P U B L I C A T I O N S
Available November 2012
the lyric is like a fly
arriving out of plain sight
suddenly persistent, insisting
or not, like a gnat vanishes
comes back sometimes
12 years on to finish a line
a lost dog that answers to George,
here boy or the merest nod -
pat on the thigh have you seen my
lyric is a bride in wait
eye ever over shouldering
a dwindling stack of pages
perhaps 2.3 billion seconds
is time to name all of the tree I loved
naming is better than ice cream
in the beginning
next to portions of four bricks
a filthy thumbnail weights a napkin
chats about waiting in chairs at a reading to hear
then, turning the page a door slams
eardrum pulsing last cigaret looks
these are real corners
close at the scale of napkins
inside and out
accordion wave forms
lunar lighting. stubble of stucco -
I could tell you plenty about stucco but
Corners and Napkins
is not concerned with stucco
some corners trap,
some corners - we do not know
some corners we do
for they Deify light
lime says cool
orange invites lizards to cross
green on the produce sign says notice
napkin relieves, assures
napkin will take a bullet for the Boss
napkin signed verifies invention
napkin tapped at corners of mouth
formulates the lie and emphasizes,
cloud billow sail
perfection can be achieved in the photography of napkins
the actual size colored papers are satisfying to compile
resin coated a thumb likes to sooth
for the napkin photograph solicits its surface as one to write on
napkin worship
perfection to ruin
some of these corners are severe
to promise it is a cold cruel world
edges you'd not choose in a prison guard
we like the corner that wanders for god
that cant, that wiggle, is ours
in the end a pen takes to brick and flails
,
32 pages, published 9/12/2012
(almost) All of these Corners were imported from the Art Department at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. These Napkins are from Clement Street in San Francisco. 32 pages by Chris Sullivan, 2003 32 pages
56 pages, published 8/27/2012
I bought a brand new couch once when I was 28. It cost $700.00 and was cantaloupe colored, replacing the couch on this books cover. That couch cost $40.00 from a thrift store and I never felt good about it. It had the aura of invisible bugs, dirt and undetectable smells. I was taking it to the dump, going slow on a dirt road along a lonely alfalfa field when I saw the grave. Rest in Peace, I thought, and grinned, always of a mind to make a…
56 pages, published 8/5/2012
Reprint of the 1999 first issue
click image for preview
The rest becomes the public domain...
32 pages, published 6/23/2012
"…a collection of authorial squibs emphasizing the arbitrary… if notably less insipid than the earlier edition…a shameless face dropper, though Margaret Thatcher appears about to vomit…ably portrays the physiognometric stresses of plexiglass, shrink-wrap, and Jack Daniels…while the picture of a foot behind his head appears authentic…novelty in the sight of a basketball player wearing eye black…not a complete package…unlike the Carpenter Pencil Poems, About the Author can at least be opened without a screwdriver…flawed as it is, it cannot be improved. Stop. "
Hardly Able, Earlimart Jimson Weed Gazette
72 pages, published 6/11/2012
All billboards in New Orleans in the fall of 2005 were underperforming; if not rendered absurd or irrelevant by catastrophe, erased by the hurricane to blither like old TV screens muted to grey noise. Many would stay that way for months and years as advertisers had no interest targeting a much depopulated city beset and preoccupied with basic concerns. Closer to the ground, language sprouted. Ugly plastic mass produced signs advertising recovery services proliferated and many took matters into their own hands: with a can of spray paint, shard of plywood and a useful service to proclaim, a person was in business. This book promotes those efforts and imagines the billboard as a site of civic witness, memorial, reflection and marquee for stories from an extraordinary time.
26 pages, published 7/5/2012
The life of Queenie, 1978-1994 of Rosedale, Pozo and Vacaville Ca. remembered with 23 photographs taken between 1982 and 1986
by Chris Sullivan.
by Chris Sullivan.
"Queenie was born on Coffee Road in Bakersfield in November 1978.
To Lorq, the strange and regal, friendly but spooky Black Lab long past
the notion of pet. She was part of the 10 acres with a 3 bedroom house
our family bought in 1976 when I was 18. There was one other residence
on Coffee, owned by a farmer named Rueben Bartell, who had a male
German Shepherd that was free to roam...
