Dust Blows But Dirt Has a Home

An army of poses laid flat, the flush of your cheek--

This tower has a spiral staircase, a little window at the top--

From here, your confession made a clean unraveling--

Listen to me, Aldo (as if comfort could be contained)--

"It's like pulling socks out of the wash, trying to remember last night's dream"--

A different language for a different time of day--

Drawing targets on everything, a kind of twitch--

The dance, the dance, the dance, dance without turning.

Go Canadian?

CNN ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (AP) -- An American T-shirt company has a solution for their fellow citizens who want to vacation in Europe without having to answer questions about U.S. politics -- pose as Canadians.

Why not go Swiss, eh?

Finders Feel

collapse, you've been granted
a cluster or two, thanks
built into the pavement

if you could smell the person,
hear the compressor, the escalator,
the negotiating casters

comfort leaves the chair

thanks built into the cheek

Monkey Shakespeare Simulator

A monkey could type Shakespeare's plays, given enough time. Of course he couldn't write them, even using a typewriter. Because then they wouldn't be Shakespeare's plays, but the monkey's.

What Would Jorie Do?

One need wait no longer to find out.

NY Times Poetry Symposium.



aka Fame 20th Reuinion

Breath

Shindell, is, as usual, an inspiration. I too will begin work on something longer now. My cousin's novel is out with an agent and I have nothing to type anyway. (Polar bear gone. Pooped in pool.)

Polar Bear, Fake Pumpkin

For the pool?


[via abc news]

Parabolic

your paper tongue

sleeping bear hour

berber shadow games

fridgeless coeds

(epicene lamsters)

crept and dumped

cloud kitchens!

Big in Germany

Unfortunately her hand covers half my name. I will try to buy the actual issue and represent it here sometime soon.

Frags

The line's not knot-free,
the skiff drags the skipper.

Waves crest, white-capped,
to speak of "immortality's corridors."

An orgy of parsing, lasers, and clouds.

                                                        

 _____/                    .    |                       

|_____| ,     . |-----.   -|--  |       ,-----. ,-----. 

  __|_  |     | |     |    |    |'----, |_____| |     ' 

 |____| |_____|.|     |    |___ |     | |______ |       

Here Comes Spencer and Johannes

Something to get your brains going in the morning.



The game

Post-game commentary (Johannes and Spencer)

Wallace Stevens, graffiti writer?

[more fun at LetterJames]

Tomorrow is Always Fresh

Cult of the virgin.
     (I saw it twice.)

Hedgerow to Speedo--
     I read you clear.

Pool cover plus
     eucalyptus bark.

Fools, lovers, we.
     Spark, you clipped us.

poem on the way...in the meanwhile

Ali J?

Who is this man and why does he say Booyakasha?

(It's Ron $ and we have no idea.)

Beautiful Image

Jim Behrle's been reading my mind while I have been sleeping. Obey. Silliman. Classic header image.

NEW LOOK

Folks, welcome to the hot new look of Gunther's Block. Thanks to squidfingers.com for the pattern.

Also: Fictioneer Lewis Robinson has embarked on a blog of his own. I very much enjoyed his book OFFICER FRIENDLY, and the new cover is wild.

My Ears Scuffled Down the Stairs

Via my eyes. In lieu of a new poem from me, how about one from Spencer? What a pleasing density. I don't know if it's advisable to use kohl and cardamom (as colors) in one poem. I guess it depends on how long the poem is. Anyway, I link it here because I like it. Gun

“Please stop stealing me”

The Scream, stolen (again).

I will bring you my lists

Working on my blog of lists, in the meanwhile, check out a seminal example at Spencer Short's blog. (Thanks to Eduardo for the heads-up.)

When can we see a copy of JERKSHOP? We're calling out for it, Spence!

Iowans...like flies

How many of these do you own? I am at exactly two-thirds. But where are Mr. McCollough's Books? (Three or four at last count.) And Mr. Beachy-Quick? (I have his books too.) I guess not everyone can be on the list, but some are worth tracking down.

gun

Sidereality

Just a little reminder that Sidereality 3.2 is out (and has been for a little while). Props to Clayton Couch and co. for another top-notch issue.

(I promote, in part, because a square little poem of mine ("Sensor") will be appearing in the next issue, due out in early October, a double issue 3.3 / 3.4.)

Read this and weep. It's been a rough week.

The line's not knot-free.

The skiff drags the skipper.

An orgy of parsing.

We speak of "immortality's corridors."

He who detects a shift in the weather can be my brother for a day.

