Austin Universe Prose Project

Hey, to follow in Erin's footsteps, I've decided to enact a gigantic (I hope) prose project. Not long ago, I asked a frequent commenter and great friend of the blog, Kat, to suggest some topics for a prose poem I could write. Little did she, or I, know that it would lead to this universe spanning splash of prose masterpiece. So, in the spirit of the initial request of prose poetry, I will submit my piece followed by six topics for the next person to write from (the person does not need to use all six subject, but they are jump-off points for anyone who needs help in choosing what to write about). So here is the piece I wrote with the suggestions Kat sent before the prose. I'm also sending out an email to any worthy aspirants who want to get in on this sweet sweetness, and if you receive the email, send it along to your friends and enemies to see if they have anything to add. Okay? Okay. Without further ado, here's a word from your mother.

Kat's suggestions:

museums
hearing America singing
heat
Hieronymus Bosch
coffee shops
points of origin

prose piece titled:

Prose Katherine

In the museum of love, Katherine heard an old man singing. Oh so long and forgotten, I am America, he chanted, over and over, and she believed him. She wanted to grab his hands and clap, to make him bend on his knees and rejoice. It was the heat of the day, summer being as blasphemous as ever. She wanted him to be wrinkled and deathly and beloved. Hieronymus Bosch and the great landscapes, she thought, and skipped on her heels. But he begged her to leave him. I am no girl in a museum chanting the songs of my fathers, she thought, and slapped the man across the face. In a window, a coffee shop beckoned; she left. Oh gosh, she was hot and cold and caffeine. I believe believe, she chanted herself, and forgot about the tinny man begging for his old time glory hanging from the rafters. My point of origin, thought Katherine, is the old sea, the old country, and a camera. She grabbed a lamppost in the midst of the street. It is wonderful to twirl, to spin, and I hope, she whispered, that it is all make-believe and forgotten.

it's a prose world, baby

Here's a prose poem for you hungry readers. Also, look out, whoah, on the heels of Erin's Austin World Poem Project, may I announce the Austin Universe Prose Project. It's along the same lines but instead of poetry, write some good old snips and clips of prose and lick your screen. Then scream and send it back to this frigging blog and do a slam dance in your apartment, home, aviary, etc. Alright, I'll email everyone I can think of with the project, but for now, here's a prose beast.

travel logos 6

We are both the best and the worst life possible. All, we’ve all. Love, we are coming home. Tears and tears and tears, oh god. You need this. Need us. These mountains devour. Van Morrison eats his heart. And apart. And thirsty, desperate thirsty. Another world calls us. Forget Virginia. Don’t take your time. We are the dust of the wings of angels and gods. This universe loves us, the world of eyes and ears and lips and teeth may hate us, but the ethereal universe of flower miracles, of human conscious blisters, is madly in love. We return and bless all every time we die. Ghosts that whisper the secret legends of gold. You return home to the Shenandoah, but I return to the eerie lake and all the myths of plumbers and early millionaires with their skyscrapers and their lust for oil. Trickle down the vine, feed a plant, see a blossoming bud, and then jump into outer space. We are divine, we may hate ourselves, we are loved.

Christopher and Jeff are the dynamic duo

Hey, here's the last video from the reading at Okay Mountain last Saturday. I'm reading 'travel logos 95' (which is already posted in the prose poem section of this blog!!!) with Jeff Barnyard Daily playing the fantastical guitar behind me. What is this, some sort of happening?

Anonymous Commenter - Let's Give Him/Her a Hand!

Thank you for your additions to the Austin World Poem Project, especially thank you, anonymous poster!

Here, with our latest addition, is our poem, which has so far gone through 5 changes of hands:


The equation of water
is always coaxed out of a stone;
a blank bell ringing
in the middle of the day.

The river
she sings
the song of the
red scent of
crying
the daylight descends on the
dying
never to drink from the fountain
again.

Thirst wants what the stone needs
But the face lies in pools of greed.
A King upon the throne of the new liberal media
Seeks to set a new standard
of violence.
Pools of bullets smile at the snug rain.
America comes at last,
To the big table.

Running water rings
resonates
it is time

Running water
The running water we run to
We seek our thirsts at last


We want to keep the project running as long as possible (who cares if its an epic-length poem, anyhow), so if you want to add to the poem, please comment on this post and place your addition in the comments! Thanks!

What the Austin World Poem Project is Up To Now

Here's what it looks like now. We've only had a few contributors, though, so I'm going to have to keep harassing you guys...

The equation of water
is always coaxed out of a stone;
a blank bell ringing
in the middle of the day.

The river
she sings
the song of the
red scent of
crying
the daylight descends on the
dying
never to drink from the fountain
again.

