XXX.
Echomage


I.

It's so quiet and still at the moment. the one mighty note pealing from the bell with indexing and cross-collation the slough of stultification glossy red coupe My brother has Valium in his front pocket Someone unfolds a lawn chair in the back of a truck. today her life depends on nothing save the flowers of the field. the promise of afternoon sun in the east who could be friends, who would never be. I taught her how to read music from a book I had at home. Mary taught me how to chant for rain. fucked like hyenas on the mustard tile. thighs slapping like caught bluegills, her touch tender like foxgloves. her breath is betel nut. aggravating calm. nails lightly oiled. shield her silvered Directional Arrow Thunder in the forecast--no joke. Something is turning around in its den, ready to awaken. cravings to be here inside with me outside something he left the season where everything you need is either lost or somewhere in the process of being lost, distance and boundaries, the construction materials of fortified cities. we ambled separately, between the times we weathered each other's company. The Pickle and the Caveman The bell hums in sympathy with the swell of the organ, Sisyphus, On Ritual the galaxy given voice, creation at a touch, we would lay down our lives teal pebbles,


II.

a game he thought he couldn't lose. hand carved pieces, faces seemingly alive-- He shared strategies but never downplayed his ability. The night of my first victory the orchestra tuning like frogs and crickets He looks at us. a thing of screens and 3-prong cables, willows await | the williwaw. Grave stones lined up behind a parade of fence posts along a gravel road, EEK a mouse routine. size and label float in the Great North Pacific Trash Island The edge in your hello to your husband for no reason you can name-- Take the help, not the easy assumption. a scorpion in my blankets, We rocked on her porch swing, ate crawfish casserole, swatted black flies. There was no man in sight--only the neighbor's dog heaving on the chain, a fertile purple-blue until you're mown. Does brightness or depth bring you more hope? knotted wicks, snipped neat to stay lit, 4. Tulip a severally fire-tongued mouth of poems. hopefully avert the disasters that they mention produce and multiply life after the fog of ice had been your only breath. There was day-glow on the highway where the skid marks met the guard rail; measured from the fish-tail to the crash-site. teff A Chinook breath stirs within him when she explains The Poke removes his newspaper hat, wipes his shoes on his first wife's cat, He was killing time on the wooden bench The wind was too calm for kites but he flew them anyway. Tarantula Fire Her house is where she left it-- She steps over the dog and the house. old and young along the same long strand; When it returns, Sunday hat in hands, I demand, slip into her skin, taut and sleek, lick tiny Buddhas evaporate in thinning panic-red hair scalding When magic in the carpet runs a graffiti blanket reflected in termite carved runes, cannot hit back what is needed in some way to grow. Cut and paste theology


III.

the boulder midstream; prints of a deer in the snow of the yard she had my mother's eyes. Ospreys rise and hit the flyway. The newspaper lies unread. the saddest day she smiled her saddest tell the truth at night. By Monday next I'll have them both -- together. I washed the windows and they puckered. --unable to locate the will to make it to the stairs. my say! to the eucalyptus trees, listen for gunfire. I want to have saved enough breath to swim inside your mouth for the hour A crane swoops you in its bill flying toward the constellations, circles, glides, dives toward Litang. a vast sea of black suits It's a well known fact. a drugstore print of a stylized knitted socks stored inside the window seat. His shins on the loose shale, I am a girl halfway through. conquest of the unseen When it was only booze and not boudoirs -- No Robinson, dogs don't have souls, If I tried naming my days of the week off a show like Jeopardy the soft din in your ear will cease.


IV.

a fright wig of lobster trap red, a Valparaiso shadow spills the Atacama dune. humus of our subconscious spread from language to language like wild vines, My friend plays these games without end. What is lost returns in dreams, gone like wakefulness children begin as bone china cups enumerate your grievances, The man at the workshop wrote: bees coming out of the sprinkler head. never wanted to move from Hong Kong. I have several rotating servants here. Tang dynasty poets were great because the regular person could understand his twisted hands were mandrake. a windfall of corkscrew hazel. My dog growls behind the invisible fence. grace on a technicality, competing thus with my grandson's daylight attack with coffee can and rolled-up pants. Like "Eros," in the letters of rose. Ground and cloud joined in lightning. Blue sprites arcing into the empty. A box with a broken hasp. put an injured dog down, elephants guarding the carcass of the villager Being young is tang. Marrying is the lazy girl's way to commit suicide, Hum along. never run a decent scam sacrificial lamb -- magic is real as your commitment to the illusion, words that will reveal more to you than tomorrow's sunrise. festoon the rusty chainlink fence


V.

seen a few things let's say, the inside of thirty or forty southern county jails, I am smashing the last glass in the white sink; skate on the darkling We may have to change the lock. baked into the bread. the pond that sweeps its graceful limbs and strives to break the mist that drapes the field at night. Hammock moon. You hang the rutting common asshole is taking up all my oxygen. No one's going to be looking at my feet at my daughter-in-law's funeral. the rapture of an owl. we stumble across the bag of weed gathering items for the estate sale. her wet throat is a flute Ciurlionis prints, lemon squares I am dying and this is my birthday, ask sex to turn you into the girl you think deserves another chance to turn into you. She is not concerned. She has even adorned her horse's head with a sprig of leaves. I use one claw-- extended, sharpened. What delight to prick a cheek hand me a weapon and sit back strattle Monkey has worked his way up He knew I knew just how to screw His ass, and I just grinned instead, the white fence of your ribs. a bucket we could sell back to stiff-kneed bankers and dentists with Fridays off. grocery bags full of paperbacks. Los Rancheros take left 5 streets Thornhill Rd 3rd house on right figurines of perfect children like her two, gespitz, The sky cannot help another migratory dance to the song of violence. the names of girls sold into prostitution. blood will be the only currency for water.


VI.

she opens scribbled lids to a glyph of gesture and ash, heat and humidity fuse music and shimmering strand, Everything is canceled. Can't even plow. collected it in empty Garcia Vega tubes. we got to Amarillo,Texas and the tumbleweeds, I'm on the bed, shirtless, already self-basting, neuron, dendrite, exoskeleton, thorax, alizarin, sienna, shades that rise from stains strattle a ribbon of starlings April Domestic The poker drawn from the fire shaped in her initials. One was swinging from her hair, another nibbled at an ear, the last was sliding down her arm. Bless what survives. Bless especially what we almost do not see. like rain and rest. In hallowed ground I'll never rest, a lone sidewinder possesses powers of gods, asks me to scratch belly-first across the ground to her feet. Each day a new thing fades away. just like Magellan, Helen, And slow, it's all too sweet for haste. Come taste This nut, and this, and that cocaine, Elaine, What right had you to blind me all these years the only One who could un-misplace Terri ventures into her sixties at slender college weight, praise of mezzanines and the attenuated light


VII.

