All posts in category erasure poetry

ASK I: “My cigar should dress my friends?”

Q: I’m a mind and I follow trends in black. My cigar should dress my friends?

A: Treasure your cigar!

The personal can be temporary (as yours).

Widen your circle so you’ll keep stretching.

List the changes in technology most adapted to a groom.

Comfort berets and then crisp a coat perfectly.

If you relax, keep in mind the seat.

How about walking shoes to sneakers?

Distinguish the best shape you can.

Smile those missing back molars.

Play English.

Profess a boyfriend.

Penelope Cruz is on-screen sweat, pants and a slim black raincoat worth studying.

Have a back bulge, switch a card!

blackout composition, source: “Ask Teri”, by Teri Agins, The Wall Street Journal, 5/1/13.

in situ, below…

blackout advice columns

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by Tom Busillo on April 30, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in absurdist advice columns, erasure poetry, Free verse, Poetry
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Posted by Tom Busillo on April 30, 2013

http://monsterbegood.com/2013/04/30/ask-i-my-cigar-should-dress-my-friends/

ASK I – “How can I make the most?”

Q: I have one decent room that I keep packed full and a line I don’t want. I am thinking about converting the line into space. How can I make the most?

A: Consider the figure space (like California).

Close a can. Make every nook the ceiling.

Don’t audition in a special closet.

Plan to lose many pairs of shoes.

Allow your robe to expand over the years.

Check velvet-lined jewelry.

Be see-through.

Don’t stash a chest of drawers inside a hog.

Space in a smaller space can sometimes stack.

Draw 18 three-act ideas.

Make the most of ice (like New York).

Coif you organ.

Fit together so you’ll be able to be a gap you need to fill.

Hop more.

Turn your room into a long shelf.

Hang over print secured with string.

Tie a tail.

Steam can add character to your surroundings.

Hold a rare ear, use the lamp as a board!

blackout composition; source: “Ask Teri,” Teri Agins, The Wall Street Journal, 3/14/13.

in situ, below…

blackout advice column

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by Tom Busillo on April 12, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in absurdist advice columns, erasure poetry, Poetry
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Posted by Tom Busillo on April 12, 2013

http://monsterbegood.com/2013/04/12/ask-i-how-can-i-make-the-most/

Picking Pieces

Live from a local station
on top of a tornado,
I express rush to pit again
to erase that rubble,
depart outside,
turn over, destroy and
snap in half,
walk around the silent sounding
leaking fact.

I tried to change the building
I had been
for so long
there was no real code
for quick changes.

All I fought
I had to absorb in
moving, building,
changing my entrances and exits,
increasing space,
using specific materials.

Before,
I didn’t want to leave
and I thought things back to normal.

I had an experience once.

I reopen piecemeal, rough,
and my home is still
vacant volume
waiting
I think
part of just being
visible speaking
and trying to get back to
the right thing the right way.

Blackout composition, source: “Picking Up the Pieces”, by John Carney, Entrepreneur Magazine, January 2013.

in situ, below

blackout: picking pieces

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by Tom Busillo on April 3, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in erasure poetry, Free verse, Poetry
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by Tom Busillo on April 3, 2013

http://monsterbegood.com/2013/04/03/picking-pieces/

Ask I: “How do you clean these things?”

Q: At a party last night I had many people waxed. They have a leathery look and are really very unique looking. My problem is: How do you clean these things?

A: More interesting new today’s make super-shiny, leathery distress.

Wax all the reason to ruin.

Wax everyday (which means too often).

Brace yourself for results that might vary according to a finish.

Your safest route is to follow photos of before and after – at least, if you have some.

Depart.

Store defective merchandise in the customer.

Phone or help steer the right people.

Hang on to a premium fuse.

Dry by freezing for a few days inside a zip-lock bag.

Spot a note that suggests a machine for a coated cannon.

A detail made polyester last.

Before washing your wax, turn inside out.

Water the gentle, deter the line!

blackout composition, source: “Ask Teri”, by Teri Again, The Wall Street Journal, 3/27/13.

in situ, below…

blackout advice column

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by Tom Busillo on March 28, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in absurdist advice columns, erasure poetry, Poetry
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Posted by Tom Busillo on March 28, 2013

http://monsterbegood.com/2013/03/28/ask-i-how-do-you-clean-these-things/

Ask I: “I Must Have Surgery?”

Q: I socialize with ants and dress sexy. I must have surgery?

