The kids Clogged the sink Wet spaghetti Kitty litter The Iliad
writing
Somehow it’s All True
The Birds loudly say their names In spring The assonance of making a living Which side of the moon Is homework In spring Puddles have telekinetic reflections And walk on their fingers Furthermore, the séance of computation Is poetry A lone piano Tuned like a pinecone ~ Down the road Even the sun is dust, even arithmetic is dust But the dust on this road such fictions Sweating with the undreamt dark dreaming Queried with meanderings ~ At the rummage sale I found a copy of Charles Reznikoff, Complete Poems And some trading cards of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure I would never walk the city the same after reading Reznikoff Hereafter always I would deal with the oddity of time travel with the greatest of ease
This is What I Know
Unknowing can be navigated. Ventured. Crossed. Consulted with. I start writing poems. Not knowing what they will be. The rubble of stars In my boots. ~ How savage is the immediate. You stand up to it. You hold your breath. You even tuck in your shirt. But this too weird Varied Almost infinite If you had the guts to ask. The rubble of stars Retina holding. ~ This is the bumble In the be all of our magnificent lives, The sorrow and the silence of our Hearts when they are lightest. The worst and everything more. The crumpled sunlight Passing for debris. The rubble of stars Ankle deep, spring aspiring.
Writer’s Block
If at first, you draft A poem, To start, you say: A yellow couch Listens to John Cage. Next, leave it With the paint cans In the cellar. In a year, or two, Go looking for it. Without reading it, Turn it over, Start something new, Like: You found me In the birdbath, The rainwater Is shirtless. That will never do. It’s best to be desperate: The universe Was swallowed By a few words. Long shadows Go to great lengths In doorways. For the better part of a decade Put it with the dry Beans in the back of The cupboard: The night arrives first A pink ribbon Of steel, A headache of honey and blood. Just abruptly end and hope no one Notices: Writing a poem Is like finishing a knot, Or cutting a hole in a net Before collecting butterflies.
A Knack for Lost Places
A bowl filled with letters or a bowl filled with numbers, which is less
organized?
Some of the frayed universe for pockets.
I was looking forward to the time off. I wasn't going to write.
Or read. I would smoke a joint and watch Buckaroo Bonzai.
I would bathe.
The light reflected by the earth is less organized. Then when it left
The sun. Same for the moon at night. The boiling pot is order.
I would walk.
You first need to acquire an almost super-awareness of the dusk. Also,
it will cost you a letter in your name. Henceforth to be omitted, in
writing and in speech. Do your socks match the awful joy that for some
brief perspective no matter the foreground includes its end? To get an
idea, watch rain drawn down a pane. It's not chaos. And if we had the
guts, it would stir us home more than it does.
At the end of the night, at the end of our exploration, you wanted to
know my name. But it wasn't mine to give.
The paperwork we found, we burned it, it was mostly poetry.
You said we should write down afterwards how we remember it. And the
ghosts, they too had names. Remember them.
I made a list of all the groceries. But due to long
Lines, instead I found a list of all the unmade beds in the city.
Including a short biography on the pillows.
Send a SASE. Do not include my address.
Put it into a bottle. Fold it into a plane.
I know where to look for it. I have a knack
For lost places.
Misfits are Everywhere
We were as beautiful as planetariums, On the hems of undressed ghosts, Like sleeveless butterflies Accustomed to otherworldly gravity. We made the poetry to accompany The soles of lost swimmers On the outskirts of deserted rooms. Enamored By the ambush of lifting the sky, The dark Forever bursting of inexplicable Word galaxies. But now, You are far away And move On two legs Of falling leaves. And there is little going back. If At all. But for such misfits as us, From the arches to the hairline, Into the unnoticed graves of greatness, There will be a lasting reaching out. The dizziness of daisies setting fire To our hearts.
Portrait
You sit Here and invest in the part of you That has no beginning. Eyes fixed on the wooden Fireflies. A deserted city for a headband. Shoulders like Heisenberg's uncertainty Principle. The to-do list of dusk in the air. Which you have always taken seriously. And a tattoo Of wings put on the bottom of the feet. The Void for what it is, the thread count of Existence. You think, Did the universe inflate, superfluous Of compass, all in one go of it? Behind you the sky, Not knowing how many Keys make an accordion, Shoulders the long way Home. This is clear. As it is uneven, and croaked like meaning. Like a portrait. What the words have to do with this, Is an emergency.
Unknowing Poem
This I will say plain,
I will not
Sabotage distance with
Preoccupation, I will not
Dirty the socks of the moon
With pleading.
Let them be.
That’s why shadows are important,
They tend to adhere to you,
So you are what you are not,
Jumping atop lost pianos
In factory made shoes, singing
The birds are the perfect cents.
Originality is propaganda,
Certain exaggerations
Must precipitate into fairy tales.
Like November helicopters
Gathering up the body slams of dusk.
Pillows that are fire
For this garden head.
Is There Anywhere for the Universe to Pull Over?
Is there anywhere for the universe to pull over?
To park, to fall in love?
A well-kept bike, a stack of poems in disarray.
What if these poems really did mean something?
How terrifying.
The menu of poets
Is full of branches.
The books on the fridge. I'll get to them soon. After a walk and a few
more months of procrastinating. I’ll write poems too. Small ones, by
an open window. The moon like a dog licking a plate.
Mirrors reflect, yes, but they
Don’t know left from right.
A group of dusk is called a vanish.
The wild arteries of stars
Do they feel it too?
The quiet celebrity of being alone.
(revised from an earlier post)
Notes in Windows
I would have me emptied, and to remain behind. A plastic bag gripping a winter tree, in the wind, and the sound it makes is empty. You hear shoes down the hall, though you don’t live in a house. They sound as if they are approaching. The truth is, they are not getting any nearer. And you remember you have been left behind. Reflections in a bowl, sometimes city lights, sometimes the stars, for dinner. You stop to read the graffiti, and the notes tapped to windows, posted from the inside facing out, written on, leaving no margins: I think this happens more so than it should, in poorer cities. I would have me slapstick readied, though I remain on board. I know the captain has burned the charts. I know the city birds are one big computer. The notes in the windows sometimes include pictures: an angel with the living earth for feet, or burning trees with typeset for flames. A skirmish of ghosts, folding in on itself, breathes its last. I am at sea. Without a bathing suit in the arms of stars.
