Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Excerpts from a 25th Wedding Anniversary Speech


Isn't this fun?
...
Mom and dad, being on your twenty fifth anniversary you must have been married a very long time. At least twenty years. Precisely somewhere between twenty and thirty years. That's older than I am! Probably.
...
Amazing. A-mazing.
...
Mom and dad, your dedication to each other gives me the courage to let myself invest myself emotionally in women. Specific women. I'm confident that I will maintain successful relationships in all my future marriages.
...
Mom and dad, you are singular to me. I email you both at the same time and when I say mom and dad I don't address each of you individually, but the two of you as an entity.
...
Hello Ja ja!
...
I know you wanted to have two beautiful baby daughters, but I assure you if I were born a girl I'd have had a sex change by now.
...
Mom and dad, thank you for loving each other and loving me and Mike. It let us not worry about family stuff so we could develop freely into super kick ass awesome dudes like us.
...
Guys, I love you.

How Visiting Your Family Warps Your Brain

From: Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

Dec. 29, 2008 -- Visiting -- or even just viewing photos of family members -- prompts brain activity that affects how you feel about them, your friends, and even yourself, a new study suggests.
The study is the first to compare brain activity associated with seeing relatives with that linked to seeing friends and strangers. It suggests our feelings about biological relatives are at least somewhat primal.
The findings may help explain everything from why our family can get on our nerves to why people who look like us can spark immediate feelings of trust, "but not lust," said Steven Platek, who co-authored the study with Shelly Kemp.
"We like to be around people that look more like us, but we do not find them as sexually attractive," added Platek, editor-in-chief of the journal Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience. "I think it is linked to our subconscious ability to detect facial resemblances so we avoid lusting after those that may be related to us."

Previously Written: A Violent Welcome


I have wonderful news, my takaw peoples. I was so impressed with a certain Jessika Aldridge's ability to create beautiful images with an effortless flow, and so touched by her work, which is packed full of emotion without becoming melodramatic, that I asked her if she would be interested in becoming a full time Crispy Pata author. It turns out she was just as excited with the thought as I was!


To celebrate, this week's edition of Previously Written features a collaberation between Jessika and I. About a year ago, we were reading a lot of Sean Thomas Dougherty. This poem is a cover of one of his that we worked on together.

Piano Violence

Can you break the keys
over her head in a rhythm?
To plink a tune like a monkey on a
coconut hanging in a window at
Barneys in New York City, with eyes
drooping like an elephants breasts
shortly after birth. Yes, I see sea foam
turn into diamonds off the coast of
Florida on a wintry morning, while shellfish
make love in the garbage.
Sailors poke their Linuses in the sails of the
ship and I wonder if they’ve ever eaten
crabs from the caves in France.
A dessert from the diner just outside of
San Antonio reminds me of bananas shucked from
beaten up pick up trucks by Canadians with
headbands. Frilly dresses of purple and yellow dance
while ukeleles play from a rooftop and
dogs lap at water dripping from a holey anaconda
consuming a fat woman.
You are a prisoner on death row, waiting for burnt
biscuits and sea fairing winds. Alcatraz mothers
you, and I try desperately to gather the sandpipers at
my feet. Your ship stinks off the coast of
Bombay; the cargo on board smells like tea bags and olives.
I give my last toothpick to an old man in a
mall, in Manila, and a little girl asks for a red fox in
sheeps underwear. I reply that foxes only live
in coral reefs and I have never ventured to Sydney.
I stroll to a bend in the road, and fight the
people who ate bread off a plate, plain and dry,
like a piece of sandpaper on my tongue.
I take the left side of the road, because that’s what side
the trees lean to, and I find a factory run by
the Holy Ghost and Mo Rocca. They specialize
in plastic chimneys and air fresheners that only work
next to mirrors in old buicks. I ask them for a flavor of
birch tree and rye, and they tell me that they haven’t
made that since you left for good. See, this is why I need the
phonecall. You were the only one that could keep
the house from rolling onto mice and men.
And when you pick up, you say to me
She is a little girl eating violins.

Outgrowing the band


Do re mi fa so la la la lalalalala

Monday, December 29, 2008

Man carrying over $70 chooses jail over $1.57 soda

Wonder how he felt when he sobered up?

