Stop

As long as I have your anger
enjambed, its ghost grumbles
over every line; I strain to hear
the daffodils sing. Waiting
for patience is exhausting.
What did you say?
The mud dries.
The wind rises with the sun
and blows away memories.
Our verse ends.

gettin' a little fresh air

I think I just saw a tweety bird. (Warning: video contains full frontal male nudity)



There you have it, folks. Naked people are a menace to society. Stubborn naked people will be pushed around, mauled, jumped on, and tased until they submit or die.

Mining Nada Gordon's Poetics

I argued
that this was the official definition of poeti:
worked-out poetry that is just of you.
Word is bi-possible, expansive and casual,
and may be to me isostatements of totality.
It's true
poetics this day, a poetics of do, a poetics
of theory about poetics. We looked for what
they kind of implied--choices, distinctions,
a better how and what in the strict.
Space implies a set of general wonder,
I argued.

Artes Liberales

Artes Liberales

"I make bold to say that I never have despised anything
belonging to erudition,
but have learned much
which to others seemed to be trifling and foolish."
........................................................~Hugh of St. Victor
Repeat

Conceit can’t quite reach the window into everyday irony.
It tries too hard.
The self-important taint of poetry battles rule-bound unoriginality.
Crime, folly and misfortune, war, the celebration of blood and guts--
Take it; put it to use.
Penetrate the center.
The force of the witness searches through vanity's sacred hollow.
You have to remake the same story over and over again (she said)
Seven angels on hand have grounds to judge the wind--all there is.
Over the rant the entry point rattles: repeat repeat repeat.
Inhale ephemeral destruction.
Pleasure finality.
Lay down the pen.

Looking back (from April 15 to April 6)

Dear Paul,

In the absence of evidence,
I assert my own doing.
My attire--may I discard it.
On my wall, muses misheard
can't accuse. Bright balloons
hammer on the radio again.
In the past shared pound,
I was happy. Tango rattles night sky.
Listen. The featured piece came here
asking for submission. Wouldn't you
hit and run the riff, pass the punch,
and wilt in magic condensation
on the kitchen table? Somewhere
between absence and slipping is me,
and the hang'd man lies curled beneath.
Beat! Beat! I love these guys.
I had a fantasy to survive.
I do enjoy flicking morality.

On Shooting Unicorns

Don't you hate it when you reply to a post and can't tell whether or not your reply took? Whether or not it's lying in a pile somewhere waiting for approval? You waste all that time and energy and burn out brain cells you really can't spare...for what? Bah.

Anyway, I wanted to add a piece of Agnes to the "They Shoot Unicorn Structures" discussion over at Rodney Koeneke's blog Modern Americans. Since I can't tell whether or not my reply took (either time I tried) and since mental masturbation is a terrible thing to waste, I'll put my response here. Ha! Take that, you smelly computer gods!

Note: This version might be slightly different than the one I posted (or tried to post) over at Modern Americans because I think I twiddled with that one after I pasted it in the reply box. What can I say; I'm a twiddler. The "troublesome" quote by Barbara Guest that's under discussion is first in bold. The second bolded quote is Rodney.

~~~~

"The structure of the poem should create an embrasure inside of which language is seated in watchful docility, like the unicorn. Poems develop a terrible possessiveness toward their language because they admire the decoration of their structure."

Y'all make my brain itch. Let's break down this quote's sloppy structure. (The picture of the unicorn makes things more confusing.)

Poem has (is) structure. Structure (should) make/have an embrasure (window/opening in a fortification, usually used to fire cannon). Does embrasure normally make folks think of a corral? I'm thinkin' castle. Fortress. Will that flimsy fence protect the unicorn from a dragon?

Language is a unicorn (magic decoration) inside the structure/fortification/poem, gazing out the embrasure/opening.

Poems are possessive of their language/unicorn/magic because they admire magic decorations.

Poems are selfish. Some poems don't like unicorns and prefer to keep their cannons--which are also language. Sometimes the cannons explode, and then you have L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E P=O=E=T=R=Y.

If someone comes along and collects the bits and pieces of iron, stone, tapestry, and princess guts from the explosion and uses them--along with the white kitten he found in a storm drain, the thistle he picked up on the side of the road, a ripe dog turd, a bag full of question marks, and the tuna sandwich leftover from lunch--to build a unicorn, that's Flarf.

I couldn't get through the link, so I have to guess about context. (That's always fun.) Perhaps in this quote Barbara Guest defines language as what it suggests (the meaning, feeling) to the reader. What does the docile unicorn suggest to a reader? What does the cannon suggest to a reader? And what would a fortification built out of unicorns rather than built to house a unicorn look like? There are just too many questions and not enough Calamine! You probably shouldn't stand too close.

"How do you read the passage: criticism or endearment? And does the notion of "poems of terrible possessiveness toward their language" ring true, as either praise or diss? Ideas/examples?" (Rodney asks)

Criticism or endearment? Praise or diss? Of what--poems? Must it be one or the other? (I think someone named a fallacy after that notion.) Perhaps everything depends on whether or not one finds curmudgeons *terribly* sexy. Does the idea of a poem's possessiveness of its language ring true? Yes. No diss. No praise. Just fact. A unicorn is not a cannon. Except on Thursdays.

Now, look at my hand. What's holding it together? Do you see any typos? How about unicorns?

And hello.

~~~~

Thank you for your attention. We now return you to your regular scheduled meandering.

Confabulation

There isn’t much conversation going on.
No one really knows what to say.
What does this have to do with
what we find in my mind?
I pick up voices.
Most make a mess
and then work backwards--
the same old whine,
a secret code
as bitter as a good crap.
Our conversation stops there.

Somebody's full of crap

I don't have a romantic bone in my body. Should I reinvent myself?

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm a
Romantic Self-Knowing Reinventer

Is it weird that less than 1% of the people who took this quiz got the same result?