Posted by Rock Heals at 12:00 AM

February 15, 2006

(You’re a) Billion Dollar Algorithm (between my) Legs

Jamie Gaughran-Perez

for Sweetney... This is what a love poem (sometimes) looks like at the G-P household. The formatting mandates the PDF, sorry y'all.

Don't worry it starts with "Godzilla." What could go wrong?

See it. Read it. Enjoy. (PDF)

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:00 AM

February 01, 2006

labia minora

Miriam Stewart

baila, mi amor
mail an oral marimba bomb
alarm! ram in a liminal limb
I’ll abandon normal brain
 
 
 
 
 

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:00 AM

where are we in this poem?

Miriam Stewart

a quizzical sadness
that can ask the question of the sun
what is behind that last house?
where does this street
that I have driven down
my whole life
where does it lead?

and like the sun
you might diagnose the day by its response

a given hour to sit here or there
a piece of fantasy in which Eden
harbors two clauses of a definition
in which meaning hovers like a water bug
without breaking the current

I might posit the following:
armageddon. there might only be one piece of bread
left. or in the summer, when the days are hot
but only getting shorter, there might be
an uninhabited porch swing.
when you put pen to paper to write your name
you may instead be compelled
to draw a picture of a clock with no hands.

where, again, is this going?
across the street from the market
I saw a bird, dead on the sidewalk,
its feet curled stiffly around the lost branch

I think I am trying to tell you
why I can only point
away from what I love

I think I’m trying to say that I would send the authorities to your house
and sneak out the back door
hugging the stolen child to my chest

or just to tell you, by way of escape,
that the man on the corner who has no home
is holding his pants up with his thumbs
and singing “Holy, holy, holy” and “Mary, don’t you weep”

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:00 AM

January 25, 2006

Goat

Leslie F. Miller

Goat.
Goat.
You could be a child's first word,
easy as dog, dada.
Goat.
Poor man's lawn boy,
frisky pet,
reason to take the rolls
we never eat.

On the way home from lunch
with daddy
I pick you for your looks,
black and white,
feed you bread
through chicken wire,
whisper secrets
over steady traffic hum.

Goat,
I can't afford my shoes.
Squishing my toes in the mud
didn't feel as good as it should have.
Being filthy rich would be nice.
I have lost my way.

I once loved a goat like you.
Took him home.
Named him Goat.

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:00 AM

labor day

Leslie F. Miller

a rat will rearrange things:
loaf of bread
now by the back door,
candlesticks tipped over,
cupcake in the sink.
and you—
you are in a soft chair
counting the spaces between pains
while it cowers behind the washer.
we’ll get him later you call
lovingly between contractions,
your husband on his knees
with a knife,
spurting words, muttering.
he has hacked off a pink foot.
blood on the linoleum
for you to clean later.
he has stabbed it dead,
kitchen chairs in disarray,
washer pulled away from the wall.

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:00 AM

January 18, 2006

Npurrrrrrrr
(a friend poem inspired by Frank O’Hara and the friend)

Marianne Amoss

Oh lord it’s noon
We’re just showering, just slithering
Out of bed and calling you
Bringing eggs, bringing coffee
Coconut pinky cat and fat old black man
Slide around under cabinets
We cuddle on borrowed bed
Chew on grounds and kiss our hands
You are warm like the buildings
You are like the buildings standing up straight
You are standing up straight
It is early afternoon Sunday
Afternoon in here I want you to know
That radio is the best sunlight
Plants are good electric blankets
As your pretty paintings pet you

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:00 AM

Poetry Reading, January 20 (Baltimore)

i.e. reading series presents
Catherine Daly, Jessica Smith & Moira Egan

Friday, January 20, 2006
7pm

Note the venue (not the regular i.e. reading series space):
AREA 405 Gallery
405 East Oliver Street
Baltimore, MD 21202
(410)-528-2101
info at area405 dot com

Catherine Daly is a poet & critic who has been publishing & reading her work for twenty years - Her works include DaDaDa (Salt Publishing, 2003), Locket (Tupelo Press, 2005), the eBook Secret Kitty (Ahadada Press, 2005) as well as numerous pamphlets & electronic chapbooks.


Jessica Smith founded the poetry magazine name in Buffalo, NY- & has written a chapbook titled birdbook. She has recently completed a manuscript Organic Furniture Cellar.

Moira Egan's first book of poems, Cleave (WWPH, 2004) was nominated for the National Book Award. Recent poems have appeared in Gargoyle, Notre Dame Review, Passages North, Poems & Plays, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Smartish Pace, 32 Poems, West Branch & many others- [phew!]

For futher information contact-
Michael Ball
mbball at verizon dot net

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:00 AM

January 04, 2006

The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Inventions

Chris Toll

1.
The laboratory in the flying saucer
is so bright and sterile.
The werewolf can’t find a place to hide.
He crouches beside the circular hatch.
Soon the floor will be awash in purple ichor.
His captors are about to learn
just how wrong things can go
when a full moon rides the night sky.

2.
The Special Agent has lost so much.
She holds a flashlight and a 9 mm pistol
and kicks a door open.
She wishes she could pray to God –
but all she believes in
is what she can capture in her beam of light.

3.
The ninjas glide through the corridors of a starship.
The pilot turns
and finds her head ringed by the tips of seven swords.
The starship lands in a clearing.
The ninjas slip out of the airlock
and enter the forest.
The trees have red bark and purple leaves.
Each leaf has a mouth and howls at the five moons.

4.
I’m the clouds drifting over your roof.
I’m the traffic streaming past your windows.
I’m the floorboards creaking beneath your shoes.

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:40 AM

Lock And Load Blues

Chris Toll

A half-full baby bottle rolls around
on the floor of a bus.
A mother puts on body armor.
Why is a den in hidden?
Why is light in flight?
A son hides an IED
inside the rim of a discarded tire.
God is almost Good
and the Devil is almost Evil.
A father eats steak off a china plate.
I have five hearts –
three are on fire, two are broken, and three have wings.
Your heart is a book – be kind.
A daughter comes home in a bodybag.
The blizzard needs to find a new line of work.

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:30 AM

Tears Made Flesh

Chris Toll

Perpetual melancholy
employs chaos processors
to bemadden the zoo
where a zebra inveigles a gazelle.
The tactician loses her barrette
and the theoretician adores her angora beret.
A spider knits a sparrow
while an exorcist excoriates the truculent fossil.
A drugstore loiters in the apathy epidemic.
A bartender mollifies the careworn pornographer
and an eavesdropper nullifies the carefree doctor.
The despondent castle goes on a crusade
to consecrate the wind
before a grammarian captivates handcuffs.

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:20 AM

December 14, 2005

...

Lauren Bender

of course I can look like a young boy
dear political poem,
I never really got into history

Mine eyes watching a man blow himself up
as you say,
a field full of shoes between us
a revolving bookcase between us
his flesh slides down the front of the TV, obscuring Janet Jackson’s sunbursting forth
in some less civilized countries the dead are dismembered by their family
left vulgar to vultures or was it all a mirage?

I would make a good soldier
please find enclosed my scores from Minesweeper,
which would be higher if I didn’t have to
cover my windows all day long
and then go to the factory
Dear ARMY, please send 8 x 10 to my 5-year old
her first sexual fantasy involved neon TRON and empathy between men

let’s just make light of it
he’ll just have to start spinning a little earlier tomorrow
let’s just gesture it down under the motion sensor
photons between us
inappropriate gnashing of teeth between us

+++

from Who's That Kickin' Yr Ass (rhp002)

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:00 AM

from Extratutionalized

Buck Downs

             tidal has-been
   getting ready
                to have been fired
all night like that,
a particle in the motion
20-to-life style and everybody
got their little brief to file
as motion impedes action
             like I couldn’t tell
             my judgement
             was impaired.
 I am ready
body   snatcher
   let me go
             put me down
             on my feet
there were gaps
in my signifiers
but I negotiated
them.
             I played a stupid
             game. and I won.
             how stupid is that.

