New Poems in the last few months...
A few of the pieces I've completed and put through numerous revisions are...
Help us St. Julien
If the toothfairy comes...
Arm Trouble
40 Pounds
We shall come rejoicing?
Now back to you...
The First Cup
Inevitable
On the proper response
Cause for Concern
A few I'm still working on (and subject matter)
Intergalactic Intervention (Cholesterol)
Strangely Attracted (Toupees)
A few I've pulled out and am revising
Changing of the guard
Malcontent
Piano Dwarf
Busy summer... good but busy. Desire to write back up and working for the moment.
1.5 years later....
Ah, one way to throw everyone way off the trail is to not blog in one of the blogs you set up for a year and a half and then start posting stuff again... brilliant, really.
Okay... so I've been thinking about taking control of my poetry blog again because I'm now once more inspired enough to post with regularity. However, what is keeping me from it is the desire I have to surprise people when I do any sort of a slam. Decisions decisions.
Suffice it to say that I will be performing at a slam no later than July 20th at Kafe Kerouac here in Columbus. I say no later than, because perhaps I will be atttempting another night at some point between now and then. I've been out of the loop for quite some time, but it's about time I got back in.
Okay. Talk to you... um... soon?
Andy
Van Gogh's Other Ear
Hello again from the far side of this semester at OSU. It has been a rough one, and one I'm not going to miss when it's gone. I'll try to post more often now, but I can't promise anything since I'm getting down to the end of my time here and have to worry about trying to get into a Doctorate program... blah blah blah. I know you're here for the poetry or whatever this is... so here goes.
Van Gogh’s Other Ear
You know, the one no one ever talks about, the one that was still intact. I figure it must have gotten pretty tired of all the attention given to the one that Van Gogh cut off in a fit of madness. “What’s the deal Vincent? Am I just not good enough to slice off? I’ve been robbed here, man!” (although most likely this was thought in French or Dutch or the language in which it chose to express irritation). Although some might consider the ear to be somewhat egotistical and unreasonable, consider that ears don’t often have a chance to be famous. I mean, if you were an ear looking for a break, your owner happened to have a disorder in which he chose to carve off a nice bit of cartilage, and you didn’t get the opportunity that was just dangling right in front of your nose (another bit of cartilage that might be a bitter), wouldn’t you have a few choice words to say?
In all honesty, if I put myself in the position of the shafted ear, I would be angrier with Van Gogh’s hands than with Van Gogh himself. I mean, the guy cut his own ear off! He probably didn’t have much control over his hands by that point. I suspect there was a deal between the now infamous ear and the hands that carved it off, hands that had long since achieved the fame and world renown most other minor body parts can only dream about and who were willing to share a bit of it with whatever appendage was willing to pay. I’ve got no clue what sorts of arrangements were made, but they were obviously satisfactory for both parties.
Perhaps the complete ear just didn’t pay up, and was mad because it got beat out by an ear who obviously had more resources and better organization. It knew that once one ear was gone it wouldn’t get another chance, because while one partially missing ear is an anomaly, two is not very unusual because it just screams “I’m trying way too hard to get attention.” In its final years, I’m sure it tried to rationalize the situation, saying that it was better off because it had all of its lobes and… that top part of the ear… and that it was better for hearing (which of course wasn’t as much up to it as up to the eardrum who stayed tucked away inside away from all the controversy). “At least I wasn’t born an eyebrow,” I’m sure it said in its golden years, which is true.
No one wants to be an eyebrow.
encounter
just some random thoughts that came together for a poem... I don't know, it kinda makes sense, but it kinda scares me too. Here goes...
encounterThere’s just something about waking up
At 6am in a field
With a corn stalk in your back
A pile of manure at your head
And no idea what happened.
Not that it happens
often,
At least not often enough to matter
Once or twice every few months
Adds up to about seven or eight times a year
Nothing I’d even write my senator about
I don’t even wonder what happened
Not anymore,
I just think
“Oh well, where am I now?”
Head towards the nearest road
walk along until I find a road sign
and then find a telephone to call in sick.
Once I ended up just outside Peoria, Iowa
Which is a
looong way from Ohio.
This friendly trucker on his way to Cincinnati
Offered me a ride when he saw me on the shoulder.
He noticed the corn silk on my shirt
And the vacant, vaguely confused
But ultimately utterly resigned look on my face.
He said gruffly “Happened again, did it?
Don’t worry, we’ll get them someday.”
His eyes grew dark then, and I knew
He meant what he was saying.
I just didn’t know what he meant.
Office work
A second offering of James Tate imitation. Enjoy!
Office WorkAll of us were seated at our desks as usual. Jenny was busy taking a call. Mark was busy writing up the quarterly reports. Suddenly, the door to Mr. Johnson’s office burst open and a small man holding a pair of trousers ran out cackling maniacally. Mr. Johnson followed him, pantless, bellowing and waving his arms. The small man was running fast, and he had gotten a head start, but Mr. Johnson was gaining on him, puffing and red in the face. At the last possible moment, the dors to the office elevator slid open and the small man darted inside, leapt into the air, and pushed the “Close Doors” button. The doors slid shut on Mr. Johnson’s nose, and he was left standing there, red-faced, with his shirt hanging down over a pair of clean white boxer shorts. He turned around to face the office, which finally seemed to acknowledge his pantless, breathless state, clearly agitated. His mouth opened and closed as he tried to force words out. Then Mary, in a voice that was full of the good sense that most professional typists seem to be endowed with, said, “You should really stop hiring dwarves as office assistants, sir,” not even pausing to look up from her assignment. Mr. Johnson looked at her, eyes boggling with rage, but then his mouth snapped shut, he stomped back down to his office without a word, and slammed his door shut because he knew what we all knew. Mary was always right.
Have a great day!!
I mentioned james tate...
If I recall correctly, I mentioned that I had been doing some work based on the prose poetry of one of my favorite poets, James Tate.
For my favorite poem at the moment "Young Man with a Ham" go
here.
This is the one that started it all... the lunacy, the raving, the gratuitous cooking of vegetables.
I'm off to find one of my latest poems so that I can retranscribe it here... it's called "Office Work" and it has some of the following
-telephone calls
-a midget
-a boss who has had his pants stolen
-a wise secretary named Mary
-elevator doors that close on noses
It will be up for your viewing pleasure soon enough.
But for now... I must go.
Andy
Sincere Thanks
Editor's note... I located my original file for the prose poem today, and opted to replace the one I originally posted with the one I originally intended to post.I really appreciate the three sales I've had so far! It's a really cool deal to be able to say that you've written something that people have purchased.
I've taken to reading a lot of James Tate lately. I'll be posting one of my creations based on his work very soon... like right now.
"STONE GOOSE"
When I went out this morning to get the paper, I noticed that my stone goose with a sailor outfit had moved. Not that this was unusual, It moves all the time without my noticing it, probably just neighborhood children playing a prank. They never steal the goose because it must weigh one hundred pounds and that seems to be a lot to steal. Most mornings, when I emerge bleary eyed from my house, the goose has just moved a foot or two, but this morning was different. “Honk” said the goose. It was distinct. It couldn’t have come from anywhere other than the goose. I bent down to examine the once lifeless statue that had begun to honk at me from my own front porch. As I peered into its glassy eyes, an ear shattering boom came from the front yard, and I turned just in time to see my mailbox sailing into the distance. Then the laughter of the neighborhood children reached my ears, and I noticed the tape recorder hidden inside the goose’s sailor cap.
You have to admit. It was a darn good prank.
Okay... that's it
Talk to you all later
Andy
