Proverbial Sonnet (49)

In other words, you can lead a horse to water
but the bear, well, he eats you. Where do you go
from there? That's the burro in the valley waiting
for you to chinook your way down the holler
hillside. The deer that narrows across the road
to grok the other side chills, innovating
more intimately than most of us ever
will again. Nothing rocks north like a crow.
Get on that horse and cross-saw through the hate
of flies. Swat away time; anything clever
you cased inside, bandana, pack, and unload:
smoke out the force of comfort to contemplate
that patient valley burro who doesn't care
whether you dustle down or swivel in your chair.

Proverbial Sonnet (48)

So, as a diminutive of sound, a small
something sung or musically spoken,
becoming in time mainly a matter of the noise
it makes, moving south to the north in squalls,
making invisible love corporeal bone
by bone, turn by turn, admitting the sighs,
the blatant woe and reckless considerations
of love's reverence, a makeshift hacksaw
grinding so from sound against the ball
and chain of careful call and rejection,
knowing thoughts without lips sit like arrows
without a bow, aiming for the lightning smile,
angel-grappling, sow-wrangling, slight refrain
all procreant urge and incisive pain.

Tonight We're Going To Party Like Prince

Tonight we're going to party like a little red corvette.
Tonight we're going to party like purple rain.
Tonight we're going to party like a raspberry beret.
Tonight we're going to party like when doves cry.
Tonight we're going to party like nothing compares 2 U.
Tonight we're going to party like the holy river.
Tonight we're going to party like America.
Tonight we're going to party like automatic.
Tonight we're going to party like the beautiful ones.
Tonight we're going to party like thunder.
Tonight we're going to party like diamonds and pearls.
Tonight we're going to party like controversy.
Tonight we're going to party like la-la means I love you.
Tonight we're going to party like how come u don't call me anymore.
Tonight we're going to party like i feel for you.
Tonight we're going to party like i hate u.
Tonight we're going to party like mountains
Tonight we're going to party like my name is Prince.
Tonight we're going to party like NYC.
Tonight we're going to party like Alphabet St.
Tonight we're going to party like space.
Tonight we're going to party like pink cashmere.
Tonight we're going to party like thieves in the temple.
Tonight we're going to party like a sign o' the times.
Tonight we're going to party like Mrs. Robinson.
Tonight we're going to party like the future.
Tonight we're going to party like the truth.
Tonight we're going to party like a peach.
Tonight we're going to party like cream.

Proverbial Sonnet (47)

It's comforting to know that life is a
rough draft. Life is not a rough draft. It's more
of an improvisation, which is to say
it's like a rough draft that's final. Record
what happens, scoff and repent and be on our way
leaving behind those things we had in store
to share at least with those we loved if the day
had been uncluttered enough to allow for
those rough works, that sedimentary clay,
to come to light. Too sentimental? Sure,
but walking the picket line with mom when you're eight
will mark your words that way, your musical score
or iTunes playlist, your GarageBand remix. Tonight
we're going to party like when doves cry.

Proverbial Sonnet (46)

When plans B, C, D, and E, all fail,
it helps to take a walk in the rain, maybe
bring an apple, kick a can along the ground.
Don't mind the sewers that remind you hell
sits under us at all times, how daily
we wrestle its static energy, hands tied
behind our backs, like bobbing for apples
in a cauldron of seething excitations.
“Then there is a time in life when you just take
a walk: and you walk in your own landscape”
and snap a few photos with your iPhone
to post on your blog with words like leaves that shake
as a nervous squirrel creeps out along their branch
and peeks at you for some sign of your plan.

Proverbial Sonnet (45)

If this is part of a serial poem, I'm not
supposed to read what came before, what words
I put or fell together late last night.
But what do I care about cautions and theories
regarding the way I should make my poems
these days? I'll sit here and over-read
what I have writ if that's how I want to roll.
What's OK by Herrick is OK by me.
It takes more than two to flock together.
The line is a manner of looking things up.
Wing it, sing it, and bring it. Fling your feather
against the sky. Snip the paper cup
and pick the coated pieces for our new nest.
Theory's restless worm will lead us to it.

Proverbial Sonnet (44)

Who care's about the chicken or the egg?
What matters is more along the lines
of a fine mist: you can't feel it on your tongue
unless you stick it out. What matters is
a bad penny, the work that's never done,
a moss-covered stone louder than words.
After a storm comes, the day begins again.
What matters is the earth that angels fear
to tread; knowledge is up there in the clouds
for most of us to grab. What matters is
a puddle in the mud: there's no walking
around it. The rain is worth a thousand words
fools write down and rush to tell the world
about. What matters is a bird in the mouth.

Proverbial Sonnet (43)

It's like what the kids say: the heart is tangled
syrup wood. Love is a mangled metaphor,
an electric tiger stalking the avenues
searching for someone to play Scrabble with.
You hope it whispers a word or two to fill
in your rhyme scheme, but instead it opens wide,
grabs you around the waist, and wanders off
with your head and limbs dangling from its mouth.
You don't play Scrabble that way do you? With
a twenty-point bonus for making a word
that rhymes? Love does. It's wrenching. It takes the nuts
and bolts of the tangled tiger heart and twists—
lefty loosey, righty tigthy—until
its teeth dig through the engine of your mind.

