i love this song very much

pigeons' brains

hi. i have been feeling a little sad lately. i don't know why. tomorrow i will be half of 70. maybe that's why. and i've been wanting to live in a place. like if i'm at the grocery store and i start a conversation with a neighbor that i run into there and we start talking about 1985 and we're talking and we say yeah, that was the year of all those flies, or something like that. i want to know a place. and remember what happens to it.

for poeminyourpocket day, i printed out 23 poems from andrea rexilius's book half of what they carried flew away and gave them to my students. and then i told them magic security men were walking the campus and if they were approached and had a poem in their pocket, they would get $5. they believed me. one of the poems from this incredible book goes:

i am a construction worker.
i am a home.
i am abroad.
i am nervous.
i am being proposed to by this essay.
i am a variant of the semantic difference-within-sameness.
i am tilting against the windmills.
i establish a continuity.
i cannot pin down one side of the territory.
i am an open mouth and a factory.
i am yellow, or red.
i was asked if i am myself.
i am myself.

you should get it. also, the hlr is out! and includes work by these fine ladies and gentleman: Paige Taggart, Jess Rowan, kathryn l. pringle, Curtis Perdue, Jesse Morse, Rob MacDonald, Valerie Loveland, Mike Gross, Kit Frick, Megan Burns, Maurice Burford, Ark Codex, Stephanie Anderson, Kimberly Alidio, and Kristin Abraham. Cover art by Dagan McClure-Sikkema.


one poem by j.m.:



Dear Jet Plane, 


Fly. That flies. Last in a generation’s method of achievement. To underwrite the future’s ill logic. All the dolphins flown in saltwater crafts. To where? Where does fever go? Enclosed by cumbrance. The wheezing olla brain. Or leans. Brain-lean. Like a root vegetable, mashed for soup. Anaplastic hum. The air there. The practical act of looking back. Time’s slipstream. Dear slipstream, I’ll call you come what may. No matter the expectations, loss lingers. Like retrieval. How presence gets felt in memory shards. Ice picks. Drinks. At play in epistemology. Moving back to front. Up above and going over. Desalted by spheres and freezing wind.  


and don't forget: horse less is accepting full-length manuscripts right now.


and look! we almost have enough money--just a little more is all we need.

bears frequently frolic right in front of me.

a great interview with james tate.

i just got the eternal ones of the dream

selected poems from the last 20 years.

my gosh. i haven't been talking to you for some time. at this witch store in kansas city i purchased some holy water and the man told me to pick a stone. i picked this one stone. he said it was for communication and my throat chakra, so now i will communicate with you.

i just got back from spending 4 days where i grew up. i drove by my old house, which last time i went by had bullet holes in the windows, but now looks very well-manicured and even has a swing set in the back yard. i went to a beautiful continental breakfast where pancakes come from this machine. like a conveyor belt machine. they were flat. i only wanted one but instead the machine provided four. at karaoke j and i sang the song from the movie six pack: love will turn you around by kenny rogers. i read poems at my old college. my friend rhiannon had a baby named emerson. i watched the royals home opener. j was excited to go to steak and shake. we had a nutter butter shake for breakfast one day. i saw a lot of windmills on the drive home. and there were tornadoes all around. we stayed in colby, kansas so we could be inside when the tornadoes came.

i don't have a camera anymore. that's why i don't think i've been coming here very much. i would rather show you pictures of all these things than tell you about them.

there is something that is so important to tell you about: it's this! madcowboyjen made this cool thing! when i went to copy and paste that link, it pasted breathing lessons. i wonder why.

i'm behind on everything. i better try getting some of it done now.