hooray4chainsaws

My Second Chapbook

2012-01-21T03:18:00.002-05:00

So it is official - I am composing a full chapbook of sonnets all written in the voice of a well-spoken house centipede. I'm going to submit what I get to publishers and to contests.

Now, this job is not something easy, especially if I'm working by myself - what with the editing and arranging of the sequence, and moral support I invariably need - so I enlisted a friend, teacher and mentor (not to mention acclaimed poet) Mark Bibbins to help me thoroughly in this process.

Because Mark has been there, done that, and done that very well. He is the author of two poetry collections, Sky Lounge and, more recently, The Dance of No Hard feelings. Some of his claims to fame include winning the prestigious Lambda Literary Award, as well as publishing poems and essays in The Paris Review, Poetry and The Best American Poetry collection. In short, Mark's the man. Now it's time to do the job.

And of course, I'll publish the sonnets that come out this process on Hooray4Chainsaws first. You guys have exclusive reading rights - always.

New Poem - New Thoughts

2011-11-22T03:10:00.003-05:00

Here's a new, fairly rough poem. I've been working on my sonnet series and another series titled "Dear Body." In the mean time to keep sane I write these off-the-cuff poems, but my really strong work is yet to come. Rather, is about to come. ;D

Do It

That cigarette burned me
but I blamed you
even as embers descended
onto envelopes you mail checks in, punching
red holes in paper. Even when you smiled
I saw tears behind those pupils, big
and black as space, staring
me down into the basement below
the basement — fingers clenched
you held onto a dreaminess. All night
all nightmares of your blinking.

More Centipede Poems Go Online ... Sorta

2011-09-08T00:42:00.009-04:00

The new issue of A Cappella Zoo is out in print ($4) and will be out online in October - however, there's a way to get the content already. In the depths of the internet one will find an electronic version of the issue, except I can't link you to specific pages, because some of this stuff is too incredible for September. All jokes aside, though, some of this stuff is clap-your-hands-even-if-you're-alone good. And I'm in it, and though I'm not THAT good, my three poems represent a strong portion of my ongoing sonnet sequence, The Centipede Love Songs - and you can find them on pages 150-152 of the journal. Just click on the image of the mag, and zoom to those pages. From there, I'd go back to the beginning and dwell on basically every piece of verse in the journal... with an exception or two. Which may or may not be mine...

Enjoy my centipede nonsense - more is coming soon :D

2011-07-14T13:04:00.002-04:00

The first two publications from The Centipede Love Songs went live today on the online journal Sein Und Werden:

Song VII
Song VIII

To Her Voice (from Centipede Love Songs)

2011-06-12T00:28:00.003-04:00

Dear Lady, your voice moves through me,
a wind through exoskeleton, finding
all my jagged crags, the crooked plates
an antenna twitching for your touch,

dear Lady, your fingerprints upon plated
me, a peruse of arched legs, dreaming of piano
played upon my feet — your finest Mozart.
Standing still, your meager voice: a storm.

His voice, a thunder, O Lady. Your
husband’s rasp ransacks the bedroom
like a tornado on blinding TV news.
And I watch TV often, leaning ball-eyes

into the darkness, Lady, below your couch.
Below you? Merely you, and merely me.

Centipede update

2011-06-07T11:46:00.003-04:00

my sonnet series now has a title, The Centipede Love Songs, and found a first home in the September issue of A capella Zoo, a journal of magical realism published online and in print. they're making available three of the centipede's verses, but this is only the beginning...

Centipede Attacks a Spider (still loving his Landlady)

2011-05-17T19:05:00.004-04:00

Observe his web, crystalline glint off each
taught strand—but translucent not—he fixes
invisibly with fingers (unlike yours, Lady,
which are seen by I, but I, not by you).

“Why this?” Arachnid mutters in my dreams
the night of the night beyond nights which holds
my glimmering flesh-slimed reflection in his eyes,
on each strand, in each, O lady, curlicue of your hair.

Does it trouble you to think my thoughts
are always of you—even as powered by every leg
I pounce upon this web, bearing mine fangs,

a spider’s squirming feet, opened meat, fills your eves
with ceaseless invisible screams stretched to strands,
O lady, you would love—would you?—this within.

?3 New Publications

2011-05-05T07:01:00.003-04:00

This month I have 2 poems in Criminal Class Review (print), "Catch Me If You Can" and "anodyne".

... and I have one poem in my school's mag 12th Street (also print), titled "You Must Change Your Nightlife".

If I can, or if they let me / don't catch me, I'll post some of these poems on the blog. Otherwise, a general sorry for the scant updating...
...and for those that still follow (all two or three) I'll say at the moment I'm working on a sonnet series of 100 poems, all narrated by a house centipede. Links and samples to come.

Happy life.

Zygote's Back!!

2010-12-15T20:06:00.004-05:00

it's déjà vu all over again - editor Brian Fugette's used up 2 of his 9 lives so far, but luckily for the rest of us, Zygote in My Coffee is officially back in business (or portends to be, at least, by January 11th)

Brian writes:
"i have retired this mad ZYGOTE machine more than Brett Favre, but i can promise it won't happen again... you can NOT exorcise the publishing demon festering inside me... i feel i have finally constructed a realistic publishing game plan that fits into my daily life and allows me to plow forward with my mad vision of the arts. Things are only gonna go up-up and away from here on...i promise!"

I'm holding you to your word ;)

2010-12-02T02:13:00.001-05:00

Body,
We are submerged. Just floating
in some shadow’s saline.
Our skin filters through the night’s
atomic thickness like a sand-storm.
Cracked, flickering,
brain flicked off, stars shorted-out.
We are snapped. Our dendrites
disconnect like the constellations
of a dead mythology.
But still, still—
a tendon, a bending back-bone and a blink.
Alphabetical anatomy:
I = spine
O = eye

Body,
When will the form make sense? A lamp
makes sense, a shade of sense,
a haloed lampshade, some halogen,
shades of blue... We’re drunk
on some tungsten again. The costume covering bones
is dark, yet diaphanous. Body,
why did you make me
play the part of the shadow-puppet again?
Every contortion tangles the sheets,
every twitch of a leg
represents delirious running in a dream
away from you.

Telescope

2010-11-23T20:22:00.000-05:00

Some say a blackhole centers
cosmos—who said this? Tonight
light traces the figure who is
asleep, three days of sensing
a dream halved by hours: intermission
is where you must stare
into the sun. Won’t go. A vacuum
of light. Lucid is a word. Daydream
—spaces pawn for one minute
vacancy. From dawn to dust
hanging in a sunrise beam. Moved
by breath—the lungs, vacant. CPR
in reverse. I would refuse—
sense in me a motion revived.
Drain my eyes, then slide.

parts of a work-in-progress

2010-11-16T05:35:00.003-05:00

i
One might compare midnight sleepless contortions to language twisting in a lampless dark. One might notice how elegant dark falls over the shoulders of another. One might study the other, realizing that both clutch shadows, and later reflections, and later skin. One might compare how one moves
over the body
up and down
in and out
moistening the neck
scraping over skin
in search of
something deeper
and pressing
deeper still

vii.
Let us not speak of these sleepless contortions. Let us compare ours to no language—language tapers to nothing when we try. Let us combine shadows, clutch skin, let us move
in
search
of
something
deeper
and
pressing
deeper still I clutch your covers lick the tangy oils off your skin ripple the sheets sockless up and down in and out moistening your neck by tonguing snakes—When I pause, we are both floating in your glasses’ lenses, layered like watercolors, diffusing, mixing.

ix
I am here with you in the dark—now—in my open-mouthed contortion. I want to learn every sleepless inch, study your body like a language. I want nothing for comparison. Release your shadows—this is distance.

