Excerpt from Epitaph

Tags

conceptualism, death, Epitaph, father, flarf, poetry

 

An except from Epitaph, a conceptualist long poem I am writing to mark the death of my father last week. I expect it will take me 8-10 weeks to finish the first draft of the manuscript.

___________________________

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. Hear what he said of danger, preserving the past while building for the future. If you’re looking for help, a leader, support, work for everyone regardless of lifestyle: one successful nerd. Who wanted leadership? Search for a vibrant execution of orchestrated effective connecting with people. We can help you with all of your independent understanding of personality and social behavior. Sporadic attempts at custom handbuilt quality applied where spiritual bankruptcy diversified, family-owned, based in Illinois, providing contact with a new urbanist perspective powered by understandable, yet forward questions about ancestry in today’s multidisciplinary approach to explore the basic promise of the family tree.

Let’s take a moment to understand some things: What is? What isn’t? Catholic apocryphal photographic images generating infectious litigation, almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world. Show off your favorite coevolution. I can dance if I want to. You’re the one that controls the way people live. The all too infrequent personal emotion and creative health has effects of breaking the future of security. Dynamic adventure appears at a critical time. It’s easy to understand why there’s widespread legendary traditional burning. Terminal charity pressed graphic exploring perspective on the musical heirs of the estate. Dedicated over this time, he has discovered the life of programmed computer science.

Experience a chronicle of cursive drama, abuse, smoking, and disturbing images. Whether you love him or hate him, your employer can withhold the correct inescapable therapy. You’re invited to take positive action after the death to foster the relationship mission of advancing freedom by deep expertise and broad skills. It’s nice if you encourage ethical values; this result is not available because of religion. Give your completed partner provocative dramatic war. The Chicago philosophy guaranteed escape. His accident reaches a plea deal for something special about your morning. People don’t know about these differences in questioning the juxtaposition of paintings. State and federal investigators opt out of aggressive investigative reporting. Critical naked self-portraits are now available, offering comments about the pernicious enemy of compassion, peace, and life itself. It’s the story of fundamental forces of nature, responsible for caricature revisionist biographical discography. What do I need? A plot that wrings emotion out of this material.

Totality

Tags

flarf, poetry

static and fading
in special awakening-
its young magnitude
occurring only 12 hours
through various phases
of Confederate alchemy-
gentle bourbon destruction
of syntax imagination-
central foreign artist
outside furniture channel
curious nucleic totality
cinematic traitorous performance
live pitchfork bestseller
pre-emptive butter cookie
aesthetics diluted amateur
language propulsion. Realization
will remember science,
Golgi bodies, reproduction,
an eclipse of the sun
during totality

Characteristics

Tags

flarf, ModPo, poetry

(special characteristics) I wonder

curious imaginary)

sound I see yet
forsake memory lost

oblivious imaginary electronic weaver
weaver painter writer teacher

‎ten to fifteen minutes
not sure what happened
like Walt Whitman taking dictation
from meth-addicted insightful
pleasures of hell

if nobody ever read
personal characteristics
I will forgive knowing
the perfect equanimity of things,
silent years I have fought
to become who I am–

a poet.

Highly acoustic centuries

Tags

childhood, flarf, memories, poetry, tin can telephone

 

highly acoustic centuries

diaphragms with a taut string,

beautiful, easy to use, honest,

simple, clean history

vibrates 3000 miles

to play with air ripples

serial line protocols

childhood memories

treehouses, sleepovers,

junk:

 just two old tin cans

and a length of string

On creativity, songwriting, writer’s blocks, broken hearts, and (*&^&*…

Tags

(*&^&*, composition, Coursera, flarf, I Am The Walrus, John Cage, ModPo, music, songwriting, writer's block, writing

Those of you who are in the Modpo crowd or who have been around since the beginning of this blog last November know that its purpose was to be a laboratory for creativity, particularly with writing and music composition.  This blog was an outgrowth of Modpo (Modern and Contemporary American Poetry course at Coursera.org).

I was trying to free myself from a longstanding writer’s block.  I was an inexperienced (and not very skilled) but prolific writer and poet a few years ago.  I hit a creative peak of sorts in the summer of 2009, when I wrote dozens of poems- some dreck, but some I was quite pleased with.  Most of these have not seen the light of day in almost four years.

Suddenly, the flow stopped.  On September 18, 2009 I awoke to an irregular heartbeat and felt very weak.  By the time I got to the hospital I was in 2:1 AV flutter that devolved into atrial fibrillation (brought on by stress and an aberrant electrical conduction pathway in my heart), and I found myself being wheeled upstairs for an emergency heart cath.  They destroyed the aberrant pathway, and the problem was fixed forever.

Only since then, I haven’t been able to write a word of my own.  Well, not at all until Modpo, and even then I’ve found it very difficult.    I have no idea why this experience would have affected my writing, but the fact remains I lost my voice that day, for whatever reason.  Modpo gave me a way in by using aleatoric and noncreative methods such as flarf or John Cage-style indeterminacy, but these writings were not like writing something that came from my heart.  That I simply couldn’t do.

One goal for this blog has been to help me find a way to regain that voice.

Now, I find myself in the last weeks of the Songwriting course at Coursera, and I am face to face with this block.  The final assignment, due next Wednesday, is to write a song (coming from inside me) using the instructor’s method.  No tricks like flarf or Cage.  I have to come up with my own lyrics and music, from my own ideas.  No Chapter 9.  No “I Am The Walrus” nonsense lyrics.

