frybread sonnet #017: SNOWSTORM

Sitting inside, chilling during blizzard, sipping
my elderberry syzurp, French press got cayenne
cardomom pod caffeine bean dirtgod blend dripping
into belly, woodstove full of blaze orange earth zen.

I got that innate genetic disposition
of dysfunctional Viking mixed breed buttermilk
beard southern personality; my condition
is piecemeal but still "peace" often - I know my ilk

is often doomed - not born to be silkgod. I'm straight
dirtgod from dirt road with dirty mind open wide;
in world designed by danawhites, I navigate
thinking "keep it between the ditches", but outside

all roads blanketed by two feet white purity;
so I sit contemplating my obscurity.

crystallized water creates

little railroad spike Tesla

coils charging until sunrise

after studying the world's

flags on Wikipedia,

the U.S. flag kinda sucks

2016 Royal Poetry Rumble: The First Part

You can read the previous entry for an explanation of this. Just click the Royal Poetry Rumble tag at the bottom of the post. I guess I could’ve linked it but fuck man, I hate doing shit. We will have three head-to-head matches today, randomly drawn from the field of 30.

#30: Lucie Brock-Broido (represented by Dove Interrupted) vs. Angie Estes (repped by Rhapsody)

Lucie Brock-Broido was one of the finalists for the Kingsley Tuft award, and Angie Estes was the winner, so perhaps this first poetry rumble is secretly a GRUDGE MATCH!

Dove Interrupted comes strong with the second line:

Arguably still squabbling about the word inarguably.

But then it gets kinda weird in a too obvious way.

I was made American. You must consider this. 

Whatever suffering is insufferable is punishable by perishable.

That’s kinda lolol to me, and then she brings back in “inarguably” again before

I miss your heart, my heart.

I don’t know, I probably don’t get poetry. BUT I AM A HUMAN BEING WITH LANGUAGE AS A MAJOR FORCE IN MY LIFE. THIS MEANS I INNATELY GET POETRY. Thus, this poem doesn’t get me.

Then Angie Estes storms out, listing a bunch of birds in a way that sounds poetic as my brain speaks the sounds, and I can’t even bother to quote it because you might read with your brain with a different accent. And actually if we just leave it to stupid poetic highspots that make me gawk, Estes kinda locks it up with “chief of bone”, and I am leaning that way, before the finisher:

amid the chatter 

and flutter of well-coiffed 

words, the owl 

in the shagbark hickory, 

and all the attending dangers 

like physicians 

of the heard.

IMO, game over right there. But let’s see what the kvlt scholar’s opinion was…

THE KVLT SCHOLAR’S HANTEI: To the extent to which "Dove, Interrupted" even attempts to participate in a weirdo mediævalism I support it but I do not know that I am able to champion it beyond that; ok yeah "Rhapsody" kills it dead probably without even caring by invoking the barred owl's who-cooks-for-you/who-cooks-for-you-all which is an essential component of birdcræft. It didn't even need to have a part about St. Teresa at the end *but then it did.* WINNER: "Rhapsody"

Thus, eliminated at #30: LUCIE BROCK-BROIDO

#29: Laura Kasischke (repped by The Pain) vs. Terrance Hayes (repped by Derrick Poem [The Lost World])

Laura Kasischke was another Kingsley Tuft finalist, though not winner. Terrance Hayes made the National Book Award for poetry short list, though did not win.

Kasischke’s The Pain is short and fast, but it speaks too heavy-handed for my brain of religious shit, and parents, and the author cries about her dad, and I am perhaps too alpha and perhaps have too much penis but it does not strike me as I would want a poem to strike me. It is predictable, and though not bad (I guess), nothing I would ever want to revisit again.

