FERTILITY FOR DUMMIES

Reads the book thankfully
Unread on the shelf, the gym through
The window across

The park deserted, the tips
Of three of
My fingers have grown

Waxy, taut, something
Welling between the surface
And the bone, a woman

In an eggshell
Shawl pours over
Her copy of

Southern Accents when she’s not
Leering across the table
At me, increasing

My ever-present paranoia
That strangers are reading
The terrible things I write

About them and will any
Minute be thrusting a sharp
Part of their body

Against mine, as now the snow
Has begun to flutter
And circle tentatively beyond

The panes like some Fellini-esque
Spring wildly jumping
The gun, though my Thursday

Boredom would certainly appreciate
An impromptu bonfire set
Flush against a cartoonish Italian

Bosom, in this way my
Biology attends concomitantly
To the shapes my looking

Constructs, and I am here
To appreciate the manner in which
A smoking woman

Wades through asphalt, how
One building dwarfs
A larger one merely by the effect

Of its character, a boy
Trying to pass
For a Tribecan sentry, combing

The grates with his eyes, his fists
Jammed into his sleeves like potatoes
In a windsock, not often am I

Menaced by darkness for
I find it natural, not
In me, but in the world, in

Imagination’s terrible reach where
Things occur which dwell
Deeply beyond the pale, not things we are

Capable of perhaps, but we see
Them nonetheless, much as Henry
Miller spent three years

Inside a slide
Trombone, I have
Found myself too

Sane, and sullenly I feel just
Like Bonnie Raitt on
The cover of Streetlights

Her mouth unselfconsciously
Open, a little
Question in her

Eyes as if
To say, “I am so
Full of this…

This…what is this?

AMERICAN MUSIC

I don’t plan to address
My understanding
Of death, which, according

To the sometime apothecary, is
A physical impossibility, but when you close
My fingers in your own, bones

Are alive, even as the bald man
Sitting at the table next to ours thumbs
Through a magazine about guns

I can look out the window to where
A blossom of birds issues
From an abandoned skyscraper or traffic

Enacts its unwitting algorithms
Of pulse, it is in
Pulse that such thought

Arrives, in pulse
That it recedes, just as these city
Bodies orbit relative

To the attention they are
Paid, one eye
Ogling another, space

A capacity for the patent
Enumeration of our feelings
About etceteras

About the important ideas: love
Loss, breakfast, noise, terror, I refuse
The counsel of stupidity

Regarding such matters, this equals
That, take it from us, watch
Your back, buy a car, make money only

To spend it establishing
Your identity, and so the disassociations
Of velocity continue unabated

Halving and trebling
Ourselves into metropolitan collage
Involved or unloved, naïve

Devotees of cryptozoological
Findings, the wrack
Of semblance, a chimp

Named Oliver whose lack
Of teeth made for a humanoid
Mug, poor fucker

But not so unlike the experience
Of anyone thick enough to live
Through it, modernity

That is, the chalky abstinence
Of our nowadays fraught
With a stubbornness to dissolve

Into pixels, our greatest
Poets hounded by lavender, the yelp
Of an old catamount plaguing

The suburbs, in Bhutan
It’s said the local Yeti survives
On a diet of frogs, I tend

To these stories carefully, knowing
The public to scoff
At the indulgence of dreams

Unsanctified, my beard
Hedging outward as a rote
Continuance finds

Justification difficult in the face
Of encapsulated truths, my truths
Equal suddenly to any

Small observation of cheer
The weeds reaching
Dutifully toward what gravity

Deems us opposite to, the sopor
Of a steadily impinging commonplace
And for the same reason

Skunks find harbor
Under the floorboards
Of a prison, we

Lay our androgynous howling before
Suns of uninhabitable
Chemistry or ‘the lonely wail

Of that old Cannonball blazing
Through the night,’ it’s American
Music I have come to

Bring you you redoubtable ear.

