Thursday, February 25, 2010

Mood from 2000

I lost harmonies in the crude iron line-
shot sympathy on stark dystopian vine.




--
"The Shy Autos" in Sugar In The Raw, a brunch-infused assemblage book we made at Jonathan Skinner and Isabelle Pelissier's house on Huntington Ave., Buffalo, on April 22, 2000. W/Chris Alexander, Michael Kelleher, myself (credited as "Douglass Finley Crashpants"), Linda Russo, and Edwin Torres.

Moody as usual. But other lines are happier: "three rooms and a well,/cinnamon with too sweet". Lots of Akron/Kent factory-wage english-major boo-hoo still rippling through me.

Here's a bit of my new mood:

little musics and jams
latkas and nothing

take a bus
smell the snow
the luv-n-oven pizza



The Squills will be the next Mahavishnu Orchestra + Golden Palominos + Fugs.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Blake Lecture on February 28

Date: Sunday, February 28, 2010
Time: 4:00pm - 6:00pm
Location: 99 Sutton St. (American Cork Building #204) Greenpoint, Brooklyn



As part of a new series of readings/events at Eric Gelsinger's house, Douglas Manson will offer a discussion of William Blake's visual works followed by a presentation of some of his poetry.

Blake is cool because he’s a workshop for the mind of his readers, whether they be thinkers, poets or painters. His many works in text, book publication and design provide a generous supply of ideas for re-thinking artistic practice and performance. He came to full maturity in the midst of multiple revolutions, the results of which many would claim created our present social ideal of harmony as an enlightenment inheritance. Blake’s work questions these assumptions at the level of art and poetry. The present lecture will focus on his art: the style, techniques and themes of engravings and books in which he intertwined language and visual design. I will be using two American examples as a comparison to the kinds of attention viewers and readers have given Blake in recent decades: the poetry of Gertrude Stein, and the stories and graphic work found in science fiction and fantasy titles published by Marvel Comics from the early 1970s to the early 1980s.

Douglas Manson is a freelance academic, writer and micropublisher. In 2004 he took a Ph.D. from U.Buffalo, and soon after started little scratch pad press and Celery Flute: The Kenneth Patchen Newsletter. He adjuncts when his rice supply is getting low. Otherwise, he likes to make raucous music, fly kites and argue about contemporary definitions of good love with his friends in Brooklyn. Additional contributions from Claire Epstein, Jay Cohen and Sharon Mashihi.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

let's


not forget corvus corax.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

a long poem

The following poem took three years to write, and was edited over the span of another year and a half. Generous friends have given me to understand it is largely musical, rather than informative or intellectual. Its only truly complete version took place on April 23, 2008, as a performance with interruptions by other singers, poets and friends. This version of the poem is a residue; as a web-log post, maybe even less than that. Two readers were candid enough to critique it as, on the one hand, overly verbose and showy, and on the other, too privately closed-off to be followed for very long as a “hot read”.

“I like your earlier stuff better.”

But maybe a word of introduction will help, if after a few or ten minutes the reader finds it chaotic. The idea was to write as much pressure (scenic, alliterative, punning, homophonic, etc.) into the individual line as possible, and in as condensed a narrative/argumentative form as possible. The result was a way of meaning that could travel through many dimensions—overt, subterranean, blasted into fragments, or in weird, Klein-bottle shapes. After the fact, I realize that I took some formal cues from Matt Klane, Tom Raworth and many others, especially the Language poetries read during the five years spent at the University of Buffalo as a student of Poetics. Personally, I do not think this poem is much related to those poets or poetries, nor is it post-language. The poem is a formal composition, and a compost. It includes overheard phrases and personal thoughts, with many unredeemed references to my own situations. It uses fragments of pop culture and news items. It is sometimes abject. Its lack of punctuation and capitals is intentional, but may be thought of as cute or trendy. I can only say that it was written at a time when it seemed that poetry flourished by way of a constant public self-denigration or apology, and a very real economic mockery. Ridiculous. The golden strand running throughout the poem is its measure, which was a wonderful discovery for me; and combined with that strand is an unrepentant interiority, which is also its most significant, barbaric liability. As it now stands, it is revised from many previous versions and formats. I would prefer it printed in book form with painted covers. But this will do. What I was to gain from it I have gained.


To Becoming Normal


Douglas Manson


2009


Part One: Sections of Four Seasons (2005-2006)

i. autumn's azimuth

ii. mammalian springs

iii. a summer in columns

iv. winter uplands


Part Two: At Any Point (2006-2007)

i. sound ages

ii. i think we can make it

iii. wing wind

iv. a small snow wall


Part Three: Acorn Apple or Ellipse (2007-2008)

i. this is not normal

ii. a smoke, a bean and une jeune

iii. lost in lost lost

iv. cause of my heart





Part One: Sections of Four Seasons


i. autumn's azimuth


at noon the light

won't spill over the peaks

above your window

or onto the page

on which you scratch

and every article of hope

in a hollow net of veins

drying like a paper lantern

on the barrier ranges

above some coastal fringe

of antiquated flora begs

how could you sing

the hum of meadows each day

and not answer for

its spoonful of earth

it is true

you are made of small brushstrokes

O that the heart painted

there could be touched

or that some need was

warmed enough you are too

old & you must maintain

these surrealist

and meaningful lives that

sustain your own--for

you are nothing without them

now to know or only can

see beginning this

cluttered approach space

word's continuity--that

included is to begin

with all that needs

some sublime spoken

art--initial S in which

a harmonic scene is

offered--fruits dripping

from a C or the hollows

of R and B valleys

placid with promised comfort

of chimney smoke

drawn there before

the first word is even

discerned a still image

that yet could be

creation as reflecting

the imagined promise

of something the words themselves

may diminish and carry

away into themselves

elegiac and at peace within

the illuminated character

that rests tangibly

inaudibly almost to name the

whole course of career and

cosmos the text encloses A

blunt audacious claiming voice

swinging out in wavelets calming

seduction speaking i am the eye

walking through joys and crowds

eager to abandon isolation's triumph

overgrown squares of Mayanic cities

in some complex of activities

a yielding

to hot hands' inantarctic pitch

or the angers that some obvious

(to one) component

of experience would be lost

in pale fear these false

calls for courage may provoke

a real one from which may come

not Greek numbers

or infinite justice

of Abrahamic accounts

in the said burden

there the blur where

the blurting murtherer

said on all those megaphones

the blurtherer did

blur then all

read things

read anything

into any thing

and all the lines

any where

slow him down

to see about

the shape of

seeing

excised tracks

and roi drams

corpuscle lines

dead sign whales

frieze concepts on walls

the bearing of response

in baring drafts to

bear away from

towards what had been not

listened to with thirds

when you do not sing

tag lines

inflect higher

systematized leaf patterns

always go

on leave always

on feed on

we go mad in

our cocooning desperation

it is only music

sustaining us please

do not look down

simply a channel hold

only look for the

edge of a broken rule

our own new line

of product design

goes galloping into the

same dank sycophancy

here is what our

drip painting is

and what are you

going to do about

that?