Derrick Poem is just a blubbering mess of non-word symbols whenever possible (ampersands and dollar signs galore), and mentions of sneakers and basketball and it runs on like stream of conscious memories, and because this is how my brain does work, and the author has dissed his friend Derrick, abandoning their friendship for a white girl, and this obviously has stuck with the author, and it makes me think about Derrick. Like what the fuck is he doing now? What is going on with Derrick? I’d take this Derrick Poem and probably a couple more poems about Derrick before ever wanting to go back to Kasischke’s pain again, but…

THE KVLT SCHOLAR’S HANTEI: I really think "The Pain" is maybe a first-rate poem about mothers and fathers and the literal emotional impossibility of being a kid and we should check again in like thirty years to see (lol I wrote "fifty" first but we'll be so dead then); I hate "Derrick Poem (The Lost World)" four lines in because I don't give the slightest fvkk about fancy sneakers but I will finish it out of loyalty to you and your vision and to a lesser extent out of my loyalty to poesy/its viewless wings; ok I finished it and while it may very well contain profound truths about Amerikkka I don't care about Amerikkka very much (with apologies, not to Amerikkka so much as to this poem) which limits this for me. WINNER: "The Pain"

Eliminated at #29: TERRANCE HAYES

#28: Marilyn Hacker (repped by Pantoum) vs. Alan Shapiro (repped by Vantage)

Hacker was a National Book Award for Poetry longlister, and Shapiro was a finalist but not winner for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

In Hacker’s poem’s first stanza, even though it is about freedom (which seems played to me), I really want to like it, except she closes that opening stanza with the fourth line:

When I began to write the story I started bleeding.

Had a tough time wanting to digest anything further than that, as I disliked the taste of that line, so I jumped ahead to Vantage.

And this Vantage is just moss thick nonsense gibberish (yet beautiful) about looking up at a tree, light shining through, thick ass tree as thick as the ass of a Colombian woman, and there are a lot of enjoyable phrases, and he closes with the vicious closed fist:

and the very dirt becomes the dirt of it.

Solid as fuck; so much so I begrudgingly force myself to read the rest of Pantoum, but there is absolutely nothing in the rest of it that counters the strong style of Vantage, although Hacker does drop, “Wrestling with the rudiments of grammar,” in the last stanze, but it is not enough, not nearly enough.

THE KVLT SCHOLAR’S HANTEI: Because "Pantoum" is serious about form it should be taken seriously from the outset and even if it wasn't it still has things in it that are important to think about but would they seem so if freed from the tender tyranny of formal constraint? This idiot (me) thinks maybe not, which is a compelling argument in favour of the rigours of form. Oh shit ok I thought that was gonna be a pretty easy win over whatever came next but "Vantage" is a *legit* tree poem and I just bought a whole anthology of tree poesy from a shelf at the used bookstore marked "trees" and when I brought it and also several books about how to identify different types of trees up to the counter the old man who runs the bookstore said "looks like somebody found the tree shelf" and then he told me how he used a copy of one of the tree guides I was buying ("Fifty Trees of Canada") to do a project for school when he was eight. WINNER: "Vantage"

So finally in today’s installment, eliminated at #28: MARILYN HACKER

a thousand layers of sprayed

paint accumulates, thickness

beyond scope of naked guy

frybread sonnet #016: TRUE URGENCY OF IRL NOW

The urgency of Now - the privilege to cool
out and make gradual change unavailable
to most, not just minority but most; old school
thinking was prosperity was attainable

for anyone willing to try, but the struggle
against mainstream American currents can be
overwhelming, drowning in an endless juggle
of what's most past due or pressing. Oh say can we

get ahead before body succumbs completely -
will my life cover my deductible? Fighting
to not choke behind this battle; suits sweetly
promise better tomorrows, these men inviting

my implied consent through vote for lesser of twin
evils born from same seed - will evil always win?

riverside elven folk don't

litter so much as leave clues

to guide future adventures

Sabu gutter spike fireball

philosophies learned from great

mystic wrestle sheikh named The Sheik

2016 Royal Poetry Rumble: Introduction

The Royal Rumble is a stupid professional wrestling event where 30 people are thrown into a chaotic clusterfuck of bad wrestling, in a way that seems like it could never work, and yet somehow it’s perhaps the most entertaining of all stupid professional wrestling events (which tend to get stupider and stupider as you get older and older). I hardly watch wrestling at all any more, and if I ever do it’s usually something with nostalgic value buried inside the youtubes, but man when I was younger, I used to love that shit. But it remains one of those shameful things I’d never admit to anybody, though I don’t try to hide it necessarily either. It just sort of floats out there in the aether of personal experience, like a bad trip (drugs, not travel, though that Venn diagram has large crossover potential).

