TIMES INFINITY

got a minute, toad?

2009-06-24T13:39:00.003-04:00

Last night we watched Gran Torino. It was probably the best Clint Eastwood movie I've seen. "Gran Torino" means "the great Turin" in both Spanish and Italian, according to babelfish, but because of Turin I'm assuming Ford meant it in Italian. Which is funny given the extremopatriot leanings of ol' Clinty in the movie (I won't call it a film)--you'd think he wouldn't even buy something with a foreign name. I laughed inappropriately a couple of times which signifies greatness (on the part of the movie and me).

Over the break we also watched a lot of Deadwood with JS, The Last Picture Show, Wild Strawberries, Gran Torino, some of the World's Strongest Man Competition (sawing), a considerable amount of Golden Girls, and Jay became obsessed with a capitalist blonde theologian on Book TV. Otherwise we just ailed.

This blog is becoming exactly what I don't want it to be, but patience, and I will return. Besides, are you there? One of you is in Austin and there are DC possibilities.

this is hard!

2009-06-23T18:20:00.003-04:00

Justin sent me a photo from I guess the airport in Austin. He says they serve Bugles (TM) in the severe weather shelter area. What does he mean by "serve"?

I asked if there are Flavor Blasted Goldfish (TM), but I also happen to know that Justin prefers anything in an "-ito" from convenience stores.

Basically until I remember how to blog I'm just going to write about Justin. So what else. Well you should definitely buy this. Although you are the yous who probably already know about it.

MLKNG SCKLS is arresting, and epic, and vignettes. It is like its cover in that way--a suggestion and also everything there is to know. So there.

Oh and Jay went to the dentist for a dry socket, and they packed the hole where his tooth used to be with a very technologically advanced clove in cheesecloth. Just remember, gaping hole = cloves. Wounds = Christmas ham.

remembering ric royer

2009-06-23T18:14:00.002-04:00

RIP

hey justin

2009-06-22T21:10:00.001-04:00

look at this!

sorry ryan manning

2009-06-22T21:06:00.003-04:00

but i'm not accepting your comment on my CV post, because i want that post to look p=r=o=f=e=s=s=i=o=n=a=l. so i'll put it here:

ryan manning has left a new comment on your post "cv":

A résumé is a document that contains a summary or listing of relevant job experience and education.

i would probably post a comment as a reply to your comment if i had posted your comment on the CV post. probably something about how CV means (loosely) "course of life," and how, maybe, on good days, i consider my art experience to be my "course of life." on most days, especially recently, i am afraid to leave the house and so would just call it a resume.

but i usually do write more on those days, the shut-in ones. what's it all mean??

cv

2009-06-22T19:35:00.003-04:00

Curriculum Vitae
L a u r e n C. B e n d e r
lauren.bender@gmail.com

E d u c a t i o n :

Towson University 1998 - 2003
Towson, MD
Degree: Bachelor of Science, Visual Communications
Honors Thesis in Painting
Graduated Summa Cum Laude

E m p l o y m e n t :

The Kennedy Krieger Institute January 2008 - present
Baltimore, MD
January, 2008 – present
Title: Assistant Teacher
Duties: In accordance with the special education needs of the populations served by each KK School, support the teachers who serve a varied population of students, assist with the implementation of the program as outlined in the IEP of each student, assist with adapting instruction that meets the individual academic, medical, developmental, and technological needs of the students, and fulfill all teacher duties and responsibilities in the periodic absence of the teacher.

S e l e c t e d E x h i b i t i o n s / P e r f o r m a n c e s :

2009
Fleckenstein Gallery, Baltimore, MD: Everybody Draws (exhibition)
The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD: Big Pink (performance with William Bender, as part of To Build A House You Start With The Roof: A Franz West Retrospective)
LOF/t at Load of Fun, Baltimore, MD: not BLUNDER but (performance/video) and WILL: A Retrospective (performance/video)

2008
Billy Fischer Memorial Building, Washington, DC: CorpOreo (performance/video as part of Girlish Ways)
The DC Arts Center, Washington, DC: CorpOreo (performance/video as part of the In Your Ear reading series)
Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, MD: Out of Order (exhibition)
Load of Fun Studios, Baltimore, MD: CorpOreo (performance/video) and Crystallomancy: Book of Twins
(performance with Leigh Bender, as part of the 5th Annual Transmodern Festival)
Carriage House, Baltimore, MD (reading, as part of the i.e. reading series)
Creative Alliance at the Patterson, Baltimore, MD: Why is there an “Ohh” in Poem?
(reading/performance)
Various outdoor sites, Baltimore, MD: Baltimore Is Reads (installation, by Publishing Genius Press)

