Apr 30, 2008
Genius sears with knowledge
of much foolishness. Caravans
without metaphor and without tide
arise. A piano plays a cartoon.
Wisdom, is the vanity of the holy.
I am archaic and language is arcane.
Hear the sounds of a universal.
Word is pliant and is to be applied.
Death, does not arrive in time.
A scoundrel plays baboon.
Calliopes collide; collisions collude.
Death, this air that takes my energy.
Love, which is Death, confused
by its own beauty aflame.
Apr 29, 2008
sadly inspired and aptly conceived
a fire in the deep sea lures dead men
with open chests that breathe
the choreography of fluid springs
that exist in a time without mind
this is not eden there are no trees
this is not hell there is no bread
this is not purgatory this is a list
of a dead branch with spider's silk
a hive of honey devoured by locusts
a half-life to every confusion
the stars are out:
where do I flee? how do I go?
these volcano undersea
Apr 28, 2008
Apr 27, 2008
Apr 26, 2008
the utter clarity that is the sadness of my life
is like a bridge the abyss itself spans
and light does not strike anything colder.
or warmer-- these things imperceivable
and subject to change. even sadness
blurs with momentum. clarity skims.
comets of diamond fall against the sun.
forgotten roses rasp for joy.
Apr 25, 2008
The conductor proscribes that the perfect critic
would only listen to the musicians tuning instruments,
and then leave with the music unheard.
Once, April surprises everyone by doing Thelonius.
She's allowed eleven minutes; she uses eleven
and a quarter. A French horn harrumphed.
He allows her eleven minutes more.
Now she's really expected to do it, to nail it in blood mist
and bloom. Her eyes flutter and then she squints,
raising her chin:
Alpha-bits and libraries
won't let me in
the wind as it whispers without lie.
Harrumph, harrumph.
The child at the bottom of the swimming pool
in the middle school was what was heard in elementary--
because he was forced to swim when he couldn't
and the teacher made him drown.
There were investigations. A lawsuit was filed.
They did not win, but settled out of court.
Fame is all there is, of fortune;
of misfortune, just the same.
Apr 24, 2008
The audience reacts in certain ways:
Shoot them with a gun, they scream
after it is done; shoot them with two
in the same scene, ten percent will
quietly curse, often you. The third
time the bullet rises to the chamber,
they watch. At this point, we leave
the actor to decide the twist in plot.
Some like messages to change
direction; “Kill everyone.”
Some prefer the finer cleft
of differentiation. On my braver
days, I might tell you to turn it
upon yourself. Today I won't.
Apr 23, 2008
Apr 22, 2008
God did and did not make the apple
on the Tree: God, that moving thing
left a space where the apple was to be
and instead left a place for God unmade
a pharaoh king; a chimpanzee--
the maggot of the moth--
time to a junebug--
a god with a clock--
We will die in the morning, I believe.
We will die with our arms, cut off.
We will die with dignity or we shall not survive.
Computational Singularity
To greater love to god I think than anything otherwise.
He thoughtfully made the universe, a conundrum--
in his own image, and as himself.
Does justice exist, of any sort?
In that but we die.
Misdeeds of blundering flounder.
Accusations of what is right, in every one.
You do what you must.
Death comes, but once.
If you were god, what would you say?
the apples bloom, and the narcissus
wither; the sea returns and the beach
revokes; enlightenment is an old idea
to a bird; despair is a common well
the thirstiest drink of; the root destroys
the gravel; the bottle breaks and the glass
is empty; a green bud here that reddens
pink and not yet done; here is a stone
that is also shell; the day is bright and night
is of no matter; rain will fall and cloud
perfume; a bed for you wherever you sleep
for whatever you dream of; o, love--
a nest holding nothing; the apples fallen
round dandelion white in second bloom.
We gave the wounded man a cat.
A Persian that sprung in his lap.
A woman elbows thru the swinging door.
Her arms raised, as tho about to perform.
Throw the mug and bowl at glass.
The night is alit with fire.
What air there is, is lukewarm.
Dust upon a finger.
We saw the cat again, a flash of red.
The wounded man we shot.
Apr 21, 2008
Apr 20, 2008
An old pond a frog jumps. Sound of water
and the scent of rain. My nose twitches
and lightning strikes the nervous flanks
of commanded horses. O, bay. O, woe.
Fishing, looking at the moon deer look to.
The sound of traffic, and scent of rain.
My nose itches and I do not sneeze
by biting my lip. They turn when I piss.
Starlight, as well as planes; night
and satellite-- They die with me
before they die, like nothing I can
really say, anymore than-- Nothing, really.
Gojira jumps into the chair I do not use,
and sits. And sits. And I go away.
