19 enero 2013

dream of apartment hunting in a city

the first apartment is overpopulated & only has an outdoor shower that collapses on me

second one has beautiful rooms on the second floor

tho nothing but beds & windows

downstairs is flo-thru to & from the mall

features an upward-sloping body-wide belt on which you lie on your back

arms stretched out & moving to propel you up the slope

Mike tries it but ahead of him are small children going nowhere

outside the apartment(s) is a red sand wash landscape

after we sign the papers, we exit through revolving doors (takes me two rotations)

to the outdoor mall where I see people at a restaurants eating crown of lamb

with their hands, I leave Mike at a table while I go ask about the wait

no wait, waiter is ready to seat us, but Mike has disappeared

standing next to the table a tall meaty dark-haired & -bearded friend of ours

he & I follow the waiter, hoping Mike will figure it out

I’m overloaded with my handhelds & Mike’s, too, because he left them on the table

the waiter leads us to the 4th floor

on the landing I ask two Latin-seeming waiters to keep an eye out for un hombre flaco

the woman says, ¿un hombre flauco?

I anticipate problems

drawing by Adonna Khare

Adonna Khare's drawings are remarkable

evenings I’m enjoying a fluff thriller, Rebecca Forster’s Hostile Witness

finished Susan Howe’s My Emily Dickinson

it rained most of the night, sometimes hard, MV comes inside her back all wet

she’s in the shower torturing a small spider

provoked by Tom Clark’s review of 100 Multiple-Choice Questions by John Ashbery in Jacket2

Multiple Choice

I will live

1. until I’m 97
2. forever as a frozen cyborg
3. in the memory of three generations
4. through seven more incarnations before I become the ruler of the universe
5. in South America for the rest of my life
6. as if I would never die

This morning my family has diarrhea because

1. it’s raining
2. the turkey & turkey stock I made turkey soup from was toxic
3. we stayed up until 10 PM reading mystery novels
4. the spider Miss Vee tortured in the shower exuded toxic fumes
5. diarrhea is an ugly word
6. cleaning toilets builds compassion

Poetry is

1. an alternative to suicide
2. ignored because truth & beauty have no place in the modern world
3. where today’s best novels are being written
4. what humans spoke first after laughter & moans
5. an antidote to government-religion-education-commercial-sports-celebrity-speak
6. what children sing before they are ruined

Home Owner Association meetings are

1. where sea cucumbers go to die
2. a poor alternative to drinking Malbec & eating jook
3. zombie conventions
4. listed as an endangered species by the Modern Language Association
5. illegal in Singapore, Johannesberg, St. Petersburg, Milford Sound, & Tierra del Fuego
6. outlawed by Al Qaeda, recorded by the Department of Homeland Security, infiltrated by the CIA, required by Shabak, Mossad, & Aman

Childhood is followed by

1. obesity
2. further indoctrination into normalcy by the myths of nation-state, organized religion, politics, economics, medicine, & entitlement
3. alcohol & drugs
4. the subjugation of gender & genitals to Madison Avenue bullshit
5. more of the same
6. multiple-choice questions with randomly generated answers

Failure of compassion occurs when

1. one’s self-image is interrupted by a commercial announcement
2. the egg is too small to be shared
3. yeast fails to bud
4. St. Teresa explains to the soldier that she can’t give him a blow job because his penis has been lopped off by counter-insurgency
5. raped women are told they asked for it
6. you think you have a right to tell me what to do

Tom Clark is my long-time favorite blogger

it’s raining; can hardly go outside to weed

next door the workers are hammering & yelling even though it’s Saturday

finished cutting back the west bristlemallow

dug out a couple dozen stipa grasses & one sorghum (I think sorghum)

working to make space for more Knipfofia; 

Wiki quote: “Long thought of as vulgar, Mary Keen 
argues that it is time to reconsider these flowers.”

I wonder what made Mary Keen vulgar.

Mike harvested a huge watermelon, a spaghetti squash, & a cantaloupe

Miss Vee & her rare earth watermelon [pic by Mike Smith]

Miss Vee has a facebook account now under the name Missy Vee.