Field Guide

How far have I come
into this field
and how much farther
can it go on?

I stand, looking out,
with no memory
of how I got started,
why I said Yes.

The tall grass goes on
all green and gold,
reaching what I won't,
what nobody can.

There are others in
this field. I hear
them at times. But I
haven't seen them yet.

I could have stayed
on the road. I could
have said No. I
could have headed home.

The Irreplaceable Senator

Ron Silliman has posted a nice anecdote about the late Edward Kennedy. Though Senator Kennedy was not without his flaws, there's no denying that America has lost one of its great champions of justice . Given the current state of affairs, the antagonism in this country to anything remotely progressive, which is typically drummed up behind the scenes by well-heeled corporate lobbyists and PR officers, it's sadly safe to say that Senator Kennedy is irreplaceable.

Tappan Zee Bridge

It's just language.

Names for Rachel

Rachel Tomorrow
Rachel Today
Rachel Tomorrow Today

Rachel Radio
Rachel Waves
Rachel Radio Waves

Rachel Rimbaud
Rachel Tzara
Rachel Rimbaud Tzara

Rachel Rainbow
Rachel Green
Rachel Rainbow Green

Rachel Candle
Rachel Light
Rachel Candelabra Night

Rachel Ephemera
Rachel Etcetera
Rachel Ephemera Etcetera

Rachel Why
Rachel Now
Rachel Why-Not Now

Rachel West
Rachel Wind
Rachel Zephyr
Rachel Ode

Rachel Magnum
Rachel Opus
Rachel Magnum Opus

Rachel Bandana
Rachel Hart
Rachel Bandana Heart

Rachel Lambent
Rachel Serendipity
Rachel Lambent Serendipity

Rachel Garbanzo
Rachel Prelapsarian
Rachel Eden Jelly Bean

Rachel Festoon
Rachel Per Se
Rachel Festoon Per Se

Rachel Move
Rachel Oeuvre
Rachel Omnium-Gatherum

Rachel Ampersand
Rachel Raconteur
Rachel Ampersand Raconteur

Rachel Halcyon
Rachel Tomorrow
Rachel Halcyon Tomorrow

Remembered Poem (cont'd)

2

The telephone rings.
Where’s my hat?


3

My hat, I’m on my way.
I’m typing the poem of the future
directly into the computer.
It’s ’92 and I am with you
in spirit if not in
forget it, I’m on my way.
Bed on the floor, later today.


4

My hat, what time is it?
The poem of the future
drives with narcolepsy
because I really want to
I’m on my way. Bring
bring, I’m onto you. Please.


5

Time on the way. My hat
I almost forgot. What I’m
is it? My Own Private
kiss you on the lips and
drink you on the floor—
your father’s at the door.


6

My hat is black and snappy.
I fall asleep in it
until
you grab me I’m awake.
In the bedroom on the floor
I sing you my new song
based on a tune by Faith
No More. “We stroll
to the edge of the world”
and you wrap the sky
blue bandana
around my head. We smoke
each other’s Marlboro
lips.
And then we fall apart.


7

I brought my hat, take off
my hat. You brought
your shirt and tell me that
it’s my Nirvana shirt actually
you bought for me I can
have it back while you put on
the Marlboro shirt
I drove to you I brought to you
on my back. Call me later.


8

The hat on my head is
twelve o’clock but on
your head it’s six
so cute. You hand me
and we have some beer
and you put in My Own
Private Idaho. All of
our yesterdays, “smoke ’em
if you got ’em” (that means
I nodded off).
You grab me awake
and take me to your room
which is really your father’s
because nobody loves us
like we love each other,
the way he asked you if we
lick each other’s assholes
and how I wish you had said
From head to head to toe.


9

The telephone rings.
I grab my hat.
I want to be ready.


10

I am a poet who was writing
a poem. My hat
rings. What time are you?
I didn’t drive an hour and change
to see My Own Private
Idaho. My hat is on the floor
next to the rumpled
Nirvana Sliver
you gave to me and I gave to you.


11

I want to tell the world about
the telephone rings
my Bone Daddy hat is laughing
at my singing while I drive
but you have iron in your eyes
when I sing to you from the bad
on the floor in your father’s room.
You know what I mean.


12

The telephone rings, my hat
I write my words with
or without you. You write better
than me and I refuse
to let you forget it. I sleep
through My Own Private
I don’t know, thanks for the beer,
an hour and change
to get here. My hat is on
your head when you grab me
awake. I kiss you and
it falls to your bed is
on the floor with our T shirts
and our jeans. Shoulders,
assholes, knees, we crawl
Nirvana over each other
to the edge of the No More world.

Remembered Poem

I am upstairs in my bedroom
with my hands on the keyboard,
downstairs in the kitchen
looking for my cap.
The telephone is ringing
maybe it's Mars,
I should be on my way.
What time is my hat?
It's Bone Daddy black.
When I get there—Guilford
not Mars, that's just her nickname—
we knock back some bottles
of beer and watch
My Own Private Idaho.
Don't ask me what happens—
she wakes me up when it's over.
We make love on her half
of the room she shares
with her father—he's out
of course. After we get back
into our clothes, she ties a sky
blue bandana around my head
and I take her shirt back off.
It sparkles and we take pictures
as if we already know
we won't much longer be this way.

