They have bamboo canyons

They have javelin tendencies

CLASSIC REDACT CASSIO CLASSIC REUP REVISE WINTER BREAK 2004 YALL

I was not bewildered
I have read the rules extensively, while drunk
I am not the doggy bag
I am not the floating goldfish
You don't have to send someone to collect my newspaper or stop my mail

You smoke painful cigarettes
You turn the shower hotter still
You drink to fill the bilingual silences
and tear your hair out

I made my promises
I projected my losses
You project your loss onto me
Aren't you familiar with the crackle of desperation?

you've lost weight
your face is more edged and more beautiful
your stare is cutting

I am older than you were.
You are older than you were.
I no longer have hands that you could force
I'm not your problem
I'm just the girl you love

You shouldn't move on.
You already moved.
You were gasping for breath and grinning down
knocking down the columns before your plane was off the ground

TUFF ALSO

yup so
i wanna fall in love with a lion
WELL WAIT A MINUTE
IT'S TIME TO CANCEL OUT IMMORTALITY FROM THIS EQUATION
YOU CAN DECIDE YOU WANT SOMETHING
but that's about all you can do
I AM A LION INSIDE

let me be real for a second:

1. i went on 4 dates from okcupid and the connecting thread was,
2. when i asked each one of them what their spirit animal was,
3. they all said i'm a lion

YOU ARE A LION INSIDE
HELLO! YOU ON THE INTERNET
LAST YEAR WAS POEM A DAY 2010

OKAY NOW THE POEM IS ABOUT TO START
THE MOVIE IS ABOUT THE START
THE MOVIE IS ABOUT TO START
I LOVE YOU
THE MOVE HAS ALREADY STARTED
I HAVE ALREADY STARTED TO MOVE
I HAVE ALREADY MOVED
I AM ALREADY MOVING
i am already moved

Internal Rhythm

4.

The morning is sunny,
The evening punctuated
with a quiet pink sunset
She sits on a soft leather couch
surrounded by red golden embroidery
She is sipping green tea
between bites of spicy noodles.

She is imagining this is a memory-
impossibly plush, clean, luxurious

When she is looking back someday,
when the world has gone mostly
in flames
and she is huddling
in ashes, maybe
or under the black hulk of a tree

If it comes
it will be quite suddenly
no pundits
no advance warning
but a sudden rush of hot air
the windows shaking
her voice, inexplicably
rising in a scream.

yoyoyoalso baby as accessory

SHOULD I REWRITE IT?

PERFORM BIOLOGY! (being seperated from your life)

look dude
uknowthatilikeu
butyoudontlikemeback
whatthefuckiswiththat

also
webothknow
youstillgo
outtoeatburritos
withotherdumberdudes

up
coming
shows

Remember me as how I was

Before my eyes rolled up.
before a madness rolled out erratic, arachnid, before
my hands, arthritic, crinkled up into webs
and the spider of my brain escaped all over my body.

Unsuited

My God, was I inelegant.

I sat down, elephant.

I had to roar.

Thank god for volumes.

There is no tomb. It's solvable

by the light, and the deep years.

It's true, this new thing sways

your hand, and the way it stays.

But my God, the way it stays.

not sure I know what this means yet

A classical fool: a rabbit, a grasshopper.
Easily fabled as deaf, as tool.
Pride saps strength, the moral goes;
it's the view down the nose, at any length.

distance=privilege

On a beach begorged by seagulls
glows a fish with teats,
a seacow.

She is dead, her body

opens, pours a thick white mess
the froth laps.

She is there, I haven't killed her,
but I cannot fully witness. I'm ashamed
but still resistant. What's to say?
The truth? I love the dead. I do. It's said.
Save their intolerable red.

death and others

1

poplars,

winter.

a deep bare death reaches out

from the ground, a stretching tree.

when I go down in stone when

the cobbles click a cold red robin

will perch upon my stone

2

resist, tame:

kissers, fighters,

banshees, licenses,

skillets, the angry,

beauty in a ditch, country clubs,

and all that does not warrior

its way toward darkness.

3

to be whiteblooded

is to rely on every

thing, except the heart.

sufferin'

I don't mean to sound creepy, kid,

but it's not long I can last here, being in a bed,

knowing you're out there.

A haze comes over me like I've looked too long at a snake. Hypocrites

hate sickness, or claim to. Thinking of you lowers a throb into the folds

around my slit of a cunt, makes me push three fingers through thick hair into a fruit-like mush of myself, where something perfect rises

and hulks. To solve this: humping down on the side of your leg,

or pressing my cool whole curvy body against your side.

I want what you promise,

I want your infinitesimal strokes,

I want your adjustments,

I want to fuck sensitive, fuck wise,

for you, fully clothed, to turn your head toward my ear and slur,

describe the way you store yourself.

I would grip down for that, I would be good for that. I would not fight then,

just continually unwind and be fully body.

Only seeing to the mind I've glimpsed would I be fully body.

the rational ass

I tell you, violet, I love to be led

by the muzzle. Tugged along nosewise,

by your two fingers, it's heaven and a half.

I love me being dragged into meadows hee-hawing to be shot,

otherwise I'd have split down the middle about it,

I'd have bitten my way out of it.

NICE DAY

so tidy, tame,
the lawn's terrific.
Bugs go down a blade.
In ordered rows,
the push of sprouted things
beside the shade.

ON SIN

my lesson is to keep a nit,
to let it feed--
then bury it.

another clerihew for the road

Adam and Eve
had no one to deceive.
They found a bunch of apples worth a tryin',
'til one got Eden by a lion.

Consensual

Chris, look.
We both want a picnic,
but first we have to get out of this field.

Why fight? We both know
you bit the wrong animal.
The venom's been circulated:
you are beloved.

A hollow's been thumbed.
When I speak your name
it brings a bird,
a thrum.

In truth, you are not present
except as my present gift to myself.
I think you, too, should take me
and look for yourself.

New York/Central Park

A terse man leans
from his child’s frown.

A little dog leaves
and a bench is clear.

Clouds in blobs.

The pain impresses me.
In fact a line rises from me.

In time my body will lessen.
The remains of the day will be the total
of what I’ve chosen to count.

The Pistol and the Honeybee

were from two different countries.

she slept in an iron, and the bee let loose around the farm.

her light filled with water,

and the bee loved neon.

but her hardness was simply for smoothing,

and the bee pricked.

