After a second day of hundreds of visits, I contacted the automated helpon my Word Press site to see if itcould stop my German bots. Initially, I asked to speak to a realperson, but the automated helpwas, how do I say, insistent aboutgiving it a go. Why not, I said. Together, we learned a lotconcerningContinue reading “#582: That Time I Got Help With a Bot from Another Bot”
Category Archives: Poetry
#581: That Time 856 Germans Visited My Blog
I get this notification from WordPress:“Your stats are booming! michaeljarmer is getting a lot of views.” Of course, I want to know more, so I visit my statsand over the course of a few hours, I have 249, then 380, moments later567, and by the end of the day, 856, all these visits originating fromContinue reading “#581: That Time 856 Germans Visited My Blog”
#580: What Marriage Looks Like
My wife and I are attending a wedding and we’re at a reception dining table in an outdoor pavilion in heat unlike anything we’ve had yet this summer. She looks at me. She sees something strange, runny and brown, in my silver hair. Dirt? Mud? Bird shit? Bird shit is not usually that color, theContinue reading “#580: What Marriage Looks Like”
#579: Jill
I couldn’t get back to sleepso I just got up super early, made coffee, sat for 20 minutesof breathing in and out, trying to calm the hamsters, later realizing I had forgottenmy meds two days in a row,and mad at myself for not being more vigilant, I thoughtabout mortality, mine, and I thoughtabout Jill. BeforeContinue reading “#579: Jill”
#578: I See Willy Loman
Because each night I try to watch the opening monologue of my favorite late-night comedy talk shows, in addition to the Maddow or the Psaki,the various news highlights from the day, I’ve seen the clip five or six times by now of Donald Trump’s interview with Terry Moranwhere Trump insists against glaring evidence to theContinue reading “#578: I See Willy Loman”
#577: DMV Meditation
The line is three blocks long, people waiting to get into the DMV. I’m in this line half an hour before opening, and even when the doors open and the line begins to move, the wait is interminable. The old woman in front of me, who can barely stand, is cheerful, wants to chat. I amContinue reading “#577: DMV Meditation”
#576: Ode to Andy
Somewhat of a recluse,stopped touring in the 80son the brink of your heyday,debilitating anxiety tookyou forever off the stagebut not from the studio,thanks be. Skylarking, a masterpiece, found youworking and fighting with Todd Rundgren to make the greatest record of the decade, for me, perhaps, the greatest of all time. I don’t knowa whole lotContinue reading “#576: Ode to Andy”
#575: There Is A Ritual To It
The dance floor is open, she says, and people begin dancing. Sometimes, she doesn’t have to say anything. From the first downbeat people leave their seatsand flock. They don’t even haveto be sure that the music is good. It starts, they begin, as if they could not help it. They are exercising, they areentertaining themselves,Continue reading “#575: There Is A Ritual To It”
#574: Saucers and Blimps and False Starts
Once something goes upside down it can never again be seen as the thing it once was. Or.Just model the opening statement after Auden:About some abstract noun they were never wrong,These young masters. How well they understood . . .Or.Poets sometimes, after 26 straight days of writing a poem every day,are visited by a bigContinue reading “#574: Saucers and Blimps and False Starts”
#573: A Double Loose Love Sonnet for Daily Records
I When I was a teen, 45 years ago now, I’d walk weekly to a neighborhoodrecord store. There were, in fact, three to choose from on the samesuburban strip, otherwise, a culturalwasteland. By the time I was an adult,all three of them were shuttered. My favorite, Everybody’s Records, turned into a pornshop. ALL ADULT VIDEOContinue reading “#573: A Double Loose Love Sonnet for Daily Records”
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