Sixth Finch (click here)

It's up! Works by Todd Colby, Christopher DeWeese, Erica Miriam Fabri, David Lehman, Mark Leidner, Jay Baron Nicorvo, Daniel Pinkerton, Ted Powers, Emily Toder, Morgan Blair, Caleb Charland, Robert C. Jackson, Michael Mararian, Greg Miller, Erik Otto, Philip Toledano, Chris Trueman and Michael Harlan Turkell. Go here.

Happy New Year.

Stephane Mallarme

"Late in coming, it seems to me, is the true condition or the possibility not just of expressing oneself but of modulating oneself as one chooses." -Mallarme-from "Crisis in Poetry" from Selected Poetry and Prose

Easy Street

A slow chunk of steel
falling from a building-
but we went on with it-
were able to dodge it-
it was falling so slowly.

Gert Hofmann

"The gist of the whole thing is to make endurable, with a modicum of art, a way downward, at the end of which stands, with no art at all, death." -Gert Hofmann- from "Casanova and the Extra" in Balzac's Horse

Sic Alps!

It Ether

It ether gas rainbow
slit magnet into rusty mint
and gangrene glow. A couch
and some cookies. Listen to
the can opener on the F-Train.
That guy is pouring milk
on the floor. Chainlink spit.
Another coughdrop a service call
the router is blinking red.
Meditate before the end stops
cold in the heart. A moment of bliss
maybe a cough cough cough. Alarm.
Cough. Ride bike to work. Fog.

Ida Maria--Oh My God

Allen Ginsberg

"That a new kind of man has come to his bliss
to end the cold war he has borne
against his own kind flesh
since the days of the snake."
-Allen Ginsberg, from "Who Be Kind To"


Merry Christmas.

George Bataille

"...it is easy to observe that the overwhelmed individual throws back his head while frenetically stretching his neck in such a way that the mouth becomes, as much as possible, an extension of the spinal column, in other words, in the position it normally occupies in the constitution of animals." -George Bataille from the essay 'Mouth" in Visions of Excess Selected Writings, 1927-1939

My Room in Paris

Coax the Swan Out

There were some people in the room trying to help me last night
but when I turned on the light
they were just pants hanging over a chair.
I bought a swan for the bedroom; it's neck is beautiful
and it's feathers look high gloss white against the matte brown wall-
it's like having a t.v. in the room
but there are only paintings books a chair
and an aluminum table that wobbles a bit
when I sit down to write furiously or not at all. To tenderly hold
my head in my chapped hands and sigh coaxes the swan out.
Sadness makes the swan affectionate and sturdy
or just some guy's pants hanging over a chair.

Please Be Careful

In Rome

In Rome not a disaster
found deer ticks in the cabbage
dreamt I urinated in Keat's deathbed
sniffed ether in a slum
with an Italian poet
walking back to the hotel
I felt hollow-headed spider webs
soft mysterious gift bag
full of vitamins and drugs
a loft with beautiful people
playing guitars and drinking heavily
from a spigot inserted in a cask of wine
ate mushrooms stuffed with crabmeat
dressed up in a tight purple crushed
velvet suit read poems in Italian
to a crowd of artists who gave
me food an olive oil massage
a deep blue fork
with a laminated pope pious
walked to a monument
and wept on the airplane out: wept
again Rome was hazy but comfortable.

Sic Alps--"Semi-Streets"

While I was in Paris

While I was in Paris
a dog. Then a bagette and
some plum preserves. It was sunny
and there were people chatting
by a beautiful building.
They knew me. I was strolling
along a street and then I went
inside a cafe and chatted in French
for a good hour. The best hour of my life
was that hour. Then another dog
and someone mentioned the stars
and the clarity of light. It was
such a nice feeling that I
and then another dog interupted
Parisian dogs and I didn't feel
sad in Paris I felt alright
like things were going to be okay.

Dig It

I ate the Cleveland Sandwich
it is raining all the time
in the butter hut near Watanga
my elbows are bleeding from
leaning on my side and reading
the chalk manuals. Tell me you
love me in braille quickly before
I go off my rocker. I've stopped rocking
now that the boat has docked
and the nuns are shouting to the
shitty kids to come in off
the money. I'm off the money
I want to have a look around a little
bit and then I'm going to read
up on loneliness and the clowns
who proclaim the medicine is
making life better late at night
what bullshit lies, what mocha
brown can do for a room: dig it!
I'll be in the office.

