[this was not written by me at all but by my roommate Lucas Marquardt]
Ode to the Pickle
It started, they say, well before Christ came.
2,400 B.C. is well enough.
There are two mentions in the Bible;
Aristotle, Caesar, and Napoleon agreed:
this was man’s food.
Cleopatra said it was woman’s, and said
her beauty was no accident.
Dill came in 900 A.D., and later Shakespeare
asked: “Oh, Hamlet, how camest thou in such a pickle?”
Thomas Jefferson said he liked to trawl the
“sparkling depths of the aromatic jar,”
and John Mason’s thick jars were an ode in themselves.
And Heinz 57?
Part of that lot is pickles, fuckers.
Today, the average person in the U.S. consumes 9 pounds of
pickles a year;
because the average person loves pickles.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
NaPoWriMo 04.09.07
[Click on the links for Grace Hall Photography. Different links will take you different places.]
Photography in Texas
If you need a photo taken down in Texas
(of Texas, near Texas, your favorite
boots or cowboy hats or Comal Rivers,)
call my little sister Grace Hall,
cause that's her name. And if
you get her on the phone,
and can hear her over all those
cameras clickin' and dogs lickin'
her ears while she giggles,
tell her "come on over, Gracie
photographer of the Texas
Hill Country, my big brown horse
or grandma or kids swimming
in the cattle tank need you
to take a picture of 'em!"
Photography in Texas
If you need a photo taken down in Texas
(of Texas, near Texas, your favorite
boots or cowboy hats or Comal Rivers,)
call my little sister Grace Hall,
cause that's her name. And if
you get her on the phone,
and can hear her over all those
cameras clickin' and dogs lickin'
her ears while she giggles,
tell her "come on over, Gracie
photographer of the Texas
Hill Country, my big brown horse
or grandma or kids swimming
in the cattle tank need you
to take a picture of 'em!"
NaPoWriMo 04.08.07
Email From Dr. Anderberg
Bonnie update.
Bonnie did not come to work today.
Re: Broken ribs.
Monday, April 09, 2007
NaPoWriMo 04.07.07
Guns & Bullets
Saturday night like a shipyard:
but the big old boats
that had been docked for years
but not for good were shook
loose for an evening.
In respect to Emily --
she rode the bull;
in respect to Ann --
she shoved ‘em around
the crowded bathroom;
and Lindsay is always
right there for the old folks
and the new friends.
And a big Spanish Star
shined down on all of us.
Saturday night like a shipyard:
but the big old boats
that had been docked for years
but not for good were shook
loose for an evening.
In respect to Emily --
she rode the bull;
in respect to Ann --
she shoved ‘em around
the crowded bathroom;
and Lindsay is always
right there for the old folks
and the new friends.
And a big Spanish Star
shined down on all of us.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
NaPoWriMo 04.06.07
I Won't Be Your Kennedy Center
I'll be out cold under the spotlights
I'll have been that way for hours
It's been hours and hours that I've been
like this -- there are horses and jockeys
in diamond-patterned silks and
the world's tallest Christmas tree.
Your tightrope poetry really
takes me places;
It seems I learned to read
in anticipation of you.
I won't be performing,
but it'll be a real performance.
I'll be out cold under the spotlights
I'll have been that way for hours
It's been hours and hours that I've been
like this -- there are horses and jockeys
in diamond-patterned silks and
the world's tallest Christmas tree.
Your tightrope poetry really
takes me places;
It seems I learned to read
in anticipation of you.
I won't be performing,
but it'll be a real performance.
Friday, April 06, 2007
NaPoWriMo 04.05.07
A Shocking Secret Coffee
Even tequila can't help us now,
but Jesus, our shaky hands
are almost pointillist,
and in our abstract morning
our secret coffee tastes better
cold. Shocking, I know, and
I know of the code left behind
by Big Breakfast: know it,
but can't unlock it now --
out the door! out the door!
and the click click of stone
dishware in the sink
will be all I can think about
all tobaccin' day long.
