the lemon cries there within her mask,
her soul in the shriveled rind walks without shoes, somewhere
in the puckered mouth of the dozing master, the landscape
deserted, his
blue lips kissing
dead women about their
grave, empty-pail feet. spinning, spinning,
the lemon sings a sea around itself; she is the seamstress
conjuring, so it floats. Some still
even
call it yellow
in the tomb gray aura of her new home.
the mussels have finally been convinced to come up from their coffins.
the shells have cracked so slightly
just a fraction of their roars are heard. but it is enough.
ears also grow in the salt-ferns like rubber shells
almost by god action; and the cities rise from the drain,
colossal toes lift like castles, it is a creature made entirely of
words
scrubbing silt from its skin. it opens its mouth, swallowing whales
boulders, islands, houses, dawn…and down
goes the lemon, its seeds
telling stories like circles of fire to the bottom
12.13.2007
12.09.2007
Corn Stalks
I hear them as they
scrape
their fingers
up the pale staircase
down the corridor,
these black clowns of fall,
strips
of decrepit
love
like abandoned
widow webs.
They rattle their ribs in the new-fangled
cage of November.
Somehow no one sees their body.
It is left underneath a sheet of yellow light
for me
the mystery of their death
emerges in the darkness like a man entering the room
with a syringe
It grows
complex
and has too many fingers for my hands,
for the iodine brown dots of my eyes.
The field’s history begins with winter mud.
It is still as the white house
whose inhabitants have
moved away.
scrape
their fingers
up the pale staircase
down the corridor,
these black clowns of fall,
strips
of decrepit
love
like abandoned
widow webs.
They rattle their ribs in the new-fangled
cage of November.
Somehow no one sees their body.
It is left underneath a sheet of yellow light
for me
the mystery of their death
emerges in the darkness like a man entering the room
with a syringe
It grows
complex
and has too many fingers for my hands,
for the iodine brown dots of my eyes.
The field’s history begins with winter mud.
It is still as the white house
whose inhabitants have
moved away.
12.08.2007
Horse Head
The boney cluster
of thought revoked
its
one-time
story: This is who I am…
it’s nothing but bias.
This was born when I was born.
The car screamed underneath
lights
and my mother
put her two feet
in the air
(only one of them socked)
and the sound of something breaking
came through in
1982.
Still going, my thoughts have become
good pets.
Pets in all
the
typical meanings
of that word.
The crazy ward sleeps
beneath me
upon pillows of dust;
the lobster of marriage
turns
hemorrhage-red
in the possibility of time’s passage;
donkeys ride out blizzards
on the backs of their whip-tongue masters;
pathogens are added, finally,
to lists.
my mother grows no more
the body stopped
the singular face is not a face any more
it is hundreds of faces
it is a whole life of people,
stars wane
still
a whitish guild
in the air
Magnificent and heavy as the wheelbarrow
urn,
she has slid
now
into time
of thought revoked
its
one-time
story: This is who I am…
it’s nothing but bias.
This was born when I was born.
The car screamed underneath
lights
and my mother
put her two feet
in the air
(only one of them socked)
and the sound of something breaking
came through in
1982.
Still going, my thoughts have become
good pets.
Pets in all
the
typical meanings
of that word.
The crazy ward sleeps
beneath me
upon pillows of dust;
the lobster of marriage
turns
hemorrhage-red
in the possibility of time’s passage;
donkeys ride out blizzards
on the backs of their whip-tongue masters;
pathogens are added, finally,
to lists.
my mother grows no more
the body stopped
the singular face is not a face any more
it is hundreds of faces
it is a whole life of people,
stars wane
still
a whitish guild
in the air
Magnificent and heavy as the wheelbarrow
urn,
she has slid
now
into time
12.05.2007
This Brain
What is this brain?
I see it
moving
like a crippled butterfly
in the air
It amuses me,
it makes me laugh
I laugh like it laughs, I
see like it wants me to see
It builds angels and Sequoia
it builds the ant
and a bridge in Oregon, it conjures
faces, feelings
it always starts like this, doesn’t it?
Alone in a bathtub, the
TV
on somewhere else
watching the water take on your heartbeat.
The tiles
dwelling as the same tiles they were yesterday, smiling.
What are these lungs? This
heart? This hair?
Why was I made this way? Born with a
penis and hands and ears, I’m another one, Ok--
it reminds me of the misgrowths
upon wild fruit,
insect larvae, lucky to have
burst
into this spontaneous shape
and not some
horrifying mistake.
I think
the blood still pushes through my veins, a train
swaying
quietly
in its tunnel
until…
really, it can manage a good amount of things,
figure them, solve them. Draw them.
It is a good friend,
so we drink wine together. We put our arms
around one another
with love.
But we also kill one another, because
there’s so much
we can’t do;
we laugh and die
we sit atop
thousands of years of quietness
together
a mirror looking into a mirror
as one match goes down into the water,
and the sound
of that water
as it
drains in the dark.
I see it
moving
like a crippled butterfly
in the air
It amuses me,
it makes me laugh
I laugh like it laughs, I
see like it wants me to see
It builds angels and Sequoia
it builds the ant
and a bridge in Oregon, it conjures
faces, feelings
it always starts like this, doesn’t it?
Alone in a bathtub, the
TV
on somewhere else
watching the water take on your heartbeat.
The tiles
dwelling as the same tiles they were yesterday, smiling.
What are these lungs? This
heart? This hair?
Why was I made this way? Born with a
penis and hands and ears, I’m another one, Ok--
it reminds me of the misgrowths
upon wild fruit,
insect larvae, lucky to have
burst
into this spontaneous shape
and not some
horrifying mistake.
I think
the blood still pushes through my veins, a train
swaying
quietly
in its tunnel
until…
really, it can manage a good amount of things,
figure them, solve them. Draw them.
It is a good friend,
so we drink wine together. We put our arms
around one another
with love.
But we also kill one another, because
there’s so much
we can’t do;
we laugh and die
we sit atop
thousands of years of quietness
together
a mirror looking into a mirror
as one match goes down into the water,
and the sound
of that water
as it
drains in the dark.
12.03.2007
Healing
This is what it always is,
healing,
and what it should be, really.
Still feeling the
long grass
as you sat in it, contemplating death
in October before an empty house.
Still awakening
sick, without that normal verve,
and kneeling
together with no one
to mime your mother on her saddest
days.
It’s when the healing ends, I think,
that everything wanes.
It sighs
and reclines into a chair,
like a widower who
did not love his wife.
And it comes
as the alcoholic burning
of years
down the throat.
healing,
and what it should be, really.
Still feeling the
long grass
as you sat in it, contemplating death
in October before an empty house.
Still awakening
sick, without that normal verve,
and kneeling
together with no one
to mime your mother on her saddest
days.
It’s when the healing ends, I think,
that everything wanes.
It sighs
and reclines into a chair,
like a widower who
did not love his wife.
And it comes
as the alcoholic burning
of years
down the throat.
things that happen in winter
the white dog conjured
the ghost
across a dry pool.
a speech is given
by a politician
with no sense of smell
no nose
he was the only one
who seen it.
ice has frozen in there now.
it’s the first ice. and
a bird has turned into
nothing but string
in the street. it is a violent
memory, her
form. twine.
a skeleton of twine
and the politico’s
echo, the trees like
tattered ship sails,
her wings out, still not
string
and held up
by the very coldness
the ghost
across a dry pool.
a speech is given
by a politician
with no sense of smell
no nose
he was the only one
who seen it.
ice has frozen in there now.
it’s the first ice. and
a bird has turned into
nothing but string
in the street. it is a violent
memory, her
form. twine.
a skeleton of twine
and the politico’s
echo, the trees like
tattered ship sails,
her wings out, still not
string
and held up
by the very coldness
11.29.2007
Body
it’s two
lands
coming together, well,
one, one
underneath the other.
one slipping the
other
down, one blading
her sister
once well
and
in a hurry
to even lower depths.
the clouds
pressed out
like ancient paper
into a mummy
mass.
I am in it
and I
am watching from afar
like some
dark bird.
the horses have
quieted their
grazing
on her hills,
the layers of landscape
have devoured
the even
undulances.
where have I
copied
once
these birds in motion?
these houses
shaped like hands?
the shoulder
the rib, breast, elbow,
eye
that acquire the faint
gray happening of
night’s shades.
lands
coming together, well,
one, one
underneath the other.
one slipping the
other
down, one blading
her sister
once well
and
in a hurry
to even lower depths.
the clouds
pressed out
like ancient paper
into a mummy
mass.
I am in it
and I
am watching from afar
like some
dark bird.
the horses have
quieted their
grazing
on her hills,
the layers of landscape
have devoured
the even
undulances.
where have I
copied
once
these birds in motion?
these houses
shaped like hands?
the shoulder
the rib, breast, elbow,
eye
that acquire the faint
gray happening of
night’s shades.
11.28.2007
The White Dog
the white dog
has no eyes…he moves about
with the sense of hairs that never stop growing…
they swim upon the cold leafed ground, autumn
slow-moving as a shoe over the horrific landscape.
the set has no antennae. the sun has no existence. the roofs of our mouths have been
cleansed with ether and Clorox bleach. stop telling me I’ve found the secret.
stop moving with so much faux resistance, like you are part of the sea.
the sea is greener than your eyes, mouth, toes or power could ever be. it is
simple as
tuning the piano with a fork, the voice with the sound
of a knife taking rule of the apple and dividing its flesh.
the fish in its
bowl screaming for a dollar to be golden, the wife who dies slowly
but slower than her husband, and then withers away alone, the spider who
spins a web so magnificent and wide that she gets lost in it, the purring of a cat in a
dark bedroom in winter, the tea water boiling, the angel preening his wings.
over time, the landscape loses its surface. the
objects that were rolled into place are taken
one-by-one away by the sea. the blue characters of death become more abundant, and they
sleep in the empty fountain.
the airplane screams across the depleted sky, the helicopter buzzes like some
pigeon who has lost its marbles and flies into space, the same
man waits
upon the same bench day after day, smoking a cigarette, with a suitcase next to him. he can’t be waiting for his wife. he’s waiting for his dog to come back to life.
has no eyes…he moves about
with the sense of hairs that never stop growing…
they swim upon the cold leafed ground, autumn
slow-moving as a shoe over the horrific landscape.
the set has no antennae. the sun has no existence. the roofs of our mouths have been
cleansed with ether and Clorox bleach. stop telling me I’ve found the secret.
stop moving with so much faux resistance, like you are part of the sea.
the sea is greener than your eyes, mouth, toes or power could ever be. it is
simple as
tuning the piano with a fork, the voice with the sound
of a knife taking rule of the apple and dividing its flesh.
the fish in its
bowl screaming for a dollar to be golden, the wife who dies slowly
but slower than her husband, and then withers away alone, the spider who
spins a web so magnificent and wide that she gets lost in it, the purring of a cat in a
dark bedroom in winter, the tea water boiling, the angel preening his wings.
over time, the landscape loses its surface. the
objects that were rolled into place are taken
one-by-one away by the sea. the blue characters of death become more abundant, and they
sleep in the empty fountain.
the airplane screams across the depleted sky, the helicopter buzzes like some
pigeon who has lost its marbles and flies into space, the same
man waits
upon the same bench day after day, smoking a cigarette, with a suitcase next to him. he can’t be waiting for his wife. he’s waiting for his dog to come back to life.
11.26.2007
Tonight
Tonight, I find leaves
under everything I lift.
The trash can, the water glass,
the pile of clothes.
There are
apple seeds inside of you
when I
cut
you open, all in a row,
huddled, like a circle of children.
It’s amazing: a tattoo
of the alphabet
inside of your mouth, a mirror
of
my mouth
in your eyes.
The Sox won the series tonight
and still,
the small green light of the smoke alarm
flashes in the paradox of darkness, the
voice
of a paralyzed man screeching
inside his cage of arms,
the web of trees
pixilates in shadow somehow
upon the dank ceiling.
Walking in the
cold night
with only a shirt,
the stone lion smiles at me from down at the end
next to the chair, next to the yellow flowers.
under everything I lift.
The trash can, the water glass,
the pile of clothes.
There are
apple seeds inside of you
when I
cut
you open, all in a row,
huddled, like a circle of children.
It’s amazing: a tattoo
of the alphabet
inside of your mouth, a mirror
of
my mouth
in your eyes.
The Sox won the series tonight
and still,
the small green light of the smoke alarm
flashes in the paradox of darkness, the
voice
of a paralyzed man screeching
inside his cage of arms,
the web of trees
pixilates in shadow somehow
upon the dank ceiling.
Walking in the
cold night
with only a shirt,
the stone lion smiles at me from down at the end
next to the chair, next to the yellow flowers.
Waiting For Tuesday
Sitting in the dark again, waiting for Tuesday.
The leaves outside sag like exploded balloons, and I’m
amazed at the view
now that the trees are thinner.
Heavy rain
is still expected, the heaviest,
and expected to tear
into our hulls like
Antarctic ice.
Where will you be?
Never gone but never quite
here
You stir the light with your hands
look over,
exceedingly alone, at the woman
sleeping again
next to you
Another night with another dark middle.
It really is the best way to fight: not knowing
whether or not the enemy is out there.
Still, it is thick as syrup, it is a
turning screwdriver
that makes music
like a piano.
The leaves outside sag like exploded balloons, and I’m
amazed at the view
now that the trees are thinner.
Heavy rain
is still expected, the heaviest,
and expected to tear
into our hulls like
Antarctic ice.
Where will you be?
Never gone but never quite
here
You stir the light with your hands
look over,
exceedingly alone, at the woman
sleeping again
next to you
Another night with another dark middle.
It really is the best way to fight: not knowing
whether or not the enemy is out there.
Still, it is thick as syrup, it is a
turning screwdriver
that makes music
like a piano.
11.16.2007
The Mathematics Of Blood In The Veins
The earth tells you
its words,
the puppet show
is the bell
you ape,
the light against
paper;
and it’s always a unique
routine.
This song goes on and tells you
the long story
you ape,
and it remarks
on itself
within the trees
what happened without light,
without paper, without an engine,
and without
shadows.
Then they give you
pills that
put
your muscles to sleep,
they run
blue dye
in the river of
your blood. Take
pictures of your organs.
It is
the mathematics
of
blood in the veins, these pictures,
the slow retiring of your mind,
the song ribboned
out in your body
like a parade, your
dance is
alive
inside of
this still, x-rayed body, man.
It won’t stop. It will not
stop until you do, which only takes a
a moment. Beep.
When a woman
marries
a man
she always seems
to marry his
death.
You amazing feathers, you, father,
you amazing tall being,
like Emily
Dickinson
turned to a weed on the prairie
in a cat’s eyeball
sliced right
down
the middle, her
feathers
blown
away in the bright wind.
The streetlights
made them, they made your words,
they brought us the snow and the wind,
they brought us the shapes, and the light, and that,
those pieces
altogether
that made up the reef of this city, its
inhabitants
enfolded
in inventions.
Meanwhile, you
continue to
circle the house,
haunt your own chair,
adjust the
thermostat
again and again for
ages,
eat and guzzle
of your own guts perpetually,
a fork in one hand and the
eyeballs
searching for what?
Your drink, your dick, your
wife.
Blood moving toward something,
through your withered
veins, oxygen
opening
the dark wings
of your lungs,
long-haired like
prehistoric Ice Age bats.
It is the light
and it is
the soundless. You go into it,
and it finds you.
Do you know the man
of my father?
I look ahead to numerous seasons, how they will
spread
in latitudes
across the faces
of everyone I know,
the bridges and the rivers they cross,
closets opening in winter, in the
hallways
minutiae,
in the sands of the
deserts.
I will walk through them for this brief time,
and then they will close, like they
closed on you.
The mice and rats
have been
scratching
inside of the walls
all night, and the
ceiling—
they remind me
of the years
and how they
run
in the walls, how
they lubricate the
brick and the stone.
The glue
that keeps
nails in studs, bones
in flesh, two people together.
You amazing
toothless mouth, you noose,
you amazing father,
and you are mother too.
its words,
the puppet show
is the bell
you ape,
the light against
paper;
and it’s always a unique
routine.
This song goes on and tells you
the long story
you ape,
and it remarks
on itself
within the trees
what happened without light,
without paper, without an engine,
and without
shadows.
Then they give you
pills that
put
your muscles to sleep,
they run
blue dye
in the river of
your blood. Take
pictures of your organs.
It is
the mathematics
of
blood in the veins, these pictures,
the slow retiring of your mind,
the song ribboned
out in your body
like a parade, your
dance is
alive
inside of
this still, x-rayed body, man.
It won’t stop. It will not
stop until you do, which only takes a
a moment. Beep.
When a woman
marries
a man
she always seems
to marry his
death.
You amazing feathers, you, father,
you amazing tall being,
like Emily
Dickinson
turned to a weed on the prairie
in a cat’s eyeball
sliced right
down
the middle, her
feathers
blown
away in the bright wind.
The streetlights
made them, they made your words,
they brought us the snow and the wind,
they brought us the shapes, and the light, and that,
those pieces
altogether
that made up the reef of this city, its
inhabitants
enfolded
in inventions.
Meanwhile, you
continue to
circle the house,
haunt your own chair,
adjust the
thermostat
again and again for
ages,
eat and guzzle
of your own guts perpetually,
a fork in one hand and the
eyeballs
searching for what?
Your drink, your dick, your
wife.
Blood moving toward something,
through your withered
veins, oxygen
opening
the dark wings
of your lungs,
long-haired like
prehistoric Ice Age bats.
It is the light
and it is
the soundless. You go into it,
and it finds you.
Do you know the man
of my father?
I look ahead to numerous seasons, how they will
spread
in latitudes
across the faces
of everyone I know,
the bridges and the rivers they cross,
closets opening in winter, in the
hallways
minutiae,
in the sands of the
deserts.
I will walk through them for this brief time,
and then they will close, like they
closed on you.
The mice and rats
have been
scratching
inside of the walls
all night, and the
ceiling—
they remind me
of the years
and how they
run
in the walls, how
they lubricate the
brick and the stone.
The glue
that keeps
nails in studs, bones
in flesh, two people together.
You amazing
toothless mouth, you noose,
you amazing father,
and you are mother too.
11.13.2007
The First Time
It’s when you finally feel
the ax sink in.
And it seems like years have passed as you have been here,
and they might have,
and you’re still swinging away, as if
you have been forced to do it.
And then, there’s that sound of fibers
splitting, and your ears turn on like the animal you are,
where all before it was just
ungratifying swipes, banked off, ramming the blade
into holes in the air, hammering,
hammering. Boring. When will it end?