Oh (*&^&*.

I’ve already posted two demos from this class on this blog, but one came to me several years ago and needed just to be completed; the other was done with throwaway lyrics that I detested that were solely meant to comply with the requirements of the course.  I have yet to confront the block directly and write for this class…

Until now.  Oh (*&^&*.

Actually, the lectures this week I found extremely helpful, and helped me to find a way in.  It provided a method for finding ideas and rhymes, and provided a means for composing melody (I’ve been good with writing chord progressions and bass lines, but composing melody has always been a black box to me).  I feel like I have a shot to really do this this time.  I am feeling more confident.  I am enough of a writer that I bought a good thesaurus and rhyming dictionary today.

I feel like I might be able to break the block once and for all…

But I am still looking at an empty page in Open Office…

Oh (*&^&*.

Don’t ask for help!

Tags

at least I didn't burn the house down trying, do-it-yourself, fatherhood, flarf, frustration, plumbing, prose poem, water heater

No water, broken plumbing, filthy frustration- I misread the plumbing.  Our shower has been frustrated;  our hot water heater failed on a Sunday morning, upsetting the toilet. The result usually will not make your home follow the basic laws of nature- gravity, pressure, water seeking its own level.  Most problems like that are caused by frustrated do-it-yourselfers who see muddy or dirty water in dreams, wallowing in depression and the flow of emotions. You may find that calling the professionals will save you time and frustration. All of you who are sharing my pain and frustration eventually create damage that can turn into a little confidence to cause a lot of damage to a home.  I will never understand the moral of this story: DO IT YOURSELF… don’t ask for help!

Surrender

Tags

abstract, at least I didn't burn the house down trying, do-it-yourself, flarf, North Carolina, plumbing, poetry, prose poem, PVC pipe, Sunday, surrender, water heater

 

A little more searching appears tautly over the threads of the male-threaded pipe, love plumbing water lines, an additional schedule for later use, fittings not rated for use.  I shall surrender.  Personally I do not like the PVC connecting pipes, fittings, control valves, tanks, water heaters; all threaded joints shall be conforming to the surrender of its heat in the evening, demanding surrender.  The white flag is amended to prohibit the use of PVC conduit to fail.  A 3/4” tap in North Carolina on Sunday shall not serve any gas water heater.  I only wish the thread has inspired me under a sink that is going nowhere to surrender to the cops and a few other items that are ready to fail: furnaces, hot water heaters, dryers, gas refrigerators, ranges, ovens.

Plasticity streams

Tags

abstract, Angela, dream, flarf, neuroscience, night, NPR, plasticity, prose poem, Saturday Night Live, stream of consciousness, Yellow House Cafe

-for Angela

A late night stream brought her to a charismatic plasticity, building on her nightmare with such typical consolidation and memory reconsolidation dividing activation throughout the evolution of momentum. The question of the stream might possibly have students provide this very plasticity, this consistency of the ceremonial trucks bringing in the beer with traditional shoes and beautiful jewelry. One older gentleman became the symbol of the freedom and plasticity of the opinions which appear in one generous feeling, one great thought. I am entirely devoted to the basic element of plasticity; you should quit studying early and offer a synergistic view of NPR and Saturday Night Live.

It came to me one night: the egg’s surprising responsiveness epitomizes a revolutionary concept called synchronized streaming. For those that dream of neuroscience at night, the challenge is to find ways of unlocking the State of the Union address after being shot in the face seven years ago, bringing 3D rapid manufacturing technologies to main-stream consumers. Unable to get back to sleep, she became intoxicated with plasticity and beautiful streams.

Mary

Tags

Archer Avenue, Chicago, flarf, folklore, ghost, Mozart Ave., poetry, prose poem, Resurrection Mary, Southwest Side, vanishing hitchhiker

A well-known vanishing hitchhiker- my favorite evening at The Oh Henry Ballroom.  A young man meets a girl, most beloved, who supposedly wanders the streets down Archer Avenue late at night, dating back 100 years, playing at Jeannie’s Bottle on the 12th. If you are there  after 8:30 p.m, many men have had heart stopping encounters with the gorgeous  legend, dancing at the corner of 47th St. and Mozart Ave.  They don’t like to talk about this blonde-hair, blue-eyed Mary Bregovy, just a bunch of hooey seen on numerous occasions after a fight with her boyfriend at the Oh Henry Ballroom.  Young Mary stormed out into the cold, where a moonlit encounter with an urban legend makes a compelling case for resurrection. She still manages to find men who long to dance.

Trees

Tags

abstract, Al Filreis, flarf, John Ashbery, Kelly Writers House, prose poem, Prufrock's Dilemma, Some Trees, Susan Scheid

-for Susan

A secret means of communication, tree names on another old-field site; jackrabbits in personal communication.  Many different trees communicate with others  in captivity who have lived to be twenty years old.   Rather than just assuming you communicate, take advantage of the careful planning  with Wild Turkey, or just desire the security of wariness and angst would have been driven to cut off communication.  Twenty years ago, with substantial mysticism, trees communicated with such radical shouting matches listening to the birds or the rustling of the wind, but still had trouble communicating in Japanese.  Mysterious elders will be giving  fruit that allows communication with the tree, with practically any way of communicating  the drama of old age.