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—
Monday, December 19, 2016
GATES OF EDEN
Scene One—
in the near permanently
beige light
which hovers
around the rectory
at year's end,
a man is sitting
in glum hard soles
at the kitchen table,
hooked like a sliver
over coffee
cups and notebooks—
fretting over
the sermon's climax,
worried
about his credibility,
mumbling to himself
that it's absolute heresy
how
Bringing It All Back Home
is probably his favorite
album of Dylan's—
but almost entirely
because of the acoustic side.
in the near permanently
beige light
which hovers
around the rectory
at year's end,
a man is sitting
in glum hard soles
at the kitchen table,
hooked like a sliver
over coffee
cups and notebooks—
fretting over
the sermon's climax,
worried
about his credibility,
mumbling to himself
that it's absolute heresy
how
Bringing It All Back Home
is probably his favorite
album of Dylan's—
but almost entirely
because of the acoustic side.
Friday, December 16, 2016
NO TIME FOR A NOVEL
Felt like every day, for a while
we relied on
cheap, plentiful wooden reminders:
one plus one is equal to two,
fair and foul
can cancel each other.
But when the hard times hit,
the orders we got
were to ration the abstract and
restrict the rational.
Belts grew tighter, skins thinner
ashy and redder
in the cold, and all the poor devils'
kids had to use
dry bony sticks
to do their simple math with instead.
Only problem was:
stick-plus-stick wasn't always
two sticks; once or twice, it
was fire.
was fire.
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?
Monday, December 12, 2016
MINISTRY OF WINTER
At the mercy of such pristine majesty,
everything manmade simplifies,
like some haphazard fraction.
No terrific, mottled Appaloosas—only the innocent
infinity of their barnyards
everywhere; simultaneous lengths of all
time and roads compacted,
creaking, and anonymously on display.
Even at the bracing
smokewhite of daybreak,
all seems equally
dazzling and incidental,
slowed to a dead pause on the brink
of immeasurable sleep. But in this breach,
what unsought but remarkable
freedom exists: every tightfisted
and usual path
having just been—humanely erased.
everything manmade simplifies,
like some haphazard fraction.
No terrific, mottled Appaloosas—only the innocent
infinity of their barnyards
everywhere; simultaneous lengths of all
time and roads compacted,
creaking, and anonymously on display.
Even at the bracing
smokewhite of daybreak,
all seems equally
dazzling and incidental,
slowed to a dead pause on the brink
of immeasurable sleep. But in this breach,
what unsought but remarkable
freedom exists: every tightfisted
and usual path
having just been—humanely erased.
Saturday, December 10, 2016
FOREST
Once, I felt these shallow aspirations
dislocating my body
from tomorrow, breathed deep and
supposed I needed to
get somewhere new.
But instead of changing my address,
my tack was—to continue
to stay in the exact same place,
not moving, rarely talking
(and only then in a kind of raspy whisper),
never sitting, but always
standing-up in front
of a desk all day
with my arms held out.
And sure enough,
after a while, everything I could see
out my window on the street
began to look complete-
ly wrong to me—except, I guess,
for the trees.
dislocating my body
from tomorrow, breathed deep and
supposed I needed to
get somewhere new.
But instead of changing my address,
my tack was—to continue
to stay in the exact same place,
not moving, rarely talking
(and only then in a kind of raspy whisper),
never sitting, but always
standing-up in front
of a desk all day
with my arms held out.
And sure enough,
after a while, everything I could see
out my window on the street
began to look complete-
ly wrong to me—except, I guess,
for the trees.
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?
Thursday, December 8, 2016
THE SOLUTION
Some say—
the best defense
is to make ourselves
used to this,
with words as old
and gentle
as rain—
softly spoken,
and spoken regularly, to soak
and dilute the potency
of their poetry.
For example—
How catastrophic could
a symbol be?
those increasingly
less-frightened
people go
mumbling, almost inaudibly.
Others know—
the best offense
is probably
not to talk at all,
instead letting
giant billboard signs
do all the proclaiming.
