workpoems

new website

2006-09-06T15:22:00.000-07:00

the new consolidation: www.whatbirdsgiveup.com

2006-08-28T10:50:00.000-07:00

experimental work poem:

To you from me via secret technology

It is a home in the ear here
It is a light house/home for birds whose tearing
It is evident next door gore in truth
It is glued together with sea, a strung
It is the back of a whale, the back of a whale
It is umpteenth I said sign please this
It is in voices designed in white
It is prairie home on this grey island of porridge
It is go on in the blue airline evening
It is Jesus God, lift my enemy out and on you go
It is down, down in history like gold
It is in voices circling a misty museum of emo
It is moth mother in a poetry visor
It is boss, hurry I can, hurry I can, fucker
It is this name copies over in rudimentary red
It is sea sear, like a dress you

Reminders

2005-11-15T15:20:00.000-08:00

I can not hate them, the others that I am connected to, as they stand still in darkness of time. This long line that I am in is drawn from the motion of others. It makes us bend in together like next/nest. It draws us out like tubes. Miles upon miles apart, we are drawn through these motions, into new commitments. I sense the displacement of others bodies in scenes upon the water, where squares of yellowy grass lie, where dimly we seek and seek. I wag the sea for something. It is so grey. I have a sense of H.D. in letters I am writing on airplanes. This sense is suffering way out on the water. It is in Paris and on the countryside. There are letters and letters to describe the mossy borders, their clothes and hats, the little strips of birds peeling away from the schoolyard. I am trying to give as much as I take in a sense. Diagonal, I, when up to my head in yellow grass today. When on a board on the sea. Sound of screaming in your ear, huh. My face's feeling when you were backwards, so young and white, it was like moving across a board on the sea. Dots and dotsof birds on your back.

saddest movie ever

2005-11-03T09:12:00.000-08:00

ben: empire of the sun (separation, concentration, betrayal)
jessica: shildler's list, english patient
josh: blue
paul: balthazar

two things I am remembering

2005-10-18T16:47:00.000-07:00

first that I liked the bus b/c it was a bookend and I could ride it and be in it b/c there was no escaping it and you had to be close and you could feel like you were in a basket with all of the people that were laughing and you could hear them talking and flicking people off and you could see the shape of delight, the way laughter is like a system of things and it wasn't what someone said but where and how many people were along for the ride

second was the struggles with history tests and how hard they were to me b/c I knew I knew things and I still was so solidly a b kid b/c i wasn't one to judge what I was knowing and what to remember so I knew things no one ever asked and the other things that I did not know or did not remember were asked of me I didn't have them and I stared at the tests and the blanks on the tests and I thought about how things like this aren't real that it is not selective like this and that I was much better about knowing things as a kind of streaming which is why I guess I am better at lit

bugs

2005-09-20T14:32:00.000-07:00

bugs

the shield bugs
the jesus bugs the bugs
that come from
toilet paper
dispensers
bugs I get
them the bugs on my face
the black heads
of bugs I face
come and get it this
dinner
the silent bugs the ones
that get awards
bugs on bats
maggots that
eat gangrene the bugs
that copulate on
the dirty mattress
on the porch the bug
to which I say you
suckers bugs that want
to wear rings on my bed
my desk, tennis
court bugs one on phoebe,
Anna, Georgia, Wendell
bugs what-ing on
the ducks I love
the feel of one
in my throat
god save them
sum of them
but keep them
at bee and at bay
at home on
the holster.

because

2005-09-16T15:11:00.000-07:00

I have notes on the behavior I have displayed in the last 3-4 days depending on how good my and your memory is.

First the trashcan that I completely destroyed this morning. It was a good trashcan, as good a trashcan as anything next to a desk is, good as the floor and much more tidy. And after I lost my keys again and my cell phone and pen spilled all over my white and quite expensive sheets again, I say the trashcan should have been safe. Trashcan that admits nothing and gives nothing up, a metal, and mind you expensive, trash can. I should not have kicked the trashcan, or when down, jumped on it until flattened in the middle like a sad and huge metal banana. Oh fuck it.

Second the crying as I am crying often, without any warning. Crying like I have valves and the work I do is a substance, something that is squeezing things through the valves. I think of this octopus whose skin is so netted with nerves, his brain can do little but the bidding of the surface. Such a large head to be constantly controlling to way something looks. It's a shame to be floating like that, without the regular functions of a vertebrate, on the skin of your self. Which is exactly as I have experienced in all this crying: dearth of thought, alienation not only from the person I appear to be, but the person in command of that. What a liar they say, even though no one is saying anything underwater.

