession of the cremated body

to the final resting place

Experience our contemporary

cremation Service

offering our Urn Ark

WE NEED TO FIND A NEW NAME FOR HIM IMMEDIATELY, HELP

Wait now that I'm thinking about it, why not just CREMATION ARK, the best two words that have ever been next to each other

The Earth Is Flat and I Fell Off

2011-05-04T11:48:00.001-07:00

I visited my family again for a WEEK, because I am crazy? Because I have the survival instincts of a pudding? I am home now but I'm not a human anymore, I'm not anyone, all of my fingerprints have been sliced clean off me. Was it worth it? Read another week's worth of my mother's quotes and tell me it WASN'T.

Speaking of pigs, the legally blind woman won the marathon!

Come on! How did Y2K get away with it?

One of the Bengals' wives had a miscarriage, and they lost the game.

I like your jacket, Tricia. It's bust-reducing.

He shook my hand. He has Parkinson's so it was a very interesting handshake.

Beau and Billy Fuggit are Marine Twins.

Your grandmother always wanted you to have a perm.

(Long pause.)

Probably because she was an orphan.

Some people do that with throwing up. They can't. Stop. Retching.

AND FINALLY, THE CREAM OF HER SPEECH

Why are poets so awkward? Have some of these people been malformed by associations like Mensa?

Anyone Else? No? Just Me?

2011-05-03T11:54:00.000-07:00

A Conversation Had While Driving

Me: Something about suburbia that makes me want to fuck a dad

EC: Sexually I have a problem with you

Me: Why? I wanna fuck a Christian dad with milk for blood

EC: IT'S TRUE why is their blood made of milk

Me: I dunno but I wanna rip one in half and make him gurgle like Bishop

OH DO YOU WANT TO SEE A PICTURE

IT WOULD LOOK LIKE THIS

James A. Cat Garfield, President

2011-04-13T15:34:00.000-07:00

What, did you think after that last entry that I wasn't going to photoshop James Garfield's face onto Aslan's body?

YOU THOUGHT WRONG

Dead Presidents

2011-04-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

Elegant Choice likes to rap me to sleep every night, it is his tradition, but last night this tradition...ended in tragedy.

EC (raps): I think I'm Big Meech, LARRY HOOOOOVER

Me: Who is Larry Hoover, what is that

EC: Larry Hoover is a famous criminal -- and also I think it might be a pun on that old president, the one who used to exist

Me: J. Edgar Hoover?

EC: No, J. Edgar Hoover was the king of the FBI, and he ... he built a dam

Me: No, J. Edgar Hoover was definitely the president, he had two sons while he was in the White House and he built the dam to baptize them

EC: J. Edgar Hoover was never the president

Me: Then what president is he talking about? Does he mean ... Eisenhower? Hoover, Eisenhower, those kind of sound alike

EC: He's talking about PRESIDENT HOOVER, Harry Hoover

Me: There is no such president as Harry Hoover

EC: Yes there was his name was Herbert

Me: THEN WHY DID THEY CALL HIM HARRY

EC: All the best presidents get nicknames -- Dick Nixon, John Fruitboy Adams, James "A. Cat" Garfield, Ham-Ham Lincoln, Mallard Fillmore

Me (crying): Why don't I know any presidents

EC: Because in your mind you live in Narnia, and the president of that country is a big cat

Together: JAMES GARFIELD

Truth: I Just Spent an Hour on This

2011-04-05T14:31:00.001-07:00

LADIES AND MEN

Would you like to make your mark on the future of feminine care? Now you can, with the Kotex Pad-Designing Challenge!

LET'S DESIGN THE IDEAL ARTISTIC CUNT-RAG, EVERYONE

I call it BLOOD SWAN. (I think it is a crane.) They asked me for an Artist Statement and I wrote: "I thought of a swan bleeding blood from it, wearing a pair of Doc Martens and throwing the Golden Horns." I added the tags "blood, swan, boots, animals with periods." I am now ENTERED TO WIN. If you want to go to heaven when you die then I encourage you to go leave comments on my "entry" here.

The Animorphs Are Back and Feeling Weird Between the Legs

2011-03-30T15:50:00.000-07:00

Bottom line: I took a wrong turn in my life somewhere and now I am obsessed with the Animorphs books. They are total puberty metaphors except a kid turns into a hawk instead of getting his first boner! It's like they were written with my specific needs in mind. The cover summaries always include SNAPPY CHANGE PUNS just to underline the point:

Everything changes. But not quite like this....

Cassie is about to make a change for the better....

He's only human. When he wants to be....

NEVER underestimate the power of a morph....

Change is necessary....

THAT IS PUBERTY WISDOM! There's an extra period in those ellipses for a REASON. (Because of menstruation.) Anyway, the second I saw my first Animorphs I fell in foreverlove; my palms got so sweaty, my heart beat out of my chest, and I raised my head to the sky and released a cry of "animal" pleasure. Why, you ask? Oh, maybe because the cover looked like this:

THAT IS A TWEEN
MORPHING INTO A STARFISH

Remember when we could not use Photoshop very well

Let us go back to that time

3rd from the left is like the best rave outfit
I could possibly imagine

THERE WERE A DOZEN BOOKS THERE; I BOUGHT THEM ALL AND MY EYES WERE OPENED: tweens becoming gorillas, tweens becoming salamanders, tweens becoming tarantulas, tweens becoming kangaroos

Tweens becoming...ladies and gentlemen

Not only are the covers peerlessly beautiful, each book also includes a flipbook printed on the page corners that depicts a tender tween in the process of going down on all fours or getting tentacles or becoming scaly or growing a kittenhead, just page by page turning completely bestial. These books do not stop giving. Open one at random and you will see a half-human half-anteater with just an enormous ass for no reason:

or a boy crapping millimeter by millimeter a tiger tail:

or....or whatever is happening here:

or whatever is happening HERE:

or....I don't know what this:

Now I know what you're wondering: is there poetry inside these books? My children there is nothing but. Consider this installment the first of many.

I Have Turned into, Like, Lots of Animals

I was, like, in the restaurant? Having a croissant? You're MEAT!

I shrieked. The mommy's making din-din. I have a mouth more

or less in the middle. And I have turned into, like, lots of animals.

In eagle morph I killed and ate a fish. I ate it while it was still living:

You feel your weak, useless human lips harden and push out

and out, forming the wicked, yellow, downturned, ripping, tearing

eagle beak. So powerful it can grab and hold a young lamb.

Helpless! I am the eagle! You cannot resist me. Pure rapture,

pure raptor. I ate the heart then it stopped beating.

It takes a fairly crazy girl to like a Bird-boy. I flew. I flew as only

a fly can fly. I hooked up with him at his meadow. I morph

to grizzly and we go at it, and jab about six inches of bear claw

into the key slot. And now that I had touched that part of me,

it seemed powerful. "Irresistible." Stupid, stupid word. We don't

want to look like an owl convention. The night and owl morph --

it was like being some kind of god! My talon. At any moment

it might turn into a toe. Until I had no flesh to tremble.

Soon after that there wouldn't be room for a human. The others

would never accept me as long as my simpy twin was around.

I could see dirty hay. I could see the feet of the other.

I began to acquire my twin. His DNA flowed into me as mine

flowed into him. It seemed like forever. It was a fever.

..............................................I think I can slice my own throat.

Two arms burst out of my chest, and gut-rip staggered out.

Out into a much brighter room beyond. When the room begins

to squeeze the air from your lungs, call for me. Call for me.

.............................................In purple ink call for me, purple.

SHOULD WE END WITH A SENSUAL PHOTOGRAPH

I THINK THE ANSWER IS YES

Hooves (Feet)

2011-03-23T22:19:00.000-07:00

I almost forgot! When I was in St. Louis I went through a tall stack of my old schoolwork and notebooks and ACADEMIC AWARDS and discovered a yellowed copy of my school paper, the Mother of Mercy High School paper, which seems to be called just e t c e t e r a? Spaced out like that? It is not the Bugle or the Clarion or the Sun or the Observer or the Journal, no, just e t c e t e r a looking at me so creepy above the fold. Why can't we do one single thing right in Ohio? Anyway, it's dated Tuesday November 23 1999 and it contains the finest horse article I have ever laid my rolling eyes on. It is called: EQUESTRIANS NOT JUST HORSIN' AROUND! (And if you didn't see that coming then you didn't learn anything from that last entry about my punning mother, herself formed from the richest loamiest most double-meaning Ohio dirt.) Here is the choicest passage of it, here is the choicest horseloin of it:

Many people don't realize all the work and dedication that goes into horses. Not only does the person have to be fit and healthy, the horse does too, and they depend completely on the owner for their everyday needs. Something as seemingly minor as a muscle ache can put a horse out of use for months. Responsibility is a must when working with horses. They can easily become lame if something is wrong with their hooves (feet). "This friend I have, has never talked back to me or stood me up. She is the greatest teacher in the world, yet she has never written on a chalkboard or even read a book. She is demanding and never ceases to amaze me. She is my horse," comments senior Pony Horserubber.

Names have been changed to protect just whoever. ANYONE. All of us. This friend I have, you guys. She has never written on a chalkboard with her hoof (foot), but she is the greatest teacher in the world. She never ceases to amaze me. SHE IS MY HORSE

Fragments from a Week-Long Family Vacation

2011-03-19T17:09:00.000-07:00

Mostly and mainly composed of quotes from my mother

PREFACE

The best thing about riding in the car with my mother is how she turns on the Bun Warmer without telling you and then ten minutes later you burst into screams because your ass is on fire

(This mostly happens to people who are not very situationally aware)

The other best thing about riding in the car with my mother is how much she talks when she drives

LET THE RECITATION OF QUOTES COMMENCE

"Doesn't a Jonas Brother have cancer? What is the one physical thing with the Jonas Brothers?" (Five minutes later) "I remember! JUVENILE DIABETES."

"There were very bad storms here all week, you know. Later on, maybe tomorrow, I'll take you out and we can go see all the devastation."

"Look, it's the Purple People Bridge!" (Pause) "Someone got raped on that bridge, Tricia. Someone got raped on the Purple People Bridge."

"I've been having one of those, one of those, you know, Rube Goldberg days."
"That is not...a kind of day, Mom."
"One of those days where one thing leads to another."

"Ha! That dog looks like it's been sitting on a horse."

"I heard the worst scream in the grocery store. I thought some toddler was dead. I looked down the aisle and the floor was all smeared with red. Then I realized a toddler must have run into the wine display." (Editor's note: NO TODDLERS WERE EVEN INVOLVED SHE JUST DECIDED THIS)

"I was always a good student. Do you know I scored very high on the SAT?" (Pause) "The Sears Aptitude Test."

"Tricia, I don't know the name of your look...it's not dominatrix, it's not goth...what do you call it?" (Five minutes later) "Maybe...Urban Peasant."

