Friday, January 31, 2014

SURRENDERS

Hard-
ly listening

heroically to
the FM classical

station—as it continues
to conjure-
up illimitable

piano quintets or
something similar-

ly prattling and swimmy
of Schubert's or
whomever—from my parked

car's little speakers—I'm nonetheless

powerless
to turn
the ignition—and combust

forever
this pretty
precious and powerful

moment
of pure and

decent
taking-or-leaving.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

A SWAN, PRACTICALLY

Kate—I surely love
the slender 

longness—of 
your tender neck 

pretty well
and all 

but 
realistically—an awful 

lot 
less 
arduously—than I seriously need to 

kiss
the stiff
and indelicate-

ness of the
lengths to which it often goes for me.

A WALKING ANEURYSM

It's almost sweet
the way your light heart first starts
to feel slight pressure

as
redgold smithereens
of another early-

dawning winter 
morning—gradually get drawn together;

as those 
smoldering shards 
of last night's quaking silver 
dreamstuff then start

swiftly cooling
into another 
battalion of 
such hard—and brutal ought-tos 

quickening
fast to war now and already
marching onward—forward with fresh arrows for

the onslaughts—and quivers- 
full 
of bloody ardor for yet another 
one 
of yesterday's goddamn-doomed tomorrows.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

ART AS PROCESS

There aren't—exactly 
lots

but there 
are 
some—

times when merely
having already

had 
your idea 

will still you—when that image,

say, of an idle
and windless 
old weather-

vane that once 
stirred you—now just

fills you—all the way 
up till it 
thinks 
it might 
kill you—and suddenly,

low-
and-behold—already 

feels 
like it's—oh so much

much
too much more—than enough.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

APPREHENSION

Abigale, pretend!
pretend!—And then 

one 
bland day—stop 

shuddering 
at—or even 
simply

studying
its subtleties—and instead

just 
take
its hand 

in your hand 
and—without thinking 

shake
that hand 
and feel

truly— 
as a body can

the full-
on
pull of absolutely 

nothing 
holding nothing—back.

Monday, January 27, 2014

WITH DAYTIME HIGHS APPROACHING THE PAUSE BUTTON

All that a—narrowing 
mind 
can still 
note is that

the near-
frozen whites
of its 
tough-to-flit eyes 

have never
been shown 
such a clean 
and near-motionless—smoke

suspended—in spools so
thick
and dead-

silent
and tethered-

up tight 
to remote and 
girded rows of rough rooftops;

as if—
even the most ethereal 
of vapors out there 

must take special care
unfurling—
in such unfeeling air.

Sunday, January 26, 2014

MUSIC FOR THE MODERN WING

Calmly conducted
on
through the next
to last
soft airy corridor

many tired
pairs
of dark boots
step smarty—of their own accord

forward—
in time
by the
light repeating

whole notes—flung
down
across long wooden

staves—by the
perfect
light of consecutive
and
infinite windowpanes.

DEBIT

So much the worse!
for tough
bums making jingling

music—out there
on the
frozen street corner—

that passers-
by
in headphones hustle—bundled

up
even further!—clutching steaming
paper cups

in one hand—and terribly
smart
phones in the other.

Friday, January 24, 2014

NERVOSA

Spry arctic
wind—I just can't
believe you

cartwheeling down
the grey-
purple avenues—

so skinny
and blue and blisteringly
free—while the dismal crowds

make themselves
fatter
and slower in streets

despairing! even as they
trawl on—continuing
to circulate

rumors of your
ongoing
fitness and popularity—

and none
among them
daring enough

to articulate their hunger-
ing hooded

secret whispers
of far-
away—or nearly

impossible
things—like red peaches.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

PERFECT STRANGERS

Thank god!
for those pink 

and Polish 
chubby cops—classic Chicago-

accented brown
and khaki-

clad—ones
who come fast

who stop
and help

and hear—
by the disorienting-
ly flashing and on-
rushing roadside—your side;

whom, later-on 
you remember 
only— 

such mawkish-
ly irrelevant 
miniature things—a plain silver 

band squeezing fat 
and strong fingers—the ones 

that executed 
procedure so reassuringly
deliberately!—

the clean cold
glint of 
a gold bar that stopped after
the letters -s-k-i—

the curious-
ly apropos
rhetorical fact

that after all that, it was
nothing—and they 
simply necessarily never

ever
see you again.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

NO PUSSYFOOTING

Wake up—quick, where
are you?  

At all, or
were you?—Out there yet-
again, I guess—

the only ever 
sober sailor 
pitching—will-less

and wild across 
the wine- 
dark water—remembering

but not 
quite,
the swollen taste of

the wind! Your
cap! 
You're

windy, cap!—keep this up,
and the brass-

ness of your
buttons will surely snap!  

And: what shall we 
What shall we do with a—
What shall we do with a—do with a—do with a

another repetitive    
song about loss?

Resolve
Resolve
Resolve it—yes,

you will become
lost—
in watery labyrinths now
and then—and present
ly find your way 

back home 
again, 

to bed,
again

but next time, 
not quite—that is

to say; a little 
bit less—

indecisively-
so,
and wet. 

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

SUSPENSION

But how?
ought we 
proceed

to breathless-
ly behold—

the lovely look 
of any little
thing that arrests us—when, for instance 

that impossibly 
clean—and comely smoke 

of purest cold—
tinged so 
beguilingly reddish- 

gold by the gaudy 
and 
charmingly soulless 

morning sun 
that wreathes around 

such pretty lines
of glinting 
idle expressway cars—

is the very same stuff 
that's making
our breathing 

more than 
a little 
interestingly hard?

