I have written an entire manuscript of interactions with Nicole Terez-Dutton's If One Of Us Should Fall. We even did a show together where we went back and forth between her poems and my interactions. This new poem is a combination of themes she explores in the book: the constant motion/traveling of the book's narrative, and the book's rhapsodizing of potential in the "Almost" poems. A Catalog Of Places We've Almost Been
Adam Stone California was an accident of possibility and sunlight Neither of us wanted temperance We considered kansas The flatness of your mother's eyes when the tow truck driver gifted me your last name Her voice dipped lake champlain I want to talk about your eyes No map Traveling by instinct Vast and only partially chartable But we don't talk anatomy We discuss only the immediate future New orleans The dakotas We don't talk about the place we agreed not to talk about anymore Happy Content Honest Our bloodstreams intersection clogged with montana until even mosquitoes couldn't taste the difference between us
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It was only a matter of time before this project went meta. Seventeen days, to be exact. Jeffrey McDaniel's The Splinter Factory is one of my favorite collections to read and reread. This time, I read it front to back on a bus trip and then went back and siphoned out my favorite lines to structure a conversation around I hadn't intended said conversation to be about why I'd missed some deadlines in this project, but that's what ended up happening. As is the norm, any text in black was written by me, italicized blue text is from Jeffrey McDaniel's book. The title of this poem is also from a line by McDaniel, in which he describes how one goes crazy. One Marble At A Time
I promised myself I'd read a book of poetry a day the way I promised my mother I'd call once a week the way I promised I'd get my homework done the way I promised I'd tell whoever it was that year how I felt about them the way I promised I'd eat better I'd start running I'd drink less soda I'd forgive whoever it was that year the way a kitten promises frolic the way a bus schedule promises ibuprofen the way a road trip promises silence When I am confronted by the screeching car alarm of a deadline I get so lost in the hideous intoxication of the honk how you can tell in what year they bought that useless alarm based on how familiar the rhythm you and all your neighbors deliberately ignore I get so lost that I forget it's supposed to signal urgency I broke my word so many times, it became a handful of crumbs I sprinkled at my father's ankles whenever I needed money. It's so easy to dress my parents in all of my failures not because my father didn't remember my birthday enough or my mother never forgets to carry my most embarrassing childhood experiences in her purse but because they spent so much of my teenage years trying on my blame in the department store mirrors of my eyes that it's difficult to imagine them without it Every time I have dinner with a parent they drop a hundred on my plate until I sing the misery of their ex-spouse I'm the canary watching multiple coal mines via Skype Each of them twenty years removed from shared bank accounts Forty-five years removed from a ring and a question neither of them budgeted for I wonder how that question gets popped. Is it like a bottle of expensive champagne, or a big, ugly, zit that won't go away? My mother has never once not ever forgotten even a single time to ask who I am seeing I always say a therapist and thank her for asking But I can't see therapists the way dogs can't see color In that they can see color but differently than humans and have no way of expressing how they see My mother never laughs at this joke of my solitude but always offers to pay for my next meal She always predicts what her husband will order because he is not so much a creature of habit as a varmint of obsession When I eat with them I am expected to still be seventeen and growing in every way but diet Instead of salt and pepper, I'd like a think layer of antique store dust enthusiastically sprinkled on the lettuce, so halfway through the sandwich, a wave of nostalgia will wash over me If it isn't my parents' fault that I am less behind and more rolling beneath deadlines of my own design then can I blame desire How I could read a recipe book for inspiration and spend the rest of the night tasting a stranger determined to know the precise ratio of ingredients that led him to the awkward of us I mean, isn't it odd—how you can buy a lap dance, phone sex, or blow job in a snap, but can't pay a person a dollar just to sit next to you on a park bench and simply hold your hand? Oh, I've been down that road before. In fact, I still have property there So let's pretend my commitment issues and my love have never accidentally sat down across from each other on a train and spent the entire trip pretending they're strangers Let's