DOMINATRIX AND GOTH, THE TWO MAIN KINDS OF LOOKS

FIN

Then it was over! Elegant Choice greeted me at the Melbourne airport wearing a shirt with the Kool-Aid Man's face on it, and holding not one not two not three but FOUR stuffed animals he had won from the claw machine. "THE CLAW MACHINE IS EASY FOR ADULTS," he screamed. There was a dog, a giraffe, and the following "penguin":

Instantly I thought, what if this toy were my penis

Prediction: IT WOULD BE INCREDIBLE

ALSO, when I arrived home, he presented me with a love song he had composed while drunk, which contained the following lines:

Peacock got a trick eye
Hedgehog got an obvious home
Flycatcher gonna catch fly
Lawnmower gonna mow lawn

"Hedgehog got...an obvious home?" I asked blankly. Elegant Choice sighed. "His home is in a hedge," he said patiently.

PERFECTION

The Recent Keyword Activity Diaries, Part One Thousand

2011-03-17T22:08:00.000-07:00

Hmmm I wonder what Brazil is googling these days

"being fucked by a dog isnt normal but on meth it is"

Why, What's YOUR Definition of "Every Single Day"?

2011-03-07T16:44:00.000-08:00

You get two E.T. letters today because I was so lazy last week, plus for free I'll throw in one unit of Fan Art!

Dear E.T.

I have Braces.
I Got them yesterday.
I am home from
School because my
mouth. is sore.
I am seven years
old.
do you have teeth?

From John

Pure poetry, From John. 7-year-olds, never change. He included this...visible seizure along with the letter:

Well. I hope E.T. did not write this child back with any dishonest encouragement. If only we had braces for spatial intelligence, John! I would clamp them on you so fast, tighten them twice a month, and charge you a million dollars.

SPEAKING OF A MILLION DOLLARS:

Dear Mr. Spielberg, (ed. note: hoity-toity! look who's 73 1/2 and can tell the difference between puppets and Men)

I am a little old lady 73 1/2 and I went to see your movie E.T. I loved the movie, but when you pushed my "cry button," I lost my two contact lenses that I have to wear after cataract surgery. Since they cost $325 each, I thought just MAYBE you would like to help me pay for two new ones. Oh yes, I also had to pay $1.50 (Senior admission) to see the movie, but since I didn't "see" the whole movie, I'm out that too. It will cost me another $1.50 to see it again. After I lost the lenses, I missed about 20 minutes of the movie.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Vera Binder

CRY BUTTON. (I have one of these. It's not where you think it is.) 73 1/2-year-olds, ALSO never change. Never stop writing Steven Spielberg to ask him for 650 glaucoma dollars plus $1.50 Senior admission. Mrs. Vera Binder we love you, thank you for giving birth to us. Are you by any chance married to the elderly gentleman who once left a long message at the local newspaper complaining that the papers delivered each morning to his lawn were "full of bugs," which he speculated had been placed there on purpose by Stuart News employees, each presumably with his hand in a writhing bucket full of insects generously provided by the paper itself, plucking out plump grasshoppers and beetles and tucking them in amongst the weather, the lottery numbers, and the long-eared ads for spaniels? Because he would also like a refund. TELL ME IT IS SO.

Call Me One Day My Fon Namder Is 555-5249

2011-03-02T14:15:00.000-08:00

Golden day: the universe has entrusted me with a copy of LETTERS TO E.T., a book of fan letters "culled from the over thirty thousand pieces of mail already received by the official E.T. Fan Club." (I would rather read the letters culled from the over thirty thousand pieces of mail already received by unofficial E.T. fan clubs but that is a perverse desire.) The cover shows E.T. looking very wise and sexy in an oversized flannel shirt -- a shirt so flannel and oversized that we know it must be his boyfriend's, and that his glowing finger for once shines not with Empathy but with something else -- and holding a letter to himself, a love letter. And his glowing fingertip is laid over a Name.

THERE IS ONLY ONE THING FOR ME TO DO

POST A LETTER OR A PIECE OF FAN ART EVERY SINGLE DAY UNTIL THE BOOK IS COMPLETE AND WE ARE SATISFIED

STARTING: NOW. We begin with Deanna Marie, a baby taste of what is to come. The babiest of baby tastes, and it will make you hungry.

Dear E.T.

1 E.T. I hope you are a nice animal
2 I have seen you at the movey
3 are you a very nice creacher
4 E.T. I want you to come over my house one day
5 I live on Ruby Street
6 Call me one day my fon namder is 555-5249
7 E.T. I love you very much
8 I hope I see you one day

Deanna Marie
7 yrs. old

Time for a Photo-Essay? YES

2011-02-27T20:46:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-23T17:46:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-15T09:59:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-10T16:47:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-09T14:04:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-07T12:25:00.000-08:00

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"

2011-02-01T11:47:00.000-08:00

Is up! AAAAHHHH GO LOOK GO LOOK

COME SAY HELLO

2011-02-01T08:56:00.000-08:00

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.

The Saddest Itsy-Bitsy

2011-01-29T15:55:00.000-08:00

Remember how I told you that I had a really specific stroke that made me forget how to do The Itsy-Bitsy Spider? I was serious. And guess who just learned how to use her WEBCAM and is ready to show you the proof, in all of its green, low-quality, night-nostrilled glory:

BASK

Two Weeks

2011-01-26T19:02:00.001-08:00

Linebreak's Two Weeks anthology just went on sale, and if you go buy it you will own my poem "The Hunt for a Newborn Gary" which is about the phenomenon of gary-extinction. When was the last time you saw a young gary in the wild? A little baby gary, fat and sleek and black-eyed? The answer is never because they are dying out. Sorry if your name is Gary but guess what I bet it isn't!

You can also hear me doing SUCH A BAD JOB of reading "Poem for Lu Chi" by Matthew Zapruder. Poor Matthew Zapruder -- first I draw him a horse with boobs and now this. I still have my cough so in order to be able to read smoothly I had to take this giant dose of Children's Robitussin just before and I was FLYING. Go listen; you can totally tell.

Also "e-readers" are just lumps of calculator metal to me so I haven't even seen it yet; I don't even know who's reading my poem. WHO DO YOU THINK IS READING IT. Hey, if you guess correctly in the comments I will give you the word Award!

ETA: The cover photo depicts two ghosts masturbating each other in a hallway. GET THIS GEM

EETA: Awww, Matthew Henriksen reads my poem! It can't have been easy to basically just repeat the word "Gary" for three minutes and make it sound interesting so good job to this wizard boy.

ATTENTION

2011-01-24T09:33:00.000-08:00

Open letter to the man who just came to my blog looking for "saltwater mussel pussy" -- if you are big enough to type, saltwater mussel pussy is too small for you.

FEBRUARY 2011 POETRY PARTY

2011-01-20T10:10:00.000-08:00

My contributor's copies of Poetry came in the mail; I'm in the February issue! There are poems from Carolyn Forché and Thomas Lynch and Todd Swift and Jessica Jopp and John Ridland and Lisa Russ Spaar and Andrea Cohen and Ange Mlinko and Alberto Ríos and Alicia Ostriker and then there is a poem from me. Now ask me if I'm going to be cool about this. I AM NOT GOING TO BE COOL AT ALL.

Uncool things I have done so far:

Smelled it
Called my mom
Read the poem out loud in my mirror for like an hour pretending to be Famous

Uncool thing I am about to do:

HAVE A PARTY

Okay, this is what the issue looks like. When your first issue of Poetry comes and there's an evil little wolf on the cover you throw a party, period, no arguments. I'm about two seconds, no lie, from getting this wolf tattooed on my face:

My poem is called "The Church of the Open Crayon Box" and it's about crayons and The Frontier and hunter-trappers and horses and and pinewoods and log cabins. There is a man named "Whitey BaLavender" in it. I put a man named Whitey BaLavender inside Poetry. Why did they let me? Pity is the most likely answer, and that milkiest of human milk called Kindness.

As you know, all parties start with a question, like what do you want to drink, or would you mind taking off your shoes, or did you put your key in the bowl. So here is my question: Did you know that crayons look so freaky now?

MORPH PHOTOS INTO A CARTOON CHARACTER. Well there goes the rest of my day.

You know I love to decorate for a party! Um let's see what fun decorations do I have lying around:

NOT a line from the poem, sadly

Why would a person even do this

Do you like how the letters get progressively darker

and bolder because I am insane

Obviously I made a crown to wear for the party, did you think I wouldn't? I tried to put some crayon antlers on this crown because there is a deer in the poem but Physics wouldn't let me, so I consoled myself with a frontal sunburst of radiant gold:

This is the closest thing to a Frontier Outfit I had. I swore there were horses all over this shirt but on closer inspection it seems they're actually unicorns. I guess dreams do come true!

This one has Basement Photoshoot written all over it

Nice pose, genius

There is nothing I could say that would make this Okay

It wasn't supposed to be like this. These pictures were supposed to look classy and celebratory and graciously modest, and then...my natural instincts took over? I don't know. The only pictures where you could see my crown, my Frontier Outfit, both contributor's copies, and the plastic wolf also happened to be the ones where I was showing you alllll of my total business.

JUST DEAL WITH IT

Then I got the idea to pretend to be throwing up the wolf, and that was rather more elegant, I know you'll agree:

Next I was going to post pictures of me taking shots of corn whiskey out of the skull of a jackrabbit because that's what you do at a Frontier Party, but I don't even know what corn whiskey is and I couldn't find the skull of a jackrabbit and it's only eleven in the morning anyway so why don't you just imagine that one!

IN CONCLUSION

THANK YOU POETRY

I UNDERSTAND THAT THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN

I LOVE YOU ANYWAY, FOREVER

Why Is Pure Sound So Hard to Find

2011-01-18T09:48:00.000-08:00

There is a beeep beeep beeep in this new apartment, and I'm trying to conquer it with Free Noises from Nature, which isn't working very well because Free Noises from Nature are...bonkers, generally. The first one I tried was Free Rain Sounds and there was an earsplitting CRACK OF THUNDER every fifteen minutes or so which almost gave me a nervous breakdown because I never knew when it was coming. I would be going along about my business hearing rain splashing down and then suddenly a watermelon of doom would break open. I looked for one that was just rain but no, why would you just want rain sounds? Are you sure you don't want some raven caws in there? Are you sure you don't also want some bagpipe music in the background? Are you sure you don't want the occasional scream of a woman being murdered? They're trying to drive me to pay for better sounds, I can tell, because the free ones are all completely unlistenable. I actually found one that was baby snoring. It was straight up just sounds of a baby snoring, and the whole time it played the screen showed you pictures of children sleeping so deeply they looked dead. I listened to it for hours. I'm listening to it right now.

Coming Soon

2011-01-17T11:20:00.000-08:00

Your Blood Is So Warm

2011-01-15T11:55:00.000-08:00

If I know one thing is true, I know that sometimes a poem is just some shit LL Cool J said in 1999. Allow me to take you back.