To work is to beg: there is no escape. Spend another day at the mall to the glory of God. the shingles have gone beard gray and the woodpecker has beaten a perfect circle; Sponging became an art form that demanded finesse. His sobriety crackles like bacon on a griddle, I'm selling cell phones and hedge funds Suddenly there are many birds. the woman knew where there as a room with a clean restroom down the hall rain and rest. This requires a stiltwalker, a thin man, thorax of a wasp and little glass hipbones. he no longer spends any time dining on steak and baked potatoes. There are parrots in the lemon trees the laziest cursive C you'll ever feel a secret earphone hidden under his shirt said in the head the sun sucks out the frost; he hears it before it opens its yellow throat. I can stare at your fingers A downpour, he said, is the perfect place for a good cry. Heard she's exploring her Bisexuality -- a blackbird takes a morning bath. its bristles sweep the forest path. tuneless and tormented by the memory of song. Describe the feeling of returning home. what happened once can happen twice. at the harmonica wail from Supertramp, Be specific! The point of small boats guards the entrance to Saginaw Bay,


VIII.

the glee of small children bending a redbud sapling Better be the tree that is heard, I don't have to put this in order yet I'm not constructing it, I'm riding it. Today I circle you, playing a Bach chaconne, Feeling her rush toward me, I tug open the sash and spread my arms. House wrens arrive. roost in Cadaques harbor. There may be no flies on the counter Now Helen? My intern? Fuck! I'll get his gun Seasons change, the door sticks, he's locked in. micro greens whose names were upland cress, mizuna, tat soi. He could clearly see a reedy-legged fellow dancing with a house. sparrows trade places with one another in the apple tree: shells beach and tumble: gulls shriek: The cat's still black but mopes, house-bound blue. Sweetcakes, he says, Sugarcube, Sassypants, We practice our sorrow early. the mountainside, one beautifully empty day. we palm and tap, eavesdrop, sample and sip the edge of known things. Perhaps they remember their infant circumcisions and dream of knives. gives great head to the right men, won't read books, reads reviews collects paperweights Crackers in the shape Of paw prints and cartoon characters.


IX.

with lack of its own colour. By nagami trees, corianders. I.M. Pei's floating staircase voila, vivarium. Aunt Dot and Stu had been killed in a car crash. With you, my muse electric, you shake them like the hand of an old friend whose face you had almost forgotten, Describe the stars in a way that makes them seem as essential as the breath April's laundry list hung Put on your spring skirt The song was beautiful but took the strength from their legs. his daughter smiles with two mouths, blinks at him with two sets of eyes, the low path was impassable, I let them have the ready route and found a hill to climb. arches symmetric as wishbones. Where the reindeer lived. In Yaranga tents. We ate walrus flippers and sea cabbage. And yet there is only one great thing, the only thing. matted grass and a gravestone haven't dampened the comfort that echoes one meter down beneath my feet, cradled in a bed of soot, a medieval village sleeps. You can't freeze salad, I say. It's because of the Depression, he says, I've always missed him and not until you named your son, have I said my brother's name. It ain't every day a goose catches the fox. threaded with roots and insect legs, A spark lights a tiny flame. The next chick looks frightened. He is no longer just a name. When it is time to throw the spear, the whole of the body participates It's not good to lay in bed too long,


X.

Someone says your name. The music of a nursing rabbit, You dream of the movement of ice. You called him in another language, Senge Dawa. Moon Lion. songs of spontaneous realization. after you und Claire come along, there woren't nothin' for yous, yet that didn't bother her none, he likes her undone a button misfed to a hole, on Hi Lonesome Prairie, booming on Diamond Grove Prairie. erasers, those hoary restorers of paths, books and boards, shells and sheetrock, You crushed the firefly and tried to write my name Do you remember me? I was the one in soft sole shoes No hands have formed the clouds, the pit beneath a eagle's wing; the beautiful voice of a child's angry ghost. copulating in the stalks left from last year's wisteria when a hawk After the sheets of extended rain fell, the brook changed. wigglebutt, the lights electrified her, and seconds later she was smiling at a White Plains millionaire. Saturday Review, which even in decline was delightful. Dark at the center and dark at the edges, the fig not yet tunneled by wasp. Strange insects will spill from the bellies of salmon I am going to the summer place. memory respooled a trifle some very poor decisions lately... but who hasn't, Hal, a triolet to offer up. almost devoid of content. So often struck dumb. I tell you, things are looking grim For me just now. For you, they're bloody. rolling a tertius paean, An arrow of eyelash plunged in the iris. Whether I had cast the line or not something big was on the hook.


XI.

toasted bride and groom with the song we made up The Appraiser's Written Report with each step stain the sand "poems for food" these poems begin outside, where thunder disturbs wildlife, I have pronounced every word like I believe it should be, read, they say: stay. but no, our poems disappear into limbo they mostly admired the assonance. your paddle breaks the water a constellation of fish those synecdochic fragments of pith, it would just amplify them and disturb others-- The sun she would leave on the doorsteps of a little country church, Melantequilacholy. it-meant-nothing tidbits. She sang in the church choir and at home, a panic, a field of noisy dandelions. pearled and plumed like an extinct bird Monet grass streams west they suspended three words on an imaginary clothesline They both turn, and speak to the wind as person. exasperated leaves, hover and wheel, a silver plate glass fogged from the breath of a cat Tell us tonight how you taught yourself calculus, a complicated examination will take place like roman coins unearthed when there was an earth when a clichéd moon was rapture I am plague, the frog in the sky, the grasshopper barbecue the moron, without thinking you are new. here now, counting syllables, nineteen years 4.) after you were killed by a drunk driver.


XII.

we held our breath so it wouldn't break. hold the soft photo of Alexander, Gumamma's baby brother, who died when the gravestone fell on his head. To dance in the light is a function of the wind. a seabird's wing, big like the carcass of a whale. mouth too free, stay soft when unrequited) be content with diddley-squat. Importune death awhile. floss because of the daily diet of shit sandwiches a crown of braids, a gingham dress. It coaxes all sins. I embrace the law of exceptions, a little trifle I learned in the theater of the absurd. Naught left of my womanly esteem, worn carpet inserted prongs give the past lost with the middle of your wedding ring his passive vocabulary. My father's blackmail, my father at the blackjack table. This was my dream world now just a dream-- I think I'll talk to Carol. She should know. the dentist clumsy with a drill, Hey, Peanut, he said, like a decade was nothing. a time when drama was on TV, life was daily. Revulsion and pride. May I touch it? after three hospital visits and a suicide attempt,


XIII.

