For a while there
it seems like
anything goes, but then
you learn it's because—
the past
is a matchbox,
is a glorious
hot little head-full
of zillions
of identical
perfect hair-triggers—
and the future
is pure sandpaper,
is grainy
brick mortar,
is your greasy itchy
shaking serious
perfect reverent
nicotine fingers
tingling below your
sulfur-tinged nostrils;
and every time
one single thing
happens—lookit
how quick
and hot
and lusciously
two others—
just get
annihilated.
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
Friday, December 23, 2016
ORIGINAL SCORE
In the quick thaw—
so many
incipient little brooks
and gullies
babble
independently—
their dirty
prosaic
motifs
and non sequiturs
all layering
together
to weave
the impossible
unified
roar
of this
ancient,
this distant—but
madly
believed-in
ocean.
so many
incipient little brooks
and gullies
babble
independently—
their dirty
prosaic
motifs
and non sequiturs
all layering
together
to weave
the impossible
unified
roar
of this
ancient,
this distant—but
madly
believed-in
ocean.
Thursday, December 22, 2016
NEEDLES IN THE CAMEL'S EYE
A little siren sleighbell shrieking
outside the Jewel-Osco,
binds together all hypnotized
wayfarers passing,
by parting one and all
from a little pocket money
with the following
incessant incantation:
Even in your most perfect
earthly dream, passing stranger,
your picture of recompense
might rig the whole game,
such that—by the time
you finally stagger
sunburned and blistered,
hardened but tenderized,
and with terrible headaches
in each of your heels
into your private-beach-
notion of heaven,
your homecoming'll be dread-
fully anticlimactic.
No one to talk to
about any of this;
none to compare,
contrast,
to rejoice
with, concerning
the everlasting-
ness of your bliss—since
of course,
the whole place
is literally
all yours—is
completely
deserted.
outside the Jewel-Osco,
binds together all hypnotized
wayfarers passing,
by parting one and all
from a little pocket money
with the following
incessant incantation:
Even in your most perfect
earthly dream, passing stranger,
your picture of recompense
might rig the whole game,
such that—by the time
you finally stagger
sunburned and blistered,
hardened but tenderized,
and with terrible headaches
in each of your heels
into your private-beach-
notion of heaven,
your homecoming'll be dread-
fully anticlimactic.
No one to talk to
about any of this;
none to compare,
contrast,
to rejoice
with, concerning
the everlasting-
ness of your bliss—since
of course,
the whole place
is literally
all yours—is
completely
deserted.
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
SOLSTICE
On a dark winter's day,
a sudden mysterious
breeze'll go
wheezing through blue bristles
of spruce branches,
and in a snap
and in a snap
you think how—those trees
back in Eden
must have sounded
exactly like these—explicit,
equally
equally
misunderstood,
underutilized,
never listened-to,
and so on.
Only, in Adam
and Eve's defense, you figure—
they had a good excuse.
they had a good excuse.
Since that mighty
wind rending those bleak,
original branches
likely didn't
scare out such perfect
English as these do—
English as these do—
probably more like
some of that ugly Church
Latin, or something.
some of that ugly Church
Latin, or something.
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
EXAMINATION
A white head glowing on the other side
of a heavy wide
desk
from me (I feel
like there
ought to be
a Newton's Cradle
clacking as it goes on)
talking,
pausing severely
to hear,
then instructing
the same fingers,
which have mapped
and confidently
criticized thousands of pasty
quivering bodies
before mine,
to type away capriciously
on an antique computer
next to the typewriter.
Gradually, I fearfully gather
I'm being hunted
out here
in the gap:
Is that you?
or me? The voice asks
incongruously
at the second sounding
of a ring tone,
before those giant hands envelop,
unclasp
and then quickly
and loudly
snap shut a shiny flip-phone—
of a heavy wide
desk
from me (I feel
like there
ought to be
a Newton's Cradle
clacking as it goes on)
talking,
pausing severely
to hear,
then instructing
the same fingers,
which have mapped
and confidently
criticized thousands of pasty
quivering bodies
before mine,
to type away capriciously
on an antique computer
next to the typewriter.
Gradually, I fearfully gather
I'm being hunted
out here
in the gap:
Is that you?
or me? The voice asks
incongruously
at the second sounding
of a ring tone,
before those giant hands envelop,
unclasp
and then quickly
and loudly
snap shut a shiny flip-phone—
Thursday, December 15, 2016
SINGLE DIGITS
I feel, in this freezing
wind, my oneness—
drawn and haphazardly
pushed around,
scribbled, spit,
scratch-tallied, and
X-ed out—as if this
ponderous, senile planet
is struggling
to teach a piss-ant sky
how to do basic
math with me. And he
(the smarmy idiot)
keeps making
a blustery show
of his trying—but really
doesn't understand—nor does he
see, if the whole world gets it
already, why he should also
have to be bothered.
wind, my oneness—
drawn and haphazardly
pushed around,
scribbled, spit,
scratch-tallied, and
X-ed out—as if this
ponderous, senile planet
is struggling
to teach a piss-ant sky
how to do basic
math with me. And he
(the smarmy idiot)
keeps making
a blustery show
of his trying—but really
doesn't understand—nor does he
see, if the whole world gets it
already, why he should also
have to be bothered.
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT
At first, there's these
four pretty
poor and unpopular
schoolboys—
formerly sick
with measles
and colic, they stutter
and stammer a lot.
Uncoordinated skippers,
petrified out-loud readers,
domestic animal killers, closeted
floral painting-lovers—
each taking turns of equal duration
hating and resenting and resisting
just how similar he is
to the others.
*
After a few repetitions, they're now
four anxious and fiercely
nationalistic countries—
all running with equal swiftness
toward the mountain of glory
and its crater of oblivion—
but all four
packing so incredibly
close to its precarious rim
as to prevent any
of the others
from daring to jump in, shouting:
Germany! Italy!
Russia! Japan!
Germany! Italy!
Russia! Japan!
and so on,
systematically, but with
no endgame planned.
Until—that first weary note
of dissatisfaction kicks in,
puts a pretty
constipated-looking
human face on everything.
Then suddenly,
it's more like:
Hello, hello, hello, hello—
everyone's cool
just letting it play-out,
even going so far as
to label the whole
scene—a denial.
four pretty
poor and unpopular
schoolboys—
formerly sick
with measles
and colic, they stutter
and stammer a lot.
Uncoordinated skippers,
petrified out-loud readers,
domestic animal killers, closeted
floral painting-lovers—
each taking turns of equal duration
hating and resenting and resisting
just how similar he is
to the others.
*
After a few repetitions, they're now
four anxious and fiercely
nationalistic countries—
all running with equal swiftness
toward the mountain of glory
and its crater of oblivion—
but all four
packing so incredibly
close to its precarious rim
as to prevent any
of the others
from daring to jump in, shouting:
Germany! Italy!
Russia! Japan!
Germany! Italy!
Russia! Japan!
and so on,
systematically, but with
no endgame planned.
Until—that first weary note
of dissatisfaction kicks in,
puts a pretty
constipated-looking
human face on everything.
Then suddenly,
it's more like:
Hello, hello, hello, hello—
everyone's cool
just letting it play-out,
even going so far as
to label the whole
scene—a denial.
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
BACKSPACE ODE
At last—
can you imagine
how anything
halfway decently enduring
ever got written
before this
latest, au courant, up-to-
the-minute
master creator
was given
his benevolent druthers, his
capricious dominion—
to whoosh back
and obliterate all offenders
to the missive
with quick
cataclysmic bolts
of sterilizing lightning
waggled from the
merest tip of his
fat itchy
pink and bald trigger pinky—
two, three—wait,
half
a dozen times now, at
least?
can you imagine
how anything
halfway decently enduring
ever got written
before this
latest, au courant, up-to-
the-minute
master creator
was given
his benevolent druthers, his
capricious dominion—
to whoosh back
and obliterate all offenders
to the missive
with quick
cataclysmic bolts
of sterilizing lightning
waggled from the
merest tip of his
fat itchy
pink and bald trigger pinky—
two, three—wait,
half
a dozen times now, at
least?
Friday, December 9, 2016
PSST
The poem you want
is over there—
off to your right. It's
the way
the coffee sits
so still
in your cup,
so calm
on the roiled table,
so black and
so warm-
looking
next to the white high-gloss
cover of this
wretched little book.
Doesn't it? Um,
I mean—
isn't it?
is over there—
off to your right. It's
the way
the coffee sits
so still
in your cup,
so calm
on the roiled table,
so black and
so warm-
looking
next to the white high-gloss
cover of this
wretched little book.
Doesn't it? Um,
I mean—
isn't it?
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
WHAT'S THE FUTURE GOT TO DO WITH ME?
Walking around
any big bomb-
gray city
is
a great way
to re-
assure oneself—that
at least
God's creation
is both
way
too
lumbering-huge
and
far too
unsure of itself
to ever really be changed all that quickly.
Still,
considering such
a gross
timescale,
one then
imagines
He—
would have
vastly preferred
dealing with
trees—
to all these
unstable motherfucking
megatons
of people.
any big bomb-
gray city
is
a great way
to re-
assure oneself—that
at least
God's creation
is both
way
too
lumbering-huge
and
far too
unsure of itself
to ever really be changed all that quickly.
Still,
considering such
a gross
timescale,
one then
imagines
He—
would have
vastly preferred
dealing with
trees—
to all these
unstable motherfucking
megatons
of people.
Tuesday, December 6, 2016
IT'S YOU
Fight it, if you like.
It's still going to happen.
It's not
that it's meaningless. Meaningless—
you could do
easily. Unfortunately,
it's you—
staring down another faultless
surface every morning,
watching it
defy you, with that indomitable
prestige, called
The Way Things Are,
to improve somehow upon
its chaste perfection
with your prejudiced
and hypothetical burdens,
to somehow
trade places
with an uninjured rectangle.
It's you—
you
verses art.
But—just the thought of that
and it's like you've
already set to the task.
No greater pressure.
How can you lose?
Perhaps only ever
by endeavoring not to.
It's still going to happen.
It's not
that it's meaningless. Meaningless—
you could do
easily. Unfortunately,
it's you—
staring down another faultless
surface every morning,
watching it
defy you, with that indomitable
prestige, called
The Way Things Are,
to improve somehow upon
its chaste perfection
with your prejudiced
and hypothetical burdens,
to somehow
trade places
with an uninjured rectangle.
It's you—
you
verses art.
But—just the thought of that
and it's like you've
already set to the task.
No greater pressure.
How can you lose?
Perhaps only ever
by endeavoring not to.
