SLACK

It's official—nothing

wears your body 

down like

keeping 

still and holding your 

breath, in an increasingly

elaborate pantomime of death, 

while simultaneously chastising
yourself

for not growing
celestial
wings in the meantime,

and wondering the
whole time—whether 

it just can't be done? Or worse,

why?
it just isn't happening

quickly enough

to counteract 

this annoying and

incessant little compulsion

you seem to have developed—to keep 

pinching and  

hoarding and furtively

sniffing up—
little secret doses

of the free, ordinary air 

which seems
to lie
around everywhere,

so stupid
and dispassionately—outside
of yourself.

INTERCESSION

Dear God—
please hear me,
I need you

to understand—
the extent to
which mom

always lets—
me do pretty
much

what-
ever the hell
I want.

GESTALT

Emphatically—the thing doesn't
speak, but it

mumbles

its imperatives. It works,

as a tumbler
in reverse—staining and polluting

that which you'd already purchased 

as shiny, silver,

and perfect-

ly useful. It fouls your image

with the homely
grit of indiscretion, forcing a whole

glut of conspicuous
indecisions—such as

whether or not
it still makes any

sense to try
combing your hair

when you
can't see anything

familiar in there? And though
you try

to wipe away
the condensation,

all you manage
to do is to

muddle the surface
further—so instead, you just 

stand there, still puzzled 

and peering, now

speaking out-
loud to yourself for

the first time
in a long while,

and asking—whether
what lies inside

the gilded frame
more closely resembles—

a chalice?
Or a pair

of—kissing
faces.

SNATCH AND CLEAN

Inhaling compassion—exhaling
pride (for keeping
both inside would surely kill me)

slowly I start to move about my daily exercise.
I walk,
I jot, I push and talk, repeating.

I see the movement, become the movement,
swallow a little water
I carry, repeating. And I notice it tastes good

to me. It tastes so good
and so right
that soon I begin to notice a new endurance, as

steadily I continue now—to move about my daily exercise;
the force and object
of which, presently, feels far less heavy

than it does substantial: to lift
and pull—
the words off of their objects.

HUMAN INTEREST STORY

The puffed reporter's
sheep eyes say more—than a bleating
ten billion newspapers.

DEATHBED EDITION

Devouring Homer,

Whitman,

Christ!—was never enough, 

either to crush their hunger to be clever

or to quench the thirsty 

doubt of their questioning.

And so—as of now

and hereafter, your self 

and your soul would like to announce:

they are giving up,

and have decided to just lay down

and start making love to each other;

taking turns, one

nourishing the other, strictly 

on rhythm—

and achieving, at last, via this

tacit and fictive music—

complete satisfaction.

That is—

that perfect faith

which is utterly inexpressible,

but which is sort of like 

how—the edge of the water

is more than 

the end of the land; it is also

the end of a man, and spells

the end of all his words.

And it seems perverse 

at first, but such

are the little deaths 

we never even realize

we needed.

Until after 

we've already found ourselves there—dumb

and so ready

to fuck.

DUMB SHOW

In the cold streets, 

I watch them pass me neat 

and swiftly,

carried on two stiff bits of sticks

toward various green leathery 

destinations—rumpled behind desks, 

or else shining, golden and 

auspicious somewhere, over

substantially heavy polished counters—

the old man faces. These
supposed geniuses of our race,
whose noses flair, gravely

exhaling smoke and fire and iron 

across the quaffed silver arches 

of their vast incombustible mustaches.

And yet, I cannot resist 

giggling a little 

to imagine—their children,

or, more likely, their 

children's children! Somewhere 

warm and safer—perhaps

back at home, if they're 

lucky—but with infinitely more convincingly

austere looks upon their faces

than these scowls now parading

past me can muster. 

For here, I suddenly feel cocky

and confident,

that no mask 

can affect the true look of solemnity, 

which isn't still malleable 

enough to render 

into realistic expression

just how severely 

frivolous—is 

the whole masquerade.

STROKE

Every living thing
becomes more

and more beautiful,
but only

once dead—admits its
perfection.

DUNGEON MAP

I must keep perilously barreling
past and through,

or else run
the risk of eternal paralysis—if caught too

careful, too regretfully—inside of some cautiously over-
lit room or other, replete

with pulpwood faces collapsed hard over paper coffee
cups, stirred a little

too surreptitiously, with balsa splints
in lieu of spoons

because there simply isn't any sugar
to measure.

I'm sure
I was born better

than this, I'll curse. I am not so ambivalent
as these others.

I am not so
one-dimensional. This may be hell, but I am not

averse to what's
in the next room. I am not afraid. I'm just exhausted

and too selfish to leave here, bereft
of all feeling, save for

this deep and luxurious intellectual concern—
that there

actually isn't any next room
beyond the one in which I'm stalled. That there's

really no way out of here
at all. And that hulking impersonal

black and clear
door over there, the one with the largish

handle, on which is printed
PULL

TO GO BACKWARDS FROM HERE
TO WHERE YOU WERE

is only
painted-on.

POSSESSIVE CASE

Without dismissing the import
of this old and fortuitous
trove of strange riches—
the discovery of which, I admit,
owes mostly to a lot of
blind luck and bit of impertinence

toward the vast and immovable ocean
called Filial Piety that nurtured it
(but which also so-willfully purposed to obscure
and shroud and suppress its utility)—

I hereby swear
that I'll always endeavor
to spend its salvaged composite currency
(three small coins, each of which
feels so familiar to use, and yet
foreign to measure)

as quick-
and as loose- and as usefully as I'm able—
letting fall, with the happy grace
of a very recently-poor man, fat streams of all three

glinting
spangled
sungolden pronouns, called—
us.
and—we.
And, most expensively—ours.

