Awake in the middle how to sing French onion soup lalala
Mad cow disease and the unraveling of the human genome polka
Asheena MacNeil whom I’ve never met
Surfaces from the vast pain of existence a voice all her own calling
The world in a stew what’s new what’s new
Elizabeth uses computer I talk her through over cell phone to bring the Patti Trimble
Collab beginning “love & antidisestablishmentarianism” to last night’s reading Marj
Rushes to stage with “lost” copy of “How Kora was Born” at exact moment Vito’s Wrenchguitar blenders Papa Susso’s kora It’s About Women I will sing Mother
The way the Italians do I’ll edit bounteous anthology of Mama Poems my mother
To start there lalala my daughters not to end there Oedipus
The Chorus! as Daisy cries out what means the Seed of Nonexistence? we’re talking Spermatozoa I say to her my third child stepping forward into quote human genome Polka end quote Lisanne daughter-in-law nursing my first grandchild Anthony Don Dakota my son Mukhtar, you called me father, I am, and may I introduce
You to Asheena? The keyboard has no question mark my daughter
Sophie has uncurled it she exclaims Birthday snakes and crocodiles
What are they doing here What are we all doing here
It is International Women’s Day and the women of Eritrea are singing Happy
Birthday as I mull and tremble, setting sail for the next part
Which wants to write the next half
________________________________________________
Unscrew cap screw top improv in a bottle
In a book in a vein in a manner of drinking
Try blurts on two singing extend meet
The chorus of owes and I will talk about
The usual visual accompanying clack ovule
Challenge to split laugh tongue hoy olson
Typewriter g what do you sit for horizontal
Floor under floor shut up time for the poem
________________________________________________
There's a man in the funny papers we all know.
He lives way back a long time ago.
He don't eat nothing but bearcat stew.
Well, this cat's name is Alley Oop.
He got a chauffeur that's a genuine dinosaur.
And he can knuckle your head before you count to four.
He got a big ugly club and a head full of hair.
Like great big lions and grizzly bears.
He's the toughest man there is alive.
Wearing clothes from wildcats' hides.
He's the king of the jungle jive.
Look at that caveman go!
He rides through the jungle tearing limbs off of trees
Knocking great big monsters dead on their knees.
The cats don't bug him cause they know better.
Cause he's a mean motorscooter and a bad go-getter.
He's the toughest man there is alive.
Wearing clothes from wildcats' hides.
He's the king of the jungle jive.
Look at that caveman go!
There he goes.
Look at that cave man go.
He sure is hip, ain't he?
Like, what's happening?
He's too much.
Ride, Daddy, ride.
________________________________________________
This brown room this wood room
This carved room this sacred room
This Christ room this gargoyle room
Goat on throne room candle grill
Room this redolent red velvet back
Drop to life this skull stairway this
Floor coffin room lid ceiling blood this
Spike through Christ’s foot this cross
Table tears this dog crawling your leg
This room this room this room this room
________________________________________________
A new kind of poem is in the air!
It is the air, I mean
You don’t read it you breathe it
It’s around you woowoo
Now you are the poem too
You will wear the poem necklace, sail poem canoe
You’ve got something
In your eye
Wherever you
Look
Antique skateboards? The titring
Your mother had to remove for you
To suckle. It’s a great big beautiful
World. Get used to it.
________________________________________________
Birthday Praise Sonnet for Marc Levin, Feb 3 2001
Mark my words
Leaven the bread
Half a century’s nothing, the Wise Man said
When the slam slams
When the blowback blows
Lights speed action rolls rolls rolls
The Party will Last
The Future’s simulcast
And we’ll Babble On
With our Icon O’Class
Mark my words
Leaven the bread
Half a century’s something, the Wise Man said
Writ on Dante’s Tomb
Speak, o Poetry! O marble-encased everything but marble!
Looking over your shoulder – what word will these letters be?
A flying tourniquet, a brava cave opening. A quaint nothing
Doing anything ah a coin drops on your eyes – which is
It – heads or tales? Many people ask mutter and wander around.
But only you found the opening to the heart of the eye, the musty
Light we can see each other by touch, something more than infinity.
Something that would pay back the politicians for every lira they got
Without an element of public service, this place a shrine, a place
Ravenna can shout your name. The echo’s the same.
________________________________________________
A student writes
If only the World
Were like this!
As we toss beer empties
Into the dumpster
At Varsity Townhouses
And scan the horizon
For any Noncaucasians
Big Foot
Megacorp
Takes over
Handling personal
Relationships
15th & Canyon
All the beer
In the world
In a poem
Shop @ Alfalfas
Crane as in Buddhist crane
Rises from the new Boulder. Olé.
