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?

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?

ONE MONTH

28


Is this the worst finally
upon us? How much
joy do you think you
can sustain? Why do
this girl’s fingers sway
like pennants when
she talks? From where
issue the hollow forces
of irony? Can I drink
what the throat thinks?
Really? Is now when
what coagulates in mind
finds purchase in heart?
Don’t you have something
worse to do? What’s
wrong with tendering
ambiguity? Can the air
you breathe become
the site of some ecstatic
unraveling? If utopia
linguistically denotes
a place without place
can it have any ethical
stability? Why do these
bilious waves of guilt
winter in my gullet?
Can the movements
toward happiness accrue
in radical environments?
Why is this fallen petal
malingering unnoticed?
Does the mere fact of
living implicate one’s
responsibility to try
dying? Would you all
step a little nearer? Why
does the body insist
on remaining so sure
about the ineptitude
of consciousness? Now
isn’t the succoring
time is it? Where flies
life at such impossible
moments? Does the end
of the month mean
that these words mean
something more? Don’t
the bags in the trees
seem to shudder and
weep today? Wither
fawns this emasculate
cosmology? How much
money does an honest
woman need? Can’t
we just lie in the ribs
of this rusting truck
until the sun comes
up again? Why do we
keep the representations
of our loved ones next
to the representations
of our pecuniary worth
within the folds of some
dead animal’s skin? How
horrific sounds the literal?
If I proffer you my hand
with tidings of humility
will you lead me forth
in this year of blistering
joy? Can you sustain
the amity of my hands?


1


Does each
trouble come
from the fact
that our eyes
lie at the acme
of our face?


2


Is silence speech
that doesn’t quite
reach the surface?
Which one hasn’t
sounded at least
the primary depth
of murder?


3


‘Is the cessation
of pain merely
an impoverished
wish?’ Why do
the many only
remember that
they have a body
when it goes bad?
What percentage
of waking life
should be spent
pursuing spiritual
enlightenment?


4


What does it mean
to call a human
being holy? Is rap
a hymn to rage?
Does this white
smile salvation
light look eerie
with reckoning so
close? Who loves
you like a slave?

ONE MONTH

26


Has the dollarstore
become another national
symbol? Do the variously
ethnic models in this
beer ad on the 5 train
get drinks together
after the shoot? What
is so deadly American
about perfect teeth?
Can the engagement
with one’s local tongue
excuse the onus
of tackling others?
Are you getting off
at Wall Street or
further down the
ladder? Does every
dream have a secret
lever so as to revolve
into nightmare? Does
the availability of the
current phone strip
it of its brrringing
magic? In what tender
lurks the treasury
of the heart? Don’t it
hurt, this recycling
from bone to bone?
Where would we be
without the U-turn
of humiliation? Must
I always get paid
by the hour? Whence
arrives the chortle
borne by the intimacy
of death? What of
the portion of you that
samples annihilation
among friends? How
heavy hangs the brow
of all ungenerous lovers?
Are all statements
lost in the underlying
ballistics of the question?
What astound us
more than coming
under the slow ease
of wealth? Does this
administration have all
its dicks in a row? Why
wend one’s interior
around the shapeliness
of distant shadows?
Can the rich survive
without war? Does each
bill blow awkwardly
through the mind’s dull
commerce? What dream
is dreamt in the vaults
at night? Is this canceling
dawn the antidote
to time’s horror? How
now? How often we
weary? What new boat
arrives in memory’s
stagnant mooring? If
I say I love you does
that mean I will soon
be owing you money?


27


Is the plagiarism
of future works
a poet’s occupation?
Can new relationships
be forged without
magnetism? Why
waste time loving
the irreparable?
Could the answers
in the trees be
forged of invisible
substances? When
does the ambivalence
about surveillance turn
into revolt? Shouldn’t
there be a name for
the loss of ontological
culture? How come
this hanging takes
so long? Who isn’t
afraid of the ghosts
wind makes of air?
And who doesn’t
desire the membrane
of their embraces
anyhow? Where do
I slur my pattern’s
weft so as to invite
the real? What does
the cat think a sneeze
is? How long will I
be able to inhabit
this class structure?
Why don’t children
name themselves?
Are we allowed to
imagine Adam as
a child? Who says
society’s preservation
trumps the spiritual
requirement for orgy?
Why has this parcel
of land not endeared
itself to someone
enough to harbor
a name? Names aren’t
simply tools for oppression
are they? Who still puts
stock in the hierarchy
of narcissists? Why not
move to some remote
Canadian wood and start
over? Why begin again
when the end is so near?
What is less possible than
not choosing? How do
you like my white smile
salvation light? Can I
touch you in dusk’s
winnowing gully? Why
not? How often does
this dose of finitude
encroach on our daily
wreckage? Won’t you
entangle a little every
day with me? Doesn’t
that ship out on the edge
of the horizon shame
us with its honesty?