ANOTHER POETRY READING AND GRATUITOUS KITTEN PICS

I fly out tomorrow to Asheville, North Carolina, where I will be giving a poetry reading on Thursday night at the University of North Carolina-Asheville. Click here for details.

I seem to be dealing with my rage regarding the dog poop in my back yard a little bit better today, and the basement laundry issues have been resolved, much to the delight of some of the resident cats.

In the meantime, I leave you with the following exceedingly silly homage to Wallace Stevens:

(Not Even Close To) Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Bean Bean

I.

The mailman is knocking.
The Bean Bean farts
a little and blames it on
one of the other cats.

II.

A lawn mower
crescendos and decrescendos.
The Bean Bean purrs.

III.

No one really knows
the Bean Bean.
They think they do.
But they don't.
Not really.

IV.

Outside, tulips swell
and burn like lipstick-
colored lanterns.
All that thriving
makes the Bean Bean
rather sleepy.

V.

All the furry mice
have been kicked
beneath the stove.
The Bean Bean
is serene.

VI.

It was breakfast
all through brunch.
The Bean Bean said
You big freak . . .
enough already!

I WISH TO LODGE A FORMAL WRITTEN COMPLAINT CONCERNING . . .

(1) This unrelenting sinusitis, which has not only left me with a searing, flaming pain in my sinus cavity, but also a 24/7 headache of a caliber that makes me seriously consider stabbing a pointy stick in my left eye to relieve the pressure and bring some relief . . . furthermore, in addition to the above, this pig-fucking sinusitis has had the audacity to drop down into my chest as well, to breed a nasty little lung fungus that causes me to cough myself into exhaustion all day and all night long.

(2) The neighbor who stuffs an inappropriate amount of laundry into the basement washer, causing it to malfunction and go on strike in protest, leading to the dispatching of a repairman and the concomitant inability of anyone else to do their laundry in the meantime, even though they are attempting to get ready for an out-of-town trip. Similarly, the neighbor who repeatedly abandons his laundry in the washer for extended periods of time . . . necessitating my having to make a decision about whether to (a) wait (even though it could be days!) for said neighbor to complete his laundry, (b) to remove the wet laundry and just let it sit (which is bound to make neighbor unhappy), or (c) to dry neighbor's laundry for him in order to keep the flow of laundry going forward, even though I am not his fucking mother!

(3) The asshole who has been letting their dog into our back yard to poop big stinky dog poops all over the place. Everyone who lives in an apartment in this house has to walk through the backyard to get to their car, or to get to the basement laundry, and the backyard is a veritable land-mine of dog poop. If I find out who this rude motherfucker is, I'm going to start dumping cat poop on their front doorstep and yard so they can fully appreciate the magnanimous nature of neighborly reciprocity.

(4) Certain back-stabbing people who are not even actual members of the English Department who nonetheless are constantly trying to stir up trouble for me, and who think that it's acceptable to attempt to send off incomplete galleys of a literary magazine (which were still missing the editor's essay, contributors' notes, and a second-round of proof-reading that uncovered well over 100 small edits/corrections that still needed to be made) to the printer without the permission of, or any prior consultation whasoever with, the editor of the issue (i.e., me).

That is all.