Do you want it? You do but you don’t. You don’t smoke anymore but you want to. Cylindrical Pantone 185C appeals. Why did someone bring and leave Pantone 185C in the park? What was that someone thinking? Your first thought is he wasn’t thinking.
But if he was, what was he thinking? Did he think it was too precise? An emblem of a person he no longer wants to see in emblems? Someone who had hurt him? He doesn’t like to be hurt. So he brought it and left it. Emblems, in poems as in parks, are boring.
You know this. Why are you drawn to it? You are drawn to it because you look up and there are old women, young women, old men, young men, children, whole families, half-families in the park. They all wear little squares of Pantone 185C.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR INVIGILATION
1 Shut the door. lock the door. Wash the students.
2 Ensure that kindling from previous exams is removed.
3 Any scrap of confidence, kindness, goodwill, etc., MUST be removed.
4 Arrange the desks in a panopticonic manner. In the middle, fashion a watchtower out of chairs, Saran Wrap and duct tape.
5 Existential angst should be instilled in students AT All TIMES. Meaninglessness MUST be insisted upon.
6 Write the following information on the blackboard:
Examination date.
Current calendar year’s Gross Domestic Product of Denmark.
Number of retirement homes within a three-mile radius of classroom.
‘The Internet.’
7 Look at your exam envelopes. Then look again. And again. Keep looking. look some more.
8 Students writing deferred exams must be tethered together as a group by a strong rope, preferably a double-braided rope made of polyester or polypropylene. The knot MUST be a Flemish knot.
9 Hand out exams. Sing the national anthem of Denmark. Wave starter’s pistol in a cavalier yet confident fashion.
10 The students may now begin and end.
SUMMARY: HOW TO READ
TAUTNOTES: PROUD FIENDS
Proud fiends do prattle, do probe
not telling one very long moment
but reified excess, rarified sextets
seasons of sorrow are not units of exile
but windows of why I am of write manner
epistles are simple thistles in the months of stasis
pulsations are intertexts
the sainthood has no debt
to the displeasing anachronism of binary code
sorry never unmakes; adjectives are nothing
TAUTNOTES: I LACE WORDS
I lace words into swill
rhetoric soothes the pragmatist
maximally, the individualist seethes
recreate a creative faculty first
and steep yourself in hills exactly as in art
this is half-me
what does the body absorb
when the mercurial absolutes retreat
type and test the autobiography you will never write
and as austere as you are, you do not know a thing
let’s agree to one thing in a season of sorrow:
no fears, so and so
SUMMARY: IDEOLOGY
TAUTNOTES: IS THE GLOOMY
Is the gloomy posturing of signs worth holding vigil over?
Would you like to take a common holiday?
Are you parsimonious with signage?
liberate the object much?
Have you tasted operational gag orders?
Do you choke on wine?
Sometimes drunk Paris?
Whose brain?
Whose full stop?
Are you faithing the critic?
Have you covered all manner of coverings?
Whose nation?
TAUTNOTES: ABHORRENT LADS
Abhorrent lads abound in gaggles:
crashing Citroëns, phishing phenomenologies
eschewing exemplarity, neutralizing nutriment
melting margarine, slathering semiologies
politicizing predicates, imploring imperiality
buttonholing boundlessness
let this be, here, only a metaphor:
a motherly earphone
SUMMARY: CULTURAL HEGEMONY
TAUTNOTES: HEROINE OF PLEASANT THUG
Heroine of pleasant thug
prick up your ears
sit, self-healing, parasitic wrongdoer
athlete of merit or whoredom
now – hot-blooded royalty
finest fetish, dirt-poor warmth
neat hothead ovations
one-sided defeated impression
crooning heavy-handed
high-flown
flaunted lepers do
tidy deaths
good reticence
TAUTNOTES: I’M A HILL! WALTZ IT!
