Monday, December 30, 2013

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Cat Mantra

Me am.
Me am me.
Me am.

Me am.
Me am me.
Me am.


Sunday, December 15, 2013

Hibiscus - Bel Air - December 2013

Hibiscus
 

My Life in the Mind of a Parrot

"Hello. I'm a talking pig."

This voice was obviously emerging from the cage of a large green parrot,
which was partially concealing its beak with one claw,
like a terrible amateur ventriloquist.

"Oh, ex-cu-u-u-se me!" the voice continued.

"Did I say pig?"

"I meant to say parrot."


Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Hollywood

Hollywood
Hollywood - Jacob Freeze - 2013
 
 

Monday, November 25, 2013

Maniac

When they tell me the infinite joke,
I stick my fingers in my ears!
My mind is everywhere and nowhere.
I stick my fingers in my ears!
There is no infinite joke!

So whacha gonna do,
you who never had any
you who never had any
you who never had any hope?

You can laugh like your leg just broke!
You can laugh like broken bones.

 
 
 

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Machine à fuir

c'est pas pour penser
la cervelle
ni aimer

pas pour chanter
ni dire

machine à fuir

 
 
 

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Radio Topeka

This is Pop-Pop-Pop-Papa Toolbox reporting for
Topeka Hot Topix and this is my sidekick
the am-oozing
the am-eezing
the amazing
Pop Squid!

Blimey! I'm Pop Squid!
Is this sex?
Wot eez zeez "sex" zey speek uff?

Eez eet zee oozy-woozy woo-woo?
Eez eet cow-bouncing?
Eez eet zee bow-wow boogie-woogie?

And now...

And now...

And now it's time to spin
the top ten pop hits in Topeka tonight

for all you sweet ladies

floating so far away in the dark.



Thursday, October 17, 2013

World's Greatest Tight-rope Walker


World's greatest tight-rope walker is walking along
on his rope when an agent runs into the circus-ring.

"Hey, world's greatest tight-rope walker! I got a
beautiful deal for you! Movies, TV, video-games,
action figures, endorsements, the works! Your act
is going global!"

"What act?" asks the world's greatest tight-rope
walker, and when the agent looks up again, the
world's greatest tight-rope walker is already far,
far away, on the infinite tight-rope.


Avocado Leaf - Bel Air, Los Angeles - 10/17/2013

Avocado Leaf

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Club

Show me your junk!
You think I'm joking?
You're the joke!

Uncork your little cruet, cutie!
Crunk that hunk!
Unzip your suture!
Suck my tusk!


Cesaria Evora



The world-soul sings through Cesaria Evora, like it sang through Billie Holiday.


Saturday, October 12, 2013

Snow White and the Seven Jesuses

This looks like a story about Mary Magdalen. I mean, that would
make sense, wouldn't it?

But it's really an interview with the psychiatric nurse in charge
of the Jesus Ward in a vast asylum.

Is this a difficult assignment for you, Nurse White?

"Not really. Most of the time they just float around the ceiling,
performing miracles-at-a-distance and referring to
themselves as the luckiest seven Jesuses in the world."

How many Jesuses do they think there are, all together?

"Eight."

And why do these seven feel so lucky?

"Because they weren't crucified!"


Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Sunrise - Century City - October 9, 2013

Sunrise 2
 

Hex

What I want is love and a hundred sexes!

Will you be my blood-angel?
Will you be my witch?
Will you be my witch for a hundred sexes?


Thursday, September 26, 2013

Snejana Onopka

Snejana Onopka

So you're sitting around in some swanky café in Kiev (where they still let you
smoke in cafes) and Snejana Onopka sits down at your table and gives you that look.

You may be gay, you may be straight, you may be super-cali-fetishistic-XP-alidocious...

You may be male or female, you may be a dog or a cat, you may be the skeleton of a
long-forgotten pirate accidentally re-animated by some comical deity...

But whoever/whatever you are...

You melt into the moment.

 
 

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Nine Nakednesses

I saw nine nakednesses on my way to Paradise
and for all I know there may be a
new and different nakedness in every atom.

I saw

so much shining

that after the first
nine nakednesses, I was as blind as Moses.

 
 

Monday, September 9, 2013

Translation

This is a poem that translates into darkness.

Get down on your knees!
Give away all your money!
Forget about art!

My friends!

Are you
more like a tweet, or more like the
heat of a thousand suns?

