XXXV

The Oprichniki Jr. High School of Higher Education:

Prompt Requirements and Guidelines:

-Assignments may be completed in any medium that the student feels most appropriate to the prompt (including YouTube videos and Facebook pictures)

-The student may complete one or more of the provided assignment topics

-Assignments are to be completed no later than October 31st

-Points will not be deducted for Plagiarism or Copyright Infringement

Assignment Topics:

1. Design a baby cradle or a chair for a hero of your choosing.

2. The worst Facebook picture ever

3. The most exciting place you've ever found on Google Earth.

4. Unearth an apocryphal myth from Ovid's 'Metamorphoses'

5. Discover a dead liberal arts college

6. Describe the difference between nuts and shells.

7. React to a trip to Frank Stanford's grave in Subiaco, Arkansas

8. Design an advertising campaign for a new buzzword.

9. Your best argument for any political/economical ideology in 4 sentences.

10. Your most immediate association with the word 'jubilation'

11. Make an alteration to one of Bach's fugues.

12. Post a 'tweet' on Twitter from the NYPD concerning the Wall Street occupation.

13. Your first memory of the internet

14. Write a 3 sentence biography of Henri Rousseau (or a post-impressionist painter of your choice)

15. Submit an uncrackable password and the username that would go with it.

16. Write an autobiography using your web browser history.

17. Make a best Myspace friend.

18. Reveal a long lost family recipe

19. Make a (delicate) project on something that you wish wasnt politically incorrect

20. Relocate Stalin's casket to a tropical location of your choosing and explain why.

Completed assignments should be sent by email to oprichnikischool@gmail.com

XXXIV

theres the dog

howling at love

henri was so lonely,

he painted two black people

in a zinc forest

where there was a moon

that shone without lighting

a goddam thing

henri painted himself

'henri is the conductor'

of the orchestra?

for some reason

he was in the woods

henri was sitting on his

goddam stool

in the woods

for whatever reason

not orchestrating anything,

just waving the bugs away

theres the dog

howling at love

101 oprichniks

riding their horses

congratulating themselves

on their knowing

it feels good to be alive when you know everything already

goddamit

how quickly I can lapse into the crazies

how many times have i seen the line,

"he was crazy"

"he read mathematics"

"he was crazy"

"there was the saddlebag full of knives"

"he was crazy"

theres blood on the saddle

i'm a head making comedy noises,

the dogs heads were on their brooms

the dogs heads had the moon eyes

moon eyes were in the field

coming up from the dim bottom

like white fish bellies

the peasants lay on their bellies

the oprichniks swept them away

with their brooms

and the dogs heads

laughed and laughed

the peasants rolled in the winter hole

101 oprichniks went riding home

to a fire that they knew well,

a familiar fire

and in the dances with fire dogs,

even the oprichniki couldnt foresee

that everyone would scorn everything that they know

everything they understand, they mock

everything they dont understand, they hate

that these days the po' wet nap, wet towel, moist towelette

is just that, and if somebody calls it a poet, its an insult that draws swords

or worse, the lawyers

and every spring everything blooms

and dies in the winter,

and everything dies

except the dog

howling at love

XXXIII

There are various important people

Scattered across the world

Like Parra said, “A young man lives in a bell jar

And is concerned with things that only exist for him”

I’m paraphrasing, loosely

Because my guts hurt and I don’t give a hoot

And I’m a mother, given to generalizations;

Mothers are always trying to be good, with soot clogged hearts

It makes me want to hang my head and ride public transportation

Most people know that ideas are horseshit

Those are my friends, the brave actors

And they live half pretending, really just living;

Actors that cross the stage bravely

There are the rest, who don’t get the joke

Too convinced of reality’s legitimacy;

Distressed, unkempt, tottering infants

Stumbling over their guns, shooting just off the mark

But always aiming at the right thing

We reference forgiving souls who testify from mass graves,

The Katyn Massacre, The bottoms of charnal houses, and the Killing Fields,

Who smile gently and look at us from the corners of their eyes,

Blonde boys who died resurrecting their mothers,

Forgiving everything

Talking with my friend the wayfarer

Who sits in the trees above me

And tells me again and again goddamit,

“wish in one hand and shit in the other one

and see which one fills up faster”

XXXII

I have my friday nights too,

the mistake lies in getting drunk

while you're trying to do something else

"One should simply achieve drunkenness

beneath a highway overpass"

my therapist dyed his hair black

i dont know his name

he told me about his suicide attempt

during a boston winter like a mass grave

he told me about his difficult childhood

and his loneliness

I know my way around Rock Springs, WY

pretty damn well for having been there once

my therapist told me I was soft spoken

for an iconoclast

I told him the thunder belongs to the sky,

theres a storm in boston

raining like a sliced belly

some girls screaming somewhere

My therapist told me about his girlfriend

who shot coke until she wound up in the ward

one ward or another, theres always one

if i could only do drugs alone in my room

and know that my good friends

were doing the same thing

I have to walk 4 goddam flights

of stairs

to get to his office

XXXI

I never “work”

At my “job”

nobody does

I know a yuppie on unemployment checks

who hangs in exclusive tennis clubs

And takes tequila for him and his friends

“this ones on Obama”

I know a bum who gets food stamp cards

All over this spaghetti plate of states

He sells those EBTs for 500 bucks

And drinks his wine under the bridge

the only “work”

is bullshitting yourself

with those patrons, citizens who appear,

at your “desk” or whatever,

to offer a curt greeting, avoiding your gaze like poverty

and slit their wrists to reveal

a different color blood,

that gushes out in glass rivers,

northern tides that flood the basement

where I “work”

daily, hourly

the flood leaves citizens obliviously soggy,

standing in circles like eggs in northern nests—dainty dainty, trim trim,

tucked in the highest crag of someone’s tush—where its always raining

Down below in the basement where I “work”

