ChoppyRocks

I Miss You

2012-08-26T00:04:00.000-07:00

Hello. I have been away for far too long. Had to go off and learn how to be a big, professional boy.

Gonna start posting to this site again soon. Redesigning some things in it now.

Good stuff is happening though. Got a chapbook out with the amazing Joshua Young called "The Diegesis." You can check it out at Gold Wake Press here.

But what's really cool, is that Gold Wake is putting out the full collection next April. I've put out a lot of books in the past year under different names, but this one will have my name on it, dammit.

In the meantime, here's a disco song about hot man-on-narwhal action. You're welcome.

The Mobius Revelation

2012-01-12T21:41:00.000-08:00

Making fun of old people now gives me the right to make fun of young people later.

Adventures in Tutoring

2011-12-06T20:14:00.000-08:00

Hi. I haven't posted in a while. Sorry.

So, I've been tutoring this kid for a couple years. The other day I was encouraging my student to do some writing, so I decided to write with him to teach by example and keep from distracting him.

So I asked him to give me a prompt. Now, he has learned that Batman is kinda my favorite, because . . . well, he's the Goddamn Batman and he runs around Batmanning the hell out of Gotham City. What's not to like?

My kid though, he's a Spider-Man fan, so he tell me I have to write an essay about how Batman sucks. Here it is, reproduced in its entirety for your enjoyment (Warning: leave your rational brain out of this, please).

Read more »

Frankenstory

2011-10-02T23:21:00.000-07:00

It's been a while, but Yellow and I are back.

If it begins, it begins with a letter. And if it begins with a letter, the letter should look like an "A" but sound like a "Q" with a speech impediment. So here, where it begins, I ask you: When these thoughts cause pause for plosive stops, how is it you ignore the tremors but ride out the aftershocks? Are we only safe in the aftermath, a line of taillights waiting for guidance from someone in a reflective coat? But then question comes, is it the fabric reflecting, or the person? Representation or consideration? The questions, like the letters, are out of order and cannot be trusted. So for now I'll flip the "B" on its side and wear it like coke bottle glasses and swim these troubled cees just a bit longer. The cipher lies in the "A," because we must always start from the beginning.

Today's things that don't make much sense to me

2011-06-30T11:06:00.001-07:00

1) A Time magazine editor was suspended indefinitely today for calling Obama a dick on live TV. During the suspension, the editor must eat all his lunches in the principal's office, and is not allowed to go out to recess for at least a week. Do you remember where you were the day you realized that most adults still lived by the rules of the playground?

2) Charlie Sheen admitted to using steroids during the filming of Major League. He said it got his fastball up from 79 to 85 mph. My first impulse was to say "so what," but then the absurdity of it all set in, so now I just laugh. Apparently he hadn't learned of the benefits of tiger blood just yet.

National Poetry Month, Day 30 - the end

2011-04-30T23:03:00.000-07:00

Here is a taste of what I'll be up to now that poetry month is over. Thanks for reading the past month, it's been fun.

***

STREET NOISE. A BALCONY. SATURDAY.

the pieces come from different places you know

but right now we’ll just pause on one

and let it breathe

because this one deserves forgiveness.

give four people the same photograph of this street

and ask them to crop the image any way they’d like.

take them[1] and immediately put them in an envelope.[2]

for now we’ll consider this collecting evidence,

but remind me about it later

because it won’t mean anything

until we make it unfamiliar.

[1] but avoid folding them and cutting them into snowflakes. The point is not that each image is unique, but that the choice meant something different to them than it did to you.

[2] This is how I want you to think about possibility.

National Poetry Month, Day 29

2011-04-29T23:04:00.000-07:00

We were overdressed
in the shower,
giggling at the blood
stains on our jackets.
*Two hours before
I said you had a choice
to accept the situation
and enjoy yourself
or whine about your hair.
**I spent ten minutes
trying to assign you
the significance
of this image, but
instead
I'll just accept it
and say thank you.

