Heaven

Indoor Air Quality

2012-01-28T16:55:00.001-05:00

Anyone who says the phrase Indoor Air Quality is by definition grown-up. I don't care if they're five years old. They're grown-up. But they're not five years old of course. Any five-year-old who'd use the phrase Indoor Air Quality seriously in a sentence would have to have a serious problem. Five year olds shouldn't even be using sentences. They should just be saying Gaaaa. I used to know all this stuff. About five year olds. But now. Well now I not only can I say something like Indoor Air Quality. I can think it. I did think it. This morning. Like very early this morning when I had to go to the bathroom. I thought about it in association with another grown-up think thing: Forced Air. If I slip, if I have a junior moment today, if my facade slips, I can right myself with phrases like this Indoor Air Quality Indoor Air Quality Indoor Air Quality Forced Air Forced Air Forced Air Forced Air Systems. I genuinely think them but I have them stockpiled too, for use in the emergency that is daily life.

2012-01-28T16:53:00.000-05:00

RESPECT

Monday:
In future I'm going to call it The Monday.
The Monday.
Tuesday.
Wednesday.
Thursday.
Friday.
Saturday.
Sunday.
The Monday:
There are eight days in the week.
Two of them are The Monday.

The Group

2012-01-28T16:51:00.001-05:00

I’m part of this group see.

We’re the group to make the decisions.

We’re thinking there must be another group.

Like decisions are due Tuesday

and we haven't heard yet

about any decision.

We don't have a meeting arranged between now and then.

There must be another group.

When we go on Tuesday we'll find out because the decision will be made or if it's not we'll find out too

that we're the group to make the decisions but even if we are

I don't think we are.

SEE THIS BOOK

2012-01-28T16:47:00.001-05:00

This book means I don't have to go with you. Not all the time. It's my bubble in your car. Go to the dentist. I'll wait. I'll stay in my book and I won't see the walls and floor that look like furniture. Even the ceiling. The furniture that looks like rugs. Everything is woolly except the stainless steel in the next room that says germ-free even if it isn't. See this phone. Same thing. Only you can see my fingerprints on it. See this laptop. Same thing. I see myself in there sometimes, on the screen, and think What happened? Looks like I got old.

America

2012-01-26T12:40:00.000-05:00

Recently I feel I'm doing much better getting with the program. Like this morning I got a rental car. I had to leave my Honda Civic in for maintenance. So I sprung at last for the compliance bushings. Yeah bushings. Had a coupon. Well didn't quite have it but I referred to it. That worked. So the bushings, yeah. Like they cost 15 cents or something (what do you know there isn't even a sign for cents on the keyboard, dollars yes, but no cents) but in order to get to them, that's a lot of man hours. So I had to leave it in all day. And the dealership is about five miles from me, yeah I say dealership now, so I got a rental. I didn't have to pay for it though. Because a white Fiat would not be my choice of car. The Fiat is pretty cool actually, it can kind of go both ways, manual or automatic, the key goes both ways too. Yeah so I had another problem with my key, my Honda Civic is seven years old and I never got the thing you point and your car pops open or locks I got it today though for the Fiat, it has a key folded into it, I used that, couldn't get the distance thing to work. Anyway I haven't been able to unlock or lock my driver's door for months. Made getting in and locking the car quite a heave. I think I've finally got carpal tunnel syndrome in my left wrist from bending it back at unnatural angles from the back door to lock the front. Felt like grit in there but apparently it's the barrel slipping in the lock. Then there was another issue with the timing belt, and then the alignment, I left the valves till later because it all adds up to like a hefty percentage of the value of the car. Assuming I could sell it that is. Or do without it or whatever. Anyway I got a rental, because all this would take all day, the dealer covered it, but they still took my credit card and put a hold on it for $200 and I had to inspect the body of the car and sign a lot of stuff so by the time the guy talked about the special insurance (by that time we had talked a bit, he went to the same school as my daughter and was on the wrestling team, she wasn't but she knew a lot of wrestlers, they bonded because of having to work, you know, two jobs, which is not exactly the dominant Ivy League experience), I was like What do you think, Brandon and he was like You know, it makes a lot of sense. I just went with it. Time was I would have bailed before it got that far. Long, long before. Hey I'd be stomping off into the snow, fuming. A hold on my credit card? Not on your nelly! Liability for damage? Just give me back my car!!! Things change. I'm much more mellow now about money, about what I deserve. Hey what's $16.69. If it will bring me peace of mind. Am I prepared to pay a little to make sure I am not worried I will have to pay a lot? Absolutely. I'll pay a lot to make sure I am not worried I will have to pay a lot. Most things you have no choice about. The thing about this $16.99 is that I could but didn't have to do it. I could be a man, hey pony up the dough, you got it, what's the problem, $16.99, that's like, a big donut or something in some cities. And I could be a woman, hey you deserve it lady, why should you worry your pretty little white rental Fiat-driving little head? I didn't even read the fine print. I'm not gonna read it. Left it in the glove compartment of the car.

TOP FLOOR

2012-01-04T23:13:00.003-05:00

Of all the places I have been happy in and I've been happy in a lot of places the happiest of all was Henrietta Street, #6, top floor. I was happy on the second floor too, Mick Cullen's studio, very happy there, which was odd, seeing as I was so unhappy. This was an old house and a lot of people had lived in it, of all classes, though on my floor only one. That I could be happy or unhappy in itself defeats logic, considering my difficulty in grasping the historicity of the thousands of people who had lived there since the house was built circa 1726. Last night I dreamt that I was in Henrietta Street again and found the stairway blocked beyond the second floor. A huge hole was blasted in Mick Cullen's studio. As in all my dreams the studio was expansive, even infinite, but in this dream there was a foreground too, featuring passionate love, to which I was briefly, obliquely, witness.

HOMEWORK

2012-01-04T10:58:00.003-05:00

Inside the dark chaotic apartment the boy is doing his homework. His round face casts a blue pool of light on his copybook at the edge of a table obliterated by stuff. The rest of the apartment is cross-hatched furiously, everything dislodged from its usual disorder, pulled down, pulled out, ransacked into a mockery of plenty, black plastic bags piled high, almost jolly, almost airy with what would re-emerge in the next place, day after tomorrow, soon. It is after the holidays, first day of school. The front door opens and January cold sluices in one two three four family, friends, neighbors, sluices out, sluices in, each one arriving on a raft of news, cigarettes like oars in their hands. The boy lifts his face, unsmiling: Hello. Roaches slide behind and between and through walls and shelves, doing their homework too. From the floor the beaming faces of children are dangling. Small fingers pluck my keys. I fold a soft hand in mine. A big smile arrives I like your scarf. So do I, I say. And look! Sparkly leggings!

THE NEIGHBORS

2012-01-01T02:22:00.002-05:00

It was New Year’s Day. We wanted to invite the neighbors over. But Are they, are they exactly the same as us, my husband said. Oh well, we don’t need exactly, do we, I laughed. I would prefer, said my husband, close, close to exactly. I see what you mean, I said. But it is New Year’s Day. We should be open. After all they have been here quite a while and we have never had them over. It is time. Will they like the same food, asked my husband. Will they like mince pies? Remember, it took me a while to get used to mince pies. It took me a long while. That gave me pause. It was true. It had taken my husband many years to pretend to like mince pies, and many more to actually like them. I believe he liked them now. Should we ask? Should we go over and ask? I thought. I said it aloud. But neither of us wanted to go over. Each of us, I imagine, in our minds, traced the steps over, rehearsing every move, the tentative knock, what we would say. I know I did. It would just sound clunky, I decided. Why should we make ourselves vulnerable like that? You’re right, said my husband. We should wait until next year. When we know them better perhaps. Perhaps. We should definitely wait.

menses

2011-12-12T09:06:00.001-05:00

god
intended us
to be
poets

every month
enough ink
for an art
distilled

from the
pulsing
body

Poem About My Father Who Drowned in June

2011-11-26T11:11:00.005-05:00

in donegal
june water is cold

& even beloved beaches
are treacherous

no less loved
for unforgiving cold
& treachery

sun on your bald head
sun on your arms

as they moved
on the water

as they lay flat,
bobbed

father,

the blue sky,
sun & the rocks
strain to reach you

just as the water
shamed, trying to rush away,
laps.

It's a very loud sound,
finally, a very loud sound.