+++

from Who's That Kickin' Yr Ass (rhp002)

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:00 AM

December 13, 2005

(she’s my) Little Q’n’A

Buck Downs

she’s my little Q’n’A
         bumping into
         an invisible
                  door-frame
         I say, on a non
                  existentent
bender  fall forwards
         as long as you’re falling
that’s where I start to find out
         over the counter and
         straight from the heart
mad to quit that mad shit and shit

previously improvised fate

I still call it a free-jazz
         train wreck
    but in a tender
    and loving way!

+++

from Who's That Kickin' Yr Ass? (rhp002)

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:00 AM

George Bush wakes up in a different world ever day

(or) George Bush needs our love

Jamie Gaughran-Perez

George Bush wakes up every morning asking what he can do today for Saudi Arabia.

George Bush dresses the part of a physical, masculine and anti-intellectual he-man

George Bush brushes off his once-again fading poll ratings with another bout of name calling.

George Bush eats kittens, and more political facts

George Bush walks across the flight line at Kirtland Air Force Base on his way.

George Bush stops to shake hands with members of the Air Force’s Fighting 55th in Omaha, Nebraska,
George Bush stops the State Department from giving grants to international groups that provide abortion-related counseling,
George Bush stops and pauses for dramatic effect

George Bush Wonders How He Did It.
George Bush wonders when the funny stuff starts

George Bush asks us to get the flu for the good of the country, just like he will.

George Bush continues on this path of destruction

George Bush finds himself on the horns of a dilemma

George Bush breathes about 90 litres of air every 2 minutes.

George Bush Thinks Magic Johnson Smells Like Onions

George Bush squints at the river and replies “but I don’t see any bridge”

George Bush swings for the fences.
George Bush Runs Risk in Staking All on Terror War

George Bush tells Vladimir Putin about his vision of peace consolidation over the phone
George Bush Tells the UN: “Fuck You!”
George Bush tells the real story of George Bush’s conversion to evangelical Christianity

George Bush gets on TV and starts yapping about Social Security and Imminent disaster

George Bush eats assholes of Saudi Arabians
George Bush eats Hitler’s poop
George Bush eats children

George Bush wipes his face at rally in a hot and humid Florida

George Bush realizes that he has the blood of innocent insects on his hands, and that stuff usually doesn’t smell too good

George Bush needs a potty break.
George Bush needs a Technology Czar.
George Bush needs a more intimate relationship with the Truth, bless his heart.

George Bush wakes up every morning and says “Today I’m going to do something.”

+++

from Who's That Kickin' Yr Ass (rhp002)

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:00 AM

November 30, 2005

Saturday (12/3): Reading in Baltimore

the i.e. reading series presents:

Lauren Bender + Buck Downs + Jamie Gaughran-Perez
reading / kissing in a tree

Saturday, December 3; 4pm
Clayton & Co. Fine Books
317 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD
(410) 752-6800

[flyer image is a detail from a painting by Lauren -- Diptych -- that completely rocks]

Posted by Rock Heals at 06:00 AM

November 02, 2005

Bell: A Poem

Justin Sirois

Click to launch the poem and then start clicking around from there.
Gotta click "turn on links" first...
You'll have to Back your way to get to Rock Heals when yr done.

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:30 AM

Reading @ DCAC, Nov. 20

Get over to DCAC (on 18th Street just below Columbia, Wash. DC) and check out the latest in the in your ear reading series.

To get a sense of what your getting into...
A free chapbook from Barbara Cole;
Sound works from Kristin Gallagher; and
Some pomes from Lauren Bender.

Find out more about the series and a few other great DC ones over at DCPoetry.com (and you can sign up for a notifications mailing list, too).

(Thanks for sending the links along, Lauren)

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:10 AM

October 26, 2005

Math-Rock-Scissors

Lauren Bender

etch-a-sketch
cloud ledger says winter, brothers grew beards and then shaved them
no more shall we speak his name
when you're on you're fucking on
and one thing's for certain
the righting was left on the wall with a brontosaurus
cat calls to the mourning dove
sheets for curtains
we just love those red rooms
she said, "equation"

undershirt sans pants
just like that, your penis, unassuming
just like that, your eyes, back in your head
finger up another’s nostril
still life with man in buttondown shirt
locks his feet under the radiator for sit-ups,
hungover

circle gets the square in first-person football
Ravi Shankar gets the overdub
you bet she fucks like a racehorse
after waking to gospel
on this beautiful sunday morning

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:00 AM

Lie to me, Pinocchio, harder. (for a.c.)

Lauren Bender

Knees. And on the diner stool the black pants the pants the only ever seen you wear. This screen/play (flim) flicker, dark living room, first division in the summer villa, finding blood in the evening long nap. Thought a softball on steps awake but slightly. Mediterranean discussion, the cohorts, the girls to ask identity, she ended up in Italy, pregnantly engaged. Hungary. Colorado. Hungry. Hold the elbow. Stories to tell down the sordid road, scratching post for speakers, roll of quarters for your thoughts. This place that quiets the evening and in the evening, to be anaesthetized, he was afraid, the teeth extracted, one for every season, one for quarters, the roll of quarters, the sticky bun, the killer biscuits, I’ve been shot with an urban legend, I’ve been nose-broken by a gerbil in flames.

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:00 AM

October 04, 2005

from Some Epistles

K. Lorraine Graham

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:20 AM

September 21, 2005

"with short wings"

Lauren Bender

with short wings
harden
harden
an upward slope

to embrace
to hold
comfortably
to make
suitable

to settle
something

Posted by Rock Heals at 08:40 AM

WOMEN SEEKING

Lauren Bender

Shoe, beautiful, highly educated lady,
ALL very ill, full-figured,
Whenever She’s up to it.
Extremely small 900 pound loner,
With hiney in her hands till the end.

Sick kitty, plus-size, imagining
Black latex, fishnet stockings, and
Stiletto pumps!
Whips, chains and handcuffs!
Fine dining, travel and the upscale lifestyle.

Full-figure cook out with ME & Cancer,
Thick brown feet BM, with
Don’t be shy! Drop me a line!
Role-playing freckled chest, who wants it
All.

ORAL SEX ON THE BEACH
In ocean city and Bethany.
Oral fantasy on the beach,
Under moonlights.
Me? Call me, I’m waiting.

ME? Bottom, hirsute, shaved head,
& SPANKING
bubble buts, spanking My
really sweet, nice looking, sweet, understanding
me? REQUEST BACKUP.

Love, affection and endowment.
And French cultures.
Me? Set up the firm hand.
Horny, sexy, I’m in search of TV.
I’m very honest.

Love to wear short skirts for fun.
STOP BY WITH SUIT AND TIE.
Mr. Mom needs oral favors.
Tall, dark and handsome,
Hope you’re out there.

MUTUAL PLEASURE SEEKER
Who has his own SILKY THINGS,
Own DAYTIME LOVER,
HOT AND READY.
Hot movies, and healthy, and

Swimmer’s build, vasectomy-safe,
Household help.
HANDYMAN, handyman,
Help[s] out who he can,
Where he can.

PART-TIME slave-girl,
Part-time female slave.
Why I should accept you,
Hairy-chested bubble baths,
MALE EXHIBITIONISTS?

HARTFORD COUNTY handsome,
(minus plus),
naked, bound, gagged, sucking, kissing,
BACKDOOR body rubs and clean TV.
Short skirts and high heels, thigh-high

Special mind.
ME? Free.
Me? Orally.
Me? Overweight weirdo.
BACKDOOR average.

YOU
You
You
DO YOU LIKE GIVING HEAD?
CREAM LOVER?

PANTYHOSE BOTTOM?
MY HEAD would like some head.
NYLONS nylons. Your place.
SOMEONE HELP ME.

If you think you can help me,
Please call me.
Please be at least not an issue,
Watching videos, sitting around
Getting to know each other.

Let my big tool meet your big tool.
If you’re on the road like me,
I am a man and I love REALLY, REALLY GAY!!
Are you really, really gay? I am!!
Flaming homosexual!

Me?
Like,
you be the top, let me be the bottom.
Like,
just be down for whatever.

