Shafer 4/30!

So Longly

"I never thought someone
could stay awake so longly,"
I thought, "but I have been
awake since 7am!"

Are there
things to do? Yes, of course,
there are always things to do.

Are there, um, is there coffee?
Yes, coffee is everywhere.

I think that I will stay awake
a while longer.

To see what I will write next.

Just catching up

on Mr. Babylon, who consistently impresses me with his clarity in describing utter chaos. I hope I won't embarrass him too much by saying that I am also regularly taken by his profound sensitivity. He recently received a shout from the Daily News, and rightfully so.

He also wrote this kickass poem in response to Adam Golaski's challenge of last October. Robert is truly a man of letters. As is Adam, of course.

The Afternoon Slant

Out South Candler Road a mile past the strip mall
Paulie runs a comb through his greasy black pomp,
Doob dangling dangerous from curled upper lip
Twists rearview mirror, checks himself out, & winks
Slides that Ace rubber into his back pocket
Shifts 501 ass, settling in vinyl bench
Casual slow looks over left-shoulder, sneers
Then sucks on that number & exhales real slow
Tap taps on the gas & up from a simmer
An engine boils afternoon air above &
Rumbles its firebird hood, a war eagles cry

Left lane Howard laughs, paying Paulie no mind
Pulls a Chesterfield out from behind his ear
Lights up & lets his lead foot fall, MoPar cams
Sing engine symphony, voices stoked by
A four barrel carburetor, volume amplified through
Dual exhaust pipes, it is a grand joyful noise
& as it fills the Georgia sky echoing
From loblolly to loblolly & rattling
Inside every watching skull, all eyes are on
That bulging hood, for one brief moment Howard
Is alone to flare his nostrils, focusing

Barefoot Phoebe walks up middle of the road
Little ass wiggling as she steps only on
The cool yellow of that endless broken line
Drags fingers along each car as she passes
Stops, spins, smiles & puts her hands on her hips
Looking back & forth from Paulie to Howard
Big Block to Hemy, right to left, hunker down
Engines, spray hazy heat in the afternoon
She raises two slender arms, ready, steady,
Barracuda & Trans Am locked & loaded
About to prove who the real motherfucker is

Another One of Our Freqy Parties

This weeks Frequency will feature the NaPoWriMo-ers, a.k.a. all your favorites (Maureen, Sam Amadon, etc.) If you are a NaPoWriMoer and I haven't contacted you, you are welcome to come read. We will probably do one of these round robin readings that are so wildly popular these days.

2:30 PM Sunday May 1, 165 W. 4th St. & 6th Ave.

Shafer 4/29!

Also See Also

I walk away from every book
with lots of pride
and usually a promise
to myself
and to the book
that I will be back again.

On a good day
I think that I register
80% of what I read,
but often that percentage
is considerably smaller.

John 11!

Philosophical Thoughts on Driving Your Ex-Girlfriend's Chihuahua to Connecticut

Breathe deep, both of you:
You're already in a poem.

Shafer 4/28!

A Schneiderman Sonnet (Once Removed)

Freddy Fingers was out late one night,
after midnight he met Jason Schneiderman.

Jason is as trusty and dependable
as a starting pitcher like Al Leiter, man.

He has a voice that you can hear,
I'd never ask for a quieter man.

Around the country he has many friends,
lots and lots of Jason Schneider-Fans.

I wonder if he ever cooks breakfast for Michael,
eggs over easy in a fryer-pan?

I'll pedestal Jason like I would Tom Waits,
the original number one Black Rider-man.

Freddy Fingers didn't know what to make at first,
but eventually he came around to Jason Schneiderman.

Jen 4/28!

O Mysterious French Canadians,

living way up there
in towns I can't pronounce,
in sparkly snow castles,
cloaked in the fur of the earth's
largest yak, its only plaid bobcat, etc.
cooking your ancient recipes,
what can you teach me about life
that I may put to use, here, in Brooklyn?
I fear your lessons will turn me
insufferable, albeit mysteriously so,
and one day cost memy job.

Shafer 4/27!

Today Is A Chevy Truck

There is a heartbeat
in America, and never
can you feel it better
than at six a.m.
with your shutters shut
and when you haven't
left your apartment in
thirty two hours.

America becomes a dream
that someone told you
but you couldn't pay attention.

Flick the tv on:
Americans are getting healthier.
Their skins glow
like burning magnesium.

Shafer 4/26!

Square Hot

Corner brick in lively spot,
cooler window atrium.

Twice keystone rafter windowpane
railing rooftop rain gutter.

Mighty flue part maitre d'
grinning awning/foyer,

doorman hipflask taxi wash
ington square hotel.


Heartbeat Hats

Electric hiccups light
the heartbeat hats
inconsistently:

in daytime nothing
need be lit.

Triangle tits told me off,
I hoofed it over
to your cosmic shutter.

Jen 4/26

What Am I Gonna Drink Tonight?

What'll it be?
What'll it be?

Something tall and frosty
Like my wife?

Or short and strong
Like my girlfriend?

Or neat and brown
Like my father?

Or pink and creamy
Like my monkey?

No way! I'd rather have
Herpes than a monkey!

Hey, that gives me
An idea.

*

Addendum
Captain's Log:

Am studying how to give
Self herpes
By sucking own dick

--Chat rooms
Taking too long

--Too much chit-chat.