Let us move over the body up and down in and out moistening the neck scraping over skin in search of something deeper and pressing deeper still.

excerpt from a longer poem

2010-11-05T22:01:00.002-04:00

5.
Tonight I taunt you with naked toes, explore
your capillaries and carry no map. Tonight I catch
the reruns of today, wine we didn’t order,
broken dinner plates we did; the sky’s
stalactites, how they shattered
against your skull bathing you in rain.
“Lighten up,” you say, switching off
the desk-lamp—our “all-nighter nightlight.”

4.
Tonight I finger your vertebrae in the dark
tiptoe down your spine’s spiral staircase.
My tongue traces S after S across earlobes—
can you hear it? “Like a snake,” you say. And the words
stream across your hazy eyes like skywriting.
And our hips—they slow-dance to the murmur.
“Aren’t your lips edible?” you ask. Sometimes you say
my skin’s translucent.

disco naps

2010-11-03T02:34:00.002-04:00

and clouds that look like puffed-up popcorn
popping out my eyes
as we cruise like a rollercoaster down the highway
looping and twisting horizontal
like the batmobile
like an exhaust pipe blowing flames
and there’s a blue car spinning past
disco style, like the stars
which seem to be moving anywhere
but we’re moving nowhere, accelerating
57mph, no one has a license
who needs a photo when you have a face

2010-10-31T15:15:00.004-04:00

Free Chapbooks!

2010-10-25T01:16:00.005-04:00

The Criminal Class Press tour ended with a bang tonight in NYC with stellar readings by 8 different writers and a headlining performance by Tommy Ramone himself!

I've been giving out copies of my new chapbook along the way and have about 10-15 left. There probably won't be anymore printed, so whoever wants them can shoot me an email (danielporder@gmail.com) or post in the comments. The chap's called "T-Minus: Happily Ever After" and contains 14 of my poems, both new and old, with a wonderful design by Duveltson Osias.

I'm willing to send these anywhere, just contact me with details. They've travelled through six or seven different states in my luggage, so they're used to it by now.

Speaking of Oblivion

2010-10-20T15:07:00.002-04:00

Lately you’re an echo
a diamond cell-phone ring
jazzing Miles Davis
or simply static
Lately you’re unspoken

a sudden burnt-out light bulb
bed-bound in my basement,
below the voice of someone else

the mattress springs
the dent from your body
air waving with rhythmic
exhalations of h and s – “history”
you said

I’m still wondering what currency
skin is sold in
whether I should don
the classic hair-hooded stare

please don’t stare back
the weather channel’s a rainy morgue
there are zeros to describe
your misspelled Ariel font 10:
“displeasure” I read at 5am, 6am, read
at dawn
in my room where no one was speaking

Maybe insomnia is instant coffee
steaming through the window seams
or variations of myself
window-lit darkness
painted glass

a cheekbone impression
printed on the pillow (guess who)
consonants you staccatoed in my ears
angular as alien eyes
vowels smooth
as scented skin you wear so well

this morning would make you tipsy
would light us up like neurons
sky nauseously blue
with vodka blows (ah...)

“I don’t give a shit” you said “what shade of pink it is”
well I hate the sky too (let us dance,
dear) this is a jazz
mellow enough to jade us

this is a sky shut off by curtains
eyes waking elsewhere
what shadows have made of me

what lamplight
locks the lips and windows
which wires still whisper
no one’s quiet breath no more

Reading Tour - VT, PA, Mass, DC, NYC

2010-10-06T09:34:00.013-04:00

On the 16th, I'll be joining Criminal Class Press for their 9-day East Coast reading tour. They put out the journal "Criminal Class Review", and in my opinion are truly the kings of the subversive underground - gritty, raw, bitter, psychotic... From the 16th to the 24th we’re hitting five states. Here's the breakdown from the press release:

October 16th - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is where it kicks off, at Brickbat Books (709 South Fourth St.), winner of Philadelphia Magazines 2009 Best of Philly award. The show starts at 7:00 pm and readers include Lex Sonne, Sam Allingham, Bill Hillman, Michael McCarry, Behnam Riahi, Daniel Porder, Gint Aras.

October 19th - White River Junction, Vermontis out next stop, at Revolution Vintage (26 N. Main Street), the only boutique so distant from the social norms of t-shirts and sandals, that it could only be described as a revolution. Readers include Gint Aras, Bill Hillman, Behnam Riahi, Daniel Porder.

October 24th - New York, New York, the only place where Criminal Class Press could get more criminal, 5:00 pm we stop at Banjo Jim’s (700 E. 9th St, at avenue c), one of the few places in NYC where you can foster inspiration through music and the arts, seven nights a week, every week. Readers include Daniel Porder, Rob Plath, Andrew Riconda, James Lee, George Tabb, Bill Hillmann, Behnam Riahi, and Gint Aras. Musical performances by Painting Soldiers and the headlining band Uncle Monk.

Boston & Washington D.C. TBA.

For anyone into my poetry, or into the literary underground - or just into writing in general - if you live somewhere nearby these venues - then COME, and expect to be blown away.

I plan on giving out free copies of a mini-chapbook along the tour. It's kind of demo, my first collection really - it's called T-Minus: Happily Ever After. It might also be available by mail after the tour if any copies are left.

More info on these readings will be on the Criminal Class website soon. All who can make them should—these line-ups are unbeatable and may never happen again.

Selfish Portrait

2010-10-05T12:19:00.005-04:00

Yes, I am staring down
the mascara bubbling like tar
the thick lipstick
split open by your breakneck voice—
I want to hear you breathe

or chew that late-night TV dinner:
Buffy with a side of Vampires
(your favorite) Tonight I caress your neck, glance
at your back arched
across the mattress. We are finally connected

by the brush of knees, graze of toes
Other poses include
‘Figures with Folded Arms Looking Away’
‘Bedroom with Two Young Strangers’
‘Two Strangers with One Laptop’
(never sharing) A study
in remoteness, a series of hours
like identical white canvasses
we saw at MOMA and didn’t understand

What you want is this,
your vision Xed by eye-liner
my voice excised from your lips’ insides
until our bodies’ oils seep
into Dasani bottles, 99-cent cans of tea
What you want is this

push into a skin without angles, me
marionetteing your murmur
to a doll-perfect smile (say cheese!)
your trembling teeth
your tensed face turned sharply wall-ward
as if my eyes could stare you into stone

T-MINUS: Happily Ever After

2010-10-03T21:34:00.033-04:00

Maybe I’ll get lucky and find a four-leaf clover
zapped by lightning or dissolved under my tongue
or maybe I’ll slip into the TV cables
and disappear down my eardrums, sounded-out

in syllables of rained-out Sunday sunsets,
all the glitzy light shoplifted into grey clouds,
nothing left but my carpet for miles—
my pill bottles my Ramen my ripped socks

my Pepsi's my orange pens my closet
of hangers holding the humidity in black jackets
or a purple streak scotch-taped to the window—
6:32 a.m. and zero sleep

