Eighty-Eighth Entry

CHECK ME OUT WITH ME NEW SITE! Kseniya is a tricycle. Anyways, going to Texas for a week where I may or may not update, but just saw the Dada exhibit at the MoMa and was inspired to write Dada poetry. So hopefully this will resemble that. ALSO: I hereby pledge that my long-running threat of publishing a poetry journal will come to pass before the clock strikes 2007. Wham.

Here's my poem:

MOSQUE

The hero despises his adrenaline;
O! The ax melteth within grandpa's withered hand,
O!
O! forgotten amongst innocent commitees,
O! WHY!
WHY!

The idol knows not to worship the idol, the mirror,
dypropoline glycol, glide product on,
glide product on rememberences of dales in summer hill country,
glide product on great sucker for a cheerful day
glide product on a great sucker equals tipsy hairdresser



equals spotlight glare. O! O! has not man a hard service on earth?

Cocks and hens deemed not true friends to the reich
glide product on steamy sports display case
on cows stopped short of forty yard line
one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty twenty-one twenty-two twenty-three twenty-four twenty-five twenty-six twenty-seven twenty-eight twenty-nine-thirty-thirty-one-thirty-two-thrity-three-thrity-four-thirty-five-thirty-six-thirty-seven-thirty-eight-thirty-nine

He said "Father S said "I have heard Nancy quote him saying he had heard it pronounced "paper"" he chuckled."

Am I the sea, or a sea monster, that thou settest a guard over me?
Am I the sea, likelihood of the removal of lighthouse by city planners?
Am I the sea, for a few moments I leaned forward and rested my elbows?
Am I the sea, little baby soviet flask empty hey buddy I'm warning you?
Am I the sea?

Eighty-Seventh Entry

My mom thought it would be a good idea if I mentioned on my blog that I was unemployed, and that if anyone out there has a job for this young man they should let me know. I can be trusted with all manner of work.

Going home to Texas in a week or so, can't wait.

Played KICKBALL this weekend!

Here's my poem:

WORDS TRAPPED IN A SKULL

I made a deck-chair out of you.
Every Monday, I hear you squeak
as you begin your breakfast routine,
bacon, sausage, steak, chicken, squid,
vulture, tuna, duck, turkey, buffalo,
camel, as I trot to work I can hear
the grate close on the sewer
and I know you have arrived safely
and I begin to worry about myself.

Then again, at night, when the children
chase me around, I light a fire under
myself and I do that little dance.

I sit in you. You are my solid
accomplishment, and I can see you
from here, inside my bedroom.
Who is in my bedroom?
You mean, besides me? It's
about time you leave me alone now,
in case someone you don't know
is coming by. Someone you don't
recognize at the door, with some
present for you, and when you sign
your name, it looks back at you
as a signifier of who you are,
which is how you know who you are,
by what's written on the slip, and then,
by what's inside the box.

Eighty-Sixth Entry

So, happy birthday to OH SWEET DEATH! My blog's one-year anniversary came and went without me saying anything! Because I didn't have a poem. Which is one of the rules of the blog. I didn't start it to talk about myself, but I've been doing some of that lately anyway.

What do I have to show for my one year? Eighty-six poems. And not much else. But that, again, was the point. I've been published a lot since I started, and I have a Master's in Creative Writing now. And, for the moment, a girlfriend. We'll see if THAT one is around next year. Oddly enough, I'm not worried.

Anyway, I was recently published in Maureen Thorson's NaPoWriMo chapbook and in classmate Mark Lamoreaux's My Spaceship. You can find out how to order those duders by clicking the corresponding links on my list. Also, Silliman reviews Spaceship and MENTIONS MY NAME!!!! though not anything about my poem, since I assume it speaks for itself. Badly.

Here's my poem:

THE HUMAN LAMB

Finally I tore the lambs apart.
I laid down in the field
and breathed in my bones
and expelled movement.
The smoke was my first sign
something was coming
across the plains
where I had been born
and had rolled in the mud
fearing this day.

I ripped one of my own limbs off
so I would empathize; and here
we are, in this courtroom,
about to convict an innocent man.
I warned you about the wallet-black voice,
the scythe swinging on a moonlit night.
I warned you about the troubles.

The meat had been gamey
and we threw it in the brook.
In the sweltering morning,
mosquitoes, tan from the heat
would slap us all day
out of our dreaming
and help us concentrate on the work:
separating skin from bone.
Keeping bone. We were always
more interested in survival
than in surviving.

