Some excellent poems at whisky is for friends, a few for me.

Audio of me reading is up at New Lakes Audio (from Catherine Meng's house in Berkeley, March 2008, Rob Schlegel and Brandon Shimoda recording).

I had some trouble getting it to load on a Mac (could be the horsehair in our walls), but it works on the state's trusty HP.

A bit about those poems:
"Your Face": a re-imagining of events in and outside of Lyon dormitory (they always said it was designed by people who built prisons), Pomona College, 1999.

"Examination of Physical Space in the Notebook" takes place on Haddon Road, Oakland, 2007 and thinks back to Bolivia, sloths, 2001, and "the past."

"The Face Transplant" takes place alone (afraid of dogs, whistling to ward off mountain lions) and with Lily Brown on the ridge trail in the Redwood Preserve in the Oakland Hills, October 2006, after I had started my very real job.

the sun is shining straight onto my eyes to burn up my corneas

I am going to have some Spanish translations of poems by Graham Foust along with the originals from As in Every Deafness in the upcoming issue of Mandorla . If you click there now, you will not see anything that confirms what I say. Mandorla has been around since 1991!

Poems=Art

MFA Exhibition: Michael Parker and the Changing Table, 1968 – 2008 – 2048; an election week public activation

I'm going to have a few poems in this exhibition printed in neat single-page books my sister designed. If you're in Los Angeles, check it out. If you're crying in Los Angeles, check it. If you're in Los Angeles on Thursday, be received.

November 3 - November 7
Reception: Thursday, November 6 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Graduate Fine Arts Building & Roski MFA Gallery
3001 S. Flower St., Los Angeles, California

One part of the show is the Changing Table; a table top curation with somewhere between nine and twenty yet-to-be-finalized contributors.

Hours: Monday-Thursday 10 - 6, Friday 10 - 2 (with a 24x7 window panel)

PAIN


It is from Alaska
that we send those out to make sure that an eye
is being kept on

this very powerful nation
Russia because they
are right there



WITH THE IMPACTS OF CLIMATE


change what we can do
about that as governor

I was the first governor

to form a climate change to
start dealing

with the impacts


--partially courtesy of Maureen Dowd there on the media

Red Hook: December

We had not expected it, the whole street
Lit with the red, blue, green
And yellow of the Christmas lights
In the windows shining and blinking
Into distance down the cross streets.
The children are almost awed in the street
Putting out the trash paper
In the winking light. A man works
Patiently in his overcoat
With the little bulbs
Because the window is open
In December. The bells ring,

Ring electronically the New Year
Among the roofs
And one can be at peace
In this city on a shore
For the moment now
With wealth, the shining wealth.

-Joe Massey reminded me about this Oppen poem called Red Hook. For you LCB.

The pull down to the sidewalk
as I bent. Attitudes I lifted
from your inside. Carry
that bulky cooler. Pack
my soul in a grocery bag.
The plants are dropping
their reproductive leaves.
This fish is chewable ocean,
just ocean to me.
Recycle your bags;
now we don't use them.
The pull to the ocean
unassailable, akin
to dropping off people
at their doorsteps,
to a bucket full of bread
by your side. This plant
lives because I love it.
Your plant dies
and your television attitude
that you like dropping off to,
shoves to the sidewalk, free.
Or throw away soul
that I made in college
before it jumps the shelf
in boredom. I don't
believe in that state,
but believing is suspect
as per.

I'm in the library at SFSU, and there's a lot going on. Amazing library books. See photos. And there's a new Typo in which I have a poem.

And two cool new Lame House chapbooks, Arlo Quint's Photogenic Memory and Matt Hart's Simply Rocket:

And I'm about to go to English language learner class. To those of you who sent poems, thanks! The Braille copies should be sent in the next couple of weeks. It's not to late to get yours. As to language,"old" is my new favorite adjective; "old abacus" is my new favorite phrase.