My Posture While Walking

2011-10-26T20:32:00.005-04:00

My head

is six inches ahead of my neck

My neck

is six inches ahead of my chest

My breasts are bewildered

along for the ride

My chest

is six inches ahead of my lower body

My feet

are racing behind my legs

panting to keep up

My hands are

pulling pencils + paper from bags

clambering to write this poem

2011-10-22T14:59:00.002-04:00

DONALD HALL WOULD HATE ME

if he knew me
I don’t want to be great

it takes me 10 minutes
to write a poem

sometimes
& then

I want to whisper or
shout it about
town

My poems are usually brief
they resemble each other
they are anecdotal
they do not extend themselves
they make no great claims
they connect small things to other small things

I LIKE SHORT!

I just want to kick the leaves
& have done

My Neighborhood

2011-09-09T20:08:00.002-04:00

When I walked through my neighborhood at first

I crowded my elbows about my head

Then I held my hands in front of me, palms out

—as if pushing hay away

I walked like a reconnoitering soldier

doing 360 ° turns

I could jump faster than any flea

could jump on me

Now I walk solidly through my neighborhood

just aiming to get there

SEPTEMBER

2011-09-07T20:19:00.000-04:00

Christmas is coming!
Christmas is coming!
Remember!
I love Christmas &
Christmas is coming!
And you know what?
I'm in America —
Thanksgiving is coming too!

WAITING FOR IRENE

2011-09-01T14:56:00.141-04:00

We did a big shop. We bought burgers + sausages + choc-ices + frozen fruit + had to take everything out of the freezer in order to put it back in differently so it would fit.

Bought a few bottles of wine.

Cleaned the house top to bottom. Got all the cat hair offa the stairs.

Tidied the yard. That was overdue like 5 years. Stowed away all the junk. Tied up the gates with plastic bags.

Parked the car neatly, along the side of the house. Along the flank of the house. Almost tucked under the house.

We filled the tub with water.

Of course we had our emergency kit. Clio packed a coat given her by her dad's new wife. I packed the deed to my underwater house. Insurance documents. Three big bags of different kinds of chips.

We had flashlights for our heads.

We had a peaceful Sunday. No Internet. No kids ringing at the door. We ate a lot of meat. I was relieved at how much ice-cream we could eat. We lay on the couch and read all day. The whole day was a hammock from which I watched the light change.

When it got dark everything looked weird. I looked like a surgeon! In Russia maybe. I took creative photographs:

Still Life Of Bath Tub With Cold Water

Green Fall

Dark Street

Our House Without Lights, Exterior

Child Reading With Flashlight On Head And Foamy Comforter

And then the lights came on.

2011-09-01T12:50:00.001-04:00

NEUTRALIZER

The poet agreed to kill poetry every single day and did peculiarly well. Some poets die themselves or go kinda numb after making the neutralizer deal. This poet thrived. A hard worker, there was a clause in her contract that she would continue to write. She promised to extract every flicker of poetry before publication. Sometimes, life being life and poetry poetry, a ripple, a gust of quickness jumped in. She recognized it at once, smiled and excised. If she was feeling down, which happened, she let it be for a while, completing her day’s work and coming back to it later, maybe at dusk, patiently reading before patiently deleting. It is an adjustment, she thought, like everything.

2011-08-29T11:27:00.002-04:00

I GOT A JOB AS A FICTION WRITER

I got a job as a fiction writer at a university. It was a surprise to me because I write only poems. But I was desperate and said I write one paragraph novels, this is the 21st century, time moves fast. When they said, "And what are your ambitions, what are your plans," I said I would like to write one-paragraph epics, but I do not know if the time for the epic will ever come again. I want to write a sustainable literature, a literature to be cradled in the ear and memory. A paperless literature, if you like. "And what's to distinguish your novels from short stories," one of the interview board asked. Intensity, I said. I do write short stories too but there the resolution is higher. There is less expansivity, less flow. "Oh," said the interview board member. "And what's to distinguish your short stories from ... from, er ...." From poetry? Good question. I'm glad you asked that. I would never write poetry.

couscous@as220 tuesday august 30th 9-11pm!

2011-08-28T23:55:00.002-04:00

the storm after the storm!

THREE MIRACLES

2011-08-26T08:08:00.002-04:00

Our tube of Neosporin is very small, the smallest size obtainable—except for travel packs perhaps—but it is always available when needed, always just there unlike anything else in our house, or life. It is a kind of magic. This is only the second tube of Neosporin we have ever had. The first tube, equally small, saw us through Clio’s childhood. With all the moves, all the chaos, all the work, and wounds and falls, it was always there somehow, on the shelf in the bathroom cabinet, exactly where it was supposed to be. At the ready in every instance. I couldn’t believe when it was finally used up. I just had to accept it. It was like a death at the end of a long good life. A transition, but manageable. The miracle was it lasted so long in the first place. This new tube we’ve had two or four years. The other miraculous thing is that we use it very often. Our mean cat jumps up and bites us every day. Or pounces on our calves with its claws. The scratches flare up like belligerent tots, blazing against infection. We lay the salve on, things simmer down, we know we have done the necessary, taken care of business. That’s the sweetest miracle of all, the third one, this little tube of Neosporin like a story, with no story coming out.

News Alert: Economy Now to Be Spelled Ec_n_my

2011-08-05T09:21:00.003-04:00

Breaking News Alert
Friday, August 5, 2011 -- 8:37 AM EDT
-----

U.S. Economy Now to Be Spelled Ec_n_my.

Following on provisions made in the historic Debt Ceiling agreement, the U.S. economy will now be referred to as the U.S. ec_n_my.

The cuts have been made largely because they are possible. "While these cuts are painful," said a spokesperson, "the economy can actually function without the letter 'o', especially in speech."

Print publications and media have been granted a one-day moratorium on the cuts, which become mandatory at midnight August 5th.

The cuts are believed to be permanent though, in the introductory phase, spaces will be preserved as a bridge to facilitate the transition. By December 31, 2011, the economy will be the "ecnmy."

And in time, further cuts may be necessary, the spokesperson added,"though probably not the letter 'e.'"

Read More:
http://maireadbyrne.blogspot.com/2011/08/news-alert-economy-now-to-be-spelled.html

2011-06-03T07:17:00.001-04:00

happiness 6/1

4 pairs of reading glasses

berry blasts

zooming across the Henderson Bridge in the June sun

buying ribbon

2011-04-25T13:24:00.003-04:00

In My Culture

In my culture it is the custom that if someone offers you something you say no, even if you want it. The person knows—if they are in your culture too—that you may well want the thing you just refused and so they offer it again. If you are at ease with that person you refuse again and of course they offer again. If you know the person really well or are related by blood or marriage or if they are a neighbor or the neighbor of a neighbor, then you refuse again and of course if they stand in any of those relationships to you they offer again. And so it goes with each offer and refusal incrementally more vehement until finally at the moment of highest tension the sun bursts from behind the cloud and you say Yes! And the tea is poured or the wad of money pressed into the palm or you get into the car. It would be devastating if, after the third or fourth exchange, one or other person said Oh okay. It would be like a death or as if the top of a mountain were removed or as if there were no air. In my new culture no-one offers me anything and if they did I would of course refuse and of course they would accept that and of course I would not get anything ho-hum because they would not offer again. No-one knows how to get to the place of agreement and how many times to go round before meeting there. I feel as if I am alone in the center of a maze, high boxwood hedge all round and in the air barely apprehensible snatches of the voices of a family in the distance having a picnic on the level ground at the bottom of the rolling lawn at the back of their majestic house.

Variant

2011-04-25T13:22:00.002-04:00

2011-03-06T12:02:00.005-05:00

A parent gave a child an unpronounceable name.

"Why did you give the child an unpronounceable name?" asked the Registrar of Births.

"We in the child's family love the child and will learn to pronounce the child's name," said the parent.

"But what about everyone else," said the Registrar, "everyone who is not in the child's family?"

"Anyone who loves the child will learn how to pronounce the child's name," said the parent.
"This way the child can distinguish between everyone and anyone, and the child's family can grow."

2011-03-01T09:43:00.003-05:00

it is tuesday

tuesday in my head is the same as tuesday out loud.

for once a rhyme.

2011-02-28T21:59:00.011-05:00

when the time comes

i will be willing

i'd like a room of my own
though

or a bed + a screen
at least

sleep

or ...

i guess that's

what we're waiting for

2011-02-28T21:52:00.000-05:00

who can bear

another's poetry?

unless incorporated

as if

my own

2011-02-24T06:48:00.001-05:00

TEACHER TO STUDENTS

I started it in March April 2003 when the US was gearing up to invade Iraq and you were ... 10 you weren't really 10 were you right you were 10 you were 10 or 11 or 9 no you were 10 when we invaded Iraq (I had a problem with we) so you were 10 or so when we invaded Iraq it was a tense time as you know you were all in what 5th grade 6th grade right in 2003 when we invaded Iraq.