STEPS 4 AND 5, STUCK ON REPEAT

Not without passion,
not without disgust,
not without
ennui, fear, longing,
desire and frustration,
apathy and zest—
not without some
levity, plenty of ceremony,
a little lust—
not exactly ironically,
but not fully conscious-
ly seriously either—I confess,

I tend
to love
to make
the most incredible small secret tricky intricate unfinished symphonies

out of spitting
the most delicious
bites back
onto the speechless
ceramic faces of their erstwhile
wan robin's egg blue dinner plates—but it's only because

I just,
so very
very much,
want everything
that I touch—to be
perfect, just the way it is
now—except, later. Not until
later. Not until much later. Not until
much much much much much much later—

IN BELATED COMMEMORATION OF "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" PASSING INTO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN

Tending as always

toward tomorrow

and tomorrow—toward gravity 

and its hugest superlatives 

but also the infinitesimal point of a place, marked with a bold 

x, where the world ends, or so

we've been told;

we sometimes find instead where we tread—a slight 

translucent muse

whose

simple song

at first

is not but disappointing levity—a nursery rhyme! we cry,

a sort of cheap birthday 

party tune—

meant to accompany that space of time, we think 

in our ponderous graceless mood,

between the bored now and

the dark time when all shall become as smoke 

under our very noses, after 

our fervid but still

uncompleted visions have been subsumed

and what's left of them now enveloped 

in gummy sugar and sticky laughter.

Nonetheless,

the music plays on, and gradually 

we realize—

we know the words already, having

learned them all

by heart when we were small.

And what then—

of gravity 

after all? 

Surely a few distractions—a white confection and a few

friends and close relations

are not the heaviest burdens to assume. And as

the lingering smoke in our nostrils 

continues to curl, it compels us 

to recall

and to compare—another simple song,

we dimly seem to have heard

or read about somewhere—

something—regarding ashes and dust 

and so-on, until suddenly

that is to say,

eventually—we hear each song conclude, only 

to rewind and start over,

as tomorrow becomes 

today, re-steeped once again 

in the burnt and dead

leaves which we just 

very nearly discarded,

and we remember that here

on a perfect sphere,

every point 

is both—the end of all things 

and absolutely nowhere. 

And it is then at last

that we find ourselves

free to give up 

and simply let loose our own music

without that unwieldy burden—of ownership,

and the song we make then

is a slender

little cellophane thing, but it nonetheless runs

wild in our minds, chiming

out more and more strongly 

with each new
repetition of its chorus—

Be not a prophet.
And leave off desire
And dignity and class.
What does your day

to day life require?
Tell us—only of that.

OWLS, NOT WHAT THEY SEEM, ETC.

How hollow!
did my aching slits of cold bones feel? When,
walking bleary-eyed
and fastidiously past

what I'd hoped
were my own dim aspirations, and looking,
as I often might,
for something outside my own stifling life

about which I ought
to sit later
and write—
but which, moving on these diffident rodent feet,

must nonetheless
have necessarily gnawed its way out
from inside me;
and how powerless! When—there chanced to appear

a wild blind man, feather-faced,
angry, leathery and fast,
swerving past me on
the crumbling curbstone—grumbling,

though not really at me,
something quite vivid—regarding
the very world's coming, presently,
tumbling apart.

And what then? What now here?
can I possibly write
to rise and take flight
beyond that?

What soars above him? Or,
never mind that—what lies beneath?
The truth, then. Yes, at least
that. The truth, at last—struggle

and scrimp and
evince what I might,

it will never be—possible
for me

to make
that man happy.

TOLL

All the teeming living breathing peoples of this earth!

are somehow—not enough 

to fill

a measly 

two,

or maybe 

three quarters—and that's only 

of the very 

last few 

on a 

quite understandably

highly extensive list—of its

most indispensable 

six,

or maybe 

seven dozen newspapers.

AND I LEFT TRADER JOE'S WITH NO GROCERIES

Desperately seeking an immediate antidote
to relieve this sudden noxious fever,

a serious bout of sickening confusion
spiked with a sweaty vertigo at the oncoming awareness

of so many enigmatic and far-flung cultures,
raw lands of sticky green junglesnarled hills

and steamtopped mountain summits
colliding here in this climate-controlled moment

with a dark and indolent December-in-Chicago,
from these bunches of gaseous yellowing

bananas hanging next to slick plastic cans
of greasy coffee beans from Peru, to those

deep pink hibiscus flower two-dimensional caricatures
fetishized perfectly into corporate logos—

I fervidly began chanting,
quietly but discernibly out-loud to myself,

some of the coldest
words that I know

in order to hopefully
quell the delirium.

And those words
were these,

and in this particular order—
grave.

lone.
winter.

stone.
and last,

but not least of all—
silence.

ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION AFTER FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER

Walking out under the beclouded heaventree
of electrified city lights near Christmas,

I looked and found I could, just barely,
still make out the belt of Orion.

At once, I felt like some premier modern astronomer—
solitary, vigilant; attentive, self-contained.

Which is to say, actually much more like an ancient
maritime explorer—marooned; without the support of a crew.

Which is to say, still another way—utterly
impotent. And doomed.

YOUR MOUTH WAS A STOP SIGN

That's when I 

knew

how inextricable 

feeling

isn't

written 

down—but made.

UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOL BY THE SEA

Quiet, stillness. Oh, Christ—now what

is this? A slight ticking sound,

subtle but distinctly springing

up from within this penitent little

Sunday School student—my soul! Could it

be the strangely unmusical toll

of plain truth knocking? Now—

in that eternal second between the last and

each next second, when the very unrelaxed hands

of a piebald old wall clock

seem to have become nothing less

once again than twin-imperatives,

each stiffly pointing

two very different ways to go, one long

and one short, although with strangely the same

plainness of urgency and arrowheaded emphasis—

it is obvious, for once. I have no choice

but to very soon grow

somehow—more timeless. Less bound to this

place. And as confident

as the motley ribald ocean

presently filling up each classroom window

in his own—unrepentant

wishy-washiness.

DUCK DODGERS IN THE 21½th CENTURY

These days—

no poet writes anything

about
pretty silver shafts

of moonlight, or whatever. 

Not

because they no longer
think

to look up, 

but because—no one

in their
right mind! goes

outside at
night.

ANALYSIS OF "THE MOUTH OF HOME"

After a while wandering miles—the Speaker of this poem

can't help but notice 

that his favorite place to enter

always has a red door,

which always opens inward.

