28 December 2009

South Beach, 10:29 p.m., 12/28/2009

The moon reflecting off

Do not forget how much I
Abhor my love for you
Gathering dust on yr shelf

As you once collected roses
Red petals dripping
Impossible pollen

Each flower so beautiful
I've seen their shapes cut out by a star
On one of the planks above my head.

26 December 2009

how you

let us remember your brightness
the church all linked and singing
how you wanted to be remembered
as a woman, let us angel-paint you
dead now, only 38 days old, still
venomless viper, nothing left expected
always the strike, the thoughtful coil
before you bit the choir's heart.

25 December 2009

biting yr lip


staring up from the ash, smoking, in the shadow of smoke, remember:

like my tongue cut the corners of unutterable white skin
our bodies at rest, hurdling into each other
a light-tight spasm bucks yr breast

then

biting yr lip, you float above yourself
straddling a breathless gush
of heat and beaming, i

am trapped between

a choral aggression at first, fingers
roll through yr hair, lay stave winding white then red

then

i pull your mouth into mine, grind
my scripture, brittle, useless but painted and performing
paralyzed by the size of the stage, though the theatre
its polished oak columns, hirsute crimson curtains
soothe, sings gently while it burns, quick heat
pushing through the rafters, everything on fire

oh, now memory rising.

insomnia

but at first only
the veins in my arms
were that color

the bloated purple-green
of hard work, strained through
such a perfunctory grate

now the cloudless
sky repulses an oily
mesh, not for the eye

not for the heart, either
but beating and cracked
an insidious rewind of

prone and gagging mix
the owled mountaintop
and her shaking skin.

can not, will not, must not
snow-heavy air livens an upturned palm
and the blind, cowardly thing
slinks; hue spoiled by rye fact.

23 December 2009

keep in mind her softness

keep in mind
the bed's soft billow
its thoughtful handsome
need. why wouldn't its
desirous fit surprise

supple dreams wide never wane
stuffed gagfull with dead feathers
poking jolting inconvenient jeering
kingdoms tatter torn by a ghost
no surprise this other latenight life.

destroyed at the beck of white noise
keep to your wheat-soft side.

16 December 2009

Abstraction for Song

54 / 119 / 131 / 147 /

2:05.5

Improv for Paranoia, or How to Make a Better Cancer #1

"Put this on your status if you know someone who has or had cancer! 
All I want for Christmas is a CURE! 
♥ Dear God, I pray for the cure of cancer. Amen. 
(93% WON'T Copy and Paste this, 
will YOU?) i am NOT one of the 93%.." 


Rats snack in the cupboards
on clean, masculine crumbs
traps clap in the wall
but the blood never runs.

15 December 2009

Improv for Hands

here, black streets constructed on white thighs
both hands eclipse a slim aperture, jubilation then
with the knowing, no
shake nor shore
a push, profiting.

11 December 2009

On Linen

The primary concern is tone, the shallow vanity
Of art's trenches, (The financially successful artist can go on forever:
"Wall, whisper, meat, a murdered mother
Many moths trapped in dual headlights
A single loose tooth, 'How ugly!'"

Watt's white linen piled in context, a
One-deeper layer of nudity (unresponsive
Basement). Returning to tone: I am tempted
To say, "Perfect!" standing deeply in the mouth's shadow.

These people seek, have sought no easy escape, being never
Dance nor dancer, flame nor dusty flur, but a slowly fading
Memory of a dream in which the footprint is blown
 flat
  by a cool
   night's
     breath

Her thigh immediately, a
Shapely garnet castle led up to
Quartz and feldspar tumbling.

untitled 12102009 2:28 p.m.

for Sarah & John Currin's 'The Pink Tree' 

You
& Yr sister apposite the choral and
how can the artist describe Yr nude
Smile but those -- who's pink automatic

( You )
& spindly hand will reach &
prick this GALArific rainbow & precise arrangement
unclothed-coy, supporting her pivot

You
& historiographic radiance, shies
supplying future circles, licks of lights
the black sky rising, Yr comparative breasts

You
Washed with pale, easy brush strokes
adoration of the hands, possessive silken
& skimming -- four fingertips at Yr hip.

