a chinese whisper

Confucian rains

Today the
postman brought
me a poem that
was written
tomorrow.

a six word story

He'd always wanted to use "balderdash".

a today, a yesterday, & a bunch of bullshit balderdash

"Note; If you are a Red Self-Existing Moon or a Red Overtone Moon or a Red Rhythmic Moon or a Red Resonant Moon then you are born on a Portal day."

Of pen & other umbra

Last night the sky was clear, the full moon pristine. I'd gone out to check where it was because tonight is eclipse night, & I wanted to be sure of where to look.

Today, all day, the sky cloudy. Not really overcast, but light grey clouds covering most of the sky. Pissing me off as the evening drew nearer, big big chance that I wouldn't be able to see not seeing the moon.

But late afternoon the clouds started getting blown away, so that by evening there were only a few around. &, right on time, just before 7 p.m., the bottom of the moon started getting a dirty look about it. Slow progress, but as I write this, around 8, the Earth is totally in the way of the sun, & the moon is in total eclipse. It is as they promised, a shade of red, & will be that way for another hour & a half. Then the clearing until around 10.30 when the whole moon will be visible again. Though, apparently, it's still within the lighter penumbral shadow for another hour after that.

Today the
postman brought
me a Refutation of
Chaos Theory. I'm
a bit skeptical
about the research,
however, since the
paper opens with
a disclaimer that
no butterflies
were harmed
during the course
of the study.

The Entourage of the Emperor of Amerika

George W. Bush is flying into Sydney early next month for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum. With him will be his wife & her staff of four, plus:

1 personal chef
4 cooks
15 sniffer dog teams
50 White House political aides
150 National Security Advisors
200 State representatives
250 Secret Service Agents.

To get to Australia, they'll use two identical 747-200Bs (Air Force One & its decoy clone), another chartered jumbo, & two to three Globemasters or Galaxies to carry all the equipment that accompanies the Emperor. & that includes:

The Imperial Helicopter (Marine one) plus a backup, Black Hawk helicopters for surveillance, the Imperial limousine Cadillac One (five inches of ballistic armour, transparent armour windows designed to withstand attack by anti-tank grenade launchers, run-flat tyres, & is environmentally sealed against chemical & biological attacks), a twenty-strong motorcade which includes more armour-plated limousines, the Secret Service War Wagons (Chevrolet Suburbans) the last one of which usually has a battery of battle-ready machine guns, a SWAT wagon & an ambulance. & then there's the back-up motorcade in case something goes wrong or they need to run a decoy.

As I was going to St Ives.....

Mission Briefing

Guys. We don't know where Osama bin Laden is, but we do know where the Brits are. So let's get out there & bomb the shit out of them, just so you can paint some more of those little kill doohickies on the fuselage of your planes....

Britain's Defense Ministry says three British soldiers were killed and two others wounded in southern Afghan-istan by a U.S. air strike that was supporting them in a battle with Taleban insurgents.

News item 8/24/07

Wallace Stevens' 14th way of looking at a black_bird

"Arnold had gone through paranoid kippages about their not wanting to put a black man's image on the cover. ("Who let the coon in?"—Wallace Stevens' inquiry at the 1950 Drew-Phalen Awards banquet, when that year's recipient, Gwendolyn Brooks, had entered the hall—replayed regularly up from the kerygma of black literary history, a-broil in memory and imagination, even after forty years.)"

Samuel R. Delany: Dark Reflection

The "Drew-Phalen Awards" are Delany's invention, but the incident is real, at the 1950 Pulitzer Prize Awards ceremony where Brooks was awarded the prize for poetry.

This book, Delany's latest, is wonderful.

Lunch poem

At the sandwich shop
Paul Simon is
busy telling me that
I can call him Al just
as a bus goes past
whose emblazoned arse
tells me that local
real estate broker Al
Lewis is above the
crowd, ahead of
the pack — though
if that's true, then
what's he doing at the
back of the bus? &
even though this is no
meaningful coincidence
it still leads me into
thoughts of Jung
& how it would be
great to experience
some act of synchronicity
in this town of the
collectively unconscious.

Beware / of a / camel after sex

An Australian woman was killed by a pet camel given to her as a 60th birthday present after the animal apparently tried to have sex, police said Sunday.

a note for Tom Beckett

There are quite often times when I feel the need to justify my existence. This happens to be one of them.

sea/mless

He had bought a large map representing the sea,
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
A map they could all understand.

Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we've got our brave Captain to thank:
(So the crew would protest) "that he's bought us the best —
A perfect and absolute blank!"

Lewis Carroll: The Hunting of the Snark (An Agony in 8 Fits)

Political arse-covering 101

Always find someone to blame when you look like losing.

"ALEXANDER DOWNER has a dire warning for the Iraqi Government: rein in the insurgents or there could be a change of government in Australia.

Unless the Iraqis improved security, the governments in Australia and the US could be thrown out, the Foreign Affairs Minister said yesterday. Public patience on Iraq was "wearing pretty thin".