Thirst wants what the stone needs

But the face lies in pools of greed.
A King upon the throne of the new liberal media
Seeks to set a new standard
of violence.
Pools of bullets smile at the snug rain.
America comes at last,
To the big table.

blue post it poem #2

some new poems

Hey, in trying to keep the double posting alive, here are some of the latest untitled poems I've written.

untitled 4418

I got

feelings of white

hot pressed

paper

atop puppies in a slosh

zoo

of humanity

lunging around

gambling

and frothing

at the

eyes

ivy and reed and wooden

beam

untitled 4419

not so fast

fuzz

creep come

kill

a condo

just to be an

outsider

he shriek

oh me lovely

me

girl

I got no good gun

children

untitled 4420

she

rides along

the bicycles with

grace

until

the red light

district curses

out

some drunk speedo

bum

nature

stunk and disgruntled

to the

low loop traffic swells and we are it

a reading from Josh Rios

Here's a video of Josh Rios reading live at Okay Mountain. He's a friend of the blog and damned good poet.

hospital finale!!!

Don't cry, my little patients, it is only the end of the beginning. This is the last piece in the 'hospital' series, but fret not, Jeff and I have another collaborative writing project in the works. So won't you please come injure yourself with our last offering (kind of hackneyed, but, I needed to work the idea of a hospital and suffering into this post intro somehow; waka waka!).

taxi driver

Elmo shifted the spin of the wheel with grace. He knew nothing about the city he couldn’t learn from watching women and men huddle on corners. “It’s love,” he’d say, then dodge the latest barrage of traffic like a bird. “In flight,” he’d whisper, “I am amazing.”

And one day, Louise came to his cab. She hailed like a menace. She was bleeding. “Take me to Our Sacred Lady,” she pleaded. He watched her spill into the back and stain his seats.

“No problem, miss,” he hurrahed, shoving his cab into the drift of the road. Around around, in circles, he was not so certain. She looked feverish.

“Speak to me. Tell me something. Oh god!” she yelped in pain.

“What? What should I say? I don’t - ”

“Anything!” she cut him off. “A dream. I don’t know.”

Elmo glanced in his rearview mirror and shook his head. He could only comply.

“Alright, alright, a dream. Uhmm, let me think. Whoah!” He dodged a couple playing with sticks on the curb. “Oh gosh, you’re bleeding, you’re bleeding real bad.” Elmo was dumbfounded.

Louise sighed and smiled. “Just give it a try, hunh?”

Elmo nodded his head, shut his mouth a moment, then began.

--

I can’t even begin to tell you how real this dream was, but it was
bizarre and fun at the same time. I was with my sister Caroline. We were at
the little zoo we used to visit as children on the weekends during summer. My
sister and I were about ten or eleven years old in my dream. Our parents were
with us, but I can’t remember them being near. The animals weren’t in cages
either, they were just roaming. Caroline asked me to climb a tree with her. I
found myself hundreds of feet above the ground at the top of this huge tree. We
were so high, but we weren’t scared for a second. I saw a kind of lizard skinned
baby monkey crawling toward us. Caroline tried to do something like fly and
jumped from the top of the tree where we were sitting. I was alone with the
lizard monkey. The creature licked me with its tongue. That’s when I woke up.

--

“Was that good? I don’t even know what it means. Just kind of crazy, I guess.” Things happen, Elmo thought, and swerved around the juke corner of some beat street. He used to live near here, listening to the birds, watching the people crowd around the bus stop. “You okay? You gonna’ make it?”

They shot under an elevated train and came into view of the entire gorgeous monstrosity that was the tallest building in the city. Louise grimaced and thought of light falling from windows. She’d been stabbed, of course, but she wasn’t certain by whom. A man, a woman, a child. An old crazy sticking around lampposts. Louise moaned.

“You’re dream, it’s strange,” she laughed, pained, “it reminds me of a dream I had once. About two years ago, maybe more. My husband at the time was painting our bedroom. I remember those fumes and wanting to pass out. But…it’s strange.” She huffed, picking herself up and glancing into the rearview mirror, locking eyes with Elmo.

--

I was in a simple gray room. Nothing special about the room at all
except there was an extremely clean mirror hanging on the wall facing me. I was
standing in the center. I heard distant bells. I walked toward the mirror. My
face was neon blue with orange bleeding sores on my cheeks. I shuddered and
saw a man similar to my husband, but it wasn’t him. The man asked me to come
outside with him. Then about a dozen kittens came rushing in through an open
doorway. They covered me with their softness, easing all tension. I’ve never
been so happy in a dream. It was like several quick orgasms.

--

Elmo was struck silent. They had just arrived at Our Sacred Lady, a gurney flying outward, her dream crashing in his mind. Strangers are light bulbs, he thought, and opened her door. She stumbled, he grabbed her hand, and they crossed the chassis of the cab. The hospital entrance hung open like a mouth. Some other men in scrubs and white hurried and gathered the poor woman. Elmo glanced into her eyes and watched her wheel away. Traded secrets and hidden names, Elmo thought of, and turned to see the back of his cab covered in Louise’s blood. He dabbed his palm upon a certain spot and felt the thick liquid. He had a dream the other night as well, one where a woman without a face cackled and jumped and popped his car tires. He sat down in the road, slunked against the frame of the cab, and blew on his blood-covered hand. He felt like shooting into the air like a rocket so bold the city would have to cover its eyes. The white hospital before him laughed. It shook. It bristled.