I Just Want To Be Ordinary,
the boldest of those
signs might read,
meaning—
not perceived
as part
of the problem.
the best defense
is to make ourselves
used to this,
with words as old
and gentle
as rain—
softly spoken,
and spoken regularly, to soak
and dilute the potency
of their poetry.
For example—
How catastrophic could
a symbol be?
those increasingly
less-frightened
people go
mumbling, almost inaudibly.
Others know—
the best offense
is probably
not to talk at all,
instead letting
giant billboard signs
do all the proclaiming.
I Just Want To Be Ordinary,
the boldest of those
signs might read,
meaning—
not perceived
as part
of the problem.
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.
Monday, December 5, 2016
OLD MOON IN THE NEW MOON'S ARMS
Whenever you see
me—bumbling
down the street, I
assure you,
I'm only about half as
distracted
as I look.
It's actually just almost
exactly the
opposite.
It's just that—most
evenings, I
already feel myself—such
a concentrated
poor husk of bulk,
a prematurely
frightened and terrible
old widower;
all those blithe ideas
from before
I knew her—now ringing
as ponder-
ously many, as difficult
to imagine
hurling into motion, and alas
as equally
cold, dull, and relentless
as every last
bell that has tolled
since after.
me—bumbling
down the street, I
assure you,
I'm only about half as
distracted
as I look.
It's actually just almost
exactly the
opposite.
It's just that—most
evenings, I
already feel myself—such
a concentrated
poor husk of bulk,
a prematurely
frightened and terrible
old widower;
all those blithe ideas
from before
I knew her—now ringing
as ponder-
ously many, as difficult
to imagine
hurling into motion, and alas
as equally
cold, dull, and relentless
as every last
bell that has tolled
since after.
Friday, December 2, 2016
SPHINX RIDDLE DO-OVER
I walk for miles in darkness, but down
familiar roads, disappearing often
not into space, but curious silence.
There are no red letter dates, nor any peculiar
atrocities there—just many, many
coincidences, reams of exemplary scenes
from one epic master-movie, created
a long time ago by those huge faceless proto-
human shades—and then cut-copy-pasted
over generations and reduced, so ruthless and hard
as to to fit on a white three-by-five index card
which I carry creased neatly inside an otherwise
empty wallet. Presently, I'll unfold it and
reanimate the words one-by-one, each as
perfect as your growing discontent is. I'll watch
as you hear them gradually disappearing,
and those snippets which you couldn't seem to
make-out or understand will be my grim masochistic
pleasure never to forget. One last hint—I am
pretty famous as a pretender. My stage-name is:
let me think about it for a
minute and get back to you.
familiar roads, disappearing often
not into space, but curious silence.
There are no red letter dates, nor any peculiar
atrocities there—just many, many
coincidences, reams of exemplary scenes
from one epic master-movie, created
a long time ago by those huge faceless proto-
human shades—and then cut-copy-pasted
over generations and reduced, so ruthless and hard
as to to fit on a white three-by-five index card
which I carry creased neatly inside an otherwise
empty wallet. Presently, I'll unfold it and
reanimate the words one-by-one, each as
perfect as your growing discontent is. I'll watch
as you hear them gradually disappearing,
and those snippets which you couldn't seem to
make-out or understand will be my grim masochistic
pleasure never to forget. One last hint—I am
pretty famous as a pretender. My stage-name is:
let me think about it for a
minute and get back to you.
Thursday, December 1, 2016
BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS
By early afternoon,
late evening
invades downtown—
hungrily
spinning dollops
of unseasonable light
into long, candied filaments,
which flicker their
semaphore lectures
across the grim, dis-
concerted faces
which improvise this cab stand—
just like
so many twenty-
five cent candles did
back
in that dingy
crimson church vestibule,
back when
poor grandma, and then
grandpa, quickly departed—
as if
our precious dead
are here
with us still, ever so
faintly,
but insistently
criticizing the living.
late evening
invades downtown—
hungrily
spinning dollops
of unseasonable light
into long, candied filaments,
which flicker their
semaphore lectures
across the grim, dis-
concerted faces
which improvise this cab stand—
just like
so many twenty-
five cent candles did
back
in that dingy
crimson church vestibule,
back when
poor grandma, and then
grandpa, quickly departed—
as if
our precious dead
are here
with us still, ever so
faintly,
but insistently
criticizing the living.
