there once was a brutality
soaked engine that engulfed
the world in its flames
& everyone rejoiced
I’ve been sold down the river before.
I’ve learned the best reaction to it
Is imagining an enjoyable boat ride.
Blaise Pascal's dead,
with reeds still tigers
once she loved laboratory mud
obscurely knew rascality and palmistry
never sport, seldom a wink
A pile of syllables
can’t explain thirsty feet
plowing through mud, paper
cups, milk jugs with unread
expiration dates.
The houses' beats in the Sun,
The grand stage of this hour
Has already its blueprint,
Shall we build it, dear brother?
Let's live it, dear friend.
I can't differentiate these motives from each other:
To pass out water under hazardous sun or to
Gather ash to my ego, senselessly held tight forms.
I shut the door on my fingers to protest. Its too late now.
A ghost of indistinguishable consciousness
a hoard of old rags
a man vexed
with contortions
of face and body
An animal with a mustache
and beard.
A monkey or dog.
These frosty blues and purples
aren’t an accident.
Mother stands frozen in my bedroom doorway… a block of stone: arms splayed, legs spread, a barrier to my exit. I cannot move her, never could; she’s as heavy as her gaze when she first looked in on me. So, I am left to chip away at her, like I did before she was transformed, but literally now.
Start at the top of the list
& work your way down.
Social opportunities are
increasingly circumscribed.
It’s like you are pregnant with your mother
her or something about her
boiling inside you
like a rap song
no greater image
except for me?
Blue was swallowed by night.
Red flower became black flower.
Day was overcome
and still all was beautiful.
There’s been a slump in law since lies became facts, matched by a retail surge since truth’s been discounted. On the boarded-up high street, drizzle-damp cups call out for change in three-for-two offers and buy-one-get-one-free deals to assuage any guilt that may still cling.
Our empty hearts once filled
with unflinching alacrity,
agitated overnight we stood
by oil radiators metal accordions;
so she was no stranger to history
Now a citizen representing her adopted country,
Sifan Hass of the the Netherlands was out
to make a different kind of history:
I’m sailing in the moonstream
I’m walking with the white noise feet
we can hear the sunshine
nothing in the tree is a secret
And I remember you in a different desert and
a dozen other far places away from our friends
away from any sight, away from any harm
when we were not so young and it must end.
Home on leave,
the coldest night
of early mountain spring—
he brought forties
from the county line—
Hear the young girls betrayed by innocent dreams
of love, stolen from weeping suburban streets
drugged and sold behind the truck stop’s diner
soft young flesh shaking in the shadows.
All those slam poets
Convinced we live in
A ghetto by the sea
Must have been dreaming
At those international shindigs with
All the countries in attendance,
Count on America’s reps
To start heading
For the nearest exit door.
I reaffirm my transformation
the hot-blooded wish to blow this nation
like the wolf of the three pigs
I get my inspiration
from stars being the sky’s wig
he spoke and all the intelligence in the room
was sucked away in a cognitive vacuum
then he puked out “truths” manufactured
in Tennessee sweatshops
by homeschooled children
making that phone call home
daddy where are you
is this the right number
It’s supposed to ring the old phone
How often do grave injustices make for great documentaries
can we all take a moment to express our disgust that 33 prisoners
and 7 cops were executed by the State of New York with endorsements
from Albany and the White House of course if you don’t know your state
capitals Albany doesn’t mean anything to you
Just because it is in your genes, doesn't
mean it isn't difficult. They say you can
bend hell, they say you are a mud puppy.
We know that scarring slows down your
process, but doesn't stop it. All together.
Yet both are men separately.
Ongoing magic. Broad topsyturviness.
Slow, merciless.
A new one is coming: almost perfect.
I swallow it.
It’s not even hopeless.
Not vicious.
Serves the absence.
Delivers the unnecessary.
I am the stronger, the unprotected
Tough as a woman, austere.
Delicate as a man, fragile, gentle.
she cajoles you to follow
the scent on the bodies
of every other women
do you recoil—on all?!
(Sharon Stone swaps her legs.
She might catch up with me.)
Did I run ahead? How reckless.
Do I want life along with so many
conditions, me who is so defenseless.
My otherself stares before the mirror
and pushes through another domain:
A few lap dances may fit in: I love it.
The way all these witches kill each other!
How jealous they are because of me!
Can’t take it anymore. This distillate is too raw to me.
The beast wins out of beauty.
The scale goes off balance.
Let’s say: I’ll tell you. Let’s say: You’ll listen.
My dearest!
You congregator!
How should I use you?
Where am I in my body?
Without a body? I don’t know. Imaginary blue
like an imaginary sky.
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