Thursday, October 19, 2006
This Whole Town's Made of Fiberglass Pools
Our retarded country music soul brother Alex Battles has put some of the extraordinarily retarded villanelles I wrote with Maureen Thorson to music. You can listen to them here.
Fiberglass Pools, Ohio, is particularly obscenely catchy and gut-wrenchingly wonderful.
Fiberglass Pools, Ohio, is particularly obscenely catchy and gut-wrenchingly wonderful.
Friday, October 06, 2006
OctOpOwrimO etc.
No Tell Ro*Tel
for Alex Battles
By way of a certain unusual
sort of penance: I hung a sign
on myself saying “Gone To Hell”
where “Hell” is a place without
canned tomatoes and “Gone”
is me all the way there, without
anything “To” make my dish
less yellow. And here I sit
in my metaphorical blindfold,
with my hands (maybe) tied
behind my back; my last
cigarette is a toothpick
(a paragon of good health
right up to the end,) but what
is that muttering? Are they
laughing at me? [strips
off actual blindfold, starts
throwing punches, discovers
no one is there. Heads
for the kitchen to dig
around in the refrigerator.]
for Alex Battles
By way of a certain unusual
sort of penance: I hung a sign
on myself saying “Gone To Hell”
where “Hell” is a place without
canned tomatoes and “Gone”
is me all the way there, without
anything “To” make my dish
less yellow. And here I sit
in my metaphorical blindfold,
with my hands (maybe) tied
behind my back; my last
cigarette is a toothpick
(a paragon of good health
right up to the end,) but what
is that muttering? Are they
laughing at me? [strips
off actual blindfold, starts
throwing punches, discovers
no one is there. Heads
for the kitchen to dig
around in the refrigerator.]
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
The Durge Report
Sybil was wondering
what to be
for Halloween.
She has a pair
of wings,
so I suggested
she pour hot wax
on herself
and presto: Icarus!
what to be
for Halloween.
She has a pair
of wings,
so I suggested
she pour hot wax
on herself
and presto: Icarus!
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Mmm Hmm!
Dear Good Time Crew,
Come on by the Freq-nasty for a "conclave of fun" (a funclave) with Aaron Belz, Aaron Balkan, and Daniel Kane. These are some high-powered poets, and after the reading we will throw them in the back of the Good Time Van and take them to test their sea-kayaking skills.
That's 2:30 at the venerable Four-Faced Liar. 165 W. 4th St., New York, NY 11238. Saturday the 30th of September.
Love,
Shafer
Aaron Belz's poems have appeared in Boston Review, Fence, The Canary, Jacket, McSweeney's, Verse Press's "Younger American Poets," etc., and been anthologized in March Hares: The Best Poems from Fine Madness, 1982-2002. He lives in St. Louis, where he is a teacher of high school
English and Creative Writing as well as the founder and director of Readings @ The Contemporary.
Aaron Balkan grew up in Arizona and attended Pitzer College in Southern California. He received an M.F.A. in creative writing from New York University, as a Times fellow, and is currrently on the faculty of NYU's Expository Writing Program. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Gabrielle and their sinewy cat, Horace.
Daniel Kane is the author of All Poets Welcome: The Lower East Side Poetry Scene in the 1960s (University of California Press, 2003) and What Is Poetry: Conversations with the American Avant-garde (Teachers & Writers, 2003). His poems, interviews, and essays appear in in
Fence, Exquisite Corpse, The Denver Quarterly, and other journals.
Come on by the Freq-nasty for a "conclave of fun" (a funclave) with Aaron Belz, Aaron Balkan, and Daniel Kane. These are some high-powered poets, and after the reading we will throw them in the back of the Good Time Van and take them to test their sea-kayaking skills.
That's 2:30 at the venerable Four-Faced Liar. 165 W. 4th St., New York, NY 11238. Saturday the 30th of September.
Love,
Shafer
Aaron Belz's poems have appeared in Boston Review, Fence, The Canary, Jacket, McSweeney's, Verse Press's "Younger American Poets," etc., and been anthologized in March Hares: The Best Poems from Fine Madness, 1982-2002. He lives in St. Louis, where he is a teacher of high school
English and Creative Writing as well as the founder and director of Readings @ The Contemporary.