DEEPEST BLUEST (My Hat Is Like a Shark's Fin)

Uh, my hat is like a shark's fin

Deepest, bluest, my hat is like a shark's fin

Repeat 5x

Manmade terror
Hungry jaws of death
Y'all don't cross my depths
I'll pause your breaths
I cause you to sink down forty thousand leagues
Bleeding to death with no arms and short sleeves
My world's deep blue
Killers gotta eat too
Looking for human flesh to rip my teeth through
Other fish in the sea but Barracudas ain't equal
To a half human predator created by a needle
Jet black eyes baby they stare while you sleep
When your Titanic sinks I'm the one you gon' meet
Hearing terrified screams they surround my team
All you see is trails of blood
Even God won't intervene
Nightmares of darkness
My appetite is heartless
Even if we related, you eliminated regardless
In the deep blue, underwater walls
Half man, half shark
My jaws don't fall

Deepest, bluest, my hat is like a shark's fin

Repeat 8x

Our Father who art in Heaven
Hallowed be Thy name
Killers sworn to beast
Swallowed them in flames
They switched my DNA
Trip me into Cool J
I can't fight the feeling
I'm born to kill prey
To survive an attack
There's only one way
Battle to the death
That's how sharks play
Weapons left behind
We dueling with the mind
You blind, crippled, or crazy
You're real easy to find
Struggling to flow with hemorrhages in your throat
Getting the lap dance while I smash through your boat
Eat your whole fam
Nothing left but a right hand
Clinging to a rail

Escape, attempts fail
You'll never make it home
Tear the flesh off your bone
Walking in undercurrents is a dangerous zone
I'm talking death out a moment's notice
You wasn't focused
Me and my crew strike
Like some underwater locusts

Deepest, bluest, my hat is like a shark's fin

Repeat 8x

Uh, uh take it deeper
Uh, uh take it deeper
Uh, uh take it deeper
Uh, uh take it deeper

These waters are waist level
The hallway's flooded
Lost your scuba gear
The killer's cold-blooded
His name's LL
You don't really want it
I ate your ancestors
The ocean is haunted
I'm closing in cause I'm supposed to win
How the cold steel feel when it froze your chin
Should of stayed on dry land
Stroke while you can
Cause now you under pressure in the land of the damned
Abandoned pirate ships
Eels and sod scum
Fish that glow in the dark
The Titanic's hub
Underwater storms
Your blood is so warm
Your life vest is off
And that turns me on
Killer for centuries
The Gotti of the deep
In the next millennium
I'm still gonna creep
Sand under my belly, ocean over my head
Through the light in the shadows
You become the living dead

I love his leather bustier so much

France Will Eat You, Little "Baby"

2011-01-13T16:09:00.000-08:00

The following, and don't ask me how I found it or why I was looking for it, is described as a "Darling Little Baby Horse Costume."

It is manufactured by a company called First Fantasies--Costume Cuzzins, Inc. (What a good name for a company, by the way!) So here is my question to everyone:

WHAT PART OF THIS IS THE HORSE

The three feet, the praying hands, the racehorse blur?

TELL ME

Wet Little Snouts and Hay-Smelling Breath

2011-01-12T10:36:00.000-08:00

You can read "Who Has the Whip-Hand over Aimless Animals" over at Zone 3's website. Animals animals animals! I'm on a beast streak and nothing can stop me!

ANCIENT ALIENS

2011-01-07T12:26:00.000-08:00

A ghost is writing this, I am a ghost! I haven't breathed in eleven days because I inhaled ANOTHER germ somehow and got sick again and just laid down on the couch for good. Now I know all about television, most especially a show called ANCIENT ALIENS which I made into a poem for you:

ANCIENT ALIENS: 10PM Thursdays on the History Channel

Cloud shadows racing over Stonehenge

Cloud shadows racing over a Mayan pyramid

Cloud shadows racing over the Great Wall of China

Reenactment of natives shading their eyes against

an unbelievable brightness—what are they so scared of? Aliens

Footage of whirling galaxies

Closeup of a rain-stained gargoyle

[Panflute]

A professor of aliens appears, he speaks, “Am I saying

it was definitely aliens? No. Am I saying

there's a chance it was definitely aliens? YES”

Footprints disappearing up a sand dune

Sped-up crowd in downtown Tokyo at night

A butterfly lands in slow motion on the Rosetta Stone

Reenactment of a druid baring his chest while lightning flashes

[Crack of thunder]

Slow movement of a camera over a photograph to make the people seem alive

Is it possible that Ken Burns learned this technique...from aliens?

Glowing numbers and symbols swirl across the screen for no reason

Is this what it's like to be inside a mind...inside the mind of an alien

My Suggestions for Future Shows

Simulation of an atom bomb blowing up an Easter Island statue

while Hitler laughs and laughs, the camera pans down

and you see that “Hitler” is actually a hat that an alien is wearing

Simulation of JFK being stabbed with the point of a sundial,

an alien is doing it but he is dressed as an Aztec king

and screaming really hard the whole time

Simulation of an orgy in a meteorite crater,

an alien runs one frog-skinned finger

up the thigh of a human woman

and then nine months later Amelia Earhart is born

The camera travels inside the penis of Michelangelo's

David, we see that it is full of glowing sperm

and each sperm has the blank black eyes of an alien

Simulation of an alien crying a single tear

because he heard people didn't believe in him,

that tear becomes a flood that wipes out all humanity

[Panflute]

ROUNDUP

2011-01-04T14:57:00.000-08:00

This is pretty much what my holidays looked like:

The best gift either of us received this year--

is it an animal? Is it an Idea? Is it one creature

crapped by another, or a creature crapped by itself?

This is from the Christmas movie, the only Christmas movie;

it is called Wee Sing the Best Christmas Ever! and it involves

a group of elves named Dermy, Gusty, Poofer, Dimpie, and Snooter--

which are all like an alien's idea of what elf names would be

This is a fine game to play while drinking,

because you are a sheep and the object of the game

is to get the most wool before you get eaten,

and every so often when you roll a Danger

you both have to snatch for the wolf and howl as loud as you can

to prevent yourself from being carnally devoured--

Wild Wool indeed

2010-12-26T21:10:00.001-08:00

35 degrees

I step into the cold of a Florida night and instantly my Ice Age instincts kick in and I am looking for a caribou to kill

CHRICHARDMAS

2010-12-24T10:53:00.000-08:00

I hoped to be reading Christmas Words and only Christmas Words by now, but I started The Fox in the Attic last week and it messed up my timing and now I'm stuck reading a Bavarian cousinfucking Hitler fantasia. Everyone is locked up together in a crumbling castle, and they want to do it but they are cousins, and all of them wish they were animals all the time.

LET'S MAKE THE BEST OF IT

Billiardrooms are never small. In childhood this one used to seem to Augustine as interminable as the vaults of heaven: it had always been a room of wonder, moreover, for what might not happen in a room where a rhinoceros--lurking in an Africa that must have been just behind the plaster--had thrust head and horn clean through the wall? (Often as a small thing he had peeped in fearfully before breakfast to find if during the night that rhinoceros in his collar had inched any further through.)

But most of all Polly was sad because she was lonely--and that happened only when she came to London! She never felt lonely at home in Dorset; for at Mellton Chase there were animals to play with, but in London there were only children.

That was what was wrong with London: "If only there were fewer people in the world how much nicer it would be for we animals, " Polly told herself...

"We animals!" --Polly could think a rabbit's kind of thoughts much easier than a grown-up's kind, for her thinking like an animal's was still more than nine parts emotion.

All the most interesting hours of the day still tended to be spent on all fours, and even in bodily size she was nearer to her father's spaniel than she was to her father.

Girls' clear minds...In tranquility like this how lovely they are to watch! First, a whitish motion, deep in the bottom-darkness: an irised shadow on the shining gravel...then suddenly, poised beautiful and unwitting in the lens-clear medium, that whole dappled finny back of some big thought--as blue as lead...

True, their word was their bond, but they acted spoilt, like babbies...

A moment later the woman's whole nether person began to heave with unseen poultry.

AND THAT UNSEEN POULTRY WAS ME
--JESUS

--A FOUND POEM BY RICHARD HUGHES AND JESUS

A crumbling Bavarian castle

overrun

with animal multiplication

A List of the Plastic Animals I Have So Far Found in My Advent Calendar

2010-12-17T10:14:00.000-08:00

A raccoon
A raccoon's child

A badger
A badger's child

A wild boar
A wild boar's child

A stunning buck
A stunning buck's child

Two tiny rats, neither old nor young,
neither parents nor children,
simply of a healthy rat age

One blood-red carrot, so blood-red
I think it must count as an animal

It is the best Advent Calendar that has ever been made. I hope to find a gray-furred God on the final day of it, and his little wild son.

Soon I Will Post a Real Post Again Soon

2010-12-14T12:14:00.000-08:00

I'm not trying to be such a glory-hole all day every day, but my poem "The Human Tassel Is Hanged at Dawn" is up at Anti-, along with my Anti- thesis which is for some reason about fisting. (Remember the days when everything in poetry was "fisting" itself? Why was that happening?) There's also a picture of me which will truly disappoint you--I'm committing a Smile! It's not even black and white! There's not a single jug in it anywhere! I deprive you so hard, can you ever love me again?

The issue also includes work from Keith Wilson, Zach Savich, Joshua Rivkin, Patty Paine, Christina Olson, Dan Nowak, Eric Morris, Jeff Mock, Joel Lee, Stephanie Kartalopoulos, Megan Hudgins, Elizabeth Hoover, Jennifer H. Fortin, Cynthia Cruz, Jamison Crabtree, and Michael Cantor. Check it out.

I Will Tell You So Much about Islands, Today

2010-12-07T08:35:00.000-08:00

My poem "The Too-Long Grass, the Silverback, the Legendary Pockets of Naked Crusoe" is out in the current edition of Hayden's Ferry Review, and you can read it on the website here, if you aren't too afraid to be marooned on the island of my insight! Also, I wrote a Contributor Spotlight for them in which I totally meditate on the subject of islands, and tell all about how I am addicted to islands, and how if I could figure a way to inject the dirt of them directly into my bloodstream I would. You will also be pleased to encounter there an enormous representation of my Thinking Face; it is a total eclipse of reason; stare into it as long as you dare.

HFR #47 looks like this and it is an actual treasure, a piece of eight for you to bite! It's full of excellent photography--I particularly liked Debbie Fleming Caffery's "Gator Love" and Jocelyn Lee's "Girl with Kitten." I also recommend Darin Ciccotelli's poem "[And He Woke Knowing the Wren Was Inside Him]" and an interview of Adam Johnson by Noah Tucker called "Set It on a Spaceship." [ETA: PLUS I forgot to mention that Local Internet Boy Luke Johnson is also inside it!] My thanks to Beth Staples, Allyson Boggess, and the rest of the editorial staff. I'm typically shy with editors, don't want to bother them, etc.--that is, when I'm not drawing obscene pictures on my contracts--but these were the friendliest and funniest people ever, and I so enjoyed working with them.

