The Coming of the Toads

A Notebook – Since 2007

  • Seven Variations on a Sentence

    1. Build box fill with content space controls design states theme bounces against thesis walled margin defined area filled with persons places things painted drawn and quartered in actions still within lines.

    2. Build tables cells macro plots instruct how to within what build city filled roads on roads place persons places things actions ruled within scheme bordered function.

    3. Shape controlled text how said informed what said syllabus sawhorse lay round flat stones for flat feet map outlined argument billed old metaphor electronically melting build light to power body sun swayed body.

    4. Old metaphors corrupt case cold call book disappeared in closed pit wings line empty library shelves body of fabrication strip-milled pall-mall plumbing hidden in alley walls.

    5. Build statement paper small hamlet few houses number pages lines words characters  define beginning finite end create punctuation to manage tasks a men an age.

    6. Align build assign venture run meet-and-greet purpose audience use rows columns fixed to stage con persons places things rotate rows to columns columns to rows persons to things places to persons things to places sketch arranges profile persuades.

    7. User friendly unalloyed no-frills click here look ma no hands silhouette of idea.

  • Word Put Upon Word

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    “Stone put upon stone
    and chamber beside chamber”
    D’Arcy Thompson
    “Mud put
    upon mud,
    lifted
    to make room,”
    Robert Creeley
    word    hod
       put
    upon  house
    word
     shell
     soma stone
    put
     upon
    stone
     
    put log upon log cube upon cube
     pier upon pier unit upon unit
    post up & unus put upon unus
     road upon road  
    page   upon page  
    wood in face upon face
     paint put upon paint wall put upon wall
     one part upon part upon
     slab on slab load put upon load
    hod word onus upon onus
    line put upon line word upon stone
    bowl put mud in
     hand put upon hand a pan upon a
     tone drum stone upon
    note upon note a lifted scuttle
    note upon row in a
     sign sing stone mud call
    name put upon cut word in
     rune put upon stone bone lifted
    end upon end a tune  in

    CODA: wind upon wind wave upon wave cloud upon cloud grass upon grass leaf upon leaf sail upon sail hill upon hill cove around cove cliff upon cliff square upon square camp upon camp town upon town city upon city state upon state…wind upon wind wave upon wave cloud upon cloud cove around cove

    IMG_2067 Word Put Upon Word

  • Notes on n+1’s “MFA VS NYC: The Two Cultures of American Fiction”

    "I'm going to New York City to become a famous writer!" "New York can be really tough on a cat."
    “I’m going to New York City to become a famous writer!”
    “New York can be really tough on a cat.”

    The blogger is the busker of the writing world, sidewalk setup with pre-production to distribution in a snap, with or without an MFA or ever having set foot in Brooklyn, where it’s easy to mistake an NYC for a hipster, the new hepcat, but the character with a sign on a street corner, selling short stories, has got to be an MFA. Of course I bought one. It’s titled, “Sixteen short stories, and what do you get? Another day older and money in debt.” That’s it, the whole story, a study in minimalism.

    n+1’s “MFA VS NYC: The Two Cultures of American Fiction” sounds more highfalutin that it is. The eclectic collection of analytic and reflective pieces is very engaging: personal, down-to-earth, and sincere; witty, informative, and cantankerous. The stories of the aspiring writers though are often wrapped in disappointment, and don’t amount to good news for the latest whiz kids on their way to the big time.

    The big time here is the coveted publishing contract and the freedom to write it suggests. But if the big time is part of the great American novel, the form is protean: movie stardom, big league baseball star, corporate head-honcho, founder of the next mega-church, on the cover of Rolling Stone. How does a relentless pursuit of excellence turn rancorous and begin to have a negative effect on the game, or the business, or the art? Subcultures are constantly being subsumed by the dominant, overarching culture, the umbrella over the barrel. The writers and scholars that appear in “MFA VS NYC” have big time stories to tell, and readers interested in the making of literature will find intriguing stuff on the ways the writing of fiction is taught or learned and the resulting fiction influenced and modified by the many players in the process: teachers, programs, agents, publishers, editors, publicists, booksellers, critics, readers.

    People write for all kinds of reasons and purposes, usually to someone, and if the writing is sent off – the memo, the email, the love letter, the white paper, the blog post, the letter to the editor, the book proposal, the sign in a window, the graffiti on a train car, the busker’s song sang on the sidewalk – the writing is published. Just as often, no doubt, and just as well, probably, the writing is trashed or deleted, but whether the writing is read or heard or not, by whom or how, or how long it lives, is all another matter. Some writers write to themselves, diarists. Their work is published when it’s found. Writers often hold up a mirror to the culture, and if the mirror is cracked, the culture turns away. Writers, like the rest of us, all seem to have a particular picture of themselves, hardly ever the same picture others have of them. It’s the picture of ourselves we don’t recognize that might make for the best writing and reading. The pictures of writers and writing, of literature, that unfold in “MFA VS NYC” merge the ones the writers have with the ones their readers might have, bringing the whole affair into better focus.