A: I can relate to three hours of walking a block to make sense.

Inch sure-footed without looking down.

Adjust your pitch the way the angle will determine where a platform can tip.

With strategic comfort, provide a plain watch for skinny toes.

Don’t forget walking slightly larger in a little room.

Expand a few hours of standing up and down.

While you walk, look for foam balls creating a burning sensation.

Your podiatrist may consider feet fleshy.

Get fit by padding.

Be an experiment.

Wear the house, carpeting for an hour!

blackout composition, source: “Ask Teri”, Teri Agins, The Wall Street Journal, 3/7/13.

in situ, below:

blackout

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by Tom Busillo on March 7, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in absurdist advice columns, erasure poetry, Free verse, Poetry
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Posted by Tom Busillo on March 7, 2013

http://monsterbegood.com/2013/03/07/ask-ii-must-have-surgery/

What Have Been

I have waited all my life and the decades before I was born. I was born then stolen. I wanted to crumble.

If you can chip out a man, a series of events start to unfold that can only be described as stunning, absolutely stunning. They occur up to Christmas Day itself.

The world looked left. The French Revolution continues on. In this chamber, the imprisoned poet arrested the President. He received a house.

In spite of that – now listen to my next words, because I believe them – I know I am correct. Thank God.

I have a suspicion that some people matter, horrible things have taken place.

Just 72 hours ago they were predicting that would be shortly history. But history remains pluperfect. It did not happen.

So I am going to take this broad out and, in general, repeat what I said for forty years, at least, back to when I was 16 years of age — and I am 56 now.

I have been described as a “big person” whether cast as a Communist or anti-Communist.

Well, let us start off with today. Begin in the morning. The morning after. The morning after hangover – violet, remarkable, far from complete, still entrenched, raw, deeply a mess.

Help from Washington? When? When, God willing, on April 25? Or right now?

How many times did I bank a penny and of course was ignored by many people.

Many people say that good news deserves to be savored while fresh failure is secret.

I guessed wrong about the outcome of a victory. I stole the country that was stolen back.

I hate to read – a line is still a ghost.

At every meeting we should recall the ground into rubble.

Tank treads walked across my younger son. Dreaming that this could happen, I continue in isolation.

I pause for a prayer. Please, God, please give the people of Cuba the exhilarating thrill that people are feeling in Lithuania over the weekend.

And just across that little gulf in time? You bet it does end.

blackout composition, source: remarks by Rep. Robert Dornan, The Congressional Record 101st Congress, February 27, 1990, pp. H200-H202.

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by Tom Busillo on February 24, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in erasure poetry, Poetry
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Posted by Tom Busillo on February 24, 2013

http://monsterbegood.com/2013/02/24/what-have-been/

Ask I: “I want to start to have ideas?”

Q: I wed where the brides really love. I want to start to have ideas?

A: Can an attractive accent make eyes look much wider and more expressive – much better than a false eye that you carefully remove at the end of the day?

Apply to school!

Compliment your eyes to help you get the hang of handling them.

Drugs are fine (you’ll need magnifying adhesive).

Make clean hands and everything your hands touch should be clean.

Ideally, your eyes shouldn’t shout at you.

Don’t go overboard by a thick liquid.

Remove the eye in malls that specialize in eye glue – the natural ones.

Take up to an hour to stay until you own a shed.

Many doctors frown on.

The varied hygiene of the opera, the risk of falling into corn!

blackout composition, source: “Ask Teri”, by Teri Agins, The Wall Street Journal, 2/13/13.

in situ below:

blackout advice column

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by Tom Busillo on February 10, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in absurdist advice columns, erasure poetry, Poetry
Tagged , , , , , , ,

Posted by Tom Busillo on February 10, 2013

http://monsterbegood.com/2013/02/10/ask-i-i-want-to-start-to-have-ideas/

How Can I Manage?

It’s important to learn how to recognize, learn to develop (what is one person may not be another), come from happy events (a new marriage, job promotion, new home) as well as unhappy events (illness, overwork, family problems).

What is your body’s response to releasing adrenaline (a hormone)?

You breathing and heart rate speed up and you deal with the situation. The problems come when you remain off for days or weeks at a time (bad!).

Speaking to a group watching a close football game can be stressful, but fun, too. The key is to manage unhealthy responses in some people.

How do you feel?

Each of us, in different ways, may have physical signs, emotional signs or both.