2007
Theater Project, Baltimore, MD: The Hystery of Heat (performance, with members of the Performance
Thanatology Research Society)
Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, MD: The Beaux Arts Fair (exhibition)
Rosenberg Gallery, Goucher College, Baltimore, MD: Collaborate Now! (exhibition)
1818 Gallery, Baltimore, MD: Whale Box (reading/performance)
Minas Gallery, Baltimore, MD: Canyon Suite (reading/performance)
The 14 Karat Cabaret, Baltimore, MD: FRUMMSBO! (reading/performance, as part of the Yockadot!
Poetics Theater Festival)
Current Gallery, Baltimore, MD: Reenactments (exhibition)
Various outdoor sites, Baltimore, MD: Dead/Dying (performance)
Flashpoint Gallery, Washington, DC: Anonymous (exhibition)
The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD: Human Pyramid (performance, with the Lexie Mountain
Boys)
The Red Room, Baltimore, MD: Big Pants (performance)
Pyramid Atlantic, Washington, DC (reading/performance, as part of the In Your Ear reading series)
Dionysus, Baltimore, MD: Whale Box (reading/performance, as part of the i.e. reading series)

2006
Load of Fun Studios, Baltimore, MD: SPHEAR (performance, as part of Macabaret)
Warehouse Arts Complex, Washington, DC: Exchange (exhibition/performance)
Subbasement Artist’s Studios, Baltimore, MD: Arbitrary Specifics (exhibition)
Wyman Park, Baltimore, MD: Event Staff (performance, as part of the Transmodern Festival)
Scottish Rite Masonic Temple, Baltimore, MD: The Beaux Arts Fair (exhibition)
SoWeBo Gallery, Baltimore, MD: Nostalgia for Almost (exhibition)
Big Orbit Gallery, Buffalo, NY (reading, as part of the Just Buffalo Literary Series)
The 14 Karat Cabaret, Baltimore, MD (reading/performance, as part of the Shattered Wig Review)
The Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, MD: Ground Songing (performance with members of
the Performance Thanatology Research Society, as part of ArtScape)
Hysteric-Ontological Theater, New York, NY: The Hystery of Heat and The Mountain and the Universe
(performance with members of the Performance Thanatology Research Society)
Center Stage, Baltimore, MD: LACK (performance, as part of These Are Your Instructions)

2005
Clayton & Co. Fine Books, Baltimore, MD (reading/performance, as part of the i.e. reading series)
The Bowery Poetry Club, New York, NY (reading)
Station North Arts and Entertainment District, Baltimore, MD: Picture Window (exhibition)
Current Gallery, Baltimore, MD: Group Show (exhibition)
Scion Lounge, Washington, DC: Burlesque Poetry Hour (reading/performance)

2004
CHELA Gallery, Baltimore, MD: Temporary Human Language (performance)
Spare Room, Baltimore, MD: Matchbox (exhibition)
Seed/Vector, Baltimore, MD: Systems, Codes, Chaos (exhibition)
The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD: Cram Sessions (exhibition)
Mt. Vernon Square, Baltimore, MD: Artist’s Book Tent (exhibition as part of ArtScape)
The Talking Head Club, Baltimore, MD (reading/performance as part of the Mobtown Writers Collective)
ACA Galleries, New York, NY: Celebrating the Renegade Press (reading as part of the Boog City series)

2003
CHELA Gallery, Baltimore, MD: The Poetry Wholesaler’s Clearance Event (exhibition)
Blue Elephant Gallery, Frederick, MD: Group Show (exhibition)
Fleckenstein Gallery, Towson, MD: Works On Paper (exhibition)
The Talking Head Club, Baltimore, MD (reading/performance as part of the Mobtown Writers Collective)
Towson Commons Gallery, Towson, MD: AVIARY: Honors Thesis Exhibition (exhibition)

P r o f e s s i o n a l E x p e r i e n c e :

Board of Directors, Narrow House
http://narrowhouserecordings.com
2004 – ongoing

Editor, SUCCESS!
http://www.angelfire.com/poetry/thepixelplus/nhsuccess1.html

Curator, Yockadot! Poetics Theater Festival
Baltimore, MD, Alexandria, VA and Washington, DC
2007

Studio Assistant, S. Denise Tassin
2005 – 2008

Contributing Editor, Radar Review (a critical journal on the arts in Baltimore), 2001 – 2006

Feminine Arbiter of Phrases, Performance Thanatology Research Society, 2004 – ongoing.

