The honey is delicious / although it burns the throat

N, gorgeous poem. Gorgeous. It portrays, with slim & efficient sound, yr quickness around the city, yr energy, yr inability/not wanting to sit, not to burl. With routine, with becoming so comfortable in the city, comes the ability to do it all, to want it all. This is what we call Championship. Shine on, Champion!

The honey is indeed delicious, the throat will continue to burn, but yr voice will still be there. We live with the burn. That's from me, with a little help from John Ashbery.

I haven't worked on my poetry since the last post, although some great literary things are stirring up here in the Stump:

We confirmed our date for the Holocene event (Feb 10). More details to come. Yr ass better be here.

A new literary group is in town. THE PLAGIARISTS. I want to eliminate the vowels & call ourselves the PLGRSTS. We create fictitious writers, develop storylines, plan to submit fake work, and hold readings where these writers are supposed to show up.

I've been reading, thanks to Marsh, a Slovenian poet named Tomaž Šalamun. His work has made a strong push as of late. His book Woods and Chalices is rocking my socks. Here's one poem:

IN THE TONGUING OF BELLS

I decant a blossom. It goes before you.

You're filled with Uriah. Green, tiny, and pressed.

Blueness is a furious cake, a round

cake where yearning sleeps. Are the balls

the balls of the earth? At wells

and fountains? At Atlas's pillar?

You say that you'd be my property.

You'd lose everything instantly.

I still wouldn't notice you anymore, injured.

I choose from the thickness. Honey collects

cries. And when the body thickens and you get up

because I dress you, because I congeal you.

I erase you back in the past. I draw

a white flap, shine a white flap.

I've also been reading Flaubert's Madame Bovary. I can't believe I haven't read it before. Read it, please do.

I've been listening to:

Akron/Family ("Everyone is Guilty" & "River" are two of my favorite songs of the year.)

The Bug

Guided By Voices's Isolation Drills (I remember buying this when I was 18 or so, and hadn't listened to it many times since, but I love it.)

Okay, fine, here's a poem. It's a soft surreal one, not all that serious. But, it's our blog and we can do anything we want. Championship!

RED OCEAN

What if all the water in the world was red?

Most is.

I’ve never seen the ocean before, but

I’m pretty sure that salt water

is red.

I want an ocean named

after me.

I want to find a new one

so the old ones can keep

their names.

There has to be

one more.

I have a name and soon

it will be a salty pool

of red.

Come, swim in

my name.

Let me show you that water

is red

& it

is safe.

Let me hear you say

my name,

Swimmer.