Chicago highlights

Well, I went to the AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) conference, after having avoided it for several years.  Here are some of my highlights (many of which were "off-site").

1.  Pasta at Francesco's and conversation about movies, art, and Italian pop music.
2.  Hearing of Maria's adventures in Malaysia and hearing her poetry.  And she had the best t-shirt.
3.  Lunch with Tayve and Dorinda.  Talk of Staten Island, haunted places in Florida, and their new press-- Trio House!
4.  Seeing Joe Pan at the Brooklyn Arts Press table.  Their books look great.
5.  Resting for a moment at the Ping Pong table (not a literal ping pong table-- the book fair table for the journal Ping Pong), talking to Christine, and admiring their posters.
6.  The two older ladies at the reading who were like the judges from the Muppets.  They approved of my reading, apparently.
7.  Seeing long-lost friends from St. Paul (John!) and Kansas (Kate!).
8.  jubilat tote bag.
9.  (Free) dinner with friends.  Scallops and wine.
10.  Seeing Malena's beautiful face.
11.  Kind words from J. and M. in the Hilton lobby.
12.  Codeine cough syrup, homeopathic cough syrup, decongestants, lozenges, tea.
13.  Falling asleep to Marc Maron interviews.
14.  Ditching the conference for some off-site quality time on the South Side with poet mama friends, Lauren and Annmarie.
15.  Seeing Kari, who I've known since age 15 (or 16?), and how some friends are deeply familiar, despite years apart.
16.  Stopping by Dancing Girl Press open house and buying a laurel leaf tiara-headband, instead of more books.
17.  How entering the Fine Arts building is like stepping back in time.  (That elevator!)  That building must be haunted, right?
18.  Meeting Facebook friends and being greeted with, "Hey!  Facebook friend!"
19.  Reading Jen's chapbook on the plane and loving it.
20.  My good deed of the conference: Talking nonsense to a fellow AWPer as we descended back into NYC to distract her from a bumpy landing.
21.  Oh, my friends.  What would I do without you?  Really.

Chicago reading

I will take part in the New England College Tenth Anniversary reading at the Poetry Center of Chicago on Thursday March 1st, along with Ilya Kaminsky, Katie Farris, Malena Mörling, James Harms, J. Hope Stein, Maria Garcia Teutsch, Steve Halle, and Francesco Levato.  


Here are the event details: 
AWP Conference Off-Site Event: Poetry from New England College Thursday, March 1, 2012 - 5:00pm

Poetry Center of Chicago Office, 78 E Washington St., Pedway East, Chicago, IL

Evening Reading - Take the Cultural Center elevator to the Pedway level, and turn left. Poetry Center office is on the left.


Reader bios are here.    

Early collaboration

The Age of Wonders

(by Todd Colby and Joanna Penn Cooper)

Well, I guess I'm abject or whatever, waking up at night to study my leg
in the mirror. Telling myself there are no great storm flags, only cloth
and dye. Only impersonal wind and small electric feelings in the spine
and skull, where a body can get some work done and then sleep.
One of us would go, "Do you know how many years I've been hearing
you say that?" Like almost as mysterious as not saying it anymore
which is when you curled into a ball and bloomed. In our spare time when we're done terrifying ourselves we cultivate our breath in separate rib cages, triangulating birdsong from our locations across town. But what is such math and theory in the face of extinction? I'll have the food from a tube a bath with salt and some rapid release narcotic wipe for my brain. I'm trying my best with this figurative gardenia in my hair, these earplugs nesting like shrimp in my canals and all the likely moods that pertain to my enigmas. No one will ever figure me out.

[published in Lungfull in 2009]

Recently and soon

Here are some recent goings-on:

Last week, I read in the Earshot reading series, along with my friend J. Hope Stein, whose poems are truly mesmerizing.  (Here is a lovely and intriguing interview with JHS herself.)

Also last week, Clif and I hosted a small potluck/informal salon.  One highlight was a mini-concert in my house by the band Whispering Tree (or most of the band), who Clif is now playing with.  We cleared out the bedroom and people presented their work in there.  How delightful.  How strange.

I have a few ongoing projects that I've been working on, including a collaborative artist's book with my friend John Fleischer, a Minneapolis-based visual artist.  There is also some poeming and prosing going on.  And some development/procurement, one hopes, of more freelance opportunities.  It's a time of many changes and (more and less) subtle shifts over here.  But then, I guess it always is?