I’m a hill
waltz it
the halo of me
that often loved alarming
evaluations of the dupe friendship
credulous evil jerk impales
scum thrive on a prankishly
good day
SUMMARY: THE HISTORY OF SEXUALITY
TAUTNOTES: CHEAP EXCEL BITES
Weak
mode – chewable
vehement wino
an ugly, jeering baud
I’m thick and a wolf
brawny ace, nice sage
grow jauntier, analogue
poet
TAUTNOTES: BUILD, HURT, JET
Make a collage of cheap Excel bites
lure a performative and expel it
build, hurt, jet, repeat
SUMMARY: EXCITABLE SPEECH AND PERFORMATIVITY
TAUTNOTES: COAGULATED, SEE
Coagulated, see
that’s what’s bound to happen
the greedier changes
not fear-based
it’s perfect
heartburns thrill
not herd, scene
throned
TAUTNOTES: ROCKET BROTHERS
Rocket brothers
they is no more
die, diode
do die do
SUMMARY: CONDENSATION AND DISPLACEMENT
GUIDE FOR TAKING EXAMS
Right Before the Exam
1 Get a good night’s sleep. If necessary, take prescription-grade painkillers and tranquilizers. You can generally obtain these from a classmate. Do NOT exceed triple the recommended dosage. you can generally find the recommended dosage on the Internet. If not, use common sense.
2 Eat emotionally. Don’t go hungry. Get angry! Give in to dysmorphia. Everyone thinks they’re better than you.
3 Gather your supplies the night before: pen, paper, calculator, pocket defibrillator. Lay them out on your bedside table. Whisper pseudo-aphorisms to them.
The Moment of Truth
1 Read the directions once and ONLY once. remember: first thought, best thought.
2 Take relaxing breaths at regular intervals. Failure to take regular breaths may result in death.
3 Count the number of pages in the exam. Find the square root.
4 If feeling stuck, daydream! Use the imaginative potential of your mind! Open yourself up to adventurous and erotic fantasy!
5 Reflect on the failures of your life so far. Divide these into two categories: ‘surface’ and ‘depth.’ If your ‘depth’ failures are more numerous than your ‘surface’ failures, ask to use the washroom or ‘water closet.’
6 Remain.
THE REPORT CARDS OF LESLIE MACKIE
RUBRIC FOR THE EVALUATION OF POETRY. DEDICATED TO MS. CASTRO’S SIXTH GRADE POETRY STUDENTS AT MATER ACADEMY MIDDLE/HIGH SCHOOL IN HIALEAH GARDENS, FLORIDA
Starting Out
Words
To a trusting rowdy
vagarious nerd
Amicably sexist
ravenous
Chronic prideless
imprudence
Roughest, raciest delivery
tireless fellatio
Sounds
Truthful ace sage
jingoist merit
In derisions,
off-centre defrauder
This worthy, shrewd, odd tormentor
sugarlike, soul-rending dear
Feelings
Deafen derisory scum
connectors noted with what?
Scenic nosiness
wrenches smoothly
It is me
I’m the merit
Topics
Wore it just above awe, truth
tame my icon, herpetic dad
A benign lamé
RUBRIC FOR THE EVALUATION OF POETRY. DEDICATED TO MS. CASTRO’S SIXTH GRADE POETRY STUDENTS AT MATER ACADEMY MIDDLE/HIGH SCHOOL IN HIALEAH GARDENS, FLORIDA
On My Way
Words
I’m a sorcerer’s deathbed
I mean wow
Powerlessly
good acid
Sounds
As merry, hot, incontinent posers –
adroitly charmless
Rakishly mean
I’m the twist whose
Fetishes soothe cluttered semen –
mine sag
Feelings
Now, I’m a sad herocity
hence the wow art rant
Fend on
ache on
Smothery transmitter
wimp seethes
World famous
overactive saddening
Topics
Decent prude –
crossbred, unvaliant jailbait
Pathetic, loathsome tameness
on the tolerant Ferris wheel
Unusual hoodwink
if banality agitates
RUBRIC FOR THE EVALUATION OF POETRY. DEDICATED TO MS. CASTRO’S SIXTH GRADE POETRY STUDENTS AT MATER ACADEMY MIDDLE/HIGH SCHOOL IN HIALEAH GARDENS, FLORIDA
Wow!
Words
Just dither growths
sputter
Head mercenarily
ice cowards
Sounds
Secure smooth-tongued
best saint
Shh. I’m deft, mother!
white weakling / hot tyrannies
Dear me –
an egotism, ornately
Feelings
Now –
ace nihilist
prig poet
Unwelcoming
in stoic niceness
soft-heartedness
Topics
Strongish, passionate dickhead
filthy wit
Employ tolerant splendour
to a dearer emotion
Incisive apologetic frostiness
finer grins
Sour up, insular us
oh, strip us
BLURBISTS
‘These supple lines sing the song of joyous forgetting. And deftly so in their deftness.’
