This is my last Amsterdam blog, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I wax slightly philosophical about the nature of the internet and poetry. I’m extremely interested in what the internet gives us and what it takes away, in regards to art, writing, etc. On the one hand, it makes it that we never have to remember anything anymore. Facts no longer imprint themselves on their brain the way they once did…I feel like I’ve hardly learned anything in a permanent way since 1999. This is probably very bad for the imagination.
However, Computer World can give back in unexpected ways. The internet generates its own poetry, and is open to many poetical experiments. For example, I had a phase where I would type random words together into Google–bicycle, unicorn, penis–like some kind of oracle and then contruct poems out of the mangled, ephemeral phrases that came back to me. A couple of examples:
Allow me to explain;
I don’t mind being used for sex
In Thailand with five eleven year old girls
And I understand that if my
Son is to be rich and successful, he
Must become Jewish
But Kiefer Sutherland is one goddamned fucked up
Piece of dick-sucking shit
Because he doesn’t represent me or my
Writing style anymore.
Or
It is good that you enlighten people about Harry Potter for
That doll was meant to serve the
Sexual needs of the German Fighting Man.
That’s why I wouldn’t let that kid
Invade a vampire’s anus or an
Ultra black Christian single personalized
Beer mug.
Try the Gay Man’s Ass Burgers—oh no–
It wasn’t a question. It’s no longer just a choice
Whether to have a light beer or a beer in the butt chicken
But the good news is you have your mother’s eyes.
Or
I knew Crow on a first
Name basis, and she knew
Me as the guy with the Labrador
Until July 12, 1997
When he abducted nine
Forest rangers from the jungles of Southern India.
When I asked why, I was told
That at best they were unabashed perverts and lechers and
She wouldn’t stand
For them working at her company.
She didn’t mean it in the dirty sense
But Dr. Lee DeForest, inventor of the
Vacuum tube and father of television
Mentioned that we’re all sickos and psychopaths
And hiring naked women can’t solve the
Problem that there
Isn’t any mouse-flavored
Cat food. The perverts want the war to end;
But not the syphilitic perverts
That would so wantonly take her,
Just the Rump Rangers in
Germany, I fear.
Or:
My sweet Prince;
In the wake of separation
The victim was found with
A pentagram carved on her chest. A victim of the
Nightlife. There’s a young man far from home
In the mutilated backwoods.
Here the members
Of the cult killed the ballerina
With sarcastic language and from
That moment on, I declared myself a
Member of the reality-based community.
For no more “tragic suicides”
Or former Romanian gymnasts are going to
Interfere with my relationship.
Or:
He didn’t have a favorite girl band, but
Tristan’s a dirty boy when it comes to sand dunes.
We went and got some Wendy’s
Before the newspaper article came out
Linking us directly to the spread of AIDS in Oahu, then
We headed over to the Make Out Club in
Britt, Iowa, where our
English was fluent and eroticism a dark and shadowy thing.
Man, that boy has a lot of shit.
But while he may be goofy,
Nasty, and powerfully retarded, this Japanese
Film clip will explain it all.
His name was Jesus Christ
And he died a 33-year-old virgin.
Or finally:
Angels were never meant
To feel pain, so an Angel
Can never cry. Instead,
I bleed when you cry
Whatever, I’m not all
Suicidal like when we first
Broke up, but I still sniff my
Fingers after I wipe my ass
Like you taught me
And last night I grunted and grunted
As a painful hard ball slipped
Out until I realized
It’s going to
Be fine once I
Get Ryan to beat
Your ass again and
Watch you bleed and cry
Like a bitch until you perish,
You turtle-y looking fuck.
.I have a million of them. After a couple of months I got tired and started using my own head to generate material again. But now I’ve found something else. Facebook.
Facebook is a killer of art in many ways, in that is robs us of the mythology surrounding the people that we knew many years ago; those that were cruel to us, those we imagined would end up fat and alone and in jail. It’s difficult to retain one’s image of the past when it keeps sending you Li’l Green Patch requests and pictures of its adorable nephew. But Facebook gives back as well, in the form of the randomly generated and sometimes hauntingly beautiful little phrases it sends you back to type when you’ve chosen a new friend. I’ve been collecting some of them:
Tribes hornblow
Better hauled
Newashe health
Marprelate 3 1/2
Duveen he
Vigorous this
Cancer midwives
Den matthews
Citizens knife
Soldier Appleby
Almond precious
Organs customary
Loucks kew
Matter Inc
Washing defect
Complaint Hunstalker
Peasants sor
Norbitt not
Talent cost
Surviving of
Dying calf
138th 71,340,000
Gaines Caruba
Strange and lovely. Are they titles? Images? Bits of cryptic wisdom from another planet, another time?
Someday, they may be all that’s left. I’ve loved blogging for you–a wonderful respite in Computer World. Thanks. –RS