I’m counting days in Beatles songs now
in hazy vocals half-heard over the sizzle of Camels
thumb-sparked in a half-assed homage
to man’s snazziest inventions: fire and the wheel

and Brit Pop and rhyme and the measurement of time.
But this time it’s me saying nothing, not even rhyming,
and saying it like I mean it—I’m falling
headfirst into the skin of someone else

anodyne

2010-09-29T00:33:00.002-04:00

I'm still leaning into down-tuned dark ...
tap-tap-tap of rain ... of fingers ...
this night with windows floating in windows ...
city stuck in some blue stand-still ... my mind
-lessness shifting from awake to black to
blacking in, over ... out ... from half-awake
to standing sleepless in socks ... from toes
scraping carpet-bound to bed-bound daydreams
dragging down my sallow frame ... dragging
on wind and soggy cigarettes ... spying
the breathless press of eyes ... and yes, my nose
dipping forward like a bright white bow
off a waterfall ... and yes, sinking into the rain ...
yes, I will nod and nod at the numbered stillness ...
strips of shadow donning my organs ... bars of bones ...
eyelids cemented shut ... but shivering ... but seeing
my veins slip below ... below rerun visions
unbroken by lightning ... bright blue day
dismantled under eyelids ... lifting beyond skin ...
willing these muscles into motion ...
my willingness to dissolve ...

signature this breath

2010-09-27T04:14:00.001-04:00

often punctuation thinks of this
black of multiplicity minus this
this function of blisters and your palm stutter

knowing this click of yours
silver with finger mellow bullet
this mellow hole of rain—or—this else—

am sinking through
am slip
am not
am not your slipping through

not this, not motionless missing this
windless fingerless this
window and standing far, far easily
with this—in this—on your—over your
signature this
clutching of your pieces

Reading on October 24th

2010-09-17T17:44:00.006-04:00

I'm going to be reading poems at an event hosted by Criminal Class Press on the 24th of next month. It'll be in Manhattan, Alphabet City, but I don't know details yet. I'll update when I found out when and where specifically. But all who can make it should, the recent issues really showcase some of the best that NYC's gritty underground writing scene has to offer. And definitely get a hold of their new issue, it is seriously a page-turner.

new poems

2010-08-04T01:33:00.001-04:00

new poems up on Moloch:

http://www.moloch.ie/html/issue4/moonpoems.html
http://www.moloch.ie/html/issue4/thatsallfolk.html

2010-07-03T12:12:00.000-04:00

new poems up on Black-Listed Magazine

Forthcoming Work

2010-06-30T15:59:00.004-04:00

One of my poems was accepted this week by Voices from the Garage, and today four poems were accepted by Moloch, but they might only publish three. Making progress.

2010-06-27T18:07:00.001-04:00

new poem up on Asphodel Madness

nod

2010-06-23T20:40:00.001-04:00

from see-through to sleep.
from somewhere
with shadows to somewhere
with water I can’t see.
shallow thoughts floating
in the backswamps of my brain.

my face is repeated
on the white walls.
from blackness to nowhere
to transcriptions of dreams
tangential as sparks.

my tracer-yellow pupils
follow skin and learn to spell.

I repeat in order to undo
the dreams. to break
the words. snapping
from imagined to invalid.
from my body to alone.
from listening to my breath

to fleeing from it.
in the name of my lips:
freeze.

2010-06-11T22:08:00.009-04:00

I press an ear to the window
and recognize my echo.
The day is sliding.
The light, block by block,
a mile-long silence.
I’m glancing up (will it rain?)
at all those holes, those splattered clouds,
how messy shadows are.
How often I see a color there.
There in the slow-drift
of half-lived frames, the scenic route
of blurred-out photographic
memory. How often I travel from here
to here...to spreading apart alone.
Beneath...to over.
It’s sad with zero music,
sighs set to the same old staccato breeze.
It’s that same pattern yet again,
bouncing back.
Alone again, I am passing through.

RIP Zygote

2010-05-30T21:58:00.005-04:00

Zygote in My Coffee- underground poetry king of the internetz - was found dead in my email inbox - and up-close staring at the body. Zygote was another online journal that got me into poetry - first time realizing how out-of-control and wreckless - even careless - poetry can and should be - how informal and improper - and how true, or honest - enter Zygote. it became the most convincing premise to write.

Brian Fugett, former editor, contacted his menagere of followers with a cryptic note in which explained vaguely that he was sorry.

Asphodel Madness - a Vassilev e-zine

2010-05-21T22:46:00.024-04:00

Ross Vassilev has done it again...
his most recent (oct'09) poetry blog / journal "Asphodel Madness" is sharp, strong - all should experience the glory

I say "again" b/c Ross runs "Opium Poetry" which is permanently part of me, was 1 of the first (best) poetry blogs I read - O.P.'s a library of roughly translated truths ... never true, but approaching faster than most voices... "language has not the power to speak what love indites: the soul lies buried in the ink that writes"...John Clare

I'm studying the "Romantic Era" poets now - their emotional frankness relates so exactly. no big surprise that "Asphodel Madness" is named after a Ginsberg poem - no secret that the Beat movement was industrialized Romantic revival so to speak

maybe "neo-confessionalism" is when I lie alone in bed and think about myself in big abstract words... "tell me something and I will listen to you, listen to me and I am silent"...

http://asphodelmadness.blogspot.com/ !!!

Reading on May 17th in NYC

2010-04-30T17:31:00.016-04:00

I'll be reading some poems on May 17th at Bar 82, which is on St. Marks. Anyone who's in town and can make it should drop by - the people reading with me are great, and it's a fun atmosphere to have a drink in either way. If someone has suggestions about what I should read, or what I shouldn't read, do tell...I'm having trouble deciding.

If you're wondering where my most recent work is, you'll probably see some of it soon. I had terrible block from January to March, but now I'm back. At the moment I'm working on a longer cross-genre piece. It's mostly nonfiction, but also poetry - and also fiction (among other things). I'm just trying to get it all out right now. I'll post some short excerpts and/or new poems pretty soon.

This is a post.

2010-03-20T23:57:00.000-04:00

this is not a post

if flying frozen

2010-03-10T00:58:00.001-05:00

i.
each eye down, done drooping
through keynote blink, blinking
outside-speak: “thy course veins,
each racetrack red..”— my 3-2-1...
will you read it back?

ii.
—yeah, yeah, yeah, the music’s on, damn it—
none hears my blue prints
fingering a spine (play me,
play me, play...) or his silence (mine)
drumming anagrams of blank-stares
“our heads, our sheets—through all we go, there we stay...”

iii.
give it up (in & around)... they say again’s
the best for stopping, the ice-white's handshake
self-righteous as a stop sign
—call it...green?—bullshit
yet for most (for me)(at least)
the sinking’s left behind...

untitled 1st draft - very rough

2010-03-09T03:52:00.003-05:00

flowing down between canals the eyes make
heads inside the wise
beard pointing moon-ward
contemplating differences - you and it and I - I and selves.
give in to blind conclusion, I say
in the way our fingers demand a keyboard
to say their silence. well no – not I
vandalizing skin (my sallow costume
itchy and old, which others think is me).
Not me – I am not, I am not, I am—
baser expectations than floorboards stargazing craters
the bottoms of my feet – I press, pull, continue
I continue, I continue,

"so what" synesthesia

2009-12-23T01:52:00.005-05:00

still whispering
at self

sedate and seated
floating

disappearing
or simply going

somewhere
(i.e. nowhere sooner)

technically delicious flowers

2009-12-01T23:16:00.006-05:00

something similar to rain.
(something unworthy?) something
unwarranted & un-
awake. something to sleep for
& on (say “bed”)(say “divorce
from & of feeling”) from meaning-
lessness? from me to you
to me? something from
& for something else
— someone else. air

flowing through
clasping fingers, grasping
eyes. listening for
& from the meaning
(-lessness?)
of music. something
incomprehensible, invisible, in-
awake: o uneven tower
of black & broken levels...
o let it
fall through grasp...

lullaby

2009-11-29T23:28:00.001-05:00

echoes through subway tunnel
tracks click click click into place
rhythm rhythm rhythm
psychic dance of dust
lamps illuminate steel train
bent against
the breaks shriek-shriek
lullaby of steel streaks swiping
plastic escape
an opening
a vanishing
windows windows windows

who’s the loudest of all
—fastest strongest strangest

break down the dark
silent spinning spinning spinning
the halted-wheels
on on on

excerpt (beginning of a longer poem I'm working on)

2009-11-21T22:06:00.001-05:00

I am for an end,
a close of closing scene, the sun
downing a day’s dullness,
covers to cover skin,
skin to cover bones,
bones to cover me.