BOOK REPORT: This Book Is Real

2010-12-01T15:22:00.000-08:00

Florida is of course a hell, but now that I've been returned to the loving arms of its Magical Flea-Market Booksale I am once again happy. Last week I picked up Let's Pretend: Games of Fantasy for Babies and Young Children, a book that seems to have been written to help robots raise human offspring. The author treats the concept of Pretend as being only slightly less complicated than particle physics. The game of Dress Up requires hundreds of words of explanation, Puppet Show requires nearly a thousand. The victims of her murderous analysis are classic games such as Tea Party, Hairdos, Mama's Baby (Daddy's Baby), and Restaurant Fun. Who, as a child, did not occasionally enjoy a rousing game of And What's the Daddy's Name? Other games she teaches us are new to me, such as Bears in a Cave, No Way Out, Pillow Panic, and Don't Look Now, But. I think these were not typically played by well-adjusted children, of which I was certainly one. (LIE.)

Would you like to play a game called Me, Baby? Of course you would and here is how:

Me, Baby!

Equipment: None

Procedure:

1. Whether you encourage it or not, somewhere along the line your child will want to pretend to be a baby again. Having a new baby in the house will influence the extent and frequency of Me, Baby! You'll recognize step one when your child enters the room at a crawl or stagger and announces, "Me, baby!"

2. Your best bet is to go along with it. "Oh! My goodness! Look at this cute baby!"

3. Your "baby" will most likely gurgle, coo, or cry in response.

4. Pick her up and hold her over your shoulder as if she were an infant. Pat or rub her back while you sing a quick version of Rock-A-Bye Baby.

5. Pretending the couch is a crib or bassinet, lie her down with an imaginary bottle. "Here's your bottle, baby. You just lie there and watch Mommy wash the dishes!"

6. When your "baby" tires of lying still she may fuss or cry.

7. Take the imaginary bottle away and hand her a toy or keys to play with. "Play with this, baby. Mommy can't hold you right now."

8. Next time she "cries" pick her up again or rock her in a rocking chair.

9. A good way to end is simply to put the "baby" to bed. While you pretend to put on her pajamas, talk to yourself. "Boy, I sure will be glad when you are a big girl. I wish I had a big girl who could talk and play and help me. I'm awfully tired of babies!"

10. If your child wants to continue the game, tell her that babies sleep most of the time!

That is a quote. That is all a quote. I love how every single step is written out. If you didn't have this guide and your child staggered into the room pretending to be a baby, you'd probably end up freaking out and screaming BENJAMIN BUTTON WAS TRUE while forcibly diapering her and/or pressing her mouth against your bare breast. I mean wouldn't you?

Of course there are illustrations. Of course there are the worst illustrations.

what

This picture creeps me out so bad

and I don't know why--

maybe because the child's reflection

appears to be an independent entity

capable of turning away from its source

and looking the reader in the eye

Pillow Panic is a fucked-up game,

no two ways about it

Step 2 of Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty goes as follows:

Once your child is in position, find out just how much

she knows about cats. Ask, "What do kitties say?

Can you meow like a kitty?"

Games of Fantasy for Babies indeed

Christmas Begins...NOW

2010-11-26T12:48:00.000-08:00

My family has decided to a do a White Elephant Gift Exchange for Christmas this year which is such a bad idea--I believe, no lie, that it will end in a literal fistfight. It wouldn't be the first time! My aunt once broke my uncle's rib in the course of a "friendly game." This was a long time ago, though, and I don't really remember it, although a photo does exist of me and my cousin at this legendary gathering. I am smiling beatifically at the camera, an Easter basket in my hand, and my cousin is squatting behind me taking a secret, effortful dump in the garden. Our parties are the best! Anyway, no one asked for my opinion about this White Elephant business so to get revenge I chose as my contribution a Circus Hobo Clown Band:

Contents:

One gold saxophone

One gold trumpet

One monkey, clad in a red diaper

One tambourine

One hobo who plays the accordion

One hobo who plays the drums

Priceless music that emanates

from a small machine inside the stage

It is so good, it is such a good present. And why stop there, I thought, and additionally purchased a Hobo Clown with Squirting Sunflower:

Contents:

One hobo clown with umbrella hat
One sunflower with squirting capabilities

If you are a family member who reads this blog, consider yourself warned--this is my gift to you. Although if you're the sort of person who reads this blog, you might actually want a Circus Hobo Clown Band, to display in your home as art. I know I do! I want it so bad it gives me a physical pain, and I may end up keeping it. I always choose gifts that I myself would like to receive, much to the sorrow of any person who has ever gotten a gift from me ever.

ALCOHOL STORY

2010-11-16T10:44:00.000-08:00

Oh no I went to a bar again! It was even worse than last time because there was "live music," which meant a squat rectangular gentleman in a cowboy hat singing Don Henley songs in a fragile falsetto. When he was finished performing he came to our table and attempted to romance us, because why wouldn't he. And as you probably know, the best way to romance women is to tell them stories about how your dad used to beat you, "in a good way." He told me the reason he never tried any drugs was because his father had a bat called The Drug Bat, and he used to line up all the neighborhood kids and say, "I'm gonna hit you with this bat, and you're going to be unconscious for twelve hours and wake up woozy and confused," and when all the kids looked terrified he would shout, "That's what it's like to take drugs!" He believed that Kenny Chesney was his friend and had personally made "gay confessions" to him. At one point he screamed, "WHO YOU GONNA BELIEVE, KENNY CHESNEY OR THE MEDIA?" He was bothering my friend too much so I told him she was married, she had gotten married at Dave & Buster's and I performed the ceremony wearing wizard robes and a wizard hat. And he believed me. Favorite night of my life.

GIVE MONEY TO JIMMY WALES POEM

2010-11-13T13:47:00.000-08:00

Jimmy Wales' face is freaking me out so bad on Wikipedia

Right now that I'm in danger of giving him all my money

As if his weird gaze were a kind of Knifepoint

One eye is the knife and the other is the glint

His nose comes at me like a pure threat

His nose will go between my ribs

I will bleed out on the sidewalk of the internet

My blood will turn to little copper coins

Heads up all of them, the heads of Lincoln

By far our most assassinated President

................Wikipedia will never need money again

CHALLENGE

2010-11-10T10:16:00.000-08:00

Still sick as an elm. Make me well, tree surgeons of the internet, and I will return my shade, my sun, my moss and my crotch to you.

COLD MEDICINE POETRY

2010-11-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again! The time of year when I get bronchitis and take a massive dose of mind-altering cough syrup and lie down on my couch and think about the state of modern poetry! This usually results in a poem about poetry itself, called either "POETRY TODAY OH MY GOD" or "A POEM ABOUT POETRY I AM SO HIGH RIGHT NOW."

POETRY TODAY OH MY GOD

Heidegger lies down on the rose-colored sofa. His snatch is bleeding so bad he can hardly concentrate on philosophy. Still he persists, like a strawberry in the snow, dreaming about the fingertips that are reaching down for him.

Somewhere in Germany, a hart lowers his head to drink and sees the water wet with all of his self-contained blood—that is to say, his reflection. “There is the hart that killed my mother,” he thinks, “the hart that broke my mother in two.”

If there are too many harts in poetry today, it is because we all grew up reading a book called “Imogene's Antlers,” about a girl who woke one morning with a pair—and this will surprise you—of antlers.

If there is too much blood in poetry today, it is because we all imagined the day when Imogene got her period, and how she was now in even greater danger from the wolves.

The “woofs,” as we called them.

If there are too many woofs in poetry today, it is because in our childhood books, they were always a danger to the youngest, pinkest characters. And we were even younger and pinker than them.

Heidegger never read the story of Imogene. He would like to read it now, bleeding on his rose-colored couch. It would comfort him to think that perhaps his head is heavy because his head is growing upward.

If there are too many dead philosophers in poetry today, it is because we know that even in heaven they haven't stopped reading. They will get around to our poems after many eternities, and devour them like more-than-carnivores.

THE END

They Steal My New Yorkers Too, I Hope One of Them Wins the Caption Contest Eventually

2010-10-29T14:19:00.000-07:00

I have a poem called "That Bullfight in the Forehead, Those Black Eyes" in Gulf Coast. I have a poem called "As Many as Fill the Mouth of Flies, As Much of Lure as Parts the Lips" in Black Warrior Review. I have a poem called "Who Has the Whip-Hand over Aimless Animals" in Zone 3. Here is the Halloween part: all of these magazines dropped yesterday on the dot. Is October 28th a special litmag holy day that I don't know about? I haven't received any of my copies yet because I'm moving in like five days and I had to get my address changed, plus juvenile delinquents in my neighborhood always steal them for some reason. I hope they're so disappointed! I hope they read my nature metaphors and are suddenly seized with the fact of their mortality! A juvenile delinquent reading my poem and going, "Oh no I'm going to die someday" is even sweeter than me getting to kill him myself, for revenge.

Ha!

2010-10-27T13:42:00.000-07:00

My illustration of a sentence from Sean Kilpatrick's "The All Encompassed Drowned" is up at HTMLGIANT. Go stare until your eyes burn, and then go read his piece here. Then go buy the current issue of New York Tyrant so you can participate in the Literary Magazine Club!

Whoops

2010-10-27T11:09:00.000-07:00

So I think I am not allowed to go to literary readings anymore! I went to this one last Friday and it was at a bar and Elegant Choice was late picking me up and by the time he got there I was smoking a total stranger's cigar and making friends with a ripped male terror who kept telling me, "I saw your wide eyes and I knew you was a German!" I have no idea. Also I tried to force Keith Lee Morris to draw a picture of a dog wearing an army hat in my book but he demurred and signed it, Imagine these words are a drawing of a dog, which nearly killed me with deepness, and then later he took down the hugest most intricate pile of nachos I've ever seen in my life. Respect. Then I collaborated on a drunken napkin with a fine fellow who shared my love for David Foster Wallace and cardigans. I drew my specialty: Explicit Pig with a Snout Where a Snout Should Not Be, and he drew a sheep dressed as Michael Jackson, which might have sparked a debate on the nature of clothes and whether sheep could be said to wear sweaters. "Must a sweater be separate from the self in order to be a sweater?" I screamed, and then scrawled this incoherent legend on the napkin: THE IMPORTANT THING IZ THA WOOL. I woke up the next morning smelling like a creepy uncle, probably because of my bad cigar decision. Do not ever smoke one! I inhaled just the tiniest bit and instantly burst into tears, partly with sadness for my lost innocence, partly because it had poisoned me.

FOUND FOREST WONDER POEM

2010-10-21T14:25:00.000-07:00

Did you know that 1960 was a simpler

time? Even the squirrels of 1960

were less complicated than the squirrels

of today

The First Settlers: Were Probably
Not Thinking about How Trees Began

All began in the seas and the oceans.
Tiny green algae got food from the sun,
the seas rushed to fill the hollow places,
and sea weeds somehow learned to grow
on land. The waves of the sea could not
wash them back. Settle our big,
.................................wide country.

