Jul 18, 2008
Jul 8, 2008
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.
Jul 4, 2008
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--
Jun 30, 2008
Jun 28, 2008
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
Jun 27, 2008
Jun 23, 2008
Jun 19, 2008
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.
Jun 18, 2008
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.
Jun 17, 2008
Jun 16, 2008
Jun 15, 2008
Jun 1, 2008
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.
May 16, 2008
May 13, 2008
May 12, 2008
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--
May 9, 2008
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
May 8, 2008
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
May 7, 2008
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.
May 4, 2008
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.
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.
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.
May 3, 2008
May 2, 2008
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.
May 1, 2008
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.
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.
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.
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.
Apr 30, 2008
Genius sears with knowledge
of much foolishness. Caravans
without metaphor and without tide
arise. A piano plays a cartoon.
Wisdom, is the vanity of the holy.
I am archaic and language is arcane.
Hear the sounds of a universal.
Word is pliant and is to be applied.
Death, does not arrive in time.
A scoundrel plays baboon.
Calliopes collide; collisions collude.
Death, this air that takes my energy.
Love, which is Death, confused
by its own beauty aflame.
Apr 29, 2008
sadly inspired and aptly conceived
a fire in the deep sea lures dead men
with open chests that breathe
the choreography of fluid springs
that exist in a time without mind
this is not eden there are no trees
this is not hell there is no bread
this is not purgatory this is a list
of a dead branch with spider's silk
a hive of honey devoured by locusts
a half-life to every confusion
the stars are out:
where do I flee? how do I go?
these volcano undersea
Apr 28, 2008
Apr 27, 2008
Apr 26, 2008
the utter clarity that is the sadness of my life
is like a bridge the abyss itself spans
and light does not strike anything colder.
or warmer-- these things imperceivable
and subject to change. even sadness
blurs with momentum. clarity skims.
comets of diamond fall against the sun.
forgotten roses rasp for joy.
Apr 25, 2008
The conductor proscribes that the perfect critic
would only listen to the musicians tuning instruments,
and then leave with the music unheard.
Once, April surprises everyone by doing Thelonius.
She's allowed eleven minutes; she uses eleven
and a quarter. A French horn harrumphed.
He allows her eleven minutes more.
Now she's really expected to do it, to nail it in blood mist
and bloom. Her eyes flutter and then she squints,
raising her chin:
Alpha-bits and libraries
won't let me in
the wind as it whispers without lie.
Harrumph, harrumph.
The child at the bottom of the swimming pool
in the middle school was what was heard in elementary--
because he was forced to swim when he couldn't
and the teacher made him drown.
There were investigations. A lawsuit was filed.
They did not win, but settled out of court.
Fame is all there is, of fortune;
of misfortune, just the same.
Apr 24, 2008
The audience reacts in certain ways:
Shoot them with a gun, they scream
after it is done; shoot them with two
in the same scene, ten percent will
quietly curse, often you. The third
time the bullet rises to the chamber,
they watch. At this point, we leave
the actor to decide the twist in plot.
Some like messages to change
direction; “Kill everyone.”
Some prefer the finer cleft
of differentiation. On my braver
days, I might tell you to turn it
upon yourself. Today I won't.
Apr 23, 2008
Apr 22, 2008
God did and did not make the apple
on the Tree: God, that moving thing
left a space where the apple was to be
and instead left a place for God unmade
a pharaoh king; a chimpanzee--
the maggot of the moth--
time to a junebug--
a god with a clock--
We will die in the morning, I believe.
We will die with our arms, cut off.
We will die with dignity or we shall not survive.
Computational Singularity
To greater love to god I think than anything otherwise.
He thoughtfully made the universe, a conundrum--
in his own image, and as himself.
Does justice exist, of any sort?
In that but we die.
Misdeeds of blundering flounder.
Accusations of what is right, in every one.
You do what you must.
Death comes, but once.
If you were god, what would you say?
the apples bloom, and the narcissus
wither; the sea returns and the beach
revokes; enlightenment is an old idea
to a bird; despair is a common well
the thirstiest drink of; the root destroys
the gravel; the bottle breaks and the glass
is empty; a green bud here that reddens
pink and not yet done; here is a stone
that is also shell; the day is bright and night
is of no matter; rain will fall and cloud
perfume; a bed for you wherever you sleep
for whatever you dream of; o, love--
a nest holding nothing; the apples fallen
round dandelion white in second bloom.