I am for the world,
for the morning before,
throwing plates at clouds, claiming
victory over calamity.
Eyes closed, I see the obvious.

For sleeplessness.
For I want to begin
with restless hesitation,
and I want to end
with capitals and a title.

New publications, etc.

2009-11-12T21:39:00.017-05:00

Greetings all!

Zygote in My Coffee #127 went live today, and I've got two poems in the issue: Glue for Broken Promises and Breath is a Scam. People who read my blog would also probably like Ross Vassilev's poem, upon realizing things will never get any better. I like the grittiness and desperation in the poem.

Anyway, yesterday I got accepted into the honors writing program at the New School. This means I can take a whole array of advanced writing and literature courses, as well as attend lots of exclusive readings. The program also gives me a $4,000 grant in my final year, when I will be compiling my "thesis project" (i.e. a poetry manuscript). Getting into the program also means I now have a chance to work for 12th Street, the program's prestigious lit journal.

So things are looking up. I plan on submitting a lot of my new poetry to journals sometime soon (I've already started to an extent), so that way you all can see what I've been up to. From the bits and pieces I've posted here, you can probably tell how much my writing has changed / is changing. Nonetheless, I plan on staying the course and continuing to get better :)

Farewell all!

where do we go when we go to sleep?

2009-11-08T23:30:00.003-05:00

slices of your head on my chest
ask for a darker dream,
a dream to take us

where there are no last names,
no eyes flickering
like broken bulbs, a poem unflolding

into an endless hallway, losing
it within. closed eyes stopped
like bottles. a shadow
inside of blue inside of blue. where
do when we go
to sleep? it is

a closet deep
enough nothing fits inside. a memory
of memorial for nothing
happening. where
do we go when we go...? it came
last night, wrote
sleep’s airport
to soar my name
through a spectral postcard. Thursday & Friday
bled like colors,
scammed darkness black to black.

I
for one
am unlikely to survive,
charming to those
easily charmed. my smile’s
blue as ocean.
my happiness, salt.

My skinless lover

2009-11-05T23:57:00.003-05:00

smashes a saucer flat, the dirt
spheres lunge through her fingers. It’s
fat Philomena, hair knotted with GHB, le transvestite de wet sand circles up the water bong,
weeping to terror-on-ice as the songs
devolve, the walrus-boys’ riffs restart, she snaps
like rotting fingers off
the Rolling Stones. And not mixed-up
midnight—not void
of silence nor xylophones.
Christmas,
she’s just a boob-less
cubist caricature, so many
dumbly demolished pianos—you fucking kidding me?
—my microscopic matchmaker, her,
cold as night and brain-freeze passion
freeze-dried to feed a famished astronaut
or a bullshit Northern Star:
soft kisses, do-it-yourself lullabies. She swallows
a penis, a poem—
a vast vat of radiation. Gravity
goes down with her, switch set low,
and she’s off—
a rocket to the moon.

Spectrum Blues

2009-11-03T20:12:00.001-05:00

Blue balloon boy, blue-beds, blue
in moan-like soft
radio blue
set to blues. Or Other: Blue
unworthy sky. Blue
afraid of cats, of blue funerals (blue death?
why fear).

Museum Of Blue (death?
why not).
Blue eyes shut-down blues—blue
dark, simple blue—blue remainder
of blue below. Below

all blue. Believe it
(or not)
yours truly vomits blues—
believes “man in blue moon”
as blue as you
—him?—
not android blue but invisible too...

(blue death?
why ask)
As blue is not to blue.
Or also blue? Like me?
—or still?—still blue?—

Un-blue (death?

why certainly) Get it, Blue?
Period blue? Yes?
(Say no.)
Never, never blue. Don’t-speak-it-blue.
go on, go on...

(and on? and... and yellow?...)

excerpt

2009-10-30T21:04:00.015-04:00

Let's hold up a bank with a potato gun...

You and me...

I want to get very drunk and have too much to say...

You down shot after shot of shampoo...

I warn that you will float away...

I'm riding a unicycle hundreds of miles...

Ask me why...

I'm presenting tulips at toll booths...

You won the lottery, here is your ice cream, they say...

My sadness is lego, small and stuck together...

What would be said about all this...?

What would you say...?

It's traumatic, you know...

Like missing the very last sunset...

T-Minus: Decision

2009-10-27T16:18:00.003-04:00

Question:
to inject bullets into sand

Question:
to question those who questioned not
the dunes stumbled down

ill-equipped to face ourselves
man to man, woman
to heart

Question:

to press deeper into dust
helicopters twirl—
twirl—
beneath earth, as even I
fall finally asleep—finally home
(finally...)

into a blue delusion

of blank-paged news papers, of
camel revelations
disarmed

Sailboat

2009-10-23T18:49:00.000-04:00

The sea turns away from me.
I give up the waves
to the breaking clouds.
My happiness is salt.

New Publications

2009-10-17T16:28:00.002-04:00

Check out my new poem on Zygote in My Coffee. The site will also feature two more of my poems in their next issue (due out on the 27th). Look for my work in print in Gutter Eloquence and Criminal Class Review this January.

untitled

2009-10-16T21:56:00.000-04:00

Cancel your life. Wait
for tomorrow to appear
like a star. Give up
memory, it’s not worth the cost.

You’re not worth yourself.
You’re pencil
and eraser. Sidewalk
and sewer. I know you’re not
me. Not me.
The radio on mute, the wind
standing still. Not

a question, an equation.
Not a memory, a movie. Forever
still. Still broken.
I.

Time for music to stop making sense

2009-10-07T15:27:00.001-04:00

Your words dissolve
into a guitar’s dissonant drone.
I’m waiting here

for the sky to drift into my windows,
for electricity to stop
stopping. I want to close

in on you, color you in
with yourself – become
the drum’s strike. Strike me

with my glare. Go with me
nowhere. Stay
inside my mind.

Down

2009-10-06T23:11:00.005-04:00

I’m beneath myself,
crater in a bed.
Alone,
I clutch an empty sound,

face the face
facing me. Full of breath.
Stuck sick
as a chilled wind
I shrink into my hair.
I still want the stillness,

want it all
beneath eyelids. Want space
to medicate with space.
Bad dreams do come true.

I will mellow like the moon
as night breaks down
the down-tuned dark.
I will rehearse

sleep’s sweet ballade
and hours will dissolve
days. I’ll plant eyes

where there is ice,
wind where there is skin.
Stare through
sunlight’s dark secret

at myself. Alone,
lifting beyond skin.