Similarly, I guess I’d be considered a “poet”. People have introduced me as such. People have consulted me as such. And yet every time that word is applied to me, it makes every molecule of my being cringe in embarrassment. Poetry can be as wretched as professional wrestling, and the deeper into the ESTABLISHED POETRY INDUSTRY (if you could call it an “industry”), the more wretched and horrible it gets (much like pro wrestling). And though at its true nature and in the filthy underground tendrils of it, poetry can be amazing (much like pro wrestling), it’s mostly known to the average person as this ridiculous spectacle that tends to live up to the horrible stereotypes about it (again, much like pro wrestling). 

Well, rather than write an unnecessary thinkpiece in the longest of forms about all this, and perhaps examine my own self and personal biases and shortcomings, and try to untangle some of these issues I obviously have (exemplified by my shameful love of both pro wrestling and poetry), I decided to make it a “you got your peanut butter into my chocolate” thing, and throw the two together. Thus is born the first (and perhaps only) annual ROYAL POETRY RUMBLE.

I did some serious research (fucked around on Wikipedia at work) and came up with AN EXTENSIVE AND SERIOUS (looks good I guess) list of the most important poetry positions, awards, and honors. And through this, a field of 30 competitors was developed. They are, as follows:

#1: The current U.S. poet laureate, which does not necessarily change each year, but it’s considered an important and prestigious position, sort of like being the World Heavyweight champion in wrestling, so they are included. (That’s one.)

#2-3: The poet laureate of the U.S. gets two appoint two people as Wytter Bynner fellows, which is like being the under-laureate I guess, though it’s done yearly. (That’s two more.)

#4: The National Book Award winner for the previous year in poetry. This is one of the highest awards for poetry books. (That’s another.) #5-8: Plus, the winner of this award is taken from a short list of five books, so all those other short-listers get added as well. (Four more.) #9-13: And the shortlist is culled from a longer longlist of ten books, so let’s add those other five folks as well. (I probably don’t need to do these parenthesis add-ons, counting up, when the numbers before the listing are already doing that work.)

#14: The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for book of poetry, which is another MAJOR AWARD that a poet aspires to, because even though nobody heard of you, suddenly after you win the Pulitzer, there are newspaper articles about you, and people who are fringe poetry types (perhaps from embarrassment) are suddenly like, “Oh hey, here’s a poet fucker who sounds cool, I guess. Let me see if I can get their book for cheap as fuck on half.com.” (But I enjoy the visual aspect of the parenthesis too much to completely give it up.) #15-16: There are always three finalists for the Pulitzer, which means two people don’t win the award. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be READY TO RUMBLE! (Through poetry though.)

#17: There was this dude who was some sort of shipyard executive but he loved to write poetry, and was featured in various high-brow poetry places (New Yorker, for example). But then he died, so his wife sold off all their shit and created the Kingsley Tufts poetry award in his honor (because now I can tell you his name was Kingsley Tufts). It is given not for a book of poetry but to somebody who has a body of work already, thus established to some extent. It’s a $100,000 prize though, so it’s kind of a big deal if you’re a starving ass writer (though perhaps this brings up the elephant in the room in that what type of person can afford to go to graduate school for an MFA in Creative Writing, and can afford to dick around with words all the time). But even if you are successful, and firmly embedded in academia as a teacher (the only way to make money as a writer of Serious Literature, imo), an extra hundred grand buys a lot of pink crystal salt from the local Whole Foods alternative run by yoga practitioners. (Kingsley Tufts is a fairly immense name, so you knew that dude was gonna have some sort of award named after him, regardless.) #18-21: There are four other finalists for that award, so might as well include them here as well, because we have to have 30 poets. (I mean, we don’t “have to” really, but that is the arbitrary ruling I have made from the beginning, so that this Royal Poetry Rumble at least matches the actual professional wrestling Royal Rumble in number of competitors.)

#22: The Wallace Stevens awards is another hundred thousand dollar award, given out annually, to somebody who has a “proven mastery of the art of poetry” (according to their website), so that’s obviously some serious business, and this poet should be included as well.

