Saturday Morning with Martin Heidegger

"The discovery of the world and the disclosure of Dasein are always accomplished as a clearing-away of concealments and obscurities, as a breaking up of the disguises with which Dasein bars its own way." -Martin Heidegger, Being and Time p167 (from the Stambaugh translation)

"What is decisive is not to get out of the circle, but to get in it in the right way." -M.H. Being and Time, p143

Four for Friday

Safety Takes No Holidays

Sporting business casual
because that is all the rage
with the out of work punk kids in BedStuy.
Looping the film about antelopes
getting chased and devoured by lions.
A bolt of blue fabric hissing as it burns.
Kissing the wrists until they hickey
mold cups to bone and grind. Not a gender
hippie or an ass clown, just wondrous
and breathable brain tissue while churning
and I do mean churning.
Which one will you have? Each
is suitable for framing a flower
made of skin and wax hung
over the radiator for inspection.
Contact my station agent if you want
words rubber stamped to gift wrap paper.
A contact lens, a glass of water,
a speck of granola pressed into
my arm. I wouldn't cross you
in this chain letter to survive, not you, or
not without you.
I rolled you over so you could breathe
through the filter of a pillow.
You should be thankful because
it is important for me to feel helpful
& survive all this. Was this poem helpful?

Elephant

For Time & Being

I miss you a lot
like totally trying to attach a wristwatch
to thin air is disastrous or trying
to wave goodbye with a phantom limb
is just so retarded.
I tried to tell you love is glamorous
that it doesn't always end with the same dull thud
of a half-eaten chicken thrown at the side
of a dumpster. It doesn't suck to be us
because that just isn't possible.
You see, I designed this shit
to be springy and tinny with delight.
My fascination with necks
and calf muscles and other
amusements of the Brooklyn class
is really delightful at its core.
The smell of amber in May on my pillow.
I want to do with you
what rich people do every Sunday morning.
You didn't lose me and I deserve this.
I won a mystical swan
for my sophistication and restraint.
If we went to Paris, we would walk
around not biting people at all
because that's just the way we'd roll.
Now imagine it times 16. Now watch a
French movie and speak fake French
until people tell you to grow up.
And then don't wave when they leave.

A Thousand Pounds of Flaw

Thinking the air around my face
is just as good as kissing when
it's not stiflingly hot
the weather is not in control
of my emotions that I may express
to you more than a greeting card
sentiment. The medicinal charmer
says never try to memorize but
to feel the order and flow with that
like a goddamn surfer riding
a blood wave - awe is lush green
and tropical. Blue tongues of distinctive
dogs hammering home the garden
scene. Holding hands across a field
rain looming where being on guard
again means watching over myself
the fine disasters making butter
into the foam of delight. Is illusion.
Is up all night. Is a poet, a bicycle,
a lovely luminous explosion
and then ordinary activities like
soothing myself or ramping it up
with celebrities that know how to draw
perfect faces on linen napkins.
What does you say to this? You says
keep the thousand pounds of flaw.
I have appointments and desires
any thumping or agitation is in your head
sweet pea ravioli. Do I bother you?

Vinegar Hill House

Saturday Night with Prinzhorn Dance School

The Recluse 5 Reading @ The Poetry Project!

Monday, May 25, 8 PM
The Recluse 5 Reading

Join us for our annual spring reading by contributors to the Poetry Project’s in-house magazine, The Recluse. Issue 5 is dedicated to the artist George Schneeman (1934-2009). Contributors include Anselm Berrigan, Edmund Berrigan, Sandy Berrigan, Lisa Birman, Todd Colby, Cliff Fyman, Steven Hall, Vincent Katz, Michael Lally, Pamela Lawton, Elinor Nauen, Maureen Owen, Gary Parrish, and Will Yackulic. Readers on hand this evening will be Anselm Berrigan, Edmund Berrigan, Todd Colby, Cliff Fyman, Steven Hall, Vincent Katz, Michael Lally, Pamela Lawton, Elinor Nauen, Gary Parrish, and Will Yackulic.

