Friday, July 13, 2012

crapture - six months in

July in rainey PDX
80's Fahrenheit, rains recede

meanwhile in Bible Belt pavements crumple
corn dies in furrow

adds 15% in a day to the price of corn fed steaks
and the gut bulge high fructose corn shill

turns out that rapture tracks
Global Warming Doubters

God Liars like Popes and ArchBishops, the boy boys
Opus Buckos, who ditch the caring nuns

for the pumps of money and power
stealing the names of God for private use

at the sign of the end of crimes
noone holds the fools to account

six months in and end predictions fall
to a dig of Science. 2012 was a Politician's Boast

bloody Aztec king long dead now in defeat
kernel of confusion stolen, making a living for a buck.

I would laugh but the glaciers die and dry
polar bears drown swimming for ice

sun fries the Shouting South
burned out telling me how to live

you ought to stake the change doubting Congress
each Summer - to a hurricane beach - while waters rise

tie the rant party holy rollers
onto the pols, for ballast

Bob Phillips
7/11/2012

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

beach where

wind whips, spruce
foggy ridge when the North wind catches
back snap when the South blows
drops rain
flipping the five inch rain column
counts again


lights, the sags interrupts


flash of a light strike
over Siletz bay rise
of snow


needle choke between deck boards
Ann just reamed


my Airedale groans
confined

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

yearglitch

as the Holliday approaches already over
end up in a talking shop
phones on block channeling some zenjungle
everyones intent and the ceilings are hard
high glass window walls
a starbucks' wifi intrudes catty corner
zooms and turns
nods of reception and look under eyebrows
in a silent swath of zenjungel the noise cancellation suffers
a bubble of babble
sax pricked


zenjungle

Monday, November 14, 2011

cell

at the edge where the dogs hold
leashed against the bars, strain
by the membrane of sleeplessness
practice calesthentic curl-ups, void at last
shit first warm, then clammy
then cold as concrete floors


in my place the laughing devil
feints my privates, so called, I curl,
hold up a name of God, ward warden


led on a leash of lampcord, I testify
through the wires on my fingers
perform for master, tiny camerav

my guide a burning bush, wick
of the righteous, stammers and stumbles
visited upon the depraved, plausible, denial

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Crapture

someones's hitting heads
and the reverb of repetition
sets in, every other beat
feet falling into it, back beat
the end the end, come up to the front


never give a preacher, I say
never give a preacher a microphone
there's money in it
money in the microphone


and absolute money corrupts
absolutely, absolute money corrupts
there's money in it
money in the microphone


someones's hitting heads
little cabbages of money
got a world wide microphone stick
thwack, thwack thwack thwack, crapture


thwack, thwack thwack thwack, wacko
saintify, all shout at once, say saintify
the pope of the pederests, everybody say
saint pederesto protect us, thwack thwack


thwack thwack thwack, crapture



Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Nagasaki Day

Nagasaki Day

Oh, you say it's not Nagasaki Day
and you may be right
or you may not know Nagasaki Day

'cuz the Bomb didn't strike exactly
as targeted - at city center - rather burst
over a Catholic Church in a poor neighborhood
for Nagasaki there was no collateral damage
we hadn't invented the term, means to obscure death
so we can't very easily talk about Nagasaki
and besides, WE DON'T DO THAT NOW...
although we reserve the right.

we have vaults with film of Nagaroshima
color photos of puddles of skin
but in order to see them, find them,
you have to believe it's Nagasaki Day

It wasn't me, you say, that chose Nagasaki
and so I don't celebrate. I honor Hiroshima
because it was first.

Shock and Awe like Blitzkrieg
drone drops not Nagasaki
'cuz the joystick jockeys in aircon Vegas trailers
paint their death and watch it
dulled by a flickerhypno screen

maybe they're flying air Nagasaki
in a small way, you say.
there may be Collateral Damage...
The drones aren't carrying nukes

But I say every day is Nagasaki Day,
we reserve the right...

-bob phillips
8/3/2011

seedbank of shames

seedbank of shames

when the secrets spawned
'shrooms of Japan, cinder and flay

the Ministry of Terrible Shames
sent witnesses in, who filmed in technicolor the crusted streets
and dollied through shells of Church and Work
some few pausing to take a view of festering
flesh and pain stoic faces
in drop zones set for entire cities
to char the enemy; children and worshipers, combatants all

the Ministry made excuses
cut films to advertize terrible effectiveness
of Shames bombs, so they could bomb Shames again

