Spring Project Poem # 43

break down the sentences between us
twist the syntax like an orange rind
and swallow the juice
dribble vowels down your chin
lick the adverbs off your fingertips
serve prepositional phrases with sugar
to soften the tartness

find reasons to make desserts
nouns and cherry pie
strawberry adjective cake
punctuation chip cookies leave question marks
on your teeth
if eaten too soon after baking
but a nice subjective clause meringue
tops any pastry nicely

break down the sentences between us
leave your belly bloated and warm
press my ear to your navel
the digesting characters
funnel echoed words
back into my ears
like a seashell

What am I worth?

I am worth $2,293,214.00 US Dollars
and with today's current exchange rate converts into:
3,362.48 Platinum Ounces
6,511.55 Gold Ounces
9,655.64 Palladium Ounces
509,602.90 Silver Ounces
1,419,804.81 United Kingdom Pounds
1,680,465.77 International Monetary Fund Special Drawing Rights
2,139,048.34 Euros
3,503,510.23 Canadian Dollars
4,185,790.32 Deutsche Marks (now Euros)
8,262,449.54 Brazilian Reals
8,600,011.14 Saudi Arabian Riyals
8,711,919.99 Malaysian Ringgits
11,151,899.68 Israeli New Shekels
14,038,533.31 French Francs (now Euros)
17,885,879.19 Hong Kong Dollars
18,980,473.64 Chinese Yuan Renminbi
19,239,030.87 South African Rand
25,137,968.82 Mexican Pesos
72,534,358.82 Russian Rubles
98,631,134.14 Thai Baht
109,637,920.94 Indian Rupees
278,135,230.52 Japanese Yen
2,736,980,850.12 South Korean Won
3,664,555,972.00 Venezuelan Bolivares
4,146,133,645.47 Italian Lire (now Euros)
11,167,952,180.00 Zambian Kwacha
6 bars, 18 strips, and 63 slips of Gold-Pressed Latinum

but you can have me
with one deep kiss
that can bend my doubts over backward,
write your tongue onto my endoplasmic reticulum highways,
and turn my spine into mushy oatmeal.

My Five of Five

Five things that 2002 taught me:
1. I can survive for 4 months on $300. Pretty well in fact.
2. My poetry doesn't suck. I am actually good at what I love to do.
3. By selling it all, choosing homelessness, and going on tour, I've done more at my young age to follow my heart than most people will do in their entire life. I'm braver than I thought I was.
4. I have to make my own destiny. Fate doesn't exist.
5. Life sucks without a car.

Five personally significant events of 2002:
1. Disowning my father. This was his second chance to be my dad in any way and it went worse than the first. Now I know how not to treat my children.
2. Finally telling Daniela to put up or shut up. She's been a cock-tease and a love-vampire for the last three years and I let her use me because I'm a coward. But I've finally stood up. I'm almost certain I've lost her but I'm free.
3. Getting arrested. It was stupid, I was guilty beyond doubt, and I don't want to commit the same crime ever again.
4. The Save the Male Poetry Tour. 39 shows, 26 states, four men, three months, two countries, and one van. Wow, what a ride.
5. Leaving Flagstaff. It's a good place if you can stand small towns and intrusive personalities, but I'm a city boy and need the diversity of 4 million people. I'd rather be a little fish in a big pond than a big fish in a soup.

Five things I want to do in 2003:
1. Make a National Slam Team and do the thing in Chicago.
2. Be satisfied with my poetry. The kind of poetry that isn't just selfless mental masturbation.
3. Have a meaningful relationship with someone who isn't 18, or in high school, or recently divorced, or my boss. A punk rock art chick who'll break me.
4. Make enough money to buy a car, get a computer, and start publishing the chapbooks of poets across the country.
5. Plan my next national poetry tour.

Five things I don't want to do in 2003:
1. Procrastinate.
2. Let fear or fear of loneliness paralyze my better judgment.
3. Settle.
4. Write crap poetry and try to pass it off as art.
5. Blame writer's block.

Five (groups of) people who I'd like to know better in 2003:
1. My three step sisters, Jessica 19, Danielle 17, and Kristina 11. Jessica got engaged over the weekend, Danielle has a secret artistic side I think I could coax out of her shell, and Kristina is more like me now than anyone else I know.
2. Corbet Dean. He's been the most supportive of all the poets I know, but I don't really know him like I should. He could also help me improve my performance.
3. Klute. He and I could have one of the great friendships that art scholars will debate for decades.
4. Trish JusTrish. I like her and her art more and more I hear it.
5. Scott Creney and Mathew Moon, the two Guerrilla poets from Boston moving to Prescott this month.

What is Christopher Fox Graham about?

