ONandOnScreen

The new issue of ONandOnScreen includes a poem from Valu-Plus paired w/ a video by Cari Freno--read and watch it here.

And then watch more of Cari's videos here.

chase scene #2

what is marriage, and why do people want it. i mean, i'm open to role-playing.
if you want me to be a girl scout, for example, i'll work for my ambassador
good credit financial literacy badge. i'll close my eyes and open my mouth
and you can tell me what's in it for you. the prophet says, "let there be spaces 
in our togetherness." the prophet sleeps around, and keeps it together, while 
my job chews thru my life and the population explodes.

chase scene #1

we’re in applebee’s, and you have a gun. okay. high art lives, the stomach
is greased. am i talking too matter-of-factly about suicide? there’s a reason
wal-marts and pet-smarts keep popping up all over: it’s hero time, still. your
daughter’s getting sleepy, the bus boy wants to take her home. watch out—
he doesn’t pay taxes, never will. look at him, shredding our right to work.
man this chase scene’s getting elitist fast. let’s slow it down, all right? sure
i’ll read your broke-ass paper for the fourth time. let’s let this place be
paradise before the next round of fires. take off all your clothes, and put
your hands on my head.

for love

25,000 a year
i’m told be grateful
—to whom?

big hole
in the ground
waiting for you

spirits

“could be worse”

THE PAIN CENTER was demolished
and the sign’s now in dirty frank’s
under the dartboard

the misfits are
the sam cooke
of punk rock
let it get to you

true joke
can’t sleep
for too long

i got 35 hearts
they’re all a bunch
of customers

i want their skulls
piled up in the make-out
booth where a penn kid
is begging for authority

he’s going to be fired
by a girl

your mother in her 20s
who needed no school

where can i pay for this

no

i mean it’s something how
the moon won’t swim ever
into the sewer, just stay stuck
like that
all this time
a nickel in the sky
w/ your past in its ear

i can’t believe what
you say to me

next big thing

it says NO PASSING THROUGH
but people pass thru
a clothing store opened
in the first unitarian church
for example
so to be people
we could fuck in the dressing room
and be fucking in a frank furness
i mean how easy it is
to be a person
you just gotta
hop trains
pull the covers over
your head
in the morning
like someone hollering
bullshit on the corner
like a trash truck
chewing gum
and if one pops
a question
like where did the idea come from for the book?
and you say what—uh, well, i woke up it was
the city—obligations—birds, birds—strain
of the heart—hiss of the radiator—call on
the phone—people—and their “ideas”—all
the moral baggage—scattered at the door
to the dollar store—how may i help you, etc.
the poem goes on
w/ strain, hiss
and dollar
no wonder
my labor exists
as is
piss on my leg
and tell me it’s raining
the monk's champion socks
are showing
underground
so six more weeks of winter
on this car
holler down the drain
for all the yes bags
who say "middle class"
to get the job
this is your one-sentence synopsis
which leaks
everybody
and i mean EVERYBODY
wants you
to do my dishes

christening

tired of songs
you show up in a true story
like a fist
the corner needs
& the corner needs
a new stop sign
so the city
which is two hired men
come to change it
& in that bare minute
they retire the old
sign to their truck
a little dog comes along
& takes a quick piss
on the new one
right where it says
ALL WAYS
& trots off

Furniture Press

Furniture Press, which published my book Old News and will publish Valu-Plus, is having a subscription drive right now to help raise funds for a big reading tour in the fall, so if you like good books and you've got some dough, consider spending some here.

To hear what some of these poets sound like, check out this recording from last summer at Penn Book Center in Philly.

pep bowl

the pope’s toilet was
the movie i was trying
to think of after
the bowling league girl
from northeast philly
told us her plans for
bolivia in dirty frank’s
and how to fix a broken
relationship
like the one
we were talking about
just loud enough
to be all ears
215-952-BOWL
her tee shirt said
i remember that
and lincoln high school
where oh yeah my mother
went there too
just a few
years after sylvester
stallone dropped out
because i guess he had
better places to be
like the pope
in the movie
who broke a whole
town’s heart
by not showing up
in a true story


                 for ian davisson

make up

funny thing you think my debt
exists

* * *

i said wanna slow dance
right now
in the middle of this
bagel shop
over by the napkin holder
or dispenser
is it

