Tremendous Machine
How many lengths later
will they still whisper
about Bold Ruler's prince
from the early year of
stake, futurity, futurity, stake
and each faster than the last
until finally after 19 years
eyes rolling
he jumped out of his skin
as he was always threatening
and into the fog of Claiborne.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Saturday, April 23, 2005
Shafer 18.
The Painful Science
Turf politics abound with cleats and helmets
popping off their mouths and objects
in motion tend to stay in motion until
met with an outside force
with a criminal record longer
than most wills we can't
ask them to turn it off
when they leave the field anymore
than you'd ask the Earth not to turn.
Turf politics abound with cleats and helmets
popping off their mouths and objects
in motion tend to stay in motion until
met with an outside force
with a criminal record longer
than most wills we can't
ask them to turn it off
when they leave the field anymore
than you'd ask the Earth not to turn.
Shafer 17!
Can I Just Have One Cup of Coffee 'Fore I Go?
What if
Bob Dylan
had not
the time
or inclincation
for all those
cups of coffee
'fore he went?
Would he've
been more
or less likely
to've achieved
the valley below?
What if
Bob Dylan
had not
the time
or inclincation
for all those
cups of coffee
'fore he went?
Would he've
been more
or less likely
to've achieved
the valley below?
Here's the
big red truck:
They never once let me drive.
Maureen and Marion sounded a little dumbfounded the other night when I told them I used to work on a rig. We just punched water and monitor holes, though, we didn't go for the black gold.
They never once let me drive.
Maureen and Marion sounded a little dumbfounded the other night when I told them I used to work on a rig. We just punched water and monitor holes, though, we didn't go for the black gold.
Shafer Sixteen
For A Big Red Truck
There has to be some mathematics
in there somewhere,
but you wouldn't necessarily think it.
When we were fixin' to fix something,
I'd load 1500 pounds of sand
onto a trailer
and haul it halfway to hell.
We'd drill a little ways further,
cuttin' out another thousand or so
pounds of dirt
then fill our hole with pipe and sand.
I always broke even -- I even
almost broke in half.
But the truck took care of most of the math.
There has to be some mathematics
in there somewhere,
but you wouldn't necessarily think it.
When we were fixin' to fix something,
I'd load 1500 pounds of sand
onto a trailer
and haul it halfway to hell.
We'd drill a little ways further,
cuttin' out another thousand or so
pounds of dirt
then fill our hole with pipe and sand.
I always broke even -- I even
almost broke in half.
But the truck took care of most of the math.
Jen 4/17!
This was a collaborative poem between Jen, Ada and Sean.
The Golden Goats of Sloatsburg
The vibration of Sloatsburg grows
heavy across the space-time continuum.
Mortimer Penis looks askance
at Dolly Vagina's new purchase.
O! Golden goats! How lovely
the prancing is, the wool.
Who will buy this beautiful goatvag?
I'm so high, we're already dead.
O! Goatvag, so greasy, so warm--
a three-legged dog cannot compete with you
even though the low bridge of Sloatsburg
says "This Feels Like Kentucky!"
But wrong-er! It's a rollable bouquet
of croquet wickets--100% wrong--unlike
you, the golden goats, golden goats.
Golden goats, Mortimer Penis has his eye
on you. So whatcha gonna do, Sloatsburg?
Whatcha gonna do, gonad? (The gonad
is the period of this poem.)
The Golden Goats of Sloatsburg
The vibration of Sloatsburg grows
heavy across the space-time continuum.
Mortimer Penis looks askance
at Dolly Vagina's new purchase.
O! Golden goats! How lovely
the prancing is, the wool.
Who will buy this beautiful goatvag?
I'm so high, we're already dead.
O! Goatvag, so greasy, so warm--
a three-legged dog cannot compete with you
even though the low bridge of Sloatsburg
says "This Feels Like Kentucky!"
But wrong-er! It's a rollable bouquet
of croquet wickets--100% wrong--unlike
you, the golden goats, golden goats.
