EMPEROR OF NOTHING

The way a grim old 
hobgoblin  

with his small hawkish 
pushcart 

shuffle rambling 
past me—day

after 
day, and its 

little silver grails
in rows 

going
jangling—enchanted and

glinting 
in daylight so 

bright
as to widely

outshine—
and loudly 

outblast—any 
shamefaced ambition

he may 
have been having

to peddle any
ice cream—to a fully grown man.

CHORUS

With each passing morning—
more and more 
kelly green 

trumpets 
of leaves—
bulge from little branches,

obstructing
to snatch
his destined path away

even 
as they 
instruct him—

The last thing the world needs 
is another 
poem 

like the one
you're 
envisioning!

The impossible—actually 
becomes
possible 

all the 
damn 
time;

it's just that it only—becomes
actual

every—
once in a while.

EMBOLISM

On the long hoary streetside—a young-
ish man,
thin and lovely

stooped and 
crying feebly over

not!—the wasted coagulum 
of pinkwhite 
ice cream puddling

there 
before his lusty
stubborn feet—but rather,

without 
even knowing it—his own growing clot 
of confusion regarding

enjoyment!—which seems as though 
it ought

to continually 
ooze in

at all times
from all places—with

true joy—
and the sweet cold brave 
freedom begotten

when and wherever
it pours forth
from the only

space
that it can
and it must—deep inside.

NOWHERE NEAR (AFTER PHILIP GLASS)

We're all pretty quick to think we move—fast,
but we're
still 

so 
shame-
fully slow 

with words—
wherever 
his 

broken 
chords 
are concerned;

because—it's just there,
in the vast spaces 
where 

even 
syllables 
are not—that's where 

tender nameless—
feeling 
is.

RABBIT'S FOOT

True stillness
can never 

be captured,
reverse-

engineered 
or manufactured; 

because
real silence—

the deep 
and lasting kind—

can only catch 
you—

and only
by grace—and 

only one 
time.

HAIR OF THE DOG SUTRA

It is said—the most generous 
and 

philanthropic 
of bards—knows not

only how to inhabit
deeply—

his own stubborn 
and unique brand of poetry,

but also—how difficult it can be 
to die selfishly

at just the right time—
as a sign 

onto you;
having seen 

and heard
and tasted—and imbibed

so much 
of the raw life

flowing 
in from outside—that he's certain

that true putrid selfishness—
is necessary

for success.
And furthermore—that death

takes a whole lot of 
practice

practically nightly; that is—if one
is actually

hoping he might—
continue 

to live
long enough to tell you 

guys all 
about it—over eggs in the morning.

JUNKIE

As soon as you begin
to feel—supernatural chilly

cascades
of endorphins 

piss from little pin pricks 
in your neck and

then come laughing down your fickle spine
in wheels

of chords of hot familiar music—you know
it's time

to wind—back 
down 

your not-
so-

gentle 
back bend.

MAD AS A HATTER

When-
and on what-
ever platform

you happen 
to be standing 

when you start to hear that 
nasally sweet band 
brand 

of
gentle jazz—come nosing

not exactly at—but more sort of
indirectly 
towards you,

from no source 
that's discernible,
and certainly—
with no explanation whatsoever;

try not to panic.
And realize

that there is really
only one little 
decision to make (albeit over 
and over again)—

to make friends
with it. Not permanent-
ly or for ever 

but just—
this one time. Just this 
very minute. 

And if you can do that
for a second,

no matter 
which—train you get on; then

congratulations
my friend—you can get off it

whenever 
you feel like—and 

tell them all
about Disneyland.

WINNOWING

Look—look! Can you really
see that? The passion
that ordinarily 
burnt 

hot-
ly in that heart—now lately 

snuffed
and swallowed 
by tougher clothes; whose 

collective stomach 
fits hard
and stiff 
and small—and slick

as an—
avocado pit. Can you actually?

Can you really
really 
really really 
see that

there's—really
just so much

poetry stuffed 
and locked 
in each our bodies—that
it truly seems

like a
moot point—
to write any down.

WHOLLY MACKEREL, ALMOST

In a rainy night dream,
there he was—
finally not thinking

even about his breathing—or more
precisely, his
not really needing to—

kicking 
wondrously legless!—and speeding so
weightless and free

and not even heeding 
the ambient temperature 
or direction—together 

with schools of dark
headless, and yet 
incredibly familiar fishes—

in consort—a perfect 
symphony, 
a great big family!

whose members don't ever
seem to need to 
even speak to one another!

except—curiously,
not moving 

through any comparably abstract 
or magical

oceans 
of poetically cloudsilver water,

but rather—a solution 
far thicker 

and 
more 

saline 
and—apparently 

of far,
far greater 

significance—
to his 

seemingly 
in-

escap-
able 

waking identity—namely, 
yellow mustard.

NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT

Henceforth—
shall
the most common form 

of anxiety 
in the country 
be defined—

as the kind
one feels stealing

across the hard 
and widening 

gulf
between 
one's eyes—

in these cruel
and infernally curled-
up furls 

of spaces

of time—
between 
the first 

and second—
window in the pickup line.

OCEAN OF CRITICISM

It's like—the harder one tries
to squint

to look

and pin down 
this or 
that giant 

body
more significantly,

the more one becomes—
dizzy
distracted

faint 
and confounded by—
all those strange little paisley patterns

forming 
swelling
congregating
peeling-
apart
and then marching

across 
the squelchy underside
surface of each of one's eyeballs—

but always 
disappearing 
before one can ever

dare to attend—
and so become 
influenced 

by—
even a single 
one of them fully;

like waves on water—rather 
unimaginable

to actually grab 
hold of
and describe 

as anything significant
apart 
from the 
whole vessel

because—there's really
no story!

That is—no birth, and certainly no 
death what-
soever.

SĀDHANĀ

Kate—if ever you're 
wonder-
ing 

why—I seem 
to just 

lust
after desperately—but never

actually 
take the bite—
it's because 
secretly

I'm afraid 
I might—
at that 

point—have to stop 
(without 

knowing how
to) loving you—
always 

for 
offering.

DIARY ENTRY—

Spent roughly most 
of the 

afternoon—just 
wandering 

around 
Chicago wondering

what real 
Nobility 

means—but only

because none 
of the

dogs
would tell me.

OF PASSAGE

It's like—
desperately slow-
motion pitching

your body—
willfully 
off a bridge backwards

in time;
only 

to catch—
at the bottom,
your very

own dad—
as a 
young man

confusingly—
quietly
balling his eyes out.

COLOR STORY

Concocting quite a thorough
manual in her mind 
as she goes roving

silent, 
needle-shaped,
quite conscientiously 

over 
and 
through the teeming neighborhood;

an old brown 
beagle, waterfall-
eyed,

could not even pause
to notice
if she needed to—

the palest of 
green things 
jutting from branches

or the wan way 
a high 
white disc bleaches-
away thin clouds to make dirty blue—

busy! as she is—
mixing fecund sniffs
of piss-

sticky concrete
and mud

to—somehow 
create her own
brilliant new 

theses—
of
robin's egg and seafoam.

FALSE PROPHECY

On the second-
to-last
day on the planet—a feeling

too new 
and strange—to comprehend 
intellectually

will swell to warm
the space
behind of the eyes of—not only 

each poet—
but every kind-
ly, upright and polite-

hearted doctor
who has ever rightly
told him

that there's 
nothing 
especially—wrong with his insides;

not of fear
or relief or self-
righteous indignation,

but simply—of failure,
unfurling 
in slow motion

behind 
the subdued and melancholy
low brows

of both of them—that is, 
of sheer

unwillingness, deep
in the core 
of each man,

to dare 
under-

take—what
he can't 

understand.

HOME VERSION

Poetry will train in you
the strength

to stand 
up for—and speak 

the Truth;
which is difficult

to do
at length—without 

yawning and wanting 
to lie

down for a while.

MUSE

Each morning,

it repeats—

I create myself;

and, not being able 

to hold in

all the heat 

generated by such a contradiction,

fly away—as iridescent flecks,

brightly toward but 

never reaching 

that scratched and wounded

boundary of 

skycold sleep—contained

deep inside—the spheres 

beneath your 

very eye-

lids.

BUILDING TO BASHŌ

Don't espouse—simply notice
and report

after April 
rain—how much more

affectionately than desperately—
late

afternoon
sun clings—to whole city

blocks 
of rusticated limestone.

AND EVER SHALL BE

Emboldened enigmatically by
bouts of 
night lightning—and not a bit

intimidated 
by the round 
rumbles accompanying it—now,

here and there,
rough and stiff
tufts of stubborn
shaggy green—have begun

to uncurl—
each discreetly 
extending its boundaries 

eventually—to beget bulbs;
creamy mellow smooth profusions of petals

of tender pink 
and sheer white 
and vulnerable yellow—and each swirl

somehow comprised
of such—an impossibly 
more ethereal 

material—than that 
rough reedy
stalk which had yielded it

as to offer—even men,
who rush

after rocks
and never surrender—

a new opportunity 
to once

again lighten-
up

and become their own children.

