Thursday, October 31, 2013

LOGISTICAL NIGHTMARE

Oh my 
heaven, never! was there 

such—an awfully
adroit bunch

of brainless mumbling 
zombies trolling-

deftly down our 
duskbrown avenues!—unhobbled 

and numb 
to inefficient   

gobs of
cataclysmic weather—and so-

forever!-
damned-

determined 
to fill—their gaping bottomless

quotas 
prior to curfew—

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

HEADLINE

Some very
famous scientists 

are positive-
ly

gobsmacked!
to announce—

they've successfully
chopped 

that one thing
up!—and discovered

that it's 
really made—

of pieces. 

LAND'S END

It seems—
about a couple

hundred and maybe some odd
dozen geese 

spread out wide—
across 
the chilly rolling 

spearment-
colored land development

just refuse!
to read the honking 

double-
sided roadside sign 

in who's great shadow they 
currently presume to reside—

Look
Out—There's Gonna 
Be A 
Brandnew Outlet
Mall Here 
Come Next Year—it swears—come hell

or come 
high water!—I guess 

they must be
betting on the latter.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

YOUR MIND WORKS LIKE A ROTHKO

Wakes
up feeling—

pregnant
with vaguely 

milkwhite pools 

of specious morning—spreading
center 

of gravity—still 
a little

runny yellow—

gradually 
dawning firecolored

plumes 
to ignite—a gas-jet-

hunger for wet fried eggs.

AMERICAN STILL-LIFE

It isn't
that we insist

on changing
things

up
all that much—in fact 

it's exactly—that
we keep sticking

all of this—
beautiful shit!

in the most
abominable bowls and just—

leaving it there!

Monday, October 28, 2013

DISSUADED FOR DECIDUOUS REASONS

Decision 
after—difficult

decision! lays 

waste to a whole host
of amateur wool-
gathering  

poets 
this season!—hellbent

on shearing 
an assiduous little

of October's soft 
light off the old tops 

of its
mangy oak pillars

for the generous 
benefit of imagined
forests of grateful millions—until

for 
instance—heck, are we sticking 

with—persimmon 
then? or 

going—
for the vermilion?

LATE ENTRY

Anyone
out there—quick!
What's a good
word for

the look
of late-
October
light drenching acres—

of about a million
and one mid-
morning breeze-
dizzy branches

of cinnamon-
orange mellow-
ing sweet to bright
crimson??? 

Saturday, October 26, 2013

NEW COVENANT

Go ahead,
man—
bid

good day,
sunshine! all you
want—it's

fine—
the sun

will never
ever again speak—

its mind.

WISEACRE

From your low front
stoop—
a toothless

sallow-
ing withered pumpkin grins—

at this self-
centered
noggin bobbing glum up

and down past in broad
daylight—and I

suddenly
just wanna crack—now that!

right there!—is guts.

ALBERTI BASS

Over and
irrevocably—
over

again, the kingly fat
cardinal

amid
yellow branches—keeps wringing

the same
stubborn ostinato pattern—out

from his red little
hollowed-out collarbones;

so regular! it's

practically
reversible—and similarly,

almost

irrevocably-
so!

Friday, October 25, 2013

A THOUSAND MONKEYS TYPED THE FOLLOWING—

No poet out there
worth his salt
will ever
type you the truth;

it's never—
go and stuff!
all these
little everyday epiphanies!

or that—
passion is actually no one's
responsibility!

He won't because
he knows

we ought,
first,
to be
courteous and cosmopolitan and kind—

Shored-
up
by our words
and not
the other way around.

And if words
ever aren't enough,
it's because
enough isn't all!

for being—the real
kind—is just so much
bigger!
than any thin
description of being feels.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

LANCE OF PERCIVAL

It's like—you just want
to cup

the thing 
itself in the palm

of your hand—so bad

but all you can 
success-

fully grab 

without 
wrecking—

the whole situation is the readymade handle.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

POSTMODERN CAFE

The overt way light flirts
with gold-
filigreed 
glass plates—behind which such 

tall 
and red
and white-
dappled parfaits and glossy butteryellow

wedges over-
crowded with dizzy
-ing 
spools of burnt-up meringue 

are twirling 
and twirling
on chilly silver trays—is particularly

discourteous!—just

typed-
out in blank space like this.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

AN EXPECTORATION BEFORE BEGINNING

While I'm thinking—
two diverging songbirds
reveal the sky
for what it is today; an enormous space to just enjoy!