And it happens,
it works,
this little secret of glee nature, a bee in the hole of a flower,
it lets you in, it releases something small;
it smiles at you. You marvel at its
suddenness. You really almost cry. And when you remove it,
slide it out from the flesh of
time, and the flesh of your own body,
and the deep
torso
of monotony’s cadaver,
the blade is dripping with honey.
And the ants crawl into your
momentarily
overgrown pajamas.
the ax sink in.
And it seems like years have passed as you have been here,
and they might have,
and you’re still swinging away, as if
you have been forced to do it.
And then, there’s that sound of fibers
splitting, and your ears turn on like the animal you are,
where all before it was just
ungratifying swipes, banked off, ramming the blade
into holes in the air, hammering,
hammering. Boring. When will it end?
And it happens,
it works,
this little secret of glee nature, a bee in the hole of a flower,
it lets you in, it releases something small;
it smiles at you. You marvel at its
suddenness. You really almost cry. And when you remove it,
slide it out from the flesh of
time, and the flesh of your own body,
and the deep
torso
of monotony’s cadaver,
the blade is dripping with honey.
And the ants crawl into your
momentarily
overgrown pajamas.
A Skull On The Beach
It’s sitting next to me
like it’s supposed to be there.
Below a wall of beach grass.
I can’t tell what creature
it come from.
A person or an
animal.
I can’t tell what creature
I am.
It bursts into laughter
until I realize
that’s me;
I’m laughing;
there’s also music.
There’s music, though
I hear no music, laughing
from the grass, within
the cotton belts of the sea’s top.
What happens to me here?
What is this place supposed to be?
What is it supposed to mean?
Then I feel
my head in someone else’s hands.
The skeleton within my body
has no sense of humor. It does not
laugh, smile or do much of anything, really.
Is that me?
My body is full of the light of air too,
the hands are the hands of a
mother, the skull is uncovered.
And the ocean pulls off my pants.
like it’s supposed to be there.
Below a wall of beach grass.
I can’t tell what creature
it come from.
A person or an
animal.
I can’t tell what creature
I am.
It bursts into laughter
until I realize
that’s me;
I’m laughing;
there’s also music.
There’s music, though
I hear no music, laughing
from the grass, within
the cotton belts of the sea’s top.
What happens to me here?
What is this place supposed to be?
What is it supposed to mean?
Then I feel
my head in someone else’s hands.
The skeleton within my body
has no sense of humor. It does not
laugh, smile or do much of anything, really.
Is that me?
My body is full of the light of air too,
the hands are the hands of a
mother, the skull is uncovered.
And the ocean pulls off my pants.
11.11.2007
Read Me
First, read me.
The words
of myself, the words
conveyed in my
body, wound
in the tendrils of
my flesh, the codes
carved in my teeth
like hieroglyphs, my
bones, my hair
spells them out.
Read the novel inside of my
mouth, the alphabet
body has arranged itself, its
shapes conceived of an
ocean, a marriage, a laughter, the
swimming man and his
orchestra, fingerprints like
letters, the water song that they explain.
I enciphered these skins
as I released you,
wrapped them in the gauze
of our sleep
that encased us. And now you are out,
and now they remain permanently on you
like eyes on the wings of a moth.
Did you conjure these
teeth beneath the lips?
One-by-one romantically
like the keys of typewriters?
Did you conjure these notes upon my skull?
Stamped them out on the
bright area of your cheek. Pressed them,
and made a copy. Who invented the language of
ourselves?
She sleeps and the letters move, see.
The dream of them floats boldly to the surface,
a jellyfish, a turtle,
and only uncovers its eyes.
The light it emits enters the room and
shifts like shadows on the ceiling,
and all of it
circles the wise mirror.
The words
of myself, the words
conveyed in my
body, wound
in the tendrils of
my flesh, the codes
carved in my teeth
like hieroglyphs, my
bones, my hair
spells them out.
Read the novel inside of my
mouth, the alphabet
body has arranged itself, its
shapes conceived of an
ocean, a marriage, a laughter, the
swimming man and his
orchestra, fingerprints like
letters, the water song that they explain.
I enciphered these skins
as I released you,
wrapped them in the gauze
of our sleep
that encased us. And now you are out,
and now they remain permanently on you
like eyes on the wings of a moth.
Did you conjure these
teeth beneath the lips?
One-by-one romantically
like the keys of typewriters?
Did you conjure these notes upon my skull?
Stamped them out on the
bright area of your cheek. Pressed them,
and made a copy. Who invented the language of
ourselves?
She sleeps and the letters move, see.
The dream of them floats boldly to the surface,
a jellyfish, a turtle,
and only uncovers its eyes.
The light it emits enters the room and
shifts like shadows on the ceiling,
and all of it
circles the wise mirror.
11.09.2007
Fog
The fog is tired
like an old horse.
It emerges
to find some help,
needing dental surgery,
the teeth have grown tree roots.
It rests the bottoms of its
rotten jaws
upon the red ground,
unwraps the gauze and ropes,
closes and opens the large black ball of an eye.
The leaves have gone mad
and killed themselves,
leapt from
the tops of
empty pails, skewered
themselves on the
tails of rats.
They make a bed full of
yellow razors.
Their notes are spelled
in
cut off beards,
down the drain,
their skin is bleached
with temperate weather.
like an old horse.
It emerges
to find some help,
needing dental surgery,
the teeth have grown tree roots.
It rests the bottoms of its
rotten jaws
upon the red ground,
unwraps the gauze and ropes,
closes and opens the large black ball of an eye.
The leaves have gone mad
and killed themselves,
leapt from
the tops of
empty pails, skewered
themselves on the
tails of rats.
They make a bed full of
yellow razors.
Their notes are spelled
in
cut off beards,
down the drain,
their skin is bleached
with temperate weather.
11.07.2007
Crucified Gnat
She is a giant on the
tiles of Rome.
She must have flown
poetically
into that john
in the restaurant basement,
there where a fat
shitting man
sweated out
yours truly, death.
Harpooned you on his bloody
fingernail,
quoted the Bible
while he
spanked
your crazy ass,
flattened you,
demoralized you.
Wow, you look like a shield.
I’d like to rip that wall out as evidence,
bring the case to court,
have his man
tried
for treason.
tiles of Rome.
She must have flown
poetically
into that john
in the restaurant basement,
there where a fat
shitting man
sweated out
yours truly, death.
Harpooned you on his bloody
fingernail,
quoted the Bible
while he
spanked
your crazy ass,
flattened you,
demoralized you.
Wow, you look like a shield.
I’d like to rip that wall out as evidence,
bring the case to court,
have his man
tried
for treason.
Sunken
The apartment, maybe,
is under water.
Our windows are holding back
this massive purple block, night, the nervous system
of earth.
Somewhere in the
cold depth
there is a glowing
worm
that spells out your name
in his
phosphorescent coils.
His brain
is an enlarged egg
that holds the secret of
man.
We drift along the bottom,
our sonar bonking,
wreckages of
ships
and mustached cadavers
and shoe husks
and trunks full of shit,
bird cages without
birds in them
anymore,
the ghost voices of our neighbors
wishing us luck
in the gloomy halls.
It is the apartment under water.
Dear God,
we don’t know how we
found ourselves here,
amongst these many
victims.
is under water.
Our windows are holding back
this massive purple block, night, the nervous system
of earth.
Somewhere in the
cold depth
there is a glowing
worm
that spells out your name
in his
phosphorescent coils.
His brain
is an enlarged egg
that holds the secret of
man.
We drift along the bottom,
our sonar bonking,
wreckages of
ships
and mustached cadavers
and shoe husks
and trunks full of shit,
bird cages without
birds in them
anymore,
the ghost voices of our neighbors
wishing us luck
in the gloomy halls.
It is the apartment under water.
Dear God,
we don’t know how we
found ourselves here,
amongst these many
victims.
11.05.2007
Watching A Woman Sleep
You went to sleep
inside my sleep,
and I had yet to let mine go.
I guarded it
with a shield, I moved over it
as a hawk moves over earth with his eyes and head.
Your face was the land, your
body was the black arc pressed
two-handed
into the sky. It joined the
paper puppets, shadow, in their
silent pews
as they worshiped the slow moving
head of their master,
their master is our master,
our master weighs close to nothing.
He is inside of the walls.
He is coming like laughter out of the dark,
our mouths are one
landscape.
I frame them with bone
marrow fragments,
the sweet charcoal. It is the
most ancient medium, primordial
as squid ink, pure as wine,
it lands in pools in our mouth,
sequence of numerals and letters
that is shaped like our sleep.
I have enciphered it.
Don’t worry. And I have enciphered it
with numerous codes.
inside my sleep,
and I had yet to let mine go.
I guarded it
with a shield, I moved over it
as a hawk moves over earth with his eyes and head.
Your face was the land, your
body was the black arc pressed
two-handed
into the sky. It joined the
paper puppets, shadow, in their
silent pews
as they worshiped the slow moving
head of their master,
their master is our master,
our master weighs close to nothing.
He is inside of the walls.
He is coming like laughter out of the dark,
our mouths are one
landscape.
I frame them with bone
marrow fragments,
the sweet charcoal. It is the
most ancient medium, primordial
as squid ink, pure as wine,
it lands in pools in our mouth,
sequence of numerals and letters
that is shaped like our sleep.
I have enciphered it.
Don’t worry. And I have enciphered it
with numerous codes.
11.01.2007
Fall II
Leaves are keys on a chain
round the neck
of an old hardware store clerk.
He puts his white hands
in the pocket of his apron
and holds them together,
generating heat
out of the old
skinned claws. He thinks of the
blood within his veins, the sight of it
holding like ribbons
in the water of his bathroom sink.
Oh God, what was that?
These leaf keys
sell
for cheap, they
fall off
like hair off of the dead,
they form haunting faces
on the wet bricks. The faces look
like the clerk’s sons, his
brother
who drowned in a quarry,
and they mirror his very
DNA
like stairs.
How
flesh grows across a person’s face,
how organs flash brilliantly
like blades for that brief lifetime
and then dull,
how children’s futures are
stored in the attic.
round the neck
of an old hardware store clerk.
He puts his white hands
in the pocket of his apron
and holds them together,
generating heat
out of the old
skinned claws. He thinks of the
blood within his veins, the sight of it
holding like ribbons
in the water of his bathroom sink.
Oh God, what was that?
These leaf keys
sell
for cheap, they
fall off
like hair off of the dead,
they form haunting faces
on the wet bricks. The faces look
like the clerk’s sons, his
brother
who drowned in a quarry,
and they mirror his very
DNA
like stairs.
How
flesh grows across a person’s face,
how organs flash brilliantly
like blades for that brief lifetime
and then dull,
how children’s futures are
stored in the attic.
10.31.2007
View From The Kitchen
It is like looking down the trunk
of an old, hollow tree.
Morning will not come
for this cold night.
I stand there and listen to the
clock’s
hands, submerge my head in the icy
bath of new weather;
up there, the roof waits.
She waits with her flags. She waits for her view
to change.
The cat box does not clean itself—I am full of it.
Why do I not get tired?
The leaves
shiver
on the tree’s arms, there are
olives in the
fridge, fruit flies
that come under the hand
(what can I do about them? I can’t
obliterate them all, my dear), nights to paper the wall,
relatives to wish you happy birthday,
the elation of solitude to pass in the halls,
versions of ourselves
to butcher into shapes, and let their tastes
bewitch us, make us fall in
love with them,
dominate us, jettison our wits
with little square parachutes.
No one knows when our blood stopped
pushing through these clubs
called hands.
It stopped somewhere in the mountains,
somewhere in the battle objects of the forests,
somewhere in Oregon or the
knolls of
Big Sur’s bloated nose,
thinned by the
terse, thin
air of America.
And now this big body
has been put under the ground.
Big human,
big stitched up forehead,
big chest once filled with humor.
of an old, hollow tree.
Morning will not come
for this cold night.
I stand there and listen to the
clock’s
hands, submerge my head in the icy
bath of new weather;
up there, the roof waits.
She waits with her flags. She waits for her view
to change.
The cat box does not clean itself—I am full of it.
Why do I not get tired?
The leaves
shiver
on the tree’s arms, there are
olives in the
fridge, fruit flies
that come under the hand
(what can I do about them? I can’t
obliterate them all, my dear), nights to paper the wall,
relatives to wish you happy birthday,
the elation of solitude to pass in the halls,
versions of ourselves
to butcher into shapes, and let their tastes
bewitch us, make us fall in
love with them,
dominate us, jettison our wits
with little square parachutes.
No one knows when our blood stopped
pushing through these clubs
called hands.
It stopped somewhere in the mountains,
somewhere in the battle objects of the forests,
somewhere in Oregon or the
knolls of
Big Sur’s bloated nose,
thinned by the
terse, thin
air of America.
And now this big body
has been put under the ground.
Big human,
big stitched up forehead,
big chest once filled with humor.
10.29.2007
The Goat Head
Who lifted the goat head
off of the plank?
His body is art
hanging on the wall, hooves
down, tail twirled
like a spiral of Orcus, his
tongue opens all of our
locks.
I was saving that
in the kitchen, away from all you,
he wasn’t supposed to be your dinner.
off of the plank?
His body is art
hanging on the wall, hooves
down, tail twirled
like a spiral of Orcus, his
tongue opens all of our
locks.
I was saving that
in the kitchen, away from all you,
he wasn’t supposed to be your dinner.
Healing
This is what it always is,
healing,
and what it should be, really.
Still feeling the
long grass
as you sat in it, contemplating death
in October before an empty house.
Still awakening
sick, without that normal verve,
and kneeling
together with no one
to mime your mother on her saddest
days.
It’s when the healing ends, I think,
that everything wanes.
It sighs
and reclines into a chair,
like a widower who
did not love his wife.
And it comes
as the alcoholic burning
of years
down the throat.
healing,
and what it should be, really.
Still feeling the
long grass
as you sat in it, contemplating death
in October before an empty house.
Still awakening
sick, without that normal verve,
and kneeling
together with no one
to mime your mother on her saddest
days.
It’s when the healing ends, I think,
that everything wanes.
It sighs
and reclines into a chair,
like a widower who
did not love his wife.
And it comes
as the alcoholic burning
of years
down the throat.
10.28.2007
Desert Night: A Love Poem
The The has died.
Someone slip it inside
its coffin.
Someone scoop its
gentle ashes into the air like snow.
The The
stands up
and pretends it is a
cactus.
Saguaro.
Its head is beside the moon
it is so tall,
its arms
out.
It mimes the
cactus as it downs its own fire
like a shadow,
and at the funeral
that fire lights you up.
Your legs are white
as apple flesh.
You’ll find me in the shape
of The The,
a shadow dark as a silhouetted hand,
stung as deep as the purple
flower,
our heads have gotten heavy.
Let’s go to sleep like this,
nude, cold,
blank and sluggish as cotton that has been
torn off and floats away.
We push one another across
the white rock,
rest together,
sing together, find
water together,
swim how
it
stays in its pool
together,
how it knows the song
of merging
waited
in the desert.
Your words are my words.
We speak them from the same mouth,
our languages move simultaneously
and so does The The,
the,
where is our
The?
Someone slip it inside
its coffin.
Someone scoop its
gentle ashes into the air like snow.
The The
stands up
and pretends it is a
cactus.
Saguaro.
Its head is beside the moon
it is so tall,
its arms
out.
It mimes the
cactus as it downs its own fire
like a shadow,
and at the funeral
that fire lights you up.
Your legs are white
as apple flesh.
You’ll find me in the shape
of The The,
a shadow dark as a silhouetted hand,
stung as deep as the purple
flower,
our heads have gotten heavy.
Let’s go to sleep like this,
nude, cold,
blank and sluggish as cotton that has been
torn off and floats away.
We push one another across
the white rock,
rest together,
sing together, find
water together,
swim how
it
stays in its pool
together,
how it knows the song
of merging
waited
in the desert.
Your words are my words.
We speak them from the same mouth,
our languages move simultaneously
and so does The The,
the,
where is our
The?
10.27.2007
Morning, Again
The fly dwells in the ivy
again,
his cocoon is no self,
it is a costume.
Fabric slips off of a woman’s
wet body
like an ice slab melting into the Arctic,
ad it is there on the floor again,
and
her body is all points, it sings like luminescent water.
Our jack-o-lanterns have
cried themselves
to sleep, shriveled into the sad old faces of mice
eating them,
and the leaves have crawled
into the oven of earth
to bake into tiny chips.
again,
his cocoon is no self,
it is a costume.
Fabric slips off of a woman’s
wet body
like an ice slab melting into the Arctic,
ad it is there on the floor again,
and
her body is all points, it sings like luminescent water.
Our jack-o-lanterns have
cried themselves
to sleep, shriveled into the sad old faces of mice
eating them,
and the leaves have crawled
into the oven of earth
to bake into tiny chips.
10.26.2007
The Night
Night, the toad,
sits on my chest.
He is fat and heavy, sluggish
from slurping up blood and excrement--thank you--
beer, ham, cleaning out the shower drains,
sweeping the floors, running the
garbage disposal, clearing his
throat before delivering a lengthy speech;
during which, I fall asleep but
there were bodies
in there. There were small
bodies in his mouth. There was the
mud of music. He makes me sick.
The night
makes confetti
out of blades of light.
They sneeze white and golden,
I watch them
as they dance up there on the ceiling.
Sleep assembles itself.
It takes slow black steps
through the wires of hair
that have continued to grow
for years
over my torso.
The cabbies
out there
read their newspapers and their heads
bend backwards
slowly
into the dark,
the cats cross the street, stronger
than any of the humans in it,
somehow wise,
somehow sharpened to a point,
abase me in my bed.
The fat toad
then
holds a cigar
between his fleshy lips. He wears his
hat. His belly drags over my yellow body.
This toad of night worships
me.
He worships my
head as his
emperor, and yet
he abuses me, hungers for me.
His hunger is immensely visible.
It is in a glass orb, it is so present, it is like
perfume.
And the light
across the way, high over
the stone and the ivy,
the twisted ferns, the iron stairs,
is still on
somehow.
It’s been on
now
for three days
and three nights
without going off.
Sometimes a figure
passes by
and sometimes
it stays,
it seems to go on between floors,
through the floor, flying between floors, this figure,
an imagined
creature
of the toad
of night’s fantasy.
sits on my chest.