– A. Snyder Pierce, The Madison Poetry & Bridge Review
*
‘Thrumming fiercely with the might of a thousand thrums, Drexler Jr. soars to new heights and delves down to mine the thrumming deep thrum of the soul.’
– J. Hillis Drexler Sr., Conjun(x)ion
*
‘The thoughts imbedded in these feats of acrobatic high-wire dexterity are dexterous to be sure. And impressive, too.’
– Rory Gramercy, The Quill Dipper
*
‘A veritable tai chi of the mind! What Glennis achieves is beyond startling. The single most important book of lipogrammatic neologisms of the last ten years!’
– Paul Feaston Anders, Grand Central Review of Verse
*
‘This book, if it is fair to call it a book, which, indeed it is, ranks among the top books in the category of books I have recently endorsed.’
– Kim Winton, booksendorsed.blogplace.org
*
– Anthony Benadryl, metaverse monthly
*
‘A kindling, then a fire in the form of still life. The perplexities of arrival and departure. The fragmented wholeness. Read and reread. Then read again. Then reread.’
– Alejandro Berkowitz, scanbooks.to
*
‘The human meme. What Tennant has discovered is the human meme. And long may it last!’
– X∆nder ∆, Praxis
*
‘The intelligence and emotion here is otherworldly, as though it were imported from some sort of other world.’
– Felicity Dueck, Prairie Longboard
*
‘Alternative histories explode here in these pages. And how!’
– Marilyn Brownshoe, The New Querying
*
‘All this beauty achieved with aplomb. One wonders how Masters continues to live up to his name by being such a, well, master.’
– Braden Leftwich, Field and Stream Poetry Supplement
*
‘Who couldn’t forgive us for falling to our knees and proclaiming that we are willing to do anything to keep this magic from ceasing? No one. That’s who couldn’t.’
– Noam Grammerly-Wright, pervspective
*
‘This is poetry woven out of the finest threads and concocted in the most exclusive coven!’
– Alice Feathertop, Wiccan Poetry Weekly
*
‘What resides in minutiae and warmth? The poetry of Giorgio ravolo. Its visions pop in the rough corners of the deftness of his nimble mind.’
– Costa Nicola, Sicilian Standpoints
*
‘The verse of Sandor Magnolia is, to put it quite bluntly, human-shaped.’
– Robby Dylan, Poetry, Thunder Bay
MODA
No, I don’t want to stay at your place.
I need time and space and odder hours to deal with
a spectacular national celebration unequalled
since Expo ’67 in Montreal. It’s not fair to
expect me to adhere to your eccentricities.
No, I don’t want to stay at your place.
I will have my own. What a city! But no.
I’m coming. But no. I can’t possibly stand
a spectacular national celebration unequalled
since the 1851 World’s Fair in London.
I found a hotel. It’s cheap. A legacy project. Moda. So
no, I don’t want to stay at your place.
Travel, uneasy. Your city, stifling.
Everyone clamours their cultural capital there, at
a spectacular national celebration unequalled
since Deculturation. I will write a poem, meet for whiskey.
You will bring me a gift and i will get sick and you will insist, but
no, I don’t want to stay at your place.
I’m sure it’s spectacular, unequalled.
PLANNED ADOLESCENCE
He’s a victim of planned adolescence
never quite equipped, a shy man
recursive, explicit, dismissive.
Training-wheel reason
and militant obsolescence confirms
he’s a victim of planned adolescence.
Drones and drowns in dregs of position.
He’s a tethering device, a wireless frail man.
Recursive, explicit, dismissive
of growth of reason of pleasure.
The ailing therapist’s notes are clear –
he’s a victim of planned adolescence.
A kind of old early that’s best
synthesized through tropes that sing the
recursive, explicit, dismissive –
one red Lego brick, calculator watch, burner (phone),
commemorative 1976 Olympics tumbler, generic name tag.
‘Hello, my name is
recursion.’
TENANTS
An odd dream
with only characters, no self. Yes, I am
; aware it’s not interesting.
There were three men and one
woman in a shared apartment, itself
an odd dream.
Each of the tenants’ rooms was
decorated peculiarly, contained its own narrative