Dan F*cking Boehl

Dan reads a poem from his King's of the F*cking Sea collection at Okay Mountain last Saturday. The projection is a print by Jacques Callot. Like two lovers coming across an empty room, Dan and Jacques give you a taste of beauty. Oohh, touch it.

Jeff is the man in the dark

Hey, here's another live video for you groovies. Jeff Daily's reading his poem "Counting on Poverty" to us happy happers at Okay Mountain last Saturday. We're gonna' have a funky good time.

for the comedian

Hey, I just found out George Carlin died and I wrote a poem about him. I know, I know, pretty hokey, but hey, heroes are hard to find, plus, why not indulge when the moment is right? Well, here's my poem (try not to cry too hard).

to George

in a black mask

of

all hair and consuming

nothing

he shouted against a picket fence

and

crawled upon

the Empire State Building

screaming

sex

and death

and

lust

and that in all of our circumstance

he believed

to be blank ghosts clung

to gutters

shrieking

madness

oh madness

oh

sweet and awful

and

humorous madness

Austin World Poem Project Launch!

Hi all.
In the spirit of moving Austin New Blog forward, I am launching this side project: The Austin World Poem Project. Here's how I'm hoping it's going to work. Using the chain letter formula, I am sending all the people in my email address book a poem and instructions. The idea is for each person who receives the poem to copy it into an email, and then add something to it; their own twist on it, if you will, and then send it to as many people as they can. Also, hopefully, some people will be willing to document the poem that they received into a comment field on the latest post here. We will then copy that comment (i.e., the latest version of the poem) into a post so that everyone can view it.

Here is the poem, in its infancy:

The equation of water
is always coaxed out of a stone;
a blank bell ringing
in the middle of the day.

And here are the instructions that are going along with it:

Hi!
This is not a chain letter. This email is part of the Austin World Poem Project. The goal is to send an evolving poem to as many people as possible, as far around the world as possible. The poem is below. All you need to do is copy the body of this email into a new one. Then make whatever changes you want to the poem below. You can add a line, stanza, word, punctuation, whatever floats your boat. And then send it to as many people as you can without being annoying! If you have time, and want to, you can be an Austin World Poem Project Tracker by logging on to austinnewblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Austin%20World%20Poem%20Project and copying your version of the poem into a comment. An administrator will then post this text as a blog post for everyone to see, and then everyone who has added to it can see how much the poem has changed and how many different versions of it there are out there.
Thanks for participating.
Here is the poem. Have fun changing it:

If you would like to copy the above poem(or start your own, whatever) and instructions and have your people log it into the comments fields here at Austin New Blog, that would be cool, too. Just so there is a common place for every one to see the poems as they evolve. Okay, here goes!

new poem

Hey, here's a poem I just wrote to pair with Erin's live performance below. Read this poem once, watch Erin read twice.

untitled 4411

a gun for my father on the porch stroking a black cat with long teeth

oh

goodness

let us fall in the light

when

around the shop corner

a lantern

flares excitement

I am ivory

or

am at least pearl

and am hungry and alone and perfect

a week of performance

Hey fellows and fellas, starting today, I'll be posting live clips from our show last Saturday at Okay Mountain. First up is Erin Vaughan reading her poem "This one goes out to you, Mr. Copland. You're welcome." The video is a little dark, but hey, I think that adds a certain je ne sais quoi. Also, every performance post will be paired with another post featuring new material, ie. poetry, prose, riverdance. You know, good times, okie dokie.




written version of poem:

This One Goes Out to You, Mr. Copland. You’re Welcome.

My feet are the best feet on the planet!

They have a strange unique smell

that is something like ammonia.

Also, there is a dark place by my ankle

like a cave whose true location changes

according to the flow of the river.

Every day I have strode vigorously

over driveways spik’d by sharpest gravel--

I could catch a baseball with my insoles.

And when I stretch my toes out, the tendons move

like hammers in a piano.

If there was a symphony

to correspond to this, it would sound

like Fanfare for the Common Man.

CONTACT INFO

We can be reached!

austinnewblog@gmail.com

www.myspace.com/austinnewblog

Drop us a line or submit yr creative jooces.

Yay!

Last night was super-fun! Still regretting drinking all that champagne. Thank you every one who came and also thank you to the many people who said such kind things about my reading. I really appreciate the support--we all do! As mentioned by Jeff and Chris, there should be more fun goings-on in the future, so come out again for more beer and poetry stuff.

thanks skanks

Hey, along with Jeff I just wanted to wish everyone who came and saw and listened to the poetry at Okay Mountain a fare thee well, a how's your dad, and a hope you're not too hung over. It was great, we all had fun, thanks to Dan Boehl and Josh Rios for participating with us. And this picture is from the sheet that so many beautiful delinquents decided to bleed all over (yes, I did use the metaphor of blood; lame, I know, but I'm a little hung over, so lay off me). Keep tuning into the blog; we've got more events in store. Have a good week and all week here at the blog, we'll be posting clips from the live performance with new stuff too. Sweet freaks, have a good time!

p.s. special thanks to Lindsey for helping us out with the keg; you are a magical woman

Success!!

