Saturday, January 31, 2015

I'm a Racoon.


Today I have had a long day reacquainting myself with the duties of a diligent grad student, which is to say that I realized that I have more crap to do than I have time.

I got a lot done today. I have a lot still to do tomorrow. For now, here is a picture of a baby racoon miming how I feel right now.







P.S. My life is SO HARD! I had to read stuff all day and then write about the stuff I read. Big tears here.

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Apparently the French word for 'word' is pronounced "moo". One day I will use this information to create the most pretentious joke ever.

Apparently the French word for 'word' is pronounced "moo". One day I will use this information to create the most pretentious joke ever. Source:

January 31, 2015 at 06:33PM

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I have seen 3 different men today wearing camouflage pants. Am I being excluded from some male bonding event again?

I have seen 3 different men today wearing camouflage pants. Am I being excluded from some male bonding event again? Source:

January 31, 2015 at 05:08PM

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It has taken me the entire day just to get to the point where I can begin doing my homework. #gradschoolproblems

It has taken me the entire day just to get to the point where I can begin doing my homework. #gradschoolproblems Source:

January 31, 2015 at 04:10PM

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Snow Day.


Below is a cool little video essay about the recent blizzard in New York City. I stumbled across it on Bloomberg News of all places. I wish I knew how to make things like this. Probably I just need a bunch of pictures and a pretty song, right?


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Friday, January 30, 2015

A Funeral Dirge.


Today is the fiftieth anniversary of Winston Churchill’s funeral, so I wrote him a poem. I was going to call it a “funeral dirge” because that sounds so cool, but it turns out a dirge is a song. Who knew?


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What a Man.


What a Man.
by james bezerra

Fifty years it’s been
since under the shadow of Big Ben
passed the body of the world’s
best ever alcoholic.

Hugely complicated legacy left
by fat little man from Marlborough.
Never imperious, always imperial,
colonial, racist, and drunk.

But yet,
whatta man, whatta man,
what a mighty good man,
a god sent original.

Admiralty, Gallipoli, depression, Ploegsteert Wood.
The Irish, the Kurdish, that pesky teetotaler Gandhi.
Bolsheviks, Fascists, liberals, Zionists, and
that Charlie Chaplin-looking motherfucker from Austria.

Fight them on the beaches. Fight them on the sea.
Nothing to offer but blood
and toil and tears and sweat.
A dangerously unique moment in history.

Now fifty years its been
since MV Havengore bore
the lead lined casket away.
Whatta man.

Thames dock workers bowed
crane jibs. The Queen had a drink.
A god sent original;
what a man.

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Breaking News 30 January 2015.


Breaking News 30 January 2015
by james bezerra

It so saddens me
that good ol’ Romney
won’t make another run!
His runs are always so fun
to laugh at on the TV.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2015

OMG! I just bumped into the cute girl from the coffee shop. She just works at a different coffee shop now! #daybrightened

OMG! I just bumped into the cute girl from the coffee shop. She just works at a different coffee shop now! #daybrightened Source:

January 27, 2015 at 09:00AM

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Friday, January 23, 2015

I know I should feel lame that all I'm doing on a Friday night is lint rolling my hat, but somehow I'm actually okay with it.

I know I should feel lame that all I'm doing on a Friday night is lint rolling my hat, but somehow I'm actually okay with it. Source:

January 23, 2015 at 08:10PM

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Thursday, January 22, 2015

When you are driving behind a car exactly like yours and you begin to wonder if the person in that car is you.

When you are driving behind a car exactly like yours and you begin to wonder if the person in that car is you. Source:

January 22, 2015 at 09:19AM

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Sunday, January 18, 2015

That deep sense of pride you get when sorting your backpacking gear and noticing how perfectly packed all your tents are. Amiright??

That deep sense of pride you get when sorting your backpacking gear and noticing how perfectly packed all your tents are. Amiright?? Source:

January 18, 2015 at 09:46AM

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Sleepy face-plant kitty.



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Saturday, January 17, 2015

Just got passed by a guy riding what was clearly a homemade moped down the sidewalk.

Just got passed by a guy riding what was clearly a homemade moped down the sidewalk. Source:

January 17, 2015 at 11:09PM

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Friday, January 16, 2015

I had to go to the mall. I had forgotten how massively fucking annoying these places are.



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The coffee shop changed their cups without checking with me first and now my whole day is going to be weird.

The coffee shop changed their cups without checking with me first and now my whole day is going to be weird. Source:

January 16, 2015 at 08:09AM

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This morning I have the Destiny's Child song "Say My Name" stuck in my head, but just the chorus.

This morning I have the Destiny's Child song "Say My Name" stuck in my head, but just the chorus. Source:

January 16, 2015 at 07:59AM

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Thursday, January 8, 2015

Someone is offering to share my lunch with me.



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I worked out really hard last night and now I can't stand up.

I worked out really hard last night and now I can't stand up. Source:

January 08, 2015 at 08:13AM

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Fair Warning.


This is just a fair warning that there is some of my awful poetry below. And it really is awful. This is all, like, first draft quality stuff. Recently I was talking to a guy I’d just met and poetry came up and he asked if I was a poet and I said that I write poetry but I am not a poet and he said well if you write poetry how are you not a poet and I said that I have too much respect for the people who do it well to call myself one.

And anyway, I much prefer saying that I am “a writer”. When I say to someone that I am "a writer" what I am actually thinking in my head is that I am like a ninja’s Swiss Army Knife, but with words. Anyway, that’s always my subtext.