10 December 2009

Improv for Sarah 1




a cobbled pack of birds 
no flutter, nor flap, but vibrating
mastering the clouds with such fidelity
then abandoning the tapes, driving on

what could they caw, this cawing crew
that would address sincerely your soul
metastasizing warmth despite the tapioca snow
slippery slush sours Freyja's fair footfall

cooking down the stairs, garlic hisses in almond oil
by sexual addition and with sloping, angled intention
the knife, stand-in for the after, kisses a perfect sweetness
her round, naked toes breach the kitchen, contented breath




*(Freya (or Freyja) was a beautiful Vanir Norse goddess of love, magic, and divination, who was called upon for help in matters of of love. Freya was the daughter of the god Njord, and the sister of Freyr. Freya herself was loved by men, giants, and dwarfs. By sleeping with four dwarfs she acquired the Brisings necklace. Freya travels on a gold-bristled boar, Hildisvini, or a chariot pulled by two cats.)


**(this is a really meaningful poem, it has has a definite A-part, B-part and an epilogue. it transitions. it's inspired by beauty, literature and life. (specifically Sarah C., Nabokov and the sort of spinning direction our world is always taking.) i am devastated in doing this, but i will take this parenthetical as opportunity to apologize to people who don't get what i'm doing. sorry. this poem helps me realize i actually know EXACTLY what i'm making every time i choose this word or that word, piece together this sound or that, omit a comma or enjamb this, end-stop that. i love every bit of what i've made for you to read, so enjoy it. or else you won't.)

08 December 2009

Response

For A.G.,

What
does it mean to have a radio hit?

to only define Her by the air
between toes, curling and stretching
call this a dance, and Her Suitors will, at least / beside Their unhappiness, be happy

a little dalliance (grows from cracks in the carpet
still-packaged rivers, and what do They mean? what
do They want?

05 December 2009

Improv for Couple B

Night settles a hand over the asphalt, its nose upturned
Later, riffs above and beside patches of moist grass
So much artifice: the almost-matching mirrored stars;
                                                buzzing suns-silence
Affected, adjunct and bluish hues blinking for window watchers

And, up through a mesh of towering light, insulating pitch holds
Beside somnolent little lies.

04 December 2009

Improv for Couple A

Somewhere inside this empty desk
there's breath, where meddle meets death
and wild wind, that hungry scratch, will catch
Couple A's blight passion coyly exposed. so Couple A will smile,
knowing
what Couple A knows

Individual 1 is satisfied / Individual 1 cannot not sleep the day
but, Individual 2? / so determined to mine a final rhyme

so tired, so in love
so in love, so required
such requite, such warm fire
burning each to each, tracks lost on love's lost beach.

28 November 2009

pain brûlé

collared red redundant pillows, then the meandering whims of last night
like blood, half-dry, spread over that evening's balmy comeuppance 
flying nowhere then sick and high from promise, just the smell of it
popping capillaries where skin lives in sin with morning air spun cold.

27 November 2009

And then The Explosion, Flames Ripping like FISH HOOKS Into The Sky




i am not afraid of telling you
that disappointment cut me,
(but i am afraid to say your name)
You, snoring and moaning: a log
loafs incontinence down a slippery
hill, and i am nothing but a bald witness

these sights and sounds, the pastel pallet
pushes electric east then wild wind west
as i shake my head and daydream, "will you hold me?"

loafs incontinence down a slippery
little list of lazy, inopportune, poorly timed insecurities
PERK ... [ long pause ] ... PEARL
maybe the only real creations of our lives
will arise from troubled times

i cannot live in this vessel, i cannot live outside this vessel
i will deplane whatever it is in my hand, harboring, harboring
the port is but my flesh quivering beneath my flesh

what pet taught to fear the incomparable
'i' through which we know the world?

fear him, subtle, push at his temple and knock
himself from the horse of *GOD* at every triple-fork
Bacchus, Mana, Commissioner, Persephone, Necropolis
my followers will know you for your kindness and warm kindred.

i am handcuffed by thought trailing through a river
throat warm and wild, you will find a maze without escape.

24 November 2009

Shuriken

How brave those eyes, sidelong and lonely
Tender, stretched knowing and pangs struck
Across an anvil stretched from tip to toe.


Fingers first then greed comb over pelted arms
Posture like John from his Master, many fairer
Deign no greater good, abandon no lower canvas.


After disappearing, the blinking coastal air pants
Fever inhaling the deeper reds of the little girl's sunset
No one lonely: 'The still sand warmer on the beach.'

Depression



The dog dashes past
What fills the basket
Or the tall red bin
Itself, a matter of time
Breaking morning light
Our hours so fast, so
Suddenly ataxic. His claws
Clanking on the tile floor
Nail prospective, withering son.

23 November 2009

is a metaphor

the most important image in adulthood
(is a metaphor) she only seems to be standing
black hair bouquet on a pink blanket & arms
arch above her head, fingers spin a smokey web

emphatic, elastic with a rage
insulting passion, real passion
nothing about, and knows no subtle range

all egg shells, at this second.

