When the Sun Blinds the Book Press

One Act Play at the End of Xmas Eve Dinner:

Guest: That was delicious....so where is the launcher?
Parent: I have the rockets.
Guest: Are those the matches?
Julia: No, that's my camera.
(mother finds matches, guests & family go to the patio to explode things)

FIRE & EXPLOSIONS ENSUE.

the End.


***

Yes, a very exciting Christmas Eve! I ate so much food I could hardly move, yet we still managed to light 3 sky lanterns & float them into the night, and then launch some rockets, polishing it off with 3 foot long sparklers.

***

Um, in all seriousness, though, I do feel very lucky to have spent the evening eating delicious food & meeting my parents' friends. Friends who like to cook delicious food & explode things, too. I feel very lucky that I get to not just hear about my parents' lives in Mexico, but be a part of the adventure.

I Hated That I Could Not Take Photos In The Mask Museum Press

Luckily, I could sneak some photos at the Mexican Toy Museum, a few blocks from where my parents live:

Family Hang Time Press

Just hangin' out with my dad:

Pre-Historic Comedy Press

Garden of babies? I planted the sun under the tongue of returns. A whimper winds the sound gears grind over. Foraged syntax. Who romps the ruins? To locate a glance in the forest, stride through the wild chives, the beehive swinging like a lantern. Honey & hiccups.

Who kneed the hummingbird that despaired the tulip's chalice. Who in the leaf-lavished air will stick. Belly-ached into an album. Light lifts nothing. Forged opacity. Face.

I Reached for the Ruins Press

Well, my parents have a frog made out of sugar in their study room. I would like to show it to you. Coming out of the darkness:

I like it's sloppy mouth.


The only thing not edible about it: sequined eyes. I'm glad it has an anus.
**
I went to newly excavated ruins in San Miguel yesterday. The archeologists are waiting for DNA samples to determine who actually build them and lived there between 440-1110 AD, although right now they think the Otomi tribe:






We were allowed to climb on them. That was awesome & weird.
**

Laura Sims has poems up at Omni Verse: http://www.omni-verse.net/?p=1902
this awesome line is in her poem: "We with our canons and spaceships were children"
**

Also, if you're in NY tonight, I hope you go to this. I've known Mitch maybe since he was 19. He broke 2 teeth on a cookie:

One and all,

If you find yourself in town this Thursday, December 22nd,
then may I recommend you join us for an eve of raucous
soul-punk-love-core music?

http://www.killmelover.com

Lech Szporer - vocals, keys, clarinet
Mitch Van Dusen - drums

w/ special guest Marissa Mickelberg on keys, guitar and vocals

But that's not all!

The Controversy will share the stage this eve (Matt Blair, Lech and Marissa
on vocals/guitar/keys/drums)

This is Kill Me Lover's first show on the town and are looking for a
crowd to warm the room with. We would like you to be
amongst that crowd, celebrating with abandon.
We assure you your ears will follow suit.

Thursday, December 22nd at 10 PM sharp
The Trash Bar
256 Grand St.
Williamsburg, BK
$7 21+

Forward this email and bring your friends!

May your feet find you there,

Mitch

Frozen Food Isle Press

The room I'm staying in is painted like a hatbox. I feel like I'm inside a wrapped present & about to burst out. Also, I might be a hat?

I dreamed that I was a mini person and a normal sized bad guy put me in the freezer at a super marker to watch me freeze to death. So to save myself I tore into a package of frozen corn & built an igloo with the corn to stay warm.

Tidal Clouds Press

What have I done today, you might wonder? It's noon on Saturday.

1. I ate oatmeal with sunflower seeds & almond extract.
2. Wrote some letters & postcards.
3. Went to the post office, where I listened to the conversation of a woman with brain damage talk to the postal worker. That was sort of horrible. She apologized for her brain damaged slowness & I don't know, I just felt so bad.
4. I'm not sure if this is a response to the above, but then I came home & checked to see if there were any jobs at the Big Apple Circus: http://www.bigapplecircus.org/utility/employment.aspx .
Sadly, there are not.
5. Contemplating ordering fiber optic wands, because I loved them when I was younger:


But the ones I'm finding aren't bushy enough. Know what I mean?
6. Currently, I'm dogsitting, so there is an 8 pound black dog on my lap right now. I think 3 pounds of that is fur.
7. The amazing poet Andrea Rexilius is picking me up soon & we're going present-shopping.

Bessie Smith Press

Well, I'm listening to Bessie Smith & hanging out with Jen Denrow & Selah Saterstrom. And our dogs, D'Count & Shamwow, have been wrassling each other all afternoon. There is a pie on the table. I might be typing in cutoff gloves & a coat, though. I cannot get warm. I cannot clip the syrup from the homespun tree. Cannot scrape the banquette into the baby swing. Blue leaves.

Neck Neck Press

My neck is so stuck & doesn't want to turn to the right! I must have been dreaming of giraffes last night.

I made two pumpkin pies today. I overcame my fear of the blender, which was an integral part of the pie process. I can wash the blender when it's in the sink, but I really don't like to use it: it sounds like the world is collapsing into shredded newspaper & sleet & demented goats. Is this like how dogs fear vacuum cleaners? I am a dog? Are you a vacuum?

