1000 Fragments

Something has changed--
blue, bittersweet
snow-- seamless
tangles of moonlight,
maple and oak--
footprints as puddles
of air-- a grand
abstention of cricket,
moth and overall
hum-- that second
shot, aftershock
and echo of that first,
held within that first--
o, copper bullet,
amber slug, tequila--
morphine-- cum--
angelhairs of spine
up, on end-- electric
rebirth of mind's
plasticity into plasmal,
dianoetic grace--

Put the motherfuckers
gainst old walls--
moonlight glints
upon embedded lead
just fine-- fragments
of trees litter
the scatter of bone--
create what else
you would know
as you go-- these o,
so fair worlds do
likewise-- cathedrals
of refrigerators--
what can be thought
dresses man-- all one
wears is metaphor
for soul-- a railgun
under floorboards--
a violet's broken stem
of palest greed--

But the mourning dove
recapitulates--
a ballet of serenade
and scream-- a bed
of forgotten, ergo
forgettable, com-
motion-- cigarettes
in a liquidity
of dream-- a chill
three degrees--
thumbnail to e4--
o, the hail too,
wicked with purity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sing a song of Solomon
Fish Tins-- gold-tinged
flakes of fish skins
cold-- as food or ferti-
liser, Solomon says--
a taste like a tumor-
Pop! Inside your head.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iii.
 
prnegs mimrut eamunw nutris
rngism mertim uenawn tursup
ngsumm ritmen iuwent raspur
gsmumr tumniw einutr sepran
smmart munwun ietirs purneg
mmretm nawnut uiresp ringus
mrtumn wentar uusipr negsim
rtminw nutres aupurn gismem
 
tmnewn tirsup earung summir
mnwint respir uenags mumrut
nwnutr sipren iugesm martum
wnturs purnig eisumm retman
ntrasp rungus iemimr tumnew
trsepr nagsum uimert minwun
rspurn gesmam uuritm newnit
spring summer autumn winter
  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i.

spreng simmur eatumn wuntir
spring semmir uetamn wuntur
sprung simmer iutemn wantur
sprung summir eitumn wentar
sprang summur ietimn wunter
spreng sammur uitemn wintur
sprung semmar uutimn wentir
spring summer autumn winter
 

ii.

rspirn gusmem aurutm niwnet
trsipr nugsem aumurt minwen
ntrisp runges aumumr timnew
wntirs purneg ausumm ritmen
nwnitr supren augusm mirtem
mnwint rusper aunugs mimret
tmniwn tursep aurung simmer
rtminw nutres aupurn gismem

mrtimn wunter ausupr nigsem
mmritm nuwnet aurusp ringes
smmirt munwen auturs pirneg
ssmimr tumnew aunutr sipren
gssimm rutmen auwunt risper
ngsism murtem aunuwn tirsep
rngiss mumret aumunw nitres
spring summer autumn winter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a mathematical composition of music 
fails without that certain intuition 
which is but tuition to an institute 
of ignorance and mock comprehension
 
as equations themselves fluctuate
in the steady-state of now and now
and here again an atomic clockwork 
splits to splice a shell entwined
 
as ideals undo the dream of day 
as dreams cull this winter night
within dim fabrications of data
 
as rose bulbs in cold compost
compose ariettas less of thorn
for blood than ice for summer
  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do you speak without mentioning
the type of god or good (there
are no good gods) that could go
or has gone without mention?

Do you listen? Do you read well?
Do you understand what you eat
and breathe and do you recognise
the medium in which you dwell?

We may as well flip a coin
and call it by what it is not--
Death is a master craftsman

intent upon the perfect tool--
There is no depth to reason--
Meaning itself? Imperfection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   
 
comfortable
convertible
 
collisions combine
cotillions sublime
 
as venus treelines dim
in lucid apogamous age
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

an orgasm, singularity
in which thought and action
completely coincide--

biofeedback, pitched
and bright-- sigil
of the signal of noise

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What goes on
far longer than any mortal deserves?

A few meals; the dreams of.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

C-D C-D G
windchimes rotor
in a voice
to be heard by hoar

C-D A-G A
or not
not now
or not now

A-A A-C D
alleluia eunoia
shelobstrosity
black quicklime

A-G A-E G
no mirror
act of self
in reason

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Understanding; not-
understanding: in haiku--
the trees talk to mulch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I lose my mind to the simple fact of that--
that what is good, needn't be representational
or just-- that all the literalism of lateralism
bows-- that each lyricism is rust-- that snow
that comes like blood-- that soul that runs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So we've been emailing, the twenty-plus of us--
half of whom whose identities I'm sure you'd guess
for not being on your side, and half the rest,
whom with a little thought, you shouldn't be surprised
to see enjoying your schadenfreude-- (of course,
there are the staff members who simply wait for you
to go down, that they can takeover and perform
a more than inadequate job)-- and since I've gone
pariah, now untouchable, I'm free to obliquely state
exactly what it is most believe, the obvious being--
you and he are lovers (this gets about even odds)--
now, there are permutations to this (sidebets made
not yet lost)-- does your husband know (or partake)--
has the cock-belch scuzz-eyed crookback hobbit-
tard in question suffered an accident, scrambling
shit for brains, bringing senility decades too soon--
(or is a mentality like that purely congenital)--
are you over-protective, so unashamedly biased,
because the slimeball of churl is family, or lover
(or both)-- but really (and tho this gets long odds,
it is my bet, and will be placed) is that soulless
self-lobotomised hypocritical one-trick phoney
(whose closest approach to personal artistic
creativity is the perpetual whoring of 'eucalypt')
blackmailing you? Be honest now. We dare you to.




