More terrific side effects from another edition of Dr. Stephen T. Colbert's "Cheating Death" segment on The Colbert Report:
armpit homunculus
knee transfer
Verizon Guy Syndrome
Siamese nipples
hair swelling
involuntary blowhole
pucker lung
bone sporking
Yellowstone National Bladder
And remember Prescott Pharmaceutical's Motto: "That's Why You Have Two Kidneys!"
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Monday, December 29, 2008
THE WALKING DEAD
Once you slurred me the story
of your overdose – your heart
stopped on the cutting table
before the doctors brought you back
to life. You never got over it,
prone to random fits of rage as if
they’d failed to reconnect your soul,
as if your heart resented
the resurrection, begrudging its beating
as much as you dread getting out of bed
each day, rising only to the stiff hope
of another drink to recreate the escape.
How I wish you’d go ahead and take
your reservation in some dowdy afterlife
bar like you’ve been trying so hard
to do for all these years, so you
can reminisce in a ghost-webbed booth
and knock ‘em back for all eternity, dirty
shotglass clacking against the decay
of your teeth, chipped and gray
as old bathroom tiles.
of your overdose – your heart
stopped on the cutting table
before the doctors brought you back
to life. You never got over it,
prone to random fits of rage as if
they’d failed to reconnect your soul,
as if your heart resented
the resurrection, begrudging its beating
as much as you dread getting out of bed
each day, rising only to the stiff hope
of another drink to recreate the escape.
How I wish you’d go ahead and take
your reservation in some dowdy afterlife
bar like you’ve been trying so hard
to do for all these years, so you
can reminisce in a ghost-webbed booth
and knock ‘em back for all eternity, dirty
shotglass clacking against the decay
of your teeth, chipped and gray
as old bathroom tiles.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
A SWORD IN A CLOUD OF LIGHT
Kenneth Rexroth (December 22, 1905 – June 6, 1982)
Your hand in mine, we walk out
To watch the Christmas Eve crowds
On Fillmore Street, the Negro
District. The night is thick with
Frost. The people hurry, wreathed
In their smoky breaths. Before
The shop windows the children
Jump up and down with spangled
Eyes. Santa Clauses ring bells,
Cars stall and honk. Streetcars clang.
Loud speakers on the lampposts
Sing carols, on juke boxes
In the bars Louis Armstrong
Plays “White Christmas.” In the joints
The girls strip and grind and bump
To “Jingle Bells.” Overhead
The neon signs scribble and
Erase and scribble again
Messages of avarice,
Joy, fear, hygiene, and the proud
Names of the middle classes.
The moon beams like a pudding.
We stop at the main corner
And look up, diagonally
Across, at the rising moon,
And the solemn, orderly
Vast winter constellations.
You say, “There’s Orion!”
The most beautiful object
Either of us will ever
Know in the world or in life
Stands in the moonlit empty
Heavens, over the swarming
Men, women, and children, black
And white, joyous and greedy,
Evil and good, buyer and
Seller, master and victim,
Like some immense theorem,
Which, if once solved would forever
Solve the mystery and pain
Under the bells and spangles.
There he is, the man of the
Night before Christmas, spread out
On the sky like a true god
In whom it would only be
Necessary to believe
A little. I am fifty
And you are five. It would do
No good to say this and it
May do no good to write it.
Believe in Orion. Believe
In the night, the moon, the crowded
Earth. Believe in Christmas and
Birthdays and Easter rabbits.
Believe in all those fugitive
Compounds of nature, all doomed
To waste away and go out.
Always be true to these things.
They are all there is. Never
Give up this savage religion
For the blood-drenched civilized
Abstractions of the rascals
Who live by killing you and me.
Your hand in mine, we walk out
To watch the Christmas Eve crowds
On Fillmore Street, the Negro
District. The night is thick with
Frost. The people hurry, wreathed
In their smoky breaths. Before
The shop windows the children
Jump up and down with spangled
Eyes. Santa Clauses ring bells,
Cars stall and honk. Streetcars clang.
