Actually
clamoring open
with joy
the mere fact
of walking here
grown beyond fact
as the stray horse
leaps past all designation
or was a map
of myself turning on?
I could say anything now
in the vibration between selves
like a horse’s rippling flank
makes its conspiracy with greatness
a small and suffocating greatness
in the coarse rush to appear
I am nothing someone needs
or I am I am
the very substance of joy
clamoring open with scarlet tendrils
that break against the song
a hungry horse makes
in its desert ride
wet rhythmic red tendrils
that softly tear off
in gaping chasms
of summer thought
actually encumbered
by sunlight
the coarse
light of horses
stirring up insects
that glitter blissfully
in the contaminating dusk
I am nothing someone
needs more than light
nothing but an intermission
between patterns of self-light
which strobe across the bedroom
tricking every object into cinema
from the depths of hibernation
baroque horses of thought galloping
in the mantic pollution of joy
in the actual body breaking open
to form joy’s map of clamor
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
THE FLOWERS
Eternally returning
our faces birds
that roost and rut
in the hair’s mussed underbrush
fly away fly fly away fly
a cold idea arising there
in the wings’ frantic waft
the idea of zero
or all that remains
rudely driven out
like a dog
from flowers
huge yellow
ancient flowers
that I send
hurrying everywhere simultaneously
exuding the terror
that comes with understanding
that the universe you
observe serves only excess
The woman you love blows
the nose at the tip
of her tortoise shell glasses
and not even one blinking iota
burns out in an unnecessary flash
The birds our faces are fly
in and out with courageous urgency
which carries us past sleep
and into the startling dawn
of one moment after another
if only to throttle nothingness
in a yellow rage
if only to thread
tatters of your hand
with tatters of sky
and suffer endlessly
in yellow waves
that patiently drone
in and out
eternally returning
huge yellow
ancient flowers
our faces birds
that roost and rut
in the hair’s mussed underbrush
fly away fly fly away fly
a cold idea arising there
in the wings’ frantic waft
the idea of zero
or all that remains
rudely driven out
like a dog
from flowers
huge yellow
ancient flowers
that I send
hurrying everywhere simultaneously
exuding the terror
that comes with understanding
that the universe you
observe serves only excess
The woman you love blows
the nose at the tip
of her tortoise shell glasses
and not even one blinking iota
burns out in an unnecessary flash
The birds our faces are fly
in and out with courageous urgency
which carries us past sleep
and into the startling dawn
of one moment after another
if only to throttle nothingness
in a yellow rage
if only to thread
tatters of your hand
with tatters of sky
and suffer endlessly
in yellow waves
that patiently drone
in and out
eternally returning
huge yellow
ancient flowers
Saturday, May 23, 2009
THE SKULL
for CA Conrad
Surfacing utilitarian
my heart warps
to succor or goad
minus the parade of analyses
that stem endless in backwater throbs
I have strode coarse in daylight’s
umbra peeling my friends off
the trees gone furious
in doomed hospitality
I repeat
I repeat myself
having invited these words
by their congress with invisibility
hoping you see fit to need
a warm token of return
as the holes vowels
make brace sentiment
to free
every horny passage
from breath to form
like a brook of pages
lapping the soiled whorl fingers
skim against this brick-mitted world
It’s now that I want less
to know how tomorrow is
merely today’s discount hologram
moving unhurried still
mouth open
eyes slicing closed
through fields of disaster
red fields of endless disaster
where I invite each fluttering curse
to issue its purchase of reason
to wag its winnowing brand
and face the music
discordant bone music
muscle music
music that carves
novel blood in swarms
to bear against the skull
to bear against the skull’s magic
Surfacing utilitarian
my heart warps
to succor or goad
minus the parade of analyses
that stem endless in backwater throbs
I have strode coarse in daylight’s
umbra peeling my friends off
the trees gone furious
in doomed hospitality
I repeat
I repeat myself
having invited these words
by their congress with invisibility
hoping you see fit to need
a warm token of return
as the holes vowels
make brace sentiment
to free
every horny passage
from breath to form
like a brook of pages
lapping the soiled whorl fingers
skim against this brick-mitted world
It’s now that I want less
to know how tomorrow is