We gave the wounded man a cat.
A Persian that sprung in his lap.
A woman elbows thru the swinging door.
Her arms raised, as tho about to perform.
Throw the mug and bowl at glass.
The night is alit with fire.
What air there is, is lukewarm.
Dust upon a finger.
We saw the cat again, a flash of red.
The wounded man we shot.
Apr 21, 2008
Apr 20, 2008
An old pond a frog jumps. Sound of water
and the scent of rain. My nose twitches
and lightning strikes the nervous flanks
of commanded horses. O, bay. O, woe.
Fishing, looking at the moon deer look to.
The sound of traffic, and scent of rain.
My nose itches and I do not sneeze
by biting my lip. They turn when I piss.
Starlight, as well as planes; night
and satellite-- They die with me
before they die, like nothing I can
really say, anymore than-- Nothing, really.
Gojira jumps into the chair I do not use,
and sits. And sits. And I go away.
Apr 18, 2008
Imagine Mohamed were sinless; or Jesus, either one--
Epitomes of virtue, no ill will in either one:
They buy fish at the market; venison, veal; either one
passes coin greased with sweat and blood; either one
passes men who have raped and murdered; either one
looks at a woman neither beautiful nor pure; either one
looks at a woman and sees beauty, purity; either one
stands in a doorway when the hard rains come; either one
stands aside to avoid the joyous sway of children; either one
tells a joke after which there is no laughter; either one
tells stories they do not believe fully; either one
drinks water and worries the ferocity of stars; either one
drinks wine and wishes more for himself in silence. Either one
has done nothing but good, or one is neither.
Apr 17, 2008
Take Hiroshima:
the mind is blown
post-apocalyptic
the future-perfect
memory panning
a flash of darkness
neither total nor complete.
Take violins:
the elbow that scrolls
in the air
instantaneous monuments
of some other
moment now also this.
Take anger
management:
confess
your misdeeds.
There is a poison
like a pollen:
the light weeps.
The saxophone is an instrument of the city.
Telephones pole and wire to neck empty buildings.
Everything quotidian as the brass of gold.
Either night or the day too bright to look at directly.
The birds do not flock.
Clavicles clatter on the floor.
Old men build less and less until the center is razed.
Tenuous the brick in its beauty.
The day pipes a solemn song of sojourn.
There is worship of fire and water and of clay.
The saxophone speaks to no one.
The beach is overwhelmed by wave.
This is castle and this is grave.
The saxophone does not say.
Apr 16, 2008
The Grandest Wish
What would be your grandest wish?
There would be a table, of oak, handmade
by a Chippewa. A long table, a viking boat
in a room so broad the walls can not be seen
within a darkness of distance. The table
is well lit by a fire, at which the head
sits. Is that it? A sewing angel drops her thimble.
I don't get it. No, neither do I. It's just
what I'd wish. You'd wish an image.
As if it were vision.
Once upon a time,
a Granter of Wishes disguised himself as a fish,
teeth of worms within his belly.
Once upon a time,
a king dressed as a commoner,
that he could go fishing at some secret spring
before summer chored away in boredom.
Once upon a time,
a Granter of Wishes was caught, and by a king.
Think of such a thing.
His daughter was ill; his kingdom unwell--
he too was only human.
He returned to the spring, night of the third day.
A Granter of Wishes is a fisher of kings.
Take a bass guitar.
Make it trill.
Palms upon woodblocks.
Staccato, contrapuntal.
Keyboard chimes.
A melody of parting.
Glitch. Static voice
echoing Morpheus:
Bass guitar. A humming.
Organ. Sibilant whisper:
Bass guitar. Whistle.
Tone of a phone.
Glitch. Chimney air.
Clanging piercing.
Bass guitar. Voice:
The moon juxtaposed
with self-loathing.
Stars make light
and it is too dark
for conceptual re-
deployment. Power
lines the air as it
seams and unseals
makery within this
preponderance
of nowt. Glitch.
