Thirty-Sixth Post

Wow, what a beatdown it is to live in new york and have a fulltime job! I have to get the fuck out of here!

At least I think I do. But I'm not entirely sure where I wouldst be going and whatdst I wouldst be doing. Suggestions? Donations?

Anyway, at least I've started to enjoy the job a little. I refer to the rounds I do (picking up doggies in midtown manhattan) as if I was a bomber pilot. Easy runs are "milk runs" and harder runs are Bremen.

My birthday is a week from Sunday! What'd you buy me!?

Here's my poem:

SMALL PRESS

CRAIG: My poem is entitled “You Versus Me.”
I mention the time of day, I mention
the sun shining on the horse’s skin, the meadow,
I mention my political leanings, you and I
drinking coffee, and how the coffee isn’t enough
and even if it was, there is no “you”, and I
assert in my poem that the pronoun leaves
the arena before the fight is over-
ALEC: My poem is titled “Eight Ways
of Looking at a Blackbird”: I could only
think of eight, none of them are in
the poem, though I do mention baby
mockingbirds on my windowsill, which
is real, that really happened-
CLARA: My poem is finished and I want you
to read it, it’s a rock song, it’s called
“Exhibits Abandoned in the Museum
of Underwater Sunshine Overnight” and I play it
on the vibraphone and I sing it in
a shaky baritone and I project my voice
like ventriloquists do, the lyrics
are about an old boyfriend,
his harmonica, the American flag
and hay.
CRAIG: I read your poem and put on my coat
and went outside. My book is called
“Put on Your Coat and Go Outside.” I
wanted to change it before it went to print.
ALEC: My book is a book called “Forests of Envy,”
it’s too experimental, I like to contradict
notions of what poetry is about, chiefly
the assumption that it must be bad or good-
JUNE: My book is titled “Thermos Poems.”
Every piece was originally put
in a full thermos of tomato soup (hence
the red cover), shaken around and taken out,
damp, unreadable, and then typeset by my sister
a non-poet, with sometimes surprising results.
My favorite poem goes:

“the hate

once towards entropy

black

swa sweater gone all unravled
b caught me the ack ack


into the module of the pod

can’t change the
we will never know.”