He is fat and heavy, sluggish
from slurping up blood and excrement--thank you--
beer, ham, cleaning out the shower drains,
sweeping the floors, running the
garbage disposal, clearing his
throat before delivering a lengthy speech;
during which, I fall asleep but
there were bodies
in there. There were small
bodies in his mouth. There was the
mud of music. He makes me sick.
The night
makes confetti
out of blades of light.
They sneeze white and golden,
I watch them
as they dance up there on the ceiling.
Sleep assembles itself.
It takes slow black steps
through the wires of hair
that have continued to grow
for years
over my torso.
The cabbies
out there
read their newspapers and their heads
bend backwards
slowly
into the dark,
the cats cross the street, stronger
than any of the humans in it,
somehow wise,
somehow sharpened to a point,
abase me in my bed.
The fat toad
then
holds a cigar
between his fleshy lips. He wears his
hat. His belly drags over my yellow body.
This toad of night worships
me.
He worships my
head as his
emperor, and yet
he abuses me, hungers for me.
His hunger is immensely visible.
It is in a glass orb, it is so present, it is like
perfume.
And the light
across the way, high over
the stone and the ivy,
the twisted ferns, the iron stairs,
is still on
somehow.
It’s been on
now
for three days
and three nights
without going off.
Sometimes a figure
passes by
and sometimes
it stays,
it seems to go on between floors,
through the floor, flying between floors, this figure,
an imagined
creature
of the toad
of night’s fantasy.
10.25.2007
What We Should Have Done In Big Sur
We should have stopped
at Miller’s Library.
I heard they’ve got
his skeleton
behind glass.
But certain parts of it
have kept growing.
No one knows why.
Now it looks like
John Merrick’s head
too big for a hat, hands
of uneven size, one foot
a brick.
His penis is contained
in an old beer can. It
resembles preserved fruit. His
testicles and anus
in a similar cavity—the
urn of a French waiter.
We should have modeled ourselves
after his collection of
toads and lizards who live in
shoebox coffins,
his tongue wrapped around a grape
that they couldn’t pry off, his jaw
like a goddamn stone hammer.
We should have built our own
library there, a cemetery, a library
of bones,
I said
as we looked over an honest-to-god
cliff.
It gets abrupt, you said and closed the door.
We were on our way
back
to San Francisco then.
at Miller’s Library.
I heard they’ve got
his skeleton
behind glass.
But certain parts of it
have kept growing.
No one knows why.
Now it looks like
John Merrick’s head
too big for a hat, hands
of uneven size, one foot
a brick.
His penis is contained
in an old beer can. It
resembles preserved fruit. His
testicles and anus
in a similar cavity—the
urn of a French waiter.
We should have modeled ourselves
after his collection of
toads and lizards who live in
shoebox coffins,
his tongue wrapped around a grape
that they couldn’t pry off, his jaw
like a goddamn stone hammer.
We should have built our own
library there, a cemetery, a library
of bones,
I said
as we looked over an honest-to-god
cliff.
It gets abrupt, you said and closed the door.
We were on our way
back
to San Francisco then.
Peanut Shells
A bowl of peanut shells
with my fingers in it, the
dead tattle on the living.
They are desperate for
attention, the blue
suds of their time on earth still sing
somewhere, along with the
choir of yet another coming Christmas,
It washes our hair and runs in our gutters.
Peanut shells, you stay up late
with me.
You gossip, influence my thoughts,
my love, you are
locusts who have slipped out of their
lives, you are the wings of
prehistoric flies, you are
headstones.
Your wheat
colored eyes twiddling with
naughty dreams, I turn off the light
and listen to traffic.
with my fingers in it, the
dead tattle on the living.
They are desperate for
attention, the blue
suds of their time on earth still sing
somewhere, along with the
choir of yet another coming Christmas,
It washes our hair and runs in our gutters.
Peanut shells, you stay up late
with me.
You gossip, influence my thoughts,
my love, you are
locusts who have slipped out of their
lives, you are the wings of
prehistoric flies, you are
headstones.
Your wheat
colored eyes twiddling with
naughty dreams, I turn off the light
and listen to traffic.
10.24.2007
Perspectives On The Circle
The sun
is quiet up there.
Nothing comes out of it.
But you know what it’s doing--it’s raging.
Behind the crowns of our buildings
it’s burning beyond itself,
it does not know
it burns.
The plane rushes over us
with sounds like a giant silver funnel
and beside me, men from Chinatown
who seem like they must be
130 years old
eat sesame cookies, put their
canes and caps up on the bench,
we are all warmed like god feathers.
We have faces like numerals.
We look at each other
and recognize something.
Blue-pink feet are aired, a bicycle
can be ridden through
the rubbing of two hands, the opening and
closing of hands
like a door.
A fly haunts the cracks.
He is an unmitigated snob. Hairs like
fish’s chin hairs have grown from his back—they are
called legs.
The train looks heavy
as it sways
down the tunnel,
in the tunnel that goes
underneath the dome
the red leaf lies on its back
like a cadaver.
His arms are out. His legs, out.
No one has bothered to arrange him.
No one knows how to identify his face.
The grief of it
grows buds. Red buds and hair. Thick gray hair.
Like roots, like the tails of rats, like Birch trees.
is quiet up there.
Nothing comes out of it.
But you know what it’s doing--it’s raging.
Behind the crowns of our buildings
it’s burning beyond itself,
it does not know
it burns.
The plane rushes over us
with sounds like a giant silver funnel
and beside me, men from Chinatown
who seem like they must be
130 years old
eat sesame cookies, put their
canes and caps up on the bench,
we are all warmed like god feathers.
We have faces like numerals.
We look at each other
and recognize something.
Blue-pink feet are aired, a bicycle
can be ridden through
the rubbing of two hands, the opening and
closing of hands
like a door.
A fly haunts the cracks.
He is an unmitigated snob. Hairs like
fish’s chin hairs have grown from his back—they are
called legs.
The train looks heavy
as it sways
down the tunnel,
in the tunnel that goes
underneath the dome
the red leaf lies on its back
like a cadaver.
His arms are out. His legs, out.
No one has bothered to arrange him.
No one knows how to identify his face.
The grief of it
grows buds. Red buds and hair. Thick gray hair.
Like roots, like the tails of rats, like Birch trees.
10.22.2007
A Day Has Ended
The wood in this apartment squeaks.
The cat has finally settled in
to the couch.
She’d been recently
preoccupied
with one
particular
section of wall. Staring at it. Pawing it.
I figured there was someone in there
talking to her.
I look out into the flat, smudged face of a tree,
a wall of leaves, I look up
into the Cassandra moon, and the
silly blue
fabric that
man has put over his windows.
We can see his kitchen anyway;
we can see his old hands holding knives.
This book had been rained on many times.
I left it on the balcony
to collect
dirty pools in its pages.
Now they are disfigured
and resemble old faces. I touch their lips.
Upon them, the saliva
dried up, the sheen of dead writers.
The mute
wind.
He does not act in expressive properties, the wind.
Music or autopsy.
And somehow the tree has been convinced by this wind,
and the cat bends into night.
I keep my ankles uncomfortably folded,
try not to disturb her
or the sleeping woman
next to me. I think of the stillness of caves.
I do not want to go to sleep—I don’t care
for the shape of that
mirror’s circle, a grape
in a god’s mouth
as it holds
open,
terribly open.
So I conjure up the old mothers.
They skid about the room in slippers,
they take
baths
in our bathtub, they forget to cover
their breasts as they drink milk
from children’s cups.
And the leaves, I think, are like doctors
who have put an IV in me,
administering an anesthesia, and are waiting for it
to take effect,
studying me as I go to sleep.
Then she emits a small sound in her sleep.
A little comma in some dream,
a half
owl hoot, the fragment
of a scream.
And it pushes me
into it. Not
at all
ready.
The cat has finally settled in
to the couch.
She’d been recently
preoccupied
with one
particular
section of wall. Staring at it. Pawing it.
I figured there was someone in there
talking to her.
I look out into the flat, smudged face of a tree,
a wall of leaves, I look up
into the Cassandra moon, and the
silly blue
fabric that
man has put over his windows.
We can see his kitchen anyway;
we can see his old hands holding knives.
This book had been rained on many times.
I left it on the balcony
to collect
dirty pools in its pages.
Now they are disfigured
and resemble old faces. I touch their lips.
Upon them, the saliva
dried up, the sheen of dead writers.
The mute
wind.
He does not act in expressive properties, the wind.
Music or autopsy.
And somehow the tree has been convinced by this wind,
and the cat bends into night.
I keep my ankles uncomfortably folded,
try not to disturb her
or the sleeping woman
next to me. I think of the stillness of caves.
I do not want to go to sleep—I don’t care
for the shape of that
mirror’s circle, a grape
in a god’s mouth
as it holds
open,
terribly open.
So I conjure up the old mothers.
They skid about the room in slippers,
they take
baths
in our bathtub, they forget to cover
their breasts as they drink milk
from children’s cups.
And the leaves, I think, are like doctors
who have put an IV in me,
administering an anesthesia, and are waiting for it
to take effect,
studying me as I go to sleep.
Then she emits a small sound in her sleep.
A little comma in some dream,
a half
owl hoot, the fragment
of a scream.
And it pushes me
into it. Not
at all
ready.
10.21.2007
Time With Teeth Marks In It
A woman
wearing
a
wig
eats a
peach,
and looks around
at us
wondering,
it seems,
who’s next?
Some properties
within her,
like a banana
refrigerated,
have been arrested.
Meanwhile, I am
still
oozing into life,
haunting the
house
as much as you
haunt
the house.
We are
climbing the stairs
in
opposite
directions.
Somewhere else
the despot sings
in the bathtub, fingers his
blade, his pistol,
drinks his pear
brandy,
eats fruit salad,
sandwiches, sardines
from a can.
The fly,
who is big and
hairy as a dog in my dream,
leans on his cane
and waits for
death to jump out of the closet.
Surprise.
The skull has grown hair
and the fly’s
still around.
I admire his
bulky form
just
as the huge gray
slab
of a cloud
covers the sun
like a
hand
impervious and
takes
my light
away.
wearing
a
wig
eats a
peach,
and looks around
at us
wondering,
it seems,
who’s next?
Some properties
within her,
like a banana
refrigerated,
have been arrested.
Meanwhile, I am
still
oozing into life,
haunting the
house
as much as you
haunt
the house.
We are
climbing the stairs
in
opposite
directions.
Somewhere else
the despot sings
in the bathtub, fingers his
blade, his pistol,
drinks his pear
brandy,
eats fruit salad,
sandwiches, sardines
from a can.
The fly,
who is big and
hairy as a dog in my dream,
leans on his cane
and waits for
death to jump out of the closet.
Surprise.
The skull has grown hair
and the fly’s
still around.
I admire his
bulky form
just
as the huge gray
slab
of a cloud
covers the sun
like a
hand
impervious and
takes
my light
away.
10.20.2007
The Career
Someone is writing,
currently,
the previous books of
history, those which do not
involve us. They go forward,
ahead of us.
A blindfolded man kisses
the dark at a brown desk
while ironing his shirt.
He whistles and combs his hair,
prepares his speech. It is
his death speech, and the words
make such heaps of shapes
he cannot hear their sounds,
especially not
the little meows.
Someone
will be forced to take his place. So, he
wings it, follows through.
Says a number of very true
but very unbelievable things.
I remember that man
following me.
He was talking to himself,
nonsense over
Wall Street and how he
couldn’t find a fucking restroom.
Well, he swallowed my love
down his own dog’s mouth
like a ventriloquist; laughed his
owl laugh
through a glass of
water; plugged
his body
into an electrical outlet, three-
prongs; held the threats of
unimagined futures; looked in the
mirror and said hi to me.
Banquets of crying mothers
hired him, stupidly, to be their
photographer. He wrote their
biographies as my dying mother, told
the story of her dying to the dying earth.
A video of it was put to heavenly music,
and posted, and set when he retired
as he sat upon the toilet
smoking a cigarette
and wishing for
better times. Just then,
a wasp flew out from under his anus.
It glowed yellow and instead of
humming, rang like a siren, meaning
it was coming for him too.
currently,
the previous books of
history, those which do not
involve us. They go forward,
ahead of us.
A blindfolded man kisses
the dark at a brown desk
while ironing his shirt.
He whistles and combs his hair,
prepares his speech. It is
his death speech, and the words
make such heaps of shapes
he cannot hear their sounds,
especially not
the little meows.
Someone
will be forced to take his place. So, he
wings it, follows through.
Says a number of very true
but very unbelievable things.
I remember that man
following me.
He was talking to himself,
nonsense over
Wall Street and how he
couldn’t find a fucking restroom.
Well, he swallowed my love
down his own dog’s mouth
like a ventriloquist; laughed his
owl laugh
through a glass of
water; plugged
his body
into an electrical outlet, three-
prongs; held the threats of
unimagined futures; looked in the
mirror and said hi to me.
Banquets of crying mothers
hired him, stupidly, to be their
photographer. He wrote their
biographies as my dying mother, told
the story of her dying to the dying earth.
A video of it was put to heavenly music,
and posted, and set when he retired
as he sat upon the toilet
smoking a cigarette
and wishing for
better times. Just then,
a wasp flew out from under his anus.
It glowed yellow and instead of
humming, rang like a siren, meaning
it was coming for him too.
10.19.2007
Imprisoned Birds
There is a tree
that traps birds.
Every bird that flies in there and
sits down
cannot come out.
None of the other birds know this
so they keep flying in there
and sitting down.
When
they can’t leave
they squawk, screech,
whistle while turning their small heads.
Convene on how it's going
to end.
Now they’ve all collected in there,
hundreds of them. Hundreds of
different kinds, hundreds of
families, grandmothers, peepers.
A civilization in a tree.
They have grown old in there.
Measures are taken to dispose of the dead.
They crap and preen.
The last resort
is a sound they make, a sound they all make
together.
It's meant to draw attention to their plight.
But from the outside, it just sounds like
nonsense.
that traps birds.
Every bird that flies in there and
sits down
cannot come out.
None of the other birds know this
so they keep flying in there
and sitting down.
When
they can’t leave
they squawk, screech,
whistle while turning their small heads.
Convene on how it's going
to end.
Now they’ve all collected in there,
hundreds of them. Hundreds of
different kinds, hundreds of
families, grandmothers, peepers.
A civilization in a tree.
They have grown old in there.
Measures are taken to dispose of the dead.
They crap and preen.
The last resort
is a sound they make, a sound they all make
together.
It's meant to draw attention to their plight.
But from the outside, it just sounds like
nonsense.
The Cruel, Restless Country
Who hungers for breakfast
after a cold sleep.
I prefer the colder
días myself,
these years are headed for an
Ice Age anyway.
The tusks of woolly mammoths
frozen in the blank tundra are shaking,
their molars
smiling like stones the size of
fists, pointing us toward the poles, the word,
the direction we’re supposed to march
slowly as a humanness, I draw a map in the
hemisphere
with my snoring. My bare
feet are useful as blood upon
a cave wall, thinking or unthinking,
seeing without seeing.
We will have 1,000 days.
We will burn 1,000 times,
you will somehow shut in 1,000 tubes
and shout into 1,000 tunnels,
and your rodent faces
will mourn.
after a cold sleep.
I prefer the colder
días myself,
these years are headed for an
Ice Age anyway.
The tusks of woolly mammoths
frozen in the blank tundra are shaking,
their molars
smiling like stones the size of
fists, pointing us toward the poles, the word,
the direction we’re supposed to march
slowly as a humanness, I draw a map in the
hemisphere
with my snoring. My bare
feet are useful as blood upon
a cave wall, thinking or unthinking,
seeing without seeing.
We will have 1,000 days.
We will burn 1,000 times,
you will somehow shut in 1,000 tubes
and shout into 1,000 tunnels,
and your rodent faces
will mourn.
Watching Hawks Hunt In The Park
He looked like an airplane coming toward me.
When he perched
up in that tree
the whole branch shook, he was
that heavy.
All I could really see was his head.
It occurred to me that he was basically invisible
up there, so I could have walked by
a hundred times
if I hadn’t seen him fly.
After a few minutes,
I watched
as he disconnected from the branch,
swooped down
over my head, his chest like a white diamond,
and flew a hundred yards or so
over the grass, passed one squirrel,
then went for another one.
The talons came out like two hands, the squirrel
turned and shot up a tree.
He missed.
I looked around. Did anyone else see that?
I thought.
No one seemed to
have seen it.
When he perched
up in that tree
the whole branch shook, he was
that heavy.
All I could really see was his head.
It occurred to me that he was basically invisible
up there, so I could have walked by
a hundred times
if I hadn’t seen him fly.
After a few minutes,
I watched
as he disconnected from the branch,
swooped down
over my head, his chest like a white diamond,
and flew a hundred yards or so
over the grass, passed one squirrel,
then went for another one.
The talons came out like two hands, the squirrel
turned and shot up a tree.
He missed.
I looked around. Did anyone else see that?
I thought.
No one seemed to
have seen it.
10.18.2007
Love, With Anne Sexton
It is her
when I look in the mirror.
It is her too
when I reach out in the dark room.
The mirror
encompasses the surface, the silver face,
the tea knees, the ashen
gray weavings of her eyes.
Who were these
neighborhoods you haunted? Where
was that street you wrote about?
I imagine it through the opaque light of a glass of milk.
Who, what dwarf hobbled next to you
that no one else could see? I see him. I see him as myself.
I feel you in my sleep
picking at my toes, my
genitals--
free from the honey of the mountain,
washed
with cold water directly from your lake.
Anne makes a painting of herself.
Anne is the painting, doubled in the moon,
her little armless selves
fly in the night.
The white fingernailed
hands and wrists of lovers
are pressed against the screen,
oh no, half of your face is the sun.
Maybe this time
you will exercise using a mallet on your skull,
maybe you will sing again like a body—
I conjure you
sitting on the wicker chair,
made out of pillows and the black form of a cat.
We will eat, again,
at the cheapest Italian restaurant in Beacon Hill.
Out there, the wind.
It doesn’t have writing, the mirror is on sale.
From this she introduces me,
her waxy melodies of sleep are nodding here in the room
resembling a shark
skimming the bottom, barely breathing.
No breasts, no familiar scents, no gills, no red
blood or cherry pits.
Her pasture is the bottom of its mouth, its tongue,
the sounds in the room, its black eye.
Now the cats around her
are burning in great piles. Ours is there. Gas lingers.
Her corpse is still warm and
damn, it happened again as we reflected on her face,
plus the sounds of the wind
and a bit of this other woman’s snore, faces in leaves.
