Thank You, Thank You, Anonymous Poster #2!!

It's so exciting to see how this poem changes. Thanks very much to the five of you who have contributed, your additions are wonderful. Poetry can often be a solitary and competitive pursuit, so it's really amazing to see something collaborative come out of it. Here is the poem, in it's sixth round:

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

And our thirsts subtract the rain
And our marbles are equal to or
lesser than the ocean

And our music
disintegrates
into sand

To All the Vaughan-Savages of the World

Octobers

I do not remember the scent of magnolias
Nor the specific grit of sand beneath my fingernails.

But I remember when they started to tear the bridge down
with Dynamite and sentimental iron beams.

I remember the ghosts of Civil War soldiers
clashing by night before a sinking lighthouse.

The nights, so bright, and hallucinatory blackbirds
croaked as the palms' fronds groaned to be torn apart.

But he was the parking garage I could never find my way out of
And you were Vanity Fair while I wept at the House of Blues.

Fires burned in buildings above us
and the sky was purple with pollution and lamplight.

Drunk men swam naked through fountains
while the cotton stuck to our skins.

Every night was filled with peeling peaches
and the crossword clues were ones we could always solve.

Austin Univers Prose Project update

Hey there fellow starbrights, Erin Vaughan's already replied (and so has someone else; who can it be? I'm not telling yet) to the AUPP request. Hers is an inspired piece of grand prose. Me like. Also, her suggestions for you future posters are at the bottom of the post. Also also, any anonymous posters out there need only post a comment and you too can be included in this most historic of endeavors, plus I'll blow kisses to you across the interweb. Great!

here's the genesis paragraph:

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.

--

Through the long hallway of heat, a woman is bending at the waist. The true waist, which is the point of origin for the world.

In the crushed corner by the couch, that girl is thinking that there had better be an end to this. She holds her drink up to examine it, and just for a moment, her eyes are like a gleaming key hitting the light in a hall.

I have often thought of this moment later. Her slim eyes. How I have longed to be like them, their cosmic metal slipping into gear on remote; on opening.

Or how the simple working of light bent to her like a moth before a flame.

--

suggestions:
Cuba
salt
method
hand-wringing
hula hoops

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!