William Kentridge at MoMA

Please go see his retrospective at MoMA. His staging of Mozart's "Magic Flute" is absolutely mesmerizing.

MoMA, Today

Thanks, Jane

Theory Wall

Snow Night, Williamsburg Brooklyn

Snowpocalypse 2010

See You Tonight

See you tonight.

Photo by Justin Theroux. NYC, 2.25.10.

Watch How You Fold That Crayon

I want something really vast and soft
and radiant and dazzling to lift you into
the day so that you feel a real sense of panic
start to recede. There will be gorgeous spiders
and bits of blue skin and something really
sweet like peach pie and honey and pomegranate
jam and stuff like that. Huge flakes of snow
won't piss you off like they do me when you
walk in the field in Prospect Park someone
is there won't you watch them watch you
walk to me? Won't all the days you thought
would never end finally end and become
planted in your memory? A shark never
stops moving, not even for you, so why should
you stop getting jacked up before bed, if not for me?
The city is all moist and expectant
like my hand on your cheek as you sleep,
I certainly hope so.

It's Not Sad and Trashy

It's not sad and trashy to touch someone's nipples
while listening to AC/DC. In fact, in this fog of dawn
something arty and sprung has taken hold of the day
so that flesh becomes paper you can read like the news.
I am reading you aloud on the bed or whispering what
I remember before I fold you over into me. There are people
all over this city making faces at what they cannot have.
I am not one of those people doing anything but walking
to work or sampling lips on the F. If soft has a taste
it's on my lips. A bruised raspberry held in creamy velvet
pressing into the tendon on your neck. Won't you come with me
somewhere vast and green and pleasantly turbulent?
I'll be so nice that you'll feel like I'm a new man
making you new too. I'm that good all the time.

Do you know what would be awesome?

...if you came to this.

Everything Came Together

I can't breathe with your hand over my mouth.
It's just not nice. I can pulverize myself just fine
with stunning candies lodged in my throat
humming yellow, bumping pink, blinking red.
There are so many cute families with babies that
can disappear. Never mind the owner, beware the dog.
Tall, with bitter skin giving up stroking
and candy. It's just so nice to know someone
you'll never know will tell you when you're
bleeding on them. This winter has done a number
on us all. I want to pepper my words to you
with kisses but my lips don't work
because a vandal cooked them into a soft grimace.
I'm on to you, but I'd rather be on you
or on our way home with a digital device
helping us navigate the blasted landscape.
Tonight I'll put the scotch tape pajamas
on just for you and dance around
in front of the bed like a little dork.
Now, how that be?

Sunday Morning With Ovid

"What pleasure do you get from stabbing a dead body?
There is no space in me now for another wound."

Ovid, from: Black Sea Letters: Book IV
Translated by Peter Green.

Bob Dylan - Blood in My Eyes

Odysseus and Calypso

Beckmann, Max
Odysseus and Calypso
1943
Oil on canvas
150 x 115.5 cm
Göpel 646
Kunsthalle, Hamburg

Two From Saturday

One From the Past

I'll be giving a reading in Washington D.C. this Sunday, February 21st

Come on by.

info: here.

Wednesday Top Ten

1) Feeding Jane's Little Buddies.
2) Ovid and Homer.
3) Showing compassion daily.
4) One pound of Gorilla Coffee.
5) I have the key to Jane's house. Cat Sitter!
6) Mast Brothers Chocolate with Stumptown Coffee. I mean, really.
7) Heaven on earth.
8) Remembering that I was actually handed a knife as a parting gift in Worchester, Massachusetts on Thanksgiving 2009. That whole visit is already in the novel I'm working on.
9) Really liking the people I'm surrounded by right now.
10) Happiness in the now, here.

Pop-Up Book of Ships

It could be that it's making a relaxing situation
from this relative inaction. In this bit of Tuesday
some word from our sponsor with details
of the morning which was translucent. It made
sense at dawn. This capsule made you amped
while I dozed. I mean roses, dozens of them
pricking my nerves. Then someone is open
only to the idea of calm when they crave
pomegranates, like a seal craves a ball on
its nose or a man with attitude picks a fight
in the snow. Two kids with fake mustaches came
into the store and cracked us up. I took a photo
to prove I stopped aching weeks ago.
Anyway, it all seems like a sideshow
now and I'm just so not glad no one
warned me. They should have, I was there.
They had the chance when I was able. Wait, they did.
This pop-up book is gorgeous.

