The Durge Report

The last we heard, Sybil Durgin had a fella. We've been trying not to think about it.

On the Subject of Immortality: Modjadji the Rain Queen

On immortality, high
and all of your mighty
tricky ways to make it
rain. Poor old queen
began again, had to
begin again.
I’m so
tired, but all of this
spinal crocodile
soup keeps me awake,
eyes made of ceiling.
It’ll always be what
amazes me, what queens do.

We've been saving Rob's

XXGood tiger poem. This'll be the first, last, or middle one in the book. It's untitled. Hook up with Rob via the link to the right.


Crazy jig up in Harlem
Kept a tiger in his crib
Shifty eyes, head on a swivel. Crept
Dirty streets to C-Town
Then secreted back again
Mounds of midnight meat
Smuggled
To keep that big cat fed

Done pacing, growling, roaring
Now gnawing his own flesh.
Draped over pissy couch. Tongue
Licked his diseased chops
Eyed that little man
Fell into fitful sleep
Dreamed
Jungle kingdom tree-branch bed

Feeding time up in Harlem
Meat tossed from behind TV-stand
Throwing, ducking. Biting, Gulping. Eyes
Trained on that little man
Inhaled the last rump roast
Reached and ripped jig’s ribs right out
Satisfied
Fierce prowling his own land

Our friend Lesley

has made it clear to me that we need to discuss Rousseau, who loved tigers and football. Acccording to the worldwide web, he took sarcastic remarks literally. Real smart, Rousseau!

#27 and #28 Gina Myers Tiger Poems

Lament

O tiger, O sorrow

Gina Myers and Julia

have made for an almost flawless segue between tiger season and National Football Season. But, OH! Don't let that stop you from sending us your tiger poems. We'll be accepting them for a little while longer.

BUT MOSTLY, here is Gina's tiger poem. You can hear her read at Frequency on September 5th, with Ed Berrigan. You can read more of her work by following links to the right, or by typing "Gina Myers" into a search engine.

Tigers

Tigers burn bright.
Tigers party all night.
Tigers play baseball—
they’re all right.
Tigers ain’t 'fraid to fight.

Their tiger stripes
are out of sight.
Tigers are big & bad.
You’re not a tiger?
Oh so sad.

*

Lordy. We LOVE Gina Myers.

#26 Tiger Poem

From Julia in Houston:

TIGERRRRS!

tiger tiger -pretty sweet
tigers munch on wild boar meat
tiger tiger -fight fight fight
when tigers mate they bite bite bite
tiger tiger -sleep all day
and then at night they hunt for prey
tiger tiger -so unique
i hope you never become extinct.

Pre-Season Frequency Part II

What do you say we meet at the Liar on Sunday afternoon to read brand spanking new poems about the Olympics? If you are out of town and still want to contribute, leave an Olympic poem in the comments field and I or some other semi-competent poet will read it for you.

25 Tiger

From Steve. See also the comment section of my Sanford and Son posting for Steve's translation of the Mr. Ed theme into Indonesian.

*Steve, I wasn't sure if the formatting was skewed by the comments code. If you want this thing broken differently, just let me know.

Yet Another Tiger Poem:
Golf is Flog Spelled Backwards

I play my pestilential game
Without a single speck of shame.

I hack my way around the course
With absolutely no remorse.

The fairways, I have rarely seen —
I struggle once I’m on the green.

My drives will hook, or maybe slice.
They do not follow my advice.

My shots all seek the woods and water.
They do not travel where they orter.

O, I’d forgo all worldly goods
If I could play like Tiger Woods

For just one game. ’Tis not to be;
I guess I’ll have to play like me.

Tidy Tigermint

O:T #24 is from the very-easy-to-be-devoted-to Heidi Lynn Staples:

(Had to make it very small to preserve formatting. Even so, the last "tiger" in the poem should actually be at the end of line 12. Note it! Note it now!)

TIGER PANTS

A Tiger is still a tiger,
Even if he can't tiger it tiger anymore;
Or at least that's what tigers like to tiger themselves.
Me, I'm of two tigers about it.