Aaron Balkan grew up in Arizona and attended Pitzer College in Southern California. He received an M.F.A. in creative writing from New York University, as a Times fellow, and is currrently on the faculty of NYU's Expository Writing Program. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Gabrielle and their sinewy cat, Horace.
Daniel Kane is the author of All Poets Welcome: The Lower East Side Poetry Scene in the 1960s (University of California Press, 2003) and What Is Poetry: Conversations with the American Avant-garde (Teachers & Writers, 2003). His poems, interviews, and essays appear in in
Fence, Exquisite Corpse, The Denver Quarterly, and other journals.
Friday, September 22, 2006
September's National A Couple of Poems Month!
Remember My Smell & Cold Tinkling On My Diction Maker
Remember My Smell
Remember my smell
when it was so wide
that morning
on the other side
of standing up?
Remember when
that cold weather
made us feel like
we could do everything
without moving?
Don't forget about
the way the weather
smells; the weather
was us that day --
September so fine.
Cold Tinkling On My Diction Maker
Cold crickets make sounds
unrepeatable by my diction maker.
They live in the lips
between the accordion door
and the garage floor.
When cold sneaks down from North,
the stars twinkle to keep warm,
and I breathe sealed breaths
to tune my diction maker.
Remember My Smell
Remember my smell
when it was so wide
that morning
on the other side
of standing up?
Remember when
that cold weather
made us feel like
we could do everything
without moving?
Don't forget about
the way the weather
smells; the weather
was us that day --
September so fine.
Cold Tinkling On My Diction Maker
Cold crickets make sounds
unrepeatable by my diction maker.
They live in the lips
between the accordion door
and the garage floor.
When cold sneaks down from North,
the stars twinkle to keep warm,
and I breathe sealed breaths
to tune my diction maker.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
But brother, that ain't what's inside...
Compliments Whisky Rebellion's MySpace profile, here are some links to live country music in Brooklyn and around New York City. That's LIVE COUNTRY MUSIC and NEW YORK CITY, if you happen to be a search engine, or anyone else wondering where to find live country music in New York City.
For live country music in New York City, please see
Alex's Brooklyn Country Music or
Leon's Brooklyn Country or
Nate's Good Music New York.
Yeeha!
For live country music in New York City, please see
Alex's Brooklyn Country Music or
Leon's Brooklyn Country or
Nate's Good Music New York.
Yeeha!
SeptoWriMo!
Squirrel Battles Crow
It’s such a summer siege,
and here, at the end of summer,
the seemingly mechanical bleating blasts
from the crow’s talking utensils
must irritate her tonsils;
that hairy beast
who won’t leave her children alone
will surely curl up somewhere
once it has snown.
It’s such a summer siege,
and here, at the end of summer,
the seemingly mechanical bleating blasts
from the crow’s talking utensils
must irritate her tonsils;
that hairy beast
who won’t leave her children alone
will surely curl up somewhere
once it has snown.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
September is National Poetry Month!
Major Arcana
compliments beer-drunk muses Ann & Lindsay
Anyone can tell the future -- you can't fool
me; I know I don't have to be a magician
to foresee the weather or when the next emperor
will foolishly smash the heart of his empress.
I scared the pants off our local hierophant
when I broadly proclaimed "this chariot
someday will house the love of the young lovers,"
but everybody knows they've nowhere else to go.
Justice: your average swinging hanged man
will exhibit as much strength
in his ugly vertical death
as a sister of Jesus will in her temperance.
And as I sit here watching Wheel of Fortune
like thousands of other urban hermits
who’ve made Vanna White a high priestess
and turned Pat Sajak into a constellation’s star,
I won’t whip my head around anticipating the Devil;
I know he’s back there be it night or light of Sun.
All this knowledge condenses and leaves me moon-eyed;
it’s just knowledge; it’s not judgment:
My low-frequency brain sits on my body’s tower
receiving broadcasts from the past and future of the world.
compliments beer-drunk muses Ann & Lindsay
Anyone can tell the future -- you can't fool
me; I know I don't have to be a magician
to foresee the weather or when the next emperor
will foolishly smash the heart of his empress.
I scared the pants off our local hierophant
when I broadly proclaimed "this chariot
someday will house the love of the young lovers,"
but everybody knows they've nowhere else to go.