From Whence I Came

Star

Stuffing tissues behind the star
to make it stop rattling.

My Sad Blue Legs

Word Art

I sent many of my friends word art throughout the 1990's. While visiting Jordy Trachtenberg tonight, he pulled out what he called the "Todd Box" and inside there were stacks of these postcards I sent him through the mail. Here is but a sampling. Enjoy. Thanks for keeping these safe, Jordy.

Thanks, Steffie Nelson

Rest in Peace Alexander McQueen

Treat Me Like Your Mother

I come to you
fond as a blue ribbon
you can't get back
I don't need anyone
who takes more than
I can give you
the only way to know for sure
is to tip over during
a conversation and see
if I pick you up
dust you off
tell you how much
I remember about you
when you least expect it
multiple texts
well into the night still
on the back of my head
some blood
where I was rubbed
wrong.

Winter Poem

I couldn't imagine rumbling into the night without you
I mean, these hands have touched you
we've been torn under winter's white storm together
as memory fades at the bottom of the oven
like some cheap tinfoil of a lost summer.
All the wetness of night splayed there
opening breath into a soft oblivion
you waited there once for me
heaving sighs lifting your head
just enough to glimpse my mouth
about to kiss yours. It's okay to feel
maybe a little something even if it was
months ago your name is smeared
across my lips and even the snow
of this brutal winter can't erase
what never arrived in time to save us.
So don't depart on that bitter boat
that dark sea will swallow you, if you let it.
You see, I have no reason but to reason joy
as my singular duty so jilted and inspired
by these darker days than even you could imagine
me walking right through that door
into your room. Or not at all.

Jim Carroll Memorial Reading

February 10, 2010
8:00 pm
Wednesday

At The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church
10th Street and 2nd Avenue, Manhattan

Poet, autobiographer and musician Jim Carroll (1949-2009) was a consistent and brilliant presence around the Poetry Project since he first read here in 1968. We will never forget his kindness, his generosity or his humor. Please join us as some of his closest friends pay tribute to him.

With Bill Berkson, Todd Colby, Anselm Berrigan, Richard Hell, Lenny Kaye, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Patti Smith, and Anne Waldman. FREE

This event will take place in the Sanctuary.

February

Lift something up
like your head
from a dazzling blue jewel
you sift chemicals filter breath
what is good for someone like you
is me so stop looking
for what you can't find
from the speed
propelling you onto
an icy lot somewhere
walking on crisp brown flowers
deep in Brooklyn
like a saw in the middle
of a thigh or breakfast
alone one too many mornings
you come undone
that's when you exhale
and listen to the music of your lungs
you can come anytime
and you should.

James Schuyler

"In the cloudless blue I write your name"

From: "Sunday"

The XX - Infinity

Thursday Top Ten

1) Serge Lutens: Ambre Sultan.
2) Liquid Silk.
3) Purposeful morning.
4) Compassion.
5) When Things Fall Apart.
6) Palace Brothers.
7) New Poems.
8) Old Poems.
9) A blue sky right now.
10) Thursdays are my Fridays.

Palace Brothers

I Can Make Noises

I can make noises
move things from room to room
I can remember things
jump on the bed like a face
or cover the sidewalk with a towel
where I landed on my breakfast
fit and split open lording over
light in my palms reading ache
away from paper a limp
panic stirs often through these walls
a lot of things to question
my resolve on a t-shirt people
weep or crack up over tragic stuff
it does a number on us all
with time slipping by it's February
already my hands are chapped
what's happening in Paris
tonight or London is there a beach
somewhere right now I'll never
see that either I know this desk
like a country on the back of my hand
worn where my wrists rubbed
down to the wood with these words
it won't be okay it will be okay
and so on to infinity people just want
to be held sometimes by the neck.

Never Would Be Too Soon

Top Tuesday Photos by Laura and Jane

Separation and Desire

I would like to make a little hut
with people to play nearby and throw
food at me when I wonder what it's all about: eating.
My mistakes should be well covered and all the people
I read about should start to read about me instead.
There are no sharp objects in my room
because my maximum score will always
only be 100. I like walking all alone
until someone steps in and walks all alone with me.