DOO WOP

Zeno’s arrows have fallen

From the favor of youth

The air is occupied by

Small acts of levitation

The poet has no idea how

To rock, paper, scissors

He eludes self-evidences

Monosyllabically, you

Hear our American music

Through the chalkboard

BEAUTIFUL, JUST

I would not be a poet
Who merely observes

Words. Nevertheless

The beautiful painting
Is not beautiful, just

As a fact can’t
Speak for itself

I am a tallish man
And my feelings

Interfere with levitation.

THE TRUE MEANING OF PICTURES

I never trusted in my ability
To wish for fear
Of misapprehending the implications

Of my desires, much
Less the desires
Themselves, like the sheer

Absurdity of trying
To hit a certain cloud
With a certain color

Balloon, all the while crossing
Your fingers that the winds will hold
It in shape, I do

Hope the rain will stay
Aloft until I reach the zoo
Today, so that

I might see what kind of lonely
Creatures they’ve got locked
Up there, though lonelier is better

Than dead, I can tell
You, from a trip
To the San Francisco Zoo years

Ago, where we momentarily lost
Our Frisbee in the giraffe pen, until
Colin was brave or stupid

Enough to retrieve it, little index
Cards gracing the cages
Everywhere, lamenting the dead by

Their demeaning stage
Names: Bongo, Quiggly, etc.
Also the orangutan

Who watched us with such scorn, only
To turn his back, put on his chiffon
Robe and walk away, and since then I have felt

That way many times, alternatively
Wondering who it is this
Show actually entertains and then realizing

The answer must be myself, it’s sort
Of like moonlighting
As both the actor and director in a film

About the fantastic terror of existence, a comedy
Of course, and you just get so fucking lost
In the production that it’s only when piss is literally running

Down your leg that the set lights come
On and you remember to call cut, wherewithal
Rubbing its paste-caked eyes

Somewhere in the back
Of your neck and the question
Remains as to who exactly

Is shouldering the camera? You? The poem? I
Have seen pictures, only
Yesterday I watched a man’s Bradburyian

Tattoos leap from his torso and fly
Around the woods in search
Of a small girl, a woman in the row before

Mine swiping at the space above
Her head as if it were 1895 and we
Were caught in the path

Of a silent train, as if the earth
Were truly hurtling through
A widening sea of air we cannot breathe

I see pictures every day and by
God there is as much
Truth in them as in any shifting

Collection of thoughts, everywhere
I go people
Point out my wounds

And I can’t contemplate
The fact of having walked
The city these few weeks

Past with a gaping hole
In my leg, it’s abominable
The way we let

Our feelings instruct
Us and yet
It is the only thing

To be done, right? Right?

I AM NOT MYSELF

You are, the way
A man of stone has
Always been

The Gorgon’s
Gaze, look
Again, a sack

Of bones leaks
Nothing, a shaft
Of light all, it is

You riding
The train, you
Writing it down

LETTER TO FEBRUARY 2018

A jogger uses snow
To wipe dirt from
Her calves as the
Trillion sparrows
Filling the thicket
Suddenly hush
It’s noon and a woman
Walks her greyhound
Past, its skeleton
Strangely clunking
To and fro, the birds’
Song slowly builds
Again, I really need
To pee and I notice
The broken water
Fountain behind
Me, but I don’t
Dare, my tennis
Shoes elevated
By one of Christo
And Jeanne-Claude’s
Gates, the temperature
Is supposed to graze
Fifty today and I
Will not mourn the
Returned invisibility
Of my breath, I hope
Winter won’t be
Back too soon, hope
Alex is struggling
As well as I am
When he’s my age

I AM NO PROPRIOCEPTIVIST

Sometimes when nothing
Happens the world
Feels terribly

Sincere, the gloom unsettles
Perforated by dazzling
Banalities, just to stare out the window

Conjures children to go out squealing
Over the half-obscured remains
Of a bird delicately sprouting from a snow

Bank or a man relieving
Himself into a trashcan someone
Has placed in the trash, it

Is altogether too wondrous, though likewise
Disconcerting, to be a thing, to be
A thing that is, that organizes other

Things into its own harmony
Or discord, sitting on a sofa cluttered
With posies, contemplating The West