22 November 2009

9th Street & 4th Avenue, You are Many Things, First and Last of Which is Not Me

Half-naked, dear wondering about the middle of the street
& you hear it, the water exhaling underneath
the sweet music none can see
floating like an oily film across the sea
begging for its single match, hungry for change

Half-naked winking dear, a victim of disease
a beautiful messiah caught laughing in the trees
nearby foxes chase quick bees
from the flowers of their dreams
into hurried little traps, which
well, you know where they lead

Half of the buxom dendrophobic, naked dear
scant allowed to know and better we all are
imagination carries us far too far
to the pollen in the catch
smelling like haughty laughter
mixed with lascivious sap
she goes wandering the road
wondering about the midriff of the street

Half-naked dear & near double yellow seams
chains the way together in a certain stitch
each artery arresting beneath a drenched white T
stretched black sheet punched through with teeth
loose iridescent bolts she wheels around to catch
oncoming stars and rain, dizzy umbra, spinning steep

Half-naked dearest sleep, incidental sting, trips on soppy shoestrings
and passion pink mangles wither black like a sleepy kiss upon a cheek.

16 November 2009

Crosshatch

Please keep close, the best part's almost here ( Anatomy of a tear, fearful & round blossoms from, replant redolent dead sordid bunch watches weather & peels hopeless basketweaver emerges berryless handfuls of sweat unpaved, though traversed brand skin in one motion stripped back reveals crosshatched patterns of sweet. Tear fearful from weather unpaved sweet ) soon we will swim in the cool cave full of warm water.

(

my biggest fear; my big fears; i fear many big things
: look at this wall, you are my love and for me
_____________ you must follow my eyes;
_____________ and then i will judge you
: my grand & elaborate career, you are my love
_______________________ and for me
_______________________ you must be free;
my fear biggest my fear biggest my ____ be free-er

: collapsible proposition: this is why you are dear
__________________ this
__________________ again

oh no, this i can hold in my hand
_____  there is enough room beside
collapsible presupposition: i will carry you
into the bedroom, though you will not undress

: candle, wick, flame, storm cloud, dance
( i fear many big things
________________ ) you will not lie
( my big fears
________________) i can hold it in my hand
( my biggest fear
________________) and then i will judge you ( ...

Untitled 11152009, 9:08 p.m.

"Monday. Delectatio morosa. I spend my doleful days in dumps and dolors." - Lolita, HH, VN: Page 43

"The dream has gone but the baby is real / Oh, you did a good thing" - This Night Has Opened My Eyes, SPM


Untitled 11152009, 9:08 p.m.

The haze flattens out as the bus pulls away
Ahead, to the right, three Russian hags gorge
Bend awkwardly at the waist, their object no feint
You see yelping smears of eye shadow first, then allow
Knives of cake-thick perfume, the bus reels, stereoscopic buzz
Over the steel-lattice grating stretched across the overpass
White thread spills past the womens' chattering yellow teeth

The hum weaves, targets used to being broken
Appear in the road guiltless and naive like a pedestrian
Drunk on thumbs and dumb with wit; how a smell
Can be a manufacture of providence, yarn braids between
And disappears underfoot to you-do-not-know-where
No foreign sounding utterance nor vicious scent

We are alone, again. Prick-wise and solemn
With shoulder-blades each rough brick counted
One-by-one by the inbetweens the corridor begins to boil
Your hands my hands your fingers my fingers your fantasy my fantasy.

15 November 2009

Lying (for Zelda, with a Moving Grey)

For the sake of taut rope
Your true voice stranded
Swaying island of chords

Tears one-by-one
Time darting through age
Trembling uncertain eye.

Untitled 11122009 (part 1)

"Every generation has a keyhole to which its eye is pasted." - Mary McCarthy, 1953

"Don't push too hard." - Family Motto, 1945-2010


I'm just as callous for facts
as the next cough, itch or cancer
the pillow all hardness, air of
unlit matches, spread over evenly
with a clear
jam;

Continuing on hungry when conventional
wisdom so damnably at-the-ready:
"Touch this side of the rainbow,"
one man still;

Pasted over time and filial sinew
spiny fingers
to the ultraviolet rend      truth
     a great hobby       that skyward riposte;

Always a fall; bridle cage & lock pistons
now     because     this falling always:
"Keep yr hands close, yr eyes in focus,"

11 November 2009

Isolation's Axis

Isolation's axis
Tumbling past proportion
& barrels hidden
Consequential mast look
Toward the moving end; extreme
Isolation's axis
In distraction & obvious
Back to gravity
At gravity's back
The system's not dizzy
Just preening and fat
Isolation's axis
Any sky red
But the proper bevel
Takes lifetimes of practice
You cannot afford
Not today & not with love
Or patience; no secret
Isolation's Axis