WE ARE educated.
LET’S PARTY.
Be very wild!
Fun & kinky!
Be into threesomes!

Posted by Rock Heals at 08:20 AM

"edge of a person less intimate"

Lauren Bender

edge of a person less intimate
a person who knows
acquiescing without protest
but sometimes takes to

                         her parents’ wishes
                         proficiency in math
                         AIDS

the act something grasping
free from duty
measurement
land in acres
caustic in language

skilled in

                         feats of agility
                         walk on tiptoe acrobatically
                         the moves of an acronym
                         a word
                         a name
                         AIDS

Posted by Rock Heals at 08:10 AM

September 14, 2005

2 from Trade

Mike Grau

ii

one more drink before giving
not much better than TV or talking
to a regular—just words, not friends
or a sixer and fourteen lines
obviously waiting for the
television thinking it was

Expect nothing. Distrust what comes
Henry knew what he was doing

She was obviously waiting and more
expensive, sure, but it’s better than
the Washington Avenue Bridge

(He must’ve planned that too, the fuck.)

Not that Cuba was a mistake. I’ve seen
the blueprint to nothing what comes. Work.

 

xxiii

St Henry St Henry who else saved you save mother?
de world de world its feeding girls
today, three weeks from today, that’s how it will happen
or at least how problems solve themselves
hold down poses for one more song, moments before
washing your feet in bleach, jelly-bodied
beneath the trading shadows
forever eight thirty-nine, forever eighty-nine
where Truman, Edison and Lenin once lived

If you forgive me politically, my dear
writing a land where corn don’t grow
felt by the hair above
your skin standing. Otherwise press zero now
Record at the tone

Posted by Rock Heals at 09:45 AM

A Night of Fast-Moving Theater: 9/27, DC

Taffety Punk Theatre Company presents
AND THEN IT FASTER ROCK'D:
Shakespeare's Collected Noise
September 27th, 2005
8:30 pm at the Black Cat $7
1811 14th Street NW, Washington DC

from the announcement:
We're remounting "And Then It Faster Rock'd" – whose previous incarnation landed the same night as a terrific snowstorm back in February. So we thought a reprise was in order. The show collects, in various distortions, Shakespeare's rock and roll classic SONNET 71, HENRY V (featuring George W. Bush and cabinet), HORATIO (possessed), OPHELIA (distracted), a surviving fragment from the silent movie version of TAMING OF THE SHREW, with many more surprises, and much more noise.

With guest artists Teresa Castracane, Tymberlee Chanel, Kate Eastwood-Norris, Shawn Fagan, Kimberly Gilbert, Scott Kerns, Josh Thelin, and an on-screen Foster Solomon; with company members Marcus Kyd, Christopher Marino, Erin Mitchell. Cameo by Paper Bag.

[ed note / full disclosure: RH resident Jamie GP tooka turn at being the geek of geeks for the original: the AV guy for a dramatic production and will do so again. And once again he'll be nervous about fucking it all up.]

Posted by Rock Heals at 09:35 AM

we'll never tire of Unabomber Haiku

Mike Grau

[ed note: This is the fourth installment of Mike's ongoing series of haiku on Rock Heals. Find previous installments by wandering RH like a lost soul on the moor.]

               3.
The more disastrous
Will still be very painful:
It had best break down

               11.
Derogatory—
Almost anything is said
To reject the word

               20.
Notice the leftist
Down in front of vehicles
They provoke police

               37.
Avoid serious
Psychological problems
In attaining goals

               53.
Rapid change and the
Sources of social problems
Believe they are enough

               56.
Log cabin, outside
Of law and order and fed
Occurs in the life

Posted by Rock Heals at 09:30 AM

September 07, 2005

Parts

Reb Livingston

David says my bridesmaids' shoes are ugly.
It must be the man-part of him that forgets
it was my wedding and I selected those shoes along
with the tulips and chocolate cake.
Parts are parts, says the fast-food commercial
demonstrating that all parts are not
created equal and I agree
although I’m a feminist and believe all parts
should be given a fair shot.
Maybe it’s not the chicken beak’s fault
it’s not as tasty as the thigh and breast
and it should be allowed the opportunity
to be deep fried and delicious. Don’t we all deserve
that chance? But if the beak
can’t pass the yummy bar, feed it to the God-damned swine
and serve me my white meat nuggets.
No hard feelings, OK?

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:45 AM

And the Point Is?

Reb Livingston

Concerned about his mounting rejections
Pip’s parents suggest that if he’s going to be a poet
perhaps he should try writing something
people will want to read.
I’m God’s little cheerleader
always waving my pom-poms for practical advice
and sometimes I point out to Chris that if he wants
those kids to quit pounding their pogo-sticks
through our newly planted grass
he should either dig periphery trenches
or lay out some boards with nails.
In a few days they’ll stop
coming around. But Chris
says that’s a lot of liability
and he prefers screaming “Piss off, hole punchers!”
until the whole neighborhood grasps
the point of property rights.
One day, I’m sure, Pip will grasp his parents’ point
and he’ll write that popular poem
that will nourish our paltry lives
as we attack and ban it during our
P.T.A. meetings – mindless of the numbing hum
our potent slurps make as we preen and suck.

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:20 AM

August 24, 2005

Bui Chat, Translated by Linh Dinh

We visited NYC the other weekend, caught a great reading by Linh Dinh and immediately after having him to sign a copy of his latest book, complete with an obscene inscription to a friend, we asked him if he wanted to pony up to the Rock Heals bar.

And he got all like “hmmm.” And asked what about running some translations he’d been working on of contemporary Vietnamese poets.

Days later these from Bui Chat arrived and bam. Precocious little motherfucker out there ass-kicking and getting himself throwing in jail for the WORD. And then we realized he must be 25-ish, which I guess isn’t precocious anymore. We’re getting old. He’s rocking out.

Bui Chat is the pen name of Bui Quang Vien. Born in 1979 in Bien Hoa, he lives in Ho Chi Minh City. A member of the infamous Mo Mieng [Open Mouth] group, Bui Chat has been published on webzines and in group samizdats such as Six-Sided Circle (2002) and Open Mouth (2002), and in his own Disturbances Today (2003). In 2004, he and fellow poet Ly Doi were jailed for two days for passing out flyers at a poetry reading cancelled by the police. The poems here will be included in The Deluge: Contemporary Vietnamese Poetry scheduled to be released in 2006 from Chax Press.

Linh Dinh is the author of two collections of stories, Fake House (Seven Stories Press 2000) and Blood and Soap (Seven Stories Press 2004), and three books of poems, All Around What Empties Out (Tinfish 2003), American Tatts (Chax 2005) and Borderless Bodies (Factory School 2005). His work has been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, Best American Poetry 2004, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, among other places.

Poems from Bui Chat
Stab Skin
Kurrent State
Upside Down Pole

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:45 AM

Stab Skin

Bui Chat

I thro spit onto da wall
I luv women who are sewer rats
I see you wearing 33 cent panties bought on da sidewalk
books don’t make me better each Sunday
I see myself flyin in da sky
I torture myself three meals a day
I stab skin
I shout for words
I organize wars
I chant namyo to God
I lash ma tomb teeth in da mornin
I stab skin
I reform da uterus
I a divorce paper

(tr. from the Vietnamese by Linh Dinh)

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:42 AM

Kurrent State

Bui Chat

nothing kan seize me from da hands
a look doesn’t korrespond to da fi fingers
between da rite and left eyes
not da blue runny nose
dis world kannot squeeze me
old images alter me same as new
attittude on toilet skuatting to drop one thing into water
don’t want to sneeze with da crowd
I am da pregnancy inside da belly of da gurl I luv

(tr. from the Vietnamese by Linh Dinh)

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:40 AM

Upside Down Pole

Bui Chat

All ways upside down
spread
da broom
some eyes writhing
look sideways
leening against wall I want feet to be head
I sing
about shorts coiled springs being sic in bed
da faulty sentiment of missing stuff
& apathy
dis bleek room has been ma breath?
I must lic da uneveness around stuff
den flip
upside down
all ways
how to do all things
spread nite and day I seduce da wall
hornily flap
da lips
never stepped ouside my shorts face

(tr. from the Vietnamese by Linh Dinh)

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:35 AM

here housepainter

Lauren Bender

here housepainter, have a gradeschool shade of yellow,
have not enough pizza to feed even one person.
have a pocket pussy, or at the very least,
a dildo for a finger to point.
 
