toes magazine

another photo of niki's 'have been poem'

2006-05-02T10:42:00.000-07:00

'my toes' by alexis

2006-05-02T10:39:00.000-07:00

The Dick Poem

2006-04-24T05:07:00.000-07:00

The Dick Poem

by Jamie De Moulin

*Let me preface this with saying that I wrote this because of a writing excersize writen by Alexis; write a poem about yourself as the opposite sex. I read the card, and this just flew out of me like fake snakes from a can.

Oh, if I had a dick

I'd wag it around in circles

and shake it when no one was looking

I'd cock my hat to the side

and I wouldn't just walk

I'd glide

my smile would gleam

and I'd always be concocting schemes

people would whisper & girls would giggle

my gaze wouldn't just beam

it would trickle

Oh, if I had a dick

it would be long when it pleased

and short when I sneezed

lounging in my boxer shorts

like a mad hatter in wait

he'd always have the quick retorts

my jimmy would shimmy

behind button-up jeans

these eyes would sparkle

and you'd never know what's up my sleeves

Oh, if I had a dick

it would pen love sonnets

with volcanoes as metaphors

and leave all the girls wet

with anticipation for more

you could dress my dick

in a raincoat but

always ready to be licked

he'd rather be dressed as a lollipop

Oh, if I had a dick

2006-04-10T17:45:00.000-07:00

part of stu shanks' triptych 'humanity'

2006-04-09T19:30:00.000-07:00

jackie

2006-04-09T19:26:00.000-07:00

2006-04-07T23:04:00.000-07:00

kasia!!!

2006-04-07T22:43:00.000-07:00

'my toes' by jamie de moulin

2006-03-30T17:25:00.000-08:00

'melanie's toes' by jamie de moulin

2006-03-30T17:23:00.000-08:00

poem by michael ritter, art by alexis ronsmans

2006-03-26T20:33:00.000-08:00

mary kellison

2006-03-26T20:29:00.000-08:00

photo of niki robinson's 'have been' poem

2006-03-26T20:28:00.000-08:00

if george bush was my lover

2006-03-23T11:11:00.000-08:00

by rachel vanderweit, elizabeth keen, and emily hall

if george bush was my lover,
i would hide my toothbrush.
i would keep a dictionary by the bed.
i would tell him 'this nation cannot be conquered.'

if george bush was my lover,
i would tie balloons to his ears.
i would send my laundry out.
he would come shoe shopping with me.
if he was bad, i would say
'i'm not sleeping on the bomb tonight'.

if george bush was my lover,
i would tattoo poems on my back.
there would be universal health care
except for republicans.
they could pay for it.
i would not join the navy.
i would not be all that i could be.

if george bush was my lover,
i would call him twice a day at the white house
and sing M.I.A.
i would make him learn to play
the piano naked by ear
in front of the senate.
there would be no senate.

if george bush was my lover
i would give him a polaroid camera.
there would be polyester sheets on the bed.
he would dress up as emily dickinson
on the fourth of july.
congress would be given photos of him
at the height of puberty.

if george bush was my lover,
he would work at a soup kitchen
instead of golfing
he would wear lavender.
he would know how to keep potted plants alive.

i would cut his hair myself.
he would use public transportation.
he would have to listen to tori amos while we had sex.
he would also have front row seats to cat power.
he would be a better listener.
he would wear velcro shoes
he would be allergic to gun powder
he would wear jeans to yoga

i would send my laundry OUT
i would probably wear a helmet

if george bush was my lover,
sicilian women would make up the cabinet.
we would eat pringles by the ocean
i would dye my hair RED.
i would play drums on the white house steps

if george bush was my lover,
SHIT.
if george bush was my lover,
he'd be some man .

photo of kasia drake's notebook

2006-03-17T21:57:00.000-08:00

'woman' , drawn by jamie (with toes)