merely today’s discount hologram
moving unhurried still
mouth open
eyes slicing closed
through fields of disaster
red fields of endless disaster
where I invite each fluttering curse
to issue its purchase of reason
to wag its winnowing brand
and face the music
discordant bone music
muscle music
music that carves
novel blood in swarms
to bear against the skull
to bear against the skull’s magic
Sunday, May 17, 2009
THE MOUTH
It’s autonomic
how pupils scurry
slant by flirt like
brushfire dancing
out mouse and quail
mouth always full
of tooth bells
that toll loosely
waking the snakes
I mean tongues
In between is
and isn’t your legs
scissor the uncomprehending
air stacking volumes
or perhaps that’s unfair
the wind always dizzy
in its wise permutations
the mouth always full
past knowledge
I squiggle in my beard
redly as you
arrive fractious
in the storefront’s glass
fray like a bass
slipping lures
I took sides with death
to oppose it
within without
speech’s jilting need
the mouth always full
the wind parsing what flies
for its modicum of song
the mouth always full
the mouth always full
how pupils scurry
slant by flirt like
brushfire dancing
out mouse and quail
mouth always full
of tooth bells
that toll loosely
waking the snakes
I mean tongues
In between is
and isn’t your legs
scissor the uncomprehending
air stacking volumes
or perhaps that’s unfair
the wind always dizzy
in its wise permutations
the mouth always full
past knowledge
I squiggle in my beard
redly as you
arrive fractious
in the storefront’s glass
fray like a bass
slipping lures
I took sides with death
to oppose it
within without
speech’s jilting need
the mouth always full
the wind parsing what flies
for its modicum of song
the mouth always full
the mouth always full
Friday, May 08, 2009
THE FOREST
Seeming isn’t something
this city will
relinquish lightly
as a morass
of birdsong fills in
and the darkening column
of day wage parts
to reveal its coarse staccato
heart has shred
like bowstrings to trail
dutifully behind in a red fringe
I imagine Napoleon’s horse
whose left hoof became
some rich fucker’s snuffbox
You always preferred the hospitality
of forest people
but what is a city except
a forest made of people
And when it’s spring the colors
of our leaves spar
with the bare and simple
skin of limbs
until the squirrels that are our
hands wind up everything
to a frenzied pitch
A frenzied pitch made of apples
this city will
relinquish lightly
as a morass
of birdsong fills in
and the darkening column
of day wage parts
to reveal its coarse staccato
heart has shred
like bowstrings to trail
dutifully behind in a red fringe
I imagine Napoleon’s horse
whose left hoof became
some rich fucker’s snuffbox
You always preferred the hospitality
of forest people
but what is a city except
a forest made of people
And when it’s spring the colors
of our leaves spar
with the bare and simple
skin of limbs
until the squirrels that are our
hands wind up everything
to a frenzied pitch
A frenzied pitch made of apples
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
NEONISH
Paper tendons
notating desire
Is it possible
to know why?
or caught simple
the directions run backward
for fear the circumspect
will river the ocean
or vice-versa today
I can’t stop eating tones
in lobby, bedroom, chorus, etc.
The weather inside our decisions
lost amid the damage cold
salutations here made of light
still neonish in the way they
blink open or hum when tired
I rescued at least one feeling
among all the zapped-out axons
because it makes you the difference
air heavy with transformation’s red scent
If only the reticence would lift now
as again the birds lay under blankets
we’ve tossed haphazardly with our mouth junk
I won’t go into it except to
say how deadly the sky looks down
coursing with rivets of tongue-slick dew
I want you to leave the country
as soon as another deserves you
punching floats of greed from currency
The rest is merely follow-through
like Alex English from the elbow
though surgical impressions cloud the hand
in their promise of cocktail epiphany
So now we must break
out what remains of trust structures
to defend the saying of names
and inure beauty from pointlessness
or maybe just go home
through powerful brown woods
telling our jokes silently
on paths obliquely squandering
the love we’ve made
You and I
the moon on
its protractor rise
to please
to arrive
neonish
notating desire
Is it possible
to know why?
or caught simple
the directions run backward
for fear the circumspect
will river the ocean
or vice-versa today
I can’t stop eating tones
in lobby, bedroom, chorus, etc.
