“Allen West [R-Fla.] and Michele Bachmann [R-Minn.].”
 — In an odd and disturbing coincidence, conservative provocateur Andrew Breitbart’s dream Republican presidential ticket for 2012 is exactly the same as my dream Republican presidential ticket for 2012.

The four New York Times journalists missing in Libya since Tuesday have been “found.” They were in “state custody.” Of course they were! And in Libya, Gaddafi has… sort of agreed to a ceasefire, and sort of offered amnesty to rebels, after the U.N. security council agreed to military action against Gaddafi. Except, in his way, Gaddafi also promised to hunt down and murder anyone who opposed him! Yes: “We will find you in your closets. We will have no mercy and no pity.” The U.N. and the U.S. are also putting real action in the hands of the Arab League, because of all the obvious reasons. Still, this is one of those situations that a large number of people will be unhappy about for various rationales! Pick your hobbyhorse: oil, Iraq, Israel, chaos, the rise of the MUSLIM CALIPHATE, whatever. And it will be messy. But it’s very difficult to find your way to a position that doesn’t support the citizens trying to get rid of Gaddafi.

by Abby Seiff

Extraordinary that US Congressman forced to quit over shirtless photo. In Russia we do not censure random acts of manliness.less than a minute ago via web

Dmitry Medvedev
MrMedvedev

Dear America: Please pay your taxes! #helpabrotheroutless than a minute ago via web

Fake Hamid Karzai
FakeHamidKarzai

Estou aqui deitada com as pernas pro ar assistindo Passione, o Lula também está aqui fazendo massagem nos meus joanetes. Cansaço…less than a minute ago via web

Dilma Rousseff
diImabr

Translation: I’m lying here with my legs in the air watching Passione, Lula is also here to massage my bunions. Sleepy…

Happy International Woman’s Day! Now go make me a sandwich.less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhone

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
M_Ahmadinejad

Train back to London y’day, One could not wait for the press to piss off so One could sit in back and pop the top of that Stella.less than a minute ago via web

Elizabeth v2.0
TheFuckingQueen

State of the Nation. Not my favorite day of the year. This could go so much faster if they’d just let me use words like ‘screwed’.less than a minute ago via web

Jacob Zuma
jacobzuma

Under the penal code, suspects who have committed grave criminal offences can get away with them by bribing the Judge.less than a minute ago via web

Mzee Mwai Kibaki
MwaiKibaki

Des manifestants pro-Moubarak? Ouaah c’est super ça. Pourquoi dans les manifs chez nous y a jamais des partisans pro-Sarkozy? #injusticeless than a minute ago via Splitweet

Nicolas Sarkozy
_NicolasSarkozy

Translation: There are pro-Mubarak protesters? Whoa, that’s awesome. How come in the demonstrations here there are never any pro-Sarkozy supporters?

Ok people I’m off to bed cuz there are some reforms need to be done. @HusniMobarak Text me on my US no. whenever you want to come.less than a minute ago via web

King Abdullah
KingAbduIlah

We are so progressive that by 2020… all Rwandan MPs will be women. Women are… much easier for me to manage #Rwandaless than a minute ago via web

His Excellency
PaulKagamePR

We don’t need a Tsunami like Japan to accomplish what it did to the country. A dozen of our MPs should suffice.less than a minute ago via TweetDeck

Dr Manmohan Singh
DrYumYumSingh

Every day above ground is a good day.less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhone

Kim Jong Il
ImKimJongIl

Demonstrations in Baghdad and other cities in Iraq. Why would anyone need electricity, water, security, etc. when they have freedom?less than a minute ago via web

Nouri Al Maliki
NouriMaliki

komplett verschlafen f****** h*** #casualfridayless than a minute ago via web

Micheline Calmy-Rey
MCalmyRey

Translation: completely overslept. Fucking hate #casualfriday

To my loyal followers: happy new year. To the American idiots: suck it.less than a minute ago via TwitBird

Omar al-Bashir
Omar_alBashir

The planes heading to #libya are loaded with first aid products not weapons I promise!!!less than a minute ago via Twitter for Android

Muammar Al Gaddafi
MuammarLGaddafi

CALMA PUEBLO…. AQUÍ ESTOY PARA GOBERNARLOS!less than a minute ago via web

Sebastián Piñera
theCLpresident

Translation: QUIET VILLAGE…. I AM HERE TO RULE YOU!