10 November 2009

EKPHRASIS; I / 1A / 1B






Introduction A - On What He Will Say, For The Kid

Take care & grind down
scraping into the semi-solid base
right there before the adoration
nothing more than no-actualization
offering pure potential & what
can be done with these now?

downwind the seed coat will break
inharmonious, awkward shuffling feet
free of metaphor you ask the same questions
of someone new,


Chapter IA - Fine Powdered Constructs

The eyes no longer stir
or boil the room in sleep,
dead and drying starfish
tasteless story of ill redemption
their portending limb repeats

the malevolent scene: without heart
softshoe or backward little oceanic steps
automaton of function, certainly motley
but perspective, remember

the eyes no longer stir

malevolent with recurring context
ultimately though
found fine powdered constructs
and cracking confectionery shells
once baking replaces biology
swiftly we'll move our bowels,


Chapter 1B - The Mole

"I'm going to be going back and forth a lot, just to give you a heads up."


"It is one of the paradoxes of painting ... that the immortality or timelessness of of the image is a kind of death-in-life."


There remains one fine difference
& let it remain, not linger
between the close repeating theme
of that foot
and the broken similarities of this other

label a heretic, or a simple reader
but there are facts: one hirsute mark
shifted three inches to the tip of a nose
will by laymen always be called a mole

so it goes

these powers no less
when left to nature's latent fury'
or braced upon a softer throne

but then they tap & in their beaten blur
stir the stars as from a child's breath
size foreshortens cosmically condensed
into fleshy powder in a compact
and applied to the tragically flattened face

being equal is not a conscious grace.

09 November 2009

Aphorism on Promising Pain

the initials carved into the tree
out front of grandma's house

an incantation, proving
nothing of magic in this world

soil better for the seeds
bucolic burials left to feed

lies uproot, the defying tree still stands
the letters will not dissolve with rot

what erases or creeps upon, mires what one once knew
none shall know, but there is smooth, healthy skin there

the sun through leaves makes this clear
no pain from bark can disappear.

08 November 2009

Catherine Across The Outerbridge, For J.

still without the white wind
but aching, then a cough
no, the sky palms its cool rain
toward the eastern shore's aching eyes
prone, though immune to the festering sun
fluid-filled lungs      &
your scream across the outerbridge
never not but a bell unrung

so inside
though abandoned missing
half, thought not betrayed or flayed flat
and catching that which fills me
one can do so much
behind the love of windows

22 October 2009

unfinished: given that it is morning


given that it is morning
certain chores must get done
forget the teeth the spare skin
littering the livingroom's floor


first you must jump the puddledull
sing alive the lights and have a look
at yourself deeply brightly
dark with adjectives the mirror is well


unlock the door kindly beg each deer escape
and one by one spy their fur for stolen brushes
pilfered digging hands you recognize the one you
miss leaping through the plate glass door


as much from the puddlesharp reflecting
what crushes scratch rolls across the AM sky


( unfinished and entombed: from 8/6/2009 )

20 October 2009

Jayson

"Those he command move only in command,
nothing in love: now does he feel his title
hang loose about him like a giant's robe
upon a dwarfish thief."
[Shakespeare's Macbeth, Angus. A5S2.]

Dreaming in pictures
television tongue-cut
a black man, strong black
man guts the air with fingertips
paints each hungry leaf an icy blues
something crawls behind his ear
like a cricket chirping with intent
inhales through teeth
lets pass
two beats
into the too cold room the creep
a stench runs past his feet
couch, tv, used books bought cheap

The simmer eyewild Jayson sees:
red tricycle, white wheels gentle
tipped on its side hangs in the honeyed sky
Jayson dreaming dreams and the kudzu climbs

Hand-me-down Sony stereo wet
grinning bug darts behind an airless blade
sliding colors stir by the pricking of thumbs
Jayson wonders what beast he'll now become

Beyond defeat lay no living disgrace:

But we know, we know Jayson drowns
that room stomps out that bug turns
the volume up Real Loud and hummmms
along to whatever stirring noise, just for fun

Oh Jayson, just for fun!

of blood

sorry for what you've become
while you were sleeping i fell in love
it didn't take long, i know
maybe i think i could be wrong

gypsy handed rush of blood
ruby-eyes crush juvenile love
desire wet dependence, addiction addled remorse
soul's resolved divorce transfixed as she drifts off.