* * *

what do you call
the look i give
you shake off
sometimes

* * *

officer i’m just getting
a cheesesteak, i’ll move
the car in a sec

* * *

we got the same
song stuck
in our head

* * *

love like work
a leash
see the cars
pass

* * *

i hope he doesn’t
take attendance

* * *

before the ocean
comes to get us

* * *

please fill out
this form

* * *

my mother dyes her hair
red every two weeks

* * *

the whole year
was a morning
i couldn’t get
enough coffee

* * *

why begin with
romanticism

* * *

i know it’s raining
i don’t care

* * *

you think charlie
parker’s upset
b/c he can’t sustain
a harmony, said
cornel west, let
me just jump out
here at the
corner

* * *

the moon does not run
on gasoline
gil ott used to sing

* * *

this is my job
you owe me 9 dollars

* * *

i have only
to live

* * *

you take a sip
of your dirty
martini

* * *

it’s a low key thing
not a party
but you can bring
a few people
if you want

* * *

just think: a country
full of human beings
sitting on couches
right now
making out
or not making out

* * *

the wind ripples
the windows
i’m awake

* * *

your sad blue
dress
i will take off
again

where

* * *

why do i have to keep
tying one
on

* * *

look at all the
birthdays

* * *

boss is out tomorrow
let’s do something

* * *

it’s the united states of wells
fargo

* * *

liam neeson fights
a wolf
to the death
w/ his bare
hands
in alaska

* * *

maybe we’ll make
another one
but this baby’s
dead

* * *

let me just jump out
here at the corner

* * *

like falling asleep
on your couch
as you read poems
to me against
my knees

* * *

i like your voice
how you read

* * *

certain sorts of faces
are climbing up
thru me

* * *

one
crow
caws

* * *

i’m drunk
and it’s freezing

* * *

new law: straight people
cannot get married

* * *

new law: no more
insurance companies

* * *

new law: throw em
under the bus

inaugural poem

i read the first line
and closed the tab

dancing

A short film by Philly poet Hassen Saker:

kazoo

cops in the apple store
working for “the city”
like you have to stay here
and be the place
no poem
so all mayors must hang
like real ornaments
done to you
from trees parks
chalked up—all bodies
make a case
for bracing yourself
the city’s lights settle in
your girl’s face who
are fugitives to grow us
past mere poetics
i am an ancestor too
who meant by “permanence”
(like a car)
food, shelter and sex
while performing abandonment
which is a door
in a cloud—open it
for the noose
made of bill gates
and watch bill move his mouth
over the toilet
40 public schools
into
one
your
assignment: write
an essay in which you crawl
toward subjectivity
as flat tires
gallop thru the wheezing
infrastructure

new year resolutions

                                      (consume consume)

*

It was as if they were in a cage whose door might as well have been wide open, for they could not escape. Nothing outside the cage had any significance, for nothing else existed any more. They stayed in the cage, estranged from everything except the cage, without so much as a flicker of desire for anything outside the bars. It would have been peculiar—indeed impossible—to break out into a place with neither reality nor significance. Absolutely impossible. Inside the cage, in which they had been born and in which they would die, the only tolerable framework of experience was the real, which amounted to an irresistible instinct to act so that things should have significance. Only if things had significance could one breathe, and suffer. It was as though there was an understanding between things and the silent dead that it should be so, for the habit of acting so that things should be significant had become a human instinct, and a seemingly eternal one. Life was the important thing, and the real was part of the instinct that gave life some slight meaning. The instinct did not try to imagine what might lie beyond the real, because there was nothing beyond it. Nothing significant. The door stayed open and the cage became more and more painful in its reality, which was significant for countless reasons and in countless ways.

We have never left the age of the slave traders.

--Raoul Vaneigem (translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith)


*

                                      (Louis Faurer)


*

two thousand zero zero

I remember millennial
paranoia
if no one else does

how at twelve ten a m
after
we’d sung 1999
and everyone
had kissed everyone
once the skinny
dipping began
I walked
the gravel road
cars parked
in the dark
on every side
to my friend’s toyota
and turned the radio on
to hear
the world burn

nothing

and I was so
disappointed
to know that
everything
would go on
being so
contemporary
and awful

--Brandon Holmquest


*

                                      (consume consume)


*

                                      (consume consume)


*

                                      --CAConrad


*

                                      (street art utopia)


*

Ballad of the Poors

Someday (again) (soon) (I hope) the POORS
will delete our invisible shackles.