Mubarak must learn to be a man of the people like I am. Just had great chat with my gardener about the automatic transmission in my Merc.less than a minute ago via web

Robert Mugabe
RealRobMugabe

Sidenote, anyone wanna to help me with my farmville?less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhone

Najib Tun Razak
1MyNajibRazak

I’ve been playing “Labour” Jenga. After the collapse everyone denies any involvement in causing the crash. #ukuncutless than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhone

The FakeDave Cameron
David_CameronPM

Spiser penicillin og c-vitaminer på harde livet. Har ikke tid til å bli smittet med Downs syndrom rett før kommunevalget.less than a minute ago via web

Not Jens Stoltenberg
tullejens

Translation: Eating penicillin and C vitamins for dear life. Do not have time to be infected with Down syndrome just before the local elections.

Mubarak renunció. Obviamente, el güey no sabe taparle un ojo al buey. Ofrezco clases privadas.less than a minute ago via web

Felipe Calderón
PresidenteDeMX

Translation: Mubarak resigned. Obviously, the idiot does not know how to cover a bullseye. I offer private lessons.

Adorava fazer amor com uma jornalista e mostrar-lhe a minha potência invencível.less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhone

José ‘Bot’ Sócrates
socratesbot

Translation: I love making love with a journalist and showing her my invincible power

Tikko izteicu oficiālu līdzjūtību Jaunzēlandei. Kāds nezina, kas tur notika?less than a minute ago via web

Valdis Zatlers
ZaldisVatlers

Translation: Just made an official sympathy for New Zealand. Someone know what happened there?

I’m going to replace all stamps in government offices with these, http://cl.ly/4EGeless than a minute ago via web

John Key
JohnKey_PM

وين بشار؟ 🙂 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Assad_family.jpgless than a minute ago via Tweetie for Mac

Fake Bashar Al-Assad
fakebasharassad

Translation: Wayne Bashir?

ANZ attacking our independent judiciary. The one that won’t call me illegal. Very independent.less than a minute ago via web

Frank Bainimarama
Bainimarama

Mi gobierno está comprometido con la propiedad privada y las libertades civiles, y también con el Día de los Inocentesless than a minute ago via ÜberSocialOrig

No Hugo Chávez
HugoChavezF

Translation: My government is committed to private property and civil liberties, and also to April Fool’s Day

Guk Glakk! Ruoaugh!less than a minute ago via txt

Zombie Barack Obama
zombama

Слово “увімкни” легше написати ніж вимовити!less than a minute ago via web

Viktor Yanukovych
yanukovych_fake

Translation: The word “check” is easier to write than to say!

One thing that is very important in whatever you do is honesty. If you are not honest, you will never leave in peace, Just look at meless than a minute ago via web

Yahya Jammeh
YayaJammeh

I could swear there were bagels in the fridge yesterday.less than a minute ago via web

Not Steve Harper
pmoharper

Nobody saved me a paczki! One of these cardinals is getting his ass fired today.less than a minute ago via Tweetie for Mac

PopeBenny
PopeBenny

Goedemorgen! Garfield heeft altijd gelijk.less than a minute ago via web

Mark Rutte
Mark_Rutte

Translation: Good morning! Garfield is always right.

@MuammarLGaddafi I sent what you asked for & if I don’t answer you in a couple days that means im unemployed.less than a minute ago via TweetDeck

Ali Abdullah Saleh
AliAbdulahSaleh

Have a Cabinet Meeting in 30 minutes. I have to brief my cabinet on this whole “coup” situation.less than a minute ago via web

Meles Zenawi Asres
Meles_Zenawi

Bench; a piece of furniture that typically offers seating for several people….Ummm… We’ll see.less than a minute ago via web

Enda Kenny
RealTaoiseach

In Eritrea its always a happy ending. Ask my people, they are always happy when I end their lives after 3 months of torture.#eritrea#tortureless than a minute ago via web

Isaias Afewerki
alivebutuseless

Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.less than a minute ago via web

Silvio Berlusconi
S_BerlusconiPM

TOP-NEWS: Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland wird als erstes Land der europäischen Staatengemeinschaft die #Nacktdusche einführen.less than a minute ago via web

Angela Merkel
Angie_Merkel

Translation: TOP NEWS: The Federal Republic of Germany will launch the first of the European community, the #nudeshower.