2006-03-17T21:43:00.000-08:00

' back cover of toes' by jamie de moulin

2006-03-17T21:42:00.000-08:00

amber bachtel

2006-03-17T21:34:00.000-08:00

Editor's note for Issue 4 of toes- by Kasia Drake

2006-03-11T11:59:00.000-08:00

alexis at the mosaic 3/8/06

2006-03-09T10:28:00.000-08:00

'sketch of isis and osiris' by mary kellison

2006-03-07T20:24:00.000-08:00

emily hall- notebook page

2006-03-07T20:09:00.000-08:00

'mirror toes' by emily hall

2006-02-24T23:07:00.001-08:00

'aran gleason's feet' gratefully photographed with aran's permission

2006-02-24T23:03:00.000-08:00

'aran in love' by emily hall

2006-02-24T22:46:00.001-08:00

'our toes' by emily hall and niki robinson

2006-02-24T22:45:00.000-08:00

'my feet' by alexis ronsmans

2006-02-23T20:21:00.000-08:00

My feet have been getting sweatier since I started wearing mis-matched socks. They're also bottom-of-the-underwear-drawer socks so they're lower quality and the thin cotton/poly/moosehair blends probably don't do me any good. Not to mention the plastic ballet shoes from Payless. In the winter. With all the melting snow. I used to wear my birkenstock sandals long after the first snow, wouldn't wear socks until the snow got an inch deep and started to push its way over my worn out heels and underneath my toe nails. A girl did a presentation on performance poetry in my class today, and I like her, but I hated her presentation, except for her including everybody's favorite whirling dervish: Rumi. She mentioned hip hop free style for a moment before she started reading her paper out loud, but largely left the greatest modern movements of performance poetry untouched. She said, you've probably all heard it, so I don't need to talk about it, and that's toe jam. Worse than bull shit it's toe jam, don't fertilize nothing but you've still got to pick it out. Sock crumbs. I've been eating too many sore throat drops and its made me hungry. I ate sushi. Fish have no feet. Fish can't wear high heel shoes or leg warmers or oversized wool socks that some grandmother living in the mountains made. I have some earrings and a bracelet that some Ecuadorians living in the mountains made. I should also get an anklet, or a toe ring. My feet will be happy when it's summer. I will buy the finest flip-flops the world has ever seen and I will spin in circles with my heart chakra open and I will free-style sufi poetry about my feet.

The Last Time I Saw You by Kasia Drake

2006-02-13T20:31:00.000-08:00

Kasia Drake

The Last Time I Saw You
For Kenny-chan

at the Motel Six in Palo Alto
I don’t remember what
you had on
You were smoking a chocolate cigar
You were smoking a Benson & Hedges Menthol
You were smoking hot
We were drinking coffee late at night
We were having a late dinner, I couldn’t finish my salmon burger
We were dancing in a gazebo
It was late
You leaned in and whispered during the movie
Your eyes were the teeth of the rabbit
You leaned on my padded shoulder
You wore a Polka Party teeshirt
The church pew creaked like a bed
Bags of spinach wilted to black water
My Tubes oozed linseed oil
Collaborating dramatically
Popping Xanex
Eating fruit loops
You were fire
Fifty assorted needles simultaneously wiggled
My bones were the skin off Brambles’ back
My hair slept tightly
Black dress dancing on a wall, suspended
by wires
Eating shrimp sushi
Eating cherry tongue depressors
Was Under the sky in Wyoming
We both sat on the same side of the booth
Your mother gave me kimono fabric
A piano folded in on itself
You wore a gray wool suit
and pale pink tie
You leaned in and snickered
Wisdom teeth clicked in manilla envelopes
Skinny wrists sprouted boxing gloves
An egg fried on asphalt
Sunny-side up.

'amy's toes' by emily hall

2006-02-13T20:01:00.000-08:00

jamie emily and alexis write:

2006-02-07T15:17:00.001-08:00

Lord’s fucking name, that missisippi goddamn
Was saved by a file cabinet
She will speak forever in seconds
I have nothing to say.

Organization, accordion folding style
File folders and blue ribbon felt
On the side of the light where you
May walk without seeing.
Black earth mothers in a black earth town

Reservation blues and white stripes on the land
I have stopped speaking to the earth if
I stop speaking to myself

What day is it?

The fifth time my entire history was stolen.

Like the back of a matchbook

Folded over and frail

Waiting

Upside the bleeding heart tango
Float slices of mango
Slippery and wet

She turned her head
And whispered
Oh my god
As she opened a book
Introduction to reference work

Before the cigarette
We never met
Never met
Yet

Chocolate milk and cheap
regrets. She stole an English
professor common sense
when
whatever it was
hadn’t started just
yet
a hundred million years ago we
danced to Queen and
we never knew
before it happened

24 hour Denny’s ceramic white
caffeine addiction naïve
straw paper
float
yet
whatever was
wasn’t

A Letter Of Course by Jamie De Moulin

2006-02-03T15:51:00.000-08:00

Jamie binding A Letter Of Course with black ribbons

2006-02-03T15:48:00.000-08:00

page one of 'a letter of course'

