Thursday, July 30, 2009

Boat

Thursday, July 23, 2009

The Demolition Derby

At the fairgrounds, the fairgrounds
seem to be everywhere. Fairgrounds
scream through the carnival rides. Fried
around the fairground is a crispy batter.
While not everyone is alive, some of those
who are are present. The rest, like
me, are arriving in a frothy fog.
Things explode and cars crash on purpose.
There are children. 
There is a sense of dread that is small-
town and homey. I start to drift
on the radar, beeping in weird places.
My son is tied to the family he was
born into. In this sense, we're tired and equal.
I explain to him the way that the world is
absolutely full of people and that it's 
always really been like that, especially
when there weren't dinosaurs or anything.
The room to breathe dwindles 
but the habit of movement is funky.  
 

Monday, July 20, 2009

How to Play Ninja Should

I am Ninja Should and he is Hood, my best assistant, and we have a brother, Adidiss, who has turned bad. Adidiss works for Hottie, a half lava/ half fire guy, who is the leader of both The Guardians and The Hunters. We were camping, sleeping by the fire, when Hood overheard Adidiss and Hottie talking. Adidiss was saying, "Yes, my master, we will find them and, yes, kill them we will." And Hottie was saying, "You fool. Why haven't you caught them yet." And Adidiss said, "My master, I am asking for mercy. We will find them."

When Hood told me this in the morning, just after I noted how our fire had gone out, I was alarmed. We investigated the area near our campground and found the remains of a fire, the ashes still warm. "They were here not long ago," I said. "They can't be far," said Hood.

Later we set a trap for Adidiss. Hood called him, as a brother, and said that we just wanted to talk "no big deal," etc. Adidiss agreed to come and was tripped by the rope we stretched between the trees. I held him down and Hood tied him to one of the trees. After questioning him for a while we had basically learned nothing. Hood slapped Adidas and said, "We can do this all night!" and then he and I laughed and laughed about that.

We left him in the yard while we went in to fix dinner. I said, "Maybe some time tied to a tree will make him more willing to talk." But, when Hood returned from checking on Adidiss, he told me that Adidiss had escaped and that there were clues outside that indicated Hottie and The Hunters were involved. He showed me the clues and I concurred with his opinion. 

Even though dinner wasn't even done yet, Hood informed me that The Guardians, The Hunters, Adidiss and Hottie were all in the back yard and that it was time to fight. He wasn't sure if we could beat them, but I told him that believing you can win makes you more likely to win, while believing you will lose will make you more likely to lose. Finally, we attacked.

Though Hood nearly died, we were able to kill everyone but Hottie who escaped over the back fence. We were sad about the death of our brother, Adidiss, but it also wasn't that big of deal. We felt good about the victory and went in to celebrate over dinner. After dinner, we treated ourselves to a "hog wrestling" demonstration at the Delaware County Fairgrounds. The quickest time was 5.5 seconds. Hood and I were very impressed with this.

On the way home Hood told me about his former master, Storm Ventress, who had blond hair, green eyes, and a black cloak, had trained him to make super punches, complete with jagged claws. Hood repeated the suggestion that my former master, Master Shake, had gone bad and was tearing up the town. The news had said that Shake looked like he was "looking for something." I told him that I did not believe Master Shake capable of such badness and that it was possible it was a robot who looked like Master Shake, or that he was under some kind of spell. Hood seemed to understand where I was coming from.

Reminiscing about Adidiss, Hood told me, for the first time, how Adidiss had been the victim of a machine that sucked all the good out, leaving only the bad. For me, this seemed to explain everything. 

Something to Be Happy/ Excited About

Friday, July 17, 2009

Certain Points

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

New Poems

I've got poems in the new Ocho #25, edited by Blake Butler and published by the force known as Didi Menendez. You should check it out here

Monday, July 13, 2009

Tom Koontz is 70


(Tom Koontz at 70, in photo and self-portrait.)

Tom Koontz Haiku:

It's amazing to
you how a college prof
can change your whole life.


Sunday, July 12, 2009

Saturday, July 11 2009




Friday, July 10, 2009

Coming Soon

Labels:

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Death at Your Door, Again

Monday, July 06, 2009

Death at Your Door

Saturday, July 04, 2009

Advancing My Career

In the new Flarf/Conceptional issue of Poetry there is a poem by Nada Gordon called "Unicorn Believers Don't Declare Fatwas" which, in true Flarf fashion, is a mash-up of language culled from the internet, including from this blog. The beginning of the sixth stanza reads "This blog is dedicated to the individual / mystery of Hitler's moustache and my book of poems / to becoming a unicorn." It makes a great deal of sense to quote from this blog. As far as I'm concerned, this means that I was recently published in Poetry. Step one is now complete. Step two: tenure.