Home sick today
Geez. Second week at work and I'm down with a 101 fever. Boss was cool -- I had been freelancing there since August, this is my first sickday.

Anyway, all these poems from the titles all over the web and in my inbox, which somehow made me feel connected to the world, ya know? "Amateurish in the Best Sense" seems to have provoked the most poems -- or inspired? If anyone's curious, I ripped it from a radio review of Neil Young's "Greendale" project. It struck me as hilarious, as does most rockcriticspeak.

So, on to the honor roll -- meaning the people who posted these poems on their own blogs:

Josh Corey, Sean Serrell,
Anthony Robinson

Here's the great Todd Colby -- with whom I read at Brooklyn's Halcyon last week, and have not had the time to post a report here -- who donated a poem. I knew he'd take to this title, with that name, Sainty -- I misread a piece of text, a title or something, and had this title written down in my sketchbook:"

Focus on Sainty

Sainty had the right hair for rough housing
even when she lived in a cardboard box
on Utica Avenue. Slow twitcher that she was,
she stuffed her best blue blouse
full of cotton balls dipped in sea breeze: astringent pillow!
She's a real hanger-in-there with small nut trays
and vanilla pudding served from old bottle moisteners
through sponges. I fear what horror brings us
in suitcase bombs, in frightful designs,
in cordoroy motorcycle jackets. But I adore
the dentine and musk that Sainty sprays at me with hair askew
and arms akimbo. Only say the word and I shall be healed.

And Beau Gunderson writes the only one with this title that I knew of -- it was a sort of last-minute on, to be sure, but I figured why not?

Sonnet for Satan

hey bud,

you left the window open again today

came home, was cold

could we work on that, do you think?

your dinner in fridge,

reheat three minutes,

NO CARBS!