So much better!—he thinks,

than having to rear-back

and tear a new hole 

by ripping some cold stainless lever, 

and then regain his balance 

before stammering into the place like a whirlwind, 

with no time to spare, even for repairing 

the silly abrupt 

slice of his damage behind him.

By contrast, 

at this place—the whole thing always seems to begin 

by bowing.

Then, just enough, he clenches, 

then eases, then 

gives the barest little push,

and then—rejoices;

basking in the feeling 

of having been automatically ushered inside

by that last puff of his breath, into this precious

soft womb of familiar space—where he invariably feels 

his dark tired feet

have been waiting, 

upturned, since long 

before having—actually arrived there.

UNREASONABLE

On a protean ocean
somewhere—
a fugitive

plastic green bottle-
cap—stoically
rigid

green
and determined—
keeps floating to shelter

perhaps—the smallest
hapless last
whiff

of invisible
wind on the
planet—from destiny.

NEWS

Carousing cold sidewalks,
three pigeons—

mottled, sticky with light
and filth of greenish shadow—bob and shudder
to be perceived,
projected, reinvented! But

resist. For images
are hardly so pure
to speak of as their number. And truth—it is dull

and low
and uninteresting cold—which you know
will come to ruin
these old sidewalks

long-
before they've had a chance to.

BUSKER

I promise to make you fresh

music each day, with all

that I've got. Which is only two things—

syllables stressed

and less-

stressed. Small words 

and those chittering 

patterns of them

which I learned—before I knew 

how to dress 

or tie 

my own shoes—by

parroting the tall glittering

fuss of grownups. 

But—in exchange, you must 

always agree 

to let—my instrument 

be simply 

the daily

currency of your breath—its pitches, 

your little inclinations; 

its timbre, 

only—

the voice in your head.

PAVLOV'S DOGS

It's beginning to look a lot like

Christmas—the way bleary thousands 

upon thousands of pairs of perfect 

strangers avoid eye contact instinctively,

glancing instead down, and then

off to one side, relieved to alight their eyes

on the adjacent, newly repeating 

citywide signs for consolation,

recreating each snowy sound and story

in the salivating mouths 

of their minds—of new lives deserved 

or of old adversaries reckoning;

memorable cashes of phrases recurring,

seemingly swirled randomly, but in truth, manufactured 

to refresh mankind's blurry but ample

and resilient muscle memory 

for preferring to remain so 

spectacularly alone (united just softly enough

by fear—of death 

and by awe of what's left)

and for soldiering on, simultaneously—

consumed by these empty tidbits 

now piling up across the white

sidewalks and street corners 

and desperate to consume 

and regurgitate 

and then re-consume them

all over again—at the drop of the next silver bell.

TO TELL THE TRUTH

Do not say grace to him 

for things.
Pray instead, poet, to things 

for his grace. 

And do not seek to write of 

real freedom;

you risk describing—complete

alienation.

Above all, remember never 

to walk 

the perimeter of your life—to fathom

its shape;

but rather, to constantly trace

an apprehension:
the shape of this life is—not the only 

one.

FUCK INTERCOURSE

Trudging soaking all day
through the coagulating frost gray and trying so hard
not to think—

Jesus, the whole bloody history!
of the confounded English Language—here
in a dumb obvious word pair;

the rude
and refined, side-by-side—the piss and shit guts and the holy fancy
clinical names for the same things.

Not to mention, the
Geography.
Invasions! Enslavement!

Rape, pillage, plunder—border rebellions and marriages
run amok from each age-
old thunderclap.

Oh Romans! Oh Germans!
How on earth did I get here? Acrimonious, grouchy, walking,
turning over and over

again the same
inept phrase in my corrupt little hard-
wired brain—November rain.

EXHIBIT

Where fearless children dare to speak, 
in these dark

and tall polished marble halls, their words 
like wild

horses begin to buck and gallop—
urgent but direction-

less. Or else, it's this 
throbbing movement of thirsty  

pitches ascending 
toward some funnily expendable climax, 

like some vessel 
is being filled to its brim—eagerly,

but obvious-
ly far too quickly.

OR MAYBE

Begrudgingly,
the midlife sun is 

up and schlepping 

torpid through his paces—shilly-shallying

over peaked greenpurpleish 

mountains and
tree-

tops and corn 

sticks and sandy

red clay 

and then some 

significantly purpler 

mountains and whatnot.

And then, after

pausing to smoke a few 

and consider 

his chosen line of work—there

before the same old 

basin of dull insipid peace-loving water,

heaving-

off reluctantly

from shore again

to scrap for a halfway-decent 

place—to finally 

set, already.

CARETAKER

I shall move
from room to room
unhurried—reducing

anesthetizing
dusting up-
dating and sprucing

unperturbed
by the curious white
spaces between

over
which I have no
say—never dreaming

of listing
the accommodation—content
with the intention

to keep
each suite perpetually—neat
and orderly

in just such a way that
is pleasing
to me.

MISTAKES WERE MADE

Avoid passive voice.
Avoid passive voice.
Nothing worse

than—
to be.

THE ILLUSTRATED MAN

Figure

this one—

many different things 

keep coming 

to the surface 

of a 

circle,

but somehow—its 

radius changes

only a little

and its 

circumference, only 

superficially.

SOUL OF WIT

There is no real trick
to making it stick, but contrary to popular belief
there is a little formula—and it actually starts
by adding words;

so many
so quickly, in fact,
so as to coerce your congregation
into associating—certain
syllables with distinct pitches,

which sort of lends itself automatically
to the common error of equating
different pitches
with independent volumes,

and those volumes
with their own discrete
durations, and so-on—and then,

you simply allow duration
to stand-
in as the function of intensity, where
intensity is equal to the quotient

of truth
over
sincerity—but then,

since both the dividend
and the divisor are irrational
and a definitive final answer
is therefore impossible,

the vast majority of your hearers
will invariably start rounding-off
and transubstantiating
your clunky terms

into the only other thing
they've ever heard of—
that supposedly goes-
on forever.

N.B. TO SARTRE

Hell is—
your sense

of the
increasing likelihood of being

misquoted willfully
after your death

in somewhat similar
contexts but

by very different—
other people.

