Poetry In My Bare Hands

I have a short poem up in the first issue of Bare Hands Poetry. Five lines people, five lines.

Another poem up at Literary Kicks. Truth be told, I like the response posted below better than the original.

Ever wonder what would happen if atheists ruled America? Apparently s4ms0nr and John Hodgman know.

Things I'm listening to at the moment: Department of Eagles, Roxy Music, Cat Power, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Fela Kuti, and Wye Oak.

Poetry In the Brooklyner and Other News

Hello all, some updates from the very sedate files of Mr. Nardolilli:

I have three poems up in the Brooklyner. Read one of them here, another here, and the last one in this place.

Here's a link to a project centered on the life of little known counterculture figure Shig Murao that presents his life and work. He was the one who was actually arrested for selling Allen Ginsberg's Howl. Unfortunately his role was not depicted in the recent film based on the famous censorship trial, even though he was a defendant along with Lawrence Ferlinghetti (whose last name the spellchecker recognizes, boy is Google Chrome one hep cat!). I reviewed the film when it first came out a year ago.  Besides Howl, Shig was involved with City Lights bookstore, the San Francisco renaissance, and was an early zine publisher. In addition he was also a survivor of the Japanese internment and Allen Ginsberg lived out of his closet. A pretty interesting life all around. 

Oh, and I was nominated for a Pushcart for a poem in my poetry chapbook.

Don't Hide the Madness

My Mother once asked me what the definition of a "tool" was. She wasn't talking about hammers and levers, but the use of the word to describe a person. At the time I had trouble explaining it to her, but recent events have given me plenty to show her what a tool is even if I can't explicitly tell her.

Here is example #1: The Man In The White Shirt

Example #2: The Grown Man In The Costume

Example #3: The Man Defending A Lack Of Philanthropy By Claiming That A Billionaire "Gave" Us All A Good Time.

Example #4: These people (also a good example of false consciousness) 

On a completely unrelated note, I have supplied my intellectual labors and creative endeavors for free to Catapult to Mars and The Plebian Rag.

Up New Poems

Three new poems published online, which means that now I can't say they've never been published before. Please, violate them with your eyes, like the octopus in the above picture is doing with that poor man at the computer. I have a poem up at Etcetera, work at Welcome to Wherever, and some lines in the first issue of the Magic Lantern Review. Reading them one after the other might make you wonder if they were written by the same person. The Magic Lantern poem is an imagist-inspired work based on a picture I saw on Unhappy Hipsters. The poem in Welcome to Wherever is simple free verse. Meanwhile the work at Etcetera is an Adventist cut-up.

Why Should the Aged Eagle Stretch its Wings?

There is an Oktoberfest for new poems by me online this week. Something for everybody, as long as they are literate. First, I have a poem up in Welcome to Wherever. Sleet Magazine has also decided they like my words and here's a link to some. Two sites have posted multiple poems of mine. MungBeing, which has been a generous, welcoming home for me, has four of my works, all of them dealing with the theme of costumes. You can read them here, in this place, at this site, and by clicking on this link. Last but not the least, Everyday Other Things has posted a series of poems I write in response to the picture posted on top of them.

In other news, I am putting my other blog on hiatus. The project's not going anywhere, beacuse well, I'm not going anywhere either.

Guerilla Catapults

Two new poems for you all to read. Here is one in Catapult to Mars and another in Guerrilla Pamphlets. Hope you enjoy them.

New York, I'm Coming to See You

This Friday, I will be arriving in Manhattan, either by blimp or the bus. I'm trying to figure out which one is safer. Unfortunately, the autogryo (which is not an edible Greek car) is all booked until next Wednesday. I will be in New York City until Monday. Hopefully I will get to see some of you all to celebrate the opening of my 26th year on earth, which will happen on the 24th. A quarter century done...