2006-02-03T15:47:00.000-08:00

cont'd

2006-02-03T15:46:00.003-08:00

cont'd

2006-02-03T15:46:00.002-08:00

cont'd

2006-02-03T15:46:00.001-08:00

cont'd

2006-02-03T15:46:00.000-08:00

cont'd

2006-02-03T15:43:00.000-08:00

goodbye kasia drake, toes will miss you

2006-02-01T14:55:00.000-08:00

(healing tree by k. drake, the healing center, milwaukee, wi)

Kasia drew the front cover of the first issue of toes and the back cover of the have-been issue. She is a poet and artist who will be moving to San Francisco. Her passion for art and her aesthetic mind will be missed by the remaining toes staff. We hope that she will continue to correspond with us electronically and by paper. Kasia loves hello kitty.

possible poem from Mark Andrews

2006-01-24T20:27:00.000-08:00

A dirty pair of
bristled feet find
their way home amidst
the iced puddles of

yesterday's freeze, and
beneath one puddle
is stuck a crumpled
brown bag filled with a

workman's lunch
from the day prior,
discarded upon finding
ham, but not cheese.

He drove onward past
the walking man who
two days later would
come upon that soaked

bag and lean over, slowly,
to pry it out of the
puddle, now melted, waiting
for the sky's salvation.

2006-01-24T07:07:00.000-08:00

I've got electric fire in my belly. It's redundant to think. Maudlin is the new pink. Me and my bathrobe. Someone's sleeping in my living room. It's the smell of doom. My left foot is asleep. My belly is quiet but angry. It's redundant to drink. The color pink is angry. It sleeps, exhudes the odor of... I just made that up. Right there. ::laughs in the face of death::

first part of Stu Shanks' novel Two Days.

2006-01-19T17:22:00.001-08:00

Two days

I wish.

I wish, I could have a normal conversation with people. If not life altering in any way, maybe just the conversation that starts when one walk up to a complete stranger.

And introduces one’s self.

Now the hard part is over.

Just carry on this conversation over an extended period of time. Then when one least expects it, you are talking about your childhood. The people who you hate. What the best planned urban undertaking is.

And out of the blue, they ask you for your number.

What a good friend you made! (and maybe something more later…!)

That is the kind of conversation I want.

As I walk down the street I see people interacting in bars, restaurants, and on the street, and I am so willing to get into a conversation with these people, but. But what? I guess that I am so inept at it, that I just stare dumbfounded, then go back home and write infuriating journals of self loathing and hatred.

This, however is not a journal. It is one’s autobiography into their …what? I don’t really know, as today hasn’t happened, and I guess I am just dreaming you. That, or I truly have gone insane writing as I think, and the people around me do as well.

Best not think about it.

So sit back, and let the next two days wash over you like, oh, I don’t know, someone’s dirty wash. And when it’s finished you will ask yourself why. Why this thing deserves to be on the shelf. Then, you go back to your life, pissed at me for wasting your time.

Or will this story talk directly to you? Will you finally get off your ass and actually do something about the world around you?

I seriously doubt the second one.

Something is telling me to keep writing, and something (I don’t know what) is telling you to keep reading, so there has to be an ending, perhaps even a good ending in here somewhere. And if you bare with me, there might. Might be something entertaining in here for you as well. Then I will have the elusive conversation, if only one sided, and only on paper. Or we could skip it all and I can just go to bed with you now.

Day 0ne

1

I woke up to the sound of pigeons.

They have taken roost right above my bedroom, and these birds are not very pleasant to listen to. Imagine a cow dying by being stabbed slowly and repeatedly for hours and hours, and them, you will only graze the surface of what I wake up to every damn morning. The man lying next to me took no notice of this and continued snoring. I sat there for a minute milling over my options. I couldn’t run away. After all this was my house… and I have technically been seeing him for around two months, so he would probably know where to find me.

If he cared.

I thought about grabbing the knife that was stabbing the cows outside, but then I would have to deal with a much bigger mess then a snoring asshole.

I heard my roommate rummaging around in the next room, the kitchen, trying to find something to eat for breakfast. I knew for a fact that there was nothing. Nothing in that entire room besides the sink, and of course countertops full of dirty dishes slowly molding and rusting. The first time he came to the apartment he wondered aloud how two girls could be so disgusting.

Strike two.

Strike one against him came earlier that night when he wouldn’t shut up about something having to do with dimensions. Apparently dimensions are whatever one wants to make them, just like the linear dimension, planar dimensions. Present time could be a dimension, and each successive point in the past and future could be dimensions, and one just needs to see these multiple dimensions to see into the past, and find out about the future just as we can see depth. He kept talking about the other rules of inter dimensional travel, but I stopped listening, and started nodding my head. Obviously he figured this line works on all the chicks. Brain power, after all equals sexual power. Unfortunately in this instance it did work, but only to shut him up. And now I know brain power does not equal good sex, and 637 strikes against him later it was time to run away.

