Tuesday, April 30, 2013

HAWTHORNE OUTGROWN

Romance might look 
like all wild woods 
at first—some fervid
uncurbed, hysterical 
knots of old New
England,

but the real book's 
a scraggy bit 
more like this land-
scaped sprawl that I'm
skating by on—

here, a would-be 
shock of violets
crabgrass, upstart 
dandelions, 
allowed to crowd 
the patterned assembly of 
bought-in-
bulk chunks of limestone,

there, a thornless 
tuft of tulips, multi-
colored hand-
picked bulbs swaying 
just a little
in planned rows to the laughing
jazz of docile wind,

and—back 
at home, the way 
she left me lying warm
and dark this morning;

a spontaneous kiss 
with prefabricated implications,

the new but
same old way she flew 
apart from me today—

un-proud but 
on-time,

intentionally, but not
on purpose.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Lawn Ordinance

Endless so-forth and so-
on of inestimably greenthick 
spring grass—so young and
teeming with brash yellow dandelions, 
who dared pave this 
frame around you?

Your rhythm, I think 
looks unrude
as a picture—your colors
disengage me all 
wrong and your shading 
doesn't look quite so 
hot pulled apart;

but mostly, you're 
much too 
close-by to be balanced—your green 
reaches far too unlimited 
to have ever been started—besides,

there are some things
you just can't walk around, 
things that are far too 
broad to be pretty—

all this 
big diction, for a start.

Friday, April 26, 2013

Sprinting After Heidegger

After a fast
runpanting,
latent
sweat beading,
euphoria

waxing and
quickening waves of nausea
that sweep 

down
from secret
stomach's pit to far-away
little quaking anklesI realize,

that I've
never really felt

like giving-
in;
or like getting
high

I've only
felt

like
being both.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Blues for Commuters

Waiting in the slow 
lane moaning, we watched 
the bold sky clotting thickly over 
with gluey cumulonimbus 

clouds—arrayed in jazzy
asymmetry of bluegrey and cruising
allegretto westward, they felt 
the beat a bit faster than 

our clustered cars—but still remained 
neither moved nor bothered
by the overlapping and predictable strains 
flung up by their satellite radios.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Silverish Lining

Just stop

and—
look

how heaps 
of greycloud weather

help pick-
up

the quick greenness 
of—

grass a bit better.

Phenomenology After Eno

Wherever
I am—feels like home
plate
in a
fake radiant
stadium of ambiance—
go ahead
and pitch me
your least
nominal stuff, world—
I couldn't assume
a more

casual batting stance.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

First Idea

On a greyscale 
morning, an unseen
robin crowing—
perhaps 

proudly—perhaps
colorfully, perhaps atop 
some neighbor's dismal building—
a song unrhapsodized or
half-remembered or

imaginary;
its fleeting beats inviting,
and yet resistant to 
extrapolating—

I don't know him, and I never will
so what's the point? But what's
 the point of knowing?
The point's just where it 
comes together, so what's 
the point to asking?

Dear little 
reddish citybird,
perched high on heaps 
of greyish bricks, 

your essence,
I admit—is starting to sound 
expensive, 

but its 
coherence—and its currency,
are 
cheap
cheap cheap
cheap,

cheap!

Monday, April 22, 2013

Laminated Paradox

Cherry-
wood disparity
of the unused back 
office

every square-
inch lies—cluttered

with organizers

Great Literature has Nothing to Teach Us

A thin black 
crow calls like 
crazy from a tanked 
phone line 
laughing with nothing 
to say—

A white bag 
marked Thank You 
brims with bright
wind in a tree 
branch and no boons 
to gain—

The cardboard 
box letters of 
a fairweather busker 
lean hard on spare 
change having no place
to stay—

We're taught at least
three things
without being told: to leave
some things unmade, unsaid 
and unsold—

nothing left to learn leaves nothing
heavy to hold.

Friday, April 19, 2013

Lit. Theory

I first
felt lusty this morning
when I heard—a robin
faintly singing
far away his pithy
augurs of warmer weather—
but then I saw
the same fat creature swooping
opportunistically right
in front of me
down—to pluck
and gobble the guts
of a dried-
out clay-
colored earthworm—
and thought—
poetry might
get us laid,
but it's
prose nonfiction

that keeps us fucked.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Fable

—And after
a stiff while, rain
soaked in
and softened-
up our sense of meta-
physics;
things
became either—awfully
wet
—or not
quite
just
so
awful yet.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Alchemy Since Lucy

Hark!—the humble
salient yip
of my copper-
colored dachshund-
beagle—
leaping to lick
and glaze the lengths
of the scrawny
rented space between us—kindling quick re-
capitulation
of  that tawny old
metonymy of fealty—here
and there, you're
brazen, friend—now,
as then—

you're gold.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Nouveau, Riche

across the street,
the purposed
row of old boxelders 
stands—

popular, still-
leafless, a battalion of bare 
limbs offering fluke safe-
harbor to secret 
upstart colonies

of clover, creeping
charlie, springy 
tufts of wild
violets!