Golden goats, Mortimer Penis has his eye
on you. So whatcha gonna do, Sloatsburg?
Whatcha gonna do, gonad? (The gonad
is the period of this poem.)
Costello!
behind the hottub,
the best things are.
oh, man.
i wish the hottub was closer.
i wish that behind the hottub
was right here.
all of my friends, except
for those of you right here,
are behind the hottub
eating mini beef tacos.
the best things are.
oh, man.
i wish the hottub was closer.
i wish that behind the hottub
was right here.
all of my friends, except
for those of you right here,
are behind the hottub
eating mini beef tacos.
Shafer Fifteen
Big Tens and Fours
In the clipped language of man we
kind of cosmically keep
each other posted of the posts
of the Man
where he sits (John Law).
Whether it's my grandmother
zooming by in her Buick
or a mustachioed man
and his truckful of contraband
we are all the enemy out here.
In the clipped language of man we
kind of cosmically keep
each other posted of the posts
of the Man
where he sits (John Law).
Whether it's my grandmother
zooming by in her Buick
or a mustachioed man
and his truckful of contraband
we are all the enemy out here.
Friday, April 22, 2005
Jen 16!
Fierce Brownie Voodoo in the Lesbian Love Lair
My inner voice is deaf.
*
Wait, start again. My inner voice
is deaf. It's signs to me:
"We aim to get out front and stay out front"
like a Nascar guy.
*
Nascar guy, will you work this Barbie karaoke mic
as hard as the area behind the hot tub
works, most weekdays at least--that area where
all the things the Chihuahua needs are?
*
The nice Nascar guy agreed to smuggle the Chihuahua
through customs in a cheese puff bag--
if we can just make it
off the floor.
*
The floor cradles all parts of our bodies
at once. Its is the opposite of
the area behind the hot tub which is full of
tough questions and demands on our hands.
*
It's pink. You can drink it
over ice
in coffee
in nature
or behind the hot tub with a Chihuahua.
*
Duh dude the answer's totally D.
*
The Language of the Fireplace is
an ancient night time mystery. No one
has ever spoken it, and no one ever will.
So, soon it will be extinct--it can't go on like this.
*
It can't go on like this--there will always be
something more glamorous than the badgers
of our own backyard. Electrocuting a donkey's
funner barefoot, but it's even funner barefoot
twice.
*
Can The Language of the Fireplace go on, a little
freaked out with the whole town gathered Œround
to jerk off outside the windows? For how long?
Monday's when the world goes back to work.
*
A flat tire's this town's way of keeping you
around: drunk, disorderly, changing in and out
of your bathing suit with all the lights on, both mired
and mirrored in nature.
My inner voice is deaf.
*
Wait, start again. My inner voice
is deaf. It's signs to me:
"We aim to get out front and stay out front"
like a Nascar guy.
*
Nascar guy, will you work this Barbie karaoke mic
as hard as the area behind the hot tub
works, most weekdays at least--that area where
all the things the Chihuahua needs are?
*
The nice Nascar guy agreed to smuggle the Chihuahua
through customs in a cheese puff bag--
if we can just make it
off the floor.
*
The floor cradles all parts of our bodies
at once. Its is the opposite of
the area behind the hot tub which is full of
tough questions and demands on our hands.
*
It's pink. You can drink it
over ice
in coffee
in nature
or behind the hot tub with a Chihuahua.
*
Duh dude the answer's totally D.
*
The Language of the Fireplace is
an ancient night time mystery. No one
has ever spoken it, and no one ever will.
So, soon it will be extinct--it can't go on like this.
*
It can't go on like this--there will always be
something more glamorous than the badgers
of our own backyard. Electrocuting a donkey's
funner barefoot, but it's even funner barefoot
twice.
*
Can The Language of the Fireplace go on, a little
freaked out with the whole town gathered Œround
to jerk off outside the windows? For how long?
Monday's when the world goes back to work.
*
A flat tire's this town's way of keeping you
around: drunk, disorderly, changing in and out
of your bathing suit with all the lights on, both mired
and mirrored in nature.