15 October 2009

Canova & Venus




Comfort or quiet
nothing echoes when
the windows let up their gaze
snow falling somewhere, breath inside
soon a child's steel will freeze
no thing can satisfy me no
you will never be enough, mollify.

I walk beyond seasons all the glass
surrounding the lattice

I am the windows are not quiet
storming, their work is tempered by chariot fire
by mythic largess by greed by

I though afraid as I am of comfort
or quiet or you or the deep polish
of window panes I choose I choose

Together we conspire
the hard wet world
strapped into his claws
or that pours her sweet apple
pearl rolling down his flaying edge
(cloud or breath the shape of digging
smaller till the brutes' stomach fills
no more the sugar of syrup
no matter the salted reflective cast.

05 October 2009

no throttle

... discourse into the vein
but how in? the image
rides or bursts like a bust
of Ludwig Van dropped
from the super-story sky scraper
passion lines wheezing behind
or or or mashes across viscus
pink micrometer slugging
wrinkle above her crying eye

i'm not describing the image
to spite what i've said of course
this is love then again swirling
and red and rushed and swinging

i'll come back in time
in time
to spite what pains of before.

01 October 2009

Battles #1

Bright and burning in my pumping veins
the lonely morning before you rise
spent dreaming others' perfect names

darling, there's only you
can lip me from this edge
one memory left to toss

so I think real hard about
the time at that old house
heard teens coo 100 miles out
breaking bottles with their shoes

you always knew what to do

you touched me
you coughed
eyes cast out toward the bridge
not quite ready to push off

at the tree we both might have lost our kiss
caught beside the harbor's sinking ships
you fading like a sad ghost at my fingertips
me, I was a lost child only waiting for a gift

now it's morning and I feel stronger
think I'll stay inside a little longer

wear that silver chain you gave me loose around my neck
the cool quick medal swings across my chest

its you, only you, and you're about to come home
pearl morning light, my lips cotton to your cheek bone.

30 September 2009

Jackie

He is not as he seems
bright dependable
he is

Selfish full of youthful glee humor
maybe shards of projection
his darkness is real you

See this clearly
all the sand pushed
around like a retaining wall

Quick fire cut off
erasing everything
while the child dreams

Of future
failures sees
morning

Sour embarrassing color
sun dashes behind a cloud
listens for an amber tongue

He knows its true knows its true
Knows someone brings something
if you wait for that perfect wave

Knows the satisfying knock
that looses the trophy out of your
into his tiny pink hands sparkling

Over the long eventually repeating
line each passing minute
a new angle for admiration

Until the quiet night
the heavy heave
moon sick with labor

In the salty light
on his hands & knees
maybe laughing

With his shoulders
bright, dependable
full of youthful glee.

26 September 2009

For K

Where hides the walk's invasive math he died
eyeless
now there dead
nothing in focus he forges on
rallying for the market farsighted
feathers nod deeply know what he knows
there each should remain
though bite by bite dim eyes
follow a weathered path from the crawling sun
ten of them at least to share, share
what they found that Crow could spare.

25 September 2009

Untamed Fig

Pulled flat like confectioners' sugar
settled by a light low wind one leg kicks
over the futon's shoulder
drops beside yr prophesy like a body
beneath the stars
you lured in crickets laughing
they're home under the untamed fig
all night you refuse his sweet song
but pluck and pluck and smiling pluck.

23 September 2009

For My Daughter

Imperfect mythologies
swallow studied now bitter
sweet waves from where

Gone missing Dante's crunch
no accounting footprints in ash or
Chaucer his village

Proletariat and idiots beating
rice paddies thigh high
water syrupy with snakes

Jain my daughter
her child Maude
just fallen

Out of style again
in a chrome stroller
Jain of no command

Wishes many things
misses her father
will she know

The Jews cover their heads
the rich eclipse their eyes
I wore a circle on a chain

Rippling musculature black
rivers crashbang cheekbones
I wore a circle on a chain

Broadcast 9mm DAO
isolation blue hirsute
sea moss a society of

& afloat on a slither
bullets ripple unrung
what wild purple figs

Everything is out of sequence
i have made the world this way for
you

Are my
Daughter
my god

Daughter gone now lost
to her own precious only
biology etymology tautology

History Grand Daughter
no traceable sniff no sugar
the R from 53rd Street to White Hall

My own enjambment bored
beating endstops.

22 September 2009

waiting room #1 / blah blah panic

Waiting Room #1

transfixed by me-ness
the uniformity of actualization

"Represent us! Dance our dance!
These here our potholes
Need your attention, now!
You may ignore the other
(he is
(she is
Not our handicap, nor is
(he
(she
Spread upon our 12-grain bread
Hand us that knife, and be prompt!"


