Andy Warhol paints the 59th Street Bridge
over and over in fluorescent blood Art leaps from every vibrant panel into the neoprine river below Bridges and water Bridges and water Art is nothing if not repetitive Every night the lovely little sparrow comes to peck out his vocal cords as The Real Housewives of Bleeker Street rolls across his retinas No matter what your Spotify playlist tells you Art does not shuffle but dangles like a conversation from the precipice of the mortal coil pondering his exit as another book of Twilight fan fiction enters the NYT Best Seller list Art would rather be MC Hammer than a snail Yes he would If he only could be comfortable in the baggy pants of obscurity rather than building himself permanent residence in the hard shell of resentment The rumors of Art’s death at the hands of poetry slam have been exaggerated as Paul McCartney’s as The Buggles’ forecast of their relationship between MTV and radio as journalism’s obituary in the folding of newspaper corporations Art survives every spoiled Canadian Teenage Pop Star every bigoted comedian with delusions of divinity every comic artist who can’t draw feet While Paul Simon might be cut down by friendly fire at the Sarlac Pit Art will survive past purely conceived covers past surgery on swelled shut vocal cords past punchline past punchline Art is the Wolverine of 20th century pop culture shrugging off bullet wounds with a lit cigar and a one-liner It’s been forty-five years since Art was supposed to disappear thirty-five years since his name became laugh track cliché You can’t kill Art no matter the weapon At eighty-two years old it may not be too much longer before Rolling Stone dot com posts the following headline “Garfunkel is dead. Love live Art.”
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I found my legs in the silverware drawer
this morning where the spoons used to be We haven’t had utensils in four evicted roommates seven heartbreaks three hundred forty-seven thousand November Rains Last night I saw the alibi under the bed slicing up the living room rug with my legs I saw him because he was wearing my eyes like earrings My body hasn’t been fashionable since I was born perhaps I’ve been wearing it wrong My alibi dances as though he knows my intentions better than I ever have If there is a name for this dance It isn’t mine I have forgotten how to name things: emotions pets the people who name things Tonight I am feeling Diet Coke flat It’s the knowing that I am an improperly arranged potato head That some drunk nature built me with a foot in my mouth hole and I didn’t notice until someone pulled my legs off A bullfrog flew the moon into my shirt pocket
when i was born Slow glowing heartbeat When i turned eleven and my voice went walkabout My mother tried to convince me the frog had climbed into my throat Her eyes kaleidoscope pretending telescope Faulty stethoscope ears Where my voice echoed back needs no atlasing My body didn’t extend like a metaphor but i kept footnoting my youth like someone’s going to major in my autobiography Cliff notes for the autobiography of a swallowed frog pilot crash landed in a fictional pocket: Fuck rabbits Trees are infinite ladders of gin smelling future napkins so much mud Four years saving fly corpses until they fluttered into spaceship Fuck gravity navigating around bovine gymnasts and fiddling cats I caught the moon bobbing in space’s wake Moon as handkerchief Moon as party dress Moon as moon in unfamiliar galaxy There are so many moons in the universe The frog’s moon wasn’t local You haven’t seen it Frogs in throats are myths They settle in livers Frogs for hearts Rabbits for libido Fuck the moon The frog’s greatest achievement was beating Super Mario Brothers 3 in fifteen minutes Swallowing moons is so 1991 My voice’s greatest achievement was a three month vacation in a stranger’s ear The only parts of our bodies we ever shared A bullfrog flew my shirt into an ex’s closet It didn’t fit me anymore anyway The bullfrog hits eject like a spacebar on an old typewriter Fuck my mouth Galaxy of awkward images Uvula echo Uvula unreliable narrator Uvula promise echo Good intentions Uvula Mint flavored swamp water Fuck my lips Uvula echo frog legs Fuck fuck Ribbit Fuck achievements If the moon is a heart there is too much bullfrog in it The myth of my heart as satellite is a lie perpetrated by Lenny Kravitz and Slash like everything they wish was hurled into the vacuum of space they named my heart Axel Uvula Echo Ribbit I’ve never known where my voice is in realation to my heart We were twenty-three when Susan told Dave she wished she could go out with him but she didn’t date college students just musicians so Dave dropped out of Genie School to join the Bottle Rockets Like most mediocre genie rock musicians Dave played bass Our first gig was at The Paradise but like most mediocre rock bands we wished for bigger shows more fame better groupies Nothing was ever enough arena The cover of Rolling Stone didn’t show off enough of our fingers I told Dave all I ever wanted was for us to feel content The only one who benefited from my wish was Dave’s dealer Halfway through our second national tour Eric woke up hung over and freckled with needle bites turned to Dave and said I wish I was dead Everyone cringed I am a terrible wish maker Desire — my fourth language Spine — a staircase to my brain My heart travels by wheelchair I was barely fast enough to say Eric I wish you hadn’t said that We were on our fifth drummer when Eric still semi-alive crumbled a fist full of scars popped them into his choke and said I wish and Dave shut Eric’s mouth with his own There is so much silence that hangs on an unnamed desire Eric couldn’t speak in front of Dave for fifteen years The thing about genies is that they only live forever with proper training Without a degree or a lamp genies who grant wishes rarely live past forty The doctor called Dave’s slow fade into smoke starvation His biographer would decades later refer to it as delayed spontaneous combustion On his deathstretcher after we all said our simple goodbyes Eric pressed his lips to what was not yet smoke and whispered Don’t ever leave me This is why Eric cries constantly and coughs in his sleep ©2014, 2023 by Adam Stone and CrookedTreehousePress
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What Is This All About?This page is where the content from previous poetry blogs have been condensed. It's not on the menu, since most of these projects are over, or on hiatus, but the posts are still here to peruse. Archives
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