Saturday, November 30, 2013

FEMORAL

Flintsharp
little
green Korean

emissary motivating—
sun-
harangued and bumping

up and
down through final
leg of deepest

south—stay
your tough
arterial course!—just keep

thumping—
such exotic
truth of Justin Timberlake!

Friday, November 29, 2013

SHADOW BOX

The inside
mechanics—of late

autumn's
best kinds

of brown are never
clearly defined—only

repeatedly!

and jointly advised—
by late-

arriving committees
of afternoon

sun and low
steady motion of

cars
like yours—flickering

windows through droves
of those-

colored Kentucky sorts—
of pines.

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

SORRY, SHACKLETON—

Forgive! 
the sound—

of hollow antarctic 
wind—

whose 
dull wail

I'll explore—
one hundred

years 
or so later—in order

that I might
lay claim

to better—

or, 

at least less-
deplorable—

sleep over some of my fussier weeknights!

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

THESIS

If the hunch
you lust
to prove
is tough—
that's probably
because
you're up
too close.

For instance—I just
got done
longing—
to suspect
that every lonely

mirror—out there
in the world

unexamined
as such
by a figure (like me
who needs—
from the
first—so much!
to be there)

cannot just-
ly exist
as a mirror
one bit!

Only—I didn't
know how
to think that
with justice

because I realized
I'm always
either standing—far,

far,

far too much
out-front
of such things

or else—just
in-front enough.

EMPTY PRAISE

Even on tough
full days—like this
there are these

sort of soft spots
to find
where imagination—which is

nothing really—gently
swishes
in and floods around—filling

more than
just some void
of god.

But where voluptuous
air and empty
arcs of light

are simply
glorious
enough on their own—

what use has thought
for a loaded word
such as seraphim?—let alone

an actual—
whole crowded
host of them?

Monday, November 25, 2013

FOR YOUR CARUNCLES

Felt a quick
pang spreading—there;

vague and 
thick in my quaking low 

back—upon lowering
your particular-

ly sleek pink and 
cold chassis carbuncular

down—for now, to the bottom-
most shelf of a Frigidaire;

and—without even 
really thinking—named it 

not thanks, but sympathy—

Friday, November 22, 2013

BACH COMPLEX

Gee—it's
swell

and
all—how well
the strings play

the themes—sawing

away—workman-
like—at such
symmetric
taut and
fresh teleological

arguments—
but truth

be known—all I really
want

to be told
is how?

could someone
who's simply—a little cobbler
by day—ever wind-
up—out there!

in tails!
decked-
out in black and sonorously

conducting
the whole affair?

Thursday, November 21, 2013

CAR COLUMN

For an invariably 
different

take on your 
daily 

commute—simply

look—
for 

heartbeat—out 

from any
number 

of far
less-

straightforward windows.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

LEAVES OF GRASS IN A NUTSHELL

Stand clear, John F.
Jasper John
Cash Clay DiMaggio!

Take cover, Woody
Allen Brian
Wilson Guthrie Ginsberg!

I think—
I'm about to sneeze
gross America,

over
and over—snotty

and
queer—all over

America! That is—
whatever

scraps
of America I hear

you're likely—
to come by

and wipe
off—America's

chapped ass with later!

STILL LIFE WITH FRUIT

Most of the time—
I couldn't

care less—
that the apples 

most precious to me 
aren't clinging

red to trees—or even 
heaped green

to look 
pleasing in glazed 

concave porcelain—but rather,
just inertly 

dangling—from 
the ends of white chargers.

AUTUMN LEGEND

It's been said—
by them 

gloomy old
poets that knows—

that way
way way down

at the bottom
of yellow-

orange-
red sleeps a fetid

maroon-
guarded brown—!

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

MODERN MUSIC

Howling surprisingly
hard 
across the cold plains—seems like 

the whole host 
of bare jealous

deciduous treelimbs—has just 
started 

barking—in wind-
rattled
assiduous winter invective—

Christmas is 
icumen in!  Lhude sing

—goddamm-death!

by cold 
axe!

to them!—
conspicuously 

tall 
n' fat—emptyheaded!
blue-
blushin'! mid-

western 
ever-
green chimney-
swab motherfuckers!

A PROGRESSIVELY DISAPPOINTING LITTLE THING

Wild—

bird!-

seed—

on-
sale.

Monday, November 18, 2013

HUH?

Thence—came a cruel
autumn

storm's thorough licking—
and
hence—all the stiffcurly

leaves here
have really

let themselves go!
(all hither
and
thither and
yon and so on) Yet—

provided
with such similar

kinds
of motivation—whither

would dithering I?

More
confusingly—whence? (not to
mention—why?)

ALARM CLOCK EPISTEMOLOGY

It's
just

sound—

that comes 
first;

any
sense—only 

a long,

long, 

long long way afterward—

Sunday, November 17, 2013

RAINY DAY METAPHORS #13 & 36

On a hazy
purple

figment of afternoon—

me
and you

and little
Lucy too—were just

a few
old prunes stewing—

hot
and

creased
and

couched—
underneath

such thick

and heavy
oatmeal-

colored—
chockfulls of blankets.

Saturday, November 16, 2013

UNDOING

The dimestore Arthur
Schopenhauer Buddhist

with all
his orange shiny

negative knowledge—still can't

imagine what it's
like—let alone
believe it;

because his death
won't be

like—
any color
or shape at all!

And knowledge—even the cheap
glossy
tragic stuff—is still just so much

spiraling—
gum-ball machine desire.

"HELL IS REAL"

How unreal!—could
a black-and-

goddamned-
white—gaping Helvetia

interstate billboard
actually

get, Indiana?

