Aping the Formulae and Conventions of Typical Record Companies to Sell the Atypical Records
The poem, resilient as a child, making
its own way takes the road less traveled in fact! nobody's
been here in thousands of years. Here's a stream of flack, and
here's a bedspread where your mother gave birth (pediatrician was a saber-toothed
tiger). I want my poetry!
I want my poetry, Dr. Tiger.
If you make-a the machines, I wanna have the beans
to trade for the cow please.
It's a poem you know where the beard
falls off and the stars in the teeth crannies
are harmoniously sashaying in order for us to choose
the mellow wall to mend with licked fingers.
Perhaps you will be challenged by liquor advertisers
wanting to poison children. Or maybe the cigarette
behind your ear has wormed its way round to be smoked- smoke!
I cannot say cannot say because the poem is
saying everything as unusual. Thus hand in my I am Fired
and the Mouth Almighty disbanded. It was a good run.
Now if you'll excuse me, says the Poem, waiting to be written.
_________________________________________________
January 10, 2004
I think
There
4 am
-- Kai Kraus
March 3, 2004
Help me
I can see
--Rev. Pedro Pietri
(& nobody else)
It is late
How late
Ask me later
How much later
How much longer later lasts
The part of dawn
What part does dawn play?
Well, it brings about the yawn of dawn
And "The part of dawn," as in "the haircut of dawn"
As in BUT where weapons of mass disbombbation go?
The biologicallips debalm weapons-a must be round
Here somewhere! When somewhere is Iraq, we
Held our breath that Saddam's killer commando scifi's
Wouldn't rise out of Baghdad perimeter, kill our boys
With anthrax, beeswax, blister attacks. Believed Bush
Reconn"ass"ance. Where were they? At auction: Peace Sign (in oil)
The trip to Mars the screwing of the infants
How late will it last how much later longer
The economy's better, how come I'm still outta work?
Washington, January 9, 2004 (AP) Paul O'Neil, who
Was pushed out of the administration as Treasury
Secretary because it was felt he was not a team
Player, says President Bush was so disengaged
During Cabinet meetings that he was like a "blind
Man in a roomful of deaf people"...
He (Bush) fall asleep lullaby bomb bomb
He (Bush) follow converservativation out to bathroom
He (Bush) not gonna speak to no German chancellor, naw!
Condaleeza: Well you got to sometime. Don't make
Me! I'm just noodging, George. You're pushing!
The world clump of ideas awaiting sunrise
George yawns blow up Baghdad and Let
There be light! A Zippo to the ass of Viet Nam
Aircraft carrier waddle Bushit shadow Texas
It is late How late later latest
Lateness on hold George Gorge Valley Forge
Porgie Orgy Forger Gorger Self-congratulatory
Shaggy dog story Hit em hurts w/ orange alerts
Lost yr shirt in the pervert dirt
Wine and dine us Yr Highness
With the lies that institutionalize, Scandalize
The Liberation that Enslaves, the economy
Is improving don't Halliburton me! Election!
Did someone say four more neverending nahnahs hosannahs bananas
Oh nono No way-o Convey-o the mayo
Where's the right ditch lightswitch, spite bitch?
Election time, Dad. The screaming infants.
Rifles for veils, missiles for splints, mines for patios
Any body part will do for teddy bear, flag, hammer
Absurdity youth death, democracy of silence
The whole world is watching in utter disbelief
The leakage today is that Bush plans for bombing
Predated 9/11 Late to late to later too late
The distant clank of change animate
It is not too late Not too late Liberate
It's not too late Eviscerate slime snake
Eradicate the Potentate served on a molten plate
It isn't fate Elucidate Debate Debate
Inaugurate some other straight
It's time to say shush to Bush
Shushtobush Shushtobush Shushtobush
He'll disappear -- Was never here
This much is clear -- that as we jeer
We can win -- Played on a violin
& a mandolin -- by a manikin
Humans, vote him out! So we can hang out!
Hooray for Peace! For Harmony! Democracy! Hipocracy!
How could we have been so dumb? Florida's shaped like a gun!
Por favor no hibernate! When the primary's in your state!
Participate! Ejaculate on the State! Regurgitate what they legislate!
Clean your plates! Please don't be late! Hallucinate! The United States!
Bush will at long last be gone! And I can stop this song!
But until then! I'll sing it again!
_________________________________________________
Cara mia!!
Yes, that was a Top of the Toodle to Yodel Mit Poodle and I'm heading back to do it "again" (nb,
darling, there is no such thing as "again") at 8 for the Melies screening...
Yr date is Tues Mar 9 at 10pm. Stefan Zeniuk is organizing zeniuk@yahoo.com and both he and
Sascha will be in touch with you re: deal etails and sound.
Meanwhile, carry on! Actually,
may I carry you on?
Love
Bob
_________________________________________________
Cry cry cry or crycrycry?