Missing President Bush…less than a minute ago via web

Benjamin Netanyahu
BenNetanyahu

I am keeping my election promise There will be a carbon tax. What I promised was no carbon tacks. #auspolless than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhone

Julia Gillard
Julia_GillardPM

最近比较烦比较忙比较乱，TX们！我们不会搞多党制的，我们绝不搞真正的民主！哈哈哈哈less than a minute ago via web

胡锦涛,Hu jintao
hujintao_real

Translation:chaotic and busy, TX them! We will not engage in multi-party system, we must not engage in a real democracy! Ha ha ha ha

Oh yeah I’m getting #Microsoft 600,000 US$ in my #Swiss #Bank account. They thought I’m gonna give it to #pkfloods victims — huh — #Suckersless than a minute ago via web

Asif Ali Zardari
pakistanzardari

SMS fra Grev Ingolf: “Er blevet fan af oppossumen Heidi på Facebook. Lækkert lille dyr!”

Vi ville også hellere se på Heidi.less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhone

Margrethe II Rex
Queen_DK

Translation:MS from Count Ingolf: “Have been a fan of oppossum Heidi on Facebook. Exquisite little creature!” We would rather look at Heidi.

Johan, ne me quitte pas!less than a minute ago via Mobile Web

Albert II van België
KingAlbertII

Translation: Johan! Don’t leave me yet!

Tengan un feliz fin de semana amigosh!! nOS vemos en alguna casa de masajes ;=)less than a minute ago via web

Fernando Lugo
LugoshOfficial

Translation: Have a good weekend friends. See you in the massage parlor ☺

Amigas y amigos, hermanas y hermanos, bendiciones para todos y que pacen un excelente domingoless than a minute ago via web

Laura Chinchilla
SantaLaurita

Translation: Friends, brothers and sisters: blessings to all and have an excellent Sunday

Goodluck Flash developers!less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhone

Goodluck Jonathan
goodluckjonathn

Abby Seiff spends her time very unwisely. Also, Fake Vladimir Putin hasn’t Tweeted yet.

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

Baby Black Bear

My little brother Joe looks up and says bear.
He is nearly three and up on all his animals.
How many other words does he know?
Yes, I say, “Bear. Excellent.” But no, Jesus no.
It is a bear. A small cub, but a bear all the same.
I am watching Joe. There is a bear. This is not good.
And where is Mama bear? There is blood in the mouth
When I think of a mother who has lost her child.
And Joe sits like a baby in an old painting. He sits
And seems to know all. Kids these days are so smart.
They have bears for friends and super absorbent diapers.
But the world is wet. There is a primal plea, a ponderous one,
One that broadcasts the body. And Joe has lost it, or found it,
Either way he’s shaking his shit down at the lake.

The Death of Erik Satie

He was not alone.
He was alone.
He was not alone.
A finger scratching his whiskers,
inhaling
not exhaling.
Not not exhaling,
but inhaling.
He didn’t know
he was alone,
it would have confused him
though he’d entertained the thought,
as he was, and knew
what that meant.
The room one sleeps in
and works in
and that we can emerge from.
The thematic tones
that never make it
into the story of a life.
There were twitches,
his cup of coffee
taken
in his hands
triggered one clear note
in his chest.
Inhaling not exhaling,
the body readies itself,
intransigent to the end.

Thomas Devaney is the author of two poetry collections, A Series of Small Boxes (Fish Drum) and The American Pragmatist Fell in Love (Banshee Press), and a nonfiction book, Letters to Ernesto Neto (Germ Folios). Recent poems have been published in The Brooklyn Rail and Jacket, and his essay “The Obscure Object of Desire” was published in the catalogue for Virgil Marti’s Set Pieces exhibition (2010–11) at the Institute of Contemporary Art. He teaches at Haverford College and is the editor of ONandOnScreen (poems + videos). His website is here.

For more poetry, visit The Poetry Section’s vast archive! You may contact the editor at poems@theawl.com.

The landlord is about to pounce. An odor of sweat via sweatshirt informs you halfway down the last flight of stairs. He is in the lobby, mopping, maybe. Or red-ink-emphasizing every line of his trash-collection dogma, taped up in furious triplicate. He will speak explosively at you, incensed by treasonous acts. You set off the roof alarm. You trod upon the sacred strip of dirt out front. You will nod; your nods will nod. I know it was you, he will say at least twice as you sidle past. But in theory your fate might still be unstitched; he has not yet seen you; he will turn his back soon, any second now.