BOLO

I know a black Michael Cera type who’s a bad ass fighter and he makes good money. I hate him.

Police Report

I feel haunted by the incident:

Last Wednesday afternoon, two unknown men walked into our house.
My roommate was upstairs in her room, with her door closed.

Two unknown men made noise downstairs. They rifled.
They went into my room. I live on the bottom floor.

My roommate lay reading in bed. It sounded like an awful lot of noise.
She heard me or Virginia come up the stairs,

until someone opened her door without knocking. She knew we would not do that.
They locked eyes. He swore at her, then descended fast with jewelry.

He kicked over my guitar as he left,
she said to me as we sat together on the staircase.

She told me they definitely went into my room.
All the gaps in my room radiate a violence. Our house has bad air.

We speak from a deep place about the violation.
My roommate is at home with her parents.

For three days we must walk through the house, stunned,
and then we can start cleaning.

Activist reaches out to Frankenstein but nothing doing

“Poor green monster. You’ve separate women.
You lumbering Lenny. You keep the kids in.
A brainclot of a master, an anti-Mister.
Raise signs with us. Deserved.” (Disaster.)

ownership

I once protected men.
I canned them, or
replaced my long soul with flags of them.
I feared their death asea.

Tonight I am roughing through chemicals
and full of flags to shed.
That's allright. Patch on, Rosie.
Work during the war
and grow cloudlessly lovely alone.

A terrible thing swept a small town

A herd of cows, goaded by fire,
stampeded downhill in a blitz
through some open legs of street
where they exploded across people and dragged them.

Interim

The animal way of love is bitter.

It often returns me to my lovely long rope that cords up to the moon,

where my climbing is small and sad, sexless, secure;

where I do not care for a partner, and there are no ugly questions:

How can I make myself spare,

and immediately vulnerable, and just enough?

How to confess sexually, how to lay out organs

tastefully, how to patiently come into each other?

How to respectfully and lovingly narrate? How to

bring tea? How to knock so quietly all the mice in the door

relax?

the neurotic narrator's eternal hypocriticism

How to clatter onward?

How to bliss out?

Instead I fawnpatter.

Instead I spout piss.

In this story I'm going to write
protag finds Joey Lieberman
wandering in a swamp
with his conscience a-waver
and brings him back to the fold
from whence he has strayed
of the insurance industry lobby
who have posted a reward
for his safe return, and protag
takes the wages of complicity
and quits his job at the store
and goes out on the road after
happiness, but the money's gone
before he catches sight of it
and the derelict drunks
who are always standing by
to offer advice
begin to close in

A religious belief
in travel and in small
symbolic gestures
as the means of
erasure
or of effecting change.

About seven minutes
into the woods
behind the Jack Cohen-Koenig Theatre
spanning the gap between the hillside and platform
built twenty feet from the ground
between the trunks of two trees
is a twelve foot plank
which may have been put there
the platform as well
by hunters
but when I went there
I would read a book
and lie all day
watching the sun slide around in the sky
and I wish to god that I were on my way there now
instead of headed to work at the glasses store

love

hollywood is

a city of chums.

glam nails. morocco. a killed mandaddy,

a dead woman fucking

, and fame, that yellow mollified star.

foster (a love poem)

my goose, excuse me,

god bless it but your eye is up.

you are magnificent and prey; you are alert and magnificent by the bookshelves,

watching me advance

from just one side of your tall white head.

I guess that J.K. also stood for just kidding.

A couple of the lesser stars have gone out
in the sky. A number of things down here
have lost their luster. Someday someone's
going to catch you in a lie.
It's going to cost you your bluster.

On Saturday the exterminator's coming
by to spray our basement with his grim
carcinogens. But there are greater evils
than that in the world.
I don't expect that you will ever call me again.

Totale slacker

i REALLY, REALLY wanna SmAsH my guitar tonight >>>in direct protest of the assholes who
polluted the gulf coast with their precious Oil. wish i could do more.

Use your fucking turn signal!

I'm trying to cross the street!
Also, stop fucking honking.

2010

that book is awesome. thanks, tullah and nica! great poems, everyone!

marina

other people's narratives become your own

Boss

Boss o boss,

your voice is the red pen.

and certainly loopy: I see it herd, it lassoes them.

Your face is lump.

And when you smile

the cheekdough rises.

Boss o boss,

O show me the picture

of your baby again.

RIDDLE DAY

RIDDLES CONJURED UP FOR MY CO-WORKERS BECAUSE THE GEMINI'S JOB IS TO KEEP EVERYONE SHARP AND DISTRACTED

1.

A fire in the hearth can't burn without it.

The Earth can't turn without it.

What is it?

(Hint: I wouldn't want to live without it.)

2.

It's breakable, unless you're above it.

What is it?

(Hint: Few make it.)

3.

If you take the final sylla

ble of this three syllabled vegeta

ble and put it at the front of the word,

you get the title of an email

written in response to an email

about a vendor.

What is it?

She was my friend,
it just worked like that.

We had routines and we had time together
we had what we wanted.

She liked grey –
dove grey and flat almost white grey,
when the ocean and the sky looked the same,
she liked that.

She had all these feelings about where I was from,
and she told them to everyone.

She liked to gape at everyday things,
like the walls that held up the highway,
or the houses lit up at night.
That’s an amazing wall she would say.

It was my wall but I had never noticed it.

We went to a party where everyone had feathers in their hair
outside in the yard people were grazing and lazing
her face was round and pale
a “twinkle in her eye,” my mother would say.

She had something going on.

You did not love me enough

Below is the poem I read last night. Thank you for liking it..
Love
Frosso V

You gave me part of yourself
and I said: it is not enough

You did not love me enough,
you did not accept me enough,
you did not see me enough

I keep asking and asking for what I did not get
forgetting all that I did get

asking and asking for what I did not get
unwilling to see all that I did get

asking and asking for what I did not get
losing sight of the fact that you gave me what you had
you gave me what you could
and it is enough

I take it in my heart in gratitude
and I learn something about love
only when you can say, Thank you, it is enough
you can free your heart from the chains of demand
and forget the bitterness that comes with the "I did not get enough"
and start giving of your own heart

This is how you fill that emptiness in your heart

griddles

let's bludgeon the dry skulls, and marry the sweet.
let's stick to the meat.

