Obliquely

Obliquely

hum goes the wrong word
begging for redemptive sky
the night alone, dies

how on earth?
how how on earth
ni hao on earth
"how" on
earth kneels onto itself
suffering from bigness
and emergency payphone calls

uninfluencabowl lights
smoker's choice
what's my next line?
what on earth how.

the moon kiss itself
"I, god of winter" so say
sunshine is a sin

all that is was even, but
the most unkindly feeling
until the day unsmoothing sway
generals sell firewood and dust

Renounce virtue

all that was is never touched
symptoms of emancipation

victims of, victims of,
loitering and, loitering and,

Renounce sex
                 virtue
                 fame
                 and tissues

teeth made of snails
hair made of weights

"Let's all try to get along."
"We really should treat each other better."
But I suppose that's not enough for some.  Or maybe it is.  Ought we find a hundred different ways to say the same or read and reread a quasi-nihilist's airport romance novel?  Ambiguity is a teddy bear.
Since nothing ever solid stays but whips the wind 'til it decays and something something, off the chain, runs back home, missing its daily beating.

Why not what is the only way?
stay in bed, blame overstimulation

Congratulations on your suckerpunch,
the amount of gaiety.

Truly do not

Truly, do not care much what you do.
...he don't make his living doin' nothin' proud...
A whole goddamn.

If I was discovered,
I would surely die.
Cannot do nothing but you,
so do not try.

Hero worship begin

Hero worship begins and ends with self-worship.
That does not mean that it does not go anywhere,
only that it comes back.

shudder the blue stars in the noontime
hustle back and forth airport-to-airport

Feel sorry for family or I would if
would if at the moon loveliness and infidelity
what is good for taming the self calming it down
"expression is loathsome and life is a bore"

Can do nothing but everything, what's enough
Who is going on the leastest cadence runs out of fire light bulbs burning too bright gentle sway
I am suddenly aware of nothing

cultivate that is for sure like absence
I have never met nonsense only the tyranny of reason
it's better to suppose than not at all
"why" diminishes part of the self but other cohesives stay

On Moving Mounts

We run the faucet running on the top sink.
A ready fruit greedier than the other one.
the bugs sound echo
their reign is glorious
After the kingdom was aloft in celebration,
on her mount and and and
I can remember nothing.

I wish I wished a little more
for vomit on the kitchen floor.
exposition and seraphim
the unguarded room for her
Everything was moved.
I was moved.
What we were was moved.

The only possible reconciliation
is partial and removed
the present is an argument
(often a fistfight)
between the future and the past
I am their broken teeth
on the rubber mat of me

winter'd cigarettes
"Why did you put your clothes on?"
"I am cold."
"So am I, so? So come over."
dogs kicked out of thumping rooms
reasonable hostility to blinking voyeurs
I would go back, I would
But it is all mush
And I am the mush master.

my name what time

want and taking, ruffled shaking
the cider of the mind, inclined to suffer
workly tougher rights
of man the swordmanship can unlike a post
defend and toast a while of want the sork be trumply
finder way and metal hay awake

leftingrawlingigtornitarian

complicated complication theological endeavor
---space travel
The Good Ship "Her Majesty"
the mountains inherit the rivers inherit the snow
inherit dominion inherent you know

my name what time your roommate zooing?
everything hot or cold so out of buildings
not all virtuous to seeking your own ends

maybe create something new that is fucked

coherently sage and sagever working
out the spliff abiding anyone else

day goes down and the family does very well
but they destroy each other

all that is a dog

Maybe what's worth good is everything were that was before
Seeing as levitatory passes run yields is molasses
Hurrying upup and leaving enoughlington fersher
Is better for if ever but, pronounce the king in deed & smut
Hurry back, up, what's worthwhilemanshipness
erodes
        s
      s
turpentine, the sweet divine
reason builds bridges
but a bridge is not enough
the inadmissibility of personal experience.. rough & spotty
the oldest policy, which is felt, offers no public explanation
that is comfortable, I guess,
but comfort is one of many goals, like truth,
and I guess

serpentinely all inside me wishing will-for
under sunder lakes of thunder

worrying the world is all inside a little girl
work and play drugged all day

picking evers from the field
flowers only questions feel

a lack, a lack of understanding
a poe, a fae, uncomprehending

all that is a dog is "what?"

a slug inside of a purse

steady rain fills warm beer mugs
terrible insights.  friends in the nighttime.
candlesticks in silence
a slug inside of a purse, screaming for help

The flowers on your dress

The flowers on your dress say a lot about you.  They tell me you like flowers.  That's nice.