Rolling on the floor
In your imaginative work of sitting and talking
Preparing a glass of water and I am storming out of the room
Out of your life out the window out the body tree edge
Of earth crycry rollroll mindmind movemove byebye
_________________________________________________
September 11 Every Day
World is being led by a dumb monkey
A stupid monkey name of George who cheated and we let him
& we're so smart we use Birth Control so there are fewer of us
& the Fundamentalists can have the big families &
just take over the world
_________________________________________________
For You, When You Are Rebecca
All the words rearranging themselves the chairs
Having been so uncomfortable must be art!
Now you say you want to actually sit in them.
The chairs reply something Form and something
Something else Function. Like a menu:
Such delightful meal that you eat
And though you are hungry now
You will never be hungry again.
Go ahead. Sit, rest. Eat, sleep.
_________________________________________________
Inside the Synagogue is Mars.
Inside Mars is Your Apartment.
A poem for the opening of Angel Orensanz's
installation, "Flying NASA Lab," 1/15/04
You land on Mars and you're never coming back
It looks like Earth because you come from Earth
Hello Mars, this is Flying NASA's Lab Report from
Rover Spirit beaming pictures and pride explosions
You land you are free but it's not land you land on
It's chutzpah art, enriched detritus, covered in penguin dust
It's Chinese Yiddish. No, Yiddish Chinese.
And It of course is Not It, but
A Red Carpet to the Stars, a Panoply
Canopy of Sky Snowing Plaster Memory
It, meanwhile, is just chilling, circling in space ballet
A woman, man, manikin in a spacesuit bikini
Recycle Mars trash art. I live in New York, Mars,
My kinda planet. The fire extinguisher hisses
Chemical temple soup. The ladder
Raises an eyebrow to the sun. Look down, there's everything!
Everything is what Mars is, and it looks exactly
Like your apartment! A synapse leaps here, goodbye
Poem to reader, hello! Send me a postcard
From Mars, sign it Angel. Drift wood drifts by.
Hollywood leftovers -- Movieland
Caterers' lonely folding chairs now a mountain
On the plains of Mars, as Martian ants
Parade balance tightrope strings
Weaving the whole thing together.
Big Iron snowshoes. Luckily it snowed.
A crater rocked over, that is our mission.
We call it the Lower East Side, twelve
Candles in a row. The melt is on!
Inside the artist's mind, his
Hair! No! Hair goes on outside, drifting over
Angel's forehead reflected in a black disk
That rescues the symmetry of light.
What the hell is that poet doing? What
Is he talking about? What's the meaning
Of meaning? What's the purpose
Of purpose? What's the use.
Can I use it? It feels so good
To refuse it. Refuse to be burnt out.
Refuse to interpret. Refuse to move.
Refuse to refuse. Refuse to shut up.
Inside the synagogue is Mars.
Inside Mars is your apartment.
And behind the door, an old woman
Is waving you in. Come in, she says. Please.
The trip to Mars is but a jaunt, a passagiata.
Walk in art, walk in artist's mind. Walk
In poem. Walk in the synagogue of your apartment.
Strolling past Mars, you keep going.
Goodbye, you wave. Goodbye which means Hello.
_________________________________________________
Like everybody else, I wasn't a Jew
Until I came to New York. In Portland, OR,
The other day, a young Latina asked me
If I were Jewyorican. Papa and Bubby
Came from Ukraine, landed in Brooklyn,
Settled in Harlan, KY, and named my father
Benjamin Franklin. My mother, the offspring
Of a coalminer, married Ben, the only Jew
In town. He didn't last. Ma remarried.
In kindergarten, in Cincinnati, instead
Of moving to the afternoon session the second
Semester, I stayed in Morning and changed my name.
This is the year 5755. In Chinese it is Year
Of the Dog. I just learned that the time between
Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur
(Day of Atonement) are the Days of Awe. Moody
And gray, with dashes of absolute clarity, I love
These days. Cleansing summer's sweat from the streets
Of New York, I always think of the year beginning in
September. "That's when school starts." A holdover
from Youth. This year, for the first time, woo,
It's the real New Year, and I am a real Jew.
A real Jew, and a real coalminer's son, too.
_________________________________________________
Johnson to Dylan to Holman (Robert to Bob to Bob)
Looks nothing like a man of stone no high-strung temperament
Almost childlike, an angelic figure innocent as can be
Wearing white linen jumper, coveralls, that Little Lord Fauntleroy cap
Nothing like a man with a hellhound on his trail
Immune to human dread
Stare at his image in disbelief
_________________________________________________
Kaira Peace
--as sung by Papa Susso to Bob Holman
Kaira is a word
It is the word for Peace
Kaira means Peace I think you can hear that
Kaira Oh how Papa Susso loves that word Kaira
Papa Susso, the Internet griot with a BA degree
It is such pleasure to sing Kaira up and down kora strings
Listen to Kaira, that pleases peace, Please Peace Now
Slavery is over, that’s what peace means
1945, West Africa, you know the World War
Was happening – Kaira – but in West Africa,
In Senegambia, 1945 was the year slavery was abolished
No more slaves means peace – Kaira!
Now it so happened that a few years later
There was a rich man in Guinea
Name of Kaira-ba Toure, his name
Was Peace and he loved Peace so it was all together
And there was a great great great balafon player, I’m talking
Teneng Sory Diabate, who saw this and rededicated Kaira
To this patron of the arts and this patron of Peace, Kaira, Kaira-ba
Now listen here is Kaira
Slavery abolished but people still fight for power, Kaira
The jeli sing Kaira and people who come from the slave families,
Well, they still call themselves slaves, they walk around
Only now they follow no one. They are looking for work like everyone else.