"You will get people electing governments that do want just to walk away from Iraq," Mr Downer said."

The Sydney Morning Herald

He
hurled insults
from the snidelines.

everything old is new again.....

Hey, hey, LBJ,
how many kids did you kill today?

in the sixties

"Eventually, there simply were not enough volunteers to continue to fight a protracted war and the government instituted a draft."

news item 8/11/07

"The top US military officer in charge of coordinating the war effort in Iraq says that it makes sense to consider a return of the draft to meet the military's needs."

Hey, hey, GWB,
how many kids will we never again see?

Today the
postman brought
me some ephemera—
at least that's
what the customs
declaration on the
empty box said
was in it.

As if there wasn't already enough shit in the mail

Given my predeliction for postman poems, that probably wasn't a wise title; but I came home yesterday evening to find a fat A4 envelope from the Federal Government reposing on the bench on the front porch. Opened it up.

Dear MARK YOUNG

I would like to ask you to take part in the National Bowel Screening Program…The National Program is being introduced gradually….People who turned 65 last year are being invited to take part…..

The letter went on to say that the test is known as a faecal occult blood test — thus confirming my suspicions that Satanism is shit — & giving instructions on how the sampling should be carried out. A more detailed 32 page booklet on the protocols of stool sampling was included in the postout along with plastic tubes & sampling sticks, a biodegradable sheet to catch your stool on — "empty your bladder, flush, then lay the sheet on the surface of the water printed side up" — & a postage paid envelope to send your samples back in.

Don't get me wrong. I think such programs are great. But the thought of all that shit making its way through the bowels of the Australia Post means I'll be using latex gloves to empty my mail box over the next several weeks.

Maybe they could revert to an older form of mail delivery. You know, stool pigeon post…..

Lunch poem

Having to step
over the urine stream
left by a just-passed
cattle truck causes
me to lose my
mental balance
right at the moment
when I was about
to comprehend the
intricacies of the effect
of subprime mortgages
on the economy of
the United States. Or
maybe it was the
probable songlists
for Dylan’s current
concert tour that I
was thinking about,
ticking off on my
fingers whether it
was likely to be a
good or bad tour
based on past ex-
perience. Ex-
ponential options
from which I’m
brought back down to
earth by being pissed
on underfoot. The
wind touches me
on my left elbow. I
give it a couple of
dollars. It goes away.

Today the
postman brought
me an optical
allusion & some
special spectacles
to help me
understand it.

Day August 6, 1945

daytritus

the episode does
not have any allusions.
, &, particularly
n smaller
; —
the skin is thick
& granular —
. But everybody
knows

Day __________

for Jean Vengua

What I am really
thinking is that
the posterior
surface of the
thighs is
central to robot
map learning.

aw shucks, Tom

Tom Beckett has done me the honor — no, not the next dance nor my proposal for his hand in marriage, but of naming me one of his chosen "thinking bloggers". I find it slightly ironic, because these days I tend to consider myself intuitive rather than thoughtful, but, coming from Tom, I will happily put on my thinking cap — peak backwards as is de rigeur — & strut the runway, even though, as cummings wrote,

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers.

& though, as if they were some genetically-inherited wasting disease, I usually let such things die with me rather than pass them on, in this case I will make an exception & call Ernesto Priego up on stage to accept my nomination of him as one of the great philosophers in the making.

Last night the
owls returned. Small
bird, large tree,
pale breast picked
out by flashlight.
Small bird, large
sound. No call &
        answer but
suddenly side
by side chorus.
I was ecstatic.

Was(tc)h yr mouth!

Elsewhere they'd be
classed as
retards.

Here
it's just
the gene pool.

Who is killing all the great directors of Europe?

Michelangelo Antonioni (1912-2007)

Otoliths issue six is now online

Issue six of Otoliths has just gone live. It contains work by Adam Fieled, David-Baptiste Chirot, Bill Drennan, Joel Chace, Julian Jason Haladyn, Spencer Selby, Kristine Ong Muslim, Juliet Cook, Reed Altemus, Michael Steven, Jeff Harrison, J. D. Nelson, Alex Carnevale, Mary Ellen Derwis, Alexander Jorgensen, Jane Joritz-Nakagawa, dan raphael, Raymond Farr, Márton Koppány, Javant Biarujia, Philip Byron Oakes, John M. Bennett, John M. Bennett & Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, Rochelle Ratner, Sheila E. Murphy, Arpine Konyalian Grenier, Jordan Stempleman, Ray Craig, Iain Britton, Paul Siegell, Andrew Topel, Ernesto Priego, Mark DeCarteret, Matthew Medina, Joe Balaz, Brian Foley, Luke Daly, Martin Edmond, Tom Beckett, Karri Kokko & ek rzepka & has a cover by Geof Huth.

A reminder that print editions of the previous issues are available at The Otoliths Shopfront along with an ever-growing number of books.