RHINOCEROS

I was born in the middle
Of the end of
A decade in the middle

Of the end of
A century, my fingers
Always slightly

Shaking, holding them
Out to the various people I am
Thinking to love

The people who sit me
Down, explain
How very inside of it

I am, charging, a thought
Bubble blotted
Woodpecker red, the come

Down of our terrifying
Anatomies, our four
Hands thoughtlessly clutching

At the flash an airplane
Casts across the lawn, sky
Cloudless, noise

Sudden as every twelve minutes
Or so the shadow
Passes solemnly, a squabble

Of birds igniting amongst
The flickered blades of the lawn
This is how language

Malingers harmless things, each being
Busy dreaming in their sliced self
Self-portrait skin, the painting reads

PAY FOR SOUP, BUILD
A FORT, SET THAT ON FIRE
The song sings "most

Of my fantasies are of making someone else
Cum," the sweating bum
Sleeps beneath the unbudded arms

Of the cherry tree on the esplanade
Where I too lay, my head on
The stomach of a dark-haired girl

Who says I’ve been coagulating
My whole life it seems only
To dissolve, to "speed

Sleep, dream, and thaw."

APRIL 15TH

The bells of PS 41 fire
Like a jewelry store
Break-in as you turn
Left on Stanton, spying
A mottled concrete wall
Where you can sit, sun
Warming your ears
Which protrude ever so
Slightly from headphones
The Transfiguration
Building with horns
Over guitar, the voices
Singing “lost in a cloud”
As a xylophone tinkles
Broken glass in green
Brown & white arranges
Itself against pavement
Where a woman’s shoes
Clomp, returning laden
With groceries, the Gray
Line tourists whiz past
I am now a member
Of the Brooklyn Botanical
Gardens, having signed up
Yesterday on my way
To the Basquiat show
Which was fucking
Incredible, incredibly
Alive and sad all
At once & afterwards
When I lay down
Among the cherry trees
Of the esplanade, a young
Mother came over to rub
Suntan lotion on my neck
And I felt so full
Of something like love

OF MARCHES

It is an unfamiliar
Itch, the grass
Against your forearms

You sneeze and it
Is Spring again—enter
Birds darting

Through their improvised
Grids, testing out still
Denuded limbs, a young girl

Tumbles clumsily
From her undersized
Stroller, Latina

Teenagers crowd the laps
Of their boyfriends on
Park benches as a horse strides

By looking mightily out
Of place, I mean
There is a woman walking around

Here with an eye patch, broken
Glass cascades across
The paths, a cop just stubbed

Her cigarette into the pitcher’s
Mound and if you think
I’m getting away

With a poem here, take
Another look, the wind has
Blown the vendor’s

Napkins against the backstop
Where a chain
Of motley kids winds

Past, their hands clasped
Furiously, feet jumbled and mouths
Open as sometimes

I can’t stop asking
Myself little questions
About the world and other

Times I stare
Into the blotched pink
Of my own palms

And run as fast as I can.

APRIL 6TH

Subway early, first
Real sun somewhere
Above, so much hair
Mussed like stacks
Of frozen candles
Terror on the decline
Sunglasses on one’s
Head, I am headed
Home to Brooklyn to
“make big decisions”
If I can see my way
To them through the
Congested minutia
Of living as the train
Bursts from tunnel
Into light, graffitied
Roofs, demolishing
Machines stirring
Rubble, a teenager
Sleeping, all of us
Now stalled as a G
Passes ahead, there
Was a time when
I laughed the horror
Of choices off, sat
Around convinced
That the universe
Worked, now that
I know it doesn’t
I’m also pretty sure
It’s the same thing
Scraggly arms reads
Neckface, intercom
Mumbles, the sun
Refuses to abate
Streams of it slice
The car, in my ears
Tyrannosaurus Rex
The landscape jars
As we are in motion
Once again and once
Again I find myself
Suddenly tickled
By the absurdities