Even if a tiger can't tiger it tiger anymore,
He can still tiger other things. Really nice sexy things too.
Or at least that's what tigers like to tiger themselves.
Tigeriously, what's most important is that two people truly tiger each tiger.

Even an ol' tigered out tiger can still tiger other things. Really nice sexy things too.
Like take a gong haughty tiger together after a harp's doo-whop at tiger. Plenty to do!
Tigeriously, what's most important is that two people tiger each other. Not
O woe is tiger, I thought he was sharp, and then I realized he was not a he, but a tiger.

But before I go to bed, and to prevent any confusion...

...here's the Sanford and Son theme (which I always confuse with the Simon and Simon theme in my scattered memory) also rendered in meows:

Me-me-meow-meow,
me-me-meow-meow-meow-meow-meow,
me-me-meow-meow,
me-me-meow-meow-meow-meow-meow,
me-me-meow-meow-meow-meow-meow-meow-meow!

Simon and Simon will be right back...

...we will?

Here's the theme song to the 80s family private detective show rendered in meows:

Me-meow-me-meow,
me-meow-me-meow,
me-meow-me-meow-meow,
meow-me-meow-meow.

Me-meow-me-meow,
me-meow-me-meow,
me-moew-me-meow-meow,
meow-meow-meow-meow!

I should probably go to bed now.

#23 Tiger Poem

Comes all the way from Austin, Texas, where Benjamin Westney is studying to get his License to Kill with the Cello.

Tiger?

Tiger, Tiper, Tiple, Taple.
Saple, Sapple, Scapple, Scrapple.

Would we giggle if we heard
that Scrapple Woods just needs this ‘bird’
to win the U.S. Open Major Title?

Would little girls read "Scrapple Beat"
to gaze at glossy pics replete
with hunky studs from teenie-bopper movies?

And what of movies on the screen?
Would "Crouching Scrapple…" still be seen
by everybody five times in the theater?

Would Siegfried still have prayed for Roy
when he became a scrapple toy?
I tell you, friends, it doesn’t really matter.

For scrapples are a fearsome bunch,
who’d just as soon have us for lunch
than ponder on the meaning of their label.

It’s best for us to do the same,
and worry not about the name
of nature’s stalking, killing, striped creatures!

#15 Famous Persons

Harry Houdini Still Has Things To Say

All of you tricky hats, all bunnies
and eccentric wand taps,
all Chinese torture boxes, all
shackles, all foxy girls
wrapped up in snakes, all out,
all the way in, all tricks picked up
all around the world
and when you’re all tired out,
all your sleight of hand
won’t help. All that dirt,
all the magic at the end.

The Dark Hole

in my heart left by the demise of Monday Poetry Report has been filled by No Tell Motel! A new poet every week featuring a new poem every day! YES! That's, like, a million poems a year! Look for Shanna Compton and Heidi Lynn Staples (nee Peppermint) upcoming, and go there right now for Anthony Robinson. (Pop champagne bottle, pour on Reb's head.)

Pre-Season Pre-Frequency Pre-Report

Fun reading yesterday at the Liar. Adam Golaski was in from Montana, and I made him an Olympic Cocktail, which I found in my 1956 Old Mr. Boston bartender's guide. It's scotch, curacao, and OJ. We started the reading with an open mike -- I read a poem by Jeni Olin from the new Hanging Loose, which also features John Cotter. Then Maureen read the climactic poem from her Calamity, and John read a hilarious poem written by Adam's 4th grade students. John sometimes writes poems about a character named "E," and Adam had his students do the same. With hilarious results. Then Adam read, and he began with a poem written by one of his students, whose name I've forgotten. I think it went

Skeleton

Skeleton in my closet,
quit rattling your bones!

But I could be way off. He also read some prose -- one about an island of boys was my favorite of the day, prose or poetry. He read a poem for John, and he read his alcohol and cigarettes poem, which first appeared on this blog somewheres. I went home right after my shift because I was shagged out, but from the voice mails I received this morning, Adam, John, and Jeff continued to swerve into the night. I assume that they are all in jail this morning.