2011-02-20T18:01:00.005-05:00

The Method Rugmaker

The rugmaker was making a rug with a bug on it and therefore researched bugs. It was not enough that she drew them, dead and alive, from books and the ambient dirt, or read about them, in encyclopedias and children's books, she had to become one too. This went on for a year. She scuttled from bedroom to the room with the loom. She startled. She froze. Her freezing, just like an insect's, was a kind of watching. Under her loose clothing she flailed her many sets of legs. She was consummately silent, and solitary, a shadow, a kind of dart. She was an emporium, a magnificent theatre, furred by galleries, barely perceptible[1] as a puff of energy flitting through the arches at the far side of the marketplace, across the dry square, itself almost blocked by the shoulders of the men crowding the foreground. Who was she that they would notice her, or her rug with a bug? They, who were righteously preoccupied with the sale and purchase of their own rugs, on which they had woven great big vaginas, which they never pretended to be.

[1] Were she perceptible, it would be as a vast crinoline, swaying north south. Or a riverboat. Or an angle lamp with the sole purpose of stitching eyes to fingers and wool, dissolving every frame.

2011-02-10T08:37:00.000-05:00

The Top of the Mountain

So when you get to the top of the mountain it's not really the top of the mountain it just looks like that ha-ha but it turns out it's just a ridge and there's more top of the mountain yeah you look up and there's the top of the mountain so you keep going climbing to the top of the mountain you know it now but then you get there of course and it's not the top of the mountain it's just a ridge again yes so you trudge on because you want to get there yes you do because up there is swirling mist and people--even people who know one another intimately--stumbling past one another oblivious with always the danger of getting lost permanently there on the top of the mountain or somewhere below it from where you couldn't see or reach the top.

2011-02-10T08:35:00.000-05:00

safe

cold breeze on cheek
from open window by bed
asleep

2011-02-10T08:33:00.000-05:00

happy

in the dark theatre
before the action
starts

2011-02-03T09:16:00.002-05:00

MAN

is a state of mind:

The day I write a poem

I'm the biggest man in town.

2011-02-02T12:56:00.001-05:00

Moving Away from the Tyranny of the Wreath

A sheaf is not a wreath. A sheaf is longer. It has an arch which raises it up off the. A sheaf is more like a bouquet. A sheaf is on its way to a bouquet. A bouquet needs water which goes perhaps too far. A bouquet can look very sad on a. A bouquet can look very sad wilted. A wreath can look too set. We all know what a wreath means. We do not like to carry a wreath. A wreath rests on a. That's all there is to it. A wreath lies on a after. A wreath is bound in such a way that it takes a long time to disintegrate. It lies on a and stubbornly resists disintegration but does thin and shrink like the wreath below unwreathing too, slowly, reluctantly letting go. A bouquet is going too far. But a sheaf, a sheaf is discreet. It just arches slightly, like so, off the. It doesn't need water but it's not a closed system, it's not signed sealed and delivered like a wreath. It is cosmopolitan, not a bouquet but you know it has known bouquets and has been placed near them in stores and could have been a bouquet and almost is in the right light or another context. That's it: a sheaf can have other possible contexts, not so a wreath.

2011-01-14T00:20:00.004-05:00

The Preferability of Bed

Bed is preferable because you get to do nothing there.
You might be happy as a lark in your daily life but bed is still preferable.
Even if you're the President it's still good to go asleep.
Single people get the best of bed:
They don't have to do anything for or to anyone there and it's great.

2011-01-12T01:28:00.000-05:00

riff for the blank page

if michael gizzi couldn't make it

as a poet

i throw my hat at it

what's the point

but of course michael gizzi made it as a poet

as a poet

and i know what i'm doing feb 10th

7 or 7.30pm

going down some steps

going up some steps

having made it more or less

with some other folks

as a poet

to read

a michael gizzi poem

2011-01-10T23:22:00.003-05:00

SNOW DAY

Save me!

2010-12-15T10:17:00.064-05:00

SHADES OF MEANING

2010-12-14T22:31:00.004-05:00

Time

I mightn't have _____ .

I'll know next _____ .

It's a matter of _____ .

There's never enough _____ .

Where does the _____ go?

If I have _____ .

_____ ' s short this week.

It's a rough _____ .

I'll aim to make _____ .

I'm kind of pressed for _____ .

Did you have a good _____?

We should have coffee some _____ .

You do that every _____ .

If only just one _____ .

There isn't any _____ .

I go there all the _____ .

2010-12-13T14:41:00.001-05:00

A Christmas Carol

We'll be going to A Christmas Carol at Christmas. I'm excited. The cold street. The stars. Stores lit up by Christmas lights, chestnuts roasting, a braid of carols down the block, relentless overlay of musak even; the bustle at the door, ringlets, shining faces, coils of breath spooling into cold air, laughter. To have tickets. To push through. To velvet, silver, gold. Plush carpet underfoot and men in uniforms like nutcrackers directing, guarding. Mirrors gessoed and gilded. Brocade walls like picture frames for themselves. People with the right warm clothes in a place toasty enough not to need them. Affable men pulling off their leather gloves. Children ducking, darting between legs. One big smile flashing through the lobby, dipping across face after face, aroma of coffee, chocolate, whiskey, threading above hands. Perfume of sleek women. Cigars. Ah we went to A Christmas Carol Saturday. We'll be going to It's a Wonderful Life at Christmas. I'm excited about that.

2010-12-13T09:32:00.000-05:00

What would the day be without the end of the day?

Merciful bookends of sleep.
The closing of covers.
The reward.
Shut door.
Shut eye.

2010-11-27T17:48:00.004-05:00

NAMES FOR THINGS

There's nothing like olives.

There's nothing like parsnips either.

There's nothing like carrots.

There's nothing like potatoes.

There's nothing like lemons.

There's nothing like salt.

Nope there's nothing like salt.

There's nothing like pepper.

There's nothing like celery.

There's nothing like nothing goddammit.

That's why we call them all different things.

2010-11-26T19:00:00.003-05:00

THE WOMAN WHO HAD HER OWN BACK

The woman had her own back. She knew this because she was still standing and there was nobody else around. Her back was a bit bent. Then it was very bent. Then her brow touched the ground.

2010-11-26T19:00:00.002-05:00

THE WOMAN WHO COULD DO ONLY ONE THING

There was a woman who could do only one thing. It was to make a meal. Naturally there was a table and chairs. There were walls pulled around and a roof. But whether that table and chairs, those walls and that roof were produced by the meal, exuded from it like some kind of exoskeleton, first protoplasmic or even pure light, then plaster and glass and wood, or a product of it, nobody knew. Day after day, year after year the meal was eaten, people reeled toward it on filaments impossibly thin, then spooled out again gradually, further and further away, until another day. And whether those people were produced by that woman or a product of her, nobody, not even that busy woman alone in her kitchen, knew.