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
ORWELL MISSED THE POINT
There in the fire-pale
sapphire eyes
of some sloppy younger kin's
digital photos online,
you can see
perfectly quick—why
doublethink
must exist.
Not that two
plus two equals five;
that trick's too obvious. It's
a much weirder glitch,
perpetrated by this
slick algorithmic arrangement
of dovetailed generations
who still share the same space
but no longer
the same geography.
In this far-less everlasting
new infinity of capacity,
two things really are
true at once. For instance—
to those kids, staring
up down in Texas,
there's actually
no such things as lone stars,
but you, here? Turns out, no matter
which books you look in,
you still only own
those old few; and likewise, wherever
you choose to gaze
up in this big city, you can see
there's really
properly—only
such lonely things
as those.
sapphire eyes
of some sloppy younger kin's
digital photos online,
you can see
perfectly quick—why
doublethink
must exist.
Not that two
plus two equals five;
that trick's too obvious. It's
a much weirder glitch,
perpetrated by this
slick algorithmic arrangement
of dovetailed generations
who still share the same space
but no longer
the same geography.
In this far-less everlasting
new infinity of capacity,
two things really are
true at once. For instance—
to those kids, staring
up down in Texas,
there's actually
no such things as lone stars,
but you, here? Turns out, no matter
which books you look in,
you still only own
those old few; and likewise, wherever
you choose to gaze
up in this big city, you can see
there's really
properly—only
such lonely things
as those.
Monday, November 28, 2016
THE SNOW GLOBE
Sometimes, my gift is just
the stark purity of reassurance—that no,
you're not alone;
that yes, it's okay—that all of those ways
you suppose you've invented
to torment yourself
are actually shared, are culturally
predestined. That, in fact, all of the omnipotent
possessors who came before you
have clutched the very same
small world in their hands
and offhandedly declared,
oh well, to hell with any such
hard-earned and
terminal serenity—
before bathing their dominion
in the antiseptic chaos
of another controlled calamity.
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
CORNER OF REINDEER LN. & MULHOLLAND DR.
Crossing this balding and broad-
shouldered city alone in early winter—
still tasting faintly those bitter endnotes
of a very aggressive autumn
which still linger like burnt toast on the
thin morning air—and knowing
it's still just a little too soon
for those peppermint-soothing
diversions of fiber-optic barber-
pole holiday fare—this is the moment
when there's really no forest
toward which this street's column-collated
trees can aspire; when the strange projections
of daily life, caught between such frivolous
and complex preoccupations, feels like they
might as well be broadcast from Mars.
Suddenly, summer was a laughable theory.
Everything is cold and small and concrete—and yet,
still a little soft, too roomy, and strangely light
for its size—like a movie set
that's all held together with spit
and little bits of insulation, with
gaffers' black tape, union electricians' chewing gum
and craft services' leftover peanut butter, where
everything's only temporary, all is
just for show—intended by the higher-ups
and executive producers, only to give
the casual impression—not of a cast and crew
fused in commercial cooperation,
but of an entire civilization
all having agreed—that this distracted nexus
between the past and the future tense
will be believable, was
wanted, and is doable.
shouldered city alone in early winter—
still tasting faintly those bitter endnotes
of a very aggressive autumn
which still linger like burnt toast on the
thin morning air—and knowing
it's still just a little too soon
for those peppermint-soothing
diversions of fiber-optic barber-
pole holiday fare—this is the moment
when there's really no forest
toward which this street's column-collated
trees can aspire; when the strange projections
of daily life, caught between such frivolous
and complex preoccupations, feels like they
might as well be broadcast from Mars.
Suddenly, summer was a laughable theory.
Everything is cold and small and concrete—and yet,
still a little soft, too roomy, and strangely light
for its size—like a movie set
that's all held together with spit
and little bits of insulation, with
gaffers' black tape, union electricians' chewing gum
and craft services' leftover peanut butter, where
everything's only temporary, all is
just for show—intended by the higher-ups
and executive producers, only to give
the casual impression—not of a cast and crew
fused in commercial cooperation,
but of an entire civilization
all having agreed—that this distracted nexus
between the past and the future tense
will be believable, was
wanted, and is doable.
Monday, November 21, 2016
INTERDEPENDENCE OF LIVING THINGS
As if inspired by
talk—of those
locked and edgeless oceans,
swimming imaginary
inside the
factually tangible
hearts of so many
frozen, disavowed
former planets—
just by one glance
in her small dog's
bottomless black eye, she
swears she would
bet a million dollars—
it contains a wet
secret or two
that could (depending) either
rend or sire,
either drown
or inspire
countless trillion billions
of future civilizations,
all those competing gravities
of their fleeting
generational theories,
all of their valiant
hopeless pretensions toward forging
any artifice that tries to last,
and the one mundane thing
common to all creatures
which grants them
any validation for having
lasted this long at all—
that simple
comfort of feeling—you're being
looked-after.
talk—of those
locked and edgeless oceans,
swimming imaginary
inside the
factually tangible
hearts of so many
frozen, disavowed
former planets—
just by one glance
in her small dog's
bottomless black eye, she
swears she would
bet a million dollars—
it contains a wet
secret or two
that could (depending) either
rend or sire,
either drown
or inspire
countless trillion billions
of future civilizations,
all those competing gravities
of their fleeting
generational theories,
all of their valiant
hopeless pretensions toward forging
any artifice that tries to last,
and the one mundane thing
common to all creatures
which grants them
any validation for having
lasted this long at all—
that simple
comfort of feeling—you're being
looked-after.
Friday, November 18, 2016
WICHITA VORTEX SUTRA
Outside, a murdering rain
and lashing wind—threaten
to disturb the last remaining
fig leaf of our tacit
and fragile
national dignity;
but meanwhile,
somewhere in Kansas,
emerges alone
from a dim leaky basement
some fretful punchy
spawn of Ginsberg
who cannot be distracted
from his or her gleefully
impossible mission—
not to ride out this storm,
but instead, to ride
inside it more deeply;
to understand both
its forces
and counter-forces,
to willingly become
both the end-product
and the engine—and then finally,
to speak, if only
to coax out of silence,
the dry and complacent tongues
of all those survivors
still locked-up
in their shelters.
and lashing wind—threaten
to disturb the last remaining
fig leaf of our tacit
and fragile
national dignity;
but meanwhile,
somewhere in Kansas,
emerges alone
from a dim leaky basement
some fretful punchy
spawn of Ginsberg
who cannot be distracted
from his or her gleefully
impossible mission—
not to ride out this storm,
but instead, to ride
inside it more deeply;
to understand both
its forces
and counter-forces,
to willingly become
both the end-product
and the engine—and then finally,
to speak, if only
to coax out of silence,
the dry and complacent tongues
of all those survivors
still locked-up
in their shelters.
Thursday, November 17, 2016
SUPERFLUOUS
All the lonely insignificant supermen
marooned on
the planet must
feel, each time
earth's chromeyellow sun
stumbles down, flickers
of the sheer power-
lessness inherent
to such a cosmic and
ungodly bravery.
Where are all those
good helpless
bright-eyed and light-brimming
old flames
of ours? they must wonder.
We can no longer
see them. Why won't they
wave?
But what good? would
all the flints
and the wicks
and the matchsticks
in the universe be, any-
way—when
there's no
day
to save.
marooned on
the planet must
feel, each time
earth's chromeyellow sun
stumbles down, flickers
of the sheer power-
lessness inherent
to such a cosmic and
ungodly bravery.
Where are all those
good helpless
bright-eyed and light-brimming
old flames
of ours? they must wonder.
We can no longer
see them. Why won't they
wave?
But what good? would
all the flints
and the wicks
and the matchsticks
in the universe be, any-
way—when
there's no
day
to save.
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
I AM THE TYRANNY OF EVIL MEN
The tale's as
old as time, because
in the
grand scheme—
no sin
is original.
No imagination has ever
considered whether—it was locked
inside Beauty
or the Beast;
just like, no pair of eyes
ever stopped to notice
that the young man
strung-up on a
Jerusalem lawn
was actually
the one
who needed—us,
each mind
suspiciously failing
to realize simultaneously
that there's only one
perfect and
bottomless love—a wellspring
from which all other
ideas are dredged-up
and diluted.
old as time, because
in the
grand scheme—
no sin
is original.
No imagination has ever
considered whether—it was locked
inside Beauty
or the Beast;
just like, no pair of eyes
ever stopped to notice
that the young man
strung-up on a
Jerusalem lawn
was actually
the one
who needed—us,
each mind
suspiciously failing
to realize simultaneously
that there's only one
perfect and
bottomless love—a wellspring
from which all other
ideas are dredged-up
and diluted.
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
INTERNAL COMBUSTION
One day—from earth, it was observed
that the indisputably wrong thing had happened.
A gleaming incandescent star,
the mysterious diamond they'd all wished
upon—exploded.
The showers of shrapnel were savage,
and toxic, and horrible;
and the subsequent darkness was total.
But then—the day after,
by the weird chilly light emitted
from some kind
of hack, forgotten back-up generator,
each survivor rose to wrote a poem.
And though no one felt an iota better,
everyone felt this
at last, simultaneously. And that, it turned out,
was the whole miracle—
the only and most certain epistolary angel,
the obscure, unsolicited message,
born in the blazing hearts of billions,
the spark of conscious imagination—finally
perched and glowing with intention,
at home at last atop the withered wick of the soul.
that the indisputably wrong thing had happened.
A gleaming incandescent star,
the mysterious diamond they'd all wished
upon—exploded.
The showers of shrapnel were savage,
and toxic, and horrible;
and the subsequent darkness was total.
But then—the day after,
by the weird chilly light emitted
from some kind
of hack, forgotten back-up generator,
each survivor rose to wrote a poem.
And though no one felt an iota better,
everyone felt this
at last, simultaneously. And that, it turned out,
was the whole miracle—
the only and most certain epistolary angel,
the obscure, unsolicited message,
born in the blazing hearts of billions,
the spark of conscious imagination—finally
perched and glowing with intention,
at home at last atop the withered wick of the soul.
Monday, November 14, 2016
KIDDO
Riding home
in our parents' cars together,
sometimes
the silence would feel impenetrable.
But now—in ours,
it more just feels unanimous
and terrific.
It's like how, back then—
some kinds of beauty
were deemed too true to be useful:
steely, indomitable,
and about as expensive
as a mono-
chromatic necklace of pearls;
whereas
many now are simply too good
to be true: like
that invaluable, polysyllabic jewel
which presently,
I'll give you—and which contains
too many facets
of fierce, simple elegance
to ever resemble
your regular name.
in our parents' cars together,
sometimes
the silence would feel impenetrable.
But now—in ours,
it more just feels unanimous
and terrific.
