INQUISITION

grim off-
white—

cap 
a little
hairlinecracked—

lowerjaw long
gone—and emphatically  
made manifest

across your 
deliberately
perpendicular tibias—a gimmick; 

just a small
hack 

for remembering—
that

harm—
especially

that
kind masquerading as

help—is the oldest 
and holiest 

trick
in the book.

SONG OF ACHILLES

Wait wait
wait—so let 
me get this straight;

the whole stupid race—ain't even
quite
finished yet

when its 
oldest—and by 
far the most 

famous
strider—just face-
plants and 

gets disqualified?—Dang,
guess maybe it was just 
starting to look

too pretty?
too pretty—too
pretty tired—after

mile-
after-magnificant-
ly mucilaginous mile!

of strivin'
so hard—
to constantly keep all that 

goddamned and 
hot runny
calcium—ossified!

WHATEVER—

Ten a.m. 
already and—still
that chilly
but ardent—but sleepy

old sun superior 
is up there—somewhere 
above the blue brusque city,
softly 

chuckling and
yawning—and of course
tugging—away at
his extrathick 

pearl autumn covers
and mumbling—You just go right ahead there
gentle-
businessmen! Endeavor!

to keep
starting your cantankerous 
leafblower engines! 
so sure and square-

ly pointed
as I know
they are surely—and irrevocably 
into that 

much younger, 
blithe and—so much more
hopelessly eager—Lake
Michigan wind!

DRY

What I definitely 
meant
back there—was that

my legs—
don't feel the least 
bit!

like wet cement;
what I think
I must

have accidentally 
said—right before I
quickly

dropped

down dead—was something 
clunky 
about lead instead.

PROCLAMATION

We hesitate herein
to emancipate the trick—but now think 
it perfectly consonant

to admit—America
gets built
like this—every time an Eagle sings

Take It Easy—

overhead 
in falsetto
on a waiting room radio—

another built-to-be
perpetually
almostdone highway

cambered and jack-
hammering from suburb to suburb—so much less
sober

and circumspect 
than the old legend
is—nonetheless

unanimously
re-
branded—Abraham Lincoln.

MAKING VINEGAR

Wasn't it all just
so lame!—how when 
push came

to shove—late last
night 
at around five

in the would-
be ripe
climax of morning—and the 

moonstomached and
rotting old
God of the past

finally bucked-
up against
that wine red and salty bright

wave of the future—

the skirmish that
necessarily followed
only resulted—inexorably

in a slow dribbling
slobber—of 
pisscloudy purple?

BOLOGNA

Dang it
Aidan—
this is a little nuts

but I'm willing
to own up—

that wherever there's 
good luck
and low-fives 

and pushes coming 
to shoves,
you can pretty safely 

lop-off any 
of those yucky 
corner parts 
you don't love—

so long as
in return, you just 
trust them

when each 
of those
stubborn items 
begins begging to insist 

that you never
dare try
to cope alone 

with the tremendousness 
of however 
many other 
mouths like yours
one could feed 

off of 
nearly seven years!-
worth of 

chopped-off
sandwich crusts.

KNOT

How can it be?—that now
all
the scree 
and the bold rubble

that your tough and immodest-
ly dead 
grandmother ever was 

to you—
an off-limits series

of dark carpeted 
stiff rooms—plastic and overloaded
with huge oak 
bowls of odd-

numbered and fluke-
shaped white- 
striped penny candies—the vague hazel 
stubborn reek of an indiscreet

liquor cabinet—littered always
with portraits,
with glossy poker chips, with that chipped amber 
bust of Franz Liszt—the smell 

of which was compounded
no less often—by the impressions
of about a hundred million 
stuckon gummy savory

ghosts of some
much older country—fanning out from within 
the dank and cramped 
olive oil kitchen;

how can it be—that now 
all
of these ponderous things

rise to your mind—so weightless-
ly quick and easily?
whenever
you so much as—glance down

at the dumb
blue vein now jutting 

out from your own 
rather stubborn—and
increasingly leathery hand.

WORKS PROGRESS

On the bright side—if you weren't so ensconced 
in such a
rather stiff 

and gray 
nonchalance yourself—

you would likely
burn out—
long before ever even

coming close
to looking 
up and appreciating—the morning shift's huge

and shiftless
daub of clouds—a whole crew just sort of loafing 

around—so beautifully 
unruffled—

and detached 
from their 
vocation—cold-patching 

all—or some 
or most—
of the holes

in a public space that sure didn't 
seem to need 
any 

fixing yesterday—

NET OF GEMS

Right before 
finally agreeing 
it might be good see someone—you realized

something 
might be off because—
the number 

of perfect pearls
of autumn rainwater—now

beaded—
still 
and clear 

on a fallen yellow
spear—of a cool
thin and narrow leaf lying

and glinting back
up in the
quickening sun—was

somewhat disappointingly—
one off 

from your lucky one—

PURLOINED

Feels crooked

to suggest—this crusty

cardboard 

sign—splayed streetwise

out beside 

its signature 

semi-

supine figure

and beckoning—Every 

Little Bit Helps

could possibly 

have 

reckoned—with these

pockets bulging-

full of toothpicks.

ODE TO THE ROAD TAKEN

Having—already attended
the goddamn

thing this far—I thought;
might 
as well lower

your rented ear 
down
to this—American ground 

and just accept—right here
the final 
verdict as rendered.

It's not as if—The Dream 
is over—

I heard—then waited
for 
the better 

part 
of an hour 

before finally appending—on my own
as I rose

with a smirk
it's more like—
the dream is ended.

