Cardinal feeding utility flag drummers and drunks oversimplify flesh the meat the spirit the soul everything i’ve learned about writing taught by drum and drink control yourself you will be free of mother nature calm down the copper knife at the back of your throat offers itself as relentlessness of the order that ought to chill a complicated relationship with beauty in the age of attention o gag reject to reject the reject who for so long you’d been looking for through the intended ai of the antediluvian injury and free now that you’re wise outside time as a broken window who beloved escapes the flipped hgtv home to lean on the car and drop its acid values and smoke through the stethoscope to the heartbeat of a hedgehog you’ve learned to love and keep close to your heart you are an awning now a father.
How our lively natures were rapt away by post-modern science fiction
“What temper at the prospect did not wake To happiness unthought of? The inert Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!”
William Wordsworth
February 2021 — Why doesn’t ugly start a revolution? The intellectual farmacie of traditional media, rife with fit, reasonably attractive folks earn profiles in the The New Yorker. Unless you’re an old white man, in which case beauty is rare and, take it from me, things are relatively frictionless—we will write your story of greatness.
If our obsession with youth can be explained by an attraction to that which we, statistically, were not: precocious, interested, prodigious and destined for the top rungs of the social ladder, than maybe beauty functions the same way.
Shall we ugly design the end, throw a rock, hold our bodies hostage? What kind of hunger must we become?
Endless war
The man in rags approaches the bricked barn camel and needle yarn strikes With no breath to confound Though no one sentient around Hears this knotted rotten demand Buries his tires in the unyielding sand Keeps the guests at bay Perhaps just one more day
See the threads of desire meeting needle knowledge binds together various fabrics of self at uncertain edges emerges eyes of crucible crocodile burning fog & cloud unity of irreducible information unit of unbound dictionary lightshed gathered father and son in bodied survivalhood emergent territories of thought escapes in breath
Dressed in silversbane protect my faith new mother — holy anymother — lose her holy see scatter her across the January 2021 Facebook Pages redesign her brands are luminous with nostalgia or panic there intuition sings of a songbird two fingers pointed and retracted come-hither autocorrect rub graphite like grapevine phantom to flesh to thought
Endless possibility
The sun hangs low on two points connected in electrical circuit Obsessed with the minister of reflexive language as lovers panchromatic grey perhaps a different meaning the new center of socialist joy and recreation I contemplate the aquiline but refuse to rush into the masses I rise elaborate as embroided air vast plains of testosterone encased in shadow engorged with the forgotten god and his abandoned metaphysics
I am a snapchat filter in the eyes of oblivion and beg for forgiveness a man who collects comrades because even kindness needs a posse a man who in the infinite stretch of sand finds god’s black wall and in an instant his purpose a woman who builds rooms inside and outside of the modern poets’ vague allusions to common knowledge the radio has dinner the terrible thing inserts a gun into its poem of simple relational delight and dilemma was no gun only infidelity changing lock letters everywhere in shadow usurping men shooting bullets into the sky almost every evening when I lived in the country who permits this you have driven language like a dead ox from the meaning of the field
Must is the greatest word in the English language also it is the most misused among the lot must is my daddy must is my savior must is the end of a snowstorm as the cupboards go bare we must not accept this way of formulating the issue if we do not we shall be in serious trouble with the virtues of curiosity our grammatical assumptions enshrine themselves within our philosophical arguments and that is death
String a pair of slipping records the great colonial spasms of blood against dirt a free exchange of birds and rival ideologies coincides with the rise of criminal networks in cyberspace house of hexagon open to the possibility of retention of sky sound of brutal dictatorship string I do not know the woman’s name nor her side of the dialogue nor mine I must ring the bell though it is of form and weight without she is without voice string in this instance to look at me you wouldn’t know my hands repeat insincere gestures I was listening to that string together at last after years of waiting the smell of skin and
Waiting for the other shoe to drop it is what it is i drink whisky i drink beer beer made of sculptures her words not mine borrowed really from peter to paypal paul and talk about geometry ugly repulsive apparitions on a wet black bough lazy mapping doesn’t know how to read a nap no sense of ambiguity an obsession with youth glowing skin fresh powder a reliable reit wilbur ross financed spac takes it public no sense of ambiguity the poet and the programmer vindictive academics both
Obsessed with the minister of reclusive language the character pans the screen not the player like a patient etherized upon a table I deny myself the opportunity no one’s said it explicitly — actor, writer, set designer, executive producer — but the show is about memory no one can take that away not the ultra rich who pile vindication and swim not the blood and shadow brokers cointreau spiked with lsd at a cia retreat al spoke of destruction finally getting its break if it’s good enough for the abattoir why not right here at home?
