The melon hides
the head
in wood. So what

is just
a faded
Should.

The new hot
pan in town
bordered by

holes. What did
the bleeding get
out. what did

you think, drink
at stars, a flagging
hoarse and guided

stab.



Today's reading: Norman Fischer's Charlotte's Way, in the beautiful edition from Tinfish Press (one long fold-out sheet, put together so well that I didn't see the seams until I was looking for them). I've found it hard to get incredibly excited about Fischer's work, but the straightforward, observant humility of this long poem makes me certain I'll come back to it for a second try. Its way of mapping daily experience and thought is an interesting contrast to Larry Eigner's.

I also read around a little in Benjamin Friedlander's The Missing Occasion of Saying Yes. I feel a strong kinship with Friedlander. His way of disrupting the poem, to fracture the smoothness in short lyrics, to introduce swift turns that send the energy of the poem off in unexpected directions, is something a lot of poets could learn from. I think he's at his best when he's not trying too hard to be "wrong"--I don't have any problem with obscenity, fecal matter, and so on, but it's less striking in his work than the other forms of disruptiveness there.