What if I did not put stamps upon
the letters to your houses, Anne,
to tell your sisters, your babies, your brothers
that you are dead?
Why do the dead come around with so much
vague regret? Do
none of you really know
what’s happened?
You don’t have children anymore.
You don’t have dogs.
when I look in the mirror.
It is her too
when I reach out in the dark room.
The mirror
encompasses the surface, the silver face,
the tea knees, the ashen
gray weavings of her eyes.
Who were these
neighborhoods you haunted? Where
was that street you wrote about?
I imagine it through the opaque light of a glass of milk.
Who, what dwarf hobbled next to you
that no one else could see? I see him. I see him as myself.
I feel you in my sleep
picking at my toes, my
genitals--
free from the honey of the mountain,
washed
with cold water directly from your lake.
Anne makes a painting of herself.
Anne is the painting, doubled in the moon,
her little armless selves
fly in the night.
The white fingernailed
hands and wrists of lovers
are pressed against the screen,
oh no, half of your face is the sun.
Maybe this time
you will exercise using a mallet on your skull,
maybe you will sing again like a body—
I conjure you
sitting on the wicker chair,
made out of pillows and the black form of a cat.
We will eat, again,
at the cheapest Italian restaurant in Beacon Hill.
Out there, the wind.
It doesn’t have writing, the mirror is on sale.
From this she introduces me,
her waxy melodies of sleep are nodding here in the room
resembling a shark
skimming the bottom, barely breathing.
No breasts, no familiar scents, no gills, no red
blood or cherry pits.
Her pasture is the bottom of its mouth, its tongue,
the sounds in the room, its black eye.
Now the cats around her
are burning in great piles. Ours is there. Gas lingers.
Her corpse is still warm and
damn, it happened again as we reflected on her face,
plus the sounds of the wind
and a bit of this other woman’s snore, faces in leaves.
What if I did not put stamps upon
the letters to your houses, Anne,
to tell your sisters, your babies, your brothers
that you are dead?
Why do the dead come around with so much
vague regret? Do
none of you really know
what’s happened?
You don’t have children anymore.
You don’t have dogs.
10.16.2007
The Sound of the Hairdryer in the Bathroom
With that sound
I remember she is in there
like the sound of an airplane somewhere
over the trees.
I’m confused by the squawk of some
bird that repeats like the pieces of a
puzzle, nearing completion.
Frank O’Hara’s death haunts me. He
sleeps like I slept, and as others
are still sleeping. In the barn, on the beachfront with no shirt.
Death is in the sunflower, the bored
cat, the sound of electricity
pulsing through the wall. She comes
out, naked from the waist up, and
again, oh yes, she is in there now and she’s
come out, and it all snaps together, I have occurred like a yawn or like the years.
Music replies in the morning, the telephone
is still busted as is the washing machine
and door buzzer. So, perhaps, I won’t be
reached. Still, I think, something will happen while I
wait here, the ringing phone will not be behind a
locked door, the hairdryer will blast away the quietnesses of myself.
I remember she is in there
like the sound of an airplane somewhere
over the trees.
I’m confused by the squawk of some
bird that repeats like the pieces of a
puzzle, nearing completion.
Frank O’Hara’s death haunts me. He
sleeps like I slept, and as others
are still sleeping. In the barn, on the beachfront with no shirt.
Death is in the sunflower, the bored
cat, the sound of electricity
pulsing through the wall. She comes
out, naked from the waist up, and
again, oh yes, she is in there now and she’s
come out, and it all snaps together, I have occurred like a yawn or like the years.
Music replies in the morning, the telephone
is still busted as is the washing machine
and door buzzer. So, perhaps, I won’t be
reached. Still, I think, something will happen while I
wait here, the ringing phone will not be behind a
locked door, the hairdryer will blast away the quietnesses of myself.
The Post Office
Where did the sun go? the
teller says, as she weighs out my envelopes.
I look out there
but do not answer.
I know it was supposed to storm
all day, and it had for a bit—that morning—against my windows
but beyond that, I’m baffled.
We all stand there looking outside,
me and the teller and then the second teller,
contemplating what to say about the weather,
about where the sun went.
Then in comes this guy
with messy hair and a lot of crap
stuffed into his pockets.
Excuse me, he says,
have you seen two unmarked packages
filled with angels?
Yes, says the second teller,
and he goes to get these
boxes filled with
angels.
teller says, as she weighs out my envelopes.
I look out there
but do not answer.
I know it was supposed to storm
all day, and it had for a bit—that morning—against my windows
but beyond that, I’m baffled.
We all stand there looking outside,
me and the teller and then the second teller,
contemplating what to say about the weather,
about where the sun went.
Then in comes this guy
with messy hair and a lot of crap
stuffed into his pockets.
Excuse me, he says,
have you seen two unmarked packages
filled with angels?
Yes, says the second teller,
and he goes to get these
boxes filled with
angels.
The Old Woman
She comes on and I get up.
Thank you, she says
and that’s the last of it.
Her eyes look at her master, studying the
master.
enchanted, threatened,
hypnotized by that master.
She is a day of the dead doll, the shell of a cicada
on a workbench
under the ax
in all its splendor—wrinkled and pink warm.
Across the way, a girl eats a green apple
and writes with a pen.
does a crossword puzzle.
It all seems to blast this
old woman
away
as she sits there, holding onto the bar.
The apple eating, the writing,
the crossword,
the face that looks like
washed laughter.
And over there, a man with
immense feet grumbles in his
fat brown throat and
spits hell
into a napkin.
The old woman watches,
peaceful as the
stuffed egret
Thank you, she says
and that’s the last of it.
Her eyes look at her master, studying the
master.
enchanted, threatened,
hypnotized by that master.
She is a day of the dead doll, the shell of a cicada
on a workbench
under the ax
in all its splendor—wrinkled and pink warm.
Across the way, a girl eats a green apple
and writes with a pen.
does a crossword puzzle.
It all seems to blast this
old woman
away
as she sits there, holding onto the bar.
The apple eating, the writing,
the crossword,
the face that looks like
washed laughter.
And over there, a man with
immense feet grumbles in his
fat brown throat and
spits hell
into a napkin.
The old woman watches,
peaceful as the
stuffed egret
10.15.2007
Girl
there is a clam
with a sea inside of it.
she shines and laughs like
thousands of teeth, her brine
the memory of her
mother.
with a sea inside of it.
she shines and laughs like
thousands of teeth, her brine
the memory of her
mother.
Damn, sad
two heads close together
one going down like a shadow,
and in the house the master comes and says hello
and the
short
life
is over.
we watched it from the branches of a tree, the windows of a bedroom.
dead little thing
dead flower dead bird,
you take a blunt weapon, ram it into the jelly of
night and of
pain…the wool of fear, the rough sack put on over our heads--
laugh now at the viper’s shot. the boa’s mouth
the wolf throat.
Cry short, then stop. Scratch my asshole in its light wisdom.
It’s a small ending for something
small again
one going down like a shadow,
and in the house the master comes and says hello
and the
short
life
is over.
we watched it from the branches of a tree, the windows of a bedroom.
dead little thing
dead flower dead bird,
you take a blunt weapon, ram it into the jelly of
night and of
pain…the wool of fear, the rough sack put on over our heads--
laugh now at the viper’s shot. the boa’s mouth
the wolf throat.
Cry short, then stop. Scratch my asshole in its light wisdom.
It’s a small ending for something
small again
Can't Sleep
My mind tends to act
aggressively
toward itself
early in the morning.
When I’ve come
for some reason
awake, and look out
the window
at the cold light
of some unresolved
hour—a few birds, much
cloud cover, one
smoke alarm dinging
somewhere
in the building…
I start the processes of paranoia, terror, go
about thought
the wrong way, the way
cancer goes about
reaming
your internal organs without saying anything. A perversion
of magic,
shit--it’s a systematic
unwinding
of my authority.
The water up there spills from
organized, peaceful cups
to buckets
and then
overflows
to the floor, and eventually, a
steep canyon with no
plant life
where it bakes to
dry death in the
sun.
Small problems
become emergencies.
I am the wild
murderer of Sigmund Freud.
Time is resisted by the earth
and all
except
me.
I am the bearer of the
greatest fears and
stresses
and unwanted inheretences of man--
those
which are mine.
So there I am, worried,
and I listen to her snore.
This is what sometimes
returns me
to a more humane form of things,
where
watching it go by is the same as
sleeping,
watching trees
blur into windowless houses and the
rank slough of man is like sleep itself,
and it sleeping is the same as
watching it sleep and
finally,
resisting the passage of
1 hr. some 15 minutes, sleeping,
I sleep,
which is, of course,
what they call it.
aggressively
toward itself
early in the morning.
When I’ve come
for some reason
awake, and look out
the window
at the cold light
of some unresolved
hour—a few birds, much
cloud cover, one
smoke alarm dinging
somewhere
in the building…
I start the processes of paranoia, terror, go
about thought
the wrong way, the way
cancer goes about
reaming
your internal organs without saying anything. A perversion
of magic,
shit--it’s a systematic
unwinding
of my authority.
The water up there spills from
organized, peaceful cups
to buckets
and then
overflows
to the floor, and eventually, a
steep canyon with no
plant life
where it bakes to
dry death in the
sun.
Small problems
become emergencies.
I am the wild
murderer of Sigmund Freud.
Time is resisted by the earth
and all
except
me.
I am the bearer of the
greatest fears and
stresses
and unwanted inheretences of man--
those
which are mine.
So there I am, worried,
and I listen to her snore.
This is what sometimes
returns me
to a more humane form of things,
where
watching it go by is the same as
sleeping,
watching trees
blur into windowless houses and the
rank slough of man is like sleep itself,
and it sleeping is the same as
watching it sleep and
finally,
resisting the passage of
1 hr. some 15 minutes, sleeping,
I sleep,
which is, of course,
what they call it.
10.13.2007
The Pages Are Rickety As Matchbooks
Relationships with people
are the same old jokes.
The same old bath
moving around in the same gray tub,
the same laughter
sinking to the bottom.
The same bowl, washed again and again,
stupid like a circle,
the asshole of a seashell that
goes round and round
into itself
and so do you and I--
that’s what it is:
boueyed, beaten, ping-
ponged by waves
in houses, apartments, bathrooms, jobs
earths, oceans.
I am here, I say,
and so are all of you.
So what if the ocean’s stopped moving?
It’s just like a fish or a frog
it died.
There are no fish, there are no fish or
frogs, there is no rain.
So what if we’ve lost track of time?
I am here
and so are all of you.
We’re eating food, celebrating holidays, making
phone calls.
Drinking that wine,
watching that purple flame
Ok
Chinatown expands like a love note
and so do the universes,
the universities, corporations
commerce and cancer.
Roads cover most of it
like time.
Everything is capable of being watched.
I am here
and so are all of you,
so how do we like
the big kill?
Cool as plaid foxes, we are, pond water
single-celled organisms
moving their cilia.
Goons a-rockin’ the ground,
I hear sounds.
The screaming in the nights
of
their dogs at the ends of chains,
their refrigerators full of food,
TVs on.
Guns loaded with shot.
I am here
and so are all of you:
the young man there with half his jaw gone,
the cheerleader, the fake, the producer,
the virgin masturbator, the homeless
atheist,
the boiled chef, the theater
goer,
masters of race, creativity, economy, media:
clients are our main criteria,
and music…
Populations emerge
every day
like invertebrates from the water
and I do not hear them
and I do not want to.
I rest in the wilderness of myself.
Lose them in my own sort of matrimony.
It is the only kind of love I worship.
I am here
and so are all of you
and still, I do not tell a joke.
are the same old jokes.
The same old bath
moving around in the same gray tub,
the same laughter
sinking to the bottom.
The same bowl, washed again and again,
stupid like a circle,
the asshole of a seashell that
goes round and round
into itself
and so do you and I--
that’s what it is:
boueyed, beaten, ping-
ponged by waves
in houses, apartments, bathrooms, jobs
earths, oceans.
I am here, I say,
and so are all of you.
So what if the ocean’s stopped moving?
It’s just like a fish or a frog
it died.
There are no fish, there are no fish or
frogs, there is no rain.
So what if we’ve lost track of time?
I am here
and so are all of you.
We’re eating food, celebrating holidays, making
phone calls.
Drinking that wine,
watching that purple flame
Ok
Chinatown expands like a love note
and so do the universes,
the universities, corporations
commerce and cancer.
Roads cover most of it
like time.
Everything is capable of being watched.
I am here
and so are all of you,
so how do we like
the big kill?
Cool as plaid foxes, we are, pond water
single-celled organisms
moving their cilia.
Goons a-rockin’ the ground,
I hear sounds.
The screaming in the nights
of
their dogs at the ends of chains,
their refrigerators full of food,
TVs on.
Guns loaded with shot.
I am here
and so are all of you:
the young man there with half his jaw gone,
the cheerleader, the fake, the producer,
the virgin masturbator, the homeless
atheist,
the boiled chef, the theater
goer,
masters of race, creativity, economy, media:
clients are our main criteria,
and music…
Populations emerge
every day
like invertebrates from the water
and I do not hear them
and I do not want to.
I rest in the wilderness of myself.
Lose them in my own sort of matrimony.
It is the only kind of love I worship.
I am here
and so are all of you
and still, I do not tell a joke.
The Feet People
The curtains move still
and they move in some math,
I know that now. They move in some
extension of the leaves, some reaction
to the bleatings of hermits.
It becomes the ghostly white
sum of her mind, this aura,
the aura of her face of numbers,
and
it adds up to an area; an area like a foot.
Who are these heads of feet?
These bodies of beautiful
feet becoming body
areas?
Belly-button, eye, hair
hole, her mind is simply
moved in a different scale, a rotation like the
rotation of the sun, and more numerous attributes emerge,
calling itself constantly
to hear echoes, and see that it’s still there.
These echoes are the movements of cantos,
the curtains of closing and stopping this movement,
in and out, the ghost breath
of the house.
and they move in some math,
I know that now. They move in some
extension of the leaves, some reaction
to the bleatings of hermits.
It becomes the ghostly white
sum of her mind, this aura,
the aura of her face of numbers,
and
it adds up to an area; an area like a foot.
Who are these heads of feet?
These bodies of beautiful
feet becoming body
areas?
Belly-button, eye, hair
hole, her mind is simply
moved in a different scale, a rotation like the
rotation of the sun, and more numerous attributes emerge,
calling itself constantly
to hear echoes, and see that it’s still there.
These echoes are the movements of cantos,
the curtains of closing and stopping this movement,
in and out, the ghost breath
of the house.
10.12.2007
The Waiting Man
The man who waited--
waiting was his ambulance.
It turned into
birds upon some lurid sky
he lost while he sat there
waiting, it turned into
moss.
Waiting was the sound of
corn husks
rustling in between rocks and
autumn dirt,
the crows moving through them
like medics finding
bodies in wreckages.
This afternoon
his waiting takes the form
of purple toes dipped in purple water, the purple
dogs bark a melody
emitted in the empty firehouse.
Whose waiting
has he seen, in Vegas
paying animals to dance or in Venice
pushing angels down stairs,
talking on the telephone with his mother
who has throat cancer and an
overweight boyfriend,
voices reaching him throughout the day,
these are the voices of the waiting minds
circling the bald arches of his head.
Loony blurbs surround him,
find their ways to newspapers, folly
in rags dressed up like
cowboy rip-offs and Dracula
pushovers, comb the floor of the dance hall
for bones in the confetti, hair in the wilted balloons.
Laughter joins him and waits too,
the white head of a goat in a yoke,
chainmail masked hostages
called tourists reach for him and want a cigarette.
He asks for one back
as they flicker away, tadpoles in ruin,
whistlers
of what they think
is godly music.
waiting was his ambulance.
It turned into
birds upon some lurid sky
he lost while he sat there
waiting, it turned into
moss.
Waiting was the sound of
corn husks
rustling in between rocks and
autumn dirt,
the crows moving through them
like medics finding
bodies in wreckages.
This afternoon
his waiting takes the form
of purple toes dipped in purple water, the purple
dogs bark a melody
emitted in the empty firehouse.
Whose waiting
has he seen, in Vegas
paying animals to dance or in Venice
pushing angels down stairs,
talking on the telephone with his mother
who has throat cancer and an
overweight boyfriend,
voices reaching him throughout the day,
these are the voices of the waiting minds
circling the bald arches of his head.
Loony blurbs surround him,
find their ways to newspapers, folly
in rags dressed up like
cowboy rip-offs and Dracula
pushovers, comb the floor of the dance hall
for bones in the confetti, hair in the wilted balloons.
Laughter joins him and waits too,
the white head of a goat in a yoke,
chainmail masked hostages
called tourists reach for him and want a cigarette.
He asks for one back
as they flicker away, tadpoles in ruin,
whistlers
of what they think
is godly music.
A Sense of the World as an Entity
Babies are born
and one after the other
crawl through the internet.
Their laughter
in huge in halls is
made out of names, their
bodies experiments of chance.
We farm them in hydraulic
busses non-stop
one way,
terrible one way to the Midwest,
the nothing land of rust,
egos scooped out from some giant marrow ball
and plunged into them,
and flattened out.
Planes are inserted into their hearts, their
sounds are numbers made by tongues
that are just
fleshy wedges of time.
and one after the other
crawl through the internet.
Their laughter
in huge in halls is
made out of names, their
bodies experiments of chance.
We farm them in hydraulic
busses non-stop
one way,
terrible one way to the Midwest,
the nothing land of rust,
egos scooped out from some giant marrow ball
and plunged into them,
and flattened out.
Planes are inserted into their hearts, their
sounds are numbers made by tongues
that are just
fleshy wedges of time.
Amongst The Sleepy Pigeons
There is a death in there
and it’s gone to bed—took off its
stale socks and aired its feet
in the sheets, just the bald top of his head
sticking out of there now, his brain.
Beside him, on the bedside table,
a carnival of flies upon a dead rat,
the crazy remains of a man’s mind
as he curses loudly, punches the air,
then goes to sleep on the ground.
This is all because this death is in there
sleeping,
sucking his thumb, getting drunk.
Some family of pigeons
picks at a piece of brown bread.
Four or five of them, maybe,
all standing around poking at this
bread.
The bread is getting pulled back and forth between them
as they poke and pick at it,
the bread looks like a body.
When he wakes up and stretches,
the loosening of his back muscles,
the tendons in his legs, arms and neck,
releases this whole new
swarm of flies, who emerge
like a full-sized man.
and it’s gone to bed—took off its
stale socks and aired its feet
in the sheets, just the bald top of his head
sticking out of there now, his brain.
