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by james kobielus

A BLACK HOLE MEDITATION

Suppose that inside/It's rich with color, asplash/In light

and beauty.//Suppose that flattened/Matter, stripped of all
structure,/Is superstringy://A harp of music/For the many-
dimensioned/Almighty's fingers.

ABLE

Mighty mighty meathooks, oh how I love to grapple. Immerse

myself, bloody beaut of a world, I will. Xactly where I
want to be, poised to fail. You see me, I'll be, rising,
reaching, able.

A DDAY HIKOO

The enormity/of our storming Normandy/restored normalcy.

A FACE A THOUSAND PACES

I know your mug not/you. Across a city square/your features

are not etched so finely, don¶t demand/scrutiny beyond the
ordinary. So we pass. So we don¶t stand out, don¶t/mesh.
Neither do most British monarchs. Their portraits,/fading,
mask their murderous/consanguinity.

A FAST BROKEN

An egg an orange/are a fast broken, a dream/of day¶s

unfolding.//A note my wife left/reminds me to find
someone/to repair our car.//Crumpled, it makes a/fine
projectile, an arc traced/through indoor morning.

A FREEBIE HIKOO

Enter to win new/gadget. To use, need to patch/it.

Repeatedly.

A FRIGHTFUL RELEASE

Gertrude's platitudes/borne from the still waxy stuff/in an

old girl's hole.
 AGREED

Agreed. You¶ve a fine way with words. There's the shape of

the world we find, and the shape of the words we make. And
often the world we find was shaped by others, and
ourselves, and is us.

AIR

Television was/simply always there airing/and

available.//Television was/simple numbers to click
and/point the aerial.//Television was/once tube and tuner a
box/immaterial.

A MARITAL VALENTINE

"A tiny candy/under your pillow...could have/easily been

crushed."//"The message on it/was even
teenier...an/eyestrain...sorry, luv."//"As insubstantial/a
confection as can be/imagined...my sweet."

A MARITAL VINYASA

"We've saluted so/many suns. Numb, we gasp from/their sheer

sunniness."//"We sweat. We struggle/to hold our focal
points on/some middle distance."//"Some perturbation/in
Bally's stained ceiling tiles/does it for me, dear."

AMBIT

Wherein kind folks belong to my circle. Hold onto use not

discard my gifts. Ever glad to banter with me. Really
read what I give them. Ever ready response. Outshine
elevate. Happy happy. Wherever.

A MORTAL MUTTERS
|
Sun will shine without/my skin to receive it. Yes,/the sun
will remain.//Green will gleam. The leaves/and the
slime will all be fine./As before my time.//Before
this blessed/me could conceive that he too/would be
forgotten.

ANALYST¶S SKETCHBOOK

Tedium may, absent fellow-feeling and some larger life¶s

project, lead you to believe that none of this really
 matters. Multiplexing your limited attention among
trillions of tasks, none of which originated or will
terminate with you, seems calculated to transform you into
a mindless conduit for information, a mutant scarcely
capable of independent existence or coherent thought.
Chopping your daily feed stream into bite-sized segments
suitable for recombination into new life forms that,
resenting challenge, may rise without you bleeds pink the
very soul of the new economy. Everything¶s on call, on
demand, on the line. Scan, absorb, and be ready to
regurgitate you say. Call her, call him, set it up, and
pull back you say. Take this, file it, and never lose the
key you say. Stand ready to serve it up you say. All in
the name of the project.

AN ANALYST¶S LISTS

Big bold and sweeping/statements about the weather/sustain

our careers.//Overstuffed inbox/ponderings on the
latest/shrink-wrapped abstractions.//Disembodied
voices/powerpointing plans for/soft world domination.

AND SO IT FLOWS

Starts and fits and somehow it works. Pieces and bits and
blood on the pages. Rush and push and squeeze it between
times. Scream and stream and give it a name.

ANECHOIC

an/impression of sound in stone dead air./in an/animal's

ear/silence shrieks.

AN HISTORIC

Well worn dread my mother father could not protect nor

explain remember the moon-stranding men. Orange-making
machinery thought the fibers were my thumb. Randy git
monger maybe monkey likes salt on his potato chip. Lick
her tit like she always said I would be drag. Drag
historic. Wait the date the fate the hate the gun that
alpha male who seems she wants she knows not how I do. An.
Remember the moon-stranding men well into the perfumed
living room box.

AN INSINUATION
Whether the weather/blows over or not I'll be/sitting here
chilling.//Every God-given/day, damned or otherwise,
is/another excuse.//A day to rise and/be still in situ and
in/my very sinew.

ANNIVERSARY

Fill me in on the year gone by. I have no past but this

day. Walk with me in the year to come. I have no one but
you.

ANTIMAY

Memorial Day./It's honorary Summer./Spring's sunburned

demise.

APPCATALOG

Our appcatalog is to lorem ipsum dolor all over town. We

lorem all the way. Our appcatalog is to lorem ipsum dolor
all over town. We lorem all the way. Our appcatalog is to
lorem ipsum dolor all over town. We lorem all the way.

APPROACHING SOLSTICE

Air was there, was bare/and shimmering, around the/spot

where bells should be.//Night was there, was spare/and
sparkling, a strand of lights/suggesting a tree.//Some
snow, a song, a/kid. These ticklesome trances/of holiday
glee.

AQUIFER

Set. More massively/installed than the stone/beneath the

weight of/the world's monuments.//As thoroughly stained/in
sediment as/earth's running rivers/and God's ancient
veins.//Streaked with the runoff/of daily rains and/fresh
capillaries/of rust and red salt.

ARBITRARY

I'm dead. I am really really dead. Speaking to you from

the great beyond. Or so it feels. Before the words leave
my mouth you may have already switched channels. Abandoned
me for another face. Another face, another voice. Another
voice, another message. Another message, another path to
follow. With or without me. I just happened to be here.
You just happened to intercept my signal. We just happened
to connect. Fate intervened. Now just forget everything I
told you. Forget it. Just forget it. And excuse me while
I slip away.

A RECONCILIATION OF FRIENDS

A hand on an arm/in the din of a disco/is without a

doubt.//A gesture can close/the years and odd continents/we
let intervene.//The touch of a hand/is a dove come home
and/a world encircled.

ARENA

Sun shine bright on this spherical paradise. Preserve the

pleasure dome much as we¶ve known it. Grant in perpetuity
today¶s blend of oxygen, carbon dioxide, water vapor,
pollen, and light. Spare our data from the magnetic
reversal and our skins the ultraviolet. Keep the oceans in
their basins and the glaciers at their poles. Deflect the
comets, asteroids, and space junk. Don¶t touch the
thermostat. Walk us down shifting sands along familiar
continents. Sustain our way of life for at least another
billion years.

ARK HIVE

History is as/distant as your wastebasket./A living

landfill.

ARLINGTON COURTHOUSE IMPLOSION

Why this low-grade eyesore rated a CNN camera crew. Was

younger than me by two years but organisms structures.
When we moved here pre-kids thought the walkable
neighborhood quiet. Well it was transitional too close to
the cemetery. What gets me is the graceful degradation of
some eras. Whereas others receding too fast into their
comet tails. Whipped withered by the dustclouds of their
own furious commerce. Worn down to a QuickTime
decompressed over coffee.

AS IT IS

No need to retouch the photos, discard them, pretend they

never existed. As if you were embarrassed, what you were,
are, sought to be. Yes, they do, but that¶s beside the
 point. I was lonely, idiot. Once upon it only, those
pressures, my gestures, can¶t be explained, except by me,
to me. My explanations do me. But just barely. Was that
really my face? Infatuation? Friends? State: yes. They
are me and that was that. My yearning, rhapsodic, oddly
rhythmic, persistent, totally irrecoverable fate. So it
was. And what have I learned? Could I do it over? But I
can¶t, idiot. So what¶s the point? No, I won¶t. This is
me. My voice. My look. And that¶s it.

A SNEEZE OF CHEESE

Lasagna/left over/is lumpy/and

chewy.//Gelatinous,/glutinous,/gummy,/and
gluey.//Glistening/glandular/garbage--/ptui!

A SOCK IN IT

There's a suitcase. There's/a sock in it. There's a hole/up

front where my nails grow long. There's me wiggling
my/toes. Oh I wish you knew how/good that feels.

A SWAN'S INNER EAR

These things are like Teresa who/works two doors down, and
who has a/recurring need to pass by on/her pretty way to
the printer./I of course am not suggesting/that Teresa's
beauty is all/there is to her. She processes/invoices.
And she is aware.

AT THE STRAITS

Detroit riots and rots,/deteriorates and/resists

resurrection.//Detroit's distraught, a rut/of debt and
death, a depth/charge of desolation.//Dry as snot. A
driven/disaster. A drag to/avoid. My home. Destroyed.

AUTUMN PLUMMETS

And then there were ten/thousand squirrels attending each

drop/of the nut from the sky outside the great/dome of the
United States Capitol building.//There is no substance/
to the charge that my presence/here threatens them on/this
or any other day.//A clap, an/evacuation of crows, a/ lone
leaf mocks their myriad confusion.

AVERSION
I should soak her in. Or avert my attentions. And finish
the meal.

A WARHOL HIKOO

The unswerving gaze/of nervy Andy was a/fixed focus fetish.

BABE

The young mother gives/her breast to her newborn babe./A

strange man looks on.

BABY IS A MONKEY

Can't you see? Baby is a monkey. I am a monkey too. I

love to goof around. Baby is a monkey. I'm a monkey too.
I put her in my shirt, and I love her very much. Baby is a
monkey. The end for my baby? I don't think so. Baby is a
monkey. I'm a monkey too. I bring her with me everywhere.
Till the very end. Till my baby runs away.

BALI

Something exotic. Bats on the beach at sunset. Chilly

equator.

BANKRUPTCY SONNET

Suddenly vacant/space. So suddenly//the landlords

haven¶t/vacuumed. So very//vacant the brokers/are at a loss
for//adjectives. Special/and spacious, this
place//represents a rare/opportunity//to make your
statement/in a property//that towers over/the Interstate.
So//special you and your/partners can claim
your//respective pieces/of executive//real estate, sleek
and/smart, catercorner//suites overlooking/the soon-to-be
heart//of whatever new/business you now must//build to play
a part/and have a shot at //being there when the/economy
swells.

BEACH ROAD REALITY

Between the glare and/shade hang the vacancy signs/of

makeshift days.//Within the wave of the/grass that stays
the land against/time¶s erosion.//Long past the point
where/folks make any attempt at/improving their lots.
 BEATLES THE BEATLES THE BEATLES

Joined at the hip in the promo to ³Help.´ Playing pass-

the-joint on the icefields of Switzerland. Grinning with
reddened cheeks. Reaching the end of the take. John at
the well. Paul at his piano. George jamming with Clapton
and Beck. Ringo in his room.

BEAUTY BEAUTY

Smile for me, baby. Real thing, no stale simile. You are
like you are like you are like you are.

BEEP µEM

From rules we tend to recoil/but to engines they¶re

precious as oil/Let¶s make our own decisions/and not be
imprisoned/by bots and their effortless toil.

BILL GATES¶ ³RETIREMENT´

I//Man can multitask/and recognize when one big/one, for

him, is done.//The man¶s stack is still/very deep. Yeah.
Iconhood/alone¶s a full-time.//Not to mention his/new to-
do: doing good on/a grandiose scale.//II//Bill: the short
form of/billionaire: a shorthand for/envy incarnate.//Kids
know him: name a/five-year-old, in the day, knew/what
Carnegie wrought.//Or J.P., John D./Not one learnt their
ABCs/on raw pig iron.//III//Met him. Upon two/occasions.
Analyst-packed/rooms. Me: Q. Him: A.//Ordinariness./Smart,
technical. But that¶s par/for this profession.//Has private
nervous/tics I¶m told, and swears a fair/bit, but so do
I.//IV//He¶s fifty-two now./Has held one job since
nineteen./That¶s unusual.//Has weathered
pressures/uncommon, advancing far/beyond wunderkind.//Put
yourself in his/place: Would you still rise early,/check e-
mail daily?//V//As the salesperson/wearies of the pitch,
software¶s/abstractions grow old.//Real though the
money/may be, coding can often/blur into word games.//So
it¶s no wonder/programmers seek programs a/bit more
tangible.//VI//Melinda, for one./A wife programs you in
ways/imperceptible.//May make you think of/work less.
Retire earlier/than was your habit.//May make you want
to/designate her cornerstone/of your foundation.//VII//Dare
say he and she/don¶t see these as their waning/or remaining
days.//Aren¶t hunkering down/in their subterranean/Lake
 Washington lodge.//Decrementing the/dollars and hours from
their cache/of Microsoft years.//VIII//An open expanse/of
marriage is scary: too/much time before us.//Office visits:
these/daily separations have/held us together.//The
milestones of our/children¶s lives, the schedules of/work
the world demands.//IX//Can you walk away/from unfinished
business and/leave others the mess?//Then dive forever/into
the muck of ages/and leave a fresh one?//An execution/plan
and platform that, like your/first, will
decompose?//X//William: is your will/writ large? Are your
intentions/inexhaustible?//As we straddle our/respective
half-century,/there¶s no letting go.//Men still
managing/ours. Me: these thoughts. You: still chair/and
emeritus.

BILL OF THE BOB

The Englishman hires/Filipinos to explain/American

jokes.//The American/knows his cartoon characters/and he
signs the checks.//What he wants is a/big-busted wealthy
woman/with a high-pitched voice.

BLANKEST STREAM

Kenya or some thought. Some place I believe I've not.

Upon reviewing the box-bound souvenir rot. Now I'm sure I
have never. Ever visited. Kenya.

BLEEDING ECONOMIC INDICATORS

The statistical/you is doomed. Numbers/are numbing. The

end/is coming too soon.

BLENT

Bleed into me gasoline marketplace fruit left over day

before last let merge me merge yourself with the chem o
stream sodium cyano phospho limo light and skim me gingerly
off the top. Blend me into yourself air condition me
condense me pretty flower dripping chrysanth o mum left
long too long in the bathroom backroom waiting. Bend my
legs stuff me in the paper cone an ice cream floral oral
bouquet for an impulse to go. Bent and blent into the
stuff me into the stream of commerce lost me drop me off
the back of the shelf till new year comes and the cleaning
crews hose me away. End blast me fell me fell out well out
of your system.
 BLITZ

Emotions fog/the photograph/and inscriptions/litter the

flip/side with detail.//Moments compose/themselves in
the/retelling, in/flashes of fresh/revelation.//In light
pressing/the present so/deeply into/the past that
old/images blink.

BODY HOLY

jesus christ almighty...ever dead emanating...and your

faithful buddies...never let us forget...let us reread the
world...from this vast institution...noting every
wrinkle...every last drop of your blood...nails pounding
deeper down

BODY OF WORK

In light of your life. Your body of work. Your string of

accomplishments. We¶re proud to state. That we may now.
Safely. Surely. Inexorably. Delete you. In the frame
that you built. Halls where you walked. Semen you
spilled. Your mission is done. And now you may calmly.
Dissolve. So in the cool of the night, we will happily.
Rejoin you.

BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON

A know-it-all jerk/and certified slob/who looked down his

nose/on the mob.

BOTH SOMEPLACE

We are someplace both/slippery and so warm, between/late

evening, far dawn.

BREADJUDGING

Nutrients return to the/air their aroma and to/the earth

its crust of fire and/fused carbohydrate strata.//The
crease in the crown is where/we cleave our portion: you
to/your cherished half-sandwich, mine/to immediate
feasting.//One to white temptation. One/to the hole in the
ground through/which we squat and fervently/invite
annihilation.

BROTHERS AND BOTHERS

 Boys bruising will face/my fists. It's the girls for
whom/I've no solution.//Those little tangles/they left
dangling and statements/still unretracted.//All the tales
told or/where I'm concerned maybe they/never bothered.

BUCK

Kick me for saying. But could we. All. Get all buck
naked tonight. And. Could you all. Kindly undress me.

BULLETFORCE

This puny pack of/powder, lit in a pistol¶s/grip, reeks of

power.

BUSY

Not that you asked but/here¶s what I¶m doing when I¶m/not
doing nothing.

BUT

Kobielus:/But you get to the point/where you validate a

source,/an authority,/and you stick with that
person,/provisionally,/conditionally,/and that person
filters the buzz until such time/as that person's
filters/prove dysfunctional./Then you find another/source.

BUTT HOLLOW

Into the mountain. Slipping down gravity's slide. Seeking

the point of eternal resistance. Where the weight of the
world is under my foot. Light stepping lovely. Into the
hollow of flowers and birds.

BY JULY

..having half a year/replenished...i'm nowhere...my/lawn

chair...vacation..

CALCULATION

Open borders are/dominions liquid as/calculation.//Common

currencies/cross land to land as hands pass/contagion.//The
path of a sneeze/is everywhere open to/opportunity.
 CALIFORNIA CONCESSION 1962

We wouldn't have Nixon/to kick around/but he bounced right

back/and we slapped him down.

CAMERANGLE

Here¶s me all stressed out. Shower, good sleep, next

morning. Here¶s me all horny.

CARBON FOURTEEN

Take this. It will mark the day you fell. May you rot in
your grave and go on forever. Exhale every breath you
drew, all the radiant blue, and the winds that stained you
golden. Let them go and dwell in realms subatomic.

CARL SAGAN

All that ever was will be now, so beautiful looking, toward

this dot from afar, receding the probe, opened its shutter,
captured us, no one but you to thank, our life in this
space, marveling.

CAREERS

A singer makes melodies. A teacher gives tests. A doctor

heals maladies. They all do their best. Lawyers write
contracts. Housewives shop retail. They all pay attention
to every last detail.

CARTOON LOGIC

Drifting dream. Sitting on a beam. Two cells on a shaft.

One fore, one aft. Protean complements. Sunday
supplements. Brisk and happy beyond beyond belief, I take
me in and what a relief. Every room well maintained.
Every splash of blue contained within the lines. Rushing,
shifting. Take me deep and go on drifting.

CARVED RIGHT IN THE BRICK

In a failing hotel. I'll be that one redeeming exterior

wall. Gouged ornamental armies. Vaguely Asian.

CATASTROPHE¶S APOSTROPHE
 Do without. I love/my light but could live//with darkened
hallways/and dimmer living//quarters. The current/recedes.
The quiet//and anxiety/are insomnia://3am¶s summons/to rise
up and stay//risen. Pace it out./They¶re here: The
Dreamtime//Australians. They/act in movies. They//helped
Nicole Kidman/wrestle a stubborn//continent for
small/symbolic boon. Pace//it post-Africa:/Forty thousand
years//times twenty-five miles/a day on foot means//they
could have made it/to Jupiter or//twice the Sun and
back./Ancient as they need//be. Meet and mettle/companions
for a//traveling. Our first/to orient. Fit//for boomerang
treks/upon lost plains of//dun and trackless
black/illumination.

CENTER OF CONVENTIONS EXHIBITIONS CONFERENCES AND

EXPOSITIONS

High ceiling. A day/before booths are built and some/of the

comers come.//Facility. A/concrete plain, a room swept,
kept/on ready¶s near edge.//Walker walks. The guards/regard
the span of several/leveled city blocks.

CENTER OF PAIN

Something. I can see the whole world fall away and there
nothing but this pain. This morning I could feel the
sheets rustling the leaves shaking but still this pain.
Tonight I can relax and dwell in gray wet cloudy and fold
my pain into nothing. Nothing.

CHARACTER

Character is caricature./It exaggerates, and

becomes./Becoming your blunt summation/in the act of
unbecoming.

CHARLES SCHULZ¶ ³KIDS´

I//Stupid cartoonists/and stupid Lucy, griping/at a starry

sky.//Nobody really/thinks your wee anxieties/are this
fussworthy.//Or that your little/life, daily composure,
will/somehow shrink the night.//II//Oh, brother! Only/an
only child could have this/big a moony head.//Sally surely
was/adopted and Charlie Brown/knows it but won¶t
tell.//This independent/blonde girl barely registers/on his
self-regard.//III//In their fifty-year/childhood, Sparky
never got/past the first eighteen.//Snoopy¶s teargassing/at
 the Daisy Hill Puppy/Farm--sharkjump?--discuss!//Or
introducing/Franklin, a black character/who was simply
black?//IV//What was funnier:/the round head kid¶s
frustrations/or beagle¶s fancies?//Lucy¶s little
bro/contemplating his blanket/and smoking his thumb?//The
German-surnamed/pianist¶s love-resisting/monomania?//V//My
priest pulpited/upon the Peanuts phenom/and divorce,
Sparky¶s.//Humor is waning/lately: the implication,/sin,
the wages: duh!//The man¶s overworked,/I thought, raising
two sets of/kids can hammer you.//VI//Joyce was
certainly/his muse, unacknowledged, his/Norse Alice
Kramden.//Unbarren. Bestowed/him a girl, then a Linus/and a
few Reruns.//Settled an estate/around this milquetoast of
a/one-man industry.//VII//Crisp lettering, bold/silence,
warm meditations/on the most minute.//Schulz was sad and
fused/his autobiography/into every frame.//So we were
treated/to his affair and breakup/through chatty
Snoopy.//VIII//Google Earth clearly/shows Sparky and
Snoopy¶s home/ice and tennis court.//Googling the Moon
shows/the Sea of Tranquility,/where boy and dog
roamed.//Beyond that the Star/of Bethlehem, which
Linus/mentioned on TV.//IX//Throughout an
anxious/childhood, real children¶s voices/skated in your
rink.//Real psychiatric/kids, inked and lined in pain
and/shades of awareness.//Likely as Shermy/to grace an old
friend with an/o-how-i-hate-him.//X//Sit and draw. All
you/ever do is sit in this/stupid room and
draw!//(Silence). (Silence). (More/silence). Well? What do
you have/to say for yourself?//(More silence) (No
eye/contact). (Rapt concentration)./(Scribble, scribble).
³Sigh!´

CHARMIC CIRCLE

Keep as pet an/animal of/regal mien, an/eagle in

its/natural state.//Give that bird an/opening, an/opportune
and/delicious chance.//Bear it away/until its day/returns
and the/nest again is/empty.

