So…I’m writing a letter of introduction to a possible employer, thinking about including a link to one of my poems online, and the website is now one devoted to wrist watches. Can’t find any trace of Pax Americana anywhere anymore. Gonna have to edit that old post.
http://www.thebaconreview.com/featuretwo.php?id=24 – the guys at The Bacon Review who published my short-story THE MONTREALER online did a sort of informal interview with me the other day, the text of which is up now – we talk about OJ, poetry , fiction, bike messengering, Jim Henson, other stuff. “Puppets freak the hell out of me.”
I. 2/28 A Short Threnody
You see more and more people who look like people
you know
than ever before the day you realize
it’s as nice to dream about saving our planet
as it is to thank Jesus for that sort of
cute girl with the clipboard
who has a way with words
She’s been working since she was 14
has multi-colored hair
and can get you a job if you want or need one
Now with her literature in your pocket
you can recall what’s-her-face also
back from the dead from your old school days
II. 3/18 With Revision
this was actually on Grand Street much earlier
and she was dead tired looking, dead something
it must have been those blues eyes of yours
so she called out to you, or your obviously bleeding heart
either way she didn’t seem to recognize you then
“So let whoever is able to
go on ahead and walk down-at-the-heel
without a thought for the future
or the fabled inconsequence of knowing.”
either is a departure from the chorus of alarms
a voluptuous estrangement
they might compare to falling
asleep with your clothes on
-BT
Thrilled to have this story in The Bacon Review, (a seriously put-together online journal) and it is edifying to read in the editor’s notes that they complety ‘got it’ so-to-speak:
“…evokes that unmistakable feeling in our gut when autumn turns into winter and we know that times ahead will be tough – and cold. This ain’t no Karouac, friends. There’s no romanticism here to polish the edge off of real, genuine loneliness. But do not despair! There is hope to be found, not just for Jay and Tom (Tripp’s protagonists) but for the prospect of reading literature that elicits a ‘lighter side’ of human life.”
Kinda makes it all worth while. That link again to their latest issue:
Once upon a time
Not so long ago
I’m telling you
I had these few things
That I absolutely relied on
Looking out my window
From my little attic room
Lit by one bulb
This was in the summer
I left the window open
(and the ceiling slanted)
And sat working at the rickety desk
Threw some things in the old dresser
In which every rotted wood drawer stuck
What kind of a place was this, you ask
It was an old house
More like a ship than anything else
This story again…ah! to live again for free
What a blessing it was so of course I dwell on it
Yes there was the typewriter, plenty of paper, why not
But I had my laptop as well
Many notebooks
Many ‘book’ books
Incense
My Swiss Army knife (“so beat-up” said Kit, who had one of his own)
That thing’s lost now
Three-pronged ‘Park Tool’ for tuning-up the bike
A good messenger satchel, black with the reflective silver stripe on the flap
When I woke up early looking down on the lawns and the neighbors and the street
The dew was already evaporating with the hot air under the August sun
It was always either sunny or a hurricane
The grass was shining all right
Nicely cut
Parcels
Respective acreage for every citizen on the block
“What a crock of shit society is.”