2010-11-06T22:36:00.000-04:00

DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME

Okay so in April at 7am it is getting light & at 6pm say it is getting dark so if you lose an hour which is what happens when Daylight Saving Time begins and it begins in March or April even though you might think it begins in November because why would Daylight need Saving in the summer when there is plenty of light morning and evening but apparently it is light in summer that’s saved not winter we revert to Standard Time actually in November, Daylight Saving Time ends then not begins as you would think, it’s a little counter-intuitive at least according to my intuition, you kind of think it should start in November when you can really save money on bills and things and end in April when things get easier but the opposite is the case. I suppose it’s a bit like wealth. You save while you have it and make the best of it when you don’t or the way when you have money you get deals and when you don’t you pay twice as much for everything like mortgages, another traditionally hard thing to understand. Anyway in April if, I should say when because it does, when we lose an hour and the clock goes forward—another counter-intuitive thing because you don’t associate losing with going forward though in recent times maybe so anyway in April (it used to be March I think) you lose an hour, the clock goes forward so if it was getting bright at 7am your watch (yeah right who has a watch) your phone or your laptop or your toaster or whatever now says 8am when it’s really 7am so at 7am by the clock it’s really 6am so maybe not as bright as it was before Daylight Saving Time but summer is coming anyway and will iron that out. Then in the evening whereas at 6pm before Daylight Saving Time it was getting dark now 6pm is called 7pm and the 6pm on your clock means 5pm so it’s actually quite a bit brighter so you can say you can feel the stretch in the evening though the days are getting longer anyway as summer is coming as I said. Then the Winter situation is as follows, in November it is getting bright at 7am and when you gain an hour that is when the clocks go back—you know when you wake up and you can say Gee it’s not really 9am it’s really 8am I can go back to sleep yippee (you don’t have to get up for work because the hour changes on a Sunday, actually at 2am but I haven’t used that as an example here because things kind of shrink at 2am, like the options of what people do kind of shrink so if I was to use 2am as an example I think people would be saying why would I be sitting at the kitchen table in my pajamas with a pen and paper trying to figure out the time I’d be asleep at 2am for God’s sake even if it was the weekend) which again is funny because you don’t associate going back with gain (unless you go back for something you forgot which is not exactly a gain because you had it anyway only not with you) so when the clocks go back in November you gain an hour and the 7am where it was beginning to get bright is now called 6am and when the new 7am arrives that is really 8am though it is really is 8am actually because Daylight Saving Time is over in November and 8am is now 8am Standard Time, which is as real as we’ve got, compared to 8am during Daylight Saving Time which is really 7am. So in November the new 7am is 8am so it’s definitely brighter and you definitely notice it (I did this morning) and then at night the way it was getting dark at 5pm now 5pm is really 4pm except as I said Standard Time is realer time in a sense so 5pm actually is 5pm but it seems as if 5pm is really 4pm because of the change so you get some extra light in the evenings too but of course the winter is drawing in and the evenings are getting shorter at the same time as they are let out a little by the end of Daylight Saving Time but there is a little cross-over where we benefit from the difference if you know what I mean. So that’s basically it, that’s the story with Daylight Saving Time. Hold on, is it Daylight Saving or Daylight Savings? Does Daylight Savings Time sound right to you?

2010-10-29T16:34:00.000-04:00

NEW POST

Those were the early days.

When you had to you know "plug things in."

You had to "sit down."

You couldn't just.

When "walking to your car."

Well you could

but not everyone

+ only with a phone.

So there were times when.

I admit.

Well that's the way.

2010-10-29T14:46:00.006-04:00

FALL

I was walking up the hill in Providence + I was looking at the asphalt + I was looking
at the leaves + I was looking at my boot + my eyes fell out.

     The asphalt was molten navy + then there was cement + a stone border to the
     sidewalk, the kind of stone that would glitter in the sun except the ground was wet
     + the leaves were plastered to it, some curled away as if to say no, not yet + my
   eyes fell out again.

     I was looking at my own long leg + front, my small green swinging purse +
   brolly +  the stream of eyes descending — more like an escalator than a fall,
   or a screensaver, or a lot of eyes falling down in lines like rain if you can
   imagine that.

2010-10-29T14:01:00.036-04:00

       Decision

       It was put to me that I had to specify which courses I wished to teach next year.
       I pulled out my pen, my leather-bound 'thought-book,' inscribed a date.
       I canceled everything to make a trip to the elders and set out immediately.
       In my office, my notebook lies open, dust-motes whirling before the window,
       gradually settling.

2010-10-29T13:37:00.002-04:00

GOD

Do I believe in him?

I didn't believe in mortgages + I've got one of them.

2010-10-29T13:19:00.000-04:00

Some Money

I haven't spent some money for a while. It's time ah I spent ah some money. I've paid the bills. I did that ah Monday. Early. I paid the bills. It's not like money. It's not cash and it's not illicit. It's just something you ah have to do. Like you're doing the right thing when you pay the bills. You're just doing what you have to do. No-one will thank you. Or know. Though if you don't do it WHAM. In the slammer. Out. Cut off. Whatever. Guys in suits coming towards you with cold smiles. Yeah. So I pay the bills. But I haven't spent some money for a while. The kind you spend on stuff you don't so much need or can't afford but you get it anyway. Because it's there and you're there. Though that's kind of like the bills. It makes sense later on. The kind of spending I'm getting at is the opposite. You buy the thing. It's beautiful. You want it. Or you just want it. PAM. You click. Snap down your card. You have it. Or you have it soon. It comes. But then the other part, the cost, is hanging out there somewhere, shelved like a big husk in a warehouse, until it gets swept up in your cycle and comes swinging in with the bills. And you deal with it. You deal with it. But there's something about that part, when you have the thing but the cost is kind of out there, amputated, a hulk in wait. It's not a sexual thrill but it is something. Kind of postmodern.

2010-10-23T22:07:00.000-04:00

I'm Not Sure How Good A Reader (Interpreter) Of Poems (Other People's) I Am But If I Had To Say What Poetry Means To Me I'd Say

I ... I
I ...
I

2010-10-16T00:14:00.002-04:00

HATQUEST

I don’t have a GPS but I do have state-of-the-art millinery so to speak in the shape of hatquest (the extra-cranial positioning system). It looks very like a brain—worn on the outside of course. Other visual analogies might be: Marie-Antoinette’s wig (when her head was still attached to her body) though not so large and tall and white. Also Marge Simpson’s updo but not blue. Or an organic map. Yes, this one’s good. Imagine you spread out your map. Not your ordinary anonymous/sterile/impersonal map but a map of the exact streets you will travel, your precise route, with a little red star for your starting point, your home, your north star, your Alpha and Omega, and another for your destination, your excursion, your beta, your B. Then you put Peel-A-Way all over your map, or something that turns it into pulp. And you scoop all that up like a jelly, the bright veins of your route glistening through, and it somehow accumulates shape and you pile it on top of your head. The little red stars are like barrettes, cunningly positioned. It beats all odds. It’s also like an old-fashioned hairdryer in the beauty parlor, the kind you insert your head into. Also like a turban, printed of course. Also like those squidgy pipings of wet sand (themselves like renegade caulk from a wholewheat gun) which lugworms, compact under the compact sand, throw out. Anyway, rather than attending to a pleasant though authoritative voice, you insert your head into this pellucid wobbly confection, also strangely comforting. Like a warm diaper but I digress. There is so much brain on the outside that one might be forgiven for thinking that the space within is empty. But no. There is a driver within. The analogy might be streets are to Hatquest as car is to body and driver is to brain. Still, obviously the brain has limits, the very limits that drove the driver to the purchase of Hatquest to begin with. If true purchase can ever be had on such a glittering, slippery thing.

2010-10-16T00:13:00.002-04:00

Lights—Camera—Action

My alarm is set for 4.30am. I hesitate for a few hours, then open my eyes. My tiny room is a furred sketch, palpable rather than visible. Another hour goes by. I turn on my side to enjoy that side. I open the door of the room of anxieties + spend a long time there. Bored, I enter my small workroom and spent a while powdering a last, the finished upper replete with repressed anticipation standing by. When I open my eyes again it is noon of another day. I just breathe for a while. Two years pass. It is time to get up and I think about that. I imagine myself getting out of bed, putting on my blue cardigan which wraps around tightly and ties at the back. Then my scarf which is actually a shawl, with all the origami properties of that. I spend five hours folding myself into cultures across the globe but wind up looking like a peasant every time. Then there is the door to be opened. I hesitate for a year. I imagine my hand on the gold knob. Turning. Turning. I imagine the edge of the door springing a slat of light. I imagine the hall outside. Another year goes by. It is dark in the room. I am standing beside the bed. I keel over gently, sideways. I am half on the bed (top half, sideways) and half on the floor (legs and feet, splayed). I lie with my eyes open for a few years, thinking about direction and cold.

2010-10-15T23:41:00.002-04:00

FLOODLIGHTS

If you have an old house and it’s not up to par with the houses of your friends and colleagues and you have been in it long enough to fix it up but you haven’t fixed it up because you have no money or aren’t able or just didn’t get round to it yet but can’t use the excuse of having just moved in anymore because you’re in the house five years and people don’t invite you to dinner anymore because you never invite them back and anyway you feel bashful about accepting an invitation for the 4th or 5th time and want to, you know, start inviting people round yourself but don’t want to expose the shortcomings of your living situation I have the solution for you: Floodlights! You can rent them fairly cheap or even invest in a set of your own if you intend to have a lot of dinner parties. You have to have high ceilings of course—did I mention I have an old house? Once installed you just blast that dinner table with 5,000 lumens and believe me, no-one’s going to be commenting on the state of your house. It’s like that Edgar Allen Poe story “The Purloined Letter”: You blind with light. The trick is, of course, to rein it in. You have to control the projection. You want the dining room ablaze but everything outside that shining space sheathed in velvety dark. You do not want the dust bunnies in the corner of the living-room—or in the corner of the living room of your neighbor across the street—to jump into horrifying relief. It’s extremely atmospheric as you can imagine. Your guests will feel like film stars. And there are other benefits. It’s not that you don’t have furniture—it’s that you moved it to make room for the lights. It’s not that you don’t have rugs—it’s that you didn’t want them torn up by the great claw feet of the floods so you rolled them away. And if your guests do stumble out of the magic circle to go to the bathroom or explore the territory, their retinas will be too dazzled to see anything but whirling disks and orbs. They’ll have to feel their way with their hands and when they return the food on their plate will look too real for words. Not only have you restored appetite to the realm of personal responsibility where it rightly belongs you have also more or less determined the topic of conversation for the evening, that is if people can bear to look each other in the eye long enough to talk. You can also rent searchlights with high intensity beams each one of which has over six hundred million candlepower so your guests can easily find your house without GPS or Mapquest—the good old-fashioned way.