The canyon that separates each wheedle of the landline phone (‘ring’ a tattered euphemism), like the lull in the code dully barked by a dog. This gap intensifying in noiselessness against the repeated proper noise. Three lazily positioned siblings slipping into a game wherein the player who is most annoyed by this, the idea of escalating stalemate, is the one who must finally answer the call.

After upending a box that warns some assembly is required. When the precision-molded metal and plastic pegs have jangled and rolled apart and settled in coffee-table constellations. Before paperishly unfolding instructions to locate a patch of familiar language.

A hurricane, named, spun in place off the coast for ten more days than could be explained. The beach betrayed no sign of the storm save the monumental surf that swooned ashore; the sky was otherwise dumb, serene. We let our chill, quick-blooded bodies get swallowed up by waves and tangle in the cloaked riptide, overcertain of our safety.

I get sad when I watch people through windows too long, and vice versa. You wouldn’t believe how long I watched, through my kitchen window, this man at a desk, lamplight-bathed, writing in his notebook. It was an exquisitely boring scene, and therefore I would not abandon it, but neither was I satisfied.

The lie two weeks or blinks before it is uttered, a toy mechanism continuously analyzed, stress-tested, retrofitted with immaterial truth. The engineering accomplished in an antiseptic, high-ceilinged space: the cognitive vault for synthesis of baroque and winged falsities.

Wondering if there is not a horticultural rehabilitation program for the terminally ambivalent.

You listen to music piped through headphones until it’s strange to navigate the planet without. You come to think of songs as emanating from storefronts, sidewalks. You let it fade against the trees and forget, for a while, to enjoy the melody you craved.

The weightless Latinisms attached to atmospheric and celestial arrangements. Aureola, corona. Nimbus, nebula, nova. Cirrus clouds, descended from the word for a ringlet of loose hair, for the way near-invisible threads rebelled wispily at the hem of a toga.

Hearing described a New England native who lives up a wild wooded hill, in the toothy clutch of a colonial graveyard, with a three-legged dog as company. Looking inward for extrapolation on that life, and finding nullity.

August hits with the accumulated heat of June and July behind it, and showers become metaphorical affairs, annihilations of psychic filth, atonement for ahygienic ancestors. February is a ferroalloy beast, hot water cut with chromium sting. In either season, the interval one stands dripping when the flow has been killed — one allows a beat of adjustment, shrieks the curtain aside to reach for a towel.

He left for work no earlier than 9:09 and never later than 9:21, transferring en route
from the local train to an express, but due to a slick paradox arrived always at 9:54, ascertaining the hour with mute perplexity by way of a company clock that had three hands.

A college English professor, dressed as John Updike, struts around the seminar room, the fly of his plaid pants unzipped. The students cannot help noticing, yet talk about everything else, carving out the unsaid, a stony lack.

Whenever a bliss settled over her mind, the future happened, apologetically, again.

We lived in an apartment near an academy for musical studies. Scales and idle practicings threaded the building’s prewar frame. Smears of studious brass and swift woodwind fingers. Most prominent was a pianist who attacked works that were splashy, Debussyish (I had played the piano, too, when I had one, and associated the ivory tone with ice). Ribbons of notes would interrelate and occlude one another, so that when several instruments in several rooms were in use there hung in our home a fogbank of polyphony that could not be considered audible.

I guess you become dust when you die but prior to that some dust became you.

He agonized himself with the thought that strangers might hear his troubled guts turn. This despite his belief that most intestinal events were largely detectable only to him, and even then more felt than heard.

Departing a deli, counting the thank-yous incurred in the purchase of a tomato and mozzarella sandwich: “Hi, how are you? I’m fine, thank you [1], how are you?” “Good, thank you [2].” A thank you [3] at the surrendering of the debit card, a thank you [4] at its return, a thank you [5] for the transmission of the bag containing the sandwich. One last pair of thanks [6, 7] for the decidedly mutual “Have a nice day.” Privately arguing, as steps carry you elsewhere, that this is excessive gratitude.

They had sex as often as they brushed their dogs’ teeth, which is to say twice a week, though never did both on the same evening, and strove to hold each other completely, making a vacuum of the troublesome intervening space.

In Cape Town, South Africa, you waste wads of currency on refrigerated, unmixed absinthe, no sugar to chalk the venomous green. A lucid drunk, this pharmaceutical sharp-edgedness to the night, the party, the level mountain. You are falling, fully clothed, into a pool not big enough to fall into. Sucked from sound and put at the heart of a violet chlorine crush. The laughter will perceptibly bend when you surface for air, but at this moment, at this depth, you cannot recall what laughter is like.

