50/50

It was fifty years ago today
My mother taught the band to play
        Oompah twang
    twang bang
The balalaikas rose like Hokkaido's wave
dripping banjos drop by slo froze drop
Drifting gently half-century eyelash, simply melody
Goes like this cross
cut street cars whizz by

There were no cars of course this
Long time ago this half century of progress
Why in the olden days when I was burp boy
Who doest remember when what memory's forgot
Now in dawn's early light I think
Where's the damn light? dawn's late this morning
Grumpy worry lines a bag of creases
world tilts big time off axis
unsecures itself from globestand
and begins to roll cross the street
under whizzing cars startled carbonmono belches
this beach ball's on a mission

It is only natural something to do
Or not to do
What's the big to-do
The big to-do's always you
even when you are me trembling nude and hungry for you
because the world is now coming to rest at my feet my feet
rise into air and the globe resockets head
the !@#$@$#&^%$$@# swirls around
seeing stars we called it in the old days
when glacial winds daily lifted hairs off nape

    It's like this: born every morning just the same
into shrill ER Life Support System
lungs plug into finger whorl larynx huh gotta lotta nerve
and as the control panel finally begins to make sense
the eyes dim and terrible sweet pain overcomes
then, the balalaikas, after all this steady time, crescendo
mixing it up with the banjos
    it's about 50-50, which side you on
both sides
        take sides
friends and lovers, family and family
    no sides, all         center my heart
just in time, like now and how

 

 

 

_________________________________________________

 

 

Another Yawning Morn in the Port of Good News

 

 

 

Impressive, to say the least
One more poem, to say the most
"Good morning. People are boats.
Safe harbor of New York, cling
To the mizzen, the missus and her muezzin
Miss the mezuzah of miscellany..." -- it's
A mystery, how sounds become words
And it's a miracle that you still listen
To these scratches somewhere as between
As a head into ears. I am a cat,
Patiently settled at the door to freedom.
I can handle all the freedom, the city
Dishes out anonymity and at day's end
The morning will put on her coat and at
The day's end as she swings the door open
I remain sitting. And why not? I am now
With you, and it's no mystery, it's home.
Even the City that Never Sleeps sometimes
Goes to sleep. Good night. Good night.

_________________________________________________

At Mirrorman's Cafe

Too late, I guess, to get a word in edgewise
The napkin holder holds the salt-n-pepper too
Each toothpick individually wrapped
My coffee is your coffee

_________________________________________________

DISASTODROME NOTETICS 98 : for David Thomas

Something is trying to get said
The moon rising to harvest pale
Tonight--

[I don't want to say it, don't
Make me.] Take it to the car wash
Take it to the haunted car wash

"You've got that
Nightmare quality"

Nightmare crosses the patterns
It's closing in
Following on the backseat
Wherever you go reacting into info
[I cannot find the road]

It's as though every damn thing I've ever done
I've done wrong & you're reading
It to me in this haunted house
This haunted house that is my home
That is my coupe de ville, my car
[Just to see Just to say
how this is how
how it ends]:[weird cornfields]

I said I would miss you
I said I would not forget you
Every day seems just like another
Some days look the same

So, this must be my "tragic ending"
I just got a moment
There's a poem I wrote
Do you want to hear it
On the drawbridge's ear?

The horn is creaking
It doesn't make a sound
Just the creaking
Not a sound cept that

How'd I end up in Howling Bay
There's a place in Pennsylvania
This cornfield is it mine?
It's a nightmare. It's on the back seat.

The fly up guys are all in a line.
We'll take you out of the loop.
As we build up to a spot
You dot my eyes
I'll dot your eyes, Mr Crypto
Mr Cryptochange

Who will stand, who's more awkward
The songs seep in and the songs seep out
It's a similar shape -- next victim
Gotta put on my lucky jacket
You people never ask
These days it's enough just got to cover your asses

Nice haircut -- it's a major song
It's amazing how you can get all that stuff to sound like a drum machine
I'm sorry -- it was cruel. I thought you could take it.
But I can play out of time.
Out of time any time.
But I can play out of time.

Hey Buddy!
Happiness is a warm

A certain desperate happiness

Where do you get
All that stuff
In your head from

I want to take you as you are
And rewrite your name
I want to be like your name
And live in the heart of someone
I want to ride on a street train
A rusty mystery train
Ooooo, Oooooo

Only you know and I mean it
We live like we don't belong
In the night when we were fallin
We were too tired to hang on

If you don't like it, tape over it, tape now
If you don't like it, begin again somehow
Differentiate the check check check
Needn't be musical -- it can be worrisome
As long as we get it fixed

I can work with that aaaaaAAAAAAaaaaa
Play the cheese slicer, baby
I lost what structure you did not
I hate to disagree with you

I'd like to suggest a structure

It's the first time we've worked together

An actual gap where you can take a lead

Silence bout strangled itself

Real Time, Accordion Time
Just doing, some house sleeping
New Age Country -- good coinage that
Tuning the egg slicer
Playing the frog
That's sort of good -- or not

Booms in the middle Booms
When they're piling in

[Linda]
The heart of a good thing
Is the thing
We don't know
Bridges always come at the same place

Do not bury my feet
So I can dance on my grave

The heart of a good thing
Is the thing
We don't know
Bridges always come at the same place

It's not big
It's just huge

Discreet fragile booming

I'm a fly on a fly
Everything new begins too young
That's sort of good -- or not
Bad at the banter in-between

The vaguely something else feeling
Not the old ping pong balls in the tin can lid trick again
Rehearsing is cheating

This is an accordion
This is an accordion figure
This is an accordion

It goes on like the road
Not this floating thing but something worrisome
More doomed at the end
The Flying Dutchman of the Interstate
Dance around the Margins -- the Marginalization
Of the Dance

[Florida]Thinking is a mirror
Sensitive and slow we analyze
A prayer in your ear
How to Way to go
It comes up and goes down
Then somebody does something
So don't panic about it

Do it a bit faster
     Whistle your bones!
          One more time!

Hey Buddy!
Every Band has a Devil Boy
Grow up, Devil Boy!

Hey Buddy!
Happiness is a warm bus
A certain desperate happiness

#33 Livingston Baths when I was 7 or 9
At 14 the swimming pool was built in town
The good days are gone -- drive on
But how will these pale ribbons feed us
Where will we go and how will we know
and wherever will these aimless wheels lead us?