I think, by all accounts, last night's POETRY READING was a success. All of us who read had a great time. The audience and the venue (Okay Mountain) were wonderful. Now we need to plan our next summer poetry event. Thanks again to all of you who read, participated, and attended. I thought I would post one of the poems I read last night. This is the fifth section of a slightly longer poem called Hark! & Holy Shit!. I'm still working on/editing the rest of the poem, but this is the finale shouting cheering send off.

V.

Hark! & Holy shit!
Think about those people you have known for so long
Yr friends, new and old
They're scattered all over the country aren’t they?
Some are alone, some are in love, and some are lost in their own stories
They're too busy to e-mail you right?

Hark! & Holy shit!
Look at the news painful w/such pessimism
Earthquakes, wounded money politicians, tell-all books from White House insiders, playoffs, sex, TMZ insurgents, pirates and more gossip than anyone needs
This is all so much to take
Coming of age in this turmoil, how tragic
Oh, the gas crisis poisonous climate, can we survive more mismanagement?
Can friendships battle their way through this muck?

Hark! & Holy shit!
Look how our gang is growing up!
I’m 25 yrs old soon to be 26…WTF?
Oh, Austin, TX my first adult address
What have you done to me?
Starting out as lonely security guard part time songwriter small time poet on my own slowly gathering a group around me now writing this long love state of the union, how I have changed and seen my friends change too
We’re getting older, going off to work each morning, maybe class, sometimes hung over; other times so fucking unmotivated we wonder what the point of all this is
Living paycheck to paycheck or saving up for graduate school or paying off graduate school
How we got surrounded by weirdoes and peers and those whom we now despise but will never forget and all the strange annoying brilliant pathetic days we’ve had since
All the ugliness in gray and boredom
All the backyard BBQ’s, apt. parties, happy hours, and endless food conversations

Hark! & Holy shit!
Finally, allow me to excavate the traffic strangled city and take a snapshot of those of you who are gone or going while I baby step my way into the next phase

To my three oldest chums, since high school days we grow:

You who wear yourself ragged day after day in Boston shuffling ‘tween your own museum job and teaching freshmen writing courses and studying your own writing Emerson grad student you
How is Harvard Yard? How is Ted Kennedy? How often do you hear the melodies of Galaxie 500?
I’m looking to you for guidance, do you mind answering my questions and critiquing my poetry?
I miss the fun in parent’s house and the disaster club and Yoicks! the failed magazine and the small talk, movie watching, record shopping
How does it feel to be so far from your long distance girlfriend?
Soon I hope you two will come together

You who live in tiny Brooklyn apt. with cat and girlfriend of Baltimore
I don’t know how you do it, full time boring webmaster job and scholarly NYU pursuits in literature
A rose is a rose is a rose
Supreme intellect, I always knew you were going to be the hardest to pin down
You somehow still have time to write great crazy songs here and there and thanks to the Internet I can listen and we can talk now more than ever via gmail chat
Will we create noise spontaneous records again full of odd sounds bizarre lyrics and all produced around your wonderful welcoming spirit?
Never any idea turned away, my brother and I learned a lot about freedom from you

You who are about to leave Austin for the west coast L.A. USC film school
Can you believe you moved down here to be a security guard like me?
Can you believe that insanity?
But then of course you did benefit like I did from the independence and the making of friends and the eventual love connection with your artistic Las Vegas pizza loving best gal ah, golden
And you seem to be as deeply in love with your girl as I am with K
Always together, I keep up with your Myspace page; you’re having fun aren’t you?
I’m a wine drinker and you’re a vegetarian trying new things dressing differently than we did in high school looking good for our ladies and carving out identities anew
We don’t see each other now that I left my security guard job behind for desk work
& we have our lovers who are better than best friends since they are radiant mystics designed just for us
Oh, the times of deep conversation about the horrors of single life, our conflicting feelings about alcohol & cigarettes, and fighting to stave off the humors
I know you and I will not miss the security guard life, but did it not transform us?

Fare thee well my friends

We’ll keep in touch over e-mail, text messages, Facebook, and Myspace

We’ll meet again at weddings I’m sure because that’s what happens to adults isn’t it?

Then...
Children
Home ownership & improvement
Lawn maintenance
Balding
Ageing
Bad clothes
Limp dicks
& dementia!

Hark! & Holy shit! Indeed!