And the power struggles you could say they go on to this day
This New Year Day let’s know this word Kaira
It’s a word for Peace, it pleases peace, Please Peace Now
With slaves in Mauritania and Sudan -- Kaira
With political prisoners in US and Eritrea -- Kaira
With people dying in Iraq even though the war is not a war -- Kaira
The kora plays the contradictions and plays for Kaira, for Peace
That is Kaira, the word for Peace
Please Peace Now
Kaira is the word for Peace
_________________________________________________
Kulafaso! Celebration for the Feast of Feasts!
--as sung by Papa Susso to Bob Holman
Folks! It’s celebration time
The whole Village is celebrating
We’ve come together so let’s celebrate
How can we celebrate New Years?
I got a good idea
I got it from the griot, Papa Susso
(What a voice he has!)
(Also not a bad kora player)
Let’s go visit Jojo Diggery, aka Jekere Bayo
Why shall we do that? you may ask
Let’s ask Papa – Papa, why visit Mister Jekere Bayo?
Only one reason, Bob – he is the richest man in the village
And once he hears our poem about New Years
He’ll shower us with positivity in the form of cash
With which we can fuel the Celebration
And make everyone happier and more joyous
And prosperous to the extreme in the New Year
We’ll dedicate this to all the businessmen
So that Jekere Bayo won’t feel like he’s the only patron
We can do this poem at the Bowery Poetry Club
And we can record this song and all our fans can shower
Us with their greenery, their fine dances and great jokes
We know how to celebrate!
Kulafaso! Kulafaso!
Without the poem there can be no celebration
Without the poem there can be no New Year!
Happy New Year to the Whole Village from Papa & Bob
This message was brought to you by Jekere Bayo
_________________________________________________
Len Freedom
We'll line up alphabetically according to height
March off into the tame yella closer
And eata eata
Them's my Potatoes, stew em
Fracture blind and blustery
All I ask is Shut the Fuck Up and gimme
_________________________________________________
The Listeners
Meanwhile the pianist redoubled her speed
The musical emotion was at its height
a servant passing refreshments on a tray
the spoons clinking you glance your lover
is signaling you, to go away, a newlywed
tries to catch the host’s eye in order to send him
a look of gratitude for having “Thought of her”
the spinnet whirls itself rises on its legs
the final chord snatching off all the clothes
of the listeners not noticing the grasping radiance
Some Years Later
an impotent, blind, dizzying anguish over the bottomless abyss
exceptional and ephemeral feelings of warmth and cordiality
he never deviated from his affability
never rebelled against their dogmas
and they sensed too the impossibility of imposing them on him
The Loveliest Vision of a Work of Art
transcending the wrong notes
coaxed by unskillful fingers from
an out-of-tune piano
which notes random notes plucked to form
the piece you hear the meaningful piece which colors
the painter hurled them randomly as I seized the
ones that speak the notes that connect that tell it that show it
not as intended who could say that what is intended
as this moment looking to you dear Readers dear Listeners
the background goes foreground your childhood now
the notes insinuating a lost melody suddenly recalled
a trifle that breaks your heart and you suddenly
epiphanize the painting stepping clear through pure
color and whirling this way and that never escape
Then he stopped thinking about it
Not so much an impediment in his speech as quality of his soul
Alost of the demimonde
Proust on Cell Phone
…as long as we do not know about the expedient by which that impossibility was
circumvented
The Hen, Having Just Laid an Egg, Sings at the Top of My Voice
For the Most Part Not Even Written Down
As much inaccuracy as simple good-heartedness
were derived not from books but from a tradition that was at once very old and
very direct, uninterrupted, oral, deformed, hardly recognizable and alive
I Would Clear an Unknown and I Thought Fatal Path Within Myself
until the moment when a natural trail like that left by snail
added itself to the leaves of the wild black currant vine
My Sensuality Spread Through All the Domains of My Imagination
the discord between our impressions and their habitual expression
as tapering, scaly, imbricate, checkered, yellowing and granulose as two spikes of wheat
old age prepares for death, wraps itself in its chrysalis
inexpressive glances
a little overly elaborate, but so pleasing
Our Museum of general ideas – no new allowed there
puberty of grief
to spare her plum colored skirt the spots of mud under
new elements
as we will see later
The idea of perfection
fat as a fist
in front of my bodily eyes
the eyes of my memory
secondary, familiar, anonymous figures, as lacking in individual character as an “extra”
onstage
it was the hour and it was the season when the Club was its most multiform, not only
because it is more subdivided but also because it is subdivided in a different way
a primordial unworthiness
artificial, secondary and transversal line
a smile formed that was simply the timid adumbration of a kiss
a hat for paying calls rather than a beret for playing
I was recalling, that it was truly my love for her that I was augmenting little by little like
a book as it is being written
ethnic eczema and the Prophet’s constipation
kissing the harmonious fleeting body as it passed
murmured like a perfume
had assumed the disguise of this body of sound
she’s just married off her daughter, or her lover, I can’t remember which; maybe both of
them…and to each other!