And today-- today was oddly warm, and I left the house and went into "the city."  (Sometimes I don't leave Brooklyn for a while, and then I do and have this realization: "Oh, yeah.  The rest of New York . . .")  In the city, I got my bangs trimmed at Mudhoney by my cool stylist Ray-- with whom I've had some great conversations-- while listening to a rather intense haircutting soundtrack.  I believe Rob Zombie was involved.

What else?  Oh, I dearly needed clothes, so I went shopping.  Ugh.  I am sorry to report that shopping pains me.  But I found a few things, including this half-off coat, which I am calling (in my head) my Downton Abbey coat.  Do I need another coat for this winter that only sort of happened?  I'm not sure.

Next week, I'll go to Chicago for the AWP conference.  I'll participate in this reading, and I will also catch up with some dear friends.

Wow, February is almost over.  Strange, warm February.

Dorothea Tanning, 1910-2012

Wislawa Szymborska, 1923-2012

I have written a short appreciation of Szymborska for the site poetrycrush.

Here is her poem "A Few Words on the Soul."  

This Poem Is Written in Code

by Todd Colby and Joanna Penn Cooper


I'll sit at my desk eating tangerines until you remember 

the true meaning. Meaning: I've had it with low blows

& pop wagons. I need a county I can call "My Own."  But I'll

write things down from there to tell you later, a selection

of my private behaviors.  Me studying cheerleaders on tv—

their hair, their leaps, the shutters on their eyes.  Me

smoothing my hair down like a Mormon and giving myself 

a secret handshake. My ocean is a crushed bird. Let me sterilize

a bit and handcraft these wing clips with all the razzle dazzle of

a person who has made friends with death.  Death is a man

with the loveliest face, a face as open as a child's.  He smells 

of lavender.  He wears a fez. Damn, burnt from bitter orange tweed 

jacket set aflame with alcohol and matches. He taught me this:  

Whatever you need, whenever you need it, come into my establishment 

and take it. I would like nothing more than to sail straight for that grip. 

Pumping my fist at the skin on the oar. Your head is bleeding.  

I value your patronage. 

Weekend

My weekend was pretty relaxing.  Maybe a bit too relaxing.  (Note to self: leave the neighborhood next weekend.  Maybe.)

Among the non-activity: some making of lentil soup and apple crisp, some watching of Dr. Who.  There was also the forcing of the boyfriend to pose for Instagram pictures, which I made up for by making hot chocolate out of half a bar of dark chocolate with peppermint.

I also did some thinking about genre.  The idea of literary genres and what that means to me . . . tumbling about in my head.  I'll get back to you.

Meanwhile, here are some photos.

Somebody

1.  Somebody found my blog by googling "poetry about elves."  Huzzah!

2.  I have somehow already lined up five readings for the new year, and I've already done two of them-- at the New Year's Day Marathon at St. Mark's Church (appearing with Secret Orchestra and J. Hope Stein, as one of 140-ish readers raising money for the Poetry Project) and at Upstairs at Erika's, my friend's poetry salon, along with some brilliant and soulful people.  There are some photos here. 

3.  My next reading is for the Earshot reading series on Thursday February 16th at Lolita Bar on Broome Street, appearing again with J. Hope Stein.  I read a couple of newish pieces at Erika's, but I'll try to have even a couple more new ones by February.  Poems.  Or prose poems.  Or these things I'm thinking of as "vignettes."  Huzzah, again! 

4.  I thought about putting my blog on a hiatus after my last post-- my 500th!  So, if I blog less, it is because I am working on other writing.  Or if I blog the same amount, then never mind.

5.  I am leaving tomorrow for a visit to my dear friend W. in the city of Boston.  HOPEfully I will not miss my bus this time due to a strange confluence of protests, Comic Con, and Q train flakiness.  (But here's a thing about the lovely view from the Q train.  It is lovely.  It makes me happy.)  

6.  What else?  I recently watched the Spalding Gray documentary above, which I was reminded of by this person's cool blog.  Oh, Spalding Gray.  I miss you, too.  [Also: Liz's blog is one of those blogs that gives you a sense (however constructed) of a life narrative, a life's setting and characters.  Should I blog more like that?  More-- I don't know?-- coherently?  Consistently?  Maybe I will.  Maybe one day.]