 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Be sure he goes on a bit about recent pubs--
if he doesn't state which of those banal
scrawl-by-belch pieces of kitsch and cliche
have been published, boring you with wankery
of the wankery of how generic, pseudo-literate
editors for an illiterate audience in this post-
literate society place his crap in unread mags
as example of both vanity and mediocrity gainst
which others might appear better by compare,
he won't be pleased as a self-greased pig
midway thru a new shit-- and if Retardo's
not happy, somebody'll get banned.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Promise

the average unimaginative person power
over their fellows--
based upon a uniformity of ignorance
disingenuously called freedom,

equality or self-worth--
as personal choice without personality;
a stagnation
via the status quo of public decorum--

and one will soon
divest themselves of six million Jews,
and quite a few Poles--

not to mention an eternal disavowal
of honesty,
integrity and purity of soul.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the uninspired liars 
         (cockatrice 
             chimera 
          manticore)
say inspired
      (as tho by wit
     whetted and fit
            to slay)
our lies are made
          (of poison 
    marrow and rain)
(not of truth) 
               bored 
with wisdom feigned.
  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
you want an idea
of a dog and man
i tell you break
thy supple spine 
and pray for god
to lift thy chin
and with whisper
lessening praise 
thy life to pull
silence and love
up from a silver 
gun a trigger of 
wing a lead fire
angel upon angel
  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
commodify intensification:--
            the blue of bells bell bluely
            no--
                        knuckle to cheekbone

            hooves drum to roar wind
                        within the mechanism of snow
            a stratus pleural, o
            no--

                        spit
            upon the beggar who would be
            cordite & ozone

            o--
            blood wicks to coma-
            flail the orbital gravity of night

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
"If at all possible--

            voice is a cherub of chirrup and scream
            whose own voice beads as the scratch
            and tine of a syringe upon glass
            in polyharmic attenuation

            thought either memory but self-serving
            revision as false as fair or creation
            broken from dream itself awoken
            into dream true as starfire

            song but mockery of agony
            a curse upon stone that feathers
            rooted and hypnagogic about the heart

            hands but blades that curve
            as nests at nape breast lip thigh
            to egg the harpsichord lines of spine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

it's okay-- no expectation
to understand-- or rather--
ignorance is thick round you--
which is to say-- really--
life's a lens-- only so
much light may strike thru--
growth but a shift in phase--
no history but yourself--

and truly-- that's okay--
lightning strikes the earth--
lightning strikes the heavens--
lightning strikes itself--

as weapon-- you are nothing--
a type of air-- little else

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

here i am running-- here a dog is running-- here a deer
wades into a river-- here a bird frantic along the ground--
there the palest blue breaking sky-- there no rain but fog

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the single connective american roadway ideogram--
emblematic tattoo scorched as branch and twine to briar and vine--
black planar-cut ribbons too vast to ever hold in toto--
their thin plastic dissolves to oil no matter how softly lifted--
and the mind a map more subtly defined.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the fan/ echoes off the wall/ in real-time

and you/ are beautiful as the world/ is cruel

in its/ minimalistic beauty/ rotten as it grows

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunlight and two incandescents of three
war for sovereignty of a chessgame
in which each piece marbles black to white--
white halves to the righthand sides
of each player, respectively--

They sit with minds of bright moonlight
deadly in that nebulous thought
wavered tween nova and rock
in serendipitous plot-- nostrils flare

In high storm calm-- pupils dilate
as feint and subterfuge
toil for excellence to strike and fold--

And the room is God and Mind
is not and the war for love is lost.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

it's seven thirty-seven and you don't
wait for your change;
a collapse of ice in a styrofoam cup
on a cement floor;
a smile neither returned nor understood;
you want heaven and you'll never
scream the words that key the doors;
it's vulgar the way truth
scrambles for a hold upon power and loses;
rose petals fall in this ceaseless
storm;
these fires are fires of spine;
you've no words approaching poetry;
stupidity is your life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

oh hey the trees
all hail the mechanical
icefall swale
heuristic oh say
stepping deer
furs thy spine as oh
majestic
hooves titter-rasp
hollow night by yes
a convenience
of wind
cut with perfect knife

oh may blood
satellite

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a
sapling bronzed
a
chandelier

a
cage of moss
a
glass table

a
banquet of
a

history as
a
tongue heart

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

o, for expansive accuracy
a veritable diorama of penetrating ken--
but what do we have, but transparency
of truth and time, minor joy
temporary as sin?--

so be it then and closer, friend--
what mirrors the coming silence
must be quietly said--