We do not tremble except for ourselves, except for those we love
_________________________________________________
Make Noise
--- written for the New York Public Library & read from the steps, 8/19/04
We gather at the Library
To hear the books speak
For themselves!
The covers evaporate and sonicize!
Drums escapaphonic tympanic sprout symbols!
Metaphor realize the incantation concatenations roar!
Cannons’ canonization! Rereradioization carumba rumba carousal espousal!
Snippyzaps – sheer lightning o’ Thunder!
Crackles of roar! Overbrimful soar o’er!
Sirenic titanic barrage crash!
Lash! Bash crash!
Smash trash! Lash bash!
ROAR!
Rarararararara Roarrrrrrrrrrr!
_________________________________________________
The Minnesota Activist Series #1
General Burps
I ruffruffruffruff [coughs]
beg on my goddamn knees to differ How?
and How come? and
Why! as the Wi-i-i-se Womanwomanwoman
useta saysaysay
The Stand Up
The Sit Down
The Walk and Folks, guaranteed,
that’s about it
(although sometimes The Walk is known as “Walk the Walk”)
Thank you and Good!
Night! [blackout]
The Stand Up
The Sit Down
The Walk and Folks, guaranteed,
that’s about it
(although sometimes The Walk is known as “Walk the Walk”)
Thank you and Good!
Night! [blackout]
Still, …. [41 second Pauze][That is a German pause]
Once the Body BECOMERS the Body Politic [Burp]
and viceievicieversey [taunts]
Once the Body Politic BECOMERS the Body [Faux Burp]
you say
I Will HOP To Work
you say
you always say
I WILL LIE DOWN ON THE JOB
you will say Hopping and Lying>
down
down down
These are my jobs as human
To Evolve!
To Evolve and to Kill the Tyrant!!
_________________________________________________
The Minnesota Activist Series #2
Pasta Mon
Pasta Mon cookin in a limousine
Windows rolled up - poem written in the steam
Poem starts to change - to a recipe?
I'm cookin up a story! You still hungry?
Deep in the blue sea deep in the memory
Connected, perfected - totally poetry
Yuppie got a puppy & the baby got a Pamper
Doin the 500 in Winnebago camper
Why?
Why?
Why Pasta Mon cry?
Back in the history I shot the deputy
For not makin sauce sufficiently garlicky
Everyone entangled in a single ecstasy
A single strand of Pasta Mon's linguini
This is the wild life! Carbohydrates? Out of sight!
"Pasta Mon Fashions" give eyesight insight
See the world through spaghetti headlights
Ravioli figleaf? Pasta Paradise!
Why?
Why?
Fresh onions is why
So much pasta Mon cannot give it away
What's the matter with a platter of pasta pat‚?
Keep the homefries burnin - a sorbet gourmet
You too can have your own authentic Pasta Mon beret
Pasta Mon starrin on his own tv show
Yesterday's menu's already obsolete-o
Today, I'll show you how to roll a pasta-filled burrito!
W/ no habichuelo on the tuxedo
What's for dindin?
Pasta,
Man.
Pass the Pasta Pan!
It might boil over - the pot is bubblin
It might boil over your mind that's troublin
It might boil over - dynamite
Might boil away to nothin, spoil your appetite
It happened to me while readin Weekly Reader
The future was coming - it would be beater
Beater. Deffer. Bigger forever.
Sun on the horizon - it was always risin
What happened?
(I'm just askin)
What happened?
Huh?
The Future is here - the Past is a goner
All stuffed in a pasta shell of once upon a
Time when the rhyme would be flora and fauna
A cheese syntheses: Utopian lasagna
A nickel for a can & a nickel for a bottle
A trickle down sound from the nickel that bought you
America the Beautiful in quarantine
A cardboard mattress and a cardboard dream
What happened?
(I'm just askin)
What happened?
Huh?
Barbecue trashcans linin the Hudson
Dogs are howlin as you throw the spuds on
Pasta Mon's recipes gettin kinda smelly
Rat ratatouille & vermin vermicelli
It might boil over the pot is bubblin
It might boil over it's your mind that's troublin
It might boil over - dynamite
Might boil away to nothin, spoil your appetite
What happened?
(I'm just askin)
What happened?
Huh?
_________________________________________________
The Minnesota Activist Series #3
14 Things to Do Before Friday
1. The cry behind the cry
2. Free Jazz
3.Free the shadows from the bars
4. Sit on the verandah overlooking the sweep of lawn
as the miniature ebony elephants race across your feet and the dark
simian leaps into your arms: Now you can solve the case!
5. Everyone has to be baptized for something
6. Repair all appliances. Add electrical outlets everywhere
7. Introduce white trash sushi (white bread rolled paper thin.
Fillings are tuna or ham salad. Roll thin and slice diagonally.)
8. Make peace with family -- start a new one
9. Look back
10. Free more things: free though, free food, and free love, for
starters. Also free all debt. Finally: Free the Slaves!