****

This is the point when the author switches subjects abruptly to keep you on your toes. Introduce new characters when the first story starts to get marginally interesting, and pads the short story into a full length novel.

This is no exception.

2

Jen went to bed early the night before; after all she had a job to get to today. She told her girlfriend off earlier, in the nicest way possible earlier that night. Which did nothing to help her girlfriend’s ego by the way. She planned to wake up early and prepare for her day at work. Which she detested. So she could pay rent.

The gas and the telephone bill could go fuck themselves for all she cared.

She awoke two hours later that night, to hear her roommate fucking two rooms over. Just as well, she thought to her self; at least he didn’t talk when he was in her bed.

See how I did that? Barely two paragraphs in, and she has a connection to me. Maybe now I can test your patience with another character.

3

He woke up.

Long ago he found that keeping his eyes closed for a while helped reorient himself. He knew the headache was coming, and he knew when he opened his eyes he would be depressed; depressed enough to go back to drinking.

He opened his eyes.

He was right.

The wall of noise above him was deafening, but the amount of garbage that was laid about him welcomed him back to his reality. So did the gentle wind. He had to get up shortly. The cops would be coming around soon. They had to make sure that the city was free of the filth that used to plague the city. Apparently he no longer existed, and the cops were there to make sure he didn’t.

He couldn’t seem to get up. His headache was stronger then it usually was. As he heaved over to puke, he found a dollar.

“This must be my lucky day,” he slurred at no one in particular. The liquor store was down the street.

If only he could get moving again.

4

John also woke up early, but for different reasons all together. He felt the need to seize the day. He was off of work today, and needed something to do other then sit at his office cubicle all day. Watching tv wasn’t going to cut it. Leaving his bed he thought about getting dressed, but was too lazy. Not a very good start. After peeing, he made his way to the kitchen. He first went to the fridge, and after staring at the 20 or so bottles of condiments for about two minutes, his naked body was cold. He had toast instead. And water. After his wholesome breakfast, he went back to bed to sleep for another few hours, which isn’t really exciting in retrospect.

The author in me, (if in fact I have one in me) should have made John walk past a mirror. Exposing the fragileness of the human body and by extension the human condition as a whole, deliberating on the psyche of the adult male and the role they play in a society that breeds the will to fight out of them.

But I can’t.

John does not own a mirror.

So instead he lies in bed until he becomes hungry again, which isn’t very long, really. After all his breakfast wasn’t very filling.

Kasia is gorgeous

2006-01-17T13:42:00.000-08:00

KASIA IS IN

KASIA IS IN HER
KASIA IS IN HER CAR

ON THE WAY TO CITY LIGHTS
KASIA IS IN
KASIA IS IN HER CAR
KASIA IS IN HER CAR
ON THE WAY TO CITY LIGHTS
SHE IS LISTENING TO
A SONG ON A CD
A SONG ON A CD
BURNED BY A STRANGE LITTLE
GIRL
THE SONG IS CALLED STRANGE
LITTLE
GIRL
JAMIE IS A STRANGE LITTLE GIRL
SHE IS MAKING
SHE IS
SHE
A BOOK OF LETTERS
FOR SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
NEXT WEEK
THE POEM MOBILE
HANGS FROM HER CEILING
HER CEILING IN THE
LIBRARY
OH STRANGE LITTLE GIRL
WHERE ARE YOU GOING

TO CITY LIGHTS TO PUT TOES THERE
TO SAN FRANCISCO TO LIVE THERE
TO THE LIBRARY TO WORK THERE
OH

'my toes' by jamie de moulin

2006-01-17T11:44:00.000-08:00

'tree' by emily hall

2006-01-12T15:53:00.000-08:00

Last Paragraph of Don't Tread On Me by Jamie DeMoulin- Scroll Down to Read the Beginning.

2006-01-12T15:46:00.000-08:00

My matter was spreading radially and collecting together to form what was from the beginning my arch nemesis, the moon, Luna. How could I feel anything but hatred for this bastard child spawned from the rape and pillage of my previously serene existence? It was her fault that I must suffer to spin constantly. She was the reason that I had been sliced in half and been so defined as to have an equator. Her blasted orbit stabilized the tilt of my rotational pole so that I could no longer enjoy the wobbling that I had so long been accustomed to. Worst of all, she used her gravity (that was stolen from me) to entice my oceans. She gave me love handles, if you will, and I was not grateful. Not only that, but she caused weather patterns to appear on my surface that lead to periodic seasons. I could not stand the predictability of it all. Just from being near me she destroyed everything I held so dear. Oh no, dear listener, it did not stop there. Because of all the tragedies that her mere presence inflicted upon me life forms began to develop on my surface. You have no idea the terror I felt. To suddenly feel on your skin movement that is not born from your own will is the most revolting experience. Those ridiculous seasons forced conditions to be stable long enough to allow life to develop, adapt, and succeed on me. Terrible itching parasites vexed me constantly, and these were only the first cells. More were to come and much, much worse.