The weather inside our decisions
lost amid the damage cold
salutations here made of light
still neonish in the way they
blink open or hum when tired
I rescued at least one feeling
among all the zapped-out axons
because it makes you the difference
air heavy with transformation’s red scent
If only the reticence would lift now
as again the birds lay under blankets
we’ve tossed haphazardly with our mouth junk
I won’t go into it except to
say how deadly the sky looks down
coursing with rivets of tongue-slick dew
I want you to leave the country
as soon as another deserves you
punching floats of greed from currency
The rest is merely follow-through
like Alex English from the elbow
though surgical impressions cloud the hand
in their promise of cocktail epiphany
So now we must break
out what remains of trust structures
to defend the saying of names
and inure beauty from pointlessness
or maybe just go home
through powerful brown woods
telling our jokes silently
on paths obliquely squandering
the love we’ve made
You and I
the moon on
its protractor rise
to please
to arrive
neonish
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
NOT A FEW WANDER HOMELESS ON DARKSOME PATHS
The snow stops
at our bricks or windows or
it doesn't. It finds
a way into the cool grasp
of thought. It begins snowing through
language even. For hours. I can't
believe how cold it is.
What is this unshaken
peal moving through the memory
of a bell? Is everything
remembered here an appeal
of or to the dead? Just as sunlight
on the sleeper gathers
his shape into new dailiness.
Restless seagulls inch
across the backyard, peck a Casio
keyboard dusted with snow.
Cat prints fill in only
to disappear. In every now another
thing persuades at song’s loss. Leftovers
picked clean. Nuclear morning.
Can it really be so
strenuous, this letting the world
appear? An annual unfolds
or a page curls brown
at the tip. How does one manage
to say brown words? Melody is just
another word for hunger.
What little sadnesses
dance free from the black
backyard cable wires around which clutch
the joyously turned veins
of vines. Even in
the black I sense a blacker black
escape.
We visited your parents.
They bought us fish and tickets.
I broke your glasses.
The wolves are at the door.
This train is stopped due
to traffic ahead. We are sorry
for the inconvenience.
Seagulls gracefully circle
the hastily abandoned
bones of hungry schoolchildren.
It is bird weather where
I live every afternoon at half-past
three. For all
their grace the birds remain cannibals.
Do we ask a mountain
to explain itself? Do we ask blinding
how it became song? A girl
sleeps in the bed. A fine red hair
grows on her arms. My eyes
are clumsy, ensconced. Of course
I love her.
Is the light also as painful on
other planets? Who is more used
to sleep? Half-face, a warm clot
of folds. I bought this black
ring. I wear it
strangely. It does something wicked
to my form.
A rabid bat at
noon. My love and I under a nest
of branches. The pond’s song
playing against
them. Painting’s the tree’s
wish, but it remains doomed
to sculpture.
To protract, as to
elide contract. A tender
eye, as to avoid
a tense one. Otherwise part
of the eye is used to
trap the future. A sentence, as
to obviate ending.
After the rain the static
of birds tentative. A stray
car here or there
like white squall. What would home
be in this city of erupting
knees? This dancing city? You
need to speak up.
Wake neck stiff full less
from dreaming than these
stubbly bits of song. Nowhere’s
salutation. I ask you
where we went just moments
ago? Your fingers reply:
now here.
The whirling ceiling
fan jerks
the cerebellum into pulse
like a wet bell
whose tongue sets
off little forks
of white electric foxtrot.
Let the wit of ants
emerge. Be generous
to the bears. Some
tiny thing needs
time to work itself out
the window. Open
bird for breath.
The clouds in our ears
drain the garbage
truck’s shrill passage. Ad-
vertisements sickly ed-
ify the casual jaunt. Nobody
learns from the trees
on the street anymore.
The fire engines drone
their implausible
reminder: you are not at present
burning. Except that
they are wrong. The fire
engine’s crisis is one
of imagination.