May 23, 27-29, 2008

messiaen and me

Hey fellows, how's the week been? Kind of long, hunh? A bit hot? Yeah, I suppose. But enough about you, Jesus. Anywaysee, here's a new post from the austin new blog blog blog. It's our second movie poem! Hurray! Baklava! See you tomorrow at the poetry rodeo!

movie poem 1 (le parc de nara et les)

destiny of silver plateaus

and women

who wear their hair

sideways

as they shoot horses

make believe

make

me believe

I am the ranger in the Texas night

so swift

and sure

of all guns and bullets

and night

time

comes so that we may

dream

and dreams,

oh

I believe in our love

I believe

in

the fact of tall cowboy boots on the border

of town

shoot shoot

me

in the face

more from the house of hospice

Hey, here's the penultimate chapter in Jeff and my 'hospital' series. What will happen? Will god come in with an infected ear? Will Satan come in on a gurney from an overdose? Or will Davy Crockett jump into the cafeteria chanting "blood blood blood?" Who can say?

pharmacist

Luanne waited at the counter in the hospital pharmacy for Derrick the delivery man. It was around two. Lunch had settled. Her favorite song was playing in the background on the radio. This did not feel like an ordinary day at a hospital with rundown patients chomping bits of pills and saline. Luanne took that as a good thing, a favor from the universe, and took the time to bless her three children. She turned about and eyeballed the immense racks of blue and pink and purple and red and burgundy pills, capsules of good measure. Derrick the delivery man was her favorite of the men that came around dropping off supplies. He had white teeth barricading a luscious pink tongue. She fancied time away, with him, on the ocean, in the sand, crawling together. Her loneliness was excitement in her spine when Derrick came. Harold, her coworker, was too busy fooling about on the internet to notice her blush. He was solid as well, but married, and with children, and a boat in the backyard and all sorts of ivy league loans. He did not sit well in his chair. He did not thrill seek the forbidden realm of fantasy. Luanne tapped her toe on the rug; the song was nearly over. She wondered for the eighth time what kept the delivery at bay and retreated to the back room. The carpet reminded her too much of patient’s hair follicles and linoleum floor. In ten years, she planned to be away from this place. A dream came to mind.

--

She was in bed with her best girlfriend Jane. Jane was strange, a
loner, but ultimately a good person. Jane wanted to have sex with Luanne. They
were both naked and touching. Luanne felt uneasy and told Jane to stop. Luanne
crawled on her hands and knees out of the bed and toward a long rhombus
window. She looked out and saw an older couple drunk on cheap boxed wine
fighting on the sidewalk. "I'll kill you Thomas!"

--

Derrick arrived shining like a knight. His arms were smooth tusks of steel. A hat on his head, a brown shirt to match his skin, and darts for feet, sharp points that were loud, not noisy. Luanne made small talk, asking him of his dogs and the keen proposal with which he anchored his fiancé. Luanne blushed and leaned forward on the counter to be near the man. He was not interested in similar things as she, but he had noticed the hem of her blouse, the sag of her breasts. He noticed the weight of her thighs beneath her skirt. He bit his lower lip and she placed an arm upon a cardboard box. The hospital was very busy today, something in the air. His shaggy smile did not deter her. She wanted to shake his hand but refrained from doing so. He went out through the glass entry door as common as a gust of cold wind. Luanne watched him go, then began to daydream over the possibilities of stealing him away in the back of her car and driving for god-knows-where.

--

There was an obsidian sky. Large condors and lizards with jet packs
swooped over the heads of hundreds of people. Luanne thought she was alone but
she wasn't. The blood on her fingers was from her vagina. Another baby dead.
There was a choir of deep male voices chanting. She felt free and decided
to jump into a pool. There were 50 naked couples writhing and moaning scattered
all over the bottom of the pool. Luanne looked for a partner. She was alone
and covered in feathers.

--

The end of the day swung around nicely. Some orders to fill, dire needs of patient’s and the somber idea that she needn’t become dependent upon a single substance to survive. The desert island idea would be crimped if she had to fill a prescription monthly. Luanne began to think of all the conditions, the disorders, the quagmires and preponderances of the human condition. On her way to her car she did not think to wonder about her glasses and lenses. She fancied herself a superior human being. Her coworker Harold had an ulcer. He needed tiny white pills to kill his unease. Her ex-husband Phil had high blood pressure. It was red capsules for him. Lonely Luanne descended upon the road in her tiny coup with all force and fury. If she drove home fast enough and was lucky with the traffic, she might be in time to catch her favorite tv show at the beginning. She thought of her dog, she thought of the gold and orange sky and its immensity, she thought of a small apartment and a dark closet, and she thought of Derrick and his fiancé copulating in the shade of some elm

this is not a post

Hey guys, I just thought I'd use this post to remind you all about our (Jeff Daily, Erin Vaughan, Dan Boehl, Josh Rios, Christopher Savage) show at Okay Mountain (1312 East Cesar Chavez Ste. B) on this Saturday the 21st of June. The show starts around 8PM and there will be free beer flowing from my mouth to yours (okay, so it won't exactly be like momma and baby bird, but the beer will flow from a metal cannister to a plastic or paper cup, and then your mouth). Hope to see many of you people out there (and we'll see you there in spirit, Kat). Have a good week, freaks.

her majesty's request

Hey, since Kat wants more prose poems, here goes. Also, maybe I'll start a new series of prose poems (bonus contest time: submit a topic via a comment on this post and maybe you'll inspire the new content of the prose poems).