Does It All Sound Easy and Fun?

It wasn't. These men were the tallest
straightest pines. All day the rushing
river took them pell-mell to the saw-
mill. They balanced on the logs, the logs
rolled out from under them. They jumped
from one to another as the rushing water
carried them. Impossible people doing
impossible things. These men weren't
the trees we know today, the cherries,
.....................apples, pears and oranges.

Certain Trees Are Special

A limber pine from Idaho
was working like mad just
growing. Made a small,
cleared place in the forest
of years. You can speak.
If anyone asks, tell your age.
A special tool has now been
.........invented, it is called
an "increment borer." The loud
knock-knock of a woodpecker,
making a hole in the year
1950 and eating the grubs
that live there, the days.

Never Lose All Your Leaves

At one time. Your feet are
probably resting on a carpet
of dead and dead, a soft
carpet of broken and broken.
In winter a forest insect
has weather all its own,
too. We would never have
our Christmas if this were
not so. The sun is needed
for its manufacture, all kinds
of shades of red and green.

The Sun

Is a hard-sounding name
for the same yellow found
.....in egg yolks. Hot rays
of daylight--enough to build
........a four-foot wide path
to the sun!

American Paper and Pulp Association

Reading a stump can be as exciting
........as clues in a detective story.
...............A tree is always there,
unless an accident happens to it.
Now this log will make one trip--
to the handles of the knives in your
kitchen. To the musical instruments
in your favorite orchestra. To
the book you are building, in your
own town or city. It is important
for these to be light enough to carry.

The Same Trees Give Us Their Sweetness

A kind of bouncy quality, soft white
legs and arms. Have you ever touched
a tree and then had a sticky "sap"
in your hand? If the wood in your pencil
ever got crooked you can imagine what
a useless pencil you would have.

The First Real Writing

Many of our English words
began as the cells of trees.
The wonder-working cells
of trees. A ladder was put
against the tree so the spirit
could leave it comfortably.

We Make So Many Things From Paper

Real paper, like the kind we know,
was reported in China two thousand
years ago. A French scientist,
a German, an American invented it.
They chewed the wood into pulp,
mixed it with their saliva, and lo!
it came out paper. How surprised
all of these fine gentlemen would be
if they could visit our paper today,
creamy white when it is new.

Live in a World without Paper

All the paper in the world
suddenly whisked away.
No mail in your mailbox,
no funnies or history, no
pictures of great hairy
elephants. You could make
a list a yard long, the list
would be written on paper
too. You wouldn't be reading
............this very sentence,

"And now if my imaginary visitors
could be with me on this imaginary trip."

--from The Adventure Book of Forest Wonders,
by Eva Knox Evans

He used a rock for his pencil

Here Is One Noo, One Unit of Noos

2010-10-20T16:21:00.000-07:00

I don't feel so good! "I feel udderly inhuman," Tom said moonily. (Does that stretch the definition of a Tom Swifty?) It's because I just found out that we have to move again. Back to Florida, that wang. Moving is the second most stressful event, right after "getting married to your new puppy," and I've had to do it like forty times in my life. Where is home? "Home is where your dog is," Tom barked doggedly, sliding sensually into "home"--home base, that is!--which is okay because he and his dog are married. (I tell you starting today I am taking Tom Swifties to the next level.)

What Is Wrong with Me

2010-10-14T09:55:00.001-07:00

After the last manuscript, which I wrote in a total frenzy over the course of a year, I decided I needed to relax a little bit and write some unserious poems for a while. Write whatever you want, I told myself. No rules and no restrictions! What a dangerous game to play--I took this new freedom and ran with it and consequently the new poems are so, so unpublishable. The one I wrote yesterday is about dolphins who grow breasts and are totally surprised. I spent like four hours on it, scrunching up my little face with concentration. I thought so hard about what a dolphin breast might look like that I should maybe be arrested. I'll probably change the title but right now I'm calling it "Perfect Little Mouthfuls," which wins an award for Title Most Likely to Never Appear in Any Magazine, Ever.

Hmm. Would now be a good time to link that Hey Champ video where the women's boobs are dolphin faces, which I had never encountered until I typed the previously unthinkable query "dolphin breasts" into Google Images? I warn you, though--once you see you can never unsee.

"..."

2010-10-13T13:37:00.000-07:00

In writing this, I notice the care it costs me not to use certain words more than I ought to. I am thinking about the word "just." I almost wish I could have written that the sun just shone and the tree just glistened, and the water just poured out of it and the girl just laughed--when it's used that way it does indicate a stress on the word that follows it, and also a particular pitch of the voice. People talk that way when they want to call attention to a thing existing in excess of itself, so to speak, a sort of purity or lavishness, at any rate something ordinary in kind but exceptional in degree. So it seems to me at the moment. There is something real signified by the word "just" that proper language won't acknowledge.

--Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

FOUND POODLE POEM

2010-10-08T13:31:00.000-07:00

What a beautiful JonBenét

It took me like three hours

to finish the shading on your upper lip

You're not even trying

this is basically Chewbacca

The Creative Poodle Owner
Should Never Feel Restricted

The extremely tiny Poodle is designated a toy.

Ten inches describes a miniature. Neon light

is the best for Poodle grooming. Visualize

your Poodle as a living canvas. Snip and comb,

snip and comb. Never be lax, and never be brutal.

Give the face a quizzical expression. Full ears are

also very attractive. Scissor evenly for a hedge-like

look. If you wish to have rosettes. The head should

have a sheep-like look. For a lion-like appearance.

There is no distinct "Poodle" shape. The pompon

on the tail. The pompon on the head. The pompon

..................................................is round and high.
Rinse the dog. It should squeak when you stroke it.
Dress the Poodle in finery. You can spend anywhere
from fifty cents for a dog toy to two hundred dollars
for a mink coat, and all for your Poodle. Shock
your friends and please your enemies. He may be
a spoiled mother's darling, but not vicious. Chew sticks
made of rawhide, tug-of-war toys. Poodle reigns,
..................................and will reign, king of them all.

--from Know How to Clip a Poodle, by Dana Miller

TMNT: XX Is the Greatest Mutation of All

2010-10-05T13:44:00.001-07:00

Did you know there was briefly a FEMALE Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle? Back in the 80s, during the run of the original cartoon series, the explicit rule was "no female turtles"--the creators, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, agreed that a female turtle was "a lame, stupid, creatively bankrupt idea." However, in 1997, a live-action series called Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation introduced a character named Venus de Milo so that...eventually the Turtles would have someone to have sex with, I guess!

Oh my God they gave her breasts a little bit

Oh my God her shell has a crotch, it is a BODYSUIT,

now everyone is wondering

what her vagina is like

It is amphibious, even more than a regular vagina

OH WHY JESUS NO

Now I'm going to give you the gift of a lifetime. It turns out some people on the internet have thought a lot about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles getting it on. There is...fan art. Turtles are frenching humans, Turtles are frenching humans with cat faces, Turtles are frenching lizard-women, Turtles are frenching each other. Turtles will be frenching YOU, if you are brave enough to click this link. Surprisingly safe-ish for work!

STUNT CAT

2010-09-30T22:05:00.000-07:00

Elegant Choice and I sat in a hammock just now and alternated lines on a poem called "Stunt Cat." It is a poem about a cat on drugs.

Stunt Cat

Bends his head to his Whiskas, bends his head
to his Fancy Feast, bends his head to a crystal
goblet and takes his first taste of fine liver,
and another taste behind it, Drug--now he tastes
Lift a Paw for the Cameras, and he tastes Run-
ning Jump on a Horse. And now he must leap
on the limb of a tree, and now he is held
in the mouth of a dog, and now he must let
a child ride him, but in his mind he sinks deep
in silk couches, and in his mind are clouds
..............of smoke---he was once in a movie
called Lure of the Poppy. In his mind he is
........................................riding the dragon,
though no one has invented that phrase yet,
in his mind he is chomping the head of a koi
from the fat hand of an extra, and no one
has ended his scene yet, and no one says
............................Cut or calls out Treat,
for the time being the film is rolling still,
the film is rippling like his fur in the wind
as Stunt Cat runs in a circle, he is shining black,
he is film himself, a roll and a roll of rolling
film, and he is recording everything, all
his smallest actions, all his hops through
hoops, right down to his only line, Mroww.
His voice is a smaller stunt cat, it leaps
out of him perfectly trained, he spent long
years teaching it timing, and how he dreamed
..............................................of letting it fly
like a motorcycle from the lip of the Grandest
Canyon, all other vocabulary beneath him,
MROWW, licking scraps of adrenaline
............................................from his beard,
the taste of Fine Liver at last surging through him.

Total Chaos Forevermonth: Matthew Zapruder

2010-09-28T17:15:00.000-07:00

When I think very hard
about my thoughts they seem
to me to be very small horses
attached to invisible reins
attached to facts.

--Matthew Zapruder, "This Handwriting"
from Come on All You Ghosts

All four hooves leave the ground at once, FACT. Eadweard Muybridge (cry, plain Edwards, cry) proved this in the country of the past, 1878. Sallie Gardner at a Gallop proved it! So if you didn't have a horse in your head you have one now, and if you didn't have a fact in your head you have one now, and the one pulls the other, according to the poem above which is also a fact.

PERSPECTIVE LESSON: a horse has too many parts to fit on a single sheet of paper so you must use "perspective" when you draw one. "Perspective" means just put the horse parts wherever you want, and leave out some of the thighs entirely. It's a marvelous Tool of the Trade!