Beside him, on the bedside table,
a carnival of flies upon a dead rat,
the crazy remains of a man’s mind
as he curses loudly, punches the air,
then goes to sleep on the ground.
This is all because this death is in there
sleeping,
sucking his thumb, getting drunk.
Some family of pigeons
picks at a piece of brown bread.
Four or five of them, maybe,
all standing around poking at this
bread.
The bread is getting pulled back and forth between them
as they poke and pick at it,
the bread looks like a body.
When he wakes up and stretches,
the loosening of his back muscles,
the tendons in his legs, arms and neck,
releases this whole new
swarm of flies, who emerge
like a full-sized man.
10.11.2007
Incarnations
My name is Church,
my name is Hombre Church
and I reside in the residues of dust.
My houses are numerous
because I am numerous,
and I am the sun shutter blinking
Hello.
My name is Furlong,
the killer Furlong,
who sharpens knives on his
teeth and laughs in
bathtubs full of lady’s
dresses. I tie my wolves to
cacti, I squeeze out
pomegranate juice like
blood from bars of soap
and wash myself while
whistling…
Hello like a prickly pear,
Hello jet fuel burned across the sky,
Hello continuing orange embers.
My name is Speed McCoozy.
I was born in the Mexican city of
Mancuso. El Mancuso. Ok, not
Mexico, but Iowa, and I killed myself
in the corn. Ok, not the corn, in the
tree house my father built and
painted green, I hanged myself with
chickadee wire.
Take a while and look through my
photographs, my sing songs and whistle
out my sentences.
This is the only way I’ll know my
own name.
my name is Hombre Church
and I reside in the residues of dust.
My houses are numerous
because I am numerous,
and I am the sun shutter blinking
Hello.
My name is Furlong,
the killer Furlong,
who sharpens knives on his
teeth and laughs in
bathtubs full of lady’s
dresses. I tie my wolves to
cacti, I squeeze out
pomegranate juice like
blood from bars of soap
and wash myself while
whistling…
Hello like a prickly pear,
Hello jet fuel burned across the sky,
Hello continuing orange embers.
My name is Speed McCoozy.
I was born in the Mexican city of
Mancuso. El Mancuso. Ok, not
Mexico, but Iowa, and I killed myself
in the corn. Ok, not the corn, in the
tree house my father built and
painted green, I hanged myself with
chickadee wire.
Take a while and look through my
photographs, my sing songs and whistle
out my sentences.
This is the only way I’ll know my
own name.
Half-life
Death does its job for what?
A number of years?
A decade?
Well however long it lasts
it is your slave and your
friend, your rival, your twin, your
master;
someone to kiss, something to
work against.
A plow. A wave. A
shotgun.
But now it’s wearing off.
I tell you it’s wearing off now
so I will prowl the streets
like a Burmese dog.
Delirious and sniffing the dirt for grass,
poking for tastes of fire,
the sounds of some awful siren
or yellow stench of gasoline.
And when I find them
in their perfection
they will
kill me
again.
A number of years?
A decade?
Well however long it lasts
it is your slave and your
friend, your rival, your twin, your
master;
someone to kiss, something to
work against.
A plow. A wave. A
shotgun.
But now it’s wearing off.
I tell you it’s wearing off now
so I will prowl the streets
like a Burmese dog.
Delirious and sniffing the dirt for grass,
poking for tastes of fire,
the sounds of some awful siren
or yellow stench of gasoline.
And when I find them
in their perfection
they will
kill me
again.
10.10.2007
Early
Only painters in white
Painter’s pants
Were out in the
Inner corners of
Unpainted doorways,
Draped in white sheets,
Smoking,
Their brown, creased foreheads
Loosened in love of the morning,
Happy that it was what time
It was
And the work was yet to be done.
I did not nod to them,
And I did not say hello.
Painter’s pants
Were out in the
Inner corners of
Unpainted doorways,
Draped in white sheets,
Smoking,
Their brown, creased foreheads
Loosened in love of the morning,
Happy that it was what time
It was
And the work was yet to be done.
I did not nod to them,
And I did not say hello.
Death
There was snow
inside my father’s house.
All along the walls it
piled two feet high.
It’s on the stairs, it’s
underneath the refrigerator,
it’s in the bathroom sink, in the
beds.
It’s in the fireplace now too. Snow.
And gallons
and gallons of snow’s milk.
His face is white with it
as he asks, “do you believe
in the years?” He coughs and clears snow
from the ears, mouth and from within
the clothes he’s got on. His eyes gurgle and
blink in the snow milk and the eyes
are like dark little holes
in it.
“This is what it is,” he says. “Oh…” he says,
“oh no…Look. I’ve come all clogged with snow
and milk.”
inside my father’s house.
All along the walls it
piled two feet high.
It’s on the stairs, it’s
underneath the refrigerator,
it’s in the bathroom sink, in the
beds.
It’s in the fireplace now too. Snow.
And gallons
and gallons of snow’s milk.
His face is white with it
as he asks, “do you believe
in the years?” He coughs and clears snow
from the ears, mouth and from within
the clothes he’s got on. His eyes gurgle and
blink in the snow milk and the eyes
are like dark little holes
in it.
“This is what it is,” he says. “Oh…” he says,
“oh no…Look. I’ve come all clogged with snow
and milk.”
The Horse In The Wall
I look at the wall
and hear her guff,
her rump mashed
in between the drywall
in an entirely new language,
though I recognize it now as
the language of my mother’s
ghost. The pictures move,
the candles tremble as she
turns around in that stall, that
horrible little cell in the wall.
She shifts, trapped,
standing in there so still
she’s growing white
flowers on her back, moss
upon her jaws. There is
fungus puffing from her pointed ears,
her nostrils, her genitals. So when we
open up the wall,
tear into it with an ax or a sledgehammer,
we’ll just find a standing garden there,
an upright beast of foliage, scents,
fruit, roots, her organs turned to
tubers, hair turned into grass, insect
larvae crawling from beneath her skin, and her eyes
the moon.
and hear her guff,
her rump mashed
in between the drywall
in an entirely new language,
though I recognize it now as
the language of my mother’s
ghost. The pictures move,
the candles tremble as she
turns around in that stall, that
horrible little cell in the wall.
She shifts, trapped,
standing in there so still
she’s growing white
flowers on her back, moss
upon her jaws. There is
fungus puffing from her pointed ears,
her nostrils, her genitals. So when we
open up the wall,
tear into it with an ax or a sledgehammer,
we’ll just find a standing garden there,
an upright beast of foliage, scents,
fruit, roots, her organs turned to
tubers, hair turned into grass, insect
larvae crawling from beneath her skin, and her eyes
the moon.
10.09.2007
Sod
There is sod where his vegetables used to grow.
A square of sod next to the shed.
It’s got a different color
than the rest of the yard.
It’s an imposter.
The white shed
with a padlock
on the wood door,
he died after his cucumbers
came up.
First, he died
then he died more as the cucumbers
pushed through as well as the
cabbage and the sprouts. It was a purple earth
display as he died good that day
with tomatoes shivering
alone on the vine.
One year later, his daughter pulled up
the vegetables and planted sod
next to the shed, the padlocked
shed behind the house
rising over the white shadow,
bright green.
A square of sod next to the shed.
It’s got a different color
than the rest of the yard.
It’s an imposter.
The white shed
with a padlock
on the wood door,
he died after his cucumbers
came up.
First, he died
then he died more as the cucumbers
pushed through as well as the
cabbage and the sprouts. It was a purple earth
display as he died good that day
with tomatoes shivering
alone on the vine.
One year later, his daughter pulled up
the vegetables and planted sod
next to the shed, the padlocked
shed behind the house
rising over the white shadow,
bright green.
The Café Car
Here we are. There is something sad about it,
how we’ve all lined up in here, in the café car.
Fathers by themselves ordering coffee,
sandwiches and beer. Candy bars, sweets,
with their hands
in their pockets
and their
feelings
on the floor.
They bend over and pick them up,
couples prod one another for love,
nuts, Coca-Cola
classic,
our little pleasures.
There’s something sad about being human like this.
About standing in line in the café car just waiting for
something to eat.
how we’ve all lined up in here, in the café car.
Fathers by themselves ordering coffee,
sandwiches and beer. Candy bars, sweets,
with their hands
in their pockets
and their
feelings
on the floor.
They bend over and pick them up,
couples prod one another for love,
nuts, Coca-Cola
classic,
our little pleasures.
There’s something sad about being human like this.
About standing in line in the café car just waiting for
something to eat.
Meloncholia
Mount
Saint Helens
will drop her slough
upon
our shoulders.
Old men’s hands
will shake
covered in
crumbs.
I will eat raisins.
It will rain.
It is an
accumu-
-lation;
Abe Lincoln
will
cry
and write letters
in the dark
forever.
Saint Helens
will drop her slough
upon
our shoulders.
Old men’s hands
will shake
covered in
crumbs.
I will eat raisins.
It will rain.
It is an
accumu-
-lation;
Abe Lincoln
will
cry
and write letters
in the dark
forever.
10.05.2007
The Steps I Hear Are My Own
The floor
makes sounds
like clouds—
the clouds are
old.
What if they lasted like that
and did not
die?
What if they did not
break down,
and collected there
in the sky, one on top of
the other forever.
A medieval cloud,
a Hitler cloud, a cloud
that was watched by
Marie Antoinette, and laughed
at by Marie Antoinette?
makes sounds
like clouds—
the clouds are
old.
What if they lasted like that
and did not
die?
What if they did not
break down,
and collected there
in the sky, one on top of
the other forever.
A medieval cloud,
a Hitler cloud, a cloud
that was watched by
Marie Antoinette, and laughed
at by Marie Antoinette?
What I Angels Were Giants?
And you saw one slouching in the yard there,
Her shoulders towering like the massive bush
of a wet tree holding
feathers in her mouth,
weeping at the dynasty of her busted family,
and how they’d gone back into their
holes in Arizona.
Their pets, huge Gila monsters
and saguaro cacti aching for
balance in the white wind
had run away.
What if the giant angel
became pregnant? And her belly grew
grass and we used it as an exquisite playground?
And her birth canal was the
tunnel to our houses?
Her shoulders towering like the massive bush
of a wet tree holding
feathers in her mouth,
weeping at the dynasty of her busted family,
and how they’d gone back into their
holes in Arizona.
Their pets, huge Gila monsters
and saguaro cacti aching for
balance in the white wind
had run away.
What if the giant angel
became pregnant? And her belly grew
grass and we used it as an exquisite playground?
And her birth canal was the
tunnel to our houses?
Bukowski's Last
Bukowski stopped
because he died.
At least it wasn’t the other way around.
His last book,
it felt like someone looked into the
refrigerator,
saw one box,
opened it up
and
looked upon two eggs left in there or maybe even
one
and said
ok—let’s eat.
because he died.
At least it wasn’t the other way around.
His last book,
it felt like someone looked into the
refrigerator,
saw one box,
opened it up
and
looked upon two eggs left in there or maybe even
one
and said
ok—let’s eat.
Gone
I must admit I thought you’d left.
Your name was gone from the news-
papers and the television
was blank and anxious and the many
screens had turned away; there was no activity in their brains.
The signs that came across
from the twitching of your eyelids
were no longer affecting mine. This is a terrible moment
of fear, you see.
When the things like this mean
the worst has happened,
and you think of things beyond: the
bats circling and you’re down there at the
door to the barn alone, a leaf in the grave,
the horses moving on their hooves
purple in the paddock, cold death rubbing
up against their rumps, locks grinning, police
sirens in the dark…
gold bones
under their feet got
verve and aggregate courage
I just can’t manage.
Your name was gone from the news-
papers and the television
was blank and anxious and the many
screens had turned away; there was no activity in their brains.
The signs that came across
from the twitching of your eyelids
were no longer affecting mine. This is a terrible moment
of fear, you see.
When the things like this mean
the worst has happened,
and you think of things beyond: the
bats circling and you’re down there at the
door to the barn alone, a leaf in the grave,
the horses moving on their hooves
purple in the paddock, cold death rubbing
up against their rumps, locks grinning, police
sirens in the dark…
gold bones
under their feet got
verve and aggregate courage
I just can’t manage.
10.04.2007
I Am Both
Something in the sun sounds like music,
something in myself is the sun.
The music deletes the sun yet comes
from inside of it.
I ache like the sad music of her sounds,
her sons are a tribe of impotent warriors,
I ask the movements to emerge
like from within a tomb.
Who’s come to start this sun, my
music? And when I arrived who
blew it in the opposite direction
creating a whirlwind?
A tornado hums over the landscape,
a funnel cloud barks in green,
comes over the sun.
There is the blue barn
crouched in its cave of stones,
holding its small visions, its small
encryptions.
The whiney mind moans,
her wood planks shudder and the light
of the diaphragm opens totally up
upon these angels of stuffed horses in their stalls,
eating apples in the frozen darkness,
their eyelashes are words I think of then,
their heads, the mountains of
computers mainframes.
something in myself is the sun.
The music deletes the sun yet comes
from inside of it.
I ache like the sad music of her sounds,
her sons are a tribe of impotent warriors,
I ask the movements to emerge
like from within a tomb.
Who’s come to start this sun, my
music? And when I arrived who
blew it in the opposite direction
creating a whirlwind?
A tornado hums over the landscape,
a funnel cloud barks in green,
comes over the sun.
There is the blue barn
crouched in its cave of stones,
holding its small visions, its small
encryptions.
The whiney mind moans,
her wood planks shudder and the light
of the diaphragm opens totally up
upon these angels of stuffed horses in their stalls,
eating apples in the frozen darkness,
their eyelashes are words I think of then,
their heads, the mountains of
computers mainframes.
The Glacier Moves
Sometimes
I lay there on my back
in the dark
and I wait.
The fan whirls
overhead like an anarchist’s
voice
while a woman sleeps,
makes her sleeping sounds.
They are the sounds of words
and their meanings are hidden
in the folds of a mountain’s
snow.
Furthermore, the mountain
is swept along,
it sweeps along, and cries, and her feet are touching
the cold sea.
Her acting is in the leaves at the base,
the leaves have
turned black this year,
and are now dead and
dirt as well as their
original forms,
and these ideas are farmed
like salmon in cages,
their eggs
withheld
to buy more cages,
and the cages repaired
to buy more milk.
Who are you?
I say to the face of the fan,
as the shadows return to their proper orders, the leaves
crossing over themselves
in quiet hymnal prayer,
though then it occurs to me that this idea
is wrong;
There is no prayer where there is no idea.
There is no prayer where there is no love.
I wait to hear the sound
of a waterfall, her snore,
and that means
nothing but what it’s helped me to do,
and that’s fall asleep.
I lay there on my back
in the dark
and I wait.
The fan whirls
overhead like an anarchist’s
voice
while a woman sleeps,
makes her sleeping sounds.
They are the sounds of words
and their meanings are hidden
in the folds of a mountain’s
snow.
Furthermore, the mountain
is swept along,
it sweeps along, and cries, and her feet are touching
the cold sea.
Her acting is in the leaves at the base,
the leaves have
turned black this year,
and are now dead and
dirt as well as their
original forms,
and these ideas are farmed
like salmon in cages,
their eggs
withheld
to buy more cages,
and the cages repaired
to buy more milk.
Who are you?
I say to the face of the fan,
as the shadows return to their proper orders, the leaves
crossing over themselves
in quiet hymnal prayer,
though then it occurs to me that this idea
is wrong;
There is no prayer where there is no idea.
There is no prayer where there is no love.
I wait to hear the sound
of a waterfall, her snore,
and that means
nothing but what it’s helped me to do,
and that’s fall asleep.
10.03.2007
Heroism
I woke up
thinking I had
testicular cancer.
I was sure of it. At
first the fear was great and
upsetting as I felt around down there
and located what I thought were
several lumps.
But then I thought, what if I became an
expert bow hunter, and my testicular cancer
aided in my bow hunting ability? What if it helped
me kill a superb Buck in the wilderness, a
Buck of great beauty & wisdom & balance,
tasty venison, & this Buck began me,
my life as a famous bow hunter
& fed me, & throughout the state of Wisconsin
my unconscious mind walked superb &
earned me celebrity, friends & glory? And all this
came from my testicular cancer?
thinking I had
testicular cancer.
I was sure of it. At
first the fear was great and
upsetting as I felt around down there
and located what I thought were
several lumps.
But then I thought, what if I became an
expert bow hunter, and my testicular cancer
aided in my bow hunting ability? What if it helped
me kill a superb Buck in the wilderness, a
Buck of great beauty & wisdom & balance,
tasty venison, & this Buck began me,
my life as a famous bow hunter
& fed me, & throughout the state of Wisconsin
my unconscious mind walked superb &
earned me celebrity, friends & glory? And all this
came from my testicular cancer?
Ghosts are there reading newspapers and laughing
I seen the bald head of a
ghost on the train. He
was reading a newspaper. I knew
it’s him because he had that faint
pink light coming off of him.
No one else noticed it, but I
noticed it. I remembered his funeral.
Then he saw me remembering
his funeral and he laughed at my
memory. Except, he pretended
he was laughing at something in the
newspaper.
ghost on the train. He
was reading a newspaper. I knew
it’s him because he had that faint
pink light coming off of him.
No one else noticed it, but I
noticed it. I remembered his funeral.
Then he saw me remembering
his funeral and he laughed at my
memory. Except, he pretended
he was laughing at something in the
newspaper.
The Elephant Bird
You were said to be
the biggest bird
we’d ever known.
Bones, feathers,
archaeology,
myths in one--
smiling death in Madagascar.
You could feed many
for months.
O
your size*,
o
your grotesque size
really gets me,
it bewilders me, I am on my knees here:
that’s the honor you still have
you stuffed museum doll.
One of your eggs
is big
as a wall
mirror, and I look in her,
and I see the elephant
head nodding forth like a Christ.
Angel of growth. You caw
or roar
with cancer
in that category, roar
at the gun-
shots of my ancestry.
*10 ft. tall, 1,100 lbs.
the biggest bird
we’d ever known.
Bones, feathers,
archaeology,
myths in one--
smiling death in Madagascar.
You could feed many
for months.
O
your size*,
o
your grotesque size
really gets me,
it bewilders me, I am on my knees here:
that’s the honor you still have
you stuffed museum doll.
One of your eggs
is big
as a wall
mirror, and I look in her,
and I see the elephant
head nodding forth like a Christ.
Angel of growth. You caw
or roar
with cancer
in that category, roar
at the gun-
shots of my ancestry.
