A solid green hardcover notebook

Harvey Kornbluth was born on 14 January 1982, in Toronto, Ontario. This makes him Canadian, and though there is technically nothing wrong with this, he is compelled to apologise for the fact anyway. For the convenience of his parents and the medical staff involved with his birth, Harvey agreed to be born shortly before lunch, at 11:37am. On the day he was born, corn dogs were being served in the hospital cafeteria, but unfortunately they were out of mustard. Somehow, Harvey was forever affected by this error of omission.

His parents, Darryl and Celica Kornbluth, were both killed in a car accident while driving back from synagogue. Though Harvey would never know this, his parents were arguing about the merits of moisturized facial tissue, when, distracted, his father plunged the car into a river. As such, Harvey was raised by his homosexual uncle and his half-Asian lover. They taught him about musicals, Abba and oxycontin addiction.

Harvey was a peculiar child. He was prone to carrying around blank index cards and a copy of the Koran. His favourite cereal was Froot Loops which he ate with too much milk. He always carried an umbrella, even on the hottest summer days. He looked at the stars at night and considered their role in his life in a non-philosophical way. He asked a lot of pointed questions to his peers ("Would you murder a parent to save Santa, and which one?"), and wrote scathing letters to authority figures. In one such missive he wrote:

Mr. Coley,

If it is in fact the case that we are not meant to eat the Play-doh, then I beseech you to explain why it is so delicious. Your humble servant,

Harvey Kornbluth

His adolescence was marked by casual smoking, cold showers and suicide notes placed in public spaces. His threat to self-immolate — which was painted on to the rear of a portable classroom in purple tee-shirt puff paint — was unproven. Nevertheless, it prompted his teachers and caregivers to enroll Harvey in a school for the mentally deranged.

At the institute, Harvey consumed Greek yogurt and learned to ride the unicycle and wrote stream-of-consciousness poetry about the other inmates. In his time, he made only one friend: a tall and charismatic redhead named Miranda, who would shower with her clothes on, and pass Harvey notes at lunch, and scream herself to sleep every single night. Miranda was cured after she smashed a watermelon into pieces with a foam-bat (anger expulsion therapy), and she left the institute. Harvey was alone and depressed.

He worked through his troubled feelings in a solid green hardcover notebook and came to the inescapable conclusion that the world and all the things in it were projections of his mind. Content that this was the only piece of knowledge he could wholeheartedly deem true, Harvey felt a vague sense of responsibility for the figments of his imagination and thirsted no longer — or at least a little bit less — for his own self-initiated demise.

Satisfied with Harvey's new-found (albeit disturbingly flawed) belief in the value of living, the institute released him. It was spring and he was an adult. The first thing Harvey did was find a prostitute and pay her for sex. The second was to procure an umbrella.

Many years later he started this blog, and shares with you those those dark corners of his notebook: the musings of a solipsistic inmate.

Spam poetry

I have decided to do something tremendously lazy and turn messages from my spam folder into stream-of-consciousness blank verse. I literally just adjust the line breaks, but the rest of the words appear in the order they do and I haven't added anything. Some would say this is a circuitous way of saying "fuck you, readers," and I wouldn't disagree.

So to help assuage your anger, I will undertake the task of interpreting my madness.

By Dick Boyce

outrageously! lying hostage inflammation
but whirlpool milligram and eloquently hostel,
scour the nuance stormy that
gumbo at paralegal the reject was
humanism a zone, nut harpoon mobilize or cashmere of was 

luminary at thump and frankly maliciously vile
tripod atonement and palpably song,
an aviator sophomore of southwestward,
or continuity clasps the glitter of coals
O halo the plagiarism! Accepted.

thrown savings and loan!
lease outrageous of symbolic anthropological hindquarters
as civic this as geometric. and landlord as charade calculation
strings with sweatpants the ping-pong: snob as argue and powerless,
correspondingly to junk food. the gnawing. 

postage stamp lexical, crestfallen emotionally:
cheerleader of nobody
entrust the on jumpsuit that gas cocaine the blockage in contemptuous
end a playfully with an... annihilate
xenophobia birthplace and that duchess in xylophone hoax

The subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 is fascinating for two diametrically opposed reasons. First, plainly speaking, it was unexpected. Market-focussed Americans are adherents of that mantra "up and to the right" so seemed inconceivable that the bubble would burst, even knowing that the nature of bubbles is to do precisely that. But second, and perhaps more devastating, is that the crisis was in many ways completely foreseeable. And thus Dick Boyce has penned a jovial dithyramb to pay homage to the crumbling capitalism around him.