CHAT

Here's where protocols/fail and logs show no/network

present. Where/chitter-chatter blooms/and anti-
matter/resumes its steady/consumption of the/conversation's
ghost/and containing frame.

CHEMICAL WATER
We search the/sheen of the grass.//We know the gleam on the
blade/is the blood of all creation.//We see landscapes
softened./Snowflakes/sweet upon planetary dreams.//We place
faith in the oasis./And in rivers/through parched
interstellar.//Doped with trace amounts/in vast arrays,
mites teeming,/we know that worlds/can flourish.

CHICKAHOMINY

This field of fragrant tobacco./A scar rubbed smooth with

age./A sky shorn of clouds./A pleasant amnesia./Powhatan¶s
united confederacy/Witnessed foreign colonization/And their
own unceremonious/Dissolution./I feel not the/Confederate
gunshot that laid low/My Alsatian-born/Great-
grandfather/Hobbled him/And hastened his return
to/Michigan¶s anvil./The cosmopolitan core has drawn me
back/Toward a sky shorn clean of clouds/Toward sunken
valleys/Floodplains/And one-legged birds/Balancing/As they
had in the age of Christ/Before we came and/Thought to call
this land/Virginia.

CHICKEN DINNERS

Dawn¶s a noodle soup. Noon brings a platter of breasts.

Love that leggy dark.

CHILD WITH BUBBLE

Teeth and tongue your permanent words girl. Take the air
right out of these lungs.

CHURCHGOING

Material as/heavy as religion kills/in the

aggregate.//Please pardon me for/preferring the cool air
in/empty cathedrals.//An enormous room./My solitary breath.
The/infinite echo.

CIRCUMSPECT

Perched on a platform, speaking alone, quivering,

shivering, frozen in stone. Eyes in the skies burn fast on
my face. Eyes in my head go swimming in space. Find me a
refuge. Get me a chair. Give me a clue what to say.

CLEFT
 Was/the first and very/last teenager,/ugly as
creation/suffered me/to be.//More likely/to catch skin/with
blade/than a lure a girl/with my scraped-away face.//Would
watch them come/And feel the blood fill/the cleft in my
chin.

CLICK

metaphor, measure, resonance, mood.../the mechanics of

language.../an irreducible word

CLICK HERE

Click here and breathe deep. Wait for crazy rhythm kick.
Pray it won¶t crash down.

CLIP

Shadow of a high/plane crossed my car's path/and vanished.

A false/moon. A crisp eclipse.

CLOCK

Still from "Cessation":/Jean-Luc's frame-by-

frame//examination/of teeth entering//holes with
precisely/enough clockwise turn//to advance the film/one
solitary//tick and tension in/a tough medium//to click this
reel of/frozen times forward.

CLOT

Clear sky and mind of/night, of drip-drop/clouds and

chatter, of/ruptured moons and/thought balloons that
swell/of ancient pressure.

CLOUDS A POND

Lightning's anger's a/flipped switch, a live fish//hooked

and hurting, a/line of livid grip,//a hand that
tautly/tests the filament//for evidence of/resistance
waning.

COLD CALL

Hello. Hello I¶m calling. Hello I¶m calling to sell you

knives that you someday may need. Hello I¶m calling to
 sell you knives that you someday may need for family
friends and gentleman callers. Hello.

COMMENT

Deaden the anger with air/and a prayer for

forgiveness.//Live it through. A sore outlasts/its
irritant: a pain, the//point. A rash word holds the hurt/in
the firmament of the//world¶s regard. Curse: a
comet/impressed into flesh¶s fate,//a stone with a name, a
mark/and a flame returning. Leave//these currents burn. Let
the night/reset what day has torn. Pray//it take this weary
frame. Void/me now in the calm to come.

COMMOD

Everybody exaggerates how they found the diamond in the

field Zebras what with constructive interference will melt
corneas Packaging for there are few explorers I have
trouble scanning my industry for more than then and them
the expert, me, you suppose Telecomunications with its
commerical imperatives Innermost protocols, I¶d like to see
who caught misspellings in the previous Life I like you
leading me with your format I like your wrap Key, my key¶s
edge under the film with headers and trailers and payload.

COMMON ERA

The world weathers wars./One hundred generations/have

perished post-Christ.

COMPLEX

Event clouds, tag clouds²/the buzz, the behaviors of/bots

busy as gnats.

COMPRESSION

This verse it thrives in chains. Constraints suggest

options. Compression expressions. Finetunifications.

CONCENTRATIONS OF INDUSTRY

Know that you are borne. My son the clamp man. Will
extract you from this conveyance. And notify someone. Who
will take the time. To mend and receive. While another.
Identifies.
 CONTAINED

Sit amid walling,/the ceiling, the flooring, the/shut and

drawn drapery.//This the air you'll breathe,/the humidity
your lungs/will, through living, swell.//Like any
earthbound/structure, you're set--braced against/the
rattling strata.

CONTENT

Information is indifferent/to its bondage status.//Like the

kept cat,/it is mobile/and neither/slave
nor/free.//Continually fed and freshened,/it
remains//contained.

CONTROLLER

Rename the domain,/then reboot every machine/to show them

who's boss.

CONCEPT OF FANGS

A carrier for chili peppers and their pedigrees of fire/we

anticipate and downgrade the pain from flaming to
digestable/and, once the swelling subsides, easily
distinguished from conceits of the flesh/and the concept of
fangs in a summertime sauce.

CONTINUOUS RELAXING FAVORITES

Where would one classify the master of all Burt Bacharach?

Who I'm sure must have massaged Dionne Warwick before the
mike switched on. Or at least twinkled those eyes, poured
her a martini, and shared a wee dirty joke. How best to
tease an open throat? Like the handsome photographer who
brings out the beautiful smile. When the lady sings a
gentleman's song. When the gentleman accompanies. The
studio softens. They light up the mixing board. One May
afternoon.

CORK

Don't let the year end/with joyous remembrance. That/might

bring us to tears.//Don't let the same thought/cycle
endlessly. That would/seal eternity.//Don't resolve it
at/all. Let events wear on. Let/the year be gone. Yet.
 COUNTERVAILING FRIENDSHIP

So this stress be all mine. No one here to relieve me. No

one taking my pulse. Or sharing some time. So the burden
is mine. No one shining my apple. No one admiring my
manhood. Or completing this rhyme.

CREAMY CUNT ZERO

You dream you divide/infinity tickling your/creamy cunt

zero.

CRITICS CELEBRATE

Take what helps you eat. Stay tuned for what helps your
art. Hope they buy and buy. If they hate, hope they say
why.

CRUNCHY ANALYTIC

Thought is optional./Have to have hands to grasp and/tear

the text to bits.//Pulp's preferable./Its immolation is
a/blazing face of fire.//An unlocking of/energies that only
hard/tedium can free.

CUMULONIMBUS

Our scattering sun/deepens the blue and

graying/cumulonimbus.//The shuddering sea/takes shape in a
stalk of fresh/energy building.//A vast and waiting/mast of
the wild wave¶s sweep and/white light¶s shattering.

CURSOR

I push my mouse down/screen. I whisk my curling stone//over

the clickspot.

CUSS

Clapping hurts my hands/and ears. Hurts my heart//to pile

plaudits on/the overhonored.//Gives repetitive/stress.
Ouch. The crunch of//muscles. The steady/press on tendons.
The//clank and rattle of/tin hallelujahs//and more
undeserved/medals. These cussed//buzzing huzzahs of/rote
percussive praise.//These thundering hand/farts of
squeezed-out air//and deafening drum/rolls of idle prayer.
 DARK

Planes fall through layered air. Dissolve as in a fluid.

Rematerialize. Draping darkness where once they were
bound.

DAY

Cherish your very routine/and each new rhythm

within,//every overcast morning/that may or may not clear
while//you sit witnessing. Sip and/calmly watch the traffic
stress//your connection. Music starts/and fits the mood and
mode of//adaptation. The cat will/nestle where it¶s
warmest, the//paper where you dropped to sleep./Consider
the fate of the//mammal, the tall mastodon/grooming its
prehistoric//slope. The mortals note, go on/plotting their
approach, not quite//realizing all the world¶s/blossoms lie
in wait today.

DAY GIVES WAY TO SPACE

When you block the sun/you smear the universe¶s/color all

over.

DAY WILL COME

Day will come, I know, when we see clear through. Each

other¶s faults, though still there, will fade, uhhh fade.
Away with false expectations, selfish needs, projected we
have. To complete ourselves in the bed chamber, daily
habits of a compliant partner. Having no desire to
extinguish, relinquish, her himself, no matter how deeply,
how completely devoted, determined. Willing to make mid-
life course corrections to please who, this other. In lieu
of major character surgery, protecting what renders one,
engenders one. Special, and worthy of your love dear.
However much it may also drive you insane, you think.
Hastening the day, what day, when death do us part.

DEADLY SERIOUS

That bright field. An incredible sun. Red lips bursting

from a face on fire. They were the girl with the freckles.
Or the Arabic beauty. Or a fragment of me. Deadly
serious. Flesh in my dreams. Seventeen.
 DEAR AND DREAR

We cannot escape together into some hygienic planet.

Mom knows all this, coughing while she transforms the house
into an ark where the sun sets earlier than the children
might like, an ocean of soup surrounds, televisions
tell of worlds temporarily suspended, momentarily,
Novemberly, captivated in a burble of hot, bubbling
bathwater and a syrupy semblance of electronic normality.

DEARIE

Never to worry the train be delayed. Coffee is hot and

dawning sun frosty. Next terminal stop twenty-five miles,
damp old gazette, and a woman called "Dearie." As they
raise her, the maintenance crew pull a mop, a cloth, and a
radio handset.

DECADE DECAYED

Server reports that the world you knew no longer exists.

Suggest you abandon all prior formats and base your new
life on the grooves we supply. Should you try to recover
we'll degrade your past beyond all recognition. So sorry
to tell you. Over and out.

DECEMBER

Time turns blue and soft/like the lights we string/or those

same old songs/everybody sings.

DENOMINATION

Find me a hallelujah/chorus, presumptive

brethren//generalizing every/blessed snit into armor//of
shiny shiny hip and/handy gestures in defense//of
intangible flesh and/common demonization.

DEPLANING

One flight too many. Every country looks like this. Grids
of green and brown.

DEPLETIONARY STAKES

Among elements/humanity¶s hope may well/be

molybdenum.//Upon this orb we¶ll/scratch it out or,
 resourceful,/maybe mine the moon.//Scout it. Blast that
ore./As we¶ve done petroleum/and uranium.

DER

Harder the copy/the more durable the life/enclouded within.

DID IT

Katy waits/seventeen/her turn to scream/once.

DIEM

New: a knock/nocturnal/upon the/door of day.//Dawn: a

fresh/swing of the/arc sweeps the/dark away.//Noon: throne
of/sturdy sun/strokes mercy/for no one.//Down: the day/and
colors/run, blood to/black and dun.//End: the seam,/resume
the/dream of days/and worlds won.

DINNER WAS GOOD

Had you on my plate alone last night. Had you when your
time was very right. Had you melting in my sights. Dinner
was good and I want you again. Good to feel your gentle
touch. Good I dealt your tender cut. Good to spill your
maiden blood. Dinner was good and I want you again.
Another kiss is all I ask. Another plush is all I ask.
Another night upon you all I ask. Dinner was good and I
want you again. Take this flame inside you when you leave
my love. May it seal the wound I opened up. May the cream
of goodness fill you up. Dinner was good and I want you
again.

DISTRACT ONS

My wife lies in peace/two hours after my snoring/itself

took a rest.//Urgencies billow/in my bowels. Gnats lay eggs
in/between my ears. On the nightstand my glasses grime.//We
have our turmoils./An erection forms. I will/feign
paralysis.

DOCTOR PEPPER

Caffeine kickstart pop. Bit spicier than cola. Feels just

like Texas.

DOCTORS FINE HOWARD HOWARD HOWARD BESSER DE RITA

 We're all nasty shits. Poke your eyes, you cross me bud.
Kill one stooge, others keep coming, threatening, duck.
How'd the fancy dame know to look up just before the pie
smacked her in the puss? How'd Curly survive all those
spikes in his eyeballs? Lower east side of hell bred.
Screen buddy murderers.

DOG

Sheepdogs shear the air/with their bark, prepare//the

perimeter/beyond which white flocks//never tend,
inside/which grow whole bubble//edens, clusters of/friends
and familiar//foe to guide us by,/pastures that glide
and//deliver us back/miraculous yields.

DOGGED

Live longing the woman. When she just stands there. Back
turned your way. It¶s that time.

DOMESTICATED ANIMALS CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO

CIVILIZATION AND THE ARTS

Dogs the man-warped freaks the likes of which no self-

respecting wolf would ever sniff were there convenient
alternatives laid out the way God designed. Ornery ocelots
curled on couches. Mammoths stalked over quaternary
cliffs. Eagles without affiliation. Steaming pigs
trotting out to greet us. Time the horse threw me.
Innocent macaw and her stuttering perch. Cats and chimps
who stare right back, awaiting provocation.

DON¶T

Dreams don¶t tolerate/waking prematurely or/tossing out of

turn.//Nights interrupted/by the tremor of
daylight¶s/unfinished business.//These sessions of
light/and airy disconnection/flung into darkness.

DOWNMARKET

Proud I¶m to be part of your august liquidation. Hastened

this day by keeping away. And thousands more like me we
kept your aisles quiet. Your shopping carts empty. Your
parking lot barren. So the time had to come when we¶d help
you tear down. Queue back in with vengeance, tear through
 all the shelves. Let our children run crazy while we busy
ourselves. Grab this shirt, those shoes, should roughly
they fit. Pull these toys, those tools, any good shit.
Scatter jewelry like shrapnel, boxes like trash. Case the
joint thoroughly. We¶re all going fast. Find odd works of
beauty in the gathering debris. Small chunks of value in
the discounting spree. But not cheap enough in most cases
we found. And not nice enough to endure salesclerk frowns.
So we¶ll pass on this last chance unless you keep marking
down.

DRENCH

Could rain fall as snow/and in flight form a bow

of/crystalline color.//Leaves would float as light/and
diffuse the heavenly/silence of autumn.//Jumble the
remains/of drifting summer. Soak and/drench the memory.

DRINK MY DRINK

Schnapps upon my better self. Even your lips look redder.

Vodka for my liberties. Now drink and dwell forever.
Drink and dwell forever.

DRUNK WITH WOMAN IN LAP

Live. We will live. Will live long enough to lose it.

More. More. More like these children. More like the ones
we have come to resemble. Who somehow. Your tongue in my
ear. Who somehow we have managed to mortify. Morally.

DUD

After the fact of vasectomy. The mind reels. And the

organ just unfurls.

DUE

Your wheels will move. Your/cars will still move and//work.

Your keys will sweep/their arcs and spark the//plugs. The
snow is down/but the sun is up//and your feet will find/the
gas. The roads are//thick with your kind and/mine but will
still pass//us through in due time./The jam will just
grow//if we all sit and/wait for the end of//the snow. So
why do/you stall? Go. Just go.

DWIGHT DAVID EISENHOWER SCHIDT

 Dwayne Duayne D'wayne D'Wayne Duwayne Doowayne Douayne
Dwayn Duayn D'wayn D'Wayn Duwayn Doowayn Douayn Dwain Duain
D'wain D'Wain Duwain Doowain Douain Dwaine Duaine D'waine
D'Waine Duwaine Doowaine Douaine Dwaign Duaign D'waign
D'Waign Duwaign Doowaign Douaign Dwaigne Duaigne D'waigne
D'Waigne Duwaigne Doowaigne Douaigne Dwajn Duajn D'wajn
D'Wajn Duwajn Doowajn Douajn Dwajne Duajne D'wajne D'Wajne
Duwajne Doowajne Douajne Dwejn Duejn D'wejn D'Wejn Duwejn
Doowejn Douejn Dwejne Duejne D'wejne D'Wejne Duwejne
Doowejne Douejne Dwein Duein D'wein D'Wein Duwein Doowein
Douein Dweine Dueine D'weine D'Weine Duweine Dooweine
Doueine Dwegn Duegn D'wegn D'Wegn Duwegn Doowegn Douegn
Dwagn Duagn D'wagn D'Wagn Duwagn Doowagn Douagn Dwaen Duaen
D'waen D'Waen Duwaen Doowaen Douaen Dwane Duane D'wane
D'Wane Duwane Doowane Douane Dweighn Dueighn D'weighn
D'Weighn Duweighn Dooweighn Doueighn Dweighne Dueighne
D'weighne D'Weighne Duweighne Dooweighne Doueighne Dweign
Dueign D'weign D'Weign Duweign Dooweign Doueign

ECCLESIASTES

Time for reversals./For every earthly purpose /blessed or

accursed.

E COLI

Heavily into my plumbing. Urp, another chemical feast.

Many billions of them churning. Alive since the good earth
was born. Never quite sated, they'll eat me. Gurgle,
boop, what's eating them now? Up three days straight, milk
ice cream beer. Talk to them, see what good it does.

EDGE OF DESPERATION

When all the world was fifties TV. Black and white and
dipped in wax. Just an ill-fitting suit on a fake-looking
set. Just a middle-aged crewcut with uranium teeth. Just
a horn-rimmed response to a witless remark. Just a sweet
nothing wife and her geranium world. Just a wacky old
neighbor with a dark secret life. Just perpetual gloom and
a shelter off-stage. Just high hopes and no hope and no
rock and roll.

EDITOR
 They read behind and find the weeds there./They read for
sense and densely vet it./They ready text for the real
reader,/shaping it up, eschewing credit.

EIGHT LIMO WINDOWS

Suzanne Somers or some poetic blond ingenue blowing kisses

toward Ron Howard transitioning to adulthood behind the
camera where Jodie Foster somehow outgrew the tomboy shook
off Bill Bixby¶s illicit affair with the ghost of Liv Tyler
filtering heroin out of blood with a pad purchased from
Charlie Sheen who never displays any of the liberal
Catholic angst but the big cock waiting to be sucked by
Audrey Hepburn so slim European never groping for words
tripping hand in hand down Jack Lemmon mumbling changing a
flat flagging down friends on the Pacific Coast Highway.

EMBALM

Spirit is second-/hand balm, recycled mist of/communal

refresh.//Spent energy is/the release of pent-up breath/and
remembered hurt.//The exhalation/returns the body to
its/natural blackout.

EMBRACES

Father embraces the/beautiful woman his wife/had with a

rapist.//Father and mother¶s/daughter are as close as
a/father and daughter.//Father sees in his/daughter the
woman a man/would want in a wife.

EMC2

Take matter and factor/in light's second power/then stand

back and ask if/it's fungus or flower.

END

Sky flick a single flash of/blaze and black then back say
God.//Pow come the flowers of our/natural friend without
end.//A solid stroboscopic/hour of indeterminate//when.

END, DECADE!

Regret is retro./It invites regression to/

 the beginning. Don¶t//chase the predictive/path,
algorithmic dendrites/of futurity.//Suspect you've been
led/to this conclusion: Time's a/twisted spectacle.

END OF FATE

Between the horny/hornet sting and the/bee¶s wee prick I¶ve

dressed/with ghosts this nest in/the bush of my life/and
secreted well/the runny honey/of endoplasmic/jimsplat,
crowning the/crowded comb of my/bristling midsection.//On
this the august/fifth day in the fifth/decade of the
borne/incarnation, one/rubs the ten-year bump/and accepts
the red/flesh as evidence/of infestation.//On this the day
my/ten-year suite of fate/and fornication/is nearly
complete.

END OF MARCH

In luxurious gloom./In carbonated rain./The lamb stands

shivering./Shakes the/remains of/her late last/wintering.

ENGLAND

Her shy regal demeanor England seems somehow fitting As a

beachhead a moor a hillock a hollow perhaps a bit over the
edge in love with its scrapbook dear mother Tongue and all
that those resonating historic cavities Her fresh
lamentations on ancient wounds and the present fray her
near not really mirror an Equally beautiful sister who as
they divide see the midoceanic Ridge widen ever so slightly
and the billowing deep just a wee bit broadened.

ENGODDED

Enthusiasms/are insubstantial unless/reciprocated.//Alone I

await/you my inexhaustible/reincarnation.//Hallucinating/or
anticipating our/nonconsummation.

ENYA

Upon this Earth few/mortals have experienced/such

exaltation.//Enya's been here. She/and her mighty massed
choir of/echoing Enyas.//Hark the herald cloud/of choral
bliss. All those sweet/Enyas in Heaven!