It's like how, back then—
some kinds of beauty
were deemed too true to be useful:
steely, indomitable,
and about as expensive
as a mono-
chromatic necklace of pearls;
whereas
many now are simply too good
to be true: like
that invaluable, polysyllabic jewel
which presently,
I'll give you—and which contains
too many facets
of fierce, simple elegance
to ever resemble
your regular name.
Thursday, November 10, 2016
GENERAL ELECTION
All over America
in November, the dead
leaves fall incessant—
expressing there
upon the bare land,
a quiet, even pressure
so generic
and
so mutual—that
no one man
or woman living
could ever dare—to realize
how utterly
all other men
and women feel it.
in November, the dead
leaves fall incessant—
expressing there
upon the bare land,
a quiet, even pressure
so generic
and
so mutual—that
no one man
or woman living
could ever dare—to realize
how utterly
all other men
and women feel it.
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
VERSES (AFTER WHITMAN)
When, in the incongruously broad
brimming Wednesday
morning daylight,
dozens or hundreds or
thousands or more
of disparate pairs
of the puffy solicitous
eyes you'll encounter
might start to beleaguer—
Is it possible the song
that America is singing
is wrong?
What good are so many verses
which don't rhyme
and lack a chorus?
Can it be that the whole world
is such a less kind place
than it was yesterday?—
may these few short lines exist here
so that you never squander
a moment before responding:
such a deficit
of energy is
impossible.
Mildness on earth will never
lessen, for I alone
shall make up the difference.
Day after day,
as before
I'll keep singing,
articulating, albeit with a
melancholy tongue,
the great mystery
of—how it can be
that even melancholia
is a warm feeling,
since—to be truly
sad, or angry,
or afraid
posits, at its
center, an illimitable
relation to all others.
brimming Wednesday
morning daylight,
dozens or hundreds or
thousands or more
of disparate pairs
of the puffy solicitous
eyes you'll encounter
might start to beleaguer—
Is it possible the song
that America is singing
is wrong?
What good are so many verses
which don't rhyme
and lack a chorus?
Can it be that the whole world
is such a less kind place
than it was yesterday?—
may these few short lines exist here
so that you never squander
a moment before responding:
such a deficit
of energy is
impossible.
Mildness on earth will never
lessen, for I alone
shall make up the difference.
Day after day,
as before
I'll keep singing,
articulating, albeit with a
melancholy tongue,
the great mystery
of—how it can be
that even melancholia
is a warm feeling,
since—to be truly
sad, or angry,
or afraid
posits, at its
center, an illimitable
relation to all others.
Monday, November 7, 2016
KINTSUGI
Little by little, all of our
small supple hours
will go leaping
and whirling cocksure
into heaps, which are, at first
gently shaped into silent
resilient days—but then
become compacted and glazed
by the stiffening hands of discipline
into ruthlessly strong and
stubborn vessels called decades—
until eventually,
even the slightest changes
in temperature, moisture
and atmospheric pressure
act as needles
to breach their integrity, causing
every splendid old one of them
to crumble
into an indefensible waste
of clipped shards and pieces.
But curiously, it's not the opposite,
but the inverse
of Time—a thing called Endurance,
which soldiers on quiet
and selfless in the dark,
soothing each jagged corner
with its golden balm of tolerance
and gluing the fractures
back together in more resilient combinations.
But Endurance also bears its own signature,
an ultimatum—that any product
born of such a reconciliation
shall never again posit the desire
to be flawless; nor can it ever again
aspire to resemble
the same design
for which it was
formerly celebrated—since it knows
the only vessels strong enough
to withstand ongoing ravages,
are those which bear the most proudly
the thick cracks
and fissures
of each former surrender.
Friday, November 4, 2016
CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE
I pledge my allegiance to
metaphor
and so freely touch to cross
my heart
when I swear—
that my only religion
is art
and its functional
intersection with commerce.
I don't desire
the tearing
down of churches; much better
to use them—for
killer
loft apartments, un-
conventional live music
venues, free
parking, electrical infrastructure
and elemental
protection for local farmers
markets' continued operation
in winter.
metaphor
and so freely touch to cross
my heart
when I swear—
that my only religion
is art
and its functional
intersection with commerce.
I don't desire
the tearing
down of churches; much better
to use them—for
killer
loft apartments, un-
conventional live music
venues, free
parking, electrical infrastructure
and elemental
protection for local farmers
markets' continued operation
in winter.
Thursday, November 3, 2016
DETAILS, DETAILS
Incredulously, life's stupid
little particulars
refuse to refine; legions of cells
don't distill themselves,
reduce to savory sauces, fine
wine, concentrated
juices. Instead,
they mindlessly multiply,
calcify and pile-
up incessantly.
But what's kind of nice is—
those hard white ugly stubborn knots,
where all events
get fused to your biased
remembrances of them,
eventually combine
to make
a spine—
a sturdy column
of rocks and mortar,
whose steady bands
of nervy pipes then start
to shunt fluids,
and, over time,
grow—winding thickly
through all that is you,
to support and to nourish
and eventually—
to animate,
reshaping into the finest
art—everything
which first shaped it.
little particulars
refuse to refine; legions of cells
don't distill themselves,
reduce to savory sauces, fine
wine, concentrated
juices. Instead,
they mindlessly multiply,
calcify and pile-
up incessantly.
But what's kind of nice is—
those hard white ugly stubborn knots,
where all events
get fused to your biased
remembrances of them,
eventually combine
to make
a spine—
a sturdy column
of rocks and mortar,
whose steady bands
of nervy pipes then start
to shunt fluids,
and, over time,
grow—winding thickly
through all that is you,
to support and to nourish
and eventually—
to animate,
reshaping into the finest
art—everything
which first shaped it.
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
MISE EN SCÉNE
Street after street, on increasingly
swollen porches,
glowing clusters
of figures
jockey
for position—beckon you
with incongruously
mock-mirthful
grins,
not to admit them
as harmless aspects
of experience,
but to lie-
down your own
wintry substance entirely—
to die and come
back again—exactly
as them.
swollen porches,
glowing clusters
of figures
jockey
for position—beckon you
with incongruously
mock-mirthful
grins,
not to admit them
as harmless aspects
of experience,
but to lie-
down your own
wintry substance entirely—
to die and come
back again—exactly
as them.
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
LOOKIT, A DOGGIE
Old wisest friend,
although daily
we saunter together
down these shabby cotton-
brown sidewalks, past
the most
woebegone of stroller-
bound children,
I still can't
help but laugh a bit,
since you never quite
seem to realize
it's you—who invariably
precipitates, in each one of
these little novices,
the earth-shattering realization
of that certain
prelapsarian premise—
that man,
with the sheer pacifying
power of words
alone, can
control his
whole universe.
Monday, October 31, 2016
COURAGE
As a young lion, he loved to follow mountains
of instructions to the letter,
but absolutely hated
being told what to do.
Now, he wakes up howling about how—
every day is leg day
and scowls in his sleep,
mumbling—each drawer's the bottom one.
But this, we're all very quick to assure him,
simply prefigures
a thing
that's much bigger,
like a crumble
of rangy yellow—in an emerald city.
of instructions to the letter,
but absolutely hated
being told what to do.
Now, he wakes up howling about how—
every day is leg day
and scowls in his sleep,
mumbling—each drawer's the bottom one.
But this, we're all very quick to assure him,
simply prefigures
a thing
that's much bigger,
like a crumble
of rangy yellow—in an emerald city.
Friday, October 28, 2016
CLEARING
Happening alone
at dusk upon
a hollow,
illumined
by this mangy
inter-generational grove
of flameyellow trees
which rings
its ragged perimeter, I see
in an instant,
the impossible mystery
of my own continuity—
that thought
which still remains abstract,
once in a picture
is crystal—precious as it is
pathetic,
solemn, but breezily irreligious:
like these, I die
to watch my way of life
survive;
and life-after-death
snaps
to sheer certainty,
as long as there's
no future outside
of—today.
at dusk upon
a hollow,
illumined
by this mangy
inter-generational grove
of flameyellow trees
which rings
its ragged perimeter, I see
in an instant,
the impossible mystery
of my own continuity—
that thought
which still remains abstract,
once in a picture
is crystal—precious as it is
pathetic,
solemn, but breezily irreligious:
like these, I die
to watch my way of life
survive;
and life-after-death
snaps
to sheer certainty,
as long as there's
no future outside
of—today.
Thursday, October 27, 2016
REGIMES
Every morning now—kingly skeleton mouths
grin out from camouflaged
graveyards—and pluck, as if from
these hot capillaries passing by, oddly
exuberant dissonant chords;
raising and reanimating giddy phantoms
inside me, of spooky gossamer agents
I can never put my finger on—
some terrible, witlessly merry pulse
and its catchy unutterable melody line.
I only know it's something
along the lines of—how death must start
as a ponderous mountain of potential pleasure
whose sheer gravity causes it
to implode
the longer and harder we try to conserve it.
Maybe that's why—what I've been
hankering for all these mornings
has been the taste of
hunger itself. And maybe that's why
I've never been able
to bring myself to sit and watch
the sand in my hourglass
gracefully run out,
without growing so sick
and tired of waiting—that I
positively have to—get up
and go running.
grin out from camouflaged
graveyards—and pluck, as if from
these hot capillaries passing by, oddly
exuberant dissonant chords;
raising and reanimating giddy phantoms
inside me, of spooky gossamer agents
I can never put my finger on—
some terrible, witlessly merry pulse
and its catchy unutterable melody line.
I only know it's something
along the lines of—how death must start
as a ponderous mountain of potential pleasure
whose sheer gravity causes it
to implode
the longer and harder we try to conserve it.
Maybe that's why—what I've been
hankering for all these mornings
has been the taste of
hunger itself. And maybe that's why
I've never been able
to bring myself to sit and watch
the sand in my hourglass
gracefully run out,
without growing so sick
and tired of waiting—that I
positively have to—get up
and go running.
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
LEARNING HOW TO BE COOL
Kate, if one day
you no longer recognize me,
it'll be
'cause I've grown so chill
as to look
almost standoffishly blue
and translucent,
from praying
'til I'm pale
that all those other
dudes my head grow—not
dimmer, just
more shallow
in their criticism;
and if I'm no longer plucking
the million-pound
moon from its heaven
to drop it
all-sly in your
shoe as a present (or even
fishing it out
from my casual place
sprawled on a manmade
suburban lake,
where I smoke candy
cigarettes and chug
Gatorade),
it'll be
'cause you
had said—that's okay,
you didn't
really want it—and I finally
remembered
to listen.
you no longer recognize me,
it'll be
'cause I've grown so chill
as to look
almost standoffishly blue
and translucent,
from praying
'til I'm pale
that all those other
dudes my head grow—not
dimmer, just
more shallow
in their criticism;
and if I'm no longer plucking
the million-pound
moon from its heaven
to drop it
all-sly in your
shoe as a present (or even
fishing it out
from my casual place
sprawled on a manmade
suburban lake,
where I smoke candy
cigarettes and chug
Gatorade),
it'll be
'cause you
had said—that's okay,
you didn't
really want it—and I finally
remembered
to listen.