You're the lead, the Dude
Because we don't want?
People to say about him--
"He was too big for his britches"

A certain desperate happiness
From the land of the Bridge --
yadda yadda
Underplay the builds
When you get irritated, bite in

because they are playing spontaneously, my dear

Do wait until they have their riff together, senor

How long can you stay in How Long Bay
How long will you howl
When you have everything to say Sure I'll remember you and your pretty pretty dress
Your hat floated by with all the rest
How Long will you stay in How Long Bay
Howling away

The personal laser-powered backpack detection system
Always standing by on stand by

That Spanish bar with the Chinese food that's got all the wonderful German beers on draught

Roll out the ribbons
Force shape by not doing anything

The finger is just perfect, mildly cool
Play "Regardless" for me

All the faders have been pulled
You're the only fader left
It's a dimensional thing
Bends & hangs & disappears
You Will Do This
Make that a feature
Make it Saturday Night
Like that book, "Sunday Morning"
A sort of narration lying in bed and the light is sli   ced in bars the men & women are shouting cruelly on the streets & time begins to move
A little swing
A little swing That Becomes
A little swing That Becomes mere fingers on a drum thing

Stand bold and take everything off
reverb off echo off
stand in center stage, downstage centerstage
Unattached
& go

The morbid sky template

Do more of a part
Make some clear pitch, noise, something not very significant
The Classical pastorale needs to be phased in
Simply as simple as possible
Simple cymbals played backwards
The front words place heaven

Take the memory off
Lower the morbid sky
All the faders have been pulled
No crying in the lavatories stuff
Stage front and center
I'm not going to do anything
Turn the memory off

We want the sobby
The sobby sobby
We want the first Western when you're 12
Straight to sobby -- no volume anticipation

When the streets are on fire
Turn on the light
Do your part

Doing Your Part
But very significant
Force the shape by doing
Nothing. Back
To the long disappear

Play "Regardless" for Me
It's a dimensional thing
You will do this
Bends & hangs
Hangs & bends
Disappear

Shyer with those sucking in noises
Still a bit surgey
The Kind of Land Where the Singers Burst Into Song
Where speech is sung
Why Not Indeedy
Slobbing in & out
The silent traveler
The silent poet
The silent footstep
The silent murderer
The silent lover
The silent mover
The silent forest
The silent orchestra
The silent drawbridge
The silent forgotten
The silent dead
The silent catastrophe
The silent kindness
The silent resurrection
The silent brat
The silent tooth
The silent hard
The silent Texas
The silent retribution
The silent gentleness
The silent sigh
The silent morgue
The silent kindergarten
The silent noise
The silent silence
The silent rain

I can sing monotone in any key
The intro was what wise men sang
Shall I stay? They'll come in--
We'll come in. We'll play
A bridge. It'll be vague abstract
Groove alongish

All that's changed
It's they go along
On their own
Along on their own

He only does it for me
I'll have a blast of it
When no one else's around
Footprints on the inside of the glass ceiling
Climb down to the floor
The only time she loves me
Is when I ask for more

& every time I say these words
I lose my place among the barrels
I can't read how it ends
She reads it for me from my face
She does does does


Kept it this
Everybody kept at this
Except for you
you bring it in
really hard
like nobody else
that's you


Heads and better
Head off then at the end
The verse then
Comes up here.
And there again.


Slowly we dance
Into the level groove field
At the end of the day
Crank that baby!
Burst into dust
But not at first
Burst into dust
Until I look
You in the eye
And I'm not smiling

You can move
to a more pumping action
it's good to pump
the walk but don't
lose the swing

establish the tension
the terrible thing
a brick
on a piece of paper
making time
wonder what to do
Hey buddy
under a morbid sky

this is called deal with it
or, Make It Happen
It may come back
By the time we're done

[Jackie] Rock Idiomatically
Don't worry about Nothing
The added edge fits the shape
It's internal -- it's what
what it is -- it's
what it is
is what

Are you breaking up
Or is it art?

The road is a groove
The landscape stark

The enemy is tentative Ness
At the point of attack
Not a sound, a kick

Dry
Your job is to be
Everything
That's missing

Mondo up the Love Canal
Space the fear sparingly
Better to die a lion
Than a pig in a poke

Violence & golf & coal & fish & all in a silicon valley
Fife
Sonny Terry Brownie Magee Big Bill Broonzy Lightnin Hopkins
Fife
Music: some people love it some don't
Fife
A complicated way of saying something simple what?
s the point
Fife

The first bust of tremendous proportions
The inverse of what happened to me
Call A long slow crescendo a long slow crescendo
A bit malshaped out of the chaos
A nice tension Harder chords
Living between the frets

Wise men don't know
That they know
They know they don't
No they don't
Wise men know nothing
Not anything nothing just nothing nothing
You know everything now
Now that you Know that you know everything
The wise men know

[Linda]
The heart of a good thing
Is the thing
We don't know
Bridges always come at the same place

Do not bury my feet
So I can dance on my grave

The heart of a good thing
Is the thing
We don't know
Bridges always come at the same place

It's not big
It's just huge

I'm a fly on a fly
Everything new begins too young
That's sort of good -- or not
Bad at the banter in-between

Linda would like to bring her British racing green Mercedes # into the artists parking
Linda does not feel undersung in the least
Linda Singin Tammy for the Girl Guides,
She was proudest of her Woodworking merit badge. a boat that wouldn't float on its keel
and there was a silence
and the noise that beat back the silence and the silence disappeared into truth and that was voice hello hello

7:30 Peppermint tea and hysterical dysphonia, a mellifluous

Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished

_________________________________________________

Epithalamium for Amy & Chris Huffnagle Funkhouser

In a slap cap of dapper don't the mind
Of twain twin tambour find
I shan't be long now, rock to stone, these
Are a few of my blank things filled
With fulfillment's filigree of langerie

That fine morn epistle,
That bright noon whistle

Time out disappears for all we know
Hit the dusty trail. Whack the badger
Pointless to deny, a slender ring
So sweet and so cold, will you
Take this refrigerator, please?

Meanwhile back at the raunch you lounge
Been here all along, you chortle
All these you's are yours!
May yours they be so lucky, so long

_________________________________________________

Even Heavens You

Who tells rain from the mountain from
the distance of seasprayed eye?
In my worm-
state, I entranced the court of soil.

