NUMER NINE

FROM NOW ON THERE ARE ONLY NINE LETTERS IN THE ALPHABET

Postcard 54: Postmarked April 20th, 1906, Boston Mass

Does this

Look natural? Or don't you remember ? Mabel

Fortune Cookie: Nap Time

Overheard at the University of New Orleans

"You hated that book? Well I hate you."

Postcard 53: Unposted, Mid-20th Century Linen Souvenir Card

The National Gallery of Art

.

We wasn't

in here but

we went and

looked it over

We also had a

room up just

a ways We were

on 9th St.

Postcard 52: Postmarked Oct 13 1910, Mercer, PA

A Happy Birthday

.

Dear Brother Oct. 12, 1910
We are all well as usual
Mother is quite weak and is

failing so fast of late. We want

to go to GC Saturdat to Aunt's

anniversary if it is a nice day.

She has been going all she is able

and still wants to go just like

a child. I am not feeling so well

as I have over worked in canning

season. We have frost every

night now but no freezing yet.

John had another boil on his eye

brow was off a few days. Eleanor

Fortune Cookie from the Godfather

March Forth!

Today is a command.

There

To set up shop in the tree as if such things were natural.

Elephants

Elephants are wearing something I'm not.

Wood

Wood is where we left it.

Paper

Paper is what we fold.

Water

Water is made of more water.

Postcard 51: Postmarked July 3rd, 1910, Conneaut, Ohio

Public Library, Conneaut, Ohio

,

Hello.. We are going to

spend tomorrow in

a park along Lake

Erie. Will go to Edna's

Thurs. Am going to

see every-thing while

here. Want to go to the

Harbor to see them

unload ore from

the boats.

Fortune Cookie: 70's Rock Lyrics?

Super Person POW My Hero

click image to enlarge it

Darwin's Birthday

A few lines from "Variations of the Habits of Wading Birds" in honor of Darwin's 200th birthday:

Speciation
So often

the dynamic

isolation

of one population from another

creates

only the confusion

of an imagined past.

None

Under water. Underwater.

With

Fold the same sheet of paper several times.

Sleep

Arms are awake. Limbs of trees are awake. Lie down in them.

Chronology

Shaking hands, then walking away.
Having a beard, then not having a beard.

Zombies!

Look Around You, Module 1: Maths

Bad Poetry (Stolen from the Found Magazine Website)

I never realized how bad
your poetry was.

From a television commercial for frozen lasagna

"Made from real ingredients"

Obama

Because when something bad happens, he won't spend two days playing air guitar. The photo below was taken on August 30th, 2005, the day after Katrina hit and the levees in New Orleans broke.

New Broadside

A new broadside of my poem "10 Most Dangerous Places in Space" has been issued by the Make/Shift Collective. Designed by J.S. Makkos. Email for details.

Who the Hell is Chuck and Rufus?

From R. Kelly's Epic Poem Trapped in the Closet:

Postcard 50: Postmarked October 7th,1933, Chicago, Il

The Adler Planetarium, Grant Park, Chicago

Oct 7-33-Dear Folks
We are here in
Chicago. Keep our
Mail for us until
we come. Next week
some time.
G. W. Tritschler &
..................family

Postcard 49: Postmarked June 20th, 1916, Belle Plaine, Iowa

Friendly Greetings

.

"The world forgetting

.....by the world forgot;

...........I send this small reminder

....................e'er such be my lot

.

Guess who???

Just Like...

Review: Aram Saroyan's Complete Minimal Poems (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2007)

look, poems!

precisely

Three Scraps

Love
Yesterday
Al

Flood Coin 2 (Vermont Quarter)

Flood Coin 1 (Louisiana Quarter)

Katrina's flood water was extraordinarily corrosive. When we moved into our place on Olympia St. in Janurary of 2006, the laundromat in the neighborhood had a sign up: "No Flood Coins." This is what those unwanted coins would have looked like.

Sound Sticker 2 (on with the show)

Sound Sticker 1

Postcard 48: Postmark Jan 15 1943 Ocala Fl.

Magnolia Street, Looking South, Ocala, Fla.