The POORS will stop filling our mouths
with cocks and peppermints and high fructose

corn syrup, and our brain cells will be light
again, like hummingbirds.

Someday the POORS, the ninety-nine percent, someday
we’ll all make breakfast for each other on a

Tuesday afternoon. The Christian POORS will love
the Gay POORS and all the colors of POORS

Will make Dyonisian love with each other until
there is no more whiteness anywhere but

Olive oil or Sandpaper or whatever and whatever
until color is just another adjective we barely

Even use. Someday the POORS will realize
that coffee tastes better to us, and toilet paper

Feels better to us, and movies are more
magical to us, and fucking feels ten times better

When you’re hungry and exhausted and afraid
of who might come in. Someday when Jesus is back

The Christians will all repent and be saved
and the Angels will spread their rainbow wings

Over even the most shameful Republican tapping
his foot in the dirtiest public restroom stall.

Someday when the POORS stop believing in money
they’ll recognize Jesus again in the language

itself/in the language of their children instead
of the language of their Oppressor.

Someday when the POORS stop believing in money
they’ll recognize again the voices of the Prophets

In spite of the hate-speech of the slack-jawed monkey
puppets sleeping the skyscrapers and sleeping in the cubicles!

Someday each POOR will reach out her fingers
and lead the Oppressors by their ties into the barbeque-

scented dusk of anti-ownership, and we’ll all get high
along the pure brown sandy beaches of Vieques
and Pittsburgh and everywhere and wherever.

--R/B Mertz


*

*

The poem will end
Okay--I didn't mean to be that melodramatic
I mean there are always road accidents
They won't leave the dance floor tonight
Even if I start reading Das Capital out loud
So there is love--and it collapses
Under the mercy of production
You stood there--angry and fragile
Out of childhood fear
And the Marxists' failures
Which is almost the saddest thing you know

--Maged Zaher


*

                                      (consume consume)

*

"I stood waiting" "for some minutes" "in this very" "alive darkness—"
"the air so vibrant," "the trees awake" "There were flowers," "mixed
grasses," "growing lower" "in the dark," "& I was relieved" "to be
near them" "after so much time" "where nothing grew" "Then" "I heard a

song" "faint & blurred," "a slow song" "I heard it" "as if through
walls" "As if" "there were a room" "next to where I stood" "& someone,"
"a man," "sang inside of it" "The tune was sad," "& attracting"
"I approached it—" "where its source seemed to be—" "& it moved away

from me" "just a" "short distance" "This happened twice" "Then I
understood" "I was to follow it:" "& so it led me—" "through deep
woods" "& clearings," "for" "a long while" "The voice sang" "the
same melody" "over" "& over" "mournful" "& intimate" "in a language"

"I didn't recognize—" "or didn't think I did:" "it was hard to" "hear
the words—" "Till at last we" "reached a meadow" "where the song"
"ceased to sound," "pale & empty" "with trees around it" "Then I
sank to" "the ground" "& fell asleep for" "a long time" "But when I

awoke" "of course" "it was dark"

--Alice Notley

old people vs. babies

go vote in the church
whenever your drunk
little heart desires

* * *

quiet sex

* * *

ultrasound
normal

* * *

i am making out
w/ a tree

* * *

basting

* * *

i’m so sick of all
the tax talks

* * *

there is a little boy on the bus
who won’t shut up
his name is ryan

* * *

go back to jersey, heidegger

* * *

we can just have peas from a can

* * *

i shook wilson goode’s hand today
it looked like bad porn
which is what we wanted

* * *

god is like walmart
he has everything

* * *

we can roll around in
the wet red clay
listening to otis redding
all day
drinking wawa coffee

* * *

you were born at 9:13pm
eating an avocado
in the twilight of a mediocre career

* * *

i am now eating a soggy tuna sandwich
and thinking about why my experiment
isn’t working