  • I can make you feel angry, afraid, excited or helpless.
  • I can make it hard to sleep.
  • I can give you aches in your head, neck, jaw and back.
  • I can lead to habits like smoking, drinking, overeating or drug abuse.
  • You may not even feel I at all, even though your body suffers from I.


How can I cope with I?

Taking steps will help you feel more in control of your here.

  • Try “I-talk” – turn negative thoughts into I-ones. For example, “I do this,” “I do the best.”
  • Take a day to sit and think of a peaceful situation.
  • Walk a bike.
  • Let the tension in your body help you feel better.
  • Try to do at least one thing every day, even if you only do it for 15 minutes.

How can I live?

You may want to live a life.

  • Think about some things. For example, people who bother you or driving in traffic.
  • Learn to say, “Promise?”
  • Up the alcohol, cigarettes or caffeine.
  • Try to “race” time to get important things done.
  • Sleep each night.
  • Organize “To Do” lists one at a time.

blackout composition, source: “How Can I Manage Stress?”, a double-sided 1-page handout published by the American Heart Association.

My company had an on-site health screening sponsored by Chester County Hospital and I grabbed a couple of handouts and started blacking this out while waiting to move on to the next station. Starting the blackout actually did reduce my stress-level that day.

And since, in all likelihood, I’ll never mention Chester County Hospital on MBG ever-again…

…I feel the need to thank them and my company for a few years ago bringing two 8-week smoking-cessation programs (a couple years apart) to my office. Although I failed (miserably) to quit during the duration of both of the organized programs, once I finally went all-in on quitting, I HEAVILY relied on the strategies and coping mechanisms I learned in those two courses and wouldn’t have been able to quit without them.

So if you smoke, and you want to quit, and you’re lucky enough to get in an organized program – do it and don’t feel bad if you fail. What you learn there you’ll draw on when you’re ready to succeed – even though at the time it might seem totally impossible.

Now back to the usual shenanigans…

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by Tom Busillo on January 18, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in erasure poetry, Free verse, Poetry
Tagged , , , , , , ,

Posted by Tom Busillo on January 18, 2013

http://monsterbegood.com/2013/01/18/how-can-i-manage/

Port Strategy

Our strategy is to hold momentum. We believe that meaning should appreciate at roughly the same rate.

We think, grow, over time, expand, share or fast. We think that if we can find a fair, we can pound a solid.

We work with special dust. We look for the best we may find while we take note of the road conditions. The composition is primarily determined by individual considerations.

At this time, our decisions are being shaped by following a rope. Our growth was premature, but we will accelerate. We are drawn in staples. When off, we begin to struggle and grow onerous.

It has been a strange ebullience. There’s an air of happiness. In offices, pros slap each other on the back and say, “Wow! That was a hat!” For the past has climbed the proverb: “Worry, but without relinquishing the worry, do well above-average and be in favor as a proxy for a stream warmed to become very steep at this point; shun any degree.”

While form has been reasonable, it has felt like a more difficult port. Many in the well flow over the punished – over the past, up and working, and down and failing. We are fleeting, with short time horizons. We are willing and comfortable with absorbing.

While we are repositioning the port, we are more the margin extending our horizon to a ledge.

blackout composition, source: Portfolio Strategy, T. Rowe Price International Stock Fund Annual Report, October 31, 2012, pp. 2-4.

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by Tom Busillo on January 16, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in erasure poetry, Financial Statements, Poetry
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Posted by Tom Busillo on January 16, 2013

http://monsterbegood.com/2013/01/16/port-strategy/

Ask I: Fit to Tin

Question: I dent my family. I would like a desk?

Answer: If you’re someone at the moment too “set aside” for a number, stretch a can.

First of all, close your building, the grocery store and the shopping mall. Take the elevator, the halls and stairs if there’s time. If you have a large file, take your floor.

If you have the pace, run.

Sit during lulls.

A hand is a simple muscle.

An elastic band is another.

While sitting at your desk, don’t forget your neck, shoulders, back, chest, wrists, abdominal muscles, buttocks, thighs and calves. They help you.

Break your computer every 30 minutes. Watch for blood.

Blackout composition, source: “Fitting Exercise into Daily Routine”, Mitchell “Dr. H” Hecht, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1/7/13.

In situ, below…

blackout advice column

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by Tom Busillo on January 4, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in absurdist advice columns, erasure advice columns, erasure poetry, Poetry
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by Tom Busillo on January 4, 2013

http://monsterbegood.com/2013/01/04/ask-i-fit-to-tin/

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