Tonight @ Danny’s: http://www.timeout.com/chicago/events/books/56400/dannys-reading-series
Tomorrow night @ the Fixx Coffee Bar: http://guthagogo.com/fixxreadings.html
And if you have a couple of extra tickets to the Cubs/Orioles game on Thursday, drop me a line!
Jeremy Huggins and I will be performing. The show starts at 7PM. More info here. (The RFT recently ran a nice write-up about The Chapel.)
And I will be talking about this upcoming show, my move to California, etc., tonight from 7-8PM on KDHX FM 88.1—St. Louis’s best community radio.
Mom had a wishdasher
for whenever we had
a pile of dirty wishes.
Later Dad upgraded
to a hopedasher
and installed a new
trash compactor.
They were on sale
at Circuit City.
I am imagineering
a different future
for myself.
It involves a McDisneyfied
ranch-style house
and an oversized
animated elf
telling me
where to hang
the hose. (“On the
hose caddy, bozo!”
“Oh.”)
Do you know
how many times
the word “freakazoid”
occurs on the internet?
There are fewer
field sparrows
in my country.
In my country when
a bird disappears
we merely draw
ourselves a new one.
Here I am hailed
as Dr. Freakazoid.
(“We need
supplemental
health insurance,
Dr. Freakazoid.”
“Aflac!”)
So, what
I am imagineering
is different from
the way I grew up—
but just as at the end
of a guitar solo
its audience erupts,
I am ready
to cash things in
for awhile. Eat peace.
Drink down the doldrums
of human sprawl
for all the golden
technology
it is,
ride my bike
through the unsustainable
golf course of the mind
and wipe out
in the rough.
I like
that kind
of stuff.
We all have
different Joshes
in our lives, and
they all have
different last names
except my Josh,
Josh Smith.
Josh Smith
has decided to
change his name
to Josh Svendborg.
He is a tall man
yet an amateur
when it comes
to trees. I thought
I noticed him
jogging in the
park this morning,
looming among
the foliage.
He’s been boning
up on trees
lately, so I thought
it might be him.
What’s your Josh like?
Which is lighter,
a pound of feathers
or a pound of birds.
A pound of feathers,
obviously.
But if both were dropped
from the top of a building
simultaneously which
would land first.
This answer is trickier.
It would depend on how
the pound of feathers
was bound.
If tightly, it might land
before the pound
of birds, especially
if the pound of birds
was bound
loosely and if
the birds were alive.
Click on it—
It is time, at last,
for me to admit
that my real name
is Gunnar Svendborg.
Hi.
Number eight:
“Why I Am Not
A Jelly Donut.”
Applause roars
like applesauce
on a plate,
so I touch
the brim of my hat.
It isn’t a trick.
It is reality
made to appear
trickier than
it really is.
In “Confession II”
more characters
will worm their way
out of the woodwork:
wallflowers, wights,
and what one might
call “wabbits.”
* * *
“Where are the tractor trailers?”
“They are on their way.”
“Yes but where aren’t the tractor trailers?”
“On top of your face.”
O me! what eyes hath love put in my head
Which have no correspondence with true sight:
Or if they have, where is my judgment fled
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love’s eye is not so true as all men’s: No,
How can it? O how can love’s eye be true,
That is so vex’d with watching and with tears?
No marvel then though I mistake my view:
The sun itself sees not till heaven clears.
O cunning Love! with tears thou keep’st me blind
Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find!
William Shakespeare
It isn’t easy being such a dick.
The sun comes up, I wake;
it sets, I go to bed.
The local paper runs a story
about what a dick I am;
it’s short.
This afternoon I sit
in my recliner wearing nothing but
a floral shirt—
no shoes, no baseball cap,
no pants. I’m out
of beer.
A bird lands on my window sill
and seems to sing,
“a dick, a dick,”
to no one in partic-
ular. It’s harsh.
But
I don’t complain.
I’ve had enough
of the kind of pain
that birds inflict
with their caustic
songs to know
it won’t last long.
Besides—
a dick?
We’ve heard that one.
How about something
new from the birds.