Ocala, a city of 10,000, offers a shopping

district of sufficient assortment and quality

as to meet the requirements of the most dis-

criminating. Magnolia Street, as shown, covers

only part of the down-town business section.

.

This is Ocala. About

10 min. walk to cover

business section. It

is pretty here but

cold as the dickens.

Say hello to all for

me. How I wish

you could see all

this......Catherine

Reappearance

Issue 1 has reappeared:

http://www.forgodot.com/labels/issue%201.html

New Work by Confucius

I would like to take a break from my cavalcade of ephemera to make an announcement:

This poem wrote my computer:

A vast room

At a vast room
Her feeble people

..................Michael Ford

Or a computer wrote this poem and a guy named Stephen McLaughlin had another computer put my name by it. Then he put it online without asking my permission.

Not that I am alone in this. I am in better company then I deserve (though possibly also worse); Issue 1 of the new magazine Principal Hand, whose cover is pictured above, includes NEW WORK by Confucius, Shakespeare, Ezra Pound, Cid Corman, Alice Notley, and several other fabulous living and dead poets.

Also, several people I know, including my brother Greg, another University of New Orleans graduate student, Carol McCarthy, who shares my office at school, Bill Lavender, who helped design my book Olympia Street, a number of Ugly Duckling poets.

There are more than 3,000 poets in the 3,785 page pdf file behemoth. Or their names are there, anyway. The new work the publishers promise was all generated by a very fancy computer program designed to write very poemy looking texts. They have no connection than proximity on a page to the poets they are attributed to.

Several people got mad. They felt ripped off, I guess. Some threatened to sue. Some threatened harassment, and some harassed. They seemed to think that a volume claiming to contain NEW WORK BY CONFUCIUS could harm their good name and livelihood. That this transparent fake was, as Ron Silliman called it, "forgery, a crime."

The trouble with people who can't take a joke is that when the joke's on them, they think it's OK to censor the joker.
.
Perhaps for this reason, Issue 1 was removed from the internet earlier today.

Postcard 47: Leather Postcard, Undated, Circa 1965

Cordoba

We saw the girls doing

this leather work. We

have seen them

making mantillas of

lace and tablecloths.

Today we saw acres of

red peppers drying in

the sun, most in racks

but a great many on

the ground. Man turns

them over with a wooden

pitch fork. Everyone here rides

a burro.........Love Florence

Number One In Heavy Metal

From Heavy Metal Parking Lot

Order, Abandoned

Professor Giraffe's Course in General Pudding

Fat Bats 7

Julie,.......................-90-

What can I say-besides

I find you incredibly sexy!

You are the coolest shit I

know. Partying w/ you

is the best-even if Booger

is there too! Don't forget,

drink many beers & smoke

many bats. I'm so glad

we're friends--who else

would I make my moves

on!

I know you worship me

.........................Love

...............................Liz

Fat Bats 6

Julie,

Annoying Woman!

What would my

mornings be like w/out

you?........A hell of a lot

better!! JOKING!!

Seriously, I'm going

to miss you next year!

Who is going to make

me laugh when I'm in a

bad mood? Who's going to

tell me I look like shit?

Love Ya,

....................Connie

Fat Bats 5

Julie,.......................90

You are a riot!

Always remember

Chadwicks, & that

your going out

with my mom!

I hope that

everything goes

great next year,

but we still

have to finish

this year & be

SICK! Yeah JG!

...............Lisa

Fortune Cookie for Miroslav Holub

"The fact that I cannot imagine the present moment has always worried me" (Miroslav Holub)

Fat Bats 4

Julie,

Wow! You love

Connie's morning

look! You are the

sickest fat bat

Bitch in the world!

I respect that

hotel business!

Worship me,

........I Love Ya,

..........Genevieve

.....NOT.....

Water on Mars!

This street of open umbrellas
usually
forms in the presence of water

this heron hunting

from the edge

of the pond, so still.

The space program's

been looking for

this kind of thing on mars,

a freedom from the immense

wind of atoms,

a place to settle down

a little farther from the sun.

(From "Variations on the Habits of Wading Birds" in Carbon)

.

What they thought was water on Mars is water.

Article about NASA's discovery: HERE