As always, there are literary updates. An important announcement of mine is up at w5ran. There are also some poems of mine up at Drunken Absurdity. The hits just keep coming! And don't forget about my chapbook, which is still for sale at Folded Word.

Also, be careful what you parody, it might just be appropriated. Here are two videos, the first making fun of Levi's "Go Forth" ads by using Charles Bukowski's Dinosauria, We.



As one YouTube commenter wrote, it takes away the aftertaste of the original. However, the people at Levi's must have wised up. Look what they wrought:

Carcinogenic Poetry

That's a pretty cool symbol, don't you think so? It means something is carcinogenic. How about that? When you come to my blog you learn something new. I keep trying to convince the judge this is my community service and the priest that it is my penance. But neither of them budge in the robes. Anyway, here is a poem of mine from Carcinogenic Poetry. It may prove to be a historical record in time, written during the last gasp of the Bowery as a berth for the wreckage of unlucky New Yorkers to dock in.

Other than that, I have decided to return to my first novel and rewrite it so that it is no longer a series of journal entries but is a tale told from the first person, full of sound and fury, signifying everything. The title business for my deeds is still up in the air. The current title is "Everything with Wings Is Restless" which might be too long despite its poetic nature. My fear is it may sound Extremely Cloying and Incredibly False as well. I have a few other ideas: The Daybreak Boys, American Spring, Combination of the Two, and Trimalchio in West Egg.

The Chapbooks Are Here! The Chapbooks Are Here!

The physical copies of my chapbook "Common Symptoms of an Enduring Chill Explained," have arrived and are ready for sale and distribution. Just look at them! I think I am going to print these pictures, cut them out, and put them in my wallet to show people when they ask me if I have children. This is probably as close as I'm going to get.

Here's a close-up view of the book. Look at the nice rendering of my name. LOOK AT IT!

And here is an inside look inside the chapbook. As you can see, it is part of a limited run. So get your books while supplies last. There will also be an e-book version for you to purchase, in case a fifteen page book is too big for you to carry.

Apparently Blogger Considers Puerto Rico an Independent Country

But that's not what's important right now. What is, are three poems roaming loose on the Internet without regard to proper rhyme or meter.  There's one at Uptown Mosaic Magazine, which is based on one morning I spent at the IHOP in Ballston. Dead Snakes also has a poem of mine slithering on its site.  Also, I wrote a little something on the website Literary Kicks, which might be hard to understand since it seems the picture I was referring to was taken off the site.

Remembrance and Reflection on Remembrance and Reflection

Sunday I went down to the Smithsonian with my parents. After navigating through a small, colorful protest, we parked by the Department of Agriculture and walked over to the Museum of American History. Our space was near a curious stretch of C Street which is largely empty on the weekends and is mostly occupied by government office buildings that sit like giant file cabinets over entire city blocks. After making our way through the last humid dregs of summer, we arrived at the museum for their temporary exhibit of artifacts related to the attacks of September 11th.

There was already a line to see the exhibit when we go there. It snaked out from the room, past the museum's famous dollhouse, and along the entrance to the exhibit on the American presidency. Since it was a temporary exhibition and did not receive much fanfare, I was surprised at the turnout. Perhaps it was higher because the Washington Monument was closed because the cracks it incurred from the recent earthquake. I could not tell if the crowd was made up mostly of tourists or locals who were interested in remembering the day's carnage.



It was a forty-five minute wait to get inside. To pass the time we had a brochure filled with a few interesting stories but once that was done, there was the inevitable discussion of where we were that day, what we were thinking, and the ways in which the country has changed since then, almost all for the worst. There was little else to do or look at. The walls around us were white and free of any interesting artifacts under glass or captions dripping with information. Someone opened a door reserved for employees and I got a brief behind the scenes glimpse of the museum's inner workings.