Friday, November 15, 2013

FULL DISCLOSURE

The wise old
beginner—an applecheeked boy

practically—
born

laughing
into a 
huge white beard

is a sometime
friend and weird-

ly potent little
notion of mine

when-
ever I feel—that one

too many—
lids are closing.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

O SOLE MIO

Damn
the neutrinos—you aren't

my sunshine—kiddo
you're 

the thing itself;

a heavy
and hideous fusion reaction—I shiver

to even
realize I count on

constantly!—just 
to keep

desperately hot

this cheap chunk 
of rock 

that you're cooking 
me on.

BOYSROOM SATORI

This white porcelain
seat—feels

a little
warmer than it ought to!

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

A CAPRICCIO

If I were 
a bird—I'd just 

fly around!—flitting
my lack

of concern—

for that 
twiggy agreement 

up there 
between—subject

and verb.

SHAKER DANCE

Outside the old stone 
white church—drenched 

in cold November's 
crumbling afternoon 

sun—the western 
wind rattles proudly! his plainsong 

through bald stacks of 
adjacent 

black 
sycamore branches—

Glory! he cackles;
Glory! Hallelujah, America!—

can at least 
still make some snappy old-

fashioned—
American music!

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

ELLIPSES

Most of the time
we're all 
so completely—inscribed 

by who
the heck 
we are—

that we couldn't possibly! swing 
eccentrically widely out-
side of the thing

nearly enough 
to describe it's rough 
shape or its

color 
or weight or intrinsic 
design—even if we tried;

which—incidentally
or more

circumstantially-
speaking—we do—and do 
desperately—

for all

too very 
much of our most of our
all of the time—

Monday, November 11, 2013

THIS POEM IS THE PATCH-BAY

There's hardly anything 
like a transparent 
little—for the sake
of which—

to softly nose a 
quick pinch 
of—significance 

into so many—cold stacks of pretty
knobby
and stiff candy-
colored equipment.

Friday, November 8, 2013

INTERCOURSE

See with
pity—the silvery
blind man

shrewdly tapping
towards the bus stop—forced!

to engage
the whole world
through only the outermost

tip of his cane—but wait

a minute—how
is it

that you do it?

Thursday, November 7, 2013

ULTIMATE PUNCHLINE

Reams 
of their poems—or of drafts

of their thoughts—or of words 

of those thoughts—only just 
written-
out kind of 
ugly 

and—then
tossed! or perhaps—torn

to shreds 
of—such—fresh smithereens raining!

down, but
like—what exactly? exactly!
like that!

Yup—like 
streams, yes!
like streams
of fresh autumn leaves cascading 

so 
as to be—? carefully, no

devoutly!
observed—by an eye and perhaps 
some kind 

of lucky sun? Or—so as to be
just
re-
possessed 
fresh and reprocessed

into much 
smaller
and kindlier! 
kindling for thoughts—to be scrupulously 

scooped-
up and laid-out and then, of course, possibly—
completely

renegotiated later.

For the sake of which—
all poets
are learners—not teachers.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

#1 KOAN

Aren't 
you—

for-
getting 
something?

CHROMATIC SCALE

Up and down the rainy
busy highway, all the hardest-

working colors—the kelly 
green of sheetmetal 

signs, the pale man-made 
grey of roadways and skinny hyper-

reality yellow of thin lines—stand cross 
and stiff—foregrounded 

and jealous—

of the drooping mangy auburn
that slopes to grace those 

loose tresses of trees—and the quick 
shocks of ad hoc persimmon 

that hug scads of shrubs swaying 
listlessly off in the foggy 

and trivially 
pretty periphery.

Why is it?—they grouse,
that some streaks of light 

are damned to be so
plainly—

seen all the time?

While others just get—to hang back
and shoot, pretty vaguely

for some truly amazing—
incidental scenery?

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

PLAN COMMISSION

It's not enough
to just

believe it—brick

by
brick by
brick—you have 

to 
have—an argument

built
and bought ahead 
of time,

in order
to get it eventually

sold, and then 
maybe—finally
 
paid-for.

LAST WORDS OF APOLLO

But!—It just couldn't be 
science
that's hauling 
this ponderous,
chary and 
frosty octagonal thing

gradually—above 
the whole grateful 
sighing ménage 
of orange trees and old castles
that happened to spring 
from the chunky autumnal 
region of rock 
that you survey below—come

on!—think
hard!—everybody

at some point 
or other—has felt that there's 
something
that's far, far too heavy

for physics 
to lift—let alone carry!

Monday, November 4, 2013

HAS HORSE'S EARS

Careful!—there,
reticent 

Monday complexion—look-
out for loose heavenly

reams of leaves 
falling—not exactly

your way, but slightly 
right

at you—
at ten

o'clock, or maybe 
then—sharp 

in the morning—up 
ahead in the cheek-  

stinging wistful 
sweet wind of November—with all 

its 
might whisper-

ing—

What the hell?

what 

the hell? 
what the 

hell
what? 

the hell

are 
you?, sighing

down 
there—still

doing?
not-

laughing—

OPERA PLOT

A soprano 
and chorus's back-
and-forth chattering—implicitly 

concerns the stately 
young
breadwinner tenor—as he hammers

such rich! 
and rhythmically-complex strains 

of butter—onto 

scores of morning
toast with his radio going.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

BOREAL

Salient variety
of whetted

tangy leaves—
originality! forever

is your
noiseless

falling—
fate.

Friday, November 1, 2013

THE POINT IS THAT YOU PROBABLY DON'T

ever notice?—
how
repeatedly

we cope

with all these
illimitable

and pains-
takingly beautiful

solid closed doors—

simply
by
mindlessly

lifting their latches?