Friday, January 30, 2015

VESPERS

Thus—is it
surely

still

composure that's the coolest;

so spake—the cagiest 
and most

decorated
of the regurgitators—

after 
their Thursday

night—potluck
dinner was over.

#2

A clumsy, loose 
andante—
trundling forth,

first to sooth—
stiffness;

Lucy and me—eventually smoothing 
out and 
walking more

mildly, despite 
the sliver 
of cold white sun—to become little

more—than a pair
of keen and 
clement noses, honed—

eventually—
to mere aspects 
of a single-

pointed thing—ferreting
only for that 

dirt-simple pleasure—
some delicate bit 
of earthy tenderness—

the perfect little spot—

so much the harder 
to sniff- 
out in iron weather.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

FREDDIE MERCURY V. CHICAGO

Face it—any way
the wind 

blows—for any
slight

duration—
is the likeliest 

antagonist—
toward

your 
bike's orientation.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

DIGNITY

No rewinding necessary—
and never 

mind 
its bulk. 
Simply remain 

calm—and 
slow-

ly, 
slowly—move in

to
ruin—

the smallest
and least-

civilized—
shred of that knot.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

POWDERED WIGS

It makes good music—the whole of Palmer
Square park

has never known Mozart.
And yet—

streetsideso many
staves
of tilted bald 

oak limbs interleaving—
pitch toward his 

namesake
to listen—inclined to wear

deferentially—thick 
crowns of white frost.

Monday, January 26, 2015

IN THE NAME OF THE SON

Jesus Christ 
almighty,
kid—how 

do you like
what seems to have
happened now? On 
or around

our upside-down 
plastic ordinary 
planet—after 

the Proper 
of the Mass
got invented?

Previously—a servant
content doing

all daddy's sweeping—
that composer

is creator now,
a great architect—the tall slender
letters of his earthly

name gilding
all the bedrock;
our performer—still

just some carpenter—
straw for his guilt-
stricken little
bed in the corner.

Friday, January 23, 2015

FUGITIVE

Giving absolutely 
no regards—
amid the snow white

peaks—of silence;
commuters
mildly smoking

soft cigarettes 
together—in dead
of winter.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

THE EVERLASTING ALLEY

Bristle-
whiskered city 

fathers, come clean—
tell me
quick! whose the fuck 

bright idea 
was this?—panoply of gristle-

colored puddles—and pits
pockmarking

the murky snarl 
of grave-gray patchwork 
asphalt 

chunks—so abhorrent 
to even
the most anemic 
demands of motor traffic;

and which, for that matter,
barely seems
to accommodate its 
roughly unending 

occlusions of 
wobbly top-
heavy tubs—erupting like packs

raunchy spectators—as I 
and a deteriorating cockerspaniel 
march towards his back door—unwilling-
yet-

unwitting—
participants in this—so rich 
grisly 

pageant of your urban 
architectural piss.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

PAW PAW

Hunkered low 
along treacherous stretches— 

another pair of—
dogged lion

colored scapulae—goes
un-

coothly bobbing—
crippled 

by salt—
through the land of the big wind.

ALEATORY

Actually—it can be
pretty

grating—
how predictably 

avant garde! 
the pewter-

headed 
woman's old 

apartment's 
brown—

radiator 
sometimes sounds.


Tuesday, January 20, 2015

AMEN CADENCE

If you only 
but knew! how—profound 

and authentic-
ally I hear you—a sorry lame 
pack

of dull insolent pitches—
claptrapping
down 

past that 
rattling heat machine
thing in the hall—and then

confounding up
some rickety laminate
zigzag of ground

every morning—hounding

like you do—for brown water
and wet food
and a little light 

banter—by the clickclacking
faucets

latches
and switches—presumably concerning 

wherever 
the selfsame noisy 
hell in the world it is you're going—

without ever even 
so much 
as offering—to take your good old dog.

Monday, January 19, 2015

A CONDOM FOR LADY MARY

A pleasant day—and
fecund enough

for January—a mauvewhite tree
is posed

waifish, leaflike;
while 

the surveyor—lord

of many dancing 
and laughing kingdoms—

decorously pisses 
each away.

Friday, January 16, 2015

WINTER MANNERS

Not until 
once again home—derelict,

naked, sipping and staring-
down another late 

afternoon in his 
usual haunt—an empty kitchen;

does the poet feel the gnawing 
responsibility engulf him—to examine

more precisely 
ideas of the morning—a sun

he'd like 
to have maybe seen—piercing 

through cold clouds—so round
rubicund, and kindly smiling,

always alone,
but never for so much 

as one moment 
apprehended

as being 
lonely—for swollen out

less 
than he—with sacred assam ginger tea

and more, presumably,
by the piquant

heat—of earthly
sympathy.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

CONSEQUENT

According to—planetary motion,
one could suppose

slightly longer and widening 
orbits of afternoon—in which 
a bicycle rider—

windburned,
stouthearted—

travels—always 
absorbing each and every
antecedent flung

across his spangled 
patterned paths

with alacrity 
and quickness—and a dim 
sense of pride

which somehow lightens his burden
proportionally
with each uptick in the  
daylight;

until
eventually, he's feeling so 
slick that he slips—landing off-axis completely
with his erstwhile

procedure—arms and legs
frozen stiff—supine and
wide open

as if—
struggling

to embrace 
such a huge risk.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