Installation Experience:

The Beaux Arts Fair, Scottish Rite Masonic Temple, 2006, Maryland Historical Society, 2007
Their Eyes Are Watching You: Artwork Inspired by Surveillance, Rosenberg Gallery, Goucher College,
2006
Almost Solo, Too Few, Important Things, Make Believe and Pocket Productions, Creative Alliance at the
Patterson, 2007

S e l e c t e d B i b l i o g r a p h y :

Interview by thunk/Ryan Manning
http://metaphysicalthinking.blogspot.com/search/label/lauren bender

Review, The Dictionary Poems by Lauren Bender, New Lights (2004)
http://repopo.wordpress.com/2006/09/29/the-dictionary-poems-by-lauren-bender-newlights/

Interview by Publishing Genius Press
http://www.publishinggenius.com/wbinterview.htm

Kevin Thurston. “From the Visual to the Verbal.” Artvoice [Buffalo] 24 March 2006, v5n12.

P u b l i s h e d W o r k :

Thurston, Kevin and Lauren Bender (illustrator). I’AM BORED Part 1, Boys Are Retards. Maple Spits #9.
2008.
Bender, Lauren. Whale Box. Baltimore, MD: Publishing Genius, 2007.
Bender, Lauren. Poem. Washington, DC: Big Game Books, 2007.
Bender, Lauren. Dictionary Poems. Onedit 8. 2007. http://www.onedit.net/issue8/laurenb/laurenb.html
Bender, Lauren, Ed. WORD@PEEK Issue 1: Lovers 1 Haters 0. Baltimore, MD: PEEK Review. 2006.
Bender, Lauren. The Dictionary Poems. Tempe, AZ: New Lights Press, 2004.
Bender, Lauren. Guide to the Dictionary. Baltimore, MD: Furniture Press, 2003.
Bender, Lauren. “The Good Book.” LINK: A Critical Journal on the Arts in Baltimore and the World.
Baltimore, MD: Link Arts, Inc. 2002

Writings have also appeared in The Shattered Wig Review, Rock Heals, f-hole, and The Poetry Experiment.

H o n o r s :

Artist Group Award Grant presented to Narrow House Recordings, Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, 2008.

Departmental Painting Award, Best in Show, Towson University, 2002.

and from then on i never opened a band-aid the same way again

2009-06-22T17:39:00.002-04:00

that it will turn to astroturf
that it turns to marshmallow topping

i hate vacation

hey

2009-06-15T13:02:00.000-04:00

i can't remember how i used to do this. somebody tell me something to do.

1 - 32 of 36

2008-07-28T21:50:00.002-04:00

one

to buckle

tree under weather

for scoured landscapes the

fief corps vacation pelican this

sex grotesque mathematics to square up

steven or even hand to mouth food

ate the maw from inside (ate itself) o

nein o oiu yes yes ja ya’ll mien (kampf)

tents schema pyramid heavenward sun some believe it to be

leavened (his age) (starchy) fish fatty theatricals testicle from god to

delve dirty cleave dirty chess deeper still that move that swung us

flirting lyric appropriate how chafed and chapping or chaff from grain believe it

for things fissuring open (cluster) dirty dirty mein all-inclusive specialer numeric globule peeking famished

drifting gravitationally earthward worms blood-like docking understanding the way we do into womyn cross (out)

cisterns chalice even (out) tragic situation into flames so unrecognizable as to baffle parents who buttressed

ketamine thief at the fief fair nova scotia super bang split tetris habit bathtub garble nowhere terror

eating mouth with mouth image tragic possibilities proverbially stratagems to tell us how to come to some agreement

binding mouth to mouthing best to flee with wealthy family to embassies all-suite all-clear alright already for penpal language

venti foam sentry moving westward as affront or northward as industries saffron out piddly century piddly pity we meant (well

lemon hum mustard cut all green (see tree) not well say ill see turbulence say engineering felt help felted hair hapless

buntings too take vacations summer homes random hooters in many ways familiar and developmentally on par save parsed out by the binary

cunty trees blooming springward arbitrary geography in arts district transitional committee wholesome liberal community listen hum listen ham up canned for questionable authenticity

