where a series of confused earthquakes makes for a new error of Holy Roman roadway. Or to
make a fairer era get off the road, hey, and let’s get some crab soup on this rainy day
stretching to halt these DTs like we gotta throttle the weather how we want it to be how
The lining on Mr. Chepman's blue Upper Valley Cab Co. jacket looks like the interior of his car and he is driving it two buildings over to pick up Mrs. Plarst for her dialysis ride. She hates him because he plays Motown Mornings on Oldies WLLZ, and he hates her because he has to fold up her walker and put it in his trunk.
That boy said it’s all monkey talk listen he said. I wasn’t to listen but Jake’s door was open because I was to. It’s what you do he said, how the thing is done is nothing but whispering in the library, the boy said you won’t. I’m not approved of Jake and you won’t stand up but that’s not how things are done is it Jake what am I supposed to do then?
Must have at least (45) forty-five Concessions.
some Educational Shows, a good Plantation
show and not more than two gypsies.
[ATC Supervisor:] Ask them if they want to report officially.
[ATC:] TWA 517, do you want to report a UFO? Over.
[TWA Pilot:] Negative. We don’t want to report.
[ATC:] AirEast 31, do you wish to report a UFO? Over.
[AirEast Pilot:] Negative. We don’t want to report one of those, either.
It hurts you to talk about it
but it hurts you more to not talk about it
or
is that therapy gibberish?
I’ve got something you can defund,
right here. There is a hot sun,
just the other side of the clouds.
choking down entire argument in record time
continuing calculations are getting far closer
to where i want to be than where i need to be
unhealthy eroticism is in sensitivity training
so that it won't be instantaneously spooked
pouting, making a hand gesture. furrowed. a photo of a sheet of ice. having there at various monitoring points. reddish dust, uncomfortable. the foam springs. compensation for a more dignified life. exploration sufficed dropped into water. involuntary moan so.
Scribe. With a name known only to himself. Waits to pen letters to friends in Tunisia
Algiers, Morocco, or
Amsterdam. Writing to family, we scribble thumbnail sketches of ourselves, or who
we remember startled us
Still pregnant by some dumb 老外
Crying beside the hotplate
Right into my black sesame oatmeal
What will I tell my girlfriend?
Where’s the Taipei clinic?
He’s come to hate the academy, its sterile rigors.
Steel rails, parallel; long ribbon of wooden ties:
all night, all day, trains rattle that whole apparatus.
He lays his poem anthology on the track.
I eyeball her ribs, her sockets,
her cheeks, her scabs.
Why, girl. Take the
damn crackers, there is
fat on me everywhere.
You, volunteer:
You know the difference
Between cause and effect:
The people on the street
Are too stupid to have homes
Too filthy to wash
What an experiment it was!
But the art of improv is lost
for drum and fife
the song of sparrows swamped
by the sound of goose-step
we’re cycling & recycling as fast as we can but can’t get there in time
for the job, the damaged free stuff, the barbed assignation,
and usually need to replace something by the time we get home—
a tire, a lens, an ankle.
Tell us though
of unquestioning apartheid,
of segregation,
of that being-according-to-what-you-are-not
and of how-you-may-be-defined,
I sense my grandmothers.
I am now the age
they always seemed to be
with stern blood understanding
once removed from the sting of judgment.
to shatter
and shove
black reptilian oaths
vowed in penthouse palaces
back up their
vile asses
This flower was labeled Whitey;
this flower was marked Nigga Lover.
Is she still alive?
Didn’t he pass recently?
Was it in the paper?
Somewhere in our body
there is an alarm, an alert thermostat
sending its pulsations, something that says:
NOW!
There’s something straining us. Since birth we praised
his lineage, put wealth at his command,
and hubris has obeyed. He lifts his hand,
the throngs align, his inner organs raised
eyes stop still restrict
movement take midol
the red daze haze of sleep
she wants to fuck and fuck
and fuck and fuck
makes no gentle
it is not yet complete:
some of us are still here, webbed with
confused winds, the dirt below us
cold, moving in new directions.
we notice all fall down quicker than before,
The girl in the picture starts to twitch
There is a movement beneath her left tit
The poster flicks from the wall a bit
Two apprentices notice
i listen to the impatient dead
who never existed, however much
i wish they had lived their absence
I’ll return as Queen of Sheba, or a vampire, or a reiver,
or a saint who cures the nouveaux riches, a wondrous, wealthy soul.
Yes, you see, I’ve found my niche, to preach and prosper, marvelous goal!
(Pills I took just took their toll.)
Ohhhh do it. Worldwide. Uhhuh uhhuh uhhuh. Telecommunications. Uhhuh uhhuh. Telecommunication link link ahh up links ooohhhhh telecommute me it's so. Spectacular cash award for your yesyes unparalleled investment protections. Oh christ yeah. Pure cash. Yeah it's so good to uh uh cash me cash me in.
Now I’m walking the levee
Amongst meth head zombies
When a raccoon reminds me
To keep my hand on my knife.
you cozy up to anyone
stepping off a freight train
with a patch above their hearts
Repulsed,
I read his essay
about why it’s unnatural
for gays to marry, red pen poised. I am not
neutral, not objective. Speech is free, but so is judgment.
assistance gone alone with both lonely days without both fluish angry needing not
their fault hungry homework nights without can’t sleep, doesn’t doctor says just one
pill per small hands stretching, reaching must watch them closely always loads of
laundry hungry exhaustion just one pill bedwetting wakes older regression consoling
Ghosts come calling. Fill your voice mail,
search you out in want ads, bloat your belly
all night with confusions of 0s and 1s.
Indecipherable guilt leaking into the lines.
…death’s heads some absence here or of what sensed in outstretched limbs a broken jawline’s exigency/ stone winds resurgence ever where nothing of reeks blind taste some solace no return again begin again/ in wind’s reveal of collapse bitten as if to cherish pummeling absurdly lock associative/ till skull skinned screaming in an abort of flame settling into ash...
Many of you have already been taken,
some of us anticipate the slack whoosh and hum
that signal alien arrival above just-cut crop circles.
Many of you, back in your cubicles, wear half-smiles,
Carolyn just loves
da new house in Kahala.
Hard to believe dat she grew up as wun local
cause she look and act like wun Katonk.
our nile river sinks into street gutters
summer season is almost here
so dance for rain black baby
dance for rain.