Marianne Vitale & Me Last Night at the Performa Gala

Milk the Tack

There's so much to think about
you could start thinking and not
get it done even by tomorrow.
And then there is the matter of food
and how you'll have enough food to
last you all week or even into
the holiday season if you were
barricaded indoors. Think of the soft syllables
of lost summers, whispers on a beach
under bright sunlight making the sand
in the distance all wavy and gradient.
What you can do is a matter of myth,
what gets done is called real.
All day long the scent of the ocean
which is not more than a mile from here
and then there is the matter of hours
and how each passing one is distant
from the other, could be that, constantly.

Francis Picabia

"Painting, Music, Literature: these three magic words can still remain alive for those who forget their role as painter, musician, or man of letters, and see in these means of self-expression only the joy of being alive!"

Francis Picabia, from "Slack Days" in I am a Beautiful Monster

See you tonight: here.

We Lump Days

I was thinking maybe an ice cube
would help relieve the muscle enough
to sooth the twitch of these pesky ethics.
I've been there, been there. So we
led folks to within pelvic distance
in order to show books and fevered conversations
accompanied by acrobats and space hooks.
We were all about elevation and gain.
We maxed out as privilege slumped
over the group. We sprayed out the slits
so they could became carbonate. They fizzled
and popped. Soggy smoke sat heavy on the summer
air, fucked. A tent full of supplies, mostly
a Corvair forum or a Thunderbird forum.
We were all about sternums and throats.
Audibly frank. Politely mutating.
Saline, volition, lobbed. A newly-spangled
voice on the sinister pop horizon.
Less chemicals, more gel of the stars,
more purple mountains, and majesty, and all that.

Morning

Sweet wood smell
on morning sheets
rain water splats
against the window
the smell of toast
coffee something else
eggs? Radio humming
classical muted and far
the swish of traffic
in the dim city
dishes need to be done
bed needs to be made
getting buckled in
for the day.

Performa Gala

Performa Gala Info

Bukka White - Jelly Roll Blues

Hello

Please start focusing on giving me a feeling of flying without expensive gear or a spacecraft. Just concentrate on the part about making me fly or giving me the sensation of flying. I hope there's some assurance you can deliver that would confirm for me that my flying has presidence over anything that is near you. Thanks.

Scott Walker!

Blank

Atlantic Avenue Windows

Happy Thanksgiving from The Borderline

Xo

From a Room

You can scramble across
the bed, back arched in solitary oblivion
where a hand once went flat along your spine
tilting up at the cheeks and right
into the air in a room without words.
These marvelous late nights with
nothing so much as the empty trucks
banging away and the ruthless flow
of blood in the artillery of my mind.
A cavity in my skull with some electricity
and a brain and some sugar making
it all just so ridiculous when you
think of it this way. So much for intimacy.
In the bath of your tired light I wither,
or wander, or something that sounds like wind when
the word hisses from your mouth. Flicking my tongue
at the prison of my teeth or while
washing your face you think of the ocean.

Hey

The flint switch won't work
because feathers have melted into
the crevices of the hammer platform,
rendering the piston too moist to fire radiance.
I'll have to buff the slats and strip
the platform in a citrus solvent when
I get back to camp. Sorry to digress. Anyway, I'm
steady out in this blue field we read about
in the guide book. They were right: There
are plenty of glorious dawns and all
that, but it doesn't make up for the sound
of human voices chanting things they need
or want. Nor are the songs of the village
resonating in my chest like they used to.
The other day two small rocks that fit neatly
in the palm of my hands became the click beat
for one of my delightfully corrugated songs
about my situation. I've been feeling purposefully
obscure and throaty in this place. Someday I hope
we can shuffle into the field on some distant
bold bonnet night and flick vegetable paint
on the dirt in bright crisscross patterns
like we used to. I bet you'd like that.

Scram

Do you remember when people used to say they
could not feel their arms? Do you remember when all this
city air was ventilated with balsam fronds and the cold
rush of peppermint gas was brought in through
a pink tube in the ceiling hung with zip ties and foil?
Do you remember when the crowds
would disperse along the river and wander
into the hills split by the muted
nobility of earnestness and palimpsests?
Do you remember when the dirge of the day
sounded regal and pointed, not harsh and blotted?
Do you remember when the lucrative jangle
was mostly for rented spaces and wet-throated
desire was for the warm, honey-lobbed spank of Mulberry?
Do you remember when the pastries were coarse
and inedible, powdered not with sugar but
the richest cream of tartar? Do you remember when
the moist towelettes would stack neatly in the vestibule
halting not just the flow of blood but also of all thought
and intent? Do you remember when the soft breezes
of March carried birds that would fly in soft circles
signifying something new and slightly scary?
Well, I ‘d like to have a word with you.

