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.