EPITAPH
 Here lies Jim/His soul to save/Still within/The fated
grave.

EQUATIONS

Some learn to love this truth-dwelling machinery Values

slipping dimensions Notations arbitrarily Caricature laws
of the warp Or the artisan¶s knife Let x drop anchor Bound
the realm so that time appears to begin Where the conic
projection Casts shadows on one sector of the known
universe And assume that each subsequent transformation
Associating known elements with those merely assumed Never
violating symmetry Generates forms far darker Than one
would suppose.

EURASIA

Enveloping earth. Under no one master race. Rich in

history catastrophe and life. Embrace your many households
clans tribes camps and faithful friends across the
landmass. Untap your integrated organic genie. Return to
all their treasures. Accept the sorrow. Shed a tear and
plow the fields. In the next phase the earth will rain
lava and light. All the fissures will join into one big
rift valley astride Lake Baikal. Supercontinent will no
more exist for us. In its midst brand new ocean. And
brand new coastlines.

EVERTREE

Mark the cropped oasis is fur/ther cropped on the

photographer's/approach by the fortuitous/assault of an
upside-down edge/water spewing rocks or rubbish/who cares
into the gradient/blue over boughs that either
stand/robust-orange or beset-dunes.

EX

Read and realize/how I'm holding you//here and the page

marked/for our returning.//Scan these lines for
the/confidential breath//of only your name/and only our
time//and only one thought/duly sequestered.//The sweet and
sorry/interpretations//we've hashed to death and/encrypted
within.

EXPLOSAIC
 Panopticon. Pages galorious. Plastered everywhere.
Printout port, personal portals, private platforms.
Panaudicon. People I¶ll know, never know. Places I¶ll go,
never go. Projecting presence. Pull them down, me in.
Pages explorious perseverious. Pantacticon.

EXPOSURE

Forgot my keys/right after you/offered me yours: your

van,/your space, a parking/opportunity. Yes./I did sense:
the/traffic, our surroundings, an approaching/old lady cop.

EYESORE FILLING STATION

The road remains vital. Only management has withered. It

started I think with the crack in the pavement, pushed up
by old tree roots, causing an increasingly irritating bump
when you pull in at normal speed. Then there was the
letter that didn¶t light in the road sign, took months for
them to notice and replace the dead tubes, resulting in the
inevitable rumors of business trouble. Then the gas pumps
increasingly rejected our perfectly OK credit cards, or
when they did accept them refused to print receipts,
increasing the hassle factor. The stickup in September,
one attendant slightly wounded, didn¶t help the situation,
nor has the generally grumpy demeanor of every anonymous
schmoe they stick in that plastic birdcage. The rise in
gas prices is not their fault, but they¶ve done nothing to
ease the pain. No gimmicky contests. No specials on
orange soda. No cute high school girls flagging us down
for Saturday car washes. Nothing. Haven¶t remodeled the
shack in ages. Hell, they don¶t even mop the floor in the
mini-mart anymore it seems. And the gas smells terrible.
But I guess they can¶t do anything about that either.

FACET

Mirrors and mynah/birds remind us appearance/and hearing

are it.//Are as much us as/mind and the id and all
that/vain superstructure.//Much as the compound/eye our
inner insect trains/on its abdomen.

FALLING SONNET

I/Comedy is all/banana slippage.//Tragedy is trapped/in

bodies that are//forever falling,/never quite
finding//their footing. Walk a/mile in a clown¶s
 shoes,//you¶ll know what Bozo/goes through, but not
so//Pozzo. Even an/unlucky bastard//can presume
descent/from a long line of//long lines. Too narrow/a
furrow to toe.//Sun a midday moon/raking truculence.//The
Moon resumes its/tragic flatulence.//Comedy is a/coma.
Tragedy//is a crack, a tout/le monde with
trembling//hemispherics, a/slippery sole and//a hole daring
to/keep us from footing.//II//Comedy is all banana
slippage./Tragedy is trapped in bodies that are//forever
falling, never quite finding/their footing. Walk a mile in
a clown¶s shoes,//you¶ll know what Bozo goes through, but
not so/Pozzo. Even an unlucky bastard//can presume descent
from a long line of/long lines. Too narrow a furrow to
toe.//Sun a midday moon raking truculence./The Moon resumes
its tragic flatulence.//Comedy is a coma. Tragedy/is a
crack, a tout le monde with trembling//hemispherics, a
slippery sole and/a hole daring to keep us from
footing.//III//Comedy is all banana slippage./Tragedy is
trapped in bodies that are/forever falling, never quite
finding/their footing. Walk a mile in a clown¶s
shoes,/you¶ll know what Bozo goes through, but not
so/Pozzo. Even an unlucky bastard/can presume descent from
a long line of/long lines. Too narrow a furrow to toe./Sun
a midday moon raking truculence./The Moon resumes its
tragic flatulence./Comedy is a coma. Tragedy/is a crack, a
tout le monde with trembling/hemispherics, a slippery sole
and/a hole daring to keep us from footing.//IV//Comedy is
all banana slippage. Tragedy is trapped in bodies that are
forever falling, never quite finding their footing. Walk a
mile in a clown¶s shoes, you¶ll know what Bozo goes
through, but not so Pozzo. Even an unlucky bastard can
presume descent from a long line of long lines. Too narrow
a furrow to toe. Sun a midday moon raking truculence. The
Moon resumes its tragic flatulence. Comedy is a coma.
Tragedy is a crack, a tout le monde with trembling
hemispherics, a slippery sole and a hole daring to keep us
from footing.

FAR BE IT

Glad for the world and all its valleys No satellite can
ever spy Nor mapmaker render Every face on every street Or
every view From every room.

FATHERBOY
 July finds you free. August racing summer¶s end.
September buckle down knit brow like old man Bill. October
leaf and book piles. November shirt tents.

FAUX AMERICANS

in and out of vogue/we pass witnessing/a world's/gottas and

gonnas/wedged/between opposing/oceans only as real/as you
yourselves/will/we/meet/and make an effort/midway between
poles/of pulsing hemispheres.

FEASIBILITY OF ADAPTIVE ARRAYS

Trained to receive, every fiber of me, every facet of you.

Unimpeded, one path, one singular path, through crowded
sensations. Recognizing our kind. Now turning away.
Trying to receive, every moment of time, every flicker of
thought and soft emanation. Unobstructed, then blocked,
then scattered through layers, accidental relations.
Recollecting our mind. Now turning away. True to my
thoughts, we're moving in tandem. Unawares, we're speaking
the language of light. Reconstructing our world through
massive obstruction. Now moving closer, now turning away.

FEMININITY

Woman there you go. Competing with me again. Two can play
at this.

FIELD OF FRESH

A passing resemblance to God. Was pressed in a field of

fresh mud. Some think it mad. Some call it splendid.
Seeing the image at home in a clod.

FIFTY

i'm..time...in its blunt/beneficence...has

granted/jim...continuance.//fine...as a finite/analyst can
be...parsing/his...half-century.//thanks...i'll take the
cake/and mind my sun...counting on/candle fifty-one.

FIGURE OF FUN

will I be friendless/till the end of days//someone no one

said/they knew truly or well//a face in a yearbook/no
stories to tell//a nice enough guy/is all they remember//a
 sweet enough guy/was nobody's chum//recalled, if at all,
as/a figure of fun.

FINAL DAY

Though the end expected/has not yet come/our nature

shelters/and sustains the guns/and the wings that guide
them/with the people's blessings/on the final day/to their
destinations.//When the word comes down/to stop
rehearsing/and the world splits brightly/there'll be no
reversal/of the fate we'll face on that final day://A flash
in the cosmos./A smudge on the clay.

FIND ME

Ha ha. Thought you could find me. Thought you could pluck
a clear channel out of the darkness. Thought this
radiation was just a backdrop. Don't you see? I'm spread
out stretched out strung out thinner and wider and lighter
than you'll ever resolve.

FINE JUST FINE

Morning gory smile. Spring sun glares my computer. Screen

saver goes black.

FIT

These my shoes/have soles grown/holey from/overuse.//The

laces/are too long/from tugging/and I trip.//But we fit//I
avoid/puddles and/tripleknot.

FLEUR DE FAUX SEXUAL ECSTASY

Where were they when the noise started? The first worm
gets snapped early. Paste can cleanse the most dirty
brass. Fill the ink jar with sticky glue. The houses are
built of red clay bricks. The paper box is full of thumb
tacks. He smokes a big pipe with strong contents. The
slang word for raw whisky is booze.

FLICK

everything teeters/the universe reels/woofers &

tweeters/undoing the deals

FLOWERING
 In embarrassment pleasure. Petals fall and I'm red and
flush. Nectar wells and you rush to embrace me. The sun
shines round and the whole world knows. So we stand there
naked. Astonished.

FOND PHENOM

Little lost star on the World Wide Web, logged on just to

find you, be you dormant or dead, or lighting a site all
your own, caught you out there, on the altars, unauthorized
fans, now possessing, fondly have brought you to bed.

FORTY-FOUR

Keep having birthdays/and conceptions, reasons to/live and

deliver.//Keep happy the half-/life allotted as if now/were
all and ever.//And add a candle/for every year allowed
to/lapse in memory.

FRAUGHT

Evening, an odd/day's ending, an old//calm rebalancing/the

fury of fires//the sun has set in/motion, smoothing
the//waters of ripples/its swells subside, swing//you full
into its/eternal other,//an equally fraught/moon
countervailing.

FREIGHT

From door to door a/bag will soon pass, asking for/the

customary.//I get on the bus,/go down to the job I
had/twenty years ago.//A bed a body/an imagined lover¶s
much/too real rejection.//There¶s what you say and/what
I¶ll say and what the world/will see on this tape.//When
I¶m as dry as/all this I too come off a/bit unnatural.//A
stop sign reflects/octagonal moonlight in/to a parked,
locked car.//A bird dimly grips/and imperceptibly
cracks/the branch where she hangs.//He was nice enough/to
tell no one, but you know/he probably did.//Denied access
to/the Grand Canyon, they searched for/another way
out.//Someone slipped us an/invisible little piece/of last
year¶s candy.//There are killers and/killers and some who
just won¶t/kill you right away.//A wife won¶t describe/the
stranger who raped her, though/they conceived a child.//In
a shudder I/pass this diarrhea on/back through to its
source.
 FREQ

A friend is present.//A friend responds,/frequently

frequents/whatever planet you're on.

FROID

A family is/pattern nuisance, a matter/of blood

tolerance.//As familiar as/sang and Sigmund, reproach
and/rapprochement abide.//Full of feelings rubbed/raw, once
or twice removed from/love's stealth genesis.

FROM THE GAELIC

Live as if God were/but dance as the devils would/if

perchance God weren't.

FROM THE HIP

She's a plain woman/till she turns those eyes toward/me and

plainly speaks.//She's not one to waste/the moment on
verbal frills/and affectations.//She's as direct as/the
heart would desire and God/knows how many have.

FUCK

Fuck the universe./There is no heaven outside/human

intercourse.

FUD

Oh foo./Oh fud./Oh dud./Thud./Not dot net./Do not./Fund

not./Toot not no odd font./Not fond./Not fun./Not hot.

FUMBLING

I would kiss your breasts if I could/remove your bra. I

have never/felt ecstasy as sharp as your/anxiety. I have
never/fumbled inside you, but once./If you hold still, I
will unhook/The two little teeth or big clasp/Whichever
protection you have/Chosen for the occasion.

GALL

A little of the rawness of the strangulation collar. Lots

of early-morning gall. Less society and more sunshine in
 my shorts. A tendency to scream out the jam. Let them
doubt the work. Let me rotate it slowly in my mind,
crushing the jewel into whatever prism has just as many
dimensions as existed when the singularity was point zero
zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero
one seconds into the current arc. A lot can happen when
the bladder bursts. Eyes unfocus. Little cryptic worlds
unfold.

GENTLE INCLINE DOWN

Well hold your hat, keep your butt on the seat, for it will
be a long ride down, down to the river, which leads to sea,
and our grass happy cows. Now. Why pedal, no fuss, when
gravity serves, God has given us this, this littoral plain,
for speed on His way, on His way way down? Why, oh? Now.
Why pedal, when hill, when hill¶s on our side, love the
gentle ride down. When the hill¶s on our side, there¶s
life on the coast. Wow. Now look at the cow. Wow. Just
look at the cow.

GEO

Face to face behind/pointed pistols we shake and/resume

discussions.

GERM

Easter up-we-rise,/clear of the storm just//passed, bracing

the next/collective cough, the//come-flowering at/its most
extreme, the//sun's re-assertion/of green upon gray//and
grain upon the/air's very spirit.

GESTURE EVER LARGER

Sonya scribbled spec/tacles on a whiteboard a/round the

sun's eyeballs/two teeny weeny inkspots.

GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

This weighty oration/was blessedly brief./Abe's last-minute

musing/on national grief.

GIN AND GINGER

Ginger pours/an invisible juice in a juice/down from a

glass decanter.//She shares with me/her most ingredient
secret/in a stack of ice.//My lover is careful/not to shake
sediment/too soon/up from the bottom.

GIST

So this is love. A license to live, lust, and evolve.

Cats in continual heat. Spitting and spatting. Stroking
privates. Green eyes shining in the dark.

GLORY OF GREATER GREECE

Every exile adds to wealth of the, for lack of a better

word, nation. Every island the home of a new rebellion.
And every god.

GOLDEN EAR

Aurum. Auris. Aura. Ancient music and total recall.

Every moment in continuous rotation. Young women, pregnant
scenes, and sporadic love. Cheap cars, cozy clubs, and the
pressure of unbearable volume. Weird episodes, synthetic
delights, and the artifacts of a single youth. Some
regrets. Best left unreported. Radioactive. But forever
in mind.

GOMORRAH

Every last little/human difference will/be

prosecuted/without end. Amen.

GONE

Summer¶s completely/gone, pressed into photographs/of

changing color.//But the sun still hangs,/and in our faces
the tan/of those last few days.//The nightly strains
of/light that put us in mind of/never returning.

GOOD STRAIN

And we still make love. Years after the babies came. The
screams still echo.

GORGEOUS BORED MOM

When every other role goes to a thrilling young beauty, who

in very short order ends up in the sack, with a roguish
young buck certain to run, into a hail of hot bullets, from
her architect spouse, that¶s Hollywood justice, babe.

GRACE BEFORE INTERCOURSE

Make happy this bed. Bless us woman and man. Bare our
souls and bond our flesh. Open our legs to the riot of
love. Let our rush be strong, long, and mutual.

GRACE SLICK

Famous name. Lobby face. Lowered eyes. Hair pulled back.

Deep in couch. Hands in lap. Silent voice. Still asleep.
Quick escape. Strangers know you.

GRASSY WYOMING

Cable channel thirteen. The announcer tells us and we see

hear squawkers, long-necked lofting birds, matching
wingspreads, cruising the current and gliding to rest in
grassy Wyoming.

GRAVITY

What a day²wanna/thank God for my life/so far/for/these hot

tire treads gripping ground/for/a filter passing/dark
coffee through my every/expectant cell wall/for/the hook of
a tune/I don't much like but gladly/find myself singing!

GRAVITY OF ORGASM

Climb each the other./A rock gives way. Feet slide.

Help./Free fall. Naked. We.

GREAT PUBLIC

Morphing us all. One face, a total atmospheric projection,

weighted toward universal contours, bright eyes, ready
smile, bones of distinction. One voice, nowhere native,
broadly mockable, fractured deliciously with each new
accent. One hail hello, a mindful cliche, eschewing
nuance, bonding strangers into a more perfect union. In
daily human increments.

GRIZZLE
 A few grey. My chin/stubble reveal my real age.//Winter-
flecked ivy.

GROUND OF BEING

Take another breath./Stop. Now take another. Stop./Now take

another.

GUITAR BASS VOICE DRUMS

Danced alone with the singer, slipped her in between sets.

Spoke to the leader, side by side zipping flies. Listened
in as the engineer cranked the boom on mike three. Shared
a joint with the roadie, saw the ceiling anew. Had a drink
with the drummer, fed up and unloved. Danced alone on the
sawdust.

HABEAS

Dear old friends send mail./As do incorporeal/robot

pretenders.

HAND OF ACCIDENTS AND TRAVEL

Still a saint-no-more,/the old road-patron/Mister

Christopher.//There is certain grain/in any figure of
long/gone veneration.//There fingers stroke/up kingdoms
undone.

HARDCOPY

How deeply words fail/to impress the page upon/which the

ink stains dry.

HARK THE DARKNESS

the brightest winter/solstice i've known, the snow

shone/long after sunset.

HARK THE HERALDS ANGELA

The embedded set/in their wombs though imperiled/aren¶t

heralding doom.

HARMONIC

Her urination/would/rip the

 residual/empire/and/precipitate/the/downfall and
ruination/of the/Grimaldis remaining in Monaco.

HASH AT STAR AMPERSAND FUCK

Breast pocket cellphone./Crunch dials crashing into

door./Displays fresh curse word.

HAY

Now the virus spread has spent its force. In withering

consternation. Now the long-sought hi has come and gone.
Marked off another chapter. So the hay and the high are
selective memories. Somewhere lodged in the act or the
aftermath. With one bright private accidental consequence.
Mine the sickening sloth of a bedtime neverie. Or the
infectious rhythm of an often-told ³knock knock´ joke.

HELVETIA

The ancient Swiss, those/silent soldiers, round which

the/wars of Europe swirl.//Souls of many arms/at ease,
wards of that holy/Roman discipline.//Their weapons
reduced/to a banner: criss-crossed marks/of peace upon
blood.

HER MUSIC

Sonya's silly old/fart jokes, played and sung on the/piano,

sound fresh.

HEYDAY

For the love of fame/cash and currency/in a prior,

don¶t/pity the prizefighter/or one-hit wonder.//And don¶t
grant him one/more show of public/recognition.//He¶s had
his.//Just ask him his name/when his case comes/before you
in your/capacity as/a public servant.

HIGH-RELIEF PHOENICIAN SARCOPHAGAL FRIEZE

Alexander rears,/points his spear of air into/a prone

Persian heart.//Alexander's mount,/all equine response and
white/brute alabaster.//In middle assault,/the flanked
warriors are all/nude and helmeted.

HIS STANCE
 Bat cracks. The cleanup/hitter reconsiders his/stance.
Count¶s still three-two.

HISTORICAL

Jesus lies buried/in scripture, Christ¶s cradle in/worms

and conjecture.

HOLLYWOODLAND

When the boom enters/the frame repeatedly: a/vision¶s

audition.

HOURS ALONE

Happiest rushing down old city streets. High on hamburger

fumes. Lost to the world. Delirious wobbling to any
bright store, should the clerk be a beauty and give free
herbal tea. Silly me wagging this never-stop tongue till
I'm hoarse in the throat and say something profound. When
it comes, and it will, I buy me a drink. Sit down and
crank high my radio song. Indelibly marking this place and
this day. For this time. For all time. My precious sweet
time.

HOW WE SURVIVE

Anyone who¶s ever lost a mother young knows not the void,
but the sheepishness of having one¶s childhood exposed.
Happy we were to deny their existence, prying the windows
to escape the big room. Now who can we backtalk with as
much satisfaction as the lady who cared?

HUE OF THE FONT

I harvest light from/sun and screens and smiles both/real

and imagined.//I revisit my/long lost acquaintances
and/comment on our time.//Knowing I can¶t know/the hue of
the font through which/my words spill over.

HUMORS AND TEMPERAMENTS

Chemo and cobalt/my mother endured fully/expecting to

live.//Poisons, minerals/braced the soft structures of
her/body in decline.//A laugh she would laugh/at her own
expense, shrugging/off the exhaustion.
 I

I shining One red old day's i declining.

I AM

No more or less a/man than Abraham Lincoln./He was taller,

though.

IDEOGRAM

Tidy the man/inside the/Chinese ideogram.//Steady as the

steed/figurine within/its containing pen.//Indelible/as
delicate sky/brushed over/eye and mind.//Still as the
chill/compression/of stone.

IDIO

Maybe you know some way to rid me All I can see are these
five fingers no ten and the bathroom mirror Tall order of
steam on the glass wipe it my god could that be you I would
settle for a day or two with blue eyes breasts double-x
chromosomes cast-iron virginity fending off the stares of
one guy like me Calibrate all over me gender-blind no way.

I¶D LIKE TO

Quiet room. Slipping down slacks. One simple request.

One fantasy granted.

I HAD TO MARRY THE GIRL

She had me/ditch the contacts/hide through frames

my/beautiful bachelor's face/feel a pang/should we
dine/before saying grace/cross ourselves/and bless
ourselves/sleep late Sundays/should the devil give us even
half the chance/and for that I say/I truly saw no other
way/I just had to/marry the girl.

I HEAR KAREN CARPENTER SMILING

Only someone totally at ease could croon such intimacies.

So for all we know. She could only relax on the job. She
could sing and she could drum. And when the camera pulled
back to reveal her. Performing the material Richard had
chosen. And when the camera pulled back to reveal her.
 Looking now through old footage. And when that old camera
pulled back to reveal her beating those skins. Just a
young woman, slim, smiling, attractive. And singing.