                                    hve poop talk.
                                    a lot of poop talk.

here houseguest, have an allergic attack
have a kitten polyp
have your shlong flop out on the air mattress
and a pillow balanced on your belly.

                                    pop that belly out.
                                    fart.

                                    see a cactus.
                                    call it tits.
                                    call it a pipe.

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:05 AM

August 17, 2005

the meme of memory

Buck Downs

the meme of memory
     and the plaything
                                       (for Kevin)
 
I thought, I pushed
  the panic button!? and all
                         my fat friends
     were out on the panic patrol
 
we were wearing
special glasses
and so we could see
 
     the E.S.P. in action
     all the human lives around us
 
  nothing simply happens
  in the five floating sense
      we call this world
 
all my life until now
has been advance-
preparation for
this new adventure
                                 KI-YI-YI
                                 I wrote,
                                 NO PRACTICE

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:50 AM

No More Jellybeans

Michael Ball


Kevin Thurston is an industrially waxed zucchini
the size of the Yucatan

Jet Tone Zippo

He is a harem of wind-up insurance clerks in
Day-Glow tweeds with a surrogate
rat anally attached

to each nose

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:30 AM

August 10, 2005

Tickle Torture

Justin Sirois

Tickle Torture combines text and images to describe what might be happening in major cities in Iraq or elsewhere. It is about torturing civilians within the confines of international law and the Geneva conventions. It is about soft fascism. It is about soft tacos. Click on the provinces to enjoy the poem.

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:30 AM

July 27, 2005

Voiceover

Mel Nichols

in a minute you'll see the heart--it's very beautiful cut to the surgeon and the wax man yellow with his chest wide open red don't touch anything blue or green the profusionist said while the nurse writes the instrument count on the board the airplane pinned beneath a swath of water on your way to luxurious grass once again we enter the stream there is nothing I need or don't need

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:45 AM

Ghost Brain

Rod Smith

the sun like a toasted amarillis
tips lightly half-backward & ups
its likely faultlike effervescing forwarrd
four times & I find my socks.

the legalities
tumble then
twice &
loom, hippylike, out, final, serious, clumsily costumed --

the knuckles placate in’em, roost there, pals
encapsulate or a path opens
the hope which is poetry
& my heart maybe it

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:40 AM

Poem

Rod Smith

our world, it is inappropriate

the land of the fee

kitty heads in the percussion cage

& great morphed insult-sized harbingers

a lastly alphabetbotlike feedback-loop &--

secret--

brazen then them awake

this totaled hope again

brazen then them awake

this totaled hope

this totaled hope

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:15 AM

Ghost Brain

Rod Smith

Big fun, like
a selected text. Moron
for example
or **nude twilight**
the dang adverb’s got
‘emsef a humbing-dandy
pre-poseishun.

jerkladen howdies
to yr mammy & pappy.

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:14 AM

3 Poems

Mel Nichols

Day Poem

everything

snow cones

25 cents

please knock on door

two bolts in the mouth

and a pie in the face

while I am always sleeping

reading glasses found

under a bag of potato chips

a stack of Styrofoam cups

with the bottoms hacked off

an unmarked car

with a marked man

a girl with jacki-O hair and rectangle glasses

a new year

tell me tell me tell

me tell me something

I can hold onto for a week

or two

we are going to get serious

about project management

we are going to spend

a lot of money on project

management software to prove it

soy sauce mixed with wasabi

in a a disposable cup on the desk

hey hey someone’s got a new manpurse

hey someone’s got collapsible

chopsticks in his pocket

the beer was freezing

and we never finished building the igloo

I was totally under-prepared to

conjugate my –ir verbs but hey

I’m feeling lucky

***

Day Poem

don’t let the door slam can’t you

effing read don’t let the door slam

don’t slam it

guess they don’t get a lot of snow

in Kentucky

everyone kept telling the one about

the time they used a car hood as a sled

love of machines

love of country

love of the card game

love of while you were out

I wrote you a memo on

a pink pad of paper

He’s the George Burns of trance.

the roof was pulling

away from the walls

I can hear the pages turn

as you read

the rain was leaking in

***

Day Poem

I opened the door and saw

an entire chunk of roof had fallen

into the back yard

does it come with a TV mini-series

can it make a three-minute pesto

I wanted our keys to be

tangled up together in your pocket

there is rain in this and also fire and also snow

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:10 AM

July 13, 2005

Phoenix Diaries: Simon and Carl

Jon Lee

SIMON: I want to fuck you.

CARL: You're so blunt.

SIMON: Damn straight I'm blunt.

CARL: I need a man who's subtle.

SIMON: I can only be so subtle with my tool.

CARL: I want a man who will romance me.

SIMON: Sweety, you know I can romance you.

CARL: Then talk about something other than your cock.

SIMON: I love the way your package sticks out of your shorts.

CARL: This is insane.

SIMON: Oh baby.

CARL: I'm dating a 12 year old.

SIMON: 12 year olds don't have cocks like this.

Posted by Rock Heals at 04:40 AM

Phoenix Diaries: Maryann and Ashton

Jon Lee

MARYANN: Blow me down.

ASHTON: Shiver my timbers?

MARYANN: It's the new thing to say.

ASHTON: Not new at all sweety. Popeye used to say that.

MARYANN: Who's Popeye?

ASHTON: You're too young for that.

MARYANN: You always say that, come on tell me.

ASHTON: No, sweetie. I mean. Ha. I mean you are too young to have
remembered Popeye. He was an old cartoon. Also a very contrived movie
starring Robin Williams.

MARYANN: I know Robin Williams.

ASHTON: There you go, now we have something in common.

MARYANN: Does Mom know who Popeye is?

ASHTON: No, no she doesn't sweetie.

Posted by Rock Heals at 04:30 AM

Phoenix Diaries: Ignoramus and Loser

Jon Lee

IGNORAMUS: Dood, you're such a loser.

LOSER: You stink.

IGN: Fuck yeah I do.

LOSER: I can never stink as good as you.

IGN: Fuck yeah you can. Run around the block.

(LOSER runs around the block.)

IGN: Woah, you don't smell at all.

LOSER: See?

IGN: Yeah. Huh. Run around the block again.

(LOSER runs around the block.)

IGN: Dood, I can't smell a thing. Come closer.

IGN smells LOSER's pits.

LOSER: Well, anything?

IGN: Nope. Nothing.

LOSER: Damn it. I wanna smell.

(LOSER runs around the block.)

LOSER: Damn I'm tired.

IGN: Um dood?

LOSER: Yeah?

IGN: You smell really good.

LOSER: Shit.

Posted by Rock Heals at 04:20 AM

July 06, 2005

from Little is the New Chicken

Adam Good

   there are systems
   we live among
   and to see them
   is to be redeployed
 
   * * *
 
   oh,
 
        currents
 
   * * *
 
   your resources
 
   are probably national
 
   your auto-completion
 
   yields “yours truly”
 
   this is a stem-cell
 
   statement
 
   of material
 
   poetics.
 
   check it out,
 
   late fees.
 
   * * *
 
   hogs
   split
   with 
   cause, 
 
   get
   spilt
   with 
   clause,
 
   owls
 
   do it
   for the glory
 
   * * *
 
   one moves
   between reading
   and re-reading
   and re-reading
   and re-reading.
 
   space begins
   to happen.
 
   * * *
 
   there are no ambitious people
 
                  only trees
 
                  and scores
 
               sweat’s dial
 
                  and the law
 
   * * *
 
   you can meet 25
 
   of anyone
 
 
 
[Ed note: Just a sample from a longer work Adam is working on. Edited it down to what would work best here, but trust me, there is much more to see in this work wherever it does finally land.]