a law prohibiting representation

O my hands afire

her hair like cool

moss stumbled

upon in thick

abandoned hillsides

facing a sea

whose sources

rise far in and up

saying to express

(all that is outside us)

is a transcendental

hocus pocus--

you merely

want to

repeat a name

to sit in

thrall to

an image

you call

word

whose alpha-beta this

is what gathers tatters

with starch in the offer

is spark shift hip

can these knots be claimed

crushed feelings be calmed

caught in the blind eye

read off the interior

like sacred cups

drunk in the imagery

carved and set with blue lead

some eternal inch

what did achieve

such status as of nature

to not have a name

shown in a doubter's glass

a phone book grace

the peninsular watch

the hasty pry the host promotes

all part of our own hysteria

time's pattern

the letter'd eat

of old ambition

imagination

unlocked and floating

guitar'd and spitted

arcanum breached

in concept is now ours

what a material traces

produced on mammoth scales

to be reduced to raw refinement

melted to pliable

slag again

walnut or ebony or

rods heated in pitch or oil

soaked unmade as spins

a green potato failure

at the heart of desire

round and in motion

long drift apart

opening tune

feeling funny in my head lord

in a xylotic pinch

miraculous apples

given to injunct

far from the adze

what is most expressed

when smashed

as needed ferment

for wine for

what moon after which equinox

what would you do

what semblance makes of

what is said

what Whitehead said

product harmony is process unity

who loves best needs least

and why not chase

that red shift

chaff of urgent blame

content of tents in

fulfilled categorical demands

led away

shut down

shouted out

lost the clasp the weave

to you who to me has frayed

and fallen bridge to that old gang

gaining less i tender a foot

a goodbye

letter services toward every scribble

shape of syllable the lower threshold

naked space given a total wrap

so that scales turn walls

to lift the lettuce

covering your pick

of prices and slips of access

the songs returned unbroken

old bony dust is stepping out

of storage spaces this clam

the offerings words rip open

only to ask for vascular fortitude


ii. mammalian springs


that I and Thou could boom

a plant to florescence

keep from unthinking

a plastic equivalence

dropped curlers and crimps

drive vernal mammals

from the extensions in

one million lines one

night at your portal

where you go the night

is a sign of tomes

the response tones touch

once again it was elitist

notched bandi keep turned

say the term coming and put

a responsible thumb

to that tremolo

to synchronize no matter

the air the thunders sell us

hip works in open sky

in which lies content or

broach tongue

tongue express

shoe drops

on artists as raining

but you're not

where you're supposed to be sound

of distance outside constitutive

practice of studio audience laffs

all the way home

a cut up staged dress-down

where cities meet new citizenry

to break a new babel step

purely into directer

phonetically faithful scripts

hate me because i quit cars'

aberrant space waverers like

sugar bowls full of petals

into which the cunning fell

of lust ratios thickly roped

beyond satiety

the groundskeeper flipped

an extra marinate on the bit grilled

words bought out by a tiny Thoth

so go take a break in the new

denuded landscape of couches

mesmerizing my eye by

a public space pathos

out of the woods

a life ex gratia

to think

it all started here

with a wrangled lyre

eating socks in the box

like another fucked plover

under the yummy cuts

milk pouches and blood beans added for

sitting there with orange pulp on his face

canister in a cancer hand

our ancestor who did speak Mingo

sullen Tuesday an African glance

alibi fronts a patsy

pigeon broadening deeply azure

mistaken word chips reflective

of a Xenia pinch for

just sitting on my ass

praying for a reader to

give the poem a breather

break or tremble for

its generative tone

to work and exhaust

enthuse and not alienate

twenty good ones who fight poverty

accommodate stress

on the universal soldier

to get sentience with it

to jive as i bleede

a picture tucking the guts

confusing pigs with little cherubim

awake my blossom and unfold

whites sky

what you tell me isn't going to

hurt confused the needle threads

image and experience cloning drill

whines of the paper the pauper the cook

how of such constant element

this moving image set is

set (from there) is so conclusive

as enjoyment foliage the rain

just drops by but nobody claims this

this as their house only we found

we only our dream alone meant

broken bridge apostrophized

excelsior dome of eighty

statuary napes full

of pale beatitude or by drum beat

is but comedic relief a vulnerable

offset to great humps

remains and relics

only one miracle to go

before championship

constantly immersed in a diction

that conducts acknowledgements

corrects for errors

outside the fence

are you in or out

here or beyond or way up in

hearer bee on door

weigh a pin

while the wheel's still spinning

sounding seeming

what do we really know?

colleague is friend or dry old collagen

try our extra unique indispensable

radio headache or swoon spasm

resilient woodland key-hiding

for shelf life and foot racers

blindsided in rarity dreadlove's

see-the-world promise on the bus

in the bus the language of outside

punched pansies and punk girls


iii. a summer in columns


old trees cut from the co-op lot

stock the shelves of intention layered

i give you to you what i do blue

this twist calms the cows but

shifts promises held without sound

bad girl guests switch to anger

hoping the hard medicine holds

up day into more stuff

baits to responses

and assessments to self

a beauty in the raw

keying out an unknown on

both lists where each is

a floral goal of knowledge

all the same a herbarium cut from

another art of engagement becomes

our shared elixir over a plank

only a ware one purchases

wary counterintuitive places

on what point does a talk turn sweet

and what offering refused (cloying)

vessel of flesh not erogenous made

of use of push of unyielding

sorrow and frustration

her sleeping fruition

tiny bird body a kite museum

endocrinology of blossoms cut

brown and read eyes tired

running posters along shops

you run into us

director you see

my throat unmans me

no butter offering not potatoed

in dreams a wish a warning witch

spontaneous reflux purses scatter

into nose knuckles

no hugs or high fives here

movie nor music neither is

one flap or extra fold

will do to empathize

do not systematize

will you or won't you

closer than touch sing to my ear

but what daylight effaces

some rain of amused counter light

turns off the increase

makes impasse tires redness reject

a body quashed in lathered ales

studied portraits tempered while

a princess skins the lizard's dermis

hurt, heart or just stomach it

hurt heart, or just stomach it

out of youth? playtime for pennies

finally phased over this preceptor

his sounds interstitial whanged

laughter all abounds us air and foam

they are there they are

car car whistle blur

it is a long commute there

instead we were

just eating the menu card

okay you go that-a-way

and i follow you

some possible opportune nothing

who help me to you do you

don't you like my driving?

have a bird what

do you see

what (clouds) me?