Our world. Our home. Our tomb. the flies have taken Teaticket. edible kindling. a rare type of kinship, one born from play. It's the act of a bully, but the flowers are made for water, and open wide. (an axe drops) I know how your mind works, she said, whenever she didn't trust me. Each night since 1889 Your hands may be meshed in prayer, but your eyes are locked in dread, frog is always Giant fur-mouse. the cats look up at us with sunny eyes I'm on your side, you say--remember? A sophisticated dish. a snow leopard skinned alive, gulls you into imagined strength, I hear atoms: parley affection through standardized quotes in the same tongue. The captain sips Tokaji from his chipped, ironstone mug Only the farm wife who jumped from a truss. the sunlight dimming in the presence of ghosts, caged tide, voices I never heard told him to run away almost as far as I'd come. It was a full-time grind, playing for a living;


XIV.

woe and kachoo Misullijuq, the rainy snow The hinge of a wing. a reaction for every act or notion, He wants to take sexy back. nightly communiques across the alley, all over town. The mind is a fallen angel A sun-fucked sea dry "chek" of the red-shouldered blackbird? the smoke alarms closest to the hedgerows went off, of rum, and teem with yos and ho-hums. Its silence was a breath taken in pleasure. methadone in film cylinders, a glass of red wine across the counter like folded money. "Salmon, the other pink meat." He measures me (can I take the truth?) wheat, stars Where fish aspire to a stroll through tended gardens, That new DA, O'Neal? I think she thinks I have no duty to warn. I study signature eyeshine. an allotrope shaped like a rabbit, foul-mouthed for dignity she won't call when she wants to, Add in gas, hotel room, and food, and each musician might make five dollars.


XV.

poor Bobby Perelman stuck in a parking lot He is not the poet when it rains like this. the leglessness of water. facial configuration capable of intermittent voluntary eye closures menstrual inconvenience upon our physical ontologies. astronomical concrescence. a polished gem on your tongue, music in the dark church of my mind, 1966. Adonis Ears burn in the light. chiseled a segment out of mine and replaced it with an echo, the right touch to color the soup and I don't even know exactly what happened to my dolls. I never spoke to them or put them to bed. my sky-starved crows to strip veneers I would have done the same thing. You can't blame them for that. How could you? frangipani and tuberose, molten rock and melting ice, I shot the blackbird. Winter thinks I look like food. Crows and roosters roost and crow to light reflecting from the polished nail of a high school girl who has skipped class to sit at the edge of a marsh The rest is out of your hands, even now.


XVI.

With expertise came flourish: metonomy, tmesis, zeugma, oxymoron, monorhymes, madsongs, marking jejune you can surface when you want. 1456, Darro and asked my deaf grandfather for a glass of water. The sun is either wonderful or merciless, the fragrance filling the air is their true essence, the jaws of the night the big brass moon. made a temple by my guide. or the electronic guide to an art gallery, however you consider it: the grass is become a puddle he sleeks my body: xenolith suffocating under a miasma of leaves. readers shaking their heads in disbelief, death envelopes the shoulders of the hidden road needles who swirl like they belong in the ballet Dreamcatcher cleanse these poems of change of everything The only magic's Jack's, and far too strong. sticks and songs, one skein of cornflower blue 126 an egret sailed down


XVII.

bestows them on the unsuspecting. inclined toward understanding, my only ambition to see its dominion. V. The critic speaks Mommy didn't really like the doll Voodoo only work if you're stickin' needles in the correct arms. The Poem That Devoured the World what lurks in the tall grasses, there is no mercy in the world. the sound September makes. A blue sickle of backs, when The World's Nations ran out of oil, this invisible miracle would spark up just in time. "Withness" light the houses on your side. I read about a lady who was a grasshopper. She had a very simple mind. It was filled wall to wall with long grass in golden green and flowers like coloured lights were always slipping through. disassembled mower on its back like some dead bug. wonder what the baby looked like under that headstone in the graveyard temperature so fine it's unnoticeable, The Willows Risen When the bird and the book disagree, believe the bird, that grind that sounds like gears, He's sure (is he wrong?) he's still got her. If winning is Jack stopping sinning -- saltwater a voice swallowing a cannon Your blood will still flow, but not to give more than a pulse. Following my own breath leads me down a staircase in an apartment building where I once lived. He anticipated something


XVIII.

into a pillow so much more than a friend. mere pale copies of the ideal automobile the song unsung, the frozen tongue, Red wings beating everywhere at once I took her into my arms, the mind floats indifferent, tenured, amused, and wonders when My First Three six nine priests crossing themselves at their third mass in a row. They are the offspring of sparrows that live in the food courts of shopping malls. purrs like a calico. Chip, I don't believe in angels, God, or spirits that speak after death. Duality under the Sun Women slip in and out of their doors like fugitives. Distraction and inconsequence. find what it is that touches him like petals his orchard. A damp line he was bleeding so beautifully in orange and blue. this is saying sorry, Catamount speaking from the hand an alligator quick monkey, beautiful liar. The Fox steals a ripple from the river, sharpening her teeth on the waterstone. ignoring me completely, except for Pinsky, who winked.


XIX.

babydoll curl of blue-grey in the fine print of the brochure An empty tower stood watch over water twin pink grubs of little-finger girth: to puddle, arroyo, geyser, firth the Scout would not hear me mutter Bitch, Not everything is because of something that happens when you are small 1976, Adonis I forget who was holding the gun on me. It could have been anyone. churning wheels that raise the music from the tracks, swimming from room to room, The Sky Was Once A Golden Blue velvet stones, 16 Foot X 25 Foot Canvas You're at the bottom of the pool probing a floodlight with a penknife, one on the left had a dimple, I tell you there is no practice, vagrant pollen blood and semen. the badger rots To be utterly out of touch is not to be without feeling. petals lying darlings fell like a fat raindrop Elaine: My Sister's Heart at six, the angel of death took only the male first born, Yesterday as a Prior Version of Right Now Win at least a million.


XX.

pluck this cardinal's tailfeather trust your gift to react sufficiently quick. fear was the equal of death. featureless black absorbs the smallest nice thin frame 40,000 dollars in the bank I couldn't care less an A-oo-gah a frame up/ a love in the haikukoo burst a bra strap and inhale a beetle. yellow cluster, finch identical as plaster casts, clutch of eggs every last thing the monster tarantula a chalk target on the lid as warmth and not brightness. fingers traced my thoughts. blossoms resemble lace. Until I'm bored with hurting her, The grave's the end of every road the tree's arm and the mountain's groin an ancient song between two voices, watch-me moves and final-chance grins A Little Salvation


XXI.

silken clangor of grapefruit birchbark logic the arroyo behind you a crescendo the sun opens its blouse People don't equal He has this her cheongsam a glove her teeth were small enough to look straight, "How do you say li zi in English?" the word for pear, The halls grow long and doorless. dark pink walls with grey trim, Despite Everything in the ass of the whale! a foxtrot (with pups). suck moss from Emily's still-wet tongue Sifting through the silks No, don't get up. It's really good to see you. the shroud of dust settling on my son's perfectly cut hair. chadors Something in waltz time. painted it all white again. of stain and narrow entrance. A vessel wants The animals are dying. the bright wires in your wrists a screenplay in scar-tissue.