what to fear but the nothingness
which rises to belittle self--
what to hate but that satisfaction
false as the greater world dispelled--

birdsong is a fire shearing diamond--
all is instrument and shell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i am insane--
the leaves ping on/off
to careen and siren and scrape
as they retaliate
their loss of form, which says nothing
of the night that will end
itself a type of rain
and the pain in my temple, a cloud
of lightning
rooting, with but a single flower--
petals that lure with perfume
that stains--
my tongue is thorn--
my fruit is fang.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the essence that builds the anger which kills
resides within my heart tonight--
air and terror.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the multiple agonies
of consciousness (if
that's not too great
a stretch) are thus
relieved: by love
and by disease--

the disease? death
of course and love
of course light come
as hunger that subtly
feeds and feeds (to
leave as blissful ex-

halation)-- a chaos
dark and serene

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ten o'clock people with four o'clock thoughts
and twelve o'clock fears
            mutely pass the three a.m.
            scintillations of daggers and razors
            of dew and ice that adroitly
            strike the ravenous heart in pinions
            of light


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The house is green, a minor tower
edging a field of bluebell and clay
with wood at its northwest corner--
I dream myself a fair and quiet boy
at work and staring from dark windows
upon a Spring with scientific heart--
This much tentative light tempting
this much seed to flower toward fruit
hour upon hour upon thought upon hour--
Cursory summum bonum any summation
as wit is the shorthand of wisdom
and wisdom shrift most post de facto--
The green is that of cemetery fern--
Hawks spiral, masters of themselves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A woman groans, far back in her throat, nearly whimper
wrought with sexuality. She is warm, lonely, naked
and in pain meted out spasmodically. She is the species
incarnate, twisted upon her blankets, with an illness
beyond cure. Why mention it-- Lust and love; admiration
and pity? Yes, of course-- And as a wish for better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

250,000 trillion stars
within 1 billion ly--
O, universal infinitude--
I am angel of myself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

names of flame whisper
ash itself a syllable
of cold

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Use your imagination-- I've used mine, and've imagined you
without imagination. The mind lies-- you know it's true,
as sense itself evolves upon contrivance. My heart composes--
matrix as tabula rasa specific; will as genius; time: sun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the fields shoulder
heavens of cloud
with turning backs--

raccoon and rabbit
plain as darkness
scream of death--

good men hurry
as old hungers sum
the chill of love--

what fair contest
do you contest?
the soul as breath--

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorrow-- each bead
a beggar's cup
of light-- withheld.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the thing
itself sings
itself as echo

the thing itself
sings itself
as it resonates

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am mindless as I cum--
a supernova, headlight-sized--
a moth rising, wings aflame--
the body blinded by white noise--
soul the arch of abdomen--
the tremolo of muscle--
eternity forever ocean--
a glaze of eyes forever sea--
I am mindful as I cool--
a peregrine, my hunter's shell--
night flowers, my perfume--
and here I rage in calm--
the churn of beauty--
is not truth, but love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We've talked of beauty before, you and I--
You sense it like one does a storm yet beyond treeline--
It's snow and ozone; woodsmoke and car exhaust--
More a filling of shadow than a diminishing of light--
Beauty, you say, is a tempest as eager as it is impetuous--
A wind that stirs in steady buffet--
Lightning that whips and does not strike--

Fine, my love; fine--
It is also a word beyond my ken, my mind yet rises to claim--
Here I am, a hawk disowned from the sky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Need help? Help yourself.
No assembly required. Work alone.
Love is a body politic. Vote continuously.
The greatest gift is its own receipt.
Knowledge is interest on loan.
Want more? Then do more, motherfucker--
whether supernova or blackhole.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Always speak your mind; never say a thing.
Shoot first; ask questions when out of ammunition.
Red sky at night means you're near a sizable city.
Don't count your chickens before they hatch; count your eggs.
Those who fail history might be good at math.
If asked an unanswerable question, give and unquestionable reply.
When in doubt, ask for directions to Rome.
The road less traveled is often a dead end.
A stitch in time saves none.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

great houses burn with strange fires--
rooms flicker and fade; ceilings throb
hammered by sky; rusted nails ache
with a cold horrored inability to rise--

the air within drums the din of oceans--
dronings layered to a siren knell--
each sense is touch and every ignorance
abstraction poisonous by weight--

eat your dinner and die your death--
the plate is clean when no longer a plate--
the cup a river and the cup a rain--

your hair screams entangled in horizon--
your breath smolders with the moon--
the dead centers of eyes abyss with life--