'trees' by emily hall

2006-01-12T15:44:00.000-08:00

cont'd

2006-01-12T15:41:00.000-08:00

My agonies grew worse as I watched my own parts in orbit begin to mutate. This mist ring of my flesh drew together, forming a kind of mutiny against me. This mutiny was so gradual that at first I thought I was only hallucinating. I clung to the hope that my limbs had actually been blown far away, so I would not have to continually look at them.

cont'd

2006-01-12T15:35:00.000-08:00

The impact was insane. As it turns out, the object was smaller than I had initially thought. I was actually twice its size. You would think that projectiles would pick on someone their own size, but apparently this one had some sort of death wish. I would have had one myself if I knew what was to come. The Universe works in mysterious ways, and neither of us was granted our supposed death wishes. It hit obliquely causing angular momentum to forcibly spin me on my axis. The angle and force of the collision was such that this mangled piece of shrapnel was able to knock off a third of my mass and send it just far enough away for it to fall into orbit around me. There were actually parts of me orbiting around myself. You have no idea what this feels like. I was dizzy, nauseous, and in complete shock. I felt utterly destroyed. I think I actually lost consciousness. The next thing I remember was seeing my global body in fragments scattered just out of my reach. This would have to be the worst form of torture to have ever been exercised on any body in the Universe. In fact, no one but the Universe himself could have executed something like this with such precision. My own mass dangled in front of me laughing at my own disembodiment.

cont'd

2006-01-12T15:29:00.000-08:00

It was this total suspension in the ignorance that is bliss that caused me to be totally unsuspecting of any sort of foreign body intrusion. I was happily drifting in some passing thought when I noticed there was something fast approaching and on a collision course with me. Terrified, I tried as hard as I could to stray from my orbit or jump just a bit out of the way so as to not be destroyed, but all efforts were in vain. It seemed like eons (and, perhaps, it was) that I watched this kamikaze protoplanet getting larger and larger, daring to destroy my euphoric existence. It drove me mad to think that in mere moments I'd be reduced to some sort of interstellar vapor cloud. Perhaps, the Universe heard my agonized pleas, but I highly doubt that. Maybe the Universe sent that bastard to clobber me. I guess I'll never know.

cont'd

2006-01-12T15:27:00.000-08:00

I was a fine protoplanet. I existed in and of myself, had no sordid affairs, and was perfectly happy. I went about my life, axis wobbling all over the place, no clear rotation. I had no idea what a complex life form was, and I had never heard about parasites. But I didn't have to worry about these things because I was completely unpredictable and, therefore, safe, or so I thought.

Don't Tread On Me- by Jamie De Moulin (cont'd)

2006-01-12T15:16:00.000-08:00

I am now as I was before the whole ordeal. There are chaotic tides and seasons, and complex life forms do not exist. I don't rotate, and I wobble all over the place. This is exactly the way I like it. I am getting quite the suntan now that Luna has left the building. Plus, I am parasite free and happy as can be. Except, that there is this strange fear looming deep in my molten core. I must say that I thank the Universe for allowing me the great privilege of surviving that nightmare, but my worst fear is that this strange history will repeat itself never ending for all of eternity. I must purge my nightmare of its demons. I will send them off into the farthest reaches of space by telling this fantastic tale.

Don't Tread On Me- Jamie De Moulin- 1st paragraph- more later!!!

2006-01-12T14:45:00.000-08:00

I exist in space. I observe myself. I have no control. I am earth, but I would say I'm also air, fire, and water because these things are part of me. I quake and I tumble. This is worldwide nature, speaking to the universe. Except, the Universe doesn't listen to me, so I'm only talking to myself, Gaia or Pangaea. I am a planet. I am the planet, an example to the other planets. They think I'm a survivor, and they damn well should, because I've been through a lot. And let me just say in front of all the stars and the entire Universe, who just might be listening after all, I am no one's mother. Mother Earth they liked to call me. I am not a mother. I am a victim of catastrophic circumstances, and I'm not female. You would think that if they were going to consider themselves our children that the beautiful celebrity everyone loved to obsess over would be the female of the two. I mean, consider moonlight... it is very beautiful and radiant like diamonds. Female. I'm all mud and dirt and earthworms. Let's not forget the occasional volcanic eruption. Very male. I am terra, two hemispheres, planet.

