Crispy Critters

One of us has a fever so we
build a machine that we can doubt.
It is a good machine that moves
in a very robotic way but still
gets things done on time. Crispy
critters get in our way
and make us hesitant to walk up
the stairs or even take a lunch,
so great is the violent nature
they exude. In this poem I would
like to encourage the seafarers of ancient
times to curtail their sea snacking
and concentrate on the particular
weather of the moment which
looks calm with a clear chance of
a smack down in the near future.
Whatever you do, stay clear of
the masked dude, because he is trouble.
Does that make sense?

Super Poem

1) A life of regal flouncing
is followed by a cheap hair conditioner
rubdown in a motel 6.

2) Under this lighting
it looks like bubbles floating around
one goggle.

3) Tonight is the night of your
life when you have another night in your life.

4)Make a mistake and get all up
in your gills.

5) Stuff your face with
yarn dipped in Vaseline.

6) Buy yourself
an expensive hat and deal with it.

7) Motion to the waiter with a gesture
that implies aggressive thrusting.

8) Get a bead on the problem and then
dial it into a phone by assigning each
problem a numeral.

9) Psychic connections are real according
to some very popular magazines.

10) People of Paris: I am coming to your city
very soon.

The Things I Would Do to Help You

If you were never coming home again
I would hire someone to help find you
a sweet song form to sing while you
were out there not coming home again.
I would look for clues in the trees,
watch how their branches moved
and examine the animals climbing up
or down the trees for signs of despair.
I would soothe the uninvited guests
walking in the courtyard with stories
of my adventures in Paris and stuff like that.
I would send you an email outlining my new
positive approach to life which would involve
coffee and photos of puppies and jelly,
lots of jelly, on everything.
I would tell you to stay away from Ikea
if you're feeling the least bit shaky
about your own reality. But mostly
I would help you with the idea of
simply being lazy and letting it all hang out
for a few hours every day that you're here
with me facing the music. Good luck!
I'll be thinking of you.

Holiday Plans

Draw what you can from this:
other than where we're planting
we suffice with a pickled grace
in the world and I won't bust
just totally max out all day
crinkled with miracle stuffing
puffed into a quaint cabbage stroll
our landing strip is elegant
we are dry and lean
we cook for sixteen hours
our skin is meaningful and awesome
that's right without a thought
a nut thinking about something
here's what I'm going to do:
my ass on that chair or floor.

Podcasts of My Reading from May 25, 2012 (There were also some great jazz bands on the bill)

1) Podcast

Listen to the delayed response to my "bear joke."

2) Podcast

3) Podocast

Bean Spasms

Bean Spasms has just been republished in a facsimile edition by Granary Books. I just ordered my copy. Yay!

Mississippi Fred McDowell - Shake 'Em On Down

Thanks!

I want to do something
that doesn't get me put in handcuffs
like I took some bad medicine and got
too clownish. I want my presence
to speak volumes. When I enter
a room, I want people to stand up
just for an instant because they are sort
of getting up to run but then they decide to
stay because the glow of my entrance
is so bewitching. There's more. When
I walk around, I want to thrust my hips
against the air as though I'm pressing
them into something wild and solid.
I want the simple act of my crossing
the street to be symbolic of something
both repellent and oddly attractive.
Ok, that should do it.

Wednesday Poem

Giddy to the point of reasonable ecstasy
hopscotching across the room
with a curious glitter balm
sprinkled on my heart
a meat glow on my cheeks signifying
breath, coffee, lumbering forth.

Nice Life

Sleep in the slow motion position
so the hard sparks of these kinked
days deliver soft blows.

Auctioneering at the Lungfull Magazine Benefit (5.19.12)

with Tracey McTague. Photos by Brendan Lorber.