Memorizing Me

2009-10-04T20:16:00.001-04:00

Always standing still inside.
Always forgetting to slit
the blindfold night still tightens.

It’s meaningless,
the mellow hum of an oboe solo
once again. Not quite worth
a ticket. Will I ever need
who I need to be

to be myself? The face
too curious to leave
alone. The face I replace
with a space. It’s not a question,
it’s the answer. Will I live

without who I am? Will I morph
into my shadow—just once?
Just me, jetting nowhere.

...Day-Dream Border...

2009-09-30T23:13:00.001-04:00

...My brain still hurts from imagining
your face passed out
beneath the bed with me...

...I want to sleep for days,
chew myself into dreams
about you, and then forget
these internal organs,
the way they press
against me...

...The clouds dangle
like ghostly chandeliers
even when we switch off our eyes.
Even when we jet
to nowhere, as usual...

...I don’t want to touch you
like the sky, drifting
in a pool of pages,
or spy your eye’s white
waft by like a cloud.
I want to kiss you
in my mirror...

...Will you sit with me
while life floats
away? The still pools
of fireworks
explode like sunrises...

...The windows are waypoints
as we pace my house.
The air is a scam. I pull
your trembling arm
into the Off position
like an emergency break....

I want out of this Earth.

Untitled

2009-09-25T01:12:00.001-04:00

I’m loaded with sad surprises.
I didn’t want to stay
awake before I snagged on the after-hours.
Where everything black
is also black. Where quiet

is a number. I’m still a part
of the stillness — how could I leave
myself alone, floating
in someone else’s shadow?
My mind’s a net:

I’m struggling in it. Everything I want
to say floods my ear canals,
wipes out portions

of what is — or isn’t? —
here: a room flattened into dark
minimalism... The silence,

silent enough.
I’ll rise into a daydream.

Backspace: A Sonnet (2nd draft)

2009-09-21T06:51:00.001-04:00

Typing here. The wordless drum of keys
pressing words into air. I’m almost going
somewhere, eyes closed, sleeping backwards
—trying to. Fear, booming like artillery.
Still typing here. On and on (it’s safer
going backwards). Leaping off buildings
by standing still. Still typing. Lists of curtains:
The darkness... The rain... My hair...
Still going nowhere, almost—trying not to.
Lists of shadows pasted to the walls.
Writing forwards into silence. Spaces,
exact as numbers. This page, my white flag.
I will not sleep—typing here out loud
—trying to try. I will fade like a cloud.

Backspace

2009-09-18T21:40:00.000-04:00

... Typing here. The wordless
drum of keys. Pressing words
into air. I’m almost
going somewhere, eyes closed,
sleeping backwards—trying to.

This emptiness, exact
as a number, stamped
into my brain. The darkness,
elucidating itself.

Typing here. On and on,
my mind spins like a carousel. Everything
is an old photograph:
The clouds... A star... My hair...

Going somewhere, almost—trying to
(it’s safer backwards). Stamping hate-mail
addressed to the sky. Leaping off

buildings by standing still.
Still typing here. Lists of shadows
pasted to walls. Writing

forwards. Offering a page,
a white flag. I’ll be very quiet,
you have my word,

the after-hours mellow...

I Thought the Silence Was Your Voice

2009-09-15T23:52:00.010-04:00

The sky bends to say hello
even when you make it rain. Odd
that you still complain
of the clouds... I want to say it
but I won’t. I never wrote
the guide to being you.
Here’s to your lips
overcast with beige lipstick.
For all the sunshine you crossed out...
What do your have to say
for yourself? A howl, a whisper,
a snarl? Words? What?
A name? My nerves
are roadmaps when I sleep.
My eyes still blink
on and off like stars.
To see me you must look away.

Reality for Dummies

2009-09-15T00:19:00.002-04:00

Becoming me is a process
as complicated as heat lightning—
as difficult as sailing
across the deep end of a pool.
It’s as easy as one, two,
eight, they say, whoever they are.
It’s all available on your local channels.
To me, me is a mystery.
What I see in the mirror is a reflection
of what is (or isn’t), isn’t it?
It’s just a process.
Like processed meat.
I’m sinking
into something.

Untitled

2009-09-07T18:52:00.001-04:00

Everything happens twice: first
to me, and again to me.
Space:

how long I stay awake.
Day: description
of the light. I must sizzle
like a shooting star, die

(if this is still life...).
Who is younger: me
or outer-space? Silence:

debilitating as a car-wreck.
My brain: where the lights
go out. Dynamite: rigged
with words. These eyes

I stumble through.
I never saw my skin
until dusk took it back.
Everything was black

but also blue.
Everything happens twice: first
to me, and again to me.
The moon
(what’s left of it...)

sleepwalks home
as dawn bleaches night.
What can stars teach me
about sight? Their eyes

are open only when it’s dark...
Here’s to staying in
when the sun goes out.

Blast Off

2009-09-04T01:27:00.000-04:00

You erase the sun and glare
at Earth. I want to vanish into you
like a shooting star, to die
as if this were a life.
You’re a sentence

I’ll never finish, a word
I don’t want to understand.
The moon—what’s left—scribbles
luminous letters in your voice

but you drown in my waves.
You lap through my blue
eyes. I hold your lips to a lamp,
disarming wordless dynamite.
Did we sleepwalk here?
I traversed your curved glances

until dawn bleached the night,
until I wondered who is younger:
you or outer-space. You

speak of stars in bullet-points,
but what can stars teach us
about blindness? Their eyes are open
only in the dark. And I’m alone

with black paper, describing
your dress for hours, editing its red
into a dying sun. You

(who claim the moon)
glow like a sexy sunrise.

Sleep’s a Detective Story

2009-09-01T23:24:00.001-04:00

Dawn beats my brain with a mallet
as Beethoven’s melodies rise from the stereo
and fall like empires. I’m flying below
the sun’s radar, retracting
myself due to heavy winds.
I know the end is near
as the moon but I’m still awake.
Even Benadryl won’t kill this bad guy,
only summon rotting dreams
like zombies. My thoughts spin faster,
faster, as I struggle to stay
behind the times. Beethoven smooths
his somber chords into silence,
a cadenced gift. But I smash my eyes’
windows with a glare. I sink
into solid blue, shape-shifting like the clouds.
I want to film myself disappearing
so I can watch.

2009-08-31T23:26:00.003-04:00

classes started today. I'm taking a literature course on 20th century American poetry, an advanced poetry workshop, a fiction workshop, and an art history survey course. overall, I'm feeling very unmotivated to write or edit. I wish I was more prolific...

Selfless Portrait

2009-08-24T14:14:00.001-04:00

I sleep-binged for sixteen hours.
I watched your head
float in
the portals of my eyelids
like an octopus:
eight braids and your brain’s
bulb. Remember when we painted

each other’s faces,
how darkly you shaded my lips’
seal? I forced
my feelings into sonnets,
stuttered rhymes.
Remember how we dove

beneath your bed’s
blue ripples
and you sucked on my finger
like the pin of a grenade?
I spit at your feet

so frequently I should’ve swam
away. I should’ve posed
in someone else’s glasses,
not burned-out
your glare’s battery. You
who sketched

dead tulips on the ceiling
for my birthday. You
who inked images
of my passed-out frown.
You filled

my notebook
with your perfect circles
and I scribbled
poems inside, lines of letters
that look nothing like you.
You are a space.

2009-08-24T14:07:00.002-04:00

I just realized today that my piece "Holding Hands in the Toy Store" will be in Dogzplot's flash fiction anthology at the end of the year.