*10 ft. tall, 1,100 lbs.
For My Brother, Who Is A Tremendous Eater
I find it hard to believe, in fact,
that he knows what he is eating.
Perhaps one day I’ll switch his sandwich for a mitten
and I have no doubt, he will eat the mitten
right away.
He talks while he is eating. But,
somehow the eating also emanates
sounds that resemble talking.
Actually, the sounds he makes may very well be nonsense,
and it is simply the act of eating
that is producing these various
syllables and grunts
that he has convinced people are speech.
In any case, I respond.
I can see his mind while he is eating.
It looks like food.
When he is eating a rolled up taco, for instance,
that’s what his mind looks like: a rolled up taco.
Even if I am talking over Big Sur,
California.
It doesn’t really matter
as it all drips down
his hair-covered arms.
that he knows what he is eating.
Perhaps one day I’ll switch his sandwich for a mitten
and I have no doubt, he will eat the mitten
right away.
He talks while he is eating. But,
somehow the eating also emanates
sounds that resemble talking.
Actually, the sounds he makes may very well be nonsense,
and it is simply the act of eating
that is producing these various
syllables and grunts
that he has convinced people are speech.
In any case, I respond.
I can see his mind while he is eating.
It looks like food.
When he is eating a rolled up taco, for instance,
that’s what his mind looks like: a rolled up taco.
Even if I am talking over Big Sur,
California.
It doesn’t really matter
as it all drips down
his hair-covered arms.
10.02.2007
The Museum of Sleep
I sleep
with stuffed buffalo
and King Kong.
Arrowed, buckshot, skinned and
tortured, these giants
roam silently down the hill,
dolls of my moments, buffalo
and apes.
Underneath the feet of the
buffalo and apes
are thousands of babies
crawling beneath the
covers of the dirt, creaky little voices—these are
unborn babies, non-
conceived babies, like
turnips in the brains of their
parents who live in
Wichita, Milwaukee,
South Bend.
They, in my sleep,
my nocturnal tank,
respond to my various calls,
my guttural mews, my roars,
my moans and my brays and
whistles.
Galloping, I cannot make them out
as I draw them on paper
in the dark room, the scribbled
head of sleeping.
When I wake up
I am filled with sawdust.
I begin to talk. Talking
is my drawing.
It wakes her up. And before
I can stop myself, I’ve said
a number of strange, disturbing things.
with stuffed buffalo
and King Kong.
Arrowed, buckshot, skinned and
tortured, these giants
roam silently down the hill,
dolls of my moments, buffalo
and apes.
Underneath the feet of the
buffalo and apes
are thousands of babies
crawling beneath the
covers of the dirt, creaky little voices—these are
unborn babies, non-
conceived babies, like
turnips in the brains of their
parents who live in
Wichita, Milwaukee,
South Bend.
They, in my sleep,
my nocturnal tank,
respond to my various calls,
my guttural mews, my roars,
my moans and my brays and
whistles.
Galloping, I cannot make them out
as I draw them on paper
in the dark room, the scribbled
head of sleeping.
When I wake up
I am filled with sawdust.
I begin to talk. Talking
is my drawing.
It wakes her up. And before
I can stop myself, I’ve said
a number of strange, disturbing things.
Pink St.
The cat
sleeps half-
burned
on the sofa’s
corner.
While on Pink St.
below
death rolls
on.
Who is this mayor
of Pink
St.
who
comes
in awful cans of
pickled, inert
human
paste?
His mind
is famous
for having worked
miracles
in other cities—turned
tombs
into lampshades
covering lightening.
Now, it’s a
trick he’s gone and done here to us.
All that’s left is
black stumps
and
half-burned cats
and dozens of stitches
running up and
down
like zippers on
our hearts;
of course,
not mine. No, not mine.
Of course, I’m here
in a jar myself. My eyes
in bags, my
genitals wrapped
in
gauze, my hands
disassembled
like jigsaw puzzles of
clouds
come on!
Who’s done this to us?
Who’s
gone ahead and
done something
other than the usual
wake up
and yawn at their dreams of lions
before changing the batteries,
cinching the full
bag of trash
and tossing the tepid
water
of the
Hydrangeas?
sleeps half-
burned
on the sofa’s
corner.
While on Pink St.
below
death rolls
on.
Who is this mayor
of Pink
St.
who
comes
in awful cans of
pickled, inert
human
paste?
His mind
is famous
for having worked
miracles
in other cities—turned
tombs
into lampshades
covering lightening.
Now, it’s a
trick he’s gone and done here to us.
All that’s left is
black stumps
and
half-burned cats
and dozens of stitches
running up and
down
like zippers on
our hearts;
of course,
not mine. No, not mine.
Of course, I’m here
in a jar myself. My eyes
in bags, my
genitals wrapped
in
gauze, my hands
disassembled
like jigsaw puzzles of
clouds
come on!
Who’s done this to us?
Who’s
gone ahead and
done something
other than the usual
wake up
and yawn at their dreams of lions
before changing the batteries,
cinching the full
bag of trash
and tossing the tepid
water
of the
Hydrangeas?
Collections
There is a dirty mandible
floating in the glue of my gray matter.
These are the fossils
of my family members
who end themselves
each minute
and float past me
where I select their bones,
their teeth, their
vestigials.
Too much comes off daily
for one farmer
to push alone
in a slow wheel-
-barrow,
out into the
dark field.
So, they’re dumped,
strange,
into the bland jelly of my
fluorescent heart, which
is soulful and
is near me. It grows
nothing.
Short of true regeneration,
cataloguing is my industry,
collaging, steaming,
horticulture, mega-
-ton
smiling
Oh god. Laughter.
Laughter + bones.
floating in the glue of my gray matter.
These are the fossils
of my family members
who end themselves
each minute
and float past me
where I select their bones,
their teeth, their
vestigials.
Too much comes off daily
for one farmer
to push alone
in a slow wheel-
-barrow,
out into the
dark field.
So, they’re dumped,
strange,
into the bland jelly of my
fluorescent heart, which
is soulful and
is near me. It grows
nothing.
Short of true regeneration,
cataloguing is my industry,
collaging, steaming,
horticulture, mega-
-ton
smiling
Oh god. Laughter.
Laughter + bones.
Observations
The sky
has
two suns in it.
One is the reflection of the other.
One of the suns is
me,
I am that sun.
I speak of godlessness
because I am godless.
No,
I am not godless;
I am god and I am
happy as he.
Happy and
godless
as the lion’s bloody face,
the saguaro that does not
move or shiver,
just stands there
in the night
as the stars
circle
him.
has
two suns in it.
One is the reflection of the other.
One of the suns is
me,
I am that sun.
I speak of godlessness
because I am godless.
No,
I am not godless;
I am god and I am
happy as he.
Happy and
godless
as the lion’s bloody face,
the saguaro that does not
move or shiver,
just stands there
in the night
as the stars
circle
him.
The Octopus
Was an inventor in heaven.
He invented many things,
his own birth
one of them for instance,
crawling and scrawling out
this shape on the wall
in the theater of the sea.
And he invented colors and he invented writing.
Yes, I knew it was you—
only your bulbous brain has enfolded
so completely to imagine this gibberish,
octopus, whose
limbs are the alphabet
camouflaging into nothing.
He invented many things,
his own birth
one of them for instance,
crawling and scrawling out
this shape on the wall
in the theater of the sea.
And he invented colors and he invented writing.
Yes, I knew it was you—
only your bulbous brain has enfolded
so completely to imagine this gibberish,
octopus, whose
limbs are the alphabet
camouflaging into nothing.
10.01.2007
The Huge Shadows of Hands
It’s a grotesque
and bloody
movement they
dance into the room.
Dressed like old women
in nightgowns
they take turns
reminding us that ghosts
are waiting
in the living room
for us;
all we’ve got to do is
go on in the living room
and talk to the ghosts.
and bloody
movement they
dance into the room.
Dressed like old women
in nightgowns
they take turns
reminding us that ghosts
are waiting
in the living room
for us;
all we’ve got to do is
go on in the living room
and talk to the ghosts.
Some New Season
It arrives flaming
on the back of a crocodile
floating dead
down the Ganges.
We all work to pull it through,
pull it happily to the edges of our toes.
It is cooled when it comes up
and the mud, too, is cool.
How has it cooled in that time?
Some aspects have been removed.
The crocodile’s throat is stuffed
with weeds and muck. Her eyes
are still,
and someone set her on fire for us
and sent her down the river.
Yes, that’s what it’s like.
on the back of a crocodile
floating dead
down the Ganges.
We all work to pull it through,
pull it happily to the edges of our toes.
It is cooled when it comes up
and the mud, too, is cool.
How has it cooled in that time?
Some aspects have been removed.
The crocodile’s throat is stuffed
with weeds and muck. Her eyes
are still,
and someone set her on fire for us
and sent her down the river.
Yes, that’s what it’s like.
Magic Outside of the Drugstore
There was a man standing underneath a tree.
I don’t know what kind of tree it was. It was
planted in the sidewalk and he was standing there
underneath it, staring at it.
He had a white beard and long white hair that
curled around the backs of his
overgrown ears.
He also had a suitcase
and eyes that seemed to shine like
stones out
from all that water
of hair.
He kept standing there, staring,
so that you knew he was making something happen.
It would just take a while:
Eventually, he would move
closer to that tree
and the tree would move closer to him,
and they would float together
after a number of years and
form one thing, and you’d just see the tree
standing there, or maybe the
white ends of his hair on the
bark, but no one would know
it was a man in there,
the last ends of a man.
I don’t know what kind of tree it was. It was
planted in the sidewalk and he was standing there
underneath it, staring at it.
He had a white beard and long white hair that
curled around the backs of his
overgrown ears.
He also had a suitcase
and eyes that seemed to shine like
stones out
from all that water
of hair.
He kept standing there, staring,
so that you knew he was making something happen.
It would just take a while:
Eventually, he would move
closer to that tree
and the tree would move closer to him,
and they would float together
after a number of years and
form one thing, and you’d just see the tree
standing there, or maybe the
white ends of his hair on the
bark, but no one would know
it was a man in there,
the last ends of a man.
The Neighbor
The old man chopped off
the heads of his flowers
and sanded his teeth
as was customary each morning,
then locked his lock twice
before passing me.
He smelled
of ham and homefries.
Once again
he passed back
as I turned around
to retrieve something I’d forgotten.
Perhaps
he’d forgotten something too.
Perhaps we’d
forgotten the same something. Perhaps
this man was my roommate.
Perhaps he had forgotten me.
Perhaps he was my father,
my father beheading marigolds
or tulips or queen anne’s lace
under the windows,
forgetting something
because he is dead
now, and the dead
don’t have memories.
Anyhow, the door came open
for the second time and as I stood there
he actually seemed surprised to have it come open like that,
as he made a little gesture with
his beautiful old face.
the heads of his flowers
and sanded his teeth
as was customary each morning,
then locked his lock twice
before passing me.
He smelled
of ham and homefries.
Once again
he passed back
as I turned around
to retrieve something I’d forgotten.
Perhaps
he’d forgotten something too.
Perhaps we’d
forgotten the same something. Perhaps
this man was my roommate.
Perhaps he had forgotten me.
Perhaps he was my father,
my father beheading marigolds
or tulips or queen anne’s lace
under the windows,
forgetting something
because he is dead
now, and the dead
don’t have memories.
Anyhow, the door came open
for the second time and as I stood there
he actually seemed surprised to have it come open like that,
as he made a little gesture with
his beautiful old face.
9.30.2007
The Man and The Dog
I saw a man
and then I heard this dog.
The sounds were coming from somewhere around me,
it was early in the day.
The dog was howling
as if in great pain. It sounded like someone was taking him away
to be beaten or tortured
or killed, and this man lumbered up the hill, dog at his side;
this was the dog to me. This was the man.
But then I saw this dog, whose sounds were coming from
everywhere in the morning,
and, oh, it was not
the dog but the man whose bark I heard, whose howl,
and everything was calm in my mind.
Time swayed together, this dog was old
as was his man, and they went up the hill together,
lumbered up the hill.
The holy
leaves were the ones who howled, and it was this
voice reminded me of that man I knew lumbering up the hill toward
the easy sun, who welcomes
the dog’s
face.
and then I heard this dog.
The sounds were coming from somewhere around me,
it was early in the day.
The dog was howling
as if in great pain. It sounded like someone was taking him away
to be beaten or tortured
or killed, and this man lumbered up the hill, dog at his side;
this was the dog to me. This was the man.
But then I saw this dog, whose sounds were coming from
everywhere in the morning,
and, oh, it was not
the dog but the man whose bark I heard, whose howl,
and everything was calm in my mind.
Time swayed together, this dog was old
as was his man, and they went up the hill together,
lumbered up the hill.
The holy
leaves were the ones who howled, and it was this
voice reminded me of that man I knew lumbering up the hill toward
the easy sun, who welcomes
the dog’s
face.
Breakfast With The Lovers of Life
The breakfast becomes everything there is to know,
the smiling egg balanced and
quivering under the minds that are collective,
six of them in all and totaling
any number of years.
There is knowledge in putting food in mouths, lipstick
on lips, dye in hair,
the mustaches and glasses of orange juice are coming through some thick cloud,
they were at the window,
and they talked while they waited.
Some thought of it as waiting
but I saw, they thought waiting was called
laughing, laughing at the small
bird they found in the complex tree, and sitting there
in chairs
it was a miraculous breakfast,
chairs facing one another on a day called themselves.
They had become day, and they had become the complex bird.
the smiling egg balanced and
quivering under the minds that are collective,
six of them in all and totaling
any number of years.
There is knowledge in putting food in mouths, lipstick
on lips, dye in hair,
the mustaches and glasses of orange juice are coming through some thick cloud,
they were at the window,
and they talked while they waited.
Some thought of it as waiting
but I saw, they thought waiting was called
laughing, laughing at the small
bird they found in the complex tree, and sitting there
in chairs
it was a miraculous breakfast,
chairs facing one another on a day called themselves.
They had become day, and they had become the complex bird.
Death In Review
The sun
slithers away behind the old house,
and the house isn’t there anymore,
it was gone last year.
Inside
the man sleeps and the
cat crawls over him in a great movement of death
as he is close,
as the house
had somehow found itself here
in this remote locus.
Why is no one else here?
the man thought.
What happened to me?
How will I explain this to my wife, that I
ended up here, in this house
all by myself?
slithers away behind the old house,
and the house isn’t there anymore,
it was gone last year.
Inside
the man sleeps and the
cat crawls over him in a great movement of death
as he is close,
as the house
had somehow found itself here
in this remote locus.
Why is no one else here?
the man thought.
What happened to me?
How will I explain this to my wife, that I
ended up here, in this house
all by myself?
gray
and my mother
called me squaw-boy
and my thoughts drained
like hanged flowers.
she is lost in the horse field
walking with the herd of
cremated beings,
huge in their chains
and their death,
chips in
buckets.
flies gather
round and
cover them.
it is almost gone now
under there.
it is all
just about
gone.
called me squaw-boy
and my thoughts drained
like hanged flowers.
she is lost in the horse field
walking with the herd of
cremated beings,
huge in their chains
and their death,
chips in
buckets.
flies gather
round and
cover them.
it is almost gone now
under there.
it is all
just about
gone.
9.29.2007
Cold Stew
Cold beef stew
makes the dead sting
more
on a
cold day.
Above,
flags shiver
like flies in web.
The garden is in remission
cancer
lives.
makes the dead sting
more
on a
cold day.
Above,
flags shiver
like flies in web.
The garden is in remission
cancer
lives.
Winter
The beautiful gray bones show up erected in the cabinet
shaped like a house.
I think of the heart
within my own chest and
why is it still beating?
The fallen out hair of your dead relatives cannot help
but pass its way across the floor at odd times
of the night,
starting arguments, passing
out party favors, making sure you
remember them.
shaped like a house.
I think of the heart
within my own chest and
why is it still beating?
The fallen out hair of your dead relatives cannot help
but pass its way across the floor at odd times
of the night,
starting arguments, passing
out party favors, making sure you
remember them.
The Moon
The ingenious moon
shines in the paper house,
the little chairs made out of
balsa wood are flattened, smashed
to bits on their faces
in the hands of happy children.
Go away and be the moon,
kiss the moon’s face,
pet her head like a
duck’s head.
Go ahead and strike the moon,
shoot it with a BB gun, make
holes in it, little holes
so water can sift through there
and catch our silt, our grime, our dust.
The stuff left over
in the holes of the moon
will pile so high it will make another
earth, and we will sit on it
with our asses, and stand upon it
with our scorched feet.
shines in the paper house,
the little chairs made out of
balsa wood are flattened, smashed
to bits on their faces
in the hands of happy children.
Go away and be the moon,
kiss the moon’s face,
pet her head like a
duck’s head.
Go ahead and strike the moon,
shoot it with a BB gun, make
holes in it, little holes
so water can sift through there
and catch our silt, our grime, our dust.
The stuff left over
in the holes of the moon
will pile so high it will make another
earth, and we will sit on it
with our asses, and stand upon it
with our scorched feet.
What Happened Last Night
Usually, I remember little else
but this feeling I did something,
something that didn’t make any sense.
The no sense part
bothers me, and when I remember it,
it makes me think I must have scared you.
I know I sat up in bed
but I don’t remember sitting up,
I just remember being there, sitting up,
and thinking there was something
lost in the bed.
I start sifting through the covers,
flattening them out, looking
for this something, though I
don’t know what this something
is. Then it occurs to me.
Is there really something there?
I can’t exactly answer that
but something tells me
to go back to bed, find this
something later. Then in the morning it’s,
what happened last night?
And she’ll tell me, you sat up in bed.
You were acting weird.
Right.
Why were you doing that?
And I say
I do not know.
but this feeling I did something,
something that didn’t make any sense.
The no sense part
bothers me, and when I remember it,
it makes me think I must have scared you.
I know I sat up in bed
but I don’t remember sitting up,
I just remember being there, sitting up,
and thinking there was something
lost in the bed.
I start sifting through the covers,
flattening them out, looking
for this something, though I
don’t know what this something
is. Then it occurs to me.
Is there really something there?
I can’t exactly answer that
but something tells me
to go back to bed, find this
something later. Then in the morning it’s,
what happened last night?
And she’ll tell me, you sat up in bed.
You were acting weird.
Right.
Why were you doing that?
And I say
I do not know.
9.28.2007
There Is
There is something sad
in nearly everything
we do.
Waiting for the walk
sign
to turn.
