'In the poetry wars of 1984 I passed him in the street Armed to the teeth with adjective He had haikus at his feet.' We should spend more time looking up. Shyness, bookreading, backpacks, eyes sensitive to sunlight, and general suspicion of what's in front or behind us have caused the muscles in the back our our necks to atrophy, brought the shoulders to the ear lobes, and made the chest retreat into the back. I have to remind myself to slacken the shoulders, open the chest, and turn the face skyward. Then it feels like hugging someone special so tightly that you should collapse but you feel as if you extend in all directions. Seeing a blinking airplane move slowly through the volcanic sand of the night -- how restorative. 'In the prose-hibition of '69 Our fathers had it worse Smuggling nouns into London-town So I could finish the verse.' Panleukopenia. The noun smuggled into our conversation. The word means a distemper in cats. Seems churlish to invent a word that reiterates what it means to be a cat. It's like saying loneliness is a modern malaise. Isn't it always lonely to be modern? [grin]. Or saying girls are difficult. They'll never approach _you_ unless they're fabulously witty and know it's life's greatest folly to take oneself seriously. By then, youre madly in love with her anyway, and in willing service after only a few minutes.* 'So the wind won't blow it all away Dust Dust American Dust.' They're tearing up the main road connecting the two towns that host the University. Reducing traffic to 2 lanes; making it more pedestrian friendly. No doubt planting trees alongside the road to win over the walking tours of prospective students. The same local government is urging its constituents to support the President's War on Terror in Iraq and God knows where else. Yemen. to lower petrol prices. to fill the ravenous SUVs that'll idle for just enough extra time on the new 2-lane road to suffocate the sapling trees. The roadside is swept with dust and rubble while they work. Last Friday, the student pubs conspired to celebrate the Unofficial St Patrick's Day. The real holiday falls within spring break. And how could the pubs feel right without registers full of Green bills? So on a spring-like warm Friday, boys and girls wearing green from head to toe. The tee shirts said 'Irish Princess' and 'I'll drink until I'm Irish.' I can't understand what type of viral delusion has half of America thinking it is ethnically Irish. They speak of Ireland as a homeland. I'm beginning to see how m.c. and wealthy Americans understand ethnic identity. They dress up in stereotypes of other cultures to amuse themselves: as Irishmen for wit and drink, as Indians to dance at intermission of sports events, as Italians to be Bobby Deniro Soprano Pacino dons with fuck off cars and animal pride. It's saturnalia, except, being Americans and sitting fat with cash at the top of the pyramid, they fantasise being poor and hardy and actually capable of inventing interesting culture. 'I wish I'd been born sooner To gather all he left Imagination in a fragile mind Just put to the test.' My grandfather died when I was nine. I knew him like any young child knows an old man: as a smell, a form, and a particular timbre of voice. He walked hunched over and smelt of black coffee and moth balls from his cardigan. The Coast Guard took him on a luxury cruise through the Pacific for the low low cost of fighting a war against the Japanese. He died of a heart attack while on the toilet 30 years later in Chicago. Well, the crack on the head after the fall killed him. My grandmother is stingy with details of his life. He loved travelling, taking photographs, and collecting coins. I feel like I'm supposed to do things for him that he never had the opportunity to do. The last time I felt it was in the emergency room last summer. A bad combination of days walking criss-cross town in search of work, nights in cafes with coffee and whiskey, earning $20 by laying in an MRI for 90 minutes to help out a desperate Psych PhD student, and a finch's puff of a joint left me in hospital without any sensation in my limbs and a heart rate of 169 bpm. If the dehydration (the cause) didnt kill me, the scary alarm from the heart monitor or the woman's shrieks from the next bed over as the doctor did a vaginal scrape would do me in. The thin blue curtain made it worse with its Hitchcockian shadows performing a dumb show of the papsmear. Anyway, I thought of my grandfather then. I had to leave the hospital and do what he never could. I wish I knew where he had been, so I know where I need to go. 'They're always dreaming of Babylon The war it carries on Verbal confrontations Between the beautiful and the damned' Special cheers for baker,baker and sophia katrina for grate posts recently. Sctuallly all yr posts have been grate recently; it'd be Lear-like to quantify or differentiate the love going around. A groundswell of promise! Spring from below and above! Love from below and above! Ooooh, you know youre in the lap of luxury when you get it from both directions. And a chorus of cheers for Archel's being shortlisted for the poetry prize. hell, that's magnificent. 'So the wind won't blow it all away Dust Dust American dust.' One frat boy to another on the blistered road -- 'Happy Fucking St Paddy's Day brother!' I swear Im not inventing this detail: the road is, and always has been, named Green Street. 'Oh, it's so easy to be sweet to people before you love them.' I have nothing to illustrate this quote. It has been rolling around in my head for some time, from a memory of reading a Dorothy Parker story. Since I have no way of subtly bringing it into the message, it's a blatant attempt to curry favor with Mlle Laura Llew. I dream of the day when she's a right bitch to me and I know she loves me. vernal and venereal, t.s. *Panleukopenia I find is fatal. Fever, diarrhea and dehydration, and extensive destruction of white blood cells. So I suppose it's a necessary word, tho not a necessary disease. & that ruins the analogy to girls being difficult. Maybe it proves they're not difficult. I need to stop taking myself so seriously and talk to more. (doesnt everyone love a message that ends with a Wonder Years type personal revelation?) p.s.: after Becky crossing the Thames with tompaulin, and Laura Llew's Richard Brautigan, and Vel's subject line, I felt it time to declare how excellent the Town and the City LP is. The words above are copyright 'Richard Brautigan' by tompaulin p.s.s: the ms. parker is copyright her in A Telephone Call p.s.s.s.: the rest of the words are copyright all the the authors I've ever read. blame them. pssssssst: Ive been reading a collection of Japanese senryu poetry. Senryu is like haiku but more playful, common, and not as constrained (e.g., not necessary to include a seasonal marker word). Last quotation, I promise, you'll like it. by. Kimura Hanmonsen in the sunset glow a slaughter house: cow cow cow cow cow cow cow cow cow cow __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? 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