The Agility of Birds

To have been in the circumstance of seeing
a bird break on the sidewalk and the father of the bird
weeping losing total control and mastery over
other beings willing himself away from certain subjects
trying to remain calm although the broken bird
was gliding through time without any notion
of a goal. The false notion of the agility of birds
in keeping with a search for the absolute while
only finding things, fixed things in the form of the world.
You could say something to the broken bird that the
world of the happy is different than the way the "m"
sound inhabits the body from deep within.
It is rude to confront someone with their stupidity.
One can simply think of the bone itself while
looking at a painting of a broken bird. The wings on her
back are white bones. A face without muscles.
To maintain a certain physical hygiene while
standing at the heights of despair. By nightfall the broken bird
will be dark as mahogany while people walk
around it on the way home. Safety
takes no holidays. Thanks heaps, birds.

Virgil

“Perhaps some day it will be a joy to remember even this.”

Spiritualized

Cher & Troll

Look Around You: Music 2000

22 Misters

Mister Silver, Mister Potato, Mister Yucca, Mister Papaya, Mister Pineapple, Mister Purification, Mister Mango, Mister Candies, Mister Clay, Mister Coco, Mister Cacao, Mister Crocodile, Mister Sun, Mister Sea, Mister International Flowers, Mister Cattle Ranching, Mister Pretty Legs, Mister Grape, Mister Wine, Mister Swimming Pool, Mister Lemon Cookie, Mister Oil.

Lucky Dragons!

LUCKY DRAGONS "Live at Farmlab" (dublab VisionVersion) from dublab on Vimeo.

NO

The Name of This Band is Mocha Bedroom With Ghost Spots

Mash the Gas (Tonight's Program)

In my program tonight
I'll be dancing to the music
of real sad shit my hands will be wrapped
in cheesecloth and sea salt
to signify mourning
you will be asked to taste them
do lot leave your brain in the truck
heavy metal kids will talk trash
the room will smell like burning rubber
then sandalwood then sex
I'll take a moment to think
of your backyard and your garage
then I'll extract fur from the stairs
high winds will blow fragile gold
down Baltic Street
the holy grounds will merge
with the petals in tonight's
program the point is not happiness
but persistence you will get old
you will fall apart but you will look good
in the turbulent way that venom is chaotic in the heart
at the end of the program you will forgive
yourself for the indiscretions of your youth
you will be asked to applaud mildly
your body will spend Christmas with someone.

Allen Ginsberg

"Well, while I'm here I'll
do the work-
And what's the work?
To ease the pain of living.
Everything else, drunken
dumbshow."

-Allen Ginsberg, from "Memory Gardens"

Writers' Rooms

Writers' Rooms

Thanks to Stephen Mitchelmore for the link

Brooklyn at Night

There might be the exceptional possibility
that something could go wrong with panic
that I was a thick pelted animal of some sort
the skin around my eyes was peeling
so the other animals ran from the room.
Now it's like living with a sad silent ghost
some of them jiggled with the standard pink share
I thought the floor was sagging from the weight of my books
of their mossy genitals and the fog around them
the swirl of traffic pushing the night around like a bully
from the smokehouse. They would eat themselves alive
there are things I'll never know until I do them
if they were afraid enough of what I could do.

"M'amour, m'amour
what do I love
and where are you?

That I lost my center
fighting the world.

The dreams clash
and are shattered--

and that I tried to make a paradiso
terrestre."

-Ezra Pound, Notes for Canto CXVII

This was in my head all day--the imagery and the song

Two for Thursday (Bataille, the green wall, and me)

Two (with green in them) for Wednesday

Tuesday Morning with George Bataille

"For a period of several days, life enters empty dark. A wonderful feeling of relaxation is the result, and unlimited power is disclosed to the mind. The world is at your feet and you can do what you want. Only problems soon develop."
-George Bataille from Guilty, p.37

"Each Type of conquest is, no doubt, the deed of a man fleeing a threat." -George Bataille from Inner Experience, p. 43

"It's as if there's a crab in my head. A crab, a toad, some horror I have to puke up, no matter what." -George Bataille from Guilty, p. 15

Office Wall

Sunday Morning with E.M. Cioran

"In order to conquer panic or some tenacious anxiety, there is nothing like imagining your own burial. An effective method, readily available to all. In order not to have to resort to it too often in the course of a day, best to experience its benefit straight off, when you get up. Or else use it only at exceptional moments, like Pope Innocent IX, who, having commissioned a painting in which he was shown on his deathbed, glanced at it each time he had to make some important decision."
-E.M. Cioran from The Trouble with Being Born

"The sole means of protecting your solitude is to offend everyone, beginning with those you love." -E.M. Cioran from The Trouble with Being Born, p. 99

Horse Feathers "Curs in the Weeds"

Work in Progress

Gerard Manley Hopkins

"I WAKE and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light’s delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.