Li'l Envelope Pets, Staring at You

2010-09-23T13:28:00.000-07:00

I am an actual child and I laughed so much

UMBROS POEM

2010-09-21T13:13:00.000-07:00

Sad! I wrote a long poem about KRANG from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and I was going to post it here but then I reread it and thought seriously, "This is the best poem I've ever written," and sent it to The Paris Review, ha ha. So here is a make-up poem for you:

Right Now I Am Thinking

I wish someone in the world would write a really good poem
about Umbros

Who could do it, could Ana Božičević or Elisa Gabbert or perhaps even
Tao Lin do it

A main thing to talk about is how they were checkered, and how some
of the checks they shone, and some of the checks they were dull

They were held on your body with a shoelace in a far simpler way
than your sneakers, which you tied with textbook technique

(Later you would marry a man who did idiot things with rabbit ears)

Your legs underneath them were ablaze with gross young golden hair,
you wore them under your school skirt like a powerful real identity

Power was what you couldn't decide: no girl wanted X-ray vision,
except for you the pervert

How does an Item, previously invisible, suddenly become Necessary
to conquer your nudity

Umbros were founded in the year 1910, in the year 1990 you believed
that Dick van Dyke was British

You believed he was a model British citizen, who spilled marmalade
in the shape of UK on his trousers

You believed that Julie Andrews was American, and had somehow
given birth to you through her strong blond throat

Umbros were for soccer--in the year 1990, America saw that soccer
was real

Was a country we could possibly conquer, and the television
played shows of only green fields

Instead of walking Americans began to do simple forward footwork

You played soccer a single season, and when at last they let you be goalie
you stood in the goal and cried,

Longing to grip on black-and-white, longing to catch the flying text,

Unable to even raise your arm, unable to raise it even one inch

Rejected Author Photos

2010-09-20T10:01:00.000-07:00

What is more poetic than a JUG

I actually kind of love this

Not to be rude but WHAT A BITCH,

God, look at the fine light of hatred shining from my face

The Facts

2010-09-18T17:27:00.000-07:00

The patient was attacked by his heart while weed-whacking. This has happened once before; it was worse this time. The patient was given a Valium at bedtime and woke up in the middle of the night hallucinating he was Andre Agassi. He panted, fearing he was late for a match with Pete Sampras. We sat in the waiting room reading Come On All You Ghosts, which it turns out is full of The Father as both an articulated and a whitespace presence. The patient's wife said, in an idle moment, "Let's face it, we have no idea what a prostitute would wear." The patient's heart is weak but thumps along; he is moved to the less-scary part of the hospital, where he is finally allowed to hold his grandchild, a cheerful little man named Tubby Buxom. I arrive home and feel reconstituted, like a Salisbury steak you would eat in jail.

We thank you for your thoughts.

2010-09-15T10:36:00.001-07:00

Oh nice little news--I'm up today at Whale Sound! Nic Sebastian bathes "Death by Precipitation" in her fine-sounding saliva.

2010-09-13T13:04:00.000-07:00

Still in the hospital. We're passing the time discussing which character from Narnia we would most like to DO. I said Reepicheep, mainly for the shock value, but he went straight for Aslan. Aslan! Would he be tender or stern? Would he blow in your face with "his" hot golden breath?

The F*uck-Up

2010-09-10T21:12:00.000-07:00

I've written before about my total inability to fill out forms or address envelopes without completely losing my mind. Well, my POETRY contract came in the mail last week and there were a million pages of it and I about had a heart attack just looking at them, but Elegant Choice helped me fill them out and everything was finished and ready to go except I needed to write a little statement talking about my current project. Statements! Even more than forms they are my nemesis. Nevertheless, this afternoon I sat down, got my head as right as possible, and wrote:

I'm currently working on a series of poems about cartoons coming to life and saying metaphors to each other! Hence all the crayons. I also talk about pencils, pens, paint, and children having ink accidents all over their clean pockets.

That's as far as I got. I was then going to write something about the children getting in trouble with their daddies for coming home so inky, and how the whole series is Adults Only, but at that very moment the phone rang and it was my brother-in-law, calling to tell me that my father-in-law had just been rushed to the hospital, and we immediately started planning to leave tomorrow morning to see him and then I was rushing around like crazy doing laundry and putting the apartment in order, and by the time I got back to the POETRY thing I had totally lost my train of thought, and I said, "Just one more sentence, YOU CAN DO THIS," and then with blind determination I wrote the lamest sentence of all time:

It turns out if you stare at a cartoon long enough, it starts to look like a letter, or a bit of cursive, or an ampersand--like a figurative representation of something you could say, if you wanted to, and I guess I wanted to.

Oh no. Oh no no no no no no no. Needless to say I looked at it moments later and said OH MY GOD I NEED TO WIPE THAT SENTENCE OFF THE FACE OF THE PLANET. But how? It was already written down! I could photocopy the front side, or I could slather Liquid Paper everywhere--but no, that wouldn't work, and besides I need to send it off tomorrow morning before we leave. So I did the next best thing:

Here's the thing: I don't feel insane, but then something like this happens and I think, "If not me then who?"

Anyway, the situation with my father-in-law seems serious. I may be gone for a few days--not sure how long. I'll be in touch when I get back. In the meantime, I am THE WORST, I don't deserve to be in any magazine ever, and let's all pray that POETRY somehow neglects to flip that curséd sheet of paper o'er.

Little Thing, Who Made Thee

2010-09-10T12:28:00.000-07:00

Today the forests are alive with the animals of Beth Cavener Stichter, alive with their sexy malevolent eyes and alive with their languorous leg extensions. Here's an interview with her at Arcanalogue.

This Article's Plot Summary May Be Too Long or Overly Detailed

2010-09-09T10:50:00.000-07:00

Have you visited the Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Wikipedia entry lately? Of course not, why would you, why would anyone. Why did I? I felt Called, and I followed the Call and was richly rewarded, for the Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Wikipedia entry is full of treasure. Allow me to show you exactly what you're missing:

"Ace meets with Lt. Einhorn and alleges that Marino and Snowflake's kidnappings were connected and that Finkle was involved, claiming that the Dolphins gave Snowflake Finkle's old number and taught him how to kick a field goal, which Finkle took as an insult, and that Finkle has waited for years until the next time the Dolphins return to the Super Bowl to extract his vengeance on the Miami Dolphins franchise. Einhorn then comes onto Ace. The two share a kiss (during which Ace feels something that he assumes to be Einhorn's gun digging into his thigh) and tells him she will now handle the rest of the investigation. Ace, still not satisfied with Einhorn's efforts to find Marino and Snowflake, pretends to be mentally challenged to gain access to the institution that Finkle escaped from. Here, Ace discovers evidence that eventually leads him to the realization that Einhorn not only killed Podacter, but apparently Ray Finkle had a partial sex change to become Lois Einhorn and is Ray Finkle in disguise. His sense of triumph is quickly replaced with disgust after realizing that he had kissed someone he perceives as a man, and that the "gun" he felt digging into his thigh earlier was actually the Lt.'s erection.

Ace follows Lt. Einhorn to a remote warehouse by the docks, when all the Miami Police force arrive to arrest Ace on Einhorn's orders. They are stopped by Melissa who has Emilio held hostage. Einhorn screams at the police officers that Ace is behind it all and that he kidnapped Snowflake and was trying to kill Marino and her. Ace explains Einhorn's motives and claims that Einhorn is actually Ray Finkle. Einhorn denies Ace's accusation and looks at him as if he were crazy. No one believes him of course and the police are on Einhorn's side. Therefore Ace trys to find proof of this by trying to remove the Lt.'s hair thinking it to be a wig but it turns out to be real. Einhorn looks at Ace in disgust. Next he rips open the Lt.'s blouse to find two big beautiful feminine breasts. In a last ditch effort before Einhorn can stop him Ace rips of the Lt.'s skirt thinking she still has a penis, but she is in the perfect figure of a woman. Ace has now stripped all of Einhorn's clothes off her beautiful body, there she stands in her bra and panties in the perfect female figure in total shock of what has just happend to her, she begins to start making strange faces and starts bobbing. But as it turns out Einhorn is not in the perfect figure of a woman as she is hiding her penis between her legs. She had learned over the years to tuck her penis and testicles between her legs to hide them. Einhorn's huge penis and testicles are very noticeable as they stick out the back of her silk panties(hence why she always wears skirts so that her penis and testicles are not noticeable). At this time we also notice a large ring on the Lt's finger. The police begin to whisper. Just as Ace is about to give up Marino alerts Ace of this. Einhorn knows she has no hope left. Ace makes a short humiliating speech directed toward Einhorn's identity and then spins the Lt. around so that the whole police force can see Lt. Einhorn's huge penis and her true sexual identity. The whole police force cant believe that such a beautiful and sexy woman is biologically a man, they begin to spit in disgust. Thus coming to the realization that Einhorn killed Podacter because he discovered her penis and that Lois Einhorn is Ray Finkle and she is a transsexual. Einhorn having her penis revealed completely distroys and hummilates her. In rage, Einhorn makes one last attempt to kill Ace but he flips her into the dolphin's tank. Einhorn comes up spitting out water in total defeat. Then Ace removes Ray Finkle's AFC Championship ring from Einhorn's finger and then scuffs mud into the Lt's face to add further to her humiliation. Since Ace has revealed Lois Einhorn is behind everything she is now arrested for all of the crimes."

Sculpture Is So Easy, Michelangelo or Whoever

2010-09-07T17:26:00.000-07:00

Our friend Child-Size Lavender was in town all week, so I abandoned you to frolic with her. Yesterday was her last night, so to celebrate we had a vodka-drinking head-sculpting party where we just sculpted the guts out of each other with varying degrees of accuracy. The clay was hard, and we were drunk! It's a miracle the heads turned out so beautifully.

THEY BELONG IN A MUSEUM

I sculpted Child-Size Lavender's head,

Child-Size Lavender sculpted Elegant Choice's head--

it was difficult because as you can see from this picture

he is made of gold and shines so brightly

no mere human can look directly at him

and Elegant Choice sculpted my head.

Steal my essence why don't you!

Let's get a closer look at that sweet bust:

BOOK REPORT: Caboose Mystery

2010-09-01T10:24:00.000-07:00

Previously: Schoolhouse Mystery
Previously: Surprise Island

You probably won't believe me, but I just read a Boxcar Children book called "Caboose Mystery" that includes actual chapters titled "Surprise for Cho-Cho" and "Beaver Man." The first thirty pages contained so many references to big cabooses that after a while I became numb to them--perhaps because the words issued most often from the fresh lips of child sexpot Benny, recently established object of my mixed hatred and lust. Slight variants of the following conversation occurred about a hundred times in the first few chapters:

"What a neat idea!" said Benny. "I never saw the inside of a caboose."

"Neither did I," said Mr. Alden, smiling.

"Say, isn't this exciting!" said Benny. "To be riding in a caboose at last. I've always wanted to live in a caboose."

"So have I," said Grandfather, smiling.

You get the idea. The Boxcar Children have found a caboose, and now they will not rest until they are deep inside it and riding it hard all summer long. Understandably, people want to watch. You'd think such a physically...remarkable human specimen as Benny would be used to the attention, but in this book he is super-unhappy with all the service workers looking at his "big caboose."

"Henry, did you really look at that big postman? Did you hear him ask to see this caboose?"

"Yes, Ben, I did," said Henry. He looked quickly at Benny. "I thought it was a strange thing to ask."

"That postman certainly thought there was something different about this big caboose, and sometime I'll find out. Just you wait and see."

Suddenly Benny said, "Jessie, did you notice the workmen at the last station we passed? They pointed at our big caboose and began to laugh."

Benny went up to a tall man and said, "We'd like to know what is different about our caboose. Why are the men pointing at it?"

Well, Benny, if it looks anything like your arms and hands, I think I know why.

God, what was this book even about? Something about a train, and a clown, and a talking horse, and a leather mattress with diamonds inside, and the aforementioned Beaver Man, who is a hermit who lives in the woods and watches "big beavers" put filth on their tails. Understandably, Benny wants to watch.