Please note that there will be a formal tribute to George Schneeman on November 11, 2009 in the Sanctuary of St. Mark’s Church.

Calendar: http://www.poetryproject.org/program-calendar

The Poetry Project is located at St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street at Second Avenue
New York City 10003
Trains: 6, F, N, R, and L.
info@poetryproject.org
www.poetryproject.org

Admission is $8, $7 for students/seniors and $5 for members (though now
those who take out a membership at $95 or higher will get in FREE to all
regular readings).

We are wheelchair accessible with assistance and advance
notice. For more info call 212-674-0910.

SPRUNG FORMAL 09

Just in time for the most glamorous summer ever, we are proud to announce Sprung Formal 09: A Magazine of International Finance from the Kansas City Art Institute. Fantastic art and literature by Eirikur Orn Norodahl, Mike Hauser, Josef Kaplan, Brandon Brown, Alli Warren, Jasper Bernes, David Perry, Kari Frietag, Todd Colby, Sarah Luther, Linda Lay, Sarah Sarai, Nada Gordon, Sawako Nakayasu, Jordan Stempleman, Ryan Daley, Nathan Logan, Edwin Torres, James Meetze, Sarah Mangold, Alex Savage, Maurice Burford, Jess Rowan, Charlie Mylie, Neil Thrun, Kyle Devine, Krystal Languell, Ashley Wick, Andrew Cimelli, Andy Erdrich, Natanja, Joe Lawlor, Evan Davies, David Kirby, Adam Beris, Jordan Johnson, Joe Taylor and others. 103 pgs., perfect bound, with 8 full-color postcards. Perfect to read in debtor's prison or by the fountain of youth.

$10 includes shipping for an Internet-only deal. You can get one if you paypal to anne boyer at gmail dot com or send a check made out to Anne Boyer to Kansas City Art Institute, attn: Anne Boyer, 4415 Warwick Boulevard, Kansas City Missouri, 64111.

Friday

This is a Poem About My New T.V. Show

Blinking into the palm of my hand
like my eyes were allowed to do that
like a t.v. blinking in a room, my room
or that my heart were actually some sort
of archaic bird thrashing around in my chest
fucking up my ribs and tender organs.
I better not cut that bird out of me
or they would kick me out of life
and people would scoff at my funeral
knowing the salt in their tears for me
would be barely enough to use to soften a
pumice stone or gladden the troops with salt ham.
I'm all like totally pudding and confused.
I'm not mocking myself in the photos
I took of myself making gestures
at the camera like I was glistening on t.v.
and people cared what I did all day
because I was on t.v. fucking doing it
everyday and doing it right for the people.
My stature would be alarming
to those closest to me in bed
there would be kissing but not for show
to make the public feel better about
my not being alone with a bird in my chest
which can ruin a day with sleeplessness.
That it would become a mystery show
about who put the bird in there that was making
my nights sweetly gorgeous and exciting
maybe grabbing my neck and asking for clues
as the credits roll on my show.
It's that groovy and precise, my show.

Thursday Morning w/Frank O'Hara

"Is this love, now that the first love
has finally died, where there were no impossibilities?"

First Poem

And then
just like that
the city seems
to have a luster
the void is prohibited
by law, the shine
is, in fact, satisfaction.
Contentment is real in a
vague sense - still, stillness
and the breath that stays
that way. All aflutter.
Scooting into now.
I can't wait -
I can.

Mood Indigo by James Schuyler

Listen to him read it here.

Liminal Point

You might be thinking of me
with something novel in my hair like feathers
but I'm not flying back yet
I'm relaxing animals with my unforgiving heat
bland and expansive as a penny
taped to a falcon or a woman named Venus in fur
If there were a train and I hopped it
there would be a lot of people saying big whoop
or none at all I wouldn't be missed
I'd have to make things up if something went wrong
I'd have to get over my pants and put
a shirt on my back -- I can do that well
enough to go unnoticed for a month or so
in the new world where I might assist
you with relaxation techniques
like spooning and water breaks
nibbling a sandwich in the office
facets of controlling grief are covered
in my seminars in my nights
thumping your blue chest for signs of progress
think about refreshments as fuel
avoid boredom by never doing anything bad
ever again win the trust of people
breathe on them learn to smell them
for signs of distress so that you can address
it in your free time certain things
you see on your body are really there
so you should remove them with the
help of a professional how do you compare
the brewing of sleep for me with your wakefulness
a horizontal kiss so fleeting and secure
so light comes off me and settles on
the people near me the final flourish
is the feathering in and then you can't sleep
all over me on the telephone because I'm gone.