'alexis with melanie's toes' by jamie

2006-01-12T14:41:00.000-08:00

'my toes' by alexis ronsmans

2006-01-12T14:39:00.000-08:00

2006-01-12T14:38:00.000-08:00

2006-01-12T14:37:00.000-08:00

2006-01-12T14:36:00.001-08:00

2006-01-12T14:36:00.000-08:00

my why yes spot by wes tank without underlining- the site won't let me reproduce the original.

2006-01-09T09:33:00.000-08:00

my why yes spot

or
my shoes know karate moves, the way we do together things [well, like] spreading the seconds dispersing to corners to own up the space as if you were a liquid
hills
touching each other like up and down zipper songs waterslide down a rainbow only to stop on the hair of a period.
I don’t want to know the truth about clouds, I prefer to rest in the nest of mission statement’s stated sound - here’s one:
wishes have no place in wells, fishes can’t survive in hell, the oldest dishes never sell, a gentle man never tells
how I feel maybe just out of place maybe just stupid face maybe just bubble gum covered in place and I can’t stand up or I’m sitting in an inner tube floating through the blue sky
new paragraph: how did you not stand up and fall at that? everyone should be ashamed so nobody should be ashamed
if I had a cancer I’d never watch another movie – all I’m saying is maybe you could never live until you wrote it on a giant check
hiding on my cold belly, faking asleep on the floor thought I heard a water fall
to find a spot where I can be lived like I’ve already died – it was something, and then it grew and that’s the pump inside my leg
it’s very hard to perform a perfect signature with a blank so big – how many of you could go to into the void of a bathroom on the crutch of an open door? or balance a balloon on your finger, banana in your pocket?
do you find your best friend to be a microwave kind of friendly? this should have been written on a landscape so it really could be a part of something bigger holding back the peanut butter running water down a stairwell calmly waiting to make a decision to swing on a rope and be free for a second while suspended
I MADE LIKE ONE THOUSAND DECISIONS while I was live and died
Michael Jordan was an excellent marketing decision that helped shape the course of my childhood dreams.
do you make life and death decisions in the bed of a notebook? I forget my name and who I am but I remember the lyrics to ‘the chronic’ and the wrong definition of ‘ironic’ but it was a good day because “the lakers beat the supersonics”
probably say forget it and go back to my umbilical pregnancy poems that I don’t understand when I go back to them
that’s the only way I could imagine standing laying on the floor and scribbling
using the creepy crawlies in my hair to fill the balloon of the page with the magic air of words
is forgetfulness the only gift that keeps on giving?
it might take dreaming without rope for you to learn to fly the right way over the pretty purple ping pong sun

when I was in anticipation of being lived – I was watching down and learning how to be alive
you’ve got a lot of nerves in your body to be able to think you can explain yourself with a cookie as brittle as word
and not to say word but while we’re here we might as well look around and say “I” when we’re in favor of
IT doesn’t PAY to go to work but while we’re here we might as well as look around and say “I” when we’re in favor of finding a spot where I can live like I’ve
already been died

even good people [can unlearn how to] make bad decisions at sunset – a blinding ambition was flown in two directions, hop and dessert