say I miss deadlines like they are highway exits and I'm not driving but I am distracting the driver Let's say I miss deadlines like they stop calling me and I don't want them to think I need them any more than they need me so I don't call them either Let's say I miss deadlines like the only way I can communicate with my responsibilities is via Ouija board or speculative fiction Let's say I am so Over deadlines But that's not in the cards. Heck, it's not even in the casino. I often feel I'm not emotionally invested in anything to miss it Deadlines sure and sometimes people also but money when I'm broke love when I'm alone That nostalgia sprinkled on a sandwich is to impress you I can't even taste it In Sherman Alexie's What I've Stolen, What I've Earned he toys with an unusual form of sonnet. There is no rhyme scheme. There is only a loose concept of couplets. It's one justified blob of fourteen numbered ideas. I've tried to be strict with my own ideas of coupleting and making the foot adhere to my idea of what a sonnet foot should be. I'm still not in love with giant justified blob with numbers in it, and I might reformat it later, but here it adheres to Alexie's visual formatting. Sonnet With Forgotten Phone Numbers
Adam Stone 1. She says she says she says that she is losing what she says her memory was because of her damned she says cell phone. 2. It used to be I needed to remember all of these numbers. Everyone close and familiar was a seven digit she says nickname. If they moved away they became ten she says and easier to forget. Now everyone is a picture if I remember to take it, she says a ringtone if I remember how those work she says but most often I don't answer my phone anymore because I don't know she says who anyone is. 3. She says a lot of stupid shit. 4. But maybe she's right this time. 5. She says also that she misses landlines and rotaries both on the phone and the road. There's something so satisfying she says about circles How you never know when you're finished with something or when something is beginning. 6. She says she misses typewriters even though all the letters are on the keyboard of a computer that can remember things that even 1980s typewriters couldn't hold in their memory. 7.That's just it she says I don't want to trust some machine to remember how I felt while I was typing a letter. I want to see the paper. She says. I want to see where I dented the paper. She says I want to see the stories scars as they happen. She says I don't want to watch it happen on some screen and wait for it to print out later. 8. I say You would have made a lousy x-ray technician. 9. She says something she says I can't hear because she says newfangled phones are always breaking up. 10. She says this over a 1992 barely cordless phone where all the numbers have been fingered away. 11. She doesn't say fingered of course that's my word. She doesn't acknowledge the physically missing numbers on her phone. It's the numbers in her memories she's concerned with. 12. She says click click she says static she says something I can't hear because she's moved too far away from the base. 13. The call cuts out which she will surely blame my cellphone for though I will be using it to check my bank account while she will be slamming her phone with her fist and pressing the useless buttons on the base. 14. She will try and remember where she put the notebook with my phone number in it because she can't remember which button on her phone used to say Redial. My idea for an interaction with Paul Guest's My Index Of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge came pretty early on. He has a couple of poems called "Audio Commentary", and I thought it would be fun to revisit a movie that I hadn't seen in over a decade, and watch it with the sound and subtitles off and write a poem to it. I spent a couple off weeks fighting with writing a poem about Police Academy IV but it's tough to laugh about police these days. I thought I might have to scrap the idea completely when someone brought up Gremlins 2 in conversation, and I realized it would make a great Self-Help poem. Audio Commentary: Gremlins 2 The New Batch
Adam Stone The sidekick becomes the main attraction and nothing works out Flattened Belittled Dressed for spectacle New york Limo in the gutter A television asks an ancient stereotype to change into the costume of expectations The past refuses Even the parody of the future looks dated The gentrification of history relocates love into science Remember when you could smoke in buildings as long as you were off the clock The introduction of those important enough to survive the plot The adorability of depression Everyone who wants is blind to the prize's needs Sometimes rules are broken by chance Sometimes the next generation seems unrecognizable yet familiar Devouring Infestation Everything on video Putting the mimes back in boxes Love is always a misunderstading The monsters have taken over