Professional Development Day

I am full of forgiveness.
Tomorrow as I bend my middle over cardboard
tomorrow as I bend my middle
tomorrow I will speak to you again
bent through my middle.

I went to the woods last summer
I built a tent in the woods last summer
I open my arms in an empty intersection
I close myself through the middle.

Some people learn to work.

I wonder what they want.
I put all of my women in the tent.
All of my friends
we eat and eat in the middle
in the middle of the tent we eat forever

I open my arms in the empty tent
the woods are closed
tomorrow I will speak to you again
I am full of forgiveness

I want to learn to work
again my legs my cardboard skin
I want to go to the woods this summer
tomorrow I want to go.

Tomorrow I won't learn to work
again tomorrow I meet my women
we talk and it is effortless
we eat and eat my women and I.

girls

i bet you look good
without all that makeup

Endless River

Tilt of the black plastic
ribboning through
Green split vein
Making it true

Cold season rain
Reminding me of

My company, myself
Accompanying myself

To the other countries.

Reading the paper on the living room floor (door open), like picking it up the paper at Kline Cafeteria (I never read it), it bought me time, sunlight streaming, and spring, oh my, SPRING, the cool air and all the hope, the hope, the love of hope.

"Setting determines gestures: we will build passionate houses."

Look Back in Acker

First, be spontaneous. Never say no.

o my friends,
to you, this one,
if i happen to die first:

i was looking forward
to eating lox and bagels
when we were sixty!

but thank god i died first
i couldn't bear it without you
when we're old and rickety

the things' way

teeth brushed, pajamas buttoned up.
teeth are the clean teeth.
the light off.
the clean sheets.
the dry diaphragm.

for the first time ever

yesterday was bleak
no one in the whole world wrote
even one poem.

rare

The big central public library
through this witless rain emerges
from behind the tall green trees.

What a rain, it moneys down,
and the paper cups are soaking
in the paper bag I carry.

It was three soups for six dollars. I am ready
for the library and I have a book already.
In my small book is a clue. It's the title

of a room and when I hand it to the woman--
to the prim and blonde librarian--
I have prised her like a switchblade.

first she flusters and she wonders,
then a blink blink blink detective.
"Well well! That room

is a secret."
Yes oh absolutely right.
get a room, and make it secret,

and then tell me all about it.
Let me tell you all about it:
She is glad that I have found it.

the night

in the night
it is very quiet

even the birds
are quiet

shh
shh

(in the night is very quiet even the birds are quiet)
(sh)

The Night

in. the night.
it is very quiet.

even
the birds
are quiet

shh
sh.


shh

The Night

in




the night











it is very quiet








even

the birds









are quiet












(handwritten): shh









shh

5:48 AM

while the silent storm of night gives way into a quiet blue

your face reveals itself in all its sleeping wrinkles

heavy underlids, smooth nose and forehead

someday i will look back at this moment and think

you looked so young.

Inventory

The things you loved
and love
cactus in bloom and
any type of careless face
the bask, the flash, and flask
America’s books, her birds –
not songs, but views
vistas of the universe
go on –

i was Gretchen

i was Gretchen,
but i didn't know it then—
Gretchen, i was you

it took centuries
for anyone to notice
that you were striving too

(maybe they were too busy with your golden hair)

at the end of the play
something holy happens
what could happen
in the middle of mine?

SAVED

Idea music & Ideal music

like The Pretenders singing The Rascals

or a woman performing surgery

on a snow child in Park Slope

there were berry colored lights

& a rose patterned sweater

with low hanging threads.

sharks

we murder the flood, we cramp down
to business.
we are a clean knot of sheep
gathered over
a dead wolf stink.

then again, purgatory could be on a bus

we have to do everything in our power to avoid rolling down the hill
inside,
warm and slow
a gentle sense of music drifting through

we are willing conspirators to this game
a family of kids waiting for the driver,
braking Buddha-like
to deliver us home safely
so we are content to sit
uncomplaining
in hours of traffic
waiting to get down the hill
to cross the drawbridge
silent
reading restaurant reviews
drowsing

walking would be faster
colder
and impossible
since we can never get off the bus
and no one can get on.

angle face

this one soars towards you as if puppetted,
shoulders cinched,
many kisses from tiny pinkened mouths,
and the buzz of dinner against a plate.

also it's buggy

as long as we wake up along the banks along the banks we’ll be fine
we’re muddy we’ve got water in us which is representative of experience
yeah we’re reeding we’ve got birds chirrup chirrup i’m not worried
about us, not even sometimes.

on a spectrum from intense to flitty

rhythmic fast feet
passion
building to climax
after climax
flashing eyes
wild skirts
machismo/feminina
frowning
tense eyebrows
eyebrow wrinkles
guitar, singing, footwork
tense, separarate fingers
back bends
low plies/ lunges
low leg
inwardly rotated upper arm
Spanish (speaking, looking)
perform what's been passed down
"really" Spanish
"really" gypsy
frilly skirts
black and red
flowers in hair
polka dots
big earrings
hair falling down
low bun

homogenization
exoticing

Working with B. W. J.

Onstage with him. Improvising. Then I flub,
so I get glib and gag. Normally we are tuned

so tightly that if one confides a fear of snakes,
the other hisses helpfully, shedding their skin.

Now I've overquaked. I've cracked like a bad bell. Choices loom.
Will he tear my mouth off? or push me down a flight

so I land, doublecracked, on my sensitive head? Not him.
He stoops over and gentlekisses my nervous clapper.

Offstage he rubs my skeleton. He lets me tug his beard
to prove it's real. He says something like, baby,

if we are stark with kindness to each other,
we will be painted lovingly by the truth.