* * *

colin farrell is filming on the rooftop
across from my lunchroom window

* * *

there really are naked chicks

* * *

that asshole’s asshole
is going in a poem

* * *

so i’m having a child
the name north is off
the table

* * *

i can’t believe they killed him

* * *

life on earth = B-

* * *

you’re gonna flag
my shit

* * *

at 5th & miff

* * *

meeting yorty at lucky in 20

Valu-Plus: a book of poems

Open publication - Free publishing - More philadelphia

spoons

poached eggs on toast
& a peach
the sky falls
guys put
gold on bones
til a way of life
sticks
poetry for the last
time is not work
i have no insurance
you have no blimp
an army of bridal
showers
blankets the future
i would join the army too
if i were a lizard
but no
that’s not how it is
my heart waters like yours
claims nothing
& customers just
happen
like government
is the day inside us
memorial
day pops
it’s spleen de paris
look busy in the face
no blah the melody
a good job is
pellegrino
caps & shutters
your name in my
pocket
& the moon rolls
down the street
to spit on us
quick
let’s make out
quick
in front of these kids

poem for satan

in the hatching of eggs
for example
the eggs of the potato bug
those of the canary
those of the barnyard hen
the eggs of ducks and geese
those of the mallard
the eggs of the parrot and the ostrich
the number of days in a week
in the making of an elephant
satan has a headache
when you open it
he collapses
and the horse rises from the ground
on its two front legs
a cow rises from the ground
with its two hind legs
and says MOOOOO as waves
of the sea roll in on shore
and the great botanist
of soil, moisture, and headaches
and day or night
by flowers that were open
and those that were closed
on the stalks of collapse
each watermelon has
each orange has
each ear of corn has
each stalk of wheat has
every bunch of bananas has
an unsharpened pencil
with which to write
the bible and give
you a headache

wormwood walkmouth

In the middle of spring I collaborated with CAConrad on a weeklong (Soma)tic exercise, after which we wrote a poem and then wrote over and through the poem while getting drunk on absinthe in my kitchen. Below you can read the exercise we created and both versions of the poem that followed. Go here to read more of Conrad's exercises.

COYDUP

COYDUP's a zine made by poets Meg Ronan and Katy Bohinc to pass around at Occupations or wherever you please. Here's the idea--you print some up, fold them in half, go outside and offer them to people for free or leave them in public and private places for someone to find. Or make your own and do the same. One sheet of 8 and a half by 11 paper, double-sided, folded in half; MS word. Meg and Katy made the first two issues during Occupy DC and OWS last year, and the third issue--which you can click on below--for the national gathering in Philly earlier this summer. COYDUP will show you a good time. Issue 4 out soon.

joe paterno is our football coach

you just gave ten cents
to a local charity
improving children’s lives

* * *

you deserve it
their lives
water
coming out of
your penis

* * *

GIVE water

* * *

when you say nation
and mean it
there’s no nation

go figure

* * *

hard to explain this
to an 18-yr-old football
player who’s written nation
four times in his brief
opening paragraph

* * *

go figure
the i in team
rub some dirt
on it

* * *

the i in team
wants the words
as breezes

* * *

as breezes as civil service

* * *

as breezes as open season

* * *

who’s ready for a dead baby
joke?

* * *

nobody
because this poem’s title
is in your name

* * *

joe pa

* * *

there’s a picture of joe paterno
on my credit card
my first one
my only one

* * *

as a kid i followed the team
and wound up in its school
because of that—the blue & white
sharp
basic
no bullshit
uniform

and it was pennsylvania
almost
local

* * *

but the town was disneyland
for douche bag frat types
who majored in being
their fathers

* * *

not that i never
enjoyed myself
in happy valley

* * *

i even went to a few games
in 1998 & 1999 when
they choked real bad
end of the season

* * *

there’s a joy
in watching
a great team fall
apart
suddenly
something you learn easily
growing up in philly

* * *

penn state was never
my team
go figure

* * *

in fall 1999 i was writing my first poems

i met matthew kremer & sassy ross
poets
who are still my friends

13 years later

* * *

ken rumble & c.s. giscombe
poets
who were my first teachers

* * *


a sense of possibility
in language then
got me in this situation
(today)
largely
to have given up
on character & plot
for the possible
which is nothing
really

to be the tree
as you say tree

* * *

at penn state
go figure

* * *

you might say
i began to learn
the i in team

* * *

to learn the i in team
is something
like a long march
thru an institution

to invade a phrase
from rudi dutschke
a student
a teacher
who believed you change
society by working within
or re-creating existing
institutions & loci of power
over time