Cutting the hedge.
Making change.
Throwing away half an apple,
or a whole apple,
or just the core.
Making murals
for churches.
Visiting the houses
where our grandmothers chose
to sit in chairs.
In blindness,
in fishing,
in dissecting an owl pellet;
in poison ivy
still,
in an inch worm reaching.
The face of a woman
like a seashell,
and she isn’t even that
old
really.
Or, in carrying an umbrella
like an ax
through the cemetery
and finding the grave
pressed into the ground there,
like the head of a nail on a
board.
And soon,
it doesn’t matter
if your feet are wet.
It doesn’t matter if your head is heavy
or if your car is far away.
You can go back,
you can take it off,
you’ve got time,
you can.
And there is something sad
in that too.
And you know what I mean by
sad—
in nearly everything
we do.
Waiting for the walk
sign
to turn.
Cutting the hedge.
Making change.
Throwing away half an apple,
or a whole apple,
or just the core.
Making murals
for churches.
Visiting the houses
where our grandmothers chose
to sit in chairs.
In blindness,
in fishing,
in dissecting an owl pellet;
in poison ivy
still,
in an inch worm reaching.
The face of a woman
like a seashell,
and she isn’t even that
old
really.
Or, in carrying an umbrella
like an ax
through the cemetery
and finding the grave
pressed into the ground there,
like the head of a nail on a
board.
And soon,
it doesn’t matter
if your feet are wet.
It doesn’t matter if your head is heavy
or if your car is far away.
You can go back,
you can take it off,
you’ve got time,
you can.
And there is something sad
in that too.
And you know what I mean by
sad—
Crisis
A fearful mother
makes a fearful child;
he is that child
I am not him.
Somehow, I doubt her fears.
I doubt her phobias
and what haunts her,
the ghosts and the rattlesnake skins
rolling out from underneath her bed and scaring her
when she is all alone in the house,
and the voices on the answering machine and the
glum days, her devils and her dreams
and her depressions.
Urns full,
urns full of everything.
Choking up the ashes of the many urns:
dogs and parakeets and horses and
husbands.
She will not
go in that
room.
Then I think,
yes--nudged toward death each day,
that’s what it is:
lanolin and unbrushed cats with their
memories like floating clouds of hair.
The kidney failure.
And full dishwashers.
The same food for breakfast, lunch and dinner,
the same house and the same
mistrustful bowels.
The same baths. The same sexual organs.
The same friends who pretend to
commiserate
but are off thinking of their own husbands,
dogs, weddings, children, death.
The water heater that seeps blood into the basement.
The wet leaves.
The squirrels and chickadees that are endlessly
hungry.
The clutter.
The snowfalls and rains and sunshine.
The swimming pool that is covered in plastic.
The microwave that is out-of-date.
And all the men that come as close to passion
really
as they can muster, but
life isn’t for passion.
No.
No. It all died, and it’s
all
going to die again.
I understand her plight
then.
And I understand how her plight can become a crisis
occasionally.
makes a fearful child;
he is that child
I am not him.
Somehow, I doubt her fears.
I doubt her phobias
and what haunts her,
the ghosts and the rattlesnake skins
rolling out from underneath her bed and scaring her
when she is all alone in the house,
and the voices on the answering machine and the
glum days, her devils and her dreams
and her depressions.
Urns full,
urns full of everything.
Choking up the ashes of the many urns:
dogs and parakeets and horses and
husbands.
She will not
go in that
room.
Then I think,
yes--nudged toward death each day,
that’s what it is:
lanolin and unbrushed cats with their
memories like floating clouds of hair.
The kidney failure.
And full dishwashers.
The same food for breakfast, lunch and dinner,
the same house and the same
mistrustful bowels.
The same baths. The same sexual organs.
The same friends who pretend to
commiserate
but are off thinking of their own husbands,
dogs, weddings, children, death.
The water heater that seeps blood into the basement.
The wet leaves.
The squirrels and chickadees that are endlessly
hungry.
The clutter.
The snowfalls and rains and sunshine.
The swimming pool that is covered in plastic.
The microwave that is out-of-date.
And all the men that come as close to passion
really
as they can muster, but
life isn’t for passion.
No.
No. It all died, and it’s
all
going to die again.
I understand her plight
then.
And I understand how her plight can become a crisis
occasionally.
Florida, 1984
The ocean started tearing apart
its geometry.
The ocean, a
sideways head
dead on a dinner plate
looking out at us
through the silver sheath,
set far back in the dunes,
incongruous fray of shell bits and
coconut parts and dry leaves on sand plateau.
It woke up.
White eyebrows and white
whiskers about the mouth
opened wide and shut,
yawned
at the passing feet of me
when I was not much
more than
three.
A gull cawed,
then,
hoisted in the pitch of the
wind before it rained and we
could not take our bicycles out
of the oil stained garage.
its geometry.
The ocean, a
sideways head
dead on a dinner plate
looking out at us
through the silver sheath,
set far back in the dunes,
incongruous fray of shell bits and
coconut parts and dry leaves on sand plateau.
It woke up.
White eyebrows and white
whiskers about the mouth
opened wide and shut,
yawned
at the passing feet of me
when I was not much
more than
three.
A gull cawed,
then,
hoisted in the pitch of the
wind before it rained and we
could not take our bicycles out
of the oil stained garage.
9.27.2007
He Knows
The child lifts an entire
earth up in his little arms.
He lifts it like a pumpkin in a
cemetery, or the corpse head
of a giant full of leaves.
He laughs and he knows how he
plays with the earth
as it is lifted in his little arms,
he knows--it’s delightful lifting
this earth, this head, this
pumpkin even if it is dead,
and playing with it as the
laughter comes.
earth up in his little arms.
He lifts it like a pumpkin in a
cemetery, or the corpse head
of a giant full of leaves.
He laughs and he knows how he
plays with the earth
as it is lifted in his little arms,
he knows--it’s delightful lifting
this earth, this head, this
pumpkin even if it is dead,
and playing with it as the
laughter comes.
Salt Lake Devils
One
black shape
circles
circles wide
the airport
at
Salt
Lake City, Utah. It is a hawk
or an eagle
or some such thing,
some such terrible devil in the
blue sky.
He circles, poignant, god-
like, but still sad
like a burst balloon on a fence,
a penguin preening his oil-stained
feathers,
a useless machine,
like trying to hand a crazy man
a piece of paper.
Indoors,
pregnant women
wait and suck their fingers,
and worry about their husbands
who look like they’ve spent
years
tied to the
sun and stone.
Elsewhere, I know
fire talks in cities,
grapes hang, children
gag
and any
number of
celebrities
are newly airborn.
black shape
circles
circles wide
the airport
at
Salt
Lake City, Utah. It is a hawk
or an eagle
or some such thing,
some such terrible devil in the
blue sky.
He circles, poignant, god-
like, but still sad
like a burst balloon on a fence,
a penguin preening his oil-stained
feathers,
a useless machine,
like trying to hand a crazy man
a piece of paper.
Indoors,
pregnant women
wait and suck their fingers,
and worry about their husbands
who look like they’ve spent
years
tied to the
sun and stone.
Elsewhere, I know
fire talks in cities,
grapes hang, children
gag
and any
number of
celebrities
are newly airborn.
The Piano Tuner
Started at 76.
dead wife
once a bi-
ologist before dementia
took her mind.
She had theories on
bacteria and viruses
that were never finished, and they crawl away in his dreams.
The name was
Maggie
o Maggie bluebird
he used to say.
Maggie bluebird in the grass.
Her hair had been blonde then turned
white like a mated dandelion.
Cool your frost
were her last words, before slipping into something
simply no one understood.
dead wife
once a bi-
ologist before dementia
took her mind.
She had theories on
bacteria and viruses
that were never finished, and they crawl away in his dreams.
The name was
Maggie
o Maggie bluebird
he used to say.
Maggie bluebird in the grass.
Her hair had been blonde then turned
white like a mated dandelion.
Cool your frost
were her last words, before slipping into something
simply no one understood.
You know it's the first fine day when they all come out
It’s like rain
or
death
in a jungle; pulls the
fungus
and the
ants
and the
scavengers together.
They eat, grown, fuck,
fart, laugh, beguile,
pick their teeth;
today
it’s the disturbed eating ice cream,
shirtless hobos
blue
tattooed,
sallow musicians playing sallow
guitars in the park,
old women riding bicycles
with
dresses on
and no shoes.
Oh, they’ve come out
out!
And all their
madnesses have come along too. The hang-ups,
hold-ups,
pushups, pin-ups,
winter ferment,
homicidal thoughts,
suicidal thoughts,
sociopathic thoughts,
thoughts of charity,
thoughts of love,
and each one looking for a way to do it.
Each one looking for a way out. For a way into the next
season.
They’ve come out
and the rest are forced to mingle.
The bluebird and the aphid dangling,
the clover and the walking
stick,
mothers breast-
feeding babies,
bulldogs breathing the light of air,
war heroes courting bullshit on the fountain
ask for a match,
beg for food, trade jokes,
hold skirmishes,
chess matches,
dog fights,
cock
fights.
Everyone is happy in their own way
even if that means hysteria.
It’s Ok,
the first good day.
It’s needed
like an
enema.
or
death
in a jungle; pulls the
fungus
and the
ants
and the
scavengers together.
They eat, grown, fuck,
fart, laugh, beguile,
pick their teeth;
today
it’s the disturbed eating ice cream,
shirtless hobos
blue
tattooed,
sallow musicians playing sallow
guitars in the park,
old women riding bicycles
with
dresses on
and no shoes.
Oh, they’ve come out
out!
And all their
madnesses have come along too. The hang-ups,
hold-ups,
pushups, pin-ups,
winter ferment,
homicidal thoughts,
suicidal thoughts,
sociopathic thoughts,
thoughts of charity,
thoughts of love,
and each one looking for a way to do it.
Each one looking for a way out. For a way into the next
season.
They’ve come out
and the rest are forced to mingle.
The bluebird and the aphid dangling,
the clover and the walking
stick,
mothers breast-
feeding babies,
bulldogs breathing the light of air,
war heroes courting bullshit on the fountain
ask for a match,
beg for food, trade jokes,
hold skirmishes,
chess matches,
dog fights,
cock
fights.
Everyone is happy in their own way
even if that means hysteria.
It’s Ok,
the first good day.
It’s needed
like an
enema.
Erich
I remember this kid Erich
from Oregon.
He was friends with my cousin
and they lived in a small town out near the coast.
The town had one little store that sold
ice cream and other sundries, plus a school that
every kid seemed to attend (and there weren’t even that many kids around)
where the teachers were all referred to by their first names. Not
Mr. or Ms. so-and-so. But Bill. Or Janet. Or
Vince.
Anyway, what I remember
most about Erich
was that he had blonde hair and a nice, healthy face.
I also remember being at the beach with him—
now, the beach in Oregon is a lot different than the beach in
Florida or Massachusetts.
It’s foggy, with blackish sand. It almost feels
prehistoric.
He taught us how to skim-board, ride
the plane of water between the sand and your board.
Well, then a few years back
I asked my uncle what’s going on with Erich? Do you know?
Yes, he said. Erich had a very serious car accident.
Oh, I said. What happened?
He had a head on collision up in the mountains during a snowstorm, he said.
Then he went on to tell me how
Erich had developed Schizophrenia since the accident, and
some people thought the two might be related. No one knew that for sure
though.
Erich has had a tough life since then, my uncle said. He’s found it
hard to adjust to things.
He couldn’t hold down a job and his parents aren’t
the most adult of adults I’ve ever come across, so they don’t help much. I stopped
talking to the father altogether, he said.
I said, I see.
A few years went by.
I saw my uncle at Christmas.
They’d since moved from the coast and now lived in a little
neighborhood not far from downtown.
Have you heard anything about Erich? I said.
Yes, said my uncle. See, Erich—I told you he’s a schizophrenic, right?
Yes.
Well, see…Erich started thinking that someone wanted him to rob a bank.
He thought that someone was telling him to get a gun
and rob a bank
so that they could use the money to save someone
or something or other.
So, Erich got a gun and robbed a bank.
He took some twelve-thousand dollars, then sat outside on the curb
and waited for the police.
What did they do to him? I asked.
Well, they dropped the charges once they found out about his condition. And the money
was returned.
Then my uncle said, Remember when you guys went skim-boarding?
Yes, I said.
Erich could really
glide
on that black
sand.
from Oregon.
He was friends with my cousin
and they lived in a small town out near the coast.
The town had one little store that sold
ice cream and other sundries, plus a school that
every kid seemed to attend (and there weren’t even that many kids around)
where the teachers were all referred to by their first names. Not
Mr. or Ms. so-and-so. But Bill. Or Janet. Or
Vince.
Anyway, what I remember
most about Erich
was that he had blonde hair and a nice, healthy face.
I also remember being at the beach with him—
now, the beach in Oregon is a lot different than the beach in
Florida or Massachusetts.
It’s foggy, with blackish sand. It almost feels
prehistoric.
He taught us how to skim-board, ride
the plane of water between the sand and your board.
Well, then a few years back
I asked my uncle what’s going on with Erich? Do you know?
Yes, he said. Erich had a very serious car accident.
Oh, I said. What happened?
He had a head on collision up in the mountains during a snowstorm, he said.
Then he went on to tell me how
Erich had developed Schizophrenia since the accident, and
some people thought the two might be related. No one knew that for sure
though.
Erich has had a tough life since then, my uncle said. He’s found it
hard to adjust to things.
He couldn’t hold down a job and his parents aren’t
the most adult of adults I’ve ever come across, so they don’t help much. I stopped
talking to the father altogether, he said.
I said, I see.
A few years went by.
I saw my uncle at Christmas.
They’d since moved from the coast and now lived in a little
neighborhood not far from downtown.
Have you heard anything about Erich? I said.
Yes, said my uncle. See, Erich—I told you he’s a schizophrenic, right?
Yes.
Well, see…Erich started thinking that someone wanted him to rob a bank.
He thought that someone was telling him to get a gun
and rob a bank
so that they could use the money to save someone
or something or other.
So, Erich got a gun and robbed a bank.
He took some twelve-thousand dollars, then sat outside on the curb
and waited for the police.
What did they do to him? I asked.
Well, they dropped the charges once they found out about his condition. And the money
was returned.
Then my uncle said, Remember when you guys went skim-boarding?
Yes, I said.
Erich could really
glide
on that black
sand.
Legs in the Lamplight
There they are,
the same legs there
on the same sofa. The same legs,
narrow, long, lumpy with
two paddles of feet at the ends,
the same feet that are always there, wired with hair.
And in the dark
I reach toward one
and bring it to me,
the movement of a foot and hand
in the dark of a room like music
or fragrant pools,
and my hands reach out to
pick at the big nail.
Work at it.
And my thoughts just go to
what?
The cat is there on the ottoman
under the window. She watches me
and somehow this makes sense in her
cat mind. Perhaps I’ll
push that screen out of the window
and let us both leave.
I won’t be there when she leaves,
and the same goes for her.
I will float through the canopy.
The future isn’t anything
that is
and isn’t anything
that isn’t;
it must be imagined
and before it is imagined
it is invisible.
the same legs there
on the same sofa. The same legs,
narrow, long, lumpy with
two paddles of feet at the ends,
the same feet that are always there, wired with hair.
And in the dark
I reach toward one
and bring it to me,
the movement of a foot and hand
in the dark of a room like music
or fragrant pools,
and my hands reach out to
pick at the big nail.
Work at it.
And my thoughts just go to
what?
The cat is there on the ottoman
under the window. She watches me
and somehow this makes sense in her
cat mind. Perhaps I’ll
push that screen out of the window
and let us both leave.
I won’t be there when she leaves,
and the same goes for her.
I will float through the canopy.
The future isn’t anything
that is
and isn’t anything
that isn’t;
it must be imagined
and before it is imagined
it is invisible.
Memories
The state fair has gone
Into the nasty underground.
The wet dirt, the bedrock
Its hat,
Then on top of everything the
Aromatic grasses
So everywhere is the
Aromatic grass of summer.
Underneath
Pig snouts and horse hooves cut off,
Beer boiling in cauldrons,
Hunters
I smell you
In love with me,
I smell
The black dog’s ashes in a bucket, the parakeet’s
Ashes
In a
Takeout box,
The waveless beach that only slightly opens in my favor.
Goodness, non-goodness
Gone away
Into the nasty underground.
The wet dirt, the bedrock
Its hat,
Then on top of everything the
Aromatic grasses
So everywhere is the
Aromatic grass of summer.
Underneath
Pig snouts and horse hooves cut off,
Beer boiling in cauldrons,
Hunters
I smell you
In love with me,
I smell
The black dog’s ashes in a bucket, the parakeet’s
Ashes
In a
Takeout box,
The waveless beach that only slightly opens in my favor.
Goodness, non-goodness
Gone away
Everything Is Instruments
Bodies burn
still in empty trains,
the car is empty
and the seatbelt pulled out like a rotted tooth
from its hole. The water
sloshes up high
upon its wells, spills
over the edges,
meeting with time.
Without practice
it botches the surgery,
we were burnt
and we burned well from the inside out, our heads
upright, our hands still attentive in their positions
on the wheel,
and our eyes are lovely white buds
on the volcano, but
that is all and we’re still inventing,
we’re still here.
still in empty trains,
the car is empty
and the seatbelt pulled out like a rotted tooth
from its hole. The water
sloshes up high
upon its wells, spills
over the edges,
meeting with time.
Without practice
it botches the surgery,
we were burnt
and we burned well from the inside out, our heads
upright, our hands still attentive in their positions
on the wheel,
and our eyes are lovely white buds
on the volcano, but
that is all and we’re still inventing,
we’re still here.
The Forest
The ground
was the back of a woman’s head.
The needles there,
fine little things, fine little twigs,
spread out hair of my beauty.
Young women are the same as old women,
hair pressed so gently to their heads.
She is sleepy underneath me,
maybe just a head down there, and an ear
moving then going to sleep.
Sleeping ground of dirt,
air of sounds, doing up dreams—
whipping them up in a fury
like running feet.
A bee encircles the canoe of my sleep,
a peaceful bee flies about
my nodding head.
I smell the hair of the earth,
the hair of dead women,
log bones
decomposed.
Leaf, leaf, little
leafs,
leaves in the cemetery,
leaves in my present state
falling make a sound
like a man swimming in the distance,
his head bobbing, his arms curling in
white spray.
was the back of a woman’s head.
The needles there,
fine little things, fine little twigs,
spread out hair of my beauty.