hop: elephants could learn to eat my right arm and…even in the drunk of my most endearing wishes I would still like to sorry on behalf of my non-beauty sleeping – I wonder how many times I’ve said ‘and’ or ‘like’ or ‘or’ or ‘I’ in code – but my biggest hope is for [God] to tell me how many [baskets] I’ve made out of how many I [shot] in my entire [life]
or everything I ever said in one blown up whale poem
dessert: while walking I broke concrete with my tree trunked leg spirit and the hardness of that wood harnessed a propeller of wishes not in a well but a sky that is not a sky but a new world where there is no land there is no sky but a new world where there is no land there is no sky…
its hard to find the perfect way to not kill yourself every day here’s one: walking upside down with the change falling out of your pockets with a man in polka dots calling you an astronaut, and families opening Christmas presents each one imagining something different inside of the boxes (everyone was wrong) and the polar bears did not intend for this to be a girl’s coming of age story but while we’re here we might as well look around and say “I” but everyone was wrong, especially the polar bears dressed up like the clouds in your hair
you can’t even say “clean water falling down a mountain” without thinking of a bottled water water bottle
robot is a way out of an ethical dilemma apparently – but to avoid locking this to a time I’ll just say something like
“stars hovering over the hunched shoulders of mountains” in a brand name voice at a brand new speed
but you might have decided against misogynist and stopped eating women and breathed out loud elsewhere– I’m still looking for a davenport
that does not need any special rug to stop it from splitting on hardwood floor that changes personalities like any really people person
never really alive until you’re little and big at the same time
until your science projects look like the wonders found in the street on my way to work
I don’t think this landscape was meant to be seen from far off- its probably meant to be up close and understood
the type to be known as a mobile poem in a mobile home
uncomfortable as scratches on the floor or a rhythmic knock at the door sounding like the giant spider webs under couches
setting the outdoor table with candles (houses and rooms are still filled with perfumes) so why not blow up another whale and call it a day?
or could you sit down and write a feature length song over temperature sensitive accordion and harp? but to un lock us from this specific poetic moment, the bigger picture is bigger than a fat man on an escalator or the huge light busting through the dusty cracks in the door, the dense air of a working machine, and the blank of a blank accomplishment is what I would like to accomplish.
but the problem with epiphanies is that eventually you have to decide to stop hiding from them so in this particular joke you have to look up beautiful in the thesaurus…I don’t think I get it… [only some important things were written in bold on bumper stickers on the day wes died]
this is the final paragraph of a book about a race around the world starring everyone who’s ever been born and everyone gets a chapter of equal depth of character
everyone described everything they ever saw. no one regretted not thanking the bold words of bumper stickers on their death bed. forgetfulness is the only gift that keeps on giving under the blip of a blimp. the specialness on the tips of your fingers can be licked at any time – IT TOOK LIKE ONE THOUSAND LONG LINES TO GET TO THIS ONE WORD: yes. making you stop on the hair of a period blip of a blimp or a poem of people who all were full characters riding the stairs of the world to spin tires and the eating string and only needing things and almost there and almost lived at the edge of the placenta it might be a beautiful bullet or anything under the sun to carve you in magic and say what you mean because it might be your last chance before you are born again at the whim of a bomb your last thought is not of love but of polar bears dressed up in the clouds of your hair – everything’s important and everything matters – that’s all I’ve ever said and when you pass the balloon or the bubble back and forth on your tongue remember the first time you felt the long claw of epiphany scratching at the pump in your leg and begging you to take it out for a walk. oh and dogs-

Wisconsin

2006-01-05T15:51:00.000-08:00

Arizona

2006-01-05T15:41:00.000-08:00

2005-12-28T18:54:00.000-08:00

2005-12-28T18:51:00.000-08:00

Kenny Tanemura

2005-12-28T18:27:00.000-08:00

South Milwaukee

“That too I knew before I experienced it” –Marguerite Duras

In Lovelock, Nevada,
on the way to
Milwaukee,
from San Francisco, a woman
at the motel asks if I saw rain

driving west, dry dust is sitting on the streets
of their town, you can feel it under your
feet
at night. Lightning flashed across the sky
for hours, and no rain. This evening

in South Milwaukee, the day after
I lost a job, listening to Tous les matins du
monde,
wind flutters the blinds, pushes in
from each window in the room.

It’s like passing through something.
Rain soaks the smell out of the
trees,
stone, tar, paint, shreds the smell
into small pieces and throws them
up in the air. Washes away uncertainty.

Rain and wind are bare, something baroque
made from two
instruments.
What’s spare remains:
Fall,
Another first day of it.

Another beginning.
The lover will be home
soon,
whatever you have given up
on, try again. Lift until you see
the awning above your head.

Dirt-stained, and further up
clouds splotched by the next
hour’s
sunset. No matter how jaded you are,
remember, it was either
there at first glance, or it never was.

jamie and alexis type the have beens II

2005-12-28T17:04:00.000-08:00

LEAVE TOES ALONE

2005-12-28T16:56:00.000-08:00

jamie and alexis type the have been poem

2005-12-28T16:50:00.000-08:00

MY GRANDMOTHER WALKS AWAY

2005-12-17T15:17:00.000-08:00

Bye Thanks

2005-12-16T14:36:00.001-08:00

forget the ghost

2005-12-16T14:36:00.000-08:00

self portrait as a dessicated mermaid

2005-12-16T14:35:00.001-08:00

Beth Keen's Letter.

2005-12-16T14:35:00.000-08:00

painting for cover of next TOES

2005-12-16T14:29:00.000-08:00

how a gypsyfeminist dies

2005-12-14T19:34:00.000-08:00

I was riding shotgun in a stranger’s blue car. Fifty cents and a cut off stamp
from a letter sent two years ago in my pocket. Crash, the smell of tar, rubber,
metal, dirt, the taste of gasoline. Childbirth.