A Connecticut Poem

What did I do to deserve Connecticut?
Stevens moved here in 1916 when he was thirty-six
as I am now. It would be another seven years
before Harmonium appeared. He worked
in Hartford, an insurance man dutifully behind his desk
all day. I work in Danbury, a one-time typesetter
who now sees his work offshored to Chennai all day.
This isn’t going anywhere is it? I require help—
what about the sycamores, the maples, the oaks?
What about the robins returning each spring?
What about the nutmeg? What the hell can you make
with that anyway? I’d rather have the saffron
my grandma Keeney (né Messina) brought back with her
from Italy. She was alive then, so long ago
I was taking classes at Central Connecticut State
and wondering where all of the poetry was
as my American Lit class skipped Pound, Williams,
Stevens, Eliot, Frost, and Crane. No Olson, no Creeley,
no Ashbery or O’Hara, no Ginsberg, no Kerouac.
No Langston Hughes, Lorine Neidecker, Sylvia Plath,
nothing but a hasty reading of "Diving into the Wreck"
on the last day of class. I used the last two pages
of the final exam blue book to list the professor’s wrongs
(the same prof who went on for a good ten minutes
about exiguous, used to describe someone’s nose
in Daisy Miller; thinking it meant “large,”
he explained the Latin route, ex-, meaning “out of”—
being the thoughtful guy that I am, I didn’t correct him
in front of the class, but simply mentioned it afterwards)
for my troubles, which I thought honestly worth
a few extra points, even if some of what I wrote probably
rankled him but hey I was being timed remember,
I saw my grade knocked down to an A minus.
Connecticut is like that, whether you get to drive
to work through the cavernous shade and gentle hills
of Litchfield County or live in the traffic on I-95
but KC needs to get some files off our computer now
which she will bring with her today to the high school
where she’ll be getting her classroom ready
so I’ll be stopping here. We found a dead mouse
in our house this morning and I need to figure out what to do.

Dark Telephone Pants!

“Dark telephone pants!”
That voice from a farther room
is Dash’s as he and Vaughn
are playing some obscure
childhood game, deeper
and more complex than tag
or hide and go seek.
“You’re supposed to do this
and I’m supposed to do
this ! Oh man, now we’re rowing
out to—now I’m in your house.”
The game could go on for hours
or evaporate in a few timeless
tom-tom moments. Now someone
has cast a spell and they are trapped
and Vaughn is being pulled
by her mouth and yammering
on like a chimp. I guess it could
go on for days if anyone would
let it. “The bad guys are guarding
me.” “They’re guarding me, too.”
“Oh man, they’re letting the horses
out. One by one. We have customers
in our restaurant. I mean, we own
a bookstore, right? Every day
is a different pony.” “But you didn’t say
anything about the Fraggle Rock
mystery?” Quivering lip, quaking
cloud. O epic, O broken lyric heart!

Fall

There was too much time for talk. Old man summer
with his pretty-boy face and sunshine cane
wiped the drool from his chin before we noticed.
Young men flexing muscles as they walk the shore,
eyeing through their shades the bikini-clad
young women playing each other and stomp-
splashing their feet as they secretly spy
on the boys. Not us. Who are we anyway?
What green force brought us here to brown and wither?
We're not at the beach, are we? But then how could
you know, we're not even together. Don't
look at me that way, with your unflinching page-
ward eyes like spikes, as if I'm the one confused.
It's personal now, now that we hide in the nude.

Two Elegies

A modernist walks into a bar, orders
a drink and sits down on the red leather
booth in the corner, keeping an eye
on the door, all the while surveying the room.

He regards the blonde in the black raincoat
leaning on the bar, giving the bartender
an earful. He jots this down in his scratch pad
being sure to mention the smoky haze,

but when he looks up, she is gone. Neither left
nor right, neither low (not on the floor) nor high
(not ascending the cobblestone steps outside).
He imagines what violent white-gray wings

she must have concealed under her raincoat,
what globetrotting, sky-shattering mission
she must be on, how fast and far she’ll travel,
until she returns, click clock, from the ladies’ room.

                        *  *  *

A postmodernist walks into a bar and pre-
tends he already has a drink in his hand.
He takes the leather red booths to be all-
too-comfortable red booths and walks around

until he stumbles over a blonde’s slipped-off
flip-flops in front of the dart board. A dart
pierces his neck and lingers there like a flare.
Appalled by the simile he tears into a rage

at the patrons safely tucked into their booths,
at the establishment continuing to serve
unnecessary drinks, at the chairs not hung
from the ceiling, at the door that remains closed.

Calmed down, he thanks the blonde’s boyfriend, removes
the dart from his neck and smiles a smile so sure
it’s beyond such petty splits as pure / impure
as the gold liquor flows from his new neck hole.

Scope

Erase, scar,
release this form,
mine your own
simulacrum home.

Photo in front of me, I do not know

Sappho Does

Sappho
sits alone
against the tide.


What
Sappho does
is her business.


Sappho
dreams, apples
fall from trees.


Three
naked girls
chase each other;

one
is love,
one is freedom,

and
one is
just a girl.


