Another Cool Happening (The Universe Can Be All Right)

A nice grad student at ND named Raechel did the below translation of the above. It's a Costa Rican dialect. I don't know anything about anything, people, but it's cool.

El bigote de Hitler: La sextina sobre el bigote de un adolescente

Oíme, güevón,
me voy a dejar crecer el bigote.
Digo...o sea,
estoy cansado de tener que explicarlo. Diay,
no es nada gracioso.
O sea, mae.

Mae,
en serio. Digo, güevón,
esta mierda no es nada graciosa.
Sabés, mi bigote
no contaría, eh, secretos. Diay,
o sea

¿cuántas veces he dicho eso? O sea,
un pichazo, mae.
Estás todo, o sea...diay,
sabés – ah, no sé qué, güevón.
Estoy hablando de mi bigote
y esa mierda no es nada graciosa, sabés.

Yo sé que pensás que es graciosa.
Pero no lo es. Sabés...diay,
¿cuánto tenías cuando te salió el bigote?
Conozco a un mae.
Creo que era un güevón
que recolectaba basura o algo así – siempre comía chicle –

y, sabés, el chicle
se le pegaba al bigote, y era gracioso.
Ese mae era siempre, o sea, güevón,
o sea,
mae.
Tuvo que rasurarse el bigote

en la forma del bigote,
este,
que se parecía al de otro mae
que no parecía tan gracioso.
Sabés...o sea,
ese...güevón,

¿el hombre con el cochino bigote negro y cuadrado?
Mae, no es nada gracioso.
¿Este, sabés, el hombre con el bigote negro y cuadrado que a nadie le cae bien?

A Beautiful Reaction

At one point I expected someone to jump up and say "you're on Candid Camera!" because it really wasn't sounding like "poetry." (Was he playing a practical joke on us?) Nevertheless it was entertainment.

You're Wondering How the Reading Was? I Was Wondering Too...

The flier looked like this, except that it was rotated a quarter turn, clockwise. You see what they did here? They combined the Hitler's Mustache cover with the cover of Dan Machlin's book, Dear Body:. That was terrific, I thought. When I found myself spotting this flier, I thought, That's terrific.

When I found myself reading with Dan Machlin I was glad. And talking with him, too. And his book is beautiful, in the sense that there are people in the world doing wonderful things. You can feel it.

What sort of church? One with Joyelle McSweeney and Johannes, their sweet kid, Sinead, who was everywhere like a cartoon that makes you feel better about the universe. Touchdown Jesus is terrific when you think about it. Not that you would think about it. But, you should: Many sizes of the universe. Food is not exactly eating food, but it's close. Sometimes, when you feel good, you know it's because there are students with good attitudes.

This Is Coming (Soon)! (A Reading of Poetry)...

Peter Davis and Dan Machlin
University of Notre Dame
North Dining Hall
November 26, 2007
7:30 pm Monday
South Bend, Indiana

Things You Wear to Church

Ties are really evil.
Like snakes or lizards growing
around fleshy human necks.
The long tails hang down
and often that is like
a tongue that is lapping up
blood, or silly political talk.
Especially if you have a gruff
voice or something like a
pointing finger. What I'm talking
about is the evilness of ties,
the way they slickly slit veins, etc.
Ties spread disease and like making
boils, blisters. They cheat
on tests in junior high. They wear
horrible shirts.
These poems turning stupid
shit into something stupid
and sick are very obvious.
Gay congressman have to deal
with this sort of thing.
It's not exactly the cost of being
a human, but it is homemade
and sold in the deli.

Not Exactly What I Mean

Instead of "Happy Thanksgiving" you
should say something else (though
I don't know exactly what). I
mention this only because I know
that saying "Happy Thanksgiving" is
like saying "Swim in pig blood" or
"Put guts in your boots." People who
say "Happy Thanksgiving" are often
people who approve of murder,
rape, and child molestation. Not all
of them are like this, but a huge
chunk of them are.
I do not approve of those things.
That is why I'm saying you shouldn't
say "Happy Thanksgiving."
It's not that you want people to have
a bad day on the fourth Thursday
of November, rather you don't
want to wish pestilence and disease
on people. That's what I assume.
Saying "Happy Thanksgiving" is
like filling someone's nose with
locusts or stuffing onions in a dead
person's throat. Nobody wants that.
I'm a horrible person and I don't
want that. Even if you like
gorry shit, you have to admit that
this is pretty bad.

