OUTRAGEOUS

how much of
our anger
gets confined

inside language—how
suddenly
out it busts

and then starves

and then dies

CRITIQUE OF MY FINGERS

These fingers I got
are too skinny—they are always
the first part of me
to go numb when it's cold out.
They don't know how to knead
or to sew, these
fingers I'm holding. They punch
letters on keyboards okay,
but they don't like to play piano
all day anymore, or
even a little bit. These fingers
don't snap very well, either,
even though they are stiff, they don't
bend and firmly refuse to go
crossed behind my back
when I talk. These fingers I was given
are too cryptic, I don't get them.
These fingers are so
stubborn, they have minds
of their own. I have known them
to send out some
very specific messages
which I'm certain I never
intended them to send.

EITHER

Wavering light—

anemic and ancient 

city star or 

arcane technological device—

tonight 

you give me neither 

strange courage 

nor prosaic dissatisfaction,

just the routine 

kind of wonder 

whose weakness is 

its very strength. 

Could this be the famous 

vicissitude of nature? 

Or is it, rather 

it's opposite—

this pulsing skyline 

apparition—bestowing 

nothing, then 

taking it away. 

MACGUFFIN

O the miraculous utility 

of cigarettes 

and mellow jazz 

music, of bourbon 

splashed over perfect 

cubes of ice,

of tight jeans, terse bible 

passages, and black

mirrored sunglasses—

it's the little things 

like that—tiny touches,

mini mercies—

which make 

every scene shot 

look cooler, feel hotter: 

him and her 

wounding each other 

with a vengeance 

which neither one owns 

over the custody of 

some common-law MacGuffin;

that TNT look of hers 

tunneling through him, 

blasting off chunks;

him getting-off 

on walking away from it all 

feeling lighter, looking thinner;

both of them ignoring 

the scars for a while, then 

playing them up 

for laughs—until 

eventually, the entire cast 

comes to despise 

the puritanical thought 

of having to act this 

out forever. 

TRANSACTUAL

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Who or what is
underwriting
all this?

It is still the same
pathos

manufactured
the hard way

from the archaic plays
of William Shakespeare

greasing
the inexplicably muddy
gears of the actual?

Or could we be
gliding now
on a more boundless source
of pity

which we suppress
instinctually
(resulting in
a clean-energy lift)

whenever we
pass one another
darkly on the street.

INGÉNU

Is it me, or do
powerful intimations
of dread seem

to flow naturally
simply from the
order of things—

all my grubbiest
daily activities
collapsing and folding

like pup tents
into clean, portable
existential dilemmas,

each one hard
as a single diamond
which is buried

in an obsidian
prison of mountains
to express—

and yet so easy
to approximate,
clone, and broadcast

via this naive, tried-
and-true, workmanlike
triangulation of

poised image, de-
stabilized image, and
cutting observation.

BINOMIAL NOMENCLATURE

Under the strict ancient discipline
of December skies,
headstone gray
and just as heavy,

it is growing
more and more difficult

to recall the faces
of erstwhile companions—

the iridescent jetliner starlings'
and glowing
cardinals' sanguine singing,

those faithful rosy
churchyard perennials bowing
humble and drowsy
to uncomplicated wind—

than it is
simply to recite
in alphabetical order

rigid lists
of all of their names
in Latin—quick

as we can—
before we get a frostbitten rap
on the knuckles again.