May 9, Lerner Game

1. Make poetry famous.

2. Burn your initials into the sun.

3. Read poetry
from the middle of a burning building,
standing in the fast lane of the freeway
OR
falling from the top of the Empire State Building.

4. Be Richard Speck,
rather than Gary Snyder.

5. Ride a rocketship to hell,
rather than a Volvo to Bolinas.

6. Sell arms to the Martians,
rather than wait sullenly for a letter from some deceased clown with a three-piece mind, telling you that you’ve won a bulletproof pair of rose-colored glasses for your poem ”Autumn in the Spring”.

7. Be hated by everyone
who teaches for a living.

8. Read your poetry and watch people
get headaches, vomit, weep, scream, disappear, start bleeding,
eat their television sets,
beat each other to death with swords,
and go out and get riotously drunk
on someone else’s money

9. Do not bury poetry
or dandle it on your knee like a retarded child
with beautiful eyes.
Instead, blow it up
or throw it off a cliff into icy seas
and see if the the motherfucker
can swim for its life.

10. Buy one of those beautiful
switchblade knives.

March 13, Shame Game

1. Push someone off a cliff.
2. Listen to them fall.
3. Look at them.
4. Make sure everyone hears about what has happened.
5. Make sure everyone knows how you feel about it.
6. Ask everyone else if they’re alright.
7. Don’t listen to their answers.
8. Check if anyone knows how you,
as an event organizer,
are supposed to deal with this.
9. Check if you’re allowed to go to the funeral.
10. Lose one 1d4 Humanity. Permanently.

January 20, Home Game

1. Make a promise to yourself that you won’t be able to keep.
2. Go looking for a string to pull at.
3. Watch your snow-covered fields,
your comfortable cliffs,
your sleek city wastelands
all unravel.
4. Find a way to escape from wherever you wake up the next day.
5. Repeat the details of your every stolen glimpse or cowardly theft time and time again.
6. Make up for all of it with poetry and bad breath.
7. Throw away your shoes.
8. Tattoo “liar” on the soles of your feet.
9. Whenever you need to go somewhere, walk backwards.
10. Return to square one, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over  and over  and over   and   over    a n d   o v e r    a   n   d       o   v   e    r      a     n     d           o     v      e        r                   a        n         d                    o           v              e                  r                       a            n              d                           o                   v                         e                           r                        a
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