Bass guitar.
Steam.
Apr 15, 2008
I wish I were in a calm place,
O, hydraulic hiss of the garbage truck,
O palimpsest of Olympus, O juggernaut
of bacteria, O untired beast, O disdain.
You've collected me too late.
O garbage men, work as it is play--
O sweetly soured stench, cavort by morning hours;
Hunger, O growler of the cul-de-sac--
You eat again today,
though all my sundry is sundered
in this little bag:
O lock of hair; O wedding ring.
Eggs.
O gust upon eternity, that waits.
Humility is always false.
Wrong.
Indelicate essence.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
I dream of white obelisks in red-monotone.
Half-wrong.
Pride writhes, returning upon itself.
??
Wrong.
In the town of Mayfair,
a turnip was as good as a house,
if that house were half as good
as the brook divine in its subterfuge
as it
vined and redefined what was forest
and what was ground.
Wrong.
Wrongly Wrong
Wrong Wrong
Wrongly Wrong and
Wrong Wrong
Wrong
Wrong!
Wrong.
Dramamine Chasm,
a Polish jerk who wants to take everything apart,
so that you may learn how to put it together
again,
and you want to fail.
Fail.
Two towers high as the planes that in autumn
Wrong.
The writer
The writer writes didactically, tautologically
as though the act itself were euphemistic youth.
It is a casting of stones, a breaking of bottles.
Flames rise from the bones.
It is all beyond description. (a damned soul
who could not speak of it, but only moan--
he told me so) There is no plot, and the plot
-thickens- while characters bore.
The day is green, and mercilessly mercurially
miraculous in reliability. The practical sun
-hangs- within impractical sky. Orange peel
dries in the ashtray. Nothing more.
You are given no choice but to look anew
at the complexity only a simpleton enjoys.
An invention
An invention should change the world.
How?
By alleviating a need.
By discerning the indiscernible, by convention?
By creating ease.
Your invention, it will do that?
No; and not the opposite, nor anything in between.
What will it do, then?
Pull the soul from green acorns.
You're talking need.
I'm talking how to speak like city trees breathe.
And this invention, will allow for that?
No.
Apr 14, 2008
Apr 13, 2008
A cursory, where little curses grow,
is where misery is nursed, a cur
that worries she may starve; a wolf
feather-fine as leather in her fur--
A tuft of wool upon her brow; a snout
that sniffs the dryness of your throat
while wry eyes cut across your suit,
colder than a cat's, darker and less
Subtle; wise as any bitch's bastard
runt without name, not enough tit
to go round; a cunt of whimper, growl
and howl. This is how you tame her--
You bite back harder than her hunger.
You release her, making joy of doubt.
Apr 12, 2008
Church League
Who knows what inning it was lightning struck twice.
My Dad, "Nedley" by the pastor's choosing, was batting
and so what, if it's Tuesday night softball, and you're
trying to tear the glove off the kid with whom you're
playing catch?-- You stop to watch the game for a bit.
And he was playing without his shoes on, and I sighed,
putting my fingers in the fence, behind the plate.
Not a hit all season, a perfect triple-oh, three little
circles all in a row. I want to say he fouled one off
but I do know for certain the bat was heavy aluminum,
his older brother's, silver where the blue was torn.
Anyway, being a lefty, he tore one off to left, and
the grass in the outfield wasn't so much unmowed,
as it was overgrown, this being the city's and not
the high school's park. And he tore one off to left,
right; you could hear it whizz in the thick summer
humidity, and he's already past first, and looking
back up, whoever's in left is twelve feet from the ball.
And somebody from the stands yells Go, Nedley! as he
moves around the shortstop, waiting for the throw
from left, and left hits the cut-off man instead
of throwing to third, and my Dad's decided to hell
with it all: his steel boots are his only pair of shoes;
he'll never get over his brother's death; and of his kids,
maybe. And he slides and the ump is screaming Out!
And the catcher drops the ball.
Apr 11, 2008
Throwing chickens at bear traps
isn't of much use, admittedly,
just, that fucker jumps shut
almost like nothing at all.
No, not nothing-- et al.
We made them. Who is to say
they were not to be made?
