Redeemed Area
by John Ashbery
Do you know where you live? Probably.
Abner is getting too old to drive but won’t admit it.
The other day he got in his car to go buy some cough drops
of a kind they don’t make anymore. And the drugstore
has been incorporated into a mall about seven miles away
with only about half the stores rented. There are three
other malls within a four-mile area. All the houses
are owned by the same guy, who’s been renting
them out to college students for years, so they are virtually uninhabitable.
A smell of vitriol and socks pervades the area
like an open sewer in a souk. Anyway the cough drops
(a new brand) tasted pretty good-like catnip
or an orange slice that has lain on a girl’s behind.
That’s the electrician calling now
nobody else would call before 7 A.M. Now we’ll have some
electricity in the place. I’ll start by plugging in
the Christmas tree lights. They were what made the whole thing
go up in sparks the last time. Next, the light
by the dictionary stand, so I can look some words up.
Then probably the toaster. A nice slice
of toast would really hit the spot now. I’m afraid it’s all over
between us, though. Make nice, like you really cared,
I’ll change my chemise, and we can dance around the room
like demented dogs, eager for a handout or they don’t
know what. Gradually, everything will return to normal, I
promise you that. There’ll be things for you to write about
in your diary, a fur coat for me, a lavish shoe tree for that other.
Make that two slices. I can see you only through a vegetal murk
not unlike coral, if it were semi-liquid, or a transparent milkshake.
I have adjusted the lamp;
morning’s at seven,
the tarnish has fallen from the metallic embroidery, the walls have fallen,
the country’s pulse is racing. Parents are weeping,
the schools have closed.
All the fuss has put me in a good mood,
O great sun.
It Is Like a Christmas Card
by Alice Notley
It is like a Christmas card,
except it is real and I
am seeng it, and it is far
more beautiful than any pic-
ture, if it is real.
Santa
by Donald Britton
Santa is the incomplete
Embodiment of our charity. Poor Santa,
His many bodies minted
Of human waste, his voice the choir
Of his own need. I feel so empty,
By myself, whispering my lists
In Santa’s spiral ear, while he lists
Slightly to one side like skeet
Propelled into the air by a device
No human hand has touched, so obsolete
Is effort when a dime skims ice.
Emit a cry for every useless thing:
Abundant padding so contrived
No one of us shall feel deprived.
Ranting
by Megan Green
ranting, pathetic insecurities, overwhelm the Christmas tree, and you promise
me a utopia, a sort of subsequential America,
where we’ll fuck & eat & play the craps, Las
Vegas is the only place it’ll happen, &
yet the nameless, intrude like a swarm of fucking locusts
feasting upon the Satin drape of my finest
face, I believe your chest most of all, that’s where
the dragon begins, & the sigh
spills from my eyes. Dead petals favour the corners. Gathering
like they have plans.
Making the Best of the Holidays
by James Tate
Justine called on Christmas day to say she
was thinking of killing herself. I said, “We’re
in the middle of opening presents, Justine. Could
you possibly call back later, that is, if you’re
still alive.” She was furious with me and called
me all sorts of names which I refuse to dignify
by repeating them. I hung up on her and returned
to the joyful task of opening presents. Everyone
seemed delighted with what they got, and that
definitely included me. I placed a few more logs
on the fire, and then the phone rang again. This
time it was Hugh and he had just taken all of his
pills and washed them down with a quart of gin.
“Sleep it off, Hugh,” I said, “I can barely under-
stand you, you’re slurring so badly. Call me
tomorrow, Hugh, and Merry Christmas.” The roast
in the oven smelled delicious. The kids were playing
with their new toys. Loni was giving me a big
Christmas kiss when the phone rang again. It was
Debbie. “I hate you,” she said. “You’re the most
disgusting human being on the planet.” “You’re
absolutely right,” I said, “and I’ve always been
aware of this. Nonetheless, Merry Christmas, Debbie.”
Halfway through dinner the phone rang again, but
this time Loni answered it. When she came back
to the table she looked pale. “Who was it?” I
asked. “It was my mother,” she said. “And what
did she say?” I asked. “She said she wasn’t my
mother,” she said.
[older I get]
by Wayne Koestenbaum
older I get, more serious I become
—-about wearing
—-makeup and wig.
caftan, too. always interested in a rub, kind sir:
—-love yr eyebrows.
—-admittedly, my pix
—-disguise age.
mix turquoise, king’s blue, bluish purple: impose mix
—-on passive quinacridone
—-violet’s impersonality.
try to figure out how clearly delineated
—-“subject positions” find
—-angles of mutual
—-pleasurable engagement without
—-destroying each other.
Joan Rivers baking Xmas cookies seen sideways
—-through tunnel window’s
—-mirror lake Simi-
—-lac® simulacrum.
“this administration is the worst thing to happen
—-to orange since
—-Agent Orange,” quips pundit.
every novel I love is fragile. red stars
—-on black duffel bag
—-triangulate with
—-Lynn Redgrave’s in-
—-dependent sources of self-
—-esteem, not harvested from Lear.
wrongly seeking sublimity in barn-roof gutter crevice.
lucent ceiling corrugations a dauphinois
—-potato when his Pompeii
—-gaze claims me, then disappears.
kouros-carved lips, stone lingerie, scandal
—-pudding: congregated
—-shames comprise a menu.
hives on my calves, awaiting Purim-Benadryl’s
—-alleviation: sob-collapse
—-throws ash on coffin
—-lowered: crowded town
—-car back from cemetery
—-to capers, cream cheese.
abstract expressionism is what happened at the hospital:
—-fools disputing climate
—-change, Tiffany
—-blue establishing shot’s
—-concentrated inattention.
“I’m glad you gave up the figure,” she said:
—-but I haven’t
—-stopped pursuing nudes.
to be the dread golem, aloof in Prague, boning
—-up on feuilletonisme,
—-Eton pea-coat toggles
—-unclasping gelt-Jocasta.
Balloons
by Sylvia Plath
Since Christmas they have lived with us,
Guileless and clear,
Oval soul-animals,
Taking up half the space,
Moving and rubbing on the silk
Invisible air drifts,
Giving a shriek and pop
When attacked, then scooting to rest, barely trembling.
Yellow cathead, blue fish—
Such queer moons we live with
Instead of dead furniture!
Straw mats, white walls
And these traveling
Globes of thin air, red, green,
Delighting
The heart like wishes or free
Peacocks blessing
Old ground with a feather
Beaten in starry metals.
Your small
Brother is making
His balloon squeak like a cat.