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. – Eau Claire police said a man accused of stealing a soda worth $1.57 chose to go to jail rather than pay up, even though he was carrying more than $70. Police responding to the report of a theft recently say the 27-year-old man appeared drunk. An employee told officers the man had taken a cup from the counter, filled it and began drinking.
When employees told him he had to pay for the drink or leave, the man refused to do either.
A police officer told the man he could pay $1.57 or go to jail, and the man chose jail. The officer handcuffed and searched him, finding the money in his pocket.
The man was issued an ordinance citation for retail theft.

10 Things Women Do That Annoy Men

From iVillage.com

BTW: This is the most generic list I have ever read. Do men really feel like this?

10. Pretend To Be Virtuous <----What does that mean?
9. Criticize Other Women <---- Ok, I'll give you that one
8. Act Jealous
7. Become Needy <--- I want to know how someone "becomes" needy
6. Speak In Code with phrases like “What are you thinking”
5. Invade Our Personal Space & Groom Us
4. Become Too Emotional
3. Spend Too Much Time Shopping <---I'd say this is more rare than people think
2. Talk Non-Stop, Men Don’t Want All The Details
1. Use Sex As Weapon <----Does this mean, withholding?

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Antelope

She won’t understand these words Her ears are those of husks and caves with no
Echo
Her eyes are oysters hiding pearls of tears Her nerves are winged black birds
Echo
Her heart is the thump underneath my feet Her fingers twist my words into an
Echo
Her voice is the rising sun Hot with memories and feelings of him

And yet

I need for her to listen To the running antelope inside of me
Echo
I need for her to hug me To take what I say and drink it silently
Echo
I need for her to speak like I am someone A person who is not always going to
Echo

Her past.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Darwin 2


Gandalf staggered and fell, grasped vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss. 'Fly, you fools! ' he cried, and was gone. Aragorn clutched the shrieking Dodo to his chest and dragged him out the cave whilst Legolas snootily whipped his hair back several times.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Ode to Foie Gras


I hope
that when my enzymes puncture
your membrane it splatters
like stomping a juicebox
of multipurpose plasma.
I sincerely wish
for each of your molecules to burst
like the spine
of a wooden angel
against my knee.
Our first showdown
I did not puke
you out because I was sure
the squeaky Samoyed
on the couch was gonna lap
up my vomit
and throw you up
with equal zeal.
Friday night after Saturday night
of teenage binge drinking Rosie dragged
me ninety minutes
on that last yellow tram
into France
and down two hills
three farms
a trillion cobblestones
and past an autistic kangaroo
so we could lean
across the tiny marble island
in her kitchen
and eat you.
Gradually my tongue
realized that piping
corn down a frightened duck's
throat until its stomach exploded
and then extracting
and frying its liver
granted it nothing
less than a victory of flavor.
Today if I were to return to school,
rather than eat valu time
whipped cream
off a stripper's pubis
while she did a natural light
keg stand I would force
my friends to sit
in a dorm room
play darts
listen to jazz
drink cheap champagne
and eat you
like a classier insecure freshman.
I drip
funky church water
on myself just to pray
that next time we dine
your full body
is kebabed
on my cupcake's nipple
and continues to synthesize
glucose produce
albumin and break down
hemoglobin in a delicious
hepatocytic free for all
that makes the sheep
proud on doomsday.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Wisdoms: The Philippine Inquirer



"The top 5 foods Filipinos look forward to for Christmas are:

1. Lechon (Suckling Pig)
2. Fruit and Macaroni Salad
3. Spaghetti
4. Ham
5. Queso de Bola (Dutch Edam Cheese)"

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Playing Drunken Poker on Christmas Eve


Baby cousins kneel entranced by pikachu directing other fuzzy lethal creatures to decorate a redwood in Antarctica twenty feet away from this gambling vortex of menthol smoke.

Previously Written: Super Haiku Experiment

These are six of my first ten poems, not including "Ode to a Hole" and "Ode to Drawing", both of which I wrote when I was nine. I don't remember how those two poems went but looking back at it now I think I was better at naming poems before I hit double digits.

Super Haiku Experiment

Lioness

Predator princess
peripherally predicts
Pepe’s pregunta

Predator princess
Learns from mama to pounce first
Ask questions later

Pounce first, ask questions
later. Why you ask? Because
Mufasa said so.

I like this better

Ghazal ribs implode
from the gravity bomb or
haiku’s fluffy paw

Ghazal ribs cave in
from the wrecking ball that is
haiku’s fluffy paw

The Chase

Spotted hunger sprints
sixty five miles per hour
Run motherfucker!