the television studios It's raining doom The monsters dress just like us now Shred them Evacuate the extras Invite your enemies into your arms Let science improve your chances of survival Adapt Become a smarter monster Surrender your desire to become something permanent Interrupt your own narrative for a gag To beg cameo from a different kind of monster Opportune Explore your identity as a monster capable of being desired Evolve Confront the parts of yourself no one believes in Put your devil on hold Allow yourself to get caught to find out who will come to rescue you When you recognize the demon in yourself kill it in front of everyone Burn down your progeny to save your now Stage a musical number to horrify the people who've stuck with you Give your demons everything they've dreamed then use them to kill each other When the rescue party comes reveal how you've already saved yourself Show them how you keep the potential of your future undoing in a box Shine a bright light on it I'm probably going to come back and take another write at Richard Siken's Crush. I did a poem based on his style back in January. I planned on writing something about dreams, which he kept coming back to in Crush. But I kept thinking of Ariel Baker-Gibbs poem about boring people by talking about dreams. And then I thought I had a poem about my father to write, and I did, but it turned out to be something completely different. Smells Like Smells Like Teen Spirit
Adam Stone In the still of the night the street steams at the lack of cars If it can not be pure earth again It at least wants to feel used My father lives alone since his second wife And can no longer hear that song Shoo doop Shoo be doo The original is safe But the cover version was their wedding song (so real, so right) But didn't he also dance with my mother to this same song Never the original Songs with nostalgia for other songs never impressed me Smells like smells like teen spirit Odes to odes Dust to dust Is all sex nostalgia for other sex Even first sex nostalgia for something we've heard about Seen on tv The night never seems still Even when it is quiet some piece of the sky moves Some city burns distant Some animal asserts dissatisfaction with human sleep habits My father doesn't sleep well Does he stay awake remembering life before this barren I don't know I don't sleep well either Is my whole existence just some cover of his own A slightly different time structure But the same chorus Juan Felipe Herrera's collection Giraffe On Fire is dense and awesome. It's political and inescapable. It's tight image and unattributed dialogue. I'm going to have to read this book three or four times to properly tell you why it's about. What you should read it to. But read it. The book is divided into five parts. Each with their own style of formatting. The first part starts off with stage directions setting you up for a play. Which had me thinking of when I used to work in the theater. The summer that everything fell apart and the winter where I tried to put it back together but only succeeded in dispersing what had fallen. I have enough poems about the dead boyfriend, not as many about the aftermath without him. Honey Is Sweeter Than Blood Adam Stone I. The stairs don't skin They deskin Your skin on some stair But inertia The bottom is coming Laugh at the innuendo Ouch The lobby is barren Drops of your blood Keep running The green room The mirror Your face is no worse than before the stairs Another staircase Up this time Up No more falling The music is vamp You enter They do not ask about the blood The blood makes sense The audience You sing You die on stage It's scripted They pack you in the empty Coke machine Roll back out Descend the stairs Safely Slowly Off comes the jacket The chain catches on Ow Your knees a planetarium Another actor comes downstairs Lost in the planetarium Fetch the solarcaine The rest of the show you're someone else Scheduled for wheelchair Blanket over your fishnetted lap and legs One more up the stairs One more down Paced You hit your marks You hit your notes Your planetarium is stunning in hot pink fishnets The lobby The crowd The cute guy from the audience You chose him You mocked him You touched his ears His mother -oh god- his mother? His mother takes a picture of you Him glasses Him black pants Him pressed shirt Him teeth so can opener You hot pink fishnets No wheelchair Teeth still remember the shape of braces Expensive teeth Retainer lost They are starting to drift to unique Him college -whew- You college Same college One month You maybe Him see ya You undressing room Mirror too much lipstick Hair looks like gravity suspended Maybe him see ya II. You are not an immediate pedestal. Though he steps on you. Didn't tell anyone how you touched him when you met. How you misread your course schedule and walked into him playing hacky-sack. The 90s hit you on your chest and you let it roll down and rest on your shoe. There are so