a strategy akin
to how the mind handles
a ghastly memory,
the kind that takes gallons
of whiskey to suppress.
One second they’re the Voice of New Seattle,
the next you’re at their goodbye party
as they leave for the new tech job,
program directorship, librarian gig, whatever,
in the next hip city on the circuit.
Miles of trees and bushes along Pilani
Highway in Maui are smothered
with Kudzu until the landscape
has completely changed and lost
Lots of paisley, glittery blazers, onesies
Of bunnies, shirtless bartenders and happy zombies—
Where boys are girls, and girls boys.
Look, every year is a mix
Of ugly and pretty, you have to do some mental tricks
There's no real air in any of these wards.
Everything is permeated with well-meaning poisons.
I stand at the window but the outside
may as well be a million miles away.
to be the wrong king
the bark in berry amounts and blessing
that sad friend in the lumber yard
that miracle frown to bless the kingship soccer
This world now seems measured
With the pressure it takes a butter knife
To break skin
Amy was the first to point out the extraordinary
unlikelihood of such thoughts occurring
to a dinosaur. She had lived a long time
as a human and understood more than most.
They have handcuffed
our country, given it away
in exchange for money,
or renown, fame, an
ever-sloping speaking circuit.
is it simply so simple
a journey of a thousand –
begins with a single death
where each camp is a form of alchemy
Ideas have no groove. You don’t dance to them, you hustle. When someone says you shall have no more than your share (or less) and they put that in place, you are forced to get up and go.
the trick is to coexist
to own your body
the actions of your hands
one morning, the lizard watches you
and You are a Giant! greatfearsomestrong
stuck subcompact bad intent! sub-tongue crouch
couched in fine print (lift) photocopy fraud
Threats repeated rattle sabers, clean out
then it dawns on me that maybe
nothing at all had happened
maybe the workers at the r.v. place
are just too lazy to lift that
heavy ass goddamn flag
One of the film's main musical
themes was illegal, the group of
upper-level undergraduates in
geography, sociology, & Chinese
No great oak when shedding leaves, I’m losing petals quickly.
Not mites, not snails, nor even fungi; spots have grown where
Xylem stream, where tracheids work, where life’s excitement
Surges.
Erase the stars from the velvet sky
Roll down the mountains, one by one.
Say goodbye to animal glamour
Soon we follow,
painted ponies on the vaulted carousel
I've been singing the same song
since last April. finding new harmony.
walking around three months
with an ice cube on the tongue.
I am sitting in the shadow of fortuitous buildings,
the Bhagavad Gita on my mind, but I am part of
no such embroidered parable. So much so, adventure
seems hardly to exist.
The songs are a civilization that at some point
Collapses, the singing dissipates
Into noise, the aliens grow thin
And blow out of our lives with the next thunderstorm.
Flash back: a baby screams across the hall. Knock.
Knock, knock. It's father stone-faced towards the crib.
Don't touch. Do nothing. A non-action: flee.
Tales of furious fights. The child, un-held,
continues to cry, as planned.
I have been waiting
for my turn to be sacrificed.
I wait to end my deer-like paralysis
from this cold-hearted culture
hunting for sport.
at the coffee shop sits a tattered poncho
a man beneath, voice like artillery shells
fired from beneath a redbeard jungle
Transparent eyes of the horses in
The hoary sky can scare all the music
Away from the face of the planet.
Do you savor the sins of the saints in the air?
sunglasses reflect cigarette smoke
held lazily
in stained fingers
he inhales
we depart
over uneven concrete.
Death, drugs, drunkeness, disaster… polaroids reimagine notorious vacations from literature, news and film on Lake Wequaquet, Cape Cod.
he and sister’s souls black
as soot,
they would burn together
in the flaming pit.
Excused from singing, a teenage exercise
Cowardly altercations laugh at misdeeds
Addicted to pretence, erotic dreams
Roses from kisses laugh at the serious.
-but the paper is on fire - but the fire is a mid-range paper supply company with a cheesy pita in the toaster oven - but the cheesy pita is my nostalgia and the toaster oven is an algorithm that can configure an approximation of my future personality with greater accuracy than I can
Bambi stands poised on the page, elegant,
beautiful, but I am skeptical of deer. Deer can kill
with their antlers—from the Old French antoillier,
a horn in front of the eyes. Is this deer some rogue unicorn?
The sky’s more an ocean than a street
as we slowly harden the first while swelling the second,
abrasive sky with billions of tiny full pockets
while the ocean’s clothes are unravelling, sinking
like silly promises
of love and always
in the vast and hungry
empty
burning night.
Lately I’ve thought about a dooryard
Bereft of lilacs, out of season,
The jailbreak of circus animals,
The slouch of some beast toward somewhere.
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