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:40 AM

the gift

Adam Good
                                                            (6/22/05)

   to
   give with
   brood what
   studio of
   food
   the clouds are
   pregnant and
   almost present
   pageantry amidst
   the swallows
   in flight from
   fear or an occasionally
   awkward silence
   the monitors can't
   prove
   allow or provide
   allowance for the kids
   run with wind-up
   dollies in the aisles
   of recuperative volley
   after remunerative
   volley
   time after time's
   collateral
   damage
   reversal
   i wasn't thinking
   anything i was just
   thinking
   they try to tell you
   things, railroads,
   everybody working
   on battery life
   bar none
   non
   starters
   for starters
   aimless
   flounder
   in better ed
   learned
   eventually to
   just click
   on SPEAK
   to commune
   with the living
   dead in the
   splendid
   flood
   of plod
   and west of
   which &
   what
   is due
   aurally de
   parted rig
   of trigger's
   basic visual
   lingo lingers
   in the lick
   of rhapsody
   graphic users
   interface
   occasionally
   as furniture
   kick the habitat
   back in homage to
   the first formal exposure
   to now playing
   at controlling
   the net
   from the paint
   by numbers
   jet and data
   set these thing
   pieces touch
   me with interest
   building up
   accounts of
   what might
   get started
   in time
   or in other
   words
   begin?

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:20 AM

June 29, 2005

still more from Unabomber Haiku

Mike Grau

               1.
Its consequences
Have been a disaster
For the human race

               15.
To hate anything
Strong, good, successful
Hate America

               21.
The drive for power
Hostile or dogmatic terms
Take such an approach

               34.
Hypothetical
Case of a man who can have
Everything he wants

               36.
Goals result in death
Compatible survival
And in frustration

               43.
It is true that some
Either drive for power
Or satisfy it

Read the first installment of Unabomber Haiku >
Then read the second

Ed note: Mike's mission to reveal the power of the poetry locked inside the Unabomber Manifesto continues. Rock Heals looks forward to bringing you more pieces of the puzzle periodically.

Posted by Rock Heals at 06:50 PM

June 22, 2005

2 plot devices:

Rupert Wondolowski

1. Bloody kleenex in the
  campsite bathroom (turns out
  to be clay).

2. Driving along the highway, run
  into traffic jam. Put on bird
  costume and run up hill clowning
  (gets shot).
 
 
 
+++

This fine fine poem is the opening shot in Rupert's "The Whispering of Ice Cubes: New and Selected Pieces." It is unlike any of the other equally fine pieces in that book -- find it here.

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:40 AM

Meditations in a Thrift Store

Rupert Wondolowski

          You are standing in front of a record display in a musty thrift store on the edge of the city. There is a drifting smell that moves on right before becoming disturbing. The wood pieces making up the record shelving seem massive and thick, like elementary school desks seemed to you as a child.

          Next to you, feverishly flipping through the Ferrante and Teicher and polka albums is a thin nervous woman you once sort of knew almost twenty years ago. Little about her has changes. She still has that awkward but nervously energized adolescent-like presence that already felt too young for her all those years ago. She’s having a religious experience with these over-picked lps that feel like lifeless, dry taco shells to you at this time. You curse yourself for not having a coffee before coming in here or for coming in here at all. You suddenly feel the urge to be out in the woods away from all material goods, but the late winder sun is setting on slick gray streets outside and there’s always the Friday traffic to think about.

          The store’s lighting has no personality, no nuances for you to gain some emotional traction with. It’s like a steady eye with no thought behind it, gazing and gazing at you.

          The skittish woman next to you is now making gutteral moaning sounds and you see that she’s holding a Rick James album. Rick James, who was originally from Canada, was a R & B performer fairly big in the70s and 80s. It’s long been believed that the U.S. government unleashed him on American ghettos to spread the scourge of crack cocaine, processed hair and vile clothing, just as another Canadian performer, Leonard Cohen, was set upon the white hippies to deflate their revolutionary fervor and replace it with paralyzing romantic nihilism.

          Even in the drab airless space of this culture graveyard, or maybe because of its drabness, Rick James’ processed hair jumps out from the record cover. It has a gellid, industrial squid presence that makes your stomach slide and your scalp itch. How did he maintain that chemical monstrosity through the day? How did it react to sweat? What foul marks did it leave on his coked-out lover’s pillow? Did it ever catch fire during a blurry marathon party, its burning smell like a cauldron of melted wax hobo feet?

          A stevedore will tell you that the green bilge from the hold of a ship is the dirtiest substance on earth, that if it gets on your skin it crawls right through, but at this moment you picture the processed coils of hair gulping the bilge and sucking your flesh off at the same time, leaving you a quivering exo-skeleton.

          It’s just as that earlier wrong smell starts to drift your way again and you start to wonder if it’s an olfactory hallucination connected to Rick James, that the nervous girl speaks to you. But when you turn to face her she has become that cute cheerleader from high school, the one from the other school in Howard County. She has the largest, most innocent eyes that shoot laser beams of goodness from behind large glasses that might have been at home on Wally Cox, voice of Underdog. She is holding an album of traditional Eskimo music and she asks you if you knew that Eskimos sing into each other’s throats. Your heart begins beating rapidly and when she turns to put the album back into the decaying wooden bin you notice she has the nicest ass you’ve ever seen. You blush, wondering if you’re evil for noticing such a thing about a young girl in a short, frilly pom pom outfit, but then you notice she’s around your age and that her smile indicates she can read your thoughts.

          “Are you hungry?” she asks.

          “Yes,” you answer. “I tried to eat at the Taco Bell earlier, but there was a huge fight going on about whose turn it was to the clean the toilet. It really brought me down.”

          “Let’s go outside,” she says. “I’ve got something in my car.”

          When you enter the battered VW buss there is a colorful spread of food waiting on the plaid couch covers, including steaks the size of catcher’s mitts and sparkling roasted vegetables.

          As the two of you gorge on your feast you can see a carnival of red police lights flashing by outside and the bus sways as if on water whenever fire trucks come near.

          Sometime during the double chocolate pudding the two of you decide that despite the over-chronicling of Paris in the 1920s, it was still the best place to be and that you would go there next.

          “But first,” she says, ”there’s an out of control ice cream truck playing Grateful Dead music in Hampden about to crash into a backyard full of babies on blankets and I’ve got to stop it.”
 
 
 
+++

This piece first appeared in Shattered Wig Review #25. Learn how to get a copy.

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:10 AM

June 16, 2005

love prayers

love prayers {1
for you}

Justin Sirois

if I could give you all the love in the world, wrap it up in greasy butcher block paper & tie it tight with cable wire, put my ear to it & listen to the good bacteria breed like marmalade botulism. If I could hold the bundle of all the love in the world, the meat love & the organic vegetable love, the gentle panda & sizzling kidney napalm love, Bombay prostitute love & a new father’s love, it would swell like a sprinkler head & spasm like a bee without its dagger. I need to include the teenage vampire love, it’s a good kind I think. Holy Mary, Mother of Super Savings, I want a five hundred dollar stainless steal Japanese cutlery set, but can’t afford it with my current salary. Holy Harry, Father of High Fructose, please spare the ones who cannot read the ingredients on the sides of tractor trainers, the atom barbers who smash economies with nose hair scissors & bump reducing beard trimmers. If I could give you my real love instead of worrying about silent wars or smoking old cough ash alone in my boxers, if I could change the shape of my eye sockets by cracking these knuckles in a particular order, if the basketball brawl behind the sockets broke up & the punch drunk cameramen would strike, you would be on the top of the list, wayward & always wandering