* * *

rudi was german but his team
was international
and socialist
that’s why he got shot
in the head
in 1968

* * *

the bullet
however
took 12 years
to kill him

a long march
during which
rudi kept
winning

* * *

the i in team
is a body

not a bullet

* * *

funny the washington
bullets are now called
the washington
wizards

* * *

wash
wash
wash

* * *

i’ve got serious doubts
about the efficacy of
a long march thru any
institution in the usa
a team whose many
& various paraphernalia
root deeply & everywhere
its secret class war
so plain as day
shirts on people

* * *

to speak for myself
a life in poetry’s been
more a slow shedding
of nation
its constant
paraphernalia

* * *

some days i can almost
speak as myself

* * *

have you seen my shirt?

* * *

seems there’s a team
in i
that too few know

* * *

makes it tough
to bank on this
“critical pedagogy”
as meaningful work

* * *

this summer
like last summer
i’ve got a job
teaching basic writing
to freshman football
players at temple university
so they can get it out of
the way
before the season
starts

* * *

you might say i'm a tool
for temple’s football program

* * *

pays $4800 for six weeks
before taxes

not bad
at all

* * *

off the bat
i tell my students
i don’t represent temple
or community college or
wherever i’m teaching
which is mostly true
since wherever
i’m teaching
you’ve hired
an independent contractor

* * *

“adjunct”

* * *

the university does
what it can
to prevent long
marches
thru it

* * *

most w/ real jobs
in such places
are not exactly radical
which is to say
not exactly just

* * *

FAKE PROGRESS
2012

like

FAKE PROGRESS
2008

like

FAKE PROGRESS
2004

etc
etc

* * *

you get the picture
more than you
know

* * *

support for adjunct unionization
efforts has been next to nil
at temple

* * *

next to nil
you take what
you can get

* * *

hello, nil

* * *

the university is run like wal-mart
i tell my students

and we talk about it

* * *

we read a little paulo freire
about two pages

* * *

i tell them stories
make them laugh

to try to explain it

* * *

(sigh)

* * *

(yawn)

* * *

can i go to the bathroom?

* * *
. . .
. . .
. . .

* * *

are we watching a movie today?

* * *

yes we are:

he got game
(spike lee)

* * *

soundtrack by chuck d:

it might feel good
it might sound a little somethin
but fuck the game
if it ain’t sayin nothing

* * *

homework: what is it
for your game to say something?

what do you want it to say?

* * *
. . .
. . .
. . .

* * *

uhhhhhh . . .

* * *

god . . .

* * *

what time is it?

* * *

okay

* * *

up again
old heart

* * *

that’s right
i quote emerson
to myself
in the morning
so i can keep
teaching these
remedial classes

* * *

and drink up the espresso

* * *

and think about this wonderful girl
i’ve been seeing
how good she makes me
feel

* * *

until my thought bleeds into the abstract
mess of old worry & feeling
staked to love & identity—a single stake
no intelligence
can account for
and so re-focus on work
off past in the spine

* * *

wait, what’s this about?

* * *

why are you rioting?

* * *

“because joe pa’s our football
coach and they fired him”

* * *

oh, right

* * *

joe pa was the winningest
coach in college football history
until the ncaa “vacated” all
his victories going back to 1998

now he’s the 5th winningest coach
of all time

* * *

now we know
if you’re a great football coach
and you help cover up your
assistant coach’s rapes
of young boys
the ncaa will vacate
some of your victories
after you die
of lung cancer

* * *

perhaps such details
aren’t necessary since
at present that’s all
common knowledge

but i wonder who’ll
remember
in say five years

who will remember
in 20 years

* * *

will this poem even exist in 20 years?

* * *

what about in 50
or 100 years?

* * *

will joe paterno
still be
our football coach?