you buy me by my stripped demeanor

you make the sum hold truer music

alone she is just buzzing along

the top shelf a shellfish

gone belly up bellicose

in a jellyfish nebulosity

he enjoys compiling

and arranging in lines

while her pan dents against the lino

instead of his head

or in-state what district confines

what slow burn now seen

glows from internal heat

shared breath at the hot lakeside

a wind wash turns wet flesh on

down to the heart's core

rushing out

in a cardboard ultimatum

so beat it kid

she's ironclad against

your thousand hungry arms

--such sketchy zest--

ain't good for old trees

you would bless a poet who would close

eyes on the utter uselessness

of love insubstantial

or just shut the other's gaze

on coups or caps vinous apples in vats

as the energy of life is itself

revolution and revolt

rose inundated under rank rotting mass

iconic surrender in homage to projections

then homepage roofs collapsed onto a coal

ore

a giant stone ear hovering up

surrounded with ersatz pivoting neck

some idling engine forever at dream

-ings doorstep stop

proud blue pick 'em ups chucking

the bones of baby birds

woven with mosquito needle probosci

crests up to ford wracks of indignation

an eight years' epic of aliens and robots

felt the tip hieroglyphic as wisdom reels

spin out twenty-four per second harmonics

she said the alienists are made of people

glinting in constellation light developers

play heaven's winking promises like hair

we come and go

just browsing crates of snow

our palm lozenges blinking with friendship


iv. winter uplands


fake sentiment of seclusion kept

as burnt aromatic bundles

darken her face to a third sigh

capitulation to the state apparatus

briny fried justice with super sauce

shakes the bag of rocks and feathers

and in the mind the shadow of the body

a mood cast for a hyperscopic age

my age a middle and my eyes that skitter

the form of the body in the mind

or simply mind's form and you

there as them all but somewhat of my own

thus nearer than they yet of my shame

composed as figure of the form mind's

sum of a catalogued progress day's

electrofuck had i lost you

turned you away

made you go feel gone a-brambled

part of we, you, or she who has

grown virginal with looking

for buried tunes in the stacks

in the mix of saxophone and shrill

fathers who had seen into each space

of the dread time even you turned away

in the becoming normal to which the

art is forever rededicated?