Seeming to see
A funny pink world he might eat on the other side of it,
He bites,
Then sits
Back, fat jug
Contemplating a world clear as water.
A red
Shred in his little fist.
Sonnet 8
by Edwin Denby
Three old sheepherders so filthy in their ways
Whores wouldn’t touch them with a ten foot pole
Saw once the Christmas star which in a blaze
Pierced like delight into the secret soul.
They later also stood with their same faces
Around a baby male and there were shown
The heart caressing with millennial graces
A beauty which in love is all its own.
These three were the first according to the story
But unbaptized they never will reach heaven
In an eternal hell tortured and gory
They can recall the joy that they were given,
This savage torture by the law of love
Of Christmas shepherds I like thinking of.
I’ll Be Me and You Be Goethe
by Heather Christie
I want it to be winter and I want to change
the color of this room This room should be
a blue room and it should be freezing
but ventilated and I in my medium snowsuit
irresistible I know because everything I do
I do to get more beautiful so you will want
to love me in the cold and indoor morning
Christmas Poem
by Dick Gallup
Your eyes give a little bit
—————-You know
Though your hands
Take you away
Into a distance filling with blue fir trees
Cool and fragrant as the sea
Vacationing in an upland meadow
You have a magical green necklace
When You put it on you are like a tree
Today I call you Lady Santa
From your firm green breasts
Spring Christmas Tree nipples!
Lady Santa!
I call your name wildly in the night
You are the one who brings Fortune to poets
You fill the kids’ stockings
You are the ink in my pen
The yeast in my bread
The best in my bed
You have a giant living room
And you don’t even have a house
I’m going to call you on the telephone
I’m going to call you on a real telephone
When you go away
—–It’s time for the horror show
Time to hang around weird scenes
Time to fuck up the machinery
—–Like big hairy factories
I end up making smoke
And finally going out
—–On strike
And you are the most beautiful of the scabs
And put me back to just walking down the street
There is a blue fire in the wheels of your eyes
Deep blue flaming night lights
You hold comfort and easy dreams
No leaky faucets in your kitchen
You give me screaming fits of sheer adulation
You come toward me on the winter streets
—–Ringing your bell
And you are all the bells ringing
Christmas and New Years in a clean shirt
You make me think of padded cells on the moon
And going to the Excelsior Hotel
—–In Venice
————–In a balloon
You are a goddess on a god’s birthday
Your voice is on the radio when I turn it off
You are your own electricity
And you turn me on
What I’d Like For Christmas, 1970
by Ted Berrigan
Black brothers to get happy
The Puerto Ricans to say hello
The old folks to take it easy &
as it comes
The United States to get straight
Power to butt out
Money to fuck off
Business with honor
Religion
& Art
Love
A home
A typewriter
A GUN.
Advent
by Rae Armantrout
In front of the craft shop,
a small nativity,
mother, baby, sheep
made of white
and blue balloons.
*
Sky
god
girl.
Pick out the one
that doesn’t belong.
*
Some thing
close to nothing
flat
from which,
fatherless,
everything has come.
Look at My Head, It’s a Pumpkin with a Candle in It
by Keegan Crawford
What is on your bed right now?
I laid there for fifteen minutes with my face down into the pillow.
I imagined how I looked from another person’s point of view
and I looked dead, in a humorous way.
What is your favorite holiday?
The tree was fake and everyone was acting like the tree.
If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
The drop was five stories, so I didn’t look down. I just looked forward.
Have you ever been camping?
I don’t know why people are scared of wolves. ‘Blood thirsty killing machine’ is a false phrase. They are not robots and they drink water.
What was the last thing you ate?
I am not a blood thirsty killing machine. I just wanted to clarify that.
Do you have any regrets?
Flowers die 100% percent of the time. I still like flowers, though.
Psychoanalysis: An Elegy (Excerpt)
by Jack Spicer
I think that I would like to write a poem that is slow as a summer
As slow getting started
As 4th of July somewhere around the middle of the second stanza
After a lot of unusual rain
California seems long in the summer.
I would like to write a poem as long as California
And as slow as a summer.
Do you get me, Doctor? It would have to be as slow
As the very tip of summer.
As slow as the summer seems
On a hot day drinking beer outside Riverside
Or standing in the middle of a white-hot road
Between Bakersfield and Hell
Waiting for Santa Claus.
Christmas at the Orphanage
by Bill Knott
But if they’d give us toys and twice the stuff
most parents splurge on the average kid,
orphans, I submit, need more than enough;
in fact, stacks wrapped with our names nearly hid
the tree where sparkling allotments yearly
guaranteed a lack of—what?—family?—
I knew exactly what it was I missed:
(did each boy there feel the same denials?)
to share my pals’ tearing open their piles
meant sealing the self, the child that wanted
to scream at all You stole those gifts from me;
whose birthday is worth such words? The wish-lists
they’d made us write out in May lay granted
against starred branches. I said I’m sorry.
Season’s Greetings
by Ron Padgett
The holidays are said
to give one a chance
to get in touch with others
but what held back that chance
the rest of the year?
What it means is
that the holidays are a time
when we should behave
like other people, as if
in junior high school,
jury duty, or the Army,
whereas what Philip Whalen
wanted was to take a holiday
from holidays, and then
he wavered, beautifully.
Kage’s First Xmas
by Ben Mirov
I am thinking of him and her having sex. I am thinking of them having really great sex, probably in front of a mirror. I am alone in the house. The TV is on, but everyone is asleep. I am about to turn twenty-one. When I turn twenty-one I am going to put on snowshoes. I am going to put on snowshoes and walk as far as I can into the snow. Once I am out in the snow I am going to sit down. I will probably sit in the snow for a long time. I’ll bring a sandwich and some juice. When I return to the house it will be Xmas morning. I will take off my snowshoes and I will tell my family my new name. I will say, On advent of my twenty-first birthday I have taken a new name. Henceforth I shall be called Kage. Kage with a K and not a C. From now on I will only answer to the name Kage. Thank you very much, and then I will walk out of the room. Then I will probably take a shower because I will be cold from sitting in the snow. I will walk into the bathroom and take off all my clothes and look at my body in the mirror. I will probably flex a little. Kage likes his new body. Then I will take a long shower. I will wash every part of my body, including my asshole and my ears and toes. Every part of my body will be clean. Then I will get out of the shower and go have Xmas. I will open my presents and say, Kage does not want this. Kage has no use for a Playstation. Kage does wear sweaters.
untitled
by Megan Boyle
everything i touch is going to be a fossil some day my dad still hasn’t taken down his christmas decorations
i walked to his refrigerator and immediately unwrapped and ate a square of american cheese
if i drop a toothpick i’m pretty sure it will remain where it fell for three days
not sure what happens after that.