And at last I know
what thought
it is these pages ought
to occupy—not that

space between what is
suitable and what's
appropriate,

but rather—
the possibility
that the same note sung

twice In two places,
is really a couple

of different ones.

A HOMOPHONIC TEXTURE

Hail again
there—proud
and silver trans-
verse fluted
stainless partner!

It's invigorating!
to see
you out here
next to me—shedding
sparks and peeling
down
your old
familiar path again!—say, would you

care to dance a while?—maybe
just for half—or
so—a city mile? down
alongside
the wide Dan Ryan—
past tacit do-si-do-
ing hybrids, buzzing
cruisers,
pickups plunking

southbound while the rumbling
semis keep a steady
booming
basso-continuo going?
I'm sure you remember—the tune

plays pretty
brisk out here, but don't worry—
you can always
take a little

grand pause ahead

at maybe—
Garfield,

63rd
or even,

69th, or
something!

Monday, October 21, 2013

TELL 'EM BORIS SENT YOU

Limp and rather
impossibly—another

canned helping of
Monster

Mash
comes sloshing

through tin
speakers at me—whetting

my curiosity
as to—the ultimate

fate of the soul

of some old
fish called Bobby Picket—?

WRITING ON A RENTED WALL

When lo!—bright-
vested 

men come, tearing 
lanes wide 

open—bearing bright-
ly fiber

optic cable! bringing—
interminably 

quickly—shiny 

WiFi to your shithot 
corridor.

DIVERTISSEMENT

This might be 
my 

most recumbent thought—

that any reputable 
dentist

office ought

to invest in a 
sparking-

clean and generally 
impressive-

looking drop-
ceiling.

Friday, October 18, 2013

COMPOSITION MAJOR

The difference—
hopes

the ghost—between
death

and a grand
trans-

figuration
is
only

this—
a few
more notes-

worth
of

space between pianos.

SPOOKY ACTION AT A DISTANCE

Tooth-
less pumpkins—I
know why
you grin! at me out-
side the chilly corner
market—somehow you sense

your ruination
was not
a terrible waste—and now

so-
carved you sit no
longer craving—wholly
quiet and quite
full
of room
for laughing light—whereas

I—feeling
presently just
about as empty—am probably much
more
scared than you ever
were—of whatever starved

faces I make getting
stuck that way.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

DISCRETE MUSIC

It's only this—
reoccurring 

thin sound of rain-
drops 

individually pinging

off things in my 
purview—that seems to 

temporarily
weaken this plexiglass

sense 
of distinction—

between 
what my world is—and what's just

out the window.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

FAMINE

Everything's 
coming

up 
roses;

only—

damnit, 
you planted potatoes.

AEOLUS

How can it
be—that the same 
rush of quicksilver

wind out there motivating 
berserk swarms 
of blackbirds—and

acres 
and acres of itchy tree 
branches 

to such 
wild and irrepressibly 
frantic mazurkas!—

is the same 
one that currently 
commands this old 

mug clutching 
Styrofoam 
cups as he putters 

down 
endless long hall-
ways of co-
workers muttering—

something 
or other 
about—some weather! 
we're having?

SOMETHING YELLOW

After lunch—the salt
and pepper 

beard
who's swaddled

tight in a navy
cardigan 

sweater—
sawing quiet 

easy lumber in the lobby 
corner 

does little
for our security—but wonders

for our comfort. 

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

FIRST PRIZE

Burnt 
and 
orange 

sugar wisps—
spun 
and then swept 

into broad 
colored
buns atop 

cones 
of bleached 
cardstock—polkadotting


the black-
top dyed 
cornsmokey 

carnival back-
drop—
comprise every

chilly kid
here tonight's
best Halloween costume!