I am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse."

-Gerard Manley Hopkins

The landscape outside is tuned to a low D

"A strong song tows
us, long earsick.
Blind, we follow
rain slant, spray flick
to fields we do not know."

-Basil Bunting from Briggflatts

"You better believe in your self
(your
soul)
& go forth to battle."

-Charles Olson from Maximus

"How far gone
into my defect
am I?"

-Alice Notley from In the Pines

Sigh

The Fall: Totally Wired

"My heart and I agree" -Mark E. Smith

from "Stroszek" by Werner Herzog

George Schneeman & Ron Padgett

I am speaking for all of you

1) Slipping on a ginkgo nut.
2) Tallest building in the world.
3) I am curious about you.
4) Free me of communication.
5) Raspberry wasp.
6) Your butter vacation.
7) Terrible terrible time.
8) Or: energy is good, is nice or fur lined.
9) Big and tall informed sources.
10) Blood on the rug in front of me.
11) Here. And here.
12) The smell of ammonia.
13) Burning protein in a field.

Morning Poem

I could have you, need you, break with you,
I could spend hours with you eating pieces
of you and making the world change
with you, be humble with you
and then cradle you whole, eating
from you as the birds eat crusts of bread
around you wanting to eat from you too.
Early riser, mouth full of light,
the sweet way the world burns--
Oh nest of pureness--
Oh love of the desire
to be desired.
The whole world is moving
through your hips and palms
while my carcass is numbed and slammed
speaking with warm detergent air
the bleach decay of fabric
sterilized by your stillness
soothing as hair on the back
of a cambered head.

Zizek on Love

Grace Hartigan 1922-2008

"Perhaps the subject of my art is like the definition of humor--emotional pain remembered in tranquility." -Grace Hartigan

2 for Friday

Deerhoof "Basket Ball Get Your Groove Back"

Junior Murvin

The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser

Dangerous

It could be pretty dangerous if you were thinking about it or doing it alone.

Wednesday Top Ten

1) Night Work by Thomas Glavinic
2) Rogan Hoodies
3) Mad Alchemy Embrocation
4) 2666 by Roberto Bolano
5) The black heart, blue star, and peace sign spray painted on Rita Ackerman's bedroom wall (by her daughter)
6) "We shot three times to bring into alignment with your family than would ever hit you over the head with it."
7) Kung Fu Panda
8) Farms, Neud Photo and Love Todd
9) Clear lenses
10) "It is an uneasy feeling leaving the yard with people screaming in the house."

A Weather "It's Good to Know"

Deerhoof "Offending Maggie"

Mustang in the Yogurt

1) I have a machine in my throat that gets into people's ears and effects them.

2) Verbs from a cold mountain.

3) I liked certain things and then I wanted to own them. Isn't that what got me in trouble?

4) Most people can feel the supraorbital notch below their eyebrows.

5) Have him no longer get any information from a familiar face.

6) Peels off into a parfait sunset.

7) The heat transfer years: You are a never ending cascade of dreams, hopes and ideas.

8) An impressively hirsute face behind zingers.

9) Fact: Whatever comes from the woods is standing outside the shower while you wash your face.

10) Eagle meat cooking in my own body fat.

11) Inchoate.

12) Cloud formations are actually bacterial dispersal vehicles. Microbes have been found in abundance in clouds.

13) Sky Purell.

14) The selected meter of autism.

15) Eros in a spray bottle can be purchased online.

16) I come to you in peace with the smell of factory on my arms.

17) If you put a towel over a ruler it won't leave welts on the person next to you on the train with his legs spread wide.

18) This is a pile of pants. An expression of displeasure.

19) "Have you ever done any acting?" Her father asked me.

20) There's a mustang in the yogurt.

How it feels to have a fever

Vote!

Hugo Largo: Scream Tall

I have fond memories of watching Hugo Largo perform in the 80's and 90's. Mimi Goese (the singer) had a profound effect on me as both a performer and person. Tim Sommer (the bassist with the long hair to the left) went on to produce two of my band Drunken Boat's records (among other fabulous things). Enjoy!