travel logos 94

it was some summertime fun he road his hand up her leg and didn’t stop. she said, oh jesus you gonna, and then, and then. when she grew up like lazy grass, the river was her friend. so soft. oh god if I touch another person in this instance, it will all be the end of the record, the fin of the film, the gross collapse at the end of a long narration. and into darkness, oh into darkness. I am the flea of the back of the dog dying, just dying. a girl then says back to he that if it is children you need go in the distance and plant a seed in the dirt. I am not a field of a vision. all of the ending in my breasts, between my legs, yet still his hand eats and devours and climbs into the hot center of all thing.

also, I just wrote this poem!

untitled 4400

am a fork so dirt

the

girl

in the dress

on Broadway stripping

her knees

of the slip

go slip

go down a curb

of rain water in the South.

in love

all the time the

time

the kitchen sink is

emptied and

the kitten

leaves paw prints in the flower bed

she

sings

poetry time

Here are some more poems for your face (and yes the post title isn't very good, but come on, it's Father's Day, give me a break; I'm busy playing with my kids).

ps. I don't have any kids!!!

untitled 4396

Zelda began to read

the lines

of the newspaper

when her father

he falls

the length

of the glass

door

but his hips so old

devise

new ways

of smash

smash.

a brick and a body

my

flesh of two ton

steel

so she says the beginnings

of the day

untitled 4395

the king of the dogs

out growling

in their

cages

out white against the post

some

women who ride the bus

shake in the

back

with frost

and

it is us.

we are them

untitled 4393

to believe oh the saying

goes

in pirates

shooting of staple guns

the essence of

his love

is to be a large stone edifice

of

nothing

shriek

across the bay

about

about

all young men trawling coffee

trails into

their nightly apartments

and

smashing their lightbulbs with screwdrivers

prose time

Hey, like Jeff, I too celebrate the funk of Friday the 13th. But I celebrate prose style! Yeah! Ain't that wacky!

travel logos 95

Christopher Savage

lord knows, she said as a whisper, it hasn’t been easy to live this year. I wanted to think of something else to say, but it was wooden cupboards banging around the eaves, you know, she began, it isn’t that I needed from you a brick garden for my elms, I needed, and she stopped. it began to rain, so slick, across many yellow slanted rooftops of this coast, I should be clear, she stated, starting anew, clearing her throat, her bashful eyes, the torpor of a middle child so sullen, it isn’t, well, I’m not so sure how to say this. you know the feeling of flying? or can imagine it? that’s me. and you, she pointed arrow-like to her grand empty cardboard box in the center of her living room, are that, an object so simple. I mean, I don’t try to say simple, I just want to say, she bit her lip. the lightning pang of a thousand different children. you are a grove of pumpkins. a patch, I replied, and she wigged her head. a patch of unlove, of anti-cool. something along those lines. basically, baby, get up on my side or get down in the valley and huddle on your stomach. it’s ugly, so fast and clean she washed her hand over my brow and kissed my cheek, and if it isn’t ugly, then she snapped and turned about, embracing the invisible window and becoming the storm, it’s not worth mentioning. I think. she slapped the pane of glass and began to cry.

ghosts

Hello blog readers! I wrote a new simple lil poem yesterday that I thought would be fun to post this morning since some of you like to feel the spooky specters on Friday the 13th. Do you believe in the spirit world?

Ghost of Dave

For some strange reason
I imagined
Dave
My old boss from the dish room
Bruce Hall
University of North Texas

Dave, you
Nearly toothless
Speech impaired mumble mouthed
Man of the country
A farmer
or
A ranch hand
Maybe a cowboy
You
Lived hard
Kinda like a learning disabled Johnny Cash

I thought I saw you as a ghost
Walking the drag
I was on my lunch break

Death came to you while I was yr employee
I was a young man
A college boy
I have gone on
Gotten older
You have not
How is the grave?
In the afterlife do you ever have to wash dishes?

Why did I think of you?
We weren't close
You weren't family
I guess I will never understand my mind
But I thought of you
Even if it was you in ghost clothes

I had to write this poem!

a pair

Hey, here's some poetry for you friends and fellows. I guess it's been a while, so here goes.

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pull off my teeth

of

kind cotton fields where

I shot

your father

it was oh it was.

he said it is the ugly

condor,

days of the crow,

for slicing the lettuce leaf

and

distilling the moonshine

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believe in the rain windows

storm drain

faced

girl in the spider web

I shot down the airplane

and

it landed in your backyard

and it killed your

garden

and spit flame cool across the dash

of your

station wagon

go off the wheels

we fell

in the ditch.

point away

point

away the name of your old

boyfriend who

drank

himself to death

poems about movies

Hey guys, here's a video Jeff, Erin, and I made during our last blog night. Hopes yous don'ts gets dizzys.

Lighter Side II (Go Ask Alice)

I enjoyed reading my crazy fun "lighter" poem at the last blog night so I wrote another bit of verse suitable for some children and adults with whimsical minds. Leave me a note if you like this poem!

