( Jay DeFeo, "The Annunciation" [1960], thx Melanie! / via )

Before the crimson bloom.

   My first book publication ...wasn't a book, & it wasn't even written by me.

In the late 70s, under the influence of Burroughs, i used my high school computer privileges to make a BASIC program that randomized words. I then started sending out the typed-up output to various poetry zines whose addresses i found in Factsheet Five. One was called The Acts the Shelflife & no one could have been more surprised than me to receive, not an author's copy of a zine, but a whole little chapbook (complete with collage illustrations), Carniverous [sic] Equations 2*, by (then-named) Xerox Sutra Editions (1982--reissued in 2008, where it can be found on Amazon with the title adjusted to normal spelling, & their later name Xexoxial Endarchy).

That was how i got my first book.

SinSine plot.

If i were to teach from the Bible
a Pharisee-callout i'm liable
   to start with, then bears
   for the children whose stares
would mock bald Elisha's arrival.

Homelessness & Philosophy.

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* that was the name of the output. "Carnivorous Equations 1" (ktp) has never been printed, though i kept the raw output