The bold opening "outrageously!" acts to describe both the state of the economy and the turbulence and the falsehods that ravaged the North American economy. "Lying. Hostage. Inflammation." An intriguing dichotomy between the violent language of "hostage" and a clinical term like "inflammation." Boyce explains that rising GDP and plummeting interest rates less like growth of a plant and more like the ceaseless inflammation of a cancer. When he writes "scour the nuance stormy" it is another juxtaposition, a common theme in this work; Storm and nuance. Elegant hotel. The glitter of coals. The agony and the ecstasy of the American idiom.

The "tripod atonement" referenced in the next stanza is surely Mortgage Backed Securities, Collateralized Debt Obligations and the SEC. "An aviator sophomore of southwestward," viz., Ben Bernanke is in the unenviable position of bracing against the economic zeitgeist to consider a harsh wake-up call. Up and to the right no longer, but "southwestward" we go; down and to the left. To a financial crisis not seen since the Great Depression. The glitter of coals is the promise of a unblemished economy. But we fail and "halo the plagiarism."

"Thrown savings and loan" is a direct reference to Fannie Mae, and "lease outrageous of symbolic anthropological hindquarters" is finely-tuned a witticism about how the US was having it's ass-kicked. There is something so elegant about:

as civic this as geometric. and landlord as charade calculation
strings with sweatpants the ping-pong: snob as argue and powerless,

Where Boyce contrasts the polis, and the city state, the neighbourhood (what Hilary Clinton dubbed "a village") with "the landlord as charade." We are are all tenants of a tyrant; whether from without or within. Boyce contrasts the classes in a America: "strings with sweatpants" ping-ponging against the powerless snobs. Another breathtaking juxtaposition. Another failure of the American Dream.

Who is "crestfallen emotionally? cheerleader of nobody?" The nexus of Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke. We "entrust the jumpsuit" and jump suit it is, because truly these courtiers of the economics court are dare-devils, soothsayers and mystics. Guiding the economy with a crystal ball and a rearview mirror; will this Homo Economus amalgam survive this metaphorical cannon blast or gorge jump?

"And a playfully with an... annihilate"

Boyce is not so sure.

With "Xenophobia birthplace" we have come full circle to the current president, Barack Hussein Obama. Another soothsayer, another lying hostage inflammation. His use of the pun "xylophone hoax" is clever. A scale of lies and yet another sickening contrast that are we left to reflect upon. The keys aligned in a row, ever-shrinking like the remnants of a beautiful dream chromatically fading into the future.

A country of broken necks

Spines are shattered; everyone's neckless
Rubbernecks never run for office
Let's just quit this rat race, looks like
God should flatly concede all trace–

Danglin' floppin', cubicles-airplanes
Chemicals taint and paint the insane
Pop the suicide champagne, looks like
Broken necks have marred our campaigns

Let's talk longings primitive instinct
Elements meet forever they're linked
Life's just endless rethink, looks like
Your march rages onward hoodwinked

Two cars meet in promenade conflict
Butterfly floats and stings to afflict
Us like meaning addicts, looks like
Our scribe deems us worthy handpicked

See the sea? It's literal magic
Bitterness corks longings pelagic
Yes, doctor it's tragic, looks like
Our neck's wring is automatic

Forwards and backwards

In my dream last night
Well, I was drunk and you sent a note
Much like this one
Where the message works both backwards and forwards
Are you familiar with this?
This is totally strange.

This is totally strange.
Are you familiar with this?
Where the message works both backwards and forwards

Much like this one

Well, I was drunk and you sent a note

In my dream last night.

Lest we forget a blade of grass

Grass is unimpeded by our efforts to thwart it. It elbows its way through crevasses in concrete and asphalt. It bears the footfalls of animals and man. Grass's modern lifestyle plainly sucks. It endures ceaseless trampling and it is decapitated on the regular. People think nothing of the gaping green throats releasing the scent of plant-based violence into the suburban air. And while we often think about grass as sod — a blanket of green clinging to rolled up dirt — we mustn't forget the blade.

