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Thursday, December 26, 2019

Howie Good - 3 prose poems


How to Cope with a Crisis
Maggie swore she’d just seen John the Baptist searching behind the couch for his missing head. Someone should tell him, she said over the party noises, poor hygiene doesn’t make you look badass. Meanwhile, in every room, even the bathrooms, there were paintings. I took that as a sign of an ongoing crisis in representational art. Then a bird happened to fly in while the door was left open for the dogs. None of us guests could catch it as it ricocheted off tables, mirrors, walls. There was only one thing to do – kick out the windows and scream, “Fire!”

Air Like Poison
Hey, did you see those sea turtles down there? I often see them, though not as often or as many as I did before there were boats, the bridge, some buildings, even a small amusement park. Wherever they go, the turtles seem to leave a trail of watery stools behind. The ocean feels a little sick right now. There’s actually too much sunlight, too much air like poison. And it all comes from the same place, a collected disarray of memory and daydreams, the millstones that early New Englanders used to crush Giles Corey to death for being a witch.

Grandson (with Apologies to Werner Herzog) 
Now that you’re 8 years old, you have to know how to travel on foot. You have to know how to make fire without matches. You have to know how to catch a trout with your bare hands. (It’s fairly easy. You just have to understand how the trout thinks.) You have to know how to forge a document, let’s say a gun permit, in a country under military rule. You have to know how to open a safety lock – surreptitiously, of course, with burglar tools. You have to know how to tell at a glance night from other darkness.

Thursday, December 19, 2019

Vodka Gobalsky - Flarf Diddle

DIDDLE
on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on

[52:36] IN THE END

HOLD IT

[30:00] ALL AS YOU GIVE ME.
[30:00] AS YOU GIVE ME
[30:00] AS YOU GIVE ME

[30:00] ON YOUR LIST
[30:00] ON YOUR LIST
[30:00] ON YOUR LIST
[30:00] ON YOUR LIST

(from Ben Baz-Lincoln's The Music Man's Guide to Gothic and Military Movies, 2001)

(and here's a commercial for the song too...)

(EXPLICITLY to the tune of the song)
And the restless stars 
Once upon a time 
(because, you couldn't tell)
i'm not at all tired now...

(Barry Lyndon, medley)

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Yrik Max Valentonis - Lost in Urban Landscaping #3, #5, #26, #40, & #55

Lost In Urban Landscaping #5 


People stare at clouds
Searching for meaning in their life
Through random actions
Of the environment





In 
Eden,
Adam could
Not help but to
Name everything he saw
The urge to define, classify, denote,
Explain, organize, interpret, express, signify,
Refine


Led
To the
Downfall




humanity's need to
conquer and subjugate
the natural order
of the universe


T O P I A R

***

Thursday, December 5, 2019

Hugh Tribbey - 3 poems



SUBMISSION TO EX-EX, OCTOBER 2019, HUGH TRIBBEY



1 PRIME RIB AMARILLO

April hernia Keno
Toady floral Amarillo
Amarillo with roads
Amarillo elected Vidalias in the colon
Cement of nothing to nothing

Leon heir to dungarees viral
Elsa unites Amarillo to Mongo
Consumes lucid canapés
Lay porcelain areolas
Eat iguanas from oracular Tibet
Lost Amarillo marzipan
Sober last roses of Amarillo

Night gliders to Amarillo escalating
Bowling for diamonds
Errors of grace in the oracle’s perfume
Colorado desperate for division
Enter horseradish and the lost mustard
Break the diodes for manual Amarillo

***
2 LOST CONTRADICTIONS OF SURVEILLANCE

Yo, Boy, Canada!
Mayo
Extra deductions
—tuna tin coal miner—
Doomed veins flow vivid

Toto eats glue
Unite!
Intuition singes the saddle
Under venison bacon

Yeoman bangs his tambourine
Parole the mass from prison ,
No consume

Alchemy
Under dove tray quarters
A cinch

No co-sign
Alchemy
Under the dove tray quarters
A cinch

***
3 MUELLER REPORT VOWELS

E ao ei eea
Aeoo eee oua
Ee ae a e oo
Oe oe a aie o
O e ie oe
A o oeooe aai

Aae

Monday, November 25, 2019

JD Nelson - 5 poems

***
1
I saved an earwig from the black plastic bag of death

shattered crab, friend of the cloud

this is the savings
the little moon

find a clue of the morning to start a non-world

is that cooler than the hum of the sunset



***

2
carols potter the plan a nice planet you know the world is a baby

the plumber of the sunlight
the chambliss of course

the only head in the sky was mine
spotted hen won’t you cluck for me

a child of the north greets the dust



***

3
a plastic answer from a robotic fern

for you to eat the dust when you grumble
shelter shell was in person that night

sleep was a knockover
the old cost of financing the lateral onion

sleep was a donkey eye
wooden face is diamond demento

the night is a saucer for the recruitment yarn
room for a bank in there 



***

4
something reaches out and grabs your ankle

get salt ready for blanking out the people
following that war lizard marching in denton, tx

you need to note that the sci is a corn field baby
the brain reacting to the star wars cake

get back with that shepherd to start the feelings
a junior button from the mellow brown pants

ouch was winstead fog the grump of the hour
wild oz of hair returned with a letter to the sky



