Friday, January 18, 2008
Blood Noise (Whiter Than Sun)
with Betsy Bonner
I.
I write from a sacred mountain
Not only the
body, but the whole
architecture of memory
changes
handmirror, quince
and comb
I've been dreaming
here seven days male and female
cypresses
(big differences
between them)
wild narcissus will crowd
the path we have when it's too bright
to see
but the doves
don't mind, whiter than sun
who's here who's
here who's here,
then stop suddenly.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Somes Lines & Phrases From Robert Kocik*
"Which is ostensible democracy"
"can only cause" " English speak
ing to fight" "to simplify" "we lea
ve for our children" "America ca
ptive" "self-justification distorts
eternity" "I prescribed life" "as o
pposed to medicine" "correct in
complaining" "the sensation bit
ing into" "to be brought before"
"no bodily link" " is all that's req
uired" "soldiers and salesman"
"the patient is the medicine" "but
basking is neither light nor dark"
"takes effect" "scorn for spiritual
discernment" "heal first the words"
"are heaping up" and a word tur
ned pathogenic" "may not have
intended the wording" "the inver
se nervous system" "even at the
point of the heart" "the brain isn't
even involved yet" "creditors panic
and rage" "the predator is on the
inside" "no one told me that this
was a poetry reading" "remember
labor?" "one's own medicines with
in" "is the building inside not in
capacitated?" "nothing is wrong it's
just we're diseased" "copious copy
ing" "in a post psycho-somatic age"
"I just love the taste of a stranger"
"people are dying from nothing" "f
ree range genoming" "the parasym
pathetic system" "accusing Darwin"
*transcribed at Segue this past Saturday
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Three By CA CONRAD*
April 21
“Ought to send the mayor and them
other politicians over to fight the war!
You know how long they’d last! Yeah!”
--Kathleen McCollough, one
of Philadelphia’s homeless
Senior Citizen Soothsayers
phrasing lack…
time was
longer once
then the
sponge of
routine
whose idea
was this
planet
anyway!?
you mother
fuckers
shitting
on life
time
throat muscle!
hearse & 4
of Hearts
corner of
15th & Green
celebrity guest: ABUNDANCE!
car is nick
name of auto
mobile
Jay’s nick
name his
first
initial
what was a
window before
the word?
imagine entire
cities with no
language
no?
no.
for other
possibilities
please ignore
your priest
your
mouth will
free
you
gnaw your
foot from
the trap
c’mon you!
who mentions
Pegalina first? (one time
this guy yelled
*SUCK MY DICK!*
she yelled *I’LL CHEW
YOUR CROTCH INTO
A PUSSY!*
she’s not
kidding
mister!)
what are we
doing here
Sherlock
playing
Black Jack
at the bar this
fascist restaurant
where I once waited
tables Police Trainer
video game where
I sucked dope and
made out with the
nerdy dishwasher in
the cooler where
sausage beat cheese
where sex on the
job replaced health
insurance and rent
overdue where I
first thought if
restaurants in
the afterlife
don’t serve
themselves
I’m not
going!
May 1
“We just heard a live recording
of Dvorak’s *Symphony No. 4 in
d Minor*, with former president
Ronald Reagan playing all
nine instruments at once.”
--radio DJ in my
dream last night
shooting six
pointed stars
for the seal
of Solomon
what american
corporations
did Death
contract to
build our
eternal
hotels?
the unions
are *fucked!*
the Third
World will not
enter the
Afterworld as
the Third World
or was your
bible another
political
promise
or warm
piss
divined
as milk?
taste your
own and
let me
know
my friend
says she’d
rather see
state-imposed
atheism than
state-imposed
theism but I’d
rather see
the state
disappear
can’t we
imagine our
hands on
one another
instead? question
our extent
of warmth
LOVE was
a tomb for
awhile
between
borders
I will live
with you like
war has finally
ended please
meet me
there
if drag queens
ruled the world
our warmth
would never be
in question
great teachers
remain great
students
classic
evil new
evil what’s
the fucking
difference?
Sherlock and
I see Masonic
symbols every
place we look
Setting Mauls
Trowels a
butcher’s side
of beef in
window
sports an
All-Seeing
Eye this is
getting creepy
can we
leave
now?
May 30
“Just when you think
the work week’s over
there’s one more
lap to go!”
--Brett Evans every
Thursday
it never said
Tear Gently
it said
Tear Here
look at rush
hour—what if
it’s just a
repeat of
this after
we die?
I’ll be so
pissed off!
hold on
initiates
of the
sun
see how
they danced
and died
in a
hundred
year old
movie
they NEVER have
the *Valley of the
Dolls* soundtrack on
these goddamned
juke-boxes
around here!
ME: his father made
him pray to expel
all deviance
SHERLOCK: expel all
deviance!? where would
I be without it!?
that’s not a
loop hole mr.
president that’s
a hula-hoop
let’s follow the
insider trader’s trail
to the University of
Pennsylvania
Karma
another
cleaver of
the rich
it’s never
poor folks who
tell me every
body gets
what they
deserve
Sherlock wants
Diana Ross and
Lionel Richie to
redo *Endless Love*
as *Endless War*
it’s a
virus
Peace somewhere
means War was
sneezed some place
else our planet is
always sick with us
but I’m grateful
insects aren’t
bigger
(to the High Hat poet
who snubbed Sherlock)
Alice Notley told us
after her reading
“some poets like to
pretend poetry is
middle class” YEAH!
Alice KNOWS!
Lorrine Niedecker
mopped floors for
a living but if
her poems were
bullets most poets
would get it good!
* from his collaboration with Frank Sherlock, *The City Real and Imagined*, forthcoming from Factory School.