Come

Nowt@Nite Fifteen
May 25th 8pm
$10 suggested donation
Douglass Street Music Collective
295 Douglass St, Brooklyn between 3rd and 4th Avenues
Buzzer #1
R train to Union St or B, D, N, Q, 2, 3, 4 or 5 to Atlantic Ave
streaming live (video and audio) at livlive.fm!!
www.nowtatnite.com

Andre Matos Quartet
Aaron Kruziki - saxophone
Andre Matos - guitar
Petros Klampanis - bass
RJ Miller - drums

Todd Colby (I'll be going on at 8:50PM)
Todd Colby - poetry

Brinsk
Jeremy Viner - saxophone
Nate Radley - guitar
Aryeh Kobrinsky - bass
Jason Nazary - drums

Bobby Avey Trio
Bobby Avey - piano
Thomson Kneeland - bass
Jordan Perlson - drums

Thursday Top 10

1) Eating dinner with Greg at Al Di La last night.

2) Mike Doughty's new memoir: The Book of Drugs. A brave, startling and inspiring book.

3) The new Beach House release: Bloom. Excellent. Dreamy. Addictive.

4) Sun.

5) The deep end of the pool: floating world room.

6) Sleepless at 3 a.m. (surreal fantasies).

7) New collaborative poems with Joanna Penn Cooper.

8) Running under the Brooklyn Bridge.

9) Lungfull Magazine party this Saturday! I am the auctioneer for the 5th year in a row. Big fun ahead.

10) John Godfrey's entire published output, always.

Wiggle Free

While you were asleep
I took a strand of hair from
your thigh near the hip
to use as a sort of bracelet
in the heat I can't be responsible
for the actions of others. Sometimes,
and I do mean always, there's a
slight embarrassment I feel when the
morning birds make their whereabouts
known with their desperate songs of
indentification, why it's almost as
though they're afraid to be alone
too long without singing here I am,
where the hell are you? It's simply too lonesome
to wear a strand of your hair on my wrist
and sing things from a tree, which could
get me arrested at this hour, and anyway:
my insurance sucks. I've not abandoned all hope
or even you, in fact, it's safe to say
that the world is inhabited with all sorts of people
who are dying for things they can't figure out,
neither can I.

My Body Can't Ignore the Beat

Disguise

You should disguise yourself in a blue bandana
everyday you're on this planet
so that when the revolution happens
you'll be disguised and ready to work in retail,
paving the way for some festive consumption
right before it all goes up in a ball
of Duraflame logs. Sit back and marvel
at all the things the people do better than you
all day long. When you're busy someone more marvelous
than you is doing something even more fun and mean
like scraping the top of your mouth with a shoehorn,
get off my foot. By the way:
What did you just put in my intravenous bag?

Saturday Vibes

If I'm awake it's only because
of the tricksters who've managed
to unfurl some silver streamers
from the top of my building
which is a real treat while I
lay in bed and listen to the soundtrack
of three lawn mowers. This morning
I made out with my forearm because
that is the way most of us learn
to kiss our forearms: by simply
doing it again and again. Fact:
Lots of people aggressively plop down
on the floor just to feel their muscles
go all gelatinous around the bones
holding them together. Okay, one last
thing: There will come a time
when a cardinal will fly by your window
and it will be no more significant
than just another red bird adding
a blemish to the sky. Until then,
no more bad vibes!

Friday Top 10

1) Indigoes and Calicoes.

2) "Dying frees us from dread." - Maurice Blanchot

3) My body can't ignore the beat.

4) Accept the mystery.

5) Woozy with carnage.

6) Blanking out with people's names.

7) Werner Herzog's "Into the Abyss."

8) Blue dye from Gunslinger Jumper all over my neck, wrists, and hands.

9) Have someone put something in your body that makes you forget a lot of stuff.

10) The smug vibrato purr of the pigeon on my window ledge right now.