New Love Todd Songs

You can listen here

Floor Meat

We enjoy watching your program
because it makes us feel free
of our defects. That heavy sighing
you hear when you enter the room
is the ambience we paid a dude
a lot of money to create--it goes
with the furniture--no blood on it!
Look at the stills of you in motion
blown up on the cabin wall
you can see your breath
in the one above the sofa
like a dialogue balloon
with smudged letters. The rug
is nice too, it has patterns
that make us dizzy enough
to forget what a great program
you can't have upheaval without
profanity so you better have some
coffee before you get down.

Jane Dark

"The speculative economy expands based on the extension of credit. This extension of credit is in effect a contract, and it is not vague and mysterious. It is a contract committing the real economy to increase the intensity, magnitude, and/or duration of its exploitation of labor so as to return that real value to the economy. That promised exploitation — on which every deal in the speculative economy eventually rests — is a guarantee of misery to human lives, and it doesn't get realer." -Jane Dark's Sugarhigh

I watched the sky blur

Don't even light the words anymore

tangerines go bad in their red netting

light is an option take a picture of yourself

will alleviate a sense of tension

in the house with indented head

words indented in the head

from wood blocks each of the words

shouted as much as thrown

a sock full of them over the head

make a blue stain grab you in

bring you inside from space

to a new space of words

we are just changing too fast

to keep up with you and you.

Synecdoche, New York

Synecdoche, New York is one of the best films, ever. It broke my heart and still has me reeling a bit. See it.

Au/Boute

Reggie Watts

Vapor

It takes a lifetime to live a life
and when it's done it's just done
you stick a fork in the cheek
that once got kissed turn to say hello
but it's dusty and stinky
thrown over a barrel with a sweet
vinegar smell this is what dying feels
like you won't even have time to say
what bands you liked growing up
because it's all a big farce anyway
and when I do whatever
I do I'll wish I could swallow
something anything that could turn
my body into a mist a red vapor
of shame a last daylight sparkle
laughing like an ass without a clue.

Sleep's Purple Arm

It takes all night to sleep through the night
just like it takes a whole foot to fill a sock
or when you ask me why pants are so popular
you are usually out of breath running past
the outlet that sells pants to those in need.
I'm not one to discount the need for sleep
it's just that sometimes the space needed
for one night's rest bumps into the next day
where it's better to get up and read
because that's what fits and I'm not one
to sleep with my face in a basin of water--
that's just not the way I roll in Cobble Hill in 2008
where everyone is bruised and resinous
enduring the panic of the day well into the night
oozing from sleep's purple arm.

Poem

Zenith.
A T.V. set
we had in the 1970's

Music for you

Ivor Cutler

One Sunny Fall

Already arrested if you walk down
Baltic Street a curtain of smog
blows into the automobile
which is vast and made of fresh
air and could be the earth.
It's always something sparking
the tweed on the dude
on fire on the album cover--
he's slurping
on tapas on Warren Street
where he waves from a window
hello and scoots around the corner
into the alley
where Lili Taylor had her photo
taken for The Times one sunny fall
a park with some red benches
the sky scrubbed with shimmering cold
the room above it all
smells like the heat is coming on.

Music is good for you

John Fahey

For Truck

Oh Truck!
get up
the face is tucked
in a bright bell
a new medicine
with clear gel
frosted the drat landscape
dig not one fig
or dried apricot
in a health food joint
cops, a mom smoking
out front holding a stroller
with groceries in the seat
no kid in sight nothing
and I mean nothing today
is used the way it ought to be--
There aren't any lived in sections left
because everyone is living in them already.
Won't you please come back Truck?

Stephen Mitchelmore on David Foster Wallace, Cesar Pavese, and Thomas Bernhard

Spot on as usual: here

SUN BEARS!

If you'll rub the stillness from my machines I’ll open the window for you.

Friday Morning Music with Hannes Coetze and Jacques Brel

Tonight

Lucky Dragons

Lucky Dragons on the i-pod.
Walking around Brooklyn.
Oh heaven.
Except for the trucks on Union Street.
Sort of.
Oh, and the world collapsing.
Except for that,
and the inward sucking sound
in my brain,
peachy.

In a forest of metal objects

Marnie Stern: Transformer

Jenny Juristo-Morrison covers "Fake Empire" by The National

Heartbreaking and achingly beautiful.

Listen here

I love her.