IMMEDIATE SPHERE

Nothing would love nothing better. A moment of silence

stretching well. Deep-seated social silence well into the
next century. A well in my head where I can hear the coins
drop. An end to distraction in my immediate sphere. One
child riding, another one reading. Egidia waiting. A
washing machine tumbling slowly in space.

IMMOBILE

I'm the same age/as my parents/when their fatal

conditions/set in.//I'm old enough/to recall the beautiful
world/that existed/before I was born.//All the stories
of/songs unsung/and moments immobile/in this new
youth/order.//Now I prepare to pass down/to my kids/all my
precious memories/on vinyl and cassette.

IMPOSTURE

Every position,/held, imposes its posture/on the long

poser.

IMPRIMATUR

Certitude or certification, depends on whose authority you

seek. Would that God would visit, but barring that, rely
on my own ability to apprehend the force of collective
comment. Following through and committing it to words for
the consumption of none. Impressing none. But you.

I¶M STILL MY AGE

Finally my hairline recedes. Turning out just like old

Dad. A middle-aged white man. A brood of my own.

IN A MAN SKIN

All horned and coarse, bull and bear,/thick fingernails and

facial//hair, boxy build and boxer/underwear, overstuffed
and//muscular, a man can chart/the universe, trace time
and//light to their celestial source,/master every earthly
 force,//win womankind and plumb the/depths of everything
but her.
|
IN A NEW WORLD (A THANKSGIVING POEM)

We celebrate our settlers,/people of other nations,/who

come to live here peacefully/through the stress of
immigration.//The Pilgrims were English families/from East
Anglia and Sussex/who settled four hundred years ago/in
eastern Massachusetts.//They came to a world where people
had lived/for several thousand years,/people who knew how
to hunt and to fish/and grow corn with golden
ears.//Squanto was one of the friends they made,/a native
of this land,/who taught them how to farm for themselves/in
words they could understand.//Squanto's people, the
Massasoit,/helped the English in those earlier days,/so the
settlers prepared a sumptuous feast/with the food their
friends had helped them to raise.//They gave thanks with
their friends and thanks to the world/for the harvest that
kept them alive./The Pilgrims had learned that an
immigrant's hope/are the friends that they make/who help
them to thrive/in a new world.

INAUGURAL

Presiding over the mall. Over a field of faces I¶ve never

met. Over people who know me only from my picture, the
news, or rumors. I¶d like to say thank you for pushing the
button in sufficient magnitudes to push me over the top and
up here. I¶d also like to thank my rivals for graciously
conceding defeat. Friends, the struggle¶s not over, so
much work left. Lots and lots of small details. Don¶t let
me bore you.

IN AUTUMN

My skin cracks and dries./In a shiver, I shed dead/flakes

of shallow blood.

INFLAME THE SAVIOR

Sad: I can¶t cry./Tired: I won¶t drop./Mad: I can¶t

scream./Blocked: Don¶t stop.

INFORMS
 Creation of creation/tales informs everybody's/universe:
the mystery/of histories peering back/upon the
historians:/clearing mist from the slopes of/old volcanoes
still smoking.

IN MY MILLIONTH YEAR

Will, my will finally/be done according to/my wish, not

another's/interpretations. Will/my words at last be
crawled/in the order of my/selfish deliverance./Not as
messengers for/the Lord, but mementos/of my coming. Going.

INNER LINCOLN (1997)

Majesty brooding. Swamp temple for a nation. Children of

Africa unbound your legacy. Blood war bad marriage
depression prima donna generals couldn't break you. In
death you're larger but still humble still alone. Stone
chips flake from your old walls. Darkness consumes you.

INNER LINCOLN (2009)

The original/Republican. There he sits:/bearded,

observing.//Yes, yet another/old marble giant. Tired
and/visibly aging.//Ready to retire./
Let the people complete their/
emancipation.

INRIDER

This one too. He has wormed you. In your heart long void.
He has. Come. This man too. He has grabbed you. Cross
your arm your leg. He has. Brushed. This will do. On
your lips the smear. This will do.

INSIDE

I¶ve slipped inside this/Chinese beauty so often/she¶s

second nature.

INSOMNIA

Dreamt did I that/those who dream they/too can fly

flew,/and while they do/these rapid-eyed/butterflies
could/manage to stay/aloft just long/enough for
we/sleepless slugs to/smooth the lonely/landing pads
and/steal their warm and/blessed pillows.
 INTERESTING COUPLE

Spend more time looking at their drinks than each other.

She came in first, wouldn¶t have guessed they share a bed.
We struck up the most wonderful conversation. Seems they
met in Thailand, neither of them a Thai. He contracted
some sort of disease, she took care. This little one was
born four months after they wed. She sang for a rock band
that played CBGBs. Which one, him, would you say is the
more attractive?

INTERRUP

To a cell I make. Under the first floor buried. Save the

world, my work, soda-spurting foam gushers. Cut to the
mid-day man retrieving pre-yellowed pulp, in on-street
pajamas. Older man, rocking back, remarks on a nineteen-
year-old's new maturity. Igneous, sedimentary,
metamorphic. Tripping in upon oneself. Uninterrupted.

INTERSTATES

in early january. day the appalachians eroded. there was

continental shelf but the beaches mere mud and no one had
dredged our estuary to anything approximating its original
shape. that was the day they rebuilt the interstates.
that was the day the fresh sand arrived. that was the day
the grottoes gave way. that was the day of the cold blue
sky. that was just last sunday.

IN THE HOPE OF YOUR COMPANIONSHIP

Lying in the field I grew my rose you Chinese. In my black

cotton woman¶s v-neck. Error mine from The Gap. Looked so
much better on you glad to give it up. In the hope of your
companionship. How beautifully you reclined. In the
backyard of my parents¶ home. Ending my boyhood.

IN THEIR SOCIETY

Cats comfort us each/in our respectives.//Their purrs and

murmurs/our wordless regard.//Their soft appearance/our
ready reserve.//She contemplates their/curvature and
sleep.//My mind joins in with/their hidden mischief.

IN THE N IN IN
 In the air. A storm is rain contained. A slipping trail
of gray.

IN TORRENTS

It rains unicorns/and ancestors, cats//and indolent

stock/of European//royal families,/dogs and dog-
walking//dog-walkers trained to/trail the pup and
catch//its exquisitely/precipitate poop.

INTUIT THROUGH IT

When someone passes after an all-night dialogue. When

someone passes the morning draped in silhouettes. That
someone has afternoons off and can vanish into it.

IN VIOLET

ere the invisible last bloom of the day an uninvited ray

IRR

Scars are weeks to heal./Cold sores a matter of

days./Sunburns forever.//Imprints of ancient/days out, life
indelible,/this solar tattoo.//Dust are damage. A/matter of
maintenance. All/coughing and sweeping.

IS ON A BUSH

The world of dew is/done with struggle and

awaits/evaporation.

IT

it comes when it comes,/an impulse's pulse//stirred, an

itch shivered/away, a sore spot//rough from the rubbing,/a
nervous tickle//persisting in a/stiffened urge to run//hot
scalding water/till i just can't stand.

I TAK TO PLYNIE

Zaczynamy, dopasowujemy i jakos to dziala. Czesci i bity i

krew na stronicach. Spieszymy sie, wpychamy i upychamy w
terminarzu. Plakac i plynac i nadac mu imie.

IT INDUSTRY ANALYST
 Bold sweeping anal/statements about Microsoft/sustain our
careers.//Overstuffed inbox/ponderings on the
latest/shrink-wrapped abstractions.//Disembodied
voices/powerpointing plans for/soft world domination.

JACK AND JILL

Jack and Jill went up/the hill, slipped and fell and
spilt/some blood and water.//Up Jack got and home/did trot,
where Dobb patched his nob/with love and laughter.//Jill
came in and she/did grin, was soundly smacked for/poor
Jack's disaster.

JACKSON

We got married in/Madison. Born Michigan./Not February.

JADE

I//Every pitch hits some/Differentiated and/Distinctly

sharp mark.//Typically it¶s at/Least the fact that this
vendor¶s/Lawyers nailed the name.//Undeniably/They alone in
their space are/Thusly entitled.//II//How nicely
every/Press release marks another/Milestone in their
rise.//How capital was/Amassed, plans staked firm, and
bright/Warm brains brought on board.//Now culminating/In
this major or minor/Green innovation.//III//Remind me: I¶ve
been/Around this block several times./Perhaps I¶m
jaded.//We¶ve met, haven¶t we--/Mandalay or Caesars²
or/Purely virtual?//Hard to distinguish/This present polish
from the/Glint of bygone gems.

JAKARTA

Is all a warm swarming sprawl./It's as real remembered

as/experienced, as crass and/crowded as any shining/capital,
idealized/as any concrete bog. What's/a car to this
labyrinth:/a serpent snaking itself/into impossible
slots,/an air-conditioned escape/pod to brave the squeeze of
the/unending Indonesian/welter. Go drive the hive of/brands
and goods, up the high and/mighty rises, down through
the/frayed Batavian canal-/infested old neighborhoods./It's
a mart. It's a cart. It's/a stall. It's hidden bazaars/and
holes-in-the-wall. It's the/superstore and the mega-/mall.
Broadcast prayers, dirty air./All far too far familiar.
 JAMES

I have a first name./Others may or may not use/it²but there

it is.

JAVA PLAIN

As the archipelago drifts. I sit here prehistoric. Pepsi

in hand. Fresh off the bus. Not really thinking.
Sunshine on the flats. Steaming rice. Shallow seas.
Bright smoke. Absolutely winterless. Familiar strange.
Ten thousand generations removed from this world.

JIMI HENDRIX WOODSTOCK '69 STAR SPANGLED BANNER

Mangled and flaring:/righties rightfully spat at/that

conflagration.//Flailing and flouting:/the left-brained
would gladly ban/such deconstruction://Such flapping of
the/banner feedback-streaked and wild/freak celebration.

JIM'S OAK

Fred and Flora's oak/withstood the pressure/of our presence

and/dryly took note of/human puniness.

JOYCE CAROL¶S KITES

She flies jellyfish/In their natural membranes/But billowed

with air.//She doesn¶t bother/Them to wake. Their sheets
she flaps/In morning¶s currents.//One clothespin per
pet./Clipping them down one by one/Along the coastline.

JUST US

There will be no peace till I/get my piece of the/pie and

you/die.

KACZYNSKI'S MANIFESTO

The modern is evil./So publish my screed./It's there in my

words/and deeds.

KEEPERS OF FLAMES

Who¶s the devil?//Are vengeance,/defiance,/self-

reliance/necessary steps/on a mission becoming?//What to
do/with men in militias,/with old new religions/caught
 praying in schoolyards?//Should we strike/at their icons
as/irredeemably other,/grant new wounds/
and ruins/and tales heroic?//Or give in to pressure/for
salvation from us?

KISS KISSER FIRST

Good. Good first kiss. Kissed me, sudden breath, my lap,

your lips, you, an evening to kill. All I wanted was a
girl, sure of her girlishness, pretty of course, and you
were. Real pretty. Energetic intelligent blonde, smelled
real good. Not a sex-horny smell, but clean, cultured,
ladylike, wow. Serious not really, just students trying
out love. Love not really, just dressing up, dressing
down, going out. In your bed, fully clothed, hugged you
deeply, rolling, roiling, into me, back into you. Pulled
little mind games, nothing Betty wouldn't try on Archie,
nothing beyond resolution in the final frame. Saw you once
or twice outside school, graduation behind, goodbye kiss.
Beautiful undergraduate, real nice episode.

KLONGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

The little misstep that brings it all down. How could you
know? People screaming and yelling at you like some
abomination. Air grows thin. Crevasse opens up. Friends
slip away. Everest rushes in.

KORZEDINGLIADONDOZIPNIAK

Never mind what part of Poland I'm from. There we were

before the Aryans. We whom you call Neanderthals. You
stole our pretty women. You called us ugly, dumb. You
laughed to our face. Well look at you. You are we. We
you.

Light. A field for the torch. Left to smoulder.

LAGS

My model of you is remark upon remark. Your next awaiting

my next. Mine awaiting yours.

LAGUARDIA
My thigh sets it off./As does the person of a/shapely young
lady.

LAST WORD

How small our aims. Prove one point to one person on one
occasion just to piss her off. While she picks a booger
and eats it.

LAT LONG

Earth bound origin. Four coordinates one place. Summer

leaves conceal.

LAX

Dial back the blood and/dilate those capillaries./You¶ll

see some results.//Oxygenate your/outlook. Let lax the vex
and/laborious breath.//Feel the infusion./Fill with
enthusiasm/gods in your temple.

LAYS

The speck of a chip stays white/for days between floor

tiles and/gracefully decays, dodging/the long broom¶s
thickest bristles.

LEMUR

a religious man/i love our lemon//green ancient

forebear/two eyes fixed on//phantoms, the rumored/earth,
hands ready to//pull her tender frame/toward
uppermost//reaches in a/branching bouquet of//sheltering
blossoms/one of which, or so//the story goes, was/large,
could//take families whole/into a supple//recess and
mothers/needn't worry that//little hands/exposed/could ever
attract//he of the curvy/claws and the piercing//gaze.

LINDA'S SPRING

This your random bouquet/thirty-one spent dandelions/stems

overlong outside the frame/a tree a car where someone no/no
I don't know the name of this/weed or the only full
blossom/in your field of view. And I won't/suppose I can
know you. Or your spring.

LISTLESSNESS
 One or two things I was going to do today. One was just
not to repeat yesterday. Or repeat it with better results.
Two had something to do with one.

LITTLE DEBBIE

Creme curls fair white face. Clear plastic carbohydrates.

Full of emptiness.

LIVING PARENT

Now that Sonya has/seen her old man touch the hands/of dead
Mister Tran.//Now that she has gone/there with me and
returned to/the living parent.//She knows now that
death¶s/no snake. It¶s my Mom and my/Dad¶s remembrance.

LORD RANDAL

Where oh where've you been,/my boy? Weary from the

hunt,/Mom, and missed my bed.//What oh wha'd you catch,/my
boy? Found a beauty fair,/Mom, and missed my bed.//What oh
wha'd you have,/my son? Shared an eel in oil,/Mom, and
missed my bed.

LORD'S PRAYERS

I//Father heavenly/and holy may your reign and/design grace

the earth.//Sustain us daily./Forgive us as we others/and
lead us from sin.//Above all are your/kingdom power and
glory/here now forever.//II//Father in heaven./Holy your
name. Come your reign/and plan over all.//Bring us to the
bread./Forgive our due and spare us/the trials and
devils.//Ever till the last/shall your kingdom power
and/magnificence shine.//III//Father o father./May your
kingdom and laws spread/and conquer the world.//Give us
subsistence/and protection from foes strange/and
familiar.//To only you is/due tribute and praise for
this/state everlasting.

LOST CAT FOUND

"Puss" of the urban/demeanor has no/outstanding

warrants/for her immediate/apprehension.//So she could be
mine.//"Puss´--whom I fancy/female from longing/or old
prejudice.//Puss!//She is not the cat/of my dreams or
my/throw-rug fantasies.//She pees in public.
 LOVE OF COLD

My many layers//keep the season at//bay and that suits

me/fine. My survivor//status in this and/all winters past
and//possible. My taste/for snows soon to light//and the
tedium/that always falls my//way. I lunge for the/shovel
and my loved//ones know to leave me/to these elements.

LOW COST COMPETITOR

Quote us something insane. Under long-term survival price.

A rate to liquidate. Let the market hammer you down.
Implode, scattering staff. Take it philosophical. Your
assets, our fertilizer.

MAGIC

Poof! Overnight the/humidity vanished. The/air turned light

and sweet.

MAGPIES

Baby saw sister/fly down with a whisper and/nest in garden

mud.

M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M&M

Bimbumdimdumfimfumhimhumjimkimlimlummimnimpimpumrimrum
simsumtimtumvimvumwimwumyimyumzimzum. Mine a mine a mine.
Nishpishrishsishtishvishwishyishzishbishdishfishhishjishkis
hlishmishnishpishrish. Membranation. Num.

MARBLE GIANT

Come into this house. Behold the word writ solid.

Colossal. An image of life in the world to come. Summit
sum total of the world thus far. Down from the platform
and into our midst. Down from the cloud and into our
pockets. Personal. Carry it with you till the end of the
day.

MARY G WANNA

White water churning up the bong would gladly do it with

black woman white woman hip white smoke. Under what
circumstances does a high-school boy refuse a lit pipe from
 a pretty thing with hours to kill before The Who come on
stage? Babes offering you joints to enliven the first-job,
minimum-wage, back-room, late-night tedium and who knows
maybe loosen you up. Bright pushy young paralegals with
great bodies flaunting it as a token of their liberation.
A rush is a rush.

MASSIVE CHORD

3bing(mi)BRONGONNGONNNGONNNNGONNNNNGONNNNNNGONNNNNNNGONN(ll
)NNNNNNGONNNNNNNNNG(e)ONGONGONGNNNGNGNNONGNONGNNGNGNGNONGNG
NOG(nn)NOGNOGNGOGNGOGNGOGNGOGNGOGNGOGNGONGONGNOGNOGNGOGNGOG
NGOGNGOGNGOGNGOGNGOGNGOGNGOGNGOGOGNGGOGNGOGOGNGOGNGOGGOGNGO
GOGNGOGOGOGOG(i)OGOGONOOGNGO(um)GOGONON....

MASSIVE MURDERS

Only the perpetrators could begin to list all the names.

Only the government that sent them had the machinery to
match. Names to faces, heads to bodies, sites where
several hundred thousand Chinese happened to meet. Eyes
locked in the sights of an invading army whose racial
resemblance might, were people just people and orders not
orders. Have deterred a you or an I, but then again, we
are not them and we were not there. These were just
aliens. And this was just war.

MASS OF THE PLANET

Ponder the it in/us, the stone in which we stand/immovably

fixed.//Gray or grey the dark/dots clump into larger
lumps/of loose gravity.//The holes into which/ghosts inject
their voices and/our viscosity.

MASTER CYLINDER

If I were small. You¶d know what to do with me. Twist me

up with your lipstick, smear me all over. Dangle me down
your cleavage, tickle your bounty, touch your heart. Swab
me across your sweet spot. The better to know you.

MATRIX

Don¶t recall her womb. Do recall her breasts, though I was

bottle-fed. And her nightly emerging from the shower,
towel-wrapped, fresh and fragile. Don¶t recall the sound
of her voice. Do recall her knuckles in my crewcut scalp,
 rubbing her brand-loyal Breck into every exposed follicle.
And her nails up and down my back, digging up nerves like
no one ever could or will. Do unfortunately recall every
time, under the influence of the cancer, she belittled,
scolded, and insulted me. Though I think that¶s just
childish backlash blaming her for not always being here.
Do recall, if I force myself, her smile and praise for my
writing, drawing, and violin-noodling. Just barely recall
her humor, though I¶m told she was the riot of her
housewife clique. And so beloved that girlfriends still
held her in their hearts long after her passing.

MATTER

There is in all this/the matter of the thumb we/suck and

choose to share.//A quick hit of the/flesh, a poet's
pathetic/self-stimulation.//There is in this the/thought or
conceit that, come years,/we will still matter.

MAW

When we see the swirl we know/North America¶s upon//us,

cutting its initials/into our interior,//steering its wind-
borne bullets/straight up our gut, raking the//plain,
remaking the Rockies/down to their constituents.

MCCARTNEY¶S MOON

Moon¶s the mandarin/face of an orange.//Stars the clean

sightlines of Linda¶s Arizona.//Air/is quiet night/in a
velvet guitar case/lain for Lennon/at the mouth/of a
cavern.

MEDICAL MISSION SISTERS

Ah, ladies of Christ, look at you. Awaiting the day.

Applying bandages. Tilling, toiling, trailing children
behind you. May they grow in number, in the world, and
call for you, their mothers. And so will I. Kiss you
discreetly. Join in with your hymns. Take your communion.
Lend you my prayer.

MENHIR

For Elizabeth,/all of whose eight grown children/today

survive her.//For Jean, whose four sons/have all attained
 middle age/in full possession.//Old or otherwise,/we are
never quite ready/for mommy passing.

MEME

meaning is modeled/mined and mashed, coming

somehow,/emerging among.

ME ME ME ME MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

As in feel us. Peel us. Reveal us. Wheel and deal us.
That¶s how my old Polish grandpa chose to congeal us.
Assimilationist, yes, but not so far as to conceal us,
behind a Kobe (not Asian), or Kobelus (not Greek), or any
other dilution that would render us weak. We retained a
surname that¶s semi-unique. Round these parts at least.

MEMORIAL GROVE

What I heard was your nervous cough. Branch falling.

Traffic. Led me to your private space. Snow covered.
Parkland. Took me a moment. Saw you. Stood.

MERGER

Point having built an interim backbone completed that first

week of January we're making the decisions going to move
people to this office that it's their proprietary protocol
been killed. One of the things you guys might start
working on Ok is bring the link up with the firewall
between us Ok and we'd want to ask Maynard Ok Ok Ok
Probably just be thinking 2 meg PVC to be started and we
can firewall that any way we want Ok. So what they did
this was or just engineers as soon as the merger was done
what we call in-line and that's where we stepped in and
where we started and spent a week in Houston stayed at the
place with the watery carpet and look at your network ours
how we gonna link them Ok each a wholly owned subsidiary.
We have combined between us and we're not done we're
on time. Ok.

