FRINGE ON TOP

Distantly Blossom 

Dearie—carried

here by merest 

Sunday 

breezes—pipes 

her light 

ker-plop—

and just 

like that I 

feel my soaring

insulin—picturing 

clotted cream.

TASTING NOTES

Sip your somewhat- 

fresh

house-blend 

drip drink 

from a 

flimsy cardboard 

vessel in dizzy traffic 

as lazily 

as possible—to quickly extract

that thick 

vague 

and bittersweet

nuttiness—of compromise!

ANACHRONISM

Walking through the 

woods listening 

to 90's skatepunk—

I could hear

birds during all

those dramatic pauses.

VOLATILITY INDEX

By Jove! by June 
fifth
you can almost 

hear—from out 
here 
on the broad midday streets

each sweaty tick!
of every
single yellowing mechanical

wallmounted clock—that still 
haunts all
of America's flecked and dark

linoleum classrooms—
mocking clenched columns
of steam-hissing fists 

and eyeballs
with each subsequent
loud and dark

clack!—pounding louder
and with hotter
and more illimitable force—against

the eroding brick-
wall
semantic distinction—

formally delineating 
schoolkids
from that—oh so much 

rarer—and yet 
much 
more simply defined

regular kind!

REPARTEE

Seems after she's finished 
paying
a modicum 

of attention—
to a humid afternoon's 
worth of outdoor 

fuss by her husband—
the protuberant-
haired woman 

who mans the
discombobulated 
counter—is now able to muster 

just the drooping 
kind 
of workplace remark—that she, 

for one, doesn't
really mind 
the rain all that much—

having earned
the sober
privilege to 

cogently observe—that lord knows
her plants!
could sure use it.

VISTAS

Stare up standing
into—the infinite

shocking unbounded 
perfection of

a completely cloudless and  
untextured sky—

for long enough
while you're maybe waiting 

indefinitely outside 
for the forthcoming bus;

and sure 
enough—you're eventually 

bound to just 
about lose

the clearly 
rougher—but eminently much

more useful 
perspective—a stubborn 

and obviously
context-

dependent—terrestrial  
sense 

of balance.

ELEGY FOR TESTOSTERONE

Sauntering slow—through
lawn
after fence-

defined 
neighborhood lawn—and admittedly 
relishing 

that fresh smell
of mowed grass—until,
feeling a bit

rushed by the 
thick throes 
of the kind

of wind that often means 
swift rain 
is about to come on,

I suddenly
shivered 
with the blustery 

thought—
that I've 
just never been 

all that
cut-
out for aggression.