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Monday, December 22, 2008

I'm Not The Author: How to Eat Golden Cows by Jessika Aldridge

Jessika Aldridge is an exceptionally gifted poet, a beautiful woman and a wonderful person. When she isn't writing kick ass poems she is working two jobs to support her family and going to body pump class to keep her shape hawt.


How to eat golden cows
by Jessika Aldridge

Your skin
Desired look: underside of your husbands balls:
Simply squish cherries between your fingers,
Paint your eyesockets,
Exfoliate with the dirt inside your stomach.

Your toes
Desired look: little peach carrots on the end of your foot:
Do fifty kegels every ten minutes
With your peace sign in the air,
And your bra smothered in tomato sauce.

Your nails
Desired look: shiny coins baking in an oven:
Carefully tie a red ribbon around your neck
With your tongue thrusting on the roof of your mouth,
Gently tug on your clitoris until
You can barely see it.

I have cleaned my teeth with the steams of
Underwater trees and I have brushed my hair
With the hands of dead grandfathers;
Why must I now rub my intestine with
Rhine of orange just to be considered?



Ilocos Norte


sounds like bampire.
Lola heps heps in the van.
Ipis and butiki fight over my dandruff.
Stupid van bounces along so long we roll backwards
like iron plates loving deep fried pork belly
bagnet magnets and macabre Marcos tombs
spotlit in black dimensions and pre prerecorded anthems.

May the light shine upon you too, jeproks!
say dad’s actually rather wholesome flickr clique aware
of uploads proportional to lola heps heps in the van.

We revisit church no. 3 when the lighting is better
and truck no. 6 when the church isn’t in the way.
Museum no. 4 the sixty year old toothless guide
in a wifebeater and John Stockton shorts
is hella dal dal and fetches
me when I wander away from his lecture.
Museums no. 1-9 are people’s old houses.
Lola heps heps in the van.

Rustic and tropic, we sleep eat and tour
walang working faucets walang yellow walang bedsprings.
Tabo showers. The whole beach has wireless.
Lola heps heps in the van.

Wisdoms: Bei Dao

"Give your poems gravity."

Previously Written: Adventure

This is a poem I wrote about Magellan. I was reading a lot of Natasha Trethewey at the time, but I don't know if that shows.

Adventure


Explorer of the world, Magellan sailed
his Victoria across the planet’s everywhere,

Rabban beard crisp from the absorption
of salt water. Seeking a path to

the spice islands of Indonesia,
he camped in a smaller archipelago,

of only seven thousand islands. Drunk,
Spain’s adopted son declared the Sugboanons

servants of God and Spain, worse,
pronounced the people of Mactan enemies

of the Church. Ferdinand began his crusade
two weeks later, exacting holy terror

shaped as axes, swords, crossbows, guns
and cannons – all the marshmallows in

16th century lucky charms: Catholic edition.
Boats and artillery left behind

because of rocky waters, Magellan and his top
fifty favorite Spaniards stormed the Mactan

beach to find one thousand five hundred
infidels chilling, their kampilan, spears and poison

arrows rising slowly before they burned
down the wind, suffocating the Westerners

with a rice and fish diet
and a grand putang ina mo.

Filipinos always had great appetites.
Chieftain Lapu-Lapu, ever the hero,

chased Magellan back into the water,
the only thing to love him back.

When Lapu-Lapu impaled
the first man to cross the globe,

he jammed his spear into the sand,
so the explorer would drown

before he bled to death. Five hundred
years previous, those islanders, who slaughtered

the great Ferdinand Magellan,
rode boats of their own to

Madagascar and South America, while
Spain bribed the ruling Moors

with a flat-rate supply of virgins
to postpone the Muslim invasion.

It took half a millennium for someone else to figure out the Pacific.

Darwin


Yo saber tooth cat
I tell you don't do you do look at

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Jazz


"Tigers are so BADASS," she marveled,
"if I were an animal I would fuck one, no question."
The two half tons of feline muscle glanced at her
before they returned to pacing
and licking their chops at the baby goat
next-cage neighbors.

"If you were a tiger--"
"If I was any animal at all."
"People are--"
"If I was a chimp. Or a magic carpet."
"That's some Aladdin shit."
"I know RIGHT!?"

#3

Hello my lovelies. I am Pepe and this will be my third attempt at blogging.

This time I will be better because I cannot escape poetry. Is it because poetry is my escape?

Peps