Shafer Fourteen!
Staring My Eyes Out At The Sports Page
Looking long enough
these statistics look
like the players they represent,
lined up like toy soldiers.
Eyes away now
the effect ripens
because anything is true
in my brain.
Tiny ink ticks
are pores or positives:
cells in skin.
A person is made.
Looking long enough
these statistics look
like the players they represent,
lined up like toy soldiers.
Eyes away now
the effect ripens
because anything is true
in my brain.
Tiny ink ticks
are pores or positives:
cells in skin.
A person is made.
Jen Fifteen!
Backlit, Foreshadowed
Near the subway, I watched a semi-truck trying to turn
a tight corner total a Lexus--just smash the crap out of it-
then drag it down the street. People honked. I winced
and went Eweeesh! then I remembered one night in 11th grade
coming home from getting high with some German
foreign exchange students in my dad's car, my dad watching me
pull into the garage, watching me as I scraped the entire side
of his car against the garage door springs, carving a huge gouge
from hood to trunk. I was way too stoned to stop,
thought Just keep going, real slow, for when the car is in,
this screeching noise will end, and I was right. I got out
and my dad all slack-faced asked What the hell's the matter
with you? Are you God damn retarded? No I want to know
and he was right. So suddenly watching the big truck
drag the little smashed car around, I remembered that night,
then walking on, opposite of traffic, on my way (no joke!)
to rent a car, I thought The parrot wasn't born yet then.
Near the subway, I watched a semi-truck trying to turn
a tight corner total a Lexus--just smash the crap out of it-
then drag it down the street. People honked. I winced
and went Eweeesh! then I remembered one night in 11th grade
coming home from getting high with some German
foreign exchange students in my dad's car, my dad watching me
pull into the garage, watching me as I scraped the entire side
of his car against the garage door springs, carving a huge gouge
from hood to trunk. I was way too stoned to stop,
thought Just keep going, real slow, for when the car is in,
this screeching noise will end, and I was right. I got out
and my dad all slack-faced asked What the hell's the matter
with you? Are you God damn retarded? No I want to know
and he was right. So suddenly watching the big truck
drag the little smashed car around, I remembered that night,
then walking on, opposite of traffic, on my way (no joke!)
to rent a car, I thought The parrot wasn't born yet then.
Shafer Thirteen!
04/13.05
It's mid-April and there is still time
To reflect on nothing
Making no sound as it freezes
Nothing hardening into dangerous ordnance
Like a downtown cartload
Of cold bananas
There is nothing as menacing as the loose action
Of this lockblade knife
I bought once when driving with Farnsworth
Back from College Station.
It's mid-April and there is still time
To reflect on nothing
Making no sound as it freezes
Nothing hardening into dangerous ordnance
Like a downtown cartload
Of cold bananas
There is nothing as menacing as the loose action
Of this lockblade knife
I bought once when driving with Farnsworth
Back from College Station.
Rachel 15th through her 18th!
April 15
Thinning hair does not a thin man make
So go ahead and drink that glass of butter
Slather your body in bacon grease and
Settle in for a nice game of
Shirts vs. Skins! I know which team you're
On, Big Boy
Umpires are easily bought for the price of a beer
If you carry some change in your jockstrap and
Aren't afraid to use it.
For shame,
True shame is a fat bald failure who can't even throw a
Children's softball game
Fairness
Freedom
Friendship
Peace
Who uses these words but Greeks and Jews
And slaves and faggots?
April 16--Maxim
I know how you must feel;
ButIs is not in the nature of the
Fig tree to give forth figs
The honeybee to give forth honey
And the ballerina to give forth herpes?
April 17--Maxim #2
We are more like the retards than we know
And never so much as when we
Drum along with toothpicks
Repeat lines from movies as our own
Say, "I'm actually a really spiritual person?" as we
Rub our penises against the ankles of strangers.