Xmas Poem: Bolinas
by Robert Creeley
All around
the snow
don’t fall.
Come Christmas
we’ll get high
and go find it.
Christmas Tree
by James Merrill
To be
Brought down at last
From the cold sighing mountain
Where I and the others
Had been fed, looked after, kept still,
Meant, I knew—of course I knew—
That it would be only a matter of weeks,
That there was nothing more to do.
Warmly they took me in, made much of me,
The point from the start was to keep my spirits up.
I could assent to that. For honestly,
It did help to be wound in jewels, to send
Their colors flashing forth from vents in the deep
Fragrant sables that cloaked me head to foot.
Over me then they wove a spell of shining—
Purple and silver chains, eavesdropping tinsel,
Amulets, milagros: software of silver,
A heart, a little girl, a Model T,
Two staring eyes. Then angles, trumpets, BUD and BEA
(The children’s names) in clownlike capitals,
Somewhere a music box whose tiny song
Played and replayed I ended before long
By loving. And in shadow behind me, a primitive IV
To keep the show going. Yes, yes, what lay ahead
Was clear: the stripping, the cold street, my chemicals
Plowed back into the Earth for lives to come—
No doubt a blessing, a harvest, but one that doesn’t bear,
Now or ever, dwelling upon. To have grown so thin.
Needles and bone. The little boy’s hands meeting
About my spine. The mother’s voice: Holding up wonderfully!
No dread. No bitterness. The end beginning. Today’s
Dusk room aglow
For the last time
With candlelight.
Faces love-lit
Gifts underfoot.
Still to be so poised, so
Receptive. Still to recall, praise.
Love Poem
by Louise Glück
There is always something to be made of pain.
Your mother knits.
She turns out scarves in every shade of red.
They were for Christmas, and they kept you warm
while she married over and over, taking you
along. How could it work,
when all those years she stored her widowed heart
as though the dead come back.
No wonder you are the way you are,
afraid of blood, your women
like one brick wall after another.
THE BLIND SEE ONLY THIS WORLD (A Christmas Card)
by John Wieners
Today the Lamb of God arrives in the mail
above the Cross, beside the Handsome Sailor
from Russia
in his turtleneck sweater. Today we make love
in our minds.
And women come to fore, winning the field.
It is Christmas, Hanukkah,–heritages we leave
behind
in israel.
There is a new cross in the wind, and it is our
minds, imagination, will
where the discovery is made
of how to pass the night, how to share the gift
of love, our bodies, which is true
illumination
of the present instant.
There is no other journey to make. We receive all
we need.
Without insight, we remain blind.
Without vision, we see only this world.
Drivers Dividers
by Bernadette Mayer
D R I V E R S white of white line 10 to 6
shut off line this coach is TOLL MACHINE
motors white restroom equipped
while loading line for your convenience
buses white cigarette smoking
S A V E T I R E S line permitted
Keep wheels on white unless prohibited
Straight line un line by law
til passing over white we’re getting
treadle before line there you’re out of
cutting left white drinking intoxicants
P A S S E N G E R S line on coach prohibited
are met in the white on the
main waiting room line way
U P S T A I R S white express lane
SHELTER SHELTER SH line No Standing
Back in U.S.S.R. white W. 41 St.
chipped Martha, My line One Way
Dear chipped, as if white Tow
eaten line It is now 5:25 Away
Departures … for … white Zone
W O R K line Your Operator
A R E A white Safe Reliable
A H E A D line Courteous CHECK OUT
Free Baggage white PAY here
checking line LEFT THAN
No Tipping Required white and buses only
D.O.T. regulations line THIS LANE
require passengers white Season’s
to stand back line Greetings
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House of Chrome line u u Mr. Milk
tinted green white v v Keeps your car
50¢ makeup line w w on the go Atlantic
cars only sleep white x x Cable TV
HOBOKEN green line y y 12 channels
THIS LANE sleep white z z Special Offer
$6.25 green line Xmas Xmas placemats
When you’re out of Holiday House white Count your LEE
Schlitz line two lights are Change AS YOU
the same two lights white Keep Right TRAVEL
beer a a line Pass Left Only ASK US
To a smoker b b white Here she said
it’s a c c line her is a tube from one
Ken d d white less cigar You to the
PARK AVE. e e line know how she other
UNION CITY f f white explained that but one
a whole g g line one to me Its a is more
new kind h h white cigar she said than the other
of bag i i line that hasn’t got STOP LINE
GIVE THE j j white anything left STOP LINE
WASHED VODKA k k line to it de cinquante
DONT 8:45 l l white LETOM cinq
WALK Rose Garden m m line I cant swipe the
I like your skirt n n white great American
so do I o o line hunchback horses Get back
your sash is p p white where you were before
beautiful q q line The Rest
RIDGE DODGE r r white Get Back
Fiesta Banquet s s line LENOX—-
Room t t white toll booth no. 1
All the Lovers
by Kevin Killian
Outside the Disney Concert Hall,
Kylie has summoned a clutch of cold models in white underwear,
They clamber on white boxes pitching for the sky
Somehow she appears in a dream sequence,
Boys and girls kiss and poke and struggle for love
In California, where the major candidates for governor and senator
live the lavish lives of Roman emperors,
Carly Fiorina, like Nero, bought a violin
for everyone on her Christmas list, from Cremona,
her wood golden and thin as hair,
81 per cent of voters don’t care how wealthy a
candidate is
You have to be rich to flourish
What came first, the wifebeater or the social system
that allowed ever and ever more flourish
In the face of a liverish social despair
all the lovers who have gone before
they don’t compare to you
i am a big dumbass bear on christmas morning
by partrik
holy shit a house
im gonna look inside the fucking window
who the fuck is this dumbass family in this house
if i wanted to i could bust in there and eat every one of these fuckers
look at this little fucker opening a present
oh look its a fire truck big deal ass monkey
when are these shit hats gonna fucking notice the bear at their window
hey bitch you forgot to look in your stocking
there you go
lol bubba wubba and chocolate give her a fucking toothbrush mom and dad
when are they gonna see me and chase me away
damn thats a lot of wrapping paper
lol that kitten is playing in it what a retard
oh shit they see me
“im not gonna hurt you or eat you”
but it sounds like “roar roar roar” to them cause im a big dumbass fucking bear
dad thats a big ass gun
dont shoot me think of all the fun times
like when watched your lovely family open presents on christmas
oh shit he took a warning shot im gonna run away
there is no presents under any of the trees of the woods of the world for me
why arent i hibernating
in a string of christmas lights that is blinking all year long
by Diana Salier
for christmas i get a new magic set and a big plastic stealth bomber that opens up and holds fifty little metal stealth bombers. i wear footie pajamas that zip all the way to my neck. the big plastic stealth bomber has a runway to practice takeoffs and landings. i sit on the carpet in my onesie and make the grey and green stealth bombers crash into each other so that all the pilots inside will die. i can’t finish card tricks or make the red balls disappear so i wear my black felt magician’s hat and walk around pulling rabbits out of things. i drive to my first girlfriend’s house. we drink wine and leave the bottles in the door of her parents’ car. on the way back to my house i text her all i want for christmas is you. at home a string of christmas lights blinks erratically. i fall asleep clearing the rubble off the runway.