However, they were frightening to see in color
so the Ministry of Shames marked them Top Secret
and hid them in the Archives of Shames
and suppressed other films that caused fear of Shames

even now, when power stations of Shames spew out
the Ministry protects the Bomb and Power of Shames.
even as we try to speak of it, they hide Shames
filter Shameful news...
you must know Shames are there, to find them

bob phillips
8/3/2011

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

gutter legends

gutter legends


the map of gutters marks unmentionable absence
in ranks of opening

six feet broad and 10 inches high
an entry to residence except for sudden eviction

tiny grates that clog and moss
small enough to filter butts and litter

sinkholes that drop into leached ground
tipping the surface with them

the myriad pumps that drain millenial Oglalla
subsistence sea and finish in vapor, like desert clouds

the sideways drill casings of Texas
that change running under from water to money

the caverns of Vegas with indigent paintings
watermarked with flashes and function, as it was

-bob phillips

Sunday, July 31, 2011

coyote caiparinia dance


working through the mint of scents
at the foot of rosebush cluster
yote gits a nibble of piss mint
some long dog passing psychotropes into cover
a half block further starts to come on
phantom bitch shadows saccades
prey twitch waft
rainbow haloes stars and polelights
yote circles back to that mint stand
tosses dancemint into possibles bag, might need this
whimpering fun

Coyote UrYote from Coyote Runs

coyote ur yote



from mind withdrawn
efference
epherence
ephemerence
analysed as myth a name for the tail

sit round
passing round
shares
dooby dooby
do

what I was saying
comes round again
flickers minders
flicks
a column of smoke

a song for that
round of changes
pick of regulars
bridge of tales
warm fireside and backside to cold

Sunday, September 6, 2009

toilet ocean


loose turd of plastic

the size of Texas

spins at Vortex

of Toilet Ocean


unknown 'cuz you can't say Turd

in polite company

or even on rude conspiracy cable news

it's the Turd of America, spinning, Turd

of Japan and China, Viet Nam.

all the coastal cities

and the cities on rivers

flush to Toilet Ocean

and tangle at Turd Vortex


Tornadoes of plastic Turd

shrouding whales and dolphins

choking birds with six pack garrots

filling the dead zones of fertilizer overburn

plastic Turdy Tombstones on lifeless bottom


winding up at night while you dream

of consume, winding like Hurricane

Turd, Category 5, maybe 9 on the consumer scale

fed by warm currents of consume

little spiral arms of plastic Turd

break onto beaches with the viral tide

astroturf astrosurf


echoing Mr. Robinson's line –

the future's in Plastic

future, futurd... future, futurd

the future's in Plastic


9/6/09

Bob Phillips

Friday, May 15, 2009

trashlines

Trashlines
politics of easy tags

cutout Cheney crashes on point
mouth mouth of industmili TAR tarry
like a yellow discarded filter butt
leaching in the gutter

cuz the main brain doesn't like to be seen
seen talking, herd talking sheeple

gutter boarding surfs up
slime sly whispers on the beach
of talking waves, assert and deny
trashline of con deposits

truth a manatee cut by props
awash in the Rushes

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

half an hour

half an hour

against the context of a library, series of performances in the past, who will you read with, the names you recover cannot read, as they have already performed. a name arrives in an email, nobody you can remember.

last week the hard disk refused to respond to the laptop bios. there are backups, you descend into the spiral of recovery, pausing to consider. as a system manager you learned to make platforms of analysis and recovery, separate and distinct. each time this fails, some way, unanticipated improvisation requirements. a cold reach for the last chance. you could fail.

a tea party where each brings something and performs it, the flash of the Chinese literati in a context of examinations and duty. steady hand on the brush from years of application. relaxed but firm enough that no one can pull it from your grasp. not a set piece, revised and tuned, but application of the systematic derangement of choice.

a sheaf of papers shuffling order. lines excised on the fly. a wind disperses pages. little rips of paper marking pages pulled out in a sequence. shuffling cards like Nabokov.

the wit to proceed.

bringing in a technology that slices, cut and paste, revision control possible. used and denied at once. shit happens. it fails, nothing as you assumed. the reflexes of your language. the accidents of voice.

you wanted to use the mimeograph as an artifact of production, saving the components, gathering supplies, but your skills fade into a panic without a manual. you are left with the poem of process, like affronts to the cleanliness of the grant application clan. cock prints in the university toilets taken from the mimeo master, let nothing go to waste. affront and center. the cover a Kraft grocery bag with a clean cotton ball attached. you don't convince and don't get the money.

the audience doesn't know what to expect, without the norms. quiet certainty. not the Satyricon Sunday Cabaret staged before a rank of drunks who will heckle and take it from you. your voice like the brush of a calligrapher in training.

then the sneezes of spring. hangovers of excess. disappointment of expectation. harsh tonsils rough in the throat.

hook and slice two notebooks at the same time. which one will out?

a month and a week to tell. your wife wants a vacation in the capital. you add on embellishments. unable to take the equipment in a rehearsel of the problem. your house guest wants to have a conversation. put a dvd in the player. there is not enough time, never will be.

practice this again.