Justice: your average swinging hanged man
will exhibit as much strength
in his ugly vertical death
as a sister of Jesus will in her temperance.
And as I sit here watching Wheel of Fortune
like thousands of other urban hermits
who’ve made Vanna White a high priestess
and turned Pat Sajak into a constellation’s star,
I won’t whip my head around anticipating the Devil;
I know he’s back there be it night or light of Sun.
All this knowledge condenses and leaves me moon-eyed;
it’s just knowledge; it’s not judgment:
My low-frequency brain sits on my body’s tower
receiving broadcasts from the past and future of the world.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Saturday, August 26, 2006
AuPoWriMo #3
Now And Then A Miracle
In the strangest places,
we begin sentences with
nouns, verbs, prepositions --
words; eternity is a place,
but it isn't necessarily
where YOU'LL be placed.
But every now and then,
a miracle: corks keep
fine wine fresh for a while,
and when a cork bangs
out of a bottle, it isn't a death
but a pop,
and the nature
of this room, this poem
is prepositional; I can
sit next to a sound,
and my life will be
fresh next lifetime.
In the strangest places,
we begin sentences with
nouns, verbs, prepositions --
words; eternity is a place,
but it isn't necessarily
where YOU'LL be placed.
But every now and then,
a miracle: corks keep
fine wine fresh for a while,
and when a cork bangs
out of a bottle, it isn't a death
but a pop,
and the nature
of this room, this poem
is prepositional; I can
sit next to a sound,
and my life will be
fresh next lifetime.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
AuPoWriMo etceterizes!
The Big Robot Mechanical
Some people (people
like Ann) know fear
comes from the birds
you CAN'T see, not
the mocking birds
outside your window
committing vice after vice
of verse.
Ann crowed with fear
and pride and prayer
when she killed the crow;
her lifelong fear of birds
cowered in the corner
of her momentary mind.
The big robot mechanical bird
rusts and baits his abbreviated breath
and wonders how long he can wait
for the plump crow to land
in his hungry beak, and wonders
how long his love can shine
with a green patina while he waits
for Ann to love him.
Some people (people
like Ann) know fear
comes from the birds
you CAN'T see, not
the mocking birds
outside your window
committing vice after vice
of verse.
Ann crowed with fear
and pride and prayer
when she killed the crow;
her lifelong fear of birds
cowered in the corner
of her momentary mind.
The big robot mechanical bird
rusts and baits his abbreviated breath
and wonders how long he can wait
for the plump crow to land
in his hungry beak, and wonders
how long his love can shine
with a green patina while he waits
for Ann to love him.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Another Cosmic Rodeo
We are strapping on our helmets for another cosmic rodeo ride at Pete's Candy Store as CA Conrad and I read poetry with an assortment of Canadian Folk Rockers.
PETE'S CANDY STORE in Brooklyn 8/26, 8pm
Saturday, August 26th @ Pete's Candy Store709 Lorimer St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 11211http://petescandystore.com
Uncle LD Beghtol
So L'il
CAConrad
I Feel Tractor
Shafer Hall
Uncle LD Beghtol is the leader of orchpop collective Flare, one half of the willfully obscurebicoastal experimental duo, Moth Wranglers, and approximately one third of The ThreeTerrors (with Stephin Merritt and Dudley Klute). (He can also be seen singing in Magnetic Fields from time to time, appearing quite a bit on '69 Love Songs').His latest album, LD & The New Criticism recently came out on Darla."Beghtol bends his baroque goth-pop westward in the new band's autotelicdebut, Tragic Realism is a gory, uke-joint country (think Haggard ca. '68 viaLovecraft and horror flix), backwoods folk-gospel raveup sure to bring a Zoloft smile to your face, and often." -- VILLAGE VOICE. File under: Experimental Countrypolitan Deathpop. Please see: http://www.myspace.com/thenewcriticismand: http://thenewcriticism.com
So L'il is Frances Sorensen & Ben Malkin, all harmonies, go-go percussion,waves wash over you melodic juno, rhythmic wings of strummed gibson, at times swing,at times drone, shine-a-light-on simple ambient pop with the cracked eye lyrics of cut-up inside (light shining through the cracks of somewhere behind). In the last four years So L'il has released a 6-song self-titled EP, one split 7-inchwith the band Timesbold (both on Neko Records), the full-length 'Revolution Thumpin', and their most recent full-length, 'Dear Kathy,' both on GoodbyeBetter. They are currently at work on a new EP. "If you think electronic music has gone too far back and needs to move forwarda decade, So L'il are your new heroes." - Mundane Sounds Please see: http://solil.net and: http://www.myspace.com/solil