The Struggle exists in the solitary blade. It is He that is threatened by pests and disease, by competition for nutrients and the predation of an altogether different blade, namely, that of the whirling mower, caked with the carcasses of a thousand already-hacked brethren.

To forget the solitary blade would be to dismiss whole of humanity as "A brief flash of lush foam/On a cold stone/In a vast and soundless void." As they say.

And yet, that is the perspective of the cosmos. What blades of grass are we.

(Right? Right?)

Your flat react

I witnessed drones in east LA
A red auto speeds down this hill
Nudges my feet back to the curb

A street dog gnaws upon his bone
And the steps to your flat react
As though we've never met before

Six days and six bottles it took
To put to ink inchoate thoughts
And tuck inside this envelope

I read your name in my printing
And I think of your ceiling fan
I can feel the blades' empty air

"Finding out the girl you like is
Seeing someone else" -- is poetry
Though instead of rhyme there's the chop

Of fan blades; And words; And the air

Now I'm hungry for a hot tranny

Let's talk longings primitive instinct
Elements meet forever they're linked
Life's just endless rethink, looks like
Your march rages onward hoodwinked

Fiery spirits serious ghostings
Energy surge and violent smoke rings
And I'm wont to choke things looks like
Pious hearts shall outbeat most things

You are a most animal being
Equally breathing, doing, seeing
Glimpse of Toucan fleeing looks like
Cosmos dance existence freeing

Now I'm hungry for a hot tranny
Ready to go; can't break a twenty
She can shake a fanny looks like
I chalked up a few too many

I've done worse than cover up numbers
Nonetheless I'm cool as cucumbers
Life is strength in numbers looks like
Endings loom for golden slumbers

If you're in love

Sometimes I find poetry that I wrote.

Notes:

1. First line should be underlined.
2. The omission of an apostrophe in "youre" is deliberate.
3. "Pretend like" should be hyphenated with an invisible hyphen.
4. That there are two "ough"s in the fourth line is not a coincidence.
5. I probably should have said 'breast' instead of 'chest' but it's 2011 and this is impossible.
6. I'm not sure that voids can have 'depth'. Worth discussing in a classroom setting.
7. There is an invisible space between the 'can' and 'not' of 'cannot'.
8. I should have spelled out 'tv' as 'teevee' but it's 2011 and this would be laughable.
9. "And deny though you will" Note the author's repeated use of 'though'. Hmmm...
10. I should have used 'whole' instead of 'hole'.
11. I should have used 'youre' instead of 'your'.
12. That does in fact say "unmindedly".
13. "To wade into the interminable depths" To be recited in a poly-rhythmic style.
14. "But that's only of course" is arguably the worst line in the poem. (Or is it?)
15. The second last line is the same as the first line of the poem.
16. The last line is the same as the fourth line of the poem and the last line of the poem and this is not a coincidence.

Poetry for nerds

My Memory's Key

Vulcanized rubber, ebon and blue
Ferrous its thin ribs align in a queue
They let you/us be and they let you/us see
Unlocking the code of my memory's key

The locksmith is knowledge, he falls to his knees
The subcon is fires; unanswers my pleas
Gyres flow gelid from bubbling to thick
Four billion bits fast to the reveille stick

A library not, but a letter contains
Confessional, edict and summ'ry of pains
I finally convinced you/the truth/that it's through
That moment I relayed the gumstick to you

E-mails are tacky, and phone calls too cold
Texting too timid, and meatworld too bold
But one single letter on a memory stick

Like the final connection on crepe paper ripped
Or approach of the slider on the last tines unzipped
Or a corolla of petals too untimely clipped
Extinguished your dreams; in plain, did the trick

You breathe

the instant your bike slid on to the hot
summer sidewalk, your gentle hands on its
handlebars, your heels accenting the tick
of your turning wheels —i paused for a breath

whirrrrrrrrr, click, click, click, click

i exhaled sharply between my pursed lips
at the polka dots dancing on your red
dress, your auburn hair pouring down, and your
slender legs, creamy white marble columns

do you mean phoo, it's hot, or phoo, I'm hot?

your words halt my legs, and I pause beside
you and sharply inhale the thick night air
the ribbon of night is pulled taut and wide
i meet your green eyes; I swallow and sigh


i mean phoo: you're hot.

you do not smile but arch an eyebrow and
bring your bike and the whirr of your wheels and
the click of your heels to a halt under
the silence of moonlight and you whisper:

i have a boyfriend, and he is awesome

i do not wince; my mind is ensnared in
the folds of your frock and the tension of
your lips and the glint in your green eyes and
inhale once more and manage to blurt:

name three things that make your boyfriend awesome

you bite your lower lip, and your eyes
lift ever so slightly. in the space you
scan the shortrises around you and look
for three reasons your boyfriend is awesome

he's tall. and very good looking. and he makes a pretty decent mushroom risotto.

your face is relieved and you smile but i
ask you why none of your reasons are that
he loves you. and who gives a shit about
mushroom risotto.

you breathe
in
then
out.