And her talking horses when out
The corner of your eye something rises against
The crisp blue winter sky

And you assimilate it, a manufacture
Of sorts, all peripheral
Inquiries subject to a coloring

Of the senses, bluebird, bluebell, snug
Bellbottom jeans eliciting
An involuntary blood flow, there are cyborgs

Proliferating endlessly, sobering
Pockets of research and contamination
I lust after a curve and there are advertisers

Clamoring after its import, stereoscopic
Objects looming into our very
Selves, but this is no news

To you, you live
Here ever day, the fish
Swim and your hands

Have touched them, impossible
Notions have come to you as simply
As breathing, you don’t fear

Your own sun, that which
Nurtures and browns
You, or you do, it terrifies you

Every morning, so it is with our minds
They make us these things
That are, and as such we stand apart from them

Ladders interrogating
Half-curtained windows, I have
A trophy from coaching a girl’s basketball

Team and it pleases me, the ocean
Is somewhere relatively close and I think
Of it rarely, as I did

The mountains of my youth, so you can
See I am no proprioceptivist
Giddy at my own interior

Movements, the wet way a finger
Knows its duty among the twittering
Of its counterparts, I carry

On, my legs do, I see no point
In letting them talk
It through, any talk of within-ness

Merely locating a hypothetical
Point along the widening spiral of being, I am
Within a mind, a mind

Within some winsome casing
Just as my body wanders
Around this metropolitan apartment

An apartment within a moment
Of New York City, transiently
Abiding a certain

And meandering consciousness, which really
Resets the game, not to mention the impulses
Firing like snipers, so many

Guns inside us with no hope
Of legislation, I am
Antiwar, antibody, anticulture

And for absolutely everything, I affirm
The radio waves, Otis
Redding, even the stupidity

Of traffic, give me a pane to spy
Through and I will reflect
The world in its dubious elocution

Of forms, I don’t have time
To rub my own eyes or
I have forever, a natural disaster

Strikes and all the animals survive, can’t you
See what I’m saying, nobody is going
To give you permission, planets will go unnamed

Woman will bathe, unprofitable
Beings will suffer terribly and smile
All the same, if God has to

Die, so does jazz, all I’m asking
Is for a comely child to wrap
Its hand around one of my fingers

At the end, it will know what to do.

THE SHADOW ROBOTS CREEP

It’s not their fault, really.
It’s how they were programmed.
Programmed in an epoch that hasn’t yet come to pass.
I mean eons from now.
So they were sent backwards through a time portal.
A journey of major pyrotechnic significance.
Blinding, in fact.
Which is why it was necessary to send robots.
Shadow robots.
They arrived this morning around 5am.
With neutral metal looks on their faces.
Accompanied by tremors.
Dispassionately intent on carrying out the orders of a jealous alien lord.
Which is why I say it’s not their fault.
They were made for this, manufactured.
Made to creep with fantastic proficiency.
By which I mean to say you’ll never see them coming.
A fact that should actually comfort you somewhat.
Because there’s really nothing you can do.
Life’s like that, you know?
So just try and enjoy yourself.

JOKES FOR STRANGERS

All 21st Century day
Long I write these jokes
For myself and strangers

For the cats also, stuck
As they are in the airshaft
As am I, breath

Meandering through its spatial
Orbits, circling the eyes
That goggle spritely through

These habitual arrangements and I
Am a joke too sometimes
The way a horse burns down

To bridle and the mind lingers
On a cake, we are all plastic
Miniatures trembling through the acoustics

Electrified, my sword bending like
A cactus, the ruthless wind
Upon it, I thought it terribly

Important to bed
A woman of learning
To feel The Sonnets

And fill the empty drawer
A bus stampedes
Down Ninth Street, cauterizing

Certain possibilities of space
I can’t tell you
How much it means to lose even

An unwanted quantity
Of variousness, as perhaps
All my decisions end

With hard looks into the oily distance
Of urban mirage, fuck
Not getting a job, I have kids

