Monday, March 31, 2014

CRESCENDO

Quiescent and 
perfectly 

balanced—here at last

on the first
expectantly
raw but not yet 

bleeding 
edge 
of April—we may,

if we like—
each begin
to observe 

those 
scraps of wild woods 

we love most 
in our world—presently and unmistakably 
growing;

not yet 
a bit greener,
but rather 

gradually—if not 
altogether

musically—
louder,
and more 

and more 
jampacked—with melody.

Sunday, March 30, 2014

MAGIC EYE

Now that you're—at least
as old 
as the whole wide 

world—do you cry?
a little 
less often 

than you used
to back 
when you were small? Or

do you
simply—not really notice 
that much anymore 

as more 
and 
more—by 

and by—you gradually
grow

perhaps just 
a little 
too used 

to seeing the reasons why?

Friday, March 28, 2014

ANOINTED

Nothing— 
you could list
is just

what it is—

least of all this 
slippery grey and 
gloomy thing 

pronounced—morning 
in spring;

look hard—and there's 
always 
these small kisses

of sun-
light slipping 

around inside 
each big fat new drop
of dull
rain on your windshield;

or merely—begin
to feel around 

for the faint 
oily 
residue—of old Chopin 

that's slow-
ly
but

surely—
lubricating your traffic jam.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

THE FIRST POEM

A poet—
is a 
poet, 
is 
a—poet,
remains a poet!

even 
while he
is silent-
and dreaming.

Before his fame—be it
real 
or imagined—before 

any fantasies regarding
the perfect 
line lengths
and feet
that will lead—eventually 

to editions—with line numbers
and foot-
notes
and those great discrepancies over specific pagination—

but—and 

even! before it
exists in the scrawniest graphemes;

before its symbolism 
gets cast- 
out in cannibalistic symbols—distilled in 

a manner characteristic 
of a stale and inescapably 
pre-given system;

before it even begins
to live 
for him!
The thing gleams—

the poem 
in its raw first idea.

It exists—in his dream

at its absolute
best
at present—when

nothing yet
has been 
said—and nothing—

absolute,
heartrending,
beautiful nothing—

has ever been made
so perfect-
ly 
manifest.

AMALGAM

Kate—I'm afraid
you 
and I 

start to run together 

whenever I see us
walking mid-

western
Great Lakeside—

light clothes 
on blue 
breezes, white 

laughter 
crossing
tall ships—it all

just pretty
much swirls

and gets rather 
indecorously 
jumbled together—such that

there—along my warped 
mind's
fantastic old boardwalk

toddle the bobbing four
legs
of a two-
headed rumpled-
but-
lovable monster—

its several 
rows 
of jabbering 
jaws lightly flapping 
and sinewy 
arms tied
up so tightly
together 
and—occasionally a few

surreal lulls—whenever 

a long garish
twin- 
tongue 

comes un-
apologetically lolling

out 
to skim 
the tip-tops 

of two—freakishllarge individual 
triple

chocolate chip waffle cones.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

PROGRESSIVELY PRETTIER PAIRS OF GLASSES

We're obsessively watching
from both
far and close-up

such rich 
and mega-
looking stuff—

the hugest sensational Super-
clusters!

and precious-
ly tiny neutrinos!

in showstopping
action-
able beautiful

pursuit 
of the Big Reveal—but all the while

neither 
the large 
nor the littlest things 

we've tried—
offers much 
in the way of 

sensible fashion advice—in fact

neither one really 
seems to be shedding 
a very nice light

at all
on what's right 

smack
in the middle—why ever 

are we still?
so awkward 
and so 
uncomfortably here?—ugly

and ungracious
and 
ungrateful—all the while just 

continuously—
bumping into the furniture.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

ENDGAME

Drifting up-
ward,
as if purposefully 

prompted—
by a brief stout sun-
eclipsing cloud,

my thick eyes 
began
at once to scan the wintry morning

sky—and soon were
fixed upon
a lean but clearly 

large and far-off sparrowhawk.

Swiftly turning 
such 
fiercely economical 

and dead-
silent 
circles on the cornerless wind,

they struck me—each

of my cousin's 
steady
fastidious maneuvers— 

as, like my own, completely rational 
and beautiful
manipulations of 

a given environment—but very

unlike the poem
I had
in my mind

already 
begun 
the task of compiling—performed 

without any regard 
and
completely outside 

of whatever 
eventual—
unconscionable goal.

