Blue Line to O'Hare

after Tulsa Conference and Chicago Weekend




traveling backwards
towards O'Hare
belly full
de burrito
like a Willy-Nilly
I walked into
outside Tropical Optical

train surfaces into
aberrant daylight

to Eric W Gelsinger
C Barrett Gordon
Luke TJ Daly
MA Slosek
Toni Haugen
Ricky Unger
Goose, who I love, but BG doesn't know
T Elrond Baker
and RB Polamalu

seeing you all at once
is a great drug
you make me laugh hugely
like a rich man
like a big dumb kid
waking up
on a Buffalo Sunday
when you make fun of my poems
the open nights
the Shoshone Park poems

but now it's Monday
and everyone's off to their lives
and I'm off to Buffalo
back to Becky and Eden
and whispers of the next one . . .

back underground through Belmont
where faces in the glass make it rain
like RB said
and Goose did
rode the red line south from Barrett's beach
where Goose made two poops!
there around the Lake

for Luke,
king of the Tropical Optical perch
may Long Island softies
bring you lofty earthly
delight

back to daylight
like when you deep fry a chicken
carcass
and shoot it with a potato cannon
through Slosek's dad's new addition
an 'Oswego Softball"

and to Eric
co-author of the dictionary
as Eddie B might say
your flock of sheep
is a giant rainbow
your white guns
are really sweet
tender footed
laugh track
of dead stars
broke lines at 18
never went back
like Anselm B

and Tawrin Baker
the real Macauley Culkin
is when you drive 4 hours
to smoke a pack of marlboros
with an emptied heart
or is that an Indiana Gumdrop?
do you remember being born?

riding in the middle of the highway
(do you remember being born?)

I wonder why I don't do one of these things
I'm always thinking about doing
like driving my car into oncoming traffic
a la bumper car head-ons
sticking gum into this guys dreadlocks
or eating a Long Island Taco
either way

We saw Matt Klane read at Myopic
the 7 of us
he sd: Dong Bonanza
a portable paradise of wars
it was great to hear
Eric's loud breathing sitting behind me

slowly almost dark
Bank of America says 50 F
near the Cumberland gap
First Midwest Bank says 55 F

almost there hollow
to O'Hare
back into the dark
I miss Becky
and our bed
I miss Eden
and her voice

I already miss you all
and Jonathan too
Tulsa was an unexpectedly sublime
the night sky outside our weird hotel room
the blazing MAYO in the night

and Blue line ends
Alice ended her talk
'never level off'

from AP story on LA area mudslide:

"Soon as they heard the rumblings of the mountains coming down, they
all got in their cars and got down in safe areas," Martin said.

Butter and EGGS

letters from the department
cease desist enter 'regeneration areas'
in warm cracks between sidewalk and brick
[william st, btw elm & michigan, 14203]
prepare to annihilate occlusions
made this grey technicolor sky
but they simply don't exist
there is clear passage for roots on Mars too
(with a pattern not so much symmetrical as borrowed)

golden bacon tattoos Eight O'Clock coffee
seek adequate company
of disturber, many-maker, constipated
Narcissus
mayfly may be lucky alight thee
in predawn cloud bombs

Birds on the List


I've had two dreams of note
in the last couple of weeks
and only one I can remember right now
which I don't think is a dream in the sense
of some visual dream narrative
but some context of anxiety
I'm in a professional hockey game
sitting on the bench in full uniform
any second now the coach is gonna tell me go
and then I'll jump over the boards
but I can't skate very well at all
and I'm super embarrassed but I try to follow the puck
but I can barely move
and I know i'm gonna get drilled
by some little punk from grade school
who I never liked and was always better than
it's basically the same dream
as the one where you're sitting in class with only your underwear on
which is a pretty powerful sentiment
I mean sometimes I spend half my time
worrying to myself that I'm a fraud
and the other half proving i'm not

the other dream is better
it's deeper somehow and prizmatic
it's beautiful and special
but I can't remember it
I think it had something to do with war
I dreamt at least once maybe twice
I didn't want to forget it
I went around looking for it talking to friends
asking Becky if she remembered me talking about it
and she didn't
but she told me to write about
all the birds I should be so lucky to see
the birds on my list
the ones I've seen
and the ones I'm dreaming to see
and then it hit me, the dream