Are you the golem in my genome?
Are you daughters of art?
Are you money?

My darlings!

Ring every alarm!
Hock your bling! Hock your bong! Hock your karma!
Get down on your knees!

Give away all your money!

 
 

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Sunday, August 18, 2013

August in Bel Air

I saw your ghost on TV
and it was a
trac-trac-trac
tragic ac-ac-accident, they say

Ghosts on the radio
loganberries under the hedgerows
an apocalyptic
slowdown on Sunset Boulevard

Kisskisskisskisskiss...
Bang!

Who was that masked man?

Who was that masked woman?

Now we'll never know, and
those
old
photographs of ourselves are burning

 
 

Monday, August 12, 2013

Installer


I'm an XXX Extreme Gamer.
Are you my moonbeam?

I work 77/7/365!
I work 77/7/365!

Are you my moonbeam?
Am I your installer?

 
 

Friday, August 9, 2013

Mustard

Some tomatoes turn white.
Were they ambushed by albumen?

Word!

I'm as bald as an ostrich.
I'm as bald as an electron.
I'm as bald as mustard,
and you can't pay for mustard with mustard!

 
 

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Wetland

Do you know where we are?
On what continent?
In what cosmos?

Do you own this dinette?
Did you build it?
Did you forge the knives?
Did you cut up the victims?
Did you cook the meat?
Did you eat it?

Do you know where we are?

 
 

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Zihuatanejo

¡Ay, caramba!

¡Ay, mi carajo!

I saw you on the beach at Zihuatanejo
and you saw me.

¡Ay, caramba!

¡Ay, mi carajo!

 
 

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Ennui

ennui épouvantable
ennui fou

ennui/fleur au feu rouge
ennui/feu au fer bleu

ennui épouvantable
ennui fou

 
 

Saturday, July 27, 2013

A Song About Phonics

Let me sing you a song about phonics.

TRA LA-LA LA-LA LA-LA LA
TRA LA-LA TRA LA-LA TRA LA!

PHONICS!

You'll be screaming for your mommies
before you get out of here!

Screaming for your mommies!

PHONICS!

TRA LA-LA LA-LA LA-LA LA
TRA LA-LA TRA LA-LA TRA LA!

SCREAM!

PHONICS!

TRA LA-LA LA-LA LA-LA LA
TRA LA-LA TRA LA-LA TRA LA!

 
 

Monday, July 22, 2013

Juillet

soleil rouge

lune nue

juillet

 
 

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Fantônyme

Ainsi je parle!
Impossible!
Si!

Ne suis-je
Fantômas anonyme?

Internet du nom!
Nom du nom de la belle...

Ô la belle ô la belle ô la belle saison!

Ton beau font!
Mon pont romain!

Fantônyme!

 
 

Friday, July 5, 2013

Oubliette

cul à cul
bec à bec
avec
mon ami
y-grec

oubliette oubliée!
minuit absolue!

ami
enfant
abruti
sang
sifflé

 
 

Jour Brisé

rien ne manque!
ni Nicole ni Coco
ni Coco ni Nicole

voilà le jour brisé

nuit
ébahie
hélas!

laisse tomber ton poulet!

la folie
y passe

 
 

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Are you my sex-zoo?

This is my sedan.
This is how I get to work.
I work at a sex-zoo.

Are you my twin, or are you my taxi?
Are you my twin, or are you my sex-zoo?


 
 

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Not Safe For Work

You're cute as snot, but I
only fuck robots.

Are you drooling in my cubicle?
Did you lube my truck?
Are your brains in your knuckles?
Are you safe for work?

 
 

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

You and Me

One of me is ten seconds ahead,
one of me is ten seconds behind.

This is more than I want to know about anyone!

One of me is an eyeball,
one of me is blind.

This is more than I want to know!

Oracle in the cellar, fresco-rose!
Are we falling

farther and farther from our
heart's desire?

I don't want to know!

 
 

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Count by Dreams



I know this dream is censored and condensed.
Are you wearing a cumberbund?
Are there scars on your underarms?
Do you own an arboretum?
Did you flounce through the tombs?
Can you dance by the numbers and count by dreams?

I'm your slave, says the six.
I'm your crazy ex-wife, says the seven.
I'm the angel in your underpants!

It was all about sex!
It was all about money!
It was all about sex!
It was all about money!

