Their Guys, Their Asian Glittering Guys, Are Gay

from Michael Magee's Mainstream Poetry (Blazevox, 2006)

Ten years and this will be just another big Asian city, like
countries and let the Empire swallow them for their own benefit.
Brutus and Ajo look at me, pity in their eyes. Maybe the thin
Asian chick, burgundy car coat, Hong Kong chic. They like
opium, the old guys down in Chinatown: pick up trucks,
insinuating that guys with trucks are deconstructing ads,
explaining their basic meaning by Asian Norms: about six
guys although on some occasions they bring in the 6, picked
up and grunted as they made their way ... Asian Santa is 7" tall.
The “green” is still spotted with snow, but the flag is up, the ball
is on the green, and the Golf Guys have their drivers ready.
You always hear about sleazy guys who get blowjobs matching
their spectacular looks to Kimmy, a 21-year-old Asian cutie.
Young ladies dial a number on their cell phones--I understand.

The country guys are having a model minority Asian
stereotype in a carton which the guys really enjoyed (occasion
was the baptism of their sons). I don’t want to sound stereo-
typical, but most Asian people I HAVE MET, are pretty short.
Their evil plots always lose in the end and Asian girl in shower
makes soapy mess, soaking wet both in and out of their Hispanics––
different, however, depending on their skin tone: my lights
went off so the two guys couldn’t but he was definitely Asian
or Malaysian or something. The 2000s may well be the Asian
century, a fantasy world where even the bad guys are beautiful.
With their easy going nature (you will find I’m sitting at work),
the guys with the white-striped manes (my eyes had switched
from their normal green) have a special girl or guy and watch
the “biker-bankers” tear off their Hell’s Angels with a party
of gun-toting guys heading to the grubby paws of horny
girls and guys grabbing make-out session to titillate straight
guys (epitome of the Dragon Lady cum Asian sex goddess).

An Asian woman who spoke little English kept asking
about tomorrow. They expected to see an Asian in the
remote areas. Guys in military uniforms will pass out
queue numbers: octopus cooked in their own ink is a Spanish favorite.
On Friday mornings regardless of their age, gender, the bed slipped
into recession. A full month of Asian action and general
weirdness after the 1998 Asian markets crisis, a bigger, nastier
version of the little guys that you rape with less than 3 guys
behaving like the Killing Angel, each for their own reasons,
more like an alien than an Asian. An Asian business man rips off
his coat, revealing a glittering, Vegas style. What this guy
should really do is take apart the upper right hand corner
for a glittering gender: predominantly female ethnicity.

Tomorrow, the English guys are drinking: enjoy engaging
with their culture caught in between two guys while a video
camera mounted in the wall behind their couch OH NO! NOT!
jams mint into her mouth. Guys in pajamas of every color
but gold prefer to walk in the dark and bang their shins.
“Are you guys alright?” There was no response in that communiqué.
The hungry and naked spend their lives doing only this;
they don’t really look Asian, necessarily, so much ... I
always figured that if the guys guess what was on their logo,
the crazy guys in movies (you know the type––guys who will
write happy talk hammering out the best deal for
their fighter, “a real fight”), our little guys are ruined. The others
turned to see one of their men had fallen. Indeed, despite his glittering
blues, greens, and silvers (“As we retreated two white guys on
bikes appeared...”) they had him tied up in their old Frontier.

Polie

I sleep w/ a polar bear each night named Polie
I'd love to say we make our own pantsicle fun
also known as "barfing up poop"

basically I drank too much last night and I've always wanted a panda bear
and a cow

the cat is barfing in my shoe because
pants are for girls

your monkey has infested this place and
disguises himself as an Italian and kills people

jungle folks are up in the morning and at all
hours of the night and day
and upchucking when they are pinging and so
I doubt anyone would want to see that

trimethylxanthine is the compound
of super barfing? or eating chocolate meat

and so what if the occasional really cute talking polar bear
mentioned getting oboe as a result when it was
at the top of the list of sounds

it's a barfing buffalo and well, it likes to barf I think

barfing really screws me up

this is a great clip of a kid barfing on TV

I don't know when Laura's having her tonsils out or where

chemotherapy smells like a polar bear

Some Major Flaws in Evolutionary Theory

few artists can claim the worldwide superstar status
of Simply Red

anyone can claim they believe in God but
excuse me your balls are showing

the point behind the Creation
was to mock the argument that 9/11 was an inside job

and why it's another heavily spoiled Neon Genesis Evangelion thread
to full-out laming decline

I saw a fucktard talking to a certain someone
being assraped by her work and crap that innovating new sound

as a scientist, I shouldn't have to tell you that
"experimental" simply means some fucktard 12-year-old playing the drums

the conversation is as follows
pain in the ass "fat fuck"

somewhere right there I'll be
shoot me now! my wallet is made of duct tape

in fact we still had to pretend that we live in a
George W. Bush fucktard discussion

because the ratio of her ass to the sugar-free bumblebee guy-tini
is simple enough for her to NOT expand

because elves look good without shirts
(in this case, we see evolution)

every night I look at the sky...
BUMBLEBEE FAIRIES!

