6. Ikea Deserta

Leave sleep to those
in charge of sleep,
the bus he knows the way;
the pussycat anarchists won't
blow up the viaduct tonight--
you can rely on me.

*

On mattresses masters bestir cosily
by threadcounts unmolested
noisily, easily, easily, noisily--
but otherwise untested.

*

Planet it up for the business
of orbiting dirty snowball courses
what tirebiters flicked at cops,
nothing is as still as this sentence
which I began a million days ago
lifting myself onto the bamboo hula
while laces dragged the Barents Sea
to wake folded in the folds of Forfar
in full dark stars coiling
mystic pools of social housing
& ghosts in full monologue
& all of it melting
not into green icing
but holes which are then patched over
with similar stuff
taken from elsewhere.

awesome Party Fun With Tape Recorders


"Home Recordings. Children singing, screaming and storytelling.

Remember when you were a kid? Did you have a recorder? Even if you never held a microphone to your mouth and screamed making funny faces, I'm sure you can recall a time when you jumped around like a silly little monkey hooting and hollering. Maybe you still do! We hope so.

All recordings are sourced from cassette tapes found in thrift stores and junk shops, tapes dubbed for us and one tape was even found in a gutter!"

from Paul Valery, "Crusoe"--

"In the rank heady odors of the lockers and caskets of his pantry Crusoe snuffed up both the drudgery of his past and the security of his future. It seemed to him that this great heap of his material wealth gave off an odor of indolence, that from it transpired some essence of continuity, as from certain metals a kind of natural heat."

5. The Dawn In Britain

Fax addresses
other fax in fax

"titivates with plumes
of voodoo jargon"

aka "speaks in tongues"
the mellow ameliorants

of mormon d'esprit,
lodge-blue, cop white,

pink snow, halfhard hotdog
bun cigar-angled

the raven's new year
accessory of choice

they get them "from the farm"
whatever that means--

we've seen the rendering truck
stagger under towers years past

bundled like newspapers
now that presumptive hogs

are rarely present--
the old neighborhood herd

thinned to unemployability--
dogs, cats & fish--

hence other people playing cards,
golf, the film on baby foxes

in both official languages
with the sound turned off,

its all to calm you down,
with at Xmas halfraw turkey

thawing by the "fire"
to sink your teeth into

while a song we all know
encourages wordless grunting

suffused with emotion &
the heavy wine of childhood.

Rage & Shame

"Lashing out in response to feelings of weakness is a temptation most human beings have, but it is more than a mere temptation for George Bush. It is one of the predominant dynamics that drives his behavior.

His party suffered historic losses in the 2006 midterm elections as a result of profound dissatisfaction with his presidency and with his war, and his reaction was to escalate the war, despite (really, because of) the extreme unpopularity of that option. And as Iraq rapidly unraveled, he issued orders that pose a high risk of the conflict engulfing Iran. When he feels weak and restrained, that is when he acts most extremely.

Bush officials and their followers talk incessantly about things like power, weakness, domination, humiliation. Their objectives -- both foreign and domestic -- are always to show their enemies that they are stronger and more powerful and the enemies are weaker and thus must submit ("shock and awe"). It is a twisted world view but it dominates their thinking (and that is how our country has been governed for the last six years, which is what accounts for our current predicament)..."

South Wellington Trees

sad to hear that pianist/harpist Alice Coltrane has died. All of her records are worth checking out, but listen to her here with John on Expression, for which someone has made a nice bird video...