I might have written
In town
You buy milk bacon eggs cheese
From the gas station
You have with you
Painkillers (the legal kind)
Free matchbooks
Sunglasses
Helmet very professional
‘Unbreakable’ comb in pocket
Pen
Pencil
Little magnesium wedge-shaped pencil sharpener Made In Germany
Felt-tip Marker
Bungee cords
Screwdriver
Various currency and identification
Checkbooks
Scissors
Keys
Locks
Water bottle complete with carabineer
Flash drive (two)
Paper clips
Rubber bands
At least two (coincidentally) red white and blue handkerchiefs
People call them bandanas but that’s not what they are at all
Keep a piece of paper folded-up in your pocket
With a pen
For those ideas that’s just can’t wait
A notebook in the breast pocket, dashing as a man may appear with one
Is pretentious
Some favorite words of mine are: verdigris, aquiline, fait accompli
Crescent wrench
The strange L wrench for those special bolts
Cellphone
A deck of playing cards
Access to a radio and the internet
Headphones
Only the most resonant and compact musical devices
There is no privacy
Fact-checkers confounded with mythology as much as history
It’s all the same
It’s all happening
Come to think of it, it’s all happened before
And it’ll happen again
I use to set all these things together in a line on the desk
Which I recall now was actually a table
Either way
Just as trains rivers snowstorms
Arguments the undead learn the tango
Argentina
And the world is no more like Shakespeare
Than rampant power outages “Cana-da” -ian postal codes
It’s never boring
Everyone compares notes
It’s stupid to have so many books
Hello, we live in a democracy
There are libraries
I go to the library
There are some books I couldn’t live without
It’s true
Of course I love books
But it’s stupid unless you’re a distinguished professor
Poet
Agriculturalist
Writers
Librarian
Antiquarian
College student
Architect, maybe
Collecter
Keeping so many books in your house
For reference
Whatever
You’ve never read a lot of them
I hadn’t read a lot of the books I used to own
But I kept them around they’re good placeholders
Doorstops
Conversation pieces
Coasters
Shims
Etcetera
Really
All they are is another piece of technology
Books
Like trains
And bicycles
If you’re patient persistent they can take you places
Used books
Phone books (now obsolete)
Notebooks (absolute necesity at all times)
Datebook (I think the same applies here)
I sold gave away or threw away all but a few of my books
“Frédéric Sauser” I kept
Bolaño’s latest as well
Some other spiritual texts
I think that may have been it
I’m always picking up new books along the way
Not to mention writing them
11 (from Port Of Entry)
It has been a flurry, this news of team alchemy.
Punk has ended; time for the auction.
There will come a time when your friends won’t like you;
your money in the woods won’t help you either.
Before I was a mediator hot under the color demure
I would hang the phone up frequently
and stay away from where the action was.
The Newsletter stated a night of performances might be
like therapy for some. Now as we revel in and around
the unsavory mystique of this red and black scarf
that once belonged to Antoinette
we realize the year is 1877. The scarf is irrelevant,
threadbare it remains until the affair has ended.
-written with Alex Hampshire
I’m tired of being so interesting all the time
So I’m not trying anymore
I promise
I’m pasting-up a new bulletin today on the big board
It reads
Don’t even think about being interesting
Just be
All there is is archeology & controversy
At the bottom of the lake
Mr. Trout
Hello
Air bubbles shoot-up through the pauses
The first time you go
The first time everyone goes
You just go for it
As they say
No reservations only appetite
Maybe move to a small town in Modest, Wisconsin
Maybe study the Maya stoned and on rollerblades
You don’t know where you’re going
You don’t stay anywhere very long
You’re not exactly a tourist
You haven’t caught a thing all day
You ought to return someday to all those places this time with a ‘purpose-of-visit’
With the proper visa
Tell me about it
It’s like love
So I won’t mention it again, anymore
Now is the last time
I like where this is going
What a bore
Do-over
Indecent = 10 years before its time
Shameless = 5 years before its time
Outré = 1 year before its time
Smart = (exactly of its time)
Dowdy = 1 year after its time
Hideous = 10 years after its time
Ridiculous = 20 years after its time
Amusing = 30 years after its time
Quaint = 50 years after its time
Charming = 70 years after its time
Romantic = 100 years after its time
Beautiful = 150 years after its time
(Found Poem 2/11/11)
REAR WINDOW
sunlit tree branches like the smiles of gods and goddesses
looking over the tops of the buildings across the yard
I don’t know what kind of tree has those leaves
I don’t know what kind of gods or goddesses they are
it’s rising behind the homes of the people who live here
in the neighborhood
you can see out my window the clotheslines
flower pots
red brick
satellite dishes
chimneys
other trees whose leaves are turning
the trees are really like aging couples leaning on one another
the walls of my little room are painted yellow
it’s autumn in Montreal
I can go out onto the little balcony and smoke a cigar with my new housemates
(they keep them in the refrigerator)
but I don’t like cigars
I read a report on the semantics of Canadian postal codes
and yesterday learned from the television
during the commercials watching all that hockey
one in ten Canadians will develop a chronic eye disorder
I like Cesar Aira
and thinking about the radio
how the right song is a perfect geometry
I’m officially moved-in
my office is open
I won’t be lonely
it’s too early
for that
-BT