Tonight I'm going to make dinner & then watch as many movies as I can. I just spelled movies as "moovies."

Ooompa Pa Pa Press

Saw this:

I got 10 hours of sleep last night & I feel like I can feel.
***

Have you watched the new Marcel the Shell video?:

Airport Press

Who will continue the bleached rhythm of sand? Who will impeach the lighthouse? And if I sink my lilac imitation in night's wool to vase grief? Call. No, call. Moss traps in a necklace clicking at the gate. Flashlight. Canteen. Instructions for temperature. Who will incline the lemon shore?


***

Heading back to Denver tomorrow. Cindy King is driving me to LaGuardia & Sommer Browning is picking me up at DIA so what could be better than that? All I have to do is depart & arrive. Please.

A Schooner Loose on the Eyelid Shedding Iambs Press

Who will skip over radio regret on the crumbling wave? Slinking mischief cracks open an egg or loosens the pine cone. Wrapping-paper grip? A leveled statue releases.

***

After 2 weeks of not having a charger for my computer, I finally bought one on Amazon!

And that's today's update!

***

I am hanging out with, oh my, NON-poets tonight, so I can't go to this, but YOU should:

Jerome Rothenberg @ 80: A Celebration
Friday, December 9, at 6:00pm
ELEBASH RECITAL HALL at the Graduate Center
The City University of New York
365 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan
Fully Accessible. Free and open to the public.

I will be roaming the streets with ol' college friends.

Dismantle Dismal Press

Farrah, Jared, Justin Marks, & I hit up galleries in Chelsea yesterday & I saw:
1. the Walton Ford show
2. late paintings of Joan Mitchel
3. Sugimoto
4. Neo Rauch
5. Mark Rydner

I LOVE THEM ALL SO MUCH.


For example, Walton Ford:



You could buy this collection (and I've seen it in person and the book is quite elephantine) for only 44 dollars:

If you buy this book for a friend that friend will love you 4eva.

Also, for example, Neo Rauch:



Strange strange strange

The Wetlook Press

Ok, where would you rather stay?

A tree house hotel?

Or an ice hotel?


Actually, I think I'd rather just camp on the beach and then live in a tree house permanently. Oh yes.

***

I thought I would not like this sculpture exhibit but then found it very pleasing. Carsten Höller:



The yellow walrus guy is my favorite.

Gross Marine Press

Will someone string the cold lights through the tulips? Will someone close grief's atlas & ship the salt to bookend the night? Will someone briefly touch my shoulder while I sleep? Moat, moat, moat. My arm like a drawbridge lowers to the grasses, an unstamped postcard, slight glances through curt branches, grey trousers, the hand-drawn airplane. Addresses. I pack myself with milkweed & thistle. Season of what?

***

I'm briefly in NY. Which means, a whirlwind of MOMA, the New Museum, McNally Jackson, and The Strand.

One of my favorite journals, GlitterPony, has a new issue up, starring these fine reindeer:
Alina Gregorian, Andrew Morgan, Ben Mirov, Billy Cancel, Bruce Covey, Cynthia Arrieu-King, Daniela Olszewska, Dara Wier, Dot Devota, Elizabeth Witte, Emily Pettit, Guy Pettit, Heather Christle, Lyndsey Cohen, Maia Elgin, Matt L. Rohrer, Matthew Mahaney, Megan Leonard, Mike Young, Ryan Eckes, Sampson Starkweather, Seth Parker, Travis Macdonald.

For example, a poem by Dot Devota:

And The Girls Worried Terribly

I.



Splendid the time that laid eggs in our nest!

Bending to worship the self in thin winds. At the end of the stick

the disease of numb tongues

and yet, it was the end of the stick. I have only one lung.

Give me the others, each exhalation hell reaping the benefits.



And in the wrong poem is death, from which the beginning

is a frail dessert. Bees as lively as champagne bubbling from our flutes!

I leave the table and dig a circular grave beneath the peach tree,

then dig more circular graves the size of peaches

for the fruit that doesn’t get picked to fall in.



Children holler at us, the flowers are blooming!

chained pets leaning into the sun. The child I give birth to

otherwise inappropriate in the presence of the dead,

cauldron simmering our egos

breaking the skin of the porridge

and disappearing to speak of courage,

rescuing all future inadequacies.



Prying the eye apart, I begin

with the wrong poem—we toast,



To death!



For example, poem by Guy Pettit:


My Life's Work

You think

I’ll talk to just anyone

It’s amazing

How beautiful

The man in the tree

Looks

His open hands

He cleans up

He’ll nod

Undistracted

That’s what I like

Why I’ll talk to anyone

About the president.

Or more likely

I’ll make them talk

About the president

With someone else.



I want to hold the hand of modesty.

I want to hold the hand of modesty

But I don’t and I deny myself

The strange

Ancient carriage

Predicting

Loss of memory

Behind the

Beauty of trees

Always yelling



I always yell at you

I want to stop



And yelling always

To another planet.



And I am alarmed.

Believe me because I am.

If you find an egg in the air

That is my alarm.