_________________________________________________

FAMILY

For Sophie @ 15

I know you know
I was there when you were born
A blue buddah, a bud of bird
I may grouse now you carouse
Tiny wings of life fluster memory
But the channel zapper always collaborates
Your floor is more

For Daisy @ 13

Everything you say is true whoops
Except for the whoops and the beauty
Of fingers? inactivity what do you say
To that, big gestures at that
A walrus once spoke to me, you
Were in my arms. You said, A song
Daddy, will you sing me the walrus?

For E @57

Between the two of us a world broadens as trillium of insistence
When there are no walls what do we hang the pictures on?
Love, and its cohabitaton, the husband-wife woman-man, our soul baby, us.

For Me @50

Look away to return to what do you see
It's the re that always turns to you and me

_________________________________________________

Fathers Who Cook

What it means to be a pappa these days is to keep your feet
off the ground while firmly planted on the floor of life's easily scuffed
sensitivities.

_________________________________________________

Forget Yesterday

What never happens,
Happens. The green bow.
Mercies. A light rain. Mother
And stepfather, the job of it. If I
Could do it all over, the pushing
Briefly set aside, dusty life.

The weary world's born all over;
The jungle rots into sensuous
Lubricity. A clear path is laid out
Behind you, and to go that way
Is to disappear forever. Because

It's the past. It's the past that never
Was. It's the unwilling will be. Come
On baby now, let's go surfing now
Come a surfin safari with me.

_________________________________________________

Flying Dutchman of the Interstate

Broadcast lullabye
The added edge fits the shape
A black car loves its shadow
Flying Dutchman of the Interstate
At the sound of the tome it will be the End of Time

_________________________________________________

Frankfurt Muse #1(for the Farankfurt Book Fair's Fiftieth)


Frankfurt Muse #1
(for the Farankfurt Book Fair's Fiftieth)


The poet
                    The poet
                                    The poet

The poet The poet The poet

Theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
            Po ------ e ------------ta--------------------------
                                           Speaks!

{improv: The...thethethe....po...popopo...et...etetet ....spu...spuspuspu...
eeks!!}

                                                        Sing!!!!!!!!!

                                Sing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
          Sing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


{basso O ------------------
{basso continuo Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse

                            {spoken} in speaking, creates

The word
                                        The world

{battle}




Frankfurt Muse #2


When the poet speaks
                        (2-3) The poet speaks
                                                    Nobody listens
When the poet speaks
                        (2 echo)...poet ...speaks
                                                    The poet speaks
{PAUSE}

Everybody hears
                        (2-3) Everybody hears...
The poet speak             The poet speak           The poet speak


                                                    What's the word? (to 1)
                        In the beginning was
What's the word?(to 3)
                        (pause, softer) The word
                                                    (Pause, softer )The word

all:
In in in
The begin in in
ining the beginning wordabird
(...)



Frank Muse #3

all:

THE INVENTION OF -- WRITING!!!!!!!!

hMMMMMMMMMMZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
                        hMMMMMMMMMMMZZZZZZZZZZZZ
                                            hMMMMMMMZZZZZZZZ

CLINK CLAN CLUNIK....
                        ROLL The Pencil innnnnnnnn.......
                                                scribe the scribe..............


{scene: Bitten sie scriven seine buche, Herr Grass?
well, harumph I must do my job
I am the table, the paper, the typewriter ribbon.........)

Once upon a midnight dreary while I
                                        pppppppppppppp
                                                            poetry

Franfurt #4

all: The Invention of -- Money!

                                    Writing is
(1&3) Money

                                                            (we just wrote that)

Business of
                                    booking the
                                                            selling the
all: The paradox of pure thought

encased in a black & red box
                                    on the auction block
                                                            Don't forget the Asian Serial rights

all: The Invention of the Buchmesse!

                                    Who will buy
                                                            Sell!
The scroll
                                    Fan the flames!
                                                            commerziale

Pocket my book
                                    read my thoughts
                                                            buy my library

Publish the thought!


all: Come. Hendecasyllables, one and all!

_________________________________________________

Hope

o, in by the way to the store we died
never bought the nectar which
woulda made the bread which woulda
fed the peepholes which woulda made
all the difference between life and dearth
between laughing death's matress cover
and the unfurled clit of morse code

that sun so bright we spit
a big wad of utopic vitaminicity
the swirled dustmites already
pinching the love barrel and
infinity is where we are
where no thing enters with hope
less a moment than a vote

_________________________________________________

I LOVE IT

When you dry
Your hair
In the wind

_________________________________________________

LA Trainwreck (or,  Le Trainwreck)   
    --pour Julie Dercle


Le noise lhorreur le boom!
La street is hot. Hothothot, bébébébébébé!
It's a late night boil, and who's aboil?
It's the burning noise of the etern.
Take le e-turn, bébébébé!
Et retourner le receiveur to la cradle
Do it now
Hang up nag up hang on hang on hang up
It's Le Trainwreck Time, End o? the line
LA Trainwreck all over town
Everybody rushes to get away from it
By running into it
Piling up on high climbing Mount EachOther
Place in the sun, a Richter vector,
Like a giant glass briefcase full of our poor souls
A filing cabinet to equal the Tower of Babel
I'd have to say it to say it
This is the time of le Trainwreck Grande
The big one, the A word, the shining disaster
The Burn. The Rapture. The End.

The guy next to you is quiET. quiET!
He?s sweating preofusely, emPHAsis on Fuse.
Got a bag full of reptiles and they are slithering
Le smell is powerful, of musky scales and deep loamy characteristics
Rubbin yr belly on the traintrack
Hear that mournful whistle b-l-o-w
Lo lo lo
allo allo allo
bébébébébébé
Is that you

Here in the Land of Managers
You?d better call yours on le cellular right now
Cause of account of this is the message
?Talk to my manager?
In the land of les managers
Even the managers have managers

Le trainwreck, LA trainwreck
Comin on down the line
Right at ya cannot get
Out of the way it's you
The train the track the body the speed
It's le or la and it's you trainwreck
Choo choo choo

_________________________________________________

Life Always Is
     ?Life is sweet when it is?
          --Kathleen Masterson

Walking across he hot Mall
It always is, DC madness
Cool as peaches my daughters
What year is it? Carrying Daisy
(Or was it Sophie) cross The Mall
Saying, ?This is your last trip
On my shoulders? and it was,

Something about that Mall.
So damn ?ficial. I'm tellin you,
As Cathlita, who used to clean
Our house would say. The idea
Of someone coming to clean. Her
Laugh. What one thing has
To do with another is without
Doubt.