Pulpo on the Mind

lizy bought a tin of octopus;
sat with me on church steps,
or might as well have been;
spread the octoparts onto a napkin
on the sidewalk; ate them.

the art of making dances

in the world there is no animal, human, molecule of water
that moves without a reason for moving
always with a specific design in space
with a relationship to everything that moves around it
and a particular energetic flow and rhythm
fast for hot
etc

Without all that
your dance sucks
and let's be honest
there's a lot of sucky art out there
this bit
not withstanding.

target

when then became of
my deep, abiding love?
with no target anymore
a million internet poems,
a spring or mire, blown
gasket, sensitive yea,
or ears ringing subway—
i turned inward and
questioned the word

what then became of
my deep, abiding love
with no targets left?
don't get me started
to get me, forget me

[he looks into the camera to sing
his girlfriend lives in denmark]

japanese death poem

no sign
in the cicada's song
that it will soon be gone

3

tucked in with jasmine
or soaked in ice
no wizards will save them
they'll never be perfect
half of us have them
and they'll never be perfect

Untucking

At night the breasts come out,
let down, reliable setting suns.
Or sinking moons.
The bodies come out altogether,
unfold along each other or the air,
and marriage becomes the bra,
the house the pants,
the body small within permitted nudity.

The breasts’ orbit is small.
They know the channels of air,
expect what current hits around 11:00.
Sometimes they mash the carpet
or watch as the sheets hover
against the husband’s back,
the view is white,
the air shakes.

Loose Woman

This morning I’ll stretch until I am a loose woman.
I’ll take some trains until I exceed my community;
Then, perhaps doing nothing, perhaps flopping down.
Flopping instead of sitting, rolling when hills.

I’ll let my hair grow all day.
In cotton,
excluded,
I’ll forget as much as possible.

My goal is to spend more time in dreams,
less in the default dream,
which has begun to absorb me.

recondita armonia

everyone wants to write books
the ego is only available to choirs
the love of self is a lousy passion
ICH- das kann doch jeder!
do not stare so inspired kindly study law

japanese death poems

i dog-eared this page in high school—
now, on the train reading about cicadas
the sounds they make the ringing could stop
are you are you waiting for the thaw?
bike ride at night with a t-shirt on
wear a helmet and carry a pen
and paper for the ambulance
driver to take down my death poem

florets

yellow
folds into red, nudging blue over
to yellow again.

Coney Island For Emma OK

Patron saints and your
eight legged god -
strip dancing like crazy,
show off in the tank.

I could write poems
about everything I feel
I’ll never know
or death or death or
death or earth or
earth blood
or caged animals in
bed together trying to
decide who is the
meanest of them all.

cervi

today i was your windmill
and you charged toward me and i saw your gleaming flicker

i drink juice from the bottle
i saw you towards me and i threw myself in circles

being a cyclone
sometimes tossing reeling really I

towards what, I
only the gat knows

if you don't know by now

"what if they die before i get married?
what if they never meet my kids?"
ah, part of him still thinks
mom and dad have all the answers

you can scan anything in 2010

there is a thing called a 3d printer
which prints anything you want
by pooping out hot lil plastic pellets

it's 2010 which means meter is still important but not fucken necessary get me

When You Are Old By W.B. Yeats

When you are full of water and exhausted
and homeward bound on buses, feel the glass
and watch your face in windows as you pass,
and lenses that your hot breath has defrosted;

how many drops have formed against your skin;
like words in sentences across your face.
but one had gone beneath and found a place
to hydrate you and name you from within.

And squeezing out the day's apologies,
arrived at home, remember how it dried.
and rose among the vaporous odes outside,
and hid your praises in anthologies.

Jingle for Fanny's (why didn't they use it?)

Winter's cold and bleak, but then it passes.
The thaw will come. It's time to get new glasses!
The birds and beasts will all be after sex.
And you will, too--also, new pairs of specs!
The bull shows renewed interest in the cow.
You'd better shop and find some new frames now!

JUDY AND KRYSTLE

Hot moon. My lover

scornfully clucks her tongue. The sound

digs a battery out of my back.

Ew, my unpiloted cockpit's

all widened by the calisthenics of scorn.

Scorn is a thick plug

in a tractable earlobe.

but of course,

were she to bounce

I’d freak, my loosened skin

Aswingin’.

Bloat

Because it’s lines are convoluting,
let’s narrate your life--
“At twenty you became a daughter.
At thirty found a wife--”
with decades incrementally diluting.
An adult is a baby. Just add water.

Red #26

I came back wearing red lipstick
I wanted you to know I had changed.

yama farms

Brown shingles, yellow windows, small stones, it is "Chinese architecture" in America. It used to be something else, sort of like all those bungalow colonies, but by then it was just rentals and apartments. Still, nice, a lot of glass panes and small outbuildings.

Neighbors you were friends with, not anything intentional or perfect, but parties and homebirths, and so on, in the country. This portion of that generation made the breakthrough of being too kind to their children, with mixed results.

I am having a "lasers in the jungle" kind of a day. Will Avatar be like King Kong? Will we be like the Yama Farms people? Yes, probably, no, yes, yes (duh). Driving by, the reservoir is almost melting, and I see horse stable ruins, three floors of people's old clothes.

soil will emerge from under my eyes one of these days. i will miss the city and all its dead cousins, and become part of what people walk on. until soil drips out of the corners of my eyes like a leak in the rudder or just a sandstorm i will fight for the field that floors/open bars/open legs/holy helicopters. until that day when my corpse is gravel. 

ghosts

in my dreams the ghosts told me
"we're not chasing you,
just racing toward the same point"
ages ago this thought comes back

my friend robbie can do anything
it's cause he knows how
"once you decide you want something,
it's actually quite easy to do it"

that's what he said!
now he lives in japan sometimes and thrives in the internet

the night and day will pass away
but love will always be
the night and day will pass away
but love will always win

lala la lala

if i were a commoner
and you were a lady
would you marry me anyway
would you have my baby

Machine Wash, Line Dry

holding the fort down,
waiting for the washer to thunder to a halt.
for to take the traumatized stuffs
and hang them, by their own limp weight,
on a cord.

so they hang against the cord,
and are indented.

so when you are full of water and exhausted
and i lay one finger to your cheek
do you stiffen against me

so as you dry and lighten
do you retain my touch.

party

keep putting your red lipstick on
while waiting in the bathroom line
my heart

saw everyone, ol' red lips and ol' girl's brother
he remembered the things i used to do with her
no they're not wooden saxophones

when i marry, i shall be a rock for my friends
an anchor in these murky waters, no,
buoyant, or sailboat

tuff also

3 Teeth and Laughing

The single man who
knows and cares
about babies because
he's known them all his life -
they're not foreign species, no
not crime shriek aliens
reaching out from
stranger's arms.

slide guitar 2

you've got a button eyelid
I would hold it open for the sight of shores unsighted
I would sign up scores un-knighted
I would assemble armies to give you an ocean
and unite divided countries to show emotion
I'd run through the wall, dear
I'd weep in the sea
But a million years won't return you to me

You're a dinosaur's drivel
You're a bird's apogee
You're a melody's opus
and a cranberry tea
mixed with blood oranges
the height of a dream
but I swear I won't lie dear,
you're ancient to me.