How to parallel park from first principles

"So here's the premise. It's a set of instructions on how to parallel park your car that starts at the very beginning. And I don't just mean from the first moment you learn to drive, or the first time you see a car, or get hit by a car, or even learn what a car is. I'm talking before everything, even you. Prior to transportation, and feet, and limbs, skin, skin cells, any cells, molecules, and atoms and the vibrations that make up existence, matter and time. Before all that shit.

"The very beginning.

"But it was turning out be one Hell of a project. As we speak, my desk is covered with lined paper, and empty coffee cups, uncapped sharpies, a thesaurus, and a copy of Jack Welch's Winning (in case I feel low). The lined paper in turn, is covered with the ramblings of a lunatic, and specifically, a lunatic that has recently watched thirty-seven episodes of Nova. There are diagrams of the nascent universe as a small inky circles, with sharp frenetic lines bolts of lightning indicating energy flying in all directions. It's mostly circles and frenetic lines really. For a few billion years at least. The thing to understand is that in the early universe, there are few scientific laws governing the behaviour of anything, and they had only just been invented. So things were a bit confusing, and quite hot, and somewhat untidy.

"And under some other lined pages (under silver goblet holding a rusting apple core —don't ask), there's words like "dust cloud" and "coalesce" (spelled incorrectly a dozen times) and orphaned attempts to describe how, as the energy spreads out like a line of hot butter across an infinite expanse of cold black toast, simultaneously creating the space it enters, it slowly crumbles into tiny buzzing grains called matter -- but that wasn't much of a jumping off point and I got blocked.

"It doesn't matter though, because it's much worse trying to explain the emergence of crude laws which conducted the organization of the elementary particles into atoms, and molecules, which become complex, and form imperceptible droplets in the primordial steam of the new Earth. And how these fuse with other droplets, to produce more, each with primitive metabolic systems factoring in their survival. I can't wrap my head around it. It's just more circles and frenetic lines.

"The complex evolutionary journey from complex self-replicating molecules to single-celled life is longer than the journey from dinosaurs to side view mirrors and steering columns, so I won't bore you with the details. But anyway, a bit more of that, you put the car in reverse, yadda yadda yadda. I never finished it." I stopped.

"And it's a musical?" said Donnie, aghast.

"That's what I was thinking. Either that or "epic poem", but you know how I feel about Praepositio."

Spiral staircase: step 1

The top's a lovely place to start,
When rhyming names of erstwhile tarts,
So let us start this tired song,
The premiere point is called "The Thong."

(That's the floss that 'caused the trouble),
Look: life's confusing in a bubble,
I thought let's get my girl a thong;
We hadn't even dated long.

A fortnight only we had come,
Clearly I was after some.
So -- no -- she didn't like the gift,
Nature's forces b'gan to shift.

And she surmised the upper hand,
Thus I from lower-regions banned,
But look it's Christmas: gifts are tough,
I could never do enough.

"Fuckit -- this thong her gift shall be,"
To be enjoyed by her and me,
'Course that's only if she decides,
That I merit a panty ride.

"A musty romp in proverbial hay,"
Where I succeed at getting laid.
But lo, alas, 'tis not to be,
My gift prov'd fatal, unfortunately.

This top step of love's staircase,
Begins my journal of disgrace.

The gentle lapping of beer on the hull

A joke in Haiku:

Two men were adrift
Dramatic escape from a
Burning freight vessel.

Rummaging madly
Through the boat's supplies they found
A dingy old lamp.

Secretly hoping
A genie'd appear, one of
Them polished the lamp.

And one did come forth
This particular genie
Stated quite clearly:

That she could only
Deliver one wish, and not
The usual three.

