Duck! Cheney

This was too funny and clever not to pass along:

From: "Marcus Bales"
To: WOM-PO@LISTS.USM.MAINE.EDU
Sent: Monday, February 13, 2006
Subject: Cheney Hunts


Higgledy piggledy
Richard B Cheney
While hunting for quail on the
Old Armstrong place.
In a moment of carelessness
Vice-presidentially
Blasted another guest
Right in the face.

"Ambulance! Ambulance!"
Richard B. Cheney
Repeated as somebody
Bled where he sat
Prey to Republican
Inhospitality
Was he a terrorist
Or Democrat?

Luckily luckily
Richard B Cheney's
Security detail has
Medics on staff
And, since the guy is an
Ultraconservative,
All that he'll say is "It
Hurts when I laugh".

Remington Remington
Richard B Cheney
Has shot a Republican
Very fat cat;
Cheney is sorry but
Self-justifyingly
Thinks "I'd have missed if
He wasn't so fat."

Wriggley wriggley
Richard B Cheney:
"Executive privilege!"
SCOTUS: "Concur!"
After all, Hamilton
Paradigmatically
Died when shot down by
Vice President Burr.

Coverup coverup
Richard B Cheney
For twenty-four hours
Would not say a word,
And none of the media
Characterisitcally
Tell us the real facts: did
Dick get the bird?

Dean and I have moved back into the bedroom. But we're just not ready to move back in to the living room and dining room, yet. I'm enjoying the clean empty space, just the way it is now. It's very calm and relaxing. Very Zen. I love how sounds echo in the empty room, off the bare floors. Maybe we'll never move the rest of the furniture back in.

 
 

Discombobulated

dis·com·bob·u·late (dskm-bby-lt)
tr.v. dis·com·bob·u·lat·ed, dis·com·bob·u·lat·ing, dis·com·bob·u·lates

To throw into a state of confusion.

See Synonyms at confuse.

Sunny Sunny

The floors are done and we start moving back in today. It was actually sunny all day yesterday, and Dean and I both had the day off and were able to wander around downtown like tourists (only better, because we live here). We walked to our gym (just two blocks from the hotel) and had a leisurely workout. Then we walked along the waterfront up to the stair climb to Pike Place Market, visited Left Bank Books and De Laurenti's Italian Market, and then went along Post Avenue to the original Starbucks (which is actually kind of a dump, how did he even make an empire out of this?), and then to this little specialty shop that makes everything to do with truffles (not chocolate but fungus): truffle oil, truffle cream, truffle sauce, truffle soup, dried truffle, canned truffle, truffle truffle truffle. They also serve a small lunch and wine. We had cream of celeriac soup that was divine, especially with a drizzle of (you guessed it) truffle oil!

We walked back down First Avenue to the Seattle Art Museum, which is closed for a remodel (the Hammering Man sculpture in front has a whole new meaning now) and then we went down Harbor Steps and visited the high end furniture stores on Western Ave. (everything so over-designed, we would never use it). And then we stopped at an old antique store with all of these reclaimed pieces from torn down houses: five panel oak doors, mantle pieces, and my favorite -- old stained glass windows, with patterns of iris, roses, tulips, diamonds, etc. I want to get some for the house, with the old wood frame intact, and the rusted hinges still on, to hang on a wall, or put in front of a window so the light can shine through it. Hmmmm.

Johari

Visit Charles and his Johari Window. Choose 5-6 words to describe how you see him.

And then do mine: http://kevan.org/johari?name=PeterP

Code Black

I practically never watch Gray's Anatomy or ER or those other medical shows, because they are usually so fake and far-fetched, but also just too frenetic and stressful to watch. I'd prefer a good gay situation comedy any day. But I could not turn off last night's (rerun?) of Gray's Anatomy's "Code Black" episode. The gist of the story: a patient in the OR about to have trauma surgery is discovered to have an unexploded ordnance in his chest. And the paramedic (a timid/brave young woman on her first week of duty) who has her hand in his chest to stop bleeding actually has her hand on the bomb, and if she removes her hand the whole OR staff will become "pink mist." It's sort of a reverse "Hands on a Hard Body" as one by one the OR staff deserts her, and she is alone, one hand in his chest, the other squeezing the ambu bag to ventilate him.

Of course, the stars of the show come back, and the paramedic is able to flee, leaving a poor young resident holding the bomb. And that's where it ends! To be continued. Arrrrgh.

