and I pull a Hart Crane, and leap,
and my body dissolves, just a bit
of brine in the expanse of the Atlantic,
and my memories spread,
oil slick across the surface of the wake,
At the afternoon concert, the parade and the pyrotechnics
at the arboretum, will the fanfare feel genuine?
important is how, despite your contempt
-ous gaze at the universe, you won’t take
the logical step of slashing your belly while
a courtier-for-hire ensures the dance of your
head down the steps as it hops down towards
the River Danube, once a long-standing frontier
"Anyone who wants to fight me all the time"
is more important to me than my wife. But there is no one left to fight
and no one knows me and I know no one well. That's good,
"there is more space between people than I'd ever dared to hope."
after three surgeries to get good margins
after a summer of sleepless nights and worrisome days
i remember i sat across from my wife
in the legendary vegas diner
with a dumb smile on my face
They come from underneath the
bridge; at least that’s what
someone said, and I’ve seen
their cardboard condos and
fresh air laundry alight on
the wind. I get startled
All the spare parts to rarify
They really ice the migraine dead
Doozey up and explode coffee earrings
Superstitions and the perfect Rorschach bandage
Breathtaking, route-faking, peace-making
the one the old sketch artist
is still dreaming of
with his eyes closed
calling her "daughter"
calling her "dragonfly"
Watch, he says:
my prey will come to me.
Fish were slipping back
to the garden, hoping
to emerge as something else.
They were snapped up,
Tell me about the heft of righteousness
in the hand, the percussive wish
to draw blood. Recount the wince
savored on the palate, the sob
The days of slavery are passé, which signals the end
to empires & all their indentured servants called
CEO’s (yes), plus housewives, teachers,
& duly elected politicians, plus blood diamonds
& bank notes tied to the bomb, the bomb squad,
One Trump supporter prays to a 6' cardboard cut-out of his hero each morning as he leaves the house. No one can pinpoint when this happened. They are hyphenated anti-Americans.
you are quivering
in sanitary hostility
on a red red face.
You are a vanishing drain
of attention.
The dream of a lake surrounding a
lake is the dream of a fried egg
resting on your face; the dream of
the fried egg is the dream of a
fork swirling in the bottom of a
The hallway gave off a musty odor.
Night after night, lights burned.
Busted dreams heaped in boxes.
Black marks covered floors.
Across Audubon Park, a man makes his bed on concrete, head
inside a cardboard box; feet in fur moccasins require a second
glance at his cradled thighs, hands, face, hidden like the wood duck.
we brush off our debts
with a heartfelt embrace,
mad tales from the other side,
and an honest smile that sends you back to the bar happy for another stolen round.
she bowed her head and turned it away
from where the flag had been raised
as the Soviet national anthem played
but when the Mini came to a stop
a metallic hand came down on her
left shoulder
made Gabriella face
her assailant,
gibberingI am all smoke and shifting seasons
crushed pack of American Spirits in my back pocket
we are weak-knee wasted
outside my apartment
vodka-veiled memories all I have of that night
Writing is seen as a form of silence
so everything is read aloud,
traffic signs, shopfronts, TV and radio
are talked over the top of all the time.
There was a room for people unable to feel. Inside were captions cut away from their pictures. One task of the day was to find the picture that went along with the caption. When the teacher came into the room wearing his apron of severed heads several people unable to feel cried out for the first time. But it was faux disgust.
Because illness was honing in like a scraggly coyote.
We became still, one within the other folded like leaf within leaf.
And we took strength from mere light, mere water, mere melodies
chanted in quiet devotion as the first star laughed over the dogwood.
Carrying off
another meal, one that
loved, his or her bloodied feathers
I haven’t seen me
I am the guestbook pages
hundreds of people, with a single name
and many languages, sign.
Elegies chase after me.
I know that if I cut him off permanently he’d just get it somewhere else and do it in private, alone and somehow that feels crueler to me than my being the supplier if that makes any sense, and I know the Hutts still wanna run me out of business but I pay em protection money every month and it’s stupid but there’s people like Ben who need a place like mine
They said maybe our relationship could have lasted
if I had been a better cook.
And I thought to myself and then said
out loud
I would have been sane longer
had he had a mechanical cock.
Nonsaleable Nathan’s hot dog buns
Nonsaleable Nestea sweet tea
Nonsaleable Nestea unsweet tea
Nonsaleable popcorn seed
Nonsaleable pretzel salt
Nonsaleable salt packets
His language compartmentalized into
words, “drink, eat, death, monster…”
He laughed, quenched his thirsty throat
swigging unfairness into his gut
It's all gravy, for real here
in the wee hours where
dark dolls flourish and
madmen drool eating their own poems.
Belief entered into as if
it were the back seat
of a taxi. “Just drive”
she said, & used her glasses
to push the hair back
To be healthy, too, reading booklike things and the feel of fishnet stockings and the swirl of a martini or two and a dirty smoke to boot. Dancing. Dancing for sure and plenty of drinks for two.
Who were the forgotten first to be kind or to recognize
mindfulness in eyes? When forests guarded the fine-tune
fingertip touch, they promoted overflow communications
between disparate species with mint conditions operating
in the back-roar, in breath without trying, in the classical
days before medical birth.
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