OCTOBER 28TH

In the scrap yard
Beneath the train
Among the wreck
A tremendous arm
Drags languorously
I have a head cold
And one stopped
Up nasal passage
I can’t finish this
Simple crossword
As a Hasidic man
With a frayed tie
Sits on an orange
Seat sleeping like
A baby scratching
Himself unawares
It’s only eleven
But I’ve finished
My day’s teaching
Am headed home
To A Clockwork
Orange or Todd
Solondz’s movie
Storytelling which
Has been deemed
Unwatchable by
My usual partners
My nasal passage
Slowly unclogging
As the other builds
Arriving home to
My sister leaving
No tea just lemon
In scalding water
My ears perk to
Frantic meowing
From down below
Meaning the cats
Are in the airshaft
Meaning someone
Left the bathroom
Door open again

ATSUKO TANAKA

Out of the drizzle
Thursday, October
Into a movie about
Time travel, one
Of my favorite film
Genres, alone, which
Is a little morose I
Suppose, but I’ve been
Feeling unaccountably
Optimistic of late
Manifold confusions
Held unobtrusively
In the gray matter
Out of the movie
Which was terrific
And into the Grey
Gallery for a show
By the late Atsuko
Tanaka, who in 1956
Decided to say no
To pettiness, scratch
That, no to prettiness
And now it is 2004
And Tanaka is gone
Or at least deceased
Though much of her
Work is very alive
In New York City
Her electric dress
Periodically flaming
And I am hungry
Having forgotten
To eat lunch, so I
Slip back out into
The unoffending
Rain, Washington
Square Park, past
The tempting thrift
Of vendor hotdogs
And into West 4th
To take the F back
Home to Brooklyn
Where last night’s
Leftovers beckon
And there’s a book
About ventriloquism
I’ve been meaning
To get my eyes on

A FEW PERFECTLY READABLE SENTIMENTS ABOUT DOGS

October’s feeling a bit
Like February today
Park-dwellers huddled
In the sun they so lately
Forsook, a London Plane
Tree decorating the lawn
With its leaves, tonight
Vice-Presidents debate
Sitting down because
One of them resembles
A troll, we all cough
As a dog is suffocating
The air with the surplus
Of his golden brown coat
His owner brushing it
Into the now blustery
Morning wind, asshole
That he is, noon light
Penetrating the boughs
I have places to be
But not much to do
Before I reach them
My vile olive pants
Refusing to look good
With my blue shoes
It takes such Negative
Capability, as Brenda
Coultas said, to hold
These vastly opposite
Americas in mind, we
Are positively cowed
By the gaping crevice
In our midst, any dim
Ray of real empathy
Brusquely throttled
By fear, time to live
In the crevice thinks
I, to make our camp
Among the ricochet
Of words, now here
I go again getting all
Grandiose and worked
Up and ruining a few
Perfectly readable
Sentiments about dogs

FLOOD PLAIN

I see so goddamn much
These days, eyes flitting
From billboard to bum
A few sunning turtles
To the newsstand skin
Which gleams as I recall
What an unattractive
And fictitious man
Once said, I refuse to
Discriminate between
Different modes of
Knowing, no veritable
Filter for the eye
Though the mind
Of course carries on
Clandestine, as when
At the Met, standing
Before a Balthus, I
Swore I saw the slutty
Girl from Dawson’s
Creek across the room
And suddenly I’m in
Front of Yves Tanguy’s
The Satin Tuning Fork
With its silly distance
And next I’m floored
By Guston’s agonizing
Pinks, which return
Among the yellows
Of Joan Mitchell’s
Sunflowers, the kind
That dwarf Van Gogh
With their brutality
I head up to the roof
Upon which Andy
Goldsworthy has set
Tremendous wooden
Breasts moored by
A tower of stones
Everyone’s talking
On their cell phones
And I try to read
Some, but my mind
Keeps peering out
From behind my eyes
Which dutifully scan
As my hands slowly
Roll and then unroll
A flimsy floor plan
Which I now notice
Resembles flood plain