And on that note, the sleeping that has replaced what was on it's way to regular behavior. The pitching of a baseball in your yard, bugs oh bugs so much so that you laughed and bought this spray, the evening tennis that is so nice and cheap because we steal everything. I am sleeping instead of touching you, afraid to watch movies in the theater, sleeping away what? The surround sound, the nights, your face when I wake you, the position of power I'm afraid I have. So sleeping it and pushing it into the dirt, cleaning the cat of its shit, seeing through the terrible dilemma of dentists, the pay period, the morning news and it's like I lose a friend. The bell commemorative. The smallest one in the tower that I have not touched or seen, but paid for.

Insurance

2005-08-17T11:48:00.000-07:00

so much depends
upon

changing the paper
clip

into an animated
cat

in Microsoft
Word

On the plate today

2005-08-01T17:48:00.000-07:00

Thinking about treading water for what seems like a very long time, offshore, about 4 hours of so, where the sharks pour themselves into white molds. They swim inside of the white molds and around me with them. Looking like the gummy plastic dentists have been known to stick in my mouth. In my mouth because I grind my teeth at night. And the sharks are afloat, which is kind of an affront to me, working as hard as I am, and I hate them. They are containers just as I am a container of at least 10 years worth of diseases. I cannot remember them all, nor where and when I went to fix them. I'm calling ahead and it's no good. I'm spitting at the sharks and into their dense black eyes and that's no use. Shark, you fucking bastard. I lie on you and rub myself on your pickley back. I lie again and again on your white back, and hate you and scratch at my legs at night. I make this tent with my sheets on your back, and lie there and bang at the bugs on your back.

new star get

2005-07-28T16:53:00.000-07:00

The whales could die any day now. That's all I'm saying. There could be these barnacles filled with fluid that drip and drip into the sea. Where the whales are. The barnacles are not attached to the boats, due to the paint that painters put on the helm and the stern and some of the sailors have paint on them. That's all I'm saying about painting containing perverse materials and lots of orangutans.

It does the barnacles in as well as the oyster drillers in the seas beside France.

That's what they were saying in France. Until these little oysters flapping like cars keys underneath the sea, got lost.

Because the boys and the girls grew these little oyster penises. What this penis is, is all I'm saying about the coastal regions, and the boats that go over the barnacles, having no oysters inside them to eat and having no baby oysters.

We do get very upset and so do the whales. They want orders filled and they don't like barnacles and they like oysters too. But they cannot hear us. The outer hairs of their inner ears, gone, oh no more whale songs, no more sympathy. This big deaf whale swims with its big dumb face right up to us, suspended, look.

Elizabeth, dear, of the dark heart.

2005-07-27T12:43:00.000-07:00

Your heart is so very dark, you see
as you talk to the postal service
representative, dark and broken,
and breaking open the soft-
ware. There is no degree
of darting your eyes around
to see the darkness, how you bend
yourself to touch it, and turn
it over. Oh Elizabeth, sad as smoke,
screwing hands in your chair.
We will retire and there will
be seizing underneath the
Costa Rican shade. Insects
sticking it out and you in some
large white hat, my Elizabeth,
the pieces of light taped
to your hair. I can see it. The trees
the canopy trees and the man-
groves, the shadows of birds
that look like hearts. They do fall
down the trees and go. They fix
these pale little nests and go.
And sleep, Elizabeth, on the dark
roots, between the elbows
of night, and go.

chatter chatter song

2005-07-25T14:22:00.000-07:00

I am working, working, working,
in an ice, ice, box.

Little hairs on my arms, stand up.
Little hairs on my legs, stand up.

I have no coat and I have no car
and I'm iced as a cube in a cubical.

Ben teaches elocution:

2005-07-21T10:18:00.000-07:00

in British:

shut tha frond daw

Merican translashun:

shut tha frunt daaaaar

workplace agenda:

shut the fuck up

[brought to you from the international

bungalow that is news target

dot com, dot com, dot com]

my mike is sick

2005-07-20T15:25:00.000-07:00

gee whiz, mike-

you got phlegmie

and no more

rants 4U2 day.

Survey: If you could were an animal...

2005-07-19T10:24:00.000-07:00

Steve: Porpoise

which makes sense because he dresses very well, talks about weekend trips to the lake, and speaks very porpoise-like when excited.

Jeremy: Wocket

The wocket doesn't exist but neither does Jeremy, really (Ben agrees). Jeremy is also very young and bright, has blond hair like said wocket, and sticks out of his desk like something that might stick out of a pocket

Ben: Raven

Because he's a D&D nerd, he's British, and he's very talky. Not black tho, and not evil-looking like a raven (maybe he wants to be...).

