Thursday, July 31, 2014

COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT

Okay—the truth is 

that one 
day—on planet earth 

after running 
and re-
running—all of the numbers;

and painting
like crazy—
all of the corners;

and paving carefully 
over 

all of the 
math that's still showing;

you'll look
one last time—totally bonkers
into the 

tired 
old eyes of one another—

and you'll say
faithfully—that you barely
even remember 

whether or not 
you ever 
decided—to get married.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

CINEMA VERITE

Kate—it seems like
whenever

I dream—
my blocky and indistinct 

ungainly dreams—not only
are you 
always in them;

but inevitably—
co-opting!

writing—and charitably
redirecting

the filmy things—
with all your shapely
graceful 

wherewithal 
and its—
often uncanny 

supple ability—
to curve 
and soften 

my macho
and intermittent 
roars and explosions 

into something
much more 
like—believable dialogue. 

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

ON THE FENCE

On old and long 
Lyndale 
Street—both kinds 
of strength 

seem so spasmodically 
demonstrated

and yet—
done-
so repeatedly

by such winding 
and bendable

soft vines 
of 
mauvewhite flowers climbing—

these neverending black
spade-
coronated

pikes of hard iron—

DAYDREAM

To—all you old
fat July 
hordes of sun-greasy

flies that keep
slowbuzzing loop-
de-loop 

wakes through my gangway—scram!

And make
way!—
because 

here come the furious wet
jaws of your 
worst nightmare—

a fed-
up 
and incredulous 

deadeye dachshund-beagle—

who's not 
nearly as 
amused—as her 

handler
might be
with how—it could ever even

possibly be! that you're all
at once—
both so 

pathetically lazy—
and so

very
very delirious?

Monday, July 28, 2014

SKY BLUE

Just think—
the unequivocally 
most expensive

and least
precious—thing that you've 
probably ever 

seen lying 
around on the ground—is probably 
the same shiny 

simultaneous thing—
and it's 

downright despicable!
how terribly
little—

whatever it is could possibly 
mean—
to hopscotch. 

Friday, July 25, 2014

EVEN STEVEN

Seems like it
never fails—the glummer

and more 
somber—the slate gray
stone planter;

the more truly
busting 
and shocking 
blue violet—its population 

of asters
huge 
lavender and 

can't forget 
catmint—

NARCISSUS THIRSTY

Scooped-
up tight 
and rescued—ice-

cold 
from a rippling 
but mellow silver pool;

this—
must be what
my soul 
really looks like—a perfectly

strange and 
empty 
kind of fullness

for a flash of a second—

oblique and expunged 
of all 
but the most personal 
of pronouns—

the most beautiful 
of all 
the beauties

alone reflects back 
up at me—here in the shallow

hollow of my 
cupped wet hand.

Thursday, July 24, 2014

THE RUB IS—

It's just so 
tremendously!

tough—to consider 

poetry—as
so many

sinkfulls 
of 

epic blue 
dishes need scrubbing—

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

CONVOLUTION

Today I think 
I feel—still more 
tired 

than even these endless 
slow tendrils 

of fat and off-
white logy 
milk look—stretched-

out and yawning—
deep 
through glass

after—endlessly
repeating 
translucent
glass

of foggy cold
ineffectually lovely
iced coffee—

that I've
all the while—only 

been dreaming 
of ordering.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

HUMILITY CONTEST

On those rosy rare occasions
during 

grimy after-
noons spent walking—

when my steady-as-she-
goes attention 
span is—suddenly rather rudely 

embarrassed—
by a sheer clean wealth
of burnt yellow sun-

flowers and fiery 
shocks of spindly 

snapdragons waving 
at me madly—from 
behind an oddly 

fanciful 
wrought iron 
fence somehow splayed

out in 
Chicago's most 
tumbledown alley—that's

when I secretly
and sheepishly—feel
I'm actually pretty 

decent—at recognizing
when I've
been shown

whatever I 
must mean by—my own 
good fortune.

Monday, July 21, 2014

INTELLIGENT DESIGN FLAWS

Suddenly one 
unoriginal July day—in the hot rude lateless 
of ongoing afternoon 

you're—perched 
on a porch 
sipping iced coffee and munching

and contemplating—a million 
and one little 
madeleine cookies—tiny repeating seashells 

all modeled after
the very 
first perfect madeleine cookie—

only—you realize
there probably was no actual first 
madeleine cookie—

and just you're so over-
whelmed
by the implications of that 

implacable thought— 
that you 
simply must 

stop and
haul off to the nearest park—and go 
splashing  

through the swimming pool
of cool
and endlessly—and 

refreshingly 
bue and self-
similar water.

Friday, July 18, 2014

INDISCREET MUSIC

The silence—that 
finally
falls—at the 

end 
of it all—though it feels audacious-
ly exposed

has—in fact 
been adroitly
composed—

of every single 
subsequent 
timeless 

classic album's 
closing-
track—specifically not 

being played 
back—
at once.

Thursday, July 17, 2014

GRAPHEMES ARE THE SCAFFOLDING

You may start 
to think 
reading this—that

there's 
images present—or
at least 

being conjured—

perhaps of balmy
mid-July 
mornings in wide-open 
city parks

each kissed 
with 
seagreen grass—and flush with
the spotty occasional 

rosy rash of
little sticks of kids
toddling
off in the distance—that is

until the lush 
quiet fields 
start
to fog up—from the rush

of fresh 
steam quietly gathering
up on your screen 
from a close-

at-hand coffee cup—
dispelling 
at-once any lingering 
mistrust

of the fact that I've really just 

been punching-
up 
a plain 
and blank white page

with all—
or at least some—of the 
same-
old-same-
old 
twenty-something sorts

of characters.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

PACIFICA

Even—or maybe it's more like
especially

here in Chicago's most crippled 
and vile 

network 
of narrow swiss 

cheese 
dismal and holy dis-

combobulated alleys—
repeating brick walls

look quite 
expensive—lushly covered 

up 
in such quiet ivy—

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

YAKETY YAK

I submit
Kate—you'll always

and forever be—

a prominent
powerful
and instantly

recognizable—
husky 
vocal lead.