One day, the black widows that slept on my eyelids when I was a knife thrower at the carnival bit me.

After diving into a river rock I lay, dripping blood, holes and gravel in my face, and the river took me where rivers take the dead. “I thought there were no rocks there” my daredevil friend said. My last word was “Shit.”

The father, son, and holy ghost appeared. They were frat boys, talking about a drunken game of marbles. I died, right there in the bar one of my ancestors mistook for heaven. A stone head from a bombed museum fell from the sky and landed in my ribcage.

I walked home one night and tripped over a dead woman. I looked down and recognized myself. I fell through a blue hole in the center of the top of my head and thirteen blackbirds pecked out my eyes and learned to speak human. They said “Give me my bone!” and “Mine, Mine, Mine” and “You have no heart.”

I was seven and I fell off the monkeybars and broke my back. The first thing I saw when my soul returned to me was a girl in a red dress, looking down. My soul tried to leave my body again but all that happened was my legs kept trying to run away. The girl found a teacher. I looked at the sky.

I was six this time. There were four of us swimming out too far in the lake. My friend’s little brother started floating away. I swam after him and the current pulled so fast that my hair was sucked ahead of me. I was so unafraid that I registered the light filtering down through the water as beautiful

my grandma writes poetry, lives in evansville,

2005-12-14T17:05:00.000-08:00

smokes patriarch tobacco, is catholic, has green eyes

2005-12-14T15:02:00.000-08:00

evening primrose.

allison loewen writes poetry too.

2005-12-13T13:06:00.000-08:00

got chased off the moutain by a group of locals with
machetes. They didnt want us stealing their gold.

I am measuring electric resistivity underneath the
ground. It changes with the wind.

2005-12-13T13:03:00.000-08:00

darling girl and a big bonjour from the land of beaudeaire, prevert and
all of our other parisien favourites. A girl that knows you, KAtherine,
from WAlden is studying with me, and we both watn you to come for a visit.
Paris is beautiful, but not in an easy way. I think that you would love
getting lost here. I have seen notre dame and la seine and everyday many
things new and fantastic. And it's hard for me to think in english.
But,,
Alors,
How is everyitng with you? I miss you quite badly, please take care of
yourself and write me if you cannnes.
Heather Berlowitz c/o Accent
89 rue Faubourg de Saint-Antoine
Paris 75011
France
It's a bit melancholy, or no, my emotions haven't yet caught up with me,
they are still dangling somewhere, mid-atlantic. You know how it can take
the soul quite a while to catch up to the body.
Loves and 1,000 french lovers,
Heather

2005-12-13T13:00:00.000-08:00

emily,

i miss you and your non-spicerian intellect.

that's all.

yr lad,

karl

2005-12-13T12:54:00.000-08:00

moon. monsoon. trail. trial. fire. lyre. fired. spire. try. estrella. trip.

meelou, get off of the door!

2005-12-13T12:50:00.000-08:00

nip. nip. miiiix. mix. mix. meelou.

novel. novella. tres estrellas en la luna.

thank you niki

hi. my name is che guevara.

2005-12-13T12:47:00.000-08:00

more toes!!!

2005-12-13T10:41:00.000-08:00

hi. my name is ghandi.

2005-12-13T10:39:00.000-08:00

che guevara's toes.

2005-12-13T10:37:00.000-08:00

haunted suitcase

2005-12-12T21:34:00.000-08:00

cof;fee stains and ugly girls listening to tori.

2005-12-12T21:24:00.000-08:00

analisa's toe poem

2005-12-12T21:23:00.000-08:00

toe fetish

Teeter-totter
original noodle
eat the fat
sicko

hee hee

analisa drew i love you

2005-12-06T16:45:00.000-08:00

ANNE SEXTON WE LOVE YOU

2005-11-29T20:36:00.000-08:00

I have a picture that proves April is beautiful

2005-11-29T20:24:00.000-08:00

NO MATTER WHAT

alexis ronsmans have been fragment from window

2005-11-28T20:14:00.000-08:00

2005-11-28T20:13:00.000-08:00

niki robinson have been fragment- notebook

2005-11-28T20:05:00.000-08:00

2005-11-28T20:03:00.000-08:00

2005-11-28T20:01:00.000-08:00

2005-11-26T11:54:00.000-08:00

toes is a galaxy of interconnected poets painted by geography

2005-11-21T20:23:00.000-08:00

2005-11-21T20:21:00.000-08:00