SNAKE

Past me, glossy faces
swim

and smile;

but still—

some faint anguish pervades,

tugging slightly

on the grim light
that suffuses each new crossing,

and pulling me a little

in its wake.

What is a river after all, though?—
but a recurring
problem that needs solving.

RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT

I wondered as I walked, if the image
of an ancient
snowy mountain—

which rose, immovable as all time's ages
and so readily
before my mind—

which was certainly never
wrought by any man's labors,
or even
by the most terrific
tricks of his thoughts—

and which, in consequence of its
inexplicable omnipresence,
came to be explained, disarmingly
as simply—deific;

if that abstraction
could not?—purely through the alchemy
of being rubbed
lightly past the lips and hands of a few
or more

unwitting generations—
come to be transformed,
irrevocably ever after, into stone-
cold fact?

POP

Beliefs are bubbles;
mysterious dirigible creatures
born of wind
from magic wands and sun-
streaked with resplendent color—

which, however,
were built not
to suffer

the mildest
of altitudes
or slightest pressure—

and which bequeath
at their deaths—and this much only
if the witness
is feeling writerly—

felicitous claps, as they
pass, of cheap
sound to his memory.

QUALIFIERS

Inconspicuous,

but everywhere 

along

the chatty river,

tepid nibblers swarm 

and mingle—

little leeches, sucking 

at the rushing 

blood of words.

GO TO SLEEP NOW

Congratulations, you're a

Georgia peach—

a fleshy accumulation of curious blushes, sunkissed

and swelling proud

to nourish and ensconce 

the secret, hardy stone—which is precious,

indubitable you.

But seriously, you're a common onion—
watery yellow 

layers, under 

layers, under layers—translucent, sour,

'til there's—
nothing there.

But actually, the most distasteful thing
is probably—how there's really

only one of you.

But really, the most delicious part—

is you're the 

only one.

SUPERMARKET SWEEP

Dizzy with light
from a frontage of windows,
I can feel my lips passing

wisps of pleasant fluff

back-and-forth

with a mild mannered 

hostess, behind this sterile

stainless steel conveyor, which

certainly wasn't built 

to accommodate the hugeness
of this encounter, but nevertheless

over which
are nervously carried—both of our most
urgent motivations this morning:

hers—to earn,

mine—to feel sated 

by an elusive feeling
that I've done that already.

But even as our shared air
continues, warm and used-up now, to rise
in cute pools which tingle my senses,

I am nearly drown
by the thundering chorus
of various would-be contestants
inside me, chiding—

Can it be true? Is this all
there is? And then—somehow,
alone again, white paper in-hand

finally, flush with a winner's
grin, pantomiming
to muzak—Isn't this plenty? More 

than enough?

OLD PISSER

Often I'll watch him stand corrected,

walk redirected,
inspect collections already-

finished 

and polished to perfection;

seeking refuge 

in such vagueness—huge 

and warm
and full 

with the pleasantness
of shiny yellow light.

And then—

when he's feeling

quite dizzy

and sunblind

and free—he'll whip it out 

feebly

and write—

hashtag-

beat poetry,

hashtag-doin' it 

in my sleep.

CHAUVINIST CHRIST

In my mind, I love
the way

it's—just me
having ideas,

but it's only
she—who really
stitches them 

all together.

YOU FIRST MISTAKE

Stop thinking 

outside the box—so much,

and get back

to the task

at-hand—taping 

it shut.

TRAVEL WRITER

It is not!

that he doesn't know
exactly where he's going,

enthusiasm-sized travel mug 

plugged close and doing all the smoking for him,

and strapped sockless (for the tone that sets)

into his kitchen's hazardous best 

go at a sporty rental;

it's just that he's still undecided 

on the most efficient—and yet

ecumenical way to end

up there.

And so—detouring, meanwhile, 

through passive voice back alleys

and ruins of ancient metaphors toppled,

and zigzagging would
and should
and could
and all those other vivid red auxiliary flags—

the enthusiast 

most thoroughly manages—to pique 

the stomach 

of his ideal passenger a little

by showing 

her

only—that stuff which

is not.

ARTISANAL

Scooping, at his desire
and leisure, mighty gobs
of all Fall! in his
prodigious fists—

the mouthfeel of every orangecream
and milkwhite
slice of hot candied root-
vegetable pie,

the fiery pop
of innumerable plumes
of little sugar maple boughs
presently dolloping

every single near
and far
ruddy crescent of almond-
shaped hill,

and even! that speech,
borne on chilled nightwinds
made by each one of those rusty cemetery
gates's wrought-iron screeching,

that the dead you loved
are buried
and that
is final—

and then, proceeding to melt
and squeeze them all together,
under unfathomable heat
and incalculable pressure,

by turns, the unfaltering
glassbender—moves yet another
paperweight closer
to fulfilling today's order.

GRAPPLING HOOK

Deliberately digging in

to something

tender there

and hidden

at the top of her—

secretly

I climbed

by nights;

only—to wind up 

stuck 

when the lights came on

nowhere 

near the brittle drop 

ceiling,

twisting 

from a 

knot, and marveling—

how she! 

was also 

my only emergency contact.

INSPIRATION

The sun—at a quarter

past November,

is an

orange flower blossom—

turning 

in skies 

the character 

of shallow water—

and taking 

very 

slow-

and casually its unfurling; 

as if softly

laughing—in the face of 

every 

meticulous

clock—commissioned

in its honor.

EXTRA INNINGS

On the one side—exactly the right series 

of deftly pitched

words,

exhibiting

just the right spin

to affect a slight curve,

could 

irrevocably
change the world.

Then again, on the other—better,

by a long shot, to go 

running-

off 

in all directions

at once, however recklessly—

than to ever come across 

as lazy, 

or 

late, or 

cagey, or worse-

still, some banned word 

like—irresolved.

HALLOWEEN NIGHT

Outside the wind snarls—

I could bury you

I could bury you

I could bury you if I wanted to.

On top of

which—it wasn't me who

said any of that. It was 

you.

