Friday, May 29, 2009

god - spectacle


The final poem in my series of divine poetry. It's almost as if god himself is weeping because it's over (but he's the type to believe in reincarnation, so don't fret). Hope you enjoyed the poetry, and lookout for a big announcement next week.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

god - dummy



The next in a series of poems featuring god, Christopher Savage, some unexplained touching, and poetry!!!



text:
god: dummy


paint blood red
my
waist in a
field of ivy
roiling with summer
heat;

I watch two lovers
kiss another’s
hands and
recite poetry.

garbage heap,
love,
silver and tin
humps,
old bottles of port
and rye,
giggling mouse
faced chickies,
and
an unencumbered
rendezvous of
old airplane buckles.

god is charity

Monday, May 25, 2009

god - spectacle


Another in my latest series featuring that ne'er-do-well God. Yum, poetry on Memorial Day. Who would have thought?



text:
god: spectacle


silver eyelets
on Spanish statues,
dear boys
in choir
open-mouthed
and gyrating
with swaths of gold
trim
adorning their
robes.
evil on a windowsill,
hammer fall and
blissful meadow ouch,
latent blue
architecture,
marvelous damsels,
and old
Idaho busted
loose.

god calls you,
he
calls!

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Just for You

For a limited time, erstwhile Austinite and artist Rell Ohlson is accepting commissions for drawings and paintings according to a selection of thematic guidelines, such as science fiction, cult film, and food. She will also entertain special requests if she can accommodate them. In her own words:

"Right now I am offering my services to you, my lovely friends. Nothing dirty, folks. I will make YOU your very own piece of art, for a measly twenty dollars. Uniformly, every drawing/painting will be 5x7 inches, on white or colored paper, unframed. But my lovelies, you get to request a theme from my usual deck of cards, or make a very special request that I will try to accommodate, if possible. No shipping costs, just twenty little dollars. Who doesn't like that?"


You can view a gallery of her recent works on her Flickr page. If you're interested in purchasing a piece you can do so on her blog, rellohlson.blogspot.com.


[Full disclosure: I'm dating Rell. We have a "domestic partnership," which is secular heathen-speak for living in sin.]

god - Hosea

God poetry? Sure, we got that.






text:
god: Hosea


there were no men
at large
with shadow sprayed
onto factory wall
chanting
for my death.
they were instead
dirt-faced in the
ditches
spewing industry.
Hosea
had come
for a killing,
licking
his teeth
for salt
and brandishing twin
pistols.

lightning!
grace!

a summons to
the wild and
the tethered;
unfetter and
ring,
sheets of glass and apples.




...also...have a great vacation, Erin. Say hello to Ma and Pa Vaughan for me!

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

god - tunic

Hey guys, here's the next installment to the series featuring god and my epic ass getting down on some crazy poetry. Did somebody say "Waiting for Godot?"







text:
god: tunic


timeless
seasons
festering in slurry,
merry
brigands cheering
the plight of
orphans.
call
me
servile;
I am
a
light pole on the
outskirts!

Monday, May 18, 2009

god - onslaught

Hey guys, here's a new poetry series from yours truly. I'm still fiddling around with my audio software stuff, so I figured, why not channel the very voice of god to preach good old poesy to the masses. Enjoy!






text:
god: onslaught


all
is
spectacle!
shimmer cloud
town
brandy women
clanging trousers
in ribbon-less back
alleys
hot-breathed and
barbarous;
an aluminum can
sliding the creek
gravel-faced
junior-hearted
and lithic;
I
am
a lace lingering
the edge of a high-rise
starry billboard
advertising sunkenless
tobacco
wretching smog sunsets.

oh
I am
yours.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

might I share some insanity with you?