Chewing the inside of a cheek. Having little to offer, and that little diminishing too. Drifting through the white gas that billows out of sewers, breath held.

There was a document to be compiled and circulated daily, and when the woman whose duty it was went on any type of leave, the task rooted out a replacement proxy for its doing. The official substitute as concerned this piece of paperwork had no trouble creating the (in his view redundant and wasteful) memo on the days he covered for his co-worker but was greatly vexed by a topological condition of the office floorplan in conjunction with the second half of the chore, viz. the absolute impossibility of a network connecting those managers’ desks for whom the document was destined that did not force him to retrace his steps.

Observe: seeing is an enslavement. The business of sight we hold to in sleep. Objects resist their hiddenness. The sun-striped city afternoon, a meticulous trompe l’oeil vision, demands we rub our gaze in it.

In many ways I resembled a houseplant. She asked me how I radiated calm — how she might cold-shoulder that week’s nuisance, affect the aloofness for which I have, at times, been known. I said I figured silence was elastic. I said I took pleasure in saying nothing. I said that when I wanted to I could let words roll over me, like a wave, and simply continue treading water. And then I prepared my mouth to speak.

Miles Klee is 26.

Photo from Flickr by Vincent Desjardins.

NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University
From the folks at NASA, here is a picture of the moon’s ass. It is exactly as unattractive as one would expect of a LITERAL WASTE OF SPACE. God, I hate you so much, you stupid moon. DIE ALREADY. [Via]

Actor Michael Gough, who played Alfred the butler in the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher Batman movies, has died.

by Joshua Heller

The crowds have swelled on Sixth Street. This city is full. I am barely alive. Being slightly buzzed on caffeine and beer have become routine. The so-called utopia has caught up with me.

I am out of my mind standing on a red carpet next to journalists from college outlets. I am really thirsty. I’ve never been on a red carpet and this carpet is black. I am not familiar with any of the artists. Who are these people? A publicist tells me the name of a band she wants me to talk to. I Google them. Wikipedia doesn’t even know who they are. I don’t have any questions prepared, and the only recording device I’m carrying is a notepad.

I ask Lil B “The Based God” if his stream-of-consciousness raps are inspired by a Dadaist tradition. He says his flow is focused on expressing himself to the fullest while spreading world peace. He shows me an amulet with beads. I ask if growing up in Berkeley made him New-Agey. He says “I’m a hippie to the max.”

A band with facial hair called Atlantic Line stop for a moment to talk. I don’t know what their music sounds like so I ask about beard maintenance. They suggest staying away from electric shavers and using aloe as after-shave. I am an amateur journalist at an amateur awards show.

Nic Harcourt from KCRW tells me he’s heading a department at MTV to put new artists’ music into television shows. With the death of the recording industry, this seems like a viable way to make money. A publicist asks if I want to interview the producers of “Like a G6.”

The Friendly Fire ask if I was recording our rapport. I say no. They pull out their camera and interview me: “Where are we?” “The most prestigious award show in North American history… founded over 250 years ago: the Woodies….” They turn off their camera and walk away.

I tell Donald Glover his rap album reminds me of Bright Eyes because of its earnest commentary on the state of becoming famous. He thanks me for not comparing him to Drake.

I ask Wiz Khalifa if he’s the only rapper from North Dakota. He says he was born there but moved away when he was young. He asks if I was from North Dakota. I say I just really like reading Wikipedia.

I walk with a girl who works for websites that cater to teenagers into the college award show. I am disappointed that the beer is not free. The mohawked security guard tells me that there is no way I’m going up to the VIP area. I leave the venue while Wiz Khalifa performs his famous song.

Then I reunite with Internet people down the street to watch meme-to-musicians Gregory Brothers perform their chart-topping hit “Bed Intruder.”

Joshua Heller may be going to rehab after SxSW.

Don’t forget, kids: Tonight’s when we meet up in San Francisco for drinks! Join hosts Susie Cagle and Jackson West from 7–9 PM at the Hotel Whitcomb, 1231 Market Street. A good time is sure to be had by etc.

It is the sesquicentennial of the foundation of the Italian state! Puzzlingly, some in that beautiful nation seem disinclined to celebrate. I can’t understand why! There is so much to be proud of.