Monday, March 24, 2014

UPSWING

Beautiful crudeness 
of raw early 

springtime 
smearing neighborhoods—

so much wet earth!
piled up

high in each
terracotta birdbath—


OUTLOOK

With indecorously chattering 
teeth and low lips 
still quivering—

outside (on the yet-
frozen 
cusp of the fourth 

month or not)
we have—nevertheless
all got

to stand- 
up and start
applaudingthe clean clout

and immense 
brawny
prowess of cold—so good! 

at strangling—
even
the slightest idle 

quicksilver 
breath out of 
every last 

lazy enigmatic cloud—
up there
that's foolhardy 

enough 
to loaf around—so 
frivolous 

and inexplicit—as if 
somehow 
to flout  

the exacting rigor 
of our frigid
champion's ruthlessly

clear—devotion 
to
sheer economy.

Saturday, March 22, 2014

RETROACTIVE PROOF OF THE ROUNDNESS OF EARTH

I. 

The very best song
the blue planet

has got—
is actually a Cello 
Suite by Bach.

II.

But the coolest 
one—John Lennon

wrought—and it
got greenlit
titled "I Am The Walrus."

UTOPIAN—

Such perverted 
insidious-

ness of grey city 
Saturday 

afternoons—breeding 

simultaneously—
contemptible chocks-

full of grubby street 
traffic—and 

somehow—bright
chimerical 

chockfulls—of 
fresh street parking!

Friday, March 21, 2014

AUGURS

How auspicious looking!
is 
even the filthy 

low-
down fog that fills 
the concrete 

basins of 
Chicago's hills—

on a misty cold morning 
when you feel
this profusion 

of hungry confusion— 
persists because 
your slow savvy sun—still so 

abstract and far 
off—
has something so much

deliciously warmer—
in store 

for this 
afternoon's air.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

FAST CANVASS

Punch Yep—

to 
elect

for
auspicious-

ness 
everywhere

all of the time.

EQUINOX

Come on now 
pale slit
of fugitive sun—what's say you and I

first take a deep
breath to widen-
out—make the leap

and both 
finally
emphaticallycome-out together;

no longer cloaked 
simply—in our crescent intent 
to litter 

the landscape
(which seems now—I know
to be sloping 

up everywhere 
endlessly
toward us)

with polite
sorts of that sanguine 
and glittering kind 

of recondite
indirect candor—
we've each

in the past 
been so criminally-
well-known for;

let's declare together
with a clear 
bit more transparency today

our honest intentions 
to start openly
wringing—however violently 

a couple measly drops 
of this—immeasurable spring 
waterrighteously out

from these frozen
archaic 
and erstwhile-domineering 

old structures—
as they hemorrhage
obliquely away.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

WET BLACK BOUGH

Interpret 
those—vague pretty

words 
how you will—

whenever 
he's away (which is 

always,
he's afraid).

What's 
important—if patently

impossible 
to explain

is really— 
just 
how he'd merely 

received, 
then 
redelivered them;

on a single,
particularly 
mild evening in winter—

inspired 
by what

he first read 
as self-
similar—vague pretty 

signatures 
of faces—

awash 
in such profusions

of flattering,

flattering,

flattering rain.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

PARALYSIS OF THE POKER FACE

I swear—the only three cards
I'm willing
to plunk down anymore

at the madcap green 
table where all 
of the boldest  

and longest-
toothed gamblers in rumpled-
up tuxes are gathered

each make the following 
milkywhite faces—
weak 
lean 
and leery.

Brash!—
was a feckless 
and deplorable
and beautiful bold forth kind

I once 
would have trembled—like a fiend
to throw down;

but that—was before

I first got
a little—
too used 

to the constant 
and excruciating-
ly great pangs
of hunger—and accordingly 

shrank down 
in form 
and in stature—in fierce hunched protection

of that palefaced 
and 
softboned 
and
stark-raving carcass-

about-town—
of 
stupid little child

of an idea—
that I can't just unhave now.

Monday, March 17, 2014

MEME FOR LEAVING WORK LATE

That feeling—
you get 
late 
at night 
when you're walking 

with no
soul and far too 
few cigarettes 
left towards
the last lonely
car in the 
shrewdly landscaped lot—shivering

like that haggard
and scrawny 
short pack 
of paperback 
maple scraps you're 
presently moving
with fast and
hollow steps past—and wondering

as usual 
while you pass—do I 
appear still
like them?—so young
and so 
dumb and 
so eagerly holding

onto 
what's left
of a few piddling 
scraps 
of those
dead mementos of last year?