7.   Dear people.  Dear all of us.  It's almost mid-January.  Take a breath.  Sail on through in your way.  Be somebody.

First Poem

Oh, my descendants: life is strange when

you are still alive.    --Todd Colby, “Last Poem”

Oh, my descendants:

I write to you from the cusp

of a year when everything turned

like a movie in a primitive cave

with a German narrator

like a marketing genius

turned wandering mystic

[ . . . . ]

Oh, my sister:

You’re ok.  You’re human—

a transforming creature

sharpening your gaze

drawing out swords

[ . . . . ]

This year

let your eyes focus

then let them go wild

Eat the air

Three for the New Year

38th Annual New Year’s Day Marathon Benefit Reading

Sunday, January 1, 2012
3:00 pm
The Poetry Project
at St. Marks Church
10th Street & 2nd Avenue, Manhattan
poetryproject.org


The 38th Annual New Year’s Day Marathon Benefit will feature over 140 Poets & Performers: 
Ace Mcnamara, Alan Licht with Angela Jaeger, Alex Dimitrov, Amy King, Ana Božičević, Anne Tardos, Anne Waldman with Ambrose Bye & Daniel Carter, Anselm Berrigan, Ariana Reines, Arthur’s Landing, Barry Denny, Basil King, Betsy Fagin, Bill Kushner, Billy Lamont, Bob Hershon, Bob Rosenthal, Brenda Coultas, Brendan Lorber, Brett Price, Bruce Andrews & Sally Silvers, Bryn Kelly, CAConrad, Charles Bernstein, Christine Elmo, Christopher Stackhouse, Church of Betty, Corina Copp, Corrine Fitzpatrick, Daniel Kent, David Freeman, David Henderson, David Shapiro, David St. Lascaux, Denize Lauture, Dgls. Rothschild, Don Yorty, Donna Brook, Dorothea Lasky, Douglas Dunn, Douglas Piccinnini, Drew Gardner, Dustin Williamson, Edgar Oliver, Ed Friedman, Edmund Berrigan, Eileen Myles, Elinor Nauen, Elizabeth Devlin, Elliott Sharp, Emily XYZ, Erica Kaufman, Erica Hunt & Marty Ehrlich, Erin Morrill, Evan Kennedy, Evelyn Reilly, Filip Marinovich, Foamola, Frank Sherlock, Franklin Bruno, Genya Turovskaya, Gillian McCain, Greg Fuchs, James Marshall, Janet Hamill, Jess Fiorni, Jim Behrle, Joe Elliot, Joe Ranono, John Coletti, John Giorno, John S. Hall, Jonas Mekas, Josef Kaplan, Judah Rubin, Judith Malina, Karen Weiser, Kathleen Miller, Katie Degentesh, Ken Chen, Ken Walker, Kenny Goldsmith, Kimberly Lyons, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Lee Ranaldo, Lenny Kaye, Leopoldine Core, Lonely Christopher, Macgregor Card, Maggie Dubris, Marcella Durand, Mariana Ruiz Firmat, Mark Nowak, Martha King, Matthew Abuelo, Miguel Gutierrez, Mitch Highfill, Mónica de la Torre, Nada Gordon, Nathaniel Siegel, Nick Hallett, Nicole Peyrafitte, Pamela Sneed, Patricia Spears Jones, Patti Smith, Paul Mills (Poez), Paul Legault, Penny Arcade, Peter Gizzi, Pierre Joris, Reuben Butchart, Rickey Laurentiis, Robert Ashley, Secret Orchestra with Joanna Penn Cooper & J. Hope Stein, Shafer Hall, Simone White, Sinan Antoon, Stephanie Gray, Steve Dalachinsky, Steve Earle, Steven Taylor, Susan Landers, Susie Timmons, Suzanne Vega, Taylor Mead, Ted Dodson, Thurston Moore, Todd Colby, Tom Carey, Tom Savage, Tony Towle, Tracey McTague, Tyler Burba, Valery Oisteanu, Wayne Koestenbaum, Will Edmiston, Will Yackulic, Yoshiko Chuma, Youmna Chlala, Yuko Otomo, Yvonne Meier with Aki Sasamoto, Nicole Wallace, Arlo Quint and Stacy Szymaszek.

Admission: $20, $15 for students and seniors, and $10 for Poetry Project members. 

Returning to the place of origin

 

My mom and I visited my grandmother in Salisbury, NC.  Above:  College Q; quilt by my great-grandmother Eva (Mamaw); Uncle Joe; Grandmother's yard Buddha; tree.