Eighty-Fifth Entry

Hey guys, I've been sick for awhile and so no poems. But FEAR NOT! Here's an idea I've been working on for awhile. I've been writing poems based on my super-buddy Robert Szot's paintings, particularly his The Generosity of Women series. Here is the first, uh, poem. About that. here's a link to his site. check out the "corresponding" painting

Here's my poem:

THE GENEROSITY OF WOMEN 1

the moment you stopped moving
you became skin, white and white,
in my memory you eat, I remember
Portland, a bare mattress bathed in
pink light, the air lying still
on a plate, it is raining,
you were always
the only blonde, the only redhead,
at first I was repelled
by your eating, but then I enjoyed
your eating, in Portland I ate Greek
chicken, a writhing arm of chicken
that felt like squid, I loved the trees
in Portland, I remember
being in a car, my phone was used
several times, to record your voice
while it was somewhere else.

Eighty-Fourth Entry

Hi! I should have mentioned that the previous poem with written solely by me, without the estimable help of A.Grayson, but he and I are beginning a poetry challenge, the rules of which I'm horribly unclear about. But it will involve us both writing more poems. Today's poem is, I think, free from the restrictions of the challenge. Enjoy.


Here's my poem:

MAGGOTS

Interrupting my sleep,
maggots swell in feverish
fits. The skin I’ve always
assumed was mine bursts forth
like an inadequate sack. It’s
always about sacks with you.
The white of their skin(?)
turned to grey in twilight
I couldn’t see, I was
holding my writhing hands
in front of my face, larvae
swooping inside each open hole.

The next day I was immaculate.
In the mirror, the maggot-white
bathroom wall was there but I
was not, I looked behind me,
then back. Had I been eaten?
Where were my remains? I always
Wanted to have remains, but this
way wasn’t fun.

Eighty-Third Entry

Hi ya'll!

It's been a little while, but I can't keep reclining in the easy chair after NaPoWriMo so A. Grayson Benko and I are gonna write some poems, starting with this little diddy.

Here's my poem:

EYE BLOOD

Enough to fill a teacup.
I live inside the human thorax.
These are my notes.

My finger shivered with the scalpel,
I was looking at the shine of the edge,
enjoying the touch of things is only
half the fun, the hands, like sensitive
mittens. With my free finger I pinch
a shoulder, wipe the blood from the wood.
Only half the book is available
to me now, the blood now wearing
my clothes instead of me, walking
unadorned with an eye-patch,
not consoling the empty socket.

I pretended to be the owner of this great land.
The blood walking down the street in my clothes.
I never liked it. That’s why, when the moment
came, my hand moved swiftly and gratuitously,
scalpel striking deep within myself. Hesitation
was not in me, I have always loved watching
my fingers do horrible things. I washed my hands
but I’ll never be sure that they’re clean.

Eighty-Second Entry

NaPoWriMo is over! No more stress about writing, at least not poetry, and there wasn't that much to begin with. I started the month with an empty slate, with absolutely no ideas and at the end of it I'm completely inspired! I'll definitely be participating next year. And in the meantime I'm gonna write a poem today, and maybe one every day. We'll see.

WARNING!!!!! This poem is not suitable for children of most adults.


Here's my poem:

PURE VOMIT 3

The vomit pail, tin silver
tinged in yellow. a crown
masking liquidated beans.
I grinned mercilessly as I pissed,
dousing the flames of the human penis
I had found smoldering inside.

Squat and disconnected from its host,
the penis, scorched black and a deep
red in many places, soaked with sterile
clear urine, partially nibbled upon
by ants, seemed a subject worthy
of my interest.

How did it get there? I knew it wasn't mine,
as it's skin was a different tone. In my mouth,
with it's squirming white-pink tongue, yellow-
white teeth covered in white mush and pinkish-
orangish gums, bile seemed to wash against
the inside of my lips. I had to do something.
I placed the penis delicately on my tongue.
The ants silently drowned in my saliva,
or else crawled along my gums biting me
in an exquisite and decadent fashion, almost
as if they knew what it was I was looking for,
not that I did. The heft and size and crispness
of its skin surprised me, as did the sharp salt
of the urine and the tasteless crunchiness
of the ants. But in the end of course, I knew
I was being foolish. I knew it would provide
no new information in my stomach, so after
taking one or two good solid bites against
it's tough gristle and cartlidge and swimming
them around as best I could, I, with thumb
and forefinger, fished it out of me and put it
back where I found it.