NaPoWriMo vs. The Brian Lehrer Show

NaPoWriMo-ers! Elisabeth McGlynn says that we should do this:

"...tomorrow The Brian Lehrer Show is having an open phones poetry "slam" at 11am. It's not a true slam. Instead it's a phone in segment to end Nat'l poetry month. The piece you read can be
as long as 2 minutes or as short as a haiku. You should call in, yo. And tell yo friends to call in!! (212 267 9692 (or 212 267 WNYC)@ 11am on Wed. April 27th)"

Costello!

'member that time
you promised me things,
if only i'd do what you
asked me to do?

'member how i'd lay
where you liked it best
and then, we'd doze
reading Tolstoy and Glamour?

'member when we'd
visit friends and i'd
wear the shirt
that made me look stupid?

then how come you won't give me a piece of steak?

Jen 4/25!

They Don't Let Us Have Gunshows Anymore

My 27 students threaded silently into the cafeteria,
all their soft heads waist high on me except for Kerry,
a big boy, a good boy--they were all good, except Clayton
who was bad, but his momma, a cop confided, was worse.
The assembly that day was about astronauts--it would give me
45 minutes to smoke in my car and listen to the a.m. radio.
Cool. Next to the empty space suit hung up at the front
of the room, the TV was on--a fire, something, some
place was on fire, really on fire. "What's on fire,
Miss Knox?" Chanel asked. The sounds was off--I didn't
know. The teachers looked at each other--no one knew.
Someone turned the sound up: the compound at Waco,
a week after Easter, they'd finally gone in, AFT/FBI
dudes in their black flack jackets. Liz Clappi and I'd
driven up there just days before. We'd bought t-shirts
and laughed at rednecks in pastel outfits coming from church
peering over the hill with binoculars. We'd stopped
at the tourist office and cracked jokes about where
could a girl get a gun in this town because we needed
a bunch, and fast, like real wise guys. No one was getting
out of there alive, that's for sure, a kid could tell you
that. One of the t-shirts said, "W.A.C.O. Weird Asshole
Come Out." The astronaut never showed, so we stayed
there in the cafeteria with the lights off for 45 minutes:
all the kids sitting Indian style in neat rows before a slack
space suit slung over a coat rack and fire whirling in the box.

Shafer 4/25!

Ode to the Duchess of Oysterland

The Duchess of Oysterland
does sit ups and pushups
in the room next to mine,
and I like to sit in a pile
of old pizza crusts thinking
that, in a way, if someone's
working out near me, it is
sort of like I am working out
also.

My birthday present to
the Duchess of Oysterland
is that I am going make more
of an effort to like his dog.

Jen 4/24!

Shanghai Blinking Light Girl Comes to Stay Awhile in Farming Province and No One, Not Even the Postmaster, Knows Why

I’d have to be deaf, dumb, blind to not know what
a keen thief you are in the city, Xiao-xiao,

for “thiefness” radiates from your face like measles
and indeed you’ve stolen my heart. From your hypnotic

ringtone of unknown origin to the hamster character
on your t-shirt giving lip, you have me dreaming

of socks with toes built in, of shiny handcuffs
ching ching chingling with silver Santa charms.

Shafer 24!

Ritmo

The big heat
of August is
horizoning
cruel as any
April, but now
it's cold and
the concrete
is still concrete,
the sound of
basketballs
on asphalt
across the street
is still a crisp ring,
later it will be a thud.

As we bang
on this big drum
I like trebly winter,
I like big bassy July.

The Durge Report

Sybil Durgin spent most of the weekend in jail until she managed to convince her captors that as profoundly distracting as it is, her ass is not a crime.

Shafer 4/23!

For 23

Don Mattingly,
your biography
eludes me,

but you share
an important number
with Trish, Yvette

and David Lee
and Amy (Gnome)
and me.

Jen 23

“He who dallies is a dastard,
he who doubts is damned.”
--Edmond Hoyle

Fantan According to Hoyle

is simple, as fantan’s a "build up or down"
game, and all "build up or down" games are
simple, according to Hoyle whose seminal Short
Treatise On Whist was, I’ll just bet, not.

Play centers on the seven, of course,
which can be divided in half, so four sevens
make eight three-and-one-halves. Simple.
Aces count below the waist, kings above.

What? He’s covered every base: thirty-two
cards saddled with infinite laws for endless
possibilities, but is possibility possible
hen chance has all been boiled down

to rules (i.e. clubs on clubs, hearts the same
or see appendage 4, you never married,
big surprise there, and where oh where are
the fantans? Don’t they sound lovely?

With oranges in their blue-black hair waving
crimped gold fans over their silken Victorian
feathery unmentionables? A peek at them,
the rouged cheeks, is why I agreed to play

this game in the first place. Looking to the left
of the dummy, then the right, all that reveals
itself to me is the math--sheer as a stocking
with none of the round warm leg. I hesitate

over the discards, go uh uh uh awhile--
just another fantan damned) like mutton?

Shafer 22

Cleaning My Bedroom

With this
I cannot part,
and I cannot
part with this.

This I may
need later;
later I will
think of
what to do
with this.

Larger empty
vessels make good
vessels for smaller empty
vessels.

Every scrap of paper
without something
written on it
can have something
written on it.

Every scrap of paper
with something
written on it
is precious.

Everything written
on a scrap of paper
is important
by its existence.

My trashcan
has never had
anything in it.