many feet between you. Your heart a jam band. You'll stop listening to it in a few years. III. You meet someone else He smells like a jam band but looks like Maybe. You do not touch him anywhere. You invite him to your birthday. your 21st birthday It's karaoke night at your usual bar where no one is allowed to tell the bartender you're just turning twenty-one Lightning Literal lightning The kitchen is The Library of Alexandria There is a hard rain falling from every sprinkler in the ceiling Karaoke is finally ruined by something other than bros Your acting professor offers his favorite bar You follow because his directions make no sense A bar across from the lot where you bought your current car The only building there has blacked out wind--- oh IV. Piano The instrument The noise level Your classmates Dancing The only dancing The only under forty You dancing You've got great rhythm Pity you don't know what to do with it Your professor Your glancing at Maybe Your dancing Who would you bring to Plato's retreat Reference to a scene I'm working on Beyond Therapy Christopher Durang He saw you glancing at Maybe Five drinks Maybe more than glancing Shrug Walk to bar Sixth drink Fifty year old somebody stranger Shot Tequila Done Don't see Maybe Drink seven Dance to classmates They are kool-aid in tap water This whole bar is us colored But you can't see anyone you recognize Dance Somebody twirls you Maybe the front door Maybe exit Line dancing now Achy Breaky Heart Right Vine Brush Forward Heel Touch Forward Heel Touch Back Toe Touch Back Toe Touch Left Vine Quarter Turn Left V.
You and Hacky Sack start a poetry journal. You and Maybe work at a renaissance faire. Your house has two beds. One for you. One for the men you're afraid to sleep with. On your twenty-second birthday you've still told neither of them a thing about your heart. They don't know your first real boyfriend died a month before you met them. They don't know that on the nights they don't sleep over you go online and fail to love anyone. You have failed so many people who came back. You invite them both over for drinks and discover they went to high school together. Maybe thinks Hacky Sack is great. Hacky Sack tells you Maybe bullied him in high school. At least you think if they're both gay or bi or whatever anyone is they are unlikely to fuck each other and not you. You selfish. You stupid. Them straight. ish. But straight to you. Maybe knows before you come out to him. Tries to fix you up with irritating gay friend. Apologizes for assuming all gay people would like all other gay people even though you haven't explicitly used the word gay just said that you loved him. He knew. You spend a month with Hacky Sack at a new college. He hasn't left you. He has moved. He sort of took you with him. Four hour trips twice a month. Peacocks in the schoolyard. Bad poetry. Terrible poetry. A girl in his class whose meter is so off you know Hacky Sack must love her. He loves her. She hates you. He loves you. But not like that. She hates you. Like that. She knows. He doesn't. She calls you faggot. Nobody calls you that. You don't even know how to react. They fight. You sleep in your car. He knocks on your window. You sleep in his room. She sleeps in her room. Nobody touches anyone. They break up. She pregnant. They back together. They fuck. They fuck. They fuck. She confesses never pregnant. They fight. They break up. She pregnant. You call her liar. You misogynist. You never liked her. You sabotage. But no she not pregnant this time either. You drive home. He calls you. He drives to your home. You get high. You watch The Wizard Of Oz while listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon. You cliche. Him cliche. You put your arm around him. He leans in to your arms. You happy. Him drive back to school. Him e-mail. Doesn't call you faggot. Implies it. Never speaks to you again. Maybe calls. Drives to your home. Puts arms around you. Not into you. Friend. Offers to start bullying Hacky Sack for real. You laugh. At him. At self. At laughter. Kim Addonizio's What Is This Thing Called Love always shows up at interesting times. This week was no exception. I've been handwriting some projects while I travel around the city and say goodbye to departing friends and started writing a conversation between me and an ex-roommate, using only quotes from this book Then I had another idea. Then another. In many ways, this interaction is nothing like her very structured book. But I come back to this book over and over. Every time, taking something different away with me. I struggled not to focus this on "Cat Poem" because no one wants to read about my pet. I know there are people who think waking up is the best part of their day. Such potential. Such nothing is wrong yet. You don't remember who's dead. Who's left you. Where that bottle of Maker's Mark came from. Why it's empty. Your head is fine. Your bed is just you. Such potential. Such daylight.