December
by James Schuyler
The giant Norway spruce from Podunk, its lower branches bound,
this morning was reared into place at Rockefeller Center.
I thought I saw a cold blue dusty light sough in its boughs
the way other years the wind thrashing at the giant ornaments
recalled other years and Christmas trees more homey.
Each December! I always think I hate “the over-commercialized event”
and then bells ring, or tiny light bulbs wink above the entrance
to Bonwit Teller or Katherine going on five wants to look at all
the empty sample gift-wrapped boxes up Fifth Avenue in swank shops
and how can I help falling in love? A calm secret exultation
of the spirit that tastes like Sealtest eggnog, made from milk solids,
Vanillin, artificial rum flavoring; a milky impulse to kiss and be friends
It’s like what George and I were talking about, the East West
Coast divide: Californians need to do a thing to enjoy it.
A smile in the street may be loads! you don’t have to undress everybody.
“You didn’t visit the Alps?”
“No, but I saw from the train they were black
and streaked with snow.”
Having and giving but also catching glimpses
hints that are revelations: to have been so happy is a promise
and if it isn’t kept that doesn’t matter. It may snow
falling softly on lashes of eyes you love and a cold cheek
grow warm next to your own in hushed dark familial December.
Molly Is Asked
by Ron Koertge
to be in the Christmas pageant. She tells
me this standing in the door of what we
laughingly call my study.
“But I don’t want to be Mary,” she says.
“I want to be the guy.”
That makes me look up from my bills.
“Joseph?”
“The innkeeper. I want to slam the door
in Joseph’s face.”
She’s eight. I wonder if we’ll look back
on this next year and laugh. Or will she
want to be Herod and we’ll have to take
her little brother and flee.
Talking Turkeys
by Benjamin Zephaniah
Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas
Cos’ turkeys just wanna hav fun
Turkeys are cool, turkeys are wicked
An every turkey has a Mum.
Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas,
Don’t eat it, keep it alive,
It could be yu mate, an not on your plate
Say, Yo! Turkey I’m on your side.
I got lots of friends who are turkeys
An all of dem fear christmas time,
Dey wanna enjoy it, dey say humans destroyed it
An humans are out of dere mind,
Yeah, I got lots of friends who are turkeys
Dey all hav a right to a life,
Not to be caged up an genetically made up
By any farmer an his wife.
Turkeys just wanna play reggae
Turkeys just wanna hip-hop
Can yu imagine a nice young turkey saying,
‘I cannot wait for de chop’,
Turkeys like getting presents, dey wanna watch christmas TV,
Turkeys hav brains an turkeys feel pain
In many ways like yu an me.
I once knew a turkey called…Turkey
He said “Benji explain to me please,
Who put de turkey in christmas
An what happens to christmas trees?”,
I said “I am not too sure turkey
But itÕs nothing to do wid Christ Mass
Humans get greedy an waste more dan need be
An business men mek loadsa cash’.
Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas
Invite dem indoors fe sum greens
Let dem eat cake an let dem partake
In a plate of organic grown beans,
Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas
An spare dem de cut of de knife,
Join Turkeys United an dey’ll be delighted
An yu will mek new friends ‘FOR LIFE’.
Pretty Convincing
by Tim Dlugos
Talking to my friend Emily, whose drinking
patterns and extravagance of personal
feeling are a lot like mine, I’m pretty
convinced when she explains the things we do
while drinking (a cocktail to celebrate the new
account turns into a party that lasts till 3
a.m. and a terrific hangover) indicate
a problem of a sort I’d not considered.
I’ve been worried about how I metabolize
the sauce for four years, since my second bout
of hepatitis, when I kissed all the girls
at Christmas dinner and turned bright yellow
Christmas night, but never about whether
I could handle it. It’s been more of a given,
the stage set for my life as an artistic queer,
as much of a tradition in these New York circles
as incense for Catholics or German
shepherds for the blind. We re-enact
the rituals, and our faces, like smoky icons
in a certain light, seem to learn nothing
but understand all. It comforts me
yet isn’t all that pleasant, like drinking
Ripple to remember high school. A friend
of mine has been drinking in the same bar for decades,
talking to the same types, but progressively
fewer blonds. Joe LeSueur says he’s glad
to have been a young man in the Fifties with his
Tab Hunter good looks, because that was the image
men desired; now it’s the Puerto Rican
angel with great eyes and a fierce fidelity
that springs out of machismo, rather than a moral
choice. His argument is pretty convincing, too,
except lots of the pretty blonds I’ve known
default by dying young, leaving the field
to the swarthy. Cameron Burke, the dancer
and waiter at Magoo’s, killed on his way home from
the Pines when a car hit his bike on the Sunrise Highway.
Henry Post dead of AIDS, a man I thought would be around
forever, surprising me by his mortality the way
I was surprised when I heard he was not
the grandson of Emily Post at all, just pretending,
like the friend he wrote about in Playgirl, Blair Meehan,
was faking when he crashed every A List party for a year
by pretending to be Kay Meehan’s son, a masquerade
that ended when a hostess told him “Your mother’s here”
and led him by the hand to the dowager—Woman, behold
thy son—underneath a darkening conviction that all,
if not wrong, was not right. By now Henry may have faced
the same embarrassment at some cocktail party in the sky.
Stay as outrageously nasty as you were. And Patrick
Mack, locked into memory as he held court in the Anvil
by the downstairs pinball machine, and writhing
as he danced in Lita Hornick’s parlor when the Stimulators
played her party, dead last week of causes I don’t know,
as if the cause and not the effect were the problem.
My blond friend Chuck Shaw refers to the Bone-
crusher in the Sky, and I’m starting to
imagine a road to his castle lit by radiant
heads of blonds on poles as streetlamps for the gods,
flickering on at twilight as I used to do
in the years when I crashed more parties and acted
more outrageously and met more beauties and made
more enemies than ever before or ever again, I pray.