FREQUENCY!!!

I'll be posting a schedule for the Fall season of Frequency here sometime this week, but in the meantime, please come to a pre-season Frequency reading this Sunday. My friend Adam Golaski will be in from Montana to read from his accomplished body of work. We're going to have an open reading prior to his reading, and since he's from Montana (by way of Boston), I thought that we could all write poems about the wild, wild West. I think that Maureen and Jen might have some of those. Remember -- Jersey's west of here, and it's pretty wild over there sometimes. All I'm saying is that the reading's theme can be loosely interpreted. For instance, Niki Whiteman will be writing a poem about the National League's Western Division, and Ada Limon will provide us with a poem about Nick and Nora Charles, who lived in California.

Also featured will be the beautiful Ms. Jaime Corbacho and the spirited Mr. John Cotter.

So that'll be Sunday afternoon at 2:30PM at the Four-Faced Liar at 165 W. 4th St. and Sixth Ave., Greenwich Village, Manhattan, NYC, USA. Uh rock on!

Sorry

that I've been Bad Blogger lately, y'all. See below for Lesley's tiger haiku, and keep an eye out for upcoming O:T installments from Ben Westney and the mighty Hombre Blanco!

Tiger Twenty Two

New friend Lesley haiks about her favorite tiger:

Tawny toon tiger
Hobbes taught us the value of
Sun and tummy rubs.

Who knew?

That poetry could be so goddamn sexy?

Tiger Poem #21

From kickboxing queen Erica Kaufman:

the kickboxing tigress

she deems attacks unusual.
like tiger to human. here no
dummies needed. only platform.
a little combat readiness. but
outside how is there time
for choreography? i know
how tiger brains. are used.
know this body’s weaponry.
she’s concerned about lower.
back. this normal range
of flexion. on all fours. it’s
about arching. and she makes feline
all. her own. i practice. mount
position. keep whiskers close.

#19 Tiger Poem from my little sister, Gracie!

Terrific
Is
Gato's
Exclamatory
Rarrghhhhh!!!!!!


And coming soon are Tom Hopkins, Gina Myers, and many more!

Famous Persons 14

Someone’s in the Kitchen with Judith Jamison

When I cook, I like to do it
with one thousand dead professional chefs
all around me, guiding my hand
and gently moving my blade
this way and that
so that I don’t cut my thumb
when I’m doing the slippery red peppers.

And when the pot starts to boil
I can almost see them in the steam
or perhaps they are the steam.

It’s that kind of magic.

When I cook it’s a lot like, well,
it’s a lot like dancing.

From “The Golden Child” novelization by George C. Chesbro, Chapter 21, first paragraph:

Chandler was halfway to the cage when the crucified chanter on the wall to his right exploded in a ball of black flame. The flame instantly spread across the wall, dissolving it. Beyond the black flame, from somewhere across space and time, Chandler heard a chorus of agonized screams which seemed to resonate with the howling of his own soul as Sardo Numspa -- his gray suit, cape, and boots untouched by the flame -- stepped out of the holocaust.

Naked Idiot

Daniel Fine and his Naked Idiot have a new website! To hear the Naked Idiot, click on music (duh).

Tiger Poem One Thousand Two Hundred and Sixty-Three

Jaime Corbacho's Chihuahua-About-Town COSTELLO contributes our next tiger poem. Wow!

Costello -- If you talk to Sybil Durgin, tell her to email me some info for a new Durge Report. Mmwah!

Why Tigers RULE:

Tigers are awesome because their mouths can fit entire heads in them.
Sometimes, even more.
Tigers also rule because they can totally kick your ass.
Or bite it.
For serious.
Tigers don’t take no shit.
Except for those ones that live in casinos.
Like, totally, if I were Montecore,
I would have bit Roy Horn’s ass a long long time ago.
But, he’s learning.
So watch out, cause I rule.
And Tigers are even more rulinger than you think.

Stack this, bitch.

Please note that this was written by a Chihuahua.