Something my grandmother said

[after knocking over a container of rubber bands]
Look what I've done!  I'm an infidel!  You can't trust me.  

Another picture of me in a hat

This one's pretty good.  (I think this was my second birthday?)

Things Mom has said so far

Oh, she's Swedish. That's why she looks bizarre.

I wish someone would just show a close up of Elizabeth Taylor's eyes. They're supposed to be violet, but you can never really tell.

I don't know if I like that cheese. The only cheese I like is cheddar.  I'm tired of pretending.

Yeah. I don't even see 'em because you have to, like, kind of be paying attention.

Are sports and politics the same thing to these people? It's not about winning at all costs. This is what makes me want to move to Sweden.

Elves and poets

Well, December has me feeling a little like my eyes are pointing in two different directions, but at least Clif let me take a picture of him wearing an elf hat.

In other news, check out my friend J. Hope Stein's stunning new chapbook, Corner Office, up at H-NGM-N.

Semi-Festive

I found some Snoopy lights at the Ace Hardware.  They are a new LED kind, but Liz will be happy to know that the box was still dusty, as it should be.

Also, Andre Dubus III and yours truly-- authors of House of Sand and Fog and the chapbook Mesmer, respectively-- get our chocolates from the same place, apparently.  Except I guess he pays for his, while I get mine from my sister-from-another-mother for free.  Well, I barter with friendship + poems, which is my way.  

December and Tolerance for Ambiguity

Last night I taught my last American Poetry class at Montclair State.  I brought some homemade chocolate chip cookies for my students, and we discussed Terrance Hayes's book Lighthead.  We should have perhaps discussed this book a bit earlier, before everyone was so end-of-semester tired.  But I think the class was a success, overall.  (One student said, "What degree do I need to get to be you?"  Oh, gosh.  Who knows.)  I still have to go pick up take-home finals next week. 

Here I am about to take New Jersey Transit, my nose looking like the full moon.  But that's just poetry. 

Currently, the radiators in our duplex are not working, except for the one in my office/spare room.  Luckily, this is the most artsy room in the house, and the one where I like to think about book manuscripts and collaborative projects.

There's a lot of art in this picture, if you know how to see it.  (For example, the throw on the bed was one of my birthday presents, and it was made on 100 year-old looms in Maine.  I'm not even kidding.)  But we are hoping the radiators get fixed today. 

In other news, I've been watching Dr. Who before bed, and I've also started watching Downton Abbey.  Clif and I watch Dr. Who together, but Downton Abbey makes him fall asleep, so I watch that alone.  But I enjoy that, too.

And now that my post-doc at Fordham is over, I'm on the job market for professorships.  If I don't get one for next year, I'll be a freelancer.  Like the Doctor.  My mother says I "get high marks for tolerance for ambiguity."  Yes, I've become good at that. 



Also, Merry Christmas!  I'm liking the idea of Christmas decorations this year, but still lacking the follow-through.  I want some of those old-fashioned lights with the big bulbs.  Do you think they sell them at the Ace Hardware down the street?

The Joy of Weird Friends

(for T.C.) 

You're in my hall of fame room holding a ginger seal pup with a fabulous mullet. You have the mullet, not the seal pup. I'm in your hall of fame room going all post-apocalyptic child star, killing and roasting my own venison and wearing glorious deerskin gaiters. If I had news about my plasma, you'd be the person I'd write to, to take my mind off the news about my plasma. If you needed someone to hold the sides of your head to keep your mind ok, I'd totally write you a poem that metaphorically held the sides of your head.  In our previous friendship back in time, we were some of those proto-human toddlers who took painting lessons in a cave ritual about painting lessons. As a middle-aged man of 15, you invented dung sculpture, blowing everyone's mind. I had my own project, blowing on fiery twigs to create shapes like those little brass angels that fly by the heat of candle flame at Christmas, but nothing like that at all.

December

I haven't posted in December yet (until now).

This week so far, I:

1.  Saw my mom and stepfather.  They got some special deal to stay at the Hilton in midtown, and as my mom and I rode the elevator, we talked about how she had a stain on her shirt and how maybe she was one of those super-wealthy people who dresses in an eccentric way.  Because you just never know.

2.  Rehearsed with J. Hope Stein, Clifton, and one of Clif's trio-mates, Yuko.  We're doing a collaborative piece for the New Year's Day Marathon at the Poetry Project.  