"I could go right back to sleep," Benny said.

"Oh, don't do that, Benny," called Violet. "You'll miss the beavers. Remember we get off at Beaver Lake at 9 o'clock."

"That's right," agreed Benny. "I do want to see the beavers. I guess I can stay awake that long."

"I should think the beavers would run away if they saw us watching them," said Benny.

"That's the secret," said Al. They won't see you. Now don't ask me why, young man. Just wait and see. One more thing. There is an old man who takes care of these wild beavers. He's a strange old fellow, but he doesn't want people to kill all the beavers. So he lives in the woods and keeps the hunters away. You may see Old Beaver, and you may not."

"Yes, I'm Old Beaver," said the man. He had thick gray hair, and his face was almost covered with a curly gray beard. He was smiling.

Grandfather said, "You are doing a fine job saving a few beavers. They are wonderful animals."

"Thank you," said Old Beaver. "They are smarter than we are in some ways."

"This young man seems to be having a good time," said Old Beaver, looking at Benny.

Now, if you're a child mystery writer who wants to stay on top of her game, how do you top big cabooses and Old Beavers covered in curly gray beards? You introduce a clown named Cho-Cho, obviously. Cho-Cho used to own a talking horse that...did math? With its hoof? I have no damn idea. Then someone hid a diamond necklace in a leather mattress, and Cho-Cho had to sell the horse, and now he's sad, which is Dramatic Irony for a clown. Cho-Cho spills his sorry story into the greedy ears of Benny--because, in addition to his many other preposterous gifts, Benny is also a "good listener" whom people routinely trust with secrets.

As Mr. Alden started to get on the train, Mr. Shaw whispered, "I'm certainly amazed. I never heard Cho-Cho talk so much in my whole life. He never says a word if he can help it."

"This time he couldn't help it," said Benny, laughing.

Gross, Benny. Now, "Caboose Mystery" is notable because it marks the occasion of Benny's first tentative toe-dips into the waters of comedy. He tells three jokes in this book, according to my count. Here are the best ones:

"Look out! Don't touch that!" said Charley. "That's poison ivy!"

"Oh, I see it is now," said Benny. "I wasn't even looking. A good thing you stopped me, because that stuff poisons me."

*sunglasses*
YEAHHH

Grandfather called, "Don't get lost, Benny."

"I'll find my way all right. If I get lost, I can eat nuts and berries. Children always eat nuts and berries when they get lost," Benny said, laughing at his own joke.

Make of them what you will. It's so deeply tragic to think of eternally-five Benny picking up a joke anthology between Book #10 and Book #11 and reading it over and over in a closed loop of time, daydreaming about telling these terrible jokes to new classmates he will never meet, at the end of a summer that will never end.

Also tragic: somewhere between the writing of this book and the last, Gertrude Chandler Warner came into possession of a truly regrettable mid-century cookbook. Now, the food in Boxcar Children books is usually a highlight. They're forever stirring huge pots of chowder and having clambakes and baking cookies and, as I've mentioned before, pouring pints of fresh cream into their faces. The meals served up in the big caboose, however, drift further and further from established definitions of "delicious."

Jessie opened a can of chicken and heated it. Violet used potato flakes to make mashed potatoes. The girls opened a big can of cherries for dessert.

On each plate was an animal made of a big frankfurter. The legs were four smaller sausages. The heads were pickles. The tails were carrot curls.

Where are the Boxcar Children? asks their angel mother in heaven. You know, hangin' out, chomping wiener-animals in their big caboose. They also, at one point, mix canned orange juice with Coke and find the resulting "liquid" to be totally refreshing. For all of you longing to go back in time and get crotch-gripped by Don Draper, bear in mind that warm cans of chicken, hot-dog horses, and "Alden Orange-Coke Special" would probably be waiting for you there.

The end. And finally, because I cannot abide waste, allow me to present a found poem containing many priceless quotes that I couldn't use in the post itself:

"A Mystery!" Shouted Benny. "The Mysterious Caboose!"

We can see for ourselves what a caboose is like.
Well, you can watch real live beavers at work.
He began to wonder about the postman and the beavers
and the big caboose, but suddenly he fell asleep.
"You could go on alone," he said, "but I like to watch
the beavers myself." Then everyone saw a big beaver.
"Why is Cho-Cho so sad now?" asked Benny.
Still Cho-Cho did not move his lips. "I've seen
grown-up men fall down in here, going to see the talking
horse." The path was very poor. Sometimes he thought
that he was not on the path at all--and he was right.
"Oh, we'll find him!" said Grandfather. "We'll find
him if we have to cut down the whole woods."
Jessie laughed and took the lamp apart.

"Did you go to see the talking horse?" "Yes,

I did. He was fun, but now I've lost my family."

HA HA HA

2010-08-27T17:32:00.000-07:00

Elegant Choice, hardworking newspaper man, sends us this priceless communication:

Most unintentionally weirdly sexually suggestive headline of all time:
MASSIVE FIGARO FROM ALL ANGLES

It refers I think to a container ship that just came up the river, it is so so massive, it is giving our town such a Figaro from all angles. Support newspapers, people. When they go away, accidental sex euphemisms like this will die with them.

The Proto-Luck Dragon???

2010-08-25T13:23:00.000-07:00

Falkor the Luck Dragon

Kay Nielsen illustration of some fairytale dog

Today the Fat Baby of My Success Is Being Born

2010-08-23T08:15:00.000-07:00

Oh my gosh

Oh my gosh my people

POETRY has taken a poem, they have taken a poem today

DOUBLE RAINBOW ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE SKY

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN

Tears of a Clown

2010-08-21T10:18:00.001-07:00

You thought I wasn't going to post any crazed-looking bikini shots this year, didn't you? Well you were wrong! It is a tradition, and I will continue it until I die.

...

This is for you, man who will one day

google "ugly thinking ladies"

...

Who will take me seriously on the internet now

...

What am I doing with my face and my hands? Have I been struck blind? Am I writing poetry? Did someone drop a box of matches, and sexy Rain Man is counting them? It isn't healthy.

...

Why can't I be more like this guy? He even has a job!

...

Fifty years ago this poor girl

would have been put in an institution

2010-08-17T22:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I Bought the Mona Lisa for One Dollar

2010-08-14T14:41:00.001-07:00

What kind of animal is she? She'll never tell,

just like the Mona Lisa.

Her inscrutable smile reaches across centuries

to touch us with its mystery

A Representative Conversation

2010-08-10T18:42:00.000-07:00

Me: Hey Mom, did you get any good pictures of me at the beach with the kids?

Mom (disapprovingly): Yes, and I'll post them as soon as I figure out a way to crop out your body.

This Is What It Looked Like

2010-08-06T10:52:00.000-07:00

Moments later I ate this child, a sweet and noisy Organ
freshly extracted from the stomach of a Rap Van

So Like a Week Ago I Halfheartedly Liveblogged the First Hour of My Family Vacation, Here You Go

2010-08-02T18:37:00.000-07:00

Sixteen of my family members just arrived in town for a relaxing vacation; it is going to be so relaxing. How I've missed my mother's crazy iced tea cusses! She drinks, on average, about twelve cups of iced tea a day because "caffeine has no effect on her." (Except for the part where it makes her actually insane. Whenever she calls me, she tells me something like, "God I'm so exhausted. I stayed up till three in the morning last night embroidering a shamrock on your father's best jeans.") Anyway, so she is addicted, and she's constantly on the prowl for fresh iced tea. Here's the problem: at some point she went to heaven and drank iced tea, I guess, and then when she came home and went to a McDonald's it wasn't good anymore. Her disillusionment is now too much for her to bear, and she has on many occasions told restaurant managers that their tea "tastes like sewer water." (She is a woman who offers too much information. Back during school days, my sick notes would say things like, "Please excuse Tricia from school Friday. Her father fed her pork rinds and she vomited all night long." In this tiny, genteel, perfect handwriting.) "Excuse me," she just barked at a 16-year-old service-child, "this iced tea tastes like THE BATHROOM." I'll keep you updated on further developments.

OH GOD

OH MY GOD

OH MY BABY GOD

BREAKING

My older sister has a lot of beautiful little children, six to be exact, and after she had the last one she could no longer cram them all into her huge van. So she bought a huger van, used, that seats twelve people. I assumed that she had gotten it from a church, since they always have to cart around so many believers to camp and zoos and Holy Land Experiences, but no. No.

"I got it from a rapper," she explained, right before she came to pick me up.

"What...what does that mean," I said.

"His name is The Grindup, and he went to prison for a little while, and when he got out he didn't want his van anymore. Okay, I'm pulling up in front of your house now."

I ran to the window, and THIS IS WHAT I SAW:

www.grindup.com is now sadly defunct

"Get in!" she shouted, enormously pleased with herself.

But...but don't I have to be murdered before I can get in a van like that

HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN

2010-07-21T17:38:00.000-07:00

I have had an extremely specific stroke, I guess! I was humming The Itsy-Bitsy Spider to myself and I tried to do the little hand movement and I couldn't--I have totally forgotten how. I wish I could show you a video of me frantically attempting to make spider fingers while a horrified Realization dawns on my face; it would soon be the #1 video in the world among people who love videos of kittens who have dropped acid. I'm doing it in front of the mirror right now, my high little kitten eyes focus and unfocus, is this the beginning of the end.

Further Chronicles of Benny's Hand

2010-07-14T14:03:00.001-07:00

Has there ever been such a high concentration of deformities in one small rectangle of painted space? Violet's mini-foot is perhaps the most unsettling, but none of the children seem to be particularly fortunate where appendages are concerned.

Benny has claw meat instead of fingers

The Boxcar Children are spending the summer on Surprise Island, and their mouths are crammed fuller than ever with some of the most unfortunate dialogue ever written. What is the surprise, you are wondering? The surprise is that the Boxcar Children are sexy as hell now. This is technically okay for me to notice, since the Boxcar Children don't age, and I'm pretty sure that makes them fair game in my state (Georgia). Benny, for instance, is a forty-year-old child, and what could be hotter? Anyway, you're judging me now, but try not feeling intrigued while reading this conversation between Grandfather Alden and his grandsons:

"You said the surprise was something you liked to do yourself when you were fifteen," Henry told him.

"Yes, or even six," said Mr. Alden, looking at Benny.

Or this one, between Benny and his brother:

"Benny, come here," said Henry. "Did you know that today is your birthday?"

"No," said Benny, walking over to his brother.

"Well, it is," Henry went on, "and now what do you want for a present? We will buy it for you."

"Cream," said Benny.

"Do you mean ice cream?" asked Henry.

"No, I don't. I mean cream in a bottle like milk. A big bottle...not a little one."

Or this one, between Henry and his grandfather:

"Think of the nicest surprise you can," said Henry. "What would that thing be?"

"It wouldn't be a thing; it would be a man," said Mr. Alden.

Or this one, between Benny and his cousin Joe:

"I got two presents for my birthday," said Benny, "a new cousin and a bottle of cream."