Christopher Fox Graham is about to reassure us
Christopher Fox Graham is pushing the case
Christopher Fox Graham is going on
Christopher Fox Graham is more plentiful
Christopher Fox Graham is in the ratings hunt
Christopher Fox Graham is trying to leave the door open for those who have yet to come through it
Christopher Fox Graham is saying 'is'
Christopher Fox Graham is in the henhouse
Christopher Fox Graham is Ralph Stricker
Christopher Fox Graham is shutting down
Christopher Fox Graham is running
Christopher Fox Graham is back at camp in a new way
Christopher Fox Graham is pledged to continue
Christopher Fox Graham is good
Christopher Fox Graham is brown and red
Christopher Fox Graham is now available as a toolkit
Christopher Fox Graham is trapped by the tentacles of power
Christopher Fox Graham is a sly teacher to keep kid's attention
Christopher Fox Graham is hungry
Christopher Fox Graham is over eight thousand days old
Christopher Fox Graham is named employee of the month for march
Christopher Fox Graham is not a useless piece of trash
Christopher Fox Graham is based on TV
Christopher Fox Graham is put into practice by the government of Suriname
Christopher Fox Graham is one of Staten Island area's most respected fishing advocates
Christopher Fox Graham is in the open
Christopher Fox Graham is back
Christopher Fox Graham is a sly fox
Christopher Fox Graham is seen in this file photo
Christopher Fox Graham is Charlena Marie Wilson
Christopher Fox Graham is committed to land protection
Christopher Fox Graham is not on the run
Christopher Fox Graham is elvis
Christopher Fox Graham is the newest Lifetime Channel member
Christopher Fox Graham is trying to cancel Futurama
Christopher Fox Graham is better than MTV
Christopher Fox Graham is a remarkable glider
Christopher Fox Graham is a stream
Christopher Fox Graham is a director
Christopher Fox Graham is Canadian
Christopher Fox Graham is about to reassure us that Bush can scold wall street with a straight face
Christopher Fox Graham is right
Christopher Fox Graham is doing it
Christopher Fox Graham is full of crap, and lots of it
Christopher Fox Graham is IS
Christopher Fox Graham is frying many fish
Christopher Fox Graham is our logo
Christopher Fox Graham is pushing the case with his popularity high
Christopher Fox Graham is staying home
Christopher Fox Graham is indecent
Christopher Fox Graham is maxine
Christopher Fox Graham is symbiosis
Christopher Fox Graham is in the ratings hunt
Christopher Fox Graham is off base
Christopher Fox Graham is trying to leave the door open for those who have threatened our delegates
Christopher Fox Graham is shutting down websites
Christopher Fox Graham is pledged to continue Mexico's subordination to us
Christopher Fox Graham is a good randy playboy trick
Christopher Fox Graham is a new stretch of 11th street opened by the city of Springfield
Christopher Fox Graham is common in most of northern North America
Christopher Fox Graham is better than CNN
Christopher Fox Graham is this
Christopher Fox Graham is that
Christopher Fox Graham is a saying about kings
Christopher Fox Graham is found in the treeless tundra extending through the arctic regions of Eurasia
Christopher Fox Graham is put into practice by the publisher
Christopher Fox Graham is lowest profile standard unit available for real time clock applications
Christopher Fox Graham is taking from my *$#%@!
Christopher Fox Graham is a Southern writer who understands heat
Christopher Fox Graham is hunted by hounds following the line of scent
Christopher Fox Graham is great
Christopher Fox Graham is smaller and skinnier than the red Christopher Fox Graham
Christopher Fox Graham is one of two fox species found in the southern mountains
Christopher Fox Graham is one of the most common mammals in Ireland
Christopher Fox Graham is suffering from rabies as well as other fox species
Christopher Fox Graham is the state
Christopher Fox Graham is solitary
Christopher Fox Graham is a professor of industrial engineering with cross appointments in the department of computer science and faculty of management science at the University of Michigan
Christopher Fox Graham is guarding the chicken
Christopher Fox Graham is a pest and his population needs to be controlled
Christopher Fox Graham is singing again
Christopher Fox Graham said "I joined because Iowa was one of the first states to start recycling mandatory returnables"
Christopher Fox Graham is at the top of it's food chain and has never naturally been hunted
Christopher Fox Graham is getting a bum rap
Christopher Fox Graham is tops for redbird gymnastics on senior night
Christopher Fox Graham is Christ
Christopher Fox Graham is called a reynard
Christopher Fox Graham is an exciting glider
Christopher Fox Graham is coming
Christopher Fox Graham is a lot better that MTV
Christopher Fox Graham is one of the most widely distributed carnivores in the lower 48 states
Christopher Fox Graham is casting single men and women for a new reality show
Christopher Fox Graham is making a mistake
Christopher Fox Graham is like to fly
Christopher Fox Graham is 'lucky' in love
Christopher Fox Graham is a C++ based toolkit for developing graphical user interfaces easily and effectively
Christopher Fox Graham is spotted
Christopher Fox Graham is a spiritual theologian who has been an ordained priest since 1967
Christopher Fox Graham is a dual national
Christopher Fox Graham is a large fruit bat weighing 400 ounces
Christopher Fox Graham is found in the far north
Christopher Fox Graham is on the town
Christopher Fox Graham is evil
Christopher Fox Graham is located on the southwest corner of Oak Park Avenue and Lake Street in the Scoville Square office building
Christopher Fox Graham is all that AND a bag of chips