* * *

next week
my football class
will be reading
“the meaning of success”
a chapter in michael messner’s book
power at play: sports and the problem of masculinity

* * *

messner criticizes the lombardian ethic
which places winning above all else
so that an athlete’s self-worth
depends always and only
on his latest performance

* * *

sort of like in the art world

* * *

“you’re only as good as your last game”

* * *

consider your own sense of failure
low self-esteem and problems
w/ intimacy

and how it may be linked to
the way you’ve constructed
your own identity in relation
to an imagined public—“the crowd”

* * *

some of my students won’t
want to hear about this
they won’t want to hear
that the lombardian ethic
which got them a full ride
is used to cash in on athletes
especially those from poor
backgrounds (like themselves)
who will most likely end up
seeing themselves as losers

* * *

joe paterno
advanced as he was
didn’t want to hear
about jerry sandusky
raping boys in the shower

* * *

raping women is common practice
among male athletes in college

you can blame the individual
every time & forget about it

you can vacate the rape
of a woman

of boys not so much

* * *

a guy from last year’s football class
is going to jail this year for
raping a woman

* * *

who roots for you in jail?

* * *

here we are
in a remedial class

which includes
the middle class
and all of their
fleeting victories

* * *

can we talk
about rape and $$$$$
and our football coach

* * *

this is no longer
a performance

* * *

you the i in team
may begin

la plata, la estación, una conversación

Three poems translated into Spanish by Carlos Soto-Román were just published in Gaceta de Estudios Latinoamericanos.

red sky

my body was a lake
people fished in
i watched
from a tree
dozed
as leaves
hard
to
believe
that’s my hand
trembling
when my son
goes to shake
it goodbye
not me
that i was people
son, let me tell you
true anonymity
is a mannequin
getting fucked
by a bum
in the lobby
of macy’s
the whole show
in which an object
any object
if he or she likes
being an object
eats holes—
have you ever been
a moth
swatted to dust
faked out
by “the light”
in search of form
as if form
were not restlessness
                fishes
are form
                teases
the sip
home
for example
                of diseases a lot
of trombone
can be said to
let the park be sadness
flat as sadness
          freedom
which is a hinge
this very line all
greased up
for you to step
any direction
your mouth pleases
in mug of world’s
best form
itself
lowing heart
down
heavy
in the dam
if i repeat
“the one true thing”
every time
“the one true thing”
sews a button
back on
your shirt
the button is tender
it lobbies
for its own
subversion
w/ out knowing
flat as sadness
i will teach you
how to come
from somewhere
here, put this name
tag on & go
play w/ the others

tag

what heals the damage
done to language ain’t
the question—leave
your poem on a bus
& get off
to talk at all, or
to crib our students,
i got options
i’m sick
throw up an estate
it’s real
it won’t cheat on
you or anyone, still
you worry you won’t get
the loan, take it personally. well,
the women i got over
i lived with, says a friend,
says to start over
       to destroy desire
you have to fight over
daily physical space for
a time, house of mind
only a limb from that—the mouth,
telling you off. speechless,
but w/ pride in the shame,
shared, each of you splits
into strips, a fiction rusting off
the end of a branch
nice to meet you. my decrepit
father attacks me in a dream
foaming at the mouth. this
is real—signs held up repeat
it: this is real, this is real as
on city hall’s first day of
school: wake up, wake up
from the cars you are—cars
are people, their attitudes
curl the spine, turn the eyes’
corners flat over the nerves.
optimus prime is not your
friend—go ahead & cross
the fucking street
it's not on the test
it’s yours—
if they ask you for credit
give them a branch
when they want you to get it
chew on some grass
         i know
         i know
city hall is the brain
of a shark, it fits
in a jar: real estate—
you could smash it
against a wall
or bury it
as a teacher
as a teacher, i say you’re all
teachers & are afraid to learn
we look at tusks
in a cabinet
for digging up roots
buffalo come back
on the nickels
like a told-you-so
i thought their bones
were from giant people
in a blue book. in a blue book,
be a native speaker for
once, have a face
& a body of nickels
your path to a bachelor’s
degree starts here
says an asshole
on a train about
to explode
the neighborhood is turning
the corner
says an asshole
made of drywall
in a casino of pennies
at the feet of the poets—
it’s years to do another life
calmer than newsweek
in a blue book. in a blue book,
say why this train you catch
is years to hum
piano up to door
this train you catch
its ears
for 700 pages
of fairy tales
all one horse
700 pages
all one horse
    one steed
of shakespeare water
teacher says please
stand up
like a state
please discuss inner
refreshment
please discuss baby
corn tonsils
for 700 pages
in a blue book
calmer than newsweek
it’s multiple choice:
who are bill & melinda
gates
who are the rolling
stones
of wall street
who are you to fill out
their bubbles
what smalltimer keeps
spraypainting RAT
in all the crosswalks
along 10th street
from cvs six blocks
to my corner—twice
at fernon RAT
spraypainted over
in black
by a vigilant neighbor
to no avail—RAT is re-applied
good as new
RAT
each block
RAT
the sure refrain
as you walk to cvs
RAT
& back
for toothpaste or toilet paper
less & less able
RAT
to distinguish between
RAT
the images in mind
of whoever RAT might refer to
RAT
& the author of RAT
& yourself:
                RAT
                RAT
                RAT
                RAT

