BILL CASSIDY
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I’ve Got 2 Plastic Helmets. I Used to Have 1
Not Like Season Change or Changing Clothes
The Flinch and the Plunderpuss
Back at It
Go On Now, Think of Your Roommate
as a Doorman
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Bill Cassidy is about as close to an outsider as
you are going to get reading this magazine or any other real poetry magazine
that's available out there. And I mean this in the best way, and I say this having
a bit of privileged information because I have had Bill as a student at the New
School for a few courses, and I know a little about where he's coming from. And
frankly, when I see where he is now, so soon, I pause. I pause, and I'm amazed.
Bill has moved from his beginning forays of self-expression through-poetry into
something that pushes against most of what he's been told to do (through
example and through, you know, people like me) faster than most of the rest of
us.
What I find most appealing in Bill's work is two things that I find rare in
most poets, regardless of their age: 1) he's not afraid of freedom,
and 2) he's not afraid of anything else either. He mentions "jesus" and "hitler"
and being "crunked on something speedy and
unpronounceable" in one poem and he also says really beautiful things like
"I reverse the course of pigeons with hosewater".
I also admire his absolute allegiance to the commonplace. There can be a quiet
precision in his writing, and this is often buried underneath outlandishness,
making it all the more affecting: "a cab driver is reading the bible,
reminding himself not to be negative. honking
horns."
To a certain way of reading, many of the pieces in his poems don't fit
together. Thankfully, this is not my way of reading, and I'm assuming it isn't
yours either. And since the good people at Octopus have asked me to briefly
introduce Bill to you, which I have tried to do briefly, I
will only add: Bill's voice is freakishly confident. I like that, and I like
Bill's poems because -- I don't know about you -- but I don't have a lot of
time to fuck around.
--Matthew Rohrer
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I’VE GOT 2 PLASTIC HELMETS. I USED TO HAVE 1
we roped pots &
pans to our calves galloped
east then west mock trials we are guilty in
honesty we fall down crunked on
some-
thing speedy &
unpronounceable he’s jamican
not african i think of you constantly
i stutter
in buffoonery boyhood forebear superintendent thighs
she knows my
ticklish why I tote in I’s
panic attack during the
matinee
we soak our
officialdom in honey mustard
pigroll belly-up in
it cheers to backwash
i pet the dog &
the dog barks twice
my hands attach to
arms that’s what they tell me
the lesbians blare big
band across the street
peddle walkie talkies
framed stamps of elvis
elvis slept w/ 1000
ladies before Pricilla. died.
i use street signs
as monkey bars
undergarments tophats
i am merely putting
on my pants
the contractor plows driveways
lifts shed with metal claw
thanks
cuticles pushed down the roof
meat pens
i am in a
corner
in the cornerstore
begging
saying hello
THE DEATH OF LIMBO
all over they
seem to be saying “hey, it’s me!”
chain yanking
well wishers hearty, fried
the antenna has
been pushed down by
nobody nobody voted for all evensteven
the gentlewoman
is making her hair straight
no one jerks it
right or it’s a witch hunt!
you look like
windshield wipers! my father (again)
wouldn’t believe everyone has phones in hip pockets
i carried the
book with me years till i found him
on the shore’s line clutching his chest
cavities
sautéed machine
gesture perpetual i had 5 guns
shot him &
a bird plant the book in his mouth
hoot like an
indian my nose bled leaving
trails in the
shape of fire drills my health
stayed
sophisticated clotting foolproof
ex-
clamationed the birdie chirped! i shot her again
it stayed red i have 2 pages left &
serve them your
hijacked stride & suck
your tentacles
dry pubic coil stuck in molar
silence made me
buggy & cubbyholed put the
catalyst in the
contract we won’t speak again
i will stay
primitive & stupid giving no
gifts
caskets could
be phones stairs are electric a chess
player told
me whether you did it or not you’ll be
convicted the sand is orthopedic lets rip the nails
out of this
sand & frame it tackle it
green wear
it a
headdress invite the hairy bodies
& shave wear
their hair as
scarves a gay couple taking a
night swim
hiptohip &
looking bored a bird swooped at
their heads
they ducked
underwater & came up laughing
NOT LIKE SEASON CHANGE OR CHANGING CLOTHES
lung cancer did he smoke?
& i can still
remember ripping my big toe on the
diving board town county
swimming pools splash
we inhaled so much
tar & feather up to knees in
prissy warm water your riddles, dixieland
hasn’t
gated down yet outgrown farfetched have you far-
fetched your past? i’m
not supposed to ask to be paid
for this but i’m rumbling & fed up of water crackers
somebody on the subway
stuck up a joke this morning
i kept quiet &
read about death death death
death bas-
ketball a 9 letter word for
..
