why the canon?
ease of access

why the pyre?
excess of use

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

curtains mice coffee
thee--

    sometimes without wing
    and melting

    for lack of story
    words

    as river ice thaws
    complexities overarching 
 
    recompensating

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the gamut of emotions
from A

to A equals A
o amateur logicians

warning
without warning

at work
which is play

death
is not a sage

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

dickinson's poetry
  --visually stunning
    and the audio
 
    works.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

being oneself
when artifice is cowardice

time a wave
like a vapor

given space
in the mind of an auralist

a rectangular light
upon snow

compose
compose

i think i've hallucinated
the moon

here but moments ago
in the language

foiled by the matrice
of the grave

replete and bone
light and cold

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 



 



 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
snow
with its little starlight kisses
fallen upon my cock-- cum
fallen upon virgin ground
steaming up into mother night--
what is love but another word
for more?


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

in the darkest
of rooms, we
would be furious
upon the other--
nothing to see
nothing to hide--
all to know

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

so
i've reduced
my life
in theory
to eight
now blank
pieces
of paper

which is
right
for being
right
where my life
is supposed
to be

talent
a poison
as cure
against
its own
necessary
disease

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i want to be closest
and sometimes i am
without moving closer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To Catch and Retreat

  my predilections are few:
  that i wish i were better
  than i wish i was

  the guilt of having torn
  love
  from a woman

  that there is no light
  but what i see by

  the moon
  a bitter cup
 
  that i am a writer
  that i write less
  and less

  so many things i do not care for
  for sometimes being good
  at something else

  that nothing clicks
  in all these ceaseless shifts
 
  that yes the beat of this drum 
  is rhythmless
 
  that i eat lemons
  and sugar
  and drink tea

  that i've thought of goji
  that i've thought of sons

  that these letters sent to everyone
  are sent to you

  these predilections are few
  but they possess such
  irreproducible potential
 
  and that's enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
the virginity of sublimity
which in this instance
is loss and apophenia
and the reach of neurons
like anemones upon themselves
and love i now suppose
the pit in the pearl
of want to say what i sing
   and all this is bullshit
     gabriel
   but even if every star
   in its indeterminate living
   is wrong i am right 
   not strong

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

not the brightest in the world but
i'm on the list of the top one hundred
million-- and light for all its piercing
bravery to go anywhere flees everywhere
else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the stars conspire
i figure in my intuitive bullshit way
for and against most anything
 --i am more than star
   and we all define the sky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
pissing outside
   the snow don't know
   the trees don't know
   the stars don't know
   the wine and the piss
   don't know don't know
 and all i have is a bed i do not sleep in
  that is not my own
 amen and so be it and alleluia
  and god bless and welcome home.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fuck god
and i mean that in the deepest way possible
fuck god raw
fuck god stinging as the maggots at the eyes of the starving
and the maggots starved
fuck god lost as that sweet ass in the wilderness
made mad and screaming with the wolves closed in
fuck god in the same way the stars do not align
fuck god incalculably
fuck god with the roar of burning houses built of love
fuck god with truth singing like a trebled arrow
fuck god that loneliness of eternity we do not surpass
fuck god a well that smells of piss and kerosene
and vomit and antibiotics and rot and blood and steam
and money and deceit
fuck god the daffodil and the bluebell and the late frost
and the early snow
fuck god silence
fuck god lyric and fuck god song
fuck god the crumbling mountains and fuck god
the drying seas and fuck god the pittance
of climax one can not forfend against
fuck god oh fuck god whole
fuck god the sentiment and the pity and the strength
mistaken for wisdom to withhold and withstand
fuck god the artist leaving everything unsigned
fuck god the suicide
but most of all
fuck god the fame of perpetual anonymity
and fuck god this heart that thrives
upon malcontent and green eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

monday's light clean and bright
is tuesday's snow and wednesday's ash
and thursday's night--
the rest of the week forgotten

december's hold clear and bold
is january's sting and february's crow
and march's false ultimatum--
the rest of the year errata

and yet friday's wage is saturday's
flame and sunday's grave--
love perhaps the only eminence

and spring's tender groan is summer's
wraith and autumn's wreath--
tides of dissonance and of resonance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 


 


 


 


 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
i.
 
too many promises kept--
  that there be no images to idolize 
  but the feminine
    be it roe from the gut of a sunfish
    be it smoke rising exhausted
      in curls of angel hair 
  that i write my own sutra
  that i live my own psalm
    warmth sung of
      tho i remain cold
  that i fail
    as do the batteries of stars
    as does the protean wall of night
    as do the cilia of every reaching root
      and crystal upon every hoary leaf
        in order to be accurate
        in my assessment
          of the truth of things
  that i lie
    politely
    politically
      and poetically
      without reprise
 