And we unmade them.
That took a day.
Now I want to change chickens
to opinion, and bear traps
to fate.
Apr 10, 2008
Apr 9, 2008
Apr 8, 2008
Better right and thought wrong, like Cassandra,
than wrong and thought right, or Nostradamus--
And better Promethean love, without fear
of darkness, for fear is protean; it is fear.
Best yet, better spring move on that fall
may come again, returning May. Best right away.
And I take that back-- Best, right here, in May
of winter, a sad light for the lost along the way.
Apr 7, 2008
Apr 4, 2008
Wetland jades rose and fell in mild swellings,
potent and cool in mossy constancy
cut only by the dry-blooded berm of road,
itself higher than horizon,
no tree or shrub to be seen;
greens nearly glowing under cement sky
dark with oil.
My companions, enraptured with their own reasons:
the old man's knee-grip,
anxious after the whereabouts of his wife;
the woman's furtive note-taking;
the sullen-eyed boy who offered his name to none of us;
my own not-quite-understanding of where we were going
or what we were to do.
But it became obvious as we stepped from the car--
The building at once parchment white
and stained by birdshit and innumerable rains,
four rotted doors upon the facing side
and without window--
Each entry unmarked, but we, without knowledge, knew:
one was Love and one Wisdom;
A third, Peace; the last, Genius.
And the boy opened his, to a subtlety of rusted cages.
And the old man's remains locked.
And the woman entered to the hung bodies of pale flowers,
an empty banquet table set only with candelabra.
My own, I will not speak of it,
but that it does not matter which we chose.
Apr 3, 2008
Apr 2, 2008
she fell in aisle four
dreaming words
and of her brother
coffee box blanket towel cup
sherbert sorbet chess
every face was stern
in the rafters
a squirrel at play
i'm saying it wrong
she says
was it aisle four yes
after opening the glass door
looking at ice cream
sherbert and sorbet yes
yes
those were the words yes
wine tissue cauliflower spray
from nowhere unhinged
like snow
just the sounds no
these are the words yes
concentrate
the last i saw my brother
we had ourselves a game
of chess
he won he often did
what did you dream of him then
his death i guess
his funeral without a suit
every face was stern
and the squirrel
things get in bats birds
deer coon possum
pets we've not yet met yes
beasts with a surplus
of naivete
out of the wet yes
and sense
Apr 1, 2008
Windchimes glisten in the chill,
dripping louder than the storm now an hour toward the eastern horizon.
Houses sit in their garden rows, dark as the feathered skulls of crow
in sun-bright snow, cold eyes closed against a dream
of exodus. The wind dies; the wind rises. The banality of dawn,
newborn and blind as the nothing between the scattered impetus of stars,
screams of its use in the cavernous midnight of distance:
A singularity of impatient air from within the mudded wood of April.
Deep the grievance with the world in this world. All despair.
And song but fire calling itself to fire, and as contagious.
Mar 30, 2008
Dear Diary,
I am your second owner, and this will be my only entry
before you begin a life less nondescript: a brutally
volimunous sublimation within furnace.
It seems your previous author, and I use that particular
in its obligatory sense, held pretensions of adequacy,
and what else is there to relate?
They are gone.
They may still live (of course! (twenty-two years
now since)) but your abandonment, testimony
if not indictment against any list of listless days:
June 16th, for instance: Jason wants to fuck me so bad.
He watches me at practice. He's never not looking!
Carrie says blow him already and let her watch.
December 18th, the year prior:
I love the beach! I'm soooo fucking fat in this bikini--
Need to get money from Mom. Exercise!
Your penultimate reads simply: Homework. Willa Cather.
O, you shall burn and I rejoice, and reconsider
stupidity as finished iron-work: cumbersome to bear
and to the eye, facile; reconsider
Rust as slag in finer forge; that every whimper
bellows warm; dream your ocean one of vapid,
tender-tongued gods that savor you still; heat the kettle
upon your fire to praise by its scream what virtue
you may have held; know you as youth, the only genius true--
Mourn all that is marker in this tomb.