sweet berrying of uplift

open these hands

these digits of justice

in one million intricate moves

closed rapturous meeting

perception of slide

or sliding perceptions

a change enough to be felt

not an asphalt saturation job

to hear each call or cry or why

do we die to each other each time

i die to you to slip from myself

weak autistic this testing July

as whose calendar claims

constellations we name

the words they spell in the heavens

when approach and confidence

appear in Judd Lewitt lines

that we make house of

wine and the lover

learning how to write

mah ke mihmi sapweioh ke sohte pahn loleid

or from my end where waters drop in

let's go to islets that

make our parents happy

stepping from panel to panel

this comic bride-price

plastered over my lips

punched up into lines

each a potential rewire

color-aster burst or downy blow

we live so small inside each other

old key tune or golden phrase

telecasts against the corral menders

back in the day of early RNA battles

under the fast mood banners we learn

saturates of our gluttonous sleep

where skin flakes whiskers scrape

the tough cells of our heel

floating quantities of electrons

bankrupt carnivals of Lascaux grease

please please me and turn like licks to this

tongue (parcels we are and precipitates

and in that wild potentiality a song

combines all these mortared joists

through them to re-weave the skein

of a reality with some slant matter caught

edge of plastic ticket or the silhouette

of heirs or conspicuous swarms rolling

collapsed to a freedom of quantity assesses

to wish their theatrical quivering of borders

didn't so mortally pale

with such a broken sexual logic

fastened lips to a functioning sublime

from out of our own metallic phylogeny

straight across the blood barriers to refuse

in fracturing last mother's anxiety

these are the distances returned

baloney backed by fructose

a sharp yeasty crick atop

the center for intellection

in a shiny green coat w/

dazzling coarse red hair

forty-five minutes

driving without haven

nose into the noise

blow by imitation

tinkered trusts

in the recitation

unmuffled and magnificent

lapsed radiolaria

kissing our bits ultra

marine machines

father's father's father

tread over silken fronds

mitre'd flush against

each other

to pattern our basis

ore any

form from Ohio




Part Two: At Any Point


i. sound ages


cooled and coiled

still kicking for

a dimensional birth

a decided hope

a rush of time

a bird in the tree

her sweet hands and heart

a straight line to assuage

letters tapping inking ploying

less proposal writing

for bureau antic conjugations

as bird meets the tree

as is of the tree

better than becoming brush

twice as exhausting

pigment or dye music

inks for the days to

follow the heart out

what it means buy a poem

a rubber stamp requires patience

doctor sax from Kenmore Mercy

iced tea outsells all bound matter

on a hot day with open heart

you sit with generous concepts

bring new friends a painter of

long scrolls animals graven shapes

we are tired from making

we are together all

the fall rushes towards us

knife crazy crushing streets

raise rapid brushstrokes

of my adoption

seeing her unseeing of him

makes capsized faith

froth up accusatory

two way street engenderings of

our basic attractions

makes of meeting in clubs

each friendship a rare grace

under drowning beats to

speak of flowers and missing you

how we're feeling is

fails opposite of irony

falls leadenly

he's seen not asocial

he just wants to tear

a commons into parcels

we all cast lots for

because i'm always running ahead

cuff-nippers astriddle me

besides thus with you

directly obstructing

scales of inattention o sugar

drop O muse

like a laundromat

for the spirit

laving is so close to loving

not leaving

dear sweet vibration

do be discreet

but not so careful of details

you miss all marjoram

or make significance jam

I think we're here

because we're here

you may find there

a record of attention

or sleep it off

running hither and yon

impulse not electron

if you get things done

what do you ongo to gain

own momentum own

through hop-junk returns

the quick and slow dents

can the date be changed

now no wait can this be sent

in wugh the loss

Christ! ridiculous assumption

pray prey to extend

sweet flesh in a cottage

a cheesy swept sendoff

into false promises

the kid bored

passed

accepted

my corn and wheat for

your molasses and calico

more molecules

bobble free of

rusted spokes

out our sunburned arms all

hold the edges

shake free form subculture

idioms and ickles

big goose egg exhibits

his damnable attentions

and how will her arrival

be arable or aurable

as it cannot be ducky

for which home

to be borne with

the will all that eggs on

such dishable platters

a pursuit of legendary

lissome delays

on a bed of do let us

so sweet and crisply

suck each other open and

sup on legends

comestible shudders

the firm and the flush

attach a new tail

to my ginger doge

house of generous

word

&

mirror

so unfazed by fear

must we love without remorse

in such time and world

so harmed and hunted

sitting here making love sounds

gestures signals intents

with such horrors in surround

god shall not forget us

or bindle us stiffly

to bark at a podium

saying what

such elevation

of its own cannot

impoverish or harms

and distances and proves

that eating these lentils never

cultivates a king

the function of our lives

is to palliate inability

to pop out our sweetest wish

or do you switch upon

interlocutors on down

to their grinding designs

walk and talk

a parrot's plumage

say what your heart wants

or their hearts to hear

thin minds wrapped in plastic

thick lacerated foot

squished limping pedagogue

knows how the hurt

leases four seasons each

a step or surety

bandaged and not

bleeding

hearing immensity

hung from a lobe

entrance to surround

dried glutinous

relay baton a

yellow red sharpened

wrapped skytale

around a kindred sense

of proportions

halve a second helping

enough to sustain

certain mites that gnaw

the glues of our books or

sweet woody imprints

a biostrata be raised

thrilled by a solder and

tiny suburbs launching

microchip caravansaries

for my closer scrutiny of

the letters they'd eat

munch leaves of read tea mulched

cant along a trebling line in

sound ages

lagged wages

sirens cranes and crimped hoses

upon that which the lichen tints

pass liberally to and from

seitan same-as substitutions

or other heal-me preparations

bean onion pepper flour

corn poultry coffee kale

nourished at the respondent core-

handed a manual listing

pointers and reminders

mouth and eye are mirrors

our hands the only real emergence

of idea of line threshold mantra

one line by one line transport

in that grip the mind's made

exodus is dearly bought equalities

that could amend or tend

O swift mower your retributions

withdraw the happy charge

even the slate

on which a word set

rebukes or rereads

writing as nor type

nor meditation but

breaking sudden broadcast

amend propose and wed

deep analytic need

from all (to fail

to all due regard

in geste where

the pain crackled

temple to temple

i read there

notes on p.o.d

positive enjoyment

that lichen

sprung from a hole

or wholes

stitched up in listing

monostichic tonal drifts

in snowy deeps

our own black trails

betoken linear frays

to set the self abash

in tides or tricks

of the velcro eye

to catch at the always

stream of cast off

image-atoms

washing through and blue

their ostensibly generous minds

some strength enough to say

it is/is not a world has been

taken away

with trieds or traps

ticks and the drones

in my bed

on my phone

as rats in their dugouts

float like dugongs

in the weed what waves

please have some seconds

tocks

or the crumbs

the dregs for your every step

take silver take copper

or what is spit from

the tasty mouths AH HE

is neither hot nor cold

so spend 3 days at 4000 meters

in tightly wrapped briefs

then to become rimpoche

nerves fanned like umbrellas

still

with but a pestle

there is good bread

we are each a creek

one small pulse without tide

yet bearing a sugar moon

whose reflection

prompt in the fronds

plomp fromps as

on we go

each a log in

a traffic accident

fire or crime

this Tyrone Slothrop

pride in orgasmic time

here they come

swirling about

crowding the night

the day switch shifts

over the river

bank reverberations

work gummed the products

over the border in a barrel

til the Murray Hill-giant laffs

just use your LV money to

build a bridge for your desire

forecast of snot clouds

screen of artists' projections

dull dick brokered of an afternoon

on her charmed tequila bubble island

ingratiating self-confidence man

less forthright lookers-on

hone their faculties upon

the linoleum carpeting of

Albion Flour Mills 1791

to confront designing men

who calumniate w/ barbarous anarchy

broke the siphons

the cilia of signs

replaced by place as known

neighbor is owner pulls the tap

the barbs and thorns of parallel channels

cut into the earth

beneath a mountain

of discarded rubbers granite rubbings tissues

paste and applique

they wear no crowns

landholders patrons can-collectors

drive luxury carts

a woman and her children

searching for aluminum

these our people

scattered or scrounging

how do you square this

with this this and this?

advise and sort

pen eye paper essay grade

down which the money drains

look about

what we really do know

automated life thwarts

force laced around the neck

chokes us all in reverse embrace

tough teeth of time

rough weed

waiting the sentence

out on a limb

of what was ode

the brain refrains and the stalks of reed

will pierce your hand for leaning

on the most precarious

carry-on of our untimely nest

depression since the great

afterimage pixels flicker

behind closed lids

like wind in silver maples

says hello Pleiades

moonlight ladies

you trust me don't you oh

advise confer a blur's pin

which constitutes your new

past occluded act not what

how say this tricks the eye

heart moral credits fungi

another specimen or equal part

in satisfaction of an obligation

take these dollars

for car fare or fake care

owned words a blur over others'

be slow

him downed

speaking words of polite refusal

he stood then he drowned

father's dollars can't be burned as love

burdened by action

at a distance relation is

asset or property restraint

every mind a metric

as a francais is a lake

for a year in the can

where each loves his spritzy

leviathan

toot toot

tally tarry in your plans

and cork a cetacean nostril

with its own cloaca

crap it's

so sad that streams and

concentric waves will/need

absorb such trenchant flail

so try to enjoy

each relative umph


ii. i think we can make it


see in silver lunar lumens

the seven crows

in a golden hackberry

wondrous urban twinkles on snow

he's had for once enough

of her warm orality

a failure of timely homesickness

for one of the chief

chromatic aberrations

in the crooked thumb zendo

just call it Baird Hall

with a candle in the classroom

solemn as Sassoon

everyone sang and sang

but it was so-n-so's biz

so i hobbled to the gates

honored dust and the Maj

Ra's gain of solar vantage

still in vivid thirds i listen

there's all these problems in my

productivist constructionisms

amid heaven hell and earth

where the limbs block up

this lake affect with

clouds heavy in a line

bursting words like

molds on the forgotten trays

is this a set of containers

sealed-off from

heat and moisture

did i enter into that exchange

pushing the same push of

such delineations

as separations from what could

be said about that

and if you are older does that do?

make us younger and unsavory to

save her liberation for later

get that same old anger thing in

here why i did come from

screaming "fuck you" to

have it out

there while there is

no need to turn myself aside but

beside myself because

of a set of presumptions

a fault of passive aggressions

next time passed through the fire

or hired for comment here it

rains on cracked branches

live wires strewn or down

with candle power do you

have it well in hand to

stay required? of course!

dream that simple

curving towards the lips

symptomatic stickiness to the way

our talk has to change

tonguing a foot or an ear outlined

between saying we do or we don't

carry some torch for the chips

bulging the shoulders of our suits

with a filed pair of bureau drawers

drawn down upon the leaf

under which is beneath

the great delta of genesis

we spoke first with our hands

parting watery hairs o my

trail of meaning smoothed this

way and that around the rim

tipped aortic basins of response

times we spoke first in rhythms

great operatic conversation in arbors

soaked it all in

and then split on the avenue

in two petalled syllables

to taste my new stew

they locked the entrance to the school

but no we stand for a cause

now work looks back at you

friends with you

what you are and are not

notified of your exculpability here's

jelly in your cream

you put vinegar in this?

it lends significance to that abused

term maladaptation

making a bee line

basilica of bone and honey lions

meat out of the eater

let it be all that they are not

good tub-thumb and trimmings

in the cv

was (

with (

did (

for (

front face of the paper

the straightened note belies

the ways to pollen

compile investigate refine

sweet slope-necked giraffe

we mirror

your millennia of reach

yes it can be seen

it can be made

just coax the leaf by sixth sense

alone and mottled

take proportion and do taste

Percy Dovetonsils'

ego puffing walrus tears

& Lord Buckley's former

futurists page arrange

make draftworks in long hauls

screen soaked like a clerk

ailing and prepared for absence

peanut butter glove

hot room of casual props

poem is word colloquy

native speech honk twitter

photograph of whorled type

print scale mystery

idea droplets go

in or out

which holds its doubt

a void

sharp sound

repeating

and laughter

remember his foot

and hand the

floor in the forest

bailed out after

haunting our

time and a flat

did you get paid?

