these people are morons
Shit talk from October 28, 2009–
compost:
These people are morons. Can’t they do their own thinking?
outcome:
From the shit talk composter.
More compost here.
This post is dedicated to HTMLGiant.
being at war with a picture of war
Pain made a landscape. It was blue, blotchy. The animals knew. Pain does not contain itself. They abandoned the land.
The center of the pain was nearly black, like deep liquid. It had given so much–whole cities were bright at night because of it–yet it demanded nothing back. This made it easy to keep taking from the pain, expanding it beyond what could ever be managed.
People in the bright cities made money on the pain. It wasn’t their pain; it belonged to the government of a South American country and was a sign of that government’s corruption. If the pain could be seen from space: that was the fault of one government’s greed (and not that of many private investors). Yet it isn’t even greed, being the way people have allowed themselves to behave.
The pain was soft, feminine from a distance. It was silent and mysterious where forest obscured its farthest parts. Somehow it must have brought about the force that maintained it. Does that make sense? Cyclical nature might have its counterpart in circular logic. City planning submerges a stream bed, yet the stream surges in the rainy months, flooding yards and damaging the asphalt. And so the repaving project to push it back.
Where does force come from? It might seem like a substance; from above you see it spread like a bruise. We say it’s used, yet it has no structure. It passes through us and enacts chemical damage. Think of cancer, think of a map of its expansion through us.
birkensnake release reading is monday
I’ll be reading on Monday (Oct. 26th) at Inner Chapters. Matt Briggs, Tina Connolly, and Caren Gussoff will also be reading. The reading will begin at 7:30. I hope you can find a way to appear.
While you’re at Inner Chapters, you can buy a “Ride the S.L.U.T.” t-shirt. (S.L.U.T. was the name of the trolley in the South Lake Union neighborhood. I think the signs that named it have been taken down or stolen.) I want an “I Went Down On the S.L.U.T.” t-shirt to commemorate my fall on slippery tracks.
the girl with brown fur by stacey levine
Stacey Levine’s book, The Girl With Brown Fur, needed to be published because her publisher (MacAdam/Cage) isn’t doing it for some reason, possibly they don’t have their shit together. Matthew Stadler, who operated Clear Cut Press, printed a “bootleg” version of the book. You can buy it here.
It’s nice when people don’t worry about being sued and do something good.
+
Adam fixed up the shit-talk composter a bit since people seem to be using it. You have to type a ReCaptcha now before you dump your stuff but that’s easy if you’re you and not a robot.
There is some good shit talk about being tired and not good enough. MacAdam/Cage, you can use the composter, it’s free. Just let it all out.
You can read what’s been composted here.
crisco rose
Stacey Levine is a literature genius! What’s funny about giving Stacey Levine a sheet cake is her short story, Cakes.
this morning I took your place during the night
The light from my lamp blows the sail across its reflection. Your blade of grass is giving you to my blade. I ride on a blue rectangle across the plaster mask. The sun has a real sun somewhere, just like I have a mother.
Somewhere the support structure is having coffee and weather. I have an S and an s. I can move across the desert.
The grass is glistening, why is it glistening like sushi.
Hello, unusual request. I have never met your mother.
+
Kathryn Regina’s project is alive at Wunderkammer. I will tell you more about this later.
other people
Other people can be so nice. A couple of days ago a woman stopped and said, Do you need help? I said Yes.
+
Heather Christle’s poems at Slope, along with artifacts!
+
Rachel B. Glaser, whose initials are RBG, will have her book, Pee on Water, published by Publishing Genius! PG’s website says it’s scheduled for summer of 2009; this means time doesn’t matter.
+
I pre-ordered Kristina Born’s book, One Hour of Television!
+
There is lots of help!
[Correction: Time matters]
the blocks
And things which are in you, the poem comes distorted through. Your tongue is exactly the kind of tongue you’re born with, and the source of energy, whatever it is, can take advantage of your tongue, can make it do things that you didn’t think it could–but your tongue will want to return to the same normal position of ordinary cleft palate speech of your own dialect, and this is the kind of thing you have to avoid. There are a great many things you can’t avoid. It’s impossible for the source of energy to come to you in Martian or North Korean or Tamil or any language you don’t have–or, at least, don’t have something of. It’s as if a Martian comes into a room with children’s blocks–with ABCDE, which are in English–and he tried to convey a message–this is the way the source of energy goes–but the blocks on the other hand are always resisting it.
(Jack Spicer quoted in “The Practice of Outside” by Robin Blaser, in The Collected Books of Jack Spicer)