3.  Rode New Jersey Transit to teach in Montclair.  Class hasn't started yet.  Hi from Montclair! 

Some other things I might do this week:

1.  Work on one of my other collaborative projects.  (Poems with Todd, or poems and drawings with John, or poems and drawings with my brother.)

2.  Maybe I'll think some Christmas thoughts.  Mostly for me this involves listening to "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and baking something and buying a ticket to visit Florida.  And every year I imagine buying a Charlie Brown Christmas tree of my own, but then I just skip it and skip off to Florida.

3. Oh, and who knows what else.  I might do some yoga and take some vitamins to fortify myself for the coming adventures.

Goodbye, Goodbye

by Joanna Penn Cooper and Todd Colby

If you put in three to four hours per day of deliberate practice,

within ten years the air around you will become firmer, making it

easier to stand upright, even in a wind storm.  Many friends accuse

me of being from Oklahoma, so this is something I know something
about-- wind and survival, funnel cakes and gas station tacos,  a strong

core. And the people, I forgot about people: How each person I met

seemed to hold a message of some sort that I would decipher years

later while scribbling in a notebook, the code revealed as quickly 
as it was extinguished. I love myself sometimes in my love for

the people, how noticing is like the whole world sitting up straight
and giving you a sad smile, or like taking off your own shirt and loving
your animal warmth apart from yourself.  But you can't just say that.

What?  I didn't say that.  Together we can envelop the news, and I do 

mean what we read in the papers, what is sprayed on the walls, 
or whispered in paneled dens over a sleeping sibling. Brother, I'll be 
over here, like Thoreau on a stalled Q train on the Manhattan bridge, 
scowling at the wondrous implicated sky.  Sister, let me illuminate

the electric green muck of the Gowanus Canal. I am all about

forgetting, even when memory comes trudging up the stairs in the form

of a poem I shall never write in order to simply say goodbye, goodbye.

OK, fine-- I remember you.  Goodbye.

Thanks

Brother

My little brother used to be this guy (with me as a teenager in a portrait from Sears).

And this guy (with me + antenna).

Now he's this guy (with the mayor of Orlando, receiving an award for his photo of the historic district).

Three

There is a light that never goes out

I think this person was about 14 years old when she made this video.  What would it have been like to be that cool at 14? 



Also, this person is the daughter of this person, who has a very cool blog. 

Wings of Desire

I’m thinking of becoming a full-time flaneur, moving

through the city at dusk or just before dusk and just after

dusk to notice things.  Thus, I cultivate the most angelic

eavesdroppy parts of my personality.  Exhibit A:

A young woman at the sushi place near St. Mark’s sets

a metal thermos next to her water glass, tells her friend,

I like to use this thermos to drink vodka in public

and also sometimes to drink tea.  I mark.  I bend to

my notebook and record.  This is my benediction, you

can tell by my large, shapeless overcoat and slicked-

back hair.  I mean the business of listening to the music

of the spheres, tilting my head like that, doing that most

difficult and beautiful job between light bouts

of bemused habitual scowling.  You’re welcome. 

Bless us all. 

A film by Joseph Cornell

. . . with music that sounds like it's from a David Lynch movie . . . can be found here.

Bear

"He puts his paws on the table, waiting, like a gentleman, another boarder-- but more polite, actually-- for his food to be served.  He's wearing his bow tie, bright red, and an oversize fedora with a matching band.  He eyes the apple core, but he knows better than to reach for it.  He's a well-trained bear, delicate, refined.  And old, too.  He looks especially frail today, his chest sunken, and an extra huskiness to his normally labored breathing.  His eyes are weak.  He sniffs at Alma with his flared nostrils, a polite inquiry as to how she's faring." 

from The Madam by Julianna Baggott

New collaborative poem

Human Resources

by Joanna Penn Cooper and Todd Colby

When last we saw our hero, she had taken up residence

 as a manufacturer of good vibes.  Her methods,

while outwardly sound,  gave off a sheepish, though powdery,

glandular scent. The kids loved her smell.  By kids, we mean

guys she met at poetry readings who followed her home

and mooned at her  through various apparati.  She had

graduated from the Bergtraum School of the Business of Veils

and Hunches and Improvised Esoterica, where her attempts

at being graceful met with laughter, but where all found her

realistic way of showing emotions to be soothing in the cramped

quarters of her single room.  Like the small woman from Poltergeist,

she was mockable, but you wanted her around when ectoplasm

started messing with your shit. Short and magical was how

she described herself in personal ads, when in fact

she was rather tall and ordinary, and sometimes rumpled

and perplexed.  But Xanax made her feel wrapped in cotton batting,

so she reverted to her practice of pretending to be a shaman who

gave psychic makeovers in the subway. She lived with ghosts,

laughing at the people who warned of their inability to clean

up after a tirade or a party.  She'll tell your fortune at her

discretion, for barter only and by appointment. 