I was standing in total darkness
when this spectacular bird appeared and flew in front of me
looked at me squarely from the side of its head
it was a heron, large with a long and sharp beak
it had this incredible yellow streak on its crown
and I immediately misidentified it as a yellow-crown night heron
because behind it was black as night
with flashes of yellow and orange along it's crest
but it was almost uniformly blue
enormous
and absolutely unfazed by my presence
a simply beautiful dream
that failed to resound enough
for me to remember it

but I remember wondering when I woke up
if that kind of heron may exist in the world
and if not in the world
it exists now and I'm happy to see it
forget about it and remember it again
and have a chance to describe it


usually how it works is this
you look through the bird books and see the picture
or the peterson or sibley drawing
you try to figure out what time of year you might find it
and in what kind of environment
and then you have to be persistent in looking
but even then you have to be lucky
and if you find the bird it's truly uplifting
its forms a direct and unmitigated convergence of natural histories
the bird's and the birder's
but what of the dream birds, the abstract birds
the pest birds that follow humans
living off waste following the interstates
I won't forget seeing certain birds for the first time
american and least bittern, green heron, bald eagle
or seeing thousands of canada geese at Oak Orchard Swamp
they have been poetic moments

I almost forgot my dream night-heron
but now I won't
writing this poem while hanging out with friends all day today
and having the dream heron come back to mind
and making it public
skating out to center ice getting booed because i can barely move on skates
hoping to make a little something real out of the world
into the world

For our Valentine's Day issue, we want to know about great dates in Buffalo. These can be real or imagined, so long as they're local.

If you have a good answer and are so inclined, would you please describe that great date in a paragraph or two? Your answer need not be long, though it would be helpful if it were more than a list of places...

Thanks in advance,

Geoff



dear Geoff,

buffalo date

taking a walk in all weather
with a tall boy ot two and/or bottle of wine
criss cross major streets like elmwood or delaware
you don't want to be seen with your tall boy
the cops might not care but if they do
you might have to respectfully pour it out
and then you'll have to head back to store
and lay low on ashland, norwood, bird
or best yet the secluded middle or side of the parkways
and then you'll end up in delaware park
with hopefully still plenty to talk about
and have seat somewhere even though it's cold
the alcohol will warm you up a bit before you leave
and vaguely walk back to wherever you started from
and then generally just take things from there

all star game vs globe and mail obituaries

john barlow to hockeycabal


I guess you know this will be an A post.

Well, half assed hockey in generic uniforms, what says entertainment like it.
I caught mere seconds of the proceedings at a few intervals and was appalled.
Like grade ten posers, they couldn't bring themselves to really try
to lift the puck onto their stickblade... they abandoned tries. What is this?

And the game: it needs a context, something... Or at least the novelty
of all the players wearing their real team jerseys, collage effect. Enough!

The Globe&Mail obits today far more interesting. Anyone remember
Frank Williams? The famous swurve ball? What a story. Twins Frank and Francis,
pitcher and catcher, mother with tuberculosis and 7 kids already,
after terrible foster families they were adopted by a baseball fan
and developed playing catch, til Frank made the major leagues,
San Francisco, Cincinnati, a brief spell with Detroit.
In the long Idaho winters he'd battle in smalltown boxing matches
despite the risk to pitcher's hand. It all ended when he hit the windshield
in a car accident. In retirement he connected with his long lost father's
family in the Tseshaht First Nation. His later years were rough.
After his brother died in 2000 he was a wreck. Raise a glass
to his glory years.

2 Shane Dronett, six foot six tackle, NFL. 44 sacks in 139 games,
mostly with Atlanta, and a brief stay with Detroit. Born in 1971,
suicide on the 21st of this month. Wife and two kids. Ninethy percent chance
steroids related? Spitting image of Chris Pronger. The glories, the miseries.

3 Dante Lavelli. This one's more like it. He grew up on the outskirts
of Cleveland, playing in the sandlots and fields, super receiver,
lived til 85.

In each case I'm picking up this vibe of the memory of youthful
dreams of sports and sport as dreaming, arriving to great heights,
and then life's undercurrents tear through. I'm thinking of myself as
one of the lucky ones: sure, me and Uncle (nickname of old friend)
developed astounding abilities in the art of throwing, 300 feet,
pintpoint accuracy, whether lazer or thrown 500 feet high,
right to the glove, at tagging height if need be. But, importantly,
we did this while establishing a deep love for organic hallu-
cinogens. And with no regard for worldly accomplishment.
When the sports careers faded like so much writing in chalk
we had a rich phenomenologistical vein of sheer pure experiencing
to fall back on. Nothing can ever really go wrong, it is all
just fascinating. So remember folks, people you care about may aspire
to extraordinary goals, but, as long as they still remember to get
stoned, they will be alright, whether it goes their way, or, not even close.