  • A Shuck of Stone

    When the lemon yellow of a doubtful flower tells lies
    And the hush pink plum blossoms first fail to surmise
    A touch and a kiss turn to stone.

    When the steep turn toward the dark cherry dyes
    And find winkle’s wake still seeping under the sash
    A drink and a dress turn to stone.

    To turn to stone is not to die and worm away
    A stone never slept nor arose
    A stone is a stone is a stone is a stone.

    When knickknacks walk and talk and wingding
    The livelong night no wonder
    A flower turns to stone.

    Hearths are made of stone, and wheels, and paths,
    And walls, and dwellings, and churches, and busts.
    A stone thrown skiffles across water and plops.

    When a shuck of stone falls from the sky
    Not a soft place on the land to nest
    A tempest has turned to stone.

    When in spring one feels petrified
    Curl and pit and weigh and hurl
    Slink and creep and push and pull.

    When the angels of spring go stone
    Old stones erupt in new waves
    And lyrical flowers woe no bloom.

  • Lenten Surf Season

    Work morning and Luke up early helping his dad load plumbing tools,
    wrenches and chisels, elbows and nipples, the ladle and the lead pot
    full of soft lead that looks like frozen surf.
    Luke now taller than his dad.

    “Give Dan a call,” Luke said. “He’s drivin’ now.
    We’re headin’ inland to work,”
    and he ran his rough hand meanly over Jack’s salt matted hair.
    “I’m afraid my surfin’ days are near over, kid,” Luke said.

    Dan lived with his grandma back in the alley
    behind Roman’s, off Devil’s Path.
    He was working on an old Chevy beater.
    He was a cross between a surfer and a hodad.

    “You turnin’ into a hodad,” Jack said,
    but it was a question, and Dan laughed.
    “All you think about is surfing, kid,” Dan said.
    “I have to give Grandma a ride to mass.

    Give me a quarter for some gas, go to mass with us,
    then we’ll drive down and check out some waves.
    You hear Gary got shot? Not coming home, though.
    Sent him up to Japan for some R and R.”

    “I love the mass,” Danny’s grandma said.
    She sat in the middle of the bench seat,
    smelling like toilet water and wax.
    “I love the quiet, the peace.

    I love the back of the church dark,
    the hard polished oaken pews,
    the altar lit like a halo, the smell
    of the candles, the incense,

    the smell of Father Dayly’s hands
    when he puts the host between my lips
    and sets it down softly onto my tongue.”
    “I know you do, Grandma.”

    “No, you don’t. You boys can’t know
    nothin’ about it, how I love the sudden bells.
    I love the mass so much,” Danny’s grandma said,
    “I’m giving it up for Lent.”

    They turned to look at the old woman,
    Jack rolled his window down,
    and Danny’s grandma saw the salt water in Jack’s eyes.
    “But,” she said, spitting it out, and paused.

    “Yes, Grandma?” Danny said.
    “You go to mass without me during Lent.
    You give up surfing for Lent.”
    Jack could hear the waves laughing at him.

    Rising from the beach and curling over the dunes,
    a breeze hisses like a glass blower’s torch.
    The spring swell peals across the bay,
    the waves a glass cavalry menagerie.

    Surfing

  • An Imperfect Imposition

    An Imperfect Imposition   Gloss
           
    He goat a haircute,   “Beware enterprises
    molted a shive,   that require
    and emptoed the moot.   new clothes.”
           
    He out cast the let   Ruined good tune,
    down at sup-a-dup   raised to put
    and unvaled a crune,   bread on table.
           
    frumpted and follying,   Commuters fly
    and clutched the rolled,   in wingtips aspire
    acrested the abridged am-this   cross closed bridges.
           
    Daddy-Oh! Pater-pitter-patter Ah, familiar
    potairy, roong froom the Gin-is-is in joy of brewcrew
    hisses Ink Pour Age.   song of a pint.
           
    He rit the hoad alt coomed,   [Readers
    sweeat urned his id,   may reply
    and snoozled wths sapoozed.   below.]
           
    Hairfigged fitted, compred wronged, All quiet
    he wroted, a temptwitted,   on the worsted
    but ownlie slylents twas loosening, font.
           
    ands the suns downsed and moons Only a real fool
    arowsis a crewised shell fellowing ignores the full
    pips sillied byburds.   loon.
           
    Sorry to impose like this is the poet Where should it go:
    speaking, but have you a place for thes Recycling, Compost,
    amythidst your these is?   or Garbage?
           
