crayons in the can
can
do
anything
crayons
in the hand
can
do
something
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Wednesday, July 09, 2014
Monday, July 07, 2014
Office Politics
that's me on the fortieth floor
second window from the left
peering out at nothing in particular
I used my personal politcial power
to get a window office
to see the sun, see other buildings
see people scrambling below
people glad to finally see the sun, any sun
locked within a nippy, chilly, over cooled cubicle
worse than the blackest hole of Calcutta
(except for the cold)
worse than The Snake Pit. Remember the movie?
where Olivia de Havilland found herself
in an insane asylum
and couldn't remember how she got there
caught up in the bureaucracy of the institution
the regimentation of the staff
some brutal and ignorant
a few kindhearted
most just killing time
cubicle time
Saturday, July 05, 2014
Wednesday, July 02, 2014
Words of the Week
Pigadillo:
Eating when nobody’s looking.
Jambled:
When traffic calming makes you nervous.
Cobblement:
Wondering why you bought those shoes.
Endophasm:
The part of the thing where you’re excited the thing might be almost over.
Diglion:
The sub-atomic particle that makes the universe fall in love with itself.
Cartogemy:
When your sense of direction insists the map is wrong.
Shulquess:
Asking for suggestions but hoping there aren’t any.
Monday, June 30, 2014
 |
| Waiting for Session |
A brief interlude between sessions at the Reusing Indigenous Clay Modalities Conference at the Fort Pierre National Grasslands Conference Center outside of Pierre, South Dakota allows attendees to network with one another. Conference co-chairperson, Addison Cuthwinning, said this years conference was one of the best ever. Said Cuthwinning: "This year was one of the best ever! Attendees were able to sit and listen to presenters give presentations about various topics related to Reusing Indigenous Clay. Some of the presenters used computers and powerpoint presentations and attendees were thrilled at the lifelike images of things we do with clay and things we would like to do with clay in the future. So exciting! There were so many good ideas!"
Saturday, June 28, 2014
News of the Week
Item: French
Lick, Indiana man conveys universal truth to world. In response to the
unending deluge of cosmic bullshit raining on his freaking midwestern parade
every freaking day, Regis Phlunge calved a vision so spontaneously rhythmic
and driven by a melody so profound, with lyrics so apt, that small river
fauna faced true north and barked soulfully. Driven by instinct, and barely
able to comprehend the profundity of the moment, Regis frankly elucidated
the most matter-of-fact and comprehensible explication of the eternal mysteries
that has yet to be recorded in human civilization. It was really swell.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Item: Live from Brazil,
in the most exciting
World Cup Soccer Game to date,
here's what happened:
The guy kicked the
ball to the other guy who kicked the ball to another guy who kicked the ball to
another guy who kicked the ball back to the first guy. The ball hit the first
guy in the head and then it hit another guy in the head and then another guy kicked
the ball to another guy who kicked the ball to another guy who picked it up
with his hands and kicked the shit out of it. It was all very thrilling,
practically unbelieveable in its tension and unremitting athleticism, on and on
with guys kicking the ball to other guys for like six hours. The final score turned
out to be just as wildly exciting as the entire game: 1 - 1.
Monday, June 23, 2014
Sunday, June 22, 2014
The Staging Area
what’s
missing in your life
is
a good and proper staging area
don’t
just take clothes out of the dryer
fold
‘em and put ‘em away
that’s
for losers
they
belong in a good and proper staging area
an
interim area, so to speak, where they lay
waiting
for a drawer or closet
sometimes
the wait is very long
we,
the royal we, wouldn’t be where we are today
without
a staging area
to
buffer the friction between
a
machine and a closet
between
the known and the unknown
earth
and sky
action
and inaction
and
those places in between
like
inertia, nebraska
torpor,
maine
languor,
ohio
keg,
georgia
now
and then
and
apathy, texas
buffer
yourself, my good man
in
a good and proper staging area
it
will temper your quills
and
hip-ta-phi your Christmas music
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Friday, June 20, 2014
Incident at 30,000 Feet
Friday, June 13, 2014
News of the Week
Item: Area man falls deeply and passionately in love with his old sofa.
