Tag Archives: parenting

Empedocles and Exaenetus (Wikipoem for My Father)

Wikipedia Poem, No. 824

PROVE2D

yr head if  only he cared     
down their hooves spectacular  
the riders' blood spilled    as much for me  
but i   was a  wrestler  and  was a   wrestler 
and was  a farce another   wrapped around  their hooves 
spectacular the riderstand was a   wrestler 
and  was a farce vested spectacular  
the great heft  of   the   riderstand 
was a    wrestler  and  a farce      
as much for me as for

touching their hooves   spectacular 
their thighs before  touching their  
spectacular root of    riderstand 
was a   wrestler and     each other    a   wrestler 
and given  no horse i was a  wrestler and    
each other  wrapped  around     each other  
given no horse  
the root of   their hooves   spectacular  
their hooves spectacular  the   great heft of  their hooves 
spectacular their   hooves   spectacular 
the riders'   blood  spilled     as   much for me 
but i  was a   wrestler

Kneel 1

Wikipedia Poem, No. 770

w770

“Amongst a-many terrible bright scenes, / in the submarine’s sick-bay a fire began / which we all fought in the aisle, / pillowcases exploded into flame, & fiends / swept the length of the great ship of man / cleaning out the good & the vile.” John Berryman (DS, 317)

no shy realization 
through the night being abandoned 
my father precious dark expanses i had not 
before actually it was guilty answers 
i was the guilty answer i was guilty at being away for  
confident hours every precious day  
turning away 
it was guilt before 
actually it was guilty answers 
i wasn't anger i was away from 
i was guilty for the night 
guilt at distant bedlam actually 
i felt like 
i had gone 
to stay

it was guilt at being away
it wasn't anger at not being
it wasn't anger at being son set
     not being away from a father
it was guile sprung the net

How to Raise a Premodern Family

Wikipedia Poem, No. 743

JMG_1298-3

Suicide’s Remix (branch6) (work in progress) Joseph M. Gerace

                  disappear into  a  cloud  of those big slick cartoon bombs
pair me with the twin cities or cuyamungué flint or kalamazoo or
something        coal blackboard    anime avocado cowboy            
self-doubt gender cowboy hunger sound of hunger 

to the best of your recollection       how fast
was the joke? a revolution? an iphone? (there, it's just 
bored with the sick hiss, sparkling like a labor union)     and 
did he erase words one by one? 
sparkle me on the sick risk of memory

somewhere, it's january. I'm in my blue hat just asking a simple question here
                       with an iphone held over my little blue hat (there 
there, it's just    a question    about speed, about how fast a joke, a revolution, 
an iphone pairs with an iphone and then it's just a joke again, 
but a new joke something like the old joke but less like a revolutionary.) with
a pair of blue hats now, some smaller and some larger, we're 
in new york taking meetings then we're in L.A. — I drove past it once, 
says the poet — taking meetings because all the emerald 
coyotes      consider  unionizing          and their  friends  
all those big        slick cartoon  bombs    they have 
iphones now and their iphones have iphones to feed and little blue hats

Why Phonic Multiplication Is the Work of Trillionaires (Return to the Flower)

Wikipedia Poem, No. 723

w723

“I’d like to return to the flower, / and from the flower, / to my heart.” Lorca, Oct. 1923

On an oedipal level, what a feeling!

Thrilled little clouds in the supermarket: No, I want that. Was it in the supermarket? No, I want that in the car and still make the wrong-colored little clouds. In the supermarket I don’t care, maybe making thrilled little clouds to whom or I see lonely sorrywalkers day in and day out.

I learned a long time ago to soap up the supermarket: No, I want to walk alone, too. Today I learned to be sorry, but I do not care. Remember the red sweater scented with alcohol? I’ve decided that, lathering into the supermarket.

Green wants to see sorry paroxysms leveled. One green sun is never enough. I want that, I said, thinking about lobster blood for years, terminally. What will be enough one day? What will be enough one day. I learn to walk alone through thrilled little clouds in the supermarket. No, I just want to be sorry, but I can’t imitate not caring.

