much prettier! I'm too impatient to currently do more facework on this silly blog.

Last night I fed my fetish and bought new flipflops.

I'm off now to read Samuel Delany's memoir; I like having the dirt on Marilyn Hacker.

Today at the food coop, the cashier misread my button ("Poetry Doesn't Suck") and thought that it said, "Poverty Doesn't Suck." She wanted to congratulate me on my good attitude about poverty, but I told her that no, poverty does suck. And I was reminded of how close "poverty" and poetry" are.

Ironically, in the context of this particular food coop visit, I was buying organic macrobiotic sushi on my ebt card, hardly poverty. (Thanks Federal Government for the good eats!)

Another corporate lawsuit claiming ownership of homonyms-

One might wonder if this could become retroactive.

Soon we might be taxed for using certain words, much like being charged for water. Since corporations already own our government, this doesn't seem too unlikely.

It does but it doesn't; I'm always surprised at how far we currently deviate from what were once democratic ideals. I know, I shouldn't allow myself to be so surprised, but I am anyway. In any case, some equations are simply falacious, such as:

Capitalism=Democracy

In this regard, I'm thankful for all those who write poems, as well as for those who try to do so.
This means a lot of people, and what I appreciate most is the decentralization which occurs.

A proliferation of "poetry" blogs is not something to regret, but rather something to celebrate.
Poetry is not about the so-called "cult of personality," but rather the grassroots movement of non-corporate voicings in all variety.

Community begins where one individual connects with another, and poetry serves us here as subversive to all those corporate powers which seek to regulate words.

Curious, that whenever "Homeland Security" ups the color threat, they refer to "chatter."

Well, we might chatter away in a variety of colors, umber, for instance.

I'm big on umber today.

do you bang it
(your garlic)

with a heavy object
before splitting the shell-
like skin from the clove?

or do you have a
(garlic)
press
(conference)?

getting ready to go crush some garlic

Occasionally I make split pea soup, and I am doing so right now. It's cooking.
Once I got pluerisy from split pea soup, but it went away.

At first, I couldn't figure out what that thwacking sound was coming from my chest in conjunction from my breathing. But one evening in a yoga class during savasana everybody heard it. It was weird and disconcerting. One of the women in the yoga class was a doctor, and she said it sounded like pleurisy.

It took me months to figure out that I got it from eating split pea soup. An entire year passed before I knew this.

Actually, it was the lovage. I grew some lovage after once going to a potluck and eating some good split pea soup which contained lovage. So I went home and planted some lovage and then started putting some into my split pea soup too. It was cool looking out in the yard, and I like the taste, but it gave me pleurisy, so I quit eating it. The condition went away and has never returned.

testing please be patient

I'm listening to my "super-visor" tell someone that we have a sexual-hair-ass-mint policy (sound it out)

smelt dipping in Sarnia has its allure

Stuff shuffle rush gush I’m
mushy blood
again (two-weeks-
too soon)

Better be in stirrups,
Don’t attempt to chin-up/
straddle work-re
lated furniture

(it’s bound to break,
bound only by plywood
sue and paint)

If the office stalls,
sell them—hurry, shell
it out:

I’ll be sacked

and at Plan
et Parenthood
on Biltmore Ave
from eight-till-noon

risky taste

how shocking are sharks

like almost being clobbered by an asteroid?

outer space

stuff stuffing stuffer suffers lusts
flushed faces popping club lubbers
cobble clobber fish

funny fishers fumble
fat fish flatten

bad salmon
bad eaten any stuff
suffers net losses

numb numbing number

a mental paralysis

it all adds up to supper
eaten beaten flesh

as if the plu
ral of is is iss, any numb
er of cites then might proliferate
called asiss ifs, anoth
er address ent
irely.

Net.

Dipnets need 12-foot poles, and clubber to kill the fish.

Or do they 2 clubbers for one net. Dipnets aren’t always successful.

Nets. Nests. Nesting. Necking.

Neck braces ties laces injuries.

Neck wreck. Two clubbers, and writhing salmon.

Writing salmon. Water salmon. Wicker salmon
flushed faces flopping fielding the river lake.

Klamuth river. Several seasons. Dis
Parity between what you catch

Chlamydia. Applause.

Thousands of infections.

Zero miss the boat on that One. It's not the same said fish
not knots knotty knocks crocking.

Stalking (stocking).

Wrist. Fist. Cist. (also).

Mist.

Missed by 26,000 miles, earth and asteroid.

Or was it 260,000. Missed isn't the same, one or another.

Misses. Near misses.

Dear misses. Mist misses. Mrs Miss Mist Mister.

Mist twist. Twice Mister, and all mister asteroid.

Earth misses mister miss, a misty mastoid
spinster spits twisty cross the sky.

Skys, more than one. Splits missed a
steroids.

Mist her steroids some

thousand miles or more.

Zeros anyway missed missing. It's not the same said mister
nought noughts naughty rocks rocking.

Net.