Born of fire in the form
of dust. Ton-specks
speck-tones, stone-light, spectral
tongue to smoke
out a lightning of teeth.
A little fire in our jerk and swerve.
A little dust in our bone-knock.
Walking beneath the beery
twist of summer
branches, foaming
with a flutter of green head, I
teach the children strange
wisdom that will
only serve them in different worlds.
Ugly and beautiful at
once like a camel the tree
trunk’s fulsome
fold-wave works itself
into a standing frenzy
beside the silver sedan as sun
inches past our roof.
Truth is comorbid
with depression and failure
today. Light tuning
the page. Only sensations
that announce
the future from now
on.
at our bricks or windows or
it doesn't. It finds
a way into the cool grasp
of thought. It begins snowing through
language even. For hours. I can't
believe how cold it is.
What is this unshaken
peal moving through the memory
of a bell? Is everything
remembered here an appeal
of or to the dead? Just as sunlight
on the sleeper gathers
his shape into new dailiness.
Restless seagulls inch
across the backyard, peck a Casio
keyboard dusted with snow.
Cat prints fill in only
to disappear. In every now another
thing persuades at song’s loss. Leftovers
picked clean. Nuclear morning.
Can it really be so
strenuous, this letting the world
appear? An annual unfolds
or a page curls brown
at the tip. How does one manage
to say brown words? Melody is just
another word for hunger.
What little sadnesses
dance free from the black
backyard cable wires around which clutch
the joyously turned veins
of vines. Even in
the black I sense a blacker black
escape.
We visited your parents.
They bought us fish and tickets.
I broke your glasses.
The wolves are at the door.
This train is stopped due
to traffic ahead. We are sorry
for the inconvenience.
Seagulls gracefully circle
the hastily abandoned
bones of hungry schoolchildren.
It is bird weather where
I live every afternoon at half-past
three. For all
their grace the birds remain cannibals.
Do we ask a mountain
to explain itself? Do we ask blinding
how it became song? A girl
sleeps in the bed. A fine red hair
grows on her arms. My eyes
are clumsy, ensconced. Of course
I love her.
Is the light also as painful on
other planets? Who is more used
to sleep? Half-face, a warm clot
of folds. I bought this black
ring. I wear it
strangely. It does something wicked
to my form.
A rabid bat at
noon. My love and I under a nest
of branches. The pond’s song
playing against
them. Painting’s the tree’s
wish, but it remains doomed
to sculpture.
To protract, as to
elide contract. A tender
eye, as to avoid
a tense one. Otherwise part
of the eye is used to
trap the future. A sentence, as
to obviate ending.
After the rain the static
of birds tentative. A stray
car here or there
like white squall. What would home
be in this city of erupting
knees? This dancing city? You
need to speak up.
Wake neck stiff full less
from dreaming than these
stubbly bits of song. Nowhere’s
salutation. I ask you
where we went just moments
ago? Your fingers reply:
now here.
The whirling ceiling
fan jerks
the cerebellum into pulse
like a wet bell
whose tongue sets
off little forks
of white electric foxtrot.
Let the wit of ants
emerge. Be generous
to the bears. Some
tiny thing needs
time to work itself out
the window. Open
bird for breath.
The clouds in our ears
drain the garbage
truck’s shrill passage. Ad-
vertisements sickly ed-
ify the casual jaunt. Nobody
learns from the trees
on the street anymore.
The fire engines drone
their implausible
reminder: you are not at present
burning. Except that
they are wrong. The fire
engine’s crisis is one
of imagination.
Born of fire in the form
of dust. Ton-specks
speck-tones, stone-light, spectral
tongue to smoke
out a lightning of teeth.
A little fire in our jerk and swerve.
A little dust in our bone-knock.
Walking beneath the beery
twist of summer
branches, foaming
with a flutter of green head, I
teach the children strange
wisdom that will
only serve them in different worlds.
Ugly and beautiful at
once like a camel the tree
trunk’s fulsome
fold-wave works itself
into a standing frenzy
beside the silver sedan as sun
inches past our roof.