To pollute, Palestinian kids, Italian
Kids, kids like myself, wrung whiter each
Genealogical turn, who’s looking

Out for us? The president? Even cars
Crossing the street are doomed
To simple sympathizing over the inglorious

Physics of contact, they are not human
And therefore have no problem
Staving off the delirium of hate, you have not

Died before, you are no
Perverted ghost lifting a skirt
Through the empty pang

Of regret, you are not the resurrection of George
De Chirico, who died the year Denver
Lost its first Super Bowl, the year I was

Weaned and stamps cost an unlucky
Thirteen cents, which doesn’t mean colonnades
Are any less haunted, women

Rolling tremendous wheels of cheese
Along their claustrophobic geometries
I may have lost

My attention for Logic
But I see beautiful
Children circumventing cruelty

Nearly every day, what have you done
For the safety of our feelings? Have you
Offered your seat on a crowded subway car

To a man in perfect physical health
Because he had tears in his eyes? Neither
Have I, not yet, but at least

I considered it in writing.

DEAR BEN,

It’s snowing, and not that inglorious
Small stuff from earlier
This morning, I’m talking large, meandering
Pieces that hunt the pigeons
From sill to sill. The radiators spit
And hiss, all my lights
On, though it’s noon and I know
That’s a waste. There are men
In the street dismantling
Something technical, wailing incomprehensibly. I was
Drinking some tea, my eyes
On the Psychic sign across the street
When I had to take a piss, which is
When I heard you showering
Through the airshaft. I didn’t feel comfortable
Yelling about snow, but I wanted to
Tell you anyways. Plastic bags
Flutter like wings in the branches, winter
Is upon us, I have no lover
Which seems to make the movies
Lonelier, though I can’t stay
Away from them.

DEAR BEN,

It’s snowing
I’m talking
It’s noon
That’s a waste

ONE SENTENCE EVERY FIVE MINUTES (UNTIL AN AMBULANCE PASSES)

1

My new blazer rests coldly on the back of a chair.

The Milk-Eyed Mender casually warbles downstairs.

A family of snakes escapes from his collar.

Ben is at the door.

Be kind to those who might spy on you while you sleep.

This postcard was sent from Belfast on November 23rd.

Precariously the water tower moves nowhere.

The only phone call I got all day was a mistake.

2

Buses, helicopters, cars, but no ambulances.

The boy in the postcard was pouring ink into a model swimming pool.

Dried shoots shake in the wind like flat icicles.

I’ll never get over that word: icicles.

I couldn’t appreciate grapefruit until I was seventeen.

Each time the quick curtain of her eye falls something retracts it.

Steve’s getting married.

The way a tree forks has nothing to do with dividing the air.

COMING, DENYING, KNOWING, SNAPPING, CALLING

Fire empties unto a pulp
Of neutrons, the honky-tonk
Blasts chicken wire, a cord

Of wood disappears into the folds
Of a ruined hand, essentially
What happens doesn’t

Stutter before the mathematics
Of denouement, pineapple
Juice complicated by a suspension

Of ginger and somewhere
An ex-girlfriend rinses soap
From her knees

DEAR BABY,

Isn’t it good to know Winter
Is coming, not denying
The skylark its movement towards

Gradual disintegration? I am
Not like a man who says I am
Not interested in knowing

Who existed before me and yet
There is sometimes a dark
Companion who pulls, a castanet

Snapping talismanic, calling
The air into mass, I think I shall
Call him Procyon B

INSTRUCTIONS OF THE CALENDAR for kari edwards

January

Take a year in your
hand—it’s smallness

rumbles like an antique
boxcar in a shoebox

diorama. Dare to
squeeze it. Drum

your fingers in the pleasing
way that fingers do.

Let go of the year. Let
your eyes go after it.


February

Take a murderer
drinking at a Tiki

Lounge. Shower
her with a box

of fingers. Ram
the year of fingers

into a dram of rum.
Add rubble. Say

yes to the advent
of their lord, please,

go easy into that
Good Friday.