Panic

There's no reason to panic
keep yr heart, bottle
& ball yr fists, now what to do but
explode, uncoil, strike
venom on this child's tongue

Do not panic, do not
it's more like a bite
now-then curl up,
let the screaming circulate
none of the smallest will survive.

demoralize, train song

i always begin with i
keep off immortalize
slow hands in the dark
red eyes type a mouse
quivering mouth, i don't
want to begin with, i
what is on your teeth?
where might i go today? i
know how to get there.

the shoes with the weathered stitch
i do not want to immortalize you, i
let the sand swallow you, the sand
must forget you, move on now, to where
yr new black hat round rolling rocks
underfoot whimpering glass from the sea

a nagging, louder, louder louder
second hand, Bach rising from the dark
the senses' curtain falling into the bay

i crave, i crave, i
crawl, i demand i
immortalize only i

15 September 2009

Ms. Dog

Key is justify nothing &
I've learned from living here
Harden yourself but don't
Be bull-headed, I know poetry
& my art will spit in yr face

Surprise! It's poison! Or
It drips. Either accomplishes
My task: I know pantoum,
Villanelle, sonnet-sad phrases
I know Ms. Dog, blood running
From her fingertips, jumped
To her death to save her art
Which is not my art.

Most, Anne included, do not make it
Over the ledge
Without a field of daffodils
Filled with cotton gloves
For real
The only thing
Worth dreams
Is brick
Stacked
Snake-high
Over the river.

That's a wall, That's a bridge
If
A cigar can be a cigar
Then
Anything at all can be a wall

Logic and ledges meet here, where
Ill-tipped teeth scoff at common parlance
Knocking fingers idolized in railcars
In hollow things floating down stream
The black kid beating the sugary silence with his lips.

Here the dream meets what it is not
And the wall is just a ledge

Again

The flowers are yellow there and there
And there, but not

And
I don't remember anything rhyme
Where did, what did mother teach?
There is no reason to spit

May I call this afraid?
My back to the washed cave wall
Here there are no drawings or songs
Cities or falls, there are daffodils implied
Just inside the suns comport

But
The meaning of pastoral, ode wanders
That we unlearn
and that and that, that
Our heads swing wildly

Again
Beasts beyond chalky thought
We emerge hot and fast, redouble
Our thousand eyes blast the horizon
Cracking, baked beasts
Ledgeless & so far from Anne, now
Mired in an hour of night
We dare not describe thick, scum-like

The river beside out home does not replenish
It is a bridge, it is a wall, it is a bridge
It is the many hands of a friend, it is
toe-to-heel, toe-to-heel, it is curling
about the bed we share, just once for an old friend
and then, head swinging wildly, shakes off a dream.

12 September 2009

Flowers 2 / Grasslove

Flowers 2

All the flowers are dead
What kind where they?
No matter now
The light is not quite right
They cannot live.


Grasslove

Slow reptilian slithering underfoot the dewey brush
Thrusting starward aspires to glove a wing pinch and twist
All must fall when love fed by wine makes a wish

Stealing from Macy's

JS is write teacher

to. Loosen up! That's it
Now, associate thought
with one day when i was
a kid i found a blue

dis. What really words
Can do how they patter
like rain in my hands, cool
become hottt drops in a real
panthers bound to catch

thr. Patterns of loss cracked
Something will dance where
the air gets in. I'm blind
from punishing my eyes image
-eyes-
the air get sin, rottten

tee. The best we can do
Eponymous, lasting handsome
hands fault line-e-eye closed
-in-
finally we feel what we want
drizzle detritus now that's loose!

I've Eaten Nothing

Where is our future
If you keep giving up
I brush the rock, new fingers
inhale, digest dirt under our bed
stop writing bad checks
brought my looking-glass to the bank
bounced the tiny yellow ball off every
wall ceiling floor in our progressively
larger black room
cut the crud from gummy sneaker soles
Every nut's cracked open now
I've eaten nothing to see
Breathless so long on the stage
under the cheap seats
at the Opera House (Which must orbit, it must!)
Catch packs of penguins trapped at the zoo
without the foggiest clue what to do
the chord in your eyes
humless and numb
the hammer hysterical abseil
willing so-willing among eyes
swept back
like patterns pattering like
"Everything will be okay, I promise," ... "Yes, I promise."

And then sound
brush over rock
steady breath
blue ink.

The Point

is that climbing a rock
will eventually put you at odds
with gravity, hand crushed inside
an infinitely loving mother's, you
reach a blood-shaped moment
where grinning fatality sticks and bops
the dry, prickly seed cowardice
rams down your throat, and without
justification but cold stretch toward
the nobler path. the attacking face.