But you were asking about poetry.

Yeah, there is some below.

I always feel the need to preface my poetry posts with a preemptive apology like this one. Writing these apology posts about poetry always make me think of a poem by Jayne Cortez. That poem is actually called “Poetry”. Luckily for you I have the collection that it is in ... let me find it real quick … hold on … okay, here it is … the poem called “Poetry” is about poetry and here it is the part of the poem I am always reminded of when I apologize for my poetry:

Today poems are like flags
flying on liquor store roof
poems are like baboons
waiting to be fed by tourists

So there you go folks. If and when I ever get a collection of poetry published, I am going to get Jayne Cortez to blurb that about me.


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WAIT!


WAIT!

One more Jayne Cortez thing. If you ever have the chance to flip through her collection Somewhere in Advance of Nowhere, be sure to read the poem “These New York City Pigeons”. I love it. This is probably my favorite stanza:

New York City pigeons
flap viral feather fungus dust from wings to faces
then sit on steps vocalizing & waiting
for the death of humankind

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Do You Know the Way to JFK.


Do You Know the Way to JFK
by james bezerra

Uptown
Queens-bound
E Train
crossing under
East River
$22
to my name
3,000 miles
from home.
I’m not even worth mugging.
Like a monk
with just a bowl,
I got a plane ticket
a metrocard
and a smile.

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Sad Space Probes Playing Old Songs.



Sad Space Probes Playing Old Songs
by james bezerra


Sometimes
I hear songs
from when I was married
and wonder if they’re
only lonely echos
just now returning
percussion bounced
off cold canyon walls
or back
from distant stars
like sad little space probes
watching the earth
orbit away

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Shelter.


Shelter
by james bezerra

I’ve always been
a better shelter to you
than I ever was a man.

Even now, you curl
like sleep into
the skinny crook of my arm
and your eyelashes flutter
as you drift off. And away.

I was always a better lover to you
than I ever was a friend.

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Marie, the Organic Horticulturalist.




Marie, the Organic Horticulturalist
by james bezerra


The organic horticulturalist
who grows Manhattanite cannabis.
Katie Holmes pretty but clearly
with greater faculty.


In this up high westside bar where
she’s sweet enough to answer
whiskey questions about
the feel of rich soil
in one’s hands
about dirt in soft grooves of her palm.


Rain titter on rooftop canopy.
Her white sweater, maybe cashmere.
Night glow of the Empire State.
A yellow drink with an orange slice.
Deeply believes with half a smile that things will get better.


A complicated relationship,
maybe,
with peace?


A complicated relationship,
it seems,
with joy
with traffic laws
with the business of business
with leaving the stillness of the country quiet
for the elevator babylon chaos of the city.


Who can grow things
from the ground
with just time
and hands
and patience
and rain
and 
half a smile.

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Twang a Lute



That last poem was about a woman I was introduced to during my recent travels. Her name was not Marie but she actually was an organic horticulturalist and as soon as she said it I said that I was going to steal that for a poem. Those words just feel good in the mouth. Go ahead and say it out loud right now: organic horticulturalist.


It’s fun to say, right?!


This is one of those times when I would have to agree with William Burroughs in that the sound and the feel of the words is the source of our pleasure (as opposed to their meanings). I guess we should take that with a grain of salt though since Burroughs also once wrote the sentence, “Naked Mugwump twangs a lute.”


The editors here at Standardkink have been quietly muttering “the organic horticulturalist” to themselves since I wrote that last poem and they have also been composing a list of other professions which are similarly pleasurable to say out loud:


The desirable phlebotomist
The despondent urologist
The schizophrenic meteorologist
The syphilitic televangelist
The condescending dentist
The quadriplegic archaeologist
The incestious epedimiologist
The lovelorn mixologist
The flammable typist
The buoyant marine biologist
The forgetful hypnotist
The disoriented oncologist
The hearing impaired flutist
The vengeful zoologist
The moist philatelist
The inconsistent arsonist
The incarcerated organist
The debauched hydroclimatologist
The engorged pederast
The hypoglycemic pediadist
The agoraphobic aerialist
The carnivorous mammalogist
The cunning linguist
The cantankerous gastroenterologist

Spoiler alert, “The Moist Philatelist” is totally going to be the name of my band’s next album.


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A Minimalist Travelogue.


As you may very well have gathered from the metric fuckload of pictures I have posted on here recently, I went back east for Christmas and New Years. I do not have any detailed notes about the trip and I haven’t really written up a long and rambling thing about it (yet!), but below I have posted what I am going to call a minimalist travelogue. I probably couldn’t have nailed the trip better if I'd written a whole book about it.

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Trip.


Trip
by james bezerra

LA
Bus
Train
Airport
Airport bar
Plane
JFK
Cold
Taxi
Stairs stairs stairs stairs stairs
Sleep
Coffee
Walk
Cold
Wine wine wine wine wine
Train
Connecticut
Cold cold cold
Dinner
Wine wine wine wine wine wine wine
Sleep
Coffee aspirin coffee
Dinner
Unexpectedly heavy Christmas Eve sadness
Wine
Sleep
Christmas
Coffee
Wine
Sleep
Coffee
Wine
Sleep
Coffee
Wine
Sleep
New year
Coffee
Cold
Train
Snow
City
Rain
Cold
Dinner
Strawberry gimlets
Sleep
Train
Airport
Airport bar
Plane
California
Warm

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