Mar 28, 2008
They say, Write about what you know. Does one then
write without thinking of what one knows without thought,
for why overcomplicate what one knows, with thinking
extraneously wrought? Doubt anyone knows. Doubt
like a rock. A rock like venom. Venom syrup. Syrup
what? Lose the thought to find the wonder. Sap
what? Find the thought to kill the blunder. Rocks
in the springtide, of which the count grows higher
and the crop by the bucket is as much ocean as it is
mountain, as it is rain slowly rendered imperfectly
as horizon broken down and breaking, redeveloped
in membranes of churl-tipped leaf-winged pupae drawn
up greener, transmuted in all the arrogant wealth
of potential, ignorant and muted but for the assymetry
of dark mirrors; each shadow, a catch of the seed
of winter. The trees muscle; the air openly nerves.
Mar 26, 2008
She punches nine. He presses ten.
In the frame of air between them, worlds writhe.
Neither will see the other again, nor notices
that the descent begins with the dimming of light,
which she comments upon with a sigh.
You sigh like my cat, he says. No,
perhaps I once did, but it's long been a lake ice thaw
quiet in its fracturing into darkwater fog.
Minnesota? Michigan, but not for years, not since I thought
I could do better than what I saw. Did you?
Remake what I saw? A nod.
No. He turns to better look at her. You know,
the last conversation had like this, I was some dumbshit kid
fresh from vacation in Vietnam, on layover again in Hong Kong.
Never been. Well, what I mean is,
This is me. Hey. Forget America. Done.
Love?
Mar 24, 2008
Think about this: don't think about that
which does not concern you, has no concern for you:
the spotted yellowness of what is nearly moth
in slanted pillars of mid-morning light--
Think otherwise. There is money to be made in wars
and love to be digested valorous in peace.
Both are empty. Empty as the grasp for air in the sea above.
Oh, there is meaning, clearly--
Rethink the thought that claims you. Angels know words,
but prefer the use of tooth above the tongue.
Yes, these are lies. Look how they fall within you.
The forest is mighty; a stag steps clear--
Of no concern to you, remember? Think upon death:
How unsteady the starlight in its eloquence.
When the batter from the bowl is cleaned;
the city lights struck;
a half an alter-ego double-crossed;
crickets dead neath stones of perfect tumbling;
a falcon matching eye to the rooster;
bricks of blue;
When the hummingbird is pinioned by the fork;
a semi-trailer anvils;
breasts fall sweetly to then fall away;
letters fathers sent to sons are lost;
a yawn occurs in the perpetual intermission;
a bear in a jacket deceives you;
When consequence is no longer virtue;
virtue is soft.
You put Tai-Pan down. You are emotionless.
The last inch of Jack beckons. You are amphetamine.
You break the glass against the wall. You are diligent
in observation. There is a stirring within the wall.
You are envisioning the greying of insulation, nails
within two-by-fours, moonlight somehow.
It is a rat. You think otherwise. It is all glinty knee
and ichorous hook. You put your good ear to the chest
of the room. There a giant. You drop to one knee.
A stone hits the window. You find in this no reason
to discontinue. You hear the fire of a car on the road.
Whinny of a horse, breath-white in dark stable.
The sea is in alarum. You are content. The context
is blessed horror. You put Tai-Pan down. Congreve.
averring the inevitable
abetting error
and arrow; wings
dissipitate mildly
a coronation
there was a boy who died.
he was three.
he climbed out onto the fire escape balcony, while his mother
watched tv.
watched, yes.
it was night, and they were poor, and he saw a moth.
night, yes.
well.
he slipped, and kinda bounced, and fell off.
he fell on some young lady, dislocating her shoulder and breaking
her collarbone.
he was three.
yeah.
his mother seemed to recover, and had four more kids, after that.
but she divorced her first husband.
and he later married the young lady the falling child hit.
neither was ever charged.
exciting?
more sad.
silly sorry for silly
the universe
creaks without a crack
hear hand over ear
vows
at their parting
in mockery
of what was
i keep
i keep
the melt and
hardening of plastic
in each chest
heated feet
in cordial layers
drink
Mar 21, 2008
The window overlooks the river
dark with rain. There a boy.
The fish are afraid, he believes.