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
LITTLE TROUBLE
Beheld by the mirthful
eye of the mind,
the autumn breeze
always seems
to be laughing
at these certain small
disheveled lessors
it periodically sees—fevered
and glistening, fit to
sneeze—flurrying back
to work
again sweeping
newly strewn crumbs
of dirt and scratchy
bits of leaves
out from the thusly-
tickled elbows
of concrete curbs
underneath
the smirking
windowfaces
of bloated
obsolescent
brownstones—as if
somehow, those!
were the motes
that caused all the itching.
Thursday, October 20, 2016
NO MORE SYNONYMS
There are so many zeros
in a million
in a million
that sometimes, you just long to say
and do nothing,
to let those last gold glowing
tokens fall
with their familiar little rings—until, at last
you have
absolutely none
of everything. Then you'd feel
clean, you'd feel
in control,
feel free,
since
the fortunes
you would care about now
could only be as small as
your thoughts made them out to be.
But still
always, there's the gleam
of subconscious
knowing underneath—wordless
and silent,
impoverished
and unspoken—such close pairs as these
mean far
from the
same thing.
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
WRETCH LIKE ME
So deep in thick wilderness,
I feared I could no longer
make out the old song;
but it was then,
with the melody missing
and absolutely no sound,
that I finally heard
the words crystal clearly—
but now
I'm
just a
bit curious;
was blind,
but now,
I guess
I can kind
of understand.
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
RE-ELECT MAYOR GOLDIE WILSON
Is there a single brave soul out there?
a weary nation of individuals
wonders, who's like us? A man
who's far less smarmy
than a hero, but less like a crook
than a witless bystander?
A woman, who's willing to work overtime
at keeping her integrity nearest to zero,
so as not to call unnecessary
and ballistic attention to it?
That hardened-but-immaterial
sheep of the herd who goes first,
who strives boldly to improve
the whole world only subtly,
through ecumenical promotion
of the most empathetic self-interests
and nonchalant nods to the most
figure-flattering of scruples?
Deliver us, lord,
the private prayers shall go
sailing ever upward,
one we can trust—who's not afraid
of switching off the lights
when leaving the room,
even just for a minute,
but who still insists on sleeping
next to a jittery little Chinese
box fan every night, for the comforting
ambient drone of its motor.
a weary nation of individuals
wonders, who's like us? A man
who's far less smarmy
than a hero, but less like a crook
than a witless bystander?
A woman, who's willing to work overtime
at keeping her integrity nearest to zero,
so as not to call unnecessary
and ballistic attention to it?
That hardened-but-immaterial
sheep of the herd who goes first,
who strives boldly to improve
the whole world only subtly,
through ecumenical promotion
of the most empathetic self-interests
and nonchalant nods to the most
figure-flattering of scruples?
Deliver us, lord,
the private prayers shall go
sailing ever upward,
one we can trust—who's not afraid
of switching off the lights
when leaving the room,
even just for a minute,
but who still insists on sleeping
next to a jittery little Chinese
box fan every night, for the comforting
ambient drone of its motor.
Monday, October 17, 2016
SUPER NATURAL
This is how the wind blows most
October afternoons, now
that you're old enough
to really be properly
scared of all of those creeping
things of this world
which are neither
scarce nor sacred, those shades
that cast nauseatingly
typical shadows,
those mundane wraiths
which are so
overworked and
underfed they've grown stupid—
a thousand thousand thousand
insistent iterations
of the same unimportant
brown autumn leaf
that go scuttling past your sneakers
like failed and abandoned
kites in stilted currents;
the drowsy zombie
bumble bees
tickling your hair like bats
rising blind from their cells
in hell,
not to riot, but quietly
squeak of prosaic dangers
(not enough cash-flow, too much
fat in your diet, et cetera);
and finally, from endless porches,
the sallow leer
of prototypical
jack o' lanterns penetrating,
making you feel
hollow inside,
hollow inside,
guilty—for all the time
you spend thinking
about the immaterial
words of dead poets,
instead of trying
to picture—all your disgruntled still-
living
relatives' faces.
to picture—all your disgruntled still-
living
relatives' faces.
Friday, October 14, 2016
WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA
When you were little,
you never gazed
longingly off
in the distance—you only stared
at what was right
in front of you. Until,
eventually, you realized
literally everything
you could see
was really
made of something
smaller—loose locks,
wormy stocks,
and rusty pitted
barrels. But
now, even peering at
classic books
feels
claustrophobic—
all those panicky letters
bumping into
one another,
stampedes of words
collapsing
into shapes
made by the same mouth
and its
small monotonous voice.
And you're right
to feel nervous
because—
the one original
thought
you've got
left is:
what if
the Apocalypse
has already happened,
It just wasn't
a huge deal?
All those insignificant things—
tiny habits,
mute gestures,
the cute words in those books—
just took over
casually,
gradually, when
the colossal individuals
who made them
stopped looking.
you never gazed
longingly off
in the distance—you only stared
at what was right
in front of you. Until,
eventually, you realized
literally everything
you could see
was really
made of something
smaller—loose locks,
wormy stocks,
and rusty pitted
barrels. But
now, even peering at
classic books
feels
claustrophobic—
all those panicky letters
bumping into
one another,
stampedes of words
collapsing
into shapes
made by the same mouth
and its
small monotonous voice.
And you're right
to feel nervous
because—
the one original
thought
you've got
left is:
what if
the Apocalypse
has already happened,
It just wasn't
a huge deal?
All those insignificant things—
tiny habits,
mute gestures,
the cute words in those books—
just took over
casually,
gradually, when
the colossal individuals
who made them
stopped looking.
Thursday, October 13, 2016
PLANS FOR AFTER GRADUATION
Most of the time
you'll wake up in the morning
drained and literally not
having dreamed
about anything,
every last trace of that once-
liquid-leaden uncreated
conscience of your
race having been siphoned,
cooled, and compacted to sustain
and buttress the the inexhaustible structure
of something preexisting.
You'll actually eulogize catching colds
and having those good old hunger
pangs all the time, bereft now
of any terror you could name
that hasn't yet been played
out in simulation, over and over
again. Yes, and I'm guessing
you'll still have never read
The Divine Comedy—but,
at any given time, you're likely
to have seen all three Jurassic
Parks on TNT fairly recently.
you'll wake up in the morning
drained and literally not
having dreamed
about anything,
every last trace of that once-
liquid-leaden uncreated
conscience of your
race having been siphoned,
cooled, and compacted to sustain
and buttress the the inexhaustible structure
of something preexisting.
You'll actually eulogize catching colds
and having those good old hunger
pangs all the time, bereft now
of any terror you could name
that hasn't yet been played
out in simulation, over and over
again. Yes, and I'm guessing
you'll still have never read
The Divine Comedy—but,
at any given time, you're likely
to have seen all three Jurassic
Parks on TNT fairly recently.
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
THE LAST BREAKFAST
After waking, blinking
lightning
yawning
thunder,
probably urinating
several
sturdy rain-
showers, he proceeded—
as ever
with gentle gratitude
to the light
of the father
for all
things presently
made soft-
ly visible—
to cradle
and raise
a steaming white
cup
piously
up,
tilting
to baptize
the agonized
waiting
and withered
congregation
of his
guts.
lightning
yawning
thunder,
probably urinating
several
sturdy rain-
showers, he proceeded—
as ever
with gentle gratitude
to the light
of the father
for all
things presently
made soft-
ly visible—
to cradle
and raise
a steaming white
cup
piously
up,
tilting
to baptize
the agonized
waiting
and withered
congregation
of his
guts.
Monday, October 10, 2016
WORKS CITED
In a debate, both parties
do their best
to mean
the things
they say; it's just that
the definitions
are always
gradually changing.
For instance,
everyone's confident
in insisting—
the most shameful thing
a human can do
is choose
to love something
it's impossible
to get rich abusing—but
the humanity bit
tends to get a little
stuck between
their dictionaries' pages,
last seen—marooned
someplace
weirdly perfect
between
mundane—and eminently
despicable.
do their best
to mean
the things
they say; it's just that
the definitions
are always
gradually changing.
For instance,
everyone's confident
in insisting—
the most shameful thing
a human can do
is choose
to love something
it's impossible
to get rich abusing—but
the humanity bit
tends to get a little
stuck between
their dictionaries' pages,
last seen—marooned
someplace
weirdly perfect
between
mundane—and eminently
despicable.
Friday, October 7, 2016
DOWN AND OUT
Once, in purest poverty, I tried
to compose a poem with no design—
but words, those little mottled black-
and-white vagabond things,
each one starving
despite being swollen near to bursting
with unkillable sound, and all of them
greasy and threadbare,
sheathed in rumpled suits of their
hand-me-down significance—
they all kept on creeping
and scrambling back into the construction
with a desperation so relentless, so
astoundingly unbreakable
that I lost my will to kill them at all
and collapsed instead on a strategy
of control—with ambitions presently
only to spin such thick patterns
of this slack spongy population,
that any discerning reader
should figure—the craftsmanship here
transcends the material.
to compose a poem with no design—
but words, those little mottled black-
and-white vagabond things,
each one starving
despite being swollen near to bursting
with unkillable sound, and all of them
greasy and threadbare,
sheathed in rumpled suits of their
hand-me-down significance—
they all kept on creeping
and scrambling back into the construction
with a desperation so relentless, so
astoundingly unbreakable
that I lost my will to kill them at all
and collapsed instead on a strategy
of control—with ambitions presently
only to spin such thick patterns
of this slack spongy population,
that any discerning reader
should figure—the craftsmanship here
transcends the material.
Thursday, October 6, 2016
COGITO ERGO
You probably can't trust that you're
fully awake yet, when—alone in this
packed city rumbling, all the pinstriped
and pastel parcels containing
cake donuts—and the steaming rain-
spattered lids on white take-it-
to-go coffee cups
streaming past you in the hands its
carefully waterproofed commuters—
only make comfort
to you feel so frivolous, so
momentary—so fake.