                       --a drop of wine
                in a tumbler of tequila
                 blood for the spirit
                              a toast
              proportions inversed.
 
 
ii.
 
i'd speak more
if i had anything to say
worth listening to
if my whispers
would not themselves break
the dawn
 
    i'd strike the above
    with all the cupidity
    of a poisoned arrow
    were my mind not made in echo
    of a lightning bolt
    upon the gathered serenity
    of your eyes
 
        and i'd burn the above
        but to hell with hell
        my words are swords
        reduced to scalpels
        of those sins
        those cancers
        of both war and peace
        and your eyes are balm.
 
 
iii.
 
should you age early
mature slow
tulips roses
shallow burials
bright graves
  
        wrong
 
tulips roses apple grape oak
bone
 
        but mostly
 
skin fire-lit
by mind upon same.
 
 
iv.
 
stealing kisses
from the ground--
snow upon brow.
 
 
v.
 
love you
all of.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i.

jesus christ walks into a bar
orders a bloody mary
says to the bartender
what do i owe you?
the bartender says
not much

there once was an indian
everyone called chief
stop me when this sounds
his real name was bob
white
anyway
drunk he chanted something
meant to travel past the moon
which is an awful thing
to attempt to do

the only good men i know are fools

the maple and the oak and the cut ash
in the darkness beyond this
indescribable contemplation
in the the midst of winter
upon winter
care
i suppose
drunk myself and one quarter
something or other native
just enough to allow themselves
displacement
within the mind of myself
which may as well be
moon.


ii.

the divine may as well be
but i disagree
klaxons and kazoos
porch-lights and windowpanes
it is all indelicate indelibility

and then there are the goddesses
spread-eagle in supplication
of themselves
this ruins me
in the same insane way
as the loss of thought
for the apple
of the apple tree

there is so little to say
that you must know
and so much to say
without being said

here's the joke i keep hearing
once
my whole life

all of sensation is a type
of laughter
not kind
not set.


iii.

so i really did know an indian
and his name really was bob
he empties the swill
from leftover drinks in his yard
and gets money from the government
for a type of arthritis
that makes you blind

the point of all this
is that it is pointless

bob wears a leather vest
and at sixty-five and six two
still gets laid
by love herself
piecemeal
whenever he sobers up

which really is a joke

tho i am the world's
not greatest
but most worthy of liars

i really do only
moonlit truth.


iv.

and this last cigarette
which i could not roll myself
will mark and mirror and profanely
commiserate these whorls
of worlds whored into words
i just have to think about it
to light it

here's a game by kitchen fluorescent murk
where have i been?
here
where am i now?
here
where will i go and what will i do?
hear and heir the shadows
of things partially defined
by myself
which is coincidentally
cigarette lit here
how i define myself
cigarette re-lit here

i forget what i've said
as i say it
i keep wanting to incorporate
the moon

and i do--
on this last inhale
i do.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

memorandum unholy holy
balls two taloned feet
curling nothing
wave-form tenacious unholy holy
some wit about coffee
as they bitch about tea
disharmonious arrays unholy holy
here is a room
big as me
these clocks will die unholy holy
the living vie for rebirth
quiet light quiet dark
unholy holy unholy holy
unholy holy love love
love love love peace

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

may the wishes
 you'll wish
after the wishes
 you've wished
come true,
 come true
 
may the loves
 you'll spurn
after the loves
 you've spurned
return,
 return
 
may the poetry
 you'll write
after the poetry
 you've written
burns,
 burn
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i miss your fire
 and i miss your fire
 and i miss you, your eyes--
  the underbelly of pine
  indirect upon mountain blue--
windless and supple your gaze--
  
here are my hands, keys after keyholes--
here are my eyes, thermals of snakes
 and birds of prey--
here is my glut of gulf, my stars--
  my time, my space--
 
what better headstone
 if not entirety itself--
 that large contrail that plumes
 in pressure and plummets--
  what better epitaph 
  than a sincere lack of fate--
 
i miss your fire--
 the coalesced embers of you--
  my heart is tinder--
  my mind is kindling--
  my soul erased.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

war takes a vacation--
a flight out of LAX to Chicago
and back to LA, and that's it--
no delays and no hurry--
war takes a ten hour break
in first class first, and then business--
doesn't eat, doesn't drink
and does not sleep, noting only
that the flight attendant's eyes
are immaculately adequate--
that the clouds are watchtowers of stars--
that any hold upon truth is temporary
or less-- war takes a vacation
to flyover death
at work in the garden
of love's backyard.