This month my work is in print in Zygote in My Coffee and online in Word Riot.

I'm reading Rilke's poems as translated by Stephen Mitchell.

Sleep Walking

2009-08-23T17:22:00.008-04:00

You are a sentence I will never finish,
a word I do not understand. The night
followed me here, didn’t it? The moon
(what is left) x-rayed my brain
in search of you. Even a poem—
its lines aiming at white—will fail.
My diaphanous face duplicates
in your glasses; I want to vanish
like a contrail, straight as a frown.
I will shiver on the sun’s surface
if you switch my eyes’ headlights off:
if you gaze through me like a windshield.
Is there anywhere left to leave?
I must die as if this were my life.

Impromptu 1

2009-08-22T20:56:00.005-04:00

I’m typing nowhere faster.
My the thoughts fly
like bats at dusk from my
nasal passages. I snap

these fingers,
remembering their bones.
I will fall
into myself

like a demolition.
Day will sound

like a toy piano in minor keys
and I will not think
of anything
but you. Are you repairing
your brainstem, or plugging it

into mine?
The cabinet doors suddenly open
like arms and I see
my eyes’ mirror.
I see the zigzags of sitting here,

typing into a forest
of hungry spaces, armed
only with confusion and a t-shirt.
Beethoven’s memory stutters
through the speakers

and your voice crescendos
his notes. Tell me something

and I will listen,
listen to me
and I will balloon with silence.

untitled

2009-08-22T00:02:00.008-04:00

Your silence shades-in
my memories. I think
it’s strange I’m even

thinking anymore,
do you? I wasted
hours today watching

your head light up
the windows of my eyelids
like an octopus:
eight braids

and your brain’s bulb.
When we superimposed
(was is eons ago?)
and we trembled and we burst,
you pulled on my thumb
like the pin

of a grenade. I spit
your frowns to the floor
so many times
I should have swam

away sooner.
I used up your
glare’s battery.
You who sketched dead roses
on the ceiling.

You who drilled spaces
I filled, now

yours for the keeping.

Success!

2009-08-19T11:44:00.002-04:00

"Criminal Class Review" just accepted two of my poems for their January issue.

Failure (an update on my submissions)

2009-08-18T13:55:00.010-04:00

I’m going into what is (hopefully) my second to last year of college, and I still have no significant publications to speak of. Of course, I boast in cover letters and bios about various journals I've been included in, but none of them match what I’ve hoped to achieve, and arguably what other writers my age are achieving all over the country, all over the world.

I dedicated my entire summer to poetry. Though I also write short fiction in a very serious manner, poetry has, within the past year, become my focus (before last September, I would have said my focus was fiction, to be honest). I suddenly feel like I must question my pursuit of poetry. Is this simply a footnote in my life? Will I tend back towards fiction. Or will I move away from writing as a professional pursuit completely?

But my fiction skills are waning, which makes reverting back to it something of a “setback.” And my poetry is also failing to get me anywhere. And doing both of them is not really feasible, considering I’ll soon have to decide whether to go for an MFA in poetry or in fiction.

Also, my time-frame is limited. I am — as my small but wonderfully supportive band of readers have probably discovered — something of a druggie. Not only are the drugs damaging to my health, but they also (as you may have noted in my more diaristic poems) put me in dangerous situations. I also smoke cigarettes, albeit sporadically. And I also eat poorly, and sleep (very) poorly. Realistically, judging by my lifestyle, I will not live past my 60s. And by my assessment of the situation, based on these factors and my own premonitions, I will not live to see age 60 at all. Therefore, I need to work fast. Very fast.

I want to publish my first book (or chapbook) within the next two years, meaning it will have to be accepted, probably, within the next year. Also, I want to build up a repertoire of very notable publications before I hit age 22, and already I’m turning 21 in November.

Time is running out and I’m getting nowhere. I’ve completely wasted my summer. My poetry has failed in the eyes of those who truly count. Whatever my professors say is worthless; what matters is the editors. If all the submissions I’ve made this summer are rejected, I might give up poetry completely. And I think my fiction isn’t strong enough — or conventional enough — to get me anywhere on its own.

Maybe I’ll just study business. Or law. Or psychology. Or maybe I’ll just lie in this awful summer heat and watch the clouds go by. They seem so mellow and disinterested in things. I wish I didn’t care at all. Maybe I’ll smoke a joint and forget about poetry. Isn’t poetry just silly and pointless anyway? And then, isn’t my life, in turn, just pointless?

I give up.

My Blog's Facelift

2009-08-17T01:00:00.002-04:00

As my diminutive band of readers may have noticed, I decided to change the look and name of my blog - again. First it was "Hooray 4 Chainsaws!" and had a wonderful picture by Saadia Gardezi, designed specifically for this blog. Then I renamed it "Everything Is In The Sky", because I spent most of June and July staring at the sky, and was forced to change the picture. Now my blog is called "You Must Change Your Life", which is a Rilke quote from the poem "Archaic Torso of Apollo". When the school year starts, though, I plan on changing it back to "Hooray 4 Chainsaws!" and reviving Ms. Gardezi's awesome picture.

Word Riot ("new" poems published)

2009-08-15T01:16:00.010-04:00

As it turns out, I have two poems up on Word Riot. They're so old, I had almost forgotten about them (not really). They got accepted last Fall, and I hadn't heard from the editor since. Stylistically, I've changed a lot since then, though I wouldn't change a thing about these two (except maybe the lower-case "i"). I think "where you landed" is my favorite poem I've ever written. It might not be the best (in fact, it is not the best), but it's my personal choice, if I had to pick. I had a blast writing it.

Naming Constellations

2009-08-13T17:11:00.002-04:00

We lie on the dock.
Space presses on us
like a sheet
of luminous holes.
I hold the Milky Way
like a handlebar
but it slips through
my palms. I nod
at my face’s
blank reflection
in the lake’s wrinkles.
Even bubbles have names.
Even breath,
though our voices
vanish into day.

Woke Up

2009-08-13T03:25:00.000-04:00

Eyes switched on.
Found myself
sliding fingers
over piano, collapsing
keys. Late
for sleep again.
Once, I knew
my name.
Hours aged
like wine.

Workshop Application (fingers crossed!)

2009-08-11T02:45:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow I’m mailing out an application to my school’s advanced poetry workshop, taught by Patricia Carlin — author of Quantum Jitters and Original Green. Last semester my application to the workshop was rejected, but the poems in my portfolio are entirely different this time around. I’d like to think that they are stronger than last semester’s poems, but who knows. It’s all up to Professor Carlin. Wish me luck!

Sedate

2009-08-10T12:21:00.002-04:00

My mouth is wider
than my eyes.
Saliva falls
like a commit
to the rug.
The ceiling’s white
as the Milky Way.
My fingers tighten
around the air,
toes slip
off the bed.
I was searching
for a way
to breathe
like a satellite,
to test wind speeds
in outer space.
But speed is a memory
in my room,
as I sink into the pillows,
into Earth’s hollow
heart. My pulse
stutters for hours
its rhythm,
its rhythm,
its rhythm.

Early August Update

2009-08-06T14:42:00.006-04:00

Every day I am rejected. Sometimes it comes in a letter, sometimes in an email. Lately I've been submitting a substantial number of my poems to print journals, which might be a bit too ambitious.