I will not watch this show again!

~grin~

Middles

The floors should be done tomorrow, and we'll be able to move back in Saturday. If the fumes are too bad we may have to stay here another day. The hotel isn't bad. It was built in 1913-14, still has a lot of the original woodwork and doors and stair-railings, the high ceilings (were people taller in the old days?). The bathrooms have been updated, thank god, and are pretty spacious. The only problem is there is not an associated restaurant with the hotel, so there is no room service. Not midnight BLT or early morning breakfast in bed. Oh well. There is a continental breakfast at a cafe on the main floor. And a Tulleys and a Starbucks on the same block. So we are not suffering mightily.

Poetry group last night was good: a variety of poems about Japanese fairy tales, nuclear waste, flip-books, unpregnant women, dancing. There is always the question of who goes first when we workshop the poems. Usually the host decides who is first, and we go around in a circle from there. Last night we decided to go in alphabetical order by middle name. So it was: Elisabeth, Hall, Kevin, Lyall, Martin. Three of those five middle names belong to women. Can you guess who is who?

Happy Happy

The floors are all sanded down and are looking great. It's amazing how much paler they are with all the old finish gone. We are going with a natural look. I think it will lighten up the rooms a lot.

Some recent good news in the mail:

I am accepted to present at the Skagit River Poetry Festival in May (It's the Pacific NW version of the Dodge Poetry Festival, only smaller scale. I believe it is run by the sister of the guy who does the Dodge Festival).

It's official: I now have a signed contract for the next book from Copper Canyon, and a projected publication date! What's Written on the Body is due out in Spring of 2007. I feel very lucky and honored to have a second book with Copper Canyon. They have been just wonderful to work with.

A few more books

I have been on a bit of a reading spree the past month. Some of the books I have mentioned already. Here are a few others:

The Go-Go Boy Sonnets, Edmund Miller. The sonnets are very strict in terms of form. The content is a little more unconventional: they are written to the hundred or so Go-Go Boys the author met during the past thirty years in New York dance clubs. The book is fully annotated and indexed, as if it were a very serious academic study, with a Glossary of Gay Terms and Bar Slang, and indexes of Languages Used; Allusions; Artists, Designers Trademarks and Logos; New York Locales; Occupations and Types, and etc. All so one could look up, I imagine, a sonnet about a leather queen who wears Prada and goes to the Ramrod, that alludes to Proust and that incorporates French. It's really silly, but a lot of fun.

The Silent Treatment, Richard Howard.

Jubilant Thicket, new & selected poems, Jonathan Williams. How come I had never heard of this guy before? He has been around for ages (he's 75 now). Funny, imaginative, mostly short, very gay, very "English" poems. A great read.

Goldbeater's Skin, GC Waldrep. I love the title "Saccade" and wish I had used it first.

Our Post-Soviet History Unfolds, Eleanor Lerman.

What Remains, Stuart Greenhouse. Lovely chapbook, Stuart! My favorite poem so far: "Lead Hat."

Singing Home the Bones, Gregory Scofield. Two spirit Native American poet/poems.

A Palace of Pearls, Jane Miller. What an amazing book. It's a 34-part long poem sequence, where the titles are at the bottom of each poem, and the final poem "Coda" is all of these titles run together. Its about war and art and life and politics, with a bit of the Arab world (both contemporary and historical) thrown in. Here's a poem:

4

Do you know how long it has been since a moral choice presented itself

and the wrong choice was made

not two minutes

why is it not quiet between lightning and thunder as if someone where asking

do you have other articulable feelings if so express them now

tragedy ensues

with a laser blast from the cockpit

the dangled finger of god makes contact

PLEASE CALL FOR SEVERAL HUNDRED THOUSAND PHYSICIANS IMMEDIATELY



Happy reading . . .

and GO SEAHAWKS!

This basement is stacked!

 

Careful, don't sneeze. 

One Man's Ceiling Is . . .

