craigslist follies #3 – the miffed seller

Context: I would like to watch a movie with my kids tonight or tomorrow night & have no good way to watch it. I think, perhaps I’ll go to Best Buy. Then I think, maybe someone’s selling something close to what I’m looking for on Craigslist for a bit less. I find something that looks promising, inquire, and my timeline turns into a problem for the seller. Read and learn, Craigslisters!

———-
On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 2:57 PM, Aaron Belz wrote:

I am interested in the desktop. I’d like to come see it this afternoon. Call [mobile #] or reply to this email.

Aaron Belz

———-
On 1/27/12 4:21 PM, Michelle K* wrote:

I’m not going to be around this afternoon.  Can we meet on Sunday?

Michelle

———-
On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 4:22 PM, Aaron Belz wrote:

Michelle-  Sunday might be too late. Will you be around this evening?

Thanks-
Aaron

———-
On 1/27/12 4:36 PM, Michelle K* wrote:

If Sunday is ‘too late’ to pick up a desktop that you found on Craigslist…then you need to look elsewhere.  I got it from best Buy in December 2010 and it’s been used maybe 10 times.  I have everything that came with it including the disks.  I can even get the receipt if you need it. 

I am going to have to work from my schedule and not yours so don’t bother replying if you are not flexible.

Thanks.

Michelle

natalie belz: “la lettre”

Je n’envoie pas des lettres.
Je n’envoie pas des emails.
Mais
je t’enverrai une lettre.

- – – – -

Translation:
I do not send letters.
I do not send emails.
But
I will send you a letter.

natalie belz: “ovni”

Je crois aux OVNI.
Je les vois partout.
Ils sont rouge.

- – - – -

Translation:
I believe in UFOs.
I see them everywhere.
They are red.

this mallow

I’ll tell you what sort of mallow this is.
It’s the sort of mallow that comes from a marsh.

A mallow is an herb with palmately lobed
or dissected leaves and usually showy flowers.

In middle school a girl named Marsha gave me
a mallow because she had a crush on me.

We chanted “Marsha-mallow!” and made her cry.
Later, I crushed Marsha’s mallow down in the hollow

and swore I’d never love again. Still, I kind of
liked Marsha. She was mellow and regarded me

as a stand-up fellow. She once tried to kiss me
under a bower. After I laughed for an hour

she ran away screaming “Power! Power! Why
do men have all the power?” She came back later,

glowing, skirts flowing—she’d done something
wrong. “Wow,” I said. “That didn’t take long.”

All around us bunnies were bouncing,
peacocks preening. Then I wrote this song.

reading @ awp 2012

I’m going to be reading for Smartish Pace in Chicago on the evening of March 1, as part of AWP. If you know of any other readings that might want to include me, please let me know. Warning: I can be hard to book and, once booked, difficult to work with. I rarely respond to emails and phone calls. I think of myself as being rather important & have allowed that impression to go to my head.

twitter feed, 4/11-1/12

Download my Twitter feed so far as a PDF, author bio and everything (like a “real book”): http://belz.net/tweets.pdf

This is an eBook. You might consider saving it on your iPad, transferring to Kindle, or printing & stapling for basket next to toilet. Great complement to historical copies of Reader’s Digest.

This is timeless wisdom put in a brand new way.

a novel

    based on a line from Molly Brodak

“Please write me a novel in which things are
wonderful in the future,” said my new girlfriend,
then paused to adjust her skirt. She didn’t realize
that I’m a stevedore and don’t have a girlfriend
and besides, I live in Cleveland. I run a rat
show for the Ecuadorians while my invisible
butler serves them fake punch. It may sound
gimmicky but at least it doesn’t pay the bills,
nor does it pay off the ducks that have those
bills still partly attached to their horrifying heads,
though I wish it would, because then I might
get clear of the jackass duck mafia constantly
on my tail. “Please write me a novel,” she began
again, as if already revising, “in which,” but
then her words became soupy and depressing,
and besides, who really was she? At first I tried
to delete her from my phone, then called
a friend in Brooklyn at whose pad I’d crashed
not weeks before, and she suggested looking up
“girlfriend” in the Pictionary. So we began
communicating via hastily made drawings, first
of some dictators sitting at a bistro, outside,
in the springtime, one of them laughing,
saying, “Write me a novel in which the undesirable
ethnic other has been purged,” then the others
laughing too, and my Brooklyn friend guessed
“Hyundai dealership?” Uggh, I’m the rat man,
I can’t draw, I want to make things wonderful
for both of us but wouldn’t know where to start
even if I could write prose, my fine feathered
friend—or friends. P.S. Can’t get over that hat!

walking to the outhouse

The ground is crunchy because it’s frozen.
I’m wearing my chainmail lederhosen
and wishing I were still in Morocco
or visiting San Antonio, eating a taco.
But in those places I’d be dressed like Nanook,
six layers of woolens, sweating a brook.
In the words of my rapidly aging mother,
“If it’s not one thing, Son, it’s another.”
In the words of my rapidly aging father,
“Can’t change the weather, bud. Why bother?”

knock-knocks

Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Aaron.
Aaron who?
Aaron Belz.
Go away, you piece of crap!

Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Monster elevator tortoise-shell creamcakes.
Aaron who?
Monster elevator tortoise-shell creamcakes Belz.

Knock knock.
Who’s there?
System.
System who?
System of a Down.
Where is the Dream Syndicate?

one-letter poems

.
No Thank

u

.
Some Semblance Of

a

.
Activities

m

.
F

f

.
Our

r

.
As the Dude Ranch Owner Said to Her Diminutive Husband

p

.
M

t

.
I’d Buy It

z

.
Says He’s From Poughkeepsie But

9

.
I Just Coughed Up Some

Omicron

.