"I don't know what took me so long," gushed Romeo Boggs of Whipville,
Tennessee, "She's been waiting quietly for me all this time." The love-struck
Romeo spent the entire weekend in intimate collusion with his old sofa,
eating, sleeping, snuffling, watching TV, putting off till next weekend
what was eminently doable this weekend, and by and large acting like a
soon-to-be-embalmed corpsicle, refusing to part from the genuine leatherette
caress of his newfound paramour. Unable to summon the energy to entertain
even the faintest whiff of self-loathing, Romeo Boggs grinned before he
lost his remote "one more time" in the alluring dark spaces between the
cushions of the love seat, and noted to himself, "Sometimes a man just
doesn't feel like doing what he's gotta do."
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
From the Whirled HeadQuarters Random Inquiries Department:
1.]
These words are both homonyms and antonyms:
Balm
&
Bomb
2.]
If some people are named Frances ,
how come some other people are not named
3.]
The proper concession to the digital age
is to quit doing things
in real time.
Monday, June 09, 2014
Friday, June 06, 2014
In Pursuit of The Word
Pursued by the agents of formalized cliche, and in pursuit of the roots of true language, we ducked into a speakeasy - such places had sprouted like organic slang since the passing of the latest municipal syntax. After knocking twice and correctly identifying the true author of shakespeare's sonnets, the door opened and a boggy irishman ushered us in with a soggy nod of his head. "Say what you will, gennelmen", said he, "but parse not lest ye be parsed. Um's the word, y'know."
He beat a peaty retreat towards the bar and we entered, in Finnegan's wake.
The heat was off . This was cool. All about us came the hubbub of mother tongues, from sanskrit to gallic to y'all, all rising to a haze of thick glossolalia stirred into meaning by the lone ceiling fan. Verbal gumbo. We looked at each other and smiled wide as our prefrontal lobes ignited in phonetic sympathy. "Ah, the sweet elixir", said one of us, "Neural drool", said the other, laughing. "I think something stout is calling my name", said one more - and we eased into the din of antiquity, heading for the taps.
Edging, shouldering, sidestepping past poets, griots and stern-looking umlauts, we arrived at the bar and asked for pints of the local dialect. The irishman fixed us with a brassy glare and boomed "In the beginning was the Word!" "One word!" came the sudden chorus from from the room. "BUT", roared the son of Erin, "One word cannot be said without a second to give it meaning." "Two words!" shouted back the crowd. "And so", said Finnegan softly, "this one Word, unspoken, breathes life into all you say and hear." All grew silent as the ceiling fan creaked to a stop and the irishman leaned forward expectantly, looking at us each in turn. We drew straws on a napkin and the shortest sketcher frowed his burrow, shrugged and cried, "Yo! What's the Word?!". The room exploded in laughter and high-pitched doggerel and the ceiling fan stirred anew. "Congrats lads", said the barkeep, "Yu'v just recapitulated the ontogeny of yer own vocabulary!"
We didn't know if this was good or bad and a little greek guy with a sticker on his chest that read Hi, my name is Homer leapt onto a table and yelled, "And here's another history lesson: In a land where words were few and stark, no synonyms abounded. Each word described an equal portion of reality, and their relationship to other words was a succinct grammar in itself. This natural tongue, though noble, could not help but grow incestuous to preserve itself. Some words began to have more than one meaning; others survived only in reference to other words. As time went on, this fateful trend continued, from burble to babble to riot. And just when every word seemed to mean anything, everything, nothing, a very strange thing occured..."
The doors to the speakeasy suddenly flew open, dark figures silhouetted in the streetlight pouring in. "Shadduuuuuup!!" screamed a hooded voice, and then menacing, "Stow yer tongues and nobody gets... hurt." The figures began to advance, reciting lines from cheesy gangster flicks in a low liturgical litany. "It's a raid!" yelled Homer, scrambling off the table, and all was bedlam. "Thought police" hissed Finnegan, pulling open a trap door behind the bar, "this way to clarity. Hurry."
We hustled down the chute, recognizing the dark figures as our pursuers, centuries of articulation receding as we sped, chasing the word, and being chased by its constraints...