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It should be duly noted
that the sun has yet to rise.
Show me Orion during the day.
Let it also be stated
the field behind this house has yellowed
but for the famished southeast corner
which is forever in shade.
Gift me the itch of antlers that I
might break the bark of young poplar.
As a direct aside
the last of the great moths has died.
Lord, grant me ease
in starvation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bedroom off the kitchen,
facing the library
and separated by a curtain--
To live as a monk is to become a monk
mellowing perhaps to vinegar--
What need of stairs have the aged?
Failure and light warms
these still rooms--
My dust an egg of name.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two trees-- the smaller
with larger, sweet-tarter fruit--
rabbits fat on both.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You were born mindless. Dispute it if you'd like.
The post traumatic stress of being overtakes you still,
tho you've learned to cope, I'm sure--
A cigarette here; books like a soft drug there;
a raising of volume if and when the music suits--
Gathered assemblies of drownings you can breathe thru
that you may be reborn to the world in quietude
to better counter the machinery of disgust and hate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The chaos of cloud is too bright to look at without wincing.
Assume the sun is eight minutes away and as free as any automaton.
The grass is Easter plastic couching the serialised eggs of houses.
A woman curses without swearing. A silhouette ascends to nothing.
A few dragon-scale leaves hinge clockwise and then counter.
Gojira's blackness stretches in waking dream. I rasp. I writhe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't forget to steal the Warhol fridge magnet of butterflies--
There may not be any Warhols
                               butterflies
                               magnets
                               refrigerators where you're going.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

waterhorses

immaculate interior housepaint of choice
neighborhood children aghast
aghast aghast at the second story nude
there are apples on the help yourself

the threads limned in gold that lift

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4 dry toasts, perfectly burned
2 green apples, too sweet
1 pot coffee, weak

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

shoot dog kick cat
skin horse drown rat
stake pig fry gnat
chew wasp bat bat

beg sea suck sky
hold wall pill night
heat stone hone knife
numb mind love light

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

stars are teeth
the universe
hingeless
jaws

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the whine quavers as it ascends--
not white, but pure as it is without what usually passes
for the true blue abuse of signal--
the parlance of price and you already know this shit, man
so crash without losing your mind--
and it's louder than the voice that asks if you want another
coffee valium child grave memory--
but you're not paid to think and you're not paid to feel
or to know or to care or to trust--
you're a slave of predestination and circumstance
same as rope, as needle, as petal--
same as math.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

vestigal's a lovely word
as far as words go
not that any word is lovely
without a lovely tone

impregnable attenuation's
a lovelier charm
than the loving admonition
to fuck your cellar door

synthetic melancholia's
duotonic asperity's
an inimitable pungency
both expiry and mot

elocution's a word as lovely
as heart is not
nor soul nor mind are
tho honed to wroth

telemetric alleluia
alleluia alleles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

vanilla's the salmonella of the mind, fucker.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

gojira's tongue--
pink mercury
itself a thermometer of joy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Verbs noun adjectives.
            Nouns adjective verbs.
                        Adjectives verb nouns.

  Adverbs adverb adverbs.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

layers of trumpets call the hounds; the number readers
close themselves to snowfall and summit; she swims
with the horizon; let us see if she drowns--

posit: everything is holy; therefore, equal; therefore,
meaningless; therefore, allowed; therefore, more
matter of taste desultory at its level of ignorance--

posit: creativity requires more than juxtaposition
of prelearned symbol; more than the dishonest tripe
of sentiment blindly echoed; more than an idiot's
recognition of attempt; more than morosophistry--

posit: whatever kills you, is truth; what poisons,
names itself as enemy of self; what sings of rapture,
best pierce thy cold fish heart as talon of raptor--
o, numberless; we with her, drown; o, trumpets call.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

infantile cocksucker
banal as a mental wetfart in a library
you fail the soul's eighth grade
perpetually

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

here we are, mother-- carving ducks for the gallery
of finesse and flame-- the mighty insect bruzz
whelming in sonic ozone-- mother, tether

and i must say, mother-- the richest dishes
are but misuses of the smallest pills-- my hands
but gnarled oak impassioned-- mother, river

mother!-- i see your stiletto in the camouflage
of plume and genocide-- for you, no arrow
whispers struck-- no accurate reassembly
of memory prerequisite, nor meal-- mother, murder

mother!-- these are my nails in your eyes
and they do not worsen your sight-- fears of rats
gnawing open their own bellies, are rats-- the oracle
is a sneer, and lo!-- the future, snarling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

lethe-lithe

with tongues as fine as eyes, / i beseech-- rather we--
as i am i in fervent multi- / (com/sim/du/im) -plicity

you stay, to let braid / cilia -> scale -> scalea--
to let sun & entropy / warm , worm ? wear us as

we wear +(we are both)-- / thought stem-spine carnal
in the canal of your (p/r/f)

-ear|ache-- twine micro- / cardia & lozenge the data-
plex of heart-mind light-->

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

untitled!

ah, bach! i mean, mozart-- ah!
the perfect singing i do not understand!
keys upon keys! lyric within lyric!
sensible nonsense! ubiquitous non sequitur!

o, christina carter! i mean, kubisch-- o!
the songs of machines i do not know!
partial constructions! mimesis in toto!
crickets in the gut of swine! open throats!

irem of pillars! a red sickle moon!
klimek! sand! voices of n. american owls!
sleep! a ballet of hands! bell orchestra!

recording a tunnel! jeff greinke!
the corner! mada fronta! dither remix!
with throats as fine as needles!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

soporific benign atrocity
--mecca
; medina; dresden
; nagasaki; antietam                   white-backed
; vietnam                                     vultures
      [ imprimatur
      [ nihil obstat