Even tequila can't help us now,
but Jesus, our shaky hands
are almost pointillist,
and in our abstract morning
our secret coffee tastes better
cold. Shocking, I know, and
I know of the code left behind
by Big Breakfast: know it,
but can't unlock it now --
out the door! out the door!
and the click click of stone
dishware in the sink
will be all I can think about
all tobaccin' day long.
NaPoWriMo 04.04.07
"Axle Butter"
Four more boxing careers,
and I should probably go back to sleep,
but my half-capacity brain
is having an entire conversation
with itself:
Ebullient, erstwhile, or maybe
euphemism has been compromised;
now I have that thing going on --
I love it when I can step away a minute
and meaning becomes a Grecian island.
Dear Rachel Tanner,
Let’s never want for axle grease
as long as we have butter.
Four more boxing careers,
and I should probably go back to sleep,
but my half-capacity brain
is having an entire conversation
with itself:
Ebullient, erstwhile, or maybe
euphemism has been compromised;
now I have that thing going on --
I love it when I can step away a minute
and meaning becomes a Grecian island.
Dear Rachel Tanner,
Let’s never want for axle grease
as long as we have butter.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
NaPoWriMo 04.03.07
You Will Always Be A Project of Mine
A little pet, a project,
a creature made of posterboard
I keep in my drawer,
you will always be
a small patch of thick earth
in the springtime,
inexpertly tended
by my off-white thumbs.
My uncle in the 80s
had a wide Trans Am;
he never gave it a name,
but it had deep blue paint.
We will leave the naming
to someone(s) else;
we do the project-ing;
we squeeze the triggers
on our pneumatic wrenches,
and their hissy screams
will be vocabularies.
A little pet, a project,
a creature made of posterboard
I keep in my drawer,
you will always be
a small patch of thick earth
in the springtime,
inexpertly tended
by my off-white thumbs.
My uncle in the 80s
had a wide Trans Am;
he never gave it a name,
but it had deep blue paint.
We will leave the naming
to someone(s) else;
we do the project-ing;
we squeeze the triggers
on our pneumatic wrenches,
and their hissy screams
will be vocabularies.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
NaPoWriMo 04.02.07
Dear Unbelievable Four-Year-Old
Oh most precocious one, you're
a reputation preceding yourself,
the internet is stamped
with your big foot
print. When you're a hundred
and twenty, you will look
back on yourself
through the wide woodlands
of your mind, and your hairy
childhood will seem
like something hunted
by photographers.
Oh most precocious one, you're
a reputation preceding yourself,
the internet is stamped
with your big foot
print. When you're a hundred
and twenty, you will look
back on yourself
through the wide woodlands
of your mind, and your hairy
childhood will seem
like something hunted
by photographers.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
NaPoWriMo 04.01.07
"I can't live in a world
where everything's broken
on the phrase," the poet shouted,
and went swinging out into the white page on a long line.
He landed softly on a rhyming couplet.
He's lucky; he says "don't I know it!"
where everything's broken
on the phrase," the poet shouted,
and went swinging out into the white page on a long line.
He landed softly on a rhyming couplet.
He's lucky; he says "don't I know it!"
Saturday, March 31, 2007
New Mike Sammons poem left in an early-morning voicemail a few weeks ago.
[As with all Mike Sammons voicemail poems, incomprehensibilities are bracketed
and all line and stanza breaks are mine]
THE BRICKS
The bricks here build and contain me.
I fly through the apartment like a bird with clipped wings.
Like an ant with an airplane; like a moth with a bulb.
The candles keep burning and flickering
the way Mexican girls will dance in the night
and say sweet things in my ear
and smell just like lilacs and roses.
We’ll die six more times before we will die,
and somewhere our bones will dissolve like a fog.
One forgets about rivers and oceans and trees
and dreams of fast days of liquor and wine
and “I love you” under trees and under suns.
When I die I’ll take everything with me,
and my bones will be the glass in your morning window
[?] and glowing with the early dead sun.
and all line and stanza breaks are mine]
THE BRICKS
The bricks here build and contain me.