    Supposing posing, oh, posing:   Climbing
    “I am positioned,” the imposing the corpus
    poet posited, “I am composed.” ladder.
           
    Nonesuchofwhich off course   Maybe end
    was teachno techno blareney,   with the “byburds”?
    steel eye as I am I am postplus. Too late now?
           
    Owl duedew uandeye goal   Reading kicker
    quickwick of it?   position player
    Illklicked ear, wellclick thr.   diversion.

  • Badges

    Hanging from their necks,
    belts, or ties, with photo,
    they come from somewhere,
    and have some place to go.

    She sees them bouncing up and down
    the streets, swagging vigor to and fro.
    Sometimes they meet and talk,
    badge to badge, boar to sow.

    She doesn’t get what they say.
    Normally, they just proceed,
    prancing days, romping nights,
    round and round they gambol

    through tunnels of sun
    sounding golden horns,
    steeds indeed, lit up
    in glorious gowns a glut.

    She had one once, but let go,
    repeating the hollow phrase,
    preferring not to be badgered,
    “And that has made all the difference.”

    Badge

  • A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

    A Clean, Well-Lighted PlaceEvery hour seems happy hour
    in this diner on some corner,
    the coffee pot fresh and warm,
    each table a worn flower.

    She passes her reflection
    in the silence of the old
    jukebox, vacant these many
    years, and fingers a grey hair

    wistfully behind one ear.
    He sees her waiting all hours,
    having come to occupy
    the booth outside her kitchen.

    He orders breakfast, coffee and eggs,
    for lunch, her meatloaf and mashed,
    later in the afternoon, a milkshake
    and fries, on the radio

    a Bach organ squeezed, strained
    through a deep, golden tuba.
    But he did not notice who left her
    the short note in her tip jar.

  • Amid a Bevy of Red Roses in the Bed of a Twaddle Truck

    Red Roses

    If you don’t get this there’s no need to go radish or knock something over. Red roses remedy the lackadaisical. Would you like a piece of fallen green apple tart, all the way from Wenatchee?

    The red roses he gave me I squeezed into gravy he poured on his raspberry pie. By the time we were done on the ceiling there were none of the spiders that had earlier danced in my eyes. In the morning the water was as loose as my garter tossed into the bed of his twaddle truck.

    Every day is cusp catastrophe day in the House of Disposition.

    He uttered, “Red roses,” with just a bit of a stutter. Maybe he hugged me, but into a pot I was put.

    A pan of his ink I placed on the porch with some empty jugs of milk. And never have I smiled as maroon a red rose as he stuck in my mashed potatoes that morning.

    It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyways, the roses he sent me were fakes. But I never noticed. I mirrored his psychosis, not to mention my powdered lemon bars.

    He sat down to dinner and yarned out a new spinner, wondering did I water his old red roses. He was always away, away on a business trip, away on some sort of boondoggle in his twaddle truck. He was a tinker. He wore red plaid flannel shirts and blue denim jeans all patched in the knees and seams of the seat. But he was handy to have around.

    There were years we played games full of crocodile tears, red roses pickled for lapels. At first he was shy, but by the end of the banquet I had removed most of his thorns. Now behind my blue ear sticks a yellow umbrella that shadows my pale ruby nose.

    Well, I think we’re ready now. Better put in the extra leaf, and light the buttery candles. These days he wishes plum ditties and fishes, but he’s getting old-timey depression cake frosted with snow.

    Soon will come Lent. We’ll clean out the basement, and hold yet another estate sale. Last year we spent the profits on beer and pizza. Then we watched a movie in a tent.

    The dishes all washed and put away. Let’s wipe down and pray red roses still hue come our capture and rapture.

    The prose poem above is a later version of the more traditionally formatted poem with a different title below:

    Red Rover, Red Rover, Let Red Roses Come Over

    The red roses he gave me
    I squeezed into gravy
    He poured on his raspberry pie.

    By the time we were done
    On the ceiling were none
    Of the spiders that danced in my eyes.

    In the morning the water
    Was as loose as a garter
    Tossed in the bed of a twaddle truck.

    If you never get this
    There’s no need to remiss
    Red roses and green apple tart.

    He uttered red roses
    Maybe he hugged me
    And into a pot I was put.

    A pan of his ink
    I placed on the porch
    With some empty jugs of milk.

    But never have I smiled
    As maroon a red rose
    As he stuck in my mashed potatoes.

    It goes without saying
    But I’ll say it anyways
    The roses he sent me were fakes.

    But I never noticed
    I mirrored his psychosis
    Not to mention my powdered lemon bars.

    He sits down to dinner
    Yarns out a spinner
    Wonders did I water his roses.

    Those years we played games
    Full of crocodile tears
    Red roses pickled for lapels.

    Behind my blue ear
    A yellow umbrella
    Shadows my pale ruby nose.