Despite the endless rejections, I have still been submitting lots and lots. Right now, it's mostly poetry, and mostly to print journals. But there are several short stories and flash fiction pieces in the works, most of which I plan on submitting to online journals.

I just finished reading Hobart's new print issue and to be honest, it contains some of my favorite Hobart stories I’ve ever read. Let me be specific. I would recommend Curtis Dawkins' shorts, specifically "Z," (which uses reversed narrative structure) and "Desert Island". Also, JoeAnne Hart's "Location! Location!" is an excellent experimental work; it taught me a lot about thematic repetition and character development, among other things.

My favorite story in the issue, though, is easily Brad Gayman's "Corpus Christi". In two and a half pages, Gayman is able to establish several powerful metaphors and themes based around three characters. How he does it so quickly is still somewhat of a mystery to me, even though I have read the story six times now. Also, for the record, Gayman went to the New School for General Studies, which is where I go to school. His story made me proud to be G.S. student.

Last month my story "Tums" appeared in Pear Noir! Overall, I would say the issue is excellent, especially if you read around my story. "Tums" is stylistically related to the other stories, I suppose, but I think it's one of the the weakest pieces in the issue. And I'm not just being modest; I think some of my stories seriously kick ass. "Tums" just happens not to be one of them. Oh well.

This month I have three or four poems (can't remember the number) coming out in Zygote in My Coffee's print issue. On the other side of the issue is a chapbook by Ross Vassilev, who runs the literary blog Opium Poetry -- one of my favorite "journals" in existence. Check out in particular Aline Rabhany’s poem “Verification of Existence Substantiated”.

I've been reading a lot more than Pear Noir! and Hobart. I recently finished the collected poems of both Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams, as well as Neruda's "Captain's Verses" and Rilke's "Duino Elegies". I am about to begin Ezra Pound's collected poems. Also, I'm going to read Shakespeare's sonnet series in its entirety, but that I have already begun.

I have an urge to read so many other things, but just don’t have the time. School starts in a month, and between now and then there is so much to do: orientation, advisor meetings, submitting portfolios for workshops, signing up for classes, sending poems to journals, etc.

The one thing that bothers me is that I haven't been writing very much. I still write every day, obviously, but it's just not the same. I have so many un-edited, un-submitted poems (around 100 to 150 of them) to sort through, work on, and send out. It's so overwhelming, that writing new poems seems somewhat futile in this month before school starts again.

At the same time, writing is the way I express myself and deal with life. So it's tough not writing as much and still existing. At least I'm still journaling a lot, if that counts.

For now, I'm off to do some more organizing and submitting. Today I'm submitting poems to two print journals: Rattle and Criminal Class Review. I’m sending work to the online journal, Farrago's Waistcoat. The likelihood, though, is that I will submit to several other journals as well. If I ever get any sort of "big break", the readers of this blog (if there are any left) will be the first to know about it. I promise.

Happy reality.

--Daniel

View from the Floor

2009-08-02T22:37:00.008-04:00

My body forced me
into the rug’s circle,
so here I’ll stay,
caught
in a dream

or a melody trickling
from the stereo.
Should I stand and speak

to someone?
I gaze at the rafters,
their V’s,
and the points where they meet

like kisses.
I think of you
for a second,
how we used to kiss
beneath flat roofs.
I close my eyes

as rain talks to the ceiling.
I know sleep better than myself.
I want to fly away

to a different present,
not here, not my

mind, your face,
these nightmares,
these hours.

You in the Dusk

2009-07-30T11:38:00.002-04:00

The clouds are sprinkled
in the water—
dark and somber—
like your eyes
sprinkled in mine.

And the wind will not
surrender to placid woods

where I clutch
pine needles, imagining
your thin fingers.
Here, there is no you

but inside my mind,
rooted deeper
than the trees
in this uneven soil,
deeper, even,
than my veins. The sun

will vanish soon,
pulling its metaphors
into the mountains,

and eventually I will
sleep, dream of a sky
without clouds, Heaven missing

its white, amorphous
memories. Let us
fade like shadows

into one dark.
Let moon and sun
split the sky

and vanish.
They will leave
night, the perfect

black

unity, clouds locked
like our eyes.

[Towers of leaves sway]

2009-07-29T11:35:00.002-04:00

Towers of leaves sway
beneath the surface:
green ballerinas. I’m waiting
for the water’s music
but all I hear is boats. Am I
the one to drift
like a branch
across sky’s reflection?
Will I give up
my grave descriptions
and call each twig
by its broken name?
Something here speaks
to me: the water suddenly
leaping over rocks.
And in the distance—
there is no distance.
Where mist meets
mountains, the clouds close
like eyes.

Leaving

2009-07-17T11:51:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow I leave for a secluded island in Canada with no phones and certainly no internet access. I want to be among nature and write some related poetry. But until the 25th, I will be unable to post on this blog.

In other news, I just got my Pear Noir! contributors copy and am reading it prodigiously. Etgar Keret and Jason Jordan have particularly strong stories in the issue.

My Favorite Bullet (a rant about poetry)

2009-07-16T14:53:00.009-04:00

If you don’t know the journal My Favorite Bullet, I will destroy you with my laser gun. M.F.B. got me into poetry entirely. I credit them for my love of this strange art-form. In fact, before I discovered M.F.B., I was a fiction writer 100%. I thought poetry was too intellectual and stuck-up for me. I used to regularly tell writer friends that I wasn’t smart enough to create poems.

Then I found My Favorite Bullet. Suddenly, I realized my calling was not fiction - not at all. My calling was this. Poetry that speaks. Poetry that relates to real life. Poetry that doesn't require a knowledge of Greek mythology or a familiarity with flower species.

And not just that. My Favorite Bullet also introduced me to the thriving underground poetry scene, which is a great place for subversives, outcasts and dreamers who can’t resist breaking their lines.

I also should mention the other key journals that got me into poetry, like Zygote in My Coffee, Thieves Jargon, Opium Poetry, and others (check my blog's links!).

The underground poetry scene is not Barnes and Nobles and not Borders. It is not Philip Levine, not Sharon Olds, not Ted Kooser, and not – for the love of God – Billy Collins.

These gritty sites publish poems about real life. These journals are the sole reason I started reading lit mags, started using the internet more, and, most importantly, started writing poems.

Epic Rites is a great place too. They publish “Blood Writing”—writing from the heart. I think what they support, as well as the Brutalists, is critical. Poetry is not about making yourself look smart by using big words and obscure allusions. Not at all.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I have a special place in my heart for Elliot, Rilke, Pound, etc. But I'm more devoted to Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron and the other Romantic poets in general. The Romantic Era is where this "school" of poetry really comes from, I think (aside from its obvious relation to confessionalism)

To boil it down, at least for me, when I write poems I want to be true to who I am, whatever it takes. I want to express. Poetry is expression. The art comes second. I study writing full time and plan on getting an MFA and maybe someday teaching it. But my goal is not to learn how to make beautiful poems. My goal is to learn how to express myself, and how to understand myself. Every day in school I discover something more about how to use words as tools to speak my heart. Expression is the basis of all art.

Back to My Favorite Bullet. I was so mournful when the journal stopped putting out work a few months ago. But here they are again, as I have discovered, with a brand new issue! Everyone should click HERE . Right now. Read this shit. I'm in the process of reading the issue in its entirety and I will definitely list my favorite poems on this blog soon.

Anyway, I could go on and on about this, so I will stop now and get back to reading the issue. Sorry for the rant. I’m in a ranting mood. Bye bye for now.

And question reality, always always always.