 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

arctic winds graze over cavities in cliff walls
which will fill with water that will freeze and wedge
as pocket-threads of axeheads without handles
all of wind an ocean an arm a searching after calm
and the dirt in the river grows richer as it flows

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

to return to drawing now is to go mad
i have no visions and dawn in its darkness too brilliant
to go mad now i may as well return to drawing
words as braille made of light sightless fingers do not catch
define and delineate fields more scent than window
tho any window is both open and closed
and i am mad as a maggot in a hot dumpster
calm as a crack in the sky

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

were that i were
that i were
evil distilled to its essence
and that essence incarnate
sentient and wise or were i goodness
partially assembled or half-grown
a bounty of fruit maturing with season
but i am fire with precious fuel
and i do not burn the bridge of nothing
that between us informs us as we are born

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

cool hooves
follow a sandhill crane
upon the sinister bank
of the dark-mudded fox
to a bridge of swallows
with mudlark nest

led and lost
to mulberries

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i wish
i wish
i wish for you

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

soylent green is purple--
silent greed is purple--
  supurplexcellent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i have the secret of immortality:
i am the dross of time,
a cloth of clothos as chthonic dress;
the secret is this--

beauty abhorred is remembered
in the seamless current of days.
you doubt me?
mark yourself with stars--

gravity is eternal--
did you suspect?
here is an orange for your trouble.

just look, just look--
name us each by place and time--
the word is a mortal knife.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fur seals
fur seals

fur seals-- elicitly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                  ping
shawn lee's pingpong orchestra
                  pong

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i hope you've your raise by now--
corn chips oyster crackers
cream of wheat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

o elegant
lines confuse to astound
break and
break and break

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

make this one work--
make this one pay--
make make--

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

workshopping
field recordings

of workshops
rocks porkchops

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

neon dark
neurotic

eyes erratic
flight diet

dives
lucifugus

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the antecedent
must not reset
precedent

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

             dried worms       die to feed ants
cording to that worm       just passed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the mind flags
reptilian in the sun
of knowledge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

what words i have are nothing
i dream you still and what i dream is forgotten

the snow hisses as it hits everything

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

empty belly
quichely cliched, and dogged--
bone roll home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

god is but threshold
wherever our focus dwells
tickling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

my pattern is white-blue



blue-white
sky

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

what's the harshest sound
you can listen to

as music?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the cutting slash
that does not cut does not cut
the cutting slash does not
the cutting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

oak maple sumac / sycamore ash
    birch fir pear / box elder
         dog elm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

there is snow on the far mountains--
they suck the snow from the cloud--
cloud and mountain invisible now--

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

plays intuitively-- slow--
stares until thought--

no talent--
some genius--

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i'm always cranky--
crank me, crank me, i say--

i crank myself up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is wisdom if it's not eternal?
What is wisdom if it is?

What is, what is?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

tell me it's not poetry,
it's not--

o, how it is not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

happy birthday
just do it
the real thing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                   name his parts- -milton
make him talk/talk with him- -goethe
                             kill him- -eliot


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

nightswim--
she ties her shoes together
then takes them off

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frog Artist

the ones that last become more distinct
ones that don't are all the same

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

glissando
à la
glissade-- beaded rain


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

plasmal
heart of
plastic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

man
there is no worse

no better

no harmonic
to any universe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

no quicker than any
red-shifted blue-bright
littoral light

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the tame want power
  &humility
  &the tame want power
      &strength of the lame

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

pattern diagram
kinetic metonymy
irony failure

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

who was the greatest philosopher-artist
to mirage & tease

meaning & dream? today won't say.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

this is every argument
all rolled into one argument
that goes on forever

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

never ask
an easy question

at a liar's convention
even if it is genius

it is not

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i love you
i love you
i love you

i do
i do
i do

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

you'll judge the same as i do.
know why?

to be just.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

knocknock
centipede

down the chimney

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

briar&bramble
where forest and meadow
sprawl

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i've no idea how you teach,
so i can't really prove that i know anything

nor is that how i learn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

hrumgudmtu.
wtudo?

missu.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

grenades
calculators

children hell
dogs as well

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

an elevator
va. recordings of crickets
  bruzz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

two audio books--
william gibson's pattern recognition; left mono

john cage's art is either a complaint or do something else; right mono

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

brautigan sucked
donkey-ass
donkey-ass
donkey-ass all day

hunter s. thompson sucked cock

hemingway
invented the nine-clitted kitty

this is all true inversed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

hemingway; brautigan; hst--
how much it hurt

for it all to have been untrue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

bugs that sound like machines
noisome with grace

one caw of one crow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the emptiest
empty
emptied
emptiently
prematurely
empted
preempted
ettison
to let us in
to empty

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Disheveled cardinals
scruff--

Owls wait.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the higher up the mountain
the fewer the places

you have to go

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

butterfly
brains

butterfly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i i
i understand
enough

