Eightieth Entry

More of the Gross poems. I've actually found inspiration in this term. Also, my life is a horrifying depression, so why not find beauty in the gross? Is it like flarf? Who knows? Who the hell knows what flarf is anyway? Not me, gentle reader.

New links are up. Robert Szot is an amazing painter who I adore and who gives me drinks. Kseniya Yarosh is a talented zinester/artist/social commentator who put together my chapbook and who kisses me daily.

Here's my poem:

PURE VOMIT

The thoroughfare. Parades always end like this.
I pride myself on my work. It is always about
the pure biology of a given ejaculation, given
moments, I take them. I used a paper plate
with straying stains of former barbecue foods
to wipe the liquid from my face, rubbing
till sore to clean my beard. This is a change
in my ongoing descent, one that always nestles
in my skin waiting for a proper or improper moment.
There are things on my lips, dangling liquidly.
The pavement seems a very nice canvas and,
more than that, social commentary! My face
is pointed in a given direction and that direction
symbolizes the future but it is really just
a direction, one which I will now take in my quest
to find the purity of vomit.

Seventy-Ninth Entry

Man, my days include a number of ups and downs.
Dan Hoy inspired me to write this poem.

Here's my poem:

DIARRHEA

for Dan Hoy

Wearing new clothes against the mist,
sitting down, the cacophony of my bowels,
mixing with the symphonic music, time
for a change is the proverbial electoral chant,
not unlike the Gregorians. Not unlike
the ancients who climbed mounts and
sermonized. I heard these words rip
back at me while the surf burst in my face.
I became tearful. I stretched out my fingers
but no other fingers were near.

Seventy-Eighth Entry

So horribly insanely ZONKED today.
Kseniya recently described me as going through my "gross period," so today's poem is something really pretty with her in mind.

Here's my poem:

BODIES TRANSMUTATED INTO GARBAGE

Fitful nights disturbed by rustling sacks
formerly made of skin, piled up in the street
neatly, bodies with green smudges, reading
the paper on the train has never been my thing.

I drink orange juice. A woman's bloody, jaundiced
arm stares back at me out my window.
There are pine needles sticking out of the skin.
I throw the thick pulpy concoction back
and see the outline of the woman's face,
hiding behind the stretchy skin of the bag.

I go outside and into the park, sticking
needles in my arm and punching myself
till bruises. Then I wrap myself in a bag
and wait all night, finally being transported
by truck to the pile of eviscerated torsos
with nothing to do. I am fascinated
by a particular human thorax, I believe
it used to be the one I love. I still love
her, and I collect her bowels and stuff
them back in herself and begin to dance
and she seems to say all the old things
to me, shredded crimson lips dangling
against my cheek.

Seventy-Seventh Entry

Well, we had a fun little reading, didn't we? John Findura was in rare form and read some great poems. The other reader whose name I can't remember was also good. And we had a nice little party that quickly got out of hand.

Here's my poem:

MORE FOOD

Stoking the fire with aluminum foil,
black toes crisped by the night air,
I eat potatoes mashed together
with beef, afterwards, I muddle
around to find my fallen teeth,
which are so hot they burn in the dry leaves.

That's why it's easy to find them.
In L.A. I found my first tooth on the lamb
I was eating, sunglasses reflecting the newly
hot sun, wearing shorts. I like pork
as well, and turtle meats, and mice
that poke their reddish tails into
my taco. I'm not much of a chef,
I merely throw together what I find.

Seventy-Sixth Entry

Alex Smith is writing this one with me before we go by the reading. Hope to see ya'll there.

HI MOM!

Here's my poem:

The lawnmower
went over
the yard of bats,

leaving cropped
grass and a field
drawn of flesh.

A sea of maggots--
quick everybody
get in my skin.

Inspecting further,
disemboweling,
nothing really in there.

Maggot face scrub
and shampoo
for the lost children

by the out of ground
pool, hair coarse
from months

of chlorine,
no black water
from the shower head,

they wash themselves
in the white husks.
they wear tusks

and dance the rain song
waiting for fire,
who's gonna show them,

the maggot tribesman.
I really like maggots.
The one in my foot

sent me a letter.
"I have never seen daylight,
I long blindly for many things."

Seventy-Fifth Entry

The days are getting more stressful and more surreal. Please someone take care of my life for me. In the meantime:

Reading at Cornelia Street Cafe Tuesday the 25th at 6 pm.
Cornelia Street Café
29 Cornelia Street
New York NY 10014
(212) 989-9319
www.corneliastreetcafe.com

Be there or I'll find you and kill you.

Here's my poem:

LEECHES

Melted from stone into shade,
hiding on the back surface of a tree
just when I want to go inside.
I sit on the day bed surrounded
by plush dolls with blonde yarn-hair
and begin my diary:
"Today began too early, I have mixed
the contents of my sack lunch together
and now I swing it over my head. Inside
are black worms, crawling, cute little things
I took as my own offspring, and built
them a little community out of plastic
forks and paper plates. They elected
a mayor. They watched a lot of movies
with Italian actors playing Italian
career criminals, while career criminals
are out there playing innocent. I'd like
to lick the blood from their fingernails.

Seventy-Fourth Entry

Hanging out at the pad, you know, just chilling. Today's poem was written on Amy's typewriter.

Here's my poem:

SYMPATHY FOR THE WEEVIL

Tumbling comets, staying
out of sight like video game
minions,buggered in ruddy
tunnels, awaiting
editing, hidden in the dark
production suite, suit
hanging on the coatrack,
elegant protagonists outside,
polite, awkwardly walking
in the directions of said storms,
watching my body in the midst
of an imperfect dive, just
at the edge of decadence, sad
that the point of the quest
was to be cool and sage-like
not wandering the highway but
chasing a lovelorn valkyrie,
broken in half by the plot
straightened and re-connected
and then torn back apart
before the final chapter.