Numbers burned under numbers,
dreams burned under dreams.

 
 

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Tadpoles

Are we men, or are we
Oedipal tadpoles?

Tadpoles!

Are we men, or are we
Oedipal tadpoles?

Tadpoles!

Tadpoles!

Tadpoles!

Are we men or are we men or are we
Oedipal tadpoles?

Tadpoles!

 
 

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Queen of Hearts

Queen of Hearts

Queen of Hearts, college girl, wife, mother, grandmother...
 
 

Monday, June 3, 2013

Ack!

Wake up, stupid!
Get out and buy yourself a battleship!

It's the Attack of the Spastic Masturbators!

They attack from Bangkok and Bucharest,
and they always die happy.

 
 

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Mop

Swampers walking home from work at
6 AM and I'm jammed in a limo with
everyone I know or ever knew.

Or maybe I'm riding a mop-truck,
and everyone I
know is a
mop.

 
 

Monday, May 27, 2013

Iraq Iran

Spank the sissy!
Spank the sissy's kin!
Win in Iraq Iran Iraq Iran Iraq Iran!

My beanie is bigger than your bedpan!
I nabbed your baby!
We can always breed again!

Win in Iraq Iran Iraq Iran Iraq Iran!

Can you paint the constellations,
or buy Batman back from the cinema of bedpans?
Am I under your beanie?

Win in Iraq Iran Iraq Iran Iraq Iran!

 
 

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Rhipicera femorata

Rhipicera femorata

"How do you know but ev'ry Bird that cuts the airy way
Is an immense world of delight, clos'd by your senses five?"

-William Blake

 
 

8° inmortal

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Bum

My decoder ring is beeping.
I assume it's a call from you.

You wanna talk about regicide?

I'm already dead!

My I.D. is a dental enigma!
I'm the Thumb of God!

I'm the Thumb of God, and you're the
only bum who knows my number.

 
 

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Capybara

capybara

In this Age of Austerity, human beings compete with capybaras for scarce resources!

If only the capybaras had invested in popsicle infrastructure, as suggested by Paul
Krugman! But now the supply of popsicles is controlled by Superior Life-Forms!

 
 

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

1947

All I ever wanted was a little bar&grill
with a couple of strippers and a runway.

Ribs, strippers, and bibs!
That's the ticket!

Ribs, strippers, and bibs!

 
 

Monday, May 20, 2013

Mommy

I share my roomette with a torturer.
He or she calls me "Mommy," as in

Mommy, will you help me write an exculpatory memo?
I was born in a morgue!
I probably got hit by a meteor!
I hate the taste of blood!
I hate the taste of blood!

Mommy!

If we only had a boat, or a sofa-bed!
We could watch TV on our sofa-bed, or sail
far far away.

 
 

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Lens

Are you the lens of my unlicensed laundromat?
I am.
Did you burn all my underpants?
I did.

Are you my brain?
Are you my sandwich?

I ham who I ham!
I ham who am.

I ham who am and I
burned up all your underpants!

 
 

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Generation X-Ray

You may be the pearliest
particle-laureate at M.I.T.
or you may be
the most
ulcerated actuary in Petaluma

You may be fathers and daughters or mothers and sons

You may be nothing and nothing and nothing

 
 

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Bad Nicknames

Are you holding my tow-line?
Am I your balloon?
Can you teach me serology?

I'm the Gizzard of Oz!
O ye mighty digerati!
I'm the Gizzard of Oz!

Gag me with a bean!
I can gargle anything!

I can gargle a clam!

Burn the sauce!
Boil the serum!
Burn the sauce!
Boil the serum!

Repeal my peruke!
I'm the Puke of Earl!

 
 

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Calf-Skinner

I'm a calf-skinner.
Are you a calf?

Can you recite the alphabet?
Count to ten?
What's the square root of 27889?

I'm a calf-skinner.
Are you a calf?

 
 

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Star

Duck quacks under the radar
Duck says you're a star

Duck quacks under the radar
Duck says you're a star

Duck walks into a bar and asks for
water water water water water water

 
 

Monday, April 15, 2013

Bollywood Romance

You were born with seven moons,
but I'm your first planet, and you met me on Bollywood Boulevard.

You could also call it love in a bucket.

Am I your map?
Are you my panther?
Am I your planet panther tantra?