Rewrite of the John Yau 30-Couplet Exercise Using the Third Word of Each Couplet:

me in red is really myself

a third
in there should
encourage courtesy
conjure de-
light

Mary left
and beginning to leave

whatever they do stinks,
like early yellow spring

is it my fault that the link doesn't work?

scrid!

scrid

oops. i'm trying to make an underlined grid to "scrid" on dictionary.com

(Stead:) post scrid - are you able to lactate when you're not demanding it?

did you know before now that scrid is a word?

(John Yau Exercise: 30 couplets, don’t interconnect them)

Standing smashed in an elephant
ring surface I attempt a trick

He likes me to drink
the mug of his nephew

Voicemail flashes red
like a dirty corvette

I would really like a pink
pony in a small furry saddle

I allow myself four
minutes for fourteen more couplets

My friend Mary in NY
is stunning. She should fall in

I’d rather leave spaces
than supply useless words

For lunch whatever leftovers
available as I housesit

How conscious should I be
of not connecting?

Space shred spring
and a shoe theory of time

Datacharts with yellow hi
lighter graze my desk

Workbooks in third grad
were trying to take me to dinner

Stolen handcream courtesy
of the Marriott corporation

Thirty couplets is five dozen
lines, ten half-twelves

Oh serio de virgin yak with
a knack for making Latin

Stevio I encourage you
to take the same as me

A blue light in aisle eight
warns me no-more doughnuts

What to do with several pads
of rainbow inspirational paper

I’m still in love with
the image I’ve created

Fakin-bacon, they even
make it vegan

My legs and palm spread
as I move down the sage

Can incense left burning
incarcerate a victim

The house stinks of ever-
seen marmalade hysteria

I offer to post this
shit on the blog

There is a taste for risk
beneath my scorn for sun

Also cheese There is the
questions of brie or havarti

Clowns still conjure
blue enticement

Three rings like Christ
I break off

Early
Surfacing

Back at
the beginning

Stead, good work.

you wouldn't want to be in a position to walk around lactating anyway.
be careful about lacerating.

Mo-xotica

it must beam that eyn sulfur from a several homonym emblems?

My Dearest Madonnica,

Woe and ALAS! I find I am unable to lactate on demand. I even walked down the street to stare at the order to LOCATE, and still, nothing.

Yours always,
Sleeve

Everyone should know that your local K-mart is hosting an extra-special shoe clearance. I am wearing my brand new $1.50 red Mary Jane sneaker-like clogs.

Now I know that sounds like a hideous amalgamation, but these shoes are actually everything that you could want: sporty, girly, trendy, red. They also come in brown-on-brown (rather than red with silver trim as I'm wearing) but alas, no size eights were available at the Tunnel Road location. (I'm driving across town on my lunch break to see what I can find elsewhere.)

Don't be fooled! K-mart is also hosting a buy one get one half off sale. This is NOT what you want. You want one pair of shoes for really-cheap. Look for the "50%" row of shoes, and if you find anything fabulous in an 8, please mail or hand-deliver.

Get thee to K-mart! (Martha Stewart picture frames are also on sale.)

Love Madonnica

Sleeve,

Either LOCATE or LACTATE would be in the imperative voice, so yes, I imagine that we (you) are being ordered, but in what direction, we cannot know?

I'm really glad that you read the word LACTATE rather than LOCATE, and that, furthermore, you CONTINUE to read the word LACTATE despite the credentials of your experience.

Last week, on two separate occasions, two of my friends saw a flier on my fridge advertising "An Evening of Butoh Dance" and both of them said (excited!): "An evening of Butch Dance?" Wrong answer.

I think that the butoh (a naked woman painted white crawling out of a pile of mulch with red string between her legs) was way better than anything a group of bull-dykes could have come up with.

(I had this written better but my internet cut me off. I'm feeling a little drab about this response. Pout.)

M

Dear Madonica,

There is a place down the street from my house on the road where somebody has written in blue spray paint, and I always think it says LACTATE.

And because I am always looking at it upside down, I wonder what does this mean, but then I always realize that what it actually says is LOCATE, but of course, this does little to clarify the meaning.

Do you suppose perhaps that this is some kind of order?

Later,
Stavedin

Dear Madonica,
I just spotted my first dandelion of the season in bloom!
Cool, eh?
Later,
Stavedin

It's 9:25. Meeting starts at ten. Where are those cinnamon rolls?

Today, Yuck

Big boss is coming
down from Morganton (hour
east). Other girl in

the office insists
on bringing expensive baked
goods, flavored coffee.

Evidently old
white Southern men can be calmed
by cinnamon rolls.

Dear Stevia,

fettering our webblob rings me so mush soy,

Hugs, Madonnica

The Cat and Rabbit Log: Housesitting, The Sequel

Saturday 3/6:

cats inform me that there is PIZZA! in the fridge. casually, mention their love of sundried tomatoes. hazel [the rabbit] prefers haycakes.

Sunday 3/7:

watch bridget jones' diary and eat pizza. glad there are no cats (as indicators of loser-hood) in the film, as I already appear to be moving down the path of cheese-related obesity, and am single.

