"Oh, So You're a Comedian," He Said. "Yes, I'm a Comedian," I said. "Well, You're Not Very Good," He Said. "I Know," I Said.

DOME OF THE HIDDEN TEMPLE

James Tate

       People were going about their chores. Some were eating
lunch. Others, like me, were just standing around doing nothing,
just taking in the scene. I saw a dozen ducks fly over low
on their way to the pond. A policeman walked by swinging his
club. The firemen were washing their fire truck. Margie walked
out of a shoe store and saw me. She walked up to me and said,
"Have you heard the news? Rosie and Larry broke up." "Why?
They were the best darn couple I knew," I said. "I agree.
They had everything going for them," she said. "Did you talk
to her?" I said. "She said he thinks he's an armadillo. He
eats insects and mud and dug a burrow in the back of the house,"
she said. "He didn't look like an armadillo. I thought he was
a very good-looking guy, always very nice to me," I said. "Whatever
the case, I'll miss their parties. The were always such fun,"
she said. "They were the best," I said. "I've got to run, nice
to see you, Tim," she said. I walked over to the drugstore and
bought myself some toothpaste. When I came out, a light spring
rain had started. The pigeons on the bank took off and flew in
circles around the town. A man walked up to me and said, "Do
you know where the Dome of the Hidden Temple is?" I said, "Yes,
but I can't tell you. It's a secret." "But I'm supposed to meet
somebody there," he said. "Then that person should have told
you how to get there," I said. "I guess he thought I knew," he
said. "Almost nobody knows," I said. "Then why do you know?"
he said. "Because I am the Priest of Nothingness," I said.
"Are you really?" he said. "No, I just made that up," I said.
"Oh, so you're a comedian," he said. "Yes, I'm a comedian," I
said. "Well, you're not very good," he said. "I know," I said.


 -

From Tate's final collection. released less than a month after his death last July, I finally remembered to buy it, fuck me. Click here for many more of Tate's poems.

 -


I WROTE MYSELF A LETTER

James Tate

       I sat down at my desk and wrote myself a letter. And
then I threw it away. I wrote my grandfather a letter and
I tore that one up also. I wrote my mother a letter, but
I kept that one. I was exhausted. Three letters in one
sitting. I had myself a schnapps. I looked out the window.
It was snowing. A mother and father went jogging up the
street pushing a baby carriage. A hawk was circling
overhead. My grandfather was dead and so was my mother.
But that didn't mean we couldn't communicate. At least
I could share my thoughts with them. They didn't answer,
of course, but that didn't matter. My mother had been a
nurse and, of course, that helped. My grandfather sawed
lumber and that didn't help, but who cared. He was a kind
man. He made model airplanes in his spare time. I went into
the living room and sat down on the sofa. My father ran away
from home when I was three. My mother never told me why.
We never heard from him again. But I don't think about
any of this. It was a beautiful day outside. Three little
mice tiptoed across the lawn. One of them had its arm
in a sling.

Deactivating the Napoleon Emergency Alert System

Worked again.

The neighbors to our left have three boys, all born one year apart, 2, 3, 4, and they think chasing cats fun. The house two doors to our right is a hideous new pop-up (even by hideous new pop-up standards, people can vouch). The motherfucking flippers are asking $400K more than best possible scenario, and this past Saturday I saw them angrily and loudly chase Momcat and Napoleon out of their yard as if they are the reason no one has bought the hideous new pop-up with the stupid-greedy price and therefore the reason the flippers' creditors call hourly seven days a week. I hadn't seen Nap since. Nap's taken care of himself for seven years, eight? but I worry. Plus, to extra-expedite Napoleon's return I had just finished a new header for NAPOLEON EMERGENCY ALERT to keep at top of shitty blog until his return or forever. Per every time, it has been destroyed, would be stale next time.

ACTIVATING THE NAPOLEON EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM!

This time feels different. I usually wait a week, been only three days, but this time feels different.

If They Hit the Magic Decibel the Whole Building Will Lift-off

• There is a coworker whose cube is four feet from mine who we fear                                                                          . I've been advised not to write about it, call me!
• Someone at Washington Post tweeted that Biden has decided to run for POTUS. The tweet was almost immediately deleted, and no announcement seems imminent even if one seems, um, inevitable. An insignificant gaffe, that tweet, but it made me more despondent and defeated than all other non-events in this motherfucking POTUS combined. And then this Hall and Oates song started playing in my head - what does it say of me that I immediately felt better?
• Yes, I owe you links:
• How to disappear completely.
• No Man's Land.
• The future sucks.
• I myself dabbled in pacifism.
• I don't have a problem with my atheism.
• Portrait of the Person-Guy.
• On measuring our future.
• No-thought zone.
• Consequences of the Canadian election.
• This week in water.
• Where do dogs come from?
• My favorite owl.
• I don't hate Hall and Oates. Forgive me.
• Found my dBs cassettes last night looking for something else. The tape didn't snap on any of them when I tried to play them because I don't have anything to play cassettes on. 

THE UNIVERSE AS PRIMAL SCREAM

Tracy K Smith

5pm on the nose. They open their mouths

And it rolls out: high, shrill and metallic.

First the boy, then his sister. Occasionally,

They both let loose at once, and I think

Of putting on my shoes to go up and see

Whether it is merely an experiment

Their parents have been conducting

Upon the good crystal, which must surely

Lie shattered to dust on the floor.

Maybe the mother is still proud

Of the four pink lungs she nursed

To such might. Perhaps, if they hit

The magic decibel, the whole building

Will lift-off, and we'll ride to glory

Like Elijah. If this is it—if this is what

Their cries are cocked toward—let the sky

Pass from blue, to red, to molten gold,

To black. Let the heaven we inherit approach.

 Whether it is our dead in Old Testament robes,

Or a door opening onto the roiling infinity of space.

Whether it will bend down to greet us like a father,

Or swallow us like a furnace. I'm ready

To meet what refuses to let us keep anything

For long. What teases us with blessings,

Bends us with grief. Wizard, thief, the great

Wind rushing to knock our mirrors to the floor,

To sweep our short lives clean. How mean

Our racket seems beside it. My stereo on shuffle.

The neighbor chopping onions through a wall.

All of it just a hiccough against what may never

Come for us. And the kids upstairs still at it,

Screaming like the Dawn of Man, as if something

They have no name for has begun to insist

Upon being born.

Born Seventy Years Ago Today, or: Mama, Nobody Sends You a Turd and Expects to Live, Nobody!

The traditional Egoslavian Holy Day birthday post for Divine:

Divine was born seventy years ago today. I was fourteen when I first saw Pink Flamingos, twenty-two when Polyester was released. No doubt I'm romanticizing significance, but these movies were buzzworthy once for margins they crossed, or so it seemed to us at the midnight showings. We also enjoyed playing Where the fuck is that in Baltimore? when watching the movies. Plus they remind me of a distinct segment of my life when I was Bawlmer-centric. Plus: nostalgia for what was one outrageous, now old.

First and Last Draft Haikus Written While Watching National League Championship Series Game One Mets V Cubs Published Unedited for Futile Weekend Blogging on a Helmetball Sunday