_________________________________________________

Mirror Man Speaks
     --for David Thomas and Bob Kidney

Carson Lake
Sand Mountain
Cold Springs you'll bypass Desatoya Peak,
Cross New Pass Range over by Bob Scott, and in Jornada del Muerto
There's 250 souls, looking at you with 499 eyes -- the Journey of Death
For a hunnert miles you stare what appears to be a stone tower,
A mirage in a mirror, built for who knows why in who knows when by who knows who
Where the Great Basin empties in the Sulphur Spring Range.
Between the Wah Wah Mountains and Confession Ridge, uh, Confusion Range,
They call it the loneliest highway in the world
Where the road heaves up like a volcano of solitude,
A party of silence.
A shard of glass, a rear view tacked up on a porch post --
What's the mirror see, anyhow? The mirror is a sea, I'd say
?Drinkin coffee from a crimped up can....?
Why there?s even a Cleveland here if you take that detour north on 10
Hell that's no detour, right by Charlotte and Ruth -- places named for women
Can't even remember to forget em anymore
Over there where the names are stripped from the roads
So's all you gets numbers, whistlin the wind -- 15, 60, good ol 75
The flappin tin sign on the loose shingle board puts the price at 35 cen a gal,
And that's even afore there was such a thing as unleaded
35 cen a gal, and the highway bright and shiny and asking for more
Somebody said the past didn't go anywhere, and I'm just settin here till it does

               Bob Hole-in-the-head

_________________________________________________

My First Poem (1954)/span>

Ladies and Gentlemen, Hobos and Tramps,
Cross-eyed mosquitoes and bow-legged ants
I stand before you to sit behind you
To tell you something I know nothing about

Next Good Friday on Thursday
There'll be a Ladies Meeting for Gentlemen Only
Free Admission, pay at the door
Pull up a chair and sit on the floor

Once inside you'll be outside
And I'll be standing beside
A round table with four corners
On my left-hand side will be a book entitled,

?How Christopher Cucumber Sailed Up
the Mississloppi River? On my right-hand side
will be, ?The Declaration of Indigestion?
I'll be waving a Star-Spangled Bananner

_________________________________________________

Nail

The cursor is a hammer
The screen is a plank
You gotta walk the nail
Clank clank

opening I am poet list? me pain is funny, Zappaish if less cutting...A good feel, and some kind of groove if retro...?a nurturing rebirth? clapdoodle...?but little is known of the child's nature? -- huh? as opposed to what, Dr Benway?...WVUM...man w/ a bullwhip...racism and sexism -- you can't just say it...performance pushy preachy ...?On which so many? - too many words...images obvious--dreams ?seem? just beyond reach?...

_________________________________________________

O the O, for Joe Flaherty

said the all-vowel howl
the tiny moor of future
takes off every day
a line in the hand
poem sand paper

_________________________________________________

Poem on an Old Envelope in a New Year

The return of love!
The turning
Of song into paper, the anniversary
Scent is well what does time smell like, or,
Of? Misdirection,
The nose nesting in its Mustache. Testing
, sniff sniff. No, mistakes,
Mr. Postman admonishes the traffic
Cop, the nun nods
A code to your mother. All over
The city, people
Are drowning in grids. I guess
It's all a thank you, a casual
Insignificance,
A re-mark.
How do you sign
          without stopping?

_________________________________________________

Poetry

Sounds like first bird
Looks like red hillside
Smells like burning leaves
Feels like running water
Tastes like air

Feels like no blame
Looks like no blame
Tastes like no blame
Smells like no blame
Sounds like no blame

_________________________________________________

Remnants Performance (Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Poetry)  Groningen (Cafe Verla)  10/19/98   3:21 am

Kiwi egg toilet paper nest floor after-gig Groningen

to be floor to have seen from below and supported

to have been through under all to have remained

poets their mouths milling grinding spewing sieving

time getting stuck between mind-sharp incisors? husks

light-biters, heavy-spitters, raked naked, oratorians

ejaculating pojizzarama bang garbage lids? wrenches

walls melt under-sound wheelbarrows scrape cerebrum

nailing meaning music arrow flight snip kite string

kiwi egg toilet paper nest floor after-gig Groningen

solid flicker gaping totality eke syllable crust gasp

one big dive off the white apartment building waterfall

a jet of language trail to Sirius Dogstar visiting recording

scientific data interbreeding with alien populace returning

everybody pregnant all in a single glance remember

to breathe it's a good thing spilling every idea into sheer

invention children pop out of your suitcase and sit there

_________________________________________________

River of Life
    --for Seventeen


One time in the middle
Of a Fez rAP mEETS pOETRY night
Sev came up to me and said he was ?Sailin
Away on the River of Life?

It really wasn't like him
He was a pretty down to earth kind of guy
Even if he did live almost entirely in his head
Where he was the richest, most talented, sexiest motherfucker on earth

He hit the stage as often as possible, as often
As Bonz and I would let him, Bill gently pushing
Him on us, and every once in a while he was
He came off as the richest, most talented, sexiest poet rapper on the scene

And what he'd learn from that
Was to not repeat his success
But try some other dumb shit
Be boring sit on a chair read some boring prose

Tracie Morris, Edwin Torres, Samantha Coerbell and I
Had a Nuyorican Poets Cafe Live gig in Tempe
Sev had moved out to Phoenix to get his act together And he was great, squiring us around

But he was out of his element, too
A Queens dude stuck in the desert
And when he came home, he'd hang
At the Mouth Almighty office wondering what to do next

And yes he was first in line for a part in the movie Slam
Because he was the real thing, ur-rapper with talent a mile wide
And a destructive streak a mile high, and a bitter cloud
He scratched his name in the desk, and prayed for a connection

He tore his soul apart to look for his soul
Died in the desert, barren cold, wind whistling cornball
Not Sev style at all, Seventeen of the wild style, old school, party style
River of Life style, in the swim of it, sailin on the river, River of Life

Sonja and Tish, they say the same things to me
And we know it's true, it's true
It coulda been any one of us out there under the suffocating blanket
Lonely starry night, drowning in the River of Life

In our own heads we're all the richest, sexiest, most talented motherfuckers on the block
And the little successes we scratch out are the empowering rhythms that pull up the sun in the AM
And let us dance and fuck the night away till the break of dawn PM -- just that Sev
Had a little bit more of the down'n'downer, coulda used another hit or two of the up'n'outer

Feel it, the piece of each of us that went out when our friend Sev, Seventeen, Antonio, passed
And feel it, the part of him that will always live, live in the us that is us
All of us dancers, all of us poets, all of us swimmers
All of us trying to stay afloat, Sailing in the River of Life

_________________________________________________

Rose

these slimy men & women who pay me
to trail their loved ones around to
find dirt & where they're going to & who
they're seeing...I want to tell them to
take their money, go to therapy & spend
the rest on an attorney & get a good divorce

I've changed my mind about reopening out there.
I think I'll let Andrea do it because she has a history
of being too hard to work with. I don't
want to be on a board with her there & me here.
I can always open up out there down here.