New Things

I lost my speedos. I had a party in my cousin's pool and I took them off and threw them into the pool (from the hot tub) and they disappeared. Has this ever happened to anyone else? They weren't in the bushes. Did my cousin's friends steal them? I was not naked, by the way, I had been wearing my speedos over my swim trunks.

To the right --------->

1. I have a skeleton-profile. I will fill it out as time goes on. But you can see what I look like.

2. A link to my poem / postcard on Matt Shindell's impressive (and beautifully designed) Poetry Postcard Project.

New Bannered :( Poems Page

Due to my cousin's switch of service provider (something to do with the remodel), I'm losing my Earthlink web space. As a result, my poems page is temporarily bivouacking here, with nasty banners all over it, ruining everything. I will someday soon ask my cousin to pay for some better hosting. Gun.

The Lynx

"The Alp at the End of the Street" -- one of Wallace Stevens' unused titles. Shindell said it was too wordy. I feel an attachment to it, though it might only be superficial. I still dream that I can walk out my guest house and find myself at home. I understand the literal Alp at the end of the street, even while I live in the palm at the end of the mind. L.A., not Florida.

My hits went up, despite my not posting. Here is why. Someone named Cup of Chicha has questions about self-presentation. I'm not sure I understand the point. I am here to talk poetry, to present poems in progress, to fold up a corner of my process.

I am not related to Lothar Quinte--for real. And the book cover is supposed to be creepy. I don't share too many personal things because this blog is about my art.

Gun

Forthcoming Book...

For the last time...

NO RELATION!

Gun

POEM For The Reader-Ship

Poem

“There’s no one here. It’s like a museum.”

In empty space—a paradox;
your lips are not your own.

I have condemned the crowd;
a shard of pottery is halfway
done changing my life.

I am shattered—we are;
the tapestry moves through me.

I did not deface these statues of Hermes;
one person makes a crowd
I must not change my life.

Trompe l’oeil—scraps of sight;
press my face against the rock.

He marked the fall with his body;
take a corner of the blanket
and pull for feeling’s sake.

Words-not-words, lips-not-your-own.

A flamelet, a curvet, a rock.

I am Still "With-it"

QUARRY

There was nothing here but a pile of rocks.
Though she would rather lie down on this pile of rocks and die, she must go on.
There was a pile of rocks of all sizes.

He marked the spot with a pile of rocks; he blazed the two trees.

A large pile of rocks sit on the woodstove.
A pile of rocks has been placed in the middle of the road.
When they arrive on top, all they find is a pile of rocks.

Their own vile selves stood on a pile of rocks urging on their demon force.

But, like I told you, it's just a pile of rocks and gopher holes.
Be sure our feet are well shod and a good pile of rocks is at hand.
I could walk out from under the pile of rocks I wear as a hat.

A Paragraph from My Cousin's Novel

Lately my cousin has been writing while under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol. He says it frees his inhibitions. I tell him, write however you want, kids are going to buy your novels because you're famous already.

From Chapter 17

Sushi Jackson-Jones's body washed up on the shore in Santa Monica among the pier pilings and bums and hypo needles. A surfer found it, thereby launching the rocket the payload of which was the third-most-notorious murder case in Hollywood history. I never had much use for a nail clipper. The hammering, the hammering, the hammering of a boom economy. Suckers!

You can imagine what effect typing this claptrap has had on my poet's soul.

NE1 INO

Back from Mexico. Humbled in Iceland. Bumbled in Mexland. Looks like I went pink in my absence. And my sidebar prolapsed (it's down at the bottom) -- anyone know why?

Off to Mexico

My cousin said he's going to give up acting and take up writing full time. We're off to Mexico this week to "break story" on a new novel. He's throwing away the old one. I'll keep you up to date...

got some internet

There is a new place near my cousin's house called "the office" where you can type, use their t1 lines, and wear their (louse free?) BOSE noise-canceling headphones. I am a deaf man, rejoicing at high speed connection! My cousin says ours should be back up in a week--or so THEY TELL HIM.

Meanwhile:
1. He's making me type his novel, in lieu of rent.
2. Worse yet, I'm not allowed to type while sitting in the jacuzzi. He says it's too risky for his laptop. But he didn't even give me the GOOD laptop. He's got me on a pismo powerbook with sandbags tied around its ankles, viz OSX.

Since he's MAKING me type his novel, which is not the most hospitable thing to do, especially during renovations, I have half a mind to tell you what I've been typing as I type it. It's a fairly stupid concept.

If I'm going to type, I'm going to type for YOU. Leave me a little comment & when I get a quorum, I'll commence. No sense typing TWICE into the void.