Famous Persons #13

is for Amanda Burnham, who is nowhere to be found! Where are you, Amanda, and how would you qualify or quantify your crush on the mighty Thome? Your public wants to know.


Jim Thome Played Basketball In College

and underneath those hot Illinois nights
he used to dream of being black.

Now Jim Thome is married to Andrea
and he is married to the virtue of charity.

They call him a good guy, Jim
“Good Guy” Thome because of his work

to help the unfortunate, but God called him
Jim Thome; he has the smoothest swing.

Noah Eli Gordon's #17 Tiger Poem!

Ladies and Gentleman, Noah Eli Gordon!

TIGER, TIGER

This is what I recall about snow

inside a very small tiger, about snow

in the shape of a very small tiger, about

the expansive relics, the symbols

sewn into silk, the story they told

& those who listened, who listening

were circled, enclosed in the weave,

assuming the miniscule stitch

causing the eye of a very small tiger

to appear as habitually open, the habits

with which one accords a very small tiger

the grace of brittle legs & ardent longing

& the habitat a very small tiger treks

collectively assist those who take

full responsibility & those who

assail one another gregariously, untigerlike,

in translating the outlandish texts,

weather stations & amplitude with which

one unmaking a very small tiger

transmits unrelated data into something

analogous to the microscopic computations

evolving the paradox of an exact replica

of a very small tiger into its opposite,

both non-very & un-small, lacking

striation, emblematic of a suppressed

emotion, of the movement a very small tiger

makes when protecting its young

or padding itself with snow

so as to appear larger, or succinctly,

a swallowing of the landscape in order

to avoid the inverse, the extinction

of a very small tiger & those

who claim thinking machines inevitably

revoke the omniscience one grants

the act of taking a very small tiger

by the tail, of superfluous yearning

for non-flesh-eating mammals & iridescent

oil slicks in the shape of a very small tiger,

upon which the snow falls gratuitously,

evoking the experience of physical action

as the architecture a very small tiger

emanates from, as the ink expended

therein & also the yarn, lion-envy

& the rusting of numerous weathervanes.

Tiger 16!

The All Mighty Taryn Fort weighs in with TWO untitled Tiger Poems! Taryn was a tiger when she was young, but now she is a sexy Wildcat!

#1

Orange inflammatory terrain provides government
betwixt the blackened ribbons.
Some colonies are smeared larger than others.
Wealth over poverty? No deep sink here;
survival drifts aloft waves of coat.
The head of the apple-consuming Snow White
provided more congressional mass for decision-making-
perhaps indicative of the lure toward no resistance flourish.
Distinguishing between two is a camouflage of old.

Lazy vigilante ventilates the creature.
This is no novice Yankee;
but striped couture of an archetype in the great cycle.
Crayon-colored slivers messily steer to its noggin.
Knowledge stockpile.
Great cyclical accounts of hunting drag through generations.
The felt-tip masks its face,
catalyzes death for those genetically-challenged.
Natural selection presides-
a Darwinian capability to keep up with the Jones'
of responsibility to change.

Fright fails the oiled ability of its observation methods.
Many lose. Scribble down law. Pass it along. Nobody messes with us.

Brand me tiger.

#2

Tiger meat is good to eat when you are almost dead.
It's tougher than chicken and fervid devil red.

Cursive circles of black intertwine pumpkin
for orphans well-fed.

Blaze on my arms and cut open my head.
He will eat off my tongue and inclinations rarely well said.

Perhaps he will prefer a sapphire nail bed. Ions lost steam
and vents openly bled.

Carousing is no longer a book to be read.
Flee of your mind, the claws in cushy skin bread.

I feel it all now. Upon my hide he will tread.

Blankety-boo, sugar-filled cubes of me fester blue.
Turn it around. The human fell through.

Famous Persons Number Something-or-'Nother

Leon Trotsky at His Own Leisure

Clattering around the Vermont pad
where he and his family were vacationing one morning,
Leon trotted out the hot chocolate and the warm jumpsuits
and the skis, for this was a time of leisure,
many years of existing at both warm and cold temperatures
at the same time. Both later and before, he reflected,
a bit of blood could teach the same lesson.