Finally, we got to the exhibit itself. The display was a sort of dress rehearsal for future exhibits about 9/11, particularly the museum specially devoted to the day in New York City. Once I went inside, it seemed like I was in a macabre convention. The objects were not protected or covered up in any way. Instead, they were spread out on tables for people to breathe on and photograph, however they could not be touched. But it was the overall design that stood out for me. Above us was a chandelier and dividing the tables of artifacts were large gray curtains with placards attached to them. The signs announced what city they came from. The overall effect was like being at a conference, with booths set up by companies to show off their latest products.

Just like a conference, there were too many people taking pictures. I realized that they were the ones who were holding up the line. Without them, people would have able to go through much quicker. I found it strange that so many people felt the desire to photograph everything on display. The attacks of 9/11 were some of the most visually documented events in human history. Anybody wielding a camera in the room would have seen the images already, playing over and over again or seeing them frozen in magazines, books, and websites. I had never seen any reaction quite like this, people were even taking pictures of pictures that were on display.

Is this how we cope with this fissure in our history and smooth it out? Is this how we try and get back to the shared experience we lost after those attacks? Is this how we pray collectively for the souls of the dead in a secular society? Or is it a way to claim some small slice of victimhood or solidarity with those directly affected by the events? I am not sure, but I do believe it would have been better to let no pictures be taken and let people stand without any barriers or frames between the common objects twisted and dented into relics. If nothing else, it would have gotten the line moving and allowed people easier access to the tables.

For some reason, they had a set up for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Of course, people took pictures of this well, objects that can be seen in any airport. Here though, they were unique, no one was being forced to go through them. Perhaps the crowd photographing the machines and empty uniforms got a real pleasure out of capturing the sets of our security theater as if they were Fonzie's jacket or Archie Bunker's chair. Maybe they were motivated by a fantasy looking out onto the display: here is what the world would be like if 9/11 had not happened, a whole safety apparatus going unused.

The TSA display was strange for other reasons, chief among them I mentioned before: everything being shown could be seen in action across the country. What was special about the artifacts then? They had no story behind them, were owned by nobody famous, and were far from unique. Visitors could even see the ubiquitous gray bins we put our lives into (I wonder if some boom town has popped up since September 11th to supply them). The area did not even need to show us how people used to live by putting the former mundane on display, because this mundane is still a bane of our existence.

The expected reaction to all this was supposed to be sadness. The museum had even set up Kleenex boxes in strategic positions to deal with the rush of sorrows they imagined inducing in the visitors. However, there were some moments of unintentional hilarity. By the exit, a theater had been set up to show a film about people's memories of the event and its aftermath. Former New York City mayor Giuliani was among those interviewed and for the most part he spoke with the usual platitudes. But things went in a bizarre direction when he talked about being unable to really think about the attacks until he was receiving a colonoscopy. I had to stifle a laugh.

Besides being a dress rehearsal for future exhibits about 9/11, it was also a way to prepare for all future museum exhibits, a way to see how artifacts from our current events will be treated and displayed when they eventually become regarded as part of the distant past. The major issue that future museums for our current events will have to tackle is the nature of the artifacts themselves. In an era of mass manufactured items that are otherwise disposable, what will make anything special and worthy enough to be put on display? Walking around the 9/11 exhibit, I mistakenly thought that the Kleenex boxes were part of the attacks when they were actually meant for those passing through.

In previous eras, most things were handmade and crafted individually, giving them a unique character. A Roman vase or Sumerian pot does not have to be directly connected to an important event or person in order to warrant preservation. Even after the start of the industrial era, there was still a certain rarity to the factory made items, since national and global standardization has not yet set in. Items also were more likely to become damaged and when thrown away, lost for good. If they survived and were passed down, they were treasured keepsakes and heirlooms. But our plastic age has changed all that. The objects around us are more or less the same and they endure in the background of our lives much longer. If one wants to see how people lived in the 1970s, a trip to the thrift store or a grandparent's house can often educate just as well as a museum could.