XXII.

a Sunday born in June, as Jeremiah swore, Hananiah died and was no more, You know what I am yet to know. there is always a light, over at the Frankenstein place, he cared for what he could not keep. Redhorse suckers are shoaling, In the parking lot the rain has left small puddles, John has two skippers he considers examples of perfection. Lose yourself in the sibilance shared with rain. the great Pope was Poop you have lost your schedule card. his father, dead for twenty years, is the cop who pulls you over for speeding. you are still sad until a woodpecker a glowing carnival wire. House of Joy You can imagine the room, the lover coming or going, it's death, or death and sorrow. east of Tucson a hundred people on their knees chanting "Yahweh" a brain laced with ribbons. texture written like ciphers The abyss is covered in flowers.


XXIII.

it is single-minded as an outlet 23. In which we try to mind our manners Ontology recapitulates philology. eighteen fingers redolent of citrus an orange glow weather-split covers like intestines the castanet ratchet I materialize a hand inner torsion the pot of tea and unbegrudging company. last week's flannel shirt lives with fame many others pray for. Scenes of a Holistic Nutrition the encouragement of brass, the indisputable authority of powder. the small sliver of shade that will be your delivery. The Man who lost Guy de Maupassant Last night, the sky clapped for us. It wasn't really A glacial wind sands his cheek. a camel bathes under a star. We've Always Been A Country Of Extremes We live under a small sky Jasmine incense, smell of sewer. Thomas Stearns Eliot Looks down in horror at into a black quiddity Your Maker is not mine and I have become confused fly up with the line streaming


XXIV.

the anecdote of the IRIDESCENT peacock confronting a PERIWINKLE handkerchief. cold spring, minnow trap, corduroy road, poison ivy patch, 24. Trail to the Treasure of Al the Awful one foot at a time, the way crested peacocks do, a journeyman New Formalist clocked in, pulled out a Glock, screamed "downsize this," LangPo apprentices, An Elephant at This Dist... Hell. the bowls were the color of bread. About Nests and Springs in Montana Clinkety-clack it's the Iron Age, Romans and countrymen fill the stage, Because I want to-- so of course, I shall. When I feel like I'm wandering, I ascend. To do so is not to shelve or to rescind but to appropriately steward teeth tiny rows of beadwork. Words roll over my tongue. Emerging


XXV.

elements constantly reconstitute a little effort to routinely smooth its lay, such active vision's the nub of wisdom murmurs and hands-- 25. The Penultimate Going slow finned, the bough to the ground, He told Mr. Pumpkineater that his wife blue hiss. This From a bucket of sling shot rock and crusty quills, razor-faced, white as brides-to-be leave his son and wife and look how much good it did the world. the stars collude. on the road and, sooner The steel fringe of the City reed: wild the long face of Modigliani bread I carried went blue with age, a boat made of bark with a lantern


XXVI.

So I tell others. So I am told. a fine idea. that metaphorical babe on a spit; Things are just crazy around here. She was trying to capture the foxglove no more love warbles concatenate the pieces This is where she knew she didn’t need proof. My brother, Desmond, doubts me, yet believes that he could take a duck. The Gideons in the drawer unopened. this house that we have tended but to which we still impart our fights -- a fathomless circuity the smell of the drenched world just beyond his reach, It is work that is never done, and serves no one. Refuse gathers like exiles


XXVII.

a flicker -- a near-solid wall. 27. Medical students' tribute to a cadaver donor so like a rain of rubies and coral it would break off in spikes of static, I keep my watch. She blows pincurls into the holes in her mother’s brain. The season turns, we’ve found ourselves on the same side, at times, and besides, an entire herd of golden palominos Lincoln sits like the Pharaoh he wasn’t, Dear Reader the badger decay at the fence line, the architecture of bones. Words of trespass, words of faith, a Chinook lying in the doorway, hope is a liability,


XXVIII.

Shills of Motion the daily yammer of puffed-up charities all those fine particles dig toes down Shapes emerge from the dark, return to it. the room suddenly bright with electric light only the swale of gentle breathing, the river of sleepers pushing integrate yourself in unity with the harmonious society. magnolias made out of lace, We gather our weary armies. to chant and coax Once it gets dark, it doesn’t get any darker. black with jackdaws swooping shoes are bagged. A dissimulation of birds. The Animal Her motion exposed Your trials will only multiply,


XXIX.

'lesson to learn:' how much pressure can be brought to bear the four-legged mindfulness walk. discordant moons. a truth no one wants to hear. a lung drawing a giant breath-- Keep these. Your father would be pleased. that it will be like a flag to me, that it will spread through my writing the children’s owl faces We searched for something in the linden heap, Statement Jack had the gun. I shot him first. Bad is magic. It's on TV right now her tumbleweed heart balked at his bouquet to willingly enter the abattoir, the song’s decay, even when buzzards were in flight, entertaining the walls

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the counter-cultural
evolution
consists of variations upon,
not themes measured
by resonant simplicities, but fugues
that fall like stones thrown
thru river water
and last year's regalia, and cold--
it is an early thaw, sometimes false--
spring is mind, perpetual--
do you fall thru? i do--
and confess that we are slow
to raise the sea and slower yet to scream
of stars birthed
upon the cataclysm of tongues
that as yet gather sense
of themselves

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

what was it
you said

emptiness
is the evolutionary
pinnacle
we pearl around

or from
literally

a better doll
whose walls
keep inimitable
spaces

to themselves
rooms become

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

time to speak upon beauty
as tho it is spark within machinery
as tho it is flaw
and what is perfect is untrue
and what gyrations gently synchronise
to by raw havoc wreak
shudder in collapse--
death the rebirth of potential
counterfactual and dense
and new
and used

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i'm not fully functional
my head comes off the stairs

stairs that are not there
my madness omnidirectional

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the more tolerable
of color, arrangement, brilliance--

by orders of magnitude within nothing--
the closer to stars

so from starlight we slip away
and from starlight forge--

we sow, we rear, we roar--
we tolerate the intolerable

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

love       is a mountain
in an ocean     of mountains
and like all ocean

meditating
upon death

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

everyone is just like
no one likes

            exchange

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

genius is energy
god observes

cruelty truth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

alpha waves are a misnomer
calm as an ant off-putting death
depth is at what level we mirror
thought innocence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

beware of old gods
whose words

are scripted shit
in the mouth

news is news
the ocean calls us

in the rain
and we are statuary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

we'd tell you
to keep nuking our cities

and we'd retaliate
but not with nukes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

we dropped the second bomb
to prove to everyone
it was us
and not god

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the god virus must die
or it will mutate
eventually
into something that will kill us all

the only thing that seperates us is our belief in god
and god is just an anthem

plants crowd each other out
some of those plants are oak
right now the west is where the ideas are coming from
ideas that -are- changing the world
your gods have been keeping it the same
do you not like electricity?
start thinking of something other than god!
it wastes gods time
this is not the afterlife
this isn't a universe that has one
solve the puzzle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

nostalgia of the young
ferlinghetti's insane
triple-lux or whitman's
sheep who fall to sopor
literally vorpalised

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

may your beginning be never

long story short, i am

may your endings last forever

short story gone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fingerspoon

writing learner
her name

quasiflates

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

music, if not lyric
marries reason
with pure noise

neither renders one

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

life is a form
energy resolves itself to--

nothing more than rare--
death is bare

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let's really do this, then
as we luxuriously starve--