A station wagon burps a purple
Jogging suit. Bike racks rake
The cirrus. Weather uncertain.
Conservative attempts complexity:
The Lord did buy her a Mercedes
Benz now what? Watch the mall aisles
For sign. Deep image poetics, who
Will be the Po Pope? The jeep
Has very pretty beard-do.
________________________________________________
wassup down all around
wrap that finger ring that beat
slide ride key knee feet
You sent me the Rat Book
You sent me the Kora Poem
i’m a rat in a kora getting back
Some kinda singer, flinger the finger
some kinda stranger, swinger
set em up, Pops, we’ll shoot out
think of you in new Bayonne
living in the old Bayonne
come visit Poetry capital Bayonne
remember the day under the bridge,
a midget in a mask, ol Alan Granville
stuck a cigarette in a long pull
________________________________________________
For Koon Woon’s Birthday, 2001
What moony Monday, the Goldfish said
And the Cat not in hat and the window
This was a tune and the pen dances
Over the lines like the sea sea sea
To grow younger every year
With plenty of do nothing time
Ah! A slice of light just so crosses
The painting just as you cross your legs
________________________________________________
Birthday Praise Sonnet for Marc Levin, Feb 3 2001
Mark my words
Leaven the bread
Half a century’s nothing, the Wise Man said
When the slam slams
When the blowback blows
Lights speed action rolls rolls rolls
The Party will Last
The Future’s simulcast
And we’ll Babble On
With our Icon O’Class
Mark my words
Leaven the bread
Half a century’s something, the Wise Man said
________________________________________________
Nunzio, y’announce, hey, life crumbs to Roma!
Not bad, Bad Boy of Bleecker Street. Tears
Blossom like gondolas full of dead watches.
Nomenclature, natural. Take for instance time
You introduced me to “flavored grappa,”
Hallucinatory ichor, redolent, swagger
Poem direct “step on it!” you demandeth
The cabdriver/dealer same sweet sun
At your funeral where Mama ran her boyfriend
Who’d fucked her son in the ass the night
Before out Lady of Pompeii as the Priest
Suggests nobody look, in brogue. We gape.
Roger says blowjob from the pulpit, you
Streaking your own funeral (as you did
Lowell-Ginsberg reading, St Marks, to
Mark the Unity of Poetries), your baptism
In same church! as you were laid out
--Hey whattam I telling you! you were
The Star, per usuam, Comet, the Brilliance!
-- cross street from your birth, home
The long way round infinitum. Who to
Invent Poetry now? Finally to understand
Happy Birthday of Death: yours! 1/17/01.
“Happy Birthday, dear Nunzio, HBTY.”
Bob Holman
“Nunzio,” messenger or announcer, was Gregory’s first name. His ashes will be shipped to Rome, to be interred in the American Cemetery, next to Shelley and Keats, where he belongs.
________________________________________________
In a message dated 2/1/01 11:57:04 AM Eastern Standard Time, ucfbrokenspeech@yahoo.com writes:
<< my name is j. bradley and i am the producer and host
of ucf's broken speech slam....seeing you are one of
the greatest promoters and hosts of slams of all
time..i was wondering if you had any advice or tips
not listed in your how to host a slam essay...i love
your work and style btw..especially '1990.' thanks
for your time >>
Why, an excellent question, j!
I say, follow the poem. Let the poem lead. Be in awe of the poem but that means it's in the middle and you all (aud., po', strangers, ghosts) must love it, 10 Little Indian-style, so it becomes you(r own).
Ask the audience, Who murdered poetry? Those who left po in cold, those who loooked to someone else (a judge?) to explain it.
Don't explain.
Keep going.
Do it with love uncensored.
That's it.
Don't forget roots, those who came before. Generosity is taste. And when all is said and done, there's always something to say. And do. Pick up the chairs. Greet the sun. Write the poem.
________________________________________________
Deep in paper a line:
Push me over, artist
Clamber aboard train
Of Thought and Nonthought
Just look at it! He squealed
A ton of cake and on the walls
“Gentle Persuasion” for all
To see giving the Impression that
An Artist
As she stands there
Looking at me
I think about her
Looking at me
Until I stop
She does not
She paints on
I think on
Clearing my throat I ask
How is it going
She does not respond
I read her hands
The sounds they make
Red yellow blue green
My face my face
Dante’s Harmony
In a boat
We take a bath
A trail of clouds
In trousers
The Bar
The mirror is
More like it
The Ball
We are having one
April Moon
Only it is 2:29PM
In August
And all is well
Well among Dunes
Don’t whatever
You do look down!