Where
Sappho goes,
crashing wine-dark throes.


When
Sappho leaves
three girls grieve;

one
is naked,
one is clothed,

and
one is
simply mind personified.


Sappho's
little credo:
To be continued . . .

Proverbs of Heck (42)

Wash hands, wash mind. Life is a process
of decomposition; what appears, at times,
to be growth is a mysterious symptom
having nothing to do with the outcome,
or at least that's how it feels when I peel
a banana or stand on the beach waiting
for my boy to pass me the ball, shoulders
hunched, arms half dangled, and hands slightly
curled, as the crashing waves wash over the back-
ground mind, like a theater in which the spot-
light shines not on the star's climactic speech
but on an invisible hand backstage.
Art is a production for breaking up sleep;
a banana peel tossed on the compost heap.

Proverbs of Heck (41)

No words without lips. No thought without
nerves. The mere act of walking is made
more beautiful with every new transportation
invention, till walking is like dancing
and dancing is like walking without legs
the way you and me rhyme in the heart of time:
two bodies, one motion, three minds, composed,
as a life is a composition, with syntax
of action and diction of thought and accidental
hitting of the caps lock key. You can't stack
a second brick until you've laid the first,
but you can imagine it, paint it, frame it,
and have it hang in a gallery for others
to see: the nerve of a brick stacked on air.

Proverbs of Heck (40)

When I say “Every poet is . . .” I say
what I am, not what you are, unless, perhaps,
you are not a poet, in which case it's
all good. The poem is a fountain, a boy
of about five or eight, a steady stream
of sparkling white water spouting up from
his blue-green penis only to dive down
into the penny-dappled water below,
meaning there is no meaning and not so much
an end as a slow dissolve into the shiny
layers of intention, attention, and inspection,
a meaningless catapult aimed at the sky
and stuck in a seemingly endless misfire
tinkling, raw and rigged, into that sturdy water.

Advanced Metrics

We will see our names in the black newsprint
of the sea, to steal a phrase from Ann Lauterbach,
but until we get there: the game’s the thing.
DVOA tells us that Michael Vick
was never a very good quarterback
which isn’t to say he didn’t have game-changing
ability or wasn’t amazing to watch.
The advanced metrics don’t lie even if the whole
of any play can’t be captured in such black
and white terms. The variables in a catch
cut twenty-two ways, varyingly unequal
from down to down. A yard gained or a sack:
the problem’s the same. Perfect’s the enemy of better
stats that capture the action more than the score.

Sarah Blasko - No Turning Back

Good song. Wild video.

Something about a Train

We can't all be conductors on this train.
We can't all wear the engineer's striped hat.
Fireman, brakeman, track worker, dispathcer:
specialized positions not for us all.
Most of us are just passengers happy
to have a seat as we travel back home
or away from it to
                            where ever it is we need to go.

Les Paul, June 9, 1915 – August 13, 2009

Les Paul at the Rock and Roll HoF site

Ode to Les Paul (found poem courtesy of Licorice Pizza)

The first guitar I bought
that I never learned to play
was a Les Paul knockoff.

Proverbs of Heck (39)

Silence is a mouthful of nothingness,
the alpha and omega of every poem.
I punch out at six o'clock and complain
about the long day, but the soldier's ends
only when bagged — not even returning home
and lying down in the American grain
under an empty sky will put it to rest.
It's easy to say what true awareness is
when I don't have a hood pulled over my head
and electrodes wired to my balls: best
not to worry too much about what happens
to the idea of solemn laughter then.
Eyes aimed at the ground like a tired surgeon—
more zen than glum, but I get the confusion.

The Big Spot

Life is a series of contradictions, yes,
but the question is: when it comes down to game
seven do you go with the young fire-
baller who brings the high heat pitch after
pitch in a relentless display of power
until he tires and the hitters start to catch
up with it, which could happen fast on three
days rest, or do you go with the savvy old
veteran who knows how to paint the corners
but could struggle with his pitch count and not
make it out of the fifth or sixth inning,
or do you trot them both out onto the mound
because it's your metaphor now, your game,
and you can change the rules if you want?

Incantation for Jaguar Macaw Madness, for the desire this madness brings

Translated from the Mayan by Dennis Tedlock

One Lord, one and only Four Lord, Sky
Lord would have been in chaos, Sky Lord
would have been dark when you were
born. Who are you, owner of chaos? Who
are you, owner of night? You are in chaos,
Great Lord of Days, the eye of the sun was
plucked out when you were born. Who is
your mother, what father begets you when
you do penance? She is Red Rainbow,
White Rainbow, she is the point of the
lancet, the tip of the penis, this is your
mother, your father, begetter,

together behind there, together behind
the sweat bath when you were born, the
desire in that chaos, desire in that darkness,
the spitting snake was in the tree,
the spitting snake was on the rock when
you were born, desire in the darkness.
Master of Drunken Madness, you are the
desire in the chaos, you are Master of
Stupid Madness, you are Lascivious Madness,
you are Jaguar Madness, you are
Master of Macaw Madness, you are Deer
Madness. Who is your tree? Who is your
bush? What served as your bed, your
bower when you were born?