2010-10-15T23:20:00.000-04:00

LAWNING THE MOW

In the summer, say in June, lawnmowers start in neighborhoods, especially on Saturdays (or early Sunday morning) and you think Oh no now I have to spend all summer mowing is there no end to it. And you drag your big old lawnmower from the basement and you mow your lawn once. It takes all day because the grass is yay high. Then you have to find somewhere in your house to park it until next time because you don't have a garage or a garridge as they say in Ireland (I should say we) or a dinky shed or even one of those Rubbermaid things. Jawns as they say in Philly I suppose. The big old lawnmower is always in the way. You feel guilty every time you see it because it's now July or August or September. You're happy when it rains. But if you think about it maybe summer means you mow your lawn once. It's a big neighborhood. If everyone mowed their lawn once that's a big hum. A hell of a drone. I bet everyone doesn't even mow their lawn once. You're probably a star! Everyone's in the process of heaving their lawnmower up from the basement and grumbling about it and stumbling over it because they don't have a garage either or a shed or one of those Maidenform huts. But all you need is one lawnmowing see! That's all anybody does! It's just different people doing their one mow. That's the thrum of summer! You just need one mow. And one lawnmower in the neighborhood to do it. You can do it yourself (hey you've already done it!). Or maybe one of those chumps with a shed can do it for you. They're the elected ones. It's a short step from here to hiring someone, which is another way to go. Communism or Capitalism. Either one can solve your lawnmowing dilemma in each case letting you off the hook. That's the idea anyhow.

2010-10-15T23:16:00.000-04:00

Real Life

Instead of the heart-broken person I could be,
I am here today,
quite happy.

2010-10-14T16:46:00.002-04:00

Bereaved

The people who are bereaved meet up for the first time since the bereavement at another event. They sit quietly, not having greeted each other, intent on the event. Suddenly they are crying.

2010-09-29T00:38:00.006-04:00

revision

the effect of working at risd 8 years:

i come to believe sylvia plath wrote a book called arial

2010-09-29T00:32:00.005-04:00

THE EFFECT OF WORKING AT RISD FOR 8 YEARS

I come to believe Sylvia Plath wrote a book called Arial.

2010-09-18T10:09:00.010-04:00

ABOUT THINKING

I'm not a professional thinker. Like ideas just come to me. The main place is the tub. There's a little lecturer perched there, on the faucet. All I have to do is take notes. Pity I can't have my laptop because it can get soggy. But I'm not a professional thinker. I can think pretty much anywhere. I don't have to be chained to a desk, head in hands. Or head in head. I guess that's what professional thinking is. A head inside a head. A meaty little packed head. A true-blue all-the-way through head-head. My head is more of a butterfly net. I gambol after the butterflies in whatever meadow I happen to find them. Sometimes they just light on me. Like on the bus. Then sometimes I sit empty as a woman with early Alzheimers waiting for someone to happen next.

2010-09-07T09:23:00.003-04:00

I WRITE CHECKS

What do you write is a question someone interested or someone who wanted to challenge me might ask if we met on a bus or were out for a candle-lit dinner in a Lebanese restaurant with throaty percussive music set at just the right volume below our determined talk. The main person who asks this question is myself. Of myself.

I write checks. Twice a month, and sometimes more if I'm not organized, I sit down and write checks. I have a system, a special box where the bills stand upright, placed there as they come in the door, and where, in a dedicated drawer, there is always a pen, and another, where there are stamps. My checkbooks are there too, either standing upright with the bills, or in the drawer with the pen.

Pen and bills, check-books and stamps, these are my tools. No-one asks What do you write but I have an avid audience, invested in my work. They're there, they're listening, they're reading. And if I don't write on cue, if perchance I miss an installment, I hear from them. If I don't write they might just turn their back and cut me off. Those huffy readers.

Ah poetry. I no longer sign my books but I sign my checks. I write in lightest pencil in my notebooks but when I write checks I always write with pen. My readers wouldn't stand for it if I wrote in pencil. They want to have the utmost confidence in me.

They want more confidence in me than I have myself.

2010-09-04T18:07:00.062-04:00

FRIENDS

I have ah a lot of friends. Yeah. Friends friends friends. Friends for every day of the week I guess. I'm never stuck. On Monday I can't remember exactly but I probably did something with my friend. On Tuesday I met my friend and we had some sort of zingers. On Wednesday I met my friend for coffee. On Thursday I met my friend for calamari and Pinot Noir. Pretty sophisticated right. Then on Friday (I nearly wrote Frienday) my friends stayed over and we did a streaming video thing on Saturday morning. And Sunday is a day of rest and I'm writing this (oh yeah and last Sunday I kinda went swimming with my friend). Then tomorrow it begins all over again.

2010-08-25T18:04:00.005-04:00

THE NEW DAWN

The dawn is hit-and-run

the sun

exploding, blossoming

like blood through a clean tunic,

or ink in water.

It will never lighten,

nor darken.

Neither will it get better

nor will it get worse.

Every day it gets worse.

2010-07-29T10:01:00.067-04:00

couscous@soundeye

cork country cricket club

fri july 16 9.30pm-1am

program + mc mairéad byrne

w/ john hall dylan harris, nat raha

    amanda ackerman, derek beaulieu, daragh breen, dobz o'brien,
    abigail child, jimmy cummins, ian davidson, kit fryatt, fergal gaynor,
    ailbhe ní ghearbhuigh, john hall, seamus harrington, dylan harris,
catherine harty, sarah hayden, randolph healy, bob heffernan,
    emmanuel japka, trevor joyce, judy kravis, slavel kwi,
    swantje lichtenstein, joseph luna, sheila mannix,
nyaradzo masunda, gerry murphy, nat raha, billy ramsell,
    jessica reidy, josh stanley, maggie o'sullivan, keston sutherland,
rachel warriner, cliff wedgbury

july 14-16, 2010

LondonCrossGenrefestival

2010-06-02T07:42:00.008-04:00

The Centipede + the Laptop

While the laptop is bone-white or creamy white or luminous white or blue-white, it is hard to tell what color the centipede is; it is both transparent and really there.

The centipede is long, almost impossibly long, both flat and round, obviously capable of going in any direction at once. The laptop is quite sedate by comparison, slightly oblong, occupying space neatly and tactfully, withholding its giant secret of connectivity, somewhat gleefully I suspect.

The centipede is dead. Or could be dead. Until it moves.

The laptop comes to life, like a woman, on a finger-stroke.

There is a space between them but they occupy the same plane. The laptop has the character of a platform, the centipede more that of the feather.

2010-05-17T20:46:00.006-04:00

YUP

I've had a lot of disappointment in life

(mainly in men)

but one thing indubitably

lives up to its name—

tack cloth.

2010-05-07T09:37:00.006-04:00

TOKENISM

One thing I don't really get is when feminists or I'm not really a feminist buts repudiate tokenism + pour scorn on it + reject it + dismiss it + push it aside. I want to be a token. I want to be the token woman on your committee. I am great at being a woman; I'm sure I could be a token if I tried. Does it involve jewelry? Or gifts? Never mind. I want to be your token woman winner. I want to win the token woman prize. I'll be the best damn token you have ever seen. A real heavy paper-weight of an embossed of a sealing-wax of a 100% cotton rag pH neutral acid-free paper token. I'll be your signed sealed and delivered token + I'll mail myself. I'll be the token woman in your magazine or on your podium. I'll be the token woman on your list. I've got a fistful of dollars. I'll buy your token any time. I've worked like a ... woman all my life—I'll take a ride on your shiny token if it comes wafting by. Gladly. I am the subway. Happy to move away from the tracks ma'am you bet. Thrilled to step up + into the air. Charmed to be carried for a while.