Gun

Apologia

Folks folks folks... I will be back in service soon. Here's the story. My cousin (the actor) has been renovating his home (as documented somewhere below) and managed stupidly to screw up all internet access from the house. We're working with 14.4 Kbps right now, down from ten times that (?) with DSL. So I'm waiting for the DSL to get hooked up again. Then I'll be going wild on the blog as usual.

Good news. Sidereality has taken a poem ("Sensor")--I'll keep you all up to date...

Look what I found

I wrote this poem when I was twelve years old. It is about the fantasies the planet Saturn has. To kill Jupiter and marry Earth. To screw Venus. To put an end to desire ("desirecide") by plunging into Phoebus, the sun itself.

It is long and not worth reading in toto. But I suggest taking a dip at random. The end is particularly potent.



SATURN THE WANDERLUST


Prologue (SATURN)

Would I were a wanderlust;
What fine longing I would make,
Fine impulses unconquerable of departures and desires.
Nay to merely wander,
a lascivious witness to
the heartracing coil of lust.
Nor remain unpestered as now:
spinning Saturn.

Round axis — round orbit
goes my entrapped motioning:
An electric rabbit round canine track,
rapidly racing sattelites in tow,
panting pawing clawing
for the pyrite hare,
Excepting that there are no sleazy bets
placed on my day and night
and the rabbit does not dream
as Saturn celestial wisher.

I wish to be the wish itself
for which I may not wish.

My circumference surrounded
by these dusty rings,
maleable monuments to infinite fidelity.
As such married to my orbit,
this unwavering orbit,
smothering fast flames of aspiration,
smothering quenching quickness,
pulverizing into stone ash dust.

O these rings—
maleable monuments aere perennius!
O for a taste of choice—
sharp on my dull tongue!
O to immerse olfactors—
in the pungent odours of possibility!
O to be brimming—
with liberation pouring from my lips!
O what vows I will form—
to wed Earth for a fragment
of freedom formed in the phrases
scribed by her minion-lice!

Follow here an account
of satiating desirecide,
of Saturn the Wanderlust incarnate,
of fast found free will bestowed upon the loneliest of spheres.



I, 1.

Liberty dancing shining upon
aspiring planet Saturn,
entering the Court of Nine
(and the many moody moons),
awakening into life celestial bodies thus.

Awakening Mercury Venus Uranus and Earth
(with whose vow of marriage Saturn
exchanges one freedom for another;
Mother Earth's minion lice fashion a free will arena
within which Saturn alivens)
Mars and Neptune also Pluto.

King Jupiter rises royal,
like a rich tall tree tended well,
only to have his roots plugged
with nemetic necrotic venom;
poison bitter messenger.

Paralysis then death comes
from the sender: fresh green stalk.
Our Saturn fresh with freedom,
green with envy,
and shooting
stalkwise starward rapidly

As those asteroids which streak
across the night skies of Earth,
bringing wishdreams to those
terra firma dermis lice
who call her Mother who inhabit her skin,
calling to flashes of light in the sky
for their earnest entreaties,
necks craned skyward as they watch
and wait and watch and wish a while.

As envious Saturn poisons loving largest Jupiter:
To the spot of his dot,
he delivers a drop
whose action brings
kings to silent stop.
Jupiter Rex
thus poisoned in bed
refuses to stir,
his quickness quick shed,
"all hear in the court our King is dead!"

Thus Jupiter withers down,
an axis around
corpse, crown.


I, 2.

Coronation! Neo rex! Saturn rex!
Woe we mourn pater rex Jupiter
Mirth to novel Saturn in his fair rule!

Earth and Saturn adjacent and thronewise
don crowns of swirling circling comets
sizzling round them in dazzling conjugal glory,
yet gloomed by the cast of Jupiter's
permanendormus.
In bitter poison presses the terminus:
determine us terminus,
terminus determine us.

For what lays ahead for us but
ash and stone and numb orbit?
Courtwise expired Jupiter
now none but a wad of logos lost dust
silently rapidly crossing through etherspace
harnessed by gravity's long leash
unfree unaware unalive,
as Saturn prior to his vow with Earth
(through which even now the louse sets him free
to careen Jupiter deathwise and filch his crown).

Fair Jupiter just Jupiter woe are we,
though for Terra's vows for Saturn neo rex:
bittersweet coronation
we rejoice
in goldlight
in couple's circling comet crowns.

So as death has done,
we place aside Jupiter
and rejoice: Saturn rex!
fair and just! neo rex! all hail!

Novus ordo seclorum.

I,3

Devoted Saturn devoted Earth,
arms ensembled claspwise,
step slowly cross the hollow hall,
the hall which weary from
weep and cheer now echoes
deserted and empty the
footfalls of conjugal crowns.