I’m presenting such a fist, such a fist as they’ve never seen

A fist of namelessness and minimum wage—of course,

I’m an idiot and my name is bitch

I drool on my “desk” where I “work”

Here and there, I go outside and smoke

Then I go back inside

A guy with a pitted faced billows, vanishing into an elevator

Two dripping ladies trundle, dressed in white—inevitably sweaty

A silent patron wanders lost in the parking lot with his keys

I have a fantastic headache and dream of dirt

A duchess from NYC pokes fun at me

I’m not supposed to wear nail polish at work either

I’ll keep drowning in fake blue blood and growing up,

the world at large will fist my poem in its butt,

while the I that I wish I’d forever be

will smoke outside

watching a pudgy man, who is also smoking,

sprint across evening Boston

huffing in his business clothes,

running from his mother’s tongues

XXX

when you live in a cave

you see the pools, the drips

the furry wings

and the spelunkers

who never made it back

with the nothing whistling

right on through their bones

no one knows you're gone

and you lose your legs and eyes

by some process, anyway

so you rock back and forth

and find that you're given

to cheerful imaginings:

'oh my imaginary lady leaving me again'

'oh everything on this damn bus is breaking down'

'oh it was all just water and nebula anyway'

when you live in a cave

you're like the echoes

of a childrens' choir,

trained by a soft, blind animal*

when you live in a cave

shadows are ever more sly

because they're the shadows

of other things' shadows;

the underbelly shadows

it goes without saying,

all of your technology

failed you early on,

and there you are,

living in a cave,

given to cheerful imaginings

*actually an ideal music teacher

XXIX

The Obscurities of Grandfathers' Grumpiness and The Gabbing Debates of Children Grown Old

When gram was in a bad mood,

My dad used to say

“Mom’s on the rag.”

When gramps was in a bad mood

My dad would say,

“Dad’s on the cross.”

what everyone in the house eventually discovered is that everyone eventually succumbs to immaturity and various physical ailments

Its Not True Anyway

“maybe travelling is really for idiots

who really can’t figure out how to move on*

*in the abstract sense

The Reason Why Some People

Are Sexually Misanthropic

(The Saddest Sadist)

How I Heard My Demented Uncle Assailing A Stranger

While We Were In Line For Fried Dough at the Rutland County Fair

Meat Loaf's Unsuccessful Attempt to Remain Anonymous

Through the Anonymity of a YouTube Account

While Praising His Own Song

(2 Out of Three)

meatloaf you idiot changing one letter in your name isnt gonna fool anybody we all know its you you pepperoni fabio bitch

XXVIII

~~**memories**~~

on time on my birthday

my dad decided to tell me

that in his early youth

he was into nazism

"pops, i'm cuttin' this cake now"

XXXXXXXXXLLLLVVVVIIIIIIIIIIIIII

everybody knows that the answers arent in books

but thomas mann can really crack a hell of a joke

XXXXXXXXXXXXLLLLLLLLLVVVVVVIIIIIII

sometimes i see someone roaming at a distance

and i just know

i just know that they're wearing crocs

i picture them lost in death valley,

wondering when to eat their crocs

XXXXXXXXXXXLLLLLLLLLLLLVVVVVVVIII

have you ever wondered what you would do

if you overheard someone saying about you,

"that dude is all business"

Ṓ i would feel compelled to apologize

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXLL

everybody knows that the answers arent in books*

*except all of the answers are in 'ferdydurke'

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXLLLLLLLLLL :O :O :O

~~**memories**~~

i used to go surfing a lot

one time i got the worst sunburn

i was really ripe for the harvest

or maybe gone bad already

"forgot to powder your nose eh kiddo?"

XXVII

i never know if i should say

a girl i used to know

or 'girls i used to know'

she went by different names,

and never gave me a thing

except for traumas

i'd trundle along

and over the years,

divide her into pieces

like fence posts,

which i dabbed with some colors, i think

but mostly white,

i'd dab and mumble things about myself

that weren't flattering,

not in the least

of course,

she heard every word

and picked out the meaning,

like she was picking ruby bugs out of my hair

ruby bugs that she soon found out

were alive and scuttling, "repulsive!"

she left again and again

leaving me dabbing

or dancing awkwardly

in what i imagined

was an empty disco club*,

those times, its always winter outside

and i'd wonder how long her footprints

would be impressed in the snow

no reason to stop dancing

awkwardly alone

grooving, "why why why! where have you gone!"

dancing alone, and awkwardly

is hard work

it should have made it obvious

that she had been diddled by her father, or fathers

but i never think of these things

until its too late to retreat

and i've read that its always

too late to retreat

*i'm highly susceptible to disco's tricks

XXVI

"the hog of the forsaken

got no reason to cry

he got to chew the angels

fallen from on high"

"he aint waitin for no answer

bakin woeful pie

pie of eyesight, pie blue-black

whoa that pie, the pie of bye and bye"

"and the hog of the forsaken

he aint like you and i

with bones always breaking

and no place to go and lie"

"he sit in the bog so dark and wet

he got so much time

he aint even worried yet

the hog of the forsaken

he is the pork of crime"

"and the hog of the forsaken

he will leave you one more chance

which if you wont be taking

he'll leave it for the ants"

"its out in the wilderness

he sings for friend and foe

he sings for those times as well

as those times go"

XXV

the russian word for butterfly is 'babochka'

the russian word for grandmother is 'baboshka'

i would hate to see a grandmother fluttering in a sunlit meadow

its like the difference between being

at the beach

and on the beach

one is a maelstrom of poo, the other is putting me to sleep

at the beach, watching a grandmother

on the beach, with a butterfly