Jack Kimball and Henry Gould remind me that many poets actually have a sense of humor!

I like how the continents in gondwannaland snuggle.

SAFETY LINE

I need to find out how I can brim over more
but I can barely muster the lock.
criticism wants optical swelling
with the extra things lying around
little pieces of bone
heartbeat with simple rules
we could program a computer with
okay, lame, I know...
toward the end of the song
she was waving her free hand
around my head in a frantic gesture
revolving planet with plants on it
and that way be a playmate
with jars that befriend people
what more do you want?
no sweet vision without horrible mishap
either a dilated keyboard
or jockeying insurance into our hands
the beat of flippered limbs
at the end of rope-like effort
that moment of ability
my kid has been choking on for about a year
what people don't know is
ospreys have no need for this crap
with a finger in a straight splint
for the last four weeks
I swordfight through life
hyper-extended between a farmer and a planted seed,
if he opens his eyes he is feeling the whole world's obstruction
those who contemplate the beauty of teeth
find reserves of strength in paper
the universe is full of parietal space
which explains the softest mouth
that used tongue and knew just when to say something
I the they they know how to feel about
a gentle tug upon the sun
painted a security state
regarding the theft of my friends
and sort of hinted at the time I reached into
we don't know about your life, how can we know?
these growing crystals that grow... on purpose? another day
let the beauty of what you love
be a curved splint
to account for the spelling errors
and plentiful global conspiracies
as flexible
as any wind

Studio 360 on Flarf

I Am An Asshole

Turn your eyes away from the computer and look into my eyes.

my comments for Joe Safdie over at Limetree:

What I'm jonesing for is more critical engagement from people challenging Flarf but who don't actually read the books. What I see here is you asking loaded questions about "Flarf" based on your reading of this review. Your questions read more as opinions than questions. Without having read the books, or at least the book under discussion, there's no way you can critically engage beyond a very superficial level about Flarf in general. It's unsatisfying to constantly read smart people doing weak critical thinking because they can't be bothered to confront the primary sources and make up their own minds -- and there is a lot of this! I'm challenging you to be a worthy opponent, which is a valuable thing.

Footloose

Saw a guy on the D train holding a sandwich with a snowmobiling glove.

The faux-anomie needle seems to be in the red. In Wristcutters: a Love Story offing oneself results in becoming a Croatian immigrant in a boring northern California afterlife. It winningly fuses the morbid with the cute. In this sprit I feel I should link to Suicide Salaryman.

Juliana Spahr in my dream last night. (known her since college). I wish I could bring back more details. It was stressful and instructional. Or I should say -- she was instructional in some kind of a stressful context.

Surely different writers have different processes when writing about poetry. But would it be outrageous of me to suggest that actually reading the work that you're expressing opinions about might in fact be an essential element of critical thought?

Spilled coffee -- bread crumbs to the past rather than the future.

When things go wrong I sing along.
It's the nature of the business.

D.J. Huppatz on Sharon Mesmer's Annoying Diabetic Bitch.

Sometimes you have to pour the coffee through the chicken to feed the one trapped in the cogs of economy.