Dinty Moore atop turvy limey in need of ease tater to commercial piddly toddler too old to run again eulogy for eunoia hear homage

gunky hive produces enough soup to feed the need no shave no shower look presentable upon favorably lukewarm soup pigeon soup soldiers into bee soup

perfunctory blitz and down signature mystery shoulder possibility heaving soldier magnetic sticker picture clotted bunting sticker driftwood bits upon epidemic stickpin royal memo mercury email puffin

monkey heaven they them lesser allegory sugar water ruby thrum to throat among hawkeye playbill cleave stupid nest with lawnmower pixie stick with weed whacker downy youths

penny rate house by strum the broker for some favor tiddly winks and suggestive banter I’m a renter from my sister among us she’s the one to recoup

bent-knee time trumpet funding into flow the water leaking from the ceiling see-through dad band-aids trash toilet chase for fear for fear cerebrally speaking in biblical sensible tongues

dirty hubbub aflutter with talent soldier riddled press wrinkles amidst upholstery botched jobs make the pleat bleat the squirrel noises ’cross reservoirs indeterminate impressions cross sounds putrid with littered dingies

curtly shunned aside petulant grievous or peeved boys build to take apart monotony kinetic all tyranny gargantuan silos aghast discharged maw yawning agape barnstormer pioneer drawn courted probably by some reporter

birdie shoo woven historically brush the dogs for fodder leave it ’round for wren and nuthatch scattered and speared upon stalky overgrowth briar bunny tree limb and tower hair of the dog

s u b m i t

2008-05-27T20:36:00.000-04:00

Hello,

Narrow House is gearing up for Issue 2 of our online/printable PDF occasional journal, SUCCESS!

Issue 1, CHIMERA: I Am My Own Twin can be viewed here:

http://www.angelfire.com/poetry/thepixelplus/nhsuccess1.html

Issue 2 is OUIJA. Some things to consider:

+ vowels
+ crystallomancy/telepathy/divination
+ automatic/ghost writing
+ nostalgia/invention
+ fakes
+ dead (languages)
+ collaboration/pairs
+ pronunciation
+ parker brothers
+ any flat surface
+ any flat surface printed with symbols
+ any flat surface printed with symbols using a planchette
+ seance
+ "oui" (yes) "ja" (yes)
+ patience worth, plath, twain, aleister crowley...

Please keep in mind that we here at the House tend to meet form and content in the middle, but strongly encourage submissions that favor the conceptual. We also strongly, strongly encourage works (appropriate to PDF format) that are based in text but expand upon the term.

Please also distribute this call to those who may be interested, and submit all works to this email address.

The DEADLINE for submissions is 7:00pm EST June 20th, 2008, more commonly known as the Summer Solstice.

We
Know
What
You're
Thinking,

Narrow House

thanatological tidbit

2008-05-05T22:04:00.001-04:00

http://forums.remorial.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=6327399b1676cf29c9d9f29a30b6cc3f&topic=2.0

wow. you can get $10 for every dead person you write about. consider yourself warned.

retractable

2008-04-17T22:30:00.003-04:00

statute of limitations upon
treaded stone (left serifs;
kids kick over and kids
walk to like dunkin' donuts and)

giant quiet
shining at night

tumor dog run between teeth
want to do things to you
very softly but don't
even know who you are

BEHOLD

2008-04-14T22:03:00.002-04:00

this is from when we watched part 3 of the power of nightmares, and then happened upon a show about mummies. awesome cinematic transitions; lens flare. guess who made the collage. ps does anyone have a digital projector i can borrow for sunday's DCAC performance kthxbye?