Earth speaks making private
her public vow in his ear.

Saturn parrots her whisper
then confesses dark urging within
with sputtering wandering words,
plainly terrasexual.

Royal gowns spent floorwise,
table bare in empty hall,
the conjugals
consumate.

Setting fly for Earth
torrents and tempests typhoons and such,
quakings of quivers and magmatic heat,
shaking the waves and the shores which they touch,
pelting her minionlice with passion's sleet.
As they stare at the sky,
wondering why,
and when and how their Maker they'll meet.

Thus Saturn and Earth,
fleshwise entwined,
collapse together:
celestial pleasure,
treasure no measure.

I,4.

Gay gathering in the court of our King,
with jeering jester Uranus
all expounding his pornosophy.

bell rings rings bell rings
IO most garish and grand of the moody moons
brings forth into the hall Neptune and Pluto:
violent visages flash arms
all a flail clash with mail.
Applause explodes for these fraters combatting
to lead the Nine's flight cosmosward
(contending Phoebus follows, taillight).
Echoes of mirth resound through the court
at such a silly fight scene sight seen;
all know Phoebus leads heliocentrically.
Effusive convulsive gasping erupting:
ha ha ha ha ha aaaahhhh ha ha ha ha ha
at insects skirmishing over donkey's assrule.
Then a sudden sight extinguishes laughter:
garnet pools! blood is drawn!
Trident punctures Pluto,
lunging forth to pluck
mad Neptune's heart,
rapid rabid red heart,
venge revenge avenge.

Suiting Saturn's orders swiftly
moons separate Pluto and Neptune.
An affray terminé,
for the ladder's least rung,
for the Court of Nine's ninth.
Neptune and Pluto
(still clutching his wound)
stand before Saturn with heads
bowed
in
shame
and hear fair judgement passed:
Fraters moronicae,
our fair former sleeps;
shall Neptune and Pluto join Jupiter
in death' s silent slumber
by a futile skirmish,
intiated in delusion that Phoebus' light
forms our court's aft-trailings
with cold stone at the fore?
Such foolish fancy's dissolution
is not my aim.
I seek only to judge find fair resolution.
Thus I mnemonize wise
(Solomon louse rex Israel)
and decree your prize shall be split,
this dubious distinction this flylordship,
sometime to Pluto sometime to Neptune.
This thus I proclaim justly fairly
and wish to witness none more strife
between fraters moronicae.
All agreed: Saturn rex!
fair and just! neo rex! all hail!

I, 5.

In soundest slumber,
Earth nestled with her waking Saturn,
whose stomach churns
to the taste of malediction,
churning of his maleficent
malfeasance and resultant
undigested poisons.
So Saturn wakes walks waits
for the depressed tempest to pass.
Storm rages ubiquitous through
Saturn's sensibilities:
lifetaker lustmonger obligator vowmaker
(vows he has spoken
he wishes now broken).
The must and should rear ugly
and render Earth medusan.
So while she sleeps soundly
he wakes walks waits
from tempest
to temptress: dormus Venus
awakening inviting
Saturn to visit
cloud covered chambers of lust.

O Venus!
to cultivate coitus
with you cloudy queen,
wonder of wonders,
wandering pandering lust,
lead me licking to steamy sauna
lapping to the pinnacle of pleasure,
the taste on my tongue is such pressing passion,
licking lovely velvet vulva!

O slippery Saturn!
shed aside mad Mother Earth
and press on sunward;
visit voluptuous Venus friend
and your ecstacy shall never end!

O Venus stay silent Earthwise
of our fancy frolics
and sing songs of the spheres,
as Saturn semin shoots
coreward into your
cloudy cumuli
dolce dolce dolce!
Volcanoes of Venus surround my penis!

O Saturn!
Saturn rex! fair and just! neo rex! all hail!

II, 1.
A dispatch from Saturn to Earth:

To mine own wife Earth,

Once—not long ago I must admit—in your tender stone I found an axis focus around which all revolved. Earth, madam, Earth! The mere mention of Earth summoned silky visions of hot hot core and lush lush flora. Visions which—scintillating—sequestered all else into the periphery, into icy grey blindness, into a hazy ambivalent whocares, into fuzzytunnelled onlyou.

Like to your minion-lice of antiquity (before Polish cleric set Sun central), you, Earth, were my cosmos' nucleus. My cosmos.