ASPECTS

Faintly—but 
for real 

this time—like echoes

of some funny
old words—that only 
afterwards

in retrospect
came 
dancing their way

length-
wise 
across the plain 

edges of 
your dim young face—

now
the rows

and rows
of snowy
continental fields all seem 

this morning
to really feel 

the gentle golden
kiss of sun
and finally 

blush with a more 
legitimate 
ardor—in my own dry 

and cracked 
and broke 
and coping

brutal winter face's
toiling 
hard to laugh—direction.

Friday, March 14, 2014

JOB DESCRIPTION

Poems will always 
lead 
to questions—

and questions 
usually
deadend at problems—

which a reader 
works really 
hard to solve—

while the poet—at home 
between

bites of 
corned beef—dissolves them.

TURN TURN TURN

The one
rather—
truly sweeping 

thing about
an honest 
break in the weather

lies precisely
in the way
in which there is—no change

whatever—in the way
in which 
a jejune yellow

morning sun 
tips— 
to regard brown brick;

but rather—a wide
heaping
cityfull of swinging!

in the way in which—buzzing 
lightened-
up commuters'

eyes will tend
to regard—
with steep flights 

of rapt and 
brightly 
transfigured attention—the same 

perfect-
ly 
plain relation.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

TO THE HUNGRY DANCER—

If talent were just
hot tomato 
soup, kiddo—we'd both

be living famously
off your great bottom-
less 

bowls—of that goopy good
cream of 
vermillion stuff—

soothed warm 
and sated—and impervious 
to upwards 

of about—ten million
more 
of this second 

and long 
city's—thoroughly 
frustrating

re-
auditions of winter.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

DON'T BUY THE HEURISTIC

How much
could it possibly 
realistically be costing?—I mean

all that catchy 
music—
that's constantly playing 

behind
and 
in back-

of
and under-
neath slick everything?

DOMINION STILL

Of all—
the glitzy 
and greenshingled homes

and the new-
fangled clamoring 
storefronts that sprawl—

with proud 
slanted roof lines—in a glaze
across the lengths

of another latterly
unhumbling
suburban boulevard—it seems only

the old grim
and squat—straight 
up and down

limestone-
stacked 
chapel of 

a tacit Saint 
John 
of the corner lot—

truly looks
as if it—plainly 
and guiltlessly knows

how to own 
the whole morning's 
vast—and so 

patently
unspendable—fortune of snow.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

RITE OF SPRING

Just how 
is it
you dare presume—

to sell

the rough-hewn 

outside

world—such prim 

and repeatable


iterations 

of its own wild-

flowers!—oh

overly

waxed 

and vulgarly brown-
lacquered—

combination-

liquor-and-
grocery store?

Monday, March 10, 2014

CONTINGENCY POEM

In case of 
blurry

nauseous—relentless 

dizzying 
march 
of dissimilar days—

please put
down 
your worn out and

newfangled 
slogans
from Pound—and just:

make it cohere!

Saturday, March 8, 2014

LENTEN OBSERVANCE

On a gray 
and gradual-
ly—grayer 

windblown mid-
March 
afternoon—

neither still
winter, 
nor much 

like spring—the view 
from a
raw Chicago avenue

of distantly orangeyellow 
and blue 
and rubycolored—church windows 

looks particularly dark 
and 
unclean 
and 
not special—compared with 

the nearer-by crowded 
mirth of 
pink faces brimming 

that's fogging-
up 
the plain glass 

edifice of Stan's—
indefatigably catholic-
looking donut shop.

Friday, March 7, 2014

ROOM FOR CREAM

In that soft lavish 
instant 

between my judicious
ginger pouring

and the slow dilation—of warm 
white milk—it unfurls;

the sheer comfort 
that comes 
from admitting—

that coherence 
is simply—a compliment 

I keep
discharging neatly

into certain little discrete
ideas I rather 
like together—such as

morning 
coffee—heaps of black

tea once it
hits twelve noon—and of course 
something 

or other 
decaf—every single night.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

COUP

Just what 
sort of sagging scenario 
have you now

to cling to, bloated and hemorrhaging 
empire of winter?

Face facts.