ITSY BITSY

After hatching—borne to ourselves

on the breath 

of some dateless dawn,

we are certain

of no facts, excepting those that

we are

wet—and we 

must be, at least,

here to bear witness.

And so—

at first light, 

we begin crawling. 

ever so 

gingerly, at first—upward, determined 

to capture nothing short of

our essence!—from a kaleido-

scope of new raw and beautiful

perspectives.

And each timid time,

climbing just

a little bit higher 

so that, from each new dizzying increment, 

we notice something a little bit wider, 

a little bit greater, and a little less specific about us—

something wild and uncharted,

and yet, 

still familiar; because always

attaching back, 

lattice-

like, to the preceding picture.

Until—at long last,

we come to a certain precipice

the view from which we can no longer comprehend—

that of a dot 

on a dot 

on a blip

on a spiral—with huge amounts 

of black-slathered 

black! all around it.

But when we try—

to step back

to get a better view of this strange image,

we suddenly slip

on something wet

that we'd temporarily forgotten about

and tumble all

the way back

to begin again—only this time,

we tell ourselves

from the outset—

it's personal.

GENUINE AROUSAL

Though inevitable—a kind of white-
hot silver
shock

still runs

stock
sudden
and invariably

down
every tongue-
tied spine—whenever,

bursting-
forth sopping
from the venerable
but swollen-out belly of huge No,

little red
yes—egresses;

dizzy
rawboned
noisily gasping the new free air
until,

at last—
its own
trembling hot
abdomen is full.

BREAKFAST TABLE DIALECTIC

Who knows? you'll shrug, gesturing—

the extent to which those 

stiff and still wan yellow

shafts of early light—

 

which seem to channel forever 

down from the creased mouths 

and distended 

cheeks of antediluvian clouds, 

without ever seeking ground—

bestow anything? 

or were, for that matter—

themselves bestowed in the first place?

But who? she'll answer—if ever last

left standing here, 

alone on this hot screaming rock and

in the face of annihilation,

would dare remain mired

in the valley 

of his or her own stubborn perspicacity

and still insist on penning and pinning 

his own clever lyrics to 

that vast soundless music 

out the window there—

which has sustained not only your mother,

but her mother,

and her mothers' mother, 

and her mother's mother's mother too, 

and so-on, and so-on, and so-

and so, on—

But—What is god, mom!

other than 

our ultimate 

concern in that moment?

Exactly!—what God is, 

young man,

IS your ultimate concern,

every second.

CITY PSALM

Looming—near and distant

and wreathed in plumes 

of anxious Carl Sandburg fog,

ancient cathedral spires still festoon and designate

the otherwise-obscure skyline

of a conscious but still-slumbering Chicago;

inspiring no huge or otherworldly feelings now,

apart from, perhaps, 

the dim comfort—of familiar forms 

and exploitable structure. For here

and there in the gloom, they seem to form, adroitly, 

certain patterns—beacons

in a labyrinthine prison, wherein still manage 

to move each morning

the hopes and fears of its uncalled-upon millions;

fears 

of remaining always

lost amid its arcane passageways—

hopes 

of yet discovering, 

through the tyranny of such a maze, their freedom.

ACT V

Gazing deeply
into the well of memory—
we invariably see

nothing—
but nonetheless
gain everything

from our pains
in the effort—
of looking.

THE MYSTERY WRITER

This morning 

I am turning—

and reading over

all the leaves;

old,

wet spider-

brown pages,

scattered everywhere

but empty—

and taciturn

save for whenever 

a quick piss of wind sends them rumbling.

What? 

or—is this?

Poetry? I wonder. 

Who?

is this?

A poet? They whisper.

And I shiver 

a moment then, and turn aside

with a cheap sneeze, before 

unbending to leave

with a gait more 

open than before—cold, 

damp, but lighter, because divested 

by these wordless exchanges, borne 

inward on some clever

mere air—of the stale knowledge

that my testimony will remain

inadmissible, not
because 

a warrant here

has yet to be granted,

but because none 

had ever been

needed.

MIDWESTERNER

Oh—but what then, of the 

plain wind? sings

only a very 

particular kind of bard—which runs, he laments,

only and ever clearer,

only like itself,

and only and always 

as fast as it can? 

What does 

it?

ride like—I wonder;

threshing and tumbling autumn somersaults over

the corncolored 

nape of America—un-

disrupted, 

neatly 

covering my entire bare-

headed view of the blue planet, and

inspiring hayseed 

after hayseed—to one-by-one 

go tramping off 

to sew 

his golden self-

similar similes

without ever whispering—a single suggestion?

WAX WINGS (AFTER SAM COOKE)

Wait a minute. Hit
Rewind—and let's all try

listening back—
to one another

a little more deliberately.

For starters—

did the mytho-
logical voice

of that
soul man just ask—

with alacrity?

For someone, or 

something, called
Cupid—

to come
fix everything?

STRUCTURE AND SURPRISE

If the facts

are all plot, and

the plot—simply

details, and if 

words are just hollow magic

tricks to make the wind 

appear more reliable

and solid
than it really is,
and if

even our bravest intentions

to convey what's merely
literary—are only

the shards

of some
shattered, shared

soul of a
soundless-in-vast-perpetuity universe

which is moving forever

toward frozen oblivion 

without ever really changing it's direction—

Then what?
What's left? in that landscape

to survey?

I see only these

stray epiphanies—crumbling architecture
with some pretty

cool gargoyles
peering back
from the rubble.

STROLLERS

Walking Lucy muddy mornings

in the park and noticing 

often

the familiar slight chaos—of

this

or that 

little fat 

pink child writhing away, 

lavish but 

livid in the plush redundant safety of its blueish 

gray droplet-shaped confines—
I think:

How?—can my soul

possibly
be

any lighter—

let alone weightier?

than these which walk with it;

when indeed, each seems to have sprung,

so slapdash

and indiscriminately

forth—from one and the very 

same mighty godhead's splitting headache?