Posted by Rock Heals at 05:00 AM

mister Cyclopes & the men I have grown to love

Justin Sirois

oh mister Cyclopes, big government is bad when you
watch TV all night, a cigarette is always a cigarette
no matter what happens to it. Sometimes I feel like
you’re the only real thing in my life, not (the
unchanging cigarette) just the kaleidoscope of
compliments & kisses you over night. Those swollen
tomahawks & talk show humorists, you smoking mini vans
& apache plagiarists, when does a riot cop decide to
write something intimidating on the front of his
helmet? He’s only been hit in the head a few times &
he hates it, this is a classified memo demanding that
you destroy the super flu samples, if the virus seeps
into our crown victoria we will all be turned into
headless vermin & they will use our little bodies to
mean streak red warnings of the apocalypse. A man is
always a man no matter what happens to it. The boy who
collects assault rifles is a worried boy, the girl who
uses the word frontline in conversation is a girl
whose calculus has been proven – now the can of
emergency drinking water has become a mushy slosh,
will you smooch him when we erupts like-

a busted spigot or a kevlar pig ready to kick heads?
Who is going to macromanage middle america? iPod One,
the little diction clipped to the president’s waist,
plays free downloaded pop, when I called the first
daughters blurry hurdy-gurdies I meant it like pretty
organ grinders, but I wasn’t talking about anyone
we’ve seen for real, just a singing photograph taped
to the cathode. Write to your congressman & ask them
how much a pound of hamburger costs, big government
means less freedom for the discounted calm diggers &
back to school items, we found her in the dvd bin, she
believed it to be a ball pit & sank down to lethal
weapons. Where do we fit into the remodeling success
story? He’s been hit in the soft drink a few times &
likes it

Posted by Rock Heals at 04:00 AM

June 01, 2005

the Factory of Life and Consciousness

Ryan Walker

I’m tired of the whole idea of intense sex. I have to admit that cute sex or even boring sex has some appeal. Non-invasive or even non-noticeable sex seems worth trying. I’d like someone to tell me we had sex the other day, briefly, while I was distracted. -How was it? -It was ok. -Did I like it? -I think so. -Let’s do it again. -We already did. -Oh. How was it? -It was ok. In this way, we can have sex, if not constantly – which would be pointless – then at least frequently enough to restore wildness to the places where we send mail or refuse to purchase dry goods. …She’s mouthwateringly reasonable. I’m convinced there is a whole race of people in the cities and towns of this continent who simply are not aware of how reasonable she is, so they choose to go insane, not because of any romantic notion about incurring unnecessary risk or seeing across to the other side or living eternally in the final credits of a rockumentary, but rather because, in the wayward portions of our mutual instinct, the gritty monkeys that laze where the last inviolable toilet water flickers out, there the future conspires with fashion and our ideas are borned.

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:40 AM

one year

Ryan Walker

stop being a totem pole
a cloud moves, the sky brightens, a bird calls
my bird answers
shut up bird
you've ruined everything, sun

the sun ruined everything
and school ruined the rest
let me back in the sewer
the oxygen is chaffing my gills
I slit my last Tan-tan
in October, now I have nothing
if you ask what I'm wearing
Black Banana No. 4

I have many new feelings
necroflagelum
one of those little tails
dead people get
nice, yes, but she looked
like she'd just fallen
down the up escalator

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:30 AM

hatch

Ryan Walker

the part where I stop pretending
it's something I have volition over got edited
out of the halloween parade not by some
overzealous cinemetographer but by the gaping maw
that opened beneath me. I stand before you

a visitor from the overworld
where the light is kind
and yellow
and the tubas play
I can endorse the things I've purchased
I can be your parent

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:10 AM

May 25, 2005

current(ly)

Score to a performance by Kevin Thurston

Live, I'd like to say Kevin's work plays with boundaries, but that's much too nice a term. And there is a whole universe of more colorful terms you just haven't heard much since 10th grade... skull-fucks boundaries?

Kevin stirs up a whole mix of presentations, performances and genres to then stir up a whole mix of responses in his viewers -- from engagement, to distnancing, to a general "what the fuck" that takes you a good place.

You may not realize it on first experience, but the kid is rockin' it. Or to keep with the 10th grade terminology, his stuff is tits [on glass].

(Click to enlarge/enjoy)

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:20 AM

May 18, 2005

Two Poems

Tracey Gaughran-Perez

By Numbers

Broadly then there are these, networks. Thought is actual, executed by several different parts while remaining actually indivisible. When he’s finally finished the last word on the matter what marks the memory is beyond dispute. What is authorized. Cause in effect we become ourselves later and later what held us commanded more or less than ourselves, always absorbing relevant sociopolitical and private marginalia. A sort of settlement built around the idea and its architecture, a cool, dry place. Comfortable means to end for each and everything allotted, with security and freedom in foresight. But even in precision and ease he cannot hear himself above the floor, ceiling and walls constantly referencing the spacious inclusiveness of design. When two hands meet halfway these bodies, in that gesture, rouse as if from sleep. One following another vertical and horizontal lines stretch out arms into the bright air and want for nothing.

How to Steal or Reinvent

She looks terrified barely visible under water; another flips her fingers in smoke and is kept light. Who wants her and why she is not noticed, these essential things that seem clumsy or awkward will be the better for it or we want to believe so. In momentary lapses her face was pretty if only, mirrors rearranged the unspoken. No, but I meant that in a good way. We eat rice and fish seriously, assume our positions change or are possible. What satisfaction for those chosen at the last, cowboy hats back in a slight twist at the knee, a wash of overwrought color. At this point she’d had just about enough and was looking for new forms, something stationary to pin hope on, but that was years ago. Those were wasted on someone else’s hypotheses and trust before in after; the haloed curtains now drawn against, a shadow folded neatly on carpet.

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:06 AM

May 04, 2005

New Car Jacking Scheme

Lauren Bender

Imagine:

You walk across the parking lot, unlock Your
car and get inside. Then You lock all your doors,
start the engine and shift into REVERSE.

Habit!

You look into the rear-view window to back out of Your parking space and You notice a piece of paper, some sort of advertisement stuck to Your rear window. So, You shift into PARK, unlock Your doors and jump out of Your vehicle to remove that paper (or whatever it is) that is obstructing Your view…when You reach the back of your car, that is when The Car-Jackers jump out of nowhere…jump into Your car and take off—Your engine was running, Your purse is in the car, and They practically mow You down as they speed off in Your car.

BE AWARE OF THIS NEW SCHEME

Just drive away and remove the paper that is stuck to Your window later...and be thankful that You read this and that You forwarded it to Your Friends.

More in Week 8
all poetry from Lauren Bender
This Ain't No Damn Bingo! Shoot.
Water Weight; and
a certain trauma encoded in a time of year

Previously on Rock Heals
And on the 7th Week more Unabomber Haiku and the first edition of This Month in Search
Week 6 Is Habit Forming with another installment of 911 Diaries, a photo from Raji, and a review of Katamari Damacy!
Week 5: Yankees In Last! (But so are the Sox) with a short play from Brian Calandra and a recipe
Week 4: Perdue, the Pope and Bellows. Oh my! with 911 Diaries, Mike Grau, and music from M_GP
Week 3 Waits Patiently for Spring Weather with a comic from John Shanchuk
Week 2 In the Time or Rock Heals with poetry from Justin Sirois; and
Week 1 Where it All Began with poetry from Mark Wallace

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:50 AM

This Ain’t No Damn Bingo! Shoot.