2010-04-29T11:34:00.010-04:00

my book is one thing but steve fama is something else

2010-04-28T01:19:00.005-04:00

for brion gysin

writing is 50 years behind painting
writing is 100 years behind painting
writing is like totally behind painting
like all the way

2010-04-25T02:06:00.007-04:00

a few questions about color

2010-04-25T00:16:00.013-04:00

Mark Milloff + Mairéad Byrne present:

couscous@tazza, tues 4/27

music                         poetry + jokes                     music
9-10pm                           10-11pm                                       11pm-midnight
Jonathan Bonner        James Blose                             Arvid Tomayko Peters
Laila Aukee                  Randy Bretzin                         + Modest Machine
                                       Mimi Cabell
                                       Michael Gizzi
                                       Matt Long
                                       Patrice Payne
                                       Aaron Tieger

                                       tazza
                                       free

2010-04-22T10:10:00.004-04:00

A RANT AGAINST BLACK

There is no default in poetry.

2010-03-31T17:06:00.011-04:00

UNEASE

I get some of my best ideas in the tub. I never go in there without a notebook. And a cup with a bristle of pencils. And a sharpener. One thing I’ve found myself thinking recently is What if the tub smashes through the floor? This is an old house and there are a lot of problems with the things I can see. What about the stuff I can’t see? I can see straight down to the basement from the dining-room for god’s sake. How do I know all that water's going where it's supposed to go? I like to fill the tub up. I like to stay in there a long time. I like to top up. That's a lot of water. How do I know it’s contained? How do I know it’s not pooling in the ceiling, softening stuff? And if the crash comes will it happen all at once in a great WHOOSH or will there be a kind of one-two-three staging where I have an intuition—brace—suspended momentarily in the agony of impending before we smash—tub, ton of water, me—through the ceiling splat onto the floor below where I become a blot aghast at the great empty Rorschach overhead emitting desultorily descending rotten floorboards, hunks of plaster, like the middle distance on a snowy night? But honestly it’s moot. This poem testifies how far past intuition I've come. I’m all ears, my skin a total organ, neck a good old S bend cranked against the rim, elbow and knee pipes just like well elbows and knees, my entire conglomeration of tubing taut—braced for mayhem. I can already see myself cracked like an egg on the floor below, bath tub on top of me, a tide ripping across the boards a smidgin faster than it can rain through. I won’t want anyone to find me like that, naked, broken, sodden. I’m not crawling away from this; I’m done. I’ll have to give up the ghost without a damn thing to cover me. Pinned on the floor, helpless, hearing the whirling sirens focus in. Another possibility is the cabinets in the kitchen—all those monstrous plates—crashing down, tearing lumps of plaster in their wake. Or spiders in the teapot spout—a different theme.

2010-03-23T10:46:00.020-04:00

HIEROGLYPHS

The character in the form of a canopy, which represented
the heavens, was coloured blue; the character with the upper
side undulated, which represented earth was coloured
red. The sun is always red, with a yellow border. The
character which represents water is coloured blue, or bluish
green water. The flesh of men is generally coloured red, and that
of women yellow. Portions of the human form, the mouth,
the hand, the arm, the leg, are invariably red; flowers, fish, animals, and
insects, are of simple tones, and suggested by their natural colouring without
shading; but in inferior works sometimes they are only green and blue.
Wooden objects are nearly always coloured with a pale orange, or buff;
bronze utensils, green; and blue, with a few exceptions, is generally reserved
for geometric forms, plans of edifices, &c.

from Henry Noel Humphreys, The Origin and Progress of the Art of Writing, A Connected Narrative, London, 1853, 51.

2010-03-23T08:37:00.008-04:00

I’M THE MISTAKER

Totally absorbed all day making mistakes.

It’s a free country. I have a right to my mistakes.

I’m the mistaker.

Proud to be a mistaker!

Heavily sweating through my mistakes.

I love you but though I dearly want to I cannot rationalize my mistakes.

My mistakes are my mistakes. Your mistakes are your mistakes. If we could understand each other’s mistakes we‘d be a me not an us.

When I remember life on earth I hope I remember the glorious days muddling through mistakes.¹

Happy as a sandboy today embroiled in my mistakes.

2010-03-17T10:46:00.015-04:00

HOW TODAY MEANS TOMORROW

Well they both begin with T obviously.
Actually they both begin with TO.
Then MORROW = morning = DAY
So TODAY really is TOMORROW when you think of it.
That leaves us with an opening for TODAY.

Even if you don’t want to go that way¹—
TOD and TOM are both guys’ names
and AY and ORROW both mean Yes (in Dutch)
(so in a way both TODAY + TOMORROW mean Yessir!)
which still leaves us with an opening for TODAY.

1 because for example you might say MORROW = morning = only part of DAY

  though MORROW being longer is the bulk

  actually the gestalt of DAY.

  So it's okay.

2010-03-08T06:49:00.004-05:00

reading at the poetry project tonight!

2010-03-03T23:05:00.016-05:00

COUCHES

Mairéad sits on her couch with Clio + Marina (when she's home), also Vincent.

Steve sits on his couch with Mary, sometimes.

Tyler sits on his couch with his wife, his cat, his best friend called Zach, and his parents.

Adam Robinson doesn't have a couch.

Ms. B sits on the couch with her roommate's kittens. Sometimes her roommate. Or two roommates. But never all three roommates.

Daniel sits on his couch with his girlfriend, and sometimes a friend.

Chris sits on his couch with his wife.

Sean sits on his couch with roommates, visiting friends, + drug dealers.

Drew sits on his couch alone or sometimes with his mother or sometimes with his father or sometimes with his girlfriend but mostly he sits on it alone.

David sits on his couch with his cats and his girlfriend.

David sits on his couch with his cat.

Matthew doesn't have a couch.

Morgan doesn't have a couch but if s/he did s/he would sit on it alone.

Robert Alan Wendeborn sits on his couch with people.

Nina sits on her couch with friends + coworkers.

Jason sits on his couch with his wife, his dog, his son, his daughter, his computer, his blanket, his pillow, his ego, + his sense of existential crisis.

Germary sits on his/her couch with Formals.

Milford sits on his couch with his spouse.

Marshall doesn't sit on his couch.

Trey doesn't sit on his couch regularly but when he does he sits with the dog, his girlfriend, his roommate, his computer, the television remote, the playstation controller, a pillow, a blanket, his brother, + his mom.

George sits on his couch with his mom.

Zachary sits on his couch with his son + wife.

Marie sits on her couch with her cats.

Steve sits on his couch with his cat + roommates.

Aaron sits on his couch with his cat + occasionally less furry people.

Jim's couch is in the garage.

Nathan Tyree sits on the couch with his dog, Roxy.

Jenny sits on her couch with her cat.

Laura sits on her couch with Dean.

Alex sits on his/her couch with no-one.

Mister sits on his couch regularly + not regularly with his dog + wife.

Adoley sits on the couch with his/her father.

Uli sits on his couch with his wife.

Jones sits on his/her couch with his/her hamster.

Nathan sits on his landlord's couch occasionally with Robbie, Davis, Julie, Courtney, &tc.

Andy Devine sits on his couch with his wife + their cats.

Jeremy sits on his couch with his wife.

Pho sits on the couch with Jenny.

Madeleine sits on her couch with family.

Richard Lawrence Zachary Whalen never sits on his couch but when he does he sits alone.

Peter Davis sits on the couch with his wife, his dog, his children, + his guests.

Heather sits on her couch with Hastings.

Maria sits on her couch with a dog, a man, + a fuzzy brown blanket.

Susan does not sit on her couch regularly but when she does she sits alone.

Tim prefers the chair next to it but will sit on the couch with the cat if the chair is occupied.

Margo sits on her couch with her cat Lixo.

Katie sit on her couch with her boyfriend Matt + her goldfish swims at the end of the couch.

Ken sits on his couch with a girl.

Stephanie sits on her couch with Francis.

Paul Hanson Clark recently sat on his favorite couch with a girl named Su. Sometimes he sits next to Neal or Alex on his 2nd favorite couch while he eats.

Jared Allen Ellis doesn't sit on his couch. He lays on it but only when his stepdad isn't around.

Ross sits on his couch with friends, monotony, drugs, alcohol, + his own poor self image.

Alison sits on her couch just by herself.