Couches have caught us up
(time couched in caches of fabric;
his presumptuous self-invitations,
her multitasking conversations)

In a country where nothing is feared
Everything can be our religion
Behold what the man said to us
Behold our everlasting pets

gypsies and gluttons

2008-04-08T18:46:00.002-04:00

yay. thanks to thereweretentigers.blogspot.com

this year's transmodern was the best ever, and i'm saying that because i was in two nights of it. jay kay!

no really. it was a carnival. my screen saver ("cosmos" motif; could have been worse) came on in the middle of my video projection and i just kept eating. that's how happy i was.

perchance i will re-enact the corporeo video/mime piece 4/20 at the DCAC for my reading, since there is text in it and i want to dress as a mime for the rest of my life. jgp and js now have mime fetishes because of me. jgp's is so significant that he brought me a corsage and asked me to the prom after my performance.

TLA is a three letter acronym for "three letter acronym"

2008-03-29T08:58:00.000-04:00

bender's gone wild

2008-03-27T13:52:00.002-04:00

we went to buffalo for spring break (small press fair).

highlights:

meeting all the men i've only dreamed of over listservs; implicit gender politics (open-ended) coupled with amazing curries as food for thought
the homemade elf shoes of the man in the band the golden calves (i think?)
new book with kevin (www.producepress.com)
abe lincoln print by the enthusiast (www.enthusiastprint.com)
a three-person baltimore nap that lasted from 530p to 730a post-TGIFriday's fried mac-n-cheese

***

now, upcoming (i'll be con twin friday night for crystallomancy fortune-telling with a three-headed turban, and sans physical twin but con third metatwin playing a rough match of oreo slap-head):

The 5th Annual Transmodern Festival (Live.Art.Action) will be held at Load of Fun Galleries and the surrounding Station North Arts District from Thursday, April 3rd to Sunday, April 6th. The festival expands this year to over 70 critically acclaimed local and international artists presenting experimental performance, sound, film, and installation.

This year, we're also including a special Sunday event! The "Pedestrian Services Exquisite," is a guided walking tour of North Avenue and beyond with over 30 site-specific, roaming, uncanny, planned/unplanned, and esoteric events and actions along the way, including the LOVE PARADE from Baltimore's own Fluid Movement. You do not want to miss this extraordinary outdoor event!

Dates: Thursday 4/3 - Sunday 4/6
Times: Thurs - Sat - Doors open at 8pm, show at approx. 9pm. Sunday outdoor performances from approx. 12pm - 3pm.
Cost: $10 for Thurs - Sat. Sunday Pedestrian Service Exquisite is free.
Info: www.transmodernage.com for details, schedules, tickets

Just a few of the featured artists include:

Adrienne Anemone
Lauren Bender
Blevin Blectum / Kevin Blechdom
Jai Brooks
GOBOLUX
Dynasty Handbag
Katastrophe
Dina Kelberman
Frankie Martin
Kim Miller
Anna Oxygen
Carly Ptak
Spoon Popkin
Snacks
Erin Womack
.... and many many many more!

a person's a person, no matter how small (appropriate at will for optimal douchebaggedness)

2008-03-17T23:03:00.007-04:00

air horn = bad

2008-03-07T06:31:00.002-05:00

talkin' 'bout staph, tranny

2008-03-06T19:47:00.002-05:00

ewwwwwww!

your gmail suggested link

2008-02-28T18:19:00.004-05:00

how does one subvert that??

i want to recreate my blogger screen using only this photograph:

(file name: crafty_putin)

!!!!!!!L@@K!!!!!!1!11!!!1!!!1!

2008-02-27T18:19:00.010-05:00

Part the First, in which my parents try various house ales:

here are some rushdie bits from last night, when I went with my parents to see him speak, copied from my question card. i'm not sure how i feel about most of it.:

+ "You can lead a whore to culture but you can't teach her to think." (re: Paris Hilton)

+ journalistic/naturalistic prose fails (is insufficient) b/c it can't meet/describe the strangeness of the current world

+ there is a kind of East at war with a kind of West

+ XXXhott bigot-on-bigot actionXXX

+ an ethic of impurity (mongrelization = symbiosis)

+ puritanism = the overwhelming fear that someone somewhere might be happy

+ orthodox Islam = "atrophy of intellectualism" by virtue of relying on Qur'an as literal truth w/o revision, although if it is to be taken literally, and god is larger than human characteristically (as the alternative would be demeaning to god), how can a linguistic acct be the true 'word' (vs translation)

+ "had it not been not funny, it would have been quite funny" (re: fatwa)*

+ we are a language animal; we use stories to tell ourselves what kind of creature we are

+ bordered on the canine

+ get religious on their ass

*i want to use "re: fatwa" as much as possible

Part the Second, in which justin sends me gems of the gaming world, and in which i again doubt my gaming ability in light of the need for 'strategy,' even in lands of drawn cars:

http://www.kloonigames.com/crayon/

Part the Third, in which um um um i envy others' work ethic (this is a story from adam re: baltimore is reads)

This morning I threw a poem in the trash heap along a chain-link fence and thought, "Well that makes sense."

for some reason blogger won't let me link to the site. it's just baltimoreisreads.com.

