All posts tagged blackout poetry

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
Tagged , , , , , ,

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
Tagged , , , , , , ,

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
Tagged , , , , , ,

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
Tagged , , , , , ,

Posted by Tom Busillo on February 24, 2013

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

More Beef!

1.

As dawn breaks over meat,
pull up doors,
ground (trucks or area),
cult followings
among the nibbling region

their appearance
in real estate
in lower Manhattan
as the actual meat
worked the night away
sold or leased
and moved
from New Jersey.

Give them a tank and – just like that – you have a war.

Whose pub, kitchen, tavern, empire has delivered
a third-generation side tunnel?

Sell the sizzle
as food
Meat Men!

2.

So do we meat
a hundred miles away?
Interview meat?
Favor meat?

How do YOU fight meat?
Shock eight 6-ounce, short-rib burger patties?
Specialize in grass meats?
Claim to “customize” “beef”?
Tomahawk a steak house?
“Unlike” meat?

Big Brand Beef Custom Beef blends burgers with chefs to devise proprietary, precise proportions of chuck, sirloin, brisket and a 100 percent dry-aged chef.

Almost Not A Burger
is now
50 Percent Special Blend!

September
visited
and left
with beef,
about 600 pounds
of beef
a day,
five days
a week –
no stranger
to meat.

As steaks, from steak
(all the meat referred to)

Meat sooner or later will be the bridesmaid and vice versa.

blackout composition, source: “More Phila. Beef Has Out of Town Brand”, Micharl Klein, Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/8/12.

in situ below:

blackout composition

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by Tom Busillo on November 19, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in erasure poetry, Free verse, Poetry
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by Tom Busillo on November 19, 2012

http://monsterbegood.com/2012/11/19/more-beef/

Kiss on the Weekends

The Thing
that opens as love
is haunted,
becomes unhinged
from hundreds of miles away.

Is he really?

And why do the ghosts seem to know the stories?

Dread moments of
tries so hard to capture the feel-
[abrupt starts and stops,
and random footage.]

It’s all film where no one should be expected.

blackout composition, in situ below

blackout poetry: kiss on the weekends

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by Tom Busillo on October 10, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in erasure poetry, Free verse, Poetry
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by Tom Busillo on October 10, 2012

http://monsterbegood.com/2012/10/10/kiss-on-the-weekends/

known in further information

the home of old radios
will attract broadcasters

two tenants
smattering Sunday

Culture
the fledgling
objects
from
around
the world

more than 475 early and
contemporary nations (self-taught)

what is believed to be woven
combines

perhaps to judge reincarnation:
by one of seven

estimate a catalog
represented in
the Almighty

Young Cuban
as a known
until death

The record is woven
according to the description

in the club
until its purchase

frank: so sometimes simply called

Culture came with a few stats:
Knot count of knots
adding up to
weavers working
at a time with a workday

days loom
adding time to spin among
other tasks

to
to
to

the case
selected from
the collection

Text carpets a graphic.

among them a scroll called
a form

known in
further information

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by Tom Busillo on October 7, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Free verse, language poetry, Poetry
Tagged , , , , , ,

Posted by Tom Busillo on October 7, 2012

http://monsterbegood.com/2012/10/07/known-in-further-information/

Ask I: “I Am Buenos Aires Starting in a Few Weeks”

Q: I am Buenos Aires starting in a few weeks. What would be considered?

A: Sparkling air. A baroque accordion. Certain Paris natives called women.

Make the neighbor you are likely to hang jewelry.

Patterns before hoes!

Walk a ballet.

Pump a spring.

Clutch a sharp steak and dig for a famous leather jacket.

Be truly special.

To find a road, be your stroll!

blackout composition, source: “Ask Teri”, Teri Agins, The Wall Street Journal, 6/28/12.

In situ, below…

Newspaper Blackout: Ask I: “I Am Buenos Aires Starting in a Few Weeks”

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by Tom Busillo on July 8, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in absurdist advice columns, Poetry
Tagged , , , , , ,

Posted by Tom Busillo on July 8, 2012

http://monsterbegood.com/2012/07/08/ask-i-i-am-buenos-aires-starting-in-a-few-weeks/

See the Future

There’s been a lot of talk recently about
the state of discussion, flexibility, and
the closing of the country.

There is no doubt time is 10 to 20 years.

But let me assure you that
the bright face we’ve already begun
executing will create the future.

And there are
more to come.

At the same time,
we’re watching.
We know.
We’re especially mindful.
We are doing all we can.
We seek the future.
This is essential.
Of course, there will be a future.
Understand, that’s not going to change.

Let me be clear:
We are and
will continue to be.
Absolutely.

blackout composition, source: “Seeing the Future”, a column appearing on p. 11 of the October 2011 issue of “Deliverables” authored by Ronald A. Stroman, Deputy Postmaster General of the U.S. Postal Service.

in situ below…

blackout: see the future

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by Tom Busillo on June 30, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Free verse, Poetry
Tagged , , , , , ,

Posted by Tom Busillo on June 30, 2012

http://monsterbegood.com/2012/06/30/see-the-future/

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