Fun on Henry Street

Todd

Todd works with winners to create winning lives. Todd invites winners to write down their dreams and hopes on paper which Todd then scans with his "eyes." Todd then converts the raw data into a real winning plan. Todd does this by sensing how much light is reflected off the paper in order to detect a weakness and therefore, a victory over the person submitting the list. Each dream or hope signifies different amounts of intelligence so Todd can convert the intelligence-value into a winning life plan.


While Todd scans the data stored in three wall-mounted units, the participant is encouraged to make drawings of Todd by using the provided magic markers. Todd then resumes scanning and interprets the new marks and colors. Subjective Todd then makes a statement about his own representation. What at first appeared to be a game becomes a very serious matter. People die everyday.


Todd is able to create complex living arrangements out of his subjective statements according to his patented laws of “living a life in total conflict.” The end result is a “scheme” or "score," which, in essence, is a lifelong living collaboration between the subject and Todd. Before attending any of Todd’s lectures it is mandatory to read Todd’s important essay "Pain, Why Does It Hurt?"


Void where prohibited by law.

Todd Colby + Jeni "Truck" Olin TONIGHT!

Todd Colby + Jeni "Truck" Olin

Zinc Bar Reading Series

Sunday, October 12, 2008 at 6:30

ZINC Bar is at 90 West Houston between Laguardia & Thompson in New York City's Greenwich Village.

Subway: ACEBDV to west 4th street. NR to spring. 1/9 to Houston. F to Broadway Lafayette

$5 donation goes to the poets.

Forgetting

Forgetting does have a color.
You remember the miracle
now spit in your hands and pray.
I'm talking to you, friend.
Jet clean mouth, swallow a dime,
a quarter--get a brain massage
with a roll of nickels.
Panic while you munch
on some digital jerky.
By fright or by clown
we've grown weary--no laughing
someone's sighing
goodbye goodbye.

Tarvuism (Thanks Justin)

Say Hebbo! from Torvakian on Vimeo.

Life Saving Product

I love what I do for you
and I hope that you love
what I do for you
looking over the precipice
a night of song
things snapping
as my face is breaking
jazzed about some new product
come in naive
energetic depressed wailing
and then espouse a new product
a life saving product
the sadness is in love's recovery
not the discovery
when we rolled the car
we said oh shit
no vacancy
no live wire
done

Remember to this one

Your words
do not remember you
on a of sheet paper printed
with the image of a tiger
eating the prince of the narrow valleys.
Bunsen it him!
The whole expensive color invigorates the sky,
while we eat cheese lunches and bread to plunge.
Brushed feather which works now handles.
Perfect and clear night in the firm mediums,
bronze closed circuits, total the melody of our own end.
Like you the air is beaten from my face.
They left the reproduction of your ring
cracked on my cheek.
Extended at the end of amber and of wax
deep in the perfume of water.
My quality! The new day has a light. My quality!
I misses you. Your fragile plays are true expenses
and goods for the majority of the alive things.
The animals receive the luminous light shirt
and on them it ignites.
Thanks! I know that you know yourselves
without me knowing you won.
To remember to this one.

A Fitted Party Frock With a Fox Puff in Back

Before I forget who you are
let me know how I know who you are
the final flourish is the feathering in
hanging from a rafter
circling the city
looking for an indication of wind
when there is none of the above
and now here we are
it is important to know
when not to fire
there is a dog named "Delta"
that can smell seizures on babies
young people lose a sense of hope
the brush of lips or a limb
against your neck
dance against October
to be cornered by age and thought
it is an uneasy feeling
leaving the yard with people
screaming in the house.

Get Your War On

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Fugazi

Traveling Light

Feeling nostalgic
is for the birds;
there is no such thing
as salvation.
I was popping up in places
forgive yourself
be kind to others.
Magic Marker in hand
big letters making matters
worse on subway posters
under my ink.
Defacing a glass
bottomed boat. I was
bumping up against you?
It's the fleeting hope provided by
medicinal powders,
silver elixirs, a map
with bumps--or is that gum?
If a human body changes places
then we call that traveling--
that's why I'm moving
toward you. I know what you love.
I'm watching you read this.

Jacques Lacan

"Fantasms cannot bear the revelation of speech." -JL, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, p. 80

H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)

"Two or three people, with healthy bodies and right sort of receiving brains, could turn the whole tide of human thought, could direct lightning flashes of electric power to slash across and destroy the world of dead, murky thought.

Two or three people gathered together in the name of truth, beauty, over-mind consciousness could bring the whole force of this power back into the world."