The solution seemed to be laid out in that room inside the Museum of American History. Here were items from everyday life that were given a new significance: the flight attendant button from an airplane, a calculator, a post card, an officer's badge, a squeegee, and a travel brochure. All of them were common enough but because they were damaged by an historical event they became artifacts. In the museum of the future, this wear and tear will become more and more essential. While a Greek marble can be celebrated for being clean and whole, today's objects will have to be broken and dirty. In the absence of bodies, their damages will come to stand in for them and represent a given historical trauma. They will serve to physically remind those in the future how the everyday flow of events was twisted, burned, and broken not only in the September 11th attacks, but in all subsequent wars, coups, famines, and disasters.

View All Images

I had a lengthy poem of mine just published in Quail Bell, which has featured poems by me before and some short fiction as well.  This work was based off some pictures the editor, Christine Stoddard, showed me. They were taken by Stephen Palke. Each stanza corresponds to a photograph from the set. Start with the first one and then go to the bottom. Once there, go from the left to the right through both rows. I started simply projection and eventually took on the view of a hypothetical photographer who might have taken these pictures. If anything I wrote makes the real photographer look bad, I grant him permission to take pictures of people who look like they might have written other poems of mine.

Also, I stumbled upon some poems of mine on what appears to be an Italian website. Che Bella!

Welcome September 2011!

Enjoy yourselves some poetry and prose, all on me. First up, is a poem of mine in The River. Heyday Magazine's latest issue will have my work in it, so be on the lookout for that. Five poems of mine are also up at Vintage Poetry. Visitors from that site have been coming here so repay the favor and check them out from here.

In non-Nardolilli related news, my muse Jeff Grunthaner has published some poems in Unlikely Stories. Apparently they are pretty racy. I can't seem to access the site at the library.

I also have a short story to read at Eastown Fiction. Just in case you don't like poetry that doesn't rhyme. For you all there is a post up at my other blog as well. A few thoughts on Septembers past and present, that's all.

An Earthquake Story and a Poem

Well, in case you couldn't tell I survived the Mineral, Virginia Earthquake of 2011. It was the first one I ever felt. There have been others rumbling under me before, but they all passed by without me noticing, including this earthquake's aftershock. Part of the reason I noticed this one was it's size but also it's timing. I was wide awake when the earthquake struck. It caught me while I was working. Yes, working. But before you assume I have managed to stumble upon a cash flow and can start giving money out to your Kickstarter campaign, let me tell you it was just a temporary job.

When the earthquake hit Arlington, I was performing my civic duty as a poll worker for the Democratic primary. From 5 AM to 9 PM I was at my old stomping grounds, Arlington Traditional School. It was an interesting experience to get a behind the scenes look at how our democracy functions but the earthquake certainly made it all the more memorable. When things began shaking, I was standing in the gym, minding my own business. At first I heard the windows rattle and saw the rafters and basketball nets vibrating. My initial though was that there was construction going on outside. The shaking continued and I grew annoyed, even as a realized what was going on.

I understood intuitively that it was an earthquake right before I had a clear idea formed in my head. The dissonance made me briefly want to yell at the earth and tell the ground to knock it off before I grew really angry. A second later, the word earthquake flashed in my head and I ran out the door for safety in case things started to fall to pieces. Luckily only a few bits of plaster, a tennis ball, and a paper airplane fell to the ground. Even our voting machines were unharmed and remained powered. If the had been damaged or shut off I don't know what we would have done. All of us campaign workers looked through our books to see what procedures were in place for an earthquake, but this being Virginia, there was no plan.

Things have now returned to normal quickly enough for us to worry about the next natural disaster, Hurricane Irene. Unlike the earthquake, we know it is coming towards us. Since this might be the last chance to post before we lose electricity, here is a poem of mine in 22 Magazine.

Three Poems in Shadow...Fiction?

Don't be fooled by the name. Three poems of mine are up in the current issue of Shadow Fiction, which is also its very first issue as well. Glad to be a pioneer!