Part the Fourth, in which it is declared that bender is back on the market after a brief foray, but wishes there was a way to meet people in writing that wasn't the internet. ryan says there used to be something like that in the dc paper. also in Part the Fourth it is recounted that an extremely endearing student began to put hand sanitizer all over his feet in the middle of math class. job = teh c00l.

bender is back on the market after a brief foray, but wishes there was a way to meet people in writing that wasn't the internet. ryan says there used to be something like that in the dc paper. an extremely endearing student began to put hand sanitizer all over his feet in the middle of math class. job = teh c00l.

HOLY CRAP

2008-02-19T20:07:00.005-05:00

I missed you SO MUCH. I'm just so bad at talking on the phone. Ask Kevin.

Since I've been gone, Justin Edward Caligula Sirois My Pets III has begun to illustrate my employment sphere. It looks a lot like my unemployment sphere, but the terror is obscured by the joy of three initials: P P O. It has to do with health insurance. Now I can go to any doctor I want and pay a lot of money, except I'll know to label the money "deductible" in my head, which is much less threatening than "OH GOD MONEY," even if in the end they are the same thing.

Okay, this is from work, by Justin. It actually happened, all of it:

And you know what else? Bender, who was five feet of man-meat, now HAS about SIX feet of man-meat. I present to you the sweetheart of online dating and economic analysis:

Likes: cats, pie, circus peanuts.
Dislikes: driving, riding in the car, stuff to do with moving cars.
Between the two of us, there is nothing we can not fear. Try us.

I was supposed to have a double-header this weekend (this doesn't have to do with boning), but read in Baltimore and lost my voice and couldn't read in DC. Here is what I read at the Carriage House in Baltimore, in case you want to see it. Some of it has to do specifically with the place, so don't be intimidated by my snooty references. You wouldn't understand anyway.

**

Very little need in the modern world—by which I mean ultra, aligned, of course urgent (some friends say malignant)—at a club, for some barn or stable, with nominal function, and original storage and drastically small carriages, very little need for modifications. Because of their prestigious nature, please identify something unique to this large strata; note our differences in position; note the height of my prestigious nature; note my stature, my very little need.

Behold my marimba.

Consider the stove where there was once a different kind of stove; consider that song about things becoming lush and temperate, exchanging their retail for quiet return. For a moment, consider epic sleeping quarters; consider the job of warming the seat in the outhouse for someone; consider the story about doing that job in the dark morning, and when you go to sit you feel yourself sitting on someone’s lap, but there is no one there; you spring from it; you burst out into sharp frigidity with your wool pants halfway up and hit a root and fall—the earth has exactly the quality you would expect upon your arm and face. Huffing, you try to tell your wife but she won’t hear it. You saw your master’s horse dozing, his heavy head toward where there are now chairs with people in them. You can’t get used to this lifestyle. You caught a rattlesnake for dinner.

This place had a ghost and an environment.

Small carriage house. Mistakes will happen. Fanciful renderings of the interior. Kansas, New York, such structures regardless of their current use.

*
A suite for the whole family; expanses of terror.
In the mornings he rolled into low light from something atomic and lit
Couldn’t believe they were waking us up that early
To normalize the map in tow, the tether,
The years strung together by gaps

Hurrah
That I can recall the names of fruits and vegetables
Hurrah

Squeaking down Versailles in an inflatable
And following through aquariums
(Note the carpet—how it forces and absolves)
(Note the pattern—how it meets the chapel and retracts)
Scuttles by in an innertube and flip-flops
Scuttles toward the indoor pool wearing something inflatable

The Carriage House is a non-gaming hotel just off the strip
Our plane was delayed; we played nickel slots until
Flying home separately.
My brother rolls into certain light from other kinds of light

