all this buttoning & unbuttoning

how they work, ed, is a mystery to me too, though apparently i'm "in charge" of this little cybershack. but one thing i suspect is that you have to become a follower to know that a new post is up. without followers, there's no conversation. to become a follower is a devotional exercise; not subservient but reverential in the true manner of reverence - a surrendering to . . . the uncertainty of relationship. in cate's profound idiom, an unbuttoning. ahhh, for a fruit fly - only a poet would wring ink tears for a sucked & dusty fruit fly. let's embrace that poetic impulse.

in a poem i once said

Dead poets like religious zealots

sure beat living ones,

their stock trades higher

they’re less ANNOYING,

they ask for nothing

no grants readers sex

proofs breakfast adulation,

even the big lie

TRUTH

is now a matter of complete

indifference to them;

they never bathe

leave no wadded towels

no toothpaste in the sink

don’t howl, don’t stink

(except the newly extinct),

they’re loyal as the dog,

they don’t blog.

ergo, live poets of the 21st century BLOG - come hither, LiTFUSIANS, annoy me out of my coma. once we've got uncritical mass (vernacular), we'll talk about ingrid, this year's featured artist. about how grateful we are that she will be joining us. about inspiration without ostentation. about poet stew. but first, we need YOU.