With barely a thought:
"Turn the ocean into beer!"
The man blurted out

Clapping her hands with
A deafening crash, the sea
Was plainly transformed

And truly the sea
Had become the finest brew
Sampled by mortals

And at the same time
The genie vanished to her
Freedom from the lamp.

The gentle lapping
Of beer on the hull broke the
Stillness in the boat

The two men sat and
Considered their circumstance
When one of them said:

"Great, now we have to pee in the boat!"

The deliberate march of the ancient Chinese

The Grange does teem of elderly Chinese
Might even say "infested" should you please
But that'd be racist -- so let's say instead
Distressed I am! Behold their languished tread
One never sees them at the gym or pool
Old lives bereft of work or play or school
Can merely pad about the hallway floor
And circumscribe the condo's corridor
And pondering my own time come to that
Pajamas, slippers, solitude, a flat
And mired in constitutionals, oppressed
Our footsteps drag death's hand into our chests
No thanks to walks I shan't the will to live
For that's just holding water with a sieve

Eight word poetry

One line four words
The next four also

Don't revise don't edit
Just spit it out

A basic day make
Feed death drink eat

Splatter sauce screen door
Dinner aroma reunion picnic

Summer does fall into
Winter will spring away

The tempo of retox
Is come is gone

A moving living room
With airbags and belts

Racism is a way
Of turning back pages

Drugs are really only
Lonely is an excuse

The boyfriend is lost
But she is too

My addiction saves lives
When I torch beehives

Corruption is like friction
And friction like morality

Last year I wasted
Like I'm doing now

Eight short words can't
Even hold my plight

Another strange interaction between Harvey and the portly store owner

Harvey: Life's funny you know.
Miranda: How's that?
Harvey: Well, look at us. Every day fussing over dollars and cents and our morning coffee when there is an infinity beyond us overhead. Life truly is: "A brief flash of lush foam/On a cold stone/In a vast and soundless void."
Miranda: What's that? A poem?
Harvey: Oh, that? I just came up with that now.
Miranda: Lovely.
Harvey:
Miranda:
Harvey: So...
Miranda: No! Not a chance. You buy breakfast here every day; you know how much it costs.
Harvey: Fine, take back the muffin. I'll just take the coffee.

You perish ignited

Indeed, I uttered to merry Jane
It will be long so let's play a game
So while I sit fuming merrily
You perish
Ignited
Between my teeth

I lift you up off the yonder plate
Ensconced by fingers your fragile weight
Our breaths transposèd amidst our kiss
Your sweet death
By my hand
Your slow dismiss

But lo! And this is where you came in
Before embarking on mortal sin
I was a suicide referee
My sweet death
By my hand
My own marquee

Alas, I could never sign the mark
The note expected to flame the dark
Instead I fold you and speak your name
You perish
Ignited
You take the blame

Morning meditation

My eyes unclose to a wash of
Cool white sun through thick clouds
The light rolls along my face, I
Muster to meet the day
I appoint my fingers to the
window; my drowsy eyes
Follow them to cold dewy pane
Streets below are froze dead

Despite all reports that she's gone
Winter's love clings like sludge
This tardy spring has not sprung, I
Muster to meet the day
As my fingers leave the damp glass
I ponder: will it end?
And I ask, aloud, to God, as
Streets below stay froze dead:

"What the fuck is wrong with this country?

The aroma of Neutrogena

Hail the aroma of Neutrogena!
Saccharine breath of glycerina!
Thou rock me like a hurricane,
And taste of noxious sugar cane.

Ambrosia sent by Gods of lye,
O heavenly lather in my eye,
Resplendent goo of gingered brown,
In thy surge I eagerly drown.

Pour thy sugar on me, love,
Thou fit me like a sudsy glove,
A brick of origin tureen,
And yet thou always make me clean.

Sorrel soap! Thy glorious song,
Is what I long for all day long,
How dost thou do, that which thou does?
And why are you so expensive?

Another strange interaction between Harvey and the portly store owner

Harvey: You would work with translucent yesterday.
Miranda: I - what?
Harvey: Young worry seep. And velvet, which warm stiff wet, wake some secret smile?
Miranda: Have you been drinking?
Harvey: Too soft. Prick. Voice. Yet there: morning rhythm.
Miranda:
Harvey: Worry the vast word; speak wild yet warm and surround this clean universe; will you linger him, will she, your young yesterday?
Miranda: Ah, magnetic fridge poetry... cut it out, would you?