Wednesday, June 04, 2014
Tuesday, June 03, 2014
Monday, June 02, 2014
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Friday, May 30, 2014
i have a great idea for a movie
opening scene everybody would die except
just two or three would survive, to live
gruesomely scabby yet riveting lives
the survivors would have cleft chins
and perfect breasts that heave on command
or off
and they, the stars, the beautiful stars
would repopulate the earth in 90 minutes
make it a better place for kids and golden retrievers
the movie crests into naked euphoria
in the first two seconds
when bill o’reilly explodes in a deluge of magma
that has surged up from the earth’s core
directly into fox studios
the remaining eighty-eight minutes
with the movie’s perfect pacing
of cliffhanger rescues followed by frenzied fucking
feature nancy grace, the former prosecutor
whose southern accent
with its bitter yet come hither edge
makes me and all other cinematic
dorky ass viewers of cable tv cringe
and lust mightily at the same time
her full lips feverish and shiny
her open thighs ready to receive
the burning priapus of the sub-plot
anyway i digress from my movie idea
of the people who recopulate the world
and for a brief time live happily, so happy
in utah, where the mormons used to practice posture
before my movie sent them all to kingdom come
in the denouement, just before the climax
a really horrible thing happens, finally
after reams of crazy deaths and ecstatic couplings
but strangely, it seems rightly horrible
you might even say – apropos of
all the things, the death, the life
the well-hung dialogue, the rippling tears
the crippling laughter laced in the sacral bone
the very emulsion of the film itself
all melting together – beguilingly
a strange comic relief, a last straw
in the unending beverage that is my movie
opening scene everybody would die except
just two or three would survive, to live
gruesomely scabby yet riveting lives
the survivors would have cleft chins
and perfect breasts that heave on command
or off
and they, the stars, the beautiful stars
would repopulate the earth in 90 minutes
make it a better place for kids and golden retrievers
the movie crests into naked euphoria
in the first two seconds
when bill o’reilly explodes in a deluge of magma
that has surged up from the earth’s core
directly into fox studios
the remaining eighty-eight minutes
with the movie’s perfect pacing
of cliffhanger rescues followed by frenzied fucking
feature nancy grace, the former prosecutor
whose southern accent
with its bitter yet come hither edge
makes me and all other cinematic
dorky ass viewers of cable tv cringe
and lust mightily at the same time
her full lips feverish and shiny
her open thighs ready to receive
the burning priapus of the sub-plot
anyway i digress from my movie idea
of the people who recopulate the world
and for a brief time live happily, so happy
in utah, where the mormons used to practice posture
before my movie sent them all to kingdom come
in the denouement, just before the climax
a really horrible thing happens, finally
after reams of crazy deaths and ecstatic couplings
but strangely, it seems rightly horrible
you might even say – apropos of
all the things, the death, the life
the well-hung dialogue, the rippling tears
the crippling laughter laced in the sacral bone
the very emulsion of the film itself
all melting together – beguilingly
a strange comic relief, a last straw
in the unending beverage that is my movie
by the boy poets, throwing an eephus pitch
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
One of Many Internal Conversations
About the Medical Crisis of 2013
The extreme medical crisis brings me full circle on the brain question,
the question about whether our brains are in charge of anything, and if so how
much, because in a medical crisis you pretty much have to trust the medical
professionals, because, let's face it, they use their brains and the
accumulation of medical knowledge, to do things – such as save lives – that
you, with your carpentry and plumbing tools and paint brushes and nice way of
talking and cool life experience, simply can't do, plus they can prescribe
morphine, which you also can't do, but speaking of brains, there's nothing like
a medical crisis to engage you and your own brain to ask the bevy of doctors
urgent questions and more questions and more questions until you start to
notice that their answers don't always fit their other answers nor do they
always fit the others guys' answers, so you ask more questions until you are
layers deep into the accumulated medical knowledge of the eons, and now your
questions are getting pretty good and engaging their brains because your brain
has been paying very close to attention to the words they speak and parsing the
words and breaking the facts down and stacking the facts up since this is a
matter of life and death, and one day in the office of a major doctor dude, you
realize that regarding the question you are asking he doesn't know the
answer. He's never thought about this before. This is a scary moment. The
doctor doesn't want to admit it. Neither do you. He's got his reasons. You've
got yours. But none of the reasons are worth a flip compared to life and death,
and within the space of one more question you don't care about anything but
your hunger for knowledge, because his reasons and your reasons are small and
shabby compared to life and death, and because your brain is engaged with your
heart because your heart wants to go on beating and your brain wants to keep on
breaking through the veil with new questions about the brain question and
because of the crazy desperate throbbing exuberance of the immortal dizzy deep
mystery of cells and space and the spinal column, and what doesn't belong there.