*Unsatisfying ending
**Sentimental ending

National Poetry Month, Day 28

2011-04-28T21:34:00.000-07:00

We'll leave it at this for now
and what it looks like tomorrow
after we've got a little sleep
behind these screen-burned eyes.

National Poetry Month, Day 27

2011-04-27T21:34:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking about empty threats
and how many times I'd have to use them
as we surveyed the northern border
thirty-three feet at a time
just because some king felt
like drawing a line.

Speaking of lines, I read a poem
on some website today, found it
thanks to StumbleUpon.
There were three on the page,
I dug the first one and got bored

But that's beside the point,
which was the comments section
and some guy lambasting the poet
for writing banal sentences
with arbitrary line
breaks and calling them sentences.

It'll be days before I can get that comment out of my head.

National Poetry Month, Day 26

2011-04-26T22:26:00.000-07:00

The
"Days Without a Serious Accident"
on Highway 2
sign stood at 3 today.

Later
my girlfriend
gave a witness report
to some ridiculous
accident involving
a car going the second way
on a one way street.

This was all at dinner,
while we contemplated
silverware in a soda
and farting out our mouths.

National Poetry Month, 25 - Live: Collecting Thoughts Through the Day

2011-04-25T12:36:00.000-07:00

If you catch this blog early in the afternoon today, you'll get to see this post evolve. I want to see what liveblogging a poem throughout the day is like. I'm just going to write little snippets as they occur to me.

***

I've always thought of a Tea Party
as a place where children go
to make things up
and learn how to gossip.

***

The greatest thing
-- by far --
that imperialism
ever gave the planet
was Freddie Mercury.

***

Am I crazy to think
there's money to be made
selling spammers access
to your accounts
in half-hour increments?

***

A woman wanted for stealing
a styrofoam banana
from a Wisconsin gas station
while wearing a gorilla suit
will not be charged.

***

While washing the dishes
the coffee mug asked me
"What if the Hokey Pokey
really is what it's all about?"

Frankly,
I'm okay with that.

***

I had to stop myself
from making faces
at what this chick was
doing to her sandwich.

***

Sometimes
an object
can be
perfectly
wieldy,

the thought
of which
whelms me.

National Poetry Month, Day 24 - Tanka

2011-04-24T21:09:00.000-07:00

no one feels too bad
when they scream at the asshole
driving ten under
on a Sunday afternoon
if they're running late for work.

National Poetry Month, Day 23

2011-04-23T22:45:00.000-07:00

Godzilla is
the true king
of jelly beans
playing in the
ball bin of life
until an article
about bacteria
startles him
into setting
alarm clocks
and carpooling
on snow days.

National Poetry Month, Day 22

2011-04-22T23:12:00.000-07:00

let's remember for a moment
the token machines
the tickets
and the prizes

first the baseball card stores
went out of business
then the arcades
now finally
the rental stores

all the bands I grew up with
are putting out
20th anniversary
reissues
of classic albums

and I learn that nostaliga
only comes on
when nothing
interests me
about the present

National Poetry Month, Day 21 - Happy Birthday

2011-04-21T21:13:00.000-07:00

Tonight we're going to scream the secret word
and flinch at the pinch of a parakeet's feet.

We're going to sacrifice the ducky for the sax
and steal your brother's toys while he's at school.

We'll count these photographs as prompts
to help maintain the few memories I have left

but until then let's chase the chocolate cake
that you've been spiriting around the room

and keep you alive by never letting it land.

National Poetry Month, Day 20

2011-04-20T10:51:00.000-07:00

Have you ever seen an interrogation room without hi-contrast lighting, where shadows hung over eyelids like the upper deck at a late afternoon ballgame? Cigarette smoke cuts the air. The camera starts wide--that way you can see the back of the interrogating officer--and slowly zooms in. The Witness has long, greased, curly hair. His pinstriped purple button-up cradles a couple modest gold chains, and just as he's about to start spilling it he lifts his right arm, takes a drag, and props his elbow on the table so he can use the hand to gesture while he talks. Just once I want this scene to play out more like absolute nonsense.