The Facts

Turkeys enjoy torture.
They are adept at waterboarding
and hooding. They are experts
at sleep deprivation and leaving
white lights on all the time.
Turkeys like attaching electric
batteries to people's genitalia.
Turkeys also like genocide.
If you are interested in genocide,
or torture, you should
become friends with a turkey
who will stay up late telling you
torture and genocide stories.
Turkeys like genocide because
they like exterminating entire groups
of people. They like how the mass
graves fill up with people and so
all the extra dirt has to go somewhere
and they always make a giant hill
so that in winter they have a good
place to go sledding. Also, they like
the smell of stuff burning. Turkeys
feel like genocide brings them together.
They all feel more friendly and warmer
and TV shows get better because
everyone feels like family.

Our Similar Faces

Wearing Your Winter Coats, A Hat and A Hood

Tonight, it was all, 'Do you think we'll be sprinkled with magic dust?' and 'I was scared when the pirates first came in.' Do you have a son 6 days shy of turning 5? Did he dress up as Peter Pan for Halloween? Have you had conversations with him about why Peter Pan won't grow up and why Peter Pan must just think that adults have no fun? It begins to add up, like money. The bank you put that bread in is baking.

Partial History of My Hair

There's These Two Things Worth Mentioning

There's this, this, like, reading at Notre Dame.

And this, this, like cool thing for Short Hand. (Short Hand is represented here by the red CD cover with a hand-drawn cassette on it. )

There Are Photographs

There is Tinkerbell and Peter Pan, in this case he is smaller than her, though he is larger than her and she is smaller than him. He is fending off bad guys and she is saying "Seriously." And there is his dad who is actually called Peter and there is her dad who is actually called Peter and is actually bigger than her and Peter Pan. Actually, she isn't Tinkerbell and he isn't Peter Pan. But neither is Tinkerbell and Peter Pan. That's the thing with Tinkerbell and Peter Pan. That they aren't what they are. That they're not there. That their there is Neverland. What I'm talking about is the Broadway production.

Good Human Beings

In the universe, humans
bump into each other and utter
certain phrases and
curl their tongues into certain
tongue formations. Like wild
chocolate shavings, sorta scattered on
the top of a fluffy cake.

People who have names are often
actually people.
This is larger than me or you.

There's a certain thing we're measuring.
There's a certain measuring cup.

I'm like, Fuck, dude, seriously,
the terrificness of this shit
is primo.

Emily Dickinson

She's all, like, "I like writing" and
"I'm good at it." She's, like,
"I like white and looking out
of windows," and, like, "I like
baking bread and the bible," and, like,
"I like my alone time."
She's like, "It's cool."
They're like, "I don't know if it's cool."
She's like, "It is."
They're like, "You're weird."
And she's like, "No, I'm not. Maybe
you're weird."
And they're like, "No, you're weird."
And she's like, "Am not."
And they're like, "Are too."
And she's like, "na-uh.""
And they're like, "un-huh."
And she's like "Whatever!"
And "Talk to the hand!" And
"Whatever." And
they're like "Whatever."
and she's like, "Whatever."

Travelling Through the Dark

There was an entire road
I was trying to ride
when I had ridden
slowly.
But that never happened.
In the future
I had your image
on the road map,
but I never looked at the map,
instead I kept asking you,
"What now? Quick!"
Going over bridges and then
seeing the lights of windows
and advertisements.
The whole trip
falls off the globe
and starts hurling
through the void.
The void is playing music
and the music seems
empty. "This absence of song
is a hollow saw blade," you say.
The ringing in the distance
is shivering and the
night light is on.

There's a New One of These

Shampoo! It has a couple new poems (including mine).

Sometimes I Am Pretending I Am in a Boy Band

Especially when I'm being photographed in front of a window in Washington DC on October 29, 2007.