THE FUTURE GOVERNOR OF PURGATORY

Simply gazing upward on any of those kinder
and woozy autumn mornings
from her stroller and knowing a thing
called "sky" lie above her

but nevertheless seeing only
"clouds," arrayed crisply
and dark in their vast
rolling panoplies—this act already

comprised a certain way
for the small child
to own, within her abridged little body,
a very uncertain feeling.

A feeling that
she would later
come to feel intimately, though
never know directly—of two things

which can occupy distinctly
the very same space
at the very same time—
but for very different reasons.

Surely enough,
various pairs
of steely words would rush
to fill in and help illustrate the big feeling later.

Heaven and Hell,
Progress and History (of each
of the battles
won by her country),

Science and Fiction—
and the absurd
amount of friction
between Sci-fi and Fantasy

(not to mention, along the way,
the very annoying disparity of meaning
between certain wily pairs
like—"discrete" and "discreetly").

And—not too long after,
some subtler and more curious notions
began to inhabit her senses
and reveal to her their strange power;

there was, for instance,
the fantastic influence
of the traffic
upon the weather,

of the wealthy
upon the poor
and the poor-in-spirit
upon the healthy;

then—the smell
of cold rain
but the wild
sight of fire,

and both held together simultaneously
by the thin astringent vinegar-y,
or else
by the corpulent warm oily

sensation of blood—
which always came rushing wherever
(she noted very cautiously
whenever speaking publicly)

the soul
seemed to drip—neither
with any great hate

nor with very
much love—
from the body.

KID

Relax—each of these

cool shiny

words is only a cap gun;

because
sometimes you've just got to keep
holding 

a thing in your hand—

more for the look

and the feeling
than anything—

as you toy with the idea 

of eventually sticking-

up—something
authentic.

RECEPTION

Mostly, old dark faces
loitering—disarmed

beyond the bright corners
of the dance floor;

each finding it easier—for now,
to imagine

itself out there
than to picture—either

its last breath—or
the nothing waltzing after.

ON WAKING

My body, face

down—

in a
riverbed somewhere.

My mind,
without hesitating—

crossing
the dead fissure,

as if—
by some miracle,

still
filled with water.

REACTOR

Your heart 

is a furious old red 

giant drifting—

unfathomably 

congested 

with curiosity 

and confusion

and fusing them
into—pure white 

astonishment.

AFTER GEORGE ORWELL

Quick—picture the Ministry of Love, only
all boarded-

up,

and you'll realize—
how

the best words
don't give us glimpses
into worlds we've never imagined;

they just
keep

forcing us
not to

forget the one—

we already know.

NO SUCH THINGS AS SYNONYMS

Gazing into the wild 

and perilous mystery—of nightweather 

booming outside 

your windowpane

and wondering—
how even the most

ungovernable rains
could be brought down so easily

by the weakest
and the
least well-understood
of forces—

consider now 

the meek poet brooding;

for whom 

there are no certainties! 

Other than those—

of course, regarding which word

at which exact 

particular moment—to pelt you with,

or else miss 

on purpose.

UNEARTHLY

Hark!—the familiar tin-

tinnabulation 

of hungry 

chattering autumn teeth,

as once again, some fantastic daredevil

vagabond inside you—

so restless 

to uncover nothing less than the wind's 

most wild and rippling

and uncredited sources of motivation—goes

catapulting outwards,
clamoring—Contact! and then rocketing

hardy 

and heedless through incautious weathers—

over drenched morning hills, beyond weird

desiccated evenings

and their leafy shadows 

of all those poor souls withering

so slight 

behind the constrictive poverty of their windowsills.

And not chattering

out of nerves—

for not at all nervous

to get places,

but—quite anxious 

to find them.

RESPECT FOR THE MECHANISM

As long—

and just about 

as surely—

as the pale rocky 

world has been turning,

we too 

have kept busy—wandering about

in widening ellipses

and diligently screwing

our flush flaming 

lush funny faces 

up toward 

Heaven—until we're dizzy.

Hell-

bent!—not on discerning 

whether or not

there's really any such thing

as either of those places—let alone

whether we require 

a place 

for either of those things moving forward—

but rather,

on repeating—

and thereby trying

to memorize the feeling—

of looking.

FALL SWEEPS

Once—and a very long time ago it was, 

from the deepening deadend of

darkness increasing

as the frail and penniless finale of another

copperbrown October 

went creeping

toward its 

inevitable bottomless

blackkettle November—there came, at last, 

an Executive Decision.

This!—is how we'll all 

stay warm this winter:

First—their morale plummets.

Then—we broadcast it. Then, after

that—ratings skyrocket. 

And over 

and again, more 

and more frequent,

and faster, still-

faster, until—well, that's

about it. That's the entire digest.

Research suggests

it'll just sort of 

work on its own from there,

flared the greasiest 

pair of thin 

nostrils in attendance that evening,

in a very similar way 

as the heat 

that gets generated—whenever 

we meet

and rub with glee—the palms of our greenish 

hands together.

MANTLE

Good morning, American mothers and fathers—and gain way! For here,

with a sweet contradictory swiftness,

comes the height width and weight of my entire 

ungainly generation. Waking and stretching 

the skinny tapered length of our souls before dressing

in our superhero cowls and then marching quickly cross-country—

toward Cape Canaveral and Orlando, toward

Palo Alto and Cupertino, toward

Los Alamos and University of Chicago and so-on—for our

catholic calisthenics and continuing Adult-Kindergarten classes each morning;

with bright McIntoch, with Red Delicious, and with Jonathan apples 

in-hand for each of our dried plum- and potato-skinned teachers,

and with even brighter bulges of those red ripe circles 

asleep in our cheeks—one for safe-keeping and the other 

for lunch—and then rolling up our capes and shirtsleeves before resuming

the great plot of our scholarly mission. Namely: to dream!

To reinvent! To justify! To forget! And then, to a certain 

inevitable extent, re-remember! That—we alone 

comprise the world's only current, complete, living, and bounded set 

of sweet-faced and innocent and swell-tempered beginners!

And then, after class, we always come boomeranging back home again;

understanding less than before, clamoring for snacks, and burning 

to ask lots of questions—although we only ever hear ourselves
give the answers. Heck, we're not even sure we exist yet! Which just makes it 

all the more instructive—that we are the God you'll be praying to someday.