Monday, January 20, 2014

WINTER FLOWERS

Approximately wind-
less—
gossamer veins

of easy
snowflakes
blooming—silent

arpeggios
in fresh
pothole mudpuddles—

Saturday, January 18, 2014

COFFEE MATH

Uncountable chest-
nutty 
dust of arabica—laughing

and whirring 
away in a stainless
burr grinder—tacitly

instructs us
us—that sometimes
our purpose

in-
creases
when pulverized.

Friday, January 17, 2014

SPELLED OUT IN HER TEA LEAVES

Caffeinated well
enough but still—she's walking
dead and

pinched around
the shoulders and
neck; stuck
wondering—stiffly to her
empty cup

at the hellish-
ly winter pale
weirdness—of any such

insidiously
light
and mysterious
force that could possibly
rise any earlier

up than
she does—seemingly just

to coerce her
unbearably

heavy
limbs to come
all the way
dressed every morning

before
abruptly dissipating—giving no
warning
and taking neither

credit—nor responsibility.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

PRACTICING THE PLAYER PIANO

Not a bit
reticent—the shyest kid

in the world
will grin 
and sit with great 

familiarity 
before a brimming keyboard;  

demonstrating 
publicly—its hale 

and its hearty 
and pure aspirations 

had yearned 
for 
as long 
as they lived—only

to counterfeit, lovingly
hers.

And to think—you and I, 

we must have learned
to be brave

in just
that same way—by behaving

repeatedly—as if
we 
already were.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

PLATO MIGHT'VE HAD IT UPSIDE DOWN—

Because—god!—there's been 
some cold

early mornings! when
I've thought

in the dark—that
I might 
only know 

how to love
the unlimited—

touch
and smell
and sight—of such

coarse!
and corn-
stenchy

brownness!—
that's
somehow

instantiated—down there, some-
where,
spread vaguely across

the endless-
ly ill-

defined 
top—
of its dog.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

IDES

There's always
contractions 
in mid-January

All over the city—
that moment
we're finally 

moved
to feel older—

when on top 
of our 
shoulders

the little 
spangled crowns—

the silly holly 
and ivy ones

we've been wandering
around 
here half-

merry with since 
last year—turn brown

and yellowy grey
and get 
wet—and then

frozen—or else
start
to mold-over.

All over town—
our complexions

and our 
outlooks 
all start

to even-out—
until even those

pale browns
that we're left-
with—begin 

to look 
a lot paler—not just

than they 
ought to, but 
moreover—

than they used- 
to
a minute ago!

that is—that minute
or so
right before 

the city—like clockwork:
took 
Christmas back down.

Monday, January 13, 2014

TWIN PEAKS SEASON 2 EPISODE #23

In which—two towering 
cups-
worth

of even—
the blackest

and hottest!
fresh 
coffee on earth—becomes

almost 
certain-

ly
worth a lot 

less—than
two 
separate chipped

little white
cups 
of the stuff—especially!

when pains-
taking-
ly

conceived-
of

then—realized

then—aggressive-
ly 
presented 
(as 
such) as 

so epic-

ly 
adjacent—to each's 

respective 
twin 

plate 
of plain pancakes—

Saturday, January 11, 2014

GRAND JETÉ

Compacted now
but—fiercer!

each rain-
sharpened
body of svelte

curbside ice
in the city
grows somehow

increasingly
insistent—on even

bolder
mis-
appropriations

of ballet
moves—from its usually

stiff
audience—of bulky passers-by.

Friday, January 10, 2014

NO FILTER

Walking slanted
in edgeless

winter, when
my appetite—

like rows of neighbor-
hood blueish

brown brick
houses—soaks a filthy

yellow color, sharply
pointing

toward
a vacant white;

is when
I wish

most of all
that I

still
smoked—hot dry cigarettes.

Thursday, January 9, 2014

SUPER EGO

And Lo—with a 
pop! and a 

quick click,
there was

at once;
just such a

reasonable—justification for 
conceiving

of another cold 
morning's 
tricky writer's 

block
as an injunction—

symbol 
after more apprehend-
able symbol—

towards greater 
devotion to the stark-
outlined

perfect-
ly thick 
squares across 

circles 
of 
unusually salient—

steaming hot waffles.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

DON'T LOOK NOW BUT—

We're still 
impaled—together 

out here—idling
stuck!

in our own white 
city's bright
and collective 
engine's morning uproar.

Stuck! and standing-
frozen-

still—while, 
hell and all- 
around us rush

not wheels
but 

cymbals—by which
I simply must

mean just 
the crashing sound of—

but here, wait;
and 
see; and
let's—
adjust! and—presently

be touched
to notice—an object;

any!
object's—vast 

variety, at last!
Finally
revealed by such 

wide or tiny 
movements,

not of itself, but 
instead,

of us—
its 

oh-so-
willingly down

and 
piteously out- 
bound observers.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

RED CRAYON

Whenever 
it is—

that 
the word 

and 
the thing

are drawn-
together so-
perpetually 

that they start
to move! 
at once—toward their great

goal of
becoming—once 

and for-
all
one 

and
the very 
same thing—alas!—

such specious 
and

pregnant 
sorts 
of 
moments

always seem 
to want 
to tend

to bend
forever
down 
and off
of their container pages—slowly

moving, melting
flowing,

dancing!
waxy
to-
ward exotic
kinds of 

ruination—the kind
known only to our 

awkward boxed-
in
senses

of dignity—as pure 
embarrassment.