Flowers sit distinctly on a park bench, chatting this way and that about the weather.

The bees seethe in themselves, taking away indignity with fresh helping glares.

Gallop along in your relationship, we all see how tired..

Let me be explicit, for once:

God wants douf54hsal@%df'EJFOI42

BUT MAKE SURE you do not fjig1``hsgg;94w

and never, ever, eat 28hzlmmn1#%&(

I probably don't need to say this but it's not allowed to put your qwaff3l889WWQ in a woman's LKmcx7^^4112.

And for God's sake do not jsja27423dasmfnskfbwp9efy239f23irnwkdqsd qwdhf weurhw fdkewofef;e';d's;dalj8y3eyabLJ DL;;ihpifhweiojlew/.sdogihfey37w87r FDLSDJFOSDU83iuu1y2322*&^#%*!23yuh4j3nn@*(^(*YkjfishlHKKFIDUFOUDHFDFSGSDG

"It is all darkness."

KNOTS

highheaded monsters vomiting theology
when did all the tall headed men step back?

Most definitely do I operate.  I am assured of constant chittering,
and gold lights fastened to the corners of my eyeballs.

sleeping arms and unperceived dreams
means I never want to finish a sentence in my life.
What might be a little nobler?
Oh, what do I say to my old house?
and everyone that ever was it
needs me to carry them off.
everyone is crazy if I'm not just myself.

Long Tall Striding Footsteps
kick the hallway dark
suits and swift knocks
Uniforms are very hot in the summertime.
Nothing fits inside of pockets except a dull knife
and an unripe orange.

Take what you can get from your jam,
but don't talk about it in public.  That sounds super fleck
about the word around on ya.
I don't know any suitable dialect.
I wish a quiet smile would suffice.

KNOTS

dew something

dew something some
writing is due
dutiful writing thing
dew something writing
is thing some due

what's something duty
what's something

I try not to finish myself
on my self error

dew something

try not to write.

Tom is the rock

Tom is not concerned.  Tom knows who he is and what ought to be done.  Tom is the man to guide our community through this difficult time.  Tom is the rock that we all may rest on.  His judgement is sound, and his actions are swift.  Tom's leadership alone will sound our enemies' horns of retreat.  I am sure you all remember, dear brothers and sisters, those darkest of days in our history, when persecution and humiliation were all that we knew--simply because of who we are.  We were hungry and a'feared, a'feared our children would not live long enough to bury their parents.  Well it was Tom that saw us through in yesterday, and it is Tom who can see us through today.  Make no mistake, we need him more than he us, and Tom deserves our thanks and respect.  No, more than that, he deserves our devotion.  Only Tom can deliver us, I say.  With this in mind, I hereby nominate Tom as the Assistant Vice-Chairman of the Southern Ohio Chapter of the Americans United to Feed and Appreciate Squirrels and Pigeons in the Park Society.

Personally building personality buildings

The Human Mind as:
Being a tower structure
a towering structure
made with blood, mortar
and honey'd bone scaffolds
poking point at the sky

it can teeters, then lean,
kneeling close to the dirt
then swing back
falling in the wind, crossing the sky

grotesquely leaking tars
and subtle poison shame
(overestimating the capacity to sin)

the neighborhood is alive
lots of other human minds
swaying their own
way, too in a
fog filled with
disturbing dissimilarities
in the architecture

squat little towers
thick with faith
and built with big slave pillars
between the white
trees

skinny skinny dogs
making couplets
in the streets

Elegy: Making with the Boo Hoos

"'Please, I've done everything I was supposed to do. Can I go home now?' That's what I feel right now. I've written books. Lots of them. Please, I've done everything I'm supposed to do. Can I go home now?" -Kurt Vonnegut

Maybe life is unfortunate, friends
but perhaps we must not say so, hm?
instead only,
so it goes.  because going is a certain thing
and Empathy is unwieldy, a flickering light

but if you just must
wail and cry, making with the Boo Hoos
do so only with some honesty:
for one's own little sad self.
in sincerity, 

do not let the breaking of a toy
bring out the child's tired lie
"Oh, I am sad with pity for the thing."
it is not so,
the self-loving-self can only remember
just how gone the thing is,
and can see only the glaring, absent possession

who could ever cry over a schoolmate's
milk-soaked puzzle
or road-killed action figure in the driveway?

it is a good idea:
at a funeral
respectfully, to bust out the tape measure
and eyeball the distance
between you and another's fresh grave
nod to the casket,
and then go.

