What's up with the bird?

A bird flies into the house
alarmed pour salt on it
feathers with crystals lodged
in the bands around the throat
some of the markings are distinct
they will create chaos of the mind
just by looking at it or feeling
that cooing throbbing bird quiver
in the palm of the hand
by turning the sleepy bird around
not a slug on the doorstep
walking with it to the door
some people are gathered outside
talking and smoking they are
watching they want to know
what's up with the bird
how it got in the house
and what else the day will bring
if it started this way.

Awesome Sauce

Carrier Pigeon: V.2 Issue 1 Closing Reception
http://www.carrierpigeonmag.com/
Thursday, March 1, 2012
7pm-10pm
Grit N Glory
186 Orchard St, New York, NY 10002

On March 1, 2012, Grit N Glory boutique will host a free reading by four of Carrier Pigeon’s contributing voices as part of our Vol. 2 issue 1 closing reception, and you are invited! Russ Spitkovsky will read a story coming up in CP Vol 2. issue 2, proof copies of which will be on display. Nick Kolakowski, a new addition to the CP roster, has blown us away with his imaginative prose and will be reading from “What the Fire Cost Us,” to be featured in Summer 2012. Poet Todd Colby has three books available from Soft Skull Press, and we are very excited to be publishing his poems in Summer 2012. New York playwright August Schulenburg has been published twice by Carrier Pigeon, helping to blaze the trail of incorporation of plays and monologues into our format. August will be reading from “Presents,” featured in our newly available issue 5.

PS I'll be reading about 8:00 PM or so.

Numbers

By the time you receive this
I'll be on my way to Fluff Staff, NY
all redolent and miffed yet secure
and shaven, my cheeks somewhat raw
and chapped. I want you to look
in the cupboard next to the fridge.
There, you'll find a sheet of paper
with a series of numbers on it.
Now, go to my closet in the bedroom
and look at the 3rd jacket from the left.
In the front pocket you'll find the other
half of those numbers. Thanks!

Édouard Levé

"I believe the people who make the world are the ones who do not believe in reality, for example, for centuries, the Christians. There are times in my life when I overuse the phrase “it all sounds pretty complicated.” I wonder how the obese make love. Not wanting to change things does not mean I am conservative, I like for things to change, just not having to do it. I connect easily with women, it takes longer with men. My best male friends have something feminine about them. I ride a motorcycle but I don’t have the “biker spirit.” I am an egoist despite myself, I cannot even conceive of being altruistic. Until the age of twelve I thought I was gifted with the power to shape the future, but this power was a crushing burden, it manifested itself in the form of threats, I had to take just so many steps before I got to the end of the sidewalk or else my parents would die in a car accident, I had to close the door thinking of some favorable outcome, for example passing a test, or else I’d fail, I had to turn off the light not thinking about my mother getting raped, or that would happen, one day I couldn’t stand having to close the door a hundred times before I could think of something good, or to spend fifteen minutes turning off the light the right way, I decided enough was enough, the world could fall apart, I didn’t want to spend my life saving other people, that night I went to bed sure the next day would bring the apocalypse, nothing happened, I was relieved but a little bit disappointed to discover I had no power. " from When I Look at a Strawberry, I Think of a Tongue, translated from French by Lorin Stein in the Paris Review

Saturday Top 10

1) Edouard Leve Suicide.

2) Edouard Leve Autoportrait.

3) Hugo in 3D.

4) Animal Collective.

5) Vivian Maier photographs.

6) Engineered Garments S/S 2012.

7) Lazy Windy Morning.

8) Ken Price, R.I.P.

9) Rammellzee.

10) A new chapbook by me coming out in June (more details soon).

West 4th Street

Lightning Bolt

Something new here.

Thursday

Radiant and sharp
snappy light dazzles my
oh my.