On the other end of the ugh. Not enough curtains. Neighbors teaching themselves to play the sousaphone. A stranger in the shower. Your roommate owes you four months rent. Your roommate ate the last slice of your birthday cake. Your roommate. You don't know when you poured that bottle of tequila directly into your head but you know it was your hands that poured it. My mornings are neutral. Mostly. Since the most affectionate cat died, I wake up mostly alone. Mostly. Today a book. Kim Addonizio's What Is This Thing Called Love. Not the first time. Last time I put it out on the shelf my roommate picked it up. We were both electively maybe single. Recently maybe singled. He said the benches in Washington Square Park, briefly occupied with lovers, have been reclaimed by men who stretch out coughing under The Chronicle. I say Tonight I am amazed by all the people making love while I sit alone in my pajamas in a foreign country with my dinner of cookies and vodka. The foreign country is Everywhere. My bedroom. The daybed in the living room when the neighbors are fighting on the porch below my window. Wherever is the person who once occupied the barren next to me. The vodka is whiskey but otherwise Yes Kim Addonizio exactly. Our room was too small, the sheets scratchy and hot --- Our room was a kind of hell, we thought, and killed a half-liter of Drambuie we'd bought. It's been almost twenty years since I first identified my arms as a hotel room. Though maybe motel would be more appropriate. Cheaper rates. The upkeep of the room adequate. Not professional. No hospital corners. But at least a fitted sheet on the appropriate sized mattress. A place to wake up. No matter how you feel about waking. Kim Addonizio isn't just love poems. Also grief. Also dead. Also cat dying. Also No. Her every poem in this book is dog-eared. Come back. Don't kiss a fan at a poetry reading. Oh. Oh. Oh that is ten years I'm never getting back. That kiss. That job. That walk-in closet. That stack of unpaid loans and bills. When he takes off his clothes I think of a stick of butter being unwrapped, The younger man. She views as nothing has harmed him yet, though he is going to be harmed. I've never seen a body without a dead father guttering the eyes. A pinch of keloid from when they first suspected their body was not theirs. Even just an ingrown hair signifying their desire to stop their body from aging. Or their belief that if they do not stop their body from aging nobody will lust them. Is there even a possibility of love if no one is lusting. He lies on his side like a glass knocked over. He lies on his side like a glass knocked over. Only a little sweetness left, poor boy. Only a little sweetness left, poor boy. Only his little lies, a glass-like sweetness. Poor he, a left boy knocked over on side. Oh fake form become real. Possibly the paradelle. Possibly his body. How she grew inside him demanding out. How I ever could possible to understand who he had been or would be. How even who he was right then was not the person I saw. How all of us falsely identify. How we all put our I in their I because everyone must I like I I. Right? Even if they I differently. I can imagine their I through my I because we all start as I? My I. I am trying to overcome my I. I am reading so many I. I keep thinking I understand Kim's I. That maybe we've almost had similar I but I can't even tell the I of the person I no longer wake up on the same coast as. I think of all them and the filaments in my brain start buzzing crazily and flare out. Every kiss is here somewhere,, all over me like a fine, shiny grit, like I'm a pale fish that's been dipped in a thick swirl of raw egg and dragged through flour, slid down into a deep skillet, into burning. She is talking just. Maybe just. I don't know. She is talking mostly of kisses. I am talking about everything. Maybe poetry forms. Maybe exes. Maybe mornings. Maybe all of them. When she doesn't mention forms, I don't always see the form in her poems. She Kim. She visible. Form mist. Form important. Sometimes the important part isn't immediately apparent. Sometimes you love a person or a thing without actually seeing how it formed. How it structure. How it I. I don't sleep with books anymore. Always back to the shelf. Or in the backpack if they're joining me for a tomorrow. I only share my bed with. Actually sometimes cats. Sometimes laptop. But mostly I only share my bed with pillows. No authors or books whispering sweet something cribbed from other writers and lovers in my ear. I still don't have as much time with my eyes closed as would make the daylight brighter. I still always morning at the inconvenient times. She's the one sleeping all day, in a room at the back of your brain. She wakes up at the sound of a cork twisted free of a bottle, a stabbed olive plopped into gin. Here's my third shot at the second interaction with Anne Carson's Autobiography Of Red. I wanted to steer it well wide of the last one, even though I really liked it. So this is more like some of the early poems in the collection. II. The Journalist Resigns
