Monday, November 30, 2015

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.

Friday, November 20, 2015

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.

Thursday, November 19, 2015

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.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

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.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

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.

Monday, November 16, 2015

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.

Sunday, November 15, 2015

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.

Saturday, November 14, 2015

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.

Friday, November 13, 2015

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?

Thursday, November 12, 2015

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.

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

QUALIFIERS

Inconspicuous,
but everywhere 
along

the chatty river,
tepid nibblers swarm 
and mingle—

little leeches, sucking 
at the rushing 
blood of words.

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

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.

Monday, November 9, 2015

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?

Saturday, November 7, 2015

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.

Friday, November 6, 2015

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.

Thursday, November 5, 2015

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.

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

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.

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

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.

Monday, November 2, 2015

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.