 
 

Friday, April 12, 2013

Glass

love turns into glass

love turns into glass

i am ash of your ash of your ashes

glass of your glass

 
 

Thursday, April 4, 2013

The Gumby Tree

The Gumby Tree

Although Robert W. Fuller declined my kind offer to
design a cover for his latest book, I may as well post
it here anyway, with its poignant depiction of the central
character, Mr. Gumby, who is mentioned no less than four times
on the very first page.

 
 

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Flying

Flying


It really doesn't get any better than this!

Like driving the craziest race-through-downtown motorcycle race-course anybody ever dreamed of...

You're driving around in Midtown Manhattan at 200 mph...

...and somebody's there to catch you.

 
 

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Madeleine

I'm walking around my old neighborhood in
Paris with a couple of childhood friends, and the little princess says

"Let's all smile sadly for about an hour and get it over with."

 
 

Monday, April 1, 2013

Breton - Glyn Warren Philpot - 1917

N03218

This is just about certainly Glyn Warren Philpot's masterpiece, painted IMHO with the
sure hand of absolute conviction, and entirely outside the mainstream or even any of
the well-known sideshows of art history as it's usually described in 1917, and very
uncharacteristically painted with a cool gray and brown palette which Glyn Warren
Philpot never employed before or after, as far as I know.

 
 

Was Geronimo an orange?

Was Geronimo an orange?
I saw an orange painting of him with a pocky complexion even.
Unstoppable gigantic
orange rolling down on Yankee soldiers,
orange
crazy for revenge, revenge infinite, infinite revenge.

 
 

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Museum of the Indian

Museum of the Indian, Rio de Janeiro

Museum of the Indian, Rio de Janeiro - Abandoned - 1978
Actual Indians Move In - 2006
Indians Evicted and Museum Demolished for Additional Parking at Maracana Stadium - 2013
Photo-credit - Kim Badawi

 
 

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Fish from Thebes

Spearing Fish, c. 667-647 BC Egypt, Thebes, Late Period, late Dynasty 25 to early Dynasty 26

"Spearing Fish, c. 667-647 BC Egypt, Thebes, Late Period, late Dynasty 25 to early Dynasty 26,"
or so says the Cleveland Museum, where this limestone slab is now exhibited, but their elaborate
description is virtually meaningless, except the location (Thebes) where they dug it up, and
their own collection of objets d'art attributed to Dynasties 25-26 isn't really much more
than a hodge-podge of conflicting styles.

 
 

Friday, March 8, 2013

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Vanity

Ferdinando Scianna - Palermo, 1987
Ferdinando Scianna - Palermo, 1987

"Without this ridiculous vanity that takes the form
of self-display and is part of everything and everyone,
we would see nothing, and nothing would exist."


Antonio Porchia
 
 

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Bullfrog

Bullfrog - Pentti Sammallahti
                                                                                          photo: Pentti Sammallahti
Bullfrog says he's
as big as the moon, and
how do you know he isn't?

 
 

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Santiago Canyon Road

No Entry

Tens of thousands of acres of beautiful open country remain undeveloped
in Orange County, California, but almost all of it is locked up in a few
enormous holdings, and almost none of it is accessible to you or me or
anyone we know, or even anyone who knows anyone who knows
anyone who knows anyone we know.

 
 

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Korengal

Tim Hetherington - Marine Post in the Korengal Valley

Tim Hetherington - Photo from US Marine Base Restrepo in the Korengal Valley

 
 

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Jonah

Most of us are amateurish masturbators.

We want Jonah to throw up the whale!
Bake my ghost!
Tweak my heehaw!

What we really need is multiple urethras!
What we really need is a trumpet voluntary!

But here we are, in our dark little rooms,
wheezing...

Here we are again, in our dark little rooms,
wheezing...

 
 

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Post-Election Blues

What you wanted was a
rock'n'roll
Jesus who would eat your creditors and excrete codeine.
What you got was a hay-ride with 500 horny oldsters!

Suck my eggs!

 
 

Friday, January 25, 2013

Charis Wilson - Edward Weston

Charis Wilson - Edward Weston


From Charis Wilson's obituary in the Economist, December 10, 2009...

"Soon she knew Weston's ideas well enough to write the text for his photographs,
his applications for grants and his articles for photographic magazines, for words
came easily to her as they never did to him. She took the notes, on her clackety
Royal typewriter, and also drove their puttering Ford on the giant western trips
they made in the late 1930s; the books that resulted, notably “California and the
West”, were as much hers as his, but she was seldom credited."