#23: Similarly, the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry is given to somebody who has represented the fuck out of poetry, to a level that has effected American literature. That’s totally like Jeff Hardy in pro wrestling, so probably somebody who in the world of poetry is a certain Intercontinental champion, but not may or may not develop into a World champion (poet laureate), because that’s more exclusive level of dominant presence. (The PEN/Voelcker Award is only given out every other year, which means if I do this a second year, that person will get to return to the fracas next year!)

#24: The Bollingen Prize (given out by Yale) is like a mash-up of all these things, in that it also is given out every other year, and MAY recognize a notable book of poetry put out in the previous two years, or it MAY recognize an overall greatness of getting poetic shit accomplished. So naturally, I include that person. (And naturally, they’ll get to go through two years of this, perhaps, depending on my own motivation to do this again as well as my fleeting mortality.)

#25-27: The Ruth Lilley Poetry Prize is another $100,000 check doled out yearly to somebody who is exemplary “whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition.” It is given out by the Poetry Foundation, whose website is where I got that quoted line about how awesome this poet is sposed to have been. (I don’t know about finalists, so I’m just gonna include the three most recent previous winners in our field.)

#28-30: And finally, the Lannan Literary Awards are the big payday of all prizes, at $150,000. They are given out in various genres, including poetry, and yet not given out annually necessarily. It’s not real clear how that all works, and what triggers giving out the awards, beyond trying to give poets some financial breathing room and public recognition for their shit. (So I’ll include the three most recent recipients in the field of poetry, to fill out our field of 30 for this ridiculous endeavor.)

In the actual professional wrestling Royal Rumble, the entrants draw numbers from 1 to 30, to determine their order of battle. (Yes, this is all worked according to the strange cultural theatrics of professional wrestling, but let’s put all that aside for sake of word flow, okay?) For the purposes of the Royal Poetry Rumble, I’ve just thrown the 30 poets onto a spreadsheet, and then randomized them some numbers. I’ll pull out pairs to go head-to-head through a single poem, in groups of six, thus by luck of the (randomized robot) draw, a poet might have to battle multiple times over and again to stay alive in this thing, while somebody else might not get drawn at all yet. That’ll eliminate folks down in batches of three, until we get to six left (30 to 27 to 24 to 21 to 18 to 15 to 12 to 9 to 6). Then, I’ll randomify two pairs (to take it down to 4), and then two more pairs, which will leave us with our final pair of poets. Each time they are drawn, they get represented by a different (and new to this nonsense) poem.

But how to decide who wins? And where to get their poems? Well, I can answer that second question first. Being this is the internet, I’m gonna do my best to find the poems used on the internet. There’s a slightly shitty website full of poems called Poemhunter. I’ll use up whatever poems by the poet is there first, simply because you can list their poems on the site by which one’s been hit the most (in terms of page views). That’s a skewed and fucked-up away to pretend you are using their best poem. The Poetry Foundation (which gives out one of the above awards) also has an extensive database of online poems by many poets, so I’ll go there second. They have more poems, but they’re just listed alphabetically, which means I’ll have to arbitrarily decide which one to use next. If at some point I use up all the available poems on both those sites, then I’ll figure some other shit out to keep it going.

Now obviously (as you can tell by this intro), I’ll probably write-up some longform stream of unconscious gibberish nonsense about the head-to-head match-ups of poems (and thus poet). But I didn’t think it fair to just let me decide. I mean, who the fuck am I? (Just some guy on the internet, writing about writing, or something like that, I guess.) So I’ve enlisted the help of a friend who is a noted and trusted scholar, and yet also keeps their perspective fogged properly by popular culture. They will be known throughout the course of this nonsense as the kvlt scholar (he can be found inside the twitters as @badtracking). They lost their teaching gig at a university (like most people have in recent years) so they’ve got extra time on their hands. I’m gonna send them the poems, with author removed, simply formatted in a word doc, and let them decide completely arbitrarily which one advances. This will be referred to as “the kvlt scholar’s hantei” and will be the final decision in each match-up. Thus, my long-winded nonsense gibberish may not even match who wins. But whatever.