Hop skip jump burn hop skip jump burn hop skip jump burn hop skip jump burn
The mass destruction of tourists The mass destruction of production The mass destruction of typewriters The mass destruction of jealous music
Poetry policymakers conspiracies fourteen women share a couch destruction everywhere their feet behind them behind the couch a trio of monochrome musicians a hot light a baudrillard disclaiming suprareality a wedding ring i toss behind the couch like an anchor rides in veins of the venal need flower print — imagine that — in black and white the posterity collapsed like a pharaoh’s lung fat legs crossed surely worm food by now all these artists care so much about dying disclaiming flesh of wristwatches
The memory, bound with piano wire, is something of a meditation. Not intended to pacify the hungry, curious, and violent child-made, by polite society, to sit still and earn their wage. The memory, bound by piano wire, is something of a primitive chant. Primitivism as if to say committed to the ursheriff and the supraellipses. The memory, bound by piano wire, lets blood through an unmarked limited liability company. Too many of us have been dragged through the mud to reserve comment — to forget — to watch Everybody Loves Raymond nailed to the crucifix.
Endless war
ritual of expulsion: setting proves important to the audience, which, in city after city struggles to understand why the woman in the white bandana suffers so and why the small-town cat buzzing in and out through the open den window bob and weave with puritanical, firefly charm. Symbolism escapes them until it doesn’t — like an embolism.
In the 18th century a rhino named Clara visited the capitals of Europe and inspired various French hairstyles as the sun crashes down on city hall where the streets are torn up to be repaved what does this have to do with ugly women? Everything!
At 2:22 a.m. I provide the characters with made up properly seasoned rips in time. We, as an audience, have nothing to worry about. The average theater-goer had a hard time separating entertainment from criticism and I am here to avenge that loss. Tears streaming down his unwashed face, he raises his hand like it was his own. Cold but well bathed, the poet runs his imagination through the treetops — rouses a eastern screech owl.
Endless nobility
That you were buried before you could confess doesn’t mean the asteroid didn’t strike too proud too catholic too ferrous doesn’t mean you didn’t suffer and I didn’t love you more the pain in your endurance love is all I can offer now and forgiveness forgiveness for stitching up the wound unimagined queen of collisions dark and ceaseless coverings always there always lurking
Our patent pending technology attaches a set of medical grade dentures directly to the upper thigh to create the world’s most authentic prosthetic leg a photo is a list of ingredients and a set of instructions called preconception one might say there is no such thing as false witness actual theft or actual inspiration some personal news I am thrilled to hear the poet quickly come to the adjective’s defense.