John

Poem for ROBIN B.
on the Occasion of her Thirtieth Birthday



we hadn't moved for days
or bathed or talked much
the earth was at siege
no one was outside
we were scared of violating curfew

the snow was deep
and the cops had killed a teenager

it was as if a new set of laws
had taken hold of the apartment
the window plastic went in and out
like a lung

on the fourth day of the siege
robin devised to write a collaborative letter
i was thankful for the entertainment of it
she started it as a formal complaint
a list of problems that needed to be resolved
guns, healthcare, higher education
women's rights, gay rights,
tougher hate-crime prosecution
environmental conservation
and a jobs-for-poets program
called PAW
poets in the american workforce
she repeatedly called for the public
and elected officials to realize
what a poet could do for their communities
and what a having a 'poet in the family'
meant to current and future generations
in terms of informed and comprehensive decision making
emotional and personal enrichment
attention to the spoken word at all times
the ability to see through profound bullshit
that poets were the guardians of culture
not subject to the trends and business of the art world
not rehearsing the stale and/or antiquated forms of music
not writing cheap fiction reliant on shtick

poets are the guardians of culture
but not the culture of the art gallery
or the philharmonic or the cultural center
rather the root of culture that spawns
these listed architectures as sites of official culture
we saw it as a way to revitalize
what has become a tired exercise
in the representation of American art

and it's here we ran into a problem
if we had official democratic PAW positions

available across the country
how could it not become political
as all things involving money and government positions are
how would we prevent this system
from becoming something else
something just as vapid and easily dismissed
as the things we were attempting to distinguish ourselves from?

it was a relief in those dark days in Robin's apartment
to be onto something bigger than the immediate
the snow the police the all day beans and rice meals
we drew up logos for PAW
Robin drew up a poetry tiger with thick meaty paws
I drew up a skeletal paw with Latin words
extending as each digit
I remember one of them was VERITAS
we checked the internet for precedents of any such organizations
we searched "poet worker" "poet public" "poet position"
"poet ambassador" "poet economy" "poet anarchist"
until we found Stephane Mallarme's declaration

"there is only one man who has the right to be an anarchist, Me, the Poet, because I alone create a product that society does not want, in exchange for which society does not give me enough to live on"

this kept us going for a few hours into the night
but what bothered us ultimately was the notion that society did not desire us
we knew they were many poets around us and above us
poets with day jobs
poets in suits
poet plumbers
poets who didn't write poems
poet presidents
poet muderers
poets who don't speak English
poet children
and other ordinary people
who just happen to feel it more

by morning
the snowplows came out
which was a sign things we're breaking up
at 11 am the radio said it would be safe to go outside again
by 5:00 pm
no curfew
violence had been contained

we were struggling to reach a resolution for PAW
the best i could do is to say
that PAW poets for now can't expect money
that money will corrupt and turn any organization
however originally constructed
into something political and ugly
that fascist poets may someday take it away or something
robin only kinda agreed
and i wasn't really convinced either
but we did agree that there was a public vocation as poet
and those who decided to enter it
could count on PAW to support them
not with money though
so we decided for then to call it
Poets of the American Workforce
instead of IN the American Workforce
that we would keep on working our shitty jobs
and keep going to college
understanding there was an unofficial public mandate
for poets to be poets
and those in the know
for now
would be Poets by Mandate

Bills Fan Poem published online by ARTVOICE


video of me reading the poem

courtesy of ekrem serdar

letter from the moundz readership:

dear everyone on who drove on the thruway from
October through December 2008 at all times of the day,

I drive a silver honda civic faster than you drive.
For the last twelve weeks I have been trying to get everywhere I have to go.
It's been all rush-rush
I was sometimes drinking coffee,
sometimes I was smoking,
sometimes texting and other times I was talking on the phone,
shifting gears, passing you on the right,
driving 90 miles an hour and slamming on my brakes if you got to close to me even if we were speeding next to a Mack truck in the rain,
sometimes I would be so exhausted I hardly cared if I passed lanes right into you and your entire family,
sometimes I went so slow so - why didn't you pass me?
and whoever you were in the white work van – you are a dick,
to the guy in the half ton red ford truck –fuck you.
To the bitch in the red Monte Carlo – eat a dick,
To the thin prink in the Dodge Durango you could have killed me!
To, the kids in the Pontiac sunfire –you guys were beautiful.