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
SERENITY NOW—
It's just
as I thought—this
evening tide,
gold and
unfolding
gradually before me, at last
reveals tranquility
to be only
one half
of a cold math equation.
Humbly, I read
proofs. Glumly,
I'm convinced—absolute stillness
does not exist.
Since,
these mysterious phantom
silent spaces I witness
must only
advance
and improve
over time
upon their
opponent's decline.
Even now,
as the pitch
of placidity rises
to high tide,
I can
just make out,
far off in the distance,
temporarily
ebbing—the flagrant din
of the actual.
as I thought—this
evening tide,
gold and
unfolding
gradually before me, at last
reveals tranquility
to be only
one half
of a cold math equation.
Humbly, I read
proofs. Glumly,
I'm convinced—absolute stillness
does not exist.
Since,
these mysterious phantom
silent spaces I witness
must only
advance
and improve
over time
upon their
opponent's decline.
Even now,
as the pitch
of placidity rises
to high tide,
I can
just make out,
far off in the distance,
temporarily
ebbing—the flagrant din
of the actual.
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.
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
AMERICAN REVOLUTION
All our protagonist can say now
about last night is—
there was the sting of cold
rain, and that certain luckless
tang that emanates
from all hectic laundromats, and then
suddenly, when
Tom Petty's Free Fallin' came
piped in on shuffle—
his life became,
in the instant when he was
walking past the Blue Line,
such an enmeshed blend
of The Bittersweet and The Cinematic
that his only options
were—to either
step right in front of
the very next train coming,
or else to get on it
and head downtown.
And yes, looking back, he can
sort of see see how
that almost sounds like an act
of rebellion—
but it didn't feel at all like that
to him at the time, since
he knew it wasn't
the first—or even close
to the last
of its kind.
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.
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
NON-GMO
Put aside tangerine trees
and skies made of marmalade—
picture your grimacing
face circumscribed,
penned in, with a diagonal
line running through it—
and then try
not regarding anyone
or anything
you come across from now on
as either—
some bland and colorless
food to be consumed,
slid through a grate
in your camped
circadian cage—
or else
one of the miserable creatures
who greedily
consumes it:
hungry
but always eating,
groggy
but never dreaming,
doomed
but never self-aware enough to brood.
and skies made of marmalade—
picture your grimacing
face circumscribed,
penned in, with a diagonal
line running through it—
and then try
not regarding anyone
or anything
you come across from now on
as either—
some bland and colorless
food to be consumed,
slid through a grate
in your camped
circadian cage—
or else
one of the miserable creatures
who greedily
consumes it:
hungry
but always eating,
groggy
but never dreaming,
doomed
but never self-aware enough to brood.
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.
Monday, October 24, 2016
AT LEAST
The morose interstellar
wind's soundless call
shall not ever
seem to be
for poetry—and yet
sheer poetry
shall forever be
the unwavering answer—wherever,
out in the remotest
cold tendril of the galaxy,
even the most
strategically positioned of leaves
on some vast shivering silverbright
alien tree
is somehow at once, both
so casually
and so boldly
jettisoned in consequence,
tumbling
and turning,
flashing
for the last
time, all its color—
as involuntarily
yet irrevocably
as each one
of seven-or-so billion
tiny rainbows
which repeatedly
flair up,
spin out,
then plunge down around
a palish blue
dew drop—at least thirty two
times per second,
each second.
wind's soundless call
shall not ever
seem to be
for poetry—and yet
sheer poetry
shall forever be
the unwavering answer—wherever,
out in the remotest
cold tendril of the galaxy,
even the most
strategically positioned of leaves
on some vast shivering silverbright
alien tree
is somehow at once, both
so casually
and so boldly
jettisoned in consequence,
tumbling
and turning,
flashing
for the last
time, all its color—
as involuntarily
yet irrevocably
as each one
of seven-or-so billion
tiny rainbows
which repeatedly
flair up,
spin out,
then plunge down around
a palish blue
dew drop—at least thirty two
times per second,
each second.