Truth is comorbid
with depression and failure
today. Light tuning
the page. Only sensations
that announce
the future from now
on.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
ONE MONTH
21
Is all truth an act
of will? How soon
will the previews
for the film of your
life be over? Are we
saying that courtesy
trumps the struggle
against poverty? If
you understand what
the enemy thinks
does he remain on
the offensive? Where
does the hurdling
of stagnant bodies
come to an end?
How does the sun
overcome violence?
Will you remember
that I asked you this
a year from now?
Does the ear fold
to allow compassion?
Can I touch you on
the edge of fury?
When must we cease
to use the world so
compulsively? Could
I love the earth better
than the sky? Will
emancipation continue
invisibly? Is coincidence
the only illustration
of the radical nature of
responsibility? Can it
wait until the coffee
is done? How is each
name condemning
the person it hovers
over? Is guilt what
you call all that boiled
time? When is now
not why’s bitch? Have
the specter of these
hands been a burden
to you? What would it
mean for the world
to be meaningless? Is
there anything more
preposterous? Have
you been listening
to the avenue’s music
this ordinary morning?
22
Can you tell a man
you have only come
to watch him die?
Is our intermittent
love for living offset
by our resentment
at the labor it takes?
Could this century
herald the necessary
reacquaintance of
thought with body?
Have I done enough
to impress moneyed
enterprises? Can’t
the horror of sex
be allayed by total
abandon? Whence
flows this curdle
of intuition? Have
the schools divested
you of what it was
possible to be? Why
does a good person
go into the nightly
rub of faithlessness?
Is it an act of courage
to depend on beings
of innate fallibility?
Should we live by
fact or truth? How
often should wonder
be smothered? Is
this another chance
to do what it is you
have never been
honest enough to
conceive? Doesn’t
the hand itself fly
out in all directions?
Was it too much to
expect an interrogation
of egotism? Why has
place been made void
by complacency? If
love and hate begin
to muddle are we not
doomed? Did you
also wish that bombs
would shake things
up before the towers
fell? Who can escape
this frantic pulsing
to feel the geologies
of time? Is it more
important to create
or cultivate? Why
are my hands still
shaking? Will they
cease engendering
sexual noise amid
city streets? Where
can I get a hallelujah
around here today?
23
Who is responsible
for the psychoacoustics
of streets? What new
emblem drifts torn
in the spindly winter
trees? Can I depend
on the pink barrier
of skin? How imperial
can a woman be? Is
it fair to ask people not
to mutilate themselves?
Why must we encode
lust? Can I deteriorate
the bonds of culture
to see truth? Will it not
bed in contradictions
and rot? Why love
when the mere act of
loving constitutes a
state of friction? Does
her hand around his
neck give him no
pleasure? Beauty’s
not only the seer’s
need to be beautiful
is it? If I scorn god
do I scorn whatever
good lurks in humility?
Is this enormous
grief part of the dead
people? Who better
knows the tidings
of stillness? Perhaps
my own happiness
is merely a symptom
of the universe’s not
stopping? Do you
garrote everything you
find uneconomical?
When will the animals
minimize the human
infraction? Is trade
always asymmetrical
like language? Do
evolution’s dictates
apply equally to
technology? How
rare is this unfolding
day? The gentle way
our hearts rebound
into praise? This rot
that commends us
to the root of waking?
The overlap where
I feel you falling into
each toothsome gap?
Is all truth an act
of will? How soon
will the previews
for the film of your
life be over? Are we
saying that courtesy
trumps the struggle
against poverty? If
you understand what
the enemy thinks
does he remain on
the offensive? Where
does the hurdling
of stagnant bodies
come to an end?
How does the sun
overcome violence?
Will you remember
that I asked you this
a year from now?
Does the ear fold
to allow compassion?
Can I touch you on
the edge of fury?
When must we cease
to use the world so
compulsively? Could
I love the earth better
than the sky? Will
emancipation continue
invisibly? Is coincidence
the only illustration
of the radical nature of
responsibility? Can it
wait until the coffee
is done? How is each
name condemning
the person it hovers
over? Is guilt what
you call all that boiled
time? When is now
not why’s bitch? Have
the specter of these
hands been a burden
to you? What would it
mean for the world
to be meaningless? Is
there anything more
preposterous? Have
you been listening
to the avenue’s music
this ordinary morning?
