generals of the civil war #7

Joseph King Fenno Mansfield

why arent you in the NBA?

i did this in history

i interpret history
to mean a trade
that i want to surround
like an idea that laughs at me
but it's not my laugh
i overheard it
by getting used to an opposite
1500 miles from kansas city
prominently stuck in a single day
like a pioneer journeying
onto your roof
shorts and a ribbon tied to my bed frame
beautiful mystic i can stand
all proportions

notnostrums issue 4

it's up! it's here! try climbing over it. try ducking under. sliding down!

www.notnostrums.com





nodnostrums

in the bathtub

what happened to limbo?

Watch this owl sleep, preen, stretch, warm the new owlets and the unhatched eggs, feed itself, then feed the owlets. It doesn't care what you think of it. It's an owl.

(and let us pray that Sportsman's Paradise has good intentions)

lemurs

The Woolly Lemurs, Sifakas and Allies

.00000005171989 %

generals of the civil war #6

George Edward Pickett

My Aleeuna

It's incredibly loud anyways. I yelled
you look comfortable. Has it always been
so easy to read your lips?
Nobody touches anyone,
in our holding pattern, it's misty, hip, eye-colored
in the afternoon, the 10,000 year-old man attacks, moves on,
after the alarms sound, criminals devote themselves to mourning, move on.
And our fortune is described the loudest,
the loudest criminal alive assumes before it's revealed to us
that we have already wandered into death.
A kerchief is placed on a placemat.
Kerchief on kerchief.
Hold on to my future self.
My chain-reaction sits in front of an angel, I look at the ice
melting on the angel's tongue.
When the angel raises its voice
I am determined. Slice me a bit of your recent past.
It's 60 degrees in the water, up to my ears.

click image to zoom in, then read

as when Elvis entered our domain

dottie lasky was lost but brought her disc-man

on camp!

pre-poland dream

(not endorsed by)
AS220 in Providence

generals of the civil war #5

Lewis Addison Armistead

gerard jeremiah

Miracle Grenade

I am standing next to the solid gold tube.
When I wait for it to speak a religion hurries in,
like a recycled screen, I call the Capitol.
I pose indirectly for a stranger
until I’ve discredited every inch of my body.
The Capitol is not your head. It tells your head
that you have none until it’s gone.
I see the figments of a careless toss.
You toss something in Italy
that lands at my feet. I pick it up.

lemurs

the sportive lemurs

generals of the civil war #4

Winfield Scott Hancock

used to it?

Not holding
anything back at all.
Nothing to do beautiful
go go go to school
curricular content
in the pool
they have never heard
content in a coma
for me that seems true
content and content
soon make the best word
I never heard my wife.

*

Need to go up there and you don't go home and don't don't don't always make you go again okay, don't know if blond hair cuts the content, so I'm going to personally.

*

Don't do that, have to do it, people with weird content. Love you seem sincere send some this is unfair.

ben katchor

The Golden Head

I split your hand in two
and take one half away
to the mostly empty space
where an older woman
coos and draws a map of dashes.

This woman struck me,

she clapped during the silence,
as she lay an animal to rest.

I pretend I've had enough
and walk to the porch
on the other side of your house.
Half of your hand is not enough I think

and go back to her.
A patient and uncompromising season.

But I went back to you first
and you told me that your hand was bleeding.

Take this I said handing you your hand.
That's only half of my hand you said.
But you've always been open to that possibility I said.

You keep a liquid element in your shoes
and feel tired at the sight of me.

I remind you of a minor accident
By the freeway last night.
Someone who had lost two hands

Hit someone who was looking for a drop-box.
The woman was there and she exclaimed
that there are four parts to every empty space.

I think I overheard her
as I was rolling down my window to say hello to you
while you were whistling at a hurricane speed,
dividing the world between cool and between warm.

generals of the civil war #3

James Ewell Brown Stuart

find the hidden tape recorder in maine

Have you invented or discovered any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or compositions of matters, or any new useful improvement thereof? Perhaps a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture? Or possibly discovered and asexually reproduced any distinct and new variety of plant?
Just in case you have.

the pursuit of happiness
overly, muchly, thusly

Jason Polan will give you an hour, a day, or as many giraffes as you want.

by bees

The Warehouse

When someone was holding me
I was holding a small home-made rocket.
It’s uncool they told me. A large number
in place of a swallow is uncool I said back.
But that’s like telling me when I visit
you you’re just seeing things. It’s like telling me
a valuable gift can be held between your thumbs I said.
We weren’t wearing anything in particular.
It was unexpected for the prize-warehouse
where we were steeping a huge drink.
I hate being a giant you said. Drink this
and compare it to the color of your hands
said a hidden and sparklingly young mad boy.
Who is not here I said. The rest of us you said.
Evidence of the escape the boy said.

while the soup simmers along

generals of the civil war #2

William Tecumseh Sherman

On Poetry and National Power

Weeping is impossible. Try to wake up with all your clothes on. It's impossible.