But of late you have caused me to banally belabour our coverture of convenience—you have dulled, madam, like a knife that has cut too often, a switchblade sans spring, an old bag—stored away with nothing left in it. No longer do I long for what once was tender tantric terra firma. As for marriage, your minionlice—your ubiquitous tenants—betray you well; I shun you, yet they continue to scribe my freedom unconditionally.

Thus I leave you alone with your vows.

SATURN THE WANDERLUST

II, 2.
A dispatch from Saturn to Venus:

Ahhh Venus,

O how the remembered ecstasy of our recent romp lingers nags pleads with me to remain : passion's every plenitude : cornucopia, concubine! Still I feel our bond, our interplanetary union, our gee em one em two over dee squared attraction.

Nevertheless, one cannot forever scratch the itch which begs to be quenched. Thus I leave you asking only, Venus, Venus, that you do not despair: post nubila Phoebus.

SATURN THE WANDERLUST

II, 3.
A Saturnine Declaration:

Saturn rex departs soon on a covert quest asking that all others in the court manage affairs meanwhile under Titan. The undisclosed nature of this quest will remain unspoken for the sake of secrecy.
Saturn rex! fair and just! neo rex! all hail!

III, 1.
( Saturn, lounging in his chamber, contemplates his journey as swirling asteroid attendants eavesdrop.)
SATURN
Lured as I am by her prominences, I cannot help but deliver myself unto her, deliver my pleasure pressed soil unto her corona's touch. Phoebus! She must be mine! Earth foolish and frigid, Venus lewd and disposable, I am left no alternative but she to which desire leads me. O Phoebosexuality!

(DESIRE appears, an androgynous mirror image of SATURN clad in a suit of tiny human minionlice which pump and thrust at its flesh, drawing blood with their teeth and smearing it all over. One bearing crown, closest to the navel, slashes at the others with a scythe. They fall bloodied to the floor as others assume their assault on the navelking. DESIRE defecates into its hand and eats its own excrement, licking its fingers with delight and laughing. The fallen minionlice resume their thrusting pumping and licking at the soles of DESIRE's feet. DESIRE''s suit continually unmakes and reassembles itself in this fashion.)

DESIRE
Come now, Saturn—to Phoebus—I must be satisfied! Satiate me, Saturn neo rex! On to Phoebus and her juicy loopy prominences!

FALLEN MINIONLICE (pumping and thrusting)
Sayshate! Sayshayshun! Soon so soon shall we sashate you O deeshire! Justy loosey prahminanshes! Joosey joosey joosey!

NAVELKING MINIONLOUSE (slashing)
Kil kil kil.

SATURN (kneeling to kiss DESIRE's feet)
In serving you.

(At DESIRE's feet, SATURN does not kiss, but begins to gobble up the frayed edges of its suit, the fallen minionlice humans which cling to DESIRE, screaming in fear. One by one SATURN eats them, blood drooling down his chin as they are mashed and crushed in his twin rows of teeth. The navelking is the last to go, and slashes SATURN's lip with his scythe. SATURN devours him, removes the scythe from his lip, and takes it in his hand. He incises DESIRE's skin, from side of head to chest, down abdomen and along long leg. He pulls apart the skin and climbs inside, making a suit of DESIRE's flesh.)

SATURN
(suited in DESIRE's flesh, arms outstretched)
Ahhh! Incarnation! Incarnation! Ahhh! Haaa! In-carné-tion! In-carné-tion! Haaa!
No time must be wasted! Sayshayshun! To Phoebus! Slippery Sun of Suns! Ohhhh!
To corona! To chromosphere! To photosphere! Lusto ergo sum! Desiro lusto sum!

(Overhearing, swirling asteroids quickly delivertheir newfound news through the Court of Nine.)

CERES, EROS, JUNO, PALLAS, VESTA

Saturn leaves! We know where he goes! To the Sun! To the Sun!

III, 2.
(Enter VENUS and EARTH as SATURN prepares for departure)

EARTH
I have received word, letter, and dispatch. I care no more for you, dusty-ringed cold forsaking vowbreaking usurping orb. I can only think of my minion-lice now, and of their survival. If you press on sunward, destruction will ensue. For my minion-lice.

SATURN
I have killed minion-lice enough. Can you not see me? Deeesshhiirreee, Earth! Sayshashun! It is my only right way lest I breed pestilence! Galactically, many other mothers eggs are fertilized—your minion-lice may perish, but O! how just the cause! (He ejaculates a stream of homunculean minion-lice corpses.)

EARTH (dropping to Saturn's feet)
You will perish as well, Saturn! You will perish chromospherically, before any satiation, never to have your phoebosexuality!

SATURN
Put simply, I have wronged you. Now you wish to wrong me with misinformation. Begone!