Elizabeth: Giant Blue Butterfly in Costa Rica: Morpho

This is a tough call, because Elizabeth is a nervous person and she isn't quiet like a butterfly, but she does flitter and mess with things, the way a butterfly messes with itself, with all of the flowers and foliage. So I guess that makes sense

On a vote:

Mike:
Jaguar
Spider-monkey
Bird of Prey

a note on the crocodile

2005-07-19T09:42:00.000-07:00

that you assume is yours, and it might be, as the things I'm thinking are a little yours, tho this instance in particular has a function.

The long body of crocodiles, two which are one by their nature, lolling beside eachother in this state at the Houston zoo. I say 'body' like a student body, water en mass, an organization. It is around the soft brown knees, stricken with wet blooms on top of the water, and look, there is some kind of crocodile in there.

The animal that is little else. Animal plural, by mere fact that nothing has happened or will happen to the crocodile. Moving like they are floating a little, tho they are ugly, floating like something reflecting. And this is the trick, it is all work. Because they do not roll over, because their arm and legs stretch out, because it is balance to be still, to tense against the tiny movements of water, to even remain there is about being organized, by principles.

To like them is un-ironic. To be a body of crocs. Be small and true to the necessary movements.

It is a new thing indeed to see something this way. That state of one thing, that is floating on its own, is itself without showing it, that has that love.

A-choo, A-choo

2005-07-18T08:56:00.000-07:00

I have the flu and I feel sick and I will work the human experiments today.
Eight, Eight, thirty. A, A, m.

Now I am a worker and I swallow things. I want to be interested in this but I'm not.

I've got no need to work, little desire to go home, ahem, ahaw.

You know those two crocodiles that lay their noses next to eachother? They don't talk or know anything about eachother and there are no signs that they want to show us anything.

I feel sick and I have the flu. My bones feel like they are rotating, especially inside my legs.

One thing is to throw up my little feelings. Throw up my head of hair, my face into that storm last night, my hands are through the air like fish.

I'm so alone and that's the way it is to me.

The way it is for most people I observe. They go outside and there's little fighting about it. They are on the porch reading a book, interrupted with the other who has a dog on a leash and suggests walking. They walk and no, there is hope.

We are not alone, since we are walking, and we have a dog together. And we're around eachother. We have a dog. We walk around at night and touch eachother's hands. I am scared and then you tease me. You are sweating so I swipe your hair with my fingers and show you. Not alone, even though we walk so uncarefully and look at different things and change the subject constantly.

Stu

2005-07-14T17:20:00.000-07:00

Why do you have to be so indignant, little Stu? Your room is made for you. The walkers round the building, read your abstracts and, digging it, reach around you for support.

Say "aghast" things, my Stu, a la these pinches.

Who are your sentences, Stu, but trolls on the drawbridge. That is a wire.

prettie prettie

2005-07-12T12:21:00.000-07:00

I will be a prettie girl with a name here, Pabst of mine, the shakes, a good haircut, a swimmie poo. A bit betwixt.

Smallie

2005-07-11T18:09:00.000-07:00

The tissue
is small.

I swipe
a rapt

to me,
puff

a lift-
like

it on
my nose

the
diff

ering
be

softly
soft be

good so
long.

ontology of a check

2005-07-08T13:04:00.000-07:00

during work I am stirring and something moves around that I am moving, and some things are not. This is the key to analysis, and is also the key to journalism which is the grand-father of all public policies including but not limited to FDA regulations, EPA regulations, and other instruction manuals issued en masse. Writing wields a grid. This grid, being bearded and knitted and altogether grand-parently, turns on and off the lights, lights the offices of all banks and lending establishments, lights the lines of a spreadsheet that do go on indefinately. You will never reach the end said spreadsheet. As all the figures are flat, your name and address, logo and title, salutations, congratulations, PS. there is laundry inside the envelopes on your little desk. The mandate to write is on top of a building with very mute, very pleasant paint on the walls, little plots of cacti on the walkway, a room temperature not to exceed the briskness of your common stride across the blue carpet.

in the news on the clock

2005-07-07T16:50:00.000-07:00

My boss luvs
A. merica.

He jist
wans us
to be

really
real A.
mericans.

I luv
my bossie-
bear

He biz-
nusses me
and pays
me to writ

and he patron-
eyes me bout

eatin
pit-za

an all
the quaffin
of my Diet
Coke.

We flip
and we
flop A.
round.

