Thank you, Steve. Thank you.

sitting in your office as you leafed through
sheets and sheets of paper--

the window open and your slow eyes
poring over the words on the page. You held

cigarettes and student writing with a slight tremble
as you worked through them both with the same measured

moves--something dangerous and light
to pull inside and let spill from your mouth

at all the right sounding turns.

Here to change the keys

a line of punches for the student face
which is all face
and about

a series of underlapping phrases
the kind a court can tangle (can't angle)
the kind a ness don't want
(loch ness don't work)

a serious disregard for jangle
the pits and letters part
stiff the morning stars

a hour named less for liking
the stick in belt for thin
the noise of rocks on glass
(a drinking thing gone when)
(the noose of rooks is class)
a castle crowned in pith

a line of punches for the baghead
my face in all the days
the last core a door creates

get it punchline--in the mouthright?

The settle November

tom waits sings gravel about this month and i want to eat everything, including the 26 grams of fat contained in a newly minted mcriblet. but refrain.

steven karl's chapbook is up at InDigest (which if you search for improperly, you get this) as one of their favorites from 2010 and i'm very happy to see this! seriously, and i've said this on the book of faces, if you've not seen him read and can, do. he's stellar both on and off the page. not to discount any of the other people we've published at fgp, by any stretch of the imagination, but he's bringing it when he reads.

i've got to get back to posting photos, which means i've got to start taking them again, which means i'm not paying attention to things as much as i used to with my eyes.

on another note: some words.
here's to making lists and scratching things off their faces.

not the words from 8AM for sure

i'm doing
nothing so
everything
will happen

keep your kitchen squares to yourself
and your blocks of thinking thick as cotton
and your wet soks for the rain soaked carpet

divvy up
saint node
salt plane
grater of small herbs

the pillow support is another kind of not getting it
and i am the receiver, dial and all numbers rounded
to the proper tenth.

hear me crack
single serve cup
nodding to wake
my love again

The Guillotine's Open and Waiting

Hello everyone:

If you have a chapbook length manuscript looking for a home, please consider sending it to Flying Guillotine Press. Unfortunately we're charging a reading fee this year. Fortunately it's $5, and you get a book if you want one.

Don't click the burglar. Don't pass into jail. Just send along the arresting words you pull and pile together.

wey wey wet in the beds

Today was formed by a car ride and then the news at 5 pm on a television station about a movie filming in the capital. The phrasing was "a slow-motion nightmare" and it was a full speed crash. No serious injuries. One mangled yellow Camaro and a cop truck. What is there not to mean about that?

The leaves in Lake Ariel are very colorful now. Over the summer I helped to free a crane from some brambles on the Potomac. Our cats have grown into monsters, but of a very cuddly and loveable variety.

Tomorrow is the 12th day of this 10th month and there were repeating numbers just one day ago. Now an alarm clock becomes the next type of face to hate. Does anyone have any questions?

Oh, in news: Go here: flyingguillotinepress.blogspot.com. We've got two new books out and are looking for two more to make in the coming months.

Here's to your health!

a newing

can be said with re: or
Bah, like canoe. No. All this is just posture. Ok? Am I to become the ones and jingle? Thin bills and a pocket groped coin. No. Again. Ennui. Underling. Things for fingers to burrow into. A series of small mittens. Ok. Now to the kitten.

So I might actually become one of those people--the ones who talk their animals into childlike status. The ones who post ridiculous photos of their pets in the bathtub wearing newly minted angry eyes and a hat to keep their ears dry. So his name is Crockett and his mom's name is Nepenthe. Shannon and I came to live with them by accident. Well, that's not entirely true, but we weren't planning on them. The boy is nearing on the 5 month mark and his mom is probably nearing 2 years old. They've filled out our house, especially after we lost poor Grace, who'd reached only a touch of the fame of her namesake on the Daily Squee.

So in the coming months there may well be photos and some slight gushing about adorableness and other things that may be uncomfortable and awkward. Or I'll just hit and hint at it. And post videos narrated in horrifying accents. Or I won't.

It's sunny out and almost fall. I have yet to watch a full football game. And the boy cat pounces at our feet like a coyote when we move them under the covers.