-H.D. from Notes on Thought and Vision

Kinski-Butterfly

Welcome!

I don't want to hurt
what comes out of my body
is called CAPITAL
the LABOR of getting
it from me to MARKET
is passing through
the INSTITUTE OF HARM
this should not be confused
with PRODUCTION
in this late time
of high CAPITALISM
I make WORK
I make my own BODY BAG
I make it WORK for me
through SPECULATION
I might have been handed
something darling in a pool
of IMAGINARY MONEY
what I thought I did
or what I would need
to do for the
CAPITAL or what new mode
of PRODUCTION would
shut the fuck up
let it all come down
to wiggle into a suitable
SPECTACLE of
of NOW welling up
into the REAL
getting SHOT in the FACE
with MONEY
What a way to take up
time while we're here
Welcome!

Todd Colby & Jeni Olin Read!

Zinc Bar Reading Series

Sunday October 12th

Todd Colby + Jeni Olin

For more stuff to know about the Zinc Reading Series:
Lungfull. org/Zinc/

ZINC BAR is at 90 West Houston between Laguardia & Thompson in New York City's Greenwich Village.

This one promises to be wonderful.

Lucky Dragons

Vincent Gallo

Marnie Stern!

Hawnay Troof on Chic-A-Go-Go

Deerhoof

Revealed!

We can talk about the secret of death while tethered together by the lace we once curled around the breaker box of grandma's neck. Think of electricity as nothing more than a profound pinch from death's bony finger. In the open with wet feet we feel lanky of build and able to twist off the end of the bread bag with a wrench. A toast to the buildings that still stand! A toast to the trees that are feigning longevity! A toast to the pets that will die in our arms! Death has a fake marble hallway and mock velvet curtains inside the pretend mind fuck mansion. Death has a shark stuffed with eucalyptus and calls that installation art. Death knows no bounds, the cure is waiting where you'll fall one day; a patch of ground that you'll be smashed on is waiting for your body. Until then, shout and make the candy crunch between your teeth. Ask for the gas at the dentist and all of these things will be revealed to you. All of them. Don't be disgusted.

High Places (More!)

What is Sweltering

Under the sheet
there is a balloon
a plate of wet deer
a backpack
full of lava soap
a Q-tip
stained with bike grease
an aluminum charm bracelet
something
with menthol
in it.

High Places--Gold Coin

Listen to pure goodness--The new High Places release is out now--do yourself a favor and buy it. Listen to more here.

Top Book of Poetry

1) City of Corners by John Godfrey

Remembering a Deerhoof & Justin Birthday Card (June 13, 2006)

Modes of Humility

You might want to get over your feelings of anxiety by buying some shit from people that look sad about what they gave up to sell shit to people like you. If your awareness of this situation adds to your anxiety then you should watch some television and wait until you see a commercial for a medicine describing your condition and then seek out that medicine even if it causes chaos of the mind.

There is always going to be someone whispering something in a coded language that you don’t quite understand. They may be talking about the feeling that things are collapsing, or that you make them feel uncomfortable, or that the world has gone bananas. Well you know what? That’s their job.

When some people become anxious they feel the need to be photographed or filmed. That's why certain people clear brush or wave when they exit an airplane. It's all about the hazards of thinking you don't really exist unless your existence is documented in a manner befitting a person of that caliber. Here’s a project for you the next time you feel upset about something in the news: practice signing your name in a large loopy scrawl so that when the people ask for your autograph you'll be ready. You should always be ready to do what you can for the people.

Let me suggest that you should shed your romantic tendencies. I already know what you’re thinking—so just consider this: fantasy escapes no one-- people are getting dead every single day because of fantasies. And here’s the real creamy center: There has never been a romantic movement among mathematicians.

Let me put it country simple: Lack of fear leads to injury, and injury leads to romanticism, and that's just one way of saying there's nothing like a bone poking out from your shin to bring things into focus.

Sparkle of Fear

Wash my face with your arm
suck the meat from behind my lids
a fancy boy with kinky paddles
slurps ghost juice from a milk hog
while toot muscle goth takes a razor to a shark
and stuffs it full of spicy mink blossoms.

All you have to do is read
and leave the rest to the medicine
which is leaking from a valve
a thick soup of iodine and sugar
is pumped into your heart
spanking your brain with the sparkle of fear
so you can get lumped while loaded.

I really dig your modern outlook.

Song

It's so cold
where it
never hurts.