 
 

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Diet

Transmute drunks into umbras,
nausea into abasement, debutantes into butter,
meerkats back into debutantes, butter back into butter.

Then what?

Then nothing!

No more drunks, umbras, nausea, or abasement!
No more debutantes!
No more butter!

 
 

A Sacred Pause at Time Inc.

Sacred

"A sacred pause?" Are these cogs in the great machine of Time Inc. self-important or what?

"The pitch meeting is a moment for the department to come together to look at images and discuss
ideas as a group. It is a sacred pause in our very hectic week."

The sacred pitch meeting! Gag me with my Nikon!

But apart from the grotesque personality disorders of the staff, what I hate hate hate about
"Lightbox" is that you can look at 50 of their photos in which people appear, and there aren't
any recognizable people in them! Nothing but "examples!"

I'm looking through their Best Pictures of the Week for January 11-18 and after 22 just about
the most individualized is "A Hindu Holy Man."


Hindu

Would you recognize this guy, or anybody else in the frame, if they all jumped out at you right
now, while you're looking at the picture? Of course not!

This is anti-human garbage, and it deserves to be "appreciated" with a hammer.

 
 

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Two Photos from Kanaval in Jacmel, Haiti - Leah Gordon

Minotaur and Lion Woman - Leah Gordon
 
 

Indus

My name is Khalid Irfan.
Today I woke up in Skardu.
Tonight I will sleep in Mohenjo-daro.
Five stars are my fathers.
Five rivers are my sons.


In the mists above Karachi,
how many droplets jostle and coalesce?
Contracts and marriage vows dissolved
by the law of water.


From Kang Rinpoche to Sapta Singhu,
water woven into wind,
wind woven into water,
blue into blue.

 
 

Friday, January 18, 2013

Orphans in Paktia Province, Afghanistan

Orphans in Paktia Province, Afghanistan

I keep trying to conjure this image out of my brain. There are maybe five
or six versions of it floating around on the internet, all the way from black
and white to super-saturation, all of them attributed to different photographers,
but as far as I know, nobody lays a definite claim to it, and neither would I.
The traditional textiles of tribes from as far away as Oruzgan are represented
in one or another outfit here, and now they all dwell together in some God-forsaken
shed in Paktia, while 96% of American "aid" to Afghanistan is devoted to military
operations.

 
 

What I Learned in Iraq


Did you learn how to fly?

Yes, I learned how to fly,
and I learned that

none of us

can

be

purified,

except by torture and humiliation.

 
 

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Monday, January 14, 2013

Roaches

I think with my feet!
Are you some kind of robot?
My heart is an artichoke!
I only exist in a Hollywood out-take!
Will you please be my bitch?

I think roaches are cute!
They got three little crotches!
They talk in trochees!
They eat candy for breakfast!
I think with my feet!

 
 

Saturday, January 12, 2013

How Not To Paint

How Not To Paint

How Not To Paint - Recent Paintings and Photographs - Oil spray alla prima on Masonite

"In recent years the "wet-on-wet" (alla prima) practice has become
well known as the primary method of painting used by such television
artists as Bill Alexander, Bob Ross, and Robert Warren. Since colors
will usually mix if one is laid over top of another while both are wet,
full paintings (requiring at most only a few minutes of detail work
after the main work is dry) can be produced in a short period of time
– Alexander and Ross could produce an entire landscape in under half an
hour
on their respective television shows, The Magic of Oil Painting and
The Joy of Painting."


Wet-on Wet Underpants!

Alla Prima
 
 

Monday, January 7, 2013

Dirty Money

People talk about money-laundering and bribes and
"dirty money" on the radio
and what they don't
understand is what they don't
understand is what they don't
understand is that it's all
dirty money,
every goddamned dollar in the world.

 
 

Friday, January 4, 2013

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Art and Suicide

Two guys jump off the Empire State Building at exactly the same moment.
One of them is a suicide, the other is an artist.
Which is which?

T
h
e

a
r
t
i
s
t

i
s

t
h
e

o
n
e

w
h
o

q
u
i
c
k
l
y

t
e
a
c
h
e
s

h
i
m
s
e
l
f

h
o
w

t
o

f
l
y

 
 

Blog Archive