Corn Belt

All I have to do is take a stab at not being here
and I'm suddenly on a plane to Istanbul
or someplace pleasant and alien enough
to make for an interesting breakfast.
I'm not exoticizing the other so much
as I enjoy a good muffin in an exotic locale.
Meanwhile, Arthur Russel is on my computer
reminding me he grew up an hour from me
in Iowa. What will I do with my morning
once the mysteries of the night are resolved?
Canned beans? A new box of Swiffer Dusters?
Some yogurt & milk? Check, check. Is this microphone
working? The audacity of the day
to become normal again and precise
touching down on the particulars so as to
say "is that all there is?" And so, a lump
in my throat which is really only a half
swallowed vitamin c tablet. Henry Street
has all sorts of interesting things on it.

Buffalo Aspirin

Paraffin foot dip for the softest
feet in Brooklyn. Swallow hard, the
oatmeal is scalding plugs of lack.
Slick back your hair with fruit juice and climb
the stairs into oblong rooms. Burn essential
oils to mask the smell of animal fat.
All the popular long players are
spinning discs on the turntable
until the grooves wear into the cement.
Dear Theory, clamorous doubt
is a mistake. Pop a buffalo aspirin and
find a flash of No. 1. Luxurious
skin has a price so get silky.

Sunday Top 10

1. Wooster Group: Early Plays at St. Ann's Warehouse.

2. Vinegar Hill House.

3. Oatmeal.

4. August Fifteenth (8.15.) Clothing.

5. Studio D'Artisan & Samurai Loopwheel Sweatshirts.

6. The letters of William S. Burroughs.

7. Running around DUMBO.

8. White spikes of light in the winter sky.

9. First morning coffee bliss.

10. Dancing around with no music on.

Flower Atlas

Brooklyn Poem

If you were living like a human say
or taking the steps to live like one
tying your shoes with your own hands
or divvying up the proceeds into an
old jar of mayonnaise, I'd still love you
in something scalloped or banal
as butter in icing or an omelet.
I am winning so much lately
that it hurts my arms. I get the drift
and stumble down the six flights of stairs
to a new way of looking at Baltic Street.
There are men walking dogs
in the dark and people frothing
at the loud mouths with nothing
to say but saying it anyway and that's just great.
So human as to seem tasteless, gabbing
into my palm like I'm praying into a phone.
So high up in the trees, this memory
of grass and something else up there.
A hand reaching for yours isn't all that
so I'll use this wooden spoon to think of you.
What will you use to think of me?

Fashion Week

You've got to think in terms of perpetuity
when your best friends are making chalk
lines around your body whenever you
stand still. There are people who want
to save you from the oil in your tear ducts and
escort you into the all new hot zombie dry times. If you can't
give life to a navy blue and cream polka dotted shirt
then maybe you need new mechanism
to help with your hump. If if if.

Small Future

Load up on abdominal pain and
let my head off the hook so I can sag.
Duck into the office when you see me coming.
Jumpers loop on pine needle soup
and make simple do this, do that livid and redundant.
I could pump the starlight into
another hysterical fuck scene. I meant luck.
Bent onto the saddle of equestrian metaphor baloney.
Shitty reality haunts the movie you think you're in on the F
train. Mingle with dorks until they stop you from becoming.
Will you have crisp sheets on your deathbed?
Will someone be there to clear your throat of murk?
Branch out, suck a house from my arm
let the sinking tooth haunt your veins
rattled into a small future.

Exclusive Poem

Monday is made of pearl, it pops
dry and white and paltry, it claims a spooky
clarity I can't resist. I walk into the bright blue
of Bergen Street and the air funk whoosh of cars
zips a bright pantheon of rubber and steel, dip.
I don't lack stamina in the evolving light of no light.
I am really sailing, high tailing it right into the smack dab,
ricocheting dumb shits to prove my bronco genius to no one.
All my days come downy and greased, pulling on my sleeves,
dozens of them. A gray bird in the leafless tree is just as doomed.
I will slip on denim, drink coffee for luck and palm the sky
all fist pumping and regal, assured of nothing
but the sound of my feet walking to work.