_________________________________________________

Rothkos

1.     A Rothko (poem) is best written while standing in front of a        Rothko (painting).

2.     A Rothko is three lines, three words per line.

3.     Three of these nine words must be colors, and their position        in the poem must be a tic-tac-toe.

4.     Like all rules of poetry, break at your own risk.

     Resolute Dark
Blue old leak
Seed green pop
Earth hold brown

     Shatter Love
Magenta fire breath
Calm black wish
Remember pre orange

     Whatever You
Say gray
Too blue
Mean green

     Try
Clove add zip
Hug blue crick
Arm my pink

     Prod Mechanic
I'm the useless piece
Glue me back
Physics circus praxis

     What What
Red pull swing
Push white string
Lull C green

     First Lid
Lift yellow off
Forge violet on
Help blue black

     Keep It Going
Tragic sublime ecstasy
Coma drama comic
You gotta see this

     Sweat Heaven
Lift the eyelid
Pole the mouth
Never again now

     Brought to Mind
Groove orange joy
Thrash black perfect
Outside green nothing

     Blender Blonde
Ride on, yellow road
Ride on yellow
Red red white slice

     Much As I'd Like to forget
Quite solemn red
Raucous red brief
Paint red diningroom

     That Point (Lift)
Rest roost pink
Creep red bare
Blue hold blue

     Bone
Quest yellow tease
Test yellow breeze
Anchor blue still

     Frozen Whip
White ring line
Moor sail beat
Acute moon heat
Red white too too

     From Everything
Out out red
In blown blue
Now brown nothing

     Crowd
Purple nag lilac rag
Shout of silent print
Regal rule red brew

     Life Swirl
The orange drop forgot
The rock red curled
To the rest of yellow

     Where the Horizon Takes You
Excuse me you
The nondividing line
Gray white blue

     Black
     Gray

     Blacker
     Grayer

     What
     White




     That Triplet Life
Monorhythmic heart
Furnace beat burn
Tiny charm churn

     More Morning
Under spree green
Midst tooled tangerine
Over placid marine

     Swept Edge
White blue purp
Crossing divine thought
Rage middle thing

     Stop Hear
Ear twist flesh
Over orange o
Pink lift life

     Vertalign
expansive monochrome
saturaluminous
invertorientaion


     Rudy
night  soft  black
swim  red  kiss
blood  leaves  leaves

_________________________________________________

Sarah Skaggs Dance

We are gathered here today
Full frontal beauty wave commentary form from
The Perfect Stranger standing perfectly still perfectly beside perfect you
It's just one of those days when love falls in love with love and the garden
Blossoms before your very orange imagination
I see you on the sidewalk with a bread pole and a red boat
I see you in the library with your beautiful peagreen coat
And whenever the seed drops a hint we pick it back up in a tender gesture
as if to say dance dance dance in a most provocative way
dance the day to night to dance the night away
What happened when the Ear married the Eye was a gorgeous simply
Gorgeous wedding said the Tongue to the Neck, officiated over
By the Nose, all working together, the Dance of the Face Wedding: if only
The face had legs, she
Dances with her ears, I mean, ears, can you walk on them?
She hears things through her body, the sound shimmers
The skin a river of meaning Interrupt this powerful image with a tiny
Can you wait a moment while the skin next to you does it's little dance too
Can you hear it saying it summer's end, as if things ended
What if you could marry the air, and children everywhere
Foolish buildings stare back as if they owned the earth give me a break
And a clue of too many anxious belabored hell if I knew
All of a sudden the light burst forth and people, real ones like you
and the fruit vendor and the hot dog guy and small private booths or sites in the corners and the horse, horse knows its way around
and Sarah Skaggs and everybody in the world couldn't even give over the dime
So busy with the impossible of joy of feet upside down and thoughts
Patting a rhythm never forgot
Of being home wherever, like in a Park on 42nd,
the time time stopped
and we kept moving

(Steps:Gestures)
The Palm Tree, the Baked Potato, the candle blowin in the wind
The glass daisy, the catastrophic wrinkle, the magic eyebrow
The cancelled check, the subway jerk, the falcon not return

Next stop is next
as for now -- it's now

_________________________________________________

SHATALOV ALEKSANDR (b. 1957)
     Translated by Vitaly Chernetsky, adapted by Bob Holman

the plot;s plot drags me into the hot spot
i bite my lower lip -- no out-of-place smile, not here
i've already touched outstretched arm reaching towards me
how many more times do i have to do this, Fate!

meanwhile, it's totally terrific just to sit close and not listen to music
your eyes peck around me as if this really were the last time
our souls coo coo like pigeons in the window of morning
I am surprised by your eyes, sleepy and alien shaped

it's summer, shirt's faded, skin's roughened
fingernails, clipped short,
               sensitize the fingertips
your body narrow and lively, a tadpole
always aroused, always dancing

the twilight breeze barely ruffles your hair
uh-oh -- is someone nibbling my ear
say a young stranger slips on your shorts in the morning, by mistake
maybe I saw it wrong, heard it all wrong

giddyup, taxi, giddyup
          I don't want to see it, don't want to hear
the plane will get lost in the clouds, the insane leaves will cover the pavement
my ears are already stuffed up but I've got to climb still higher
up to the snowline, where the rosy mountains are like tongues of all-day suckers, escobar