KETOGENESIS

Think quickly—

which language

did your breath speak—

back 

when there 

was passion on it?

Did it stink? 

And what color 

was that like? 

And whenever 

it did speak—in whirls 

of cheap 

dime store grammar—did those 

exuberant philosophies

always have

to rhyme?

LIFE AND DEATH

Dearest my little 

tough ruddy beagle—struggling, as you lie

sleeping, to scamper unprotected

through whichever autumn bright blazes 

of tangled trails, so tight on both sides 

with rectangles of huge alien architecture—

and snarling, unquenchable, 

and fang-foaming, 

and all red-eyed

after whatever manner of indiscernible 

and patently uncatchable prey 

which must lay before you; 

difficult!—as it seems

to dream 

as you're doing,

of such urgent 

and such blood-colored things

without the use of a language;

it is precisely

because of this

that I desperately wish! 

I could tell you:

how it's

unarguably—tougher!

to be your ragged old father—

having just returned home 

after spending the better part of an hour talking—so hard

and at cross-purposes

to the saturnine and half-asleep face—of his 

petite blonde barber.

ILLUMINATION

Sometimes after rain thunders 

down and then ceases—

you go gliding a little

faster over 

fresh decalcified re-

hydrated sidewalks—exhilarated,

if a little bit dizzy,

with the big feeling you might be 

upside down;

and it's you—whose actually swimming

under this cool black nightwater,

instead of those

moonpolished puddles up there—

each of them blueflecked 

starry and distorting 

as they sail past—

the reflections 

of those two 

quacking jumping 

splashing sopping killer 

whales of tennis shoes.

WITH RESPECT TO THE DOG

Every morning!—their dumb milky 

ape masks of sleep rolling perilously 

over, as if it's worth it 

to sniff off each other something 

regarding—which particular?

language does the weather speak today.

LIFTING OUGHT FROM IS

Oh

rats. God 

is not—dead 

after all;

he's just fast-

asleep—

in the back

alley—behind every beautiful

Baroque church 

and squat taco 

shack and 

rundown old Park 

District 

gymnasium on planet earth—simultaneously

at-peace

and plum stinking

exhausted-

looking—from overtraining.

MODERN DANCE FOR SOLO NON-MORNING PERSON

Slowly, 

the Ecologist—

invoking all God's 

medicine—

reaches 

for the almond milk.

COWARD

A caterpillar—no longer

itself

dreaming—black

and white

impossible dreams—of watercolor

flight—

in quaking chrysalis.

OUTLINE

First—

let us imagine 

your ghost—

but at noon. 

Displaced though it

may be

from its main gig—is not this old blighted sheet 

finally free? as gossamer—to reach and to touch,

with weightless impressions of fingers,

all the enticing brightness it sees

without corrupting 

so much as a living atom of stuff

with the corporeal pressure of intention?

Less than a whisper,

more a great legend,

a true hero—a non-thing that influences no one;

enveloped in its stainless mission 

to wander

forever 

lost—

and safe 

in perpetuity

and flapping not 

after such hot and cold running things

as riches

or the heavy 

opaque trappings 

of pure poverty—hoping only perhaps for a little more 

purity of spirit, if we

can even call it that at this point, but

you get the idea.

Second—

instead of—why didn't I

think of that?

How would it be

if you just sat

down—and thought 

of it now?

APHORISMS

Each painterly dusk, I again go

swirling past bunches of 

autumnal and warmly-

lit supermarket windows—

each flush with its very

own several little 

bottlegreen baskets of

chrysanthemum

plants—each, in turn, with its various 

stiff little branches reaching 

to grow 

stiffer—and each of those

branches—plush with it's own black-

licorice leaves curling

thicker and yet-thicker 

in the slow creeping cold.

And each leaf now defining its own unique plane,
angled this way or that—contributing 

to a quickening feeling of such 

immense depth! Until—

yes, it becomes positively too dense
to distinguish! And it's only

then that I begin to see—

each prodigious leaf

on each 

branch on each

plant in each window

has come—somehow

weaving its way 

up my chilly spine to my 

mind, where it might finally

alight and thus

show me—how it's still 

possible

to grow up

but never—grow old.

MOMENTARY MUSCULAR FAILURE

I promised myself
then—and I promise
again here

upon this very formally
white
page—now stained

with hours
and hours of unique-
ly concentric coffee
cup ring flowers—and invisibly

ablaze
with the shapes
and the imprints of
such letters

as could only comprise
words
in illustrious
richly explosive new combinations

to write—
not
so much fast

but very
very hard—and furious; and of course
and always
always

al-
ways

concerning—first,
those littlest things
that don't seem to matter.

For it seems
to me—from this exhausted
point of vantage

that man-
kind
is

bereft
not—of satisfying
or great

or happy endings—but rather,
of proper

and decent
kinds

of those
things altogether.

HERALD

The moon was huge
and frowning

down
upon the hollow land

across which I threaded—
spiderlike

mourning ghostwhite 

flecks of my-

self 

blowing by

on the 

cold lunar wind.

ADVICE FROM HERMAN MELVILLE

It's probably
best—
to arrest them

first
and fore-
most with

the One
big zinc-galvanized and blameless-
white

paint-coated
stainless-
steel metaphor

as absolutely fast
as your famine-nettled
fingers are able—and then

to practice the tremendous discipline
of just sitting back
to watch as they all—and I mean

the whole damned crew,
and the audience,
and everything—simply pass over it,

over and
over and
over again,

until eventually!—they
become
magnetized;

causing every single little last
gold-
and/or silver-spangled

coin—to come
ravenously sailing
out from their pockets

and slap itself hard
and fast—
to the mainmast.

PURE DRIVEL

Behold! the poetry
there on your breath

as you conjure—making spongesoft
words

kiss more
words
kiss

more words—
with no
effort, and very

little concentration
on the warm

splatter
that's accumulating—an expressionistic picture

which best
approximates—blindness.

SEPTEMBER 30

Hallelujah—
little

second-
to-
last-

impetuous
chiffon morning glory—just as lonely

clinging
to your freedom—not yet
near-

ly
as desperate.