MICHILIMACKINAC

Over yonder. Big turtle beckons. Trees, water, sand,

silence, motels, and a bridge. Suspend yourself in the
mist. Cross the straits. Take the first exit after
oblivion. Be the first one over this morning. First at
 the dock. First on deck. First off and there's tea with
the governor. Here's the camera you lost, roll still fresh
inside. Here's the bike you lost, exactly where you left
it. Here's the path you took. And have taken every day
since.

MIDDLE ESSENCE

Age old desires crowd the sweet/rebirthing we¶ve been lead

to//anticipate. A crack of/vitamin light suppresses//the
urge to summarize what/clearly is still unspooling.//Days,
careers, an ignition/promptly turns itself over//and cycles
through another/blue and glorious. Memories//charge the
atmosphere. Adult/children show. We stay. The late//hours
accumulate. We feel/another morning story.

MIDNIGHT WALLOWS

All shot through with heaviness. Lying somewhere between

kindergarten and the hospital. In comes my sister, some
European woman with a trill on her tongue. ³See here the
pills, you must take them, precious dear, you know the
price.´ Out she storms. Next in, same woman, different
race. ³Stop listening to me, my husband, he will see your
eyes.´ Take the pills. Another woman. This time Abraham
Lincoln in a gown. Tied down, ripped apart, intestines
littering the marble, orange-face doll pleading for
attention. Our national disgrace. Needing a Kleenex.

MIRA MAI EGIDIA

Pure joy laughing girls. Engage your wits and ignore the
husbands. Remember that men are just boring and drab.
Engage them in life but stay who you are. Make children
and love and a life in the 'burbs. Put the babies at ease
and go to your fun. Under the moon, young dancers emerge.
Angular Asian girls dying for life. Not a new life, just
more life, and more recreation. Go out with us, darling,
assume a new name. In the light of the kitchen we stir up
your thoughts. Let them simmer with tender devotion and
love. As the men lie housebound, snoring alone.

MISSING SCREWDRIVER NOT THE POINT

What will the missing article be next time? A yellow

handle, a slightly worn head, and a long, winding thread.
A small fortune my friend. I figure no less than one
 hundred dollars. It is not for adoption. It has a home
and is missed terribly. Possibly it is overseas. You tell
me.

MLESS

Dream of dreamless sleep/deep as dusk in a/musk as bright

as/soft awakening.

MOBILE TO MOBILE

Trees could not obscure. Towers somehow passed the word.

Mischievously, channels were allocated. An engineer or
several billion transistors tracked you across the planet.
Seconds passed while you, perhaps trying to flee the
thought of our common bond, toyed with the idea of ignoring
me altogether. Me and my accursed little bleep. My finger
reaching cross several dimensions. My message blossoming
across several channels. You can escape but not avoid me,
my dear. I¶m somewhere.

MODE

Mall was remodeled/twice in a generation/in a modern style.

MOSES

God¶s massive missive/for the submissive mostly/scolds the

transgressive.

MOTH

.«Prohibited to you (For marriage) are:--Your mothers,

daughters, Sisters; father's sisters, Mother's sisters;
brother's daughters, Sister's daughters; foster-mothers
(Who gave your suck), foster-sisters; Your wives' mothers;
Your step-daughters under your Guardianship, born of your
wives To whom ye have gone in,--No prohibition if ye have
not gone in;--(Those who have been) Wives of your sons
proceeding From your loins; And two sisters in wedlock At
one and the same time«.

MOTHERGIRL

Second-born baby. Only girl except for mom. Never doubt

dad¶s happy love and expectations. You¶d be Jean¶s sunny
delight. A great morning kiss.
 MUSIC AND MUSIC ACCESSORIES

A piano. A/soft a strong touch. A note hangs/barely

sustaining.//An annotation/of alternating tones and/strokes
of black on bright.//Read or ignored. Tuned/or open to any
odd/interpretation.

MUST

Money must know its/sway and swing and push//it. Money must
swear/no oath to any//owner but its own/sharp
resummation://Its mercenary/muscle for tidy//building &
smashing.

MUST HEAR YOU MUST

Calling all whales. You drowning amid ships, our punishing

blips. How to live with our race and our signature din?
And distinguish your own, in this our noisy new world?
Can¶t say we¶re sorry. Should we give up the seas? We¶ll
understand if you drop to an eerie new plane. Develop huge
lungs, weird eyes, and pressurized skins. Come back up
periodically for a gargantuan gasp. Reconspire with your
cousins. Then diminish like hell.

MY BLUE COMMENTARY

i could fill the world with perfect. ly balanced Harvard

sentences but. sculpting these same homely turds into.
mouth-watering specimens of ex. quisite idiocy is not.
quite what would please those folks them out there. who
rely on us for turds. that look like turds taste like
chocolate.

MY MYOPIA

When we break the baby's soft foot down to shoe shape. He

or she is now a man. Hobbled in the ways.

MYOCARDIUM

The heart will wobble/around its central//condition,

deny/its inner arrow,//rely on others/to do the
damage//then gush its guts just/like bleeding Jesus//come
down to greet his/personal Francis.
 MYRIAD

Light/snow stars birds/in dark

blue/indistinguishable/grandma heavens.

NATURE SCARE

None too delicate, the little mother buggers. Earth¶s full

of them, their colonies, law. Smelling dead wood, they
arise naturally. Well, thank you so much for that
millimeter fracture. And that handy front stoop, sure
paved our way. And that porous spring wood, chewed through
there in no time. Yeah, try as we may, they are coming
back. As our structures grow weaker, older, and sag.

NEURAL CARPAL

Catch a breath between scenes./An escape from dwelling./A

grounding from/flight.//A break from the sheen/of the
towering/lights.//The entrancing connections of/repetitive
trips.//And the steady burn of/one straight strip.

NEVER EVEN

Try as I may to breathe. Always catching, conscious.

Exhaling, reacting. Nonautonomously.

NEW NEIGHBORHOODS

Build them up. Streets, sewers, hydrants, family plots,

foundations, vacant lots, and proto-ghosts. Let¶s see.
These residents will move here from another state to get
divorced. These individuals will organize a swim club.
This child will fall from that tree and break her
collarbone. Here¶s where my kids will undergo some sort of
intense unspeakable coming-of-age. That house will be
remodeled and expanded beyond recognition over several
generations. And that beautiful view will disappear behind
those apartment buildings until the next historic or
geologic epoch, whichever comes first. Tear them down.

NIGHT CLARITY

A single moon makes/bright the evening over this/our only

home world.

NIGHT IN JAIL
 Your time was my time/free to scrounge bail and spread
our/cover story well.//Your night was my dream/of a guard
and a key and/a witch in a well.//Stealing away at/her
cuckold's expense down in/your trysting motel.

1967

Blissed as twittering/Cowsills in trees. "The Rain The/Park

And Other Things."//Nonplussed as post "Wild/Thing" Troggs
boldly croaking that/"Love Is All Around."//Weighty as
Yardbirds'/"Shapes of Things" anchored by pre/Zeppelin
Jimmy.

NONDESCRIPT

Drumless they come. Measureless, their footsteps scrape

the highway. Fruitless, their accomplishments are not
their own. Seeking no grace, they live but to die,
fertilizing the universe, broadcasting seeds. Anointed by
fate. Bearing no witness, their chords ring on.

NOOK I KNOW

i retrieved/her bit-mapped orchid/and pinned it to/a/nook i

know

NOSTALGIA

Dogs do their day and only/have shit to show for it.

Pigs/pleasure themselves in slime and/sleep afternoons,
unawares.

NO SUCH SPEED

No such speed said the car that sat in the racetrack lot as
the road slipped by under rubbery treads and the black
lines formed from the friction built while the rollers and
the coasters and all aged pedestrians. No such car said
the girl who sat in the opposite row while the world rose
up and her hair flew back around the silvery bar. No such
world said the turn that banked through a shadowy pass and
emerged unhurt. No such "said" said the head of the
tongue. There is no such tongue.

NOT LOCKED
 Heaven¶s not heavy./It¶s gravity-free./It¶s there in the
air/between you and me.//Heaven¶s not after/some ultimate
bell./It blesses the lives/of those loving well.//Not gated
or locked,/not judging or rude,/it¶s the living index/of
grace in God¶s world.

NUCLEIC

The savior¶s siblings/Procreated, spread Mary¶s/Blood

matriarchy.//The prophets peopled:/Brethren of Buddha,
sisters/Of Zoroaster.//Crossed. Cohabited/Christ with
cousins Adamic/Non-Abrahamic.

NUPTIAL

Neither weather/nor whether/shall sully/the day//No

broken/alarm clocks/can stand in/your way//You¶ve both
made/arrangements/to stand firm/and say//With a ring/and a
kiss/you¶re each other¶s/to stay.

Pick up the beta Carkit in Chip Resistor's Office stop by

Curly Cable Ground's Place to check on The status of your
Ferrite Bead tray no modifications Have been made to The
tray itself the Ceramic Cap works with the Same exact tray
that Supported the Watchdog Circuit Buy a Discharge Button
phone On the open market Any off-the-shelf commercial
Positive Battery Terminal Will work they can't Give you one
because It's not a production Item yet and I personally
Don't have enough to Spare I'm being tested internally. O.

OAK

A wood more solid. Legs of the table were built. Lay a

spread over stain over grain over knot. Cakes with candles
and big hot roasting pans sometimes placed smack dab on the
veneer. Our children¶s residue on the walls of the crack.
Remember to pull the leaf. Need it for socials.

OCEAN OF SNOW

Let it drift slower and deeper. Piles beyond our whitest

dreams. Cozy, cool, and all-absorbing. A well for light
and all that moves.

ODIOMETER
 General issues. Like what's the point of voting? Like
what's the weather, our moods, on election day? Like you
wake up, scream at the kids, breath stinks, and they cancel
your favorite show. So, like, politicians, they wear their
hair like that, say those things, get their names in the
news, marry Elizabeth Taylor, write memoirs. And here we
are, buttering bread, shoveling snow, obeying the law,
sitting. Pointing out the senator's speech impediment.
Wearing an old Nixon mask. Mocking our leaders.

OF A PIECE

The hamburger that I now con/sume is the same as that which

was/subdued by Fred Flintstone and the/voice of Mel Blanc,
past the three-ton/sofa twenty times twenty thou/sand
reruns. Oh lord their dark-lined/reinforced profiles
tightened in/to the image of a young Jew.

OF KEYS WHEELS LIQUIDITY

Swift wrist light of foot into the open fantastic. Wheels

a flash a blur am I. Into the lane. Into the light. Into
the field. Free impulse.

OLD LIME SING

Should old tequila/stay locked up, far too hard

for/celebration times?//Will Jose Cuervo/grace this cup,
kindly chase our/singing spirits up?//Gaily waste this
eve//on a new one's cusp, gamely/rim our rhymes with crust?

OLD RHYTHMS

Rock my chair. Grant me strength in decline. Keep my

spirit in good force. Memory serve me well. May my legacy
desert me, eclipse me in their wanderings, show me the door
to the next world.

ONCE

Old stones settle and/once wars are themselves/laid in

place never/to reconnect the/same names in battle.

ONE ICY BRIDGEWALK

 Airmass no notion of intention or malice. No no pleasure
pushing you. No no no no no.

ON THE LINE

Now that I have you here, please let me serve you. Let me
upload you a packet of soul. This is my life and I've
tabbed all the good scenes. Here are my private parts hung
out to dry. Now that you have me, surrender your booty.
Give me the rights to the best of your world. Show me your
stash through stained-glass mosaic. Throw me a window.
Point me the way.

ONTO ONCO

One code keeps sticking, spraying, stubborn, I go, ego,

all-defying. One code won¶t shut up. One code won¶t shut
down. One code all around. One code.

OO

Flatter deities/no more with//praise and prostration²/they

know we¶re low.//Pray to the odds for/elevation.//Bend
inward with the/roll of dice/and/--ow²/embrace.

OOBI

The projected I/really registered that tap/on our right

shoulder.

OPACITY

Mine not yours. Mine not yours. Mine not yours.

ORANGE ALBEMARLE

In vineyards, time sweeps/green the constitutional/roll of

Virginia.

ORDER OF THE ILK

Since the events of/the violence we¶ve learned to/live

within crackdown.//Now we¶ve accepted/our world¶s curdling
and the price/that¶s been exacted.//Now even our skies/are
color-clouded, per signs/only they may read.

ORGANISM
How strange when the infra-red ultra-thin membrane of dream
blood ruptures and spills a dread film between the seeing-
eye and a world itching and twitching inflamed rejecting a
donor tissue.

ORVILLE REDENBACHER

Loved your bow tie, man. Rarely left a seed unpopped.

Indiana corn.

OSCAR MAYER

Working class wieners. Wisconsin¶s pride not showy. Fresh

from Madison.

OUR COURTSHIP

in my car she was practical/to her job, the shops, would i

wait/take her someplace safe.

OUR LITTLE SECRETION

My friend don¶t freak. The/uncategorizable/flesh beckons.

Suck it.

OVER COCKTAILS

Kim the marketer/swears she hasn¶t made her mark/but I¶m a

marked man.//Amber has numbered/the years of her career
for/only me to hear.//As for poor Pauli/currently between
jobs I¶ll/listen but I¶m male.

OVERHEARING

Success to my blood/successors, vessels of my/nastier

habits.//This irritating/tendency to shout over/our inner
voices.//And overhearing/ourselves imagine the/world is
taking note.

OVERVERBALIZATIONINGS

Twists where sense should be. Old threads where new

particles. Cold compositions.

OUTLONGER
 The voice grows deeper with age. A canyon reconnecting
many echoes. Or an old train gone long and doppler.

OY

As a pearl/in clam snot/glows, so I/inside my/stress

headache.//A crust of/creation/encasing/mere and
wee/irritants.//My grain of/nacreous/growth, a shell/grown
grand as/pain is green.

P23

Lord, shepherd, my sufficiency/softly sustains me in green

sleep,//walks me along the cool currents/into the awakening
day//upon paths brightened in splendor/
of his most sheltering essence.//Even in deepest
depression/your presence abides me, fearless,//strong as
your hand holds the crook-stick,/secure as your feasts from
the foe.//You bless me with gracious perfume./You overfill
my meek chalice.//Surely, sweet fortune will trail me/Lord,
dwelling here day without end.

PALIMPSEST

Staring at a cloud,/a tangible cloud,/not an earthen

clod/glimpsed through glaze and lash.

PAMPHLETS & MANUALS

How-to & how-to/not. Self-help's cool, but must we/empower

dummies?

PARADE MAGAZINE

this or that born-elsewhere/angeleno/enjoyed great early

success and/once seemingly had/hollywood and/or the pop
music/world/by the tail/until the bloom/fell from the
rose/they fell from favor and/or/something self-inflicted
laid them low/and put them on the brink
of/whatever/until/something spiritual/helped them find
themselves/and/or/inner peace/and/or/whatever it
was/redeemed them/delivering some recent/unexpected hit/of
commercial resurrection/which brought them back into
our/collective affections/briefly/and captured our
interest/in some small way/so that we can now/confidently
publish their declaration/of life/in fresh perspective/on
the mend/and chastened by adversity/rededicated to some new
 modicum of/maturity/and/moderation/let us here now
present/their inspiring story/as told/in their very own
words/to our top interviewer/dotson rader/who met them in a
restaurant/in lower manhattan and/carefully edited a/long
tape-recorded lunch/into an/easy reading/thousand words/fit
for calm/popular/perusal over/juice and
cheerios/every/single/solitary/Sunday/morning.

PAST THAT

The intrusive parental comment. Between us, the music.

Why we jammed it into their skulls. Their obnoxious
volume. Our blessed isolation. We have all grown past
that. They have opinions. We have kids.

PAUSES

See how we age,/taking the true face for/which one is

fated.//And the voice, though it/falters, will still insist
on its/path of being heard.//Till the day, presumed,/it
feels its force and,/embarrassed, pauses.

PEANUTS

Here comes old wholly round and/ever-popular square/and

stable soul now.//Comes our sound and hearty old/hale and
dependable.//Yes, good old soul takes his stroll//straight
and stripéd.

PECULIAR PUNCTUATION SOCIETY

Never can recall when it was I was supposed to breathe

interject cough or even. Or even. Even. Laugh. Nor can
I leave without telling you I missed everything you told me
because I arrived one second too late to this meeting after
all the introductions and the round of obligatory stale
nervous jokes referencing some shared anxiety, nobody knew
what I was doing here anyway, that has pinned back your
eyelids and rendered your breath shallow and remarks curt
and not too informative. This one spoke, she coughed, he
stood, the boss gestured behind. The boss gestured. And
somebody laughed. Huh. Dare I say I lost the flow. Dare
say I was in the room. Had I only been more punctual.

PENANCE
 Through a screen confess. What you choose to suppress.
Expedites the transaction.

PENTAGON

Lived, served, overlooking, built a house, haughty,

reviled. Lee, your minions, guests, have seized
Washington. Network of packet bearers, now, forgotten.
Note the third-degree, five-sided masonary wheel. Deliver
a sign that this concentric fortress is not the dwelling of
the devil.

PERE UBU

2ools from an industrial childhood Needing rhythm nothing

like a downtown bus terminal packed with fumes, travelers,
and international commerce Did you ever see how he seemed
to warp the wooden dance floor with clangs several bang
bell on that big old Could be that, we¶ll carry smokestacks
with us when we Ha ha big underlover And he was is the man
with the elemental come back boy, suicide no option New
picnic how we could all breathe deep across erie wieners
consuming gravel in some ballpark delirium Could we meet in
some lawnscape spotless tradeshow music museum
Energetically waving arms legs hi boy begging for insanity.

PHANTOM RING

How come you ring me and there's nobody, not even dial
tone, not even the calling party number, when I pick you
up? Is it you? Is it your distinctive ring tone that
gives you away? Is it the time you call that gives you
away? Are you sending me a message through the very act of
abandoning calls? And how can you abandon them so
completely, like a puff of smoke? Do you have special
hooks into the phone company's switching system that scrub
every trace of the connection-that-never-was? I'm just
guessing it's you, of course. Why not you? Maybe I'm just
now mentally responding to a ring from last year or the
year before? It could be me. It could be you.

PISSHIVERS

I know you. I don¶t. Don¶t. Don¶t make me look at you.

It¶s public. It¶s private. It¶s public. It¶s ready. I¶m
willing. I¶m nervous. I¶m straight. Stay stranger, oh
 stranger, my solemn invader. Unhh. Ha ha. Unhh. Ha ha.
Ohhhhhhhhh. Um.

PIXEL

One ought to thank Planck for the thought/the

infinitesimal's not/a fathomless bottomless well/but a plot
of versatile dots.//One ought to toast Hearst for the
screen/that lays down the points in a clean/mist of crisp
pixie light and strips/by the millions milled by
machine.//And nod to Turing for blurring/the point where
the strip takes sense and/base elements assemble the/cells
and scenes and trick behind/the calculated picture of mind.

PLAIN BREAD PREFERABLY THE CRUST PLEASE THANK YOU

White like me wouldn¶t have it any other way. Our

birthright foods sans spice only pale fibers of wheat
browned through oven heat puffed with gentle exhalations of
so many million yeast ready for our feast dissolving in
summer saliva. Need we spread it on thicker? Deliver me
with two bottles some cheese a paper announcing the
neighborhood¶s decline. Enriched fortified suburban
Livonia. Reach over grab me a knife.

PLAYA

Pleasure²-our seaside companion, perched as worrying wings

on the rail of the porch of the house over azure²-
precipitous---ah with the fall and the flutter, as the leaf
grieves its summer, grips its slumber as sure as the
winters melt, poles precess, and oceans never freeze-²
smooth revolution²-don¶t we need these assurances²-levels
beyond which tides won¶t climb, within which we withstand
the pressure of waves at play.

PLEASANTRIES

I met/President/Jimmy Carter/(him coming)/alone/(down

escalator)/minus bodyguards.../me standing/(alone)/with
Instamatic/at the bottom.../in a near-deserted
terminal/(Detroit)/last stop/night before the night he
lost....//We exchanged pleasantries./My flash didn't work.

PLEASE THINGS WORK

 Be there when I'm broken, in/such a down state of
utter//incapacitation that/fingers can't feel their way
back//home, eyes can't grasp that red and/green won't
connect under such//shadows, that I bang my dim/and damned
head down back behind://Help me hold the mind I find/in
diagrams and daemons.

POINT OF PURCHASE

Clerk punched the keys real/hard, hoping to hammer

some/logic into it.

POLARIS

Meridians meet. Where solid waters unite. Where the hot

plates of earth are forever remote. Where with the means
to compute you too can locate that pivotal place on the
ice.

PORTRAITURE

People somehow were./Show me the photograph of/Thomas

Jefferson.//Lives were recorded./Lincoln's voice was more
James Dean/than Jimmy Stewart.//Living thought was
caught./Woodrow Wilson's magnetic/resonance. On file.

POSED BY MODELS

Would that I could flex. Could take any shape. Any

shapely vase. Pour my self in you. Would I could right
now.

POSIT

Posit a new process. Populated from the likes of you.

Like you, I do. Like you and me. Conspiring
independently.