LANGUAGE LESSON

These outbursts—of early April rain
drops fall-
ing

thick,
loudly,
indiscriminate—onto 

brick 
and
vinyl siding—pelting

embossed tin 
and 
terracotta tiles—dripping from crooked

wood poles suspending 
rubberized wires, 
aluminum 

fence posts 
and wrought iron
fire stairs—and plunking 

against the white plastic sandwich-
board sign of the
shabby 

fat man taking a 
piss in the 
back alley—seem to explain little

regarding whether 
he ought to 
feel either—happy or unhappy.

BURNOUT

Thoroughly bothered—
by the prospect
of sounding 

unable—to conjure
any other color
better than 

plain red—the poet
feels he is 
left with little

recourse—but to render 
himself
shamefully

deaf
as a cartoon lobster.

DISCHARGED

Caucused thickly in the
distance—downtown 

fraternities 
of stiff stubborn 

skyscrapers—having exhaust-
ive-
ly 
concluded that there 

just isn't nearly
so far 
to reach today—titanically

soften their shoulders;
permitting these

exceptional cascades—
of snug white fog

to come rolling
right off 
their backs—for a change.

FISH BONE

Surrender—is 
not at 
all! the same 

thing as 
resignation—vaulted
the gaunt fog-

colored 
face of the alley cat—
profoundly

lost—
and
satisfied.

LINGUISTICS-FIELD OF DREAMS

I heard—
when they 
first pitched 

the phrase
Opening Day—
they weren't picturing 

Baseball;
but rather—

signifying a future-
past James Earl
Jones—in fat suspenders

ravenous- 
and laborious-
ly glottal stop-mining

every last
little precious
phonological diamond's-

worth 
of consonant
sounds—from that word.

EMPTY TOMB

Profound 
inner stillness
and understanding—finally becoming 

accessible at last;
as

whole half
sheet-
cakes—now interred in black

hulking cans 
out back (many still depicting 

the smeary all-
accepting faces—of yesterday  

morning's
most-
venerated

bunnies,
chicks,
and lambs) generously smash    

any—snowwhite joy 
and black

Lenten melancholy—counterintuitively
into one

single self-
contained—and much 

more 
spacious feeling.

FAINT PRAISE

Kate notices only—that I might 

live again upside- 

down and 

breathless curled inside her 

twin and 

ample lakes of light.

ART OF HANUMANASANA

Back
when we were 

kids—we did
the splits 

with-
out ever stopping

first to consider 
whether 

or not 
we could;

now—we're dads 

and moms 
with cleavage—and it's partly 

cloudy 
outside—and stocks

are mixed—and then should? 
we be 

practicing 
some-

thing 
called—intermittent

fasting? 
and we just can't decide to

believe it that 
none—

again—none!

of it feels any 
good.

HIGH-FUNCTIONING

Late sunny 
after-
noon 

google-
search-
ing—do I really 

need
to wash
my washcloths?—and wondering

not before 
exhausting

an answer—what
went wrong.

UNTOLD

Locked up tight
inside every single—
tiny drop 

of grey rain
clinging to your windowpane—
are lots 

and lots 
of—islands 

of completely 
empty space;
but wait—that 

is 
not the
strange part—for silence,

that great
and profoundly
immeasurable thing—is somehow also circumscribing 

each of their boundless contents
entirely,
though not

in space—but 
time. 

It's as if—sure as 
a thing like
everlasting rain

can yet get stuck
in a few lines
of poetry;


infinity—
still
leaves plenty 

of room—for eternity.

TOTALLY—

Today I got
this kitchen

scale to weigh
my coffee
and thought—holy shit! 

the world really is
your nemesis
when

every little 
thing you 
do's a discipline.

NON-OBVIOUS BATHROOM

Sometimes, you just 
have to go

perch 
yourself

anywhere you gotta!—to hang-
and reign-

over (maintaining your 
uprightness

by means 
only of those slightest 

updrafts of self-
control wafting

up from below) a generous- 
and a wild-
ly 

shit situation;—

moreover!
from that position
you can 

legitimately 
say and mean it—Fine! 
If that's really

the way they want to play it,
I'll respond in kind-

of a little while.