11. Do something worth remembering. Forget it
12. Stop writing poetry
13. Invite everyone over for dinner. Don't be home. Observe from
a safe distance.
14. Impregnate yourself
_________________________________________________
The Minnesota Activist Series #4
The Opening of the Big Museum
It was big, you were lost, the art leads you sure, but you are lost
In the art
There were colors, all friends & shades, & escalators, saying see
You later
At the top, there is so much space, blink your eyes reopen, leap
Into space
Remarkably attenuated, yet forcefully blank, there was nothing you could do
About it
Many’s the time you were forced to draw the blinds behind & stare solely
At the art
Wandering drifts so many mazed passages & treats of eye flash that you’d stop
At nothing
Just to see everything was the trick of the day, carousing conflicts of mind &
Memory
At just the right moment the helicopter would land offering to whisk you up
& away
You wave it on over the edge’s horizon and keep on searching for what is
right
Before you
The Museum is opening, continually opening, waves opening you, waves
Opening you
_________________________________________________
The Minnesota Activist Series #5
The Impossible Rap (The Other Thought)
Last night just as I was passing into sleep
One final thought began to race me to the dream
Intercepting the sweet powers of Morpheus
Pressing me to wakefulness and purpose
I drew my pen and prepared to set down this marvel,
Final thought of my existence so it seemed
The thought itself panting, near Death, as I
Retrieved it: it called itself, The Other Thought
What? A thought appearing in my mind that was not of my
Thinking? A thought I thought I'd exiled that thought,
Banished it as not of me, not me enough, then urging
Me to please shut up, The Other Thought continued:
"Do not dwell upon the political implications inherent in your
Inability to entertain any but your own precious thoughts, Buddy.
Rather, amend your ways to allow Other Thought's existence.
Write not The Poem; write, The Other Poem!" 'Tis impossible!
I countered, for by so doing, by giving vent to The Other,
Am I not precluding the very basis of my own existence, essence
Of me? At that, the thought became a shiver that coursed
My spine, and I find myself engaged in application:
To rap the rap with the truest groove
There's no stop gap from the first remove
This either/or thing
Is just one more thing
A touch too much
A tad too bad
A bit to wit
A might too tight
Explode in your mind, a tiny grenade
Leaving the impression The Other Thought made
I never thought
I never thought
I never thought The Other Thought
Hey, wait a second
Wait a second second
This is Impossible!
The Impossible Rap
Is ready to appear
Is it possible that
You are ready to hear
It has something to do
With what you just said
It's the thought you can't remember
In the back of your head
It's the dream you won't surrender
When you get out of bed
Just Return to Sender
Think The Other Thought instead
The Other Thought The Other Thought
The Other Thought's gonna get you
The Other Thought's gonna get you
If you say rapping is just scratching on the surface
I think I know what's making you so nervous
You say you don't understand the beat?
Put your ears to the ground and listen to your feet
It's Impossible!
But undeniable
It's ubiquitous
Don't hold me liable
It's always behind you
When you turn around
Just out of sight
Just underground
I never thought I never thought
I never thought The Other Thought
I never thought The Other Thought
Might as well go to bed
Chill that hot thought head
Good night! Sleep tight.
Twixt waking & sleeping
That Other Thought is seeping
Creeping & leaping into place
Right before your face
With a certain grace
Well, in that case:
Is it Impossible?
Sine qua known!
It's a itsy bitsy schizy
Other Thought's on the phone
It's so humiliating when your brain is on call waiting
It's so humiliating when your brain is on call waiting
Back back back
Back before you said it
Back back back
Back before you thought
You were there too
How do you do?
Is your thinking on the blink
What is it to you
Can't tell what from...what not?
That's what The Other Thought's Thought thought
That's real clear
You can take your tongue out of my ear
Another Other Thought is surfacing
While the surface disappears
Caramba! (Take a number)
Caramba! (Take a number)
Get in line with your mind
Get in line with your mind
I'm in with the Out Crowd
The Other Thought's cryin' out loud
Take the alternate take the alternate take the alternate take
The rush to resolution is not a solution
The Impossible Rap
Is ready to appear
Is it possible that
You are ready to hear
It has something to do
With what you just said
It's the thought you can't remember
In the back of your head
It's the dream you won't surrender
When you get out of bed
Just Return to Sender
Think The Other Thought instead
TRANSCEND
THE END
_________________________________________________
The Minnesota Activist Series #6 (on DVD)
Whatever I Was Thinking Of
What could I have been thinking of!
Thought. I was a-thinking thought. All
I was was thought and I needed to get “it”
Out. It rhymed. It was a story, an image
Slugs your face like a lost skylark, timed
Like a suicide, the Thought countered.
Hey wait, I am the thought! But inner
Workings, well, who’s to know till “it”
Gets out. Even a Poem turned to the wall
You can read shadow, it is pre-writing….
It is, as Prof. Ong says, “nested in
Sound.” Where does the ong come from?
From song. Wrong strong gong daylong
Dipthong. Playing ping pong with King Kong.
Sigh. How much terror can one life hold?
The way you held me, that death smell.
Can the idea of thought keep Death out?
I thought you were dead but it was me.
