Not really*

Things to Do Before 120

Learn to read palms.
Write a sequel to the Bible.
Make the perfect banana pudding.
Solve for pie. Anything. Solve
anything for pie.
Run Canadians across the border.
See Brooklyn Heights.
Have sex for money just once when
I’m not broke.
Get a good night’s sleep.

–Cami Park (me)

*I have already been to Brooklyn Heights

Your favorite toy

To play with a yo-yo, slip the top loop of the string over your middle finger, and throw it down.  Once it travels to the bottom of the string and returns to your hand, grab it and throw it down again. This can go on forever. There are many games to play, including sleep. Sleep can go for years, even, until the string is jerked again.

List of words

I’m compiling of a list of words that I’ve discovered in my journeys around and abouts the internet. Every once in awhile one will catch my eye as I’m googling an image or downloading porn, and I’ve become intrigued by them in spite of myself. As you can see, I don’t have that many, so if anyone else happens to have a random word lying around they’d like to donate to my collection, feel free– I’ll happily add it, with credit.

FEATHERED
ENCYCLOPEDIA
POLKA
SEVICHE
CRABGRASS
BILLIARDS
VAULT

Dangerous Fruit Stores

“It is possible to look at evil so steadily that other evils, almost equally menacing, are unnoticed.  Evidently in a desire to curb the saloon and the poolroom the growing evil of gambling and other demoralizing features of fruit stores has been overlooked.”

It’s about time someone spoke up about this in 1904.

Hardest interview question ever

Yet Claudia Smith answers it beautifully, in this interview I came across in Thunk.

Evolution of Jellyfish

Winstons

Once we got the hang of it, we
breathed circles around each other.

Skipped foreheads off
rocks, chewed
embers.

Jellyfish,
left to their own
devices, developed spines, got
religion, eschewed
risk

made Gods of sticks.

–Cami Park (me)

originally published in tinfoildresses

1493

I wrote about it, here:

Form is never more than an extension of breakfast.

–Bill Knott, from his great blog post all about form and stuff, which concludes with this excellent poem which I just had to post on my own blog.

Late Rising

Terrible
is the soft sound of a hardboiled egg
cracking on a zinc counter
and terrible is that sound
when it moves in the memory
of a man who is hungry
Terrible also is the head of a man
the head of a man hungry
when he looks at six o’clock in the morning
in a smart shop window and sees
a head the color of dust
But it is not his head he sees
in the window of ‘Chez Potin’
he doesn’t give a damn
for the head of a man
he doesn’t think at all
he dreams
imagining another head
calf’s-head for instance
with vinegar sauce
head of anything edible
and slowly he moves his jaws
slowly slowly
grinds his teeth for the world
stands him on his head
without giving him any comeback
so he counts on his fingers one two three
one two three
that makes three days he has been empty
and it’s stupid to go on saying It can’t
go on It can’t go on because
it does
Three days
three nights
without eating
and behind those windows
paté de fois gras wine preserves
dead fish protected by their boxes
boxes in turn protected by windows
these in turn watched by the police
police protected in turn by fear
How many guards for six sardines . . .
Then he comes to the lunch counter
coffee-with-cream buttered toast
and he begins to flounder
and in the middle of his head
blizzard of words
muddle of words
sardines fed
hardboiled eggs coffee-with-cream
coffee black rum food
coffee-with-cream
coffee-with-cream
coffee crime black blood
A respectable man in his own neighborhood
had his throat cut in broad daylight
the dastardly assassin stole from him
two bits that is to say
exactly the price of a black coffee
two slices of buttered toast
and a nickel left to tip the waiter
Terrible
is the soft sound of a hardboiled egg
cracking on a zinc counter
and terrible is that sound when it moves
in the memory
of a man who is hungry.

–Jacques Prévert

trans. by Selden Rodman

Hey, Darby Larson reviewed me a long time ago–

in Kelly Spitzer‘s excellent blog. I just noticed. He talks about my story On Mondays, Francesca Takes the Stairs published in Smokelong Quarterly XVI. Anyway, I like Darby Larson, so it was nice to come across this.

Wanted

Tees for Tea

I’m a crewcut in
a v-neck
looking for an
afro in a babydoll
to make me
some of that
sweet
sweet
100% all-natural or
ganic blend
didIsaysweet
tea.