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
DISAPPOINTING DREAM
Breathless and dark, I wait smack
in the middle of a deranged plain
for the cool glowing words
of this mysterious angel
who has landed close-by and pale
in the tinder, my only real company for
centuries, here under night's growing
translucent veil of slow suffocating
cloudsmoke—until finally, tolled off, one by
one, like very old dense iron church bells,
she intones the words—Son, hey, you got,
like, a lighter I could borrow?
in the middle of a deranged plain
for the cool glowing words
of this mysterious angel
who has landed close-by and pale
in the tinder, my only real company for
centuries, here under night's growing
translucent veil of slow suffocating
cloudsmoke—until finally, tolled off, one by
one, like very old dense iron church bells,
she intones the words—Son, hey, you got,
like, a lighter I could borrow?
Monday, October 3, 2016
RHYTHM'S STILL THE INSTRUMENT
Why do you reek
of muses and luck, super-
stitions and such impalpable portents
as which fickle
way the wind blows?
Were you unwittingly raised to believe
in special inevitable
angels, who hover invisibly over
every timid little
spear of grass that's out there,
cooing and gesticulating
grandly—encouraging the poor thing to grow?
I must say, it seems
as much, by the way I could see you
swaying a little
in the veritable breeze you were making
as you prayed
in the same frenzy once again
last night, for fresh
fruit—instead of giving thanks
for the chance to labor
again tomorrow.
of muses and luck, super-
stitions and such impalpable portents
as which fickle
way the wind blows?
Were you unwittingly raised to believe
in special inevitable
angels, who hover invisibly over
every timid little
spear of grass that's out there,
cooing and gesticulating
grandly—encouraging the poor thing to grow?
I must say, it seems
as much, by the way I could see you
swaying a little
in the veritable breeze you were making
as you prayed
in the same frenzy once again
last night, for fresh
fruit—instead of giving thanks
for the chance to labor
again tomorrow.
Friday, September 30, 2016
THE MESSAGE IS THE MEDIUM
Behold the perenially prodigious artist
and his
unassailable
arsenal of marvelous masterpieces—
uncountable
catalogs
of masterfully
casual
agreements—to always remain
in the business
of making
these
teency little
individually insignificant
changes—
to his
workaday one and
only canvas.
Thursday, September 29, 2016
ARS POETICA
All the distracted
ladies on Bluetooth
while jogging unruly
dogs down these
streets, each
blithe kid biking
past you while hurling some
buoyant profanity,
every last hollow-
cheeked old man
yowling something
about Sports on each cozy
neighborhood bar's
crazy multiplicity
of flatscreens—for years they all
seem to mean
practically
nothing to you. Until the
great day when,
upon find yourself
tired of trying
to deliver
such respectful and
meticulous translations,
you first hit upon
the beautiful gimmick—
of heedlessly cramming
every word they say, wholesale
into your own
preexisting melody.
ladies on Bluetooth
while jogging unruly
dogs down these
streets, each
blithe kid biking
past you while hurling some
buoyant profanity,
every last hollow-
cheeked old man
yowling something
about Sports on each cozy
neighborhood bar's
crazy multiplicity
of flatscreens—for years they all
seem to mean
practically
nothing to you. Until the
great day when,
upon find yourself
tired of trying
to deliver
such respectful and
meticulous translations,
you first hit upon
the beautiful gimmick—
of heedlessly cramming
every word they say, wholesale
into your own
preexisting melody.
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
TACIT
In the soft-pedal
piano of early morning
fog, just after
your car
pulled off, I saw
for a second—I could perceive
the gradually growing
space
between us
without the need to
understand it.
piano of early morning
fog, just after
your car
pulled off, I saw
for a second—I could perceive
the gradually growing
space
between us
without the need to
understand it.
Like some
newborn child
whose presence is
his art,
I just stood
where I was, bereft
but content
to be a wordless
poem for you—
composed
of the same intertwined
billions of bands
of vibrating light
and matter as you were.
But soon
the tremulous idea
broke—it was dull
but loud as the throat-
clearing thunder—
and it dissipated that spell
in a flash,
and all the old
words and cold
symbols began raining,
until I was thoroughly
soaked
with the same
gray and dismal sentence,
which read—
I'll never be able to
show you anything
you haven't seen for your-
self already.
newborn child
whose presence is
his art,
I just stood
where I was, bereft
but content
to be a wordless
poem for you—
composed
of the same intertwined
billions of bands
of vibrating light
and matter as you were.
But soon
the tremulous idea
broke—it was dull
but loud as the throat-
clearing thunder—
and it dissipated that spell
in a flash,
and all the old
words and cold
symbols began raining,
until I was thoroughly
soaked
with the same
gray and dismal sentence,
which read—
I'll never be able to
show you anything
you haven't seen for your-
self already.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
LIGHTEN UP
This is a sunny autumn poem
in which
some dusty-ish
finches are happily thrashing
and chirping away
in curbsides
of old
gutterwater.
How many? What color?
I no longer
feel compelled to remember.
For no images
presented here
are facts; they're merely
encouraging interpretations.
in which
some dusty-ish
finches are happily thrashing
and chirping away
in curbsides
of old
gutterwater.
How many? What color?
I no longer
feel compelled to remember.
For no images
presented here
are facts; they're merely
encouraging interpretations.
Whatever
they conjure, these words
aren't the truth;
they conjure, these words
aren't the truth;
they're just it's swift little
messengers.
And I—I am just
a word too,
however useful
and inspiring to you—as some
swift little vagabond
birds were.
messengers.
And I—I am just
a word too,
however useful
and inspiring to you—as some
swift little vagabond
birds were.
Monday, September 26, 2016
COMPACT
If everything is made of starlight,
what makes certain
things so heavy?
If everything we
know is starlight, how could
there be so many
words to learn? Speaking
of which—if everything we
do is starlight, how come
there's bad guys, and sometimes
even good ones, who fail
to state their cases right?
And further—if everything
we say is starlight,
who's to say we're still
the people we claimed (and they
assumed) we were
before we went to
bed last night? Then again—
if everything we imagine
is starlight,
nothing wrong—since
everything's alright. Do you not
agree?
what makes certain
things so heavy?
If everything we
know is starlight, how could
there be so many
words to learn? Speaking
of which—if everything we
do is starlight, how come
there's bad guys, and sometimes
even good ones, who fail
to state their cases right?
And further—if everything
we say is starlight,
who's to say we're still
the people we claimed (and they
assumed) we were
before we went to
bed last night? Then again—
if everything we imagine
is starlight,
nothing wrong—since
everything's alright. Do you not
agree?
Friday, September 23, 2016
IMAGINARY
The older I get, the more I find
our arguments
are far less
controversial
than our actions are. So,
Slowly—surely
I've been working
more concretely
on my invincibility—
by watching slideshows
where pictures of me
dawn and dissolve
in grateful
time to
mechanical funeral
home music—
and by lying (supine)
down each day
in one additional translucent
grain at a time
of warm wet sand—
for just one
grim and ponderously fictional
milli-
second longer.
Thursday, September 22, 2016
INTUITIVE EATING
Haulting to stare down into
another yellowish
one-third full
bowl of hasty food—
you'll grudgingly consider,
per instructions—
I'm probably not
appreciating this stuff enough;
until that slow fury of routine
hunger—which never fails to
rise up and flare hot again
into each dissatisfied cheek,
immolating any trace of this higher desire
before such an exemplary
sentence can even be completed—
reliably bullies you
instead into exonerating
the conciliatory impulse—to finish
something
by completely
destroying it.
another yellowish
one-third full
bowl of hasty food—
you'll grudgingly consider,
per instructions—
I'm probably not
appreciating this stuff enough;
until that slow fury of routine
hunger—which never fails to
rise up and flare hot again
into each dissatisfied cheek,
immolating any trace of this higher desire
before such an exemplary
sentence can even be completed—
reliably bullies you
instead into exonerating
the conciliatory impulse—to finish
something
by completely
destroying it.
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
DEATH SENTENCE
Let this abject failure to imagine
my last words
serve as proof
of that which they
should have been—
remember to let
your kids
have pets
and hang
posters—and those
frivolous
glow in the dark
stars in their
bedrooms.
my last words
serve as proof
of that which they
should have been—
remember to let
your kids
have pets
and hang
posters—and those
frivolous
glow in the dark
stars in their
bedrooms.
EKPHRASTIC HAIKU WITH QUIT-SMOKING-AID FOR MAGRITTE AFTER BATMAN
This is not a pipe
you could use—but it is the
one you need right now.
you could use—but it is the
one you need right now.
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
COMPETING STRING THEORIES
1.
Performing any
disciplined action
for any
amount of time (note—waking
up in the morning
doesn't count
unless you're doing it—to
spite the alternative)
has been shown to
strengthen the self-
control muscles,
mostly
by sapping
the ego.
2.
Sitting and thinking—perhaps
time doesn't pass
if nobody
measures it—still doesn't
give you
what you actually want,
still won't make it run
backwards.
In order to do that,
you have to
impoverish
chaos; you have
to wash
dishes.
4.
As years pass, the strings
pull taut
but get
longer in the process.
Things get
streamlined, yet
simultaneously
more complicated. For
instance,
now, the old saying
actually goes
more like—
Damned
if you do.
Damned if
you don't.
Or
if some
cop—
or the
doctor—
says so.
5.
Man is
garbage. His
ideas
are the recycling bin.
What is
Justice? But the crusty old
ruins of
Revenge—with just enough
of the
blood power-washed off.
Performing any
disciplined action
for any
amount of time (note—waking
up in the morning
doesn't count
unless you're doing it—to
spite the alternative)
has been shown to
strengthen the self-
control muscles,
mostly
by sapping
the ego.
2.
Sitting and thinking—perhaps
time doesn't pass
if nobody
measures it—still doesn't
give you
what you actually want,
still won't make it run
backwards.
In order to do that,
you have to
impoverish
chaos; you have
to wash
dishes.
4.
As years pass, the strings
pull taut
but get
longer in the process.
Things get
streamlined, yet
simultaneously
more complicated. For
instance,
now, the old saying
actually goes
more like—
Damned
if you do.
Damned if
you don't.
Or
if some
cop—
or the
doctor—
says so.
5.
Man is
garbage. His
ideas
are the recycling bin.
What is
Justice? But the crusty old
ruins of
Revenge—with just enough
of the
blood power-washed off.
Monday, September 19, 2016
DAWN OF MAN
Stranger stumbling around downtown
somewhere, I see your glum reflection
just before it peers up at that glass tower,
wondering, incredibly—how can I best
fit my spirit to that structure?
And then I catch it again afterwards,
extending skyward—and somehow growing
just a little straighter, before sauntering
off in some subtle but unmistakable
new sympathy for—sheer geometry.