If that doesn't get your blood boiling, well, there's no accounting for taste, right? Anyway, that's just the first two passages; you can read the rest in this PDF. Tedlock's book 2000 Years of Mayan Literature is forthcoming from the University of California Press (2010) and it looks (and reads, from what I've been able to glimpse so far) f'in amazing. Thunderstorm is still there in the sky, perhaps, closing his eyes as he slips behind Fire-Bellied Rainbow.

Didn't have a dream last night

Didn't have a dream last night
or none that I can recall—
no statues moving through thigh-high grass,
no pool-side graves, no horses
racing alongside my passenger car window,
no monkey smells, no children
with amputated limbs
crying up at me from their cribs,
no mountains in the distance billowing smoke
from angry Natives who only want
to show me how I've lost my way
again, no sniper in the bell tower
as I wander the streets looking for the golden
labrador of my youth, no house of bricks
owned by pigs who won't let me in
with some wolf-man sloshing down the road
snorting and salivating as he approaches,
no fat keystone cop twirling
his big golden keychain as he whistles
something like Singing in the Rain,
no bright white room with white tile floor
covered with snakes while the continental United States
sways above it on a shimmering chandelier,
no back rubs from Loni Anderon's character in WKRP,
no Wicked Witch of the West with bright red lips
puckering up with her kiss of death,
no head-giving dwarf from Sega Genesis's
Golden Axe, no Mother Mary
peeling off her layers of white, blue, and bluer,
no horses driven by D.H. Lawrence
across a desert of snow as I sit at a school-desk
playing with a small plastic hourglass
filled with yellow sand, no Li Po
offering me wine on a hillside by a harbor
serenading the moon or laughing with the owls,
no garden to wander through, no dice
rattling overhead in the clouded sky,
no Pocahontases hollering at me to bring them home
where the green sun meets the yellow lake
and the National Guard is waiting with orders
to blow off our heads because they have been told
we are zombies, but really they are.

On Meeting Gregory Corso

The lines in his face
like tiny electric snakes
and when he smiled
nothing happened that
wouldn’t otherwise have happened
the setting sun for instance
leaned out of his way.

An Inscription

This vase is a gift
from a father to his daughter
that she may always have a place
to keep her flowers in water;
she who tends to plants so well
and greets all creatures like the dawn,
the Fairy-winged Princess of 94 Grove,
the Mermaid Queen of the Overgrown Lawn.
________________________________________________
Based on a Mayan inscription.

Blob-of-Dust Morning

No words, gray light,
only rooftops out the window,
black and staticky.
No birds, no squirrels,
only bruising car-go-by sounds
and Vaughn's voice
from out in the living room
as she runs like she's not supposed to
back and forth with her brother,
“I'm a blob of dust.”

Beach pieces

A little sand in the toes
the eyes tired
a pain in the thigh like a slice
of lemon stuck on the end of a glass
do you feel it too
don't let go of my hand
we lie not quite
tanned but lost in the sun

        •

Brown the water curling
up and under
and over our toes
or no that's just the seaweed

        •

The young man in the motorized parachute
gliding past the gull
beyond the arching spiral
under which races
the graying man with outstretched arms
hoping to show them, though no one is watching,
that he still has it.

        •

The boys dig trenches
and make “dark wells.”
The girls dig, too,
collecting shells.

Proverbs of Heck (38)

Say what you see, not what you know; but don't
believe it until you feel it. Intuitive
knowledge sees through time, speaks through silence,
and acts because. The Paiute shaman took no
offense at the Indian poker game; instead,
he pointed to the feather in his hat and laughed
as he slowly disappeared. True awareness
is solemn laughter. The rain falls on the tracks
we leave. A hungry stomach is the barking of dogs.
Wisdom comes like the wind over buffalo grass.
It takes a thousand voices like the stars.
Ask questions from your heart to see lightning
in your mind. Step lightly in the spring but pack
an ax. The old rabbit jumps; there is no death.

Walk-off

I liked it when the home run meant something,
when forty-five dingers might lead the league
in any given season, when a man
making the minimum wage could afford
to take his children out to see their idol
go yard, when the long ball was scarce and more
than a cheap way to sell tickets and appeal
to “chicks,” when the single-season record
was “tainted” only because of the bigotry
of popularity, when the home run king
was a thick-skinned hero who had to overcome
real bigotry even more than the shadow
of the greatest ever who had twice smacked more round-
trippers than every other team in his league.

Proverbs of Heck (37)

The poem engages you or it doesn’t;
it reaches out and touches you or stays
in the corner and keeps to itself while you
make your way from another to another;
it bothers you, leading you to question,
pause, or trouble over, or it leaves you
alone; it works through you, on you, with you,
or, quite simply, it doesn’t. How can that
be faked anymore than a song or paint
on a canvas, gobs of it, lighting up nothing
so much as the sleepy hollow of your skull?
So a line isn’t always as true as it is
at the moment of composition. The poem
is sketched out on paper, carved out in time.

Proverbs of Heck (36)

Didactic poetry is canned dog food
but maybe that will change again someday.
Doubt’s the fox to imagination’s hens;
read like hell makes a pretty good shot gun
but so does I don't care, I'll do it my way.
I was raised by vague pronoun references,
schooled by dangling modifiers, and if
I want my life to have been lived in
the passive voice it may be that the things
I want are not so much my choice as they are
the sum of my previous experiences
impressed upon my genetic makeup.
A candle doesn’t care if it’s dark or light;
the utility of an object is, well, duh.