It’s spring and there’s another crop of kids
with haircuts from my childhood and inflated self-esteem
from my arrival in New York, who plug into the history
of prettiness, convincing to themselves and the devout.
We who are about to catch the eye of someone
new salute as the cotillion passes, led by blonds
and followed by the rest of us, a formal march
to the dark edge of the ballroom where we step out
onto the terrace and the buds of the forsythia
that hides the trash sprout magically
at our approach. I toast it
as memorial to dreams as fragile and persistent
as a blond in love. My clothes smell like the smoky
bar, but the sweetness of the April air’s
delicious when I step outside and fill
my lungs, leaning my head back
in a first-class seat on the shuttle
between the rowdy celebration of the great deeds
to come and an enormous Irish wake in which
the corpses change but the party goes on forever.
That night with the green sky
by Tao Lin
It was snowing and you were kind of beautiful
We were in the city and every time I looked up
Someone was leaning out a window, staring at me
I could tell you liked me a lot or maybe even loved me
But you kept walking at this strange speed
You kept going in angles and it was confusing me
I think maybe you were thinking that you’d make me disappear
By walking at strange speeds and in a strange, curvy way
But how would that cause me to vanish from the planet Earth?
And that hurts
Why did you want me gone?
That hurts
Why?
Why?
I don’t know
Some things can’t be explained, I guess
The sky, for example, was green that night
Our Lady of Knock
by Fanny Howe
Was in the month of Mary
That I lost my desire to pray.
It seeped away like yellow.
As blurred as sorrow.
It was me singing hope as a solo.
God growing weak and subtle.
Birdsong was my last communion.
The burn of karma was the loss
Of sureness and of eros,
Mental delirium, the triumph of the strong,
A sacred heart in iron,
It was the end of an eon, winter
Was coming. The seeds were fires
Inside the children… . Knock, knock, Mary.
Music
by Frank O’Hara
If I rest for a moment near The Equestrian
pausing for a liver sausage sandwich in the Mayflower Shoppe,
that angel seems to be leading the horse into Bergdorf’s
and I am naked as a table cloth, my nerves humming.
Close to the fear of war and the stars which have disappeared.
I have in my hands only 35¢, it’s so meaningless to eat!
and gusts of water spray over the basins of leaves
like the hammers of a glass pianoforte. If I seem to you
to have lavender lips under the leaves of the world,
I must tighten my belt.
It’s like a locomotive on the march, the season
of distress and clarity
and my door is open to the evenings of midwinter’s
lightly falling snow over the newspapers.
Clasp me in your handkerchief like a tear, trumpet
of early afternoon! in the foggy autumn.
As they’re putting, up the Christmas trees on Park Avenue
I shall see my daydreams walking by with dogs in blankets,
put to some use before all those coloured lights come on!
But no more fountains and no more rain,
and the stores stay open terribly late.
At Christmas
by Barbara Eknoian
on sunday we took the train to the city and we each went home for one night and i saw my parents and my bedroom and my cat and you saw your ex boyfriend and his parents and his bedroom and his dog and when i called you i heard you ask me to go back to sleep and i said is everything okay and you told me to please go back to sleep
by Spencer Madsen
not sure if you
ever told me how
you felt about
christmas lights
i said i’d wrap them around our room
and put popcorn in your mouth
a few weeks ago i
walked onto a street
and sat prepared
lets
sleep like two hands
caught
in each other’s fingers
lets be demonstrative
of that image
in an earnest way
lets forget i wrote it down
or else it won’t feel genuine
yesterday i googled:
homemade fleshlight
Hand Over Heart
by David Trinidad
I look up at the clock.
It’s time to go, so
I cover the typewriter
and calculator, lock my radio
in the file cabinet
and straighten my desk.
On the way out, I unplug
the Christmas tree lights.
I am rarely the last one
to leave the office.
Alone in the elevator,
I listen to a lilting
rendition of “Frosty
The Snowman.” The door
slides open. Outside,
it’s already dark. I say
good night to the guard
in the parking lot, wait
for my car to warm up.
It does and I drive off.
Halfway home
I turn on the radio
Madonna sings
her new hit, “Open
Your Heart.” At
the same time, on
another station,
Cyndi Lauper sings
her latest song, “Change
Of Heart”. Not that long
ago, it might have
been Brenda Lee
singing “Heart In Hand”
and Connie Francis
Belting out any number
of her most popular
tunes: “My Heart
Has A Mind Of Its
Own,” “Breakin’ In
A Brand New Broken
Heart,” “When
The Boy In Your Arms
(Is The Boy In Your
Heart)” or “Don’t
Break The Heart
That Loves You.”
I Don’t know why
I think about
such things.
Christmas on Telegraph
by Tom Clark
Shoppers rush past frozen images unseen,
In bright synthetics Sierra skiers ski
Through snowdead woods on blurred storewindow TV.
In the forest it is cold. How can it be
Colder in the cities? Street people crouched
Under Amoeba’s protective arcade mouth
Such big round starving O’s: oxygen balloons
Lifting off to perfect freedom, no strings —
A pity they can’t float off in them.
Peace, brother. I can spare the buck or pass it.
Just breathing commits one to everything —
To life — which can’t be purchased on this street
Where ravenous as sheer presence Christmas lights
Up human appetites for guilty pleasures.
Literary Lipsticks
by Elaine Equi
The Best American Poetry
Red Wheelbarrow
I Have Eaten the Plums
Poppies in October
Pink Christmas
Red Weather
A Rose Is a Rose
Jaffa Juice
Watermelon Sugar
Frost at Midnight
Is This a Poem For the Year 2219?