First there was all the rain, about 12 inches in January alone. Along with that, there was also over 14 feet of snow in the mountains. NOW they are forecasting 60 mile an hour winds for today. It was pretty windy last night, and the power went out for a couple hours. It might go out again today, or be out tomorrow for the Superbowl. GASP! ~grin~

And to top it off Dean and I are in the middle of needing to move all of our furniture out of the main floor of the house and into the basement this weekend, because we are having the hardwood floors refinished, starting Monday. It's a process that takes a week, during which we cannot live in our house, because of the dust and the fumes. Rather than impose on friends or neighbors, we have decided to rent a room in a hotel in Pioneer Square downtown, and we'll live like tourists for a week: eat out, go to the Market, visit the Art Museum, other places downtown. Maybe even ride that stupid green trolley or the Ugly Duck Boat.

Lie Awake Lake

 


I'm reading, among other things, Beckian Fritz Goldberg's new book, Lie Awake Lake, winner of the 2004 Field Poetry Prize . Apart from the wonderful title, the cover image is just stunning, and is one of the main reasons I picked up the book. And the poems aren't bad. Here is one, blending death and blossoming, in a way that reminds me of James Wright's "A Blessing."


Blossom at the End of the Body

Leaving this world must be the flower,
its three violet faces turned to the air — a man can't look
at a flower without knowing he's dying.
That's the beauty. Parting must be this little
chance, with its stem and flutter. It's no god
and it's no force and our grief is a rock, a clod,
a punk of earth. Truth is,
what we will miss most
isn't her or him or mother or child but
the particular blue at the side of the field,
the heart's pure botany, for

the body is a science. And there is no
substitute for thing. Not love, not happiness,
not faith. But flower. But flower. But flower.



I like how she rhymes god and clod. And the meditative tone. It must be delightful to read aloud, with the refrain at the end. Lovely.

It says in the bio that she teaches at ASU. So, Charles might know of her? 

You must listen to this!

I got this from my friend Kathleen Flenniken. It's a recording of Christian Bok reading, from his book Eunoia, a long poem that contains not a single vowel except U. It is sonically amazing. Plus there is a very hot sex scene described with all U words (imagine how many you can think of).


http://mediamogul.seas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Bok/Eunoia/Bok-Christian_Eunoia_06-Chapter-U.mp3



Addendum: Let the record show the inimitable Ron Starr has indeed been singing the praises of Bok for several years now. Unfortunately, it has fallen on my and others' tin ears. Next time Bok reads in Seattle I hereby request that Ron forcibly grab me by said ear and bring me along! ~grin~

Upcoming Readings at Open Books

Seattle's Fabulous Poetry-Only Bookstore!

I hope to make it to more than a few of these. Especially the Waldrep, Clover, and Barot readings. Joshua Marie Wilkinson had some fine poems published in Floating Bridge Press' Pontoon anthology, before recently winning the Iowa book prize. And the Gailey-Silano affair should be fantastic. See you there?

Thursday 2/9 at 7:30 PM
Leonard Schwartz & Catherine Wagner

Tuesday 2/28 at 7:30 PM
G.C. Waldrep

Thursday 3/2 at 7:30 PM
Joseph Campana

Sunday 3/26 at 3:30 PM
Rae Armantrout

Thursday 4/13 at 7:30 PM
Joshua Marie Wilkinson

Thursday 4/20 at 7:30 PM
Joshua Clover

Thursday 4/27 at 7:30 PM
Tom Crawford & Quinton Duval

Thursday 5/4 at 7:30 PM
Thomas Aslin

Sunday 5/7 at 4 PM
Kate Lynn Hibbard & Judith Skillman

Thursday 5/25 at 7:30 PM
Rick Barot & Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Thursday 6/22 at 7:30 PM
Jeannine Hall Gailey & Martha Silano

Rain, Rain, Go Away

  


Rain, rain, go away.
Come again some other day.
Little Johnny wants to play,
In the meadow by the hay.
Rain, rain, go to Spain,
Never show your face again.
Rain, rain, pour down,
But not a drop on our town.
Rain on the green grass,
and rain on the tree,
And rain on the housetop,
but not on me.
Rain, rain, go away,
Come again on washing day.
Rain, rain, go to Germany,
And remain there permanently.
Rain, rain, go away,
Come on Martha's wedding day.

Additional Verses:

Rain, rain, go away,
Come again another day,
If you don't, I will say,
Rain, rain, go away.
Rain, rain, go away,
Come again some other day,
We want to go outside and play,
Come again some other day.
Rain, rain, go away,
Come again some other day,
It's raining, it's pouring,
the old man (Dean) is snoring,
went to bed with a bump on his head
and couldn't get up in the morning.