So I guess this is how all this ridiculousness came to be, and will go down. We begin tomorrow, WHEN THREE POETS WILL BE ELIMINATED, and will whittle down the field, until the final two are left, and one of them will win, and then there will be a weird wrestling event, and you can think about poetry and wrestling or wrestling and poetry, but either way the two will be intertwined forever in your consciousness, along with perhaps me (hopefully), and we will be done for the year, having crowned our ROYAL POETRY RUMBLE WINNER OF 2016. (Note: I had anticipated starting this to go daily in the weeks before the actual Royal Rumble, and to end on the morning of the actual rumble, but you know how shit goes.)

man's monkeyhead electric

wires can't replicate simple

sunflower’s dirt-root tendrils

aboveground swimming pools used

to mean upwardly mobile,

now Wal-Mart Supercenter

the ultimate warrior is

one who can navigate this

crooked world uncompromised

frybread sonnet #015: WATCHING THE SLOW DEATH CLOCK

Wanted to write a sonnet about hope and peace
and shit like that, but honestly feel kinda tired,
wore down from endless outrage device, filing cease
and desist orders against wireless world inspired

by Orwellian worst case scenarios (rowww
roww like a dungeon dragon). Drank coffee at work
(like usual) because that's how we've been trained how
to do daily routine mundane blah blah... hopes lurk

somewhere still buried beneath the past due worries,
I guess in my heart maybe? Not sure, don't feel much
there except stress fist clenching tightly; age hurries
along it's too short course kinda fast, I can't clutch

after metaphorical sands of time, so fuck...
staring at the clock, pretending not to be stuck.

drawings from children tacked up

in confining workspaces

worldwide stifle suicide

unfinished drywall hanging

overhead; unfinished books

lost in forgotten doc files

electricity stretches

deep through wasteland forest to

extension cord pallet town

frybread sonnet #014: PERSONAL STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS

State of the Union of the vast Bird Tribe Compound -
water line's currently busted but whatever,
the woodsland paths behind house are strong with the sound
of crows dropping feral sky knowledge; I never

finished weatherproofing the two campers I bought
off Craigslist last spring, but they are full of projects,
one a shared space, the little one where I have wrought
much nonsense gibberish writing already, flecks

of dirtgod madness; the ol' lady's herbal school
teaching pavilion doubles as children's dance space;
the chickens keep busting through their fencing - it's cool
though; still got two goats, kooky little fuckers race

to taste sweet feed ev'ry morning; scrap metal pile's
big enough to cash out to fund future wild styles.

dusty pickle jar emptied

of all its silver change since

the washing machine’s been broke

"say 'make money money, make

money money'" demanded

the lizard-like house DJ

frybread sonnet #013: REFINANCING PAPERWORK

Braving new world's new year of accumulated
debt, and still building more; things fall apart right quick
when piecemealed secondhand but also created
to fail, built to break; we've replaced actual brick

with slick facade, things that can be fixed with complex
over-complications still adding up to less
quality of life (it feels); natural reflex
is to be frustrated, not having makes a mess

of self-identity; what did I do wrong to not
be able to provide like all others do seem.
Nothing; it's an illusion; ev'rybody's got
trick methods for juggling, appearing to still dream

that stereotypical American one,
where all seems to be new, nice, and way more than none.

S14: 14 Clubs What Which Played the Most Matches In Previous 5 Years' FA Cups

This past weekend – aside from being the first playoff weekend of the American concussion ball – was the third round of the English FA Cup, which is when the 44 teams form the top two divisions, including the Premier League, jump into the fracas, along with 20 other teams who were still alive from the previous rounds. The FA Cup is a chaotic clusterfuck of soccer footballing competition where almost any professional or semi-professional team in England (some even outside of England) can compete in a knockout tournament. So there’s a long tradition of “minnows”, or lower level teams, knocking off Premier League (or at least higher division) teams. In fact, my team – Swansea – who is fighting potential relegation from the Premier League this year, went out against a League Two team this past Sunday, which is three levels below Premier League, and got beat.