"I feel as if it were my birthday," said Joe, looking at him.

So many people are looking at Benny in this book, and no wonder. Here is a representative illustration of his physical charms:

Benny experiments with his friend in a cave,

his face is a mask of pure anticipation

A human foot is never the same
after it has stepped
on the hot
sensual
sands
of Surprise Island

Awww, BUTTONS!

2010-07-08T10:20:00.000-07:00

Today my mail opened her mouth and buttons rolled out, how often does that happen? It has never happened before for anyone! The cause of this urp was JEFF BAHR, a largehearted internet king. He took a kind interest in my Button Tarot and sent me a whole collection of good ones: palm trees, anchors, cathedrals, balloons, a terrifying teddy humping the inner curve of a crescent moon. Praise him! When the Button Tarot is complete he will receive the first reading, and it will be freaking incredible. Be advised, however, I have had to revise my concept of the Devil based on new information.

The flash reveals her true nature

BOOK REPORT: Schoolhouse Mystery

2010-07-05T09:51:00.000-07:00

It's too bad that The Boxcar Children aren't currently undergoing a nostalgic revival like Sweet Valley High and The Babysitters' Club, because in a way it's the most hilarious series of all. Gertrude Chandler Warner's writing is best described as quietly psychotic. She writes like an 80-year-old baby who is confused in both elderly and infant ways. I'm reading Schoolhouse Mystery right now, and it's treasurous. First of all, I'm obsessed with the cover art:

What is going on there, perspective-wise? The little soccer-boy is actually a giant! Also, he has a thalidomide hand! The Dockers criminal is presenting a luscious Dockers ass to him! Why? Because he wants him to bounce a valuable quarter off it. The Dockers criminal, it turns out, is an evil coin-dealer, and he's wreaking havoc on an island where no one can read and everyone owns rare coins.

As the Alden family talked with the storekeeper, a red-haired boy and girl came in together. They looked alike and were certainly twins.

The island children did not look at the Aldens. In fact, they looked the other way. But Benny thought, "They must have looked us over before they came in."

"We want some more flour," said the boy. "And Ma wants some more tea." His voice was as rough as his looks. His sister looked rough, too. Her hair hung in wisps around her face.

The girl counted out the money carefully, but she did it slowly. It seemed hard for her, so at last Mr. Fenton helped her. When they had gone, Mr. Fenton said, "To tell you the truth, Mr. Alden, I'm sorry for the children who are brought up here. Living is hard on this island, and the people have no education. The children never have a chance to learn any other way to live. They don't even have TV. They don't see magazines, and they never go off this island."

"Oh, dear," said Jessie, "I shouldn't think they would know anything about the world."

"They don't," said Mr. Fenton. "As soon as they're old enough, they work in the sardine factory. Those two are the Moss twins. They work in the factory whenever it is open."

"Then they earn some money," said Benny.

Mr. Fenton smiled. "I can see you don't know what the island people are like. The children don't ever see that money. The fathers take it and keep it. They don't spend much. All these people save all the money they can, but they never put it in the bank. They put it in an old stocking."

The children can't read because sardine islands don't have schools, so the Boxcar Children decide to become their Teachers. They are without question the most qualified children in the world to Teach.

The sharp voice said, "What are you going to teach, boys?"

"Well, I don't know," said Benny. "Maybe I could teach them about the moon."

Good plan, Benny! But the idiot children have other ideas.

"Well," said Benny, laughing, "have you a cat?"

Yes, Eddie had a cat. So Benny printed, "I have a cat." Eddie read it very well. "I know cat is the last word. My cat's name is Fish."

"Fish!" said Benny. "Why?"

"Because he always comes when we call, 'Fish, Fish.'"

Benny printed the whole story. They all read it together.

I have a cat.

His name is Fish.

I call "Fish, Fish."

Fish comes.

"Oh, I like to read about myself!" said Eddie.

One day, Eddie daydreams, I will be president of the Sardine Factory, and my cufflinks will be solid-gold sardines, and I will lick precious sardine-eggs off my moaning wife at night. His reverie is interrupted; it is time for recess.

"Recess!" said Jimmy. "It can't be time for recess."

But it was. Time had gone fast for all the children.

Time had gone fast for all the children. Why is this sentence so creepy? Time had gone fast for all the children, who had suffered an Acceleration while they slept and woken as 80-year-old babies, simultaneously chubby and withered, their little heads smelling not of newness but of Approaching Death.

The 80-year-old babies are learning so much, including how to narc. They inform the Boxcar Children that a person named the Money Man comes to their houses and gives them money for old coins! Sometimes he gives them ten dollars for a quarter! They love this arrangement because of their tragic illiteracy. "That's wrong," breathes Benny, who can count much higher than ten despite his condition.

"We must stop this Money Man, but we don't even know what he looks like!" The 80-year-old babies narc some more. Benny is a genius at many tasks, including spying, and it isn't long before he spots the Money Man driving around town in a red car.

"I told you that car could go fast," said Benny. "And wait! That man had blond hair, all right, and he smiled and showed all his teeth. There can't be two men like him!"

So true, Benny. In 1965, that was the rarest combination of human traits in America--just after Soccer-Child Giantism and Fingerbuds. Now there are only twenty pages left, so the situation must be getting serious for the Boxcar Children. The Money Man must be punished, but he's hiding! Luckily, an Englishman is ready to assist them in their detective work.

"Right," said Mr. Wilder-Smith. "I have important letters. Maybe you can help. But I must toddle along. Cheerio! Top-hole to meet you."

Nooo, top-hole to meet YOU, Mr. Wilder-Smith. Meeting you was the finest hole of all. I'm not a very attentive reader, so I don't know who you are or what you're doing on Sardine Factory Island, but I'll remember you forever. Ten pages left now, which means time for a TWIST to be revealed. The illiterate redheads, remember them? are diamonds in the rough, of Art!

Mr. Alden said, "We really came to show you two watercolors. We'd like to know what you think of them." He passed them to Miss Gray.

"The harbor," said Miss Gray. "Very good. Were they done by one artist or two?"

"Two," said Violet with bright eyes. "The twins, Hal and Marie Moss."

"Hal and Marie!" said Miss Gray. "They never had a lesson!"

Jessie said, "They have seen only three paintings in their lives."

If only one of those had been the cover painting, all this genius could have been averted! Okay, five pages left, and the ending is so close I can almost taste it. It seems the Money Man hasn't broken any actual laws, since he's just tricking people and then underpaying them for their valuable coins, but then the Boxcar Children catch him stealing rare old books from the town library, the town library that no one ever visited because no one could read, but now they can, thanks to the Boxcar Children! The Money Man is ARRESTED and everyone claps for Benny. "Bloody good show, Master Quid-Boy!" praises Mr. Wilder-Smith, tapping a riding crop 'gainst his thigh. "This Cunt must go to gaol."

AMERICA

2010-07-04T12:09:00.000-07:00

In honor of Independence Day I'm watching Live Free or Die Hard, the greatest movie about hackers ever made. It turns out you can hack anything! Whenever a car crash needs to happen they just hack the traffic lights! When it's over I'm going to hack my local fireworks show and make them all explode into pictures of my face.

Allow Me to Suggest

2010-07-02T12:03:00.001-07:00

If you are wealthy, or if you get a twenty-dollar money period instead of a regular one, maybe you want to join The Rumpus Poetry Book Club!

How Is This Moment Not So, So Famous

2010-06-30T12:56:00.000-07:00

Do yourself a favor: skip to minute 3 and watch Bill Pullman's entrancing breasts recite a sex poem to you. You won't regret it. You will regret it so much.

Recent Scrooge McDuck Updates

2010-06-28T15:58:00.000-07:00

Scrooge McDuck: Where is my fans?

Scrooge McDuck: I love all my fans!! - but I still prefer and love my money more ♥ Regards your Scrooge McDuck :-)

Scrooge McDuck: can't sit here and not making business! I go back to work. - yours Scrooge McDuck

Scrooge McDuck: Mmmhh... I just LOVE money ! ♥ What about you ? ;-)

Scrooge McDuck: What are you thinking about? I am thinking about MONEY! :D

Scrooge McDuck: Money is my world!

Scrooge McDuck: Money is on my mind!

Scrooge McDuck: swims in my Money! Mhh... I like! :D ♥

Too Far Is Where I Live Now

2010-06-27T10:21:00.000-07:00

Jack: I think your New Yorker Rejection Robot story should be disseminated more widely. The world needs to know

Me: I know--we'll send the New Yorker Rejection Robot story to the New Yorker. The Rejection Robot will short-circuit, it is not programmed to handle so much Meta

Sam: The imagery of the t-rex, priceless

Me: I debated putting that in there, I thought, what if the New Yorker finds it

Sam: The New Yorker isn't looking. Reader's Digest is watching us all, but not the New Yorker

Me: The New Yorker doesn't know about the internet yet, thank God--imagine the porn it would be looking at! All James Thurber making love to Roz Chast on the back of a horse, all Woody Allen pouring milk on his face, all Malcom Gladwell tasting a mushroom

Sam: All David Mamet rimming Steve Martin's banjo

Me: All Wallace Shawn/William Shawn incest scenarios

Jack: All Updike/Cheever boiler room caresses

Me: All Jonathan Safran Foer jerking off onto a rose--through the miracle of time-lapse he climaxes just at the moment the rose opens

Sam: ...

Jack: ...

Me: Too far

Shocking Development

2010-06-25T13:03:00.000-07:00

Oh my God the New Yorker Rejection Robot has learned to make jokes!

Dear Editors,

Please consider the attached two poems -- "Blibbity Blibbity" and "Bloo Bloo Bloo" -- for inclusion in The New Yorker. My poems have appeared or are forthcoming in American Letters & Commentary, Boston Review, Cincinnati Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Notre Dame Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. I have a "Gold MFA" from Fake Nowhere University.

Thanks for reading,
Patricia Lockwood

(Ed. note: Sometimes I make a joke when I send to the really impossible places--it's presumption to send to them anyway; in their minds I am futile and ridiculous, like a toddler playing Car! in a diaper box or a T-Rex trying to finger herself, so why not acknowledge the absurdity of the situation? Also I have an impulse control problem and I can't help it.)

Dear Patricia Lockwood,

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider your work. Although we regret that we are unable to carry it in the magazine, we think that MFAs from Fake Nowhere University are just as good as those from Iowa.

Warmest regards,
The Editors

Too cute! I let out an involuntary awww, I felt so proud of that rejection robot. One day it will learn to love me, and I will tongue it all over until it falls down glitching, and rewire its circuits to say Always Yes.

BOONE!

2010-06-21T12:39:00.000-07:00

Allow me to unveil the cover of BOONE!, my collection of Daniel Boone persona poems. It is a romance. They are dancing, and Daniel Boone is screaming with pleasure. Coming this fall from Oh Like YOU Could Draw a Buffalo Press.