All over—one of these 
braver
and more broad-shouldered mornings,

the gaunt-
cornered and dry men

and women of this country
will stand, 
stretch and—doubtless
rubbing out each of their two starving eye sockets—begin 

to step—slowly out 
past 
your raggedy borders;

grimacing towards the impetuous, raw and
sheer ugly 
newness of the weather,

but—at least 
no longer so unsure 
of daring to trundle over

such harrowing
and utterly 
oppressive frozen lots as yours—and gradually growing 
ever more certain 

only of the completely independent idea 

that this stiff and harsh and 
still-cold 
air will carry all-the-better—melodies;

new anthems worth exploring—of spindly, 
impetuous, still-
faint young voices 

out there 
somewhere—even now—covertly 

lusting
to perch and start 
pecking-

away 
at the knots 
of your lean white woods.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

ROADSIDE EXPLOITATION

And I swear I don't
usually go 
in for that kind of thing!—but while 

driving along
at the 
height of this particularly 

lonely 
and slow-

going snow-
crusted 
storm warning morning—

at the sight of one certain
and highly 

suggestive—vulgar
and flagrantly
graphic old billboard—I could feel, somewhat 

specifically, my hitherto 
frozen-
stiff upper

lip start to quake,
and 
quickly—a moistening

and lifting
in my gummy thick soft-
palate—quivering 

in a perfect 
and uncontrollably-
tight choreographic tandem

with my poor pent-up soul,
which—
at once began leaping

and straining, 
frothing- 
mad at its pathetic 

little tether—choking 
and gasping 

and craving to fly fast

after the steamy 
and overly
idolized sight—of those 

totally stacked- 
looking—blueberry pancakes.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

CREATIVE JUICE FOR MATT KERSTEIN

There's none of it left
in the red- 

hot-handled pot—that's been 
scalding 

away on 
the burner since your motivated

thundering through here
first moved me 

to put it 
and leave it there—practically yesterday!

Luckily,
I've still got this
uncountable 

plenty—of its
antecedent lots locked 
up here—in the tap!

RAGA FOR THE WALK SIGN

It can
be 
just so

titanic—
to stand 

alone 
at hard 

corners
down-
town—and 

to listen

back 
to 
the drone

of the
city
you call

home—and then
to 

gradual-
ly
under-

stand 
still 
more clearly

the profundity—
and dull
edgeless 

banality 
at once—of 

the fact that 
you're

actually 
part 
of what's—still

even now—
making that sound.

Monday, March 3, 2014

CHICORY SUTRA

Just try to 
calm

down now, a little
and notice—

how the light
through

the far frosted 
kitchen

window 
works perfect

magic on a brickbrown
arrowroot-

biscuit-crowned and
comfortably

pallid 
yellow custard—that's been 

tactfully 
ensconced—in this glass

cup adjacent 
to—that plain

mug 
of bitterblack

half-
decaf coffee.


FUNERAL MARCH OF SOME OTHER MARIONETTE

The more I manage
to trudge—
with accumulating

confidence—
through the mute 
and turgid 

bulk of enduring 
corpsewhite weather

(my tough little soul 
with each 
step straining—for some soft clearance  

to leap 
forward and sing
and laugh and start whirling such

musical cartwheels 
in the here-
and-there still-drifting frigid 
shards of glitter—)

the more I seem
to take
in stride—the dreadful implications

lying still-
entombed beneath 
the flecked 

and filthy enormity 
of this 
upside—that I'm currently stumbling-
over;

that is—at least
I cannot say

I've ever felt 
less 
mournfully desperate!for 

the neverending 
kind
of silence

being foisted- 
down 
upon the landscape—by the overall 

still-
as-yet unremitting 
and absolute 

ubiquity   
of winter's—thick dull pall.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

GOSPEL OF SATURDAY

Here in the more 
casual 
and living familiar

hell 
of the bored and cool 
twenty 

first century, it seems
we've all
decided—finally

to do something a little 
less-trying
with old Sunday morning.

But interestingly,
nothing much—in the now
rather confusingly and

boundlessly
compounded interim—appears 
to have changed 

regarding how violently 
a fresh
stuck and bled Friday 

night
continues to strain
as it—ungraciously still

wailing and 
draining away—keeps relentlessly
gesticulating

forward—in a desperate 
and particularly 
unseemly

and unmodern—
desire to forever
and always 

have already 
meant something—by
today.