To everyone else I am sorry I drove like a jerk.

Electric Shock - Woolly Mammoth

there will come a time

in the past when you stuck your finger in

an empty light socket that was turned on

but i'm not here to talk about the future

you've been reduced to half-words

raw groans and hand gestures

muscles are aching where they normally don't

inappropriately awoken 40,000 years later in the future

my carcass rudely preserved in a childlike state

along some quiet river in the permafrost

they have come to clone me

but everything post-Gutenberg confuses me

it gets hard to keep track of the Jews and the non-Jews

i'd like to be back in that river of the future

where the collective highway lamps pump juice 

on a place where old books are read in a dazzling silence

like a buzz that mumbles it's half speech

to the crowd inside you of eager listeners

i'd like to be an animal or just Ted Williams

riding a timeless sound wave

for the people who are alive to experience it

"The horse began to turn beneath him. It was still turning when a lightning bolt struck him on the head. Like a nickel statue, man and beast were lit up with electricity. For one horrific moment, regrettably to be repeated, Rugendas witnessed the spectacle of his body shining."

-César Aira

Bills Fan


it's third down
on mt everest
my dad at the bar says
mt everest is the highest
but not the most difficult

it's third down and extremely long
there's an overbearing wind
dressed in another teams uniform
that's blowing and blowing
right in bills fan's face

security is on alert
a balloon knocks the stadium's power out
there are no lights on in the bathrooms
bills fan is pissing wherever
the sink
the mop bucket
the floor
his pants

it's third down
on K2
the bills may never score again
the kicker has left the stadium
the kicker is a painter
he has left to go home
into his basement studio
and paint another triptych
in his 'riders of the apocalypse' series

the bills just got scored on
we're not sure how
my dad recites the kol nidre prayer
"i renounce and deny any affiliation
with the buffalo bills . . ."
the bar goes quiet
the sky which had always been gray
gets heavier
and sucks the drunk red
out of bills fan's face

it's third down
and the bills decide to punt preemptively
the punter takes the field
to 'wild thing' and pumps his fist
bills fan loves a good punt

i piss myself at the bar
it doesn't feel like pee
it feels like the longest tear
my body has ever created
outside a cop car goes off the road
and plows into a Tim Horton's
i can't stop watching the game

it's still third down
and raining yellow snow
ralph wilson stays alive
bills fan renews itself every generation
in the waste areas off the buffalo river
where we all used to get beat up as kids
breaking windows and making teachers cry

the bills get the ball back
first string quarterback is injured
second-string quarterback has peach fuzz all over his face
we don't have a third-string
only the punter comes back onto field
wild thing
you make my heart sing
bills fan gets pumped
the end is near

in the fourth quarter
they turn the scoreboard off
it's third down and one
and the coach calls a flea-flicker
to be thrown by a running back
the ball's in the air
it's so high
it looks like a punt
the Jills go into their wild thing routine
the kicker painter at home
is going expressionist with black oil paints
the bar holds it's breath
just as the ball is falling into a cornerback's arms
a 5 foot 3 receiver runs under it
and splits the defense
this is better than a punt
he's the fastest shortest guy ever
and no one will catch him

Chicory
Cichorium intybus


Lonely blue among bedded grass
ribboned lilac cutesy curtsy wire dangler
sun rays under trees dog piss as per legal advice
put on longest unfurling string mycologist’s howl
bowels of soup dreams bellows barks
curved stem streetlight witness bus wheels
whispers wine dark steps drunk grasshoppers
that high pitch cricket buzz unseen
but you hear and see such things transpire
are not scared nor silent in spiral terms held
spellbound licking carbon dew

WHEREAS Ron Sullieman is the Al Gore of poetry
WHEREAS Ron Sullieman is "our daddy"
WHEREAS Aaron Lowinger is a ghost writer
WHEREAS Ron Sullieman's poetry constitutes a name as such
that cannot be imitated, compromised, and/or sullied

THEREFORE All my work has been written by Ron Sullieman.

-Ron Sullieman