Young women are the same as old women,
hair pressed so gently to their heads.
She is sleepy underneath me,
maybe just a head down there, and an ear
moving then going to sleep.
Sleeping ground of dirt,
air of sounds, doing up dreams—
whipping them up in a fury
like running feet.
A bee encircles the canoe of my sleep,
a peaceful bee flies about
my nodding head.
I smell the hair of the earth,
the hair of dead women,
log bones
decomposed.
Leaf, leaf, little
leafs,
leaves in the cemetery,
leaves in my present state
falling make a sound
like a man swimming in the distance,
his head bobbing, his arms curling in
white spray.
the never ant
there is an ant in my brain.
he does not move
miles
he does not
hold communion or exercise some form of
work.
he crawls and is so
small
he is the never ant. the never
ant
of my moments.
he is
gun shy
like a horse. he is thin. he is not an
arsonist. he does not tell good jokes.
his body is cold and black and asexual. his mind is
non*worthy of
god.
he feels like charlie chaplin’s mustache. he looks like
abe lincoln’s
dead
tongue.
he does not move
miles
he does not
hold communion or exercise some form of
work.
he crawls and is so
small
he is the never ant. the never
ant
of my moments.
he is
gun shy
like a horse. he is thin. he is not an
arsonist. he does not tell good jokes.
his body is cold and black and asexual. his mind is
non*worthy of
god.
he feels like charlie chaplin’s mustache. he looks like
abe lincoln’s
dead
tongue.
5 Years
When I think of it sitting on the carpet there, behind me
like a fat, immense tomato,
I do not marvel at the tomato, nor its size,
nor do I hear its gurgling 5 years deep.
It isn’t worth 5 years of funds, I argue, or
5 years of food, or molecules or air-conditioning, or
wash cycles at a dollar
seventy-five-
cents-a-piece.
It’s more like a building with tenants calling themselves
on phony telephones, and writing their names falsely
on forms at the DMV:
Bruno & Hardy & Jamaica and
other names of their own silly fashioning.
I like them but I do not know them.
Spiritually, it is hard to recognize;
we have been a variety of different souls
and our combinations have
spidered and spiraled out, in,
down and about our heads.
It is not one
hunk of something
rather
it is divided and the
sum of our love
happens to arrive at that.
like a fat, immense tomato,
I do not marvel at the tomato, nor its size,
nor do I hear its gurgling 5 years deep.
It isn’t worth 5 years of funds, I argue, or
5 years of food, or molecules or air-conditioning, or
wash cycles at a dollar
seventy-five-
cents-a-piece.
It’s more like a building with tenants calling themselves
on phony telephones, and writing their names falsely
on forms at the DMV:
Bruno & Hardy & Jamaica and
other names of their own silly fashioning.
I like them but I do not know them.
Spiritually, it is hard to recognize;
we have been a variety of different souls
and our combinations have
spidered and spiraled out, in,
down and about our heads.
It is not one
hunk of something
rather
it is divided and the
sum of our love
happens to arrive at that.
Christmas Trees in New York City
They’ve got the Christmas trees
Lined up
At a hardware store off
Canal Street.
Wrapped in twine
And lined up,
Leaning on their sawed off knees
From a tree farm.
As they come off that truck, they are
Handled by a number of men
Who look like they could
Just as well
Be handling
Bags of birdseed,
Pig carcasses or
Kegs of beer,
They look like
People tied up pretending
To be dead.
But the eyes, that’s what gives it away;
They’re wide as hell
Saying,
Get me out of here.
The shag
On those trees
Reminds me of my
Many brothers.
It’s the hanging
Wisps of graying hair
That makes me think of it.
And all the times
I saw them when I was home,
And all the times
I did not.
Lined up
At a hardware store off
Canal Street.
Wrapped in twine
And lined up,
Leaning on their sawed off knees
From a tree farm.
As they come off that truck, they are
Handled by a number of men
Who look like they could
Just as well
Be handling
Bags of birdseed,
Pig carcasses or
Kegs of beer,
They look like
People tied up pretending
To be dead.
But the eyes, that’s what gives it away;
They’re wide as hell
Saying,
Get me out of here.
The shag
On those trees
Reminds me of my
Many brothers.
It’s the hanging
Wisps of graying hair
That makes me think of it.
And all the times
I saw them when I was home,
And all the times
I did not.
9.26.2007
Hotel
God was in Paris
on the weekend of our mother’s
visitation.
He went in and out with the trees
and scooped ice cream, flooded the
rivers and crawled beneath the bridges. I
asked him to beers on the floor next to the bed
where you slept. He accepted. Then He dodged me.
Made me wait it out.
I hung in there
and played solitaire
until He entered, a bloated goon
with tuberculosis.
We went ahead,
hallucinated with men inside, men drunk,
men laughing.
I carried the flesh of a bull in my belly, licked the brown
flame,
unzippered the meaning of true perversion
on your dry lips, in the
bath, in between God’s
toes.
And when we woke up,
no one remembered anything but
that.
on the weekend of our mother’s
visitation.
He went in and out with the trees
and scooped ice cream, flooded the
rivers and crawled beneath the bridges. I
asked him to beers on the floor next to the bed
where you slept. He accepted. Then He dodged me.
Made me wait it out.
I hung in there
and played solitaire
until He entered, a bloated goon
with tuberculosis.
We went ahead,
hallucinated with men inside, men drunk,
men laughing.
I carried the flesh of a bull in my belly, licked the brown
flame,
unzippered the meaning of true perversion
on your dry lips, in the
bath, in between God’s
toes.
And when we woke up,
no one remembered anything but
that.
New Love
Steak was served on a white plate.
It was well,
Blood
Gone
.
This is the best way to hold a conversation, he said
And touched her underpants with his toe.
It was well,
Blood
Gone
.
This is the best way to hold a conversation, he said
And touched her underpants with his toe.
Gruesome Spring
Their white skin is slimy underneath the leaves,
it’s corpse skin, corpse toenails, purple
corpse cud.
Their eyes are blue and still,
spinning underneath the leaves, snorting,
groping ass and belly and
the sound is like salt burning,
ground into the table with a palm leaf.
Tree roots stretching out
buried with a 50 year old bear jaw,
still complete with teeth.
The attrition of dirt lets us breath
but the gloom, oh, the gloom and the
landfill of oh sweet landfill dreams.
In there they all shift against one another
and finally, they exit after canoodling,
exit the leaves and rise into the sunshine
for a day riding bicycles.
it’s corpse skin, corpse toenails, purple
corpse cud.
Their eyes are blue and still,
spinning underneath the leaves, snorting,
groping ass and belly and
the sound is like salt burning,
ground into the table with a palm leaf.
Tree roots stretching out
buried with a 50 year old bear jaw,
still complete with teeth.
The attrition of dirt lets us breath
but the gloom, oh, the gloom and the
landfill of oh sweet landfill dreams.
In there they all shift against one another
and finally, they exit after canoodling,
exit the leaves and rise into the sunshine
for a day riding bicycles.
Another Strange Night Experience
I sat up
around 3 some
AM
on the edge of the bed and looked down.
I saw legs, my legs
like warped bows
and clothing on the floor,
my clothing
I’d left there last night.
I started picking up the clothes
and putting them in piles: clean and dirty
or something close to it.
I was very confused and did it
over again,
a second then a third time.
Then I sat there some more
looking at the piles I’d made.
She woke up and from behind me and said, are you alright?
Yes, I said
I really am.
And as I said it
I felt very sad, more sad than I do even
for those dead and divorced parents and kidnapped children,
Labradors stuck in sleeping bags on mountains,
ipecac
cancer
doldrums
(all kinds)
What’s wrong with me?
around 3 some
AM
on the edge of the bed and looked down.
I saw legs, my legs
like warped bows
and clothing on the floor,
my clothing
I’d left there last night.
I started picking up the clothes
and putting them in piles: clean and dirty
or something close to it.
I was very confused and did it
over again,
a second then a third time.
Then I sat there some more
looking at the piles I’d made.
She woke up and from behind me and said, are you alright?
Yes, I said
I really am.
And as I said it
I felt very sad, more sad than I do even
for those dead and divorced parents and kidnapped children,
Labradors stuck in sleeping bags on mountains,
ipecac
cancer
doldrums
(all kinds)
What’s wrong with me?
A Block of Ice in the Sink
Where did it come from?
Perhaps it grew from the man’s
silver beard
and got so large
it fell off
like a rotted tusk
or a cancerous flower
the size of a watermelon.
And now it is there
melting in the sink next to a few dirty dishes.
It is gigantic in its miracle,
but a symbol too sad to even
think about any more,
this block of ice from the
old man’s beard
(he’s old now)
at least
without some sense of humor.
Perhaps it grew from the man’s
silver beard
and got so large
it fell off
like a rotted tusk
or a cancerous flower
the size of a watermelon.
And now it is there
melting in the sink next to a few dirty dishes.
It is gigantic in its miracle,
but a symbol too sad to even
think about any more,
this block of ice from the
old man’s beard
(he’s old now)
at least
without some sense of humor.
Sleeping in the Afternoon
It started raining while I was sleeping,
the violets and the clams slept too.
The umbrella, the sand moaned
in her sleep and
the stones clapped for cluttered dreams,
a plane whistled and roared up there
and the idea
of ten miles blew up
to a golden amount, some perfect amount.
I start dreaming on how
there is always so much standing between me
and the weightless moments of life
when I hears a guitar start strumming
through the air, somewhere in the neighborhood
I hears a guitar, I hears a harmonica
as the sharks move nude under the water,
as the clams shut their shells and muzzle their ghoulish songs.
As I look, miraculous, into the puzzle of the trees
and overhead a jet sings, whistles and
roars bringing in the idea, and the idea
of ten miles or even
more seems wasted, whiff,
not a far off ending, not a far off thing, not an
important thing altogether either.
the violets and the clams slept too.
The umbrella, the sand moaned
in her sleep and
the stones clapped for cluttered dreams,
a plane whistled and roared up there
and the idea
of ten miles blew up
to a golden amount, some perfect amount.
I start dreaming on how
there is always so much standing between me
and the weightless moments of life
when I hears a guitar start strumming
through the air, somewhere in the neighborhood
I hears a guitar, I hears a harmonica
as the sharks move nude under the water,
as the clams shut their shells and muzzle their ghoulish songs.
As I look, miraculous, into the puzzle of the trees
and overhead a jet sings, whistles and
roars bringing in the idea, and the idea
of ten miles or even
more seems wasted, whiff,
not a far off ending, not a far off thing, not an
important thing altogether either.
The Battlefield of Morning
Black birds
step in rows
and layers
through the grass,
an army of them,
picking at the ground
like they are
making searches
for the still-living,
the bladed and shot,
the blown up, the
wailing. These are the
ambulance birds, the
drones of multitude
kindness—but really,
anything large just
frightens them away.
step in rows
and layers
through the grass,
an army of them,
picking at the ground
like they are
making searches
for the still-living,
the bladed and shot,
the blown up, the
wailing. These are the
ambulance birds, the
drones of multitude
kindness—but really,
anything large just
frightens them away.
Caution
I do not recognize the man
eating in the courtyard.
He is a bodiless church
sitting there, the middle burned out
and just the roof left
and draped in
hair, skin, eyelids,
waiting for his meat to barbecue.
His arms and legs are down,
his mouth is open just a little bit.
It is as if he is on the edge of a cliff.
The smoke is representative of his thoughts,
they rise in some cipher,
cool and blue as his waiting viciousness.
My mind curls around him then
like a rope around a cinderblock.
Under us, the ants, the worms, the
rats crawl in some parade of death,
celebrating us and our meeting, and celebrating
how we’ll go on to sleep thinking
maybe, perhaps,
of one another.
eating in the courtyard.
He is a bodiless church
sitting there, the middle burned out
and just the roof left
and draped in
hair, skin, eyelids,
waiting for his meat to barbecue.
His arms and legs are down,
his mouth is open just a little bit.
It is as if he is on the edge of a cliff.
The smoke is representative of his thoughts,
they rise in some cipher,
cool and blue as his waiting viciousness.
My mind curls around him then
like a rope around a cinderblock.
Under us, the ants, the worms, the
rats crawl in some parade of death,
celebrating us and our meeting, and celebrating
how we’ll go on to sleep thinking
maybe, perhaps,
of one another.
I Am
I go out into the desert night,
I am the purple moon
imbued with blood.
I am saguaro,
I am
spider web
dangling
in
forsythia.
I am the purple moon
imbued with blood.
I am saguaro,
I am
spider web
dangling
in
forsythia.
Life Like a Fan
I see it
like I see trees waving
darkly on the hills,
the funeral man
clapping
in the rain,
and the small pair of shoes
unworn
on the closet floor
talking to each other;
all is irregular,
all is irrelevant and is faint.
Vibrations and echoes are
dead because there are no walls.
It is not a tomb. It is not sad or even cynical—
That’s just it. It’s just that. It is
just that.
like I see trees waving
darkly on the hills,
the funeral man
clapping
in the rain,
and the small pair of shoes
unworn
on the closet floor
talking to each other;
all is irregular,
all is irrelevant and is faint.
Vibrations and echoes are
dead because there are no walls.
It is not a tomb. It is not sad or even cynical—
That’s just it. It’s just that. It is
just that.
The Dirty Marigold
The soil is covering a rotten art.
The unkind yellow stinks with dust, mold and
Pointless thoughts.
You remind me of time that has been allowed out of a jar
And disperses and floats senselessly into the air. Spores.
Your roots are roots and it is
Not miraculous,
A brain is used or unused, and our memories retain
Some of what was once sickening and wounding.
Where are the marigolds
That flourish?
Where are the glad faces that are immortal?
Where are the police? Where is the ambulance?
The unkind yellow stinks with dust, mold and
Pointless thoughts.
You remind me of time that has been allowed out of a jar
And disperses and floats senselessly into the air. Spores.
Your roots are roots and it is
Not miraculous,
A brain is used or unused, and our memories retain
Some of what was once sickening and wounding.
Where are the marigolds
That flourish?
Where are the glad faces that are immortal?
Where are the police? Where is the ambulance?
The Journey of the Flies
They carry a weak music in their wings.
It flies over the Midwestern crops
and delivers its silt, and it puddles there
in our breakfasts, in our coffee,
in the empty buckets of our
eyes.
The morning is full of blades.
The night too is full of blades;
that is what light is—the fullness
or the removal of blades.
Your brotherhood, flies, is
admirable, your army is impressive.
It makes me wonder if one soul
has had the courage yet to form
under your black armor, to
come together.
Or if it takes some new turning of
years for that to happen.
It flies over the Midwestern crops
and delivers its silt, and it puddles there
in our breakfasts, in our coffee,
in the empty buckets of our
eyes.
The morning is full of blades.
The night too is full of blades;
that is what light is—the fullness
or the removal of blades.
Your brotherhood, flies, is
admirable, your army is impressive.
It makes me wonder if one soul
has had the courage yet to form
under your black armor, to
come together.
Or if it takes some new turning of
years for that to happen.
Doldrums
It rained
and we
didn’t
do a thing about it.
What could we do?
What is there
to do
then?
It rained and we let it rain.
The sky was pink
and how could it
not be?
How could the sky not be
pink?
Yes
there was
something
nightmarish
in the way those lights
across the parking lot
flashed on and
off.
I’ll admit that. There was something terrible in the clouds.
In the windows of the hospital
the
walls
pounded the walls pounded
the walls.
And what did we do?
Pounded back.
Pounded too.
Ate sandwiches and
drank coffee.
Talked about mothers and
their bogs and their
prayers and their
sicknesses.
Moved like elephants
into sleep,
elephants on the
Serengeti.
But well, then
almost too well
it rained.
And I’ve really almost had it.
and we
didn’t
do a thing about it.
What could we do?
What is there
to do
then?
It rained and we let it rain.
The sky was pink
and how could it
not be?
How could the sky not be
pink?
Yes
there was
something
nightmarish
in the way those lights
across the parking lot
flashed on and
off.
I’ll admit that. There was something terrible in the clouds.
In the windows of the hospital
the
walls
pounded the walls pounded
the walls.
And what did we do?
Pounded back.
Pounded too.
Ate sandwiches and
drank coffee.
Talked about mothers and
their bogs and their
prayers and their
sicknesses.
Moved like elephants
into sleep,
elephants on the
Serengeti.
But well, then
almost too well
it rained.
And I’ve really almost had it.
Formation
My father explained
how they flew in formation.
You were not to leave the formation
no matter what happened,
he said.
That’s it.
So one time
they’re flying
in formation
over Berlin
or the oil fields of Ploesti
or
I don’t know where,
blasting away rail yards,
ball bearing plants or homes, or
laundromats,
and I don’t think
coming anywhere
close
to laughter,
when something
hits
the plane in front of them
(anti-aircraft fire, I guess)
and the whole thing blows up.
But remember—
you’ve gotta fly in formation.
Or else it’s like murder
sabotage and
suicide
all in one.
So
he stays on and
plows through the explosion.
He said, as they passed through it all,
one tire hit the windshield
as did
the pilot’s seat.
His was one of nineteen planes or so
to return safely from that mission.
The rest got caught.
And when they landed,
the men unfolded him
from
the cockpit
(he’d been up there some
twelve hours
and no hydraulics, remember,
in those planes)
and then a man came by
with a tray
full of whiskey
and he drank one down
right there on the tarmac.
I can see why—
the next day
‘round 3 AM
they’d be awoken, shown a
map
and
sent up again.
how they flew in formation.
You were not to leave the formation
no matter what happened,
he said.
That’s it.
So one time
they’re flying
in formation
over Berlin
or the oil fields of Ploesti
or
I don’t know where,
blasting away rail yards,
ball bearing plants or homes, or
laundromats,
and I don’t think
coming anywhere
close
to laughter,
when something
hits
the plane in front of them
(anti-aircraft fire, I guess)
and the whole thing blows up.
But remember—
you’ve gotta fly in formation.
Or else it’s like murder
sabotage and
suicide
all in one.
So
he stays on and
plows through the explosion.
He said, as they passed through it all,
one tire hit the windshield
as did
the pilot’s seat.
His was one of nineteen planes or so
to return safely from that mission.
The rest got caught.
And when they landed,
the men unfolded him
from
the cockpit
(he’d been up there some
twelve hours
and no hydraulics, remember,
in those planes)
and then a man came by
with a tray
full of whiskey
and he drank one down
right there on the tarmac.
I can see why—
the next day
‘round 3 AM
they’d be awoken, shown a
map
and
sent up again.
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