VENUS (dropping to Saturn's feet)
Saturn! You must not! It would mean an end to the Court of Nine (and the many moody moons).

SATURN
A mother and a whore both have I wronged and now they wish to undo me!

(Earth and Venus hold down Saturn's legs. He slices away his second skin just above his knees. Earth and Venus are left holding empty trunks of DESIREs discarded flesh. SATURN attempts his departure but its stopped by crashing cosmic explosions; enter the ghost of JUPITER)


JUPITER'S GHOST
Ay, usurping beast! Saturn sit and stay and dispose of desire awhile, see that this flight will be fruitless and icaric! Stay and shed your coat to rule wisely. Mnemonize? Saturn rex! fair and just! neo rex! all hail!

SATURN
I tire of this repetition. A mother and a whore and a king three I have wronged and now they wish to undo me! A dead body revenges not injuries! Now my yearning draws me Phoebusward.

(VENUS , EARTH, and JUPITER'S GHOST attempt to shackle SATURN as he departs. In his maleable suit of desire, he slips from them and begins his journey .)

ALL (except SATURN)
Stop!!!!! Save us save us!!!!! Stop Saturn!!!!!

SATURN
(escaping their clutches for the final time,
caught now in Phoebus' gee em one em two over dee squared attraction.)
Two billion billion billion tons of gas. Alea iacta est.

III, 3.
(SATURN leaves his orbit, unleashing hyperbolic catastrophe: Beta Regio (volcano of Venus) prolapses, pillars of salt transform into Amazon armies, Everest enters Mariana, all who live give birth to themselves, Pluto and Neptune clash in mutually fatal battle, Mercury shoots into Pallas, Uranus bursts, Mars crashes into Earth, minionlice settlements tear from their foundations, cornerstones stack into Babylonian towers, holy asteroids pop and unleash billions of guinea worms, the music of the spheres dissonates and cacophonizes and shatters all solid matter into its constituent atoms. The telephone is dead, help has gone its way, unlock the prisons, let loose the lunatics, the time is come.)

SATURN
deshiire!!! sayshashun!!! desirecide!!! sunny sunny Phoebus phuck!!! Ohhh!!!

CORONA
Ohhh!

SATURN
deshiire sayshashun desirecide sunny sunny Phoebus phuck Ohhh

CHROMOSPHERE
Ohhh

SATURN
deshr syshshn dsrcd snny snny Phbs phck hhh

PHOTOSPHERE
hhh

SATURN
deshrsyshshndsrcdesnnysnnyPhbsphckhhh

(Collisions and debris puncturing and pulverizing. Blinding and searing light and heat. End.)


Epilogue (SATURN)

Thus plays out my flight of fancy,
faulty though it may be found.

Still it must be played:
is better to be free and follow
an excessroad than never know
this wisdompalace as a guide
of satiated desirecide.
Now Saturn Rex (The Wanderlust),
must return to stone ash dust.
Yet let this demise yield no chagrin,
for desire of greatness is a godlike sin.

Kraftwerk

Heaven is a place on the web.

And I recently posted the humble beginnings of a longer work at UMBRellA. Trying to find a pea of individual talent underneath these mattresses of tradition.

Da--nation! My Cousin's Reno--ation!

Listen to the Poet not working.

My Home, On the Web

Friends (and Swiss countrymen),

My cousin has begun remodeling his house, so I thought I should show you a picture of it. If you look through the windows, you can see the guest house in which I have composed all my poems since completing the The Picky Hound series.

I thought the most interesting facet of remodeling would be the exposure of various conduits and systems, but these turn out not to be as complex as I thought they would be. They are mechanical, Newtonian, not magical. The magical surprise, to me, is the mutability of walls. They can be opened up, torn down, moved, installed. Holes can be punched in them, and then they can be patched as if there never had been a hole. My cousin replaced a door (to a little bar-room) with a wall, and opened up the wall at the back of the bar-room. The room has been reversed, without being revolved, and is now a broom closet at the back of the kitchen.

Is anyone else fascinated with walls? The walls of my guest house appear in the poem "Apples of Sodom".

Bad Day to Be Chinese?

Imagine a world in which the likes of such luminaries as Aimee Nezhukumatathil, DaDooDoFlow, and Ron Silliman were not allowed to rant and rave at will.

My people call it China.

March 19, 2004 SHANGHAI, China (AP) -- China has shut down a pair of Web sites that were free-ranging user forums known as blogs, stepping up government attempts to control political discussion on the Internet, a media watchdog group reported even as one site reappeared Friday.