April 18
How come when people win Oscars for
Playing real people
They always thank them for their incredible bravery
And brilliance in being raped and murdered or
Whatever
But when people win for Holocaust movies
They never thank Hitler?
Screw the casting director
He's really the one that made it all possible.
Jesus Christ, Hollywood
Talk about fucking ingratitude.
Thinning hair does not a thin man make
So go ahead and drink that glass of butter
Slather your body in bacon grease and
Settle in for a nice game of
Shirts vs. Skins! I know which team you're
On, Big Boy
Umpires are easily bought for the price of a beer
If you carry some change in your jockstrap and
Aren't afraid to use it.
For shame,
True shame is a fat bald failure who can't even throw a
Children's softball game
Fairness
Freedom
Friendship
Peace
Who uses these words but Greeks and Jews
And slaves and faggots?
April 16--Maxim
I know how you must feel;
ButIs is not in the nature of the
Fig tree to give forth figs
The honeybee to give forth honey
And the ballerina to give forth herpes?
April 17--Maxim #2
We are more like the retards than we know
And never so much as when we
Drum along with toothpicks
Repeat lines from movies as our own
Say, "I'm actually a really spiritual person?" as we
Rub our penises against the ankles of strangers.
April 18
How come when people win Oscars for
Playing real people
They always thank them for their incredible bravery
And brilliance in being raped and murdered or
Whatever
But when people win for Holocaust movies
They never thank Hitler?
Screw the casting director
He's really the one that made it all possible.
Jesus Christ, Hollywood
Talk about fucking ingratitude.
Jaime 10!
{A Shrunken Head Enthusiast}
In the storm shelter and ache of big sky country
there is barely room for the cello.
This piece, Satie, played on a gramophone
Les unearthed like Tut and his belongings
from a church cellar in Butte,
makes all of my thoughts too big:
I survive on the petrified harvest of past voices,
there are phrases for love and human weakness in every language,
even now someone is groping for meter like a banished angel,
I survive on cunning and the quiet of others,
I survive on little icons my mother sends me,
I survive on,
I survive on
being touched by your voice oceans away,
unchecked by needle-skip, the recording.
The cellar was too crowded, see.
They were just giving things away,
sacred and useless artifacts for anyone
with space that needed to be filled.
Soupir. This is where Les’ll fill my glass
and say something like, "I want to know your inner-most thoughts."
And I’ll say something like, "I’d invite you inside, but there’s barely room for the cello."
In the storm shelter and ache of big sky country
there is barely room for the cello.
This piece, Satie, played on a gramophone
Les unearthed like Tut and his belongings
from a church cellar in Butte,
makes all of my thoughts too big:
I survive on the petrified harvest of past voices,
there are phrases for love and human weakness in every language,
even now someone is groping for meter like a banished angel,
I survive on cunning and the quiet of others,
I survive on little icons my mother sends me,
I survive on,
I survive on
being touched by your voice oceans away,
unchecked by needle-skip, the recording.
The cellar was too crowded, see.
They were just giving things away,
sacred and useless artifacts for anyone
with space that needed to be filled.
Soupir. This is where Les’ll fill my glass
and say something like, "I want to know your inner-most thoughts."
And I’ll say something like, "I’d invite you inside, but there’s barely room for the cello."
Ada 13!
The Ornithologist's Request
Make the sound of a cardinal,
a crow and a mocking bird.
Make the sweetest bird call
this bird has ever heard.
Make the sound of a cardinal,
a crow and a mocking bird.
Make the sweetest bird call
this bird has ever heard.
John X!
Who is Charlie Bang-Bang? (a tin pan, end with flourish)
A sinister Mandarin, they've been known to say,
With a pistol the size of a gherkin.
But I heard once he DJ'd at Blue Heaven
And all of the regulars felt like chicken.
Then there's this placard, this C. Bang-Bang
Past the Longwood stop, by the old folks,
Got spider plants in the windows,
and Cab Calloway all day, all day.
Be gone, Charlie Bang-Bang! Begone,
or be known, but to haunt us ...
we hear you in the rail
Squeal, Charile, in the tire pop, in the radiator all day ...