to consider it all

rushing needs and

obligations

a doctor of paper

and pencils

lets pressures define

what lies perpendicular

one hundred sixty years

of a carpenter's epoch

to make square

easy joints

fast and level

out of this woodwork

pet articulations

on the shelf off

the life less raveled

wish i hope i thank

the day i plan each session

college kids surround

surround and we hear

a girl on the phone

the phone our single

abstract thread

so much future to dandle

so banally instead

but i am preoccupied

silent in contemplation

would child and friend

respect this endeavor

mistrust built on expectation

a dream-life of the middle

car shop home candle

take some respite in

gift of some token tale

a place to write

and what is given there

blind crazy chance

music awaits delay

and so this very effort

of young mind

while so much has come

to pass all sounds

TV mouths and laugh tracks

exhalations or trembling

a young woman so often

taken by the eye's assent

good space

hold head in hand

or above the waters of such

tearing misprision

as means the brink blinks

constraint of lost mutual myth

will you marry these tempi

to your service in the know trades

blame and shame a tabletop

ingestion of the outer drift

as in get it or catch mine

virtue and chivalric self of study

as objective as any

text on the shelf

heft and number the threads

each with relating color and

combined you'll clothe the

simple form with smooth

shining impearled and bright

garment

surety

so okay with coke go

pop my wheel and my walls

will fall to marl the seedbed

or go ahead fetch the marlinspike

to work the lone clause loose

head pulsing blue in darkness

golden city strands of home

the heart of vim

infused hot jumping liquor

sweet and of such satisfaction

tart lickish we devolute

some comfort there is

more than enough to

make it

mother ill and father drunk

weak and brutal

honey please go

open the trunk

if i ever get again

into a class of such reaction

where to write?

not on the linear ledge

of poetry

the notebook?

magazine?

email?

classroom?

who hears?

you only have

so much

space & form

to make it

into newsprint

hit the bricks bard

rub down the electric way

even this kid's vivid plastic backing

again puts paid to

what his serpent-blighted colon

hisses my lone chance for solvency

weepy girls wish to tenderly take

your sweet sorrows and grit

no it's portfolio pile time driver

bear that hoof down on the

mill belts and bell signs


iii. wing wind


a wing wind risen by

hundreds of crows

across the twilight edge

& over the peaks

of old frame houses

near the turn of the year

that dark

or mirror moon

on lavender

bare tree as empty claw

at sky

we felt the rage not

knowing whose it

was agreed to keep it

give it our energy

and were done in

dented and broken

who she was not

cooperation seemed first

but it was only rage like

a spittle or foam on lips

if i shove it is not love

as nearness absconds

afraid to touch

make your substance mine

that harrowing loss

is not pain but growing

that certain given intent

to let language leap over

the spot on the road

some kind of shock absorber

in our tall carriages

sure they walk in their

priestly powers across

a city's highest arch

sure of the long tradition

sentient spot a crawling thing

heart matter undone

old rectifying line like a fist

hits the young head or drives him

up against the others

like him work it out there &

back in again to

sit at screens for days

divulge and indulge the

millions of gradations

a woman on a couch

another woman kneeling

a man rudely pushing

a woman to lie

so i'm sewn in and bound

to learn from myself what another

may teach my not gathering in

needed advice

flour-covered

delivery boy

off the clock

riding high on clonkers

we collate our futures

roast pork patty cake clubs

we're riffing after auras

with off-kilter bias

cut through the ankles

put funnies underwater

jokes bleed into chlorine

as her bikini cinches as

an ice cube smoothes

ganderflesh memory

in virtual immortality

what mechanics restore

on formal digital

invoice schedules

her little attentions

checkmarks on rosters

make us handy

once more with feeling

is it to deposit

what is due

suppose it over

grant or close

storm topos on a round harp?

sorry Charlie

the answer is none

cuz he don't believe

all muttering bums

some drive too fast

and carry phones

zinging

the new normal

of continual change

replacing the stable

earth's veneer

saves trillions

paid handsomely

to stay at home

what to do there

when you want to sue

for frayed seams

emetic meals

dirt particles lodged

in the deep fibers of

unvacuumed seas

in the tasty halibut we caught

on the corner

in Brighton

where you are

the mind in deep reflection

is right tells no lies

in slow accretion

of actual guiding grain

of friendship opportunity

in coldest midwinter

tiny blisters on toes

so-n-so sez such-n-such n'

will get beet red steamin'