Lauren Bender

You stay here and I’ll go think about guns
Or duotone, or vegan mullets
Bring aspartame back for the children
Dump pillowcase booty onto living room floor and inspect for myth.
Couldn’t see my French Canadian for the fiberoptic trees
“he grabbed my hand, and 20 minutes later…”
Tea over a spit, the eucalyptic accompaniment
Open your eyes
I’m dreaming maps and spent drawings
Open your eyes
Meet up in the barrio
Open your eyes
Wake up in the ruins outside Mexico City
How did your boots get so dusty
How much does an I-Book cost
How does everything man owns fit into a 6x4 storage unit
Jack, your wife’s organ is missing
Jack, this poem is channeling nothing but a hangnail in my drunken country
10 signs you’re naively apathetic:
Jack, you’re as swayed as his new field jacket and just as inauthentic
Swigged yourself to death one starry evening
Shot as much as a carpenter can afford
Quoted yourself right down the information superhighway
Sidewalk chalk for her intellectual graffiti
I’m so excited and I just can’t hide it
Friends + 2,
Harborside view,
How did your boots get so dusty

More in Week 8
all poetry from Lauren Bender
New Car Jacking Scheme
Water Weight; and
a certain trauma encoded in a time of year

Previously on Rock Heals
And on the 7th Week more Unabomber Haiku and the first edition of This Month in Search
Week 6 Is Habit Forming with another installment of 911 Diaries, a photo from Raji, and a review of Katamari Damacy!
Week 5: Yankees In Last! (But so are the Sox) with a short play from Brian Calandra and a recipe
Week 4: Perdue, the Pope and Bellows. Oh my! with 911 Diaries, Mike Grau, and music from M_GP
Week 3 Waits Patiently for Spring Weather with a comic from John Shanchuk
Week 2 In the Time or Rock Heals with poetry from Justin Sirois; and
Week 1 Where it All Began with poetry from Mark Wallace

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:40 AM

Water Weight

Lauren Bender

i before e except
your middle names are obligation enough
to get the hell out of dodge
to get the hell off of the PA line

box full of wishes
box full of ashes
song on the radio
sung in the cemetery
if could do it all again
would do it just the same

the soggy cereal serial, “surreal?”
late for every funeral in the pouring rain

brown jacket
brown tie
brown sweater
brown tites
fish tank
travel magazines

      1. the taj mahal is symmetric and best viewed in early morning
      2. “take care now,” said the gravedigger

More in Week 8
all poetry from Lauren Bender
New Car Jacking Scheme
This Ain't No Damn Bingo! Shoot.; and
a certain trauma encoded in a time of year

Previously on Rock Heals
And on the 7th Week more Unabomber Haiku and the first edition of This Month in Search
Week 6 Is Habit Forming with another installment of 911 Diaries, a photo from Raji, and a review of Katamari Damacy!
Week 5: Yankees In Last! (But so are the Sox) with a short play from Brian Calandra and a recipe
Week 4: Perdue, the Pope and Bellows. Oh my! with 911 Diaries, Mike Grau, and music from M_GP
Week 3 Waits Patiently for Spring Weather with a comic from John Shanchuk
Week 2 In the Time or Rock Heals with poetry from Justin Sirois; and
Week 1 Where it All Began with poetry from Mark Wallace

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:20 AM

a certain trauma encoded in a time of year

Lauren Bender

a certain trauma encoded in a time of year
to perceive it
collect longitudinal data in sensitive faces over time
chart the overanalytic empathy
while looking for
a country code
an anonymous yearbook
a moving image inverted by its pinhole painter

vs.

some measure of anniversary in the round

vs.

57 or 65 hours without sleep

More in Week 8
all poetry from Lauren Bender
New Car Jacking Scheme
This Ain't No Damn Bingo! Shoot.; and
Water Weight

Previously on Rock Heals
And on the 7th Week more Unabomber Haiku and the first edition of This Month in Search
Week 6 Is Habit Forming with another installment of 911 Diaries, a photo from Raji, and a review of Katamari Damacy!
Week 5: Yankees In Last! (But so are the Sox) with a short play from Brian Calandra and a recipe
Week 4: Perdue, the Pope and Bellows. Oh my! with 911 Diaries, Mike Grau, and music from M_GP
Week 3 Waits Patiently for Spring Weather with a comic from John Shanchuk
Week 2 In the Time or Rock Heals with poetry from Justin Sirois; and
Week 1 Where it All Began with poetry from Mark Wallace

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:10 AM

April 27, 2005

more from Unabomber Haiku

Mike Grau

               2.
Systems may survive
Permanently reducing
Cogs in the machine

               7.
It’s not clear who can
Have in mind the correct types
Not so much movement

               10.
We mean not feeling
But a whole spectrum of traits:
Such guilt, self-hatred

               29.
Real attachment
To integrate the black man
Couldn’t care less what kind

               31.
Foregoing thumbnail
The real situation is
Complex, and anything

Read first installment of Unabomber Haiku >

Ed note: Mike's mission to reveal the power of the poetry locked inside the Unabomber Manifesto continues. Rock Heals looks forward to bringing you more pieces of the puzzle soon.

Also in Week 7
This Month In Search

Previously on Rock Heals
Week 6 Is Habit Forming with another installment of 911 Diaries, a photo from Raji, and a review of Katamari Damacy!
Week 5: Yankees In Last! (But so are the Sox) with a short play from Brian Calandra and a recipe
Week 4: Perdue, the Pope and Bellows. Oh my! with 911 Diaries, Mike Grau, and music from M_GP
Week 3 Waits Patiently for Spring Weather with a comic from John Shanchuk
Week 2 In the Time or Rock Heals with poetry from Justin Sirois; and
Week 1 Where it All Began with poetry from Mark Wallace

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:10 AM

April 13, 2005

Deliverable (A Ten Minute Play)

Brian Calandra

Here's an excerpt -- get the whole thing in the PDF (187k)

Scene: Requirements Discovery in 6B (uh, I mean, “Strategic Planning”)

Open on table, center stage, perpendicular to audience. A Proxima projector sits on it, facing upstage. Three chairs sit on one side of the table, two on the other. Susie fritters about the room, K enters out of breath, and stands awkwardly by a chair.

K:
You were moving so fast through the cubes, I could barely keep up. {Chuckles} I was lucky to find this. I… I really don’t think I can find my way back.

Susie:
You’ll get the hang of it -- you’ve just got to remember to turn left after your third right before the filing cabinet on your left facing the fax machine to the right of that small row of cubes. Or you can just take the fourth left after your second left by the bathroom after you make a right past the receptionist.

K:
Oh, yeah. Sure. I wonder why they don’t number these offices. At my last company….

Susie:
Heh, yeah. But if you numbered everything, you’d have to remember a number, a name, and a location. This way you just remember the name. He-he! {She giggles}

K:
Yeah, I…guess.

Susie:
You’ll get the hang of it.

K:
So this is the HoldmeBachs kickoff meeting? The project starts now?

Susie:
Oh, no, we’re months in. And we can’t kick the project off! How can we kick this off without setting the requirements? That’s like trying to eat toothpaste with a straw!

K:
What?

Read the whole thing on PDF (187k)

Also in Week 5
Californian Taco Salad to enjoy with a good drink

Also on Rock Heals
Week 6 Is Habit Forming with another episode of 911 Diaries and a review
Week 4: Perdue, the Pope and Bellows. Oh my! with 911 Diaries, Mike Grau, and music from M_GP
Week 3 Waits Patiently for Spring Weather with a comic from John Shanchuk
Week 2 In the Time or Rock Heals with poetry from Justin Sirois; and
Week 1 Where it All Began with poetry from Mark Wallace

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:10 AM

April 20, Baltimore Poetry Reading (@MICA)

April 20th, 2005, 5:30 pm
@MICA -- in the Station Building

A Narrowhouse Reading with:
Kevin Thurston
Justin Sirois
Lauren Bender
Andrew Miller

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:07 AM

April 06, 2005

from Unabomber Haiku

Mike Grau

               5.
We give attention
We confine our discussion
And we have written

               14.
Women are as strong
Clearly are nagged by a fear
Capable as men

               22.
No social problems
Would have to invent problems
For making a fuss

               26.
They goof off at work
The thought and the behavior
Results in a sense

               33.
The need for power
We call it autonomy
Discuss it later

               44.
But for most people
One does not have adequate
Eating disorders

Ed note: Mike's mission to reveal the power of the poetry locked inside the Unabomber Manifesto continues. Rock Heals looks forward to bringing you more pieces of the puzzle soon.

Also in Week 4
911 Diaries: Blood Mystery, D.
The Alphabet Song, M_GP

Also on Rock Heals
Week 6 Is Habit Forming with another episode of 911 Diaries and a review
Week 5: Yankees In Last! (But so are the Sox) with a short play from Brian Calandra and a recipe
Week 3 Waits Patiently for Spring Weather with a comic from John Shanchuk
Week 2 In the Time or Rock Heals with poetry from Justin Sirois; and
Week 1 Where it All Began with poetry from Mark Wallace

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:08 AM

March 23, 2005

to the woman in Wendy’s wearing the purple & black jersey listening to pop country.