22
Can you tell a man
you have only come
to watch him die?
Is our intermittent
love for living offset
by our resentment
at the labor it takes?
Could this century
herald the necessary
reacquaintance of
thought with body?
Have I done enough
to impress moneyed
enterprises? Can’t
the horror of sex
be allayed by total
abandon? Whence
flows this curdle
of intuition? Have
the schools divested
you of what it was
possible to be? Why
does a good person
go into the nightly
rub of faithlessness?
Is it an act of courage
to depend on beings
of innate fallibility?
Should we live by
fact or truth? How
often should wonder
be smothered? Is
this another chance
to do what it is you
have never been
honest enough to
conceive? Doesn’t
the hand itself fly
out in all directions?
Was it too much to
expect an interrogation
of egotism? Why has
place been made void
by complacency? If
love and hate begin
to muddle are we not
doomed? Did you
also wish that bombs
would shake things
up before the towers
fell? Who can escape
this frantic pulsing
to feel the geologies
of time? Is it more
important to create
or cultivate? Why
are my hands still
shaking? Will they
cease engendering
sexual noise amid
city streets? Where
can I get a hallelujah
around here today?
23
Who is responsible
for the psychoacoustics
of streets? What new
emblem drifts torn
in the spindly winter
trees? Can I depend
on the pink barrier
of skin? How imperial
can a woman be? Is
it fair to ask people not
to mutilate themselves?
Why must we encode
lust? Can I deteriorate
the bonds of culture
to see truth? Will it not
bed in contradictions
and rot? Why love
when the mere act of
loving constitutes a
state of friction? Does
her hand around his
neck give him no
pleasure? Beauty’s
not only the seer’s
need to be beautiful
is it? If I scorn god
do I scorn whatever
good lurks in humility?
Is this enormous
grief part of the dead
people? Who better
knows the tidings
of stillness? Perhaps
my own happiness
is merely a symptom
of the universe’s not
stopping? Do you
garrote everything you
find uneconomical?
When will the animals
minimize the human
infraction? Is trade
always asymmetrical
like language? Do
evolution’s dictates
apply equally to
technology? How
rare is this unfolding
day? The gentle way
our hearts rebound
into praise? This rot
that commends us
to the root of waking?
The overlap where
I feel you falling into
each toothsome gap?
Monday, March 30, 2009
ONE MONTH
9
What day doesn’t
alter but everything
irrevocably? Can
we sojourners reject
the blinding instinct
to flee? Who says
nomads don’t desire
provenance over
trees? Is this
the final manner we
own to express our
grief? What about
this beautiful fucking
view and the glory
of traveling through
it? Is perfect lust
possible? Whence this
bandwidth of money’s
feedback? Does repetition
fold us into cascading
bolts of boredom or
eroticism or both? Can
you fashion me
some breathable variety?
10
At what point do
the interruptions
common to the act
of interpretation
diminish us? How can
grammar alone leave
me out of breath? Does
love’s indemnity obscure
love itself? How many
ATMs justify the
closing of CBGBs?
Who doesn’t die
from complications?
Is chemistry the chair
we keep falling out
of? Are stars serious
about death? Shouldn’t
one fear the mere
act of writing? Does
each moment retain
its perpendicular goings
on? Why won’t you
give me the answers?
11
Whose black seas are
these unsteadily pouring
into my eyes? Does
racism in collusion
with temperature? Can
our fevering return us
to the electron’s frenzied
hearth? Are you also
a little world so cunningly
made? Do these genii
that speak through our
mouths need help as well?
Where is the sky going?
Where would I be without
these prepositions? Do
philosophers find themselves
hungry for catastrophe?
For whom does this black
wire shudder into shape?
Is vanity throttled less
vain? How often must one
revisit this old blood
jet made precious?
12
Is superstition an
appropriate term
for courting forces
of chaos into step?