Friday, September 16, 2016
LUNATIC MODE
For years now, I've been
trying like
hell to figure out
why my lips and the
tips of my fingers and
toes—are always
going numb and tingling
with cold.
Turns out, I've been frozen
for years now in the same lunatic mode
of trying to make
my whole day into a poem;
rich with its evocoative mix
of sensual rituals,
featuring loads of repetition and
my whole day into a poem;
rich with its evocoative mix
of sensual rituals,
featuring loads of repetition and
paying too much attention,
each step heralding some auspicious
new place.
In each hand,
a uniquely
unbearable perspective grasped. And
every last
breath, a wild incantation. But goddamn—
how perfect-
ly pitifully translated
here
at the
end of every evening, into mere
words
at my own overwhelmingly dull—
and yet still unspeakable—
peril.
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
INVOLUNTARY
High up specks of little
birds' wings'
repeating—like it or not,
reflexive beating
softly, efficiently
trips some ancient
circuit in me,
repeating—like it or not,
some invisible
force is
always working;
an invincible
nurse—who may
not care, but whose duty
it is nonetheless,
to wipe all our
tears whenever we
fall—if not
our sorry
incontinent
assholes later on.
Friday, September 9, 2016
Thursday, September 1, 2016
GUMBALL MACHINE
You can't help but
always eye-up
all the most
preposterous words,
juicy and
jumbled
in sensational
colors
expressing
exotic-
yet-
familiar flavors,
piled to full-
on bursting
in that lustrous
transparent
globe
over
there near the
exit door.
*
So as
usual,
you—quickly
procure yourself
a couple,
and each
dribbles
down
out of
order,
and they're
hard
and too
sweet
in your
mouth,
and the
whole plan
was
dumb.
always eye-up
all the most
preposterous words,
juicy and
jumbled
in sensational
colors
expressing
exotic-
yet-
familiar flavors,
piled to full-
on bursting
in that lustrous
transparent
globe
over
there near the
exit door.
*
So as
usual,
you—quickly
procure yourself
a couple,
and each
dribbles
down
out of
order,
and they're
hard
and too
sweet
in your
mouth,
and the
whole plan
was
dumb.
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
DAILY PRACTICE
I started out
by
counting
the minutes
then
the hours
and now, the days
it seems
that I can
go
without
saying—
a single
original thing.
by
counting
the minutes
then
the hours
and now, the days
it seems
that I can
go
without
saying—
a single
original thing.
TRUMAN SHOW
Around noon,
as if through
a wilderness
I peer into
the Burger
King's windows—
where,
despite the ridiculous
mutated
shit you can get there,
fellows?
gals?
tykes (with those
crowns
on)?
perch—
greedy over
incomplex hamburgers.
Ketchup-red
ketchup
blotches
offwhite napkins,
pools (like
you'd think
it would) on unfurled
rectangles
of tissued wax-
paper, as I
compulsorily
imagine the sound
and the little
tactile satisfaction of its crinkle.
Have I fallen
asleep,
am I
being lampooned?
Nothing
could ever
be this simple.
I mean,
even
the tops
of their buns
are that
kind
of
cartoon-
shiny.
as if through
a wilderness
I peer into
the Burger
King's windows—
where,
despite the ridiculous
mutated
shit you can get there,
fellows?
gals?
tykes (with those
crowns
on)?
perch—
greedy over
incomplex hamburgers.
Ketchup-red
ketchup
blotches
offwhite napkins,
pools (like
you'd think
it would) on unfurled
rectangles
of tissued wax-
paper, as I
compulsorily
imagine the sound
and the little
tactile satisfaction of its crinkle.
Have I fallen
asleep,
am I
being lampooned?
Nothing
could ever
be this simple.
I mean,
even
the tops
of their buns
are that
kind
of
cartoon-
shiny.
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
CHESS LESSONS
1.
Hang on—is this
a contest
to be won,
or a problem
that needs
solving? Wait—look
at how! All the words
you need
are here, each piece pre-
invented.
2.
This is not
black and white.
Ham and eggs
are black and white,
things—are black
and white, not this.
This
is something different.
Unless,
maybe you've just been
terribly impatient—with
the time it's been taking
the light
to get here.
3.
Your best defense has been
to grow
old, gradually
having come to depend
on a tremendous field
of specialists
to whom
you're worth more alive
than dead. Even
Better yet—despite this,
you still get
to keep
such secrets
beneath
your kingly cap: even
the baristas,
for instance—to think,
they'll never know
your pauper
origins,
your real
last name.
Hang on—is this
a contest
to be won,
or a problem
that needs
solving? Wait—look
at how! All the words
you need
are here, each piece pre-
invented.
2.
This is not
black and white.
Ham and eggs
are black and white,
things—are black
and white, not this.
This
is something different.
Unless,
maybe you've just been
terribly impatient—with
the time it's been taking
the light
to get here.
3.
Your best defense has been
to grow
old, gradually
having come to depend
on a tremendous field
of specialists
to whom
you're worth more alive
than dead. Even
Better yet—despite this,
you still get
to keep
such secrets
beneath
your kingly cap: even
the baristas,
for instance—to think,
they'll never know
your pauper
origins,
your real
last name.
Monday, August 29, 2016
HASHTAG APHORISM
"Everyone is in the best seat."
-John Cage
Everything is state of
the art in this
twenty-
first
century stadium
of information—where even
the inexperienced
are
privileged
to know—
what
really goes
into
a bratwurst—
when they
bark for
one—
court-side.
-John Cage
Everything is state of
the art in this
twenty-
first
century stadium
of information—where even
the inexperienced
are
privileged
to know—
what
really goes
into
a bratwurst—
when they
bark for
one—
court-side.
Friday, August 26, 2016
WILL TO POWER
On a dust-
caked sidewalk across
the street
from a brave kinetic
hive of construction, I pause
to watch
the secret
saffron-
haired foreman—plunked
down and clutching
his own dare-
devilishly
yellow
Tonka truck,
with which he endeavors
to govern
by example,
masterfully affecting
with each
tacit demonstration,
positively massive
amounts
of sheer dumb
change
upon the landscape.
In my imagination, I briefly
become free
to simulate
halting this tutor
to ask a few questions—
but realistically,
I'm in such an awful
big hurry
to carry-
out a
prior commitment—
walking
and shouldering this
seething and senile
envy back
home,
where it
feels
the most
comfortable.
caked sidewalk across
the street
from a brave kinetic
hive of construction, I pause
to watch
the secret
saffron-
haired foreman—plunked
down and clutching
his own dare-
devilishly
yellow
Tonka truck,
with which he endeavors
to govern
by example,
masterfully affecting
with each
tacit demonstration,
positively massive
amounts
of sheer dumb
change
upon the landscape.
In my imagination, I briefly
become free
to simulate
halting this tutor
to ask a few questions—
but realistically,
I'm in such an awful
big hurry
to carry-
out a
prior commitment—
walking
and shouldering this
seething and senile
envy back
home,
where it
feels
the most
comfortable.
Thursday, August 25, 2016
DECENT POEM
Okay is
fifty-
one percent.
Fine is (technically)
failing.
Dandy is
your doctor
calling
to say you're
alright
despite
a couple
ailments.
Pretty is
almost
never exact,
so it
can be
handy to
remember—profane
historically
referred
to a thing
that had
recently
become
very
very
popular.
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
TIDBIT
The soft word—
meal
feathered
down from the
lips of this
penitent
stranger attending us
makes me feel—
not satisfied, but
focused—
gently tuned
to make a more
sonorous chord
with the
few philosophical
orbs of murmuring
light beyond our table
by the nourishing
signals I'm gently
lapping-
up off
of such
a clean
noun.
meal
feathered
down from the
lips of this
penitent
stranger attending us
makes me feel—
not satisfied, but
focused—
gently tuned
to make a more
sonorous chord
with the
few philosophical
orbs of murmuring
light beyond our table
by the nourishing
signals I'm gently
lapping-
up off
of such
a clean
noun.
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
PIN PRICK
Even before starting,
it feels faintly
painful
and exhausting—the terrible
long shot
that anything
is ever really
like anything
else. But—
whatever.
So this poem has
no magic
pebbles in it. No
majestic power
animals or extremely
hot peppers. So what?
Maybe that's
just it.
Maybe that's
the whole premise—
maybe it's
last night
or this
morning, and we're at
the train stop, we're
on the internet,
etc.
when—
the same thing happens.
I mean, the very
exact same stupid
old numb inane pin
prick of a thing as usual—only
this time,
it feels
just a little
new.
Which isn't
to say (don't worry)
there's really anything
you're supposed to feel
or do about it
afterwards.
I'm mostly just trying
to distract you
while I
give you this
little—
inoculation.
Monday, August 22, 2016
HEURISTICS
Because of a word
and its associated
number I heard,
my only real
concern when camera-
shopping is the megapixel.
*
Because of some cartoon
character's
casual expression,
honeydew
is
the money-melon.
*
Because of a book
mom read
when we were six,
gluttony is a concern—
and chocolate's a
legitimate trigger. And
ever since
that movie my brother
made us all
watch once, Ancient
Egypt is forever
conflated with godless deep space.
*
I still want to show you the way I love you,
only these days, I don't
know how—guess
I never even noticed
all those
shortcuts I was taking
whenever I chose
to just—write you a song.
(But because of
a pact that we
made back in
college, we can never break-
up ever again anyway, so maybe
it doesn't matter?—how often
I hurt you.)
*
Because of—fuck,
I don't even
know
what—quick-and-
dirty has
lately become
some
sort of
virtue.
and its associated
number I heard,
my only real
concern when camera-
shopping is the megapixel.
*
Because of some cartoon
character's
casual expression,
honeydew
is
the money-melon.
*
Because of a book
mom read
when we were six,
gluttony is a concern—
and chocolate's a
legitimate trigger. And
ever since
that movie my brother
made us all
watch once, Ancient
Egypt is forever
conflated with godless deep space.
*
I still want to show you the way I love you,
only these days, I don't
know how—guess
I never even noticed
all those
shortcuts I was taking
whenever I chose
to just—write you a song.
(But because of
a pact that we
made back in
college, we can never break-
up ever again anyway, so maybe
it doesn't matter?—how often
I hurt you.)
*
Because of—fuck,
I don't even
know
what—quick-and-
dirty has
lately become
some
sort of
virtue.
Friday, August 19, 2016
LATE DEVELOPMENTS
1.
I feel like
things used
to happen—in time.
Now, they
happen in
spite of it.
4.
5.
I feel like
things used
to happen—
to me.
Now,
I feel like
things used
to happen—in time.
Now, they
happen in
spite of it.
And things used to pass
between us
between us
in space.
Now
things exist—
in its name.
