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The Rusty Toque Collaborative Poem: First Lines April 1 to April 30, 2013

5/2/2013

0 Comments

 


It helps that she’s pretty.
but it helps more if you aren't
And really, who has seen the wind except under a microscope of black storm?
Who is exposed, loneliest and pale for the explaining
Who is opposed, homeliest and frail for the restraining.
We get what we deserve
who decides
What lay ahead
whose commentary's accepted
swallow the stones, by the spoon, by the fist
replace, politely, your bib to your tits
Replace your snivel with the snail of your gentleman's Katmandu indefensibility
concerned but not panicked
running from bugs with a surplus of legs
fuck you beardee
three fingers of guilt
I’m not drunk, I’m just disoriented.
If my bones were made of iron this compass would have more than the moon to contend with.
and I'd have a no need for directions. Getting lost would be bad habit
and habits are those for which we are made
well okay then
Don’t lose out, just lose it
the moss of consciousness was all around us.
Don't rest on your sorrows. The next moment is now, now. No, no, don't rest. The next is the rest.
Wilde played with sparrows. or did he?
Everyone plays tricks
Everybody wins
Ask of the night,
Invalid entries spoke to our future, selves
dans toutes les langues
I see it that way, too

 

 

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The Rusty Toque Collaborative Poem: Full Poem April 2013

5/2/2013

0 Comments

 

It helps that she’s pretty.

It hurts that she's right.

I can think of a a bawdy line next, but I think you want to keep it clean.

It helps even more that she's also a robot.

You can change the little words but appliances see with their skin.

And that she's pretty helpful too.

grotesque & macabre eccentricities revealed only after the vows

but it's scanning her lines that I love

Even if named Betty

but what if she weren't?

The frown has somewhere to hide.

in candid wisdom and air

The sun shining in her hair

It helps that she's pretty
If not, would be a terrible pity

avoid death by advertisement

this blossom, that anchor; take a seat.

and if her teeth are straight

If her kayak's curves are polished of their winter dust

Although 'prettiness' is a construct

So cynical and witty.

It helps if she's right-handed, double-jointed, or even just unusually flexible. It all helps. If.

but it helps more if you aren't

In the way your father's fate needed help being sealed

neither one is camouflaged

be the satellite friend, orbit the divine

pretty purdy petty yeti spag--

So much in demand

And really, who has seen the wind except under a microscope of black storm?

the use of interjections to establish authenticity is effective

You can make a boat out of ocean if you are willing to drown in trees.

sand in the eye, soap in the mouth

wind rattles the windows the microscope loses its scope

Who is exposed, loneliest and pale for the explaining

And I replied, "Who has seen the stars except through a mist of pain?"

she liked to believe that ghosts would explain themselves

you stand there in your good shoes, lips squeezed free of blood

pale exposed 'ulnerable. ility.

Who is opposed, homeliest and frail for the restraining.

you bring the oxblood leather cuffs, i'll bring the reinforced chain

housed in her fragile skull, a new darkness

Who learns own strength by the cracks that do not fracture and fall but find their use in their own movement.

We get what we deserve

cataclysmic gumbo

and some of us deserve to be outsourced by sparrows

it's the nerve that gets us pinched

but not what we're worth,

Input output                         

a warm debris, a music box of calloused skin

who decides

brings a wall of mewling sharks and snivelling politicians weeping into their ontological oatmeal

What lay ahead

when this season ends

whirlygigs, bad perfume, jaguars chasing after mad women wearing scarlet boaters

who comes from a house on fire

my head is the kind of lawn in which the divot maker rejoices

whose commentary's accepted

expect the unsuspected

But whose tongue surrounds the stop sign

swallow the stones, by the spoon, by the fist

the Little Red Hen made soup from stones

make an empty room to stack their teeth and snipped eyelashes

or fill your pockets like Virginia Woolf and watch yourself sink.

replace, politely, your bib to your tits

Before this esteemed gathering lose their wits

to hell with decorum & being well tucked in

woefully lower - the ravages of gravity

Replace your snivel with the snail of your gentleman's Katmandu indefensibility

The stars snort beyond time or breath

and all its soft-born shell, blue-ceilinged risk

if the mucus won't come to Mohammed

concerned but not panicked

troubled but not distressed

try not to be keen even in your emotions

discerning but not CERNing, the insistence can't be turned off even knowing the naked eye with goosebumps of cararracts needs to be redressed, arctic thicknesses of magnitudes to see well enough be stripped back enough to be ready to perceive.

cucumbered but not pickled

To see my sister so manic

running from bugs with a surplus of legs

The spine considered as a secret, a cloud, a noodly song

Kafka says we cannot be unbeetled. do you agree?

legging it like eggs, every arrival in a Orkan transport promising sheer gloss and not a whit nor wit of protection,

when I wrote my Master's Thesis

fuck you beardee

curses, Batman

My taxes taxes are the taxes of my enemies, the birds or else worms

three fingers of guilt

Little cuts sting, big cuts ache, shedding more skin than before

for every finger of scotch & a fistful of both

I’m not drunk, I’m just disoriented.