Monday, May 26, 2014
Friday, May 23, 2014
Dream Diary
The
atmosphere is "we're all in this together" in this spontaneous event,
very convivial, a brief comersion of rich and poor, patrons and
workers. It's hot, and amid the talk, people are guzzling ice water and
asking for refills like there's no tomorrow. You can hear the click of
ice cubes against glass all over. The waitrons are happy to oblige,
whisking around with big pitchers of water, commenting on the forgery
and pouring water here and there. At my table the waitron pours water
into our glasses and I take a satisfying pull of clear ice cold water.
The guy is just about to go away to refill the pitcher when another
table nearby waves to him urgently about something. He can't do two
things at once so he stands there for a second and in a moment that
crosses the usual boundaries he turns to look at me, holds out the empty
pitcher and asks if I would do him the favor of refilling the pitcher
with water.
This
is THE LOOK - our eyes are locked and a lot is going on in that look.
He's taking advantage of this spontaneous democratic atmosphere, and I'm
wondering why me and why should I and am I obligated. But I am thirsty
so.... I say ok. He is greatly relieved and pushes the pitcher into my
hands and mutters something about the kitchen being back there before
rushing off to the other table.
So
I get up and move uncertainly to the back of the big central room.
There's no kitchen, just a sink, and I fill the pitcher. I'm just about
to go back to join in the fun when I look down and notice there's just a
couple of weakass little leftover ice cubes floating on the top of the
pitcher. The water's cold, but its not ICE COLD. This won't do. That was
the whole thing that made the water so good - the ice. I look back at
what is now a party and look around for an ice machine, but there isn't
any. I've got a choice to make - go back or look for ice. The ice wins.
There's
a couple halls leading out of the room so I walk down one holding the
pitcher of water. The sounds of the party fade and it seems the rest of
the center is empty. And no ice machines. Everything looks dark, weird
and eerie as I proceed. I get to a room and there's a woman there. She
turns and asks, "so what should I paint?" Turns out she's here for a
class and we chat and I clear up the misunderstanding. "I'm just looking
for some ice" I say, hefting the pitcher by way of explanation. I ask
her if there's a fridge or ice machine nearby and she gives vague
directions to another part of the center, so I head off again, in search
of ice for the pitcher of water.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Item: Government mandates wildly expensive study of "schooling" phenomenon. In an effort to rouse its lethargic, dimwitted and hopeless school children, the nation's leaders have determined that fish are the answer. The Department of Education has been renamed the Department of Fish, and every graduate thesis submitted to an accredited institution will be limited to the study of fish and their amazing capacity to "school". Says Jeffard Whitby, obviologist and Phish PhD, "We want to find the genetic markers that make fish want to school and once in "school" stay in school until they die or are eaten by sharks or are made into fishsticks. We can use this to increase children's desire to "school" and then later in life to keep a really cruddy job without killing more than half the people in the local cubicle area."
View From the Motel Room
behind
the beige plastic light-proof curtains
above the whisper quiet
weather control unit
above the whisper quiet
weather control unit
bricks
baked
red bricks
in rows
red baked rows
stacked like
bricks
a lotta bricks
a million bricks
stacked up
and across
up
and across
up
and across
in lines
that don’t line up
mortar brick
brick mortar
every where
a sun-baked mortar grid
above the weather control unit
sun creeps ticktock
across the bricks
slow as a brick factory
bakes bricks red in the sun
lots of angles
lots of cubes
lots of mortar
big stack
big view
in rows
red baked rows
stacked like
bricks
a lotta bricks
a million bricks
stacked up
and across
up
and across
up
and across
in lines
that don’t line up
mortar brick
brick mortar
every where
a sun-baked mortar grid
above the weather control unit
sun creeps ticktock
across the bricks
slow as a brick factory
bakes bricks red in the sun
lots of angles
lots of cubes
lots of mortar
big stack
big view
from
the motel room
by the boy poets, reviewing the viewing
Monday, May 19, 2014
The Obelisk of Kartoon
The Obelisk of Kartoon
blasts
into the outersphere
a terrific fire
propelling
and pushing
and pulsating
the high techno, super lightweight,
superduper ultra alloy, outerspace metal
mocalvinium,
flaming,
hurtling
its weightless
astronauts, faces
pressed
against their visors which are
pressed
against the quadruple thickness,
built to last
in the vacuum of space portals
flashing
terrific grins, no gravity, hell bent.
by Calvin Burgamy
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