The point
is to command advice
and shove it up your lover's ass.

03 September 2009

Penny

life here is the thing of target
anyone jumping to their death
off any appropriately high thing
must surely have a target imagine
the incongruous bull's eye our heart
splattered a bucket
of yellow dye
dropped from waist high
we know the thing must fall but we
hope to give rise like a poet panting
so we give our ambition aim
onto the new-sick stroller of a child
or we burst like a bird from wet clouds
full of grace hungry still for fish
fresh flesh
or flip a penny
the arc's mimic caught
momentarily like a feather in the wind
plummets bounces rolls
finally resting on its head
where it's safe at last
to close your eyes.

31 August 2009

What Makes, Works

What makes
Me cry, I never saw
Numb against the invisible pillowed hair
Then matting it down
One pill at a time
It could be, it could be

What it is
Love sick marriage
Splitting us, the cleaving what remains
Not between us, for us, because us,
Beneath us. making love but
Warring ideals = if i win
Doesn't mean loss for you
Any certain being will tell you
Love/happiness/logic -- they
Are wrong, putty philosophy
In children's hands
Split from children

Hoisting blinders'
Victims of gravity

And I see your hefting shoulder
Yr hungry eye carving into the pillow
Milk roses
Up, Up, Down
And I am saved
In your breath at rest
Saved as in born
Again -- willing to accept
Any tragedy, any lie to protect you
Love kills slowly
Seeps into the ground water

What makes us strong will, is now,
Will makes us strong
Damn this muscle for purchase and
Damn our net
We are falling We
Are hand-in-hand We
Strong for love We conquer
What stops our hefting We
Hurl paper spears We shy
As they calcify We
Feel the pierce, they are now our bones

Now we have earth's comfort, by which
We both say different things/mean to say: we cherish our will
Will be done, spread across the dinner table, the air among, from
Hand-to-hand: INFINITE WE

Have faith
Hold god somewhere dark
Caged and screaming-mercy,
No room for hallelujah
We invent the means of escape
We invert our very suffering.

I've seen stronger men struck down by weaker will
Seen 150 years of natural strength heel-over-head
by a single gray afternoon; dead souls revived
propped upon the leaf-and-stick trap floor, spears
below not of bone or paper allure are thieves--
gusts of candied pleas, purple promises-- devil-fisted
arrears and impossibly childish horror.

My fingers
Do not broadcast news
Of medical advances, swat
At the passing collection plate
Scale what your mind cannot
Steps ahead
Your mind (now mine study for technique)
My fingers watch

Your lips
Geysering gentle breath
Keep my eyes dry
Whisper what's worth crying.

1_No Impossible Morning Coffee // 2_Hungry Football (incomplete)

1

No impossible morning coffee
caught half an hour in a forever cup
rain, i'll sip of you
scared to accept all of you
and is there ever too much time
will our love curl under and away
like cold from an open ice box?

2

only men at work are sublime
the ball after its left yr hand is
what's essential underfoot loosed
over its crowd i am hung from the sky
gathered and cursing the cure and
nods at naught but my infection
my height
my reflection
no matter how our names bean off the walls
backwards we are among friends
and honest ears clouds trailing away away
always away

& the thing in flight is neither
hunger nor morsel beneath
earnest hands the garden swallows dirt
earth spins when it falls into yr quiet hands
i have gotten ahead of myself
spiraling past what should not survive

everything suspended through invisible trick
tied tightly to attendent fingers
so much depends on wet blue roads
[ ... ]

25 August 2009

perspective, perspective, perspective, perspective, perspective

through a keyhole
one spies a beating
a boy on his back
the thick bald
Man
hung over
leather belt, flash of buckle
imposing His vague hate on a still boy
His red tanning the voyeur's eye
pressed to the keyhole
we spy nothing.


-for One who took his own, for Another who gave his only

23 August 2009

notes: yr cold air

leash it, Sarah and
be the sun -drunk- pushing
through coy & precious
clouds crowding
out the night
eating all his rice
flea-by-flea
quarantined &
quarantined &
pinion to light
he is not polite, nor nice. he
does not deserve his sight, a gift
too-big too-bright for such a fetid blight,
feel no shame if only for this single hour:
'ruat justitia, fiat caelum,' Sarah.

one face gleams
another yet stalks
congress whispers two
two ears to walls refuse to talk

but, all in wingless glide
handcuffed alight
side by side by side by side by side by side

[ ... ]