Adam Stone None of our photographs show us the way we wish to be resolved ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The man who lives in Adam's old neighborhood wants Adam inside him His first text We just don't have men like you here So sexy What will you do with me All this a response to motel bathroom selfie Recognition of song lyric in his profile Adam agrees to meet him at the motel It is early still He texts There is no room four here The guy at the desk says rooms start with one hundred Hotel instead of motel He is bad with directions and names Calls Adam andrew when explaining he forgot condoms and neither of them looks like the photographs they both just took an hour ago I am wearing every inch of road in this stupid town and need a shower He closes the bathroom door for two minutes Adam arranges the bed the suitcase his hat Checks his phone for advice from his future self Parker he wants to be called says I have this friend You'd like him He wants to watch you fuck me There is not enough room Adam thinks what with our bodies and the voyeur version of me who will be writing down the inevitable mistake of our bodies I'm not in to that Adam says while parker shrugs off his towel There is not enough shower for both of them The bed is a different mistake Knees bumping elbows Apologetic headbutts Parker sits on adam's chest and (in the corner of the room adam is taking notes How they refuse to face each other How they know they are assembling a model with half the pieces missing and no glue) nothing looks like it should from this angle Adam pushes (in autobiography of red by anne carson Greydon the dragon boy has a journal he records his intimate thoughts in Adam has a journal too but he worried he was treating everyone like a story where he was shining protagonist Knowing himself fork with missing tines Sneakers scuffed by arrogant time He shouldn't write this Parker didn't consent to be known as from adam's old neighborhood A litany of misgivings Having his knees focused on instead of the ass so amply positioned Parker asked for none of this misalignment) The are both finished and dressed before the possibility of conversation Adam doesn't mention the angry text from a woman he barely knows How he kept thinking you always pull people into your drama was coming from a woman intending to pull him into her drama Her drama being currently the desire to be right in a conversation five years forgotten Parker doesn't admit he ran into three friends on his way over and couldn't come up with a convincing reason for walking through the tourist end of town How he suspected they knew this would not be his first time in a motel room with the wrong man Each of them just wanting this want to be overwith My interaction with Daphne Gottleib's 15 Ways To Stay Alive was the most excruciating, and took me the longest amount of time, so far, to write. And it's severely edited down. Daphne is very talented at taking other people's words and creating conversations across texts. She does this masterfully in "what it means to be young in new orleans" where she mashes up news stories about the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster with Charles Bukowski's poem "Young in New Orleans". As well as in "the unauthorized biography of black beauty" where she takes twenty different sources and creates a DJ Earworm level masterpiece. For some reason, I decided to mash up "Thirty-Six Questions That Lead To Love", a list of questions that a 1997 study claimed would, well....lead to love, with random quotes from Donald Trump. I didn't take into account how easily fatigued I would be reading Donald Trump quotes. Thus, I wrote this in eight different nights. Switching out answers, losing faith in humanity, wishing either Trump would grow mute and illiterate or that I would eventually give up and start entering more logical, cohesive quotes, like those from the Teletubbies. Anyhow, here is all I can stand to post right now from this endeavor. Donald Trump Answers 36 Questions That Lead To Love
Adam Stone 1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest? And you know, another great guy is Mark Cuban. And I think, you know, he’s been talking about maybe doing this himself. And I think he’d do a great job. We don’t have the exact same feelings about where we’re going, but that’s OK. But Mark was great. You know, he called me, like, literally a few days ago, and he said, “you know if you want to use the arena” — which by the way is a beautiful arena, this a great arena — and Dirk is a fantastic player, he’s just a wonderful player — and the Mavericks have been fantastic and it’s just a great team — but he said, “you know if you want to use the arena.” And I said, “Mark, when?” He said “how ’bout Monday night?” It’s like, that was like in four days. And you had a big holiday in between. And he said, “they really like you in Dallas, they really like you in Texas, maybe you can get a lot of people.” Because we were coming here, and we thought maybe we’d get a thousand people, but we never get a thousand anymore, it’s always, like, the same thing. You know, we went to Alabama. We started off with a 500 person ballroom. And after about 2 minutes — look at all these guys — paparazzi, look at this…we’ve got everybody here. We started off, by the way, with a 500 person ballroom, and after about 2 minutes the hotel called up begging for mercy. “We can’t do it!” They were inundated, so we went to convention center, and that was 10,000 and that was wiped out in about an hour. So we went to a stadium, we had 31 thousand people, which is by far the largest, they say, like, ever, for an early primary, and that’s probably true. 2. Would you like to be famous? In what way? I don't like walking down the street and having people waving. I just don't really. It's not for me. To be perfectly honest, it's not for me, and I don't enjoy it. 3. Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why? I like being off the cuff. You know I've been in 11 debates, I never debated before. My whole life is a debate. But I've never debated before. And I really enjoyed the debates. I guess I did well in the debates based on all of those polls that they did after the debates. 4. What would constitute a “perfect” day for you? I think it’s gotta be up to the individual. I think it depends on the individual. It also depends on what’s available. There may be a better alternative, then there may not. If there’s not a better alternative, then you stay. But it could be there’s a better alternative where you’re taken care of better. But some people don’t like staying in an atmosphere that was so hostile. You understand that? 5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else? You used to call me on your cell phone. 6. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want? Look at those hands. I guarantee you there's no problem.I guarantee. 7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die? Very fishy. 8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common. I'm a very efficient guy. Now I could also do it verbally, which is fine ... I want it short. There's no reason to do hundreds of pages because I know exactly what it is... because I have a lot of common sense and I have a lot of business ability. 9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful? No comment. 10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be? Some people say it was staged. You know that? 11. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible. Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, okay, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, okay, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you're a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right — who would have thought?), but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us. 12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be? I have the world's greatest memory. It's one thing everyone agrees on. 13. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know? I try to learn from the past, but I plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present. That's where the fun is. 14. Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it? Look, we can bring the American Dream back. That I will tell you. We're bringing it back. Okay? And I understand what you're saying. And I get that from so many people. 'Is The American Dream dead?' They are asking me the question, 'Is the American Dream dead?' And the American Dream is in trouble. That I can tell you. Okay ? It's in trouble. But we're going to get it back. 15. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life? When I think I’m right, nothing bothers me 16.. What do you value most in a friendship? I mean, I think I have a lot of friends, but they're not friends like perhaps other people have friends, where they're together all the time and they go out to dinner all the time. 17. What is your most treasured memory? Oftentimes when I was sleeping with one of the top women in the world, I would say to myself, thinking about me as a boy from Queens, "Can you believe what I am getting?" 18. What is your most terrible memory? Did I say I have a great memory or one of the best in the world? I don't remember saying that. As good as my memory is, I don't remember that, but I have a good memory. I don't remember that. I remember you telling me, but I don't know that I said it. 19. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why? When we go into church — and when I drink my little wine, which is about the only wine I drink, and have my little cracker — I guess that is a form of asking for forgiveness. I do that as often as possible because I feel cleansed, OK? 20. What does friendship mean to you? If we cannot make a deal, which I believe we will be able to, and which I would prefer being able to, but if we cannot make a deal, I would like you to say, I would prefer being able to, some people, the one thing they took out of your last story, you know, some people, the fools and the haters, they said, “Oh, Trump doesn’t want to protect you.” I would prefer that we be able to continue. 21. What roles do love and affection play in your life? I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her. 22. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items. Nobody cares about the talent [in beauty pageants]. There’s only one talent you care about, and that’s the look talent. You don’t give a shit if a girl can play a violin like the greatest violinist in the world. You want to know what does she look like. 23. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s? I will build a great wall — and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me —and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border 24. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother? I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words. 25. Make three true “we” statements each. For instance, “We are both in this room feeling …” We must be smart We must have a wall We’ve taken the lighthouse, which is a very, very important building in Florida — I mean in Scotland — and we’ve taken that building and made it something really special. It has incredible suites… golfers will stop and they’ll have something to eat. 26. Complete this sentence: “I wish I had someone with whom I could share …” I’ve been so lucky in terms of that whole world. It is a dangerous world out there — it’s scary, like Vietnam. Sort of like the Vietnam era. It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier. 27. If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know. The point is, you can never be too greedy 28. Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met. I have never seen a thin person drinking Diet Coke. 29. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life. No comment. 30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself? I was down there, and I watched our police and our firemen, down on 7-Eleven, down at the World Trade Center, right after it came down. 31. Tell your partner something that you like about them already. Beauty and elegance, whether in a woman, a building, or a work of art, is not just superficial or something pretty to see. 32. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about? I don't like mosquitoes. I never did. 33. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet? My IQ is one of the highest — and you all know it! Please don't feel so stupid or insecure; it's not your fault. 34. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why? There are basically three types of women and reactions. One is the good woman who very much loves her future husband, solely for himself, but refuses to sign the agreement on principle. I fully understand this, but the man should take a pass anyway and find someone else. The other is the calculating woman who refuses to sign the prenuptial agreement because she is expecting to take advantage of the poor, unsuspecting sucker she’s got in her grasp. There is also the woman who will openly and quickly sign a prenuptial agreement in order to make a quick hit and take the money given to her. 35. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why? My marriage, it seemed, was the only area of my life in which I was willing to accept something less than perfection. 36. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen. Statistically, my children have a very bad shot. Children of successful people are generally very, very troubled, not successful. They don’t have the right shtick. You never know until they’re tested. But I do well with my children. I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her. James Gendron's Sexual Boat (Sex Boats) is one of my favorite random purchases. I was at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference when I ran into Anis Mojgani, and asked him to recommend some small presses. He pointed me in the direction of Octopus Books, and I think I ended up dropping about $100 and loving most of the books I picked up from them. Sexual Boat (Sex Boats), in particular was a joy. I picked it for the unusual name, and that it appeared to be filled with several one page poems with unusual grammar. I loved it more than I understood it. So, in many ways, it was like the book and I had dated for several years. The title of this blog post is from an interview with James Gendron where he talks about his writing process and comes off more quirky than pompous, which is pretty rare in poets. The title of the poem is just a rewriting of the title of several of his poems (and his book). I tried to write it in an echo of his voice, as opposed to copying his voice. Then I had the word "echo" in my head, and I had to use it in the first line. Intimate Dinghy (Affable Gondola)
Adam Stone A stranger's name is a cave without echo that I have grown too fat to fit into When someone is familiar but in the wrong venue for me to recognize them I try to climb head first into their name but always get caught at the shoulders Hello and head nod is my nickname for my impending what's it called not amnesia when you have too many memories that you can't see the ocean for the salt oh yes Alzheimer's In middle school I outremembered all my friends and relatives perhaps because there were so few of them My imagination was feral but my memory was a squirrel raised by a golden retriever I still remember all of the answers to the trivial pursuit cards of my childhood but modern adult names are you know yea |
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