Sunday Top 3

1) Amazing Weapons by Marie Buck.

2) Mississippi Fred McDowell

3) The gospel radio show on WKCR.ORG

Summer

FALLOPIAN DUDES by PEPEPIANO from OutHere TV on Vimeo.

Je t'aime

Here You Go

I can see the coin you're trying to hide
under the pink by your gums and their blue veins.
Let me move the silver around with my tongue
until you're free. Heavy in the mix: hip thrusts
into a pillow like a trucker's brain quivering on air and meth.
Doze over cold static music in February.
A month of longing with oils and elixirs until the
light changes everything we can see again.
In the spin of the mix of these winter days
there is something green like what you'd see
a painter do, how she'd dazzle the grass, if
she was really good that's all you'd want to see,
that would be enough: her representation of grass.

Messages of HOPE

February 10 - 17, 2012
Reception and Sale: Friday, February 17,
6:30 - 9pm

School of Visual Arts (SVA) presents "Messages of HOPE", an exhibition and benefit sale of original, postcard-sized artwork on the theme of "hope" aimed at promoting suicide prevention. Proceeds from the sale of the donated artwork will go to Samaritans of New York, a non-profit organization that operates New York City's 24-hour suicide hotline, public education and awareness programs and support groups for those who have lost a loved one to suicide. The exhibition will take place at the Westside Project Space, 133/141 West 21 Street, ground floor, New York City, from February 10 - 17, 2012. The show will conclude with a closing reception and sale of the works on view on Friday, February 17, 6:30 - 9pm.

"Messages of Hope" is sponsored by the SVA Office of Student Health and Counseling Services and will showcase work from SVA students, faculty and staff, as well as artists outside of the SVA community. The exhibition, curated by Kathryn DeRaffele, includes work by Elizabeth Baddeley, Nancy Balsamello, Leema Basharyar, Chris Brimacombe, Philip Cheaney, Todd Colby, James Collier, Kathryn DeRaffele, Sara Duvall, Kristen Fiumecaldo, Marcos Gago, Cristina Galie, Sabrina Hall, Andrew Hermida, David Anthony Hiller, Che Min Hsiao, Billy Jacobs, Jamie Keesling, Helmut Krackie, Alex V. Puryear, Jeremy Jacob Schlangen, Glen Sern, Brad Soucy, Ivy Stark, Dasha Tolstikova and Linda S. Young. The works, priced at $75, will be exhibited anonymously and sold on a first-come, first-served basis.

Gowanus Eye

Don't We All?

Delicate monster, hum in French.
I am resigned to the cliff shot
where the rabbit treads air
for what seems long enough to write
a text. There is no excuse for doom,
not in this instance with the sun
out of my mind with weather. I am
riddled with pauses, clean as can be.
Low and behold, wind chimes
look mild to the symphony of clangs
right outside my life. All I have to do
is lift myself up and suddenly
I sprout these gorgeous silver-feathered
wings. Like that would ever happen.
Like I give a fuck about flying, or wings. I am
dolled up like one of those dolls
in heritage workwear. A chambray monkey.
Okay, motion to the choir, I'm going
out for a stroll, I want the soundtrack
of a dozen voices singing me down Court Street.

Thursday Top 10

1) Stanzas in Meditation by Gertrude Stein.

2) Tara's Salmon.

3) Nothing for You by Ted Berrigan.

4) A new poem by me (and a bunch of others): click here.

5) RRL T-shirts.

6) Running under the Brooklyn Bridge.

7) Moscot on Court Street.

8) Silence by John Cage.

9) The Red Swivel Stool.

10) This song & video by Loch Lomond (thank you, Valarie):

People of the Present

Now that the weather
is one season
an old copper wire
is buzzing with spine joy
near the windy river
my cap is stained with
the present tense and see
I will warm my hands
over a barrel
of delightful syrups
what I'm saying
enthusiasm is brief
and the ineffable flash
from an ancient telephone
is the burden of weather
of thee I sing

Guide