COUP

Just what 
sort of sagging scenario 
have you now

to cling to, bloated and hemorrhaging 
empire of winter?

Face facts.

All over—one of these 
braver
and more broad-shouldered mornings,

the gaunt-
cornered and dry men

and women of this country
will stand, 
stretch and—doubtless
rubbing out each of their two starving eye sockets—begin 

to step—slowly out 
past 
your raggedy borders;

grimacing towards the impetuous, raw and
sheer ugly 
newness of the weather,

but—at least 
no longer so unsure 
of daring to trundle over

such harrowing
and utterly 
oppressive frozen lots as yours—and gradually growing 
ever more certain 

only of the completely independent idea 

that this stiff and harsh and 
still-cold 
air will carry all-the-better—melodies;

new anthems worth exploring—of spindly, 
impetuous, still-
faint young voices 

out there 
somewhere—even now—covertly 

lusting
to perch and start 
pecking-

away 
at the knots 
of your lean white woods.

ROADSIDE EXPLOITATION

And I swear I don't
usually go 
in for that kind of thing!—but while 

driving along
at the 
height of this particularly 

lonely 
and slow-

going snow-
crusted 
storm warning morning—

at the sight of one certain
and highly 

suggestive—vulgar
and flagrantly
graphic old billboard—I could feel, somewhat 

specifically, my hitherto 
frozen-
stiff upper

lip start to quake,
and 
quickly—a moistening

and lifting
in my gummy thick soft-
palate—quivering 

in a perfect 
and uncontrollably-
tight choreographic tandem

with my poor pent-up soul,
which—
at once began leaping

and straining, 
frothing- 
mad at its pathetic 

little tether—choking 
and gasping 

and craving to fly fast

after the steamy 
and overly
idolized sight—of those 

totally stacked- 
looking—blueberry pancakes.

CREATIVE JUICE FOR MATT KERSTEIN

There's none of it left
in the red- 

hot-handled pot—that's been 
scalding 

away on 
the burner since your motivated

thundering through here
first moved me 

to put it 
and leave it there—practically yesterday!

Luckily,
I've still got this
uncountable 

plenty—of its
antecedent lots locked 
up here—in the tap!

RAGA FOR THE WALK SIGN

It can
be 
just so

titanic—
to stand 

alone 
at hard 

corners
down-
town—and 

to listen

back 
to 
the drone

of the
city
you call

home—and then
to 

gradual-
ly
under-

stand 
still 
more clearly

the profundity—
and dull
edgeless 

banality 
at once—of 

the fact that 
you're

actually 
part 
of what's—still

even now—
making that sound.

CHICORY SUTRA

Just try to 
calm

down now, a little
and notice—

how the light
through

the far frosted 
kitchen

window 
works perfect

magic on a brickbrown
arrowroot-

biscuit-crowned and
comfortably

pallid 
yellow custard—that's been 

tactfully 
ensconced—in this glass

cup adjacent 
to—that plain

mug 
of bitterblack

half-
decaf coffee.

FUNERAL MARCH OF SOME OTHER MARIONETTE

The more I manage
to trudge—
with accumulating

confidence—
through the mute 
and turgid 

bulk of enduring 
corpsewhite weather—

(my tough little soul 
with each 
step straining—for some soft clearance  

to leap 
forward and sing
and laugh and start whirling such

musical cartwheels 
in the here-
and-there still-drifting frigid 
shards of glitter—)

the more I seem
to take
in stride—the dreadful implications

lying still-
entombed beneath 
the flecked 

and filthy enormity 
of this 
upside—that I'm currently stumbling-
over;

that is—at least
I cannot say

I've ever felt 
less 
mournfully desperate!—for 

the neverending 
kind
of silence

being foisted- 
down 
upon the landscape—by the overall 

still-
as-yet unremitting 
and absolute 

ubiquity   
of winter's—thick dull pall.

GOSPEL OF SATURDAY

Here in the more 

casual 

and living familiar

hell 

of the bored and cool 

twenty 

first century, it seems

we've all

decided—finally

to do something a little 

less-trying

with old Sunday morning.

But interestingly,

nothing much—in the now

rather confusingly and

boundlessly

compounded interim—appears 

to have changed 

regarding how violently 

a fresh

stuck and bled Friday 

night

continues to strain

as it—ungraciously still

wailing and 

draining away—keeps relentlessly

gesticulating

forward—in a desperate 

and particularly 

unseemly

and unmodern—

desire to forever

and always 

have already 

meant something—by

today.