Relaxing

In the same way that 100 mosquito bites are relaxing.

Bright Lint Pump

A bright lint pump
makes the air
"to sparkle."
Yearn to wobble
long of hope
short of cash
a little sprinkle
of "just can't"
and "fucking trapped"
so when people
have hedges
the hedges
get clipped
and that's a job
for someone
the papers
have stories
each page
a little something
to remember
you buy
stuff when
you're being attacked
and then
throw what you bought
over the blood.

Hey Codeine Breath

Fork over your tongue axe
you bring a special batch
of lethargy and loopiness
that stains the sheets
with marble dust. Damn it!
I'll half you into squares
& serve mint toast on monkey skulls.
The Moral: what's dirty
gets hammered,
then smashed,
then enraged, then mystified,
then tugged, then manipulated,
then flicked, then sleepy.

Aluminum Wind

Cast a new glance
at the aluminum wind
something is flickering
in the morning light
swing the megaphone
over the valley
watch how the stars
act like they're shiny
medallions of beef
edible rinds strewn
on the street
moist and pleading
ears cocked to one side
don't read the paper
don't watch the news
there's something burning
on both of your shoulders
we'll help you
put it out.

Captain Beefheart--Three Favorites

Kate Micucci

New Love Todd Songs

CLICK HERE

Frank O'Hara reading "Having a Coke with You"

How to Birthday

A piece of labor cake
was served along with a special
water that washes away fear
we love what you did
with your hair
the absence of glee
is replaced with
a pearly nodule
it could be a pill
the salad is rubbing
the spokes
grinding into
bump jazz
birthday lips
kiss bright spots
on your neck and belly
to swoon rapturously
with mailman and hiccup
a coffin full of foam
you get it all
birthday fuck
in a brutal milk shake
patch of ivy and
poison darts
ivory dice roll
on the back of
a gazelle (fun)
and you are better off
a year older
than the one
before the year
you let the water
wash away
another fear.

Top 10 Things

1) Anne Elliott's unpublished manuscript Alma
2) Jackie-O Motherfucker's "We are Channel Zero" off Valley of Fire
3) The NY Times article about Salvia Divinorum
4) Tommy Gleason: Design and Aesthetics for Insecure Fucks
5) Peter Orlovsky: Clean Asshole Poems and Smiling Vegetable Songs
6) Slavoj Zizek: Violence
7) Joanne Robertson's new song collection The Lighter listen to "Marker" --a dreamy swoon of a song.
8) My Cervelo R3
9) Bill Knott: Selected and Collected Poems
10) Running 19-miles around the Shawangunks

Everyday Stuff

Dream chump
you've got some battered chucks
skin flickers in the light
it's what you breath in
that makes your eyes moist
kicking over the tree
in an effort to slice
through memory flicks
loops into gunk
layers of disgust
your fragrant timepiece
is buckling under the medicine
aggravate with talk
sleep on a shit pillow
wake up and do it all again.

My Weekend in Photos

Bob Holman leads us in a group reading of Howl in Tompkins Square Park

The Shawangunks

Is There a Mouse in the Baby's Room?

Please come to BookCourt on Monday September 8th at 7PM for the book release party for Elizabeth Zechel's fabulous and funny new children's book Is There a Mouse in the Baby's Room? BookCourt is located at 163 Court Street in lovely Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, just steps away from the F train at the Bergen Street stop. Lot's of friends will be there and Elizabeth will be bringing some of her world famous cookies.

Today

I'm thinking about wearing galoshes
and a silver space suit
with titanium aqualung apparatus
the rock is smooth and heavy
if the tree is positioned correctly
all hell breaks lose
from the muscle that is sunlight
I'm not really all about that
I've stood in front of a thousand
people and not stammered
stuck to the issues
without the ceramic brain wedge
balanced in my ear
a real pelican, my friend,
is positioned near the podium
it gives my hand
something to fondle
while I speak
blessing myself
for getting out of bed
and not getting punched
in the face.

Here's One

You might want to calm down
in order to show a smooth exterior
if you're starting to not like
certain people. Don't let your brain
hang from your ear. That's bad.
Think of an occasion to screech
then multiply that
by one-hundred shitasses,
then moan, then sit down somewhere soft
and forgetful and stop sulking. That's
so-not-you so let it all come down
because it looks stupid hanging up there
in midair. The special effects
are so overrated--
and anyway,
it's time to roll up your sleeves
and yield to the force that evolves
into a form not unlike your
drug of choice.