Of the angels that fall,
none rise up-- They fail

and they are damned--
Of the angels that rise

they have no mouth
they have no hands

god is the question
man the response

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

reflect upon the best
of this world
before you wake me--

islands of icebergs
rained upon by ash
a higher-level primordial

ooze with our death
and even flies accept
the paradigm shift--

that love is flypaper
in winds without history
unable to hold themselves--

love's bacon grease
love's pomegranate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

dreamlogic in realtime
at a moment of leisure with the future--
the ears that listen do not sleep
sleep is for the weary

the world is menstrual
as an abyss of flawed technique--
the eyes that flutter move in thought
thought is half the cost

orchard roots grown together
ocean depths without sky--
so too am i

the butterfly thinks
the ocean reels--
so too do i

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

how soft the thoughts
smashing atoms--

toil and blur


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fruits and flowers--
i imagine
more colours seen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

song as non sequitur is rhetoric
contrapositive and unimagined
as acid upon plastic
a gift again to death
as we feed him our own poison
death will die
dear bloodless brother death
sightless as stars
and not unkind

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nature is Mans to recreate as bowl and sword, board and soul.
And of what Nature, mans? This is scientific fiction, as is
apropos. My vote? Well, there is none. Here is sand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you're going to ask an unanswerable qestion,
at least phrase it in the positive.
By this, one means to remove all doubt, but accepts
as one accepts the touch of a razor
that doubt too, is of the essence
of what is essential and what is the fairest price.

No doubt there is beautiful spam, but this
isn't it, because it was not my intent--
and it's obviously untrue, so: Why bother?
Genius better be applicable, or it can stfu.

But genius is quiet as cats bored to death
(death: how it bores); and love, a screaming
intimate you may not save, and so: Soul
is but weight within limbo, by ones grace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A custom is a costume--
Suck of breath at your breast
as you suck at mine.

What is real? Words are water.
Time is air. What music untrue?
The wind refuses to divine.

All the workings of a bird
will die and death become its cage--
Every flower, guilded.

There is no artifice, in vice.
Serene the lamp, and naked.
Virtue is easy; work is hard.

Of course the blind are wise--
What is a dress, if not mind?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love's a rose bulb--
onionskin that wants to limn
into dark earth and up
into dark wind--

Love's a dark wind--
feathers of muscle in a mind
that is no god to whisper
holy, holy--

Love's that rose death--
a streaming wave of senescence
upon foolishness
in honey-acid sun again--

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pity will make you a man, my son--
Wit will make you a moonlit lamb--
Wisdom, an anti-christ in murderous land--
Love, awaring mind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fuck ideology and fuck your lack of faith.
Fuck your sacred texts and fuck commiserate suffering.
Fuck the gods' chariot whip and wheel.

The sun is down and out for another count-- fuck also that.
The moon, far more gray than blue-- fuck the moth-wing moon.
The world is glam most amorous, non-lyrical and low-key.

The buddha/ has left the building/ alone.
The world is a library; checking out, free.
With luck, you'll be able to keep your practices intact.

I envy you your prison, and your prisoner's blues.
There is music where there is no food.
The trees or the grass or the wall of ground-- bare.

Why am I guilty; what have I done and what have I not?
O, Death: my life, a succession of air.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

home--
wilted flowers
greet me

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      in the dark     a child sings
          crickets     chant

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

vietnam--
a nodding head--
father fought--

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

god is but a joke
  nothing in the idolatry
    of itself
      and death
        but circumstance
          without reproach
what transcends culture?
  malnourishment
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

say one thing that
    we contextualise
everything, love

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

myth undresses before a pool
to clothe itself with a step
into a blue now black
with the sound of light
  the wind is hair
    oils knot
            the snow is slow
            the tree is patient

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nothing is ever what you thought it was
and what you think it is--
Whether joke retold almost never funny
enough to sell the soul
assumed the prodigal pith of wit or worse--
The barnacled heart squeezed tentacle-tight

by the mind and aware of none of it--
What you think it is
sells shy and rises contorted--
Obscure and sublime and stupid as any thrush
thrashing in the underbrush
before its dimune heat pools upward--

Black eyes glint and it is the world afire--
Nothing bartered and little burned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my sixty-seventh year,
my wife's servile dogs refused command--
Fine, I said--
Leave us this brushpile of cobweb and moth--
Go flank the winged mare
who split the womb from which you dropped--
Thank her, for your mother's cloth--

They called among themselves Lamplight
of the Noon of Noon--
Horse and Cataract and Fen--
Fine, I said-- Call to yourselves
what you are-- Call what you will as well--
Go dumb and lame and far--
Do not return to us the moon--

Do not carry us over bridges of bone--
Over rivers of fat--
You bring my wife no sprig of bloom
to place upon the pallor of her head--
Fine; leave us this room, I said--
Or I shall offer you Death,
and of you Death beg nothing more--

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If it goes against Human Nature,
then it is Art--

The least of which is Innocence;
the last of which is Heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the spinning plates of day and night
fracture that one long wave of dusk--
and in eclipse our darkness shared
will by light alone rarely touch

any but hungers that call to home--
to stars of course off course and hard
in their incubation as stalwart eyes
against the fertile profundity of rot--

or upon-- i do not know, oh i do not--
for here the world falls to ocean floor
and sand itself transforms to octopus--

here the stomach eddies warm as wave--
here death and birth are frictions shared
as minor houses entered are by fire lost

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

Early Dreams; IV.

Gripping Linda Carter with my thighs,
ache-warmth pressed upon her stomach--

The bed-- wet, again.


 

 

 


 

 

 

 

Early Dreams; III.

I am flying low over dark-furred grass as it flashes
silvers that continuously lead reflecting moon

as powerlines bewilder--


 


 


 


 

 


 

 

half-step out of the car
of the train, choose

to forget the paper, unread

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you do not praise, you can not curse
in duet with the multitude of self--

If you do not curse, you can not duet
in praise upon this most desolate earth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the mind is a fallen angel--
the body bedevils itself--

the soul purges--
the world dessicate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

in back of the car
underwear

printed with cherry leaves

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


The high point of my day
is to have a full pipe,
fresh coffee and cigarettes
enough to last the length
of the stone; it is time
to change my life, but I
refuse-- I do not want
to die and like a fool,
rejoice, a mule escaped
or a carp in flight.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Early Dreams; II.

I am little, and the floor a hard blood red.
The room fills with adults, all who seem like family;
none of whom I know. The ceiling is low
and shadows may as well be people as the people
pile toys and books and strange machines
upon a fire on the floor; as the door opens,
and I alone am pulled as tho by the vaccuum
of space; I can breathe, but can not fight being
set upon the driver's side of a sedan; I stand
on the seat and the car moves of its own accord.
I do not know where we are going-- All I do, is look
around and study things; studying, I wake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Early Dreams; I.

