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"Flat," "Scrape," "Tape," and "Length": This Fuckin' Guy Goes on Way Too Fucking Long for "Metatweet."

Flat
I took out a fucking Citibike this morning
As I am fucking wont to do
I save so much fucking money riding these motherfuckers,
For one fucking thing.
But for another fucking thing,
I like riding a motherfucking bike to work
I really fucking like it.

But I start riding this fucking bike
And I realize it must have
A motherfucking flat
But I'm figuring it can't be that bad of a flat
Because it hadn't fucking been reported broken
Which is an easy motherfucking thing to do:
You just press a motherfucking button
When you return the motherfucker.

So I start riding, south on Mercer,
As I'm wont to do,
And yeah, the bike's a little fucking wobbly
And a bit hard to fucking pedal
But it seems fucking manageable.
I could have just fucking returned it,
But if you return a Citibike
Even a fucking a broken one
You have to wait two fucking minutes
Before you can take out another one
So I was like, fuck that shit,
I can fucking do this.
Because I'm a fucking idiot.

So I've gone about  three quarters of a block
And see I've got 20 fucking seconds
To make the left at Houston
Which is plenty of fucking time
But because of the flat
I have to pedal faster
Which makes the bike more fucking wobbly
And I fucking lose control
And I veer off into the fucking curb
And fall the fuck off the fucking bike.

And it's a motherfucking good thing
I happened to find
A pair of motherfucking winter gloves
This fucking morning
It was below fucking 50 this morning,
So I had those motherfuckers on
And they came in fucking handy in that moment, 'cause
I used my hands to break my fucking fall.

I have fallen off a fucking Citibike before,
Once, last year, similar fucking situation -
I bumped up onto the motherfucking curb and fell forward -
But this time wasn't as bad,
That fucking time,
I was like 70 fucking pounds heavier
And I was going fucking faster,
And I didn't have gloves on,
So I fucking fucked up my hands a little bit,
And ripped a big fucking hole in my fucking pants,
Had to through those fucking shits the fuck away.
And I still have a mark on my left knee from that shit.

But this time, I got up,
My hands were fucking fine,
The pants just had a  little bit of schmutz on them
(Can you use that word if the shit isn't on your face?),
And I returned the fucking bike
Waited the two fucking minutes
And had a nice fucking bike ride to work

I thought about A.R. Ammons, actually,
The time I saw Harold Bloom introduce him
Before he did a reading somewhere in fucking Soho
And then I felt that horrible fucking guilt,
And I thought about how
I really have to write that fucking poem
Called "Tape."

But other than that motherfucking guilt
It was another fucking nice commute to "work."
10/6/2014


Scrape
I got to work
And checked my right fucking knee
And it's really just a little fucking scrape.

But I washed that shit with soap,
Because that's what adults do, right?
And while I'm doing that, I'm fucking thinking
"Flat," Scrape," and "Metatweet,"
But that doesn't fucking feel fucking right,

But fuck me,
"Flat," Scrape," and "Tape" feels right,
And then maybe "Metatweet."
We'll just have to see how it fucking goes.
10/6/2014


Tape
Okay, actually I've been thinking about this poem a long fucking time.
Since fucking August, actually.
I guess it fucking goes like fucking this:

After I got thrown out of NYU
I was a fucking bank teller for a little fucking while,
And I then I got fucking fired.
And I was a goddamn motherfucking fucking mess.
And my mother was like,
"Why don't you fucking go to Cornell
This fucking summer? They've got this
Six week motherfucking summer session program.
It sounds really fucking nice. You ought to go."
(Again, I paraphrase. It's what I do.)

So I looked a the motherfucking catalog
And there was a fucking course called "Rudiments of Popular Music,"
And I was like, that looks like it might be fucking interesting,
Maybe I would like to check that out,
Maybe it would help me fucking figure out
How to write a fucking song,
Which would be really fucking nice to know how to do,
So I figured I'll fucking take that class,
And maybe one other,
So I said, "Okay mom, I'll fucking do that."

So my father drives me up to fucking Ithaca
To the beautiful fucking Cornell fucking campus,
I check into my motherfucking room,
And look at the motherfucking registration materials,
And "Rudiments of Popular Music"
Has been fucking cancelled.