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

handle
spoon

a cup

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

if evil
were spider repellant

we'd have more mosquitoes
more flies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

do vultures taste ugly
overjoyed

and wise?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

you want cynicism, be cynical
you want hope, here is hope

may you also be rewarded twofold

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the uncertainty of fault lines
where there is no fault

as certain as plastic as protean

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the best shit i ever read
was a tea within the bowl
of its thesis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

resavage
that we tame
ourselves again

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

here is light
light you say
i don't want no light

dark i say
we are dark
what we need is night

with or
without
stars

with or
without
pilot

sluice
array

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

what do i know
any differently than an amoeba
that death can't catch?

things stranger than death

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

with global warming, you help us replant the desert

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

caverns?
we care about the mines
and the mist
from dust

of sun a brush
to dust

to cavern again

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

look
what we
can do--

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

stagger
of the spirit--

to piss upon trees

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

stone fences
wall and chimney
house

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

glove on the porch--

both my hands are cold

burning leaves

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Death comes
you say Yes
you say Yes

You are worthy
to be an opponent
of Death's

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

unable to be freely good
by the least amount of will alone
i kill myself

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

half a people were willfully evil
half a people were dumb

who was right, who was wrong
we punish those who do not punish themselves

and we earn our sole reward
interest upon a loan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

my pretty words are all i have--
they are all i can afford
if only silence were golden--
but i am poor, i am poor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

basically--
water rises
sun spills
moon bird
bone

whistle
cry

loot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the cat and the music
both make you twitch once in a-

while. and then you're swimming again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

some believe (as
is their right)
the ocean is (the closest
construct of (un)infinity
one can tongue) and
defined by what is (not) ocean
plus or minus a drop--

they're probably right--
here is my cup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Odds are, you will not lead a good life--
this will sadden those who do

and also sadden you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

weiner dog holocaust--

i like my dogs bred true to wolves.
they ain't that.
let's fuck ourselves up a midget.
jewish weiner dogs-- to cut or to uncut?
i'd stuff a weiner dog, and then put him inside a balloon.
that's about it.
race them off a cliff.
no limit to the number of contestants.
everybody wins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes

If I were here for the people,
I never would've signed on--
The food is inorganic and the air recycles
ad nauseum--

The thump of a cat
can only make you go God damn it, God damn--
The farm is what we leave behind
and the garden itself a child's pet--

What is noise and what is not is what
no one need ask but wants--
The periphery pulms
as the center Solomonises--

Stars
descantily clad of course required--

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

yes i do--

some are very beautiful
some are terribly ugly
day to day, some change
right before your eyes
change, right before you
change, and some ever
do neither ever
at all

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

spheres of empty
useless without throat
or spine

to hold them up
to slice
sun and moon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

success is when everyone on earth gives you a dollar--
sometimes four or five (if only to take it all away, but--
no more than they gave)--

failure's just the opposite, by half--


and breaking even, shameless--
for whatever that's worth--

rest-- float-- here is my coin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

mind is money and money, mind
a penny for your poetry

self-poetic rant read
as well as rime

the day is thunderous
l=t

the rain, patternless
eternity's nothing without

me with without

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

equanimity is the provenance of fools, haiku.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

to try to discern meaning--
when there is none

to call it god

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a granularity of sand
the pearls of your eyes
see perfectly

but once or less

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

how does one know the truth
when truth is fire gone to ember
and ember gone to ash?

by going out to the woodpile
in the purity of fallen snow
to bring in wood dry as paper
to glance for a spell at stars
and feel by simple geometry
a far greater warmth of beauty
resplendent beyond the wisdom
of any mortal's hearth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why not speak ill of the dead?
We are cowards--

Let us do what we do best.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

thru the trees
meteors
quick as dream

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

f <3
cum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  fuck love--

    cum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
you're the guy who kills the guy who applauds
the guy who judges the guy who knows
the guy who helped
the guy who hated himself alone

you're the guy who loves the guy who defends
the guy who robbed the guy who warns
the guy who shat
the guy who did not do a thing

you're the guy who supports the guy who fails
the guy who despises
the guy who mourns the girl of stone

you're the guy who buries the guy who fathered
the guy who lost
the guy who rapes that girl and sings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ink pickles paper
paper alloys light
light murders god
god gods death
god gods death
death is not god
moon upon ichor
shine on

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

an anti-counterintuition

the idiot-savant-garde
as morosoph most sophomoric
sees no senior genius
à la wisdom parti pris

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

White-sided houses go to blue.
Leaves blacken. Winds swell.
Low clouds move against the moon.
I map Heaven to navigate Hell--

These blue houses polyp and shroom.
Yards yawn. Windows door north.
An apple gleaned makes a sordid tune.
We starve doom to chasten horror--

The loam houses script and cemetery.
Katydids die consumed. Dragons, too.
Whim mazes the mesh of capillary--