I will write you a waltz
and build you a palace
built of blue chalice
lapiz lazuli
Be conspicuous, darling
You're ancient to me

I will redeem my weeping
with soft apologies
I know that it's changed now-
it's always changing
And the lilt of your lace, hon
Impossible seas
makes me rhyme to the moon
and fall on my feet
That have never quite broken
Not once or not yet
But let's first ask the trees, then
before we forget
Always getting cocky
and running down the clock
Til the people arrive.

together

tucking and folding create corners,
eye rolls and shoulders found intimacy,
this is you and me and this is our house.

slide guitar

I wish I had a lover
or maybe just some where to be
it's easy to get distracted
when this flame won't let me see
and the wax is all bedazzled
the sunshine's mane is frazzled
our minor cloudy hassle
we promised to the sea

you hate when I am craving
and still you're craving me
my friends wish that I had you
they've sung us in a tree
your nose was always perfect
and I shiver poetry
you gripped me by the shoulders
you picked those pearls for me

I kissed you at the movie
when I was just thirteen
you laid yourself before me
by night philosophy
you wish that I would sing you
into sweet clarity
but I am just a lover
promised to the sea

Sometimes I dream of leaving
and flying to the sea
where we would swallow pearl songs
and night philosophy
and kiss inside the movies
and revel clarity
but dreams reveal a lightening
what works makes sense to me

Aye eye I

i'm a secret when your eyes are on me.

Procession

When it’s morning and you’re underground,
sleep-burred against the jostling.
When nothing tempts nor beckons nor entices,
nor recommends nor suggests itself,
only lurches to meet you,
for example coffee.

i'm already pregnant

Valentine

One day we'll stretch our pregnant bellies
and strained throats toward the sun.
Hands grasping our own love handles,
and ideas of new ones all tangled up.

Calling all friends,
when will we raise our babies together?

Taking Place

Over the dishes
tipping a gray pan.
Suds half moon.

I can’t see,
but I know,
There is cinnamon on everything.

And salt and garlic and juice.

I can’t smell, but it is known.
This place is taken
by a minute rotting.

Old Phone

Came looping from her,
incessant, same what were they called:
“protestations of affection”
as always, poignant,
as history, full of questions.

And the question is for the receiver.
Tolerant, helpless.
Awed. By the spiraling towards him.
But does not wrap him up.

People in love are completely horrible.

Requested:

Fields of palpable flowers.

Honestly, anything with temperature.
Or color? Or odor, smell. I need it.
Women with faces.
The burn of encounter.
Gravity.
From, towards whatever.
Please.

early valentine for my father

especially radiant today,
on this first afternoon
of springtime sun,
are the splendors of you,
echoing--triumphant!--across
the road map
of your face.

they are
a celebration, perhaps,
of the time you have seen,
long shadows and
golden mornings both,

or a recollection of
the things you have
given
to the place from
whence you
sprang.

Heavy White

Quartz floors and shoes of high sensibility.
A courtly manner, with thrilling digressions.
A tap a tap a tap a how are you mlady?
He was a class act man! A real savant.
He could charm the pants off adam.
But he dwelt among cold bags, shuffle,
clipped to the quick.

it keeps going til the day it stops

On a gray, rainy day
in the dark kitchen
she winds up a fork of long red noodles
all of them twist and spin together in a bundle
she escorts them the short distance into her mouth
where her teeth mash them and tear apart their careful strings
into a soft, homogenous mush
that slides down her throat

later, when her stomach and various intestines
are done with their reductive labors
the nutrients and calories of spaghetti
will reform into the order of her flesh
then fire off into a burning jump
into a quickfire thought
a note of song from perfectly orderly vocal cords

Before, the spaghetti was orderly strings of wet pasta extruding, growing out like hair
before that, a mush of flour, water under machine hands
before that, smooth round wheat grains
before that, a mush of dirt, water

Now they are churning in her stomach
dissolving in a sea of mush
after that, her orderly muscled body
after that, the chaos of shit
after that, the earth

Her body too, orderly muscled, singing in time
changed somehow between the last seven years, and the seven before that
traded out and reformed
mysterious in its orderly skin cells and long strings of hair
in seven more years, slowly breaking down
vocal cords with frayed edges
after that, seven more years,
after that,
After that, a mush of dirt, water
After that,

wish you were here

so this is what life is now,

an endless array of phone calls
and email messages,
the occasional video chat,
a facebook comment
underneath a photo of you
in a silly hat

and the missing
of our arms entwined,
the unadulterated sound
of your laughter,
your voice,
unmarred by distance,
and the
leaping of my heart
at the pleasure of your nearness

snowed in

cooked onions with olive oil in the oven
burnt and soggy and stuck to the pan
i hope i won't die

Surety

unsure what is recreating.
but, nonetheless, levity.
and clear stretches.

fully turn away.
sleep thinking: tomorrow,
when i’m alive, i’ll sunder
pastries with my coffee.

saddles

so is it still violence when there is no violence and
what is it when one sees violence where
there is no violence, just a woman and her
epileptic convulsive movements on a stage and a tall man beside her but not seeing her,
like a scientist ignoring a small and distressed and objected animal.

she puts on a blonde wig and shakes her body. the tall man subjects and objects: "she is bending over--
there is a flower growing behind her--"

the audience, around her in a fan, nods.

but what is it when the woman is not hurt but you
feel viscerally otherwise.

it is your own ghost gasping,

like the dead farmer who is
hovering and moaning over the infant colt who is

so important, a gleaming body, wobbling, but before long galloping
off in the other direction without him.