***

5
when all you have is a red hot burrito

long ago when we were metal detectors and used the landspeeder

spool of the wish is the one eye
couldn’t be the one this time

this could be the good face of the window (earth shuttling)

Monday, October 28, 2019

Vernon Frazer - poems poems poems


Never Ordered



dewlap tactician
enormous roach pabulum
        fawns

the sentient frankfurter trailed back
baited its play
                       in discursive stillness     

      equally        the          bigamists          
      grown         past         stairwells

under impatience mends hacksaws 

                 brass hazard
                 broadcasting
                 sealant gone

                        to pencilled relapse

                     *

behind their enormous handouts
legged overestimates thickened
the painter before its constituent

                     workloads clear tenements

     slipping 
     the prefrontal grabbing

                as gourmet maturity scented
                savory travels 
                                       delivering 
                                                      
       fireball                                      (where available)
       incident            nuggets
       clangers           of luster  
        
                     threaten
             elision before long

                          bedtime perplexity
                          moves the sceptic gaggles
                          enjoy

                                    where category drifting 
                                    placates a critical swim

                     *

cement mix a raw dinner 
relayed
             under
                        hostage 

     lozenges shored 
     gourmet brimstone

             treks the monograph
             benchmarks 
                                 rummaging lapses

                        across the reclusive stanchions      

                                       the misconception booklets

                                                droop

                                                           unstocked






Barbershop Trio



acclimated pollution cans 
a cappella follow-up to childhood 

     primordial budgeting
     the thriller polls think

the barber vectors easy paramedic 

shattering wet pecans 
decimated flagstaff maroons  

panegyric hopscotch a neon retina 

                        *


the carapace thinkers 
     capture cupid moonlight 
          when velvet romp ruse 

                       weasels reciprocity 

     oiling procurer enlargements
     to condom numerals
                                      baffling reflexes 

enlargements detonate reflexes 
the testicular dreamer’s vacant artifact

          across from
                              drill cleavages 

steed porters lost a maiden verbatim

                       *



charm unsettled oxcarts
offering radar peepholes 

easier caramel pollutants 
     stamping out the rickshaw

husband transmission live
as masterstroke romantic ruse 
the sensual pronouncements 

          slowly breathe 

                   opalescent tiffs 





Resolution Missing Tonic



wearing fifths
torn and bothersome 

     musical man’s                 
     ringmaster crisped exact

          plunk varnishing
          the histrionic carousing
          optical drainage

                      calibrated moaning

where paratactic thanks lost 
to weeping ginger the spider
entrenches browsers in wall-
flower discrimination against 

                      the skyscraper born 
                      on glamour lava wasted

          the chilling sonatas
          a rooftop banjo threaded

               looters down 
               crop rows fizzle

                        the quest drummers 
                        numb among reluctant mergers

                  dish marathon
                  secretions breathe clamor
                  lumberyards botched

                          barriers kissed
                          words mate their simile 






Collection Agency



ramblers clamor deadbeats
lecturing seminal spittle thrashing
appealing to strikers 
                                 of cul-de-sacs

      under chaperone
stationmasters find elevator relief
                when forewarned

 watching               the growths repel
   mends                to yellow urgency
distinction              the fibers embed

numbering from the laughing menages

                       *

brink of bug ordination
linking available threaders
approved a lavish locus

            the enactment
            all portent reclusive

                        monolithic pitfalls uttered

                                 a slow inch
                                 ambuscade 

                    where any shored scapula 
                    posing over 

                                       memento pillows
                                       gout menages &
                                       oligarchy patches