I am not homeless without reason.
Muses madden. Their eyes are blue.
Blood enough to drown the season.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

passing clouds

                        falling leaves

            fill blue sky

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grotesqueries

  1. Are you too cowardly to kill yourself?
  2. When you masturbate, how often do you think of your father?
  3. Have you killed an animal accidentally, telling no one?
  4. Do you choose ease, over both beauty and truth?
  5. Think of the worst done to you; the worst you've done to another--
      which is worse?
  6. Do you fantasize about legitimately killing?
  7. When you pass an accident, do you hope to see the dead?
  8. Do you secretly enjoy when someone cries in anguish, over you?
  9. Have you masturbated using another's feces?
10. How many of your 'I love yous' are false?
11. When you lie, do you maintain the deception until caught?
12. Does envy equate to hate, for you?
13. Have you any dreams you have not compromised?
14. How much would it cost, to answer each of these honestly?
15. Do you believe you deserve Hell?
16. Have you broken hearts, uncaringly?
17. Do you consider faking a mental illness, a mental illness?
18. Do you pity anyone foolish enough to help you?
19. Were you ever beautiful, or simply naive?
20. Does genius sicken you, the more immediate it is to you?
21. Do you revel in the self-righteousness of your own banality--
      or vice-versa?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the bridge       mayflies hover
cross over       the wisconsin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

one hour as

  spectral voices;
          the actionless reverb of sitting rooms
          key and cocoon wallpaper flame
  the crow flies;
          blind within the whiteness of cumulus
  ritchie blackmore;
          tokyo machinehead
          a ham sandwich reconsidered, or hammich
          circa 2006
  a well;
          lean over lip and succumb to vanity
          o turing test, o gom jobbar
  inner time gardens;
          vines ferocious vine voracious
          vines audacious vine contagious
          vines
  the air vibrations under a doorway;
          mouse--
          sigh in addendum
          ad infinitum
  the sky's painted red;
          praise/agony::ecstasy/rage
  aquatic space;
          the meniscus of heaven
          distills thinly enriched blood
          as slumber tides
          fray indigo to hell
  one absolute hour;
          to three swallows
          equals two nests
  bernel & hoffman;
          & bernman & hoffel
          & manel & bernhoff
          & hernen & boffmal
          & beffel & hornman
  something that didn't turn out
    the way i expected;
          her smile as she looked at me
          as she smiled looking behind me
          to blush, locking eyes
  works of sound;
          heard well will provide
          holidays of silence
          as summum bonum thought
  snow;
          the first inch melts upon the body
          of ground but not the leaves
  a nomadic journey;
          four thousand footsteps
          half a footprint
  the narcoleptic;
          asleep on an exhale to wake
          on an inhale to sleep
          breath held
  as if it were passing in seconds;
          foremost
  sixty million years;
          uncles, aunts--
          not even knowing the names
          of those met at this reunion
  a single transition;
          ambient sunlight
          falls upon still-life pears
          to lesser degree
  the voice of jike;
          swish-scraping rebar
          in a gutter stream
  lethe;
          early water belatedly right on time
  two;
          feet eyes thumbs ears lungs
          questions errors witticisms hungers
          phonecalls signatures loves
  an ear to the ground;
          an ear to the sky
  vibrations during the aircraft impacts on,
    and collapses of, the wtc buildings;
          whalesong as notochord
          coyote howl as skull
          bison herd as heart
  continuous modification;
          antidisestablog
  a dosimeter in kulim and tainan;
          triggers as bullets
          fused at a difference of gauge
  surgery;
          which is 1/6 the time it takes
          to save a hand once bone is scored
  the agitation of atoms;
          none die
          decadently
  a plant;
          the coal goes in
          the smoke comes out
          cloud to cloud
  peyote;
          dry-heaving minor deities who careen
          as they scuttle the fucking inanity
          of sanity sans retrograde
  a rumpled sheet;
          gojira (the cat) beds (but sleeps?)
  the one who watches;
          behold the child
          sly and innocent as fire
          had fire mind
  the bell at hidden mountain;
          the mountain rings the bell
          the mountain rings the bell
          to listen for its clamour
          is to hear its knell
  the bumps of surfaces;
          the fluid touch of depth
          a linearality of finesse
          come shallow
  six more arguments in our favor;
          cunt cock asshole
          egg worm rock
  boulez is burning;
          the sky reclaims space
          no longer piano or willow
          or clock
  one side and other of the door;
          that this one locks-- 00:06
          that this one mocks-- 59:54
  spring-summer;
          work permutates
          by pollen and alleluia of frog
  a boarding pass;
          reread a dozen times
          and like any story
          unchanging
  index nodorum;
          phaeosphaeria, stagonospora, septoria
          a hectare lost in fog
  eurovision;
          the lowest common denominator
          is an appliance
          of misapplied science--
          not enough light to read
          hemingway's blues
  glasgow to airsaig by train;
          mesmer bildung supra-bildung
  a back-to-front reality;
          hello,
          history--
          night
  a piece of green;
          devoured by two caterpillars
          themselves nectarine
  it-is-ness;
          contextured
          by what-is-not--
          natural law

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you found the girl,
the wind, too, died or disappeared
from your senses completely;
your old dog whined, to see such sport;
you took care not to step too close
concerned with self-incrimination.