*

City houses could be
small, utilitarian,
and only adequate
to house one small carriage

small, fanciful interiors arranged along
slatted architectures
vast bodies of bays and prairies and plateaus
carriage bays adequate for small utilities

horses holding tremor in their vast bodies

*

think not on expanses of water but on the cliffs relieving them
small boys build their lean-to and throw metal folding chairs
sometimes it’s like a country inn by the sea, and others,
I had an idea sprayed with the foam of melancholy
I tried to draw a conclusion

The carriage house is like a country inn by the sea.
In it, it’s like waiting; the dunes are hospitable
You can imagine some southern fishing birds
There are no birds; look—no sound
On the dunes there are grasses

*

There is no current default page for your needlework aspirations;
Like the breath of small boys its recollection grows plaques of
Possibility—like certain farts it foreshadows small patterns and
Lack of follow-through.

Stitch Amish alphabets into slashed throats
Remember both throats against heavy polyester
Business casual behind the eroticism of sports injuries
One man holds the other, and fiddles down
For that retracted something

Pinched closed are the spurts of industry
Imagine marshes where there was once upstate
Stay with wholesome democratic surgeries
The throat within your neck hoarsely housing
Spaces to devastate and hold dearly

*

“MYTH was the product of another series, which began in February 1997 in Braddock Heights, MD at a carriage house on Maryland Avenue. Toby DeBarr and myself leased the carriage house for a year and a few months for $650 a month out of our own pockets ... and hosted BYOB potluck dinners with convivial readings on a monthly basis on Saturday nights, which were incredibly popular -- often more than 60 to 80 people would cram in, but it was so much fun ... we began asking out-of-town poets to come and do short features in 1998 ... and put them up in the loft of the carriage house. We remained there until August 1998, then moved to Other Words Studio in downtown Frederick by their invitation. We remained there doing the monthly series on the 4th Saturday of the month until May of 1999.

The first slam, in October 1997, was so large we had to rent out the Braddock Heights Community Center behind the carriage house for the more than 150 people that showed up to listen to the 20 slammers! People came from all over: Virginia, PA, MD, WV, DC ....

[read like slam]
we were stunned to find how
word of mouth
had travelled so far so fast!” My
last postal pony gallops lonely; my
mythical history bewitches me
pony tricks twist mixed-up destinies

*

Pretend that you are the horse
and your chair is the carriage
Imagine your efficiency
Your quiet subversion

Now imagine that you are a rogue economist
And your carriage is our recession
Nothing can move me like that octave
I hear it and lurch toward you,
My oversized head, my hot nostrils
Crusted and flexing against shiny weathers

Think of its efficiency as it becomes engorged
(its passive considerations)
Hear its contents coarse toward my equine guts and brains
Its proximity illusory beneath this baseball neck
Its filling held within or projected at trauma
Or in the car, like a donut
Plasma to deep color

My foal’s eyes are wildly rolling amidst
Its such visible physiology
I throw my taut weight atop
And snap its soft body down to marrow
We are in the bathtub
I have to live forever

*

Carriage houses get their name from
Where they were conceived

the out buildings of large manors where
at least it wasn’t Warsaw

owners stored their carriages
detached garage designs with living space above them
two to three cars
one bedroom and bath

in Baltimore we have bowling
he said when the pins crack they look like
a flock of flying ducks

These plans make an interesting alternative to
The idea of the Gestapo taking your mother
While you are deep in fever

*

A lifetime—which is taxonomic, multilayered, some would say shrouded in pragmatism or just really uncomfortable—laminated shingle designed to replicate scalloped slate, a lifetime of science and eaves overhanging a round hole in the door just outside of the bathroom, just right for one’s eye when no one is looking.

What was it?

It wasn’t. Just a hole to pull a door or look through. Ghost to tell, no story to project upon the alley, and what of the alley’s was, or was it? Just some stall to muck and think how deep to go.

*

lips of the cherubim

2008-01-14T21:28:00.000-05:00

will you think less of me if i post two promotional things in a row?

okay, well here:

narrow house presents

Lips of the Cherubim

by

Joseph Cashiola

Download both web (with sound) and print PDFs:

or

www.narrowhouserecordings.com

SUCCESS!

2007-12-28T10:18:00.001-05:00

this is important. look at the mouse.

SUCCESS!

(it's been almost a year, but)

mom

2007-12-19T11:34:00.000-05:00