We bite your very nails when we bite our hours
Off the clock and spit them at you to hear ... hear ...
We hear stories .... we hear.... hear....
Hear all about Charile Bang-Bang. Oh! Oh!
HERE. HE. COMES.
A sinister Mandarin, they've been known to say,
With a pistol the size of a gherkin.
But I heard once he DJ'd at Blue Heaven
And all of the regulars felt like chicken.
Then there's this placard, this C. Bang-Bang
Past the Longwood stop, by the old folks,
Got spider plants in the windows,
and Cab Calloway all day, all day.
Be gone, Charlie Bang-Bang! Begone,
or be known, but to haunt us ...
we hear you in the rail
Squeal, Charile, in the tire pop, in the radiator all day ...
We bite your very nails when we bite our hours
Off the clock and spit them at you to hear ... hear ...
We hear stories .... we hear.... hear....
Hear all about Charile Bang-Bang. Oh! Oh!
HERE. HE. COMES.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Shafer Twelve
The Minutes Are Ticking Toward Future Minutes
And so I told my toes
they could be sold
in Southeast Asian
markets to be crushed
into fine powder and snorted
by excited businessmen.
And then I immediately
regretted it, begged
their forgiveness,
they are smaller parts,
and the small ones
are easily frightened.
And so I told my toes
they could be sold
in Southeast Asian
markets to be crushed
into fine powder and snorted
by excited businessmen.
And then I immediately
regretted it, begged
their forgiveness,
they are smaller parts,
and the small ones
are easily frightened.
Jen Fourteen!
There is a Significant Segment
of the population who only jerk off
to footage of Diana Rigg in a catfight
in a catsuit, who limewire the key-
word “hogtied,” who yoddle (and ain’t
that a thing? Seesawing the voice's
breaking point’s the thing: “Lovesick
Blues” or the totally tonally identical
yet unheard precursor, penned by
Emmett Miller and that ilk: “My Topheavy
Ways” or “’Dem Down Deadpan Birds”)
and we sing back in synchronicity
though there are no parrots echoing
the chorus of the song that is this poem
(“So sorry,” I said, “it’s all yours”).
of the population who only jerk off
to footage of Diana Rigg in a catfight
in a catsuit, who limewire the key-
word “hogtied,” who yoddle (and ain’t
that a thing? Seesawing the voice's
breaking point’s the thing: “Lovesick
Blues” or the totally tonally identical
yet unheard precursor, penned by
Emmett Miller and that ilk: “My Topheavy
Ways” or “’Dem Down Deadpan Birds”)
and we sing back in synchronicity
though there are no parrots echoing
the chorus of the song that is this poem
(“So sorry,” I said, “it’s all yours”).
Ada 12!
Some--Ones
One said there was no water,
One broke the bottle,
One moved in to my shoe,
One cut off his foot,
One said the word, "Cadillac"
One said the word, "Alright!"
One messed up the puzzle
One made his own pieces
One opened the window
One closed it for the cold
One said there was no point
In the art of growing old.
One said there was no water,
One broke the bottle,
One moved in to my shoe,
One cut off his foot,
One said the word, "Cadillac"
One said the word, "Alright!"
One messed up the puzzle
One made his own pieces
One opened the window
One closed it for the cold
One said there was no point
In the art of growing old.
Jaime 9!
{Master & Commander}
It is Saturday evening.
Sybil is watching Russell Crowe
do Russell Crowe things:
heave-ho-ing the breakwater
of his wide wide lungs,
superior and reckless
as the grey matter of a storm.
If I ever grow my sea legs
on this flat fable world,
Russell Crowe is a place I’d like to visit.
It is Saturday evening.
Sybil is watching Russell Crowe
do Russell Crowe things:
heave-ho-ing the breakwater
of his wide wide lungs,
superior and reckless
as the grey matter of a storm.
If I ever grow my sea legs
on this flat fable world,
Russell Crowe is a place I’d like to visit.
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