It will make you sleepy.  It will change your life.

Maine

If you thought I never went on a day trip to Portland, Maine around 1999 or 2000 with my friend Wendy, where we took overly-serious pictures of each other dressed in black-- you were dead WRONG. 

Nervous cells

 “Everything around us is radiations . . . luminous radiation, caloric, electric, sonorous . . . . Why doubt telepathy, the influence from a distance of thought on thought?  The rays which escape from the nervous cells are most capable of exciting other nervous cells from afar.”     

--Henri de Parville, writing about the Curies’ Nobel Prize  in Le Correspondant [quoted in the Marie Curie biography, Obsessive Genius by Barbara Goldsmith]

Two prose poems I wrote several years ago and just found on my computer

Closure

They sit at a table next to a painting of a chimpanzee wearing a ballgown and a tiara.  They begin talking about how there aren’t very many good restaurants in their town, but how in the past two months, they’ve gone to almost every mid- to upper-range date-type restaurant.  How he’d done her that service, at least.  They briefly touch on whether they should really break up.  Then her salad comes.  She puts her fork into the salad dressing that she has asked for on the side.  He dares her to drink the salad dressing straight.  She thinks for a few seconds.  Says it would take $500 for her to do that in this restaurant.  He says he would do it for $40.  Then they begin talking about butter eating contests they have seen or heard about. 

 

No Languages

Sometimes the languages enter my consciousness, though, the ones I don't speak, as when I say, "Is it free?" meaning "Is it clear?" when I'm driving. 

Or when I stare at the word "die" one day, not knowing what it says for the longest time.    

My cat reminds me of the times I woke up late, lying on my alarm clock, frantic to realize that I had only been dreaming that I got up and got ready for work.  Seeing Andy curled up beside me, I blurted out, "What time is it?"  before remembering that cats don't speak or tell time.  I did this twice.

What do we fall through in those moments when we forget how the lock on the front door works, forget the name of someone we know, wake up in the dark and can't figure out where the door to the bedroom is or which wall we're facing? 

One of my friends loves the feeling of being lost in the week, no idea which day it is.  I get panicked then, turned around.

This same friend, though, is scared by my favorite falling in-between: at dusk, the twilight tingle of voices with no words in the head, wondering will you turn down an alley and out of your body. 

Posture of Victory

(after Todd Colby)

Flame
Garrison Keillor tells a nice story

in his red shoes. But don’t talk to him

at the cafe.  He doesn’t want to be bothered.

Mint Green Pants
It’s true your brother would never get on board

with the dark clothes you tried to buy him. 

You break down and buy him colors.

Provoking Animals with Political Buttons
The student who uses the word “swaggerjacker”

also calls Audre Lorde “ballsy,” causing the mind

to stop, a minor fit of staring into space.   


Hibernation System
Who among us are great animals?

You call the cops about your missing property.

They are unhelpful, but do not beat you up.

Vanishing Point
Dream of the lady poets

like Macbeth witches, standing around

being supportive of your progress.

Poem written for me in 2009

3 lines for Joanna

by Todd Colby

when I look at fine women's boots

I think the air must be nice in Florida

& do people skip much in Italy?

Happy Halloween from Malfeez!

My brother and I have another collaboration up here. 

A Poem of Personal Excellence for Halloween

[image: http://dreamsandvisions.squarespace.com/]

I'm excelling at vibrating at all the different levels of consciousness
all at the same time, the level where I plan a Stop Making Sense
zombie costume, but don't have a huge suit and so don't
follow through, the level where I scowl out the window at red
leaves and think deep thoughts about the academy, and also
the value-added level where I wake up to a ghost twitching
the bed and it's the sleep-hiccups of a boyfriend sleeping
in his jeans and flannel shirt because he fell asleep halfway
through scary movies about hypnotism night.  Personal excellence
means putting on your glasses to make sure a ghost in a Stop
Making Sense suit isn't watching you wake up to sleep-
hiccups over by the bookcase.  Happy Halloween.
Don't worry 'bout me.  Don't you worry about me.