Saturday, August 31, 2013

SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS

Intuiting over-
sleeping neighbors, I see

the plot—three
by three

feet—of the littlest rainy 
street sycamore

tree has been 
thickened—last night by tall

and dramatically 
wrecked—

wet cans of Busch Light.

Friday, August 30, 2013

DIVVY

Reluctant commuter, please
breathe 
it in 
this way—the warm breeze 

must've got 
up 
even 
earlier! than you 

this morning—lusty 
and 
hot to 
massage those fat

curves of your gleaming 
teal 
rental bike leaning— 

passive against 
such rusty wrought iron.

INDIAN SUMMER

Chicken-
legged blondes 
in pink

pastel 
crocs and polka-
dots

hastening—down Ashland

toward 
the corner 

Baskin Robbins—

Thursday, August 29, 2013

COMPLEXION

In urgent dress, the young clerk 
holds a reddish 
     rag up to his nose and 
paces
seated and intense-
ly through collected 
     poems of So-And-So—

while outside tawny 
throngs of finches 
     leapfrog
up splayed branches of 
an old resplendent 
     ever-
green that's framed in by 
his window, 
               chiding— 

Say son, why're you 
being such 
a sissy this morning—nursing a bloody 
     nose there, popping
pimples in your office 
chair?  What's wrong—You scared?

to death of a little 
simple height?  Or is it maybe 
     more like
sore-
afraid to lose a little depth!

FOG CONT.

Hapless strands 
of office

buildings—only
curdle 

the shaggy 
edgeless 

soup that
already—

selfishly cradles the waterfront.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

ONE-WAY KITCHEN CONVERSATION

I've already lost 
almost!
ten pounds—she gulps at me
     brimming 

solicitous-
ly over 

jaundiced—
streaks of mango yogurt.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

The Poet Acts—

Unshaven and 
alone 
he knows—
the amount 

of goat
cheese he chooses
to chisel 
lazy onto haggard 
skillet-
fulls of 

wobbly eggs 
in the 
warm dark kitchen—can only 
just-
ly 
be described as—

disrespectful.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Idyll

Hardly Country 
Club 
material—the muddy 
clump 
of young 
ducks bobbing 
up
and 
down on seven's
circumvented 
watertrap—
spontaneously 
dips quickly 
down
to fish a 
clean 
cool breakfast out—still
it's enough 
to make 
the old birdies 
jealous—trapsing 
through slurping
hot grubby 
coffee sweating—

Flag of Glycemia

Purple-spangled
rectangles 

of ostentatious 
bluish

aiming to trigger
flaky 

and compulsive
celebrations—

just so much as 
wave one 

and watch—the pancreatic 
fireworks

Friday, August 23, 2013

How to Do It—

Scraggy cat tails 
growing
—impossibly!
up through dusty summer 
wrack and railroad 
rubble—

The straight and
narrow-
est among them
—shrugging
with lank ease in 
spare wind whispers

simply—
Aren't I lucky?
I don't! I 
don't! I don't 
know!

Thursday, August 22, 2013

While Debussy Plays Off Somewhere—

Deserted on the outskirts of
the muddy 
knotted job site—brawny

overworked 
machines drip clean in quiet 
constant rain

and nearby 
scrawny 
tufts of stawyellow
grass 
bristle and almost 
sigh 
perceptibly—just to find
themselves 
a little 
dirtier.

Tempers

Just think—
for every 
single
shit-hot 
thing you're out there over-
doing

there exists—in principle
a little
casual beagle 

snoozing 
unmolested by the droning
air-conditioner—

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Rarefied—

Slogging through wavy
breakfast
traffic—calmly 
exasperated air-

conditioned voices 
come on and tell 
me to 
beware—
of all the falling 
ozone 
layers out there—and don't 
you dare! let your lungs go

jogging—and if they're
older ones, well—

just 
try to take
care. The quality of 
their sort 
of air—is all over 
the 
poor kind
of ground today.

Skippy for Justin

Instead of counting
up 
our blessings, I say

we just start ticking 
them
down as we eat them—

but wait—

Does a 
stout proud jar of chunky
peanut 
butter and a sleeve 
of several
dozen saltine crackers tally

as 
two things?—or more
like
forty-
one-ish?

Let's think
on this 
a minute licking—

plastic white butterknives.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Piano Four Hands

This is so
plain
it's 
almost ivory-
pale—but 
contrary motion—still
runs parallel

maintaining 
promise named 
tempo while streaking—
out 
in discrete 
staffs that play-live on the same
pages—
and that's 
how 
it's 

music—that I kiss you
goodbye

while you—
kiss me,
instead—
Awake.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Eternal Recurrence

Good morning—
good morning! Please
'd to make

your
acquaintance—I work (How
I work!)
for the Water 

Department—but 
really
I'm really 
a Real Famous writer—oh what?

can I tell you? what
's that? do you 
say?—God, help me

remember 
all them good losers? That's 
just Carl 

Sandberg!—that's not 
how 
This Man works—he wants

to see 
Beauty in (what
's necessary 
in) things but God! 
damnit sir such is 
the 
Nature

of any life worth living—
twice!

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Sine

Of all, 
only 
the crookback—
camped-
out at park's 
edge clutching a rumpled 

old 
accordion—cradles  
the math 
of it deep
in his chest—Any 

gain!
that one side
makes—is 
because of the other's
steep—sacrifice!