Justin Sirois

if a series of clichés are strung together in an entertaining & theatrical way does it make them music? Does it make them art? If I could, I would like to sit next to your broccoli & nacho cheese baked potato & ask you all these things about beauty & the contemporary handy cap stall who’s copious square footage we enjoy only in the early morning hours before the truly physically challenged arrive at the office. I would ask you if an ironic mash of colloquial passé & flailing rhythm guitar really speak to the modern woman, if the grilled chicken sandwich should be smothered in a tangy drip whose origin must have been mayonnaise. One thing we need to discuss is Dan Rather’s premature & dishonorable forced retirement from his anchor chair, how, in an age of imbedded sellouts, this rare breed of bare knuckle reporting is dying fast, true investigative journalism replaced by biased programming, bloggers & Drudgery. We weren’t there to see the cameramen spit upon or their pancreases heel carved with the words “Nigger Lover” & “Yankee Liberal”, curb stomped cameras in rural Alabama, pressing hard on the posterior compartment of the thigh, hamstrings, and femoral arteries of soldiers as they wait for evacuation.

We weren’t snuck into Afghanistan to refill our soda cups either, that would have been a story. Should we not forget that Dave Thomas was an orphan & his fiery daughter a lesbian of urban myth? The teenage burger flipper turned entrepreneur died at age 69 of liver cancer in Florida, would he know if a string of clichés are sung together in a heartfelt way do they transcend the beverage fountain to twang deep fryers fantastically? Do these lyrics Wal-Mart the contemporary man who would rather eat in the cab of his new four wheel drive Sherman than mingle with silent dining room patrons? Maybe these are questions for a rare & special individual whose antennae vibrate with a notebook & pencil, the say, “show me a blue state shaped chicken nugget not good enough to eat”. True objective observation would expose you for what you really are, a compassionate conservative & constitution revisionist in the true sense of the word, with running linebacker’s surname woven on your shoulders, free to rename & sound byte what they’ve been repeating for decades, the reverberating chorus chiming through lowered ceilings, “two cons do make a right” Talk about trite

Also in Week 2
More from Justin Sirois
merrie melodies & the role models of termite terrace

Also on Rock Heals
Week 6 Is Habit Forming with another episode of 911 Diaries and a review
Week 5: Yankees In Last! (But so are the Sox) with a short play from Brian Calandra and a recipe
Week 4: Perdue, the Pope and Bellows. Oh my! with 911 Diaries, Mike Grau, and music from M_GP
Week 3 Waits Patiently for Spring Weather with a comic from John Shanchuk; and
Week 1 Where it All Began with poetry from Mark Wallace

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:24 AM

merrie melodies & the role models of termite terrace

Justin Sirois

sponge bob square pants is an unlikely model of existential
sensitivity { when I was young the drawings of John Kricfalusi

used to make me & my brother piss our pants, he obviously
did a ton of acid, he played in a surf rock band named the

Shit Birds & when nickelodeon ripped Ren & Stimpy away from
his creative control he went independent again with an alcoholic

neo conservative named George Liquor, an Elmer Fudd type
who’s experience in Korea & cinemax might have rattled a

few bolts loose & only wading pools of blended whiskey
can turn the furniture back into their proper shapes, he spends

the afternoon cutting down dead trees, Kricfalusi is obviously
way ahead of his time { sponge bob square pants is a sea

sponge with buck teeth, he’s the social outcast, the square,
but as a sentient being of an absorbent nature he is a

metaphor of complete social acceptance, a tolerant &
kind individual of constant reflection who not only soaks

in the environment around him, he is, in essence, this
environment, in an underwater world without boarders or

check points he is the ambassador to all species & races,
he is the wide eyed abstraction, a being who defies

categorization of genus or genetic origin { when we were
young the cartoons of Bob Clampett & Tex Avery seemed

too charged with anxiety, who’s afraid of a hovering pickaxe?
whose overalls are stuffed full’a TNT? obviously impossible

for us to see the art in it at the time when a sports car could
transform into a pistol & then a giant robot, after leaving Warner

Brothers in ’64, Clampett produced 78 episodes of his sea sick
sock puppet creation & boy companion in five years with his

children Bob Jr. & Ruth doing voice overs, Kricfalusi would
later try to revive the series after Clampett’s death, but ABC

would can the progressive animator for this hands on approach
to the medium { you, the Brita of contemporary apathy, slice

cells into a story board of estranged commentary, an art that won’t
be appreciated fully until the reels of commercialism slow &

the dazed adults understand who tried to tease away convention &
free young imaginations from the confines of capital, you, the

lower case artist, slip castor oil through the lips of authenticity &
throw anvils at vile television thrones, a big blown baby with a

baritone bravura of Hanna Barbaric proportion

Also in Week 2
More from Justin Sirois
to the woman in Wendy’s wearing the purple & black jersey listening to pop country.

Also on Rock Heals
Week 6 Is Habit Forming with another episode of 911 Diaries and a review
Week 5: Yankees In Last! (But so are the Sox) with a short play from Brian Calandra and a recipe
Week 4: Perdue, the Pope and Bellows. Oh my! with 911 Diaries, Mike Grau, and music from M_GP
Week 3 Waits Patiently for Spring Weather with a comic from John Shanchuk; and
Week 1 Where it All Began with poetry from Mark Wallace

Posted by Rock Heals at 12:24 AM

March 15, 2005

from PARTY IN MY BODY

Mark Wallace

Like Richard Nixon said on his last day in office, you can kiss my jowls goodbye. Let's steal jokes from cantankerous places. On another mundane day, I'm struck by revelations. With free tickets to a heartwarming comedy, instead we'll wander around outside. Here I am in public, taking a public role. I may not recommend action, but I'll certainly tell you what to avoid. Who can afford to be oversensitive? Security seizes this town like you've never seen before. Working for vacation time! Even when I'm standing close to them, these guys who run the world seem dumb.
*

Searching for something permanent, we missed the whole world. Noah's Ark leaves next Sunday. Now with more options than ever before. A sunny sharp day when diffusion, my hand on the side of a building, leaves me languorously lounging. Shall we have some fun while time keeps going? Challenging one's own exaggerations! When I can't focus, music helps me dream. No rehearsals and no arrangements and so they swung like crazy. I don't know how I got here, but right now I really don't care. Can you tell me how to exit the labyrinth?
*

Seeing endings as tragedy leads to more tragedy. One role, one life, one unavoidable dilemma. How do you feel about the locked door? Driving down the street in L.A., I kept having visions that weren't really visions. Cross the wires and pass the buck. You've left Jane for the bottom line? Singing the National Anthem to another sold-out stadium, I started to question my faith in talent. Is it worse to return to the scene of the crime? The right to suffer the consequences! Once we've streamlined the process, none of us will have to know anything.
*

I felt prophetic and abandoned until I answered the phone and the door. He had a sophisticated theory and a nasty personality. The news wonders why the young are upset but doesn't dare answer the question. I've not seen very much really, but I know what happens when we look past the world. What should we choose to break our hearts on? Talk with me in the sun for a day and maybe we'll get lost. Believing in solutions! There's as much night as there are ways to see it, yet people still lunge for their own piece of darkness. What are the things you can't make yourself say? At first it seemed funny, then it seemed like the place that I live.
*

Mark read in Baltimore on March 19, 2005 (a great sequence of selections from Dead Carnival), click the image to see the event flyer.

More from Rock Heals
Week 6 Is Habit Forming with another episode of 911 Diaries and a review
Week 5: Yankees In Last! (But so are the Sox) with a short play from Brian Calandra and a recipe
Week 4: Perdue, the Pope and Bellows. Oh my! with 911 Diaries, Mike Grau, and music from M_GP
Week 3 Waits Patiently for Spring Weather with a comic from John Shanchuk; and
Week 2 In the Time or Rock Heals with poetry from Justin Sirois

Posted by Rock Heals at 11:04 PM