by Mike Young
Yes, this is a poem for the year 2219
about the fact my bathroom is above
my neighbors’ bedroom, and I sing
Roy Orbison songs at immaculate volumes
during my routines, which is partly my love
of song and partly my obsession with the idea
of audience. Dear 2219, a bathroom is a private
chlorinated water repository filled with hair gel
and other methods of impression insurance,
like sleeping pills. Neighbors are people who
lock the downstairs door just because some
random bro started fingerpainting their door-
bell Sunday night. Oops, he said. You’re not my
parents. Neighbors leave notes asking you to park
considerately and curbside boxes of giveaway bins
to judge them by. In bedrooms, 2219, what you do is
sniff a cowboy shirt you’ve plucked off the floor to see
if it’s okay to wear for teaching the kids I guess you call
First Moroccan Restauranteer in Space and Single Season
Small Needle Home Run Record Holder. You leave the mandarin
peels on your bed after having awesome sex with your girlfriend
but throw them away when she leaves for work. In 2219, you may
instead want to rub the peels all over your chest. If so, history
repeats itself. Golly. Singing is a method of generating inside
you a logging road, dawn-ish, swards of sugar beets, after driving
all night, knowing it’s about to rain but it’s not raining yet, thanks
sky! Singing may also be catalogued as Christmas underwater
and hiking slowly along the railroad ties with the best candy bar
but no home. For the sub-category of song known as Roy Orbison,
ditch your footnotes, 2219! 1936-1988, popular for soaring R&B;
and indoor sunglasses: that’s not Roy Orbison! Roy Orbison is a
naked knee so lovely you’d cry if you weren’t afraid of the knee
getting wet. Other things you need to know, 2219: I am afraid of
everything. We would rake the stars into piles to say what’s after
us. Happiness without certain phone calls is impossible. Your father
will die. Last Christmas, I ran into my friend Reggie at the cineplex.
His kid was cute. Me and my other friend were making fun of the movie
Reggie wanted to see. Reggie and I cussed together for the first time I can
remember, but I think we’re made of different smoke. 2219, I might be
above you or something. But I’m probably just below you. I take so many
multivitamins. Sometimes I try to make sure the best songs in my iTunes
have the most plays, but I don’t know why. Carolyn’s a better singer than
I am, and Dorothy told me that when I sing Bridge Over Troubled Water
it sounds like I’m falling apart. Is that a good thing? Wouldn’t it be more
considerate to just spend my time recycling cartons of apple cider for
you, 2219? Instead I carry a pillowcase full of laundry to the laundromat
and try to memorize my life enough to remember my life. I walk streets
named after people too dead to meet and try to sing loud enough to get
stuck in strangers’ heads. Carolyn and I go down on each other to hear the
other make their sounds. One time I saw my downstairs neighbor in a
line, and she smiled, waved at me. I couldn’t remember who she was.
She left her place to come talk. Then I remembered. 2219, they just
found water on the moon. Your love will only count before it’s gone.
Christmas Eve
by Bill Berkson
for Vincent Warren
Behind the black water tower
under the grey
of the sky that feeds it
smoke speeds to where a pigeon
spreads its wings
This is no great feat
Cold pushes out its lust
We walk we drink we cast
our giggling insults
Would you please
leave the $2.50 you owe me
I would rather not talk about it
just now Money bores me I would like
to visit someone who will stay
in bed all day A forest is rising
imperceptibly in my head
not a civilized park
I think it would be nice this “new
moral odor” no it would not mean
“everything marching to its tomb”
The water tower
watches over us Is there someone
you would like to invite no one.
from I Remember
by Joe Brainard
I remember Christmas tree lights reflected on the ceiling.
I remember Christmas cards arriving from people my parents forgot to send cards to.
I remember mistletoe.
I remember Christmas carols. And car lots.
I remember Aunt Cleora who lived in Hollywood. Every year for Christmas she sent my brother and me a joint present of one book.
Connie’s Scared
by Clark Coolidge
The wind came up, the radishes died and
the peelings continued. No one could be
more hostile than a species enclosed in
a chimney for a century or so they told me.
The lighter fluid on the other hand might warm
your nails. We deserve overtime
for dealing daily with these mistreated burdens.
The milkweed pods for no reason in the world
we could see ignited and the frog is loose.
The mail at last arrived but you had better
proceed to lick your envelopes more heartily
as they all came empty. No one exactly states
but everybody thinks the whole world level
has been lowered and continues. If the flame
goes out the food will spoil, remember?
Then there is the problem of the stray moose
to be seen from the road or better not, bring
apples, take pictures, but the village idiot
had his son throw rocks. The later thunder
around the sleeping household was a mere
five minutes herd of cows. And Rip Rowan thought that
thunder was produced by two crickets banging
garbage cans together. Tomorrow the snow will
be higher and the school fail to attract. I pay
for entrance to this life by my exit, can’t wait
each morning to treat of impossible questions and
have never been depressed. Makes you wonder,
all these seacows spitting on their tails,
flashing lights on the spaceride and even in my dreams.
Claimed I awoke from the fight I couldn’t win.
Chained my warts to a snowcone.
Across the street are many stray dogs but whose
fault are the cats. Something terrible’s going on
in the woods the rabbit is screaming, the cat
distinctly calling your name, nothing that can’t
be solved with golf club and pistol empty. Lock
your house when you leave for the auto. The company
that brought you pasteboard frowns on too many
fallen trees. Check your son’s teeth when he eats
or he’ll end a blimp. A crib death when a baby’s
network lapses mid-breath. The television not collapse
but slowly burn out. And that cooking by radar might cost
you a few meals. There goes another roast beast.
The adult book human gunned down as he left. Seems
the nature of crime to go unsolved, covered up,
never caught. Sal Mineo, for one. If so, wouldn’t
you want your kids to stop it. A gay couple hated
for their foul language not their sex. But the fat weather
woman terminated as a lesbian. Stamp out discomfort
and lift a heel for bliss. Heaven more attractive
now that harps are out of style. One arm in a sling
and the other in a bear. At the loss of life and
limb remain cool. Their son last seen chewed by
croc in pool of steam.
There is no longer any Florida and Christmas nowhere.
The men removed our home sometime lastnite while
we shook. Asked me how I felt and what he could do
with his mike. All my girlfriends have been raped,
some in basements, some by families. Even in the movies
they don’t know they can complain. Reels mixed, eyesight
tearing. Heard they’ve even left the lights on in space.
The dawning hastes and subsequent vagueries.
Never a morning wake but I congeal.
Some kind of nut
by Charles Bukowski
the best Christmas I can remember
I was in a tiny room in
Philadelphia
and I pulled down all the
shades
and went to bed
and pulled up the
covers.
there was no telephone.
there were no Christmas cards.
there was no family.
there were no gifts
and I believe that I felt better
than anybody in that
city
and almost anybody
in any of the
cities.
and I celebrated New Year’s
Eve in the same
manner.
Holes
by Eileen Myles
Once when I passed East Fourth Street off First Avenue,
I think it was in early fall and I had a small hole
in the shoulder of my white shirt, and another on
the back–I looked just beautiful. There was a
whole moment in the 70s when it was beautiful
to have holes in your shirts and sweaters.