I fly through the apartment like a bird with clipped wings.
Like an ant with an airplane; like a moth with a bulb.
The candles keep burning and flickering
the way Mexican girls will dance in the night
and say sweet things in my ear
and smell just like lilacs and roses.
We’ll die six more times before we will die,
and somewhere our bones will dissolve like a fog.
One forgets about rivers and oceans and trees
and dreams of fast days of liquor and wine
and “I love you” under trees and under suns.
When I die I’ll take everything with me,
and my bones will be the glass in your morning window
[?] and glowing with the early dead sun.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
New Limerick by John & I about how sick I was in Atlanta (thanks again for the towels, Carrie!)
The city tonight is on fire
The Marriot's walls could prespire
The towel on my head
Is soaking the bed
If I tell you I'm well I'm a liar
The Marriot's walls could prespire
The towel on my head
Is soaking the bed
If I tell you I'm well I'm a liar
Two (Clickable!) Poems by Jamison Driskill
Wishing Well
Thankful no one’s hurt,
Dirty Charley gives us a private,
Sitting on a keg shell
In some kid’s back yard
By the fire pit.
Playing the devil’s country
For the three of us,
And all the other kids
Who make their way
To the beer in the backyard,
Charley fails to notice
The girlfriends
Peeking
Out the backdoor,
Into the cold.
*
American Idol
My little cousin,
All of nine,
Answers the door
In fishnets
And a miniskirt
And waaaay too much makeup.
This, my date,
Rides with me
To the theater
To see Fat Albert,
The movie.
Heads turn,
The movie sucks.
On the way home,
I try to tell her
How big the world is,
And how to play make believe,
Forever,
Like me.
I hope
She remembers me,
But I doubt it.
Thankful no one’s hurt,
Dirty Charley gives us a private,
Sitting on a keg shell
In some kid’s back yard
By the fire pit.
Playing the devil’s country
For the three of us,
And all the other kids
Who make their way
To the beer in the backyard,
Charley fails to notice
The girlfriends
Peeking
Out the backdoor,
Into the cold.
*
American Idol
My little cousin,
All of nine,
Answers the door
In fishnets
And a miniskirt
And waaaay too much makeup.
This, my date,
Rides with me
To the theater
To see Fat Albert,
The movie.
Heads turn,
The movie sucks.
On the way home,
I try to tell her
How big the world is,
And how to play make believe,
Forever,
Like me.
I hope
She remembers me,
But I doubt it.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Rise, Frequency, RISE!!!
Hey Fishes,
Join us for a rare Frequency Reading on Sunday, March 25th at 2 PM (sharp!) when we will be joined by Jill Alexander Essbaum, Jessica Piazza, and Meghan Punschke. These are three very talented and accomplished ladies, bios below. That'll be at the applauded Four-Faced Liar, 165 W. 4th St., New York, NY. Take the blue or orange trains to W. 4th or the red trains to Christopher.
Yours,
Shafer Hall
Jessica Piazza's poems have been published or are forthcoming in Agni, Indiana Review, Spork Magazine, The Formalist, and 150 Contemporary Sonnets (Evansville Press). She won the 2005 Keene Prize for Literature at the University of Texas, where she did her graduate work in poetry and founded/edited Bat City Review. She is co-founder of the Speakeasy Poetry Series in New York City, and is newly involved in the Student Publishing Program, which brings creative writing curricula to public schools across the country. Jessica was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.
Meghan Punschke has MFA in Poetry from The New School (2007) and is the current managing editor of an online literary journal, MiPOesias. She is the curator and host of Word of Mouth, a reading series on the Lower East Side dedicated to poets and fiction writers. Her first collection of poetry, "Stratification" is forthcoming. Her works can be found in MiPO and Free Focus. Visit www.megpunschke.com for more details.