 

Portrait of John Berryman

Wikipedia Poem, No. 645

berryman

“I won’t dwell on these or on any details now. I have a good deal to do and I am exhausted in the eighth day of a heavy cold. This is just to tell you that life has a new mask on.” John Berryman, 10 October 1943

so do i 
am exhausted 
in the end of our minds

this instead 
of our minds

this instead of our minds 
instead of our minds this

the end of a heavy cold
the end minding the cold

speaker and
spoken to

our annual knowing 
being offered up to us 

i have a good deal to tell 
on a term-to-term basis 

instead of our minds
the eighth day of mum

as we begin less-than-life 
has a new mask on

this is less-life than less with its 
new mask hell-in-new-rochelle

any details now (exactly what
i don't yet know) i am exhausted 

and at the end of our minds on an animal
incomprehensible bizarre touching mint

it does so and it is warm its being the beginning 
offered up at the end of life has a new mask on

Abraham Lincoln, in 1824, Tries on Women’s Clothing and No One Bats a Lash

Wikipedia Poem, No. 616

w616

“If all this be not rebellion, I know not what to call it. I certainly regard it as sufficient legal cause for suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus.” William W. Morris

gray to wear lipstick his mouth
he ate breakfast before lincoln wanted
to like to wear lipstick his mother wore
lincoln wanted to wish away war lincoln
wanted to like his mother school her
wear her caring peach lincoln wanted his mouth
to mother his mouth he watched her
thin serious mouth he wondered what
i could do for him and why she did
most mornings air on most mornings while
budget-bonded why she did it efficient
elegant wary to wear lipstick that
i could why all night she wears lipstick
his mouth he wondered while tightening the draw
strings of his small leather sack why
she did it freshly applied
she did it as commentary

Hungry Science Fiction Poem

Wikipedia Poem, No. 608

w608-2

“And it was lovely, / When the girl with the huge tits and lively eyes, // — She’s not one to be afraid of a kiss! — / Laughing, brought me bread and butter, / Warm ham, in a colored plate, // White and rosy ham flavored with a clove / Of garlic, — and filled my enormous mug, with its foam / Which a late ray of sun turned gold” Rimbaud

they will open into their relationship 
sons and crafts   projects of home again in the phaedo 
alone   electro-paternal modeling   play-doh      
flour water salt boric acid mineral oil   lovers to him   
fathered him   in terms of toys   and taste
a gift begat from identity   projected   paternal compound 
retail groups account of the home   identity and phaedo 
the toy market metastasized his boy         begged his first man
ancillary merchandise launch        his social valence compound       
used by          his son          a gif

 

Family Happiness (Nondidactic)

Wikipedia Poem, No. 572

W572

“Overture of my voice like the flash of bats. / The hyena babble and apish libretto. // Piscine skin, unblinking eyes. / Sideshow invites foreigner with animal hide.” from Cathy Park Hong’s ‘Zoo’

they move today as was written   hold that sound
against one of

they move   today   dog hyper-aware   and read by complex formations
me she or   has gone

they   move today   perspicuous improvisational solo
explain more clearly   

they move   today it is being written   
hold it against one's   patience

they   move   today   for difference radiates 
one of us   curious dog

Wash Your Face, Creative Writing Candidates

Wikipedia Poem, No. 504

sine-sm

“The world is everything that is the case. / Now stop your blubbering and wash your face.” Donald Hall

money not these real people in it
creative write a place for yourself
in this place
pampered parents upon it
better blustery
winter industry
then invite us!
to your parents’ workshop
make wicked work that
greenly endures for decades then

us to you—dear reader
in place of your stimulation
the dearly subject matters
but rarely endures its simulation

for decades creative writing classes
were nebulous promotional beings more for
real people in ghoulish gondolas
old-catholic boy-girl wasp-winger girled-jew
networking makes poetry thin
not really notoriety i loathe the pulmonary poem

these are toothy
times phony money
teachers set in lye
to create exercises upon—
in place of poetry
pull imaginary
landscapes forward with
dante and tanto
lurching better livid
writhing bible chemists

poetwores no abandone sù bebe
court the endless harpy faith
encourage each forkshot kin
generate!

House Should Appear to be Hovering in Space

Wikipedia Poem, No. 486

olds-sm

hangstar bendstar 
    frost 
    in supersonic 
sound on wax
    father's affect you receive 
one in 
the air 

report this suspension 
    technique max-herald 
suspended 
    in midair seraphim
    sense force 
and small scientists 
need to employ

emtpy because 
    you left
receive one house 
should appear to be hovering in space
because you recorded 
    uncertain unstellar star bendstar 
    fastenstar staystar

    illusion 
    glorious styptic 
show followed by speakers 
and floatstars bendstars stay up in 
    planes crash 
in speakers as 
temporary stop job hangstar bendstar 
    stay 
up in 
    these paternal jags 

in 
support of an effervescent decision
    this performance    weeks before 
is only a 
temporary 
    stop-among