Apr 18, 2008
Imagine Mohamed were sinless; or Jesus, either one--
Epitomes of virtue, no ill will in either one:
They buy fish at the market; venison, veal; either one
passes coin greased with sweat and blood; either one
passes men who have raped and murdered; either one
looks at a woman neither beautiful nor pure; either one
looks at a woman and sees beauty, purity; either one
stands in a doorway when the hard rains come; either one
stands aside to avoid the joyous sway of children; either one
tells a joke after which there is no laughter; either one
tells stories they do not believe fully; either one
drinks water and worries the ferocity of stars; either one
drinks wine and wishes more for himself in silence. Either one
has done nothing but good, or one is neither.
Apr 17, 2008
Take Hiroshima:
the mind is blown
post-apocalyptic
the future-perfect
memory panning
a flash of darkness
neither total nor complete.
Take violins:
the elbow that scrolls
in the air
instantaneous monuments
of some other
moment now also this.
Take anger
management:
confess
your misdeeds.
There is a poison
like a pollen:
the light weeps.
The saxophone is an instrument of the city.
Telephones pole and wire to neck empty buildings.
Everything quotidian as the brass of gold.
Either night or the day too bright to look at directly.
The birds do not flock.
Clavicles clatter on the floor.
Old men build less and less until the center is razed.
Tenuous the brick in its beauty.
The day pipes a solemn song of sojourn.
There is worship of fire and water and of clay.
The saxophone speaks to no one.
The beach is overwhelmed by wave.
This is castle and this is grave.
The saxophone does not say.
Apr 16, 2008
The Grandest Wish
What would be your grandest wish?
There would be a table, of oak, handmade
by a Chippewa. A long table, a viking boat
in a room so broad the walls can not be seen
within a darkness of distance. The table
is well lit by a fire, at which the head
sits. Is that it? A sewing angel drops her thimble.
I don't get it. No, neither do I. It's just
what I'd wish. You'd wish an image.
As if it were vision.
Once upon a time,
a Granter of Wishes disguised himself as a fish,
teeth of worms within his belly.
Once upon a time,
a king dressed as a commoner,
that he could go fishing at some secret spring
before summer chored away in boredom.
Once upon a time,
a Granter of Wishes was caught, and by a king.
Think of such a thing.
His daughter was ill; his kingdom unwell--
he too was only human.
He returned to the spring, night of the third day.
A Granter of Wishes is a fisher of kings.
Take a bass guitar.
Make it trill.
Palms upon woodblocks.
Staccato, contrapuntal.
Keyboard chimes.
A melody of parting.
Glitch. Static voice
echoing Morpheus:
Bass guitar. A humming.
Organ. Sibilant whisper:
Bass guitar. Whistle.
Tone of a phone.
Glitch. Chimney air.
Clanging piercing.
Bass guitar. Voice:
The moon juxtaposed
with self-loathing.
Stars make light
and it is too dark
for conceptual re-
deployment. Power
lines the air as it
seams and unseals
makery within this
preponderance
of nowt. Glitch.
Bass guitar.
Steam.
Apr 15, 2008
I wish I were in a calm place,
O, hydraulic hiss of the garbage truck,
O palimpsest of Olympus, O juggernaut
of bacteria, O untired beast, O disdain.
You've collected me too late.
O garbage men, work as it is play--
O sweetly soured stench, cavort by morning hours;
Hunger, O growler of the cul-de-sac--
You eat again today,
though all my sundry is sundered
in this little bag:
O lock of hair; O wedding ring.
Eggs.
O gust upon eternity, that waits.
Humility is always false.
Wrong.
Indelicate essence.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
I dream of white obelisks in red-monotone.
Half-wrong.
Pride writhes, returning upon itself.
??
Wrong.
In the town of Mayfair,
a turnip was as good as a house,
if that house were half as good
as the brook divine in its subterfuge
as it
vined and redefined what was forest
and what was ground.
Wrong.
Wrongly Wrong
Wrong Wrong
Wrongly Wrong and
Wrong Wrong
Wrong
Wrong!
Wrong.
Dramamine Chasm,
a Polish jerk who wants to take everything apart,
so that you may learn how to put it together
again,
and you want to fail.
Fail.
Two towers high as the planes that in autumn
Wrong.
The writer
The writer writes didactically, tautologically
as though the act itself were euphemistic youth.
It is a casting of stones, a breaking of bottles.
Flames rise from the bones.
It is all beyond description. (a damned soul
who could not speak of it, but only moan--
he told me so) There is no plot, and the plot
-thickens- while characters bore.
The day is green, and mercilessly mercurially
miraculous in reliability. The practical sun
-hangs- within impractical sky. Orange peel
dries in the ashtray. Nothing more.
You are given no choice but to look anew
at the complexity only a simpleton enjoys.
An invention
An invention should change the world.
How?
By alleviating a need.
By discerning the indiscernible, by convention?
By creating ease.
Your invention, it will do that?
No; and not the opposite, nor anything in between.
What will it do, then?
Pull the soul from green acorns.
You're talking need.
I'm talking how to speak like city trees breathe.
And this invention, will allow for that?
No.