I look through the fucking catalog,
And I'm like fuck, fuck,
Fuck!
But finally, I'm like
Okay, maybe fucking "Verse Writing."
Maybe I will like that fucking class.
And as long as I was fucking there,
I signed up for "A History of The Labor Movement,
As Told by Those Who Made It,"
Or some fucking thing like that
Because it was basically, you fucking watch films
Of fucking labor leaders,
And that sounded pretty fucking good,
Plus, also, my father was a fucking union leader,
Which was something I always fucking liked about him,
Etc, so fucking anyway,

I fucking loved this fucking "Verse Writing" Class:
We just fucking wrote poems,
And fucking read them,
And fucking discussed each other's poems,
Along with the professor, A. R. Ammons,
Who was always really fucking encouraging
And kind.

Four days a week
we read and discussed our fucking poems.
The fifth day, the teaching assistant Jody Gladding,
gave a lecture about a specific fucking poet.
(I had a huge fucking crush on her -
I just saw her name in the New York Review;
A translation she did was reviewed there fucking recently -
But that's neither fucking here nor fucking there.)

Anyway, the second fucking day,
Susannah, who was also in the class
(and whom I quickly fell in love with;
Jody Gladding notwithfuckingstanding);
Was shocked to know I didn't know
Who the fuck Ammons fucking was,
Because she had come  specifically
To take this fucking class because she loved
This fucking Ammons guy.

She showed me Ammons' book
Tape for the Turn of the Year.
To this fucking day, it is one of my
Favorite fucking books of all fucking time.

It's a "long thin poem"
(As he refers to it on the first fucking page)
Written on a roll of fucking adding machine tape
From December 1963 to January 1964
I mean, come on, right?
What a cool fucking idea.

And I can't fucking tell you
How many fucking times
I've thought about that motherfucking book
While writing these fucking poems.

But the sad fucking confession
That I was thinking about today
Was how, when I saw him do that reading in New York
Years fucking later,
And I spoke to him afterwards,
And he fucking remembered me,
And I told him about the records I had made,
And how I thanked him in the liner notes
For Fluting on the Motherfucking Hump,
And how I wanted to send some fucking recordings to him,
And he said "I wish you would,"
And I told him I would.
But I fucking didn't.
I never fucking did.
And then he died.

And now, I don't know what the fuck else to say:
I suck: I hate the fucking way I say I'll do something
And then fucking don't.
The way I always let people down, still.
To this fucking day
Maybe I'm better than I used to be,
And maybe fucking not. But still, fucking regardless:
I fucking suck.
And, yes, people let me down too, all the fucking time.
But still I fucking suck.

But you know what doesn't fucking suck?
Tape For the Turn of the Motherfucking Year
You should really fucking read that fucking shit.
I'm fucking serious, motherfucker:
Read that fucking shit.
Or fucking don't. I don't actually fucking care.
I'm just fucking saying
That motherfucker Ammons could fuck with a pen, yo,
And Tape is an excellent motherfucking book.
No fucking lie.
10/6/2014


Length
This is a really fucking long blog entry
I mean, it's not as fucking long as
Tape For the Turn of the Motherfucking Year
That motherfucker is more than
200 fucking pages fucking long.

But still, I fucking wonder
How many fucking people
Will even read this shit.

It's fucking Monday,
People have shit to fucking do --
Not me, apparently, not fucking now --
but other fucking people,
Have a lot of fucking shit to fucking do.

At times, during the Tape,
Ammons fucking speculates
If anyone is still fucking reading
His long fucking poem,
And how crazy and fucking hubristic
An idea it fucking is
To be writing the motherfucker.

He writes about his motherfucking back aching,
And then there's that time in the fucking book,
When he backs the whole fucking poem
Up out of the fucking typewriter
And takes it for a motherfucking ride somewhere.
And he talks about the length,
The way I'm fucking doing fucking now.

I'm no fucking Ammons, for fuck's sake,
But today, I'll fucking tell you,
I'm totally fucking feeling what Jonathan Fucking Lethem called
The Ecstasy of Fucking Influence
Even though I'm not consciously fucking ripping Ammons off.

But the point fucking being:
I don't have the time or fucking patience
To write  this fucking "Metatweet" poem right now.
Which is just as fucking well,
'Cause I've gone on too way too fucking long.

And also, it is kind of fucking nice
To know I've got at least one fucking more
Motherfucking poem to write
At some point in the fucking future.
Even though, who knows, it might fucking suck,
Still: it's nice to have some fucking sense
Of what might be fucking coming fucking next.
10/6/2014

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