if you go say what

it is you really feel

speak truth as always

it comes across only

prose doctors

trace the course

of pain

in conversation's

electric wheel

Catherine's I/O

sonic rainbow

of the third kind

spreads LED spikes

she likes it when you crawl

and says now now now

perhaps there are

neuroses of health

affliction's optimism

will see unity as dissemblage

or what is this getting

of autumn's heart

but spending of now

all there is

clear

as a tear

his progress atop

light pressed leaves

lost in letters

mails and correspondence

what drop edge

cuts wipes cold

a thousand deferrals of

wolfish kid oinks

closing in drifts

all else is swell tips

eventually three thousand

reasons why this here read

quickens some sweet

heart on every bough

birds heard to sing

read she said

and so the boy agreed

turned off the inward TV

to fill aspirant

mother's dream

commanded meant

the ten windows of Jesse

tree with decent dove

into the cess of repetition

with polyethyl grocer's

sack the city transit

meant contact with a fluid

hesitant song

even forms

can't ministrate

such a social

pattern of catered

assimilable tooling


iv. a small snow wall


a small snow wall

the boy and i dive behind

the contact cable optic

lineman forgets

his lightness of greeting

as he enters our fortress

and string-wires the houses

bleeding deceit into deficit while

plain spiritual exchange

attracts friendliness of form

and means of a pragmatic

genetic need though

the rythym is skinned

in the fear-rattled rooms

so i'm going out

with my buds

to fruit with the bees

yielding sweeted meats

& pulpous nectars

to give up in sing

song multivoiced

complexity O

please don't leave us

bardless in the cold

with too short a set

of ideas to be coupled with

i've hardly the attention span

to recognize hurt

yours and the others

and would not to contribute

to unhappiness

any one's

sense of limits

in these places from

where we return

to know extent and

give shape to our full

being how cannot makes

the wholeness

is a place or heart which

a glance grows to blossom

knowing this is

where we stand

by the glass looking

on cold and hot trees

what communication

tells us you are

simply are and what

cannot does to heal

outside is not us or

what can we scissor

there is at any point a

sweet broth of surety

it is me is it what you want

mingled in the broth of you

taste it taste it and roll

around on your tongue

taken by your side your

rider please here by

my warm side

ask what ours is

this not clearness

of the passage

this now muddy

this cold & soft

this tone of voice

is not mine own beloved

things not getting right

with where they said they

the thread of it fraying

what seems to be

isn't flush with said or

appearances all a scrim

i'm agog at and long ago went

to the place

that is shared space

with the strain going into it

where beam or wave is

clouding up the clear

how sync it to song

stop saying belief just pour down

a poultice of type-life

you seem uncomfortable with

helping hands unarmed

still stickled like a jagged leaf

fur one way and then the other

ouch a claw

caw caw caw

stop stop stop

sometimes just students

their teeth like knives

sharp-taloned my reason for being

meads and blossoms

still waters of lamb and chimney

scenes from a window

during sending out smoke

some walk the sidewalk

some walk in the street

when snow settles down

life is moved is moving

nestles over and over

the sidewalk is various

the center is smooth

sweet life sounds

settle down now children

there were many hands

but commonly only one text

from which all ages torn

fitted the eye heart and ear

now there is a book minute

so bound in such confines

as episcopic eye cannot scan

or meet in your street

there is in this

medical dictionary

signs of health

precarious as the glass-grinder's

just as you loved the lion

and gave him the pits

or the horse

whose back was whipped

compilations of normative

ethical theory night sweats

minerva's owl alights

ain't normal admonitions

ain't normal to drag a beer bottle

over a hardwood floor

mad at a neighbor's TV

blowing a four hour nap

and i the man who would demand

an hour's help arranging his place

to be so poor tarned stubborn

as in the mishnah ain't normal

for women in the world at all

so let's outside the world then

and then aren't i a woman?

perceived as indicative abnormality

in a world men posed as normal

there is no reference to craftsmen

unemployed landless and the like

the like of all these

and aren't i a like man?!

families not normal only households

quiet old houses that hold us

of means and gettin' sotah mean

when we can

damn the caesars

but should we damn the caesuras?

normalcy is semblance

such screens as will

pass the mustard

spice forests as limitless

as imagination is

or a limit by history

this bill drawn

on self-limitation without limit

to occupy the boundary

that interrupts and diffuses

my limits are my own

and not imposed if an autonomous

act of askesis knows no fear

before the other slurps or snarls

two light blinks of a day

this is a forgery of smithed gold and silver

dented aluminum the palmer skips

a common currency of little trust


Part Three: Acorn Apple or Ellipse


i. this is not normal


i loved you and let go uneffaced

in the bright halls and meadows

of heaven's unfailing light

he kept dreaming

he was making love to her

and the first kiss

an omnispirit blast of color

helical nimbus flowing outward

in almost toothy electric shock-rays

next kissed sweet and gently

soft touch of skin

but then she shaved her head

will you love me no matter?

begun here her E to hear

wide smiles and comforts

and since early errant sin

made place a continuance of

impossible and treacherous

to be driven from eye to hand

some way to the exposition where

the meats grate at the mind's gate

you may have seen this

in the shoe shine times

KO'd by an alley can

looking out at misty spans

between the bricks

where the colors grow

if consciousness does not

always lead back to the city

does it err or simply fray

or is it medicine to see

how worlds of doing

do or do not defer

to a human verse

it was a music

and musicians

arrived at aspirate song

our eyes amidst

a puppeteer a xylophone

the oud and the pipe

a cantor's groan

make love to you

let love make you

let love in to

contrast and contain

we were visiting America

as riverboat pop stars

made lures for gars

and mustachioed fish

voweled eels' volont amours

would punt the blurter

from the pontoon

hey whats goin on

not much you

are more grrr than pearl

grit-specked by the needs

and kelp of our sway

which buoys your girth

our mouths break wavesparkled

humming a mist to

the undo of vapor lock coils

just the sea around us

the joy of bark

to see around us

unexpectedly

a new roof as book leaves

tough and external

over a sleeping nose

centered quietness within

and tumults of

articulate lips without

tender throat today

as if one had been shouting

for hours four days

a woman pulls her daughter

along the sidewalk no farther

in a wagon and grandparents

and children and grandchildren

walk dogs and plan days

out spent at arts festivals

the sun and music plays out

a celestial hot water waitress

her stamp-cancellation

postmark tattoo on a tit

with her zip city birthday

inscribed red as outer aureole

so she needs no wallet

whenever he sits down to his desk

her hand invariably reaches

lolling into his pants

you are lady love 1 page

you are becoming and coming

acorn apple or ellipse

as long a- o(a)k i -go away

guessing this distance and silence

is respect or neglect when

wrestling you is so much better

than angry word-wrangling

or seeing through

what something would be under

environs otherwise seen

to be some way mourning

normal circumstance

envision the speech of norms

were we living close enough to

hum would that be normal?

what is a normal word?

please throat don't die or fail

turn purple white and pulpy for

painful surgical knives of chemicals

that is not normal

solitary in the city

consciousness of awakening

in a shift of sound

ceiling fan jet tin turbine

high pitched AC drone

in window of feet-away house

the birds rather like water

in a mechanistic desert

sound is all a compound

this is it i'm awake!

cool slatted morning sun

stretches shadow legs

of daybed cabinet table

across wooden flooring's

leagues of forest goods

to house unchosen identity

recluse option hermit shut-in

schedules time a porous surface

to which no ink applies

or stink of rotted lime refines

in acts without info

set or scene

this cosmic panic set up

constellate reverb until

all glass cages in the brain break

a bird is birthed by boring beak

an active principle passing to

produce no information

inside the blossom is

nothink to

nevermind

what not to know

or had never understood

what is a woman

and what makes her happy

his nerves blowing flayed in back

or out of his left thigh

juicy plump bits set to grill up

a meat-flavored man

man-a-dish led by ignorance

a paucity of romance

for nomadic dish-man's sin

i'm not a dish i'm like you

really merely

i am! not hale

or swaggering or tooled

jolly in my life

jolly on my tongue

there from whence

your wine kicks down my spine

zinging attuned or missed chords

in public flute & drum

the coffee centers beer dissolves

sugar drops at four to wake from

one hundred years of steam

atop the slim finials

hovers of magnolia buds

the clustered drupelets

beers downed up/on the stoop

who is with a stride or ended

mystery sky of unceasing change

to move as mid-mind empties

flat Brownian twilight

the polluted eye floats

mimic the gyring birds

wispy against the storm

at twilight how speaking ceases

the body magnetized as by

elements unknown within it

tends toward a figure of desire

of uncertain consciousness in both

whose different charges must be discerned

twins who carry their opposition

with difficult admiration painting

glaciers across which

TVs show their movies

of themselves

(i don't want to

undo you i just

want you to hold me

i don't want to love

you any more than you

don't want to sleep

in this white and grey air

i don't want a chakra lock

just to know you

across small orbits

of small flames

called stars or charges

whose attentions

mothball or divert

though sustaining notes

continue the symmetry

like how i always

read the funnies

and not the inferno

it's wallow to ascribe

what tarries a verse

with such tune

of combustion

or fuse of aspersion)