Come congratulate Mark yourself

on his newfound poetry success at the Four-Faced Liar, where he will appear next Saturday the 14th. He will drink a lot of Guinness and be available to "whup your ass" (in Maureen's words) at Trivial Pursuit.

Tiger 15!

From Mark Hoofnagle, whom some may better know as Maureen Thorson's man.


To Kill a Tiger, starring the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

Ever think it would be cool to kill a tiger?
I hear Tarzan has one.
Hardly sporting,
past his prime.
Which one?

It's coming right for us!
(Bobo is dead, Tarzan is pissed)

Ada Limon

kinda rhymes with "tiger poem." Which is just one of the many thousands of reasons that I love her. Welcome to Operation: Tiger number, um, 14?


The Circus Folk Find Fault in Their Own Humanness

The circus of us
is constantly leaving,
the elephants down the midway,
my little bone baby, my tented
world of un-machines.

Yes, we’ve killed most everything:
the caspian tiger,
the javan
and, it’s true,
the bali are all gone.

Still, our finest failure,
our human parts uncovered and
raw like a tiger wound
we cannot find a reason to touch one another
without a gasping audience in the room.

Maureen

guest bartended at the Liar last night! Needless to say, she was the belle of that crazy ball.

More administrative stuff.

Please note that I've corrected the spelling of Reb's name in my sidebar. Oh yeah. Mad props. Ada Limon's tiger poem will appear here in a matter of minutes.

By no means a blogger of Darwinian proportions...

Tom's link works now. It didn't before.

There's no such thing

as a bad tiger poem. If yours isn't up, it's because I've been trying to parse them out so's every tiger gets his or her time in the sun. Or maybe it's 'cause I'm getting ass-hammered in a South Brooklyn jail. Whatever the reason, it ain't 'cause your tiger poem's bad. No such thing.

I've got fifty bones rollin'

with my man Tom Hopkins in the race to cure breast cancer. In return, he will be providing us with a few thoughts on tigers. You, too, can roll for the cure vicariously through Tom at this web site!

The Durge Report

Sybil Durgin was wearing Ann Taylor on Monday. We think that Ann Taylor is kinky as fuck!

Roommate Brogan...

...is now checking I'll Show You Mine to see what other roommates are up to! Roommate Danielle is in Honduras with her mom, roommate Lucas is in bed getting some well-earned sleep, and roommate Shafer is, um, blogging. No roommates to date have written any poems for Operation: Tiger. Ouch!

Operation: Tiger continues to storm across the countryside

with a first class prose piece from Nicole Hefner...and it's in aubergine!


It’s not that I was afraid of the tiger. As a girl, I followed my father from one dusty carnival to another and earned my keep by clipping the thick nails of the striped beasts. Those tigers were silent, sad even, as if I were taking something that was not mine. This tiger spoke: You do not belong here, he said, you are too close to the edge; turn west; go back to the home you left. Shut up, I told the tiger, but only because I was lonely. The sky turned deep eggplant; the wind wound itself around the gnarled roots of the sea. Since you have stayed, the tiger said, you must love me, and if you love me, you will walk on this water. I, who have always been deeply ashamed of my large feet, my boats, my two blue boats, finally understood the reason for my misfortune.

Operation: Tiger (Special Edition)

A weird new installment of Operation: Tiger. On the back porch of John Mulrooney's Satuday night after-party for the Massacre, I traded my polar bear underwear for Jim Behrle's Tony the Tiger underwear. Wow!

Also, I just read on Jim's blog that he specifically requested that no poets thank him during their reading. I'm pretty sure that I thanked him. Possibly multiple times.

Also Massacre/Tiger related: during my reading I read Maureen Thorson's and Katey Nicosia's O:T contributions. They were both very well-received.

Watch for Nicole Hefner's O:T contribution here in the next few hours.

OT!

Many thanks

to Lucas and Sybil for the below guest blog entries live from Boston where we watched and read a lot of poetry. Many, many thanks to Jim Behrle for a weekend that I will remember my whole life, I think. More specifics will be forthcoming.