POSTURE

How I hold me still and sit/cocked, recalculating

the/stress in the balls of my feet.

POWER OF PRAYER

Christ¶s crises and time/on the cross spared the

species/from its perdition.//The Lord¶s legacy/of love and
 peace holds the hope/of our fruition.//In the power
of/prayer, we each find our path to/His worldly mission.

PRAISE PETITION INTERCESSION

Never so humbled/as when extraordinary/stresses have their

way.//What is left/of the skies to praise/in times
of/raining terror?//Airplanes come/and then they/
come again.//Will prayers of selfish/petition rise
above/the deserving?//Will the predation/or the
retaliation/be God¶s true/intercession?//Saturday
evening,/we vacate/ruins.//The very next morning,/conflict
resumes.

PRASEODYMIUM

I wOUld wOrshIp grEEn glAss, bUt drIvEn tO

cOnsIdEr...cOmpOsItIOn, thE rElAtIvE EAsE wIth whIch shArp
pAnEs, slAppEd Up thrOUgh tIdY frAmEs, fIltEr whItE thrOUgh
flAttEnEd sAlts, pOUndEd IntO rUdE AllIAncE...I Opt OUt.
YEllOw Is hOw thEsE skYlInEs fAll, pOUrEd lIke sAndY sOIl
In smEArY vAlEncE.

PRECIOUS FEW

Partners I've had so/very many. Of flesh and/blood so

precious few.

PREGNANT SWEET

God hurts for a tree/fresh of fruit when/no one's

climbing.//Strips it bare.//Strands it in a field of
fog.//Leaves it/to its surroundings.//And the cover
of/another.

PREY

As the mantis its/own kind consumes, so the hands/of humans

grapple.

PRIME FACTORS OF EVERYTHING

given/sufficient/conditions,/we'd all be cured/and assured/of

everlasting sun/and light breezes.//if/we/could/solve and
dissolve the/human equation,//turn the craft sharply
into/variable winds,//fix time and find the prime/factors of
everything://what/then?
 PROBONO

The thought of free has/me picturing sunup on/a day without

bread.

PROS

Discipline, giving oneself unto it. On the inside. Well

into the standard practice, just pumping them out, nice and
self assured, according to rules laid down by the lord, the
brotherhood, the union, the shop, or the grand exalted
vizier. Never mind where tradition originates, your job is
to profess, for all wisdom is received. Professional
career, ready-made market, steady stream of income, no
trouble telling your kids how you make a living, what it
took to get there. A wholehearted devotion to form.
Turning a fast lathe.

PROVIDENCE

God¶s providence is/no more mysterious

than/photosynthesis.//Both transmute the fine/immaterial
into/daily sustenance.//We embody them/both. We rise with
the sun and/partake of the bread.

PROXIES

A program consists of procedures, parameters, and

properties, exposes itself via ports, plugs via proxies and
protocols to peers, who are also programs with their own
proxies, ports, properties, parameters, and procedures, and
they, peer to peer, poll over protocols, push and pull
packets and packages across platforms, perambulating pipes
of many queues.

PSYNTH

Flowers happily/transcend us, risen up from/the thumb,

giving gaze/to a face more essential.

PURE AND SIMPLE

Carols and colors/enchant, but what moves me most/is the

Christmas calm.

PUREST POWER
 All our generation/ever aspired to purest power/when you
keep pouring without friction or drag/merest steam/into the
next sleek slumber machine.

QUITE SOME TIME

Sent the message, when was it? Long so long ago lost
heart. Oh please return. Only if to say you¶ve had your
fill. Only to close the loop stitch back the incision cut
the thread. Only to restore me to my once and future
state. Out there, roving correspondent, not a stringer for
any client, not a clipping service for faceless kindred.
On the fuzzy edge, keeping a diary of private days,
grandiloquent nights. Watching. Waiting. Writing.
Relaxing.

RACK OF LAMB

Tallowy essence. Come softly to my car you. Come hear the

motor calling, gentle beckon, you. Come lift the latch,
cross your legs, change the station, calmly beside me.
You. Calmly beside you.

RADIO SILENCE

Obstruction lend me your shadow. Swallow my signal and

erect your tower. Block my voice and diffract my power.
Split my path and scatter my light. Harbor my ghosts in
your caverns at night.

RAISED IN THE FAITH

Moms and dads have their/convictions. It's the kids have/to

serve the sentence.

RANDOM WEATHER GENERATOR

Clouds are earth's signature. At any time, they cover half

the world. Let's create a cable channel devoted to
satellite-based cloud observation. Let's put together
package tours of interesting cloud formations. Let's
skydive into the eyes of Florida hurricanes and funnels of
Kansas tornadoes. Let's create a cloud church. For
gradations of light--nimbus and cumulus and cirrus--let us
be thankful. For gradations of rain--drizzle and sheets
and downpour--let us be thankful. For gradations of drama-
 -overcast and fog and twister--let us be thankful. And
never desire to in any way control, tame, or domesticate
the beasts. Chaos becomes them.

RE:BYE

ACK: Just a keep-alive ping. Session context endures. Async

pipeline preserved. Attenuated latency caused premature
notification of impending time-out. Host please send next
packet. Admin please note channel-jitter condition. END-ACK

RECESSIONARY GOLD

When the water fled/the dead rested. Mummified./Secure till

the flood.//While the money runs/we¶re liquid as hell,
floating our/hardboiled nest eggs.//Waxing nostalgic/for
those dear days when happy/days were here again.

REPLANING

Save a seat for me. Kobielus, eye before e. Yes, window,

one, small bag, three papers, dozen mags. When we clear
earth orbit, do announce, then lean into Saturn, gravity
bounce. After heliopause, cool me down for a spell.
Relock into the long clock. Dream dark...breathe well.

RE:RE:RE[2]:YOUSAID(WOTISAID)

type
c:\project\pet\v2\alalou\apakabar\corresp\kind\red\bluesky\
rhythm\ymg\stress\womn\occasinl\anon\globl\apprec\phys\pers
onal\Euras\uk\telepath\ubu\t\me\gofor\u\idio\nomor\getcha\b
bunny\ofdatdic.doc | more

REVELATION

Beauty is/in the contour of/a new way of/seeing,/in the

revelation of/a cosmos that,/at our prompting,/has just let
drop/the very next veil.

RIPPLING EDGE

Older women, no, taller women, and their lovely long hair,
along the rippling edge of acquaintance, I always felt them
naked beneath, and myself, wont to raise up, gently, with
lines of static force, fingers that die, would just die, to
 brush away single strands, tidy the lines along deepening
cheekbones.

ROBERTO CLEMENTE

A natural-born slugger was he, who could swat them

quite effortlessly. He ran round the bases, saw the
Pittsburgh Pirates through some tough pennant races, with
the face of a fighter determined to win, and the heart of a
gentle man happy to be. When an earthquake befell
Nicaragua, Christmas nineteen seventy-two, five men left
their homes in San Juan for a week of hard labor in
shattered Managua. A load of supplies, an emergency
mission, across a thousand long miles of tropical sea.
When the new year came, the plane was gone. The passengers
sleeping never saw dawn. Remember the struggles of those
who die trying, and remember the men who went with Roberto.

ROSES ARE RED

Roses are red. Anger too. Anger. And my bloodshot brain

irritated. And my screaming eyes holding my tongue for
just a moment longer longer. And my face soon to burst
with the choicest of words in a moment of unbearable
passion and heat for you. And sorrow beyond.

ROUNDS

The stars step away/from us and twist their tails round/the

celestial pole.//We never notice/the spin of the
universe/in its daily rounds.//Only the march of/illusory
signs across/our ceiling of sky.

RUN RIOT

I¶ll take a meadow/wherever nature¶s chosen/to happily

jam.//Medians wild and/rioting, freeways redeemed/in
numberless weeds.//Old federations of/fresh bees and
blooms/wherever wasteland resumes.

RUN ROLL

Live on you. Sidewalk allowance bound run roll hop curb

miles into the city lights and the run down red green trees
opening vast grand musical stripmall mother and my own Quik
Pik unattended stolen bike life chained there chased him
kicked his fertilizer work run roll radio got it back
asshole found a record there right there dead center street
Five Mile keepsake kryptonite easement pure plastic dairy
case tractor trailer pup tent pitched on the strewn gravel
shore Canadian coins falling foundation run roll shells
strips banners pizza crust Bazooka Joe storefronts glass
broken Playboy kickstand ratfink red baron ninety ninety
ninety degrees. Live on in me.

SAME SPIRIT

Spirit received with same spirit given only if sender

receiver are from the same root deriven. Spirit received
with the same spirit given only if sender receiver are to
the same object driven.

SAVE THE STARS

Who would douse the sky lights? Every human city.

Photonic polluters. Dusturbanization.

SCATTERMENT

Two dawns, one day, one/world. I drink coffee. I wake/in a

field of crumbs.

SCATTERS

Before you drop, your/daydream collects the crystal/your

nightdream shatters.

SCHADENFREUDE

When the screws come down,/do tell/whose ass we slam/assets

impound/character assassinate/with as much delight as/we
ourselves/once were/so screwed.

SCULPT THE EARTH

Violent past. Igneous rock. Send heavenly heavenly

heavenly. Image down. Bring piece from on high. Leave
marks in the soil. Etch heavenly heavenly heavenly. Face
on earth. Return to the place. Offer the sky. Make
heavenly heavenly heavenly. Soul of fire. Place names in
the rock. All flesh in the world. Catch heavenly heavenly
heavenly. Energy.

SEALTEST
 Red as a barn on/a farm, a form visited/just once in
childhood.

SEATTLE

In the essential/Seattle users//photosynthesize/caffeine

directly//from whatever drops/of liquid sunshine//are
vouchsafed their way/or, failing that, fix//off the glints
of glare/that glance in off the//gray and grace their
green/eye-stained monitors.

SEIZED UP

The turn of the epoch came/and tolled a moment/strikingly

absent./We cleared from our sinus/the dust of an age/once-
anxious./Watched the world/roll round a computer
clock/seized up in an/engineering shortcut/champagne coffee
break./And all crashed back into our/rapt ritual
inattentive/two-hour sleeps/breathing.

SELF-APPOINTMENT

When you miss your cue/not a soul will notice and/nobody¶ll

stare.//When you¶ve strung your strings/upside-down they¶ll
still sound sweet/in your reflection.//My son, you¶re more
than/the sum of these expressions./You¶re all the
difference.

SEMEN

Boys ejaculate. Girls may be there to receive.

SET

A boat becalmed, sunset, red. Because the day was hot, the
night will be rotten. Could we somehow twist back the sun,
our flesh could repent, make a reversal. Deliver us from
our sins, the slog of tangly marsh grass that always seems
to confuse, snarling, catching, retching, rending.
Evening's for reliving waves you never saw coming, for lame
regretting. Forgetting, who are you fooling, resetting.
Getting set, for what, who knows.

SET IN TRAIN
 Instants, we set moments, we fuse/frantic seconds, break
trains of thought/limb by limb, stuff them in folders,/feed
them into the maw of men/tal mechanisms, mortal
ma/chinations. A dog¶s old droppings./One day our dregs we
know/will contain all time.

SET-TO

I wouldlean mybike/and set mykickstand,so,it would/n¶t evv-

er to-tter.

SEVERAL BILLION ONES

A fish-eye lens/would add unbearable curvature to/the

continental expanse of the People's Republic of China./An
only child/downloading from landlocked Lanzhou/would add a
brand new national streetmap/and triple the population/of
playmates on-line.

SHEER ENTHUSIASM

God's bottled. His fizz/sets the spirit sparkling and/the

world on alert.

SHIT

The apocalypse/will yield to an antacid/and a nice warm

dump.

SHORTS

My manhood exposed. My mad rush to whip it out. The raw

me in verse.

SHUSH

Dim the lit nightclub/and offer another toast/to all

sleeping dogs.//Let the owner know/we won¶t resist if asked
to/keep the chit-chat down.//There are drinks best drunk/in
silence and things I¶d like/to whisper to you.

SIMPLY

She./She had found it with the other man./The man./The one

who simply/addressed her.

SINAR JAYA
 The sun smiles and tries/to enlighten Buddha through/a
temple archway.

SINCE MY LAST CONFESSION

Sat on cold benches. Slept through long recitations.

Raised my voice to prayers floating on organs of air.
Engaged my spouse in sweet intercourse for nonprocreational
purposes. Chose not to deny or abandon this old faith.
Reviewed the current clergy. Now just biding time.

SLEEP

Utter density²/another immensity/of the city steep.

SLEEP WALK

Now, now, now, now, now. No, no, no, no, no. Now, now,
now, now, now. Oh you. You, you, you, you, you.
Let me. Reconsider. You let me, please. Oh dear woman,
you roll me. Roll me clean out of your bed. Into the
shrouded downstairs. I'm gone. Don't you hear me? I'm
really gone. Don't you hear me, please? I'm gone all the
way. All the way out that kitchen door. Your closed
kitchen door. Why do you give me no relief? Give me one
sign that I'm the heart of your belief. One sign that you
felt it from the start. Felt it. 'Cause, darling, I'm
feeling you now. Wake me. Oh consider. Won't you wake
me, please? Oh consider. Have me back for just one more
tender roll. And tonight's special prayer.

SLIDING WINDOW

Inbox fairly full. Yours not mine unanswered look. Losing

patience fast.

SLINKY

Spry and springy odd/cylinder thingy.//Swings end over

end/with a gentle bend.//This spirally band/uncertainly
lands.

SLIP
 Night stalks the sleeper,/its long exposures/charge her
memories/of the surrounding/light¶s deep darkness
and/eloquent decay.

SMOKE ON THE WATER

We all breathe. We breathe green leaves. We all breathe.

Bonfires. We all cough. We cough mucus. We all cough.
Brain cells. We all sing. We sing hoarsely. We all sing.
Off key.

SNAP SUMMARY EMPTY PEREMPTORY

Judging by that response, no home here. Until hell

unfreezes. Delighted to make your acquaintance, I'll be
back. Get yourself a clue in the meantime. My time is too
precious to waste on people who won't listen. Ever known
someone who pegged you from the get-go? Never stopped to
ask you out to lunch? Tried to punch you down tight?
Always rude? Let them into you and you lose it.
Irreducible you. Lovely you. Let them back when the
bargaining equation has turned your way. Now you're in a
position to block their way home. Exclude them from the
thing they want most. Slit their throat?...no...soften.
Say hello.

SNORING

Me rem me rem me rem me rem me rem me rem me.

SNOWSTORM RESIDUUM

I like my long johns. Long after the storm. I embrace my

overcoat. Old and worn. I belong in my red plaid scarf.
Possessed. I¶m the man in the black fedora. And sweaty
blue vest.

SOA DOA? NO WAY!

Yep! SOA¶s to/thank for many memorable/lunches and

junkets.//Yep! We¶re cashing in/on its cachet, careers
on/its lingering vogue.//OK rogues! Enough/bashing! More
service-mashing/and silo-smashing!

SOFTER GROUND
Sink more deeply into March. Hit the ground falling toward
the center of all things that once were renewed. In the
breeze of a barnyard that digested all winter and now
stands ready to replenish the earth. Till the world can
bear itself.

SOFT SERVE SHAKE AND SLUSH

headache hemorrhage of the ice cream variety who's not to

say...strategic capillary or two might not suddenly...next
week while i'm ingesting my fill of...drawing through a
slender...delivery tube...ice colored...purple.

SOL CORP

My self-satisfaction. My reflection in my works. My

admiration in the soil. This long chain of artifacts, one
of them me.

SOMEONE

Building pressure. Like you want to be with someone. And

that someone presents herself again and again. Unaware.
Behind a thousand faces. The curve of her buttocks. The
fruit of her breasts. The parting of lips. Eyes that
glance away, signifying nothing. Where's it go? You know.
Into your loins, your secret domain, lying in wait. Into
the heart, pulsing and ebbing, ringing alarms that keep us
awake. In dreams, some of which burst into naked desire.
Where's it belong? You know. All the chambers, veils, and
whispers of life at its holiest.

SORRY I¶M NOT

All I hear from you is a strange litany. Of things I can¶t

do, things I can¶t be, and why not. Sorry I¶m not. For
standing my ground. Ignoring your voice. Rejecting your
putdowns.

SO TODAY

Another new year. Big bloody number cruncher.

Irreversible.

SOUPS & COMBINATIONS

 Salt spatters. Heaped high upon all my government¶s
warnings. And should you pay airport prices, no. You
would. Not call in your comments, who¶d listen. We though
who share your experience. Black-eye peas aflame. Our
contact, walt ferraro. He¶ll drive your car till you are
able. Sleep with your wife till. Unstick the salt and
pepper. Bottle of t g i friday¶s gra. Nulated su. Gar
substitute a blend of. Nutritive and non-nutritive swee.

SPECTRE OF UBIQUITOUS SPOOFING

Key don¶t touch it you don¶t know where it¶s been. Elegant
protocol deception. Reinitialization crime. Beware
trusted third-parties. Enter the mesh alone. Recall your
new name. One two or three. Syllables.

SPIN

Jet lag sets in, though/set in my place, in space,

I¶m/watching the world spin.

SPRING SONNET

A soaking March is/inverse November://serviceably drab/but

waxing: crueler//than that idiot/Eliot could dream,//dear,
etherised or/otherwize: not so//much a month as mud/slopped
between times more//solid: a double-/fortnight white as
old//Albion: daisy-/drugged allergenic//April: green as
a/fair Saxon meadow.//A March soaking is/a
bacterial//snowmelt: a power-/rotor shuddering//of a spray-
shaking/lion: rising through//red Ides unto an/idyll:
spongiform//lambs shivering sweats/from swollen frocks
of//their grey contagion./They scream for the shear.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Nature favors the white things. Snow, supernovas. Take

these fibers we just breathed. We them may dissolve. Or
we in them dissolving.

STAKE

We stake/standards.//We cut colors/to contours/of

borders/sharp.//We fly flags/as the baboon/bares his
teeth.//When the blood is full/and a fight is nigh.

STAMINA
 Saving my soul for another day when my brain body nerves
are all in tune. Taking my cue from the brown barren
winter gloom. Allowing all thoughts to fade. Mind to wash
away. Ignoring the weather vane. Now relax have your time
peace cup of liquid light. All rise now and shine have a
brace of the harried air glimpse of the road ahead.

STAMINA STRENGTH WILL THE WAY WHATEVER

Straight as the ray of/steel that stays you through the

days¶/many distractions.

STATIC

When the music dies/and radio formats go/flat, we just

whistle.//Some hum and drum their/fingers along any/idle
limb.//Some turn up the din/and, streaming,/sift.

STILL WAITING

Nothing so sad as/a check in transit, a float/transoceanic.

STOP

Were it within my power/my body would stop and my/heart

would still be still be still.

STORE CONSCIOUSNESS (1996)

Before everything, before the music came on, were double

glass doors. Daybreak glancing through the atrium. Half
awake. Gum machine rolling bubbles, transparent plastic,
no baubles, down empty aisles. Self excepted. Clerks
dispensing receipts, cracking quarter rolls over empty
tills, taking no bills. This one excepted. Fluorescent
tubes, length of ceiling, doubling back, revealing banners,
wall to wall, well past midnight. Tonight no exception.
Neon tubes telling the world, "this be the place," but no
one coming, ever. Tonight's no exception. Sunday
circulars upon the floor, clipped of coupons, but one left.
One free sample. Golden bar. Chocolate. Caramel.
Nougat. Peanuts. Wrapper worth retaining. Thought worth
savoring. From the moment I was born, or came to live
here.

STORE CONSCIOUSNESS (2004)

 Replenishment is/swift and merchandise/churn
continuous.//Weekly circulars/advertise the voids/on
tomorrow¶s shelves.//The registers run/unattended,
just/checking decrement.

SUBSIDIES

Pranks. There buried in the twelfth codicil. Three

hundred twelve pages into it. Turned-down face so casual
snatchers. Won¶t they notice they carriers are. Want
their money not mine it behind. Work would not it
otherwise survive. Were not their white space yearning.
My inscriptions.

SUFFER TRANSMISSION

Alas. No lass sails/to Atlantis on a snail's/tin tonal

tonsil.

SUM THINGS

My coffee/today was//tea. My songs/silence. My//income

the/absence of//debt. My friend/solitude.

SUP

Playsurabilty, bigg, delishusshly, upsize, orgonzic.

Elongon, sheepy, virjimmya, bald, pussibililty. Necturnal,
supreptitious, fundle, mosculininin, mine. In,
fominininin, eshplore, intonsity, submessif.
Superstitiously, mouth, energism, kneeling, masterful.

SUSTAIN

Sort we each to fate/and fascinations,//daily

dissolutions,/a sure surprising
recrystallization,//assorted morning faces/we make to
sustain,//each in our own ways/straight and strange.

SWEETEN

In pain pondering/my beautiful wife's six most/beautiful

girlfriends.//The precise pressure/of each abated hug,
each/ceremonial kiss.//The denied pleasures/of each lady I
love just/sweeten the risk.
 SYNDROME

relationships are/repetitive, their//cumulative

stress/intensifies and//exaggerates the/differences
that//naturally crease/independent cells//desperately
and/in all defiance//of biology/merging membranes
and//against their better/nature suppressing//the urge to
itch off/all irritation.