What good is an attention span these days, anyways?

What good is an attention span these days, anyways?  Tapas are very popular, you see.  It is nice to get only a taste, and then move on.  It requires as much or as little investment in the outcome as you care to give. 

A poem can be built to deliver as much information as a scratch and sniff sticker.  A few short lines erected quietly in the middle of the night, modestly contracted, clean shaven before the sun rises.  Why not try to dwell in that fleeting twilight of a moment when flavors first hit taste buds, and then go no further? 

A writer can be a waiter, one that drops the food and walks away without a wink, while the table watches, confused with resentment.  Bring out just a tiny wooden paddle that carries a sloppy collage of images, textures, tastes, half-dreams and assertions, none of them rightly true and none of them rightly wrong.  Don't waste time with questions about the chef's time working in Paris, or their home life, or what sort of painters they like to consort with: take a bite, and spit it out if you like.  Tipping is optional.

Inept Adept

Rain in

A dirty mug,

Slipping down a small hill

On the surface it smells quite like

the dogs

Read the novel of my entire life, then tell me that you "like the title"

It is something like magic to come home and find the mailbox full.  Trash is always more valuable if it has been postmarked, and I will absolutely find a chance to enjoy 5 cents off every time I buy the Sunshine Brand generic laundry detergent, thank you.  It comes in a pasty white box lined with pale pink edges.  The logo shows a small wooden cottage in the middle of green pastures.  A dog plays off in the background, and a beautiful blonde woman is standing next to the clothesline.  The sun is setting slowly in the sky, and I have no reason to doubt that this same woman has just finished using Sunshine Brand generic laundry detergent, and I also do not doubt that she is thoroughly satisfied by her laundry experience and her husband.  My life has noticeably improved since this purchase.

It is something less than magic to come home and find your roommate hunched over an entire roasted chicken.  Fork in hand, the dog begging desperately on the kitchen floor, he looks at me with his jaw still munching slowly.  "Mail?"

"Facing It" Critique

The only colors that appear in the poem are red white and black, which could be taken as a somewhat morosely tongue in cheek reference to the colors of the American flag.  Not to say that that sort of language is anti-American, or that the poem itself has this intent---but it hints at an element, a shade of the issue if you will, that is not captured except in the minds of veterans and survivors.

In "Facing It" the speaker is so wholly absorbed by the memorial, they describe the entire experience as though they were the stone itself.  Taking the language as purely figurative, the last few lines become all the more powerful.  The speaker displays such an intensity and impassioned focus, that when he notices the woman, he sees her hand moving and decides she must be fruitlessly scratching at a name on the wall.  The speaker at first glance, is given to assume that other onlookers at the memorial are as totally captivated.  Instead, the speakers decides that no, it was a far more innocent gesture between a mother and son.

Street cat

On Automobiles

I have never hit an animal with my car, but that does not mean that we are all on good terms.  I have been greeted like a dog by a cat.  If I could expose all her infidelities, my cat would leave and never come back.  There was a dead one walking across Broadway this morning.  A police siren stormed through the air, and a cop drove by, asleep at the wheel.  All experienced motorists know to park on the median when the chatterbox yells "Rain!"

On Music

There is something haunting saxophones.  The notes fling themselves through the air as very far as they can, looking for some ears to funnel and tumble into.  Air trembles ghostly in their path, and we all fall victim to unexpected shivers now and again.  I guess that makes music public property in its own way then.  Someone should tell that saxophonist just how cliche it is to play like that in New Orleans while the sun is going down, and that I love it. 

On Small Island Living

Be the boss of self fulfillment.  It is important to be reliably unconcerned with status, but for all practicalities to be consumed with it.  Horsemanship and cartography.  Demonstration is a guarantee of failure, but ignorance can credit the disillusioned.  To put an end to speculation: the dry intellect should occasionally be watered with the juices of superstition.  Daisies know a little but we know a little less.

oh hello squirrel

oh hello squirrel
will you make an exception
and try salt peanuts?

Concessions

"The poem is a small or large machine made out of words."
-WCW

A poem is a large words machine
or, is a poem
made small
out of words


Concessions

a small or a large poem
is made out of a machine
or is is is is is of
out of words

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