TIP FOR AMBIENT MUSIC COMPOSERS

Even after 
finally
dying—look

how quick!
and 

arduously—
late-
season 
leaves seem 

to 
just 
fall right 
to work at staining

each 
of these—

tedious 
raindrops crimson!

Monday, October 14, 2013

PERSONALITY QUIZ

Without even stopping
whatever 

it is you were doing,
just stop

paying any
real attention and  

instead start picturing 
these—leaves on a tree;

broad things and waxy-
flat—to hold 

more cool light—and various
that is—

to say, variously 
perched on the branch 

of a delicious
tree lusty with burly fall wind.

Afterward, quick! answer—
quick! as you can,

were those
subjects?—or 

objects 
you thought-up just now?

Each of them? 
All? And how-

come? And what's
answering—

got anything (quick!
as you possibly

probably can, 
now!) whatever 

to do with that aching-
ly beautifully 

simple—
thing you were doing before?

Saturday, October 12, 2013

DOUBLE NICKELS

For the sake
of which, wide red

lane-
clogging Silverado—yes,
your

resplendent testicles!

are exactly
that—

accessories.

Friday, October 11, 2013

TEMPORARY TATTOO

Mangy trees

drooping
auburn—and henna

crickets
chirp away
in daytime—impressing;

such—

good nights!

for sleep
must be coming—

Thursday, October 10, 2013

CHAMBER MUSIC

Be reasonable
now!—cries a grey
mayor at his monday-night.

Sir, you're 
out of order!—a hard-
tonguing council reams.

This system! It's
broken!—cluck the stout
mothers chorused there.

Our system—
works perfect—clink some 
bottles at dad's flat-screen.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Though thoroughly
stirred—
I swear 

I can hardly understand 
a word
of all these 

Arias of Verdi's—I just

like the way 
the bass
voice makes me feel—mild,

kind of
sweet—and then
swirly, like a gooey 

crespelle batter bubbling
off—in the 
pan of the tight little kitchen

of somebody some-
where who 
loves some-

one else
just—
enough to cook 

pointless-
ly difficult things like me 
up

just—
for little-
old 

her on his off-day.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

ULTIMIST

The October sky 
is neither 

full,
nor empty—

The October sky is a huge 
and blue

eye—
scratched-up here 

and there 
around the sides by 

a few harmless 
contrails; and the meaningless white 

iris of a sun isn't really 
looking at things

so much as just—
picturing them. Can't you

just see that? Or 
at least—

no, never-
mind.

ACCIDENTS ARE

Candy yellow bus-
fulls of careening kids' 

silhouettes' brisk 
permission slips waving—

hollering 
down tickertape 

express-
ways this morning—

making surrounding 
flat two-door float pilots

still less-
excited—to get where 

they're going—

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

REAL YOGA

Must be something
like this—to rise 
and 
shine and dress warm-
hearted and keep 
on bidding—hello again, there, 
hand-
some each day to your rundown habitat.

To say—another arcane 
morning, have we? Coolness, friendly 
fruit flies, spotty mirrors, fresh 
coffee cinders!—when 
Kanye West and FM classical 
start commingling 
in your barefoot mind like 

new math—
recondite, but not 
quite as
dusty-hard 
to figure out as those
red plums splayed out 
across the table; to still stay 
open enough 
to wonder—are these, maybe, half-
remembered half
notes on some Delphic 
staff? Or—
where-in-hell'd they
come from at all? All while you're 
busy sun-
saluting really
quickly
since, truly—

each new day is such—
a stretch.

AIRPLANE MODE

Hey kid, why
don't you
turn
off that hither- 
and- 
thithering—chatterbox
of a thing 

and just 
look up!—and listen;

aspirating 
out from a summer's old  

bag 
of innuendo tricks,

—a tickling wind!

and 
suddenly—
every fall

leaf in the tree laughing!

"Why go on?"

Now—look down
at that leafy 

bramble 
of burntyellow
orange stuff that's swirling

around 
on the long-shadow ground,

and see 
how it really

brings-
out the 
true green—of every

miraculous damn crushed pack of Newport 
100's on the lawn!

Why go on?