Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Snow does not walk on sidewalks but it grows like a quick coral reef, sky skeletons on skeletons, and crystal shells on shells. The white reefs form on benches, on the flat of the curved mailbox, on the balancing beam of the steel fence enclosing the trimmed park, even on trees that do not keep their arms by their sides, even on the tip of tongues rosebushes stick out at the thought of cold. Disdaining roofs, their over-furnished rooms, how can a face look up and not sprout reefs, but to walk fast, and hope the road is clear?

The totally cool website of this Singaporean artist.

(Note: In Singapore, the Kanang Guni Man is the equivalent of the rag and bone man.) Tramping up estates, down apartment blocks, he covers endless corridors. Endings the man accepts--newspapers, clocks, books, clothes-- and pays their rates, weighing them on his spring. A drab, stoop-shouldered figure, wearing a ridiculous hat. You may still spy him vanishing into holes, round corners, quick- er than your eyes can blink or heart can whim. Once, hearing his low, drawn-out call, we’d jump at the odd chance to clear out of old flats the moth-bitten linen, the monkey-blabber, the images we’ve outgrown. But all that’s no more. He’s now a curiosity. They’d likely make the man an exhibit of vanished trades, a symbol of a sim- pler past, or turn him over to the poets.

Last night I sat in the Cooper Union Great Hall in reverential anticipation. I didn't know what came over me but I had not felt that taut hush since I left the church. On a big screen on stage was projected a photo of Auden in his twenties, looking up and away, right hand tugging right ear. Too young to be a memorial picture, he was the dashing lover, the ambitious poet, the tweed-jacketed saint. A fear salted the tension, the same fear whenever I heard the Singapore Symphony Orchestra play Beethoven, the fear that the playing would betray the music. When Alice Quinn introduced Auden as the love poet par excellence , I should have realized that the evening would present Auden lite. Though the program included such heavyweights as “In Memory of Sigmund Freud,” “September, 1939” and “The Shield of Achilles,” they were miniaturized in a misconceived chronological arrangement that began with the slight “Taller To-day,” written when Auden was 21, and ended with the popular “The More Lov...

"…seven conservative archbishops declined communion rather than celebrate the Eucharist with Bishop Jefferts Schori." -- New York Times , February 20, 2007 I would compare the primately righteous to Pharisees complaining about Jesus feeding with sinners, except that, in her clerical robes, Bishop Katherine is not as hot as Mary Magdalene, and Christ has been snapped up and shat.

I visited the American Folk Art Museum for the first time this weekend, to see the major retrospective on the self-taught artist, Martin Ramirez (1895-1963). Here's a first-hand description of him by Dr. Tarmo Fasto, a professor of psychology and art, who discovered Ramirez's work at the DeWitt State Hospital in Aubum, California. He is a Mexican, about sixty-eight years old, who is classified as a chronic paranoid schizophrenic and considered incurable, having been institutionalized for over twenty years. His art activity dates back about six years. He is slight of build, greatly underweight, a former tuberculous patient who spends his time on his art. He does not speak to anyone but hums in a singsong way when pleased with his visitors. Conversation as an exchange of ideas is impossible. His manner of work is unique. When good paper is not available, he glues together scraps of paper, old envelopes, paper bags, paper cups, wrappers- anything that may have a clear drawing area...

I've just revised a poem written years ago, a poem that delineates the different responses of four readers, of different generations, to the seminal nationalistic poem by Edwin Thumboo . Thumboo is reckoned to be the first major Singaporean poet writing in English. First, Thumboo's poem, then followed by mine. ULYSSES BY THE MERLION (for Maurice Baker) I have sailed many waters, Skirted islands of fire, Contended with Circe Who loved the squeal of pigs; Passed Scylla and Charybdis To seven years with Calypso, Heaved in battle against the gods. Beneath it all I kept faith with Ithaca, travelled, Travelled and travelled, Suffering much, enjoying a little; Met strange people singing New myths; made myths myself. But this lion of the sea Salt-maned, scaly, wondrous of tail, Touched with power, insistent On this brief promontory... Puzzles. Nothing, nothing in my days Foreshadowed this Half-beast, half-fish, This powerful creature of land and sea. Peoples settled here, Brought to th...

The first day of the Chinese new year, tomorrow, will be spent in D.C., with my sister and her family. The Year of the Pig. Now what will that bring? A new poem, I hope. Be back in NYC and to this blog on Tue. Happy Lunar New Year, everyone.

Thursday March 8, Downstairs @ The Cornelia Street Cafe 6:00PM - 8:00PM Launch Party for POETS WEAR PRADA, a small press based in Hoboken, New Jersey devoted to introducing new authors through limited edition, high-quality chaplets primarily of poetry. Readings by Brant Lyon, Alex O. Bleecker, Bob Heman, Efrayim Levenson, Jee Leong Koh, Iris Berman, Susan Maurer, Peter Chelnick, Sheryl Helene Simler & others Hosted by Editors/Publishers: Roxanne Hoffman & Herbert Fuerst Editors and Authors will be present to celebrating the release of: "Your Infidel Eyes" by Brant Lyon (Oct. 2006) "Freak Show" by Ricki Stuart (Nov. 2006) "Found in a Cord" by Alex O. Bleecker (Dec. 2006) "Cone Investigates" by Bob Heman (Feb. 2007) "Dances With Tears" by Efrayim Levenson (March 2007) "The Little Book of Fairy Tales & Love Poems" by Iris Berman (April 2007) "Payday Loans" by Jee Leong Koh (April 2007) Reading and Signing. C...