pah!

momentum

* * *

momentum is something

* * *

i have sometimes

* * *

overrated

* * *

i just saw a payday
commercial
for the first time
in my life

* * *

all peanuts and caramel

* * *

underrated

* * *

candybar

* * *

that was in a bar
down the street
full of asterisks
i might report

* * *

the payoff
is time off
no fooling

* * *

it was a new place
called watkins
on 10th st
in south philly

* * *

i’ll give you that

* * *

i had dinner by myself
a burger
it was fantastic

* * *

not true—actually
it wasn’t that
good

* * *

i said nothing to no one
save the bartender
a nice quiet girl
we exchanged words
of business
and polite thanks

* * *

i watched a tv show called
30 Rock on mute
read the closed caption
laughed quietly to myself
a couple of times

* * *

tina fey
&
alec baldwin!

* * *

stars

* * *

happy hour 5-7
half off all pints
including brooklyn
black chocolate
stout

* * *

not bad!

* * *

also at one point
dude next to me
got up, said “now
you’ve got more
elbow room”

* * *

elbow room!

* * *

2.50 not bad
for all that
year 2012
philly usa

* * *

on a planet


* * *

on a planet?


* * *

on a planet


* * *

rule is say anything
it’s a poem
if your neighbor
feels it

* * *

do i have neighbors
sometimes
i wonder

* * *

what w/ all this
elbow
room

* * *

back now typing
in my apartment
btwn the asterisks
of sleep and work

* * *

who do i neighbor

* * *

i’ve seen neighbors
in other countries
not like here

* * *

we’re standoffish
and think highly
and often of real
estate, which is
killing us all

* * *

i’m in no hurry
to die

* * *

you?

* * *

hard to believe
we’re still here

* * *

given, say, what all
went down btwn us
last century
and the continued
proliferation of
nuclear weapons


* * *

not to mention global
warming and the rapid
depletion of natural
resources such as
water

* * *

really if you’re still
reading this
i’ve got to wonder

* * *

but can you defend
anything you do
really
in terms of time
which you know probably
very little
probably actually nothing
about?

* * *

we have all the time
in the world

* * *

and you are lazy
which
i love
in secret

while you work
at nothing
really

* * *

under my calm
a minutemen
song from the 1980s
pops to mind:

“paranoid chant”

* * *

the song begins

i try to work and i keep thinking of world war 3
i try to talk to girls and i keep thinking of world war 3

* * *

cold war
punk rock

* * *

the singer d. boon
died in a car accident
while the band was
on tour

* * *

mike watt, the bass player
shows up on my facebook
page sometimes under
“people you may know”

* * *

should i send him a “friend request”?

* * *

“you like to ruminate”
a teacher told me once
suggesting that i take
too long to respond
too long to articulate
my thinking

* * *

i ruminate

i chew the cud
like a cow
and watch you
stare into the mouth
for a neighbor

while i imagine myself
transforming into
my father

* * *

comes a time
to shit out
the burger

* * *

who are my friends if
not neighbors

* * *

i miss ted berrigan
whom i’ve never met
nor will on this planet

* * *

and i don’t believe in
planets
after life here

* * *

too bad for you
i imagine my mother
saying to me

* * *

let’s try to move on
from religion
shall we

* * *

this is for you

* * *

it doesn’t matter
what fucking century
it is

* * *

friend

* * *

honesty is hard work
it lets you down

* * *

i’m still not sure
what i’m trying
to prove

* * *

sometimes writing
isn’t the way

* * *

sometimes sex all day
isn’t the way

* * *

sometimes getting drunk
all week isn’t the way

* * *

sometimes drinking coffee
all day isn’t the way

* * *

the poet anne boyer
posts on facebook
“we need communes”