You will see
Me looking up
Pail hits head ouch
Sand trickles from
Your squeezing instep
Only you and water
Makes two
Me and you
What Sky?
Look! Look!
The sky gets in here
Keep looking!
Or it will stop. Look!
Signature Gesture
Old Manet has signed his name
Quel horreur gesticulated
A bank clerk madly twirling
His pencil balance on his nose
The elbow is a lump of shape!
Before the Mirror
Behind her back
There is no me
Wrapped in gold brocade
Uphill
Death what else
Whatever else
Inconveniently located
Cemetery bottom of hill
Rereading
That water, in your painting,
From the well, on top of the hill
Manet in Venice
Blue pants unbuckled
Pour toi, ma Canale Grande!
Thwack thwack
The sound of the brush
On the rolling gondola
They Are Off
How fast can you see how fast
He painted the speed of the horse
Gallop on, my Love
A hoof on the brush in your eye
Moss Rose
Hand-worked fluff
Into the table gray
Death’s pink face
Mirror today
As I Was Saying
Monet was painting
Vivid wind
Not Indicate
Fly flow floats free
Paint not anything only
Canvas night Le Havre
Fleet
Easel down
Canvas up
Paint on
Take pee
While stroking
Sun onto beach
Drink beer
Blue umbrella
Salami white chair
Home done
Almost a black line
It’s a Big Mountain
A little village
A swell bay
A dirt road
Flowers trees
Occasional Spontaneity
Like now
B Horizon
Swam near Étreat
Today and went deep
Into what I thought
Was the sea
It was when
I looked up
You were looking
Down at me
Framed perfectly
By the sun
Waver
Stop me!
Trees are not red!
It is a cry for help!
La Gare St. Lazare (or, Been Here Before)
Perhaps on the way to Lyon
Or Rodiz you would
Smell the belch of the
Future inference a quick
Steam movement as in
“The Fifth Movement”
The Number 5 a lamp
In the heavy Paris morn
Celebrating Who Died, Who Is Born!
Quicker!
That Baby Carriage Scare
I will nit tell
But look away
Her Pipe
She’d smoke it
When no one watched
Impossible Catch
Berthe Morisot sits by the jetty
Nothing else does
Nothing else abandons gesture
She does
Crazy Hollyhocks
They go insane!
and jump in
The painting
Is water too
Duck
Cover, a duck
Floats by, a poem,
A book of poetry
Quacks alone
Just Stand There
And be twelve
Years old
Forever
Julie
Daisy Float
A bowl for you
Of flowers they float
As time streams
You can slow it down
Time slows just
Read this, and this
Sophie Singing
The melody covers the wall
Ears are retuned
What invention! Night
Is now knocking but
Day won’t answer
Your dancing
Hanging the Laundry Out to Dry
Waiting for rain
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
By my green candle
I’ll get the world
Into paint and shake
Like a dog the road
You want to take out!
Distance
From expression to impression
Lie on Grass
Lawn Motivator
Sunset
If it didn’t happen
We could paint it better
We
The reader on horseback
The painter with a whip
I am walking the other
Way and hope you do not notice
Rooster
Egg balance
On my head
Wouldn’t You Know
Alfred Sisley got lost
Painted his way out
Where are you
Byroad
Met you by the byroad
Have a word or three
Keep walking orange
Keep riding blue
The Flood
I forgot
But you wrote it
In your painting
Rain
The first step
Slips in glaze
With an eye full
Degas or The Bath
Lean over a little further
Edgar or I’ll get splashed
Now Ballet
The true dance ricochets
Clarinet unframed thrash
In the Chair
How to get more pregnant
At Home with Vincent
Your song swells
Makes trees lift off
Dancing roots tickle
My skin and the wind
Entrance
One more secret
Is that the secret
Isn’t anymore
Out of Shoes
Into bed
Just think
A crab on its back
Can teach you to fly
________________________________________________
reasons lectric dreams
agrarian vagrant varmints boojie fragments
banjokeydokey boommeans goat
the cheering saturnian
rembering ev’rything blue huh
windshielded pop bingo
freedom breaks loose from the chains of freedom breaks loose from the chains of freedom
sit down on the Universal Chair
*
night pusher
dabbling pop-upper hept keen
with dense democracy schemes
never held a childhood no never had no
-no-
*
Whoop It Up! (Jupiter)
planet rockin rocksteady
pergola premeth elemental
the thinking light
for numerous years
the symbol for idea
is the light bulb -ah!
now the bulb itself
perhaps wearing the psychedelic
mortar board of evolutionary consciousness