By now it was 1981, but I carried that 70s style
around like a torch. There was a whole way of
feeling about yourself that was more European
than American, unless it was American around
1910 when it was beautiful to be a strong
starving immigrant who believed so much
in herself and she was part of a movement
as big as history and it explained the
hole in her shirt. It’s the beginning
of summer tonight, and every season has
cracks through which winter
or fall might leak out. The most perfect
flavor of it, oddly in June. Oh remember
when I was an immigrant. I took a black
beauty and got up from the pile of poems
around my knees and just had too much
energy for thought and walked over to
your house where there was continuous
beer. Finally we were just drinking
Rheingold, a hell of a beer. At the
door I mentioned I had a crush on both
of you, what you say to a couple. By
now the kids were in bed. I can’t
even say clearly now that I wanted
the woman, though it seemed to be
the driving principle then, wanting
one of everything. I was part of
a generation of people who went to
the bars on 7th street and drank the
cheap whiskey and the ale on tap and dreamed
about when I would get you alone. Those
big breasts. I carried slim notebooks which only
permitted two or three-word lines. I need you.
“Nearing the Horse.” There was blood in all my
titles, and milk. I had two bright blue pills
in my pocket. I loved you so much. It was
the last young thing I ever did, the end of
my renaissance, an immigration into my
dream world which even my grandparents
had not dared to live, being prisoners
of schizophrenia and alcohol, though
I was lovers with the two. The beauty
of the story is that it happened.
It was the last thing that happened
in New York. Everything else happened
while I was stopping it from happening.
Everything else had a life of
its own. I don’t think I owe
them an apology, though at least
one of their kids hates my guts.
She can eat my guts for all
I care. I had a small hole in
the front of my black sleeveless
sweater. It was just something
that happened. It got larger
and larger. I liked to put
my finger in it. In the month
of December I couldn’t get
out of bed. I kept waking
up at 6PM and it was Christmas
or New Year’s and I had
started drinking & eating. I remember
you handing me the most beautiful
red plate of pasta. It was like your cunt
on a plate. I met people in your house
even found people to go out and fuck,
regrettably, not knowing about
the forbidden fruit. I forget
what the only sin is. Somebody
told me recently. I have so
many holes in my memory. Between
me and the things I’m separated
from. I pick up a book and
another book and memory
and separation seem to
be all anyone writes
about. Or all they
seem to let me read.
But I remember those
beautiful holes on
my back like a
beautiful cloak
of feeling.
A Severe Lack of Holiday Spirit
by Amy Gerstler
I dread the icy white concussion
of winter. Each snowfall demands
panic, like a kidnapper’s hand
clapped over my chapped mouth.
Ice noms everywhere, a plague
of glass. Christmas ornaments’
sickly tinkle makes my molars ache.
One pities the anemic sun
come January. Trees go skeletal.
Children born in the chilly months
are apt to stammer. People hit
the sauce in a big way all winter.
Amidst blizzards they wrestle
unsuccessfully with the dark comedy
of their lives, laughter trapped
in their frigid gizzards. Meanwhile,
the mercury just plummets,
like a migrating duck blasted
out of the sky by some hunter
in a cap with fur earflaps.
On his reluctance to take down the Christmas ornaments
by John Ashbery
A nice, normal morning:
feet setting out as though in a trance,
doubling the yesterdays, a doubled man
under the stairs, and strange surrealist fish
from so much disappearance, damaged in the mail.
Or the spry cutting edge of another day.
Here, we have these in
sizes and colors —
day goes fluttering by.
Like ivy behind a chimney
it grows and grows in ropes.
Mouse teams unsay it,
yeoman can’t hear yet.
A shadow purling,
up into the sky.
Silence in the vandalised vomitorium.
It’s great that you can be here too.
Passivity rests its case.
*
p.s. Hey. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, B. Of course, of course. New PT, just in the nick of time for a lad like me with no Xmas to fall back on. Everyone, _Black_Acrylic’s superb soundfest in the form of a podcast, last seen locally in my year’s favorites list, is providing you with something to listen and jive to on almost Xmas. a new episode. Take it away _B_A: ‘The latest episode of my show is online here via Tak Tent Radio! With Play Therapy v2.0, you seem even more beautiful than before.’ He’s so right! And thanks for your lists. Duly noted. ** Christopher Owens, Hi, sir. Well, the honor was entirely the blog’s and mine. Thank you for writing it, obviously. Are you working on something new? ** michael karo, Wow, it’s been ages, Mr. Karo. Welcome! Merry Xmas to you and all of yours. ** jay, Hi. Yeah, I like his work too. He also has done the storyboards for all three of Zac’s and my films, which is I guess how he knew about my work. Oh, gosh, thanks. I’m thrilled with Kier’s cover, obviously. I’m actually also really happy with ‘Horror Hospital Unplugged’. I think Keith Mayerson did an amazing adaption there. I’ll look for ‘Sleep’. Happy continuing build up to the famously big day, my friend. ** Lucas, Hi. Yes, I’ve gifted myself an extra cup of coffee to get through this whopper today, haha. Amazing lists, of course. Ultimately time is relative. I hope everything is sorted in your life and that Xmas is a shining light of sorts. ** FDM, Hi! Wow, thank you so much. That’s awesome to hear. A very Merry Xmas to you too! Do you have fun plans for the day? ** Charalampos, You made it You broke through. The monster is not impervious. My obvious pleasure re: your book’s inclusion. Enjoy Xmas. You doing anything re: it? ** Chris Kelso, Hi, Chris, and thanks a lot. Presents sent my way? Mm, I don’t think so. Let me check. My roommate sometimes forgets to hand me things. Happiest early Xmas to you and to your world and to its immediate inhabitants. ** James, Hi. Muscly gif dude? You mean Harmony Korine’s? Oh, right. Ex-teacher needs MDMA. The drug not the band. The only sport I was ever actually pretty good at, other than pool, was volleyball. Only because I’m tall. I’d like 3 custard donuts, and I know where I can get them if I’m not too lazy. underscores’ Wallsocket (Director’s Cut) was unknown but now on my to-do list. Be extremely free. You deserve it. ** Steeqhen, I still haven’t heard the new Xiu Xiu. Thanks for the reminder. I like its title. I hope you wrote as much as you wanted and that your friend struck you as a best friend. ** Malik, Hi, Malik! How great to see you! You’re so much more caught up on films of the moment than me. ‘all the words but the one’ pops out because it’s completely unknown to me. I’ll start there. Right, the Ka (RIP) was really good. I forgot that. How are you doing? What are you up to, if you feeling like filling us/me in? ** Miette GIllette, Hi. Thank you a lot for coming in. Well, of course, about ‘The Berlin Wall’. You’re doing really great work with Whisk(e)y Tit. I’m a thrilled beneficiary and true admirer. ** Tyler Ookami, Your method worked! I don’t know World’s End Girlfriend, and I’ll find them via that concert, thanks! Skin Graft did hit big marks this year, yeah. Thanks a million for the links to your faves. I don’t know a bunch of them, so I’m on it. No, the yaoi maker sent me her ‘Try’ yaois after they were published. The BL stuff in ‘HHU’ was pretty much the artist’s doing. He had totally free rein, and I think he was the one who decided to reference that stuff. But I guess it was accessible somehow. Financially precarious: me too, biggish time. You’ll make it. So will I. Somehow. Done deal. Seems like at least. ** Bill, Great about the show’s high satisfaction level for you and no doubt for the assembled punters. I don’t think there’s a single thing on any of your lists that I know at all. Wow. I’ll get there. New Ned Rothenburg, huh? Cool. ** John Williams, Holy moly, John! You’re inside here. What in the world! I’ve been meaning to call you. There’s film news. I’ll call you, but I’ll text you first! You have a batch of things on your list that I totally spaced on and would have included if my brain had cooperated. The Autechre, Orcutt, Radigue, and Moth Cock just to start. Dude, it’s so wild to see you in here. I’ll talk to you in the next day or hopefully. xo, me. ** Steve, Hi. Thanks for your lists! Your oldie but goldie films list is greatness packed, obviously. I don’t know the Kaitlin Simiotics album, but it sounds pretty must-like. I’ll check it out today, thank you. Are you doing Xmas itself in any respect? ** Nikolaj, Hi! Welcome! I’m very happy to get to meet you. Sure, I’d really love to read your novel. Email me at [email protected], and I can give you my physical address or you can send a pdf there if you prefer. I really look forward to it. Very very happy holidays to you too! ** politekid, Organized tractors can still exude considerable charisma, in my imagination at least. And the rest. Your invitation is accepted and will be cashed in as soon as the occasion arises. I’m almost certain that the opera project is permanently dead. Its impetus had a lot to do with the opportunity to work with Scott Walker, and while it’s up to Gisele, I think without that factor it becomes way too complicated and expensive to follow through on sadly. ‘Paper Mario’ is in a hopefully short phase of kicking my ass, or my hands I guess, due to a very difficult boss, but I will find a way to beat him or my name isn’t Dennis. Amazing lists! You’re quite the high level cultural vacuum. Is that Renee Gladman novel out already? Shit, I need it bad. Big wad of music I don’t know but have just scribbled down. And the linkable internet stuff, thank you for taking the time to give me a fast way inwards re: them. Thank you, O, thank you a lot. Onwards to Xmas we go. ** Adem Berbic, Adem! Hey, pal! Great, I’ll be here when you are, and, duh, want to meet up. Just shoot me your coordinates and availability when they are in place. No word from Alex yet, but I’d love to see him too. Yes, ping me Charlotte’s writing, just be sure to let her know that I am very, very slow at the best of times. But yes, sure, I’m curious. Make Xmas your no limits slave, man. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Thanks, yeah, the Buche was yum and the company was perfecto. I’ll be happy to read your year’s faves once you’re back in your homestead. Homemade Xmas cookies will rock, thank you/him. I hope Hungary manages to provide you with an enormously festive holiday. Love wishing you that same hope as well plus singing the praises of the humble yet delicious egg salad sandwich he just stomached, G. ** Montse, Hi, Montse, my dear pal! I’m good, I’m happy now that I’ve gotten to see you. Thank you for your list, much on it yet to be discovered by me. ‘Room Temperature’ is borderline finished and is soon to finally begin entering the world at large which is quite a relief. Much love to you, and I know Zac would send his love hurling your way as well. Have the best Xmas! ** Misanthrope, Hey. You couldn’t pay me to see that Chalamet/Dylan thing. But let me know if and how I’m wrong about it, or try at least. I’m still all about ‘Paper Mario’. It rules. ** nat, Well, much relief at the solving of your toilet problem. Imagine I’m singing a Xmas carol just for you. ** Jeff J, Whoa, you made it inside. VPN assisted, I’m assuming? Hey, bud! Excellent lists, natch. So, how the hell are you, assuming lightning strikes twice and you can come back again? xo, me. ** Sarah, 500 hours! Uh, I think I’m going to stay far away from ‘Balatro’. I’m trying to maintain my mere borderline addiction. You think Drake won the beef! Wow, that’s refreshing. Definitely give me the date of your book’s birth when its due date is determined. So cool! I hope you’re feeling better by now. Although being sick on Xmas sounds kind of romantic to me, I don’t know why. Easy for me to say. Famous last words. ** HaRpEr, Oh, that Beefheart track, great thinking! Your lists of things seen, heard and watched are written in gold on parchment, of course. I hope your Monday opens the Pearly Gates to heaven on earth, not to the imaginary place itself, of course. ** Justin D, Howdy, Justin. Top of the Paris morning to you. Actually it’s sort of the late-middle now. You know, I have never read Ottessa Moshfegh. Isn’t that weird? I suppose I should. Thanks, pal. Take a deep whiff of your Xmas tree for me. ** iwishiwasanon, Hey, hey! It was actually for an opera, not a film. He was going to sing the opera too. Oh, god, it would have been so amazing. Compilation of the Walker Brothers singles … no, I don’t think I have, Huh. Okay, it even seems like kind of an appropriately Xmas-y thing to hear. Thanks so much for your lists. I’ll go through them and pry out the things I don’t know and make haste to become less ignorant. Good luck with all your papers and stuff! ** Meg Gluth, Hey, Meg! It has been too long a while. I was so sad about your mom. I’m so sorry. Claire Rousay likes my work? Seriously? That’s incredible to know. Wow. Yeah, I love her stuff. I’ve been mostly good. Pretty much everything for ages has been about getting Zac’s and my film out of all of its troubles and finished, and it’s almost finished now and even has a World Premiere set up, so that’s exciting, and there are still troubles to conquer, and I don’t how we’re going to conquer them, but we will somehow. Centimeters away! That’s is extremely great and long awaited news! Wow! Oscar’s been filling me in a little on your collaborative film, and obviously I’m way thrilled in advance for that. Thank you for your list. Great to see you! I hope the stars will align to make that happen more frequently. ** Cletus, Hi, Cletus. Well, my great pleasure and a no brainer. You sound good. Have the merriest Xmas that the world as you know it will allow. ** Okay. Today you get my 7th annual scroll of Xmas poems, and I hope they get you in the appropriate mood. See you tomorrow.
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