Schiele in shackles

candy hearts on my skirts

or afoot games of footfall

get the snap

take the ball drive drop

papers ravenous medicine

she says her verse to contrast

'my own mannerishness'

apex pecks

start at the foot

where he may have gazed

stuck at it to suck at

even eyes pushed away

not cross but converse to

toes a shy woody girl-tree

frozen in cool stretch away

from root to heavy fog

of frizzy earthen crown

did see die freed from

frozen Dianaen fear

in the sun's heat of day

democracy had not yet

come to poetry

polythene is made

by combining

natural materials

in new ways

let us be polythene to each

the other's under garments

gathered in or grafted smooth

your arm in mine

your hand in mine

my mines rich veins

strains the metered o'er

and normal just keeps getting worse

brought to where it was before

to go back to a word once said

that said was not sufficient

at play in the serious subject

worlded by conviction

unpersoned in me

imprised of the sun

for his doubts care belief

assay the senses suffering

or what could allay

and so there was no name for pain

left there anticipated

snatched back to be held close

held close alack! away! and dimly!

into the rain in rougher clime

it could have been wetter

moments by a border body

or our bodies in the bask

of task to tell it from the cells

or strands entwined

from ass to eye pale white and rose

around the plasma shine of fire

this is the central line

palms across the psaltery

on your cupping tongues

give out syllables that bathe

the same as thrice engirdled spine

of this book's minded matter

thrust out into a peopled scene

theater as all out of doors

where would i reckon of the pen

or penny that usurps the poor

it's worse than that it's

somewhat ordinary

to hear the crack

misanthropomorphic

to feel the impress

of the event but have not

means to witness or thwart

and it's mean and modal

for the man

to thrust his suit upon the girl

and have her wear his honor

a kiss a kiss so far conserved

i am the girl so suited fluted

unhugged unhung and hunting

on my brief pinnacle of clarity

caught in a 10 p.m. bluster zone

opens the gate to noise

horns sirens penetrating sounds that

wave and wash and empty the mind

so you cling to cars dogs hammers shouts

radio noise and raging motors?

you are a grandpappy

your work is a sleep in time

that saves nine

muses

kissing the loving sun

crumpled and half-splayed

on a cathay red encathaired daybed

caught in the glare

of late July's

hot fabric and upturned fur


ii. a smoke, a bean and une jeune


and in the dream she jumped

the gap

and crawled

into his window

with hungry eyes

and silken arms

saying take me take me

and me was all toes

and deeply arched

like a thirteenth-century

Umbrian Franciscan tertiary

ecstasy before an object

what he has

said about it

leaves the leaves

at every spot

to join him @ her

mere something

now to have yet next

the next is everything

that appears to veer

pointless in the Perseids

as it is impious

to start counting stars

unless you intend

to number them all

so too it is to measure

life by need

unless you gain

its full quantity

also to rule by image

complacent unblinking eye

according to habituated

anticipatory conformity

ersatz lamp in three-sixty domes

of Benthamite latex and groundglass

these keyhole onanists

he too administers vicariously

desire lust lust desire

tooth booty booty tooth

stop posing cuz the sausages

are burning out

our love LOVE love?

with one cannot live without

figs and honey

pennyroyal tea

fresh greens in a

box lunch

her primary drives

are such a wedge

inflexible

the slope and edge

journalism's a b.c.

broken conduit

to a t

where the sad authority

and acquiescence meet

to drill up a fraction

of backfilled street

to faction's obverse

observer's platform

flat warm or sugared

atop the countermanded

honking arrows off to

beachland

mates in mind checked

since he met his match

she mattered little to

the littered masters marching

accountancy geometry

for unsuckled birds

bough breaking cradles

and golden crowns

the wonders of the petite death

discovered there

dressing down for

one evening at the table

the flower of time

[forbidden embrace]

lost in songs of bloodletting

loss and arrogance of thrust

blinded in the storm

of her metaphysical dream

lucid in the pale evidence

neither agreed to or was that

acknowledged here and

pace of the dance confused

petals of cyclical

months rainy or dry

here's the seasonal flooding

of the eye

there had been no other

faith so fell

held up so well

under her penetrating pressure

let go the androgynous slit

and let her tear your hymenal oath

to shreds of sacred odes cum

tatters of the staff the staves

the marked measures

notes unread unplayed

our dialogue collected much

our music a tension

tethered to a core

oh binding kaleidoscopic

blinding wave

of missing lost forgotten souls

in your communal templed hall

it is our right

to rise above them

kiss the vintage of the wind

avail for what horizon beckons

the rising mast and merchant's zero

over the low and eerie water

and still the murmur beats

like a dumb tongue of

your writhe turned stomach manual

amidst thick fingered stench or stretched

the matrimonial branch wax seal

thus the combs are burning

the bees all in flight

and this is the parable

you tell me i write

it's not the future

city you asked for

i leave it untried ever with word

to suggest and never settle

placate with plan resolve assurance

amend proposed and wed

compile investigate refine

acorn apple ellipse

palm papyrus cotton

doubt care belief

habituate anticipate conform

forsworn as swept free

make love instead

still on the table

your broadcast my bread

i tumble through these gathered cloths

the infant amour paradox

for all the walking wounded

dispositions

did you enjoy throwing rocks

at my crystal palace

the sound of glass

sufficient metronome

for your heavy sighs &

old pashas put to bed

then teach me teacher

to chew the apple

all there but how to enjoy?

where pure speculation

comes spore percolation

to epitomize a sense of cell

twigs smoothed midden magic

shellmound wet and cool

cataloging the hundreds in

medicinal revery

practical and reasonable

reasonably practical

and practically reasonable

actual / practical

a smoke, a bean, and une jeune

technological voice

arche and jug-jug

met Vetty and Beronica

out on the tennis court

cast oath-stones of ostracism

from the best of next worlds

where diaphanous clerks

finish putty casts of idolatry

whose words of compunction

never met the quarterly return

of athletic thought

put quirks in the love-vector

and kinks in the orange juice

alone and in love

self-helping himself to

our showrooms of savings

time in their daylight domain

effects are all inaudible

eminent domain radio lets out

child-molesters and

wife-beaters to pass legislation

and channel funds

to racist terrorists

who torture

in a cult of death

it's like science to some

like poetry bunkering

to itself

afraid of people

wide and far

and the young

with arms thrust out

dominate the middle of the street

in a day to strut around

beautiful September-strutting day

among rusts of residue

like politician power garb

not a comet but a bus

not a bus but a SUV

not a SUV but a tractor

not a tractor but a trike

something like a trike

for Junie and Jimmy

be buoyant and vital

with accounts of the heart's

daily journey

with the good doctors

who hate disability

recognize and design

a space to acknowledge

be you gratefully debunked

coin the metal within you

tendered fairly for each

smiling good trick or trade


iii. lost in lost lost


on a trice

out of my home

and her charm and care

i have only to argue with

my frigidaire

& over my shoulder

i turn to kiss

warm giving lips

or cold coils and hiss?