Hey folks, I've recently downloaded some audio software and have been screwing around with sound. Here's an example:



and here's some poetry to accompany the insanity (go ahead and read the poems with the sound playing; it's zen kooky)


colors and marriage


choose silver
for a glass color
and
chase away with tonic, with
gin,
with suspenders;

the musicians in corollary row,
black and
blue,
singing an oeuvre
of the best times to bow
tie,
to digest, to summon a golden sun,
to
sleep,
to
begin again.

ivy white road of sustenance,
girl of one
thousand tongues, getting
married tomorrow,

slip over a rouge baton, oh girl,
slip.

hip black thin free graceful birds
flapping
the muggy ocean back to its
prehensile state,
before the modern, before the
magic, before school buses and tugboats
took over the better hearth of the
harbor.

brown shoes for cudgel,
green gel and a face
of smooth brandy
curves, open in evenings, oh he’s
getting married in
a cobalt truck, blue ochre remnants, oh
he’s.
clover,
happenstance, prickly
doorbell gold,
flat docile
plaid pirates of the garbage
heap,
a pink and lavender maid of honor,
a
gray striped best man,
the old
address of the elderly couple in
beige, the
car and the red road.

this year is a good grace
hallelujah;

bend the flap of the green
summer,
eat the turquoise
hearse.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

red light night city film and poems

Hey guys, here's a video I took stumbling home drinky drinky from my brothers' place on South 1st. Paired with the video are some poems I wrote about the NIGHT (or in the NIGHT!)! Cha cha!



impressions of night: wasteland


he removes some teeth
and yes,
to melancholy,
oh mighty.

sat awake at two am
with work
in the morning

saw in half the moon

I read adventures of twin
poets

one:
I have the jawbone of god;
and
two:

I have odyssey-like knees.

begin again to swim
the
summer,
begin
again

to Chopin
and
depart from
older siblings

beer
drank

late and obtrusive
and bussed.

speak of community
colleges
and
their faceless time,
of iron
bashed
posts on balcony nights

because everything takes
forever;
I
sip
a sleeping
girlfriend’s
discarded

beer.

believe, yes, believe,

all the world an unsealed
envelope
and
for me then
to gracefully
transform into
tongue and slather across
the wasteland
creating endings for
the opened hearted
beats and
the slack slick slums.


impressions of night: funny ha ha


one rutabaga down the aisle
of the grocery mart
sees
Estelle grab full
a cart of beans

and heaven knows someone
loves her.

I imagine the state
of
written warfare,

people with large egos brandishing
cocktail weenies in
throws
of grand entryway nothings,
uttering

uttering

the spittle spattle
of
saints and messiahs.

Steve is funny,
oh yes,

and a bridge somewhere in Texas
is broken and
receding;

two things barbarous and
toothy,
left lying on the earth
like children’s toys,

I unhappy to create them
again,

they unnecessary to
come apart and
salivate.


impressions of night: dreams


ask me of the dream
wherein
I collide into a coffee table
full of girls
I have
loved
but not loved

gabbing with my girlfriend
about
my face

and unabashedly all braying
with
contempt the moment I enter the room

oh
let’s make
soap

one asks

let’s watch
Bergman and silence

let’s not speak
and effect circles of lipstick
on windows.

again, a dream
that is meaningless is lavender,
it is cotton;
tonight I swam in a spring
and felt
the slime of the bottom surface
tease my toes.

every woman is riding her bike right now,
dodging traffic,
engaged in red lights,
committing
no crime,
singing harmony towards the background
hiss
of beaten trucks and dodgy rat
cars.


impressions of night – a criminal


in the night ether
I
as criminal
will
spool neon
thread
about
hobos’ fingers until
the whole city is
laced tight;
I will then descend into
the sewers and begin
to pilfer whatever
loose
metal piping I might find.

finally,
an adventure into
swollen back
alleys,

we will steal into the liquor store and smash
the bottles.
everyone will hate us;
we will be
revenged by leaving quickly,
silently, and easily.

Monday, May 11, 2009

sound of the city

Here's what it sounded like when I took the pictures of the silver fire hydrant:



And here's an old poem of mine about a city (or a city about a poem!):

untitled 534


there is a
remark
in
the way the jungle
scents of
City
climb
destiny
and scream
and froth

,

and Cindy
the actress
,
certainly
something
,
gasps to see
a lonely
cute cat

meowing
in the narrow night
.

photo series: silver fire hydrant









Friday, May 8, 2009

christopher savage live!

At Ruta Maya! With a mask! Posing as John Johnson reading his last poems! Check it!



follow this link to other delicious John Johnson shenanigans: click here.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

man from phoenix (not Mike)

Here's a picture of some guy's legs I took while in Phoenix (and no, I didn't take the legs with me, I left them there, ba da bump!).