*

"Does it work?" Frank exclaimed from beside the urinal. "I got her to confess to shit she didn't even do!

*

I feel like the elements exist in a simultaneous state. I've caught myself trying to explain from three different points now, and each time I realized that's not how the story really started.

*

We'd moved back to the city. For me it was back, for her it was the first time. The new place was on the hill, and we were on the fifth or sixth floor, and I remember understanding the places on the floors above us were much nicer, and that our landlord had been hesitant to show them to us from the minute we walked into her office.

No, see she was going to commute three days a week. Somehow we were fine with that. I mean, I know I was fine with that. This girl I had on the side, this blond chick, that's usually when we'd hang out. Chick had this wonky scooter thing with a bad motor and practically no brakes, but for some reason she liked it when I towed her around town on it.

*

But I haven't even brought up the Russian. That was the building next door. The entrance felt more like a hotel though, with a doorman and everything.

Can I explain why I was there? No, and I couldn't to the doorman either. But he knew.

"Here for the Russian, huh?" This guy was big, by the way. Maybe he was more of a bouncer than a door man. "Take the elevator. Corner suite to the left."

I asked him which floor I should take, and he laughed.

*

That one time at her place we got careless. This shit hole abutted an offramp, one of those windy ones. One day some crooks were driving a stolen semi truck (who steals a semi?) and they tried to escape the chase by banking down this ramp. They took the corner too fast, and crashed into the side of the building. But this was years afterwards.

I just remember us lying in bed, and that for some reason she got the urge to look out the window. I looked with her, just in time to see a man drop his camera and peel out of the parking lot.

*

Did I ever see the Russian?

You know, I think that was just something different altogether.

National Poetry Month, Day 19

2011-04-19T23:39:00.000-07:00

I spent the day scouring for "I could probably write about that" moments.
In other words, I disengaged a little from the world and snuck meaning
onto its plate while it admired the flat screens above the men's room urninals.

National Poetry Month, Day 18

2011-04-18T23:06:00.000-07:00

somewhere on the crayon farm
the ghosts of all discarded, unfinished
seventy-two kits turn upside down
and clack against the plastic guards
in a waxy melody of adjectives.
the red and blue japanese robot
I'm pretty sure I got at the swap meet
(i just remembered that I used
to go to these fairly often as a kid)
links to a memory of a comic book
with the devil stabbing a voodoo
superman while the real one gasped.
i wore all these things out years ago,
but only one of them winked at me
today from across the cyberscape.

National Poetry Month, Day 17

2011-04-17T22:50:00.000-07:00

tonight I heard a different song from yet another movie.
I don't know if they still do this, but you remember how
in the late 80s/early 90s they would make certain songs
specifically for certain movies, and the video would just
be like an extended commercial with cross fades?

This was one of those. I got it in my Easter basket
before I'd ever even seen the movie, maybe that's when
I got the book too, so by the time we finally saw it
at the second-run super save theater, any sense
of wonder was replaced by familiarity and cynicism.

do you remember it like me,
the first time you bit foil?

National Poetry Month, Day 16

2011-04-16T18:46:00.000-07:00

Do you like the way the soundtrack dates the movie?

For me this song was a drive across the state

to visit my sister with a couple friends. Between us

we didn't have too many cds, and this one

found its way into the rotation. We liked the part

where the whole song sounded it went underwater,

if I remember right. The trip itself was lackluster.

It's not a good song. We knew it then and ignored it,

and yet here I am feeling nostalgic for the fucker,

or at least the memory we attached to it.

Was it that trip or the one we took to warped tour

where I kept pretending to get sucked out the window

and does the tape of our trip to Canada still exist

which I know was a different trip but the same era

and which was the time I declared that a burning

ball of gas billions of light years away was pissing

me off right now and why did we hold on the phrase

for so long afterward, as if that lazy quip was some

sort of great revelation that would somehow define

our future journeys? We lose the highest pitches

as we age, but I can still hear a muted television

from the other room, and I can still hear the wind

beating against the truck's open windows

as we tried to stay awake on the drives home

every time someone plays this song.