My father, the suicider, and then my step-
Father followed and as ever, yours, father-
Less. I always feel like a fatherless child.
It took vowels to develop analytic thought,
They go cheek to jowl. Like the saying,
A picture is worth a thousand words, why
Is it a saying? You aughta be a picture
Of a man crying with a child crying beside
Him and an unspeakable wind, idiot,
A fog with two lights sticking out of it.
Sure they go up too far, illuminating
Nothing and they are in the wrong place
Too, but what would you have us do?
Now we are us, we are all thinking about
Every skylark, accident after accident
Until the horrible truth finally dawns: it’s
Dawn and you are still awake and the streets
Are long and lonely and dark and Mr. Ong’s
Guitar gently weeps. I think I want Mr. Ong
To be my father. That thought rapidly passing
The other way a fireman heading up the stairway
Looking for the fire while the bodies fall
All around. Apples. Gravity. The Afterlife. Suddenly
Praise poems are obituaries, Papa Susso taught me that.
If you listen, the walls will speak the Poetry. Writing
Is Death. So busy remembering everything he forgot
To do anything worth remembering. Get milk.
A singalong, passed on and on generationally till
It loops into an epic. Read that back. Dadotdit. Thought
Is sound. A brilliant collapse, what I’m saying
Through corpse: Thought reinvigorating. It’s
Agonizing Everso. The Year of the Grandson. Hello.
End of Final Message. I’m happy, why did I say
That? Contained, under the hat, universe condenses
Into single image, image of song, song of a
Painting, painting of dance, a dancing poem.
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The Minnesota Activist Series #7
Do Not Delete! Two Found Poems Rescued From Spam
Don't Forget
it's free popcorn chicken day at kfc
:Would you like some Extra income?
I'm not talking about getting rich.
I'm talking about a few hundred a week.
All you have to do is sit in front of your computer
for a couple hours a day!
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Muse Out of Town
All the Italians are happy
You're from there but the Berliners
Are happier because you are there
Now so we should be happiest
Because you will be coming home
Gotta ghetto New York breathe
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Night of the Living Dead Every Day
“Help Me
I Can See”
--sign on Pedro Pietri’s begging can♣
Spalding and I in No Exit. He is just dead
as I am age 56 today, living. “Sartre says,” Spalding says
“Buñuel,” continue I, “Exterminating Angel”
To die in water, to be hauled to air
I walk the earth fair who cares
“It is spring again, I wonder
why,” as James Schuyler once said
wrote to no one
in particular and always
the empty chair and table with full glass
What can I say
write? Swimming
upstream to Green
Point, the icy flow and corduroy
ferrying home. You can’t
sleep with the fishes cause
the fishes don’t sleep as Nick
Jones says
sings. Spuddy’s solid strokes pulling
even with his dragging foot
and head plate, towing me
to shore where we rest for a while.
As I was saying and saying
I was saying as and as I was
and as I was saying what I
was saying was what I was
The doors and windows of Romero’s
Night of the Living Dead conveniently
open in one direction but they open
and the zombies are everywhere. Spalding
is dancing with them, Buddha doing a soft
shoe round the empty chair on the empty table
brandishing the full glass and I am trying
to write it down down
like time sinks. “Good line!” tosses Spalding over
his shoulder. Then, “Who can rhyme
sublime with sublime and love with
doubt’s the bottom line?” He whoops,
red-faced & leering ecstatic and never
dead, straight into his name.
Now we are here forever someone mentions (OK, me)
trying to make the lines that add
up not
down dissolving chair into table all into glass
.
Only I am breathing. “Awfully
parochial,” says my man Spalding
who is talking so fast I can’t write it pure
sound highest-speed synapse crackle
“I can’t sleep I can’t sleep” sings
Spalding remembering everything
Just a couple more: how ancestors become family
causing to escape the word Happiness
which will be poem with no metaphors allowed
not one word poem but one life poem
as zombies
scale the walls in Sag Harbor
busting in as the room breathes
axes in the windows they are singing
Happy Birthday to you, surprise,
but the words are Auld Lang Syne
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Not Much but Something
not much but something out
of nothing ain't bad keeping
company with yourself opening
the door to the ear hello is
all the mouth can say till you stick
meaning in there
like a violin piano bass drums
ok for Ornette a horn
that scratches
into the comfort zone
I remember
we spent those days remembering
and at the end what we had were
a whole lot more memories
remembering the future is what Bang swang
his lithity placating the harmonies
growling from hunger for peace
he'd say Part 2 or 3
keeping track is a drag making tracks
is a pastime and the single step into it
Forever After as in no now
say now anyhow NO to the wars
seeping blood into music
here's blood in your ears
snapdragons foxgloves hollyhocks
adorn my lover's walkway, her
path of slate I laid the pond
behind the barn behind the house
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On the Edge
On the verge of understanding
On the verge of a crash landing
On the verge of don’t you mention
On the verge of nonintention
On the verge of blacking out and waking up another person
On the verge of starting fresh by making up another version
On the edge
On the other side of mourning
On the thought that dies a-borning
On the preacher’s sentiment
And your lover’s subtle hint
On the crossroads of the alley
And the interstate of folly
On the edge