She licks the linoleum where I was standing
I don’t want love I want understanding
&
Marriage welts in the water I’ve been chugged
& sunglasses now I have pimples soot
instead
of sneakers the last time I saw a palm tree
was lsd’d & pink haired & inquired with a
polish woman rent a car for the wedding
festivities bring drunks! ribbons of a blast
the cake tasted like
sofa the rich tan I feel
like an american! I have my
opinions &
I do squat about it thanks for the pork chops
however, I gave that
up I met a pig oh
yeah, the gloves the
place you saw the film
about teenagers acting
like teenagers on pills
the thinking someone
threw something it was
a leaf leaving a
tree fuck you surrealism I am
abstract & I lost my
peep friends (brick sob)
(cracky
goof smile) naptime in
my hats 8 at a time hair is pony
greened rust
Don’t suck those mints! They have urine!
you are a spectral
socialist and you have books books books books
i go to the reading
and i eat snacks whereupon my appletree
i don’t mind
i have paper work
the motor boat is
jealous of the sail it’s like a model and a fat cousin
shower curtain is
brown nerves are brown &
my
My What A Day! Floodwatch & Sun. I saw Dustin Hoffman on the street
& another person who looked like my
Uncle Thom !
How’s Angelina?
too bad families don’t
understand poems nothing to
understand
it’s like cutting
lettuce into small clumps & then throwing it away
or difference between
TV & TELEVISION the way
everything
is photographed in
photos tie dyed catwalks psychedelic, man
The time is 98 inches wide I’m dead
I’m
back
HAPPY EASTER!
I never believed in God but I did believe
in the rabbit
really thinking carrots
make you more genuine a lady
she is doing 5 minutes
ago
maybe not thinking of me
I forgot your soft
heads in chest
I forget the fighting
jabbing duking
I remember Austin Texas
with all its
coffee goodwill chinos no furniture
flies in vents parking garage deck lone star beer
I know how to touch a body grow a beard billiards
I can see 20 20 the icans &
thronged boys
this whole thing is sad
sad sad
sad sad sad
sad sad
i put my fingernails
together splice hairs off a mole
murder moles with juicy
fruit & hockey sticks i
played 9 innings a kid
all myself with parks wall
i won & win
& loss champion the kids now coming
out of jr high in ridgewood are rude gum
chewers
bad beat listens fatty
fats annoying great & young
before you get sick of me
& this let’s go to the river!
stay up till
grain do you have a car? isreali
salad my pupils
are foible i’m shying away
today buoy to
that
lets pass out in your
car
feet to head
wake up & fool
THERE THERE,
THERE THERE
it’s october and it’s almost june. you go out
drinking by yourself for
something to do. that
fantasy of getting head
without having to spark
a conversation. it hasn’t happened to
you yet,
don’t trust anyone who
talks about capers for
more than 30 seconds. no one is waiting for a
postcard. puberty is so far from your mind. it
was
just about hair, small
to big. when you took that
cross country trip on
your motorcycle. you saw so
many things. and you came and went. the slush
looked so much more
important in
trees, pine trees. and it was fall everywhere! but
that was 3 years ago. you had a
beard and you had
her. slurp that slug, sit
with your fists closed. look
over at that hunka mama stroking
her lobe.
THE FLINCH & PLUNDERPUSS BACK AT IT
it’s like a second
novel
a year after a first
novel
which nobody read except
1 student who is sleeping
with sod rubber in the
curtsy of her knee. everything
seems different over
here.
its conflict
exhibitionist some
brilliance mostly mundane.
tofu is tofu. meaty chewy
pancakey. always jot lists.
laundry. what’s the hodgepodge
on top the
hodgepodge? it’s an
electric guitar. or forthright? strip
club lamination? the handwriting
being typed. that outfit inbetween
trying too hard & a
car. write
the introduction
yourself
captain. i put my arms inside
my tshirt & act armless
cluck
an ex love i’m better boned
than that asshole. honey. tongs
act like fangs look
like tongs.
a shopping cart or
wheelbarrow
i want them & i want you to wheel
me pop wheel me pop
the joint
into that other joint
acupuncture
without getting untoweled. there’s
always interdepartmental
deliveries
it’s like time zones it’s the muscle
i give the mattress
the ashtray the
never getting laid. i need a catcher’s
mask or straw hat. wild highborn.
freaking just let me
hideout but still
invite me over. i crave tenderness &
handing my rout. the pebble in my
boot for weeks. long winded short
winded sametime but always idle.
spitting confetti into my
spittoon. kept
the worm in the box
& just said i
caught 6 fish. “it’s ok to eat fish
they don’t have
feelings” equipped
with coal low slung jut
out lewd barrels
& highwaters. i nest in the stream
only talk to rodents
& live in a city.
go figure. deadweight no wild goose
chase. same old body just hairier desolate
a pack of poison ivy
leaves. come up
in my bushes &
tell me a story.
about saving face rim job
sums
& a hand to
hold on to. ovaries.