TRICKLE DOWN THEORY

Eventually! 

Even 

the 

most 

unhinged

and unbound— 

of all

home-

less men 

far and 

wide's filthy

hand-

me-

down pant-

legs—are 

destined

to fit 

him 

like this—

super-skinny.

TRAP DOORS

However eager 

in the mornings—

the genial self-

appointed Judge
and Jury 

were—so often,

by mid-

afternoon,

disappointed—and longing 

more than anything!

to hang 

the whole thing altogether 

that—eventually 

the menial 

Executioner,

moved 

by a curious

compassionate sensation—and exercising, 

without
much hesitation—

let alone

conviction

or deliberation 

or show of emotion— 

the position

of his 

meager office,

proceeded
to pitch

his only 

switch—and 

do them 

both a hefty favor.

THE PROBLEM IS NOT—

How to stay small
and still

keep growing;
After all—

history
has never recorded

a
ruthless and bloodthirsty—flower.

SIMMER DOWN

Once—I was
a mighty glacier!

so huge
as to border
on vague.

I ate rocks—
and spit back great
lake basins;

and, though slow—I worked
with such deliberate
superfluous fury

that, eventually—
the sheer vehemence
of my ardent
passion seemed to leave me

no choice!
but to relax
and gradually—take

the shape
of my
container.

CLEVER PACKAGING

On the sopping muddy road

home post-war,

met a man—

rag-bandaged,

bloody,

yet cartoony—

chipped, 

and dried-

out like 

a tough bit 

of old liver sausage would be—

and with damp gauzy medieval 

claptraps of shoes 

on each foot

that happened to hamper even

the decisiveness 

of his limp;

and as we passed 

he said 

to me—

but only

with his one 

protruding eyeball,

and with 

the little filthy 

harmonica at his lips—

Son,

it ain't enough 

to have good ideas—or consistently.

You have

to learn how 

to have quick ones—and shit 'em out constantly;

not to mention the gumption,

the start-up cash,

and all that machinery.

And one more thing!

he whistled: 

a gimmick—

somethin' silvery 

slick—to distract 'em

from the stink

of the attack 

that you're leveling—such as 

a charmin'—

disarmin'—

colloquial way of speakin'.

MODERN DANCE FOR HEIDI KLUME

Instructions—

In a limited
time-
frame—

one by 
one—

each of

a
maxi-
mum of

six-
teen 
performers—shall run

up 
this 
ramp 
and start

pushing his
or her 

envelope—

out of 
this
giant

box 
that we've
stuck at the top;

with just
enough

force—
that it 
flies out

and 
glides 
swiftly

and smoothly—
until
ultimate-

ly 
swooping

down—
to land
squarely 

under that bus.

SOMEHOW

Round it comes!—

as it must come

every morning;

and in rounds too—swelling

around and around

and so-on-

compounding—thick as midnight, 

but somehow never obscuring 

the fleet light of its message.

And within those 

rounds—and flooding 

inward through each of those chosen 

plum dark stained windows, warm 

and warbling as it ever shall be—

comes the very same catechism.

This is the liturgy
of a few 

chirping birds—

when you too—choose to make your racket,

can you also?

manage

to 

make it so—

agreeable?

BURGEONING ARTISTE

Christ!—if there hasn't
been a gorgeous

tree! living here for—
centuries!

or maybe
even longer?—right 

outside!—my reclaimed antique oak front
door!

And to think—I could never even
see!—for the silly little life

of me—before 

that it was all-the-

while supposed
to be! looked at much more pure

and naked and
specifically! as—Van Dyke Brown.

THE WAKING BRAIN

Dim candlelight flickers and spills 
onto roomfuls of shells,
chipped and moonpink,

which line repeating warped wood tables— 

as if for sale, but not—
in some 
dingy street- 

corner curiosity shop

whose grim brick 
walls seem to slither back 
and back, 

without stopping;

which first makes you sick, 
and then suddenly 
fiendish—to leap up and 
go running

back outside—and just 

start obsessively, 

ghoulishly digging
for old poets' bones.

PHILOSOPHERS DON'T WORRY

Great poetry

doesn't have anything 

extraordinary to say;

it just has 

an extra-

ordinarily 

well-paced—

way of phrasing it. 

GALL

Unconsciously—as dark bile,

I continuously
work

at breaking
all the
hard things

down into pieces;

so—that way,

for instance,
I usually only
really have to worry

about—begging 

the fastidious

and
the tender-
ized

and the various-
ly very small
parts—of her pardon. 

IMMUNITY

Presently—like swollen chunks 
of Indian 

Summer-black
cold patch—perspiring away
in last winter's

holes in the road, 
he noticed—

he was

never!

on any-

one else's home
turf anymore—be-

cause he 
could 

always just

bring these 
neat little pinch-

doses—of his 

own stuff 
along with—

wherever he'd go.

PHOBOS AND DEIMOS

But—Mr. Williams, 

what? if

the world!
is so much more—than things

after all; so much— 
more

might depend upon 

the way

all the dumb 
stuff
is arranged. 

The pecking order—of, say

first—stay 
alive,

next—get 
satisfied,

then after that—try as best you can 
to go back

to feeling 
real again—as if

flicking 
back and forth 
like some 

desperate-
ly thirsty 
and fire-eyed

cloth bit of 
moth on the 
planet Mars—just feels more 

like pure 
pattern-making, like pure rhythm 
than melody. Tell me;

does it ever 
occur? to old Patterson—that 
the content 

of suffering 
or reward 

doesn't matter 

nearly as much—as does

the constant

and incessant—
contrast between the goddamn two of them.

A RELIEF

Dark and stormy

four-

thirty 

in the morning—yellowwhite toilet 

bowl fizzing—with

hundreds 

no—
millions! of

little tiny babies' precious little
eyeballs 

budding
dividing

billowing 
colliding and—

just before blinking
out 

once, and for all
of time—winking-

up, kind of 
like they're saying—Hey.

You may!

Not always—

feel the exact same way
as today. 

And isn't that—
something!

you'd be? 
vaguely—

interested 
in.