* * *

8 people like this

* * *

i guess i like it too

* * *

she’s in kansas

* * *

i think i’d rather be
alone in a room
w/ anne boyer’s poems
than in a commune
w/ a bunch of poets
or radical leftists

* * *

right now suddenly
i feel love
for everything
and could cry
if i knew i didn’t
have to keep
writing

* * *

i know you can’t
feel that right now
anyway

* * *

it’s the land

* * *

it’s the land
we are out of touch
with

* * *

with

* * *

if there's no land
there's no history
and time is money
not motion thru
space

* * *

john cage’s “lecture on nothing”
just
popped to mind

* * *

its rhythm
its pacing

* * *

you should read it
if you haven’t
aloud some time
to some one
you care very deeply
about

* * *

or aloud to an empty
room

* * *

you’ll be glad
you did

* * *

that’s about all
the advice
i have to offer
today

* * *

you are a ball of
romance, go on

* * *

take the skinheads bowling
take them bowling

* * *

from here on out
larry anderson
is calling balls
and strikes

* * *

you must be fucking blind
he says
during the commercial

* * *

it is time
for a pitching
change

* * *

the umpire watches
me calm down

* * *

it’s okay, larry, have
another drink
don’t forget
your sense of
humor

* * *

it’s only a game

* * *

you’re winning
on the radio
between pitches

* * *

don’t worry

i’m not saying
that life is baseball
or whatever

even though it is

* * *

strike one

* * *

strike two

* * *

strike three

* * *

i’m going for a walk

speaker of the house

woke up spooked, outside
a womb. what womb? for
a walk, valu-plus, walk it off
outta business, this paper
cup life a ghost in building.
what do you say to someone
who’s working when you’re
not. you just get your gum
and go on. in passing, put a
hoodie on, the speaker no
longer recognizes you. who’s
the speaker? wasn’t it the
speaker flew to philly to speak
to the wharton school of
business but got spooked
en route and canceled when
he caught word a public would
show—people, who live there—
here, work, fight, love. stand
in the street, waiting. spokes
in a wheel, spinning—no house.
love is no house, never recognized
the speaker anyway. anyway,
get a job, get a job on a jet back
to job, says a dude on a jet in the
wind, as a job is a cloud in a hoodie.

citypaper

My good friend Chad Willenborg and I used to try to win the citypaper writing contest every year. Then they stopped having it for a while (no poetry, at least). Then they started it back up again and this year Chad, a fiction writer, persuaded me to send in some poems. We both won. We celebrated last Thursday at Dirty Frank's where we used to bitch about losing 8, 9, 10 years ago.

If you're in Philly, the 4/5 issue will be in newsboxes for a few more days. Or you can go read Willenborg's story, "Blackout" (an excerpt from his novel) here. You can find my poem on the citypaper site, too, but the formatting is messed up, so just scroll down this blog to Feb 11, boom, winner. Some nice chance overlap between the story and poem.

* * * * * * *

PS - a facsimile of the paper. Click and flip to page 18:

Open publication - Free publishing

please do not lean against doors

if it stops
& they open
you fall out

you fall out
& they open
if it stops

if it stops
if it stops
if it stops

a conversation

Alina Pleskova interviewed me in person--the old-fashioned way, w/ a tape recorder--about how I got into poetry in the first place, ended up running a reading series, and why I write the way I write. You can read it in Apiary.

a few reviews, all at once

Recently, Toby Altman reviewed Old News in Apiary Magazine. So did Daniel Bouchard in Zoland Poetry, Gina Myers in The Rumpus, and Joshua Ware on his blog. Thanks, folks.

Also, here is a blurb--which is more like a poem--that Eric Baus wrote for the SPD page. Eric composes his blurbs and introductions almost entirely of the writer's words. Wish I wrote it myself:

OLD NEWS is a real city. Many persons on the pavements. A picture teacher. A brief history of Spirit-matter. A brief history of a lost dog. Total Assets: a flash card with the word friend on it. Professional History: picking through the garbage with Gabriel García Márquez. Often it is permitted to return to a factory. A car goes by and it doesn't explode. What's it say to all these dead people? White House for rent, 2 bdrms 1 bath.