Monday 3/8:

hazel and i read almost an entire memoir called "goat." hazel says, "goat?" why not "rabbit?" this ends in a discussion of chaucerian animal imagery, then and now.

Tuesday 3/9:

finish "goat," much to hazel's protests. linus [marmalade-colored boy cat] suggests that we read something with pictures. lucy [feminist black-and-white girl] suggests that we switch to karen finley's memoir/collected writings, "a different kind of intimacy."

Wednesday 3/10:

continue reading karen finley. discuss art and obscenity with various animals.

Thursday 3/11:

lucy has finished karen finley without me. suggests that we switch to mary oliver, more likelihood of birds or squirrels.

Friday 3/12:

i catch lucy knocking over the trash and ask if she is searching for performance props in early karen finley style.

Saturday 3/12 [my projection of tomorrow]:

linus claims that he could get utis [urinary tract infections] as easily as lucy, even as a guy, and he tries to weasel in on lucy's foodbowl, claiming that karen finley would find separate food discriminatory.

March 9th, the day after International Women's Day, Barbie turned 45. She's looking good these days, although her new nose seems to be a little pointy.

The secretary at work first had a dream that I had a Christmas tree outside my door that I refused to take down.

*

Then, she had a dream that I had a baby (in a carrier) and that we were at McDonald-Land.

*

She thinks I'm going to conceive at Christmas. But it would have to be the child of Christ for this to work out realistically.

Housesitting Haikus, Part One:

Bath

I pronounced your dog
“unclean” not when it rained hard
but when she ate shit

*

I ruined two towels
bathing the dog, and burned down
four candles cleansing

myself.

*

Location Location Location

You can finds your mints
(hidden from my mouth) on the
top shelf, half-eaten.

*

Time To Go

When the small dog be
gan to lick the shit-eater’s
ass, I took a walk.

*

Necking Standing Up

Try not to sit on
the couch (I tell my boy-date)
covered in dog-grit.

interesting to look up at the BAs and see all sorts of references to drug abuse and prevention thereof...

and to think it used to have something to do with killing ants...

might one be driven to drug addiction as a method perhaps of avoiding an infestation of ants?

but I still have this crime scene template paraphernalia, the silhouette of a toilet, for instance...

scale 1/10"=1'0'

tables and chairs, a cheese wedge door, a baby grand piano, a shotgun and a body without arms

cash kills

turns my pockets red
blood from my favorite kind of
lips; all that liquor

1: um
2: um
3: um

anythink to ad?

I must remind myself to make a list of ums

CAUTION - resizing in progress -

really, you know how spring is? I just feel like writing splendid.

SPLENDIDSPLENDIDSPLENDIDSPLENDIDSPLENDIDSPLENDID
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lunch would be nice...

Moronica,
Please do come over, though the figs are like tiny green pimples.
We can go outside and listen to all the chainsaws!
Who needs trees anyway? They just get in the way.
I am being surrounded by new houses; they are eliminating the woods hereabouts,
but we can walk over to the little graveyard. I go there everyday and there's
a stone that says "ME"! and another that says "GEORGE POPOV - A BULGARIAN"
I'm serious no I'm not. I'm here with my all my windows.
And yes, and yes, it's all google's fault.
I'm here all day unless I get beamed aboard a spaceship.
Sieve

my windows are open and I am listening to the warblers

who needs a radio?

The word "Blogger" isn't recorded in Blogger's very own spellchecker.

Blogger is making me crazy. I want the font to be big. I looked it up in Help, but no connection can be made between that text and the necessary action. I blame this all on Google. I feel that the help was easier to use before.

Sleeve,

The weather is beautiful today! Let's spend our lunch breaks outside! Can I come over and eat some figs soon?

Moronica

This shrunken appearance is annoying.

Why did it happen?

I'll just blame it on blogger.

NOTE: new link at right to my friends at twilight

tweeting too

whoopie! it's spring today

temps in 70s and my blueberry bushes are growing!

my fig tree is goings nuts!

crocuses and daffodils are everywhere!

whatever they are!

birds!

they are out there eating!

I wonder why the font shrunk.

thanks Monica for keeping this blog breathing

sometimes I don't know where I've gotten off to

Start of a Small Series for B.L.

Response to Your Question

Of course I like Flaming
Ed’s Burrito Barn.
It’s red. They have tofu.

*

Riding to the Restaurant

This is the best Prince
song ever. Prince the pilot.
Listen for landing.

*

And What About You?

South Carolina.
Makes me think of heat and guns.
That combination.

*

What Am I Working On?

A memoir. Some poems.
I neglect to mention
my medical mess.

Sitting Next to the Mirror and Writing

I confess to writing
too close to the light
of my own opinions.

Sunday Times

Book Review =Equals= Author Screw.
Some girls like "weepy courtship style."

Hostess

Hi! Hello. Hello.
Hello. Hi! Hello. Hello.
Hello? Hello, Hell--