Jill Alexander Essbaum is the author of the 1999 Bakeless Prize winner in poetry, Heaven, and the 2005 gathering of sonnets, Oh Forbidden. Her newest collection, Harlot, is forthcoming from No Tell Books. Her poetry has appeared in journals both religious and secular, both domestic and foreign, both well-known and rabidly obscure. Her literary influences and obsessions include the following: Simon Armitage, Nick Cave, St. Augustine, John Bunyan, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simone Weil, and Dorothy Parker. Seriously.
Join us for a rare Frequency Reading on Sunday, March 25th at 2 PM (sharp!) when we will be joined by Jill Alexander Essbaum, Jessica Piazza, and Meghan Punschke. These are three very talented and accomplished ladies, bios below. That'll be at the applauded Four-Faced Liar, 165 W. 4th St., New York, NY. Take the blue or orange trains to W. 4th or the red trains to Christopher.
Yours,
Shafer Hall
Jessica Piazza's poems have been published or are forthcoming in Agni, Indiana Review, Spork Magazine, The Formalist, and 150 Contemporary Sonnets (Evansville Press). She won the 2005 Keene Prize for Literature at the University of Texas, where she did her graduate work in poetry and founded/edited Bat City Review. She is co-founder of the Speakeasy Poetry Series in New York City, and is newly involved in the Student Publishing Program, which brings creative writing curricula to public schools across the country. Jessica was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.
Meghan Punschke has MFA in Poetry from The New School (2007) and is the current managing editor of an online literary journal, MiPOesias. She is the curator and host of Word of Mouth, a reading series on the Lower East Side dedicated to poets and fiction writers. Her first collection of poetry, "Stratification" is forthcoming. Her works can be found in MiPO and Free Focus. Visit www.megpunschke.com for more details.
Jill Alexander Essbaum is the author of the 1999 Bakeless Prize winner in poetry, Heaven, and the 2005 gathering of sonnets, Oh Forbidden. Her newest collection, Harlot, is forthcoming from No Tell Books. Her poetry has appeared in journals both religious and secular, both domestic and foreign, both well-known and rabidly obscure. Her literary influences and obsessions include the following: Simon Armitage, Nick Cave, St. Augustine, John Bunyan, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simone Weil, and Dorothy Parker. Seriously.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Matt Henriksen has this to say about last weekend's AWP Convention:
Dear Shafer,
I woke up dead today,
on the wrong side of hell
in a jar of formaldehyde
and the intestines of Egyptian
whores. We knew the asylum
had fancier light than
the middle school cafeteria,
terrarium of luminous insects,
a katydid on a caryatid
of an Egyptian whore with
nice titties and no insides
downstairs, where her and
our sorrows dwelled.
I woke up dead today,
on the wrong side of hell
in a jar of formaldehyde
and the intestines of Egyptian
whores. We knew the asylum
had fancier light than
the middle school cafeteria,
terrarium of luminous insects,
a katydid on a caryatid
of an Egyptian whore with
nice titties and no insides
downstairs, where her and
our sorrows dwelled.
Flesh Eating Poems!
To get the new issue of Cannibal, which features a poem by Shafer Hall, CLICK HERE!
and scroll down to where it says
Cannibal Issue Two
$12
Buy Now
and CLICK AGAIN!
click click click
and scroll down to where it says
Cannibal Issue Two
$12
Buy Now
and CLICK AGAIN!
click click click
Friday, March 02, 2007
From the Teddy Roosevelt Archives by way of Jeffrey Eaton
"I had to abandon boxing as well as wrestling, for in one bout a young captain of artillery cross-countered me on the eye, and the blow smashed the little blood vessels. Fortunately it was my left eye, but the sight has been dim ever since, and if it had been the right eye I should have been entirely unable to shoot.
"Accordingly I thought it better to acknowledge that I had become an elderly man and would have to stop boxing. I then took up jiujitsu for a few years."
*
Major hoss.
"Accordingly I thought it better to acknowledge that I had become an elderly man and would have to stop boxing. I then took up jiujitsu for a few years."
*
Major hoss.
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