05 August 2009

notes: In The Fall

no kiss to heal
i feel so naive, the way
children devour paternal love
with no intelligent comprehension
but understand when the thing is too fragile
when the lonely couple is weak, i
wean myself off petulence then cut
what remains, hard diagonal slices
stick to the soil, resolved in nude patience
and, now, free of sexuality. opposed
we are when our lovers sicken in the Fall
so natural, the sickness its opposition
its patient, weathered color; out of a breeze
your son will snatch the maple seed
straight soft fingers
sticky with sap, pull apart its belly
and press it to his nose.

notes: beach song

Affectionate, but underwhelming
wearing too much deep green on mayonnaise skin
an ounce on yr sunshy hip
( yr shamrock is small
( & will stay small )

Dote: Kicking sand into the dry breeze
thick meals slowly souring under the sun's thumb
hungry teens
_their stomach
_their mind
_their heart
_their hands
_their upturned
eye. wild peaks of perfect waves.

what was from yr womb
dropped into the red morning sand
tongued clean, a relic sanctified in predawn ache.

middle names

You think too long
about what else belongs
in yr coffee, "One large
uh Coffee. With, uhmilk? And
uh. Yeah, and one. Uh..
Uh. Twouh, sugars. And
Sugar. One, no two sugars."

I focus too long on
anger, desire to let hate
warm the mouth, splash
gums & teeth with whatever
sweet becomes when it is broken down.

Some are bitter, some are numb
noodling back & forth in yr mesh shorts
on yr soft clean rubbery basketball shoes.

31 July 2009

notes: dip

dip
yr feet in the frigid
sea, with everything right & wrong
to no man marching belongs
no is a not-thing, no
temptress, no
burnbleaching sun, no
vacuum blanket of pure dust
choked static
yr ankle coming up, the ripple
yr final tow, apple red paint

...

30 July 2009

notes: simple shit you writ

if yr mother likes the simple shit you writ
if there's nothing subtle
nor an empty spoonful of softskulling wit

if yr tongue don't click with a sharp tin tick
puddle cuddle shuttle scuttle rebuttal
if wet words peel neatly off the tile before yr bent-over sick

[if there's nothing worth ascent
this pretty poison won't pass for poison treasure.]

28 July 2009

some notes

it is this photo or the next, where i love you. so which you will i see: someone's rich little girl or she weilding beauty's hammer? no though it is you i love, here you're grey. grey and sparse, a shell of our performer but gorgeous beyond their compare. for they are fools and perpetrators of gold and folly and know nothing of beauty. yeah,that's a good feeling, now .



comparing photos, i only have
the strength to love one: i cant see the heat in anything wrong

if you turn the volume down the echoes are gone and n the crazy is from another world.

26 July 2009

cold ghosts kissing

cold ghosts kissing
at our hair, we aren't
scared, but they
get up to leave
and when they aren't there
fan's breath across our neck
it's ours for the breaking.

08 July 2009

cause he did it

cause he did it, i do it
cause i always did it
since catch, since sea legs
and i'll always do it
until i'm, for the better part, upright
though my springs may
be choked & need replacing
and i can do it for the first time,
fingers fluent in ambition & sport
if i don't do it, they'll do it to me
(cause he always did it.)

working on it:

New Game 2

like my tongue cutting the corners of your jaw
...then
a light-tight spasm bucks your beating breast
......then
biting your lip, you're above yourself
riding a breathless gush
of heat. & i'm between.

Afraid to Say Your Name 3

i cannot bear where dust collects
across the window pane
sun falling through, an exposure
a public undressing, i do not care
for busy & benign women, nor
their well-mannered hair & polished
sapphire attractions.

when your shirt is pulled slowly over your ribs
i look away, afraid of the things i could do.

30 June 2009

my legs tied
to the cage's top
i've caught myself a thought
one thought, doesn't bother
inviting itself, now music
matters more
caught under rain
as the door closes
lock bolts the past to the wall.

30 May 2009

Abdul

There's nothing worthy of your embarrassment
Keep your hands where I can see them, but
Also, you should continue conquering Great Nations
Ignore the skies' advice, their courtly hands
exsiccating your clay.

05 April 2009

six and a half affairs

soft-shoeing around the truth
they spot me; Cleopatra, we watched football
on a wide-green pitch then enjoyed 
a guilt-free desert; familiar Regan,
her cold mostaccioli, her sweet peas, her bitter tomatoes

02 January 2009

Abstraction from Bisecting Light

First floor screaming out the light
Sneaks, freaks & friends knuckle-deep in right
So limited & vicious, venom villainous
Middle finger breaching bottom's bilious
Silt, and the taste of someone else
Whose hands are in my mouth.