Colby * Compton * Coultas * Knox * Simonds

A magical night awaits us all...

Poster by Shanna Compton
For more info, bios, directions, etc: click here.

Ground Control

Tilted

You can stay in place
and let the specter of hyper-filling
free dialogue bubble hold the mouse over your head.
They have something to say. I urge all
to give you a feeling of flying
without a special feature suit or spacecraft, making
high connotations useless. Let managers
on the second screen of equal cruelty
and to provide the illusion of movement.
They will drag you well and with respect.
Let this be enough to convince you,
slightly lean rotation is done in the cloud
or mountain escape. Your
prevailing wind and sovereignty
almost all of which may be
referring to shares. They have priority over
almost anything that can be nearby. Presentation trials
if the leaves quiver there. When you try to print
a tree, so that the leaves are shaking, see.

Affectionate Poem

I think Italy has a moon in June, right?
So, how big is my heart with all those non-lovely
stars above your head? Super-beautiful
creamy stars you can smell. You are so rich
and complicated with cone roses
and the red and other woman things
so. You are the best and only
person to me, because you have
the right ghost.

My Method

You can always sit still
with a hyper-ghost, mustering
all you can preserve in time.
You can wait for something incredible
to smash the vacant dialogue bubble
floating above your head. You can.
I would consider letting someone animate
you to get the sensation of flight
without having to wear a special
suit or get in a vehicle that allows
for lofty connotations. Let the frames
per second be abundant so as to allow
the illusion of movement to be convincing
enough that you lean a bit when a rotation
is taken up in a cloud or a mountain is avoided.
You prevail over almost anything that can be
drawn closer to you or brought into your area.
Try shoving a tree so the leaves quiver. See,
you are getting the hang of my method.

Saturday Stillness

Do a Good Job

Do what you can
for the people
the city really is
something else
to see
things fall apart
to be worried
about everything
but what worry does
to a body in the city
to lick your minty
sneeze from the sky
to help a sister out
the city is on maximum
the city is slippery
the city is clubbing my head
making me feel like a dumb-ass
run around the city
do a good job in the city
city sparkle
city sleepwalk
city celebrate
the end of everything

Now This

Into the haywire
bright snow on traffic
flashes forward
wants to go home
where my body
slower more deliberate
some sort of cold ache
in a minute
and recedes
branches hanging low
slush packed under feet
all the color

Vote

Please remember to vote today.
Love,
Todd

Reportage

Outside my door there are things on the news. Neighbors
stagger on their walks home. A pajama-clad boy
in rain boots leaps onto a filthy tire and bounces there.
Makes you wonder. Makes you thick with grief for all
we stand to lose, stand up. Slow mucky
is the motion of sludge in a living room
buckets of sand removed in time for the wallop
of another mess, the weather. All that I could
remember, is not. I could show you me mocking the wind
arms stretched wide in the hazy damp breeze,
the salt from the ocean in the river swirling
behind me as the storm gathered.
Light agitation of the heart muscle
pumping blood with that same water in it. All
the mists, croaked in relief, storm water
come creeping into us, in our places we call
home, twisted. We, and I do mean us, this
pall comes into focus, a headache of light
when the light reveals the spanking of the day
with little to show but these dwellings:
hoses extending out from cellars burping
black water into the street, family photos
on the porch, curled and drying, artifacts
strewn on the cracked sidewalk, a damp bloated
dresser, moldy blue jeans, a pile of yellow
books fluttering in the wind as each page dries.

On the Beach, Me

Caution

In the event of an aftermath,
bathe in the blue light for the duration
of the silent phase. The weather will help you along.
Simple gestures to the neighbors, please.
Nothing elaborate or indecent, but perhaps
sanitary and soothing by way of your hand
moving across the air in front of your face
signifying grace or empathy. Then, when you
feel secure on the floor, drop to your
knees and spray sleep into the cracks. This
moment is important not to ask what sleep
spray is. The answer will come to you
with a red sound, like a bell that has a color
that you can taste. Yes, that sort of thing.
Nuzzle with the body in the blanket next
to yours even if there is no body.
The air will feel cold on your nose
and the sirens will seem a bit too close
for comfort all morning. Don't worry, someday
they will come for you, but not today.