You can keep the pace forever stopping never changing horses in the middle
of the stream of racing consciousness and dreams
Out their window with the window and your narrow blindered vision allows
the light to fracture glass and pitch you back upon the grass
You’re just passing through
Excuse me, are you through
Outta my way, I’m coming through
Now that you’re through
How do you do
On the edge
On the verge of a discovery
On the verge of full recovery
On the verge of falling over
On the verge of growing older
On the verge of comprehension
On the verge of full retention
On the edge
There’s nothing you can do but what you’re doing when you’re through with what you’re
doing then the one you face is you
So climb onto the ride of time the one that doesn’t slow to climb the freefall total flight of
immediacies’ intricacies
which you hold on to on the edge
on the edge of the very edge
On the verge of waking up
On the verge of making love
On the verge of exasperation
On the verge of collaboration
On the verge of the merge
Submerging the urge
On the verge of calling up the one you said you’d never call again
On the edge
You can start it all all over in the midst of a hangover on the white cliffs of Dover on
your knees to old Jehovah
Does it matter which direction when it’s the resurrection and your imperfection reflection
waits at the intersection
You’re on the verge of giving up
On the verge of giving in
On the verge of something new
But then again again again
We’re on the edge
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picasso in barcelona (dance version for Yoshiko Chuma and Pooh Kaye)
At Fourteen I Could Paint
At fourteen I could paint better
Than Leonardo Da Vinci
So after that I could dash
It off to prove I could
And then paint myself in
A motherfucking wig
In 1900 the future
Opened up its arms
I invented the car
And Rembrandt
I'll show you
My mother is the sea
She heaves under the white foam
I look at people
I paint them
Looking at me
El Greco Was Cool
He drew down
I draw up
Make it look down
Sit on a bench
Wait for time to catch up
My mother was of the large size
I could paint her holding me
Before I could hold a brush
And was famous
The young painter
Unconsciously sails
Off into the unknown
I am unconsciously drawing this
With charcoal that sticks to my fingers
Gets under my nails
Take off your clothes
I will make a book cover
And put a photo of me on the back
To make sure it sells
She will become my blue period
Now she stands there unconcerned
Put in a cigarette. There.
Embraceable Me
Arms around orange
And lines straight to the ground
You'd never know
He has a hard on
Thus began my blue period
Every worm on the boulevard
Is in love with me
I Am Working Hard Now
On my signature
Also, the oysters and lemons
Signify my sex
The white shadow is what
I fear most
But will not admit it
Except to paint it
Nakeder
Instanter
I'm quite attracted to the crazies
I am one of you
My pen takes its own life
There are no others
With my other eye
I am looking at you
Inventing Cubism
I got it on with B
We invented C
Who Is In The Mirror
I don’t know your name
But you could use a shave
My love
Will you
Hold this
Brush in
Your mouth
While I
Thrust the
Canvas up
And down
Thank You
Thank me
Some Other Painting
Of course I will marry you
As soon as I finish this damn paiting
Hold still
The Miracle of Triangles
Is they never wear out
Room Full of Blues
Room full of me
No More!
No. More.
These would look good
In the living room
Over the sofa
Have I told you about my nose yet?
It is not, for example, in the center
Of my face. In fact, it is not
On my face at all.
Here dance the flamenco
On a cork
And later that cork
Is all you will wear
First Paint the Cork
Then use the cork to paint with
Then paint with the cork
Then put your nose back on your face
See if I care
I felt a little rain
And the Fawn said,
“If the old gods could help me now,
I’d buy one of your paintings!”
Skull on Book
I’ll read the skull
I’ll fuck the book
Don’t Talk!
Please don’t talk to each other
I am trying to draw you
Talking to each other!
Every morning I wake up
Give myself a big kiss
And paint a masterpiece
Then I have a coffee
Running Towards Death
They call me genius
But I cannot confront Death
Don’t you know, my loves,
My sandals, my sail, my sad --
All I paint is Death
_________________________________________________
Push Back, If Not Break Through, the Boundaries of Poetry
Sing! O Muse!
Or, Shut the fuck up.
Let guitar bleed turntable tumbleweed skritch! Mouth work overtime!
I may be poor wayfarin’ stranger
But I still loves ya Baby
I got my fishing line doing double-duty on the kora
Blasted a love pit into fractious Tribeca
& I’m a fool I’m a fool for your love
This ain’t nothing but rock’n’roll told by a lyre
A keen-edged consortium of vowels and cons
Guaranteed to be your steady companion,
Sidekick lover, your other Other
Listen to me now
Hey
Once and believe you me once is enough
Once the baby stopped squalling long enough for the sun to set
Once WCW had set down the black bag and cluck clucked
I never no I never want to go back there again dear Alice
I will never leave you again
Hiccup pogo stick accordion the connect
Speaking of speaking poem, its life,
It’s Thomas McGrath’s & Gwen Brooks’ “Li Po Assignment”:
To greet the moon from Po’s boat and TS Eliot’ll footnote
Li Po’s a mite drunk tonight as he paddles to the middle lake
Whereupon he commences to speak directly to the moon
Excepting that it is the moon’s reflection he is speaking to
So he dives overboard and drowns in the moon
I will do that, I hum to my father
I will do that too
I will drown in the poem
Drown in moon
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Sudden
We would go there, into the dark, into the rain, to the place we’d call Mildew Bungalow.
