18 June 2011

just a note about me misquoting Jack Micheline

Beauty Is Everywhere

Beauty is everywhere
Baudelaire
Even the worm is beautiful
The thread of a beggar's dress
The red eye of a drunkard
On a rainy night
Chasing the red haired girl
Baudelaire
Across the sky
Your raggy pants
Laughing at the rain
Beauty is everywhere
Baudelaire 

— Jack Micheline

Erect Monolith of Ham


17 June 2011

sketch: desc. of location (as man), 061420112044

There:

Off to the left on the ash tiles below the legs
Of the yellow folding table, they do not wish to be ID'd
Beneath the lights ( clearly

Disappear, scurry, scurry, disappear


Fans stir the otherwise contemplative air, the night I try
Grabbing the vein — bug wisely — I swear with my eyes, they hide (scurry
Scurry

Now ( There is a woman there

Off to the left on the rotten tiles by the legless
Yellow folding table, moving moist jeans
From machine to machine

     He rubbed his knuckles across the stubble on his chin.
     "All my things are here, aren't they?"

Woman:

How best to appeal Councilor? Tell me. If I must be guided, guide me.
There is a rambling now an exploitation of words, and as I rise a rush
Of blood-like cue cards, haughty explanations quick against the bone

Quick

Against the skin, the cold grey tiles beside the ash, the piled upon reason
This quickening grey bone, tell me, Councilor
Guide me

Press yr lips to my neck
Do not only take away this pain
In silence press yr lips
Do not take away its pain.





12 June 2011

you are strong


my memory's startling ability
to unsee the real
is not directly connected
to the depth of
my imagination; once i
know you are a
weakness i will never
believe you are strong.

11 June 2011

"I stole her nervous hands / her addiction to sweet, soft smells"


"From my mother I inherited my looks and a tendency to migraine. From my father I inherited an optimism which did not leave me until recently." Joan Didion


I stole her quietly waiting on the grocer's line
reading the covers of magazines like a tourist

I stole her nervous hands
her addiction to sweet, soft smells

I stole her short, yellow fingers; her fear
I stole what she generously gave

I stole $15 from her purse, her last $15
spent so quickly, whips of remorse

I smile, opening her varnished music box
desperate for what is inside

I stole her stoicism but not her tearfulness
standing over the frozen soil

I stole her nail biting, the bruises and benign wens trailing her arms

I consider stealing her walking away
from where the grave should have been dug
her passive choices, her hollow body
rides over each crumbling ocean wave

I steal some more money from her wallet.


09 June 2011

sketch: up from the cracks purple, lips, light a seed


everything abstract
the numbers concrete and growing
up from cracks in purple, lips, light a seed
a horizontal bloom immediately, then

nothing abstract, even abstraction
she's lying out on the couch, no there's a better word
now she's laying out of context across the bed, sheet
wrapped around her legs, light a seed
a horizontal bloom, then immediately

everything abstracts, my glasses tossed pejoratively
to the floor, i hear fan blades, the dismissal of my body, i see
the sweat soaked into, the judgment immediate
the internal rhyme, light a seed
horizontal bloom, then immediately

soft edges abstract, her beauty smooth in the sweet strawberry
of summer, i am not merciful because i have tasted mercy
i am merciful because i have tasted my own mortality, weakness
the blossoming, bluish blame of she sees the body and moans
the internal i, wrapped around her legs

i am merciful, abstract, floating on the palm of a forgiving breeze
i am merciful, wrapped around her legs

i am merciful.