Some Culture for your Ass

Hello everyone, and happy Friday! I love Fridays. There is an air of urgency around the office because people are ready to get out for the weekend. People stand in the halls and talk about their plans and such. The fact that it's an autumn weekend with lots of big games, both baseball and football, makes it that much better.

First things first: today I am going to post a poem written by one of my best friends (who I met on my first day here), a true influence in my life, and a guy with almost limitless talent in a variety of areas, TheKeefer. TheKeefer recently eschewed a career in finance and consulting to take on a career as a poet, and without a great deal of formal training has become a poetry fellow at a prestigious university. A lot of his catalog cannot be posted at the Offering just yet because it is being considered for publication at various literary journals, and they don't like it when blogs like this defile the poems prior to publication. Anyway, we'll go with a selection already published at this fine journal, and as more become available, we'll post them as well.

Without further ado:

Very Large Array


I called in suspicion. Walking home – a fogged
streetcar, fireworks to the east, the stars’
sweaty nest. The flutter in your voice
was a stranger’s smile on the stairs.

I called in anger. Rain and traffic, a basket of
rotten bananas, a splinter.
The crack in your voice was a match-head,
my tongue a trail of gasoline.

I called in desperation. Skin-shiver, achy
Creole music, oceans clutching their aqua shawls.
The tick
in your voice…

there is a place in New Mexico:
Very Large Array - telescopes
scrambling cosmic chatter. Rattle-boxes
filled with snow. Radio waves swim out
like snorklers scanning wraiths
of wet-electric. Each scope-face
wheeling the cyclopean ear,
thirteen miles long. It hears:
a lunar apogee
Plutonian lampposts
a supernova
made human.

*

If you like TheKeefer's work and would like to find out where to read more, email me. I will post another poem next week, so stay tuned.

Okay, the weekend (which, as Krock says, will be sponsored in part by Steven Seagal's Lightning Bolt Energy Drink): The LongMan's birthday celebration hasn't been set in stone yet, but the Birthday Committee is having a dinner meeting tonight to firm up the plans. If you want to be sure not to miss out, be at Sedgwick's for the Iowa-Purdue game tomorrow. We'll be leaving from there after the game. We at the Offering are looking forward to a few drinks with another buddy from Club Midd, DeRooster, who will be in town Saturday.

Tonight after the Birthday Committee meets for dinner at Tango Sur for some Argentinean cuisine, we'll be taking it off the chain as usual. Want to join us after dinner? Have a suggestion for where to do so? Email me or call me today. Pre-dinner cocktails and trash talking about the week will commence at my place promptly at 7:00. Dinner is at 9:00, and bad judgment begins at 10:30 sharp.

The Cold Dizzle will be flowing freely this weekend, so if you are in Chicago, I hope you can take part. Have a great weekend everybody.

Tim