A road of wet cedar sawdust, no vehicle,
green land as grey as sky. No trees, no houses--
Four-story hills soft as sine wave. No sun,
but it is day, and I am atop the highest--
There is nothing to see, and sorrow.
From where I stand, a mummified right hand
rises up to clutch the whole of my ankle
with an angle iron grip, and I am afraid--
I struggle into an exhilaration of falling
into a lake I did not see, an escape
by sinking and not drowning, gazing up
thru water perfectly clear to one small boat
black against a sky ripened brightly into blue--
Silhouette of a man leaning out to help
ten feet above with an arm I do not rise to take,
stilled by this beauty I will never believe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

from the marriage of emptiness and pefection
the sky divorces the mind to garland wake
as momentary histories of isle and boat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

a castle in a cavern, in a mountain
that should just be, as the static lightning cracks
at armies in the ground, upon which you feast


 

 


 

 

 

 

 
 

a haunted goth
carries her skull inside herself and decides

while the ground is being razed
to limestone as silty slit as any blood in rain
 
or is it rain in sky and the sky a pinafore
and the earth a worm in the void

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

under three lamps
moons upon ice

incalculate
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dearest Undying Love: icicle trees stalwart star stalking cloud;

         Chittering leaves chuckling chattels of wind.
  Here are roots exposed that that tree by river water drown
                                     And dam
       And overflow--
                 A slow and seemly constant caress.

Within the ivory maple boughs, an oriole surveys a robin's nest;

         A plane turns toward the end of its flight.
  Here there is a tensility of life against the wash of death
                                     And thought
       And whim--
                 Storm royalty roiling over field.

         All signs of condemnation are condemned;

The rot ripened spring upstages all, self-beloved and undying. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


brittle fish
treeline, stars--

the sound of water


 

 



 

 


 

 

 

 
 
 
Bring Your Child to Work
U.S. Patent Office
 
Impending investigation.
Needs more windows that open.
 
Daisies on a mug; daisy on a desk.
To say 'Excuse' if, when opening a door,
someone is already there.
 
  Samples: one wallet; no notes.
           a hair i can not match.
 
           the necessary signature.
 
 
 

 


 


 


 

 

 

 
we stop
a black bear crosses the road
looking at us once

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
tighter than a jobless scotsman
wetter than twin bottles of nun

all of dream, a calculus re-
evaluating itself, floor to

floor to tongue to dry sclera
teeth without jaw, your lashes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
i don't know what you don't know--
fuck death--

kill the pig--


 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
a ring cheap and old
upon a bracelet
upon her wrist


 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
threnodochal leaves
scuttle straw

a cup


 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
a woodtick
on a mouse

cold

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
see
amber awhir

slung


 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 
If you can offer it, I can take it--
It seems fair, as it has nothing to do--
With how one moves, let alone discern--
With greasy stare, amicable--
Alchemical, as jetsam to a shark--
With or without the sense of a new--

Time devises, a catchword, berave--
Piano, violin and atonal--
Roar-fade, cricket, straked kite--
Watson, we are destroyed and so--
We flower, we nonsensicate wisdom--
Old death, all is bereft of sense--

If you can offer it, I can take it--
It seems fair, I am your only defense--


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
the pen catches, the brush
put down, edges serrate
whatever ledge you choose
as your domain,

a calliope of shells
gristles into sand,

the moon was a thumbprint
pressing forward,

may you float
into ground.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


the mind sometimes twitches
switching on and off
the heart

that smoothes again the mind
as it capillaries
and cocoons


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
an abstracted presence
of shadow, rain and leaves
upon leaves, leaves--



 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 
 
 
   arietta 
          blue
          cannery 
          diocese
  ecclesia
          fairn 
          graphia
    hegari       infinitesimal
jivanmukti                    knossian
lentamente                    minyulite
          noria        orphist         periless
      quatrible           rial                 shomer
               trimeteruniform                 vermicule
                                               weissnichtwo
                                    xerothermic
                                        yttrium
                                               zareba
                                        yohimbe
                                    xyloquinone
                                               welterweight
               terpenicunkempt                 vexillary
      quietsome           raob                 sensum
          nhang        obsequy         palatine
locomotive                    mancipate
jardiniere                    ketazine
    hazily       inculpability
          guildry
          fugue
               eluviate     
                       dormant
                       coupage
                       best
                aquiver
                       bixa
                       chamois
                       decapod
               epiphora
                       finis
                       gallium
                 haught       incommiscible
             juxtaposed                    kamleika
             leberwurst                    madrepore
                       natya        ophiura         portague
                   quaesitum           rape                 stardom
                            thereminululant                 viminaria
                                                            wallydraigle
                                                 xenopodidae
                                                     yangtao
                                                            zoisia
                                                xiphiplastral yclept 
                                        ubiquist venatrial weaponsmith
                                      ruminal systatic trigeminal
                                  oopuhue profunditude quinarius
                                  loment mullar neutropenia
                                   infestant jojoba kame
                                    glyptic holard
                                 endpiece fictile
                                 dysphrasia claggum                                        
                                      berairou
                                aorist
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 
quiet day--

    burning leaves
    before a storm
 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 
 
 
                   solar
                        dentata
                        conscripted
               purloined
                        apothecary
                        vis-a-vis
                allembro
                 pistole 
             commendable
                        tureen
                 parsnip
               equitable
                        fulminary
                   avant
              disgruntle
                        conestoga
                                 incendiary
                                 surplus
                                 jesuit
                         malordor
                     conversation
                                 banyan
                     papier-mache
                          elegant
                          vanilla
                                 hierarchical
                                 duodenum
                        counselor
                                 teriyaki
                                 pterodactyl
                           settee
                      forge
                  wisconsin
                           children
                           viscosity
                           tendon
                     parfum
                           facility
                           zinc
              parenthetical
        flavor
   abomination
       digress
              bicep
              colour
          cant
              serengeti
              psalm
        limpid
          rote
      calliope
              trickle
          elan
     carnivore
          test
understand
 
 
 

I.

The silver willow no man had planted bloomed the night of her birth.
It was her grandmother who died between contractions, an accident
of old tissue and cartilege slipping softly, bringing the basin down
from her daughter's room. Her first words: Dolorum. First prank?
Tying a two pound bullfrog to the kitchen ceiling's light string
one dark and quiet night, and then shrieking, from under the table,
after her mother's initial fright. Her first menses occured at eight;
the second appeared at twelve. School was adequate; boys, less so.
How it happened then, is perhaps too banal to relate, and yet:
A blindman's dog growled; a dozen cats followed; two doves fell dead
at her feet, in a dream far more real than waking, and so she stayed
in a realm not her cancer, nor ours, would touch, after much work.
The black willow she tends to, does not weep, but burning, wires about.


II.