Poem

Your allegiance to the mundane is unsettling
at best and laughable all night long.
You come into the room wearing historically plausible clothing
and I am very impressed with how genuine you are. Your gospel of
correctness rings like a bright brass bell in these murky times.
Let your diagnostics lift you up
with all sorts of potions and elixirs.
You are a professional: you understand
a lot because you paid a lot to find out how
they told you things work. Just tell us how things work.
Parts of you are rubbing off on everything you brush against me.
Your texture, character, ring and slub add to your authentic vibe.
The telltale blue ring on your neck, the balsamic taste of the flesh
behind your ears, the delight you take in correcting others.
If I just fork over my will then I don't get hurt.
I only sing when I am feeling sensible, resolute, encapsulated.
You are an expert, you are of the canon, you go. Go.
Here's a poem you can refer to when you want to know
exactly when I'm not coming home.

Spiritualized - Hey Jane

Audio is low, so turn it up all the way.

Globe

Here's a globe
you can refer to it
when you want to know
exactly where
I'm not coming home.

Sky Poem

The sky is so abundant
with things that should be
in the sky that I am tendering
my resignation, tilting to one
side in an effort to be closer
to what is in front of my face.
I can't believe how fast I go by.
And you? Too?

Saturday Top 10

1) A Death in the Family by Karl Ove Knausgaard (Outrageously good, no, really. A masterpiece. Do you understand? Buy it. Read it. You're welcome).

2) Journey to the Abyss: The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler 1880-1918, edited by Laird M. Easton (This guy knew and dined with everyone from Rilke to Nietzsche).

3) Less than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism by Slavoj Zizek (Hegel everywhere! Another joyfully enigmatic tome from Mr. Zizek).

4) Frommer's Paris 2012, Thanks Erica!

5) John Zorn and Thurston Moore at The Poetry Project last night, damn! Dana Ward also rocked the house/church.

6) Mister Freedom Gunslinger Jumper, on the brain.

7) Dinner with Jake and Jason at Angelika's Kitchen.

8) Hanging out at long time friend Jordy Trachtenberg's place on St. Mark's Place. Walking back in time, while being buffered by the present.

9) Perfecting the ability to "pretend to be reading" from my iphone on F Train at 1:30 AM.

10) Saturday long run, shortly.

Strobe

You and your guests should sit in a pretty room
with the hope of strengthening experience
with the infamous box changed by fingering.

Now, I'm not saying you should from thence, or perhaps be contractors.
But things that power the value of the experience
can make a huge difference. Perhaps you need a little more information
about how life is going to win the melting time
and the uncertainty about the modern years to make. I provide.

You can insulate with plates of fresh air, stripping the air
to fill your clothes with breeze. It is a way you should try.

You, creator of stylish, should never be afraid
to ask all the questions I have.
Note that another way must be around you.
The following questions should be answered before with most everything:

Do you love him? Would you throw his ashes in the Seine?

I should be included in your answers as a type of solution
for relaxing measures. Even if you prefer not to include me
as a guest, your home is a place of justice, it is a piece of cake.
It's easy for me, it should be easy for you.

Treat yourself to expensive. Even a brand new king pampered
with all the new tools can do a lot through the aircraft mounted shower.
Hold me while I convulse to this.

Be Cool Everybody, Be Cool

Be cool everybody, be cool
because something has been put into
your body that makes you forget the hassles
of the man and takes away your unrealistic
expectations of the future so you can just
be kicking back with a lot of inappropriate
thoughts and some really strong coffee.
Good luck everybody!

Seven Second Delay on WFMU.ORG

Listen in Tonight at 6PM
Live from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Manhattan.

Todd Barry, Dinosaur Feathers, and me are on the bill.

You can listen to the show tonight, Wednesday, May 2 from 6-7 PM
over at WFMU.ORG. They also have a podcast so you can do that too, later.

You can read about the show here.

Enjoy!

XO
T

Ghost

The Weather

Here's a poem about a being that
thinks it has more meaning than you
as though meaning was something one being
could have more of than another or more than
one over another with the idea of proving
some sort of superior vibe which is really
just annoying and reminds everyone else
just how breakable beings are and to what extent
they'll go to in order to hold on to that sense
of being invincible which is why super heroes
fascinate a certain segment of the being
population and now for the weather.