"if you go back far enough in my family tree, there are birds."
-- Susan Mitchell

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alas, back to pounding the pavement. getting pounded by the pavement. getting beaten half to death by the goddamn pavement. to think, i am not good enough for this urban outfitters. am i not urban? outfitted? young and/or hip? no, i am none of these things. i am a 23 year old former counter-culture individual whose piercings have all closed up. so it goes.

ok. so, keith waldrop and clan have put out (finally) _pegasus descending_ (the book of the best bad verse). and there's some pretty awful shit in there. there's some shit which i'm sure is awful but i could see myself writing as well. that's the scary part. and then there's the fine line between laughing jovially at the missteps of perfectly competent, lovely poets, and laughing riotously at those guys who will only ever be known as bad. which one has to be careful of because if one is me then one could quite possibly live out one's poetic existence being solely commemorated in the anthology of poems that sucked. and if there's such a thing as karma, watch out.

that said, i thought I'd post some of my favorites. the first is by Richard Crashaw (1612-1649), an English poet who apparently is pretty popular on the isle. One was too horrendous to post (it was about Ethiopians), but this one I could not keep to myself.

Blessed be the paps which thou hast sucked

Suppose he had been Tabled at thy Teats,
Thy hunger feels not what he eats:
He'll have his Teat ere long (a bloody one).
The Mother then must suck the son.

Here's one of Robert Browning's that made me laugh out loud:

(from)The Throstle

Summer is coming, summer is coming
I know it, I know it, I know it.
Light again, leaf again, life again, love again!
Yes, my wild little Poet.

I mean, "leaf again?" Ok. I'll post one more and then I'm done. This one is just the first two lines of a poem (_pegasus_ starts with the worst openings of poems in this millenium of English poetry) by Harry Edward Mills.

(from)The Squaw's Lullaby

Sleep, my little papoose;
Thy father hunteth the moose.

Fair 'nough. I'm done. Yours in poesie --

Word to the Wise: Sponge Bob is not a contraceptive.

So, incase you [the reader] are one of those that jives with the astro-logical, here's the Taurean profile:

Taurus
Are you the steady, lovable bovine chewing its cud out in the field [say what???], or a raging bull ready to gore the matador? Both of those possibilities can be attributed to the Taurus, a "bull-headed" sign because of its extremely strong sense of will and determination. Not the most intellectual sign [hey, thanks!], the bull nevertheless can be incredibly hard-working, affectionate and loyal. Taureans are creatures of comfort who like to wine and dine luxuriously [not me :-)], sometimes to the point of overindulgence. They also are attracted to the arts and occasionally excel in painting or singing. Taurus can be depended upon in the workplace and works well as a team player. He or she is pretty conventional sexually [really?], but has a healthy appetite [yup]. Because the bull's sign is the closest to the earth, acquiring things is high on Taureans' priority lists. The neck is a vulnerable area for Taurus [yeah it is], so take care of sore throats. Famous Taureans: Shakespeare, Freud, [the not intellectual shakespeare and freud] Fred Astaire and Barbara Streisand.

hmm... so, apparently that's me in a nutshell. i really hate it when they get it right. non capisco. non sono credere.

Consequence. You're the colour, you're the movement and the spin. Could it stay with me the whole day long. Fail with consequence, lose with eloquence and smile. I'm not in this movie, I'm not in this song. Never. Leave me paralyzed, love. Leave me hypnotized, love. -- the notwist.

exhibit a. of fabulous evening.

exhibit b. is at work making up for lost time.

by nightfall there was nothing blue about it.

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birthday birthday birthday birthday birthday birthday birthday birthday birthday birthday birthday birthday birthday birthday birthday birthday birthday birthday birthday birthday birthday birthday birthday and one to grow on.

its so cloudy i can't even see the sunshine. the audacity of the weather, being weathery on my very own once a year date of birth. why am i so blue? because the sky is not?

oh i should not be blue. i had pancakes at ruffles and got to look at the precious knick-knack store in the square. i had red-headed company and he was wearing my favorite grey hooded sweatshirt. i even got the birthday song i was missing so much. i should be pink, or at least lavender.

maybe i'll be happy colored after my birthday martini. :-)

i can taste the employment. urban outfitters, here i come.

in keeping with davide's advice, i'll throw out another list:

top ten reasons to avoid employment:

1. obviously. you have to do work
2. your boss looks like the keyboard player from the bee gees. seriously, he does.
3. the soundtrack. any sountrack. p.s. it will include olivia newton john.
4. perchance do you have a microcosm?
5. the reid test. those that have worked at big retail companies know what I'm talking about. ex. Q: how likely are you to hit your boss in the face? a)very likely b) possibly likely c)does spitting count? d)only if he cheated on me with the intern.
6. your intelligence WILL be insulted.
7. your ass WILL be groped. it will probably be groped by the bee gees.
8. the work thing again.
9. if you don't have authority, you want it. if you have it, you don't really have it at all. say cheese.
10. the monkeys.

dude, the late show is totally missing out. i may just send D.L. my blog and make my foray into prime time. he will call me monte. i will call him the hulk.

adventures of a stuffed boy

act 1. its the rabbit gets all the love.

ok. so, i'm posting something again just to have more than one post on my site. such is the illogic of new love.

i'll post a poem by Kenneth Koch:

Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams

1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the
next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!

_____

davide likes that poem too. a good one, for sure. it's funny, he only died a year ago (well within the scope of my poet life) but at the time I was completely oblivious to his passing. now I think, what was a girl like me doing not standing on his doorstep asking him to please oh please teach me something that will make me so lovely and ecstatic. please oh please be my own bard just once just for a day.

i'm a silly girl. forgive me. i simply do not know what i am doing.

this is my first attempt. i'm not entirely sure how to work this. not technically (i think i've got it figured out), but content-wise -- what to include, what not to include, should i be clever, meditative, etc. in short, how to represent myself. because, unlike the paper version of this strange personal artifact, this is a public account and constitutes a whole new and alien dynamic as far as journals go.

i just realized that my user name is much like that of my former almost roomate jen. not intentional but not surprising as she was my first introduction into blogworld, and the sub-conscious is sticky like that. just thought i'd own up to that up front.

i am a fraud.

somehow it seems as though if you acknowledge mimicry it redeems you. what was once plagiarism becomes allusion, and the hack ascends the ranks to be an author of homage.

ok. this is not a good blog so far.

david says that the key to a good blog is listing. so here goes:

top ten best songs ever written:

1. pansie pants, by red loop
2. more bang, by mr. lib
3. loveliness asks nought, by the gape
4. so what? by everyone anyone
5. love, love, love, by the f'ire mongers
6. none of this is true, by c.m.e.
7. don't look twice, by fabricator
8. fascination, by ice structure 7
9. should have been a ghost, by d.v. day
10. believe me, lover, by glassface

ok. better post this before it gets too ridiculous. see what comes of it. who knows? i may get obsessed.