Three

Saturday Night with Bridez!

There is a good luck cardinal in this tree

Perfect

Portrait of me at the Jack Spicer tribute/reading by Alexander Lenhoff, May 15th, 2009

Plus

Feeling the tingle of dawn. The pull of
day and wonder, the tonal thump of gangly orange
light. Sudden substance of heat and memory.
Loud gulls glow tuberose. A cat paw once took this
computer off sleep with a tap. Feeling pure of heart,
feeling ready for joy again or something.
Sudden pang of misery and delight. Sudden truck
bump and humid boom across the courtyard and
off the buildings not more than 100 yards in the
distance. Tower, haze, heat waves delight me
at dawn, pink and cherry -- glowing pale
blue by 8 and dimmer and muskier by noon.

I Love John Ashbery

Being Together With the World

Being together with the world
the Baltic Street is shining
so lights on across the courtyard
or cars being together with them
on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway
then a shoe box with notes in it
then self and the star on my hand
and pressing my face against the table
I felt enraptured nothing has been
covered over compassion is okay
everyday I grasp that light crevice
a little more gracefully and joyfully
the city lifted a bit for the silence
I find here is remarkable
dawn is capricious making it easy
to sit alone this medal is rock.

Lovely

I'm Just Trying to Lay Down the Ground Rules Before We Make Another Mistake and Waste a Bunch of Ink

There will always be someone
nearby to tell you you're making a mistake
that you fucked up the subway poster
by tagging it with a sharpie
leaning on the car gets you yelled
at by the dude who happens to own the car
spaced out on the train with a crowd
of people all zoned-out in their own
i-pod videos in which I am only
an extra sent lurching out of their scene
at 14th street the world howls
unexpectedly though I expected it
and even braced myself for it
time is moving too fast I don't even
have time to tape a ticket into
the back of my journal before another
day brings a receipt for something
that will make me sad when I think
of the joy of that day years from now
instant nostalgia is a drag and I'm
lonesome for no one waiting
for everyone so please be polite
to me if you see me I enjoy kissing.

Some guy modeling some Fiorentini and Baker boots

On 13th Street near University Place, I was dared by a friend to ask to take a picture of a stranger's boots. When I asked the guy wearing these Fiorentini and Baker boots if I could take a quick photo of them he said "okay, but only under the bright light in front of this health club." And then he raised his pant leg and lifted his leg joyfully into the air. Now that's some fucked up shit. But those boots, my God.

Drunken Boat - Home

Someone on youtube recently made this video of my band's song "Home." I don't agree with the literal interpretation, but it's great to know people are still listening and moved enough to make a video of a song that's almost 20-years old. We were called Drunken Boat after the Rimbaud poem. Now there are several bands named "Drunken Boat" in this world, but we were first. I hadn't heard this song in awhile. That's me singing, by the way. Turn it up and enjoy!

Kiss Myself to Sleep

I am leaning into the wind
like a sleepy cowboy on a drunken horse.
All the sunlight in the world
swirls around my face
making grief more an irritant
than a state of the fucked. Still,
if you reach into my bag
you'll find a wallet with new forms
of identification maybe a ticket to something
a receipt perhaps and that's it.
Soon I'll tape them into my scrapbook
in order to travel forward in time. But to
be honest I sit and think about right now
more than back then because
you can't have what's never been made. Hanging
off the shower caddy is a washcloth
scented with vanilla and amber
I'll use it on my body and
kiss myself to sleep.