Merrily He Splinky Winks…

Merrily he splinky winks
on his way home to Crawdalize.
"I'm a hungrowski boy," he thinks,
envisioning creamy mollbee whipped pies.

Grompen gores shouted "hurray!"
When our hero arrived at dusk.
He was given medals all damn day
and honored with a feast of jaunlinx tusk.

In his slumber he forgot all he'd done
to make life more pleasant in Crawdalize.
He didn't care for glory or the awards he'd won.
He just wanted to pig out on mollbee whipped pies.

boho coco

Hey guys, here is a video-play brought to you from Jeff (ethereal voice), Erin (camera woman), and I (robot). It's from our alter-ego BOHO COCO, a catch-all label we will use from time to time. It's a little different and it's a little lovely, it's a little strange and a little ugly, we give you:

a brief history of the automobile

more from the white palace

Hey guys, here's the next installment from the 'hospital' series. Also, turn in tomorrow for the first post of a new arm of the austinnewblog.

icu nurse

Cliff overhead one of the patients hacking a fit in the next room. Mr. Jones, admitted for a faulty heart. Cliff peeked around the doorway to see the tiny, hairless man choking in his dreams. He rumbled and tussled in his sheets. Cliff stopped slowly and held his hand atop the patient’s wrist. “It’ll be okay,” he chanted, again and again. The white folded towels of the bedside table, the heart monitor blip green, the overcast night sky beyond the window, the tepid breath of the air duct. Cliff was careful, he did not want Jessie, his shift co-worker, to hear him in such manner. Compassion, read his bracelet, but to be true and secret were his deeper desires. Cliff rubbed a hand through his brush of red hair. He imagined Mr. Jones at play in a field of green ivy, unadorned and nude, frolicking in the mince of vegetation over flesh. Clifford recited a humble prayer, willing this man to live another day, perhaps two, and yielded the wrist back to the support of the mattress. Everything in the room was spotless except for the old man; Clifford wondered about his mind. An area of blistering white encapsulated by night shadows, Cliff waded away from Mr. Jones and left him to his dreaming.

--

Though gray was the color turquoise was all he could see. The stars
that hung over him seemed to talk even as he stared down the hallway. The
floors creaked under his feet and he saw a woman in a rocking chair knitting in
a small room to his right. He felt like he had been in this space before. He
continued walking. Johnny Cash said hello to him from a staircase out of
nowhere. He looked out a dirty window and saw ducks chasing a young girl.
Where the hell was he?

--

Cliff removed himself a moment from his book to glance over the still-dreaming old man in bed number seven. Could he see strange gallops of legs invisible in the dark hovering over Mr. Jones? Clifford placed his book down and removed himself from the icu. He wandered and found some windows to peer off this eighth floor. The four am landscape was hungry, it wanted to burst the engines from old autos, to climb the cataract windows of the very meek and very small. From on high, Clifford felt divine, but he too had a hunger. He left the windows.

All computer screens, all monitors and vacant faces, blinked in the wake of Cliff’s presence. He did feel a magic to the halls this early in the morning. Something beckoned. He needed to return to his icu. On his way, he saw a small girl standing on her bed in a random room. He did not go in; he watched. She turned, smiling, then began to jump on her bed. Her hair was red, her knee was scuffed. Clifford passed on, smiling himself.

Back in the icu, Jessie was collapsed at the front desk, arms tucked under her head supporting her sleep. Cliff laughed, then caught himself, chuckling quietly. Cliff wanted to find a cup of water and pour it over her head. He left her to her and spied upon Mr. Jones. The old man’s eyes were open, but he wasn’t present. Clifford thought about the sanity of such places, of rubber wheels and plastic tubes and glass beakers. At times he wanted a lakehouse and a red boat. Cliff wandered into the back supply room and sat atop the counter. He felt the tug of sleep wash over him too. He leaned back, set his wristwatch for ten minutes, then slowly let himself fade away.

--

The river was full of naked women. All ages and sizes. They swam
freely and even tried to tip the boat Cliff felt himself in. The landscape of
tall trees and jungle vines made perfect sense to him. The sounds of ancient
languages seemed to echo, but he saw not a sign of indigenous people. Only
this river of naked women. His boat finally hit the beach and he stood up.
His penis was erect and he felt several pairs of soft tiny hands touching him.
His eyes closed and he yelped with erotic pleasure waves zipping through his
body. Tigers and birds and snakes and monkeys gathered on the beach. There
was a fire burning.

--

The buzz and tic of Cliff’s watch kicked, and he woke abruptly. He shook and nearly fell from the cheap tile counter. He kicked his legs; he shook post-dream cobwebs. He slipped out of the supply room and found the icu exactly the same as he left it. His sleep was a passing wind. Mr. Jones lied with his eyes still open. Jessie remained splayed over the keyboards and phones. Cliff yet wanted to spill a glass of water over her head. He flicked loose coins around in his pocket and sat on the opposite side of the front desk. Cliff picked up his book but found he was unable to read it. He merely began to laugh again, quietly.