***

let there be dark! let it be blue I
can't see anything familiar not
even through your dynamite eyes they
won't leave your skull like night moths
hand over the razor the scritch of the
first streetcar who cares I do I love
to love your narrow hips rolled up
in our little blanket let's do it three
times tonight the squaking and coughing
soundtrack through the wall, communal
gears and the slopbuckets of midnight
but it is our night it is your hips I love
your narrow hips paint paint it's no
use just a pre pre pretext for possessing
a means of stressing the size the random
ness the indirectness of touching meeting

_________________________________________________

Snort

different bedrooms only
he snorts, she sore, they
spent the night out
on the couch different
floors, she was in a pillow
fight they knew the airport
number was 61 who said
91 I know them! or, did,
I knew them when they
were young and silly and "in
love" which meant "in bed"
now they are always running
off to research the other phone
ringing in their other heads

_________________________________________________

Song of the Whales

Darling let me play you the whales? tape
The song of the melancholy whale
The world's largest mammals calling mournfully for each other
From far beneath the surface of the sea
Lonely and aching, the huge cries
The whales? wails, sit here
Beside me like you used to
On my ratty old sofa the way you once did
Put the headphones on, listen to me cry
For I am the lone whale
And you will never sit next to me again
The tiny indentation where your beautiful ass once sat
I sit beside it, place the headphones there
Cozily hugged by the slight ridge of plush
The magnificence of the whales? cries made tinny
As they emerge from the headphones in your indentation
Nothing could be this sad
But the whales know it -- they know,
And they cry the horrible skin crawl of absolute solitude
Through their tiny blowhole apparatus
The cry of their loneliness getting louder, filling the room
As I lift the headphones towards my face

_________________________________________________

Spring
    --for James Schuyler


March checks her watch, blizzard rewinds
A voice from the sky, it's Jimmy Schuyler's!
"It's spring again/I wonder why"
Nine months later this baby's reborn,
A ton of suffering in a single purple crocus.
Crossing Brooklyn Bridge, a glimpse of Jimmy
Going the other way. Bridges are for jumping
I used to think, but today a flutter of pear
Blossoms roil the ramparts with lyric fever.
A seagull banks over us -- no, a pigeon.
A kite, a jet, a levitating visitation from the sky-
Line as prop, accounts payable to the fluffly clouds.
All the hypermedia cabling rots in the richness
Of weather's big shifts, and it's the First Day
Of Love in the place we call New, someone
Else is born, the egg of the equinox stands on edge.
No one knows why, Jimmy, and you're dead,
But it's ok, just as long as you keep asking.

_________________________________________________

Storm Songs Love Songs

It's his being hers.
Solace against the struggle.
 It is the child of love.

And it's remembering what it's like
 to have company along the way.
Sleeping like spoons through a stormy night.
The big, strong arms of love.
Ah, love. Such sweet poison.

It's his being hers.
Solace against the struggle.
 It is the child of love.

What was that again? Do it again
Just when it ends -- begin
Waking like dreams in a stormy night
Rains tiny fingers of love
Ah, love. Such sweet poison

It's his being hers (her being his)
Solace against the struggle
It's the child of love
Love is the child of love

with Lisa Martinovic

_________________________________________________

Two, Three, Many Bob Holmans

Hello. Hello yourself back at you
Test tst 'is 'icropone 'urking" Clear
throat. "Is is yr ppppppoet sp-sp-sp-sp-eaking
These are word on paper lying inert for your eyes
To shed light upon us. Orality and mutation,
Not writing and fixity, confront us I mean comfort
Us. Where us stands for all pronouns united, also,

for any pronoun, not! Pronoun-
cement. Much as the nightingale moves
its own song.

Slipping in between Homer and Hollo
like your hand sliding inside down your lover's pants

Listen
Listen to ?listen?
Lean into the sound of listen
Give license to listen
Simply listen
Do naught else but to listen
Lazily listlessly lastly listening
In the silence, listen is what we hear
Or I, what I hear
What I am doing here is listening
To speak one must hear
The stand up and speak license
To speak everything
To speak the vague and general everything
Break into just talking
A disintegrated totality that suddenly become reeintegrated
A conclusive spurt, something else again
Hello hello?
I was just saying the long slow fade
To not shut up forever
Pick it up here and take it on home now
"

_________________________________________________

What Love is Like in the Future(It's Okay I'm Dead)

THE ARRIVAL

as you predicted, the package arrived today.
I am in the middle of the IdlewildSamizdat
controversy, you are a poet, i want to feed
you cocaine with my cock, there is so much
Greek I have to translate tonight and only one
(sigh) piece (sigh sigh) of Nico. This version
of the tape is more finished and rougher, it is
therefore unlistenable. Giant Sand has been
pricking my hairback. And so (und zo) it was
has been is quite a day. Mainly on line 2 hours
with my girlfriend, a tight-pussied young delight
(you'd swear she was a virgin I tell you, but she
has been around you can tell), who leads me down
the blind allies that I may see round the corners : I
call her my periscope, and she lets me look inside
her orifices till I can't stand it anymore, have to
appoint like Consulates and things to her different
body parts, while she continues to read some
strange poetry shit, I don't know what it means
but I do know I love it like heroin.

Two hours ago we filled up the message box so it
couldn't take it anymore, but then I couldn't save it,
but I found a way to strip the .temp file off the hard
drive and paste it straight onto my skin, like a nicotine
patch tattoo. I love you and I can't live without you
so I'm glad you're here, breathing all over the place,
and playing footsy with me as I fillet the trout and

yr sex slave, boyfriend, hardon'ed future dude


YOU

i am thinking of you and what we're gonna do. like mainly, not much,
but a walk to the little river would be nice. i also think of the possibility
of a swim. not a marathon, a dip. i think of yr fingers, and then toes. i
think of yr neck, and then yr ear, no, the other one. both, i mean. finger
nail and nose, and the lips i join them with a lip. lip to lips, the corner
of your mouth and the roundness of yr curves and the spot i call "mine"
and also the backs of yr knees, inside yr mind i climb, ho ho, a glass
of wine perhaps on the long incline to the solitary pine. i sit there think
of you, all of you, every scintella and scrape, every word you've ever said,
door you've closed. what goes on behind yr eyelids, the brush of yr bush,
the lick underarms moment of deep inhaling, every breath and shudder