Da Capo


Sunday, April 12, 2009

费伯 --- use it up, white guy

I know this is 'loose' translation... I always had ambivalent feelings about my Chinese teacher. Han old timer.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

resist fours

resist fours


a torturing application applied

it looks like newspaper in drag, greasy hair

faltering on heels and forward

everything you could desire wrapped up for profit

and perfume, Plunder, leaks from razor burned pits


I hold me to cities of imagination where concept hides

Morella on a crag of the moors

Moquit of the Spanish moss trailing

Carra where the black crows roost together

Roon dammed at the edge of marsh, tunnel


across a matrix of fours combinations tether like sessile fiber

like a sparse 4x4 tacking a boulder in the wash

the results of the operation are in air,

whistling breaths, carbon burn – exhaust

your mother's tit was an exhaust pipe


I carry questions in a net woven from tree of bags, bags

I climb like a goat on slant branches, gathering

knotting, reach out to the furthest branch; depend on a slimmer

belay round crotch and dangle

I know the predictive algorythm when I copy


at morning I wake and at first am speechless, gathering night

from the questions 'What's Happening?' stitch of the land moving

stitch of plates, fill master, suppression of doubt 'Who's there?'

harsh answer of bump plate, stitch of randomness

little variations of chance.


bob phillips

Thursday, March 26, 2009

elegy

“Stories from the End of Representation”
for Tom Taylor

tape loop, edits with a grease pencil
automatic focus, the click of the iris in a cycle of camera feedback, camera
cradled at elbow, the suppression of loud breathing, a tripod of braced legs
against pole, elbows pulled into chest, the act of handing over camera control,
anxiety at the loss of control, delight at the result, shotgun microphone in the shot,
tape loop in multiple machines draped around a gallery, tape as time, the whine of heads
clog of heads, bumping the support, dropping the deck

set ups in storefronts, living rooms, classrooms, zoom in, focus, then zoom out, spaghetti city, duct tape
stepping away from back light windows, sm57, portapak, 7.5 seconds back wrap, stopwatch,
sync, loss of sync, jitter, helical scan, shopping cart dollies, rollers, oxide clogging heads, setup
teardown, cables, adapter, bnc, back porch, flyback, in the black, interference, ground, tbc, time base,
rca, balanced line, unbalanced, tape tension, tube burn, vidicon, viewfinder, head cleaner, cotton swab,
open reel, half inch, three quarter inch, cartridge, capstan, crt, cathode ray tube,

hands on, auto-focus, manual, gain, blooming, tripod, hand held, mobile, charger, batteries, earphones,
solder, soldering iron, scope, meter, agc, gain, loss, voltage, current, impedance match, balun,
drop, feed, case, deck, adapter, ac, dc, humbars, hum, color bars, chroma, comb filter, heterodyne,
beats, white balance, color balance, horizontal, vertical, front porch, amps, cart, chamois swabs, alcohol, freon, dust, rubber rollers, reels, tape, cartridge, terminator, mismatch, flagging, time base,
compensation, loaner, playback, record, pause, fuse, fluid head, lights, barn door, back light, fill,
auxiliary, in, out, zoom, fade, black, headphones, mike, mixer, pan, tilt, level, case, phase shift, ghost,
delay, antenna, coax, wire, dikes, screwdriver, wrench, probe, voltmeter, strippers, crimp, pliers,
monitors, splitter, winding tape, rewind, forward, fast forward, proc amp

duen de
machinos soft spoke listening
duen des hermanos
de corison

always soft spoken in my hearing
on solutions' offering

who knows the order of pivotal
intervention, without a claim of intervention

salute, skip thirty years

tech bolus stalls a poem, lateral inhibition
slight hesitates as you reach for

slap unfolding of a folding chair, ranged
in circles, facing, in rows, screening

circle round table at a wake

Saturday, March 21, 2009

backwater neighborhood wifi

just down 15th from Peets and the Satuday Swarm -- a Mio Gelatto with an open connection. The dog and I share the patio tables. traffic pulse reduced.

Monday, March 2, 2009

remix starter kit

take Rudy Rucker: Postsingular and Bruce Sterling: Caryatids. remix . needs 中文的压缩 ya1 suo1 compression - paragraphs in a tweet


dimensional yurts, slats cloned from loading pallets. sargasso brane slow twhirl irictus. the avataricon with a flash snap looped in it. not that flash, one of the old burn the filaments flashes. fused bulb in a lock in pop out socket.


lozenge of light highlights tracking training precursor. as a twit trains brains. node brain mindmap freemind fan out. scanulator. #wordsperminute. speedereader.


try to say skiddle instead of [product here]. you can't do it, once exposed.


they may even tm tm miss-spellings.


so then you file a counter claim citing skaddle, skidaddle. old language past the pull date.


tribal outriders balloon and (where did they get sticks in the gobi? ) bubble pack hang glider thermal glits. remade sheep gut stretches bird hollow sparbones.


lung dust. 'it shouldn't be like this'. denied because you smoked the ciggies they handed out for free.


{better dumpto, incase i select and backspace} terrifytool.



Sunday, March 1, 2009