                     

         shredded to stag

                        wishing guess recognition

                       *

 the memorials to 
 colony legislators overestimate 
 a lingering 
                   portfolio 

              archly declaimed
              shank schemata
              douses structure

  vigilance from the brink unclimbed

       whetted portfolio lightning
       on graphic embankments

                 gone brimming 

                                           on repayment




Either Ored



their scavenging papers 
forebode transparent hacksaws 
to doorsteps artfully linear
 
     haze fiber

inking a rectangular shag
protruding gabble diction

     against
                 shake spooning

      colorcast intentions
      baste granite in catalogues

available            gondola bribe
     in                  downturn treks
luggage             soon embraced 

        modern imponderables

                      *

the packeting paired
armor threaders and pearls
refining the writhing
                  
      letterheads
     where the shake climber
     embraced the clear predicates

          before
          the line’s urgent override
          inhabits the past 

                     ambulance forward

    numbering blown before shipping invective

                      *

its mobilities encumbered 

     from guerrilla revolts
    to a lacking potential

         renewed bluffing 

             distilled banshees 
             and penguin fibers        

                 collapsed a fat canticle
                 while aching the stage

                      binary 
      
                               at the boundary grill

Monday, October 21, 2019

Robert Frede Kenter - four pieces

***
Writing thru reading 

1.
Of habit and trespass: archives
libraries of professors, scolded
(Her): in the spaces of liminality
(His): courtly reclusive spinster
in white by virtue of – people.   Like
intimate households, three meals a
day. To keep clean. Celibate – tracks 
release the task of running 
larger homes ---

2. 
the memory 
of Christopher street hot
Village pier.


3. 
what of my cools fingers
at curtains. Another solemn
intervention – tooth brush crown
evades stress – villages attend
resident prompt, the   pause meet  
morning  -- waterlilies 


4. 
backward sky -- fraudulent 
believe inductive haze of 
Child wine as brave
pompous bosoms


5.
Side of a house – to talcum life
tubs of water. books 
and abundant paper.  avalanche
down side street, up stairs.  sleds
down hills, steam. Language promises 
anguish scolds. 

***
Desk Conjunction Rote 


Little children coats falling wind blowing door open
Sit black spider widow window shall be strapped.

Front room teacher radiator steam too hot
Cannot breathe throes of constant suffocation.

Boy shall never learn satisfaction   ever
Retinal nerve clearly animosity is a compound word.

Spider web sticky stuck    it is it is it is
A stick stuck it is it is it is a spider web  

***
Odysseus Equine Road 

I can’t deal with the dealers of death. They asked me, who frightened you
They prepared rabbit stew. Dynamite me out of a trench, my body covered in 
liquid honey for ants to prance. To prattle. O she is so marvelous. There is none 
like her. Encourage short-stops along the road to a stage show. The Sage Empress is 
never far away from the Jack-o-Lantern of theorizing. Pour cold buckets of water over 
me. Like Niagara Falls, its all been a sorry spectacle. How many times do we need to 
watch it? On the promontory, shadows fall. Cascading. Twilight. 

***
Plum. Age

Anonymous shape-shifter she carried concealing farther
Messages, a metronome, mechanical as reasonable
I said, I’ll lend you fifteen if you give me twenty
One at a time, for every day, a carry-on bag for the bay
A satchel of plucked chickens, a sponge, a basket of plums
To follow someone down the follow spot
I follow you who follows

Each bone has its wish, I who collect shells for the long and tall game
Sail across the ocean to you, sail across the ocean to me
Riding the plume the waves cascade
We are hidden inside the mist of one another’s pockets 
Coats opening vows accelerating 
Like I into you, you into eye, painted nails black as thread
Through needle’s need less heed herding Eyes, aye,
The haystacks on trucks over mountain passes patches of fog
Dissemblers embers of fire
Suffocating matched abjure

The jury bespoke evidence of structures
Strychnine tinctures embedded in straw wagons
We’ve run a fowl of sleep, we’ve run afoul of sheep
Jumping over fences in a father breath
That held you closer driving even faster
 When is it all about the when we take the time when 
 We take the oars  Gas-Food- Lodging 
Out into the water, the lake of murmurs
Rumours of food as love, filled up on 
Food and sacrifice, the sacred scars
(Rowing) kissing here, pleasure unravelling
When one turns around one way the unrivaled road
turning into another, and another, and 
another

A maze of ducks, a line of music
The harp lyre on String Road
Liars in rowboats dropping flesh bone tattoos on arms exposed
To the lips of the aching watery clerestory mythology
Because Daddy drove a self-driving truck
Coast to coast
And I left from there
Fog embankments on each side

Quilting stories in a needle’s eye
A needless headless hedonist
I am the One He Who Rises


Imprint on a bed hand prints on flesh
Of ownership, scrubbing off radiant fire
Pouring alcohol down into the stand-alone 
Shower-drain
At the Motel 6 in Swansea Bay

What happened here is transported far
And away has no precedent 
To a prescient de-clutter 

Nothing but transformative sound  (if)