But even
when it seems
like I'm back-
talking hopelessly—

know 
I'm merely—doing my best
to imitate

the cartoony
old 
saxophone bleating away—

really just 
to fill-
in
those 
gaps left—whenever!

you need a short
laugh 
or—more 

emphatically—
a good 

little rest.

Monday, July 14, 2014

EZ-GO

It's just—no use 
trying 
to convince the faint grimacing 

and stout 
capped old-
timer 
outside on the stoop—

who's squinting 
hunched and narrow-
eyed—a flurry 
of pinched fingers—

over a ritualized
lunch break prize 
scratch-and-win ticket—

that it's too
late—he's long since
bet everything 

he'd ever been 
capable 
of gaining—
and won. 

Sunday, July 13, 2014

POEM FOR VERA ELLEN

The best things 
happen while you're dancing—

so that's how come 

you 
missed them all.

Friday, July 11, 2014

HALOS

Once in a while—in summer
gloomy clots 
of Great Lakes weather

make—
soggy and cedar-

shaded acres
of stubborn yellow

spindles of weeds—look rather
circuitously
a lot 

like flowers.

Thursday, July 10, 2014

COLLIDING FRONTS

Fresh and cool
sour green
mint of frothy horse piss—

ebullient and
tangy—goes jaunty intermingling

with the warm rising 
facades of burnt 
sugar from almost everywhere else—

to co-
create—in an instant 
effortless 

cascading—
waves of timeless Main Street. 

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

OCCASIONALLY DAISIES SPLIT THE ROCKS

Among all 
the possible
worlds—there exists 

a blissful 
milk blue one—in which 
the poet

describes perfectly
(without 
much stormy 

flotsam of words
or any 
disparaging footnotes)

the area 
underneath 
each fluke of a curve.

But thankfully
there 
would also

be—mathematically 
more than 
a couple 

in which I 
am no good 
at telling you any of this.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

THE WAY IT CRUMBLES

Dismissing every little 
bit—of gravel 

with a nonchalant kick 
from each 

of a pair of dusty
eager sneakers—my little body turned  

and moved
toward looming 
sun and streets 

and what
it felt
was surely freedom—

without so much as 
even pausing—
to consider

the reciprocal 
boon that had just 
been granted

in relinquishing  
those humble

eons-
old pebbles. 

Monday, July 7, 2014

WRINKLES

For better—or 
for 
so much 

much much worse—you might 
feel flushed
rushed or rumpled;

gnawed
by your hunger
or infuriated 

by thirst—
or just tired and crumpled-
up

looking—out here 
in the high-
contrast light of 

the clean 
honest noonday 
sun—but only 

so much 
to the chagrin—of the only 
set of lenses

on the premises 
that's capable—not to
mention

sophisticated
enough—
to actually notice!

you honestly 
might
just look—

like 
you're smiling. 

Friday, July 4, 2014

SERIOUS PROBLEM WITH POETRY

Bereft of all—by now
but my 
own small

and dark 
motivated 
stabs at thought

I confess; I've become abusive 
again
of words—

beautiful 
stupid
lugubrious words—
 
the way 
they let loose
and sluice 

down to fill
in easy—each 
of the plenty of gaps 

left—in the space 
where I live 
and used

to laugh 
more often.

Thursday, July 3, 2014

THE PASSIVE VOICE—

Of a clichéd loop-
di-looping shopping bag

Nevertheless keeps on
chiding me—see skinny?

the only way to
go free

is truly—
to let yourself get
as completely 

filled-up—
as possible!

D.S. AL CODA

In truth—or all
likelihood at least

the very last
time you do
something—doesn't feel very

much at all 
like 
the first;

but it does tend
to resemble—almost 
exactly! the next-

to-most
recent—which only 
makes it all-

too-easy
to presciently understand 
the vague 

blush that keeps welling-
up
as you muddle

through the task:
having come 

at last
in glory—to judge

the living and 
the dead—

just feels kind
of awkward—if not 
downright 

counterproductive!
to the whole scheme 

of a kingdom that has 
no end—

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

DEPTHLESS

Belting Paul 
Simon tunes 

with Lucy and
you—Kate

it's a swell 
little feeling—

I admit;
to move out 

of myself
for a bit—and to

just dwell 
in us.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

GRATUITOUS

By July
even the baked
wasteland

of cracked highway
median strips—is busting
with thick

and scraggly 
whitepurple weedy flowers—
not arranged

for display
but just—stacked deep
and cheaply

and out of
the way—it's as though
even the rough

and glorious old
stock of wild wilderness
has run out

of space in which
to call itself 
a place! and has as of late

started creeping
into this—weird new field
called logistics.

GO FUCK YOURSELF—

If you're 
one of those 
little fat

and glazed-
over 
empty vessels 

sitting around my kitchen
cabinets—rattling 
in this thunderstorm 

all hopeful with your 
mouth wide 
open and supposing—

that it's
what's—inside 
that really 

matters—like it's
content
that counts! 

When 
really— 
nothing

speaks greater volumes—I mean 
nothing
holds more water

than what a thing
is called.