With this belief, his steps
are carefully placed. No mad bear,
no wounded deer, no warrior
flown; a boy walks there, in dark
rain, under riverbank trees.
The lightning ruptures air. What
does he think; that thunder
sutures the massive chemistries
of cloud; that bodies of God
are born again; that he's worm
enough to treble-bait? It is
hard to say. A boy walks there,
on ivy path, under oaken leaves.
The window overlooks the river,
open to this land. There a hunger
hooking prey. What is stealth
in all this noise; what is the rain
to steely scales upon a string?
There a boy, aging with knowledge
plain, fishing. Here a stove,
silverware and heart, awaiting.
Mar 19, 2008
here
the rain glistens amethyst the night
held-halved upon the glass by desklamped constellations
seeming candle-lit
caught in place and steady in mild wellings
as the hunting eyes of men anonymously piercing
gifting death as reprieve
a cleansing for the throat upon the tongue
smoothly clear as highland tributaries
as stars
respun upon a dew-hull fog over prairie
Mar 18, 2008
the ground exhales
a newborn's skull
thru flaxen hair
at winter's edge
a sigh that sows
flattened golds
to bloom again
greased with mud
o, green-eyed child
dun and feral
wailing raw an art
to contend to name
the deaths of life
be they age
or be they flame
or by drowning spring
an inhalation
the world retaken
Mar 12, 2008
the walls are the sky are a basin
closer than ocean; the nearest rooftop
evaporates starved for light;
drinks are poured are spilled are drunk
are forgotten; branches broken nest
methodically breasted noise;
the car is a sphinx without answer
without question; the curiosity of a fox
ambled down this walk years ago;
truths are now spiders weight machines
seeds of persimmon; two oarsmen war
over horses north a full mile;
and we hold each other with fingers
and ribs interwoven
Mar 11, 2008
I want my cock against your throat, knife cut unto itself;
hand at ophidian flank of obsidian hair, cording noose;
palm on the hemline of your thigh, nail to arterial pulse--
to kneeling kiss and vivisect, tongue as scalpel to bruise.
I want my cock pressed to clit, lighter than thumb to eye;
fingers like shades in the sweat of Lethe, of Cocytus;
teeth as armies disinterred and risen ravenous and blind--
to incarnate war of orgiastic bloodlust and lost soul-love.
But you sleep, and the moon is half-lit with old wisdom;
you dream, and I dream your dreams are of rising oceans--
that you rebirth yourself in the dim slough of nonsense.
And in my mind you wake, as I study casts of fallen shadow;
you say not a thing, but unclasp your wings of marrow--
the room becomes a tree, and you a fruit unnameable.
Mar 9, 2008
Mar 6, 2008
beneath the lake
that is now a city of little banners
mannered in yellows and oranges
ice shall grow like swords of coral
as above the sky above
these alleys short and narrow
black windows blinding bright in sun
which will reach below the lake
by fold to flake the dusty flower
with all the memory of bells
Mar 4, 2008
the ground is wet, the dirt is dry under the rowboat
of painted maple, its four layers of white enamel flaking
year by year onto cinderblock props, which is a lie
of course but one of course once true that may again be so,
tho i won't hazard the March rain tonight to overturn
the dry-docked, land-locked umbrella that draws the hide
of doe-eyed hare and suffers not for being there
Mar 2, 2008
a thing happens
bouquets of apple blossom burn
and cherry;
mirrors crack glutted with youth;
a country town dissolves into the open sky
of prairie;
blackfish rise mummified and fingered;
dogs refute the estrus of foxes;
horses and lawyers
marry;
dust outsells whiskey.
a thing happens
a marblecake attempts to eat itself
and succeeds;
a mayfly conquers an inalienable sea;
siamese twins clone degrees of referentiality;
the moon complains
of stress;
one eye in ten thousand dreams;
an apple hatches a dragon of less
and less;
both knife and bowl lust.
a thing happens
instruments sound in the root of earth;
the wind in wreckage violas;
the wind speaks names meaning
nothing;
a man recognizes nothing;
the snow melts like irises
in sleep
in slurry
in craziness that allows you to forget
your breath.
analog to smoking
quasi-particulate
exquisite
with the ease
to recreate
anything
i choose
damnation.
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