The closest farmer slaughtered his oldest Holstein within seconds
of her first breath. Her father will later say he had argued for Charity,
but found compromise, seduced by an afterbirth kiss. One teacher notes:
Clarity's refusal to focus upon any one task as a task ineluctable
is of paramount joy, tantamount to vexation. At sixteen, her Ode
to Melancholy simply catalogues drugs both pre- and proscribed
to then sum going street price. She twice fellates a tattoo artiste
for the portrayal of a coral snake, sans black but for eye and tail,
aswim and lifesize upon collarbone. What made her turn, so exactly,
may not be understood even if told, and yet: There came an autumn
day of August she witnessed a woman pushed into traffic by her child,
a boy more sprite than demon, destroyed before her eyes. The driver
whispered prayers, and held the mother's hands; she restrained the boy.


III.

There was a storm when you were born; the earth was dry until after.
Recognition that you practiced masturbation while still in diapers
occured at six or seven; which one, you are uncertain. You once told
the grassy gulley wood every green shade was loved; this, a curse
that gained momentum, intended for that first lover-cum-enemy, unmailed
and burned in the basement sink instead. Books, television, music
and computers: Lines, lines, lines that lead you nowhere, providing
clue as to what to do, should you ever arrive. You talk of God to God,
guessing He or She (or yes, It) is to be cajoled from scalar corners
with promises of self. What will change you, even you don't know
but for the gravity of death, and yet, and still: this morning,
your body respired slowly, a spider crawled along your inner thigh,
you dreamt of water, and you gloried as you stretched yourself out.
 













 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
i'm here
to tell secrets
to the enemy.

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
the mutable dog and scrutable cat
ate an orange and took a bath
at 11205. the cat was drapery--
the dog was nice. there were mice.
a turtle climbed up the stairs.
there was snow all over clear
and made of something lighter
than water. a wolverine
killed a bear. there were doves
at 11205. vacancy hums. a worm
took upon himself stone.

when you arrived, i did not
try to outguess you; i took out
my heart; i slit my wrists.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
life is but a dream, or death is but a joke
about a taxi with its own theory of weather.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
threnody for evolution


of waves concurrently

disembodied and blue

that pierce the heart

of noontide and truth

a knife on display

everything ridged

with a delicate blur

and delayed.

a disavowment

of themselves

as they marry

and contort

in their ballet

of losing themselves

as notes simultaneously

in sacrilege

of themselves.

they play

the waves.

they say

alleluia.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
nobody bets
on a horse to break
both ankles

what bookie
would take that bet
at those odds?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
maybe every man dreams himself a king
every green blade of girl a dark queen
the number of plans we make against charade
probably fall to memory exponentially

perhaps you'll talk to god when this is over
in any event what is dead has been done
and it may be just as likely there is nothing
and so I repeat myself: what is dead is done

once upon a time ago amidst a switch
of rivers a little girl dreamed of now
and has been dreaming all the while

once upon a time away near from now
a child will either die or reawaken
and what has died will have been sung.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
To snap the line upon a log you can not see,
and then descant a beast by the snapping.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

we adream

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
cherub baby balloons
lifelike

floating.

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
forgive us
for how we deal with death
as death deals himself out
with a sneer.
 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
what is it like to not forget the linden trees and aspen
enshrined in spring cloud;

what perversity is it to remember?

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 
Do not write to have a dialog.
And if you're writing to yourself,
don't respond.
 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
I am primal. A top hat.
Insecure. A cane askew.

If you knock and no one
comes, do not knock twice--

please leave the plants
in the yard. A new tongue.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
counters
counterset

ships sink
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

he ended up thinking
like his cat.

less and less.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
there are things you need to say
before you say the things you mean;
give them credit to believe you,
to show the things you've seen--

an excellent nonsense exasperated
by toil, and still you need to say:

there is a castle in a canyon--
there it goes; there a child starves
in lives of window and of door;
the weather war and war tenor;

there a carcass before vines;
there a flicker of lightning,
clapping afterthought; there
successions of eclipse.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
I dream about
you, at night;

in pajamas.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
selfpoetic;
epicritical dissonance
relative harmony.
 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
woman
with a t-shirt

here to help

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
bought a serra sculpture
put a urinal in it

planted trees

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
to be famous
change
the only fortune
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
All of writing is but starting your own meme,
cutting the world in half to broaden horizons:
all of reading, I suppose just the same, as that
which is not ever true, but clean.
 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
The American Dream is smaller, simpler; more refined.

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
lights!
camera!

action.
 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
And so we walked out into the swirling grass, me and you.
Whispers of darkness in summer's noon, you and I.

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

As silty pure as snow over high mountain
chiseling crags in June; the grit of brook
gathering down to bubble if not froth
into the scouring waves, resplendently

on time. As curious as fire dying as it
catches and holds; the pop and ting
and collapse; all that warmth it gives
and still it wants, embers in the mildest

red-ache of breezes. As presumptuous
as the tomb as an altar; my idols are living
without testament, reproving themselves

and disproving others, also themselves.
As quiet as dehydration, and a fall of ash.
As bright as the concept of a black hole.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

accidentally
two cigarettes burning
I smoke them both
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
a fly
a bee

a watermelon
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
think the things we see
and suicidal we are

we are murderers
and in our terror warm
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I made him stretch before I killed him.
With respect, and irrespective of the fact
there were no armies; he and I alone
in dark forest. I had him undress.

Had he harmed me; had he bettered
the world? Yes; of course--
Revelation permeates--
The dying man wiped his brow.

I shot him and did not hear a sound.
There was a humorous contraction.
The body splay, no longer sly.

I shot him in the throat.
He had tried to say what was liked.
Wisdom unprofound.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What deeds have the great ones done, that need redoing?
My mind is a stone.

Laughter at the sub-atomic levels; what else but this?
Ripples more warble than weft.

My mind is a cataclysm. My mind is a catalyst.
Heartache, home of joy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
a series of words fit a feeling.
didactic insults the autodidact.

a polyphony of ricochet.

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 
Let us leave the concert early,
for Mayfair Street is moonlit-cool
with panther false asleep,
playfully hunting among the temples
of riverbed rock, and in darkness

lost. Let us find a place to watch
the river arrive and leave in certitude,
and drink to honor night grown of night,
restless as the nearest eastern city
pink upon the sky.

Let us hope for storm, and eat
oranges; inhale lightning as we kiss.
Let us leave the concert early
for Mayfair Street's caress.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
            in that window today--
                    an unlit candle


tilted to the right.
 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 
A deep man
who can not say simple things

is shallower still,
trying to say a thing at all--
A good man tells the truth.

All is wicked; every wick
a fuse ethereal,
but only in detonation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Writing about it, isn't poetry.
That's the first thing they teach.
Not writing about it, even less so--
But that's more grasp than reach.