Blind Willie Johnson - John the Revelator

Radiohead - How to Disappear Completely

Top 10 Saturday

1) Merchant of Venice @ BAM.
2) The guy that spoke fake Italian with me at the coffee shop as he made my double espresso.
3) Cote Bastide Ambre Eau de Toilet.
4) Rogan, Levis, Fiorentini and Baker.
5) Bacchus on Atlantic.
6) A 2-hour run on the trails of Prospect Park.
7) Sitting around on my ass totally reading and writing.
8) 2 naps.
9) Radiohead - How to Disappear Completely.
10) Desire.

They Didn't Throw Us Out of the Restaurant

It may be the weather making you patient
or that I live in a tree so you don't have to
see the bread and the peanuts
that monkey will hold a coin for
you as the rain falls if you don't
feel like carrying a sack a man
is there with a helping hand
an organ to grind an old Italian
tune in the radio shaking hands
amber weather too and vanilla
and other ideas about stuff that can
relate nothing to your day-to-day
life so it's all in a little compartment
with the driving gloves and the lace.
I'm glad I met you just so I could tell this.

John Cale - Thoughtless Kind

From "Joe's Pond"

Unless I can impress them with something I can show them, then I don't want to talk to them. It hurts to look at them. I want to lord over them; I'll stick my arm in my mouth, bite it, and leave a mark. I will show it to them. I will teach them how to sneeze themselves with specially twisted tissues.

Bob Dylan - Simple Twist of Fate

New York City Players - House

Samuel Beckett - Ohio Impromptu

Just watch. Thank you Stephen Mitchelmore.

Okay

I strapped some songbirds to my legs
so I can begin the day with music no fog head
clear and precise flanked by compassion
this wan light looping into the room
circling the books I make sounds
that imply I'm doing okay with loneliness
when I breathe a lot of birds are singing
I never heard them before now
someone is starting to get awake
stretching the spine open in
bed a live animal speaks
history will never repeat itself
the walls are stripped and repainted
the table scrubbed for action
flagrantly dismissed but not wandering
I made the choice one night
honing in with a laser on air
I'm that full of light.

"John Hardy" performed by Roscoe Holcomb

Thee Oh Sees

Laughing

There might be someone laughing
so you'll just sort of have to deal with that
maybe roll your pant legs up
or your sleeves up above your elbows
get to work on diligence and effort
make a stand or take a stab
at gripping the handle with a sense
of sureness rivaled only by the cabbie
with tongs and make-up.
These tricky dicy days!
Making matters worse and then better!
Come on over to the skimpy side!

George Eliot

"The past becomes dreamy because its symbols have all vanished, and the present too is dreamy because it is linked with no memories." G.E. from Silas Marner

Pleasant Overlapping Shapes

Black Ocean Globe

New Song: The Agility of Birds

There's a new song by me posted HERE.



"The Agility of Birds"

The Thing Itself

I might have a question about the thing
or the thing that sees beauty like an owner
owns a TV tray or a belt buckle. The question
I have might be stated in the form of a crayon
drawing or the pronunciation of the word
crayon itself, stopping there on my point
say or a window display of furniture on Pacific
near Henry by the sushi place
that can best be described as Patrician.
Those are words we use in the company
of people we eat with or have conversations with
that is the public self making masks
with vocabulary when actually we are grunting
and still the thing is oozing around
on the wet street a slug waiting for
a mound of table salt a slit of light
through the clouds language doesn't
make anything better we are all just so alone.

Jacques Lacan

"As far as we are concerned, when we look at the vast universe,
doesn't it seem to us that we are in the middle of a huge construction site surrounded by various nebulae with one funny little corner, the one we live in, that has always been compared to a watch that someone forgot?"
-J.L. Seminar VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis 1959-1960 p. 316

Paris, Texas

Part Chimp

The Replacements - I Will Dare

Tim Buckley - Once I Was

I Would Just Say (for JPC)

I would just say that you are the contemporary
and the wild cherry and that hat. They said All in the Family
was such a great show. The paper is here
but 6-flights down wet steps. That's the coffee
maker you hear not the machine that clears
debris from the street, the street cleaner, it's
not that. The bananas I bought yesterday are still
green so I won't eat those, or even one of
those yet, just yet.