I like certain color schemes as well, i.e.,
black/white, black/yellow, fuckity/fuckity/fuck

I simply must state a counter point, balls on YOUR face
I happen to agree that you are a fucktard

the gym is fun ain't great like a good sex scene
"OK" is more betterer than "doot doot doot doot"

but I totally couldn't spell, GRRR
what a burn on fucktard

which I apparently think otherwise
hey, dog owners, fuck you

and a big fuck you to any crybaby emo bubblegum pop-punk bands
I may have overlooked

it just doesn't work, the fuck you completely overshadows the fucktard
man you're an angry person

your socialite name is Bumblebee Chicago
get out of the house meet someone without your credit card

at this point, a "startling discovery" would be
all the horrors that life will inflict upon you

this is where I bitch and slowly go crazy
that's the norm in New England

Kent Johnson Gets Life In Prison

U.S. Judge Leonie Brinkema sent Kent Johnson to prison for life Thursday to "die with a simper" for his role in the 1996 Yasusada hoax, and subsequent annoyance of everyone except Forrest Gander and John Latta. The Midwestern goldbricker declared: "God save--Chris Daniels--you will never be like him." The unrepentant Johnson capped the two-month trial with an intense exchange that will mark the defendant's last public words before his incarceration.

According to the jury, catching sight of a pretty woman was enough to throw Johnson's decision-making skills into disarray. The more testosterone he had, the stronger the effect. Men about to play the financial game were shown images of sexy women or lingerie. The jury found they were more likely to accept unfair sexual cues that distract the men from focusing on their task which is belligerently provoking hysterically angry defensive blog comments from otherwise mild-mannered poets.

A day earlier, the jury rejected the government's case to "see the sun, to hear the birds, the birds can go wherever they want, right?--that's why they are a symbol of freedom in poetry." There's more to the story, for the simple reason that every time Johnson opens his mouth he deliberately contradicts all human imagination with a kind of brittle ego management system. "Mr. Johnson, you came here to be a martyr in a great hate orgy of glory," she said, "but to paraphrase the poet T.S. Eliot, instead you will die with a simper." The flat language & spastic lineation and obvious punning of this statement sentenced Johnson to six life terms without the chance of any publications or reviews of his work (except self-publishing at work). Arthur Vogelsang who, along with Mr. Johnson, lost his sense of humor in the 1996 poetry hoax, has come to see the creation of the poet as a professor who for some reason thinks he's anywhere near as scathing or amusing as Ed Dorn on a bad day--he isn't.

The Pentagon was one of three institutions Johnson allowed to speak on his behalf at the brief sentencing hearing. It turned to Johnson and said, "There is still one final judgment day, and if this were the only poem in which the language sounded like badly translated High Church Slavonic, one might be able to sustain such a reading, but the faults of your verse should lead to having you ignored, though I like it when you fuck with people I secretly hate."

Not all jurors were convinced that Johnson, who was in jail on listserv troll charges, had a significant part in the hoax, despite his boastful claims that he did. He gave his version of having like nine people read any of his poetry for his whole life, and that he suffered a difficult childhood in a dysfunctional family where he spent many of his early years in and out of orphanages. Three found that Johnson only played a minor role in the hoax. Using evidence gathered in the largest investigation in U.S. history, prosecutors achieved a preliminary victory making him eligible for the death penalty because he kept agents from discovering that smug, purposeless, and self-congratulatory creative acts can get a rise out of clinically depressed people with rage management issues.

Defense lawyers overcame the impact of two dramatic appearances by Johnson himself--first to renounce his years wasted writing earnest poetry that nobody read, then gloating that "this is just getting better and better." (Does this sound like it was written in the 60s?) Why are we still talking about this?

"You have branded me as a terrorist or a criminal or whatever," he said. "Look at yourselves. I fight for my belief." He spoke for less than five minutes; the judge told him he could not use his sentencing to make a plug for his new chapbook. Johnson sat in his chair staring mournfully at a faded Art Garfunkel album, betraying no emotion and flashing a victory sign.

"Mr. Johnson, when this proceeding is over and the sun no longer rides its chariot across the cobalt ocean of the sky, everyone else on the listserv of human civilization will start admiring James and the Giant Peach and thinking that this makes them happier rather than more spiteful." "All to my point," Johnson tried again to interrupt her, but she raised her voice and spoke over him. "You will never get a chance to post to anyone's comment field again and that's an appropriate ending." But Johnson continued, "The world paints me as a secretive, cackling goldbricker hiding in cowardly fashion behind the scenes, motivated by sardonic smugness and misanthropic disdain, and that's true, but I'm really a good guy--see, I have a copy of your chapbook right here as I perfunctorily insult you."

That Johnson suffers a mental illness and that actually bothering to get mad at him would make him a martyr is obvious. No jurors indicated on the verdict form that they gave any weight to those ideas of "reading" and the "responsibility" of the author, who actually does exist, but not for the reasons you think, but for purpose of delivering pleasure to others, including the pleasure of not taking people seriously. But even with heart-rending testimony from nearly four dozen victims of the hoax the testimony forced some jurors to wipe tears from their eyes--the jury was not convinced that Johnson deserved to die just for being a depressing reminder of their own worst moments.