I wrote these poems midwaitressing. while asking would you like a cup or bowl of avo coco soup? or what a about a hot marinara or almond alfredo we all are equally lost by the amount of choices in life even in this small restaurant blazery and we vanish together into a silence that is unforgiving. At that moment I waft away from the tables and write small dreams that attempt with the greatest of intention to escape the walls of service labor and baloney smiles that breed ruthless schizophrenia. Just like Madam Bovary on her deathbed I am turning green from too much talk of cucumber dip and the ambien I downed the evening before. Here, we are all villains in a pretend world of interaction. No one is a friend here. We work in restaurants, we eat for comfort, and we hate each other.   I write poetry (it's a giant secret.)  

**

rich everglade 

dusty red  

rouge tongues  

hibernating 

together in silver blankets   

 **   

horse lipped and dry-eyed I come to the reservoir 

knuckle me down like your companion  

we watch the water rotate like a pendulum.

 **   

hire me into your eyes 

nosebleed 

gaping tooth  

shipments, canisters 

of dung hearts  

packaged away in the freezer, 

waiting for hundreds of years  

waiting to be reborn in a world less cruel.   

 **   

walnut bones  

catastrophic titles    

** 

retarded your bluff reddens  

we are in swamp territory  

thick muddy glaciers are your forehead, orange whiskers are my teeth  

luminescent hunger is my horse ancestry

knawing is my mother  

** 

the right to hum'

almond cream breath

body born in flux

territory:open

snowflake eyes

reverberating like

a gutter.

**

Excerpt

too much glass around, i walk
down the glass hallway
from here to Queens

stern faced beaten bodied woman
in coat ensemble
reasonably asks for assistance.

Asking everyone, she has no personal relationships.
Being asked, dough face obligation woman
relates personally.
She pocket digs and waits,
fearing weakness judged.

I'm busy in the glass hallway
but I know what's going on.

Woman A (we'll call her Marthe)
is frozen - will she not take
her offering?

Woman B (we'll say - Jill)
looks at nothing; pennies sweaty.
Marthe condemns us to the rat lords or
we are the rat lords

I continue.

I don't like waking up under glass
or eating it
or cleaning under my nails with it
I hate to wear my glass overcoat
I hate walking down the glass hallway

Ater Marthe and Jill and the four hundred twenty four people I noticed at the exact moment I noticed them,

I stop seeing familiar faces.
My feet hurt and it's a long way to Queens.

I used to have a lot of friends
but they all put on their map pants
and walked down the map hallway and
I don't know what to do with that.

Passing

Álvaro gave me a piece of candy.
That’s his opinion.
Later Javi’s opinion of Ismael was ripped up
by the teacher, Javi stayed after class.
In the teacher’s opinion.

Green On Red

Everyone lives
On some sort of island

Death and angels
On the ground

There’s incoming sound
And the man up front
Moves all the time

He’s frantic, dehydrated
He’s the captain but
He's got no authority

Death and angels
On the ground.

the thrill is gone

zulassungs-verfahren
i learned about exits
sometimes, what makes a
good goodbye is just the relief

jetzt
deine letters soll kraftlos sein
doch sind sie noch with feeling of corn husks and dissapointment
uh butch gurl sully sunsut hub
undur duruss druss bun buw
lugubruuus ulwuys whunung
thuh thrull us gun

Fever

Cradle hand coming at me
Picking me apart,
Sifting through
Like I were grain.

PWRCOUPLES

Bonnie and Clyde

Beyonce and Jay Z

Foxy Brown and Jay Z

Tupac and his Girlfriend

Me and my Girlfriend

The really tall guy and the really tall woman with black leggings and no ass at the gallery opening in the Greenwich, CT public library.

greybeard

shame dream fell asleep with the lights on,
frosted image on my dead screen, scratched
by accident my body with a fingernail
surprised, the most sensitive part is dull now

like Vaughn, with his scarred penis?
with the highway bloodlust and semen drip?
no, just me, only me, i'm looking at my old cat man,
hobbling to the litter box, hardly any words left,
begging for release

Broom Game

always more dirt in the canyons, always a fresh track across the floor
there were times when we didn't sweep for months, do you know what happened?
things happened, nothing broke
it didn't get dirtier
it stayed the same amount of dirty

then we were living on a red couch
back then
we were galumphers, fleet-footed thieves getting our bread out of dumpsters
getting our clothes off of sidewalks
the universe seemed ready to give
and we were not ready to clean

sometimes we cleaned
people hated it when we cleaned because they didn't notice
and then we'd say PLEASE DON'T TRACK DIRT ACROSS MY NEWLY MOPPED FLOOR
and they'd look at us like fools and step 5 feet forward to get out of the way of our fresh mop
I never realized that was why she hated me, always mopping around her feet while she tried to dance
I just thought she was crazy
hating me one minute, loving me the next
now she calls me darling and hardly ever acts like I'm dead to her
which is better
because I don't mop around her feet anymore
and I AM a darling.

When Machines Get Wet

Once there were 2 liquid streams
they crept towards one another
made deep in the dust,
crossed in the dirt.

c busten loud

it sounds different
when kate sings:

"i still dream
i wake up crying
you're making rain"

different when i say it,
different when the guy says
"i make it rain"
different when i'm crying
different when i say
"i still dream"
reception,
different when i wake up
different when i rub the stains on our mattress
different when i wake
different
i'm not her,
not a feminine locus of attention
the screen goes black in a second
roll over hope, different,
anxiety the year will just disappear before its ours

what helps
different than her
"i just know that something good is gonna happen
i don't know when"

listen,
don't be such a, listen,
the world is there for you
you can watch the ceiling or the big sky

watch Fanny and Alexander

"Everything can happen. Everything is possible and probable. Time and space do not exist. On a flimsy framework of reality, the imagination spins, weaving new patterns.” (Johan August Strindberg’s A Dream Play, )

In that final scene, in those final words, the grandmother reads in her crinkly voice, breathing insomnia like an old person does at midnight. Alexander curls up like a dead mouse or crumpled cat seeing death too young. Bergman pleads with the audience. I'll give you my soultrip he says, if you dare to feel one single emotion, one tiny quiver of. 

Halt your practice. Do something terribly un-useful and blissfully sweet. 

Should I call Joanna and tell her not to worry?

I'd say:
Speak
A high heart
with string you hold.
You know what that is?
"That's precision,"
a man behind you might say.

Go Get a Job!

No qualifications!
No experience!
No self-respect!
No motivation!
(But:
privilege--
privilege--
privilege-----)

Space

Listen, fine pigeon.
Just gimme a smidgeon.