Friday, October 21, 2016
SCARECROW
Looks like—
a suit of clothes
has been out
walking around town
empty again,
because
this guy's
been stuck back at
home the whole time—
skinny, straw-
brittle, ravenous
as a stick black
autumn bird
who's just been enticed
by an excruciating new rumor
on the power line—that
inside a very few
certain
crabby apples, there exists
something better—called
a cashew.
a suit of clothes
has been out
walking around town
empty again,
because
this guy's
been stuck back at
home the whole time—
skinny, straw-
brittle, ravenous
as a stick black
autumn bird
who's just been enticed
by an excruciating new rumor
on the power line—that
inside a very few
certain
crabby apples, there exists
something better—called
a cashew.
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.
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
WAYS AND MEANS
High above imposing Gothic
triangular six-way
intersections everywhere,
laughing nets of
silver pigeons flutter
and break
apart, whenever—there
down below, another
haunted man goes
tickling the infrastructure
of the whole universe,
by praying
in earnest
to his
own ghost—for wealth.
triangular six-way
intersections everywhere,
laughing nets of
silver pigeons flutter
and break
apart, whenever—there
down below, another
haunted man goes
tickling the infrastructure
of the whole universe,
by praying
in earnest
to his
own ghost—for wealth.
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.
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
THEORY OF VERY SPECIAL RELATIVITY
Could anything in the universe
really be this coincidental?
Whether it call itself—
gravity or grace,
science or poetry;
if it wasn't unnatural,
if it didn't sound insane,
if it wasn't superficial,
If I wasn't predisposed
so regularly
to claim
in public, to know
better, I'd say
it's more properly—
the sun
who gets up
and charges
out to play
every day—
upon the celestial,
capricious, and tortuously sophisticated
topography—of every
one of your
three hundred
and sixty
five or six
possible faces.
really be this coincidental?
Whether it call itself—
gravity or grace,
science or poetry;
if it wasn't unnatural,
if it didn't sound insane,
if it wasn't superficial,
If I wasn't predisposed
so regularly
to claim
in public, to know
better, I'd say
it's more properly—
the sun
who gets up
and charges
out to play
every day—
upon the celestial,
capricious, and tortuously sophisticated
topography—of every
one of your
three hundred
and sixty
five or six
possible faces.
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.
Thursday, September 15, 2016
STATUTORY
When the going is tough, and I lack
a potent narrative;
I'm quick to imagine I'm really
Superman
and Lois
Lane's only secret
out of
wedlock kid—the incidental-
yet-perfect genetic mix
between
an unstoppable man—and his
victim.
a potent narrative;
I'm quick to imagine I'm really
Superman
and Lois
Lane's only secret
out of
wedlock kid—the incidental-
yet-perfect genetic mix
between
an unstoppable man—and his
victim.
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
ALL-BUSINESS
We are latterly what
you could
call partners, administering favors
from the same
bed, but always carefully
operating
separate computers.
In a fairly equitable
you could
call partners, administering favors
from the same
bed, but always carefully
operating
separate computers.
In a fairly equitable
division
of labor—you give me
all your money,
and I fold it
back into perfect paper
cranes for you.
You add the gas bill
to the cable
subtracting the electrical, before taking
the fastest available
expressways out of town—
while I focus
on the grunt work
of napping
so diligently each afternoon,
as fail-safe way
of continually reaffirming
that, deep down, you
have your own
agonies—those certain
bracing and non-
transferable hurts, which
I should never
even dare dream
of being able
to do anything remotely
capable—to heal.
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.
Monday, September 12, 2016
PLAY IT OFF
Morning, to-go
cups full
At night, feels like even to sleep
cups full
of brown,
beige or virgin-white
coffee clutched
tight like new (and right
where those
old) stuffed
animals (used to go)—passive-aggressively
awake now,
although
that's what
we're going for.