Tryst

Blue-spoken earth, half in shadow
half in light, the sign white-taped
to a wet-looking red door. Knock
three times and whisper, “Contredanse
with me, Marie, for we are going to the sea.”

And when it opens, mouths keep
shut, and eyes all close and lips
draw part, and entrance steps click
concrete ground, tick tock tick
for what is found in spinning into bare

each other's arms, around and a-
rowing-round, mouths kept shut
and lips kept parted, contredanse
of clicking tongues, in half shadow
in half light, circling in and out of sight.

Ten Things So Far I Did This Morning Barely Started

Sleep in.
Think fresh.
Pass gas.
Brush teeth.

Shower, shave.
Get dressed.
Nothin' fancy.
Step down.

Eat Heart-
To-Heart
Drink Silk.
Sit down.

Look back.
Half-hour
Lifetime.
Write down.

Proverbs of Heck (35)

All ambition, no heart. Better to fail
at a thousand poems going for a great one
than to write a hundred good ones? It takes
a visage. Ambition is not about scale;
it's all about aim and paying attention.
Making your way in the world today is abstract,
which is another problem with ambition:
it's too easy to point to after the fact.
Nothing to say and tired of saying it:
the middle manager's burden. Cash in
your chips or let it roll? Ambition snakes
and snarls, greases and growls, and leads you to
the crap table. If you can't stand the heat
don't cry for air and continue to tweet.

Cleaning Out the Gutters

A hand cut among the leaves.
Hair in the eye blocking the sun.
In the gray of the white aluminum
crease, old rain like cold, colorless
blood. The stink of many seasons.
The cut hand scoops the sludge.
The one-note chip of a chipping
sparrow hopping along the fence.
Sneakered feet on a squeaky rung
over the car moans coming from
the other side of the home.
I should probably climb down
and see about washing it out
but I care to as much as I care not.

Proverbs of Heck (34)

“Wisdom is cold and to that extent stupid.”
Tom Clark wrote that once, and now I can, too,
but only because I saw it published in
The American Poetry Review. That’s the squid
in the pool I am hoping to wade through
quietly. Quiet, you know, like when
school is in. I don't want to tear down the walls
of the malls like when I was young, but I still
want to peel off the price tags. Anarchy,
why did I leave you? You don't take my calls;
you erase my messages. Time is a shrill
laugh, more couldn’t-care-less than snarky,
but it doesn’t last forever. Justice is lapsed
where the good are left to apartments of collapse.

Proverbs of Heck (33)

The Buddha knows there is no drudgery
even in a service economy
as long as you keep your self out of it
with right concentration and mindfulness
and don't violate the requirements
of there's-a-right-way-to-make-a-living,
and it helps to remember to stop now
and then to knock on the sky and listen to
the sound, but not while operating
heavy machinery or walking through
the halls of a hospital or high school,
then it's best to swallow the nothingness
and make like something is happening as
every move you make is making you, too.

Cleaning Out the Gutters

A hand cut among the leaves.
Hair in the eye blocking the sun.
In the gray of the white aluminum
crease, old rain like cold, colorless
blood. The stink of many seasons.
The cut hand scoops the sludge.
The one-note chip of a chipping
sparrow hopping along the fence.
Sneakered feet on a squeaky rung
over the car moans coming from
the other side of the home.

Proverbs of Heck (32)

You can't drink water from an empty cup.
Too much water in the mouth will choke even
the thirstiest man. Art should be useful
like a toothbrush with gold bristles. Shut up
and let the scenery take you through the scene
you were about to make. It's beautiful
to listen, but more beautiful to respond.
Sometimes the best answer isn't a question
but simply silence, with or without a smile.
You can do better than take me by the hand. ;-)
Words without lips are bullets without a gun.
Say it. To speak is a spoke in the wheel
of the mountain bike we ride over the hills
and far away where nobody will hear us.

Beach Abstract

Tone, beach, calm nothing
no feet to spy, no walk
see change, fling palm open
chalk it up to why the meat
can't help but feel shame
ring-billeds dot horizon like
I looks for you with eyes closed

        &

say something
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
say something
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
say something
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
say something
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

        &

plastic shovel Dashiell
break-a-dawn Vaughn
UV trace me KC
give-a-damn I am

        &

A failure to explore the details.
My failure. To pick up the shell and look
inside it, feel it with fingertips
and describe it with something like
urgency. Calm emergency.
Like how it is when I meet someone for
the first time. Not shyness but
an utter disappearance of words.
No speak. And no see probably.
If I try real hard I get Radio waves,
I'm on the table, and Sail boat momma.

        &

say something
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
say something
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
say something
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
say something
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Cleaning Out the Gutters

A hand cut among the leaves.

Hair in the eye blocking the sun.

In the gray of the white aluminum

crease, old rain like cold, colorless

blood. The stink of many seasons.

The cut hand scoops the sludge.