Mr. Riddle I will look at you. I will look at you and think. Children. Books. Joke. Penzoil. What he said. Yeah what he said. Mr. Riddle.

family vacations gifted to dog fights
have nothing in common with the plum tree
a new protest copies a new behavior
approximately called the moving picture
having kissed common playgrounds
have nothing in common with your CB radio
having scooted into the sun by your pool
has a recipe naming your throat
something in common with the aisles of your heart
has nothing to forgive you for
a loose eye has nothing to forgive you for
has niagara falls printing film thin influenza
has nothing in common with influence
a perfected science and a sure thing
has a common pilot circling a pigeon
having nothing notable to lift
the heart has nothing to prepare you for
turned haphazardly to meet a butcher's eye
has ordered twice into an approaching storm

generals of the civil war #1

Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard

i have it

gerard jeremiah

jump ghost, hold that freezer open, for three days I circled the police fountain, waiting for fortune, or an abundance of neutral possibilities, my wet face is like the mud in your hands, the blind animals underneath, flavoring layer, kind of flavoring layer, the flavor-saver, you can have anything, it's possible I just caught it in a net, all-american creator, clean my hands on your wet face, I have seen your favorite place to posture and it is a good one, that varied idea of normal, 160 pandas, or the possibility of a cave in your arm, [expletive].

new long song same cave
new cave song long sane
new sane song long cave
new song long sane cave
new long sane cave song
new cave sane long song
new sane long cave song
new song cave sane long
new long cave sane song

"Rug/Hydrangea" by Alexander Vvedensky (read by Matvei Yankelevich)

"Blue Notebook #10" by Daniil Kharms (also read by M.Y.)

Irresponsible, parenthetical, phoenix.

The Go Poet

A rescue is under way you see

my cold shoulder bumping up against

the twins combing their beards you see

a metropolis. Now I have your things.

You can pick them up from whomever.

Maybe I'll have them there will be nothing else.

I said you could pick them up from the twins

but you’re not going to.

You’re going to run the track at school

and you’re going to be very good. The best.

Quantrill will recruit you

for his moving sidewalk.

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

By summer you will remember everything.

It won't be easy. Unhinged brother will be there

to help. He has given away his lamb

for a pure soul. He is fashionable.

Now you are his time partner:

As I freeze this water I pin a medal on your hip

and we begin a balanced 2D dance. Your things

are bugged. They are ready to be rescued

from a healthy thing. Your soul is that way.

I play pickup with one thing in mind.

So you can hear more teens dreaming.

It's not a zebra it's a portrait. By a talented windmill operator. She has a gallery here.

& Ayad Sinawi

Controlling 6.

Even If It Lasts for Hours

I visited the museum
it was my favorite place
everything in it was beautiful
it was the same year that a memorable event took place
but nobody was sure where
each city was emptied and in an instant full again
I saw the rolling children
and remember thinking
time to be afraid
a cat made an offering to the longest house in the world
I couldn't stop saying I don't know how
because a cat's body is unusual
but it's a different time now
there is a number for the museum
I go there and watch it from the outside
where through the skinny windows
I can see a set of cheeks rising like a napping bat
and which I know are alive because before they fall
they always smudge the skinny windows
in the same way a fingerprint would
it's not the only thing I see
just one of many moving parts that I can't get near enough to touch
and probably shouldn't anyways
they're competing for memories
I don't question them
they are infinitely kind

Archive Your Mistakes

promise me something

when there is action

you don’t need to ask

about compliments

I’ll shut off the heater

the big silent heater

the unfortunate yolk

spread across the earth

like a napkin

skimming the surface

and reminding the surface

of its good looks

and defying democratic process

by lying to you

a cube is a boy

who builds cubes

that are dedicated to weather

on your birthday

it was complete

because he completed it

and buried it

and covered up the burial ground

with a magazine

which he then imagined

as an old woman

discovering the very toxic

layers of earth

she grew to love

but because of their toxicity

a gold tooth in her hair

at the bottom of a lake

which made it easier to try

meaning easier to attempt to try

and get lost in the disaster

of sitting down to say hello

but forgetting to say hello

and forgetting to say shut down

#parents

The Contender

the contender

quits playing piano

he has important messages

to compose and address

the capitol is full of alligators

which makes no difference

to contender one

or contender two

and so being the one remaining

fully reticent and beautiful

in a seated position

his interest distracted by elemental yawning

and by the positioning systems

signs must be delivered

like bleeding signs

routes that lead us to showrooms

dotted with geometry

and a fax machine

if it isn’t a problem for you

it becomes one

if you ask politely

when low on hope for cooler afternoons

with less description

contender zero will call your parents

to tell them he has quit

going to replica mining villages

and instead has built his own

and is now working full time for you

as an attempt to greet

the stages of feeling

that exist when a contender

lowers a rope into a well

then into the sea

then into the well again

then into the sea again

because you asked him to

and that is his duty