23 years ago

23 years ago this month I moved into the 6th floor (the first two windows from the far right) of this building facing 1st Avenue near the corner of 9th Street in Manhattan. I used to listen to Steve Reich's "Violin Phase" out on the fire escape while I watched traffic roar by. Sometimes I would see Allen Ginsberg, Alice Notley or Eileen Myles walking by. I felt like I was in scary poetry city heaven. Most of the time I walked around feeling self-consciously erudite, anxious and dorky. I wouldn't want to live there or in that state of mind again--though I do like remembering those first few months in the city when it felt like there was so much to learn about and embrace.

My Bloody Valentine--Live in Japan

Xiu Xiu

Love Todd

All new Love Todd songs posted here.

Still communicating smile and building harmony.

In

It is still
an angry
pool of gunk
what cuss
lists busts
ink effort
to assay
slugs
poles in
sweet air
lilted thought
came creeping
in
banging tin
inside in.

Poem

I came to a clearing
where my heart was visibly pumping
under my shirt
when all I ever wanted
was small and sluggish
belting it out
in a moment of clarity
later I would remember this
I am a goddamn american poet
and I am watching you.

Here's Something Really Great!

Really. And you can listen to it here

Play it loud.

Play it with headphones on.

Just play it.

Yay.

Light Bright

Here comes gingham punk shine
and his militant apples
all in one gigantic pantsuit.
Known in certain circles as
King Crunk and Wallop,
you'll find animal fur on his impacted molars.
So I sliced his gums
and poured in honey butter and Listerine.
He was into it.
After dinner I stifled his moans with medicated powder
and a fist to the lymph node behind his knee
and damn it if he didn't burst into flames
filling the forest with the smell of roasting cloves.
Light bright, to those still wondering.

Special Saturday Rock Show

Two From Above

Slumber Party

There's always something
unique and unsettling
that's just about to happen
making us uneasy
with machines
distancing ourselves
from the pile
of undones
panicking only
when it's time for bed.

J.H. Prynne

"Said with a flourish, in the morning
be merciful and by the evening
take in the slack"
-J.H. Prynne from "Stamp Duty" in Bands Around the Throat

Best Songs

There are over 100 stories of what you can do for me--I'm just hoping by the time I get back from my root canal you'll have enacted one of them. Like the time we jumped into the water from a rope swing. It skidded along your shoulder and turned your arm blue. You wrote the best songs after that. And still there is the urgency of simply sitting and not letting the day get all slippery and detached. There will always be something you're missing out on, like fresh linens, the paucity of good deeds, the urban sound, you know--all that and more. Still I like the way the jobs get done. Even the bad egg with her manipulation of time and the constraints of knowing it all when no one at all knows anything. Better luck next time when someone is honestly bringing you down, because they will see through you and you'll just have to sort of stand there examining their take on you. Bye!

A Note

Maybe some new furniture would help settle her mind or some sweet little medicine would make her forget that there were little piles of cat food rotting in dishes. But her plans were far from concrete. In fact, her method of gazing at the empty tub, then putting the kitten in it, then sighing, then removing the kitten, then filling the tub up with red food coloring--it made no sense and left an alarming stain in the tub. Then company came and the battle was not to let them get into the bathroom. It was Thursday, so all the papers were being gathered to be put into a bin. She found a post-it note with some words written on it in green ink. The words were blurred, but she could tell they were words. She's got a crisp thanksgiving and a firm handshake. There might be a teeter-totter somewhere with her bottle of medicine taped to it. There's a note on it.

Acting Reasonable

What you can expect when exploring the potential of reason is anger. You might stand up during a fit and have a stroke and believe one side of your hair has turned to marble. You can't put a comb through marble with an arm you can't raise. The lights are lime colored and flashing, making it difficult to read the anger manual. It's Thursday but it feels like Wednesday because there are no meetings today--maybe a root canal maybe a crown, maybe just bring the entire contents of my apartment to the dentist and tell him to fuck it. I gave a little push with my shoulder to open the door leading out to the porch but there was a memorial service going on out there with rustling and sobbing so I curled up on the floor with some peppermint gas. There are a lot of people saying a lot of things which makes it hard to get to know the person speaking. I will introduce myself to the doctors and the scientists and the guy that knows all about logic. I won't stomp around or get frustrated. I'll play chess and start acting reasonable.

Sous Rature

The new online lit magazine Sous Rature edited by Cara Benson is out now. I'm in it along with some swell company. Go here and have fun.