Which means I can't find Asia even with this pint-sized Columbus handshake

fading in the sun like the concrete curb we crouch on

If my bones were made of iron this compass would have more than the moon to contend with.

the rust would mingle with the rest and you'd taste copper on your tongue

But I navigate by starling, microwaved burritos and the mesmerizing scent of my stale heart

I would be even less likely to fly, wings or no wings

and RA with his knuckleball has resurrected me--

but I'm talking about how far the stars have to dig to feel grounded

and I'd have a no need for directions. Getting lost would be bad habit

no word for flâneur, we translate as to lose ourselves, the art of getting lost. to be errant. to err

a sort of directional dyslexia. unlike Thoreau my feet aren't sure magnets pointing west. they spin some epileptic dances where each toes has its own ipod tracks.

and habits are those for which we are made

But you can fuck me sideways on Sunday.

made of the Habs and the Leafs, the 20-year upstarts in the league, and the a-sportists, and the have-nots with their leases and pleases and thanks, and the haves who just as much own a cut of tax-owned tanks and the digital arms of the watershed laws.

well okay then

approving or sarcastic tone, you decide

A zither? I thought it was bird sinew and regret.

As I stood in the flood water placid and calm...
Time wavered on edge-- so equal and raw...

Don’t lose out, just lose it

Wiggle the tooth into a new dimension

the spider hangs loosely from the web

If I had a shopping bag for every goose, I sell migration or the wind.

the moss of consciousness was all around us.

it had bark but no bite

we picked it from our beards; we were left directionless

we found no cereal and ate the moss for breakfast

I slung the sky over my shoulder, and continued to waltz

Don't rest on your sorrows. The next moment is now, now. No, no, don't rest. The next is the rest.

a thought is a lichen when it drives a bus, but slowly

Wilde played with sparrows. or did he?

Everyone plays tricks

Everybody wins

Ask of the night, knowing what you know of its restless ways,

the rabbit is quicker than the I

yet still we remained unconsciousness, numbed, unfeeling to truth - like a rolling stone, too busy moving - to think.

It said I love you, in sloppy cursive, next to a picture of boobs

the snickering hammock wherein my doubts were slung: yes, my philosophy was a slug

few blades of grass unaware of their difference forced their way through the mass

its dark underbelly dank and damp tickled its velvet green surface

Invalid entries spoke to our future, selves

like children awaiting birth, our selves float in the tidal fluid

dans toutes les langues

the syllabled cry of who and what and why

when the tongue is the moon, the stars glisten, the horizon gapes.

No words can express the truth I see in your eyes

I see it that way, too

All your kaleidoscopes shall be rewarded

said the sock to the well-worn shoe horn.

(but please, say it with feeling)

from the light it made upon its arrival, from its finally having arrived.

alas

Cardboard cut-out mayfly wings don't move.

haunted by their friend

O poetry you take my exquisite corpse and blind me to what others have said before;/ before my eyes the incorporeal toque which crowns in rust like sunset your acquisitive tour

But I have eyes in the back of my head

what is seeing, then but a yelp and a flinging out of arms

but just for now.

Just tell me how to do this.

your balls are showing

 

 

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Rusty Toque Collaborative Poem

4/1/2013

2 Comments

 
Hey we're writing a collaborative poem exquisite corpse-style.

Add a line to the comments section below. Spam welcome. Note that your line won't appear on the site until the end of the month when we publish the whole thing.

Each day for the month of April, we'll put up a new line for you to respond to (which will be the last line we received the day before).

We'll publish the whole thing at the end of the month on Rusty Blog.

April 30, 2013 Line

"I see it that way, too"

Post your response in the comments section below. You won't see it but we'll add it to the poem.
2 Comments

    The Rusty Toque: Collaborative Poem

    Add your line to the comments section. We'll publish the poem at the end of the month.

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