I know I'm made of water. Of water made I am, one third mucus, three quarters (ahem!) phlegm. I knew I'm made of water. Today I've proven it. Two thirds vomit, one quarter liquid shit. I've always known I'm made of water, gulping down the flood, three thirds semen and four quarters feverish blood.

More than a point in time, more than a line from first to second date, more than a plane of three coordinates--the groin, the brain, the heart--more than the amplitude of sine; but less, much less, than the amassed incline, the spike of rock, the muttering hoofs on plain, on hatless scalps the drumming of the rain, less than the density of shared design measures your body, after we have played, not by the glistening mesh of pubic hair, nor the mechanical spring hook of knee, not on the golden scales of shoulder blades, but in the bathtub of my body, where displaced water makes a discovery.

Good article in The Believer . Tricia's blog alerted me to it.

If you could have the cat's nine lives, would you? To live not fearing death, not once, not twice, but eight times, confident of landing on your feet, and walking off to speak of it. Would life be better lived having been lived and having faced the biking accident, the bungee rope snapping, the heart’s big break, the bite, the bed, the bomb, the bone, the bug? And what is death if it entails no end? Nine lives means nine beginnings—not nine ends— nine middles cramped with pain or yawned to sleep, and insufficient training at bravery to face with whip and rod the quiet cough as green-eyed death stalks you on velvety paws.

The Leslie Lohman Gallery is exhibiting drawings of the male nude, done by participants of the Queer Men's Erotic Art Workshop, in a wide range of styles and media. A friend, Kevin Maxwell, is also exhibiting. According to Kevin, in the drawing sessions, models posed in various positions for increasing lengths of time. The first pose, taking off the shirt, was held for five minutes. The brevity of that pose explained why drawings of that position tended to be sketchier and less colored in, qualities that worked to great effect in some drawings. These drawings were tender, innocent or fleeting. Kevin’s Otisno (the one in upright purple frame in the corner) had a look of tender concentration on his face as he lifted a side of his tank-top. The last pose, lying back and jerking off, was held for twenty minutes. Kevin said that artists worked furiously to get the pose down on paper but simultaneously kept an eye out for the model’s climax. When he came, the room usually burst out in ...

for Keith Wiltshire, my teacher Your yearly letters make me smile. Hammered on an old word processor, they slash with slanted lines of bile the madness of the world’s car-owners, the British stock of nuclear shells, how Singapore Immigration stopped you at the airport, bade farewell to future visits, and then dropped you on the next flight home, without so much as a reason (fear of infection?). Your letters sound so clear of doubts, the years a seamless flight connection. You are as constant as your letters. With equal passion, you taught us boys Shakespeare: how not to heed our betters as Hamlet heeds the ghostly voice, and why, in Pride and Prejudice , prejudice is the name of pride. You read us Larkin’s poem “Next Please” and the far ships came alongside and then sailed on, leaving no goods, giving no reason. Wide awake, we saw from where we sat or stood, waters that neither breed nor break. Do you remember those good years as good? I do, with thankfulness, for though your letters d...

The Chinese Conceptual Photography Group Exhibition, in Avant Gallery now (Jan 18 to Feb 28), gave me the same feeling as the Chinese photographic exhibition in the Institute of Photography last year. The photos felt derivative, and the concepts thin. One group featured a full-costumed opera actress superimposed on industrial or urban landscapes: the incongruity of tradition and modernity. In another group of photos, a boy and a girl, wearing the red scarf of Communist Youth, looked out of faces painted like Chinese landscape scrolls. For me, the photos lacked formal interest. Superimposition of images can be an interesting method. I remember Kara Walker's black cutouts of black men and women superimposed on conventional pictorial narratives of American history. The cutouts were both form and stereotype, both childlike and rigorous. Each black shape, stuck on top of the mostly white page, commented on and revised that page in a particular and thoughtful way. The strongest image of ...

I live in double time: third date with you xxx and weekly dalliance with my ex taking place in one gallery. Or two. In one, you talk about the photo next xxx to one I like, its night roads lit like our bodies after burning sex. The other holds him staring at a chit xxx of a girl scrubbing a doorway, open to one returning from the street. Though details can be edited, you say, xxx digital photography can't get the black of these old prints today.

Here's a photo by Matt Chapin I like:

Girls are so kind. They leave me notes that speak their mind on naughty poets. Women, too kind, quite pity me and fear to find my sympathy. Men are unkind. They do not mean to be, but grind my cock to keen. You are not kind. You are my love. You are not kind. You are my love.