Now all our parents had warned us and we’d all promised, which made Mildew
Bungalow all the more enticing, all the more magnetic, the total aspiration of our need.
What was it? we’d be hard put to answer, except that we knew, that this was the most
fearsome place, the awfullest, and we were going there to prove we could, to become
men, and women, and heroes, and gods.
All of the sudden. As in, plop it all. We gonna and we gonna and we gonna. The
senseless joy, the joyless sense.
_________________________________________________
Swing Into Heavy
First we round up the mbira poets and the Bed-Stuy Santas
We go up to Harlem, Striver’s Row, and we tunnel to Columbia
All a dance
_________________________________________________
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing regarding my patient, Robert Holman, and his claim to the Crime Victims
Board.
Mr. Holman works and resides at 173 Duane Street, five blocks from Ground Zero. He
observed the collapse of both buildings from his home office; he observed people
jumping from the building while seeking solace and community on the street.
It is my judgment that Mr. Holman was traumatized by 911; he is currently under
medication, Zoloft and Welbutrin, partly due to his experiences. He has dreams of
buildings catching fire as he walks past them. When he is riding his bicycle in the
neighborhood, he says he feels the sun a shade brighter, which causes him to remember
that his route used to be in the shadow of the Twin Towers.
My diagnosis is that Mr. Holman suffers from depression exacerbated by his experiences
of September 11, 2001.
_________________________________________________
Top 10 Spam Subject Lines of 2004
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As seen on oprah
_________________________________________________
URDU POEMS translated by Bob Holman
Song (after Dr Shafiq)
I’ve left
I got a mortgage
Sold the house didn’t repay the mortgage
So marry me
In my last life you said no
This time around – I am rich and on the lam
So let’s do it do it do it
Let’s invent love
And spin in the opposite
Direction from the world
L’Amour Fou (after Noon Meem Danish)
You drive me crazy, Crazy Love!
Stop kissing me, Wind!
Stop getting me drunk, Water!
Stop staring at me, Automobile Headlights!
I’m walking everywhere, stopping only to change my feet
Thank goodness for Daytime, I can see where I’m going
Too bad about the Night – no Light, no Sight, no Love
The Dove dives into my head and flies off
But my head stays put
The Revolutionary (after Kamal Hamid)
When you’re a revolutionary you must
Resolve the riddle of Doing by Doing More
Blood is only liquid
The result is ice
Not to melt
But to hold its form
What was that you said?
Sit still a thousand years
The stars will
Move for you
Love Poem (after Hammad)
Make an arc with your hand
Put an arrow in that bow
Shoot the arrow into your Lover’s heart
Touch the bare ground, the flowers you remember there
Your lover’s feet the flowers now, on the dust
Trembling and dancing to the silent songs
Toast with invisible wine, hear the sun in thunder
Sure it’s raining, so take your clothes off
The fiery roses dangle with redness and set the gardens all aglow
The Tale of the Taj Mahal (after Hassan Abbas Raza)
Be my guest and be my pleasure
May I introduce you to the Taj Mahal?
My name is Shah Jehan – don’t laugh! – and
This little bauble is your new home
The name is “Taj Mahal,” which translates: “Not Too Shabby”
I see you playing there with your friends, laughing at me
The last moments of life are approaching
Your visit however makes them easy to bear
Love (after Salahuddin Nasir)
Before there was Something
There was Nothing
Hello Something
Hello you, hello love, hello hello.
There is no simile for Flower
I will wait like a tiger
I will pounce like a stone
With no moth
The candle burns alone
Truth and Consequences (after Mun Mohan Alam)
I speak the Truth
For the first time
So you hear it as lies
This Truth creates a new world
Outfitted with new societies
The old lies are now true!
These new truths create this new world
We live here
Tomorrow when I leave
Rename the world
Body & Soul (after Ashraf Mian)
Look – the Spirit is saying goodbye to the Body!
They leave space so that they each may leave
Skin tears where wings once connected
There is nothing else, and the sky covers it
A cloud – “That is the Body,” says the Soul
A cloud – “That is the Soul,” says the Body
What tyrant demands this separation?
When we rejoin, our Mind will forget him
It is the Body and Soul that carries the scar
_________________________________________________
You Are Not Needed Now
Out the window the world
Streams plausibly nodding off on
The carp’s got your tongue
And your back bells and all
Might have been, or is, distinguishing
The candle from the light, the roar
Of the washing machine on its last quarter
Never mind. Around back, the children’s secrets
Whisper in the boxhedge. They are all grown
Now, the most important things left behind,
Forgotten, although still there,
A heart beating in a shell.
_________________________________________________
Zukofsky Centennial Columbia
Louis Zukofsky is a major three-day honor
scholarly panels, boxhedge
production of “A” 21
formal malformance
“work in progress” groups distinguishing
moderators; presents reflect
work includes 100-words, via
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