CyberSex TALK

bon jour
happiness
hi hi
are you at home?
yeah
in your big white bed?
are you dressed in laziness?
no just comin back from work to write
need a kiss?
write > hate
whatcha gonna write?
kiss > always
le camping
> means = ?
(land of trembling tents)
are you in a tent?
I wanna tremble in a tent with you
Have you read poem Alpha Genesis?
yeah you know what I mean do you
no
where is it?
yes
on yr ass
no, whoops,
lemme check
that just slipped in
nuthin there
SORRYYYYY!
accepted
hang on, I'll get the appropriate lines
still there?
ja
Listen, before the alphabet, were
tents?
Could you start? A was always the hardest,
Like a tent pushing itself apart to hold
Itself up.
It goes on from there.
I'll email you the whole thing
But
I like it
when did you write it?
You have permission to use the before the A part
The tent part
It should fit right in
accent goes camping accent
Ok I'll borrow it from you for 15 Euros OK
I wrote it last night
ABCEDFG how cute of thee
vass you effer in Timbuk2000?
LMNOP whats your fee?
up North
in Mali
with Salvador
Dali
WX free sex?
YZ fuck me
YZ fuck that!
(I'm so wet)
I have lots of that
I'm phat
for twat
I dig
the wet
i will siphon
yr hyphen
whats siphon?
OK. You got an empty tank
could you make this a whirlpool please?
there's no gas station
so you put the lingual tubing
into the empty
and suck a bit
and place the other end in
and the liquids flow and you fill up
so wet the whirlpool frenzy
drives you and only later
do you discover
you're naked in a bed
and yr car is gone
gone gone
down the long highway
under a morbid sky
I am yours like the dream of a gas station!
        (kiss)
(kissing lolling and trolling)

Here's the line:
My brother dies of the heroin
My mother takes pills to help her grievin
Want to go to Scotland and listen?
I'm in Scotland now
Hello, Love
Hello, Happiness
Always ask for the Scottish National Drink,
"A wee voddie"
weed vodka?
wee=tiny in Scots
"a dram"
I vanted t aks you sth.
yes, vodka
but I dont remember what
i am ready to ans. sth.
anyth.
wait a sec it'll come up again
I'm not in the mood tho call my loony-guy back so I dont call him back
what does > mean?
can't you figure it out
?
"sorta =" ?
if I had a word for it I would use the word
Then I'll know
it's an arrow
Oh, now I get it
Pierce me
it connects two things
Stab me
Connect me
I have an arrow that wants to connect two things, too
like that?
me > you
I like that!
you got > it
did you get my letter yet
no, it is morning here
the mail comes early afternoon
ohpe
ohpe?
hope?
oh + nope
oh-pen?
oh pee
Ohpe
no letter > ohpe
not yet
remember that rap song O.P.P?
yes, Other People's Pussy
thats what was meant?
God shit
God shit, i want some God shit
I want to swim in it
What do you think OPP is?
down with other ppls pussy > being concerned with someone elses pussy?
I never knew
perhaps it means, One Pure Possibility
perhaps
perhaps is dying out these days
perhaps > per happenstance?
Yes, maybe is on the rise
exactly!

Back home, Mr. Karimov keeps a lid on opposition that reminds
outside observers of the Soviet days. Not even samizdat dissident
publications get passed around.
If you were, I'd vote for you and the b
Nine minutes later, the snub-nose helicopter landed
at Idlewild Airport, ending the racist notion "that blacks could not
fly,"
(sorry, phone call from NZ)

"may i feel, said he"?
i'll squeal said she
i want to give you more more
Birth control now please
OK
lemme get the paradigm
May i insert this Tab A into Slot B?
diaphragm I mean
ROTFL
can't get (it) up
still on floor under the heel of yr paradigm
yes you can
you gots to help me baby
lower yr whip
help help
haul me up by my ykw
dont use such complicated words OK?
you-know-what
I like so much to sleep with you and not sleep with you
mmmm
we're getting a lot of the latter these days my darling
yeah aint that wonderful darlin?
Yes
i mean sighs vigorously hoping for sympathy no
we still have to top/surpass our night in Zagreb
right now??
hahaha
i thought Terwilons St was #1??
you're becoming cynical
        i mean, the first night
did I say that?
in white
nighty
you said the first night
hmm. thot sure that was you (like olde couple)
I say the 2nd night on Terwilons & Zagreb rate about the same
YES! exactly!
It's all in the assf.!
olde couple with 8 nights to chose from
mmmmmmm
and didnt even make it to the bed if you care to remember
that was so idlewildish
no condom is just a metaphor for
no condom

At the Farm

no bees but trees, you know
you collect like a ton of them
if you're a grandmother you have
your grandchildren collect them for you

they come home, 8 or 9 pm
it's dark one or two are usually lost
and will find home by midnite
maybe anyway you take this huge pot,

made of steel or s.th.
fill it w/ water & brown sugar
like another ton
cook it for about 5 hours (or until

the last of your grandchildren
is back, bleeding)
tell the kids about the War
no not politics
honey: how you would get a nylon for a glass of honey

:         a sweet story, like a prayer
:         honey: how you would get a nylon for a glass of honey
:         a scary story, like a dream
          ?wild? honey
          that's how it's called
          it's much better than bee-honey, almost chinese (with a sour taste)
          that's what I meant, when I said

:         Bye honey
:         honey
          not "noney"
          I will send you a semifreddo
          yes please
          and maybe I will see you in NZ on the 13th
          send me everything
          I hear it's a nice little town
          I'll try to get there if I can
          Just outside Zagreb, you know
          Bye honey
          Bye baby (that's another story)
          hahahahaha

Love Letter H

Swing sweet and low chariot.

Bright day, eyes skies, bless bower rise

I want eat!

Miracles are in the way! Give me 'nother Authotonic sheer heteronymicality
                        (Fernando Pessoa, my love).

Wassup? I do believe the same sound covers the earth like a skin. Skin me, please. Thank the archduke for everything, esp. the war. S.th. else: I forget, so busy being, Busy Bee. Crank my crank. More television for the mass, Sunday mass, the umbrella fits so neatly on your head. Holding your head, I think your thoughts.

