jeudi 30 septembre 2010

dimanche 26 septembre 2010

all my pretty boas


torment has never been my shtick
odd man out blinks in his knickers
winsome girls silenced by a brick
and all my feathered boas round the neck

dictate to me great consciousness
offer a platitude for my artlessness
i'm ten minutes late with my defense
and all my feathered boas round the neck

i'm cutting myself again she said
and I wonder how to stop her blood
dipping into salty wounds the bread
and all my pretty boas round the neck

voices i've heard from bearded men
under the width of my acoustical burka
the yolk is separated from the albumen
and all my pretty boas round the neck

vendredi 17 septembre 2010

Beneath the Surface




I was a fisher's wife
and I know fish stories better than anyone,
better perhaps than He who scattered them,
for I have recited them as
verbs to a language:

Diving until my belly
runs through the weeds,
slides across mud,
taut with a slow exhalation, then easy pump,
and a searching with the hands.

As my lungs grow thick,
I rise to the light,
a bubble to the mass,
one wave of the arms and
I'm gone:

     Here behind you!
     Across the pond!

I view the rain in a mirrored hand
beneath the clear black surface,
where each drop forms a perfect arc
and the world becomes
an open mouth.

jeudi 16 septembre 2010

the formula

i've been working on this one for days, with changes averaging every 4.3 minutes... :>>))


i took a number and sat down
at the department of motor vehicles
i took a number, 59, and
glanced at the wall: 0044
i went to the calculator in my head
slid open the calculator draw with
all the functions i still don't know
even though i've had this calculator
for 30-odd years, such as
how to use the memory functions
find square roots, go back to square one
they did not matter at all because
i didn't have a proper ratio
the denominator was missing from
the only equation i ever use
the one that allows me to resize
anything resizable i need or want
to figure out what things are worth
in dollars, psyche or in verse
but all i had before me now
was 59 = 44  
and that was not enough
to conjure up impending costs

i hit the counter on my mental watch
the one that tells me how long
things take and sat waiting
for number 0045 to show up and
there it was in just under 2:00
now i had a ratio
yet only a sampling
of a probable variable
i needed more data, examples of
time divisible by averages
thus hitting the counter again in my head
sitting as straight as i possibly could
not to activate my weak back muscles
waiting for number 0046 to crack open
i sat and sat and sat, staring at
the teapot of digital detente
now fidgeting in my chair, wishing i'd
brought my book about eastern europe
instead of this mental monkeywrench, when

"flip" went the wall score and
0046 did appear in all its
phosphorescent glory...
4 minutes after the last, but then:
no one called #46 via the microphone
time did not move forward at all
'til the dmv person strode out the door
into the parking lot, around the corner
i don't know how long it was, i forgot to
push the mental button but
it seemed like a long long time
'til he strode back in again
and said, "46"... and i, thinking
i should probably add extra miles
then realizing how little it mattered
when i could simply repeat my error
with the next intrepid chafferer

so long a time did elapse
i fell asleep, elbowed by a jerk
sitting on my right who
let me know in no uncertain terms
that he found my mental calisthenics
too loud for his public and private reflections
as usual i was quite sincere
falling to my spiritual, yet antiquated knees
when i saw i had forgotten
during this mildly psychotic altercation
to arrest the mental counter
leaving me captive between numbers again
with a completely ambivalent figurehead

how long would i wait in
this hellhole of hard plastic chairs
color worn off of them
the powder-pale walls
tangible stress emanating from
a roomful of attenuated voyagers
a reshuffling of bums and crossing
and uncrossing of legs in
a total void of magazines, nothing to
break the monotony of the wait
except a mathematical formula
my cherished mental calculator
my timer and alarm
all of which i handled so badly
leaving me dangling between 0047
and 0048 on that friday afternoon
in august, goose pimply and sick
in the cold air conditioning?



dimanche 12 septembre 2010

chill



from getty images (discovered on robert fisk's great september 11, 2010 article
in the Independent, found here)


fire on the rubicon
and no looking back
hackensack's lookin' mighty slack
pauvre amérique
knee deep in debt

there are roms in france
diggin' through the trash
there's an eu debate
but they don't have the cash
for a wholesale buyout

ny was havin' fun
until al qaida came on
with 600 tons of hate
and we waved them in
from the tarmac

eu reps fly down
for deal making in the south
the south the south
latin despots and poverty
500 rapes in the drc

blizzards will come
to chill our fears
with fresh white snows
enough to cover the stains
on the chosen ones' clothes

and then the terrible floods
breaking through the dams
and then mechanical silence
as we sit like
three monkeys

god it was hot
in ny this year
glad i've got my little
catacomb of hope
and false flag disease

haven't seen the sun
for a bevy of weeks
stayin' chill
in the noisy glow
of a 42 inch peace






samedi 11 septembre 2010

One Too Many Muses


One too many muses
I've got two
One who's kinda bluesy
One who's stuck on you

One who's shy and lonely
One who bought new shoes
She's so thin and bony
The other one can't lose

One who rails cacophonous
and sets her toe on line
One who rises with the sun
and loves the spring's bright light

One who takes you to a cliff
and drops you off the edge
and so does visit bitter blight
on our new age sagesse

One who dreams of weekend bliss
and mornings spent in bed
with late late nights and dal with rice
that spicy taste of sin!