—and as yet, it's 
only there in 
dirt and 
dim and secret 
pregnancy of scraggy shadow

that blossoms mad and 
unsubstantiated            
this new love
of the unhusbanded;

remember what 
another upstart said once:

a weed is just
a flower growing
not because 
you say so.

Monday, April 15, 2013

April 15

breeze-motivated 
ripples on the man-
made pond

don't perturb 
the green
drake floating—

calmly riding-
out Tax Day

Self-starter

Sore knee with slow
gate to black 
rented Chrysler—

Dredging glum
Monday for 
fresh motivation—

Nearby spring
branchfulls of
spry finches chiding—

Where is lame
Pegasus 
headed this morning?

Last laugh re-
cessing non-
plussed congregation—

Soared from a
dark horse's
push-to-start engine.

Friday, April 12, 2013

VECTOR ANALYSIS

Skinny side-
walk
earthworm—flooded
architecture?
logic of lines
after all—length
does is
get us

up here by last 

night's downpour,
what do you
make of all this fierce

Why do you think 
we cramp the lean

by imposing upon
their wills
such implausible boxes?
It must seem 

mad—to build up 
what could instead 
be made to slant 
forward;


builds progression, a move-
ment in time.
All height
ever
all stepped-on.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Forecast

In a
flash I

feel 
I might

always love

missing you—
just 

like the 
ruddy soaked
arms of bare

poplars love lightning:

ungracious-
ly hungrily all 
of the time

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Accelerando

Rainy achromatic
highway precipitating
grey-
sameness of road
and sky
and
making
me feel repeated-
ly grate-
ful for
unapathetic
greenness

of exit signs—

XIV

behind
the wheel I found
myself

intractable, the skyway's 
jammed

with blackbirds

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Hard and Soft

Across the alley
the old pink furniture
men tread slowly
through asphalt 

meadows of off-
white washing 
machines old refriger-
ators broken automatic 
dish washers

tending just 
a little listless-
ly to any wounded 
aluminum buffing 
whitepainted 
enamel still glistening  
with April rain carting
the pretty winners 
off to gruff-
motored trucks 
on thin 
red dollies

The eldest 
among them 
wear their saggy 
denim best 
glad to be vested 
in pliable nylon 
today and each 
clad in hope-
lessly camouflaged 
baseball caps—

which actually
distinguish their pre-
rogative astonish-
ingly well
against the alabaster

stacks of
zinc-
coated sheetsteel

Monday, April 8, 2013

Backgammon with Wittgenstein

In the time it took
to walk 
from a parked car 
to my building's door,
I don't know
how - but I'm awful sure -
that a 
certain 
forthright 
sort of 
poem occurred.

See, in a snap
I saw 
the virile wind 
whisk quick away the 
overhead fertile 
froth of clouds;
revealing,
for the very
first time that morning,
that a phenomenal blue
had always been shining
forth without 
my words
to see it through—

but I couldn't imagine 
what claims I'd stake
on  
such a credible 
display of 
ordinary reality
(what, after all,
would Stevens Say? 
What in hell
would Wittgenstein write?)
from here inside my sloppy
office, kinked 
around a desktop;

so I contented myself 
with describing the scene 
and moving on to more
concrete things—

Surely whereof one cannot speak,
one must 
play some videogames.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Recess

From the bombed-out 
desiccation 
of 
abandoned new-construction 
flung
the ceaseless song 
of 
sparrows 
 
equity proves 
a slender 
gift,

a little
motivation:

things 
can always get a little 
worse.

Graffiti

Ecstasy 
of 
the hyperreal—

My heart 
beats 
more quickly in the alley;

Utopia-
is probably boring.

To Be (Cont.)

Ontology is
housework

every day,

the dishes!

Thursday, April 4, 2013

At Liberty

Captaining my car
past sea 
of sleep to work this morning
I blared Bach
to keep awake and maybe 
stoke a little ardor.  Arriving humming (I think
it worked), I docked and wandered out and
there
were fatbreasted robins everywhere–
hither and thither-
ing out on the lawn (as if I wasn't 
there 
at all) and winging 
improvisational songs that 
blew my 
cabin memory of
that 
carefully made cantata 
clean out of the water.

First Logical Elegy

How kind!
of dirt
to keep
its mouth shut—
neatly
settling what words
cannot.
The forgiveness
heaped
upon the dead—
is not
the kind

I want.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

DAS MAN

Seems
like nothing

today
is going
your way. For

example—this morning,
some orange-
vested

toughs came along
and

stole
all the

trash off
the highway

embankments 
before you 
could notice

how perfect
it looked in fast-
forward from your

hatchback. And then,
later—at
breakfast, you
distinctly

asked for
stratus clouds

with your
deluxe crisp-
wind-and-tall-
sky combo 

platter; but of
course—someone
screwed-

up
again and gave 
you—cirrus.

ER Re: Bret

Sorry to say—
you'll probably never
be a saint;
because
you're always doing
no harm first—and death
is not your enemy—
but then again—
urgency
doesn't always visit
such ready rooms
and luckily
there are still
two ways to be
a hero—
the first is
suddenly—
and the
other—

is once.