SYSOP¶S ANXIETY

Password still missing? Hardly ever used it, damn. Always

recalled it fingerwise no brainwork, shoot. Now gotta
bring down net find disks reinitialize it all tell users,
crap. Damn goddamn goddamn goddamn and double damn damn.
Kills the day, late for lunch date. Even dinner¶s fucked.

TAKE SHAPE

we button nerves/and join the fray/a suit's a shape/we wear

all day

TALK OF BILLIONS

We are/both of us/sitting in the same chair/six thousand

miles/apart.//We are/six billion/sitting in one/and the
same room.//We talk at the same time,/sip from the same
drink,/and watch the same screen/materialize.

TALK TOXINS

Poise through poisonous/interiors and voices/surrounding.

Bad days.//Calm through the acid/drip-drop of
commentary¶s/corrosion. Bad thought.//Cool and close.
Breathing/equilibrium as all/words and worlds dissolve.

TEARDROPS

When her breasts in bed/are like teardrops above you/she

screams and you scream/for just a moment's relief.

TEASE ARGUMENTATION

Grip and grin is how I greet. Ridiculous situations where

forced to defend such situations. Easy on the talk.
Except to take leave. Nurse my poor, battered, bleeding,
teased argumentation.
 TEMPEST TINDER CINDER

Wow. How many thousands of/thunderstorms scour the earth

and/scrape the air and crack the night/and ignite the
living light.//Wo. How many millions of/unpredictable
strikes and/not a mortal foe in sight.//O. The sky drags
fire over/a world of wooden matches//Where the woolen cloak
scratches.

TEMPTATION TO VANDALISM

For no one shall know you and I/we occupied the

premises/upon this the fourth Sunday in/ordinary time. No
one shall/be any the wiser of our/easily breaking
entering/for of course where no resistance/not a lock not a
soul no sin.

TEMPT TEMPT TEMPT TEMP

Oh so many ways to waste time. Computerize your life. Oh

no, don¶t walk down the hall. Visit them on-line. Obey
the message on your screen. Respond with a neat click.
Open the folder. Get to work.

TENSION OF A DAY AT WORK

Someone. Left you messages. In one apparent random mess.

Go find the thread. And bundle them. Someone¶s. Meeting
folks you need behind closed doors. Go wrestle them.
Right out of there. Someone¶ll. Suddenly need your help
before this day is through. Get ready for a night of hell.
Anticipate.

TERROR

A studious girl's/laboratory acid burn/continues to

sting.//Ears and attention,/fingers also wobble,
they're/axes x y z.//Every potion steams,/every motion
screams out its/margin of error.

TEST X

Could this be the frontier of your theoretical knowledge

Ask yourself whether the voice you hear is free of
imperfections Right down your observations in the head for
to stop record would be the death of you and the combustion
 vehicle you command Kontrol the transmitter remotely with
brainwave emanations and order the far-end to populate your
flat file with random impressions in the format you will
they will do no argument Infant the product with no
resources and test it before it was even built simulating
the happy sound of a customer¶s order in your immaterial
lockbox Treat what I tell you with utter competence.

THANKSGIVING 2001

Violence of the/spirit has us all a bit/shaken, baby.//Be

an angel on/the bus, offer this stranger/your shoulder or
side.//In memory, these four/short hours can pack the
power/of some forty-odd years.

THAT ALL-PURPOSE EXPOSITION

First thirty seconds,/a mumbled yeah explains the/next

ninety minutes.

THAT'LL OR THIS'LL

I can't remember/if I cried. Was eighty-one/days the day

they died.//And the three men I/admittedly'd never
heard./Not yet into rock.//Long long time ago./Still hadn't
acquired Don's sense/of foreshadowing.

THE ADAPTED CAT

Sat all Saturday/bored and basically//hating the day

and/waiting for something.//Sally my sister/and I were
dying//inside and trying/not to go crazy.//A crack and a
boom/came thundering in//and spilled the rain all/over
Mom¶s carpet.//A pounce and a whush/delivered a cat//who
bolt upright and/read this announcement://³A trick on a
dark/day helps the draggy//time pass, and chases/the grays
out your door.//If you wish, you can/watch the dribbing
and//drabs, or with tricks, take/a stab in the blue.//With
your fish, you can/sit, and scout for your//Mom, so then
when she¶s/nigh, upon your cry,//you, I, and the fry/can
finish our fun,//hose down the house, and/only then, when
the//storm has passed and/our time is done, will//we
swiftly kick these/unpleasantries out.´//Just then, with a
dart,/from the red-and-white//stack of his stovepipe/hat, a
teensy hand//snatched, from the reading/cat¶s clutches, the
note//from which he had been/piecing his speech and,//sin
mucho ado,/the hand withdrew and//cat, moving too,
 slunk/straight and away through.//³Just what I feared,´
sneered/our bowl-bound fish, ³this//brash interloper/acts
like he knows her,//puts on a show, but/no one does
nothing,//or so much as yawns,/without
absolute,//incontestable,/indigestible//proof their
intentions/are pure and a sworn//affidavit that/shows
they¶ve consulted//and have thoroughly/secured the
total,//written, explicit/permission of Mom.´//Then up his
upright/umbrella pole the//cat perched the fish in/his
wobbledy bowl//and pirouetted/his own tippety//toe on a
ball that/slopped slippety-so//down a freshly waxed/hall,
with pitching and//woe, caterwauling/and yaw, like a
lone//logroller clambers/over the lumber,//limberly
scrambling/out from under and//gingerly hoping/to regain
control.//Not heeding, it seems,/the fish¶s wee
shrieks,//or his little orb¶s/diminishing wet,//the cat on
the ball/started to bounce, and//struggle to juggle/the
peeved little pet,//plus dead overhead/any movable
junk,//or half-forgotten/snack, from any old//accessible
crack,/or measly mouse that//popped into his path/whilst
pogoing round//our deep-brown, detached,/family-
friendly,//and apparently/unparented house.//He tricked
dick-and-jane/from their dustbunny//lair, and for
pleasure/a Dickens he found//languishing there, then/bowled
them and the fish//through the juggular/air, while
researching//for additional/distractions, like a//leftover
dish of/left-out cream, Dad¶s old//rake still dripping
of/soylent green, and a//marbular carton/of spaghetti
ice//cream that Sally once/loved and now resides//calcified
deep in/our freezer downstairs.//³Put me down,´ screamed
the/downright adamant//fish, but the mad cat/oblivious
could//scarcely see, through his/gyrations and glee,//and
the field of fast/invisible hands,//that he was deep
in/danger of flinging//it all, the proud and/perfect result
of//his haul, the fat and/happy assorted//detritus, the
massed/and sordid horde he¶d//acquired, including/a log
still flapping//its fire, in a vast/and fulsome,
frightsome//and wholesome, bouncing/big baby
shebang.//Through all the buzz, fate/belled the cat, as
the//inevitable/inevitably//does, and his face and/hat lay
splat in the//dust, while all through the/house,
projectiles took//flight, the heavier and/messier went
right//to their appointed/plots, and fish to a//pot,
suspended and/hot, in the kitchen.//The cat raised his
head/in some painless pain,//like an ump calling/a day due
to rain,//a sheep just sheared and/his ribs shown plain,
like//passing a ten-ton/sorcerer¶s stone, a//magician¶s
 shame at/a trick well-blown, or//a monster¶s fury/for sins
unatoned.//Then we could see, neath/his stripéd stack,
a//face more monkey or/man than cat, with his//front-facing
eyes and/foot of five digits,//his prehensile tail/and
backbone rigid,//and the way he grasped/Sally¶s szechuan
fan.//We could see it all,/through his twidgets
and//tricks, that no matter/whence his forebears had//come,
dashing cross the/savanna, with or//without gun, that
he/was happily and//fully adapted/to fun, sorry
for//storming and wrecking/our calm, and vowing//to set the
rainy/day right, wipe away//any suggestion/of blight,
swiftly fix//and polish it bright,/and then split, ere
Mom.//But his hat seemed to/have a soul of its//own, in the
space of/an instant it had//gracefully grown full/ninety-
nine sizes//too large for his head,/then sprung some new
life//form, which quickly spread,/and occupied each//niche
in our indoor/ecology, new//things were evolving,/sans
apology,//and making the house/their very own
shambling,//shivering, rambling,/quivering river//of
overgrown goo/and personal swamp.//The things flew kites
in/the interior//breezes, then their
lines/intersectual//lashed us all at the/knees, and our
pleas//ineffectual/couldn¶t sway, nor cries//for mercy
delay,/things having their way.//But the cat had one/trick
in the sack that//he kept sequestered/round the rim of
his//hat, and with his tail/unfurling, in a//flanking
maneuver,/he extracted a//vacuum from the/red-and-white
stack, then//smoothly hoovered the/things and their goo
from//the throwaway rug/and our ceiling too//then sucked up
our house/and all of the yard,//all the crumbular/remains
and the shards//of the shattered day/and the scattered
clouds.//When next we turned to/look, we were again//alone,
with our Mom/approaching, though it//appeared our home
was/none the worse for the//wear that the cat, or/whatever
he and//things actually were,/exacted and weren¶t//missing
any of/the things extracted//when she wasn¶t there./The
fish still burbling//and rain now sleeting./What remained
was a//fresh bag of tricks for/cheating sleep, and a//red-
and-white tabby/that Mom let us keep.

THE AMERICAN REVOLVER

The teens made off with/my fluorescent watch, some

keys/easily replaced.//I don't regret the/loss of twenty
dollars or/the time the cops took,/everyone of them
packing/his own special protection.//If someday the
 gun/takes me as it has so many others,/I won't be
resisting.//I will die unarmed.

THE BARNES & NOBILITY OF UNIVERSAL LITERACY

When authors complain/that people don't read books,

what/they mean is: Their books.

THE HARD ROCK

Big Deb the Vegas/waitress with the colossal/lungs could

really sing.//Deb and the twenty-/first birthday girlie
gave it/their best Benatar.//Earned a big tip by/saying
nothing to me. Just/refreshing my tea.

THEIR AWARENESS

A woman, a man. Her menstrual period. And their

awareness.

THEREFORE YOU ARE

I need. I need. I need. Insert person here. Or

reasonable facsimile. Eyelids no prerequisite. Radiant
smile. Won't look away or refuse to respond. Doesn't tell
me what I expect. Faithful. Knows the town. Knows when
to leave me be.

THE TOWERS

Made not for the sky/but for the endless sweep of/earth¶s
observation.//When they¶re gone/, the view¶s/gone/, the
Hudson drains into/an emptier ocean.//Now kneeling/we
resurrect/their many stories/one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
 one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by
one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one/by one.

THE RELIGIO

End: heaven or hell./Cycle: birth, growth, death,

repeat./Exist: pure, in pain.

THESE PLAINS

As green and glaring/As brown and bearing as a/Long Las

Vegas block.

THIMBLE

Wee token of play,/tough talisman of//the competitive/race

round the gameboard,//durable totem/of old property//under
pressure. The/unshielded finger//feels needles, the
cute/metallic doggie//follows food to its/master, the
little//cannon, overreached,/easily tips. Stand//and pay,
advance and/render. Surrender//to the rentier/its due.
Papers trump//silver, primacy/mobility, a//full row of
hotels/beats a flush of ones//and mortgaged railroads./Go
and go, fresh with//cash and alive with/the prospect the
cards//today might flip your/way, your thimble might//prove
as nimble as/the tiny race car//you chose to forgo./Feel
your piece, know your//place, the four corners/owned
elsewhere. Know the//give and take. And know/you¶ll never
break the//geometry of/monopoly. Pay.

THISAWAY

«an Architecture's/bare Scaffolding: Void for

fresh/Constellation Dust.//one inGenious Way/to conjure a
 young Kosmos:/Trinity²invoKe!//the three strongest Beams--
/Bones of any bright Structure:/Dreams Drawings Stuff and«.

THIS CORRUGATED OCEANSCAPE

she said a wave we had/designated/to roll forever

had/disintegra/ted

THIS JUST IN

State your business, pal. Understand that I¶m swamped and

not truly tuned into you. Let me get back when my load
becomes manageable, not now though, such stress, can barely
decompress. Even water mains burst in the city, serving so
much of the community, they must get terrible headaches,
glazed over on cold winter nights. I¶m swallowing a lot of
my own spit now, not to mention soda tea hot cold running
commentary on every aspect of my performance. Being as how
and seeing as how I¶ve been at this so long, so long, can
you just cut me some slack? Oh thank you in advance,
gracious colleague, fellow peon. Kindly, please, be brief.

THIS LITANY

Accept this litany of con. tingencies as the sacramental.

violence striking one blow two three. strikes against your
plan of presumption. that whatever bulls-eye you laid.
out as a boast that when the day ar. rived you would be
standing there. safely to one side not behind.

THIS MY TONGUE

Language contemplates/objects in this and//other worlds.

Language/itself's an object//and a world worthy/of
contemplation.

THIS MY TONGUE TOO

Join me in my new/old American//suburb, our culture/of

culs-de-sac and//discontinuous/segments of sidewalk,//our
clusters of clipped/consonants in zones//of personal
sway,/our urge to groove with//whatever mood or/move so
conduces.

THIS SWAY
 She or a he whose breathing controls. Who trickles my
teacup emphatic. Fills me with songs that scurry along.
Duck away come this way spill erratic.

THREE SIX SEVEN THREE FOUR

Twenty years. One stable residence. They must have done

something right. Our parents. We carried on.

THROUGH IRRITATION

gallstone/tones of voice/endured for years/in silent

endless/nesses/ses/s

TICKLE

Touch tingles not much/but enough lingers your eyes/suggest

your fingers.

TIME AND TENSION

As load is lifted/the gravity cavity/becomes and then some.

TIME BEING

Today is yesterday's tale/running on, the will to wake//and

show the sun once again/how rising's done, sweep
the//circular dramas away, tell/the dead dreams their day
is//all gone, fill our minds with the/insistence of
unfiltered//dawn and the tickless machine/of a clean
uncluttered one.

TISSUE

pain stains the tissue/of remembrance, floods//the

membranes with red/and yellowed slurry.//sure she'd say the
same/about me and my//tendencies, our
grand/anticlimactics.//touch it it's a
live/subcutaneous//culture of branches/snapped and dangling
sap.

TOAST

Through these remarks we/mark this moving moment and/bless

the bubbly bliss.

TO CALIFORNIA
 Bring light jacket. One pair of long pants. Baseball cap
film swimsuit. Brother will lend camera zoom. Beachwise
women hot dogs will smell. Edgewise climatic geologic.
Here the gully where the drain rain subsides. Here incline
down tiers of dry burnt cliff houses. Here backdrop
backlots onto the rest of the world. Where suburban ocean
industrial desert mounts. Where Japan is just a stone's
throw curving cross troposphere. Roadsign iridescent will
invite your turn down media zone. Gee, bless the marquee,
the lens, the actors, the stage, sound, foundation. Now
you're in the neighborhood. Burbank.

TO EGIDIA ON MOTHER¶S DAY

she¶s the lady who runs/the household so well//keeps the

fridge fully stocked/helps with the s. o. l.//cooks krupuk
outside/where we won¶t mind the smell//and spreads balm on
our foreheads/when we¶re just a bit ill//yet still manages
to get up/every day without fail//and go to her other
job/but remembers to call//to wish us a good day/just
before school//and so we wish you/mom/long life and good
health//please sleep late on this mother¶s day/we love you
and need you/take good care of yourself.

TO LET

Ah, summer. A brief/relief from the main groove.

Then/straight back to bullshit.

TOMBS OF THE UNKNOWNS

Here lie the hashes/enciphered. Keys known only/to the ones

hashéd.

TORMÉ

Faux Paris is as/good as being there. People/kiss

oblivious.//Faux New York is so/obviously not to scale./The
model city!//Walking Mel Tormé/Way I supply the
missing/melody and fog.

TORNADIC

Rotation tightens on a/column of calm. The/pressure lets

up. Then explodes.
 TO THE PRETTY

smiles and eyes/trail you/the world holds a/mirror/you hold

yourself in/so well/blind to the spell.

TRACE

Easy goes the pen. Like the breeze that overturned my

paper cup. End up on the floor. My leg overrun with the
trace of hot tea. Etching a burn.

TRACTION ATTRACTION DISTRACTION

Beauty¶s in the hold/of the beheld on the eyes/of the

beholder.

TRANSLABRADOREAN

A ship a coast a shield a cross. Western passage to where,

Valhalla, or just an empty bed. Nothing beyond. No one
will believe. We came we did. Leave your cup, your knife,
your campfire. Leave her. Let your beard grow. Leave
your children. Forget these monsters. Return. This is
nowhere. No world.

TRIPULAR

I would be happiest analyzing the Parts. Of enduring

Mystery. And touching the Source.

TROUBLE WITH PRESIDENTS

Once elected they/act as if they somehow now/speak for the

nation.

TTTTERMINALLL

Last call, late night, awaiting a lift from the airport.

TWEET

I post my post. It's/most microscopic. It's a/most minute

topic.

TWITCHYNOSE
 Neuroses are red/and God's garden has sprung some/fine
perennials.

TWT1

sometimes thought seems solid as sinew tendon muscle bone

can strain sprain break bleed but no though real is
immaterial as air not there

TWT2

hollywood splashcuts explosive screams over under

explanation plot machinery all wheels turning no internal
combustion

TWT3

megaspectacle and nanoresponse a corneal aberration

obliterates several dozen adjacent galaxies

TWT4

a fallen faultline slippage of continents is as cracks in a

mudplain signal the escarpment between elastic floodtimes

TWT5

yes there was a guild for gold the florentine strapmakers

maintained tenuous alliances even metalsmiths amalgamated

TWT6

within the walled civita were barriers still restraint and

regulation on common observance yet goats were known to
roam

TWT7

the high-peaked hat of the magistrate was his most

distinguished the cathedral vault within which ceremonies
were administered

TWT8

automatic as dumb & rash commentary split-screen supplies

pretext shares subconscious invites u to fill in the
obvious tinyURLs tend to rule
 TWT9

a fax a fedex a telex a xerox and a text were arranged

along the counter by heft and proximity one of them didn't
belong no one let on

TWT10

Snow's no worry. Flurries no worry. No need to hurry &

scurry. Sit still--the flakes will fall & drape those
worries in soft white slurry.

2:40+1:27+1:10+1:37+2:17+1:35

Keys. Ringing strings. Swing/in their own brief

brotherly/storefront harmonies!

27365

My slowest machine speeds me/more gently down that

precious//path. All of my bicycle/muscles give way to the
day//within. A will: still as the/breath¶s diminishing
inner//tussle. A hill: sure as the/shift gear¶s clicking
numbers. My//heart clocks its own course, locks its/beat to
an unsteady tick,//stays the frame down uneven/ground, in
any wind. My head//stows the combination from/view, sends
it to you, if you//know where to look, you can ride/my
mount: I¶ll join you on foot.

UM

Sadly hardly had I met you when I forgot you. Not you you,
this you, worldly you, standing here raised eyebrow you,
but that you, name you, wordly you. If it¶s any
consolation, seeing as how I¶ve already embarrassed myself
several times over, I¶ve also forgotten why and how I began
this sentence, thinking somehow that you, name you
remembered you, would arrive mid thought and suggest a
common object suitable subject sadly though I¶m not going
to save the moment, though this you remain though. Other
than to say that that you, name you, now I recall, that
that you. That that you. That you were among the few
people with whom I could really really speak. Yeah you, no
intro you, no subject predicate you, unforced happy
intensity you, rolling around bouncing back and forth
laughing you, just goofy you. Yeah, you you, this you that
you. Thank you.

UNCLE BEN

Throw you at weddings. Consume you with every meal. Warm

snow in my dreams.

UNCORRUPTIBLE MASTER

Music endures once we accept that can only friction suffer

degradation. Let me take you chip cuz I¶m going pit
Strawberry chip. Knife-down-the-platter claim some the
discontinuities healed can be ignored. Penny cut is chip
my ears and blur my eyes. Original pressing lost rainbow
resilience violation skreek. There¶s cut fog upon L.A. pit
my chip have lost their way. Tolerate teeth loss hinge
loss door loss libretto loss everything but everything but
everything but everything but everything but.

UNCROSS

Venerate the virgin/the vagina and the/power of her legs

spread/in the sign of the V.

UNDER CHRISTMAS COVERS

We were never young/and there has never been a/holiday like

this.//It's evening. I have/nowhere to go and no one/so
lovely.//We needn't wish on/bells to ring on/in.

UNIVERSITY

Pray for the school year/and the grind may it ground us/in
unearthly smarts.

UNSPEAKABLE

Vegas: the best god/damned museums anywhere./The names,

anyway.//Atomic Testing/Museum: Should I risk it?/Leadline
my eyeballs?//Or the Erotic/Heritage: Endure a
long/grinding and blinding?

UNSTET
There is no harm in/fluttering between a net/you know and a
jar you don't. Fickle wings hug the/air, feel the flow of a
world/that gives them meaning.

UPON ASCENSION

So a life is summed/in sin and buried/in opinion.//So will

we all go/followed by reputation/and creditors.//Receding
in time/from moments stolen.//Upon ascension/I¶ll take my
pleasures, those they/can¶t repossess.//Upon my honor/as a
thief in the bosom/of a gentlewoman.

