25 April 2011

three chords poorly played, one after the other, and repeated 8 times

I DON'T OWE YOU AN APOLOGY, BUT YOU'RE GETTING ONE.
RECEIVE IT. HOLD IT IN YOUR HANDS. CAN YOU FEEL THE TENSION IT CARRIES? RUB ONE FINGER DOWN THE KNOTTY, LITTLE BLIPS OF ITS SPINE:

I SHOULD BE WRITING MORE, BUT VIDEO EDITING IS GETTING IN THE WAY;
SORRY.

12 April 2011

from the window

Sweetness is sweetness though I ache
For something hard and fragmentary
What I find bent backward across my palms —

Shaking, saccharine & of my teeth forgiving
Incapable of love, & tender & tender —
The delicate, definite gender.

06 April 2011

note to myself, or engine ends you

I see this textbook blonde walking by the front window of the cafe I'm sitting in. Tall, rail thin, slightly upturned nose, her honey-colored hair hiding her ears and perfectly framing her just-so face my eyes drawn down her body to a gorgeous round ass. Tight sweat pants. Always sweat pants. She disappears from the window, walking to the cafe door. I stare at the light radiating off the laptop screen at my table, pretending to think of something other than her as though someone else would read my thoughts, judge my shallow obsession, my wasteful attraction. I count from 1 to 10 and then casually — there is nothing casual about this, don't fool yourself — crane my neck like some great unlubricated, lumbering machine that survives only on the sweat-heavy labor of hundreds of strong calloused men with too much blood to give, and even then, on occasion, the machine malfunctions and ends some family's boring weekend — glance to my left, lead a bit with the forehead and eyebrows. Eyes track from the tan tile floor sweep up towards what I expect to be, when like a train whistle you hear the moment before the [stretch out that moment ... twittering birds light off a maple; bambi hops through cool tall grass; a hunter, miles off, slowly raises his rifle places the butt into the crook of his shoulder looks down through the iron sights] engine ends you. Blackness. Two glass green eyes, pulled from a kiln slice up — as if mimicking mine in a mirror — from the tan tile floor, chopping my vision in two. I'm suffocating — the machinery is there and ready to work, but the night crew is trying to send a message to middle management — I blink she doesn't disappear and I'm still unable to breath. I must remember to breathe, turn toward the laptop in front of me to compose my thoughts, blink. Inhale. Swing the great machine — casually — left again. She's gone.

02 April 2011

poppies [rolling edits]

the definite bisection is imagined
and there are no poppies, signifying
nothing. indifferent men hush
then drain pink over obscured mouths

in this place
no decision

then her — flesh tensing, urgent light spun
kicked off browned-cadmium brick
beside the dun and sand
and oil, lacking comport
bisection of nothing, of nowhere

in this place
no decision

a many-whirled pink existence
they must not be souls nor poppies
those who Are will not survive
its love its loss
the closer they bend, the more real

in this place
no decision

and out toward the burnt horizon, the hanged sky
under blockage, they are small, disassociated
real, though with no sun to create them, incongruous
those who Are — or are Still — refuse abstraction

in this place
no decision

out toward this minor & faraway bough
men lay across the road, without affect
and beside them all, a pair prepares to break
to bend outward
his hand leaves her side, her hands from his

in this place
no decision

the field is ready for harvest
the fields are ready for harvest

(for Anseml Kiefer)