Wind Slug

The wind slugs
my face, tips me to one side,
tilts my hair into horizontal
flaps. The sky, so bright and blue,
makes my eyes sting and squint--sunglasses
on a table, I forgot them. Champion of air,
someone on earth is just making
the best of things. Old newspapers
rip down Henry Street
like tumbleweeds in a western movie
to the soundtrack of bluster
and bellow. I am bound to this
morning as a man tied to a mast
on a ship bobbing on the Atlantic.

Running Helmet

Monday Top 10

1) Earth is spastic.

2) Minutes in repose.

3) Aluminum baby.

4) Laugh a face off.

5) Lumpy morning.

6) Figures in a landscape (trees).

7) Pictures of outer space.

8) Frankincense and Myrrh.

9) Delicate repositioning of my body.

10) Glorious sneezes.

Silver Lime

When you read in bed alone you are holy.
Don't shoosh a bird away, he is your friend.
Don't walk on the ice with burning feet. Don't
mistake grace for the ache of time passing. Don't cut
off your clothes in the wind. Don't cuss
in front of customers. Don't get the jelly
out of the jar with your tongue. Build responsible
machines. Let the aftertaste of defeat
lull you into a nap, you need one. Don't
become too triumphant in beauty, it will
pass in time. Ride your bike far into the day
and the night. Reach out to the sky from
the roof of your building, it will all be
over soon. On a cold day let the fog of your breath
rise dumbly. Over by the river you'll find
some interesting people. Wave at a stranger
and watch what happens. If you are sleepy
on a train in deepest Brooklyn, sleep.

Realistic Weather

11 degrees
in New York City
makes the weather
feel super realistic.

Tuesday Top 10

1) Collected Poems by Joe Ceravolo.

2) Missing Out by Adam Philips.

3) "Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star" by Sonic Youth.

4) Tight purple steaks.

5) Angel slaw.

6) Embraced by the extremely cold air.

7) My poetry workshop class reading Friday night at The Poetry Project.

8) Pemmican.

9) Real life robots walking down Court Street.

10) Bangs.

Sonic Youth - Bone

10 Things I Like

1) I like it when I turn things on and they work.

2) I like picking a scab that has formed after I get bitten by a mosquito.

3) I like how warm the radio is after I turn it off.

4) I like spitting off a tall building and watching it swirl in the wind until it lands.

5) I like toast with coconut oil and raw honey.

6) I like Sonic Youth.

7) I like taking a warm shower after a run in cold weather.

8) I like sushi.

9) I like wearing clothes.

10) I like pumping up the volume.

Psychic Ills

Saturday Top 10

1) Hoosh: Roast Penguin, Scurvy Day, and Other Stories of Antarctic Cuisine, By Jason C. Anthony. A fascinating read.

2) Your Name Here, by John Ashbery.

3) Blue in Green on Greene Street.

4) "Spring Breakers" a new film by Harmony Korine.

5) New big black sketchbook/journal.

6) Brooklyn Academy of Music.

7) Tao te Ching, Stephen Mitchell translation.

8) The view of Manhattan from my roof.

9) Roasted veggies on a cold night.

10) Napping whenever I feel like it.

Photograph by Brian Ferry

The History of the World

There are soft things to reveal
in the cold light. Let all the chums
with their cordage and their sparks
become hollow as the mistaken identities
of passersby. In the event of "hello"
bombard the banks of the icy river
with wan hands slapping where the water
laps. Vivid pearl at the end of a purple
stick. Cracking the surface for air enough
to breathe. Let all these tendrils of the
metropolis lead us into the swampy now.
Future in the medicine chest, heart
thumping under ribs, body becoming a
mechanism of delight. I'll shoulder
the escape with a turn of the knob,
entering my home just in time to stare
back at an empty room. All the details
add up to a life lived, rocking in time
to the prim lunge of my delights.

Flip Side

Itself a glower, as though the propulsion
gave off a golden mist over the East River, I sleep.
Then a crust develops over my eyes and the water
looks gray from the heights of a red brick building.
These long miracles dab salve and primp days
so as to be less calcified and more impulsive.
Driven by a driver, outside the arboretum
are the samples of the soil, leaden and infested.
Glow-worthy, timber counts a mix of both
faint jingles and sun. I am going to walk,
and take a walk, and in the future: I'll walk.
These lovely cascades make for the dedication
of heave swells and brown scraps. What a page
can do is make you want to scrape it, all blank and curt.
I'll muster up the will to will myself
another round, no, the one I'm in fits around
my body. I'll live in the space provided, alert and motoring.
Flip side, there are probably people
that I know doing the same thing right now.