After the shoes this morning,
I made it through the day
without seeing anything that upset me.

Time in not mine

Time in days of gravel in toes,
like when will the next bag
of Chips Deluxe Cookies arrive?
(two weeks)
And how long will we make them last?
(a day or so)

The waiting for things beyond fingers
now less for edibles
and more of intangibles
like
when will it be easy?
(two more years some say)
And how long will we last hanging on?
(a question I see resting under someone else's fingers).

Those things all out of reach,
delicious when someday mine.

Sandwich Joint

Mk
limbed across
the shivering timbers.
Shedding sun! In a mild environment
she was someone to prepare for,
a potency.
Take hold, she might say,
or take heel! We are soldered
in place if we don’t shake a leg.
Scald a pot. Be good to a man,
and enjoy.

But the bartender, he couldn’t stop.
He enjoyed her.
Like a mermaid wallowing
in the shallows, she was eating her parsley;
she was milking the lemon
over the ice.

The Wild Internet

A skein of poetry flung out into the void
(0) Comments
A Facebook comment to a beautiful redhead you met once at a wedding
She never answered it
A posted video of your latest performance art project
5 views

The internet is a wilderness in the way that New York City is a jungle
Who knew you could be so alone among so many people
In the middle of the rainforest, you can call and call
and never wonder if a person will answer; you know they won't
Out here, there's always a chance
There's always a waiting silence
Wavering, suspended




Sometimes we cry into the wilderness
"Eleanor Rigby"
Tommy Steele 1982
Liverpool, UK

Wednesday, February 3

put up a feeder
black seeds in the cherry tree
chomped by tiny birds

I've been lighting candles
and making strange
wishes. Bad wishes.
Wishes I'm not proud of.
I've wished for things to
happen that would hurt
people I love. I'm not well.
I'm starting to toy
with things I don't understand.

google voice message for dad

Hi, hi, it's me. I'm down to about the training in very very probably, and I'll
I am.
I have some fun, meaning.
8.
I quarters of thing, call me bye.

brecht

"And that girl the world, who gives herself and giggles
If you only let her crush you with her thighs,
Shared with Baal, who loved it, orgiastic wriggles.
But he did not die. He looked her in the eyes."

Artemis

Working on will power
via elimination,
and emails

"I like to take in
everything at once"
hot broth,
sage smoke

House Guest

Coke can rolling between

I like to move around

Everything you own

Then move it all

Back again like

I was never there.

Specimen

A twisted and growing
flattened out and ordered.
The bigger one holds
his little
still.
And the dead things
curl
and go somewhere
piece by piece
I guess.

collaboration

your thick German accent makes you hard to understand
they asked you to slow down, stop, repeat yourself
but you keep going and talking
and they don't know what you're saying
or why you're saying it
even i find you hard to follow
and i can't hear you because they're all talking
why aren't you doing something about it
sometimes i just want to sshhhhh you
but you sound kinda smart

tomorrow we'll keep you quiet

the cut

I slept a fearly long time
and now slouch for the corners, paranoid.
where are my contact lenses?

sometimes, girls cut their hair
to let their boyfriends know it's over.

Canister

Finger nails painted white,
flood gates,
or
the other day gone.

The spirals around
touch
instants together
lightly
somehow.

the little one on the corner

i wandered around aimlessly
no list, nothing at home
that looks good
oh that too
probably don't need it
i would never buy this in Bushwick
my basket is full
ringing it up
quickly but still so slowly
more and more lined up behind me
i grew nervous
the man behind piled up his five little items next to all of mine
i worried they'd get mixed with my fancy cheeses
and peach mango salsa
and 2 for $5 pita chips
only one register open
i felt their glaring eyes on the back of my head
$97.34 he announced
i never felt so naked before
so this is what Manhattan's like

old friend

portrait of ari fenton, 2005
season pass at six flags
great america,
"its playtime"
black and white
john lennon glasses,
thick hair and beard,
open mouth,
sideswept

now you live in israel and who have you become?

BYE EVERYONE!

Well, bye.
we would say well and then "blank" but
we've chosen to do the usual thing and just -
bye.

I'll miss you! I ripped the skin off my knuckle
and woke to the sharpness of old blood
in my nose

before I would type in one place and then in another
but now i just do the other, this.

I'll miss you!

Oh I heard that once in school. What is that? It is not some kid trying to be a hottie. It has something to say about my life. It is not some hottie. Hello it costs money. Hello. It is doing something real. And I will go to it now.

lockets

I enclose a window just for your face. There are lockets all over my body. 

In my railroad skeleton you perch at your position on my spine. If each archive of every person i have known perches on my spine, like birds on trees-limbs, than the weight is unbearable. Who carries a spine of birds? Who holds on to each weighty chirp and forgets goodbye? 

I’ll Carry With Me

Ever-lovin’ paw print
Ribbon rings around yr waist
Tiny plastic alien
Yellow cat, brown bear
Quilt heart, gold frame
Straw suitcase, and always

That picture of myself.

-----

What Prayer Beads

Long hair and
All my secrets
The wisdom of kids
Those same tendencies
Towards home.

-----

January

These are work poems
They collide
Night after night
That’s all it is
To be born again.

Keeps

Pickled herring
and soft broken halves.

Are they soft fish?
Are the notes bent?
Will the bones hurt going down?

CALL TO ARMS

Charge the cold, charge
The city and its powers

All the workwomen, their
Electrician counterparts, their
Immaculate craft –

The glass house dispatches
From the shore

Stuck and sailing we
Grovel for means –

Kosher dogs and escape routes -
City on the sea

Trading carpet strips for
Double sided tape, for
Needles and pins -

This is a survival story!