Good afternoon from
the loon

SNORT

he snorts, she sore, they
spent the night out
on the couch different
floors, she was in a pillow
fight they knew the airport
number was 61 who said
91 I know them! or, did,
I knew them when they
were young and silly and "in
love" which meant "in bed"
now they are always running
off to research the other phone
ringing in their other heads



HOT

this sounds not good, these pogroms. i'm very proud of you for not going to that meeting -- maybe you can shake things up. I HATE CAPITALISM where the idea is to have the fuckin Meeting and not DO the fuckin thing! you're right, it's a taking away from an idea, this superficial committeeizing. so fuckin internet. Altho i love internet when it brings me boots (already here! most cool! and, perfect fit ha ha). and NYTimes has article about love a-bloomin on the net, hmmm. supposedly for "verbal" people.

Well, good luck on yr interview about MEN. You are the only expert I know without penis.

sweet & hot, that's good,
sour and hotter, yeah that's right,
all night all night al night tonight


TOBACCO SHOP

2 or 3 nights running
The yellow green dim tobacco shop
t-shirts, rain, hair
the stair leads both ways
arms inflect raking pulling
lips to say linoleum delirious
naked smoke the language
of kiss tear desire

ONE OF THESE DAYS
"One of these days" was what you said to the waiter, who brought our breakfast into rm 317 and who didn't even blink or smile at the bed that looked like a giant flag of Japan that morning; we should've ordered Sushi, I keep thinking, to cover it up. Instead I had ham and you took fruit.

You were looking out the window long enough for me to know that you had noticed I was looking at you looking out the window but you would not turn and I would not stir. My ghost slipped out and held you from behind and your ghost fell back into my arms. We were the ghosts then, as much liquid as solid, as much ether as earth, and when we looked to our bodies so still-ly looking at each other still, we couldn't help but laugh, in between a laugh and a kiss, hugging, rolling cracking up with life.

The shampoo I had used to wash my hair before you came by: Pantene Pro-V. By midnight my hair was dry, I didn't want you to know I'd taken a shower. Maybe you were just dropping by to ... bring me a travel guide to NYC.
But then you didn't. And the smell of Pantene Pro-V still reminds me of thinking that the taxi from Broadway to Bowery might not arrive (and how it did).

The same thing but black. The same steps the same white the same evolutionary construct that left us with such farcical elements as "feet" ("the better to play with you m'deah") the same barbecue the same gin buttons the same grimy air the same uptown downtown uptown the same ticket forever on the windshield the parabreeze the not touching and the same touch.

UNIVERSE

In reply to yr letter of and in order to faclitate the, I proffer the large and grand sweet tiny fragmented apple consideration. Should you be of a mind to in other words there are always the other words with every breath or some such. Can't recall the exact but the generous motivator please. I urge you to take a step closer and allow me to gently kiss you all over your deliriously beautiful body and, having concluded the moment with ecstatic yips and fully fulfilling growls, return to that from which we never left, ever, not even once, for a milisecond's revenge, the universe itself panting and waving as we leave it all behind.

YOU
i am thinking of you and what we're gonna do. like mainly, not much,
but a walk to the little river would be nice. i also think of the possibility
of a swim. not a marathon, a dip. i think of yr fingers, and then toes. i
think of yr neck, and then yr ear, no, the other one. both, i mean. finger
nail and nose, and the lips i join them with a lip. lip to lips, the corner
of your mouth and the roundness of yr curves and the spot i call "mine"
and also the backs of yr knees, inside yr mind i climb, ho ho, a glass
of wine perhaps on the long incline to the solitary pine. i sit there think
of you, all of you, every scintella and scrape, every word you've ever said,
door you've closed. what goes on behind yr eyelids, the brush of yr bush,
the lick underarms moment of deep inhaling, every breath and shudder.


> Charles Ellik, Slammaster of the great San Francisco Poetry Slam at Cafe du
> Nord and an original mover at NEXT Magazine, recently discovered that a second
> slam team from San Francisco had registered for the National Slam. The du Nord
> Slam had run for months and slowly winnowed itself down in wild climax with every damn poem pointed and noted on the net. Imagine his surprise then to find a stealth slam in his own community -- and
> that it was organized by one of the team members of his own slam!! With tongue
> firmly fitted in cheek (sort of) he sighed -- "why does this have to be such a
> pain?"
>
>So, to Chaz and All Others Who Feel the Utopic Backlash of Slam -- A Scourge/
> Rationale by Bob "Devil Incarnate" Holman

_________________________________________________

"Why Slam Causes Pain and Is a Good Thing "



<< sigh. why does this have to be such a pain?
Charles Ellik >>


Because Slam is Unfair.
Because Slam is too much fun.
Because poetry.
Because rules.
Because poetry rules.
Because the poetry gets lost.
Because poetry an endangered species Slam finds and revivifies.
Because you cannot reduce a poem to its numerolgical equivalent.
Because hey it's poetry in everyday life every Sunday at 7:30 PM.
Because I can do that.
Because everybody's voice is heard.Because Old White Guys as usual.
Because it's the opposite that includes the opposite.
Because do not institutionalize the anti-institution!
Because it's meant for middle and high schoolers so they get their adrenalin poetry shots.
Becase Pepsi and Nike have conflicting ideas about the team uniforms.
Because competitive.
Because Allen Ginsberg says, "Slam! Into the Mouth of the Dharma!"
Because Gregory Corso says, "Why do you want to hang out with us old guys? If I was young, I'd be going to the Slam!"
Because Bob Kaufman writes, ?Each Slam/a finality.?
Because Patricia Smith has more truth in her little finger than entire Boston Globe front page.
Because Marc Smith and because Chicago.
Because Nuyorican Poets Cafe and multi-culti.
Because Taos World Heavyweight Poetry Bout Championship.
Because rap is poetry, and Hip Hop is culture.
Because three minute pop song.
Because the point is not the points.
Because audience.
Because heckling.
Because judges selected whimsically are instant experts.
Because Dewey Decimal System of Slam Scorification reduce possibility of Ties and Dreaded Sudden-Death Spontaneous Haiku Overtime Round.
Because the National Slam is summer boot camp for poets.
Because first six years only women win Indy Slam Champ Boot.
Because local heroes finally have national community.
Because democratization of art.
Because Best Poet Always Loses.
Because cool mediaization of poetry is rooted in hot live performance of poetry.
Because when in the course it looks like poetry is disappearing, the furious uproar of the Word will not be stilled.
Because Wiliam Carlos Williams wrote, "It's hard to find the news in poetry," but we say, we've got news for you.
Because performance is a see-through page, and the oral tradition a hidden book
Because it's called Slam.