Bergen Street Subway Station

Sky Poem

You'd think the sky would run out of water.
I'm making snow angels from burnt sugar
and the wonder I feel is more like a celebration
of goons. Some marvel at the breath I can see
escaping from me. Others will suggest some
medicinal weight like opiates in iced-tea.
Are you exploiting a natural resource? Does someone
think of you and turn the channel?
Have you blanked out on the cage of follies?
I am certain of something I'd prefer
to tell you about. "Slow down" you say. But I
can already see my breath and it's only October.
Walking with you in the rain is making everything
watery and spazzed out like a movie about jazz
where I play sax and people are all like
"he's amazing, we really like his style!"
But I digress. Won't you pour the warm cream
of your hands on the small of my back?
Won't you stand up when called upon to tell
the audience how wonderful I was in my best moments
almost like a god among men or at least someone in
upper management delegating things and being sure
of everything but love. I promise I'll make this up to
you. I'll write your name in chalk on the menu
board and people will come into the store
all expectant of miracles. Your face on a wet spot
on a box "she's here so we can leave." Apparitions are so 2009.
I don't want this to end. I'll keep writing
poems to the editor, I'll make a list and mark things off
that I've started doing just in case things get really good.

La Monte Young - The Well-Tuned Piano (1964/1973/1981/Present...)

Heaven.

Junior Kimbrough - Meet Me in the City

Three Photos by Stefano Giovannini

Sunday Poem

Let them breathe for you
if they are so inclined
thou art one in a multitude
of commercial forms taking
in the sunset long enough
to market the hue for whatever
delights you from the water
where you walk on the moon
humans who solve problems
make a mess in the courtyard
talk about the weather.

The Side of a Bus on Union Street

Jacques Lacan Speaks

Jonas Mekas & The Velvet Underground

Roll Sound

From the heights of
Hollywood & Baltic Street
I watched a kid actor getting arrested
19 takes while the lighting 6 floors down
made my bedroom orange, it
is the new black. The more I peered
down, yep, the same actor cop screamed
the same words, kid down on his
knees, hands up. The red brick
across the courtyard and the glass
in the windows ricochetted the electric
gold of illumination and repetition.
We gravitate to the wonders of this sideshow:
roll sound, action, roll sound, action.

Highlights

Your kindness possesses me the same way
a balloon full of water is more liquid
than latex. Some moment when the day
drips all manner of pleasure, gets loony.
I will always have a sense of the past
as being very present. Late at night
I remember the circumstances and realize
this is not a game, going over the bonuses
in a languid room, purple haze. What I'd really
like is the bonus of the sun, crinkled nose
over sand, skin oil and burn, the sting of
salt, the grit between your legs. What part
of you remembers anything and don't say
the brain. Outside there are people who do
things all the time, they stir and we record
them on digital devices. What happens after
is up to us. We cut things into the meaty parts,
take away the boring incidents with the cup
or the frayed laces flopping on the side
of each shoe. I want those parts put back in.

The All-Day Sandy Benefit at BookCourt

The All-Day Sandy Benefit, Saturday, January 12
Presenting Readings + Donating 15% of the Day's Proceeds to Sandy Relief!

Join BookCourt (163 Court Street/718-875-3677) and some of our favorite local writers to support the ongoing relief efforts associated with Hurricane Sandy. Multiple readings will be happening throughout the day, and 15% of the day's proceeds will be donated to relief efforts.

Appearing:

Tad Hills 10:30AM
Jennifer Cody Epstein 12PM
Nick Flynn 2PM
Arthur Phillips 3PM
Emma Straub 4PM
Todd Colby 7PM
Jonathan Ames 8PM

Click here for more details.

Deer Situation

Let Me Have Some of What You Need Me For

In order to have a better sense of the future
it is important to plan some outings along
the coastal highway. Tweezer the errant hairs
from the back of your pet. In the sunlight
some visible signs of deterioration of the
clavicle and cranial lump. Intersperse with aluminum
causeways and pink pilings. I'll be motioning
the traffic to move along from the bank. Let's
also think long and hard about the receptacle
for your delicates. I bruise too easily, this
faint stabbing, unremarkable from afar but brutal
when lit by the kliegs. Let me have some of
what you need me for.

Reading!

Sunday Poem

You might want to work on this feeling of weightlessness
by inflating some white plastic trash bags with your
helium reserves. The urgency with which you fill the bags
is startling, even to us. Once you feel your heels
starting to lift a bit, imagine what I'm doing right
behind you all the time. The way you float when you float
is heavy. Don't worry, there's also a lot of news
being broadcasted on the internet. People put themselves
in harm's way in order to bring you the news cycle
so you should consume the news that has been gathered for you.
When I wake you up, it's on the news though it has nothing
to do with you. A possible prank gone awry.
You know what? We're so happy for you.

M. Vitale, Dr. of Philosophy. TC, 1998

The Rolling Stones - Mercy, Mercy

New Year's Day at The Poetry Project

New Year's Eve

Christian laced his shoe with copper wire.

2013

Some great new destroyer
to take on collapse, the ruthless
first ivy. To get it done, click on the department's
tab, miles, just quickly.
What can you say about someone's role?
Shortly after the catastrophe was pain.
Everyone knew that would happen, all
of us could see we were nailing it.
We were not playing exceptionally
but we were cozy with some of the stuff
that was brought in. For instance: blankets
and pillows. No worries of infection
or headache powders. We knew how to get
there and we were going there.
Okay, that's it for now.