Greatest Living Poet

* Ron is NOT making this up! Because he got it right here *yesterday* at THE ONLY POETRY BLOG THAT MATTERS. You've lost a step, RS--stick to white water rafting.

And credit the source, punk!

* Franz and Fanny. Together at last.

OPEN SOURCE

The night was almost too evidence of mercy–a passing car–
milky & gravel on the way grays

The loss the fulfillment of one long line

I was eliminated as but imaginary as another restless

The one who came to
how many people were resisting
accommodating them

Guilt relieving shine
is the guilt
I can’t say enough about the wet

One died to become the persons in everything
Then saints, then heaven
Cosmic expansion has gone in the hour, this never
happened to shake the blue sky from consciousness–
the thing that is always its creature
to share pleasures

Tonight of final perseverance
shored up in predawn holocaust
of traveling children

and this morning
I, arc and vacant, in the garden

a tomb a sort of wings,
more or less dreaming
called being awake,

where you gave the
tall blue starry
strangeness of being
here long to bear

Then there was air–and I could see
dry walls to a highway
Atlantic
for its the Law
Space collected on a locus of mothering–
a she–physical daughter

Why this body and not destroy the works of women–
their offspring–
knew incarnation
He counted on them to get
killers whose mouths--this red because sore--
& polished
Before that time
there were no second spirit-guides
to guide anyone to its prefered direction

Before I can hear me
One day I will and slip back to be aware
with or without a living

I request the precious gift
my sheets not far from this world
and stood once again

I can’t imagine,
between twin eternities,
some equidistantly by
exiled from both,
hovering my hair in the me

in secret one thing
to perceive, at all.

* If BESTAM survives another go-round after the whirlwind fistfuck it is gonna receive ("The Trouble With Poetry Part 2: Electric Boogaloo") here be the current odds of who will be asleep at the wheel of the next insta-remainder! The last two guys have been funny (but not ha-ha funny) white guys. Money says serious women, tilting toward the alternative:

Jorie Graham 3-1
Ai 7-1
Alice Notley 7-1
Jean Valentine 8-1
Mei-Mei Bersenbrugge 10-1
Brenda Hillman 20-1
Fanny Howe 20-1
Leslie Scalapino 100-1

My personal favorite darkhorse candidate: John Yau. That would be an issue to like for a few minutes. Or Charles Bernstein (laid out like a phonebook?). And then remember that like 10 of Lehman's students got in and will never be heard from again. And how hot would a Maya Angelou edition of this series be? About as hot as tabasco episode of "Fear Factor!" I dream of an Olena Kalytiak Davis swimsuit edition. Also, a Franz Wright issue would be very, very welcome. Good luck to all the bumper cars in the race!

* The New York Times Book Review has lately been the place for the most idiotic statements about poetry available (Remember also Elizabeth Bishop is the *best* artist *in any art form* in the last part of the 20th Century, etc). Here's a nugget from Brad Leithauser's exploding orgasm over Seamus Heaney's new (pointless) volume which I think is called I Shop at Restoration Hardware for Weird Tools I Can Mention in My Precious Rhymy Nonsense:

"I sometimes think there's no more reliable way of initially entering a poet's private domain than by examining what he or she rhymes with what."

How about Leithauser and Fartyschnauzer? Go write another verse novel, you goddamned dope. This dog wants to eat your balls.

One of my favorite kinds of School of Quietude poems are the dogwalking poems. Although dogwalking is a kind of dreary and rote thing to have to do all the time, it is often the stuff of blockbuster poems! Please note: I started this before I found out about the death of Josh's dog. And before someone else mentioned dog walking. *Not making fun of them*. I remain, however, a horrible and unreasonable monster. Thinking of sending this one to Plaides. Enjoy:

ON MY DOGWALK

My dog contains many other dogs.
Housing many souls of dogs.

When she urinates in Mount Airy Forest,
They sprint into her butt

With a woosh
And hold a long meeting in her brain,

Which is the size of a cheeseburger.
I wonder if when Hero is no more

They can get all those doggies out
And reuse them, kind of like the way

They're able to turn smelly sneakers
Into sterile, safe playgrounds for kids.