March

Rotate your arms
around the eyes

of a giant. Again
time will tell.

Please the yes
box, depress no

levers on the way
there. There

is someone rubbing
on the horizon’s diode.


April

Ever is the ease
of a skybox

at the wet foot
of a rumbling

fjord. Consider death
at the Fish Fry for what

it has to be. Thresh
your marred toenails

into the earth
here. Hear the

sound of its reply.


May

Lace a slim ode
to antique marriage

within the heal
of a red shoe. Rest

under the wetly wreathed
hearth of a lapsing lord.

Ply there the forged
diadem of the mayfly.


June

Pour an arch
of voice over

a triad of heaving
words to ward

off the plight
of high art.


July

There is a light
from which to avert

your eyes. Do
not. You cannot

afford a house among
the eaves during

the trial of the thigh.


August

Replay the daring
waltz of cannons

for the almond-fed
horses. Let each

mongrel pluck
a leaf of evening

with its knotted eye.


September

Lack not a loaf
to repay the elm

for its nutty gruel.
Watch the dance

of the pink
salmon, it alone

knows how to
die without

the nonsense
of intervention.


October

If your hawk dies
on a Monday, wrap

its talon within
a grief-withered

orchid and inter
it where anon

you may repast.
Acknowledge

it with a smile,
but not a laugh.


November

Either paste
a button of cork

onto an awkward
torch-lit ledge

or teach a herd
of stallions

to ride for
a mile behind

a simile. Both
portend luck.


December

A smiling patsy
pretends to idle

near an empty
beehive above

the duck pond.
His treachery

is utterly unknown
to him. When his

gaze turns to
consider the azure

of the sky, steal
his medallion

and bury it
in the orchard.

Many visions shall
spring from apples

eaten from the tree
that sprouts from

this particular spot.

A MONTH OF NOISE

The entire globe surrounded
By quotes, a waitress’
Bronze bangs

Teased into a bouquet
Of trembling waves, cancel
Person, insert

Information demonstrating set
Of person’s reducible
Lures, inside the bakery

There was an elderly man awkwardly
Holding a cake emblazoned
With his granddaughter’s face

A DIAGRAM OF POSSIBLE BELIEFS

At dawn I am still barreling
Through sleep with a luminous piece
Of fruit, as if one

Could peel an infinity
Of questions from a single
Statement, not that

I believe in fruit, but there is something
To be said for the resigned
Way a seed enacts this random

Politics of scatter, but it’s no
Matter, fruit
Doesn’t believe in me either

ANOTHER SELECTION FROM THE INNER MONOLOGUE OF JEFF KOONS

Look, I never asked to be remarkable or singular or even particularly attractive. I never asked to be recognizable or loaded or that guy who every man shields the eyes of his girlfriend from. I once wished to be better, that’s it. Not better than you, not better than everybody else, just better than I was. Perhaps I underestimated how good I was to begin with. Sometimes it’s difficult to assess one’s own greatness. It’s the whole Quantum Mechanics dilemma: when I look into a mirror, my looking necessarily distorts what I see. And apparently it makes me think a great deal less of myself than I actually should. So it was virtually impossible for me know, prior to having entered the world at large, how great I was. And I made a wish. And that wish was to be better than I was, which evidently was pretty darn fantastic. I hope you won’t hold me accountable for how things have turned out—the fame, the regard, my face in all the magazines. It was truly unintentional. And I can understand if you think a balance must be struck. I am prepared to make a new wish; to be less great, to be worse. I will wish to be a little less than what I presently am. Will that suffice? Will that make you happy? Will that finally cancel out all your envy and rage, you petty, insignificant little fuck?

A COLONY OF SEPARATE ORGANISMS

In the sea, a dandelion
Self-disperses, while
Here on asphalt, a womanly

Hobo strikes at a damp matchbook
Sparks fizzling, I saw myself
Breathing and imagined

A tiny tin finger rapping
At my ribs, today
We saw a mangy parrot voicelessly

Traipse a limb, it’s freezing
In Brooklyn and we fear the parrot
Will not survive the night