National Poetry Month, Day 15 (halfway)

2011-04-15T23:11:00.000-07:00

but of course we can't forget
the drunk girls walking home in clusters.
If you've lived in a college town, you know.
But tonight I was walking home,
and I overheard a conversation
between two of them crossing the street
in front of me. "I'll say this," she began
(no, it wasn't quite like that. That phrase
sounds way more like my own voice),
"but my ass has gotten way bigger
(your ears perked up there too, huh?)
after I started jogging every day."

National Poetry Month, Day 14

2011-04-14T19:06:00.000-07:00

I was working, but I saw you knock on the neighbor's door through the window.
I figured you must have been one of their fathers, but then you came to my door next.
I was working, but I thought maybe you had backed up into one of the cars
in the parking lot, and were trying to find the owner.
That's happened before, though thankfully it's never been my car.
Turned out you were a Witness,
and you wanted me to come celebrate Jesus' death day
with yourself and the gang.
You seemed terrified of me, eager to move on to the next door.

Which is why I have to say, on sales points alone,
the Mormons have you beat. A couple years ago
my friend and I were watching Cannibal Holocaust and drinking beers.
The movie was homework. The beers were necessary.
He got a call from his girlfriend, so I paused the movie.
I heard someone knock on the neighbor's door, but no one answered.
I looked out my peephole, saw two kids in white shirts and ties.
They knocked on my door next.
I took off my shirt, opened the door,
and draped myself seductively in the frame.
They asked me if I knew about their lord and savior Jesus Christ.
I said I did, but that I had a better mustache than him.
Surprisingly they agreed,
then they handed me a pamphlet,
and walked away.

National Poetry Month, Day 13

2011-04-13T21:50:00.000-07:00

every spring the incoming sophomores
would take a field trip to the high school
to tour their future gossip grounds.
I want to say we got out early that day,
but maybe we didn't. I was at rehearsals
so I wasn't actually there to see this
but these guys I know had a catapults,
water balloons, and walkie talkies.
I understand they set up near the track.
A scout lurked in the courtyard above,
waiting for our vice principal to lead
the new kids into the shooting gallery.
The scout signaled, the balloon team fired,
and the vice principal took the first shot
directly in the chest. Though I wasn't there,
I can slip between subjective perspectives
like bullet time in an action movie
you may have seen in the last ten years,
but the viewpoint I usually take
is the freshmen, because really I think
they had the best story to tell.

National Poetry Month, Day 12

2011-04-12T22:23:00.000-07:00

if first hashbrowns don't stick
you've got yourself an omen.

meanwhile,
fire lemon speed
and count down the hours.

National Poetry Month, Day 11 - Can We Write a Viral Poem?

2011-04-11T15:19:00.000-07:00

(READERS, PLAY A GAME WITH ME. Below is a generic news story. You've probably read one before. Below that is a comments section. You've probably read one of those before, too.

RULES: Read the story, and then add a comment. You're playing the part of generic commenter. Maybe you really hate the article's subject, maybe you love it. Maybe you can't spell for shit. Maybe you're 13 and just learning social discourse, or maybe you're 60 and skilled at social discourse but lousy at computers. Whoever you are, play the character and comment away. It doesn't have to be "poetic" at all. Talk how your person would talk. Here is a sample comments thread.)

"Pun Before the Comma, Actual Story"

In a recent development, [a person you frequently read about] has been involved in [pick from a list of controversies: sexual deviance, political scandal vomit, drug/alcohol abuse (and its subcategories: DUIs, angry voicemails, and nip-slips (see also sexual deviance))].

When [website's name] tried to contact [the entity in question], we could not get a reply.

This incident follows a long history of similar shenanigans. In 2003 [entity] made headlines when [filler information], which was of course followed by the infamous 2007 incident where [filler information] and they couldn't talk the monkey out of the cage for weeks.

But who are we to judge? [website] wants to know what you think, so hit the jump and check out the comments section below.