My wife in the other room alone moaning it’s not what you think by being obtuse obscure obdurate I insure reality what a mitzvah a single poet in a kettle being trusted and truthful and godlike in a drained pool of diction they can be kind and determined all ears all fingers all backbone a penis is a penis is a penis we fetishize nature by its nature his repetitive conceit — I’m thrilled to announce I’m being specific for once — is tiring but not in a bad way exhausting like an Eggleston picture
Exhausting here comes the sun is the first song you heard silk where the green silicone pacifier reds your chin snow falling black against a holy sky every molecule on the horizon vibrates against the desire to regulate to survive navigating generative strangling not the winner but first place itself broken
On the political streets broken maddening itself like ants on a sugar cube here, February, or, interrogations you built America punched down and out by the sidewalk, you’ve lost the game saying too much abyss oblivion no one in my family tells stories broken and yet young bodies baked through with organic poisons in hushed tones around the breakfast table while i burp her
Under the christmas tree my gift unopened for thirty years shallow breaths deep water the lights dim in concert with listicles year end reviews lizard-content basking in the vast nourishing copper field you were invited to motherhood and chose virgin purity invited to fatherhood and chose putty imports a well-built alarm clock a gingham turtle shell split down the middle kintsugi impossible and inevitable, sky hunting its platinum trophy
hung in the shadows on the western wall emerald cone boasting corona of dipped lunatic cotton fails serially with each attempt (once every three minutes) to intellect through short dire sentences despite being broken into labium labrum maxillae and mandible the discourse remains functional powered up and spread warm butter like the sun like the museum’s most popular gallery quantitatively as the reader fails to consider commerce here the radical mage conjures a million jerry saltzs dehydrate mutants no geiger counter for this kind of subjective observation through a starbucks window clearly the majority look onward and upward while elements class traitors sift form from function and some nonzero number of postdocs see a leg and writhe in pain and some nonzero number of highly marketable postdocs see a shark skin wallet and movement becomes impossible consider minus zero as a vector of possibility
a long time ago lived a lengthy brass ladder known for lying who unscrewed an exit sign named piero manzoni the ladder was high as fuck and craved a little zappo critical discourse emerged simultaneously from the academic journals commonly read by building inspectors widely known to be bad men damp men with all sorts of wicked contradictions hammers hardhats marshmallows cargo shorts and bibles held to account hauled up by their judith butler-lookin lobes tonight is the night it is impossible to judge these men at this hour but long ago judges went unmoored a mythological tap of little sausages enticing a blue arc back then everything was faked everything was cheated an ounce or two everything surreptitiously observed and tweaked their values modified until reality felt just about right
without transubstantiation of the aphid this reality slithers from open space to open source its brand much improved especially popular among college educated white liberals aged 18-24 who earn each rostrum feeds then snaps predictably with a super majority obeying basic digital commands retweet unfollow promote accept all the role of the curator has changed for the wurst since wuhan
impish discursive corona dip thineself ankle deep into serious intellect unbreak your reader fall from function into a nonzero bouquet of legs move only when movement becomes impossible
my love uploaded virus unlocked door can of the artist’s shit save my planet one salsiccia at a time
The days — likely the months — leading up to Thanksgiving 2020 have left a hazy tarnish on my ability to be present for my family and friends.
It started, of course, with the economic uncertainty, political instability, and alienating nature of COVID-19. But it is bigger than that, more insidious, and ultimately more profound.
The rich got richer without doing much of anything, the poor kept fighting at great expense, and the world never stopped its dizzying spin. All this while 1.4 million people across the world died and left a dolorous wake in their leaving.
Please consider: The death of 1.4 million people is, by its very nature, an abstract and impenetrable number of individual lives gone forever and an exponential number of living grief.
Everyone who survives bears a scar. Every witness who remains watches from the silver shadows of their own guilt.
While I have much to be thankful for, I can’t stop making pictures that tell this terrible story writ large on quotidian society.
And I feel ashamed of its toothsome moral: There is a dark and resolute solace in this pathological estrangement from the brothers and sisters who survive here alongside me.
‘Cherry Blossoms at Evening’ by William Carlos Williams
In the prebirth of the evening the blue cherry blossoms on the blue tree from this yellow, ended room— press to the windows inside shall be out the clustered faces of the flowers straining to look in
All photos copyright Joe Gerace, 2020 (please email for usage permission)
Hundreds gathered on a sweltering June afternoon in Hackensack, NJ, to call for an end to police brutality against people of color in the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others.
Organizers provided a platform for members of the crowd to step up to the microphone and share their thoughts. Many of those who spoke stressed the need for swift and definitive change to race relations in America, and the importance of community, solidarity, and voting — in local, state, and federal elections.
The peaceful rally convened from noon to 1 p.m. on Ward and State streets in Downtown Hackensack before protesters marched south toward the Bergen County Courthouse.
Uniformed Hackensack police officers blocked traffic to allow protesters to rally and march freely.
The death of Floyd sparked rallies and protests across the country and a handful of protests occurred in New Jersey over the past several days.
The sky has been paved over by no boats in the Hackensack. In the gutters of River Road watery asphalt crumbles because it is New Jersey and very unwell. Even the street light thinks filth, with the sadness of her body her electric mind every minute and Ken Zisa inside the house watching his Yankees inning after inning. Outside the window, a man says something and a girl laughs, “No, Milagros, eso no es un gusano real.” Everything fizzles.
