ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS


I've a poem in the Poem a Day program that the Acadeny of American
Poets has been involved in. You get, of course, a poem a day, in an
e-mail.

Here's my poem for the day.

*

I really enjoyed this movie. It's not for everyone.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (Herzog): 5 stars

I watched it last night, after holding my Publishing Class
at my house. There was no pizza left, but Becky Pelky
left some good hummus.

*

Tonight Zachary Schomburg and Johannes Goransson
read at Notre Dame. Problematically, as the readings
there have been for me and my schedule all season,
the reading is at 6:15 pm--I'll see if I can make it.

A REST STOP


Repulsion (Polanski): 4 1/2 stars
Winter Light (Bergman): 5 stars
Room 666 (Wenders): 4 1/2 stars
500 Days of Summer: 1 1/2 stars
Somebody smashing their way into my car and stealing change
from the ashtray and elsewhere: I'm finding South Bend more and
more difficult to stomach (don't spend the $8 in one place, moron).

THE RUDE NECESSITIES


Like trees, leaves eating the earth, the faces, the eyes tearing up.

But how does it feel, say, when you extend your hand toward the
__scum
shielding the pond, the bed, each box with an organ gleaming?

The airplanes were lined up in the desert as far as the eye could see.

You wake up to the phone, it's your best friend,
he's weeping--he's going to be appearing on a new game show . . .

The breath blowing over her body like a Santa Ana.

Bleeding, Dear Synaesthesia, it's the personality of the wind this
__summer.

And that was the end of Roland, the Eurocentric badger-beaver
__bear.

THE MOON IS MY ANGEL FISH


I walked through the vast gardens, the overhead trains, bowls
__steaming
on the sidewalks as if everyone's asleep.

I heard chanting, it was snowing.

After everyone died or went crazy I bought a huge tropical
__fish tank.

Arranging my pills by color, or size.

You have to take your shoes off to answer a question like that.

Outside, under the black leafless, men with their wrists broken.

I dipped my finger in a cup of black light. I watched her face touch
__parchment.

FORM BECOMES STYLE


Under clouds, the forklift ploughs a century of sodden books
into a pile that topples endlessly toward the horizon.

They sank the anchor through his face, into the imagination.

Bluegills frozen in the ice illuminated the hockey rink.

Brautigan's Margaret, a fish ladder, mercury fading in one's
__bloodstream.

I can't tell where social responsibility begins or ends.

My father's face suddenly assumed a worry.

The cave man's drinking wine, the weather is dead flowers,
__her
stockings splashed ashore at about 1 a.m.

A SMATTERING


The Limits of Control (Jarmusch)/ 4 1/2 stars
Woman in the Dunes (Hiroshi Teshigahara)/ 5 stars
The Bicycle Thief (De Sica)/ 4 stars
Control (Joy Division)/ 3 1/2
True Stories (David Byrne)/ 4 stars
Woman Under the Influence (Cassavetes)/ 5 stars
The Mirror (Tarkovsky)/ 5 stars (and it lingers)
La Chinoise (Godard)/ 4 stars
A Hole in My Heart (Moodysson) 4 1/2 stars
Nosferatu (Herzog)/ 5 stars
Hard Eight (Anderson)/ 4 1/2 stars
I Love You, Man/ 3 stars
The Hangover/ 2 stars
Show Me Love (Moodysson) 4 1/2 stars
Signs of Life (Herzog) 4 1/2 stars
Up in the Air/ 3 1/2 stars
The World's Greatest Dad/ 4 stars
Happy-Go-Lucky (Lee)/ 4 1/2 stars
Lilya 4-Ever (Moodysson)/ 5 stars
Wendy and Lucy/ 4 stars
In the Land of Women/ 2 1/2 stars
A Home at the End of the World/ 2 stars
Beautiful Creatures/ 3 stars
Rashomon (Kurosawa)/ 4 1/2 stars
Films of Kenneth Anger/ 4 1/2 stars
Jesus Camp/ 3 1/2 stars
Wheel of Time (Herzog)/ 4 stars
The Road/ 4 1/2 stars
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee/ 2 stars
Liberty Heights/ 4 stars
A Serious Man (Coen Bros)/ 5 stars
Zombieland/ 2 1/2 stars
Cold Souls/ 4 1/2 stars
Fantastic Mr. Fox/ 4 1/2 stars
The Killer of Sheep/ 5 stars
Factotum/ 3 stars
Sudden Manhattan/ 4 stars
Waitress/ 3 1/2 stars
I'll Take You There/ 4 stars
Land of Silence and Darkness (Herzog)/ 4 1/2 stars
Henry and June/ 3 stars
The Wild Blue Yonder (Herzog)/ 4 1/2
Fitzcarraldo (Herzog)/ 5 stars
Cobra Verde (Herzog)/ 5 stars
The Wind that Shakes the Barley/ 4 stars
My Beautiful Laundrette/ 3 1/2 stars
Opening Night (Cassavetes)/ 4 1/2 stars
Milk/ 4 1/2 stars
Doubt/ 4 1/2 stars
In Brugge/ 2 1/2 stars
Prozac Nation/ 1 1/2 stars
La bonheur/ 4 1/2 stars

TWICE ON A SUNDAY

What's the sign for darkness in the dark

Like broken air coming out of a sleeve, a river in his pocket

All along the alley where the bodies rot and teeter toward

Blessed in the roar of lilacs in spring

I mean it, the rosy glow of Faith in the toolbox window

Sacramental toilet bowls, or pews (they're both holy)

The girls pregnant under the pines

Too early in the story to have evolved with eyes

Nipples in the electricity, elastic for Love

Abrasions, burnt hair, everything is turned on that lathe . . .

Where the ocean retreats, her smell of three hours ago

ASHBERY ERASURE BOOK


As I mentioned, barely, the Ashbery Erasures are in book form.

Sky Booths in the Breath Somewhere can be purchased at Amazon
or you can buy a copy from me.

I only got to sit down with the thing yesterday (at one a.m.).

I've got a full schedule at AWP, and I'll post some times
when I get a minute. I've hit quite the busy patch.

Also, Orphan, Indiana is on Amazon (even though it comes out in
the fall of 2010). There's a hardcover edition as well.

I took the photos on both the Ashbery book and for the cover
of Orphan. It's April 1 and it hit 80 degrees in South Bend. Ties
a record I believe.

Baseball starts very soon.