I wanted to write something like

I wanted to write something like Words for Love
I wanted to write something like The Rain
I wanted to write something like Some Trees
I wanted to write something Like musical instruments / abandoned in a field

I wanted to write something like Often I Am Permitted To Return to a Meadow
I wanted to write something like Every Morning I Forget How It Is
I wanted to write something like The Cities
I wanted to write something like Stray Animals

I wanted to write something like The Lion for Real
I wanted to write something like The Coming of Light
I wanted to write something like the 1st Light Poem: For Iris
I wanted to write something like lighght

I wanted to write something like A Step Away from Them
I wanted to write something like A Little Boy Lost
I wanted to write something like a New Song in an Old Style
I wanted to write something like All of the Fruits Had Fallen

I wanted to write something like a Letter In November
I wanted to write something like December
I wanted to write something like Sleep and Poetry
I wanted to write something like The Snow Is Deep on the Ground

I wanted to write something like I Climb Alone
I wanted to write something like I Went into the Maverick Bar
I wanted to write something like I Remember
I wanted to write something like Mountain Words

I wanted to write something like French Poems Translated by Kenneth Rexroth
I wanted to write something like Dream debris
I wanted to write something like Musical Variations
I wanted to write something like the martyrology

I wanted to write something like Geography
I wanted to write something like Rivers and Mountains
I wanted to write something like Andalusian Fog
I wanted to write something like The World Is Round

I wanted to write something like The Flea Market in Kiel
I wanted to write something like a Song of the Andoumboulou
I wanted to write something like What the Tree Said Lifted
I wanted to write something like The Fire Mumbles On

I wanted to write something like Early Spring
I wanted to write something like Clouded Sky
I wanted to write something like In a Dark Time
I wanted to write something like Whitman in Black

I wanted to write something like Ye Goat-Herd Gods
I wanted to write something like Floating Gardens
I wanted to write something like The Burning Babe
I wanted to write something like Thou Shalt Not Kill

I wanted to write something like The Madonna in Me
I wanted to write something like The Force that through the Green Fuse
          Drives the Flower
I wanted to write something like My Hate
I wanted to write something like Busking

I wanted to write something like The Moon
I wanted to write something like The Woods
I wanted to write something like The Tortoise
I wanted to write something like A Deer

I wanted to write something like The Why of the Wind
I wanted to write something like Ants Dissolve in Moonlight
I wanted to write something like Elephants in the Zoo
I wanted to write something like They Loved These Things Too

I wanted to write something like a Highway to the Sky
I wanted to write something like Some Litanies
I wanted to write something like a History of France
I wanted to write something like Reading Moby-Dick at 30,000 Feet

I wanted to write something like Wire
I wanted to write something like Pax
I wanted to write something like China
I wanted to write something like Loop

I wanted to write something like The Welder
I wanted to write something like The Ticket Collector
I wanted to write something like Don't leave me / all alone. Wait
I wanted to write something like a Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

I wanted to write something like There's a certain Slant of light
I wanted to write something like Cold Water
I wanted to write something like The Constancy of Dirt and Joy
I wanted to write something like THE LOSS OF ETERNITY

I wanted to write something like Six Buildings
I wanted to write something like Sleep in Ur
I wanted to write something like a Moment Fugue
I wanted to write something like The Death of Guillaume Apollinaire

I wanted to write something like The Age of Gold
I wanted to write something like Nothing So Far
I wanted to write something like Goodbye
I wanted to write something like Walking Away

Grumpy Banana

Too bad it wasn't Mother Mary.

Proverbs of Heck (31)

It's not the heat but the humidity, meaning
it's the memories really, more than the life
itself. A vague notion is a fortune.
Sitting and thinking is good housecleaning.
Good poetry is carved out with a knife
while squatting in a storm that feels like sun
in your hair and kisses along your shoulder.
With art it's not always bad to lose sight
of your target; in war it will end your day.
We wake up from our dreams and nightmares older
and wiser when we understand them right.
Indulge the chattering mind until it walks
away and settles down under the oak
to fashion art out of silence like clay.

Proverbs of Heck (30)

To watch two people dance, the patience of one
is required. Don't judge a person until
you have walked the same river twice. Great anger
licks your neck. Don't bargain for fish, make friends
with the crocodile. The pain is sometimes still
in the water out in the midday sun. Two moons
in any man's moccasins qualifies you
as old school. Better to sit in a crooked river
than stand in a straight road. When the devil leaves
a lot of people act like saints. There's nothing so
eloquent as children in a graveyard.
Nothing takes patience like stamping out weeds.
Words without lips are arrows without a bow.
Guardian of milk, glare and growl and bark.

Cleaning Out the Gutters

A hand cut among the leaves.

Hair in the eye blocking the sun.

Dust be fine

Dust be fine.	Line be swift.
Death be wine.	Catch be drift.
Much be made.	Naught be now.
Touch be swayed.	Kiss be growl.
Swear by God.	Tear by swing.
Soul be sod.	Sweat be sing.
Grit be clear.	Bird be kind.
Grow by fear.	Be by mind.
Tame be time.	Tune be high.
Come be mime.	Tell be lie.
Go be swan.	Greet be gone.
Night be dawn.	Great be gone.

Ongoing

Webs and dust collected on books
I step on a crumb and it sticks my foot
A very old crumb
          from the last administration.

