1.
The engineer, number one target
on a morning bus
telephone caller to radio
a perturbing nightmare—
students of the engineer
two men on a motorcycle
immensely charming intrusion
into international politics—
felt wounded among this latter group
hungry pamphlets to a dim hallway
his toilet plunged
made an effort to draw his wife in the kitchen
concocted informant, merely a downpayment
photograph corpse—most advanced arms
very professional, serious omen
used in steel tubes
ridiculed
the street violence embraced the ebb
and fell through colony's door
supervised the guise
continued their beds, houses never
rising in prison
in the tenor of the times
saline movement of the downtrodden
upsetting about 4000 people
in the gathering industrial security
pounced on the damage,
declared peace
a wider conspiracy meant to wound him
he would say no more
the part-time security guard
videotape indicated
movement of the victim
the public left with just a demented killer
raced back to the outline of history
commodiana
joined a plot of icons
the eyes put out
more crowded
broke out incestuous shooting for a time belated
it is doubtful planted on his car in the carpark
fell into a hunger
an internal orgy
in front of her children
wounds following partial insanity
quality of a crime
live us last nonviolent debts
invalid peninsula
traits of janus replaced by enormous bribes—
by the following year whatever his name became
synonymous
a transsexual royal lectured on perversions
the streets took their tasks upon themselves
lust with piety
baal upon the romans
warned by violent death
worthy means of suicide—dissident generals
2.
promoted youth
personal beauty
mesa power all of us
awake from an orgy
plans discovered and mummified
suicide options in a latrine
butchered streets suffering from melancholia
it must be somebody important
don't lean backwards
at west point they
don't talk about war much
surveillance is like not watering plants
suicide bombers, arabic does not have the verb "to be"
icon writing in Kennebunkport
have to check in again with all those needles
North America is losing all of this
this prince who is epileptic whom I love
at least Verlaine was a bad shot
stumbling on the phantasmagoria of families
their painted faces giving me laser eye surgery
there is no revenge against this
(rent strikes covered on p. 133)
provisional abbey
on a cart, down the shaft no accident
unlawful peasant
incur the sea banker
should send tentative consent
recommended the plot to plotters
the block system however public calls for a tantrum
faze all the magnificent television broadcasts
the strict interpretation of the locked away
sold his predecessor army units
Soy Che Guevara, y he fallado
the guise was acknowledged
interest more limited to personal killing
a huge knot held most historians
in surface and citations
we'll never be one like John Lennon wants
I fell asleep and woke up in a sandstorm
they lived in a grotto half the size of your room
repellent lips everywhere
woman asked me if I was drunk trying to
remember a word in French things
are more fun in the wild more so
than postcard discharge
you can be haunted by mazes at any time
wounded colony that didn't fit
the following day dragged portrait of rain
ashes into the lyre fell alevosamente
the actual victim
as if his passage meant nothing to her
wave cities attacking the gust
3.
and I am lonely, really lonely on
some base level.
—maybe I should go get Henry and bring him here,
but he'd end up chewing down the Conroys' house
first editions and all.
stuck on probability Zeitgeist
magnetic falcons rubbing her hands together
let me be your hysterical patient
coming back in the cry of a moon's eye
another ugly poet who wasn't really ugly
withdrew in a tarot
stricken by everything, the assassin's lot
especially the secret doors of employees
stricken by the famous, who we sometimes
kill without assignment
because otherwise
they can suck your entire city through a straw.
I've seen it happen standing on top of a hill
and all I could do was
turn around and try to vomit
while the buildings disappeared behind me.
After that, wing notations
to celebrate our last seizure in the pit
architects of failure
on a visit to the evenhanded policy.
Light was burning the fugitive grandmaster.
Being driven through two onlookers
the now familiar pattern
spinning bird did not buy the story
you bastards whom I pay
and the ones I'll never see again.
Violations flying through the window
it pays to die by accident.
How old are these slivers of iron?
At least there's a train behind me
one just sitting there and one/several
that come by during the night,
I found the mirror's last day.
I want to be utterly violated.
4.
daylong dread, the old school parasite
i hope that you will give me a sufficient quantity
of subtle liquids, specious agents
in time though, to poison the stars
here too he later switched
a bug under the spinning lights
what universities can do to you
announce the end of the world
when he begins to talk about facts,
he is extremely reliable
could hardly find the press agency
it was possible that an opening
convicted in absentia
the holy see
he now felt he was part of a larger design
the fearless webs of time
—it has been said an unsuccessful regicide
returning from a romantic rendezvous—
forced to gaze on the instruments of torture
blot trash unmade Lenin
you are always the result of a perfect face
bodyguard and driver, his brother
palestinian son of a bitch
former athletic stars placed directly on the ricochet
fighting off advances while paralyzed
you usually wake up in a wreck
hot walker registered for a wedding
to go straight biography
reflected by his library card
more bombers to his career
devoting his attention to art and love
fed only bread, murdered his eyes
5.
The cable read in part
Mumbai noise technicians pouring weeks
tried to travel from bloom
disembarked alive
womb dada attacked hotel eden
This is concoctions:
a Jew should pogrom into the canal until May
excellent war records.
She took a notebook out of my pocket
and started to write exactly what I wanted
landscapes I couldn't predict turning
walls into a montage of space itself
ruins unruined and powder blown in our
faces on a dark boat.
The Jew wanted this also.
It's different from waiting to have
something delivered to you, assassins
hardly mattered at the time.
Prison marks the local university
a postage stamp burned.
To his brother
held elsewhere
file us
orthodox image worship
test us
into insulting him
bard us
all but name
strangled with powerful peasant hands
idly up the apparatus
he had to be dropped
wax dummies fire
popular with a number of European countries
still I can't talk about organ donation with you
6.
I told her about someone else
who could make all the windows shatter at once
scaling the black September
the brotherhood outlawed
no crash
never acquired a personal fortune
the sadist party picked up a law student
walking alone from mass
it's like I need to touch you
even when you're nothing but an impenetrable void
on the back of my own photo
a bird flown all the way from Providence
to watch me from the eves and type me with your eyes
and laugh at me in our sleep
and it's then and even then
I've got to tell you you're all I want to be faithful to
I tell you at night and believing nothing else
the void of your face burned into my shoulder
crawling across my skin like an insect
and never losing form until you disappear.
Who do you call to tell them you've dreamt of someone dead?
Alan Ramón Clinton is a poet, novelist, and scholar of modernist poetry and writing pedagogy who lectures at Santa Clara University. Clinton is the author of the monograph, Mechanical Occult: Automatism, Modernism, and the Specter of Politics (Peter Lang), a volume of poems, Horatio Alger's Keys (BlazeVOX) and, most recently, Curtain Call: A Metaphorical Memoir (Open Books). His novel, Necropsy in E Minor, forthcoming from Open Books, was shortlisted for the Dundee International Book Prize.