Apr 14, 2008
Apr 13, 2008
A cursory, where little curses grow,
is where misery is nursed, a cur
that worries she may starve; a wolf
feather-fine as leather in her fur--
A tuft of wool upon her brow; a snout
that sniffs the dryness of your throat
while wry eyes cut across your suit,
colder than a cat's, darker and less
Subtle; wise as any bitch's bastard
runt without name, not enough tit
to go round; a cunt of whimper, growl
and howl. This is how you tame her--
You bite back harder than her hunger.
You release her, making joy of doubt.
Apr 12, 2008
Church League
Who knows what inning it was lightning struck twice.
My Dad, "Nedley" by the pastor's choosing, was batting
and so what, if it's Tuesday night softball, and you're
trying to tear the glove off the kid with whom you're
playing catch?-- You stop to watch the game for a bit.
And he was playing without his shoes on, and I sighed,
putting my fingers in the fence, behind the plate.
Not a hit all season, a perfect triple-oh, three little
circles all in a row. I want to say he fouled one off
but I do know for certain the bat was heavy aluminum,
his older brother's, silver where the blue was torn.
Anyway, being a lefty, he tore one off to left, and
the grass in the outfield wasn't so much unmowed,
as it was overgrown, this being the city's and not
the high school's park. And he tore one off to left,
right; you could hear it whizz in the thick summer
humidity, and he's already past first, and looking
back up, whoever's in left is twelve feet from the ball.
And somebody from the stands yells Go, Nedley! as he
moves around the shortstop, waiting for the throw
from left, and left hits the cut-off man instead
of throwing to third, and my Dad's decided to hell
with it all: his steel boots are his only pair of shoes;
he'll never get over his brother's death; and of his kids,
maybe. And he slides and the ump is screaming Out!
And the catcher drops the ball.
Apr 11, 2008
Throwing chickens at bear traps
isn't of much use, admittedly,
just, that fucker jumps shut
almost like nothing at all.
No, not nothing-- et al.
We made them. Who is to say
they were not to be made?
And we unmade them.
That took a day.
Now I want to change chickens
to opinion, and bear traps
to fate.
Apr 10, 2008
Apr 9, 2008
Apr 8, 2008
Better right and thought wrong, like Cassandra,
than wrong and thought right, or Nostradamus--
And better Promethean love, without fear
of darkness, for fear is protean; it is fear.
Best yet, better spring move on that fall
may come again, returning May. Best right away.
And I take that back-- Best, right here, in May
of winter, a sad light for the lost along the way.
Apr 7, 2008
Apr 4, 2008
Wetland jades rose and fell in mild swellings,
potent and cool in mossy constancy
cut only by the dry-blooded berm of road,
itself higher than horizon,
no tree or shrub to be seen;
greens nearly glowing under cement sky
dark with oil.
My companions, enraptured with their own reasons:
the old man's knee-grip,
anxious after the whereabouts of his wife;
the woman's furtive note-taking;
the sullen-eyed boy who offered his name to none of us;
my own not-quite-understanding of where we were going
or what we were to do.
But it became obvious as we stepped from the car--
The building at once parchment white
and stained by birdshit and innumerable rains,
four rotted doors upon the facing side
and without window--
Each entry unmarked, but we, without knowledge, knew:
one was Love and one Wisdom;
A third, Peace; the last, Genius.
And the boy opened his, to a subtlety of rusted cages.
And the old man's remains locked.
And the woman entered to the hung bodies of pale flowers,
an empty banquet table set only with candelabra.
My own, I will not speak of it,
but that it does not matter which we chose.
Apr 3, 2008
Apr 2, 2008
she fell in aisle four
dreaming words
and of her brother
coffee box blanket towel cup
sherbert sorbet chess
every face was stern
in the rafters
a squirrel at play
i'm saying it wrong
she says
was it aisle four yes
after opening the glass door
looking at ice cream
sherbert and sorbet yes
yes
those were the words yes
wine tissue cauliflower spray
from nowhere unhinged
like snow
just the sounds no
these are the words yes
concentrate
the last i saw my brother
we had ourselves a game
of chess
he won he often did
what did you dream of him then
his death i guess
his funeral without a suit
every face was stern
and the squirrel
things get in bats birds
deer coon possum
pets we've not yet met yes
beasts with a surplus
of naivete
out of the wet yes
and sense
Apr 1, 2008
Windchimes glisten in the chill,
dripping louder than the storm now an hour toward the eastern horizon.
Houses sit in their garden rows, dark as the feathered skulls of crow
in sun-bright snow, cold eyes closed against a dream
of exodus. The wind dies; the wind rises. The banality of dawn,
newborn and blind as the nothing between the scattered impetus of stars,
screams of its use in the cavernous midnight of distance:
A singularity of impatient air from within the mudded wood of April.
Deep the grievance with the world in this world. All despair.
And song but fire calling itself to fire, and as contagious.
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