drink nought

think naughtily

or nautically sink

in illusions of normalcy

in a world without landmarks

in this 1920s

Warren G. promises the people

factories' returns on normalcy

that mark of extra sense

at this bar there's well and

we have bottled

or what you see there

along the top shelf

steal my own language

back form back from

age to algae

la la la

becoming speaking

not becoming a cactus

on a Palisades railside

where i hide a bit to ride

screw up mine eyes

in manuals and rested motion

delicious rhythmus

RHYTHMUS sway

across the steel highway

lowdown to muladhara

every time the toad is plucked

tortoise shell i mean

the way it isn't meant

but is or what could have arrived

or what was called for

total reuse not in lieu

of such lack sheer lurk

in search of supports

see me out on this branch

turned ruddy brown like a seed

seen by branch managers

sure man! and glad hand

then

the whisperer

withdraws

after

his whisper

into his house

of many mansions

successive lodgments

in jural systems

springs the outlaw

entropic like a pig

sitting on qaboor's sofa

o my harps and garters

asimo just broke his faceplate

and in the mass games

book flips are their superscreen

with child liquid drops

the fruits of organization

cushion the slob we

don't pander to

the proletariat

& the elders stray

into the maw

of cluckish pens

purples sables

gems and blues

white boy boogers

on your shoes

toughs are raging

while slogans cough

open your third eye

or your brain will pop

ignoreland says fuck you

until finally

Bezuhov is in Orel

eliciting talk from

one and all the

infinite in everything

without a market plan

he could not address

the language of Marquette's

or department initiatives

believe me Mr. Snyder

i reconsider my efforts

daily in the indifference of things

we decree as a norm

our cat bridge is unbuilt

but could be but could we

if we were cats

and could so decree

the creek or crack

a lack and then

would sound miaux

if you or i walked it

to find our we

flat on its back

so ennui go

to break ego

and here they come

with spritzers and tazers

PDAs aglow

we're so sorry for

the inconvenience

while we obligate

your prescriptions

to you no i for we

are trapped

in four phase space

for which matter

we have no face

a handclasp as good

as any hawker

spits secret sign

used to cut out

the one who looks

but does not swear

oaths on either oats or oaks

still there

is a buzz about

steadfastness of neglect

welcome welcome

ptui ptui

me and you

we always got

a thing between us

barking bans

soft-fallen mask of

snow on the clover

and culled in sacks

in the second-hands

she weds me down

into her nervous

furtive love

always or only

coming to start

after five days' rest

legacy kids run chorales

for their indecision or scorn

while most people spend

most of their lives

trying to get un-mixed-up

not what the speaker

sang but what the pave

meant

the beach

take in faith

an empirical proof

and where is the shrapnel's

daughter or friend

and how did the wife

hold up the man

when nightmares of

jungled desert and screams ring out

my ring of gyges

whose cell it quivers or

do i pitch from my seat

lost in lost lost

it was more fragile

in need of my hand

than thick fingers could

thread

or understand

this love is friendship so

we spit our blood

onto the manuscript

two nervous breakdowns

my first in the snows

of april's green

the second a rapine rage

against may fourth's

hospital closets

unkind enough to unmask

the warlord's deposits--

Joseph i will fight

no stores forever

ridiculous

atemporal hush

fat sugar salt

salt sugar fat

ion proton

ripple string

*sring sring*

hello?

hi Mrs. Wicksgifford?

yeeeees speaking

she's peaking

ere whistling?

she's brisk busking for limp tips

on holiday hours

with no overtime

& who wants to be me

whipped

and deribboned thus

with matriarchal

itchy owie

disobedient cones

that same night there --like

he asked the magazine?

like he didn't die?

short like him

wouldn't tell his name

it was all a media fake

like an overflight bbc drone

journalism's thinnest life


iv. cause of my heart


why am i here

will k. m. g. t. save English

or is it doomed to die

i'm this poem thinks it

only as it can see

graveyard goth

or robo-tech

healing and haunting

from digital stochastics

the reputed 'author'

is hearing voices

accurately reflecting the

discourse of the times

sighing weeping

taking it lying down

this is all saints calling

but gentlemen never

lend their names

to unfamiliar stars

drag queens and carved claws

heart not enough

in it forwarned did quit

it's so hard

in the shorter days

its cause

of my heart

the bills are high the

bar set lower

drinks easily reached

jumped numbers

loved by neighbors

when fitting the slipper

don't flutter around

in the pocket of

baby dolls & the exploited

milk-sops

muggletonians still rant

arrowsmith talks to cats

about the meaning of their vital force

time ends its shames

distancing defensive avoiding

pinned Pink-ears stayed back

at the hotel

but they sent us along

with our surrogate bands

striped ruddy brown

from the third eye down

to yearn with bright wreckery

that every one is two

clouds to say sunlight

to the ghost hand the host

horse to roast or race

went something boom

up there see or keep away

or stay and pay to play

there is no end to obligation

too dark the coffee

then thin it to

wee hours a wren to

honor the art

from kitchen to theater

the taste is semisour

weightless in space still

a mass of vectors

do or do not summit it

that's submit for

consideration

okay you get mad at poetry

and i'll get mad money

lines and language can be meat

cut through with a current

nnnnnnnnnnnnnktnnnnnnnnnn

call it forty-four and we're

even hours to crawl about

worried and scared, wick sucked hollow

by the lost puffs it's always

good to have a few exes

he demurs as i rub

scorched woes

dry as the dust

leaves flower powders on the keys

a winepress loaves its oils its

two brains glut on phonemes

and act to spell in tandem a

half-digital Saussure diagram

mapping the rural route

so you can run to Laertes

sit down beside him

tell him the whole story

point by point

how eve's in the leaves

twirling the wet

August logos of memory

by industry of design 'n

undue dilutions

leaving off

thus uncrusted

our cherrybrightblossomsmilewhite

at the end of the leitmotif

her very precise unimpressed

expression thus Tantalus'

suspension of swelled grapes

tension of unslaked tongue pathetic

friction portals jarred suffuse

a straight line to assuage

to soften the blow

though blow she must

the dead sign free

white blinds

white window

white sky

why wonder how did

you melt

white ice in my eyes

wheat green voice sweet

mockingbird at midnight

it means return atone

alone to all withal

but then shall i know even

as also known

no lukewarm lover

loved loved loved as ruins

some barrier that builds it

a turn that turns outside

while a composition any

combines what a series cannot

encompass pass around offer as

such one is among many and

normal like a christ is normal

involuntary vow acknowledges

flat pockets flapping scornful laughter

in beggar's faces or turned a back

have you any tobacco or a dead leaf man?

water water craft water water

bailing with guitar

car beloved (fevered) theater

dropped? lost? mishandled?

learn little boy to smile

break into the line that stays like

does versatile mean full of eggs?

and call the winter piney's would

that she would name it half enduring

in transitional states of hot and cold

it was supposed to happen

that way Buckley

Mississippi this way

new day thankful for concrete & sun

some iron is flexible

can be flexed

and open thyself to

release thy contents

of the manumitted landscape

three damned [material illegible] gorges

want what needs now no way

nice neighbor hum

he died did she cry she cried

was docile in domicile

a hand in your hand lend

to end lead owls of power now

his powders in the archive this

honor among Thebans

fate's contrite king

would be kept

to sing











please stop and think twice

next time k?










*.*