Shaun used to sit on his couch with various ex-girlfriends. Now he does not sit on it.

Tony doesn't have a couch.

Peter doesn't sit on his couch regularly but when he sits on it he sits on it with his wife.

Luke doesn't sit on his couch regularly either but when he sits on it he sits on it with his cat.

Liz has a couch and sits on it regularly by herself.

Bill sits on his couch with his wife + kids.

Jared Samuel White sits on his couch with a pile of books.

Charlotte Marion Baker sits on her couch with Joseph Daniel Lawlor.

Chase Kamp sits on his couch with his roommates, their cat, + some guests.

Mork sits on his couch with his GF.

Matt sits on his couch with Melanie.

Brendan Egan does not sit on his couch regularly but when he does he is often alone, which allows him a nearly indecent amount of leg room.

Kim sits on the couch regularly, with Lee and the cats.

Clio sits on her couch regularly with her mom, her sister, her cat, blankets, pillows, and a coverall that keeps falling down!

Elizabeth sits on her couch regularly, by herself.

Anna doesn't have a couch, it's her parents' couch; and she doesn't sit on it; she sits in a chair because it hurts her lower back to lay on her tummy; she sits on her couch with her laptop.

Steve sits on his couch—but not regularly—with Dave.

2010-03-03T23:04:00.013-05:00

QUALIFICATIONS

Mairéad's couch is actually a futon. Sometimes she lies on it, and falls asleep. Like most nights.

Steve prefers the chair, or pacing the room.

Drew doesn't sit on his couch regularly + when he does with whom he sits depends.

Nathan has four couches. It may be an illness.

Adoley sits on the three couches in the house more when there is snow.

Pho has a couple of couches + sleeps on the loveseat.

Peter Davis has two couches, one longer, one shorter, on which he regularly sits.

In Paul Hanson Clark's house there are 3 couches + he owns 0 of them. He sits on 2 of the couches in his house regularly; the other 1 he sits on rarely.

2010-03-03T10:13:00.003-05:00

SURVEY

2010-02-26T23:33:00.007-05:00

CATS ARE CLEAN ANIMALS

Cats are very clean animals. Even the males groom themselves. Even males with very few other social graces. Cats are independent. They’re not like dogs. Dogs are all over you panting & humping on your leg. Cats are aristocratic. People write poems about them. Like T.S. Eliot. Like a patient cat etherized upon a table. And smoke snaking around like a cat. And the musical. Cats are quiet. You’ll never catch a cat barking its head off and keeping the whole neighborhood on edge. Cats don’t bother postmen. I once saw a mailman with his scalp half torn off, blood like a waterfall over his face. That wasn’t a cat. Cats are quite useful. In the country they can catch mice and rats. In the city cockroaches and centipedes. Cats let you know if something strange is afoot like a bat in the attic or a foot on the porch step. No—I wouldn’t have a cat.

2010-02-25T22:29:00.002-05:00

YOU THINK YOU KNOW SOMETHING

You think you know something about caulk.
You think you know about the different kinds of caulk.
You think you know how to use a caulking gun.
You think you know how to say caulk.
Well I got a question for you—
What makes you think you know anything about anything?
You think you’re running the show.
You think you’re doing a pretty good job of it.
Well I got news for you—
No-one’s going to your show bud.
You don’t know anything about anything
And nobody’s going to your show.

2010-02-23T08:49:00.005-05:00

STRIPED

The day is striped with grey
+ vivid color—
not tethered to
the sovereign coils
which shear all color.

2010-01-25T11:31:00.005-05:00

PEOPLE / Car Keys in Hand Across From the Sub-Post Office on Smith Street

He asked me to read the letter.
First I thought he wanted directions.
But no, he wanted me to read the letter.
It was from Rhode Island Hospital.
So you visited the Emergency Room, I said.
Yes.
You had a test?
Yes.
Well it was positive.
So I don’t have it?
No, you do. Positive means you do. It’s not a serious disease. You must take antibiotics. You have to call this number.
My glasses fell on the ground and he picked them up.
He got into his shiny maroon sedan and I got into my Galapagos Green Honda Civic.

2010-01-20T12:22:00.018-05:00

POEM

In Kennedy Plaza on the tight strip allowed riders we flock tightly with clipped wings till the bus too weary to sweep pulls in. We load in, disparate ammo in a ramshackle gun. Relegated to seats we cup toward or away from each other, wait for the man to fire his engine at the moment the schedule dictates. A man and a woman, parentheses in the handicapped seat, Price Rite bags on their laps, at their feet, parentheses too, as is the man’s breathing tube, another lip above his upper lip. I listen to a woman’s voice, see the shoe of a man on my left: I'm going to work! That's what matters, to have a job. Have to have a place to go. Even if it a holiday I'm going in. But—getting a kick out of warning—I’m calling in on you some day! At the VA hospital he jumps off, he’s smiling, looking back, I’ll call in on you! Before a move is made there is before and before, before a stop is called a tension, a lean, a lift. Then the maximal heave and lurch, in the jostle of the bus, the grapple for the bags, the prize, what’s carried home—and an old man, slender, maybe Indian, leans from his seat across the aisle, peeling away from the papers he is reading I see the brown envelope on the seat, takes the bags, moves swiftly to the door, steps down, sets them on the kerb will he get on again in time, lets the heaving couple—kings—squeeze down. From the knot shuffling to exit Someone forgot his papers (a man’s voice) and I (instantly) He’s coming back! And the woman beside me (instantly) He’s coming back! And he comes back into silence—that moment past—followed by a man on a crutch who swings his sausage bag into the luggage rack just then obscured by two girls who stand propped, African, the closer so relaxed it takes a while to realize how consummate her beauty is. You talk about it later. Now—will the girls help with the bag when the time comes? He gestures so they do and he hops down, moving surely off, crutch and bag, toward the laundromat.

2010-01-14T05:37:00.008-05:00

OFFICE POLITICS

Office politics are part of work life. All the books say the same thing: Favoritism exists. Cliques exist. Suck it up. But I say there is another way: Build a cedar closet. Actually build is a misnomer. The closet is already built. You just line it with cedar. All you need is board, a saw, and nails. You can tangle with those mothers as long as this weekend project takes. It could be months. Cedar boards are thin as popsicle sticks: they crack and split. And saw can mean hand-saw or circular saw or jig saw or even saw-saw. And hammer can mean drill or brad nailer. Just the names bring me out in a cold sweat.You’re in a closet, building your own coffin in a sense, fighting for your life. Your face is smacked against 130 years of horsehair plaster traumatized by the patchwork technologies of three centuries. You’re creeping over this landscape with a studfinder like a Lunar Roving Vehicle and it’s beeping as if the entire knobbly field is one sheet of plywood electrically charged. It’s an adventure—a tough frontier kind which will eventually yield a space for clothes. What has this to do with office politics? Nothing. It’s just you against entropy, building, keeping your thumbs intact.

2009-12-22T19:39:00.008-05:00

click photo for audio

2009-11-30T15:16:00.005-05:00

Floor

When I had had enough of staring at the poet reading I stared at the books and when I had had enough of staring at the books I stared at the nifty bookshelves and the chocolate walls and the ceiling with its six hanging lamps and when I had had enough of staring at all that I stared at the floor. It was a most familiar floor. Not that I had never been in the bookstore before, I hadn’t, though I had been in the owner’s previous store, just around the corner, which was almost identical, with the same nifty shelving, only less of it, the same books, only fewer, the same implacable walls and high ceiling, though narrower, the same place all in all, only smaller. But I hadn’t noticed the floor there or if I had I didn’t remember. I hadn’t made a note of it or if I had I hadn't re-read it or referred to it or used it in any way or if I had I didn’t remember like I remember the neat marquetry of College Building 302 which I attempted to describe in writing, unsuccessfully, for twenty minutes during a night class two years ago; or the wide planks of my Victorian house, which I haven’t written about till now because it is the crevices between them, loaded with the debris of three centuries, which command my interest both in terms of what I excavate (dirt, crumbs, pins) and what I insert (rope, pencils and perhaps myself some day). By contrast, this floor was dull—grey-brown as opposed to the flaming orange of my floors at home. It was a sealed floor, though not with stain, with time. The grain bit down, as uncompromising as the walls. It was not polished but seemed clean. An old clean. The planks (I could imagine them being swept, I could imagine that regularly happening, I could imagine being the person sweeping, I could imagine being the broom, but this floor came from before sweeping, for me anyway, from when sweeping, though I was barely aware of it, would have been done by women who were not my mother, or women in black habits with their peripheral vision blocked by coifs or wimples or similar apparati with elusive names, women who could not be anybody’s mother) of this floor were neatly fitted, this floor was all of a piece, in a sense, there was not a huge difference between plank and next plank, there was no grand canyon of accumulated debris to breach, the floor was a flat floor with no rift valleys. This was the floor of an early classroom, when I was 4 and 5, and my eyes moved between floor and desk, which was more floor, and supply cupboard, which was recessed floor, and teacher’s table which was more floor too. Not when I was 6, because that year we had a new classroom and the colors were lighter and we were raised up. But maybe the floor of a classroom in a second school, when I was 7, 8, 9, a floor that stretched out into more floors and halls, transfixed in an amber of motes and polish, in another country, where schools still had windows, even if high up. That floor. So strange to see it again here.