His name was Waldo. Actually, I think you can hear him (and his opinion on cheeseburgers) if you click this letter P.

p.s. P stands for phoenix or for phunk

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Dispatch From the Desert

Hallo, Bohos, wherever you may roam. Me? I call the Sonoran Desert my home. From inside a woodpecker's nest in the saguaro cactus, from the once decrepit vacants of downtown Phoenix, from the strip malls that stretch on to forever, I sing my greeting unto thee. A one-time Austinite and former colleague of Mssr. Savage, I've since fled to Phoenix which is both better and worse than you might guess. I'll pop on from time to time to share my thoughts and impressions of the city I call home (for now), and I may have one or two other surprises up my proverbial sleeve with which to shock, amaze, and generally rob you of five or six seconds. Glance on, and I'll see you 'round the bend.

- Mike


Collage Barrage (or just Garbage?)










here's richard!

Richard Guerra reads a lovely piece about exes at Ruta Maya. Give him back his shirt, you bitch!

Monday, May 4, 2009

Calamity Jane

Hey guys, first official post of the new new blog! This is something I came up with today, three poems read on top of each other and nine drawings filmed with the audio in the background. Oh my stars! Enjoy! Boho!




text:
calamity jane: casino


bungalow girl in adventure
thought
thinks I have
the old vulture’s harmony
and I can be a balloon


give me a break she shoots
through a tin can
five times
and
carves her name on a sun-bleached rock
shaped like an
eagle’s claw


I want to be among the many
stars shooting
into a farmer’s field;
he might be sleeping or
making love to his wife;
I will glow orange and irradiate
the vast
stretch of scarecrow


leave a minute or two early tonight
darling
she groans behind the old
red barn pretending she to be a mirage
of two women
drawing circles with lipstick on each
others’ face


again the gunblast breaks across
the valley
something important is
lost
something fabulous is gained


wonderful old maidens in wait
lying atop
pumpkin pies in the utility shed
with smiles



calamity jane: hop hop


right in the beginning she
had a favorite horse named
Bo
and watched him race across a frozen
lake
one time out in the bandit’s
reverie that saw her robbing trains
and stage coaches


I have an ivy leaf
girl
with your name writ
in twig

resting atop my brow


glowing white matrons hanging
on the porch
ringing tiny bells to signal
love
is writhing inside
on the parlor floor
and
drooling on the windows


the
lady
tosses her famous
possessions into the ravine


famously she has granted a tame
magician the
chance to levitate
spiral spiral


flames in her house,
young men
on the veranda, both
singing despair,
caterwauling the hope of a loveless
body, orange
and flesh hue in the vernacular
of
a good old burning


more more
more
the old buzzards speak to her
now your chance
again
to leave

girl get gone



calamity jane: bonanza


along the old juniper tree patch
she goes singing
under twilight with lengths
of rope attached to her waist
to save her from losing herself


knocking blows send her
down on
the dusty saloon floor but
she bites a heel and
rattlesnakes around
the sloppy piano player’s stool


have harmony governor
you rascal
shooting up the old
courthouse;
no one thinks of you
as lovely


boulevard dreams burning down the side
of
her back in ten
thousand degree weather she
removes her flesh and
sits as a simpleton in the ravine


I can’t get you away this time
cry in the parlor with
your shoes off


arm me with a large
silver cutlass I need
it to cut down the orchard she
chimes with a face
full of smudge


janey jane
crawls about her bedroom floor and
watches the angle of the moon
stuck in the early evening sky


leave me the lovers’ hat so
I can place it on her
head while she sleeps


arrange me different
she demands pouring
booze
past her petite
lips

welcome

Hey guys, thanks for stopping by the new new austin new blog blog, boho coco! I just figured since the name of the zine was already boho coco, and that it's been over a year at austinnewblog, it was time to shake things up. Hot on the heels of dada month, expect some more wide spread creativity out of this site. For those who continue to chart the course of the bohos, I thank you greatly. Blogging can be great fun (and it can be a great headache), but really, I do it all for you. Or for me. I can't remember. Anyway, check out the video of Calamity Jane. Yeehaa!