Bambi & Flower

We lie flat &
Dream up skills
Proficiency and singing
Making space & bed
Keeping up I want to
Keep up.

and from the end of the bench

i heard someone else's name called
i waited still
then stood to leave

Baby’s on Fire

Sometimes NYC’s All
Dotted Rage And
Being Stuck
Under The Weather
And Under The
Ground.

go on

to think about the room for everything that's coming
leaves space for this
to be only this

She

built a place for us to hang
paintings we didn't know we had in us.

though probably still not every day.

the 31st ending

i woke up this morning reeking of cigarettes i never smoked
a warm shower never felt better
everyone was late
i never ate
i thought i was doing great
until my parents arrived
they were irate

speed round
dad dropped the ball and it split in four
that wasn't the first time he swore
mom had a coughing fit and started hyperventilating
no time to stop
gave her some water
a cough drop
told her to get some air

12:13 and we were almost done
12:48 more help came
2:01 return to brooklyn
2:25 grab the cat and head back home

thought it would be the worst day ever
a rough start but a pleasant ending
and then two pals brought tacos
a stressful day with a splendid ending

We Are All Here to Help Each Other Be Who We Need to Be

No space backstage,
paid in pasta and red wine
stomping for gigglers
throwing tomatoes for performance art
This is a show we're putting on
Behind the pink door
for you, for your mom
for the faceless black of the darkened room
while we sparkle on a tiny stage
picked out in shining lights
we are more than ourselves then
we are absorbing light,
absorbing laughter
giving it back multiplied a hundredfold
We have been training for this
a long time.

But last night I watched my friends break up on stage
he played the cello, which he has never studied
and she wore what made her feel most like a goddess
he strummed,
she wiggled
he tapped
she reached for him
she looked out at us
well not at us but at the audience
whose hearts were mostly not breaking
and when she was done dancing
she gestured at him with her hand
'its time to go'
and he kept playing
and she rolled her shoulder and tossed her head
'its time to go'
and he kept playing
and she walked offstage slowly
leaving room for him to follow
and he kept playing
until she walked out of the room
then he finally stopped
and he left.

sometimes dance is beautiful
sometimes it's grotesque, sometimes funny
and sometimes it just is
and sometimes it goes.

EIGHT

we discharge our dreams in helium balloons

TWENTY-ONE

The desert will grind an anxious mind
to fine grain whispering sand.

THIRTEEN

Jamie told Susan to tell Amanda that I liked her
so we were going out, walking next to each other wordlessly in gym class
and then after awhile, just as silently, we broke up

i'm not gonna stop

NINE

Brown ground beef.
Remove to paper towel to drain fat.
Return to pan and drown with ketchup.
Serve over two toasted buns.
Play ball with crumpled napkins.
Wait until mom gets home to clean up.

who says we have to stop?

Lyrics to "Torch Song"

It's not like I'm carrying a torch for anyone
but I've got this pile of kindling sticks and once in a while I'll light some.
How easy it would be to just get on a plane.
Oh! Whe-e-e-e-ere to go? Discomfiture as usual.

It's still with me!
It's still with me!
It's still with me!
When will it not be?

Last night I spoke to you face to face across the country
and everything I said made me want to give myself surgery.
You said, "You'd better think about the paths that you are choosing.
Oh, Samuel, it's not a race, but if it were, you'd be losing."

"Torch Song" can be heard here: www.myspace.com/weirdchess

-

This is my 31st poem, and if the month is up and this is the end, I just want to say that it's been such a pleasure and a treat to stumble into the new year with everyone and everyone's poems. It kind of made my month and helped me find my way through it. Thanks and love to everybody, and thanks especially Tullah! But if we're allowed to keep writing...
<3> Sprout Legumebean

host of urchin

you could be the one
o sign o savior

here are your poison tendrils
let me be your clown fish—
o let me clean you —
me orange

my driving force, my utter supplication?
direct your striving downwards, he said,
red devil, (where went his cloven claws?)
a deep ocean, pure reception
the antennae's hidden and transmission's coming in fine
push back the greens, there is a deep hutch
where i've known her force,
which grows and deep deep woa,
some weird frontier for action

action!
no fucken engineer
not even a doctor
knows why these lights work

birthday girls

say goodbye


O! Goodbye!

so...

i love you i love you i love you i love you

e

Hallelujah, anger plays
Other notes than might be
Prominently displayed in
Every window

Hunger sounds the
Other note I tried to
Pray for but was
Entirely indifferent to

Highly improbable
Occam's razor deflects
Panoramic views of
Everything

Hell hath no fury
Or heaven hath no sons
Preoccupied with
e

Wavering

His night face listens

for what, for colors?
For family voices?
Neighbor
ly vibrations,
male figures turn
up in red
waving thanks

For the rinding segmented
packages
of jubilant pulp.

No reply.
His asleep
hearing face

one left

one day left
one night left
walls are blank
the floor is swept
bags are packed
nothing to eat
half a gulp of whiskey
a bottle of cough syrup
a can of sardines
i packed my dishes anyway
the bed was empty but
last night you came crawling back
a phone call
remember me? how you doing? we should talk
you think you want me now
cause i have blue eyes and a nice rack
but you don't realize
one day it won't matter anymore
i'll scare you away
and you won't come back

mountain prayer

thank you for these mountains,
for this trial.
thank you for exhaustion,
and the dusty swirling heat,
and this thirst,
and this pain in my leg that i cannot shake away.
be with me now,
in this miracle valley of your creation,
be with me on this hillside
that makes my heart stop at its beauty
as i ache for you,
be with me for i cannot do this alone.

in this lesson in distance
i am done marking the space between us,
for you are in these blades of grass,
and in this pain,
and in my heart's gratitude,
and i am calling you down from your mountain
to help bring me home.

bravery

the bravest thing
i have ever done
was to sit down
and look you in the eye
and tell you that
i'm sorry, but
i love you.

seven random tips for happiness (in no particular order)

I.
an apple a day keeps the doctor away,
but if you don't have an apple
really ripe oranges will do the trick.

II.
never go to bed angry,
it makes your hair look funny when you wake up
and you will definitely have a bitter taste
in your mouth.
instead, take deep breaths, and try very hard
to accept that we are not always perfect.

III.
reminder!
thanksgiving can be celebrated
all 365 days of the year,
and you don't even have to
roast a turkey!

IV.
two words: hot chocolate.

V.
pay attention to pop culture:
you won't get into grad school
at harvard that way
but you will win
every game of charades.

VI.
speak another language,
even if you have to make it up
and don't worry so much about
your fluency:
remember, everyone speaks the
international language of gesture.

VII.
love.
as often,
as boldly,
and as recklessly as possible.

TWENT-SIX

In between the holidays
I studied
the back of my hand
and watched
the patch of hair
below my pinkie finger
expand