FIRST RESPONDER

Accosted 
at another—spindling brown 
and perfectly

charcoal black 
corner of the westside—
by sirens

and feeling 
the proud belabored
throbbing—of their 

idling diesel engines;
the very 
first thing

I manage to wonder 
is—not even 
whether

but—how well
such a mad operation
ports to network television.

SAUER

Gnawing—I suspect
a good bit 
more

intently  
than I meant—on the scrawny thin 
pith of a toothpick

in my kitchen—alone
I supposed
until presently visited

by this—situationless feeling;
of first each 
and then every

teeming gland
beginning to itch 

up and down—howling
ululating twitching—until
a billion bloody vessels dilating

pulsing—then squeezing
tighter
to strangle 

tiny drops 
of salty water—
out of both corners 

of my two big ugly mock eyeballs bugging-
out over 
hot nostrils 

now bawling after 
whatever—
incredible disaster 

is fermenting 
away—over there
in a fruitfly feted 

crock in the pale corner.

COUNTERPOISE—

Don't look up now
runner—your good old 
familiar 

marquee is all
of a
suddenly missing—as 

erstwhile bold
whole 
streetsides full 

of gold-
dappled umbrellas
clap shut 

or else—slap 
so wet and tempestuously upwards.
Although—don't

you dare regard 
down below either—where spitupon roads 
hiss to hear the tires

and the waffle-
iron soles 
of so many other hale hikers'

formerly so 
uninhibited vehicles—
now weakly

dribbling 
away 
their ambitions.

LEGEND OF ZELDA

Kate—if it wasn't so
true

it'd seem downright
spooky—how 

any damned
and costumed—

Halloween
queen can dance 

and jive
in undead platform 

shoes—but only you

are alive 
enough—to 

hectically
juke—in Kokiri boots.

PASSIVE VOICE

All along 
the detached diagonal 
corridor—monday 

morning's foggy 
West Town brand 
of older 

young men—

gaunt
but
vague and bravely 

late in rising—
stepping each

outside 
so cagey
to light

a fluke cigarette
in near-
perfect

unison
with each 
of his disconsolate neighbors—

looks 
to me—not at all 

coincidentally—
perfect in whatever clothes.

SECCO

Retire! and rest 
those overripe
throats now
all you—blessed fat

bands 
of little finches!

Charmed 
though 
our cottonbrown

bedraggled sidewalks are—
by 

your catchpenny 
dotted quarter
profusions of chirping;

a thicker pall—
of dull
autumn now calls—for a

somewhat less supple 
frugal black
outline—unaccompanied

of just—once in a windgust
a single 

and 
distant—

desiccated caw. 

BAZAAR

Strange—but long 
after 

the moment
is over—I still just can't 

stop myself
from 
graphically picturing—

the steel 
glossy blueeyes and fierce leather-
drawn 

tips of the woman—

behind the smart
flossy card-
table's

spindles of fingers—

steadily 
darning
away in her kitchen—

day after next—
any! 
such insolent

slight imperfections—in wool 
puppy sweaters.

PEDESTRIAN

When finally—ultimately
mere inches away

from
the sheer quaking hissing and 

chromeswollen bulk
of 

the odd—yet rectangular
Company 19;

the most steady thought
I can still think

conspicuously—is
fire-

engine
red's—about right.

COME TOGETHER

Perfectly ordinary 
wednesday—

or tuesday? Here you come,
eventually,
grooving up slowly—

in band aids, 
with knees nagging,
with bad sound 

and a few crotchety 
rashes, et. cetera—in shy shoes and

shambling—
out past
the usual 

old hats and 
flat tops;

those pretty blue cinders 
and glinting,

shards of tempered
brown glass,

and those shabby
black plastic liquor
bags windswhirling, and things like that—

until—presently
spotting 

the—hardly 
rare either—shiny little sidewalk penny.
Except that

this!—is exactly
where 

the rest—
of the 
band kicks back in.

RECAPITULATION

Sausaged
blunt
and rudely—
in soot-

dark and bad
early
rough drafts of overalls—

pockmarked,
stockingcapped,
shouting—

past hastening 
of hammerbangs, of
ladder clank,
of asphalt 
shingles crashlanding—somehow

the entire army

of slovenly,
ruddyfaced
roofers—next door to me

is really—
doing 

a very lovely job.

RESPITE

What? on earth 

is rain—if not first

and foremost—a word

wrung

from fountain

pens—for plenty 

of

plain waterfalling—then flung

back out onto

the world

that supplied it?

But then—

which? and what

kind—

and where?

and how and how many—? Plainly

this sort—of 

vast indoor 

work—desperately 

needs some more revising.

Luckily—it's raining out;

so now—the best application 

of that 

word—is mercy.

STRICKEN

Embarrassed to say—I may
have wasted 

too much precious
time beholding

the stooped old neighborhood
woman—sweeping

with rote economy—
meager concrete

steps this morning—fleetingly clear
of their discommodiously

clean-
looking trust of rich yellow leaves.

NONPAREIL

First full moment of October—soft
but adroitly 
midtempo waltzing 

streetside with little 
equanimous Lucy—nosing
among apropos troves 

of downed brownish leaves
crunching, free news-
papers crisp and windstrewn and so-on—

with such aplomb
for hidden soft spots
in the sidewalks 

on which to whirl
then doubleback and park 
and piss quick—

and me there 
no socks and sneakers—chilly looking after 
her long low 

back, as ever—
feeling tickled, but
not laughing.