KILLING TIME

Into the Gagosian
A falcon perched
Upside-down, lilacs
Blooming unscented
The shiny steel of
A blank industrial
Landscape peering
From between thin
Trunks in an Aspen
Grove, back outside
On Madison Ave.
Having been stood
Up for a meeting
I head for the park
Miniature boats
Sailing lazily about
Ducks making silent
Wake behind each
Other, a towering
Foreign woman
Without bra, arm
Swung around some
Displeased hunk
Who even takes
The time to scowl
At yours truly, poet
Of the upper east
Side, at least for
The next twenty
Minutes, a child
Carrying a bear
Trips on an uneven
Patch of cobble
And miraculously
Lands with her face
On the unwitting
Animal, there is
A hot dog in my
Future, although
The general lack
Of relish angers
Me to no end

THE ECONOMICS OF FILM

Entered bodega
Just in time
To see man on TV
Kicked in the head
By horse, bought
A diet Pepsi, it’s
Tuesday again, I’m
Headed to the movies
Where I intend to
Pay for one, sneak
Into another, Lord
Do I love movies
Especially Herzog’s
As the clouds begin
To gather, waiting
On a pretty girl in
Sara D. Roosevelt
Park, desperately
In need of another
Haircut, the back
Of my neck gone
Fuzzy, much like
These curious trees
Their leaves turning
Bronze as October
Slowly approaches
A curtain of dust
Flung into the air
By the throes of
Construction across
The street, basketball
Courts abandoned
Benches peeling
Much like the trees
You will have to
Excuse me for this
Somewhat abrupt
Adieu, I still have
A sandwich to eat
Before the movie

WOODHULL

a single bird
a skeletal tree
the electric hum
of bugs thoughtlessly
occupied by thirst

this red barn knows
not that it is red
nor that its horses
are dead and gone

spiders freeze
like bullet holes
against the fence

my mind turns
delirious amidst
the dumb peace

of these country acres
sacred land lacking
the city’s raucous blur

the well on the ridge
is full of poinsettias
a crown of bees
crowding the bucket

the legs of the spiders
look like hairs trimmed
from a black mustache

I once knew a woman
with eyes like gems
in the fingers of a glove
I have misplaced them

as I have the bird
though the spiders
dare not move
as I am likewise

motionless while
the bees curiously
fly by

CINCINNATI AIRPORT BLUES

Clinton in hospital
Hurricane Ivan wetting
New York, here
I am in Cincinnati
Eating Corn Nuts
Across the aisle
From, I kid you not
Srgt. Deatherage
Would that I were
Joking this Tuesday
Evening, fresh
From the smoking
Lounge, crossword
Half done, halfway
Home, a towheaded
Child stumbling
In delirious circles
Much as I was wont
To do as a child
My own hair light
As sugar, limbs
Equally restless
As even now I find
Myself squirming
CNN billowing fuzz
A Duty-Free Shoppe
Hawking perfume
The flight delayed
Then cancelled
My eyes weary
Of reading, head
Reeling from the
Blood this country
Has reaped by its
Greed, Howard
Zinn’s People’s
History of the U.S.

DAZZLING MODICUMS

This Tuesday a movie
Hummingbirds I kid not
A man in an orange hat
Quiet with a shovel
The woman at the podium
A scar grimly bisecting
Her mouth, the drone
Of lively insects, a cup
Of coffee horizontal
On the table, motorcycle
And then none, no
Water humbly animating
The ditch, clouds
Gargantuan yet without
Threat, twitching green
Finches scattered through
The darker quills of the
Piñon tree, a passerby
Obliviously brushing
Crumbs from his lap
As the shapely legs
Of a beautiful woman
Enter the bookstore & I
Am no passive observer
Eye overwhelmed by
Countless peptides
The absence of sirens
Goes mostly unnoticed
The ghost of a tag
Lingers breathlessly
Against the adobe wall
Nothing is without
Its dazzling modicum
Of interest & that is
Merely the title sequence