You crouched and prayed, you said;
you say you spoke moreso with bled color
than of condemnation or dissension;
that breath slipped to air as smokeless fire:

So this is God, and accident, and loss;
so this, malice and culmination of naught--
You dug nails into rooted ground, and tore one;
you stood; turned away. You called the cops.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Things Not to Do Naked

do not beekeep babysit
vote die undress propose
perform any autobiopsies
spacewalk skateboard
sleep or wear evil well

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is magic; this is a fiction
as much as lie containing truth,
and it is truth--
Undetonated atomics line the sea floor;
they irradiate and they plum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

my mind is gone--
automatic cascades
of inconsequence
intermingle clasps
of unhinges collapsed

which is not to say--
nothing is done or
what will be done
technically a sub-
limity of invention

which i think to say--
(while not a terrible lot
as ever never enough)
that contours weft
in shadow of loss

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

if everyone turned their faucets on
how long would the water last?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the homeless
protest

of home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

disgustingly happy
    the child i was

nothing disagrees

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

connective
as tissue

haiku

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

yellings--
laughings--

i just sit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the subatomica
of the thought of subatomica say

yes
no
maybe

and go away spinning-spun
with an arrogance of pricks
and fuzz and peaches

they limerick
and they spit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

genius is not fair
love is not inspired

despair

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

what does the poet tell us about himself?
he's articulate; discourteous
and prone (self-harm)-- autistic
as a matter of convention--
and at a loess of words
where image is lost

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

why?
they're dead?

are we dead yet?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

things not to do
when naked?

do nothing good
wear it well

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

just say shit
and praise

but i keep
my tongue

nor do i
upbrade

the conscious
misspelling

nor do i
nor do i

and then we
go away

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

apricot tree
piss-pot
rotten ground
measured
by flowers
and fires
as pendulums
of a clock

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the fine line
between chance and dream
and certainty
broken

why escape death?
death escapes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

humanity--
the fallen fruit that writhes
as it feeds

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i am from heavem
so i know i do not have your support--

i am a tree of leaves

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i didn't know what i was going to say
when i brought you here

over there are the ferns
maybe we'll walk over to them
when we come back

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the snow
as free

as ash

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

cowskull

inside the front door
upside-down

with a timepiece
right-side up

within its hollow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

what was i thinking last
night-- karma?

duh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

nature is mans to recreate
thought is his to form
and discard and reform

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

poem-sized
thoughts for poem-
sized words poem-

poem poem
nothing else
is poetry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

how best to listen
is without presumption

but some of us sing
some of us sleep

and bach is a
whatchmacallit--

not terribly long
asleep

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The one-armed comic
vs. subatomic tranquility

vs.

an intelligence
without confusion

vs.

magic as sleights
of man vs.

every thought
spaghetti vs.

the success
of the failure

to comprehend.
Who would win?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

water fountain--
it's shit

no, that's piss

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking at a picture
of the moon

back-lit by what no moon
provides, I could tell you

the stars themselves piano
and loom, knobby-kneed

and resilient, hellions
of pride to be taken

by whatever natural
law decides. I could say:

There are many pictures
of the moon. This mine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i was reading
at a little faster
than a click

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

shadow concept: a tunnel/room/ceiling of glass which segments, from opening to end, into room and hall-- tinted so that the deepest room/level, is in darkness.

shadow concept: that which we love, but do not say; that which we say, but do not have or do; that which we have had and have done, but regret having; that which we regret, but do not end, and return to; that which we love, darkly; subliminally; in phase and out of.

shadow concept: we never see the shadows cast by our light; we see only our light, partially reflected.

shadow concept: my mind, which is my heart, for you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

pissing upon moss
upon a rock
a chipmunk looks for neighbors
a kitfox steps into the swamp
and the chipmunk is gone
so is the fox

there's nothing better
than catching the scent of fire
in the air
which until then was nameless
with ashlight and cold
and irretrievable thought

for us fire is home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a bad life today     may be a good life
        tomorrow     pauper

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

/\/\/\/\//\/////\\\\\\\\\//////////////\/\/\*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

stark ravens
approach madness
crowding cloud

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and what birds there are
are not counted
as the meat of ribs disintegrates

what is to be said but that
beauty beyond comprehension
will not work forever

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i'll idly die
upon this risen ocean floor
relying upon tide

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

practice what you
do not preach--

the profound

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

words

words

words faul

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

art and love and all the rest
can defend themselves as they are
defenseless while hate remains
a key dropping to the floor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

eno the single beetle
upon wicked wall in merry well
he stumbles how he do

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

circling
the core of language

a fly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i am a monster
costume or not

in costume

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thoughts take time to process. X gives you that time.

You're arguing over poetry, as discourse?

Are you shitting me?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

language by
necessity is separate from
the thing it speaks of
even if that thing be itself
a rasp of self-importance
upon concrete

imagined cherry leaves

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

whippoorwills
proclaim in anapest
pseudo-wit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

neo-modern artist without estate

found in a ditch sleeping late

taking contour and color of chance

in measures of fate

another buddhist become a beggar

another beggar become

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the heart of a soul be in a man
tho that heart be empty

made of wood and wind and dim lighting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

regiments of mind and loss
militarised against the wind

dandelions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the snow is quiet--
the moon falls quieter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a wren-sized moth
thrums upon the bug zapper
now off

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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