Why do our pets
trust us? How is
black symptomatic?
If I forget the color
of your face can I be
said to remain in love
with you? Haven’t
these light-shreds
rent our apartment
into wood-tatters
yet? Why do we use
the plural ‘are’ in
addressing what
would seem to be
the singular ‘you’?
In other words how
is you? What’s wrong
with your happiness?
How does another’s
body intuit how your
limbs will dodge what
it brings into transit?
Can everyone be said
to speak a unique
dialect? Is this organ
for signaling regret?
Does an apprehension
of the end partially
allow its eventuality?
13
Does our architecture
reflect a lusting after
hierarchy? How come
I’m continuously falling
behind? How does hot
dog damage soul? Do
clouds flit about without
disdain? Is school just
another concession
to self-reliance’s loss?
Is there a premonition
of humanity in all cells?
Which of these new
horizons will limit words?
When will the trees give
up and speak? Is each
gait expressive of death?
Is each step a prelude
to collapse? Which isn’t
the way that leads me
to my? And who deigns
to instantiate the final
dispersal of signs? How
wholly struck arrives
life today?
14
Can I fill in one
tone after another
with color without
losing fact? Could
this really be all we
need to perceive
reality? Was cinema
inevitable? Should
you intimate your
capacity for desire
from capacity of your
intimates? How
often returns fact’s
niggling certitude?
Didn’t we deserve
at least this pulsing
dawn death? How
many more times
can we abide by
shoestring catches
of the mind? Is there
a limit to the heart
going timid before
privation? Can I name
this a whirl of ecstatic
commodities? Was
this everything you
felt about canceling
hope? Could our
unmaking begin in
a blaze of the inane?
Was every possible
life intercepted by
a lack of virtue? Is
this a vertical ledger
of despair? Who is it
that gets off on
such wintry stuff?
What day doesn’t
alter but everything
irrevocably? Can
we sojourners reject
the blinding instinct
to flee? Who says
nomads don’t desire
provenance over
trees? Is this
the final manner we
own to express our
grief? What about
this beautiful fucking
view and the glory
of traveling through
it? Is perfect lust
possible? Whence this
bandwidth of money’s
feedback? Does repetition
fold us into cascading
bolts of boredom or
eroticism or both? Can
you fashion me
some breathable variety?
10
At what point do
the interruptions
common to the act
of interpretation
diminish us? How can
grammar alone leave
me out of breath? Does
love’s indemnity obscure
love itself? How many
ATMs justify the
closing of CBGBs?
Who doesn’t die
from complications?
Is chemistry the chair
we keep falling out
of? Are stars serious
about death? Shouldn’t
one fear the mere
act of writing? Does
each moment retain
its perpendicular goings
on? Why won’t you
give me the answers?
11
Whose black seas are
these unsteadily pouring
into my eyes? Does
racism in collusion
with temperature? Can
our fevering return us
to the electron’s frenzied
hearth? Are you also
a little world so cunningly
made? Do these genii
that speak through our
mouths need help as well?
Where is the sky going?
Where would I be without
these prepositions? Do
philosophers find themselves
hungry for catastrophe?
For whom does this black
wire shudder into shape?
Is vanity throttled less
vain? How often must one
revisit this old blood
jet made precious?
12
Is superstition an
appropriate term
for courting forces
of chaos into step?
Why do our pets
trust us? How is
black symptomatic?
If I forget the color
of your face can I be
said to remain in love
with you? Haven’t
these light-shreds
rent our apartment
into wood-tatters
yet? Why do we use
the plural ‘are’ in
addressing what
would seem to be
the singular ‘you’?
In other words how
is you? What’s wrong
with your happiness?
How does another’s
body intuit how your
limbs will dodge what
it brings into transit?
Can everyone be said
to speak a unique
dialect? Is this organ
for signaling regret?
Does an apprehension
of the end partially
allow its eventuality?
13
Does our architecture
reflect a lusting after
hierarchy? How come
I’m continuously falling
behind? How does hot
dog damage soul? Do
clouds flit about without
disdain? Is school just
another concession
to self-reliance’s loss?