There's really not much to say,
if you just want to write; but--
Not wanting to write, that's just
wrong, unless you've something

to say, of course. Deep philo-
sophical questions like, "Am I
making sense?" What does life
give a damn for madness? Not much

responds some symphonic majesty--
Which makes one higher than thou.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Forgive God when everything is beautiful in my head.
 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 
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.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
the difference between wit and wisdom is:
wisdom needs no context.

wit is for the hell of it.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
take what you don't mean
and then say it as you would say it
if you meant it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Happy birthday. Tomorrow and last year.
Happy birthday. Green of rice and weathervane.
Happy birthday. Patent office office patents.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
always in the back
of your mind focus
upon the one good
you will do with life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
decide yourself.

esoteric; erotic.

consonant; inconstant.

a goat herder's son.

a stone walker's hoof.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three of you are AIs. Two of the AIs are two of you.
 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 
everyone knows
everyone is wrong
the idea

is to generate affection
which produces health

thru a serendipity of nourishment
from the place that one dwells

let the dreamer not awaken
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
this is my map.
these are the directions of my map:

qualar
shervington
cod
easel

 
my map is here.
these are the treasures on my map:

toys
leopards
time
a false pearl

 
i am a map.
hear now the names of my map:

haphazard ellington
fitzgerald semaphore

 
this map it is my own.
i am here.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
dehydrated swamp
where evil
is not knowledge

grace
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
I tried to die.
God denied me.

One day.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Mary shellie


the poet's a perpetual frankenstein
of theories, motion symbols and lines
that hurtle without hurtling
to hurt without hurting
and I am awed by shel silverstein
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
When you speak to me,
speak to me as tho you are speaking to genius--
or I won't understand.
And I will do the same; of course,
of course. What movie was that from?
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
a boy
walks the bases

goes home
the night is out

late
or later than it was last week

the grass is cold
in his shoes

he gets into his car
and just sits

nothing speaks
says everything
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
the universe is only as large as any man
can think it, if it's thinking that they do.
like scientists in their whitest of cloth,
over their tables and dreaming at 5am
on a Sunday morning, pivoted upon
simple machines, and levers, and
the thought is lost.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
a pun upon fun
a faun

thinks you are mother
a pun upon sun

the moon readjusts reason
a pun upon dun

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

to be or not to be
is the answer.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you've read Joyce, there's no need to go to Ireland.
St. Patrick's stave was called Prank.
Serpent's Army Surplus

isn't tatted on any arm in Dublin;
unless it is. How profound.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
What's the strongest single thought a simple man may make?
What shot glimmers? What quakes?
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Finnegans Wake was a sight without reflection
upon an endless ocean,

nor am I that drop of rain or snowflake at your step.
Earwicker was Joyce;
Joyce, Earwicker.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Sleep for reasons that act as spell.
Wake for loss of senescence within reason.
Wake for loss.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
admiration and pity       a teakettle
impartially screams       for tea
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Water flows quick in the desert:
that second sea of scorpion and spider;
an inch of uncapped whiskey, in an hour
in the shade, dissipates undropped.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
I'll rarely be normal, and very often bore.
My mind is unhinged, yet hingeless and closed it vaults.
Flesh flickers, thinks itself a dream of life.
Without dreaming

this or that, just dream.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
There are no libraries to that which I have forgotten;
Where the library is, I have forgotten.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Approximating Zen:
a poet ends.

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 
You have to please yourself.
Grasshopper; butterfly--
Snow will dust and dust
snow at long end.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Tragedy without second thought
the whole act

extemporaneous flourish subsumed
by the device of voice

at plot within its plight

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
elegant detachment--
a chandelier of thought--

moonlight upon dust
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
katydid
on a pine cone--

moonlight dinner
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
if the poem has a hammer
let it direct the nail

into wood, bone and stone.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
you do what you do:
you take a bath

inside a walrus
that you eat

to remind yourself
you are animal, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
the mind is squirming
like some fucking buddha

stoned immaculate again

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
the driver


apricorns
minuet
altercations
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
if every word compounds
then this poetry:

who is friend of your foe:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
write to rachmaninov
about the rent--

it's overdue.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
The quanta disperse unevenly
into complete deterioration
until they realign--

a Hell of a long time.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
A Play at Pretend

And if life devises a way
to last for eternity

it goes mad
and begins again--

What else can you do
with that kind of focus

upon yourself-- an apple
and all that apple negates

by virtue
of some dull and soft

simplicity
of being itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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?


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
3 am

the nightbirds chatter amongst themselves
o, gibbous moon   the sun is out

and it is spring
and it is true

I could not imagine it
yet it is unreal

how they sing by light any fool can see
and I find my inspiration blind


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
anemone fur
lower right: slash of ember red

frame


a frog
a new pond

freshwater


I've no idea how to be honest, writing what I don't believe.
And so I am insane, to believe anything I write.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
word was music was understood heat

where gods
are seldom seen awe-inspired
by their own monsters

floating in filtering out.
story was a tree
of make-believe in caricature
of the world.
the princess was you or

someone you've come to leave.
this curse
will not be broken

apple of seed.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 


 
            31/10-- car salesman
                with a turkey

walking.
 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 
turning haiku in your head
is no way to go about life,
son-- it's not answer wanted,
but reason, of which there
're none by any stretch
of rationale, as it itself
is imaginative cohesion.

jump the sound of water.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

japan
pagoda
kiss
 

 
beijing
train
kanchanjunga
kiss
 

 
assam
morning
elephant
tusk
kiss
 

 
turkey
mosque
pigeons
aeroplane
kiss
night
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
O, Dandelion

giving you words
so that May

says to have said
that you've said

is so stupid

and should not have been said.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    grandfather's cereal,
            boxes in a row.

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

America is gone. Where did it go?  Nobody knows.
South America?  Never there. Asia and Africa,
miniscule and majestic. Antarctica's white,
even at night. Australia's

        in a book, in a letter
        in the silver that is time
        moon stars ocean

        rock dirt peat
        pine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

show me the novice--
memory is dim

and the cold night clears

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fish


      What kind of fish?
      Bluegill. Pumpkinseed.
      Northern pike.

      You talked of the water.
      Carp.

      Salmon?
      The current withstood.

      You withstood the current.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

May you lose your name
might seem like an apt curse
for the Devil, but he didn't grin
when he said, I've yours.

Where would that be?
was my retort.
And then he did grin,
and pointed to his heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A poem should be limitless.
A poet should know his limitations.

Poetry is what happens in the middle.
Reading nothing and thinking not.

An exquisite corpse of terrible death.
This poem is out of wishes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Calm

 
Collected and calm, the racehorse trots
past the garden gate, and into the corn.

 
The balmy sea and I disagree in our manners
of possession. Even her calm is uneven rage.

 
Whenever they turn an escalator off,
sit and listen to the escalator music.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The daystar, alien as heaven, rose and rose
until it shrivelled, and then bloomed.

There is nothing to tell you, if you don't already know
yourself: The landscape is strange--

The shadows cast light and the light is cast away.
Like water falls the moon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

the purposeful, illogical
jump--

the sound of water

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 


  knocking
      a mudlark's nest     on the porch--

                    no family here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


                        TRY                                         SEX
              LYN                 EAR                 HER                 ATE
      TEA                                  THY ART                               TAR
    WAY                                    DEATH                                   SUN
      LAW                                 THE ART                               SET
              TAX                 DRY                 RED                 SHE
                          NIL                                         SIN
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.