BRIEF INTERVIEW WITH SCULPTURE AT THE WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

Q) Do you read the bible?

A) I am a part of something pushed
Further and further into the amnesiac
Conclusions of god.

Q) Sounds pretty serious.

A) Not as serious as the something
Pushing. I find it mostly
Preposterous, like a sudden
Clumsy moment stretched
Out for hundreds
Of years, maybe
Thousands, I don’t know, a number.
A thing that far eclipses
The natural
Span of a human being.

Q) So this is about nature, then?

A) You just asked two questions.

Q) So this is about nature?

A) That wouldn’t be terribly untrue, though
Terror is natural enough. And terror
May be true, truth
Often striking
A terrific note. This is
About the failure
Of truth, which masquerades
Cowardly in the guise
Of nature. There is no truth
In fucking, in dying. Truth’s greatest
Failure is that it succeeds.

Q) And for whom does it succeed?

A) I don’t know, women
Advertising pumps? Children
Wailing like tranquilized
Catamounts? If it is succeeding
For you, you
Should dye your hair
And have your fingerprints
Removed. This interview
Is fucking over.

EASTER

As if the old miracle
Had an inherent
Geography, my heart

Is wester than my apartment
Tonight, the cars
In the rain on the streets

Shushing us to bed, the sirens
Doing just the opposite, it’s too
Bad our grandparents

Are dead, I do covet
Their memories, broken
Beer bottles, straight

Jackets, the choir, the folk
Dancing tour, how
We brush and convert

These specificities we’ve been
Told, not actually
Remembering a single

One or remembering merely
A memory, slit
Wrists, three sets

Of twins, a baby mislaid
In Texas and what
Of me will go

Missing that hasn’t already
Dissolved into hair
Dust grates fuzz wax etc.

EXCERPT

Before I knew it I was back in San Francisco, living in the Sunset, my hand curled around one of the brass bedposts. I often spent nights like that, alone, in my daughter’s bedroom, listening to the quiet hum of the stereo as it merged with the static of the rain. I was sitting there again, near the foot of the bed, eyeing the many stacks of books I had given her, all unread, their covers gradually discoloring from the pots of dying plants she insisted on placing atop them. It wasn’t spite exactly, but a kind of dreamy inconsideration she dragged alongside her like a mist. I inched myself slowly to the other edge of the bed, near the pillows, and positioned my ear within millimeters of the window’s foggy pane. If I remained that way for ten minutes or so, listening intently, I could almost make out something moving through the neighborhood outside. This sound, or more accurately this almost-sound, was as near to real as my ear was to the chill of the glass. It was just beyond me, crisscrossing its slippery way up and down the hill, steadily moving closer to where the avenues meet the ocean. The listening had something to do with my daughter. She was out who-knows-where with friends doing who-knows-what. I had come to accept that. And if she knew I spent my time this way it didn’t bother her, just as it didn’t bother me if she didn’t. I too had grown weary of how a tall man lingers.

REALIZING 1982

John_____, a flamboyant vehicle
Of dissolution, died last
Night of undisclosed videotapes
After grappling for years
With a muscle car. Teenage
Starlet troubles had long siphoned
His interest in the San Diego
Chargers, a dream he first
Bean-counted as the third wife
Of a super, super lucky response
To dress code. Mr.______
Was always revered for his concern
With wristwatch irregularities
At the managerial level, often
Shedding large parts
Of the country’s largest working-class
Sideburns. Subsequent
To an unorthodox, 9 million
Dollar jazz saxophone, Mr._____
Remained open to quietly self-promoting
His own cocaine showroom. “John’s
Attitude was always jet
Black. He said he wanted people’s eyes
To stainlessly violate a golf course
In Bedminster.” These are the words
Of his brother Chuck-Jim, who
Added, “You can’t dismiss his unwritten
Opposition to the ‘Back to the Future’
Movies.” It was this flair for
Refurbishing British industrialism
That Johnny Carson cited as inspiring
His unbuttoned-to-the-navel look.
John_____ is survived by a jury
In Los Angeles overheard declaring
50 pounds of a supermodel
To help recognize the contributions
He made to realizing 1982.

THERE WILL BE A VERY MEANINGFUL PICTURE HERE

In the recurring caveman
Dream I wear my meat vest
And I love you, the whites

Of our eyes gleaming
Like cleanly-picked bones, we sit
Beside our fire, which allows us

To think outside
Predation and weather
And I wonder

If I would have the time
To love you otherwise, this thought
Unsteadies me horribly, like

Yesterday, in the hands
Of the pear-shaped Russian
Hairdresser, the way

Her sylphlike colleague steadily
Peered at me in the mirror
Over her steaming

Cup of tea, I felt like sleeping
In her eyes, the want to bed
Down in the space between her lips

And the mug, this is what haircuts
Mean to me, I am as a beast
Dressed in the guise of a boy, I wish

For a small, ardent thing
And am throttled by
It, by the lung-crushing collapse

Of my own desire as it comes
Into fruition, which
Is why I prefer my hallucinatory

Neanderthal life, days
Spent inching
Boulders from the ridge

Where below a pitching pack
Of mastodons tread trumpeting and nights
Where my dream

Within my dream is of riding
The mountainous
Eremotherium, a being

Whose yawning bellow fills
Forests where birds once ruled
The earth, luckily

We have no such ambition, our fire
Crumbling down to embers, your hand
Probing for morsels in my stiff

Knotted hair, I remove
My meat vest and I love
You, your bulbous

Nose warm against mine in the ash-filled night.