Teams from different levels come in at different times, during a long qualifying process, which starts with level 9 and 10 of English football, which is the local as fuck teams, and gradually introduces each higher level. If there is a draw in the match, they do a replay a few days later at the other team’s home stadium (or field, because lolol some of these teams have nothing close to resembling a stadium). This starts with whatever team that meets certain requirements from those local leagues at level 9 and 10 playing in an Extra Preliminary Round. Level 8, which are regional leagues – 136 total, join in the Preliminary Round. 72 teams from Level 7 join in the next First Round Qualifying, followed by the 44 teams in level 6 in the Second Round Qualifying, then the 24 teams from level 5 of English football in the Fourth Qualifying Round. Whoever is left at that time enters the First Round Proper, joined by the 48 teams from League One (level 3) and League Two (level 4). The winners of First Round play in Second Round, leaving 20 teams which join the 44 teams from Football Championship and the actual Premier League what which is famous in the Third Round Proper. At that point, it’s 64 teams, so sort of resembles March Madness in single elimination down to the FA Cup winner, who qualifies for a European tournament. Thus, conceivably, some little ragtag assortment of soccer shits competing in the lowest levels of English football could magically make their way to Wembley Stadium and then a continental competition. That doesn’t really happen, but conceivably it could. But usually the Premier League teams kind of half-ass if they are at the top of the Premier League table, and you sort of have teams stumble into the Fifth Round or final sixteen, and then the teams that are out of position to make a European tournament otherwise might pick it up, or a top team having a less-than-top season (like Chelsea probably will do this year) try to get a little saving glory from their season.

For the sake of doing a weekly Sporting 14, I thought it’d be interesting to list out the fourteens teams who had played the most matches in the FA Cup the past five years, all rounds – both proper and qualifying, and including replays, just for the fuck of it. Ties went to the lowest level team, because I am a minnow in a world of powerhouses (but I am premier level psychically). I had to limit this to the top eight levels of English football though, because fuck man, there’s like another 184 teams that play at the 9th and 10th levels, and this list is already compiled from 428 teams total. (What the fuck is wrong with me?) (Oh yeah, I get really fucking bored sometimes.) But – for example – Shildon A.F.C. from the 9th level (Northern League Division One, nicknamed The Railwaymen, established 1890) has played as many matches as the number one team on this list – 26. But I didn’t feel like digging through all those lowest level teams. Sorry.

#1: CHELMSFORD CITY F.C. (National League South – Level 6) – 26 matches played.

The Claret City, as is their nickname, had a crazy run for a few years, making the Second Round Proper, just before the Premier League teams entered, in 2010-11, 2011-12, and 2012-13. They crashed out early in 2013-14, but made it to the 4th Qualifying Round last season, before losing a 4th Qualifying Round replay at Barnet. But for a small ass team to make the Second Round Proper three years in a row, that’s strong. They got knocked out this year in the 3rd Qualifying Round by Basingstoke Town. (Great thing about English football lower levels is how all the teams sound like made up shit from Mr. Show.)

#2: WARRINGTON TOWN F.C. (Northern Premier League, Division One North – 8th level) – 25 matches played.

Being from such a low level, they have generally started in the Preliminary Qualifying Round, and advanced a couple round each season. Their big year was last season though, when they forced replays in both the 2nd and 3rd Qualifying Rounds, advanced on through to the First Round Proper, where they upset Exeter City (who played Liverpool this past weekend), before losing to Gateshead in the Second Round Proper. This year, though, they got beat by something called Abbey Hey, 3-2, in the preliminary round.

#3: ARSENAL F.C. (Premier League – 1st level) – 25 matches played.

Of course you are familiar with the Gunners if you are remotely familiar with English football. They won the FA Cup the past two seasons, having beaten Aston Villa in the final last year, in a 4-0 stomping, and Hull City the previous season, 3-2. These were their 11th and 12th FA Cup title, making them the most successful team ever in the competition. This season, they beat Sunderland this past weekend, 3-1 at home, and have been drawn to host Burnley later this month in the Fourth Round Proper.

#4: EAST THURROCK UNITED F.C. (Isthmian League Premier Division – 7th level) – 24 matches played.

In the past five years, East Thurrock United has clawed their way to the First Round Proper from the lower bowels twice, losing to Macclesfield Town in that round in the 2011-12 competition, and then to Hartlepool United in 2014-15. This season, after whomping a Carshalton Athletic, 5-0 away in the 2nd Qualifying Round, they lost at home to Staines Town, 3-6. The oddest portion of their campaign this season though was their 1st Qualifying round game away at Yaxley, which the ref suspended with like 3 minutes left, because a player got injured and he was afraid an ambulance wouldn’t get there in time.