Suddenly a siren went off on the other side of the icu. A burn victim named Georgia had suddenly gone into cardiac arrest. “Jessie!” Cliff screamed, but she was already awake. “Bed 10!” Cliff shouted and jumped from his stool. The book landed sloppily on the floor. Jessie dashed over the phones and key board and followed fast on Cliff’s heels.

They saw Georgia and guessed a singe of flesh, terrible eyes, a habit of wanting to fail. Her heart had given way to an attempt at the peace of not being. Cliff readied the defibrillator and Jessie tore away the woman’s cheap hospital shirt. She squirted a gel over Georgia’s heart. “Ready?!” Clifford screamed and pressed the cool metal conductors to her flesh. The body jumped with a jolt, but it was not enough. The blackened flesh creeping down the left half of Georgia’s body did not dance. Cliff zapped her again. Still there was no reaction. Jessie could feel the taste of copper in her mouth. Cliff fired another shot into Georgia’s body. A tiny blip over the heart monitor registered. She had a pulse. Cliff rubbed sweat away from his forehead with the back of his hand. “Jesus,” he said in whisper, holding the defibrillators like paint brushes. He turned to say something to Jessie but forgot what. They traded silence. Jessie escaped the room, leaving Cliff to watch the woman in her new slumber. All these times spent dreaming, he imagined a greater castle than this hospital. He placed the defribs back on their ports and hushed himself a stillness.

a lighter side of Jeffrey

Hey squares, here's the man and the beat telling you how it is. Dig!



Whimsy at Work on a Slow Day

Blag gad fly caboose
Chase the gander & da goose
Choose the tiger nearest death
Wait w/pungent coffee breath

Piggly wiggly thoughts afloat
Sandpaper slug drives a drunken boat
Babies born of taproot juice
Tear up eardrum floozey loose

Mallory hollow tree trunk wig
Bite naked buttocks slender pig
Engravings depict wicked people sticks
Build a mansion out of mustard bricks

The windy hose of nurse's blouse
Plants bed bugs in the captain's house
Willy pilly dungle danger drought
Stop this crazy train, I want out

Erin's found movie poem

Hey guys, I'm posting this for Erin who is hard at work digging to the center of the Earth in search of gold. Wish her luck. Also, Erin composed this piece from a movie poem that will be posted later this week. Banzai!





(here's the poem in written form)

fingernails

as

I

skin

cracked

strangers

half-of

smooth

ankled

sugar

and

bitten

sailboats

promise

it is

the end

Haiku After Lunch

American haiku, as thought of by Kerouac, means simple short poems related to the Japanese form but kinda written in our American "talk." I thought I would share a couple today before Chris S posts some great wonderful blog worthy vids. Watch 'em this week! Enjoy! Burp!

Fun strange
poems slide
from pen to page

***************

Sweaty nut sac
too hot
today

poetry circles

Hello, here are some more poems completing my week of poetry posts. See you next week with some video posts.

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Superman’s chest

bounces

bullets

away and

the women in the hallway

typing

in their ivory chairs

do not stop

to listen

for

catastrophe

.

and it comes locomotive

around

the bed room

once

in

life

a favorite girl chase

a taxi

cab down a hill

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it is not the lust

of the body

when

you sit in the folds

of the couch

collecting

filth.

oh god

girls

who have never

loved

have fragile fingernails

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two stove pipes loose

from the

old

rooftop

in January

in the snow

a girl

who

is frail and

you

across the meadow.

it is enough

we hope

pink scabbards across the beams

double the poem for double the dollar

Hey guys, since last night Jeff, Erin, and I had our monthly blog night, I was not able to post some poetry. Today, I'll post six then, just to make up the difference. Also, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Labeauf was a strange film. Anyway, poetry.

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I spelled my name wrong

in the white

snow

of your front lawn

when you were a girl

and

the cinnamon

in

your hair was of sweetest

pink

cumulous

and the orange sky

crashed atop

us

in pine cone

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my best friends have

icicles

in their

feet

when the winter

settles

around

the coast like

a fur coat

she babbles

and brook.

we catch ourselves this

year

as if for the first time

trying

to believe

in

people

and

things

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bundles of magazine

blustery

sidewalk café

dance

she suggests that

to tumble

for the summer

is

to come over to the apartment

in May

and fix the busted

sink

with a quarter wrench

oh

my teeth

she giggles

but

does not think of mirrors or

car fenders

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not in gray

fields
of loose witches

hair

oh my

love

one billion rocks

tumble away

into

the sea

but you have never noticed

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all

girls who taunt

you

with light switches

in the classroom

beyond the yellow

chalk

and

the teacher

screams

you stole her lunch

and

fed it to the birds

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Christopher Savage

a disco

blaze

set

fire to

the dance

hall

you wicked

girl

all lipstick

but

no

mascara

you.

you care

about the sky

night

complaining

the lack of conservative

and

sound

and

vacant bus

trawling

on

into the never