& a child that looks exactly like me.
NEVERMIND THE TIME, LILLIAN
a moth is burning on
the kitchen light and yesterday a robin flew
right into the window. two days ago i cut myself shaving and
last
week mom got hit by a
car. it just went bam! like
that. scholars cross
their legs, the cool
kids call it faggy. the cool
kids like to smoke and
read s.e. hinton. scholars
use big words like
spit loogies. it’s september
17th and my boss can’t believe where the
time goes. she is paying me 8.50 a week and lives in queens. she is
probably watching tv, so many programs to choose from. it’s
like i feel
like happy like when i reach a decision and like when i
laugh. i like
can’t think of the words
like to describe it. like you know what i mean?
GO ON NOW, THINK OF YOUR ROOMMATE AS A
DOORMAN
i give a homeless
man my doggie bag from anniversary dinner & he refuses
because i don’t have ketchup. tonight i have an agenda, i am camera
ready.
why else would i be wearing a yellow slicker when outside isn’t even wet?
my body stopped
giving natural birth 8 months now. i
tape a pillow to my
stomach before leaving the
house. the wind is slamming doors. a
barricade
blocks 5th ave. cops are standing shoulder to shoulder with matching
jaw
lines. they don’t look to friendly. i step into a bodega. somebody
is talking
about mars, it being so
red. my pace has changed from a straight line into
circles. a shy voice is saying there is a phone call on line 1 & i’m not here.
i am taking small
sips and closing the door. i
am going to build an extension
to the right side of
my hip. where i will smoke
pipes & imagine you waving,
hair in knots, meeting
me half way, while a sun somewhere puts
us on its knee
and spanks. the sun & moon are visible. the
buildings look like giant paragraphs
.
LITTLE JANEY QUEEN OUTSIDER
what was to be a room
of rain
wasn’t a room of rain.
the city resting
on a golf tee.
no one with enough
guts
to smack it a whack
or mention
we are so
disconnected
with every room.
janey is thinking about
rusty james.
i was a bible.
fifteen sentences
regurgitating
a sentence
about sentimentality,
goosed pride.
raindrops.
the auditorium where
i acted out your
death
is a cool empty.
the props are shipped
across borders
our reek incensed.
empty lots,
empty.
“we are links to
granddad’s sperm
and all dads are long
dead!”
you said
or
i said.
i am pretending to
read john ashbery.
fixing table legs in
heat.
snip me off pairs of
your flower
little janey queen outsider.
outside is uppity and
fleecy.
& nothing dangles from my ear.
fuck a face
little janey queen outsider.
jaw lines are the
first to sag
the casings are
fluttering
we just want to be
touched
nuzzled in a guzzle
“every room has
another room about it.”
mr ashbery,
john strawberry.
rusty james.
dickface.
method actors know what a
cold feels like
when they don’t have a
cold.
the front door turns
purple with 3 coats of paint
i was sleeping.
little janey queen outsider.
my spit smelled
different than your spit.
that was yesterday.
& i wake up.
invite the box cutter to
cut boxes,
paper cuts that resemble
you and i
spoke in haikus
little janey queen outsider.
in chinese.
in hyperventilating
nostalgia.
we bored each other
with sex.
our fathers left us
semen.
we grew into frogs.
i placed a tadpole
in the swimming hole
got a whipping
then climbed in
pretended to drown
and french kissed the old man.
little janey queen outsider.
tuck me in cracks.
grained in that letter
written by 2 lovers.
reproduced in an anthology
about coke addicts
in tight pants.
17 years olds,
“don’t look at your
genitalia on drugs.”
asexuals.
downers.
you draw x’s on rusty james’s cheek
in heaven.
i reverse the course
of pigeons with hose water.
thinking like hitler thought
about art &
birds.
hitler wrote prose poems
to his
grandfather
about sleepovers
with men in men hats.
little janey queen outsider.
i clip my moustache
once a week.