#5: CORBY TOWN F.C. (National League North – 6th level) – 23 matches played.

Corby Town are known as the Steel Men, and their away kit is black shorts with hot pink shirt, so I don’t really want to explicate anything further that might ruin such wonderfulness. (Well, I will say they did make it to the First Round Proper three times in the previous five seasons, losing away to Luton Town in 2010-11, away to Bristol Rovers in 2011-12, both of which you can only expect they were rocking the pink kits. (“Kit” is Anglish for “uniform”.) This year, they didn’t even make it out of the 2nd Qualifying Round, losing a replay away to Rushall Olympic, disgracing their hot pink power jerseys (I assume… I didn’t look for images from the game to be honest).

#6: SHEFFIELD UNITED F.C. (League One – 3rd level) – 23 matches played.

Sheffield United is a storied club with a big reputation for being a giant killer in the FA Cup. In fact, they were in the last regulation minute of a game at Manchester United this past weekend before refs reffed it up and gave MUFC a penalty kick in the final minute, allowing Wayne Rooney an easy goal to help break up his slump, and probably save fuckin’ Louis van Gaal from getting sacked in embarrassment. Had they held on, they would’ve had a very lucrative replay next week hosting the superstars of Manchester United. As it stands, they are out, although in the previous five years, they’ve knocked off luminary teams such as Aston Villa, Fulham, Nottingham Forest, and Queens Park Rangers, and even made it to the semifinals and the grand stage of Wembley Stadium two seasons ago, losing to Hull City.

#7: SPENNYMOOR TOWN F.C. (Northern Premier League, Division One North -  8th level) – 22 matches played.

See, this is one of those weirdly magical sounding teams that if you imagine Bob Odenkirk really over-enunciating “SPIN-nee-MORE TOWN” it makes it pretty wonderful. But the histories of even low level English teams can be convoluted. Spennymoor Town is a combination of a team called Evenwood Town, which had existed since 1931, but combined in 2005 with a second team, Spennymoor United, which had folded earlier that year. The combination caused them to change the name to Spennymoor Town, and that’s them. They’ve never actually made it to the First Round Proper of the FA Cup, but they’ve enjoyed a lot of qualifying round successes, over such potentially made-up things as Crook Town, Newton Aycliffe, Tadcaster Albion, and Harrogate Railway Athletic. This season, they were knocked out in the 2nd Qualifying Round by Burscough, which I think was some sort of toe fungus originally.

#8: STOURBRIDGE F.C. (Northern Premier League Premier Division – 7th level) – 22 matches played.

Stourbridge is known as The Glassboys, due to their home town’s history of producing cut glass, and like many of these teams, they’ve existed since the late 1800s. They actually made it to the Second Round Proper in 2011-12 (before losing at home to Stevenage, which sounds like a wrestling move), and in 2013-14 (before again getting crushed by THE STEVENAGE, 4-0). This season, they made it to the Second Round Proper yet again, before losing at home to fifth-tier Eastleigh, who were the only fifth-level team left in the FA Cup this season, but tied (drew) Bolton Wanderers, 1-1, in Eastleigh, thus they have a replay in a week at Bolton. They are the smallest minnow left this year.

#9: HENDON F.C. (Isthmian League, Premier Division – 7th level) – 22 matches played.

Their crest is a wack ass sheep holding that English cross flag that skinheads love. In terms of the FA Cup, they made it to, but lost in the First Round Proper in both the 2010-11 and 2012-13 competitions. In fact, they were beat by Chelmsford City, #1 on this list, in that 2010-11 First Round Proper match.

#10: DOVER ATHLETIC F.C. (National League – 5th level) – 22 matches played.

They play at a wonderful elven lot called Crabble Athletic Ground, which has allowed them to make the Second Round Proper in 2013-14 (before losing at Milton Keynes Dons), and the Third Round Proper in 2010-11 (before losing at Huddersfield Town) and 2014-15 (losing at their magical home grounds this time, to Premier League team Crystal Palace). This season, they were knocked out in the First Round Proper by that scrappy team from Stourbridge listed two spots above.

