recyclobots! (help my daughter adopt a puffin)

My daughter Natalie wants to adopt a puffin from Project Puffin, so she is selling robots she has constructed out of recycled materials and fondly dubbed “recyclobots.” She wants to get $10 apiece, including shipping, but feel free to make an offer for one or more of these awesome works of art:

third row, l-r: teethman, adam, mr. glitterandglow; second row: H20, dr. finley, eliot, shortstop; first row: harry, shak, cachovy, tiny, katrisa

(Click here for a larger image.) If you would like to purchase one of Natalie’s recyclobots, please email me ASAP! I’m sure they’ll sell quickly to family and friends.

***Update, 4:30 PM - Five of the recyclobots have been spoken for (those whose names have been crossed out).

rules for living

There ought to be no clear ideas.

There shouldn’t be strong emotions.

There is a TV in the room.

Something mystical is happening.

charmed

……..for Frost

I hate gravity

I hate what it’s all about

I despise not only falling
but having to lumber
step by step
along sidewalks
instead of jumping
floatingly along

or pushing off
the earth’s face
with a squat thrust
into space

may no god or goddess
willfully misunderstand
my hatred of gravity
and whisk me
permanently away

earth’s the right place
for TV

I don’t know where else
I’d be able
to watch Charmed

one could do worse
than to live in a world
without gravity
and watch Charmed

.

holiday love poem

For Halloween
I dressed up as
someone who
isn’t in love w/you,

but now that it’s
Xmas I don’t
know what
to do.

Your stocking:
it’s full of
love poems
from me,

and I am lying
here naked
under the
tree.

tion

schmap is using one of my photos

This is funny.

she begged for more

She begged for more
poetry. She said what I’d sent
was real good. I told her
she reminded me of a flower.

I started calling her flower
whenever we’d talk on the phone.
Then she took a job in Jodhpur.
It got too expensive to talk after that.

We no longer speak,
but I’m still in love with her.
I have become aware
of her invisible presence.

What are relationships for?

where i’m teaching today

The kids at Jefferson are learning how to write poetry, Belz-style.

ten-point play

If the game’s architects are willing
to award an extra point for a goal
shot from outside an arbitrarily

designated semi-ellipsoid arc
radiating from directly beneath
the basket, I think a goal shot

from half court ought to be worth
four points and from within one’s
own key ought to be five. A goal

shot the whole length of the court,
from out of bounds at the other
end, ought to be six—seven if it’s

a swish. Eight if the player’s eyes
are closed. Nine if it’s also a granny
shot. Then, of course, if a player

is fouled on the 94-foot blind granny
swish, it opens up the possibility
for a ten-point play. Very rare.

seven

.
i

I steal things
that belong to other
people.

I keep the things
in my house.

My house looks
like seven.

.

ii

We’re all into things.
Let’s be honest.
We like stuff.

Myself,
I have a
huge collection—
and seven.

.

iii

People are getting
tired of World War II.

What people aren’t getting
tired of is love. Seven.

.

clichés in soccer body language

.
Anyone who has spent time watching soccer on TV must immediately read the latest McSweeney’s feature, Jamie Allen’s “Other Moments in a Soccer Player’s Life.”

.

.

similes in flight of the conchords

Most people I’ve spoken to have already seen or at least heard of the HBO comedy “Flight of the Conchords,” so maybe it isn’t blogworthy per se; but as I plan to cover it briefly in my “Comic Impulse in Modern Lit” class next spring it’s taken on fresh importance for me. Revisiting a number of the youtube videos and online transcripts I am realizing how great these guys are lyrically, all apart from the terrific comic performances. To wit:

::

Lives are like retractable pencils
If you push them too hard they’re gonna break
And people are like paper dolls
Paper dolls and people, they’re a similar shape

Love is like a roll of tape
It’s real good for making two things one
But just like that roll of tape
Love sometimes breaks off before you were done

Another way that love is similar to tape
That I’ve noticed
Is sometimes it’s hard to see the end
You search on the roll
(search on the roll)
Search on the roll
(searching round the roll)
Search on the roll
(search)
With your fingernail
Again and again
And again and again and again.

(Watch the whole video here).

.

student poem: “the orange scarf”

I think this student is rather troubled…

.
THE ORANGE SCARF

Wintertime brings two types of people—
those who wear the orange scarf
and those who deny ever having owned it.

People who say that they own
the orange scarf but are not wearing it
and people that tell you that the

orange scarf is currently on loan,
and people who say that they owned
the orange scarf at one point

but traded it for multicolored earmuffs
or something like that are fibbing.
There have been no loans

or trades, just as amoebas, vile creatures
that they are, never have parades
nor are their bodies supported by bones.

Show me an amoeba wearing the orange
scarf, however, and I will show you a man
who has learned to be content with his life.

Also, the U.S. should get its troops out of Iraq.
.

telescopes

Telescopes
are a form of cheating.

The rule about things
that are far away is that
you’re not supposed
to see them very well,

if at all. It depends
on how far away they are.

It’s not that you’re not
supposed to see things.

That would be being blind.

natural law

Natural law makes
a lot of sense to me.

In Thomistic philosophy
the existence of God

doesn’t need to be proved.
It’s a gibbon. When

the new Aquinas Institute
opened its doors

there was a gibbon-cutting
ceremony. They handed

the mayor the fleas
to the city. His

acceptance speech
was all about man’s

tree will. I am a big fan
of the mayor, so it makes

sense that natural law makes
a lot of sense to me.