2.
I feel like it's
fairly exotic
to talk
fairly exotic
to talk
clever to you
in tight
and cropped
sorts of back
and forth
in tight
and cropped
sorts of back
and forth
comments on the Internet.
*
But I also feel like it's now
fairly logical
to intuit—that the opposite
of distance isn't
closeness, it's
height.
*
But I also feel like it's now
fairly logical
to intuit—that the opposite
of distance isn't
closeness, it's
height.
3.
I feel like—
the real
first rule
of Fight Club
should be—
wait stop right there you're fucking talking to nobody.
the real
first rule
of Fight Club
should be—
wait stop right there you're fucking talking to nobody.
4.
I feel
like you're always
already okay
with me
anticipating all the main speaking points.
*
But I also feel
like you
like you're always
already okay
with me
anticipating all the main speaking points.
*
But I also feel
like you
and I have
so much in
common that it's
hardly necessary
to talk any-
more.
more.
5.
things used
to happen—
to me.
Now,
they all occur
inside,
and I'm
not sure whether
that's easier
or better,
but I'm positive
that
inside,
and I'm
not sure whether
that's easier
or better,
but I'm positive
that
nothing could
be both.
Thursday, August 18, 2016
CLOSE UP
Cut to—me
feeling unsure
how I'm supposed to
respond—
when I hear
the news
that a casual
friend's pet has died,
the stubbornest way—old age.
Just me, sitting
in my kitchen, poignantly not
sipping coffee, as if thinking—
feeling unsure
how I'm supposed to
respond—
when I hear
the news
that a casual
friend's pet has died,
the stubbornest way—old age.
Just me, sitting
in my kitchen, poignantly not
sipping coffee, as if thinking—
you never really
beat these
sorts of things,
exactly. You only
become them, one
by one, your hairs gray, you take
on their features—
until gradually,
nobody asks
how you're
feeling anymore
(is the camera still zooming?)
because its so
painful-
ly obvious.
beat these
sorts of things,
exactly. You only
become them, one
by one, your hairs gray, you take
on their features—
until gradually,
nobody asks
how you're
feeling anymore
(is the camera still zooming?)
because its so
painful-
ly obvious.
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
HOMESICK ALIEN IN CONSTRUCTION SEASON
The lifeforms
down here must be obstinate
down here must be obstinate
parasites,
and this harsh
frontier land, a
cancerous wheezing accordion,
each distinctly upended
precinct of skin
wounded,
frontier land, a
cancerous wheezing accordion,
each distinctly upended
precinct of skin
wounded,
collapsing, and
shiftlessly
regenerating—
the aggregate
shiftlessly
regenerating—
the aggregate
cacophony, so booming
and tuneless,
I'm afraid
there is little
use—and no
space—for a
sermon like this.
and tuneless,
I'm afraid
there is little
use—and no
space—for a
sermon like this.
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
RAUSCHENBERG BLINKS
Wincing,
he thinks,
this is it—
it is
time to
speak
up—the
perfect
feeling
does
not
exist.
Unimaginable
hypotheses
can never
be tested.
The most
he thinks,
this is it—
it is
time to
speak
up—the
perfect
feeling
does
not
exist.
Unimaginable
hypotheses
can never
be tested.
The most
extraordinary
thing he can
picture stillthing he can
demonstrating,
is an airport
of light
particles,
a scaffolding
for shadows,
a homely
receptacle
for pure
white silence—
none of
that black
variety, he
figures, since
every soul living
is already
going around
staring pretty
unconscionably
hard at that
kind, maybe
fifteen-to-
twenty
times a
minute.
Friday, August 12, 2016
BOOK SWAP
Near the northwest
corner of the crosswalk,
a navy green
box stands proudly
empty,
as if
to reiterate—
an experiment
is only a failure
if it fails
to adequately
test
some hypothesis.
*
On the dingy
snake-
skin gray
evening train, only the eyes
of Democrats
reading
Kindles
are smiling.
*
The latest in science
and technology
has perfected
the art—
of wanting
what-
ever it is
you get, the billboard
hung
over the stuffed
expressway insinuates,
without
malice or
apology.
*
Self-care?
a Humbolt Park guru
paws the
magazine's
pages—
no
self,
no—
cares.
corner of the crosswalk,
a navy green
box stands proudly
empty,
as if
to reiterate—
an experiment
is only a failure
if it fails
to adequately
test
some hypothesis.
*
On the dingy
snake-
skin gray
evening train, only the eyes
of Democrats
reading
Kindles
are smiling.
*
The latest in science
and technology
has perfected
the art—
of wanting
what-
ever it is
you get, the billboard
hung
over the stuffed
expressway insinuates,
without
malice or
apology.
*
Self-care?
a Humbolt Park guru
paws the
magazine's
pages—
no
self,
no—
cares.
Thursday, August 11, 2016
BREAKTHROUGHS
What if—
fear
and pressure
aren't
values, they're
vectors—
they don't
just have
magnitude,
they have
direction.
Good.
Let's
go
with
that.
*
What if—none of this is your fault,
but only
because
you never did
anything at all.
Never invented,
neither caused
nor reacted
to whatever came
along and
destroyed
it.
*
What if—the problem you're having
now is
he doesn't seem to
mean you
when he
talks about
himself any-
more.
fear
and pressure
aren't
values, they're
vectors—
they don't
just have
magnitude,
they have
direction.
Good.
Let's
go
with
that.
*
What if—none of this is your fault,
but only
because
you never did
anything at all.
Never invented,
neither caused
nor reacted
to whatever came
along and
destroyed
it.
*
What if—the problem you're having
now is
he doesn't seem to
mean you
when he
talks about
himself any-
more.
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
ET AL.
Aquamarine
panties
puckered
with secret
dawn-
pink seashells—oh I feel so
cartoonish-
ly
annoyed they're
on the bathroom floor.
2.
Blowing to sip (just a)
halfcup
of morning coffee,
I stop
conscientiously lending
a breath to
ask you
how your period is going.
*
The response—I'd call
sober,
but not at all
scientific.
3.
I feel vaguely satisfied
that a certain
but very nonspecific
goal has been achieved—
me having
said your name
so many times in a row now,
that it's done
meaning everything,
past meaning nothing,
and has officially
begun standing-in for
anything at all.
panties
puckered
with secret
dawn-
pink seashells—oh I feel so
cartoonish-
ly
annoyed they're
on the bathroom floor.
2.
Blowing to sip (just a)
halfcup
of morning coffee,
I stop
conscientiously lending
a breath to
ask you
how your period is going.
*
The response—I'd call
sober,
but not at all
scientific.
3.
I feel vaguely satisfied
that a certain
but very nonspecific
goal has been achieved—
me having
said your name
so many times in a row now,
that it's done
meaning everything,
past meaning nothing,
and has officially
begun standing-in for
anything at all.
Tuesday, August 9, 2016
SIX-PACK
Useful
they're just quicker
Honestly—I can't think of a
single thing
that's right,
can you? Like
always seem to come shrink-
wrapped
*
Only one straight line
can pass between two points,
and it keeps my eyes wide
that I probably haven't thought
long or hard enough
about every last single-
fact—
most things aren't
true,
they're just quicker
and easier
than others
to
reach for.
*
*
What do you have
to say
for your-
self?
says one reluctant
helix
to
the other.
*
Honestly—I can't think of a
single thing
that's right,
can you? Like
it or not, new points
of view
always seem to come shrink-
wrapped
or else shackled
together
in those convenience-
paks.
*
*
Yum.
Thinking of
ordering-up some
FAQs—
fresh
from this mobile
site's
hamburger
menu.
*
Only one straight line
can pass between two points,
and it keeps my eyes wide
open at night—to think
that I probably haven't thought
long or hard enough
about every last single-
minded
melodramatic
rationalization
this image
could imply.
*
This isn't all there is.
Because there isn't
a last thing.
When the final answer being given
is bigger
than its question
the only
choice you're
offered—is
to somehow
go backwards,
upside-down
in spacetime,
to never
having
asked it.
Monday, August 8, 2016
CACHE
Closed-up
nice
and neat
and tight like
a fist,
a pursed
exotic
flower, perpetually
bent
toward
ideal morning—
silent,
you're so
proud.
Alone,
you're so
sharp.
Still,
you keep
hid.
Palm
of the hand—safe.
Bulb
of tomorrow—
sacred. Such
beauty
and utility
in
you, kid,
dovetail
perfectly—
so as to
completely
cancel
each other out.
nice
and neat
and tight like
a fist,
a pursed
exotic
flower, perpetually
bent
toward
ideal morning—
silent,
you're so
proud.
Alone,
you're so
sharp.
Still,
you keep
hid.
Palm
of the hand—safe.
Bulb
of tomorrow—
sacred. Such
beauty
and utility
in
you, kid,
dovetail
perfectly—
so as to
completely
cancel
each other out.
Friday, August 5, 2016
PROCESSING
The sweet things in life, to you were just loaned
So how can you lose what you've never owned?
So how can you lose what you've never owned?
-"Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries"
*
Wondering—
if I eat
something
do I
own that thing?
*
So keep
repeating it's
the
berries.
Okay, it's
the berries
it's the berries it's
the berries it's the
berries it's the berries
it's the berries it's the berries it's
the berries it's the berries it's the berries it's the
*
Wait. Maybe—
Life is not
a bowl
of cherries afterall. Maybe
It's more like
the rigmarole
of trying
to digest so many.
The sweet parts
get slurped-
and burnt-
up way too
quick, while
the rough stuff
does a little
menacing
manhandling
and such, but
ultimately
gets dropped—
unceremoniously,
but more
or less still
intact—
from the top of
your system's
proverbial Empire
State Building,
almost
comically fast—like a
cartoon cannonball.
Wondering—
if I eat
something
do I
own that thing?
*
So keep
repeating it's
the
berries.
Okay, it's
the berries
it's the berries it's
the berries it's the
berries it's the berries
it's the berries it's the berries it's
the berries it's the berries it's the berries it's the
*
Wait. Maybe—
Life is not
a bowl
of cherries afterall. Maybe
It's more like
the rigmarole
of trying
to digest so many.
The sweet parts
get slurped-
and burnt-
up way too
quick, while
the rough stuff
does a little
menacing
manhandling
and such, but
ultimately
gets dropped—
unceremoniously,
but more
or less still
intact—
from the top of
your system's
proverbial Empire
State Building,
almost
comically fast—like a
cartoon cannonball.
Thursday, August 4, 2016
NOT HOME
"I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
-William Carlos Williams
1.
Gradually, you and I have grown
1.