I AM NOT A CINEMATOGRAPHER

Winter has grown
Late, intrepid
Profiles momently

Gracing the construction
Barrier with weightless charm, a nearly
Chinless woman flashes me

Her smile, then quickly withdraws it, seeing
That I too am headed
West, I feel as if I stare at women

All day long, which I guess is a product of my being
Alone all night, so down
24th Street I go, casually flitting

From gallery to gallery, Cicely Brown
Surprisingly mute while further
Along I am greeted with a pleasantly ribald

Exhibition of buxom lady pirates, all
The while anticipating the purloined sandwich
In my bag, a thing

Which pleases
Me greatly, as does the birthmark
On the bridge of the nose

Of the girl in the deli
Buying a Diet Pepsi, like I said
I don’t want to die

A sad pervert, but I’m not yet ready
To apologize for the undirected
Throbbing of my peptides, as my annoyance

Grows at the protracted twitter
Of Japanese teenagers making their way
To Madison to shop

And make phone calls and soon
I am mired in the intricacies
Of public space, knee to hand, eye

Taking in a mouth as it talks almost
Disembodied, a woman’s narrow Currinesque
Nose bifurcating the slope

Of her chest, you do not make sense
Of it, of it you make conversation, even
Alone, little interjections

Of desire tippling at the eye’s wet
Scan, I am not like an actor who ends
Up resembling

The characters he’s played, I am not even
A cinematographer wrenching
Beauty from an otherwise

Dumb panorama, I am that dumb
Panorama, the trees, windows
The very avenues themselves and you

Are the camera, both of us
Caught in the dizzying interchange
Of “culture” as

It zooms like an electron
Between our shells, bouncing
Jaggedly, so that

One might run
One’s mouth forever, lips
Flapping like a moth

Full of blood and never pin
It down, if that
Was, indeed, our

Intention in the first
Place, which I think plainly
Mine is not, intention

Being equally dubious in my book, wishing
For things in a vague sort
Of way so as not to be misconstrued

By a capricious god, tearing
Out my hair over the arbitrariness
Of it all, the fact

That you could get everything you ever
Wanted and discover it
To be wrong, or find that you

Aren’t that you anymore, which of
Course you never are, or were, the idea
Of fixing a self somewhat

Like being buried alive, thoughts
Suspended in the stale
Breath of a nail-fashioned space, there’s naught

To do except find something
Difficult and submit
Yourself to it, it’s willful

Suffering you need, preemptive
Blood drawn
From one’s own bulging

Veins, we are constantly on
Trial, our bodies break, our needs
Consume us, I can’t believe

How strange it is to be anything at all.

HOROSCOPIC BRUSHSTROKES IN THE MARGIN OF DEATH

Ever noticed how a flame disappears
In sunlight, even whilst
Notorious lightning breeds

On the horizon, you
Have an eye
For such things: the reactivation

Of long-malingered volcanos, human
Or otherwise, how a wounded
Sloth creeps lamely from unwieldy trunk

To bending branch, the plaintive varieties
Of unseen matter
Coalescing against our lamentable

Screen of den culture, you are a person
Who puts things in
Order in order that the edgeless

Fog might disband, if only
For an afternoon, and this is why we’ve come
To you, repeatedly swearing

That we’re not animals, that
The fact is we would not dream of having them
Sullied by the petty transactions of faith

And discord, we want you
To think about us
Like an eye that has been turned

Hopelessly inward
So all it sees is a miasma
Of tissue, tiny parts

Convulsing involuntarily, absurdly
Divorced from their original functions, one
Cannot love that way, just as

One cannot enter the fold with his nails
Thrashing the air he cannot
Breathe, you know this, your very

Gestures have instructed
Us thusly, the way they dissemble the easy
Grotesque we’ve become and point

Toward a prospect of grace, only last
Night you made apologizing
Pretty again, perhaps this afternoon

The dogs will lie supplicant
At our feet and think us masters
When for so

Long it’s been the obverse, tomorrow untold
Colonnades of light might
Descend from the weightless vault

Of heaven, because, you see, that’s a possibility
As all things suddenly
Are, one has only to speak

Your name and a massive flock of dirigibles
Arranges itself into graph
Paper patterns against the amoebic

Sky, I
Would only ask that you take off
Your jacket and sit here

In the chair beside my bed, I must
Shortly leave this only-just-this-very-instant
Brightening world, and I would

Have your hand
Laid heavy atop the beads
Of my loosening brow.

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.