*
Quitting time, dying like
Quitting time, dying like
hell to cash-
out, to grab hold of what-
ever coins we can and
explode like heretical
scrolls full
of incendiary common-sense
knowledge from some blustery
infernal old monastery—still compulsively
smoking a little, but making it look
as if
that's
what we're going for.
*
At night, feels like even to sleep
is to chance
cheating, to risk being called-
out by Tomorrow
for attempting
to sweep-in last
minute for the fast and
minute for the fast and
cheap lottery
ticket dream—so completely and so utterly
broke, although to be
broke, although to be
fair—that's
what we're
going for.
Friday, September 9, 2016
Thursday, September 8, 2016
ABSTRACTION
This whole poem is just
a dumb little
song
for all the long shadows
gradually colonizing city
street corners;
whether dilations
of mirth
or gloom, of exuberant
sky-
scrapers or contentious
nursing homes,
of empty luxury hi-
rises, or
garbage-
crammed and abandoned
mail boxes—it doesn't
matter, so
long as
today and ever
after,
they continue
to afford us
that unconscious-
but very
conspicuous space
in which—not
to think
but simply
reiterate
all of our prior
versions of things,
to bravely, if even
for a
minute,
barely contemplate
the sheer
density
and
the thickness
of every saved
draft waiting
weightless—back
at home.
a dumb little
song
for all the long shadows
gradually colonizing city
street corners;
whether dilations
of mirth
or gloom, of exuberant
sky-
scrapers or contentious
nursing homes,
of empty luxury hi-
rises, or
garbage-
crammed and abandoned
mail boxes—it doesn't
matter, so
long as
today and ever
after,
they continue
to afford us
that unconscious-
but very
conspicuous space
in which—not
to think
but simply
reiterate
all of our prior
versions of things,
to bravely, if even
for a
minute,
barely contemplate
the sheer
density
and
the thickness
of every saved
draft waiting
weightless—back
at home.
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
KILL YOUR IDYLLS
I love not Man the less, but Nature more.
-Lord Byron
This mute potted
This mute potted
plant, that
handsome
flat rock—help to keep
living here
living here
from feeling
oppressive.
But—a city,
an entire
army
of each?
Well, we'll
Well, we'll
see—
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
FAUSTIAN BARGAIN
It seems now, however rare
and however useful,
that certain words cost
and however useful,
that certain words cost
a lot more than you
ever imagined.
ever imagined.
And to be sure: a good very many
you received in
exchange were extremely
beautiful—luscious as pure
exchange were extremely
beautiful—luscious as pure
cream, juicy as heavy
redolent fruit, and cut
redolent fruit, and cut
precise as rare
gems, and inlaid in intricate,
particular patterns;
but precious
as they were, fatiguing to find
and even more formidable
gems, and inlaid in intricate,
particular patterns;
but precious
as they were, fatiguing to find
and even more formidable
to use (so secretly,
so palpably inopportune—
that even post-hoc impressions
of the ulterior labor of their
assembly seemed
tacitly to serve
as appreciable features)
tacitly to serve
as appreciable features)
can you still say
that it was worth it—when
not one, let alone
not one, let alone
the garlanded strands of hundreds
you've been hawking
you've been hawking
alone out here
for years now, has ever
for years now, has ever
earned you one red
cent, or turned a single
cent, or turned a single
head—blond
again?
again?
Friday, September 2, 2016
NEXT THING YOU KNOW
If every moment's
such
a precious
possession,
then—
how the fuck do they
always manage
to change-
up all the
Your desiccated liver pills
expired last month.
In another hundred
up all the
billboards—
when you're not
paying attention?
*
Your desiccated liver pills
expired last month.
In another hundred
years, your bones'll be chalk.
The prospect of protective containers is starting
to look like a marketing gimmick.
to look like a marketing gimmick.
But if life is not a gift, then it must
be just—a bargain.
be just—a bargain.
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.
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