Gradually, you and I have grown
to resemble
more and more the
grubby flies
that trespass against us here
whenever the
heat in the alley runs
high,
the way we
keep stubbornly
banging our heads
to occupy
one or another
rented sets of rooms,
always condemned to eaves-
drop on
groaning foreign
language histories of warm wood,
always—only
coming
in
from the outside.
2.
Following several
years of relentless shredding,
take a day
completely off
to try and
pull myself back
together,
but it's
pull myself back
together,
but it's
just so exhausting
attempting to
make the splinters fit.
3.
Goodness, gracious,
Goodness, gracious,
you say
you wish
there was
something you could do
to help me
love you
the way
I used
to love you
way back
then,
which was, you
conclude—forever.
Wednesday, August 3, 2016
ON INFINITY
Last night, I found
some stars
on the
ground,
warily walked
across them, thought—
it's just as well;
these here
are
equally
real, both
only chalky rote re-
presentations
for all
present and
foreseeable
purposes—and
(nodding) yeah, if anything,
it's easier on the
head looking
down—
some stars
on the
ground,
warily walked
across them, thought—
it's just as well;
these here
are
equally
real, both
only chalky rote re-
presentations
for all
present and
foreseeable
purposes—and
(nodding) yeah, if anything,
it's easier on the
head looking
down—
Friday, July 29, 2016
DESPERATE TO GENERALIZE
I'm writing this to you now,
early on,at a time when I I still
refuse
to revise, and I'm
furious
that I
hardly know anything, since
by the end, I'm sure
by the end, I'm sure
I'll have
learned—every lesson
only
only
applied
to me.
to me.
MORE THAN IT HURTS YOU
This is not
a proposition.
A chore
is not
an argument
or some
sort of
opportunity
for dialogue—
I'm only
trying to
do what's
got to
get done.
I swear
I'm just
going to
string you
up fast and
beat you
clean again—like a
rug.
Fuck,
I'm so
worked
up, I
almost
said—
dog.
a proposition.
A chore
is not
an argument
or some
sort of
opportunity
for dialogue—
I'm only
trying to
do what's
got to
get done.
I swear
I'm just
going to
string you
up fast and
beat you
clean again—like a
rug.
Fuck,
I'm so
worked
up, I
almost
said—
dog.
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
SEVERAL
I guess that this is
more or
less how "to be continued"
feels—
before,
the sound
of your voice
was less important
to me than the
sight of your body.
But now, as my own
creases
multiply
and deepen,
things tend
to work better
the other way around.
Now, when I
write this
stuff down,
I usually begin
with the excellent
(but sensitive)
premise
premise
that you exist
in order
to speak
to me—at best,
a pretty
severed
head. I'm almost
always
stuck for a
satisfying ending,
though, but let's
face it—fairy tales
have endings,
pony tails
have endings,
conversations—like knives,
just have ends.
And what's an end
really? but
the latest
in a series—
of severed
connections.
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
SOMETHING ABOUT SALMON
Re-reading cursive descriptions
of all the menu's items
so that I can dutifully rehearse the act
of eating each one,
while across from me, you tear
and fold
a clean white napkin,
methodically reincarnating the same
old paper crane. Floating in
on the gentle confident momentum
of so many repetitions, the prim
waitress performs for us both,
What is it?
that you—like?
I'm muttering something
of all the menu's items
so that I can dutifully rehearse the act
of eating each one,
while across from me, you tear
and fold
a clean white napkin,
methodically reincarnating the same
old paper crane. Floating in
on the gentle confident momentum
of so many repetitions, the prim
waitress performs for us both,
What is it?
that you—like?
I'm muttering something
about salmon again,
but inside, I'm dumb
and alone
with indefinite
wordless wonderment—how can it be?
that tastes are acquired,
when our guts
are just so desperate
to keep enjoying—
whatever hasn't
deserted them yet.
but inside, I'm dumb
and alone
with indefinite
wordless wonderment—how can it be?
that tastes are acquired,
when our guts
are just so desperate
to keep enjoying—
whatever hasn't
deserted them yet.
Monday, July 25, 2016
CAR ACCIDENT
As ever, they keep on driving,
and with her graceful foot on the
gas, she keeps asking him what
the hell it is that he wants.
From deep within the passenger seat, he guesses
it seems to her like what he wants
more than anything—is just
to keep on talking forever. He doesn't
bother to gesture, because she would only
be able to see it peripherally.
He just keeps reiterating vaguely
the hugeness of his terrible feeling
and the futility that haunts his imagining that
anything he might say
could possibly contain it, let alone
begin to adequately describe it. Rounding
the curve now and accelerating
together in a fixed straight line, he doubts
out loud whether explaining this
to her will ever mean the same thing
as doing something about it.
And further, whether whatever he did
could really end up meaning
exactly the same thing
to both of them. A cumbrously air-
conditioned moment later,
he at last manages to imagine
being her, specifically, the exact physical feeling
of her dry lips cracking a little upon parting
to start, but not
finish, the following
sentence—Anything is possible.
and with her graceful foot on the
gas, she keeps asking him what
the hell it is that he wants.
From deep within the passenger seat, he guesses
it seems to her like what he wants
more than anything—is just
to keep on talking forever. He doesn't
bother to gesture, because she would only
be able to see it peripherally.
He just keeps reiterating vaguely
the hugeness of his terrible feeling
and the futility that haunts his imagining that
anything he might say
could possibly contain it, let alone
begin to adequately describe it. Rounding
the curve now and accelerating
together in a fixed straight line, he doubts
out loud whether explaining this
to her will ever mean the same thing
as doing something about it.
And further, whether whatever he did
could really end up meaning
exactly the same thing
to both of them. A cumbrously air-
conditioned moment later,
he at last manages to imagine
being her, specifically, the exact physical feeling
of her dry lips cracking a little upon parting
to start, but not
finish, the following
sentence—Anything is possible.
Friday, July 22, 2016
PREMONITION
In this hot and
when all seems
wavy season of dearth,
when all seems
as dust
and the sticky smell
of dill,
when
when
your brains have turned
to pure
nectarines—
bruised
and lately kept artificial-
ly cold
to protect
and to slow
the spreading
blush of
their bruises;
that's
when
it's just starting to get
so those
aspects
you'd been hovering over,
greedy
to protect,
livid to start
dying over—
are finally
almost
ready—
to open up
into
symbols
worth
living for.
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
FAMILIAR
Familiar tastes and tough times, sticky
situations and harmless crimes—
eventually, your goddamned toothless
memory mushes it all together. Until,
looking back at the end, this gummy mass has
no size, no shape, no duration.
situations and harmless crimes—
eventually, your goddamned toothless
memory mushes it all together. Until,
looking back at the end, this gummy mass has
no size, no shape, no duration.
And you try and you try to devour it or
something, but you can't, so you starve.
something, but you can't, so you starve.
At least, that's what I think
grandpa was struggling to tell me.
INFRASTRUCTURE PROGRAM
To not see, and yet
to know that
to know that
right now
sticky-
hot, the feral
cat is roaming
nimble and
feminine, though
endless catacombs
endless catacombs
of parallel-
parked undercarriages
is to excavate
is to excavate
that which cannot be built upon—
in the grand
scheme, promiscuity
is camouflage.
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
BED
Hair swept
up and
what happens next,
back in a
dizzying cloud,
breasts newly freed,
now swinging
limply
limply
apart overhead, and—
what happens next,
you'll use
as a weapon
against the frittering flat
remainder
remainder
of your life.
*
Fact is—
no time
was really
the first time
you dreamed this.
And
Fact is—
no time
was really
the first time
you dreamed this.
And
the last time
you do,
it'll only be important to you
that you did—and now
you don't, and soon
you won't,
but still
you'll love to lie
back and reenact the act
of knowing
that you knew how to
imagine it
from time to time, when the
imagine it
from time to time, when the
mood strikes.
Monday, July 18, 2016
EVERYTHING'S PROBABLY ALREADY ALRIGHT
Sour
grapes
grapes
when—there
in the gentle
and general
island of rain,
island of rain,
where—
a zillion
little miracles
are all winking
back at you
from
every
last verdant
and twilit square millimeter,
you think—
their
abundance
rather
makes them
their
abundance
rather
makes them
cheap.
Monday, July 11, 2016
DAYS OF THE WEEK
Relentless
terrible
weird inky impositions
of will,
somehow go
on pressing their
desperate fingerprints—
thousands
and thousands
after thousands of iterations—so
stiffly
and
dumb into
a harrowing ghost-
white
paper back-
ground radiation
of everything
that
never was—
until, positively
clucking
with rapacious excitement,
even the tiny
tip
of the tongue
of the
dog knows
you eat those
slippery
buttered noodles
after
work every
Thursday.
terrible
weird inky impositions
of will,
somehow go
on pressing their
desperate fingerprints—
thousands
and thousands
after thousands of iterations—so
stiffly
and
dumb into
a harrowing ghost-
white
paper back-
ground radiation
of everything
that
never was—
until, positively
clucking
with rapacious excitement,
even the tiny
tip
of the tongue
of the
dog knows
you eat those
slippery
buttered noodles
after
work every
Thursday.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
DENIAL
Since I'd seen you last, you said
you'd grown
and that
gradually blinder
and blinder
to the wonder
of rising and
setting suns.
Then, you said you started
to smell things
a lot more intensely
than you heard them
(which was alright, since,
on an absolute scale,
intensity was
the same as pleasure)
and that
the tang of renunciation—which tasted,
you said,
like sterilized metal,
both
mundane
and super-
natural—
started feeling strange-
ly second
nature in your mouth.
Eventually,
something
even more obscure failed you,
but it didn't matter,
since you no longer
depended upon it.
You said—
you couldn't
put your finger on it.
You said—
you could only
call it—
specificity.
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
BRIEF CANDLE
Stark in profile
on the dank blue line
on the dank blue line
train car,
the hunched
woman—a tormented
figure of evening,
joylessly
nagging a huge mutant
nagging a huge mutant
nectarine
to its terrible
ochre
pit and shreds—
though silent
and weary
with the dribbling
juice, nevertheless
bids you:
call
and
check
on mom.
Friday, July 1, 2016
ELEGY
Peculiarly, the city
you love
is dead already.
all its streets are haunted.
Ghosts of whole neighborhoods
(as you remember them
last time you were there) still
wriggle
you suppose—
like stanzas
fuzzing their meaning
for each
new observer, each
new pair of shoes
moved
by the same
unseen (absolute) forces.
This time,
It's all up
to you
but only because it never was
before.
Can one side
of one conversation
somehow
affect
them all now? Oh
well, you tell
yourself, you
get it—this used to be called
yourself, you
get it—this used to be called
spooky action—
at
at
every
proximity.
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