#11: CHELSEA F.C. (Premier League – top level) – 22 matches played.

Chelsea is a famous team, with a lot of suck ass fans, and had been having a marvelously horrible season before they sacked their sour-faced manager Jose Mourinho, and now their players decided to start playing. They had won the Premier League last season, but won’t be doing that this year, firmly embedded in the lower half, though a run like you’d expect from the money they spend could push them back up towards the top six. Still though, such a team is the perfect candidate to win the FA Cup, because they won’t get an automatic spot into the European Champions League, so they can sneak a spot into the Europa League (second level of intercontinental club shit in Europe), and make that big intercontinental money. For the most part though, I am like, “Fuck Chelsea.” In terms of the actual FA Cup the previous five seasons, they won it in 2011-12, beating Liverpool, 2-1, in the Wembley Stadium final, and lost in the semifinals in 2012-13 to Manchester City. Last year, they were shocked in the Fourth Round Proper, at home, losing to Bradford City, 2-4. This past weekend, they dominated Scunthorpe United, 2-0, at home, and have been drawn to play at the winner of the Northampton Town/Milton Keynes Dons replay in this season’s Fourth Round.

#12: MANCHESTER CITY F.C. (also Premier League – also top level) – also 22 matches played.

I don’t care much for Manchester City either, in fact, I don’t like most of the ridiculously wealthy teams in the Premier League, or anywhere to be honest. Fuck wealth. Manchester City won the FA Cup in 2010-11, beating Stoke City, 1-0, in the Wembley final. They returned to the final in 2012-13, losing somewhat of a shocker to Wigan Athletic, 0-1. They then lost to Wigan again the following year, in the quarterfinals. Last season, they were upset by Middlesbrough in the Fourth Round, and this past weekend, they crushed fellow Premier League team Norwich City, 3-0, in Norwich. The next round, they will play at whoever wins the Aston Villa/Wycombe Wanderers replay.

#13: NORTH GREENFORD UNITED F.C. (Southern Football League, Division One Central – 8th level) – 21 matches played.

They’ve not ever made it to the Proper tournament, but these scrappy little fuckers from the north end of Greenford have made it through multiple qualifying rounds, over the likes of Felixstowe & Walton United, Bedfont Town, Dunstable Town, Wokingham & Emmbrook, Hanworth Villa, and the Northampton Sileby Rangers. This season though, they were knocked out early by those bastards from Mildenhall Town.

#14: SOUTH PARK F.C. (Isthmian League, Division One South – 8th level as well) – 21 matches played as well.

They are The Sparks, and their crest is just a fuckin’ tree. They’ve existed since 1897, but only after combining with a nearby club called Reigate Town, and some home field improvements (“the installation of floodlights and new changing rooms” says Wikipedia), did they ever get to a high enough level to play even in the preliminary rounds of FA Cup qualifying. in 2012-13, they played nine matches total, away and then home replay against Cobham, home then away replay against Walton & Hersham, won an away match against Lancing, home then away replay against Harefield United, home win against Brentwood Town, before succumbing at home to the Metropolitan Police, 0-3. This year, they made it to the 2nd Qualifying Round before they got crushed at Maidstone United, 2-6. Thankfully, I made it to the end of this, too. If you made it this far, I got no idea what the fuck why.

grandmas don't know about rims -

just hubcaps and maybe El

Dorado 30-spoke “vogues”

frybread sonnet #012: THE REIGN OF QUANTITIES

Manifesting real change - pay raises ain't progress
when enabling same ol' shit; wayward tradition
of "manifest destiny" can't succeed unless
it expands forever, which isn't condition

sustainable on terra firma in real life;
stock market crashes mean my zero percent stays
zero, hand-to-mouth pays no dividends (but strife
and stress) to heart; struggling to maintain decent ways

and means, ends only meet when supplemented by
secondhand scraps and absconded junk; recession
of hope manufactures depressed spirit, thus I
manifest real change, not slogans, not obsession

with new sheen to pretend same ol' shit smells fragrant;
human development still feels fairly vacant.

"quality poultry" whitewash;

lizard people syndrome spreads

but concealed by pop culture