First, a little Kit Smart on his birthday. I hope he got what he wished for.

For God has given us a language of monosyllables to prevent our clipping.

For a toad enjoys a finer prospect than another creature to compensate his lack.

Tho' toad I am the object of man's hate.
Yet better am I than a reprobate.       who has the worst of prospects.

For there are stones, whose constituent particles are little toads.

For the spiritual musick is as follows.

For there is the thunder-stop, which is the voice of God direct.

For the rest of the stops are by their rhimes.

For the trumpet rhimes are sound bound, soar more and the like.

For the Shawm rhimes are lawn fawn moon boon and the like.

For the harp rhimes are sing ring string and the like.

For the cymbal rhimes are bell well toll soul and the like.

For the flute rhimes are tooth youth suit mute and the like.

For the dulcimer rhimes are grace place beat heat and the like.

For the Clarinet rhimes are clean seen and the like.

For the Bassoon rhimes are pass, class and the like. God be gracious to Baumgarden....

Here, for a little more Christopher Smart.

And for a great article on him by R. Pinsky. 

Welcoming another guest blogger: Ryan Nowlin (lately of the Poetry Project). He will be joining me sometimes henceforth.

I don’t get Brooklyn My boss thought the catnip on my desk was pot.  Go figure! The reason why I like you  may stem from unresolved issues from jr. high school Atari was my personal hell.  See where this behavior gets you? Newark has the feeling of being affixed, but not New York City. Prudential Building is mostly underrated in New Jersey. Teens who hang out on street corners become bus drivers. Every stale breeze seemed to whisper “Louise” I have this recurrent dream of a starry carousel creaking After days of retrofitted murmurs soft hypnotic laughter approaching fresh fantasies a licked window. by Ryan Nowlin

Just under the 5 April wire: The really great thing is to go bananas

The really great thing is to go bananas

and get put in the attic for one of your transgressions--
a broken nail, say, or murder--and then begin the
tremendous game of pretending you're not
in the attic, even get a whole bunch of people
to strut by, make campy entrances, take sharp
exits, play like they're on the ground, play
you're also on the dirt, everyone on terra
firma, we're all test-touching it, tasting
sweet thick loamy in spring
when it's interrupted by roots
spreading worms digging life
and (hey) you like to write about it even
though you don't know that metal smell,
haven't whiffed it in years (ever?) but perched
(above) you keep on writing about it. Aw, poetry!

It begins. (Starry the curtain kicking)

disappeared

15 April

A person was paid to plant these pinks
not hoping but knowing how it happens
every year. Again. And again, so much
more remains buried and the dog snuffles madly and
whiffs, rooting. These first post-equinox weeks
I come to remind you
or to make you forget
there is another way
its path is petal-near
and it will cost you everything, or maybe nothing.

Back at it: April's fool

After Seeing Gerhard Richter Painting

Paintings are mortal enemies, says Richter

quoting Adorno, and poems too will kill you

if they roam unsupervised, untethered,

flying off along yon ecliptic with all they know,

know about you. Truth! Gad!

Maybe

it’s better to stop all this you mutter once

in a while, April nights when the thought squeezes

like a rat through a sliver in the baseboards

in the house built of words, always only words

so circumscribed, bound to 24 marks and

one antipodal Hippocratic oath: first, do harm –

that’s how you know it’s a word, a real word.

Another thing Richter says at movie’s end,

a line the director knew to save for last,

to remind us why we’d paid and offer

permission (the world loves to

hate its artists): It’s fun.