CAConrad's childhood included selling cut flowers along the highway for his mother and helping her shoplift. He escaped to Philadelphia the first chance he got, where he lives and writes today with the PhillySound poets. He coedits FREQUENCYAudio Journal with Magdalena Zurawski, and edits the 9for9 project. Soft Skull Pressis publishing his first book of poems titled Deviant Propulsion, available in Fallof 2005. His book The Frank Poems is forthcoming from The Jargon Society. He is the author of several chapbooks, including (end-begin w/chants), a collaborationwith Frank Sherlock. Please see: http://caconrad.blogspot.com/
I Feel Tractor. Eddie Berrigan is a New York poet and musician who performs under the name of I Feel Tractor. His songs are playful retakes of traditional folk and country genres& their subtle, funny lyrics and far-flung imagery create unusual landscapes of both physical and emotional territory. The author of the poetry collection Disarming Matter (1999, Owl Press) and several chapbooks, Eddie as I Feel Tractor released a self-titled 7-inch last year (Loudmouth Collective) and just last month released it's first full-length recording, 'Once I Had An Earthquake', on Goodbye Better. Please see: http://www.myspace.com/ifeeltractor
http://goodbyebetter.com for more info.
Shafer Hall used to wear a red glitter crash helmet with a bootleg Playboy bunny logo stickered on the side. Now the bones in his head have hardened into a skull. Please see: http://www.shafervineyards.com/store.html
PETE'S CANDY STORE in Brooklyn 8/26, 8pm
Saturday, August 26th @ Pete's Candy Store709 Lorimer St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 11211http://petescandystore.com
Uncle LD Beghtol
So L'il
CAConrad
I Feel Tractor
Shafer Hall
Uncle LD Beghtol is the leader of orchpop collective Flare, one half of the willfully obscurebicoastal experimental duo, Moth Wranglers, and approximately one third of The ThreeTerrors (with Stephin Merritt and Dudley Klute). (He can also be seen singing in Magnetic Fields from time to time, appearing quite a bit on '69 Love Songs').His latest album, LD & The New Criticism recently came out on Darla."Beghtol bends his baroque goth-pop westward in the new band's autotelicdebut, Tragic Realism is a gory, uke-joint country (think Haggard ca. '68 viaLovecraft and horror flix), backwoods folk-gospel raveup sure to bring a Zoloft smile to your face, and often." -- VILLAGE VOICE. File under: Experimental Countrypolitan Deathpop. Please see: http://www.myspace.com/thenewcriticismand: http://thenewcriticism.com
So L'il is Frances Sorensen & Ben Malkin, all harmonies, go-go percussion,waves wash over you melodic juno, rhythmic wings of strummed gibson, at times swing,at times drone, shine-a-light-on simple ambient pop with the cracked eye lyrics of cut-up inside (light shining through the cracks of somewhere behind). In the last four years So L'il has released a 6-song self-titled EP, one split 7-inchwith the band Timesbold (both on Neko Records), the full-length 'Revolution Thumpin', and their most recent full-length, 'Dear Kathy,' both on GoodbyeBetter. They are currently at work on a new EP. "If you think electronic music has gone too far back and needs to move forwarda decade, So L'il are your new heroes." - Mundane Sounds Please see: http://solil.net and: http://www.myspace.com/solil
CAConrad's childhood included selling cut flowers along the highway for his mother and helping her shoplift. He escaped to Philadelphia the first chance he got, where he lives and writes today with the PhillySound poets. He coedits FREQUENCYAudio Journal with Magdalena Zurawski, and edits the 9for9 project. Soft Skull Pressis publishing his first book of poems titled Deviant Propulsion, available in Fallof 2005. His book The Frank Poems is forthcoming from The Jargon Society. He is the author of several chapbooks, including (end-begin w/chants), a collaborationwith Frank Sherlock. Please see: http://caconrad.blogspot.com/
I Feel Tractor. Eddie Berrigan is a New York poet and musician who performs under the name of I Feel Tractor. His songs are playful retakes of traditional folk and country genres& their subtle, funny lyrics and far-flung imagery create unusual landscapes of both physical and emotional territory. The author of the poetry collection Disarming Matter (1999, Owl Press) and several chapbooks, Eddie as I Feel Tractor released a self-titled 7-inch last year (Loudmouth Collective) and just last month released it's first full-length recording, 'Once I Had An Earthquake', on Goodbye Better. Please see: http://www.myspace.com/ifeeltractor
http://goodbyebetter.com for more info.
