mew

there's so much to say about today's selection of images, but i won't say it all because to tell you the truth i am simply not interested in who patented what technique and who showed what when. i shall remind you, though, that what all of these artists were doing at that moment of time was nothing short of revolutionary in that they were breaking free of the academy's formal classicism. though each has his own distinctive style, they are clearly friends and brothers, and students of the new japonisme that facilitated that break.

crossword

a woman moves through dog rose and juniper bushes,
a pussy clean and folded

between her legs,
breasts like the tips of her festive shoes
shine silently in her heavy armoire.

one blackbird, one cow,
one horse.
the sea beats against the wall of the waterless.
she walks to a phone booth
that waits
a fair distance from all three villages.

it’s a game she could have heard on the radio:
a question, a number,
an answer, a prize.
her pussy reaches up and turns on the light in her womb.

from the rain,
she says into the receiver,
we compiled white tables and chairs under a shed
into a crossword puzzle
and sat ourselves in the grid.

the receiver is silent.
the bird flounces
like a burglar caught red-handed.
her voice stumbles
over her glands.
the body to be written

in the last block—
i can suck his name
out of any letter.

all three villages cover their faces with wind.

Valzhyna Mort

Source: Poetry (December 2009)

the bath, part 3

PLACES TO SWIM

Summer's ambitious project — the beach and its
dark striped rocks,
stone-lined pool at the swim club,

passage where the tide flowed out behind dunes,
left fingers and lips blue,
tea-colored pond of black sticks where kids

jumped off branches of an over-hanging tree,
aqua
 of indoor pool lanes,

the white lines' circling, breaking pattern
interrupted by arms, churns and kicks.

*****

Yellow leaves drift down —
 fish-shaped ovals, flecking slick streets,
light October rain,

almost like swimming, the walk
through wet, late afternoon air.
In town this week, two people found goldfish

balanced in paper cups
in their mailboxes.
Teal blue wool, ten rows

to no- tice the wave reappear

in the cable I'm knitting,
dusk pattern,

 



you bent
over the piano in the kitchen
picking out the lost bars of Satie
(what could sound better?).

Music book left
somewhere — an attic
or with cousins by the lake.

Talvikki Ansel

(how strongly a part of all this was erik satie. how similarly our artists paint the bathers.)

little red blue

for even more intrigue, listen up

>'Dragnet' opening theme<
NARRATOR: The story of Little Blue Riding Hood is true. Only the color has been changed to prevent an investigation.
>'Dragnet' opening music<
JOE (voice-over): This is the woods. My name is Wednesday, I work outa' homicide. Monday, February the 2nd, 10:22am. Bumped into Chicken Lickin'.
Told me the sky was falling. I booked her on a 614, turned her over to the psychiatrists. Then a call came in on a 503. When I was on my way to the 503 a 618 came in. I added up the 614, the 503 and the 618. Got 1735. I handed in my paper to the Chief, he corrected it, gave me 100%, patted me on the head. Told me I was a good cop.
>dramatic music<

JOE (voice-over): 11:45am, it happened. I saw a little girl in a blue hood carrying a basket. I stopped to question her.
JOE: Pardon me, ma'am, could I talk to you for just a minute, ma'am?
LITTLE BLUE: What about?
JOE: Nothing much, ma'am. Just wanna' ask you a few questions, ma'am. What's your name?
LITTLE BLUE: Little Blue Riding Hood.
JOE: Where ya' going, ma'am?
LITTLE BLUE: Grandma's house.
JOE: Yes, ma'am. Whad'ya got in the basket?
LITTLE BLUE (defensively): Whad'ya trying to say, I got something in the basket I shouldn't have?

JOE: No, ma'am, I didn't say that.

LITTLE BLUE: Then whad'ya asking me all these questions for?
JOE: Just routine, ma'am, we just wanna' get the facts. May I have a look in that basket, ma'am?
LITTLE BLUE: Be my guest.
JOE: Let's see. Sawed-off shotgun. Knife. Bludgeon. Box of dumdum shells. Nothing suspicious here. All right, ma'am, we may want to talk to you later, so don't leave the woods.
>dramatic music<
JOE (voice-over): She skipped on down the path. But she didn't know I'd seen the concealed compartment in the basket. In it, what I'd suspected all along -- goodies.
>dramatic music<

JOE (voice-over): My job -- get to grandma's before she did. I took a shortcut through the strawberry patch. It was sort of a strawberry shortcut.
>sound of walking<
JOE (voice-over): I walked up to the cottage, rang the bell.
>door bell<
GRANDMA: Coming, dear.
>door opens<
JOE: OK, grandma, it's a raid.
GRANDMA (acting surprised): A raid? Why, I'm just a peace-loving old lady, you've got the wrong grandma.

JOE: Yes, ma'am. We just wanna' get the facts. Where'd you get that bump on your head?
GRANDMA: The sky fell on me this morning.
>dramatic music<
JOE (voice-over): I made a note to book her on a 614 and turn her over to the psychiatrists. I tied her up, put her in the closet, then I put on the grandma suit and got into bed.
>knock on door<
JOE (making no attempt to disguise his voice): Come in, ma'am.
>door opens<
LITTLE BLUE: Hello, gramma, I got the loot. What're you doin' in bed?
JOE: I'm feeling poorly.
LITTLE BLUE: But gramma, what big ears you have!
JOE: All the better to get the facts. I just wanna' get the facts, ma'am.

LITTLE BLUE: But gramma, what a big subpoena you have in your pocket!
JOE: All the better to serve you with.
LITTLE BLUE: But gramma, what a big .38 police special you have pointed at me!
JOE: All the better to take you in. You're under arrest. You and your grandma are operating a goodies ring.
LITTLE BLUE (sadly): A cop. I shoulda' known.
JOE: Known what, ma'am?
LITTLE BLUE (sadly): You look nothing like my gramma. You forgot about the mustache.

JOE: But I don't have a mustache.
LITTLE BLUE: I know. But gramma does.
>dramatic music<
FRANK: Well, I see you broke the goodies ring. How'd you get a lead on 'er, Joe?
JOE: I just played a hunch, Frank. It was just a hunch. I played my luck; sometimes a hunch pays off, sometimes it doesn't, I was just lucky, I just played a hunch, Frank.
FRANK: What you're trying to say, Joe, is you just played a hunch. A lucky guess. Sometimes a hunch pays off, sometimes it doesn't. You just played a hunch. Is that what you're trying to tell me, Joe?
JOE: Yeah. I just played a hunch.
>'Dragnet' end music<

Stan Freberg 1953 1

(and don't miss tex avery's little hot riding hood!)

and all this silliness is dedicated to yoli

wild swans

THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE

THE trees are in their
autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight
the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water
among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty Swans.
The nineteenth autumn
has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling
in great broken rings

Upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon
those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I,
hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams
or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;

Passion or conquest, wander
where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift
on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes
will they build,

By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

William Butler Yeats