Friday, August 16, 2013

The Catch

Quickly—conjure 
up the most 
untroubled
creatures you 
can think of—maybe 

noiseless
peaceful koi
or comets drifting
weightless and without 
memory—now 

ponder ninety-
gallon 
tanks piled 
high in big box
pet supply stores—whose sterile garish websites
call their 
pond fish 
simply—
Now in-stock!

Pomo

I'm talking 

here— 
about

Reality—I mean

that which 
can be—

copied.

A Hat, Backwards

Resplendent 
with the sound 
of
loudmouths bull-
shitting—

car no. 2943
plummets toward the dark
tunnel—

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Indigestion

Rats!—
Another hungry 
pack of cats is 
splayed across the red line
tracks—and 
causing

quite 
the lunch 
hour back-
up—as they shovel 
down the distance 
between 
"unfinished" 
and 
"ongoing"—

Adjacent 
the long-
faced men
and stranded
women tap 
their hungry steering

wheels and 
tolerate
their sweating canines—
telling 
themselves

it's temporary—as if 

any other banquet 
wasn't.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

American Rustic

Pumping tangy-
smelling gas 
in wind to strains 

of lumpy Crosby 
Stills and Nash 

—and Young, I plainly 
feel familiar

pangs for the crusty
egg salad

sandwiches inside—

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Do Not Reply to This Email—

Simply
look—
east-
ward 
toward the Tuesday
morning

sun 
bounding 
bright through the 
heaps of wind-
sculpted

clouds —and 
landing—
roundly 
on the 
August 
treetops (same old
leaves, brand
new currency!) 
to 

re-
activate—
your membership.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Drafty Argument for Functionalism

When my window's
not there—
I don't really 
care if 

the wind—knotting 
in from
the west—or just 
south 
of there—carries
all sorts
of possible low
pressure threats or 
whatever;

I don't want
to be 
told 
how to hold
on to what's blowing (What is 
it
anyhow? All I know
is it's blowing)—sure
as the feeling of
tension
on bare skin

besides—whatever
it is, its 
only
like
this—if it behaves

like a breath
of fresh
air—
then it is one.

Jazz Chords

The blind man
listens

to the sound of hard
water falling

and feels 
his way across

sidewalks to the narrow 
bus stop

accordingly—

Friday, August 9, 2013

Unburdened

Dear dirty 
dump truck—I'm 
so much 
heavier that you!
Despite—

the tons
you're made 
to move (never 
mind the rusty 
ones you're made of) and
despite— 
your crust
of limestone
dust and mud-
flaps only a 
stiff sludge could suffer—
 
you
will never 
know the ponderous
capability of being
carried by another—of being 
filled
by emptiness—with huge 
and clumsy things
like dark 
and awkward
silences—or even
 
for that matter, just the bulk 
pleasure of 

spiting things
arbitrarily—

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Meet

The trailing
athlete 
inhales deep
and 
thinks—you just

can't beat—
that sylvan 
smell of shady 
woods. Mostly
because 

it doesn't 
compete—it just
performs 
in 
exhibition.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Flattery

A flat
and—filthy 
diesel barge 
pulling
slowly 
coal
rough and 
shabby down 
the Cal-Sag 
Channel
is
—I'm sorry 
but—
a lot 
like you. 
Each 
day dragging
colossal 
power sources 
thankless to
outlying forces—and 
perpetually
crossing 
bridges—
underneath!
instead of 
over, and so 
brilliantly
perpendicular!—to the 
way 
in which everyone 
else does.

Main Street USA

Busting purple
baskets
of thirsty
begonias
beautify repeating
street lamps
giving
the rusty public
works crew—
something to do.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Descartes' Place in the Suburbs

Outrageous 
plastic 
pink flamingos

ornament 
the lawn—

of 
the squat 
raised-
ranch—solely 
to promote

awareness—

that pink
is a thing 
that has four letters—whereas

pinkness— 
shamelessly
—has none.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Pits

Ravenous
the drooping 
woman
in peach 
keeps chewing-
out
his secretary—

Oblivion

Liberally
shaded suburban
lane—or maybe
terrace—undulating
with
the unattended
sounds of treefrogs
buzzing and soft
hiss of big
backyard sprinker
systems still-
running
—both mindlessly
indicative of
another
on-
coming summer

rainstorm.

F of X

The second 
driver's 
most recent thought,
having been 
miraculously
unabstracted—and extended 
in space 
a good 
twelve city blocks— 
is now 
holding fast 
as the leading
cause 
of this pretty
shabby 
accident report.

Friday, August 2, 2013

Sucks to Your Ass-mar

Hail—itinerant 
summer reader!—for 
the 

only Lord
of gold-
backed flies you'll 
really see 
while 
out here hiking—is

this pretty
over-
populated

pile 
of fetid
ralphy dog shit.

Á La Mode

All around the
yawning Wicker
Park perimeter—such chic 
clouds of

blackbirds cluster—pecking 
for seemingly 
not more than a measly 
few seeds

among the 
fallen 
rotting mulberries—

and I'd 
like to stop and 
ask them—are you really

eating breakfast—or 

are you only 
dress-
rehearsing?

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Sneeze, 800% Slower

Humid August
waves of
wind sweeping—the indefatigable
din of kids
play-
laughing and
itchy on the distant
and glinting
primary-
colored equipment—in
through her wide-
mouthed and
peregrine nose—where those
eyes and those
ears start to catch
swollen hold
and go—waltzing
away in
resounding
displays of mock-

sympathy.