One who calls and one who comes
Expectation/mirrored awe
Riveted/spirited, psychopath/limited
God... and human after all

She hands me the punchline
like so much melted butter
I give her a smiley face
and lift her from the gutter

"It's another dark day..."
"But the sun is shining!"
"It's another ace of spades..."
"But goddammit you won!"


vendredi 10 septembre 2010

Bee Song


for Edna St. Vincent-Millay (and for the bees)


They said I was an optimist
when I was very small,
and I believed them when at four
it's hard to judge at all.

I grew believing everything
and trusting with my heart
every word and every song
and every dream i sought;

Until the day the summer turned
and bees were everywhere,
And I thought softly to myself,
It's time for a new friend!

Optimistically approaching,
I squatted near the bee
and reached my ever-trusting hand
toward hope of amity.

I stroked its bristled back
its black and orange hue,
I moved my finger carefully
with love I always knew.

But then it turned and stung me
and swiftly flew away,
yet, I could not betray the truth
for all my days of pain.

So I grew in the secret self
where nothing can be tamed,
while one to another they remarked,
"She just isn't the same!"


(1981)

mercredi 8 septembre 2010

A perte de vue - Alain Bashung/Jean Fauque

i've been pretty sick the last couple of months. this song certainly seems appropriate... love to all. ~lt xooxoxoxox



Thank you to poyettee for this recording of Alain live in Brussels!!!


Words: Alain Bashung and Jean Fauque
Music: Alain Bashung


À perte de vue 
As far as the eye can see 
Des lacs gelés 
The frozen lakes 
Qu'un jour j'ai juré d'enjamber
That one day I swore to step over

À perte de vue
As far as the eye can see 
Des défilés 
The processions 
Des filles à lever
Of girls to raise up 
Des défis à relever 
Of dares to take up again
Des prix décernés dans tes yeux
The prizes discerned in your eyes

À perte de vue
As far as the eye can see
Dodelinent des grues
The cranes shake their heads 
Les pieds dans la boue 
Feet in the mud 
Qui eût cru
Who would have believed 
Qu'un jour nos amours
That one day our loves 
Déborderaient 
Would overflow 
Fassent oublier aux ajusteurs
Make the fitters forget 
La clé
The key

Plus de boulons
No more nuts and bolts 
Pour réparer la brute épaisse
To repair the thick brute 
Ma pute à coeur ouvert
My whore with an open heart 
Trop de cuirassés
Too many battleships 
Pas assez d'écrevisses
Not enough crawfish 
Pour une fricassée
For a fricassee

Donnez-moi des nouvelles données
Give me new givens 
Donnez-moi des nouvelles données
Give me new givens
Donnez-moi des nouvelles données
Give me new givens

Donnez-moi des nouvelles données
Give me new givens
Donnez-moi des nouvelles données
Give me new givens
Donnez-moi des nouvelles données
Give me new givens

À perte de vue
As far as the eye can see 
Du déjà vu
Of the already seen 
Du déjà vécu
Of the already lived 
Se précipitent
Rushing at 
A mes trousses
My heels

Qu'en dit le héron 
As says the heron 
Il en sait long 
He knows it long 
Qu'en dit l'éolienne 
As says the wind machine 
Voie d'eau dans la coque du Poseïdon
Waterway into the hull of the Poseidon

Hamacs éperonnés
Hammocks broken in 
Est-ce un espadon
Is it a swordfish 
L'oeuf d'un esturgeon
The egg of a sturgeon 
Ou un concours de circonstances
Or a contest of circumstances 
Qu'aurait engendré ce paysage désolé
That would have engendered this desolate landscape 
De n'être pas resté
Not to have stayed

Donnez-moi des nouvelles données 
Give me new givens
Donnez-moi des nouvelles données
Give me new givens
Donnez-moi des nouvelles données
Give me new givens

Donnez-moi des nouvelles données
Give me new givens
Donnez-moi des nouvelles données
Give me new givens

À perte de vue
As far as the eye can see 
Des lacs gelés
The frozen lakes 
Qu'un jour j'ai juré d'enjamber
That one day I swore to step over

À perte de vue
As far as can be seen   
Des défilés
The processions 
Des filles à lever
Of girls to raise up 
Des défis à relever
Of dares to take up again
 
Des prix décernés dans tes yeux 
The prizes discerned in your eyes 
Des prix décernés dans tes yeux
The prizes discerned in your eyes

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