Ground Control to Major Jerk

While my affiliation with Crony and its ancillary worksheet UMBRellA, has been satisfying and stimulating, I wonder (here, aloud):

Is anyone actually reading/viewing MY blog?

Hello! My Name Is __________

Aaron McCollough bemoans the misspelling of his name and takes suggestions (Erring MacLachlan?) from readers.

Some people (mis-)spell me Gunter. What do they have against the H?

I think I'm going to start spelling my name Cancer Quaint.

Any other suggestions?

Spacing Out

Grids: Josh Corey's original (3/12/04). Aaron McCollough's (3/14/04). Gary Norris's (3/14/04). Umbrist Griddle (3/15/04-???).

my subjective experience

This is a graph of my subjective experience, reading poems:
x: Earplugs (+); Skywriting (-)
y: Calisthenics (+); Porphyry (-)
z: Seizure (+); Hangnail (-)

No poems today...working on a long one

Thanks to the winter birds (for sticking around).

ipod challenge results

Here is my biography, as writ by my ipod. Thanks to Malibu for passing the baton. The first 15 songs, shuffle on, no edits:

1. Blue Skies -- Noah Stone
2. Speak See Remember -- Pavement
3. Seine Saint-Denis Style -- Supreme NTM
4. Make Up -- Lou Reed
5. Do Not Feed the Oyster -- Stephen Malkmus
6. Mamma Mia -- Abba
7. Live -- Joey Chavez w/Iriscence
8. Shoot the Singer -- Pavement
9. Ball and Biscuit -- White Stripes
10. De Camino a La Verdana -- Buena Vista Social Club
11. A Secret Life -- Brian Eno and David Byrne
12. Judy and the Dream of Horses -- Belle and Sebastian
13. Mestizo Eyes -- Yesterday's New Quintet
14. You May Die (Intro) -- Outkast (ATLiens)
15. Allure -- DJ Danger Mouse (Grey Album)

3 out of 15 are Malkmus & friends.
4 out of 15 are Hip Hop.
2 out of 15 are foreign-language.
1 out of 15 is unpublished.

I hope I haven't revealed too much. Thanks again to Mal.

New Poems Out

Two poems coming out (now? soon?) at canwehaveourballback? More info when I return from Canada.

Sabbatical

I will be in the Switzerland of North America until Wednesday. If I find a cyber-cafe I will pop in. In any case, I will return armed with new poetry.

No poems today.

A new poem called poem

fans, romans, countrymen, Umbrists, and other interested parties: There is finally, thanks to yours truly, a poem on Umbrella, "the official poetry worksheet of the Umbrist poets."

Disco Inferno

Paine's Wheel

Good News

No poems today, but found out some good news.

via mefi

Gunnar Ekelof

Friends, those of you who have read my bio below know that I am Swiss, not Swedish. And that if you're looking for great Swedish poetry, look no further than the inimitable Gunnar Ekelof. I reproduce for your edification one of his sublime elegies:

Elegy

by Gunnar Ekelof

from Songs of Something Else

trans. by Leonard Nathan and James Larson


I turned away and everything was changed
The spring thrust out its bird's view eye
From the misty sun straight lines ran to all things
Over the monotonous spans of the telephone wires
clouds loomed like a fire at sea...

Waves
Waves my sisters for whom do you weep
the young god of evening or the shepherd of pain
I write distracted by thought, perhaps I don't remember it
any more
but I believe he was blind
What did he whisper in his sleep under the white membrane
Who really knows, but it seemed to make an impression
on nature
Great tears hung in the trees
and the clouds lolled weeping along the horizons
I write distracted by thought, perhaps I don't remember it
any more
but I believe he was dead
What was it he saw under the dark membrane
Who knows, who knows, but the stones turned themselves in sleep
A temblor shook all the mountains and the sun
turned away
and the sea became bitter
it happened long ago
I don't really know what happened
I remember it only in my feelings
Perhaps it was something else
Perhaps it could have been said in other words
as always everywhere and nowhere
Waves
Waves which hide his traces or hers
all that is written in water and sand

Biographical Note (as promised)

People often ask about my name and/or (if they listen to recordings or see me reading) my accent. Well, I am Swiss. Yes, Swiss. Like Nobel Laureate Carl Spitteler, author of Der olympische Frühling (The Olympian Spring) and Prometheus der Dulder (Prometheus the Long-Suffering). Not Swedish like Gunnar Ekelof (whose "Elegies," incidentally, I greatly admire).

Here in California people confuse the two countries. I have published several books, the covers of which are visible on my home page, along with some sample poems. I am currently at work on a manuscript called The Picky Hound.

My affinity for the Umbrists stems from my reading aesthetic being broader than my writing aesthetic. This is typical, I think.