Is there a premonition
of humanity in all cells?
Which of these new
horizons will limit words?
When will the trees give
up and speak? Is each
gait expressive of death?
Is each step a prelude
to collapse? Which isn’t
the way that leads me
to my? And who deigns
to instantiate the final
dispersal of signs? How
wholly struck arrives
life today?
14
Can I fill in one
tone after another
with color without
losing fact? Could
this really be all we
need to perceive
reality? Was cinema
inevitable? Should
you intimate your
capacity for desire
from capacity of your
intimates? How
often returns fact’s
niggling certitude?
Didn’t we deserve
at least this pulsing
dawn death? How
many more times
can we abide by
shoestring catches
of the mind? Is there
a limit to the heart
going timid before
privation? Can I name
this a whirl of ecstatic
commodities? Was
this everything you
felt about canceling
hope? Could our
unmaking begin in
a blaze of the inane?
Was every possible
life intercepted by
a lack of virtue? Is
this a vertical ledger
of despair? Who is it
that gets off on
such wintry stuff?
Sunday, March 15, 2009
ONE MONTH
5
How does one beat
back the profusion
of surface? Where
does the eye orbit in
its desire for a world
of wincing depth?
Don’t these trucks
strike whatever lurks
worrying in your gut
with their rattle?
What natural legacy
might justify this
endless using we
make of the world?
When is an individual
not but constantly on
trial?
6
Does the pink fish
of your tongue slip
silence in between
its dark verbiage?
When will this you
you mistake for
others emerge from
plain view? How
often does Sunday
damn intransigent
thought? Would it
be asking too much
for our feelings to
instruct us? Where
absconds this red
tincture of muscle
and bone? Do one
and two work to
foster their simple
distance?
7
Whose crowd is
this swirl of gulls?
How can one live
with any resistance
to the rod and cone’s
effortless despotism?
Would I lie silently
just to feel the still
majesty of inorganic
matter? What bodies
don’t coincide? Why
wear thin the veil
of truth when one
might simply doff
it altogether? Can’t
the song go on even
in the singer’s loss?
Of man or of sun?
8
When does one begin
such accounting as
doubtless accompanies
the loss of the possible?
If advertisements are
so benign why do her
glazed eyes nauseate
so thoroughly? Is this
other’s breath lacing
our own with clout or
death? Where have all
those uninterrupting
clouds gone? Does
the host’s stain linger
on the tongue? Why
does the hand end
in this creepy wave
of fingers? If I own
a teepee do I have
the onus to perform
spiritual duties? Who
doesn’t prefer living
outside the tyranny of
financial abstraction?
How does one beat
back the profusion
of surface? Where
does the eye orbit in
its desire for a world
of wincing depth?
Don’t these trucks
strike whatever lurks
worrying in your gut
with their rattle?
What natural legacy
might justify this
endless using we
make of the world?
When is an individual
not but constantly on
trial?
6
Does the pink fish
of your tongue slip
silence in between
its dark verbiage?
When will this you
you mistake for
others emerge from
plain view? How
often does Sunday
damn intransigent
thought? Would it
be asking too much
for our feelings to
instruct us? Where
absconds this red
tincture of muscle
and bone? Do one
and two work to
foster their simple
distance?
7
Whose crowd is
this swirl of gulls?
How can one live
with any resistance
to the rod and cone’s
effortless despotism?
Would I lie silently
just to feel the still
majesty of inorganic
matter? What bodies
don’t coincide? Why
wear thin the veil
of truth when one
might simply doff
it altogether? Can’t
the song go on even
in the singer’s loss?
Of man or of sun?
8
When does one begin
such accounting as
doubtless accompanies
the loss of the possible?
If advertisements are
so benign why do her
glazed eyes nauseate
so thoroughly? Is this
other’s breath lacing
our own with clout or
death? Where have all
those uninterrupting
clouds gone? Does
the host’s stain linger
on the tongue? Why
does the hand end
in this creepy wave
of fingers? If I own
a teepee do I have
the onus to perform
spiritual duties? Who
doesn’t prefer living
outside the tyranny of
financial abstraction?
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