Two letters from Letters to Bernadette


“There is a line down the highway and on one side you go right and the other side you go left. I don’t know why anybody can’t figure this out. It’s so simple. Life is so simple.” 
-Bernadette Mayer (as transcribed from a Kickstarter video) 
 
 
Dear Bernadette, 
 
How did you get the couch in here, not to mention up all those steps? 
 
The good thing about moving a couch through the city is that you have something to rest on along the way. Like you were taking a break on a fallen tree. 
 
Make the city into a for__t for the day (to make a fort, cut the es from forest. In the eyes of lemurs on burning branches, in the chainsaw sounds of the lyrebirds). 
 
Find enough in change to pay for parking. Do one load of laundry. Buy a chocolate bar (for a one-hour poetry reading…two chocolate bars for a two-hour poetry reading).  
 
It’s where flip phones go when they want to be alone.  
 
To sit your friends on the couch is to increase the chance of change from their pockets (tips: to inspire poem service).

The couch is a colosseum (all the atrocities!). The colosseum is the Guggenheim (all the atrocities!).  And this year I am applying for the couch.  
 
Would you be my reference, Bernadette? (I’m not really applying, I’m lying (on the couch)) I know you probably don't remember meeting me that day on your porch and later in your attic library where you were scanning blurbs, looking for one to use on another poet’s book. You pulled Oscar Wilde off the shelf and found a good one.  
 
“This’ll do.”  
 
O(mad gas)scar rides her bike to the beach and back.   
 
"It was nice," says the couch.   
 
“O” sings the conch.  
 
“Women do ejaculate,” you interject  
 
Even my smile sounds hollow 
 
 
 
blurb the blurb  
for the blurbs 
on long gone blogs 
as a song sung 
long ago on a log 
 
(L.O.G.- Leaves of Grass) 
 
“We assembled first at the Café de la Regence. Warmed up with a succession of Maraschinos, the Master began to coruscate genially. I could only listen in respectful silence, for did I not know that ‘little boys should be obscene and not heard.’ In any case I could think of nothing whatever to say. Even my laughter sounded hollow.” Augustus John on first meeting Oscar Wilde 
 
So long, 
A liar bird (a no-see-um) 
 
P. S. All the atrocities!…all theatro cities! 
 
P.P.S Larry tells me it was Gelett Burgess who coined the word blurb.

P.P.P.S. A tip- never look straight into the Sun.

P.P.P.P.S. last tip- if you feel you need to sneeze, but the sneeze seems reluctant, try looking at the Sun.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Dear Mayor, 
 
“You don’t even know what a butterfly is.” –Julien Poirier 
 
The nervousness of the new…reminds me of Bill Berkson quoting someone, “flirtation is the production of uncertainty.”  
 
Shivers enter (caught like yawn), through vehicles of (cold? warm?) wind, whispers, chords (a cadence), crying, death, birth, the grotesque (rubbernecking). Holy Ghost! Hairs on end, animal, you appear larger.  
 
You can’t study shivers or goose bumps with a sensory apparatus. If you’re attached to such a mechanism, you’ve already skewed the data. So, shivers remain as mysterious as the metamorphoses of butterflies (from caterpillar to DNA soup to migrating millions.)
 
AND 
DNA 
AND 
DNA 
AND 
DNA 
 
The word capillary derives from hair  
braided like a melody  
 
Cadence’s hiccups echoed by the baby inside her stomach hiccupping. The entire Hungarian film, Hukkle, between the Hic and the Cup.
 
“Drink deep. It’s just a taste and it might not come this way again…”- Rites of Spring (the band from D.C.) 
 
When I lived in Baltimore, I’d adhere a single azure Pacific Wild Iris to the back of my neck as a temporary tattoo. 
 
Jade pillow. 
 
A museum director was asked the size of his endowment. “7.5,” he said.  
 
Yours, 
Larry Rinder 
 
P.S. What’s your idea of a bad time?  
P.P.S. On second thought, what’s your idea of a good time? Where are the Utopian movies? They can be counted on one hand…like sky through the four finger gaps. 

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