CLOSING IN

Out on the hammock
In the sun reading
James Schuyler, his
Last Poems, the past
Overwhelms like air
From a sauna, the way
One bare leg smothers
Another with its mute
Flesh and I can’t help
Cheating backwards
Until I reach The Bluet
Which is really Eleni
Reading to us on
The still wet grass
A cigarette dangling
From her wide mouth
The river closing in
So very unlike this
Desert city, a coyote
Fence encircling the
Yard, hummingbirds
Drunk on sugar water
And a tiny breeze
Shuffling through
The tall Cottonwood
Trees, my eyebrows
Have gone blond once
Again under summer’s
Generous sun, beard
Red as blood oranges
Which wait inside
As does my family
All of them reading
And my years-gone
Grandmother’s clock
Which makes itself
Known every hour
Just in case we forget

THE INTERIOR OF THINGS after Bei Dao

A friend’s hand
was making me nervous
moon underwater

who mourns things
at knock deep
in the otherwise
mute rotunda
of a frozen city?

an infant cannot be saved
by applause, just
as the fluttering mouth
of a door is not a periscope
into the lock

these vows go uninvited
a dark pit sitting
in the heart of a reservoir

and yet I still delight
in the implications born
of my friend’s hand

it must be saved

O’CONNER’S

Friday Night Baseball
I’d rather be reading
The label on my beer
Or the lull of conversation
Disparately plunging about
The bar’s arduous clinks
Glass sweating, summer
Stalling but proximate
Wilco then Silver Jews
Bud then Pilsner Urquell
As a muted relief moves
Across the countenance
While across the continents
War breeds like a wound
Pounded by parasites
The undead traipsing
Through sun-baked dunes
At least in my imagination
My eyes having only
Seen the deserts of Egypt
And New Mexico, just
Thinking of it makes me
Perspire, as my retiring
Eyes alight to the sight
Of friends fresh off
The fifth avenue bus
The night having only
Just begun, Silver Jews
Giving way to the Rolling
Stones, a table opens up
Things get jugular in
A congenial way, more
Beers are bought, I bring
Up Bush’s latest binary
Reduction cum cowboy
Shit-talking speech, which
Brings up our collective
Volume, each voice warring
With the jukebox, sparing
No ear its Friday din
Which seems to have no end
As the beers keep coming
And we take turns slumming
With the clientele for cigarettes
Everyone having run out
As the television has finally
And we won’t give up
Until everyone’s pockets
Are empty too

JULY 28TH

Past Harlem, tracks
Glazed with rain, majestic
Buildings boarded-up
Like kings deposed
Blindfolded, forgotten
I am remembering
The various violence
That has saddled us
Unseen, the unseemly
Business in which
We find ourselves
Interminably implicated
I am remembering
The pestilence of the soul
Its fingernails violet
With mishandled wine
A woman on the subway
Who dragged her kid
Smack into a pole
Not pausing to flinch
I am remembering
The whole of my
Youth like a suitcase
That won’t shut
The way my eyes
Won’t stay closed
But rather close
Like the enormity
Of this purple rose
Wilting imperceptibly
Behind my nose
I am remembering
A woman I once loved
The length of her limbs
The weight of her skull
All that it contained
Against my thighs
There is a desert city
I long to return to
Where my family waits
As veins of light freeze
Against the horizon
And a diminutive blue
Car stalls in the middle
Of the Triborough bridge

THE SPIDERS

A triangle of glass
Filled with ash
Spider webs glitter
The deck like water
It’s Sunday most
Everywhere I look
Today, everyone
Praying for things
Under breath like
Decency or wrath
Waking up, walking
Down to the Ashby
Swap with Colin
An order of mango
With chili powder
The Abortion, an
Otis Redding LP
Two icy root beers
Someone calls me
An asshole for not
Giving them some
Money, I give them
A look that says
You don’t know
Me but maybe
You’re right, I
Have enough left
For a pickle, carry
It back with me to
Colin’s place, to
The deck, watch as
It drips into a dusty
Web, feel their legs
Crawling in abstract
Space and wonder
Where have all
The spiders gone?