    Well I think we’re ready now
    Better put in the extra leaf
    And light the buttery candles.

    These days he wishes
    Plum ditties and fishes
    But he gets old-timey cake.

    Soon will come Lent
    We’ll clean out the basement
    And hold yet another estate sale.

    Last year we spent
    The profits on beer and pizza
    And we watched a movie in a tent.

    The dishes all washed and put away
    Let’s wipe down and pray red roses
    Still hue come our capture and rapture.

  • A Lyrical Poem of Vast Beauty Reluctantly Revealed Ridiculously; or, Possibly the Widest Poem Ever Written

    Oh
    		 
    luv
    		 
    ly
    		 
    ths
    		 
    yth
    		 
    nss
    		 
    rth
    		 
    lss
    		 
    ly
    		 
    un
    		 
    rave
    		 
    lling
    		 
    pling
    		 
    bling
    		 
    sling
    		 
    Sans
    		 
    snarls
    		 
    &
    		 
    pots
    		 
    &
    		 
    pans
    		 
    &
    		 
    yell
    		 
    ing
    		 
    frm
    		 
    the
    		 
    top
    		 
    of
    		 
    the
    		 
    stairs
    		 
    Whn
    		 
    old
    		 
    age
    		  ______________ 
    still
    		 
    like
    		 
    a
    		 
    horizone
    		 
    lies
    		 
    a
    		 
    cross
    		 
    a +
    		 
    drift
    		 
    pacific
    		 
    blue
    		 
    Oh pan
    		 
    acean
    		 
    ly
    		 
    on
    		 
    the
    		 
    Strand
    		  ~~~~~~~ 
    summer
    		 
    still
    		 
    &
    		 
    above
    		 
    the
    		 
    Strand
    		 
    grand
    		 
    avenues
    		 
    Houses ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
    		 
    closed
    		 
    like
    		 
    shelved
    		 
    novels
    		 
    every
    		  [_] [_] [_] 
    wandoor
    		 
    a
    		  |||||||||||||| 
    page
    		 
    un
    		 ||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||| 
    cut
    		 
    Every
    		 
    home
    		 
    a
    		 
    pot
    		 
    ten
    		 
    shall
    		 
    poe m
    		 
    full
    		 
    .%
    		 
    care
    		 
    act
    		 
    ears
    		 
    &
    		 
    song stairs
    		 
    We inner rupture ths poem
    		 
    to bring you a comment:
    		      !    !   ! 
    Well?
    		 
    "Is this mic on?"
    		 
    "Another poem? I used to like this blog. Has he lost his YKW?"
    		 ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ Reply Not every.

    Waiter! Waiter! Water! Water! please plea see
    Really? This whole woeful willy nilly silly stuffled-stuff is enough to drive a noose guy nuts you know what I mean? Perm it me to clar i fry  !
    whn dows Beauty In Ter ?

    Keep SCROLLing

    RIGHT

    		 What? We are weave ing the har bor for the o pen C ~~~ deep po a fry well try certain ly wide anyways 
    You & me let's Beat it out-a-hear let's go let's get lost golast golest golist goloose golinked goleaked
    		 
    know
    		 
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    Yssssh
    		 
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    luster
    		 
    &
    		 
    plural
    		 
     paisley tiediedlies
    		 
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    Alphabet The didrest hidrest hadrest hardrest
he awrecked up awent walking
composing each step ed
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shapes saw assign
KEEP OFF THE
WORDS!
Pls

  • Flarf Factorial; or, Epiphany Needed

    Flarf La La Laufen hahahaha Fralf
    LaLaLaLa 1 Larf 2 Larff 3 Larfff 4 Larph
      BEGIN HERE to liss in n!
    Once Onup a Clock Tick
    Twice Up Ounce Town Down
    Thrice Upoff a When Time
    Always alotalotalot Tons Too Much
    She Wore a RED Flarf Scarf
    Reason rain falls in drops
    please prod pre tense BeCase
    We called the Epiphany Company
    to order a new RING! TONE!
    they wanted a they wanted a surcharge they wanted a surcharge for first time push button user for first time push button user surcharge for first time push button user
    And No Flarf!
    And No Flarf!
    		        
    The hour of our notthefirst flarf ing
    This space deliberately empty: PLEASE DO NOT FILL or loiter here        
    Trust YouR Expectations R2 FLARFLY     FAR FLY
    Hour glass is miss ing
    Enter nananame & posswrd over twhere     Larlff Larflf
    F L a R F all
    L a a R F  l ing
    THIS HAS BEEN A TEST OF THE FLARF SYSTEM HAD THIS BEEN A FALSE flarf, Well! You are advised to get an EPIPHANY. Get a haircute and a shive and empty the moot.        so-me(w)hat!