Loud speakers on the lampposts
Sing carols, on juke boxes
In the bars Louis Armstrong
Plays “White Christmas.” In the joints
The girls strip and grind and bump
To “Jingle Bells.” Overhead
The neon signs scribble and
Erase and scribble again
Messages of avarice,
Joy, fear, hygiene, and the proud
Names of the middle classes.
The moon beams like a pudding.
We stop at the main corner
And look up, diagonally
Across, at the rising moon,
And the solemn, orderly
Vast winter constellations.
You say, “There’s Orion!”
The most beautiful object
Either of us will ever
Know in the world or in life
Stands in the moonlit empty
Heavens, over the swarming
Men, women, and children, black
And white, joyous and greedy,
Evil and good, buyer and
Seller, master and victim,
Like some immense theorem,
Which, if once solved would forever
Solve the mystery and pain
Under the bells and spangles.
There he is, the man of the
Night before Christmas, spread out
On the sky like a true god
In whom it would only be
Necessary to believe
A little. I am fifty
And you are five. It would do
No good to say this and it
May do no good to write it.
Believe in Orion. Believe
In the night, the moon, the crowded
Earth. Believe in Christmas and
Birthdays and Easter rabbits.
Believe in all those fugitive
Compounds of nature, all doomed
To waste away and go out.
Always be true to these things.
They are all there is. Never
Give up this savage religion
For the blood-drenched civilized
Abstractions of the rascals
Who live by killing you and me.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
McCain/Palin Haiku
The People for the American Way has a haiku contest up based on the dynamic duo of John McCain and Sarah Palin. Winners will be published in The Nation magazine. For more info, click here. Deadline is Wednesday!
Monday, October 6, 2008
Spam Poem
I love the language of spam. In its attempts to bypass filters, it creates some wonderful phrases. Most of my attempts at spam poetry are failures, but they are fun failures nonetheless.
This particular title was not spam, per se, but rather some fashion website email list I've gotten included in at some point and from which I've never bothered to remove myself. After getting an ad with this title on it the other day, I'm kinda glad I stuck around:
SIMON AND JULIE LOVE LEATHER LEGGINGS
The way they snug the skin
and shine when wet. The sound
they make when you peel them
off from a night of sweat. Leather legs
on leather furniture, leather legs rubbed
together. Leather with silver
zippers, big as shark’s jaws, black
as absence. Simon and Julie wear
their leather every Friday night, slip
their skinny fingers in each other’s
whipstitched pockets. Do not take
them off ‘til Sunday morning.
This particular title was not spam, per se, but rather some fashion website email list I've gotten included in at some point and from which I've never bothered to remove myself. After getting an ad with this title on it the other day, I'm kinda glad I stuck around:
SIMON AND JULIE LOVE LEATHER LEGGINGS
The way they snug the skin
and shine when wet. The sound
they make when you peel them
off from a night of sweat. Leather legs
on leather furniture, leather legs rubbed
together. Leather with silver
zippers, big as shark’s jaws, black
as absence. Simon and Julie wear
their leather every Friday night, slip
their skinny fingers in each other’s
whipstitched pockets. Do not take
them off ‘til Sunday morning.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Shameless Plug
I am October's Poet-in-Residence over at The Poetry Collaborative. And due to my complete inability to focus on more than one thing at a time, that's where I'm playing for now. Come check us out.
Here's a quick one I did based on this prompt:
against the razor
imagine me going
where I oughtn’t
tip slid
under nail
and lifted
nicking the tonsil
or tongue
it isn’t the act
you suffer
towards
but the threat
webbed
against your throat
Meh. It's not very good, but let's pretend that's not the point.
Here's a quick one I did based on this prompt:
against the razor
imagine me going
where I oughtn’t
tip slid
under nail
and lifted
nicking the tonsil
or tongue
it isn’t the act
you suffer
towards
but the threat
webbed
against your throat
Meh. It's not very good, but let's pretend that's not the point.
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