2009-11-24T11:39:00.005-05:00

Uncoupling

The husband was thinking of moving on. The wife didn’t know yet. He was unhappy. He tossed and turned in their East Village walkup. It was just all so stifling. The big old labradoodle and the adorable funky children and the smart and successful wife. It wasn’t the life he envisaged for himself. Or rather it was and then it wasn’t. He longed for a quiet professorship, in the Midwest perhaps, but in a very small town. He could live out his decades there, happily, move on to his next life. The reality of this one had broken down. But the wife still laughed her throaty intellectual laugh, planted kisses all round, embarked in her schooner, unaware of the dreams and frustrations of her kayaking husband, who waited for the first eddy, establishing momentum to turn.

2009-11-24T09:52:00.004-05:00

The Men

The men stand outside the Dunkin Donuts Center on a cold sunny November morning. They stand in their shirt sleeves, skirted by wall, at the top of a broad sweep of steps. They are smoking and talking. Like men in church porches. Men in dark suits of indiscriminate fit. The pungent smell of damp and rain. Their loose knot slips further to let me pass. The church by the sea in Kincasslagh. Holding its secret of ordinariness etched in the astringent sublime.

2009-11-24T08:59:00.009-05:00

Food + Money + Poetry

Most of the money I make goes on food. Yes there’s college. And the mortgage. And utilities. And everything else. But mostly it’s food. The Holidays are big of course. You know the ones, in the Winter, I don’t have to spell it out. They’re monstrous but mostly it's everyday stuff. Rice. Beans. Rice and beans. Pasta. Pasta and rice and beans. Pasta with sauce. I don’t even go out. Why do poets not write about this? Surely they think about it? Like along with thinking about Mad Men, Wittgenstein, and the horror of the forced air heating system. Well how do you write about poetry and food, poetry and money? Say, how much food could you buy with all the money you earned in your life from poetry? Why, I’d say we could live … more than a year on that, not eating out of course. Eating at home, the two or three of us, nutritiously, virtually meat-free (except for you know The Holidays), lots of beans and rice and pasta. Lots of apples and cheap wine. At least a year. Who knows ha ha ha maybe two.

2009-11-24T08:07:00.008-05:00

The Middle Book

Readers expect a little more these days. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable when I say Web 2.0 leads us to expect a little more. Like I ordered a book from Amazon the other day. It arrived. But I couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for in it. I skimmed through it. It was fine. But not exact. Not precise. I couldn’t find the name of the person I was thinking of (it was a book about bullying, I wanted to see the name of my bully there). In the old days you could turn a book upside down and all manner of things would fall out: pressed flowers, memorial cards, receipts. Nowadays you don’t get that and you don’t get Google either. It’s a lose lose situation. Oh I suppose you could write the names in. But that seems so retrograde. A bit of interactivity doesn’t seem too much to ask and I don't mean pencils. I want to hold the book upside down and shake tiny friends out of it. I want to reach into it for understanding and a hug. I want color—shiny icons up and down the margins and in banners across the top and bottom of the page. I want Facebook. Actually pencils aren't such a bad idea—I want a pen of light to write illuminated marginalia and have the authors write right back. I want paragraphs to shimmy like jelly as they dissolve and reform. I want something to do while reading—or at least more reading while reading please.

2009-11-22T11:08:00.002-05:00

Family Man

Many men, though they have children, do not have the experience of fending for their family, keeping a roof over their heads, putting bread on the table, bringing home the bacon, etc.

They may not know their children, may not care for them, may care for them but not care for them, if you know what I mean, may be incarcerated, elsewhere, oblivious, incapacitated, unable, unwilling, careless, absent or removed due to sundry other conditions. It’s quite common for men not to care for their children.

I am more man than they are in this respect, carrying on in the tradition of my father before me, though not his father before him.

2009-11-20T22:41:00.005-05:00

Comfort

When they moved to the new country, who can blame them if they took their names with them, or sought out places with those names? If they were in wide open spaces, clearly they were free to snatch names out of thin air, or memory, or religion, just as they snatched cabins, or farms, or families. They could invent or they could duplicate.

And who can deny the power of comfort in a familiar name, like a too thin sheet, but just about sufficient. The name itself would give rise to the bed, in time, and the room, and the walls, and the roof.

In the cities, the names were set. There was not that freedom to name. In a small town, perhaps, a group of influential townspeople could assemble and vote to name, or change a name. Thus did a town that wanted a university become Oxford. But in a city, it could take a lifetime to acquire the status to name anything but your own child.

People sought out addresses that were ready-made. Sometimes they had to hunt for a very long time. There were those who wanted not only the street but the right number too. That took longer. But the solace derived was considerable. If your sister lived at 11 Pleasant Street in Xantia say, it could be terrifically comforting to live at 11 Pleasant Street in Zumtia, even in a shabby part of town. You would never want to move.

But there were complications. What if your sister visited? Would there be embarrassment, however slight? And what if your sister moved? Imagine the phonecall? The tight anxiety at the news. The sickening information. Oh to Jellyoppity Street. And what number would that be? 279½? Oh, that’s unusual. You feel your heart freeze solid in your chest....

2009-11-19T22:17:00.005-05:00

We don’t take cabs

The family visited their daughter in New York. They walked all over the city. Uptown. Downtown. Midtown. West Side. East Side. Central Park. It began to rain very heavily. The sky darkened and locked. There was thunder and lightning and pelting rain. The sidewalks were wiped of people like a Powerpoint transition. Everyone huddled under awnings and overhangs and store entrances. The streets ran like rivers and yellow cabs sluiced water up over the sidewalks almost to the walls. The family pressed themselves into a doorway taking the least amount of space without actually touching. Suddenly the daughter leapt out and hailed a cab. It stopped and she hustled the family in. Next minute everyone, scattered with diamonds of rain, was wedged shoulder-to-shoulder in the cab. There was an awkward silence. Then, We don’t take cabs, someone ventured. I know, said the daughter. But that rain. And I thought …. Everyone sat tight-lipped, hurtling through Manhattan under the slicing rain.

2009-11-19T12:11:00.003-05:00

CIJITQBIRCTAAIJDTIWTTAERNA

(handy acronym)

2009-11-19T09:01:00.004-05:00

Programmable Thermostat

I'm hot.
I turn the heat down.
Now I'm cold.
I turn the heat up.
We're going out.
I turn the heat down.
We're back.
I turn the heat up.
We're off to bed.
I turn the heat off.
It's 6am.
I turn the heat on so it's warm
when Clio gets up.

2009-11-19T08:57:00.006-05:00

Google

I am not
a Divine Being.
I have help
w/ these poems.

2009-11-05T12:40:00.009-05:00

The Azores of Toes

On the great flat sheet of the beach almost like a bed flat sheet in fact, the toes disport, comport themselves looking for all the world like waves of headstones in a perhaps military cemetery except with sunglasses, aviators probably, given the military issue. The male toes are cool in their aviators and bare-chested, sporting only swimming trunks. I was never a fan of aviators for the ladies but fetishes and inhibitions are sprouting like cauliflowers round me at this stage so don’t mind me. The tots are the best, I mean toes are small so toe tots just about disappear (through binoculars from the slopes of Pico which is our vantage point) were it not for the puffs of sand they squirt up as they race about and disappear into all over this surfside arena stretched and marked with broad striped beach towels the bright colors of which make the scene a festival. That and the Latin music. If you’ve never seen a big toe belly-dance you haven’t lived. Of course I mean chamarrita, larum-tum-tum, and pezinho. But the great thing about toes you know is how completely silent they are. You hear the music of course. Then the toes like giant erasers rubbing it out.

2009-11-02T09:57:00.007-05:00

DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME