Mary Anne

I read this at my school's open mic last night. There is certainly a lot of talent at Marlboro. I'm beginning to think that I measure up!

Mary Anne, you are my favorite lover
you read from your book of poems, your poison thick as honey and
as hard to swallow as bile
and after reading a linguistic murder weapon sick enough
to rival Plath and kill her twice
you look up at me with that immediate, casual smile, like
"but of course I don't feel that way anymore, darling
wasn't I a sad silly girl."
your tongue, six split swift and licorice-licked by those
cloves you smoke and the
pencil end you chew on as you work
finds the salt on my skin and you mine, mine, mine.
and your eyes have just the faintest yellow
and the faintest amber
and the sickest, most silvery blue
your hands are like rain on my manhood
you dampen and soften and soak me, soppen and pour yourself
demasculate me and make me Adam on a different night
in a different bed
you are nines and elevens
you are more myself than anyone else
and in conversation you please and defend and offend all
in arguments you tear off the skin of your opponents
you argue in the painter's bars and spend obnoxious hours in
the bathroom primping
you pimp out your ideas
and you are New York
you swivel your hips like a TV King when you fuck
and you are all the sex of back Memphis
and all the fucking trash of LA
you are inside of me and Inside of you I want nothing but you
tracing chalkmarks of the disturbed dead on my skin with that
reaching, retracting, retracting, seeking feeling tongue


The voice posts are absolutely coming. Not in the next week, though! My darling is coming to visit.

20x200

I'm all for anything that makes art collecting more accessible to those with limited budgets. "20x200" sells small-sized prints of charming works at $20 each.

Found at kottke.

New, improved and ineffective

The line breaks are displayed incorrectly in the following poem as well, this time due to my layout. Hm. Perhaps the "artist" overthinks such things, and you will all enjoy my poetry just as much as if the appropriate line breaks were preserved. As Oscar Wilde said, "I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again." However, I am inclined to think that Oscar Wilde was making an extremely important revision both times!


new, improved and ineffective. loved. yellow yarn.
engendered and defended by commas or hoardes and hoardes of full and complete stops
bus stop blue and the bench stopped turning
revolving bench
revolving tree
revolving right side of

and how!

the master’s teacup is chipped into a perfect topographical depiction of new hampshire.
i ski it on the andes side


EDIT: Oh, God, looking at the last stanza as three lines instead of two, with New Hampshire jutting out on its own like some grotesque version of the formerly-intact Man in the Mountain make me so sad for my bastardized creation! I am amused at my perfectionism.