Shafer Hall used to wear a red glitter crash helmet with a bootleg Playboy bunny logo stickered on the side. Now the bones in his head have hardened into a skull. Please see: http://www.shafervineyards.com/store.html
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Watch out world!
Sam Amadon and other fine folks will be immortalized in the Octopus Magazine chapbook issue.
August is National Poetry Month!
How The Troll Measures Time
compliments Lindsay Anderberg
I have a tent made out of placenta.
I call it my "platenta,"
and when my lazy third eye
feels like wandering
around this storm,
I can crawl inside
and take the ride
less taken, the one
where the shiny waxy liquid
candy spreads thinly
across my head
and hardens to a neat
red mold of my brain.
Whatever you call it --
call it "sunset," call it
"cotton," call it "feeling
the muscles in your ankles
before they're warm,"
it'll make perfect sense;
it'll be one more afternoon.
compliments Lindsay Anderberg
I have a tent made out of placenta.
I call it my "platenta,"
and when my lazy third eye
feels like wandering
around this storm,
I can crawl inside
and take the ride
less taken, the one
where the shiny waxy liquid
candy spreads thinly
across my head
and hardens to a neat
red mold of my brain.
Whatever you call it --
call it "sunset," call it
"cotton," call it "feeling
the muscles in your ankles
before they're warm,"
it'll make perfect sense;
it'll be one more afternoon.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Big Names on Big Game
Hey Folks,
A small but well-designed collection of poems I wrote with my friend Maureen Thorson is available now at Big Game Books.
The collection is called "Villanelles are Retarded." It is our homage to poetry's most ridiculous form.
It is available on this site: http://www.reenhead.com/biggame/biggame.html. The "Buy Now" button is just below the second cover photo.
Love,
Shay
A small but well-designed collection of poems I wrote with my friend Maureen Thorson is available now at Big Game Books.
The collection is called "Villanelles are Retarded." It is our homage to poetry's most ridiculous form.
It is available on this site: http://www.reenhead.com/biggame/biggame.html. The "Buy Now" button is just below the second cover photo.
Love,
Shay
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
July is National Poetry Month!
From A Hot Apartment: Heatwave July '06
No one else seems to quite get this;
no one else is quiet like this.
I think I quite like you, because
I'm quiet like you.
Right now the world
is not quite quiet; it's still,
which is not quite the same.
Alone in my room,
on this sweaty morning,
I understood everything
perfectly for a while.
Which isn't to say
I was an expert on the minutiae;
I only understood that there IS
an everything; I think it's
the hum of my fan
that makes my head so quiet
so I can think everything at once.
I'm not quite saying what I mean;
I think I'll go be quiet a while longer.
No one else seems to quite get this;
no one else is quiet like this.
I think I quite like you, because
I'm quiet like you.
Right now the world
is not quite quiet; it's still,
which is not quite the same.
Alone in my room,
on this sweaty morning,
I understood everything
perfectly for a while.
Which isn't to say
I was an expert on the minutiae;
I only understood that there IS
an everything; I think it's
the hum of my fan
that makes my head so quiet
so I can think everything at once.
I'm not quite saying what I mean;
I think I'll go be quiet a while longer.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
What?! Oh, yeah, June. June is National Poetry Month!
And here is an excerpt (in media res) from a longer poem I am workin on. It's called Man In Steam.
like the old joke:
outstanding in his stream,
only this farmer only farms
produce that's already farmed,
outing genocide detectives
and getting the elected elected,
which reminds me of a joke:
like the old joke:
outstanding in his stream,
only this farmer only farms
produce that's already farmed,
outing genocide detectives
and getting the elected elected,
which reminds me of a joke:
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