-Daniel

Love is Lewd

2009-07-15T17:07:00.002-04:00

Clutch me like bad beer.
Question my purpose
with multiple-choice.
I don’t want you,
I want your eyes’
backstage. I’ll cross out
your melody,
your tapped beat
of pet-names.
Give me symphony.
Give me space
that was never you.
I will stand inside
your veins.
I'm stranded
between your mind’s
traffic. Run me down
with words. Sob
until I drown.
Night was never old
enough to smoke
the sun. We will
explode today.
Set the timer. Please.

Mind

2009-07-14T20:38:00.002-04:00

The ceiling presses me
into my brain. I want,
I want to go away

on a boat in blue
eyes. But the tea’s
not set yet—my lips

still propped open
with fingers.
I thought, I thought

about the clouds.
Let me drift
inside them.

You Are My Skin

2009-07-13T08:34:00.004-04:00

You sealed
my brain, slid my fingers
into their locks.
I gaze at your face’s

quantum wormholes in dreams
and leap through
your thoughts, into mine.

One day our ribs
will toothpick the moon together.
One day I will slice open
your breath and sleep inside.

I have been me
for too long. I’m breaking
down in the center
of every sentence, torching postcards
of my lips. I say

I'm surviving alone,
but you’re set on
colonizing my heart once more.

Even daylight won’t stop you.
Even mellow music and poetic
fireworks. My words
are rock and roll for your need

to lasso my elbows in outer space
and inject me with the wind.
You can keep these veins, my dear.

2009-07-13T00:23:00.005-04:00

I spent all day at St. Marks Book Store reading lit mags. I'm submitting work soon to the Beloit Poetry Journal and Criminal Class Review. Next week I'm going to a isolated island in Canada sans telephones, he internet or TV. I want to speak with birds, or at least embrace the lake.

X-Raying Doors

2009-07-12T18:12:00.003-04:00

Is there a switch in my eyes
to switch with air? Will
the moon force itself
into my brain? I want

to be alone, but the world
swirls like wind,
claiming it is here
for now. I would lie

on the roof and gaze
if only the sky
still existed—if only
I cared enough

to calculate distances
between planets longer
than sentences
or symphonies. Let my lips

slide closed. Let sleep
try its trick in the sun,
or drop night’s curtain.
I want out of this Earth.

Everything Is in the Sky (a personal update)

2009-07-10T17:23:00.003-04:00

I lie in the grass for hours. I explore New York City, often alone. I like to think of nature. I had an epiphany in a church about art and spirituality. I read books on parallel universes, and explore alternate realities through dreams, astral projection, hallucinogens, meditation, poetry, scrying and other means. Something is happening in the world, and I don’t mind, whatever it is. I want to understand a new way of observing. I want to lie here, in the grass, for hours.

In Grass

2009-07-10T17:19:00.001-04:00

Lines of ants
point to sun
like haiku.

They sing
movement
beneath breeze.

Let sleep
and me dream
blank pages.

Let ants
continue and
continue.

Center

2009-07-10T16:05:00.004-04:00

I lean into
the sun,
press stars
into grass.
Blind women
stare through me
but the sky
will not watch.
I illuminate
my lips, slip
through magnets
in the clouds.
Each day falls
apart like this,
into melody,
into poetry.

2009-07-10T13:05:00.004-04:00

I gaze
through dirt
to the hollow center
of this galaxy.

Shadows quiver
under leaves.

You offered me
everything,
even trees.

I clutch your face
in my eyes,
luminous
as the moon.

Eclectica

2009-07-09T00:41:00.007-04:00

Thank you, Tom Dooley from Eclectica, for liking my story, Happy Birthday. It's a bit of an oddball, and a little soft. I'm glad it found a home.

Also, thank you Sharon Mesmer for the help you gave me in composing it.

Nowhere

2009-07-08T20:46:00.000-04:00

A ladder leads
to the ceiling,
ends almost
sooner than
it begins.
When you climb,
I laugh. The walls
press a sigh
from your lips.
You return
to the floor,
older by seconds.
We stumble
into the night
once more.

Cement Scrying

2009-07-06T02:11:00.008-04:00

My feet float
over the dark edge
of the roof. I press
heels into the vast
space below.
I don the clouds
as capes, fuse
my hands to smoke.
I want to know
where the night ends:
to slip off sidewalks
into what—or who—
is waiting below.
Not even time’s elegy
rhymes with this:
the letters I smash
between my fingers,
thick as monologue.

Amanita

2009-07-05T14:34:00.000-04:00

New York’s mountains
yawn
like dinosaurs.
I’m working inside
the walls,
shoveling myself
into cardboard bins
at night
and waiting.

The fungus in my hair
festered for days
like this.
Independence,
even in a shrub’s scrawny
voice, seems edible
at last.

2009-07-03T21:47:00.001-04:00

The clouds
fuse with the sun.
I linger
on an arc of light,
waiting for tornados
to leave themselves
behind. I gauge the grip
of breezes,
nodding clouds’
smooth frowns. They twist
fingers with their vines.
They swirl
until the clocks
go off like cluster bombs.
I would study this
for eons.

2009-07-03T19:29:00.001-04:00

The sky removed me for hours
from the grass, lifting
my body from soil.

The incense curlicued
through my apartment
and burnt out
my eyes. If I had a place
to claim existence

would I lie silently like this
in the sea? Would I
shatter
like a cloud, stranded
between jet-streams?

Would I
give in to this imperative,
this Must,
and hold myself like wind,
and ask myself what else

goes with me,
stays with me,
but you?

2009-07-02T20:08:00.005-04:00

My limbs burned out
like circuit boards
as I paced the apartment.
I stretched my fingers
as if for my life. Dawn
unveiled its nifty trick, wiping away
the clouds. The uninvited
sunlight crashed into my floor,
camped out inside my ears.

I want to know if every night,
every day — whatever
this hour claims to be —
will wear my face
like a mask.
I want to know
if this party, held in honor
of dead alarm clocks,
is keeping me alive.

2009-07-01T17:12:00.003-04:00

today I lay around eating medicine. I bought some new notebooks, but I'm going to return them. it probably seems like I'm not writing poems anymore, but I'm writing lots and lots, I'm just feeling uncomfortable putting them up on the blog for some reason. they will be submitted and whatnot, and people can see them there. okay?

5:38 PM: I just got a very disappointing rejection from Diagram...

2009-07-01T01:30:00.002-04:00

I spent my day staring first at the sky, then at the ceiling. Real life doesn't seem too interesting to me. I wonder if it even exists.

The Air is a Scam

2009-06-30T12:35:00.002-04:00

The couch’s cushions lift
off the floor and float
like zeppelins. Olive’s tail
twitches like a barometer
as she sniffs out my breath.
The windows are waypoints
when we pace the house.
We must record this—I must—
before we flee the apartment
and hallucinate the Earth.

Go

2009-06-23T10:30:00.015-04:00

We crouched in her backyard
at night and she chewed
on a sandwich. I clutched
her pipe and inhaled
and orange balloons appeared.
They swirled over our picnic
mat. I tugged on her hair

and she nodded silently
to the somber jazz
droning in her ears.
The pipe floated between
my fingers, whispering
sentences of smoke,
and I passed it to her,
and she refused,
raising her hand
like a stop sign.
Her breath said, Go,

so we wandered
into the house, twisted
beside one another
on the floor and sighed
into the carpet. Dawn

splintered the windows.
The sky pointed at us
and the balloons vanished.
I left nothing behind.