How much for my
Achoo?
          Not enough crumbs in the world.

Maroon Leaves

I haven't been myself of late
More like a stray
        peering through the V of a tree

Maroon leaves
I forget so much what page I'm on

Alone in the living room with my wife
Dark smells of summer grass

Open window cars hiss
Reading her book reading mine

A jogger goes by —
        Dear tree, What is sway? —
I go with her, like the blossoms.

Proverbs of Heck (29)

You can’t write a novel on a monk’s bald skull
but you might try haiku. “Nothing sacred”
is a means to an end, not a license
to not give a shit. An end is a beginning.
Even the last out of the World Series
starts the off season. The ass begins the leg.
The last page of a book begins the real
thinking about it. Only death may be
really final, but how's that feed the poor?
When you check out the cherry blossoms don’t
fall in the pond. More than a hundred different
cherry tree varieties can be found in
Japan; knowing them all is its own reward.
Love is a blossom caressed by a sword.

Proverbs of Heck (28)

The best songs implore us to show our bones.
Just because a person has a warrior's eyes
doesn't mean he's not a coward. It's not
in the seed, but in the deeds to be done.
“Does he hold you” like I want to? “Will he
ever bow down and die?” The words from a song
you never get to play for the one you meant
to play them for, those are the most dear, no?
I have a feeling you will agree with me
in time. Déjà vu. A few black check marks
cutting up the blue. I feel for you
is French for the things I want to do to you.
I is a proverb, a walking manifesto.
Who makes things only about himself is lost.

Cleaning Out the Gutters

A hand cut among the leaves.

Center

I walk behind them
up the sidewalk
between the tall buildings
and the short

past the bookstore
past the movie theater
past the bistro
past the pharmacy

we are at the center
and the center is on the move
stepping through sunlight
sweating through our shirts

someone is calling
my name I turn around
but no one is there
looking for me

Proverbs of Heck (27)

You can't cling to water. You can't cling to
fire. You can't cling to air. You can, of course,
cling to earth, but after the storm that has
you clinging in the first place passes, you
must make sure to wash yourself off. Some would
have you believe that poetry is more
important than soap. Look at Poetry Daily
and you will see way too many poems
still referencing “the gods” (if you don't believe
me, go to their archives now and sort by Poet).
Content yourself with rice; distract yourself
with tea. Despite all of the hubbub from
the other side, the President was just
another crab cake revolutionary.

The Unconverted

I wouldn't say much, maybe “Oh, really,” as I raise my eyebrows
and nod my head, all the while thinking You're a crazy mother-
fucker and That deer didn't say shit. Oh, yes, I know, we're animals,
too: are you sure you didn't get down on all fours and rub noses?

Yellow Explosion Fragment

The yellow explosion, a vortex
from the solar plexus
the yellow light of God or thoughts
of God, the yellow eye mask not over
closed eyes but over the exploded brow
a yellow face mask choker
under the lips reflecting
the yellow explosion, the vortex
the many people with their well-dressed backs turned
to the yellow burning of intuitive knowledge
the one with hands clasped over head
the human body as yellow and blue missile
projecting itself through granite cones
the yellow socks, suffering smiles
so far away from the dream-champion hands

A Frog's Tale

I sat down on
a lily pad
next to Lorine
Neidecker. I
said The sky is
a laundromat,
and she wondered
how I knew that
and knew what got
rinsed and spun in
those sudsy clouds.
I croaked loudly
and then so did
she, silently.

A Mid-Summer's Regret

Outside the sun is bleeding over the earth—
that hot, that humid, that overstated.
I don't want to want the day to end, but I do.
The AC turns on and the dust dangling
from the filter flutters like a couple of cocoons
on a frail branch. In the spring you said
you were moving north, and then you did.
I remember the many bird squadrons that day
just before the zombies came wobbling up
over the hill and descended on us. It was
a good thing I had held onto Grandpa Charlie's
flamethrower—I had told you it would come in
handy someday. I saved our lives and now
I wish I had only saved yours and died a hero.

Proverbs of Heck (26)

Form is emptiness and emptiness is
a mouthful. Poetry is water down
the wrong pipe. Life is a roller coaster
without any turns: what appear to be
turns are just optical illusions brought on
by an incomplete perspective. It's true.
I know my shit. As I'm sure you know yours.
A missed goodbye is lemon in the eye.
Love is a river you should make friends with
the crocodile. A smooth sea is not as
it ought to be. When ambition ends, cook
a small fish. Good fences give back to the earth.
Sorrow is a red wagon collecting rain.
Standing water means mosquitos.

Proverbs of Heck (25)

At the supermarket one notices
an empty carriage makes the most noise.
Someone else's cookie always looks bigger.
A kitchen knife doesn't know the butcher's work.
Speak of the tiger, travel a thousand miles.
Talk nice to other people, even a dog
can recite a poem. Words have no wings
but there is a hole from which you can escape.
It's darkest beneath a mountain. There's no sleep
beneath a lampshade. Gather dust. Stay humble
to kill a fly. Wise men sleep with the door
lock broken. The thief hates a smiling face.
The rabbit's haste is born of fear; the turtle's
slowness, thought. The tiger keeps them moving.

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