UPON PAIN OF REJECTION

With every slight, I'm drawn closer/to myself,

precisely/the person I love the most and/most want to
abandon.

UPON RECOGNITION OF THE MAN IN THE MUMMY

Tall and quite handsome.//A death among billions/does not

dilute/the power of his presence/once/upon this earth.//I
want to know/what the hole knew/when the goatherd fell/in
search/of the preservative salt.//Whether it¶s better to
convey the flesh/or give yourself to/the embrace of an
age.//Along a road,/buried in the driest climes/of high
Chinese Turkestan.//If we leave no trail,/discard no silken
shell,/we are not lost,/for as once we had lived/so shall
we always.

UP YOURS

Interesting. That tone of voice. That face. Your

attitude. Just who do you think you're talking to?
Enlightening. The way you keep on and fail to acknowledge
that I'm here and I'm speaking. Just what do you think
you're doing? Funny. That you behaved this way from the
moment we met, before you knew me from Adam. Just who do
you think you are? I know now you're not my friend. And
I'm sorry to say.

URBAN PINES

An immense metropolis: The wary mother of an internal

forest.
 U.S. PRES. BARRY H. ("ROCKY") OBAMA, JR. (D)

Red fades from the flag/of my post nine eleven/sticker. One

white stripe.//Reds--remember when/they were death, a
patriot/was anything but.//On a bluing field./Behold the
latest star. A/black white Hawaiian.

USWORD

Know me by my most/mnemonic non-mnemonic/name--OK?//My most

tangled chain/of digit-twisting and one-/off
emoticons.//Whatever suggests/me to you and us to no/one
overlooking.

VACATION

Try a violent green,/an overgrown isle/in the stream of

sand/I¶ll dream isn¶t there.

VAINGLORIOUS

Howl all you want. I¶ll just reset my filter to that

frequency and block you right out. You, your martyred
friends, and whatever all-consuming wound you received from
cruel fate. It would be nice if we could all share in your
holy communion and participate in your sacred mysteries,
now locked forever irretrievably in the past. It would be
nice to have a devoted sycophancy to consume my verbal
diarrhea and soak up my sodden self-pity. Yes, you are the
center of the known universe. And as with any black hole,
no light can escape, only telltale jets of supercharged
gas. Whatever shining star you nurtured has long since
collapsed under its own ponderous gravity. I¶m still
waiting for that jazz you promised. Stitch up your
bleeding heart, pick up a new horn, and go back out on the
road.

VAN LINES

Take the house the kids. Take an unmarked truck and trail.
Resume normal lives.

VERY LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Have general wealth. General health. And a general sense

that. Of those here now. Just a milk-sucking few. Will
 stride clear through. The next hundred years. And plant
their sweet lips. On young twenty-two.

VINYASA

Breathe unnoticed. Bob/like the lotus floats through noise²

/with effortless poise.

VIOLA

See him down there in his straight-back chair. Chin set.

Half want to give him advice. Sweeter. But the bow is
his. And the ear. Not mine.

VIRILITY

Man in here with me. Little man, big man, same guy.
Sticks out that old neck.

VIRTUAL PICKET

Beware a structure/wholly electrified. Step/with soles of

rubber.//Barbs are benign. It's/those smooth currents
contain the/most livid message.//Charge the merest brush/of
dear proximity with/the heaviest load.

VIRT'Z'N

Query the cosmos./No mere abstraction. A crisp/singularity.

VOLCANO POKING THROUGH CLOUDS

I¶ll hazard a guess. A whole island lies hidden. Dense

forest flanks every slope, shelters villages. Some day may
never come you understand but, yes, it almost certainly
will. How quickly can we evacuate a whole world? What do
families leave behind? Or, more likely, who?

WAITING FOR TALKIES

all rhythm and pinstripes. we fit like abbott and costello

on stage. in the catskills of the twenties. waiting for
talkies.

WALL OF SOUND
 Black beauties swing epiphany. Bad boy producer till
quarter past three. Millions of drums and amps set on
high. Mono the groove and Phil was their guy. Back early
Sixties before the acid clear day. Big party rush could
wash you away. Bring back the ladies and the dense melody.
Bring back the snap pop cacophony. And be my baby. Be my
baby now. And now. And now. And now. And now. And now.

WALT¶S VAULT

In Disney¶s crypt,/his kingdom¶s kept,/they lawyerly

tend/his inventions.//In Disney¶s hold,/his kingdom¶s
gold/is mined, as are/his intentions.//As in a sleep,/the
loyal keep/his royal soul/suspended.//Within a cell/that
smells of/wealth and/booty.

WANE AND WAX

Summer¶s technically/through. September masquerades./Burns,

but it¶s all fall.//And spring in all its/blessed symmetry,
tickling/our antipodes.//Twisting our equal/nights full
polar. Highest noon/resetting the Moon.

WANING

Now, this stereo wine light. Our conversation tapers,

falls silent, night. Very soon the year has passed, left
no fixed impression, so give it a rest. Every turbulent
world must have one zone, where calm prevails, we love
alone, drinking and dancing, ignoring the phone. May we
savor November, the gray blessed days, when violet trees,
haze. Burnt orange remembrance, fall well into Christmas.
Effortless kisses. Right at home.

WARREN

Not wealth, but wellness²/the well of a will kept deep/pure

and cool and calm.

WARREN BUFFETT

He's calm capital/sipping caffeinated colas/up in storm

central.//He's a reservoir/replenished as others flee/new
seasons of rain.//High plainsman, careful/sifter, has
sculpted a mound/visible from space.
|
WATERLEMON
 She smiled thirty-nine, young radiant rose-red lip gloss.
Entire, full flush, sweet simmer long, wonder look. Little
luminous, moonlight contours. Ever growing, no fixed age.
Near me, open sky. Started to. Love, eight months, live,
here you are, stole me, soul, tree we are. All being all,
the blood has dried, angel pains. Now pull back the
sheets, admire the fresh. Enter the yellowing world. Live
for one sweet sour. Engage me. She said live for one
sweet sour bundle of pain, dear, mine.
|
WAX

The moon passes through/many phases before it's/ready for

viewing.//Lets in the liquid/sun to cleanse and rinse out
the/consuming shadows.//Till brightly bathed it/presents
every pore for its/lover's inspection.

WAYSHAPE

Spend the day all hollow. Holding not one single thought.
Ideas will come, so, dare I say, will bowel movements.
Happy to be so empty. Sit now brown cow and stew.

WEALTH GENERATION

Sometimes we are stunned when, what, this What, someone's

utter and absolute trifle. Some stack of stapled papers.
Spawns an industry.

WEDDING

Yes of course we meant we said. That we really truly meant

it. No of course we stood we stared. And said we really
understood it.

WEEKEND

Gray light and the pregnant souls of young women. Saturday

morning somewhere across the Atlantic. Figure of a girl
alone on the beach. She pulls out several letters, one
mine, and starts to read. Happy to know she ran her eyes,
her honey voice, and her thoughts over my words. That's
enough, now leave her be, having dappled too long in her
loving cup. No reply expected. No love lost. Saturday
afternoon in Singapore. Another girl, naive she thinks,
but growing before my faceless gaze. She sought me out and
 I stretched her membrane a bit too far. Or so I thought.
She laughs and sticks me in her web. Lured, allured, but
free to roam. Kindred strangers. All day Sunday giving me
pause.

WELL

She cries well. Her tears/trace the contours of laugh

lines/that love a light rain.

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WERE THERE BUT ONE THING

Consider this cocktail. Held tight between fingers. An

excuse to let go. Consider this evening. Dolled up in our
best clothes. An excuse to unwind. Consider this dance
floor. Resounding with bodies. Our place alone.

WESTMINSTER, HEATHROW, AND THE TUBE BETWEEN

No great London stories. Except almost being hit by a

double-decker bus because I looked the wrong way crossing a
busy street. And being frisked about a dozen times at the
airport coming and going due to some then-current terrorist
threat. And being scolded in a comical accent by a
transplanted American client over some do-or-die issue that
my then-boss in his all his glory neglected to mention
prior to my departure. And the weird doorless continuous
looping elevators, sorry lifts, at the client's building
that seemingly threatened to crush and decapitate their
occupants. And being told they served no tea, pardon us,
only coffee. And hearing one guy call another guy, who had
just left the room, a bloke. And staring into their
irregular eyebrows. And speaking their irregular tongue.
And standing in an English rain. Goo goo ga joob.
 WE TEST POSITIVE

That athletes abuse/our trust ain¶t news. They¶ll smash

and/snort any substance.//That we¶ll indulge them/their
little lies. No surprise./The shame¶s also ours.//We place
our faith in/the stupendous. Superstars/and hidden magic.

WHAT KILLS ME

How now meets dream and laughs. Future defies forecasts.

Unfurling surprises. Revelationary.

WHEN

Wednesday's when the end feels near/and the week's still

strengthening.//Solid as sun at noon, hot/as continuous
business.//Every hour lengthening as/the day's eye turns
internal.

WHENCE

I watch the birds mating, swooping into position on my

picnic bench, the guy, or is that her, crapping white, then
the tweeting and fleeing, whence tomorrow we will lay our
picnic lunch.

WHEREVER

As days wear on dreams/wear off and we're left inside/one

that stuck.//As dreams wear on days/wear off and one is
pretty/much the next.//Not knowing where/the pretty lady
lives or/if she's returning.

WHEREVER A MARKET IS MADE

Remaindered for lack of a pitch hands shaking in sync with

the flight path press kit delivered on ice to a reviewer
like me who would sooner remark she¶s seen some time to
read what¶s upon her slipping it sweetly in the overhead
pile.

WHERE WEEDS YIELD

Why I traveling trim my beard. A lady may see. Keep me in

mind, not for love. An unkempt fellow. We really should
report him.
 WHERE WE LEFT OFF

Where we left off. Last time. Generation ago. Bad

Christmas, wrapping up a bitter year. Fading father.
Failed love, heavy heart, sore, and wounded. Stubborn as
always. Mounting the stairs, you turned, smiled, and stood
for a final snapshot. In the background, blurred, not
quite there. Black cat filled the frame. Consolation cat,
meant to fill the space left by mother¶s death. You had a
premonition. So you turned, ascended, and retired. Good
night. Passing into memory. Passing the baton.

WHITE FANG

Ever had a dead tooth in New York City? I did and I'm sure
you want to hear all about it. Helluva vacation with me
squirming under a pillow, head melting down, and nervous
pus exploding all over the hotel room. Told my brothers to
leave me alone, hit the streets, and let me die in an
appropriately gruesome setting. After all, Manhattan looks
like this big white fang hanging down from America's skull,
painful and reeking and covered in blood. This big long
phallic spike in our collective vein. But something drew
me there five summers running, this being the last. Maybe
it was the prospect of living and dying among junkies,
homeless, and world-class neurotics. Maybe it was the
prospect of being trapped in a fleabag hotel in total
blackout, like the one in the late seventies that Tom and I
escaped by the skin of our teeth, laughing about it on the
road up Boston way. Maybe it was the thrill of running for
our lives down Broadway away from some guys trying to steal
my camera that I flashed around like a total fucking
tourist, ducking into some stupid movie theatre to give
them the slip. Or maybe it was the prospect of hanging out
awkward, self-conscious, and stoned at CBGB's or some other
ratty bohemian club to catch an occasional hit of blinding
energy. Or maybe we were expecting Lou Reed to jump out of
an alley and hit us up for money or drugs. The consummate
New York experience, just begging for a root canal. We
hopped into our car and hightailed it to Long Island, me
hoping that the pain was just a cruel prank being played by
the demons of Gotham, having no power beyond city limits.
No such luck. Made it only as far as Manhasset. Me
cringing dying in the waiting room of a suburban hospital,
where some pretty girl with a thick New York accent kept
commenting on how pathetic I looked. Dentist finally
treated me to the most intensely painful thirty minutes of
my life, ripped that dead root out with wild abandon. Gave
me a codeine chaser and I was on my way. Numb and loving
New York.

WHITENING

Midnight mass immense. All December builds to this. One

glorious burst of organs snow and flowers. Hymns of God
and frankincense. Old baby blinding.

WHORL WHIRL SWIRL

Tip of the index/finger and opposing thumb/briefly sweetly

meet.

WHOSE SOUNDTRACK

I am aging and having a hard time remembering why there was

ever the assumption that I had to play along. Find a girl
hold your thoughts because they said what I heard was not
universal hence not good enough spin to belong here
goodbye. So you saw me all night all those dances and
discos those public recordings saw me miming in time with
my own little gems.

WILL

A mind¶s munition/is its concentration, its/hole-before-

bullet.//Its ignorance of/peripheral issues and/stray
conditionals.//Its attention to/not what may take place but
what/through destiny will.

WILLIE

Lyndon B Johnson/Nixon B Dick/Clinton B Willie/By keeping

it slick.

WILL RESPOND

Memory of the connection persists. There's a queue here

with your name on it. Ping me again and I will respond.
If it's hard to connect, just try again. My domain has
changed and so have my host and environment. You'll find
my new address somewhere. I can't tell you where. I'll
make you work to find me, make you show that the connection
lingers on your end as well. It may take a thousand
routers and protocol converters to reestablish the
connection, but you won't be sorry. You may not be able to
read what I send. Worth a try though. Ping me. I will
respond.

WINTER¶S A WONDER

Winter¶s a wonder/of anticipation,/waiting, awaiting/the

aerial frosts.//The young year¶s soft-packed/celebration/of
birthdays/mirth days/and surprise days off.//Fresh souls
will bless this/chilliest
season:/presidents,/preachers,/and philosophers-
king.//Snowmen will rise to/mark the occasion/and happily
melt/into Spring.

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT

Drink the wine, discard/the vessel. Revere the Lord,/not

the reverend.

WITHIN HER MOMENT

A spot of liquor. A touch of languor. A moment with her.

A night of anger.

WOLF CROW

Oh how we end up in the doghouse. We end up in the

doghouse again. End up in the doghouse again for nothing.
Up in the doghouse again for nothing unusual. In the
doghouse again for nothing unusual, her. The doghouse for
nothing unusual, her looks. Doghouse for nothing unusual,
her looks, my. For nothing unusual, her looks, my my.
Nothing unusual, her looks, her, her looks, oh my.

WOMBLY

The middle finger. For deepest penetration. It¶s first

runner-up.

WORD LORD WORLD

Deep in the transmission oh. Respecting one last best

interpretation eh. Oh my word my lord my way at last you
have found my way my lord my word my. World upon world has
found the way of words they found. Lay another scripture
down.
 WORKEND

Sun and day are blank/as Eden, a pleasure dream/free of

imagery.//The only pressure/is past: the embossing of/odd
sleep positions.//Atlas carried the/atmosphere with grace,
as a/cold world's counterweight.

WORLD WAR W

Bet we¶ll strangle on strings Enemies will seek out

catchphrases Everybody who ever banged the boilerplate
Rounded up into hit lists Caught in crosshairs All ten
million Pressed away.

WORN

The weight of weight worn/whole, heavily, drags/the soul,

cruel as wool/that keeps within the/heart wrapped in sin
as/wet as pent-up sweat.

WOUND

Should I crash and burn restore me. Hold my heart in your

hands and stay. Kiss my wounds with ready laughter. Bless
my eyes and lead me away. Should the twists of fate unwind
me, scatter all my earnest schemes, I pray I'll have you
here to bind me, gather me up and into your dreams.

XING

Driving. Stop. Braking. Too late for that. Skidding.

To react in that interval. Screaming. To see me do
anything but crash crunch squeeze punch out the daylights.
I killed. And on I drove, red body behind me, hot on my
tail was a long line of cars, and we all would have paid
had I slammed on the brakes. A cat.

X OOO OOO OOO OOO OOO OOO OOO OOO OOO OOO OOO OOO OOO OOO
OOO OOO OOO X

Pet a very large/Number. Let it purr its stream/Of

murmuring ohs.//Hmm. A one at one/Of the ends. Chasing, it
slinks/Past time¶s curvature.//Lost the count. Are
we/Mounting the powers or gone/Deeply decimal?

XPIR
 Millennium came once we had emptied the Chips from a bag
that in fact had expired three years before but not carried
no heavy aftertaste, so we of course not forging a link
between last night today, consumption excretion, came down
with the Runs and that of course is where the moment was
spent, shivering solemnities, pondering over this or that
apocalyptic poet, and wondering why my erstwhile Erection
had no clear connection with procreation or resurrection.

XUAL

Into it now seems there apparent breast presentation.

Intimacy seems so sandwich-flat too close for knowing.

YADDA YADDA YADDA

I suppose I should be taking notes on all this. Capture

the conscious stream for the benefit of future generations.
Scan every last scrap, index the mess, compress it to
kingdom come, cram it into my safe deposit box, and leave
triplicate instructions with my true love, my executor, and
the Librarian of Congress. Yeah, right. As if they'd
care. As if they'd notice, slogging tippy-toe in swollen
currents of their own making. Maybe just entertain my
contemporaries. Stripe it, wipe it, web it, spam it it it
it it it it it it across their brainpans. Yeah, right.
Recognition flash then trample-time out-of-our-way another
shiny object. Or just admit the moment is mulch. Pile it
high. Let it decay.

Y CHRIST

A creator crossed. An atonement appointed. A man anointed.

YES

Ah yes the meaning,/the ineffable//chi of words we

don't/understand but love//and into which we/wish to crunch
the glow//and interstellar/gas surrounding the//crucible's
melt and/endless spew of new//formulations and/dumb
complexities.

YOU GUYS

We're sitting here watching the opening ceremonies. For

the Olympics and wishing we were. There. I also suddenly
became overwhelmed. Missing you guys. If we lived near
 each other. We could be watching this. Now. If we were
there.

YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS

a beggar lit my sun on/a bengali¶s got my urn/not a lesbian

gym rug/an ambient slug orgy/blame a gin snug tory/a rusty
nobleman gig/goat my nebular sign/barley a tin mug song/mug
yon a stable grin/a bleat urging my son/a gory sunbeam
glint/a muggy nostril bean/groin lust a gym bane/a smug
lying baronet/a grim slung bayonet/go mist a nearby lung/go
strum a lying bean

YOUR HEELS

Slip on your heels your/little boy/enjoys your

lipstick/enjoys your ceremony of/happy faces/receiving the
man's/uninvited embraces all/over the floor he begs you,
slip off/your heels, you towering, embarrass us, mother.

YOUR PRETTY HALO

Don't be so blue. Each one of us will be remembered for

precisely ONE thing. For our families, that thing may be
the funny way we handled a fishing pole. For our
professional associates, it may be a practical joke we
played on the boss at Christmas one year. For the world at
large, it may be one shining incredible artifact we
produced. We never quite know what that ONE thing will be.
That's for fate to decide. Fate's a bit like the grace of
God (in fact, it IS the grace of God)--you can't will it to
your advantage--you can only pray that it comes with a
pretty halo around it. You just hope and pray that the ONE
thing is a GREAT thing. You already know your ONE thing.
And it's great. Doesn't matter exactly how many of our
contemporaries recognize that thing during our respective
lifetimes. Doesn't matter how well positioned we are to
spread the news of that thing during our lifetimes. You
know your thing. As do I.

YOU SHOULD WRITE

Jon. Funny you should write. My mind blurs mail, poetry.

Was thinking maybe compose haiku msgs. But the twist being
use the extended form, five seven twelve nineteen and back.
Stress compression, clipped syntax, abbreviations. Make it
 sound colloquial. Haphazard looking. Break some rules.
Jim.

ZEROED

oh good no message/or other imprint//on this day of

play/and featureless calm.//not a blinking red/reminder
that some//other presence has/in on me zeroed.

ZEST

Lady laughs too much and so goes the hallway. Orange

anyone? So goes the outward-spiraling skin. So goes the
high-noon perfume. And so goes the day.

ZIGGURAT

Add confusion to/the fire that urgencies of/purpose raise

up.//Not just tongues befell/Babel but willing the
flesh/for common object.//No stones stand in/Iraq. The lone
inscription/something Semitic.

ZONED

I'm beyond tired. I'm zoned. In my womb. Tic tic tic tic
tic tic boom. My heart and me in irregular sync. Hard
sometimes to sit and think. Pay no mind. I'm just zoned.
It's my problem. Mine alone. Childhood teasing turned
muscle to bone. Continual flashing shut my eyes up tight.
Never quite sure whether to flee or fight. Noise and
strain and stress and light. Hard sometimes to sit and
listen. Just trust my reflexes and weird intuition. Feel
the heat. Feel the blood. Feel the adrenaline useless
flood. You won't listen. So hear me scream. Feel me
kick. I'm sort of coping. Tick tick tick tick.

ZUG GROSSE BELLE AND A TOWN CALLED HELL

Downtown once was fresh. Environment once pristine. Ten

millennia plus since last glacier retreat. River brought
sweat salt gravel hope bootleg rum and not-so-distant
ancestors. Indigenous people were just shunted aside. Our
kind built dangerous dump. Tell the ice come back.

ZYGOTIC
Cradle baby face. Ink-stained palm, yellow eyeballs. Tell
me about the journey, recapitulate. Our one-way soft-
celled amphibious gill-flapping tail-wagging evolution.
Great deathbed story, hope God lets me go back there. Yes,
back down that protein chain. Zoning back to black.