Since CP Galom has seen it fit to describe his living arrangements, I will provide mine, by way of conclusion. I live in a guest house, behind the mansion of a fairly successful Hollywood actor, a distant cousin, who feels he is "giving back to art" (his words!) by supporting my residency here in the sun. I would like to say that I drive his Ferrari around and investigate crimes, but no one is that lucky in real life. Also, the "criminal element" is not conducive to my work. I share a Prius with Asulcena, my cousin's housekeeper.

A Found Poem from Any Pond

ALARM

Zounds! not a soul Will pass, and do obeisance to the cap.

Zounds, brother, you are mad, I think!

Zounds! I bleed still; I am hurt to the death.

Why, zounds! I am surprized myself.

Zounds! consort!

Zounds! an I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his lady's fan.

Zounds! how has he the leisure to be sick In such a justling time?

Zounds, sir! then I insist on your quitting the room directly.

Zounds! will they not rob us?

Zounds! they’ll bring the whole country down upon them.

Zounds! madam, you had no taste when you married me!

Zounds and d—nation!

Zounds! he dies: I had forgot the reward.

Zounds! I will speak of him; and let my soul want mercy if I do not join with him.

Zounds! ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, I’ll stab thee.

Zounds! he’ll drive me distracted, if I contain myself any longer.

Zounds, fellow, cease your deafning cheers!

Zounds! there's no bearing this; it's worse than death!

Gary Norris at DagZine sends a feather across the bow of Umbrism with his parody of School of Sleep. I feel I am back in grade school in Switzerland. My response is on Crony. His response to my response is here.

Thank you for your comments on Lyceum in Ruins. I don't know when another poem will come, especially in the current climate.

For some reason, I took a so-called Book Quiz. I answered candidly. I have not read the book I am. Why is there a rabbit on the cover? Shouldn't there be a picture of a boat, sinking? Does anyone know anything about this mysterious rabbit-book?

You're Watership Down!

by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're
actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they
build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd
be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

God Bless Rudolph Lope. Pray for a recovery.

Saw Mena Suvari in the flesh. Also a stranger's baby, 2 hours old (behind glass). No poems.

If you are titillated by the torrent of discussion here at Gunther's Block, prepare yourself for a deluge of Umbrist poetics at Crony.

Back in California. Rain! Poem! I present for your commentary my first blogged work-in-progress:


LYCEUM IN RUINS

"A sense of doom informs the lynx."

Weeds, schist, an Artesian well:
élan in "a heavenly forge."

    Turn back.

There is a human hand here
below the crumbling parapet.

    Step on.

A floe (with seniors) leads to the cairn,
to the sniffling goat.

    Collapse.

The crotch of time, a bridge
between catapults.

    Collapse.

My reliquary brims over:
laurels in agar, a bag of drowned targets.

Today, Manhattan. 31st and Madison. I am ahead of myself by 3 hours. The city is full with poets. Poem I wrote this morning, "Wheeled Casbah," snatched from my hand on the L train by what I can only assume was a poetic competitor. Reward offered to anyone who can provide information leading to the apprehension of the perpetrator. Could Ron Silliman help? John Latta complains of his trying to place Kathleen Fraser, but I would really appreciate it if he could PLACE the g--damn Williamsburg hipster who stole my poem and took it to Brooklyn. Any aesthetic detectives out there?

The DoubleTree Guest Suites in Boca Raton is overwhelming. I would as soon write poetry here as on Everest. Tomorrow, Manhattan!

Valentine's day a poem ("Crowning") seemed imminent, but it was just the birth of my friend's daughter. Today I ask the muse: Will I never be parturient?

"Cosmogeny" delayed due to strong (Aeolian) headwind. No poems today.

Spent all morning reading Wordsworth. Muses called to say that my long poem, "Cosmogeny," tracing my spiritual development, is imminent. No poems today, though.

Sunny day. Falafel in Malibu. Poem I hoped to write ("Apophenia") diffused away in the lotus-eating afternoon.

No poems today. Posted a new poem from ANY POND on the website. A found poem called "Alarm" -- to replace "Caveat" which has been accepted for publication elsewhere.

Finally CP Galom has written (on his blog, link to the right) of his fear of women.

Spent morning looking for copy of Alexander Griboyedov's THE WOES OF WIT aka THE MISFORTUNE OF BEING CLEVER aka GOR OT UMA (in Russian). Poem expected to materialize this afternoon ("Postcard from Ajax") has so far failed to materialize. Spike-strips of the frontal lobe de-aired les pneus.

Dentist. Wrote no poems today.