She doesn't do any tricks, but religiously
Completes the USA TODAY daily crossword.

Sometimes I let her bite kids and laugh a little
And then blame the kids, their munched-on

Hands glistening with her clean transparent spit.
Why does everyone try to pet her and

Then hit on me? Please! Hero is all
I need, and I live for these 5 AM walks

When she squeezes her squeezy slice
Of plastic pizza and takes a squirt every

Five feet. I imagine a purple dragon swooping down
From behind that Florida-looking cloud

To talon-snatch her. Then I picture
A large gravied drumstick in her mouth.

She has this soft-eyed, heartbreaking and
Manipulative pout that I've learned to ignore.

I dumped my fiancee when she called Hero
"Precious." She isn't precious. She is a

The final resting place for the souls of some
Very serious dogs. At least three Lassies.

They argue in her brain about when to bark,
Whether to ramble after the ragged soccer ball.

Sometimes I wonder if she is also my grandfather,
Come back to Earth to shame me when I masturbate.

When Hero swallows a penny she poops out
A quarter. Let me show you. Got one?

My recent appearance on "Pants Off Dance Off" got pimped by Apps and some other guy. Use the links in the comments fields [all our redirects have like crashed their dealies]. Enjoy the dumpy gyrations! I didn't watch the whole thing, but I'm sure it's just the thing to beat the heat. And help you beat whatever else...

* Mmmm, how very Sexy Beast of you. Kingsley me! His dome is bronzier than a State House. He's got the good Behrle cranium design: gradually gradiating up to a pointy peak. Good for standing up action figures. And the moustache aches to be reunited with its other catapillar friends, to frolic and then become lovely butterflies. Oh, DangerMouse, it's too hot for that jacket, though, don't you think? I'm sweaty just looking at you. The stark resemblences of you and the old Harper Perennial Olive are stark. How did they come up with that as a logo? Just pour me the drink! And shut up! Next author photo I wanna see some Doty abs. Poets should go Sexier Beast or be forgotten. Everyone in the world already gets that we're supposed to take Mark Doty *seriously*. That he's a teacher and shit. Or whatever. Now is the time
for you to show us you can dance! And that what glistens is the thumping powerful song of your skin, my man! Ab me! Ab *us*! Teach us now about the dark places your navel can go at 3 AM.

Thanks for playing our game!

* What's worth $10: a New York Cosmos movie that doesn't interview Pele or a No Wave documentary that bestows inheritance of the No Wave Spirit onto The Yeah Yeah Yeahs?

* How do government investigators pose as 17 year old pregnant women?

* Why does a photo of Regie Cabico come up first when you do a google search to determine is Manohla Dargis is hot or not?

* I heard a guy say the word "shit" on CNN this morning. Will CNN be fined by the FCC? And will President Bush? If so, goodie, goodie.

* What general manager would pay this guy $15 million next year and not expect to be immediately fired? And then possibly taken out by snipers. And fed to maggots.

* Was the mind of a 12 year old boy placed inside Rosario Dawson while she was jailed during the RNC?

* Was Bukkethead interviewed for this?

* Can you help Minette release her latest clothing line on time? Or will your sleuthing abroad meet an unfashionable end?

* When do you think was the last time he actually rubbed a torso? 1979?

* Print poems on these and sell them by the 12 in the cool gray cardboard! If only poems had expiration dates. "This is good to read until your apartment smells like squishy vomit."

* Since it's pretty obvious to you, me, everyone that reads this blog and everyone who bothers to read poetry at all that the best American poems are the ones that are somewhat funny word-combo freewriting ones that have no meaning, make no sense, and in general convey nothing except the glittery dripping of fancy language across the page, I've decided to re-open the book on Quietude and to write it in the ink of my own special sauce this summer. My poetic movement asks neither for members or admirers, it simply announces its intention to rock your comment boxes off. You have been warned. Get back to "flapjack / the squid did that" while the new American Poem Jimmy-style passes you by!!