I slap
at the
in-nerds
of my
self,

O boss!
You are
like Adam
at the
bigtime
con

tra (la)
versie.

mine eyes have seen

2005-07-07T14:13:00.000-07:00

I want it
to boom
whoa, my car
is peeling

out of an
articulated
space, run
the stop

clobber
me cheeks

Go home
was sun
boom it
was sun.

The news is in

2005-07-07T13:06:00.000-07:00

I have met my replacement.
She is very thin, and nerves
show around her neck.

Now you are falling
into form, poor lady.

This palace of employment
awaits, is upon you,
takes you something
into sure wood forests.

Mama says you &
Robin Hood ah
sweet tarts.

horror movie

2005-07-05T09:49:00.000-07:00

Hi all- just letting you know that Mike just found out that Newstarget is now the #4 most-read health website in the world

The Big B

2005-06-30T11:14:00.000-07:00

The big B is Bisbee and he's here, the, the
man without sleeves. He's a community perhaps,
leaning as if he were leaning in. My desk
is like a pigeon skiffing the fallout
underneath the white skys of Bisbee.

Bisbee, lo. Tuned to our sufferers.
One-one thousand, two-one thousand little pigeons
with sore throats, sneezing, leaning upon
my desk of their suffering mouthes
and waving a crystal into that sky.

We are on our first dry run. I say.
They clamour at the jangle, jangle of his
American physique. It is the only one.

"That is the power and the massage," says
he, that's giving it to the pigeons
with his thumbs up in the air.

Let me have your hands, Bisbee. I'll
take them south, where the pigeons
are burning like wicks. The fall
is the springs in your chair and I
fall in my chair to a certain rest,
to the rest of all your pigeons
crying in the little windows
of little rooms. It is work to
tell some stories, Bisbee. You need
a story stick.

Me

2005-06-29T21:29:00.000-07:00

Dear Lord, the work is incomplete. My time
is up and empty. I don't understand what it is,
for there is a machine that measures me
and my card and love is waiting in the car
to get to Chili's fast. Lord, I am paid
back for doing things innocuously, paid in
small sentences, reports, briefs and abstracts.
Also having a role in paying me, in the time
it takes--these procedures are for the cannery--
my data spreads on this board that I have
also spread myself unto. Dear Load, the facts
as they stand on a dump truck full of mud and salt smell.
Lord of the infinitive to understand. Dear Lord, work
is taking its place, rising and humming, it clicks at my desk
like a flacid mouse. Remains. My co-workers stir
and I am bound to be guilty and quiet. I am angry
always, overlord: asking to be swept out,
to be cleaned inside, taken into a boat and slowly killed.
Killed of anger,of the approximations I have made and or
not being capable, killed for not loving this blue carpet and killed
wandering outside and in between the fattened
summer lizards. These animals have the tongues of my Lord,
Lord of the killing, of my loose mind, what have I been stabbing
at. My Lord of all portions and homes and books in their
cases. Lord of the muted assimilation of moths on
the hallway light. Lord, the people water crops and walk
the rows and know everything of you. But me, Lord,
of sonorous summer vents and a chill in my white legs. Dear me,
dear Lord the organs of the boat shake the playing of
the ropes I'm holding. And me Lord, at the tip
of a crude and mud lake, sailing around like an insect. Me Lord
with my foul hands on the documents, and my pain-killers,
and my wishes to work for nothing. Dear Lord, taken for what
is ammounting to plural rains in the afternoons, a workout
of evening showers, Lord.

On Salt

2005-06-29T16:31:00.000-07:00

The salt is the part of my kidneys
that has rats in it.

Salt of my diet, lo. The fruit of
my kidney--my bean. Let me see

the normal group of tubors
undergoing week twelve of testing

for high end salt expression.

2005-06-09T16:37:00.000-07:00

I work for an outfit. They are in on it. Take the waterfallings on the sidewalk, the picnics and these two only offices locked. A broad veiw of the situation calls for coming into a picture of working, me and my desk, you in yours, a flaying, a defenestration. Formatively, I was doing something and then my chin did me the pleasure of my elbows. I worked on the company, the pride of my teeth, the pliable disquiet. Someone says looking at paper and the computer are different. Someone is calling for Phil. Is always working. Pushaw,Pushawl. The spiders of the world tinnily fling off their silkenness--they fly down, fly down my angled desk and plastic paper holders. Fly down and lie my spry Anawak. It is tiny compared to my Texas country, where an effluvia of wild bees fastens to the horsehair. Bear my side, thing. My turtle bayou, the walk along. Lie here, outfitted, there.