SYMBOLS TURNED TO WORDS

Tripping—alone with Molly
under the gray hibernal  

oak trees
of afternoon's imagination—I feel my own 
mentality 

slowly swinging
open—to the weird
sounds of 

a few new birds calling—unseen
down another
snow-muzzled 

corridor of ashy city; 
and I apprehend 
attention—ordinarily all left- 

feet and 
hands kicking 
hard at the sharp air—now bending

back—supple,
ready to settle
easily

for the laziest-
possible definition 
of poetry going.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

THOUGH THIS BE MADNESS

Just before
the end—whatever 
was it?

a crusty Polonius-Judas
confided 
so readily—

to the doughy old mom
and the oily
stepfather—of a 

poor and un- 
interestingly strung-
out young Jesus 

Christ-Hamlet figure?

Something 
about how—leavening 
is the soul of bread,

and though 
the kid's last
supper may have

been done a little faster—
sadly,

it was over 
all the sooner for it;

and there was still just
so much—
method in it

that it 
was hardly satisfying—let alone 
worth it.

I ONCE OVERHEARD THIS FROM MY KITCHEN

Dross
glopping—some ice-
thick

sounding singing—
jangling,
going

slopping—down an easy-does-it-
tomorrow drain.
Another numb-

cold titular 

Tues 
day
bath-
room-
down-the-
hallway sink 
water wasting—way  

a-
way
away.
And away
it pipes up,
giggling again as it

keeps on
wenting away—try? Oh, Daniel,

laughing—weep-
ing—really,
this?

This is 
serious-

ly 
you 
keeping 
on trying?—so hard 

for some-
thing. What? Already—just
to keep

some empty—
pipes from freezing!

Monday, January 12, 2015

ARTISTIC DIFFERENCES

Like
bridge

over
troubled 

water, 
he provokes you—

and
passively—to 

circumnavigate 
some

under-
lying issue.

Friday, January 9, 2015

SUPER POWERS

And lo—
with the single light 
wave of his hand

all the snow
in Chciago was turned to thick buttermilk

to be

churned by willing 
masses into 

endless beautiful batches 
of 

silver dollar pancakes—all

for his live-in 
girlfriend's capricious

enjoyment—
after her breakfast.

Thursday, January 8, 2015

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Blindsided—even as I happen
to advance 

past reprehensible walls 
of frost-

nettled plate glass—and utterly 
confounded

by the mere glance—because
now

at once lusting-
after,

and despising—
the tidy perpendicular  

stature
of all those unclaimed stacks 

of gold-
glowing french 

fried
potatoes inside—

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

DELIRIUM

Suddenly—by terrible 
three o'clock on another 

heinous and 
temperatureless Chicago afternoon

the way the shit-
green glinting 

frost clung—so rude
and

immediately— 
to every shivering cranny 

of my great 
and yet poor-

statured black
lab's swollen 

muzzle, distended 
cheeks and dumb tongue—

was only—glowingly 
funny.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

ACTION POTENTIAL

This is it
this is 
it—this is it
I know it,
exactly—when I say 
I'll say
I'm saying 
I'll say it—Action! Then Bam!

on just about any 
old cold Tuesday 
snowsleepy morning—Epinephrine! 
Make way!

Shiny skinny pretty
monochrome 
chains of—adrenaline! 
come slam-
dunking incautiously 

romping,
shimmy 
shammy 
whammy-
shake—jangling down the frayed

and confused 
ends of 
a pile of lillywhite dendrites

and—just like that; heck
I'm awake,
and I'm here,
and I'll stay,

to fight—the same day 
back 

out of
plain sight again.

Monday, January 5, 2015

SALAD FOR KATE

Goddamnit Kate—
after years
there are definitely days

where
rather than love me—I'd sooner
have you

simply go
screw yourself up—wide
sour and

huge like a whirlpool—
all around the million 
or so 

greasy little globs of me—

pinning 
each of them—hard 
fast and 

like hell—
to every last 
boundary of your vast 

and prodigiously
pungent volume;

all for the sake 
of re-
creating regularlya pretty

dang usable—
ephemeral solution.

Friday, January 2, 2015

RETURN OF THE THIN WHITE DUKE

So pumped-
up, 
it's deleterious

and so much hip
swagger—they're nervous

not to mention—nosey
but fucked if he
doesn't already

know
it all—man, he's only
as deaf as 
the volume at which he's shouting; and it's

always something—dizzy 
cool about his

miraculous and never-
ending and bowie 
knife-

inspired suicide,
claiming—

it's actually all this dang 
checking in
to make sure that I'm 

still dead—
that's making me 
look like I 

feel so dead-
tired.

Thursday, January 1, 2015

RESOLUTION

Downplay
camouflage—not
to conquer;

but conretize—

One bird.
One stone.