I evict. The most I must
kill is a mouse. A rat.
Just a tray of
clear glue. And then
squealing.
It is said: dirt is matter out of place.
How long did it wait, unknowing, for
me? Unable to free its
paws.
I need pliers to clean
it. Reset
it. It
squealed. It took
three blows of
my hammer.
13 weeks after
tears and trepidation,
it happens quickly. You
wrought to sound;
she the seashell
woman you hide inside.
The day you first spoke to
me; I put my ear
to our blood ontology.
like first steps,
like the sea.
Hollowed, the body upon a table; no verbs for
the inanimate, a cicada shell.
And men in long coats have removed them;
peeled flesh - skull over face -
sawn through bone
cracking walnuts for the meat inside;
each soft and hidden part apprised;
the inside of your breast, the open boat
of your body sprayed clean of gristle;
blood pooling, numbered.
Those sullen limbs have
lost integrity to knife, hose,
microphone.
But who else holds the bodies of the dead;
thumbs the clayed flesh of your father;
that last and longest intimacy?
No better lover has had
such indifferent hands, no other
judge such objective compassion.
Look.
It demands only,
the act of seeing with one’s eyes.
For Cleveland
So that others need not follow my example.
So that we may no longer be called Job’s children.
So the spoor of our smokestack heart can be impaled
by its steeple surrounds. So there shall be a reckoning.
So what buoys is more than memories from a
generous pour. So sinister becomes dexter.
So rock rolls from our souls again.
And because here we are all immigrants. Because old steel
workers know the difference between strong and hard.
Because a homeless man’s benediction inhabits Euclid Avenue
like wind off the lake. Because we are poor but defiant.
Because this will not succeed without human sacrifice.
Because I drink the water of the Cuyahoga.
Because tooth and nail is my kind of city.
I’d completely forgotten that April is National Poetry Month. Usually I throw a contest and try to write a poem a day, but I’ve been so damn busy lately that it completely slipped my mind. I would offer a poem by way of apology, but I’ve got to get going to a meeting. Woops.
a wryneck for ronv and James Agee
When our best effort grips no pen, last-falling ink illegible;
When deconstructed grins edge tooth and bone;
When graves or ash scatter truth; When the day
drone mutes; the night downs around;
When the fluted thrust of grass or hands evade autopsy;
When: forget roses; When
the breath bankrupts and
hours lose their turn; Then the trust
surrender; Then the joining of hand to hand;
Then a certain mend or heal will crust over eyes [thank you];
Then the blessed scrawls dove-flutter [please];
Then the bells buttressed peal to kindred;
Then naught but kind decay abrawl in rest.
So our free writ remains the epitaph.
When I was first working on this I posted it by accident. Woefully, unfinished. To paraphrase Bruce Campbell: Well maybe I didn’t follow every last wryneck rule, but basically, yeah, I did. Don’t kill me.
a wryneck for Wascovich
If we were rust brothers before the rain and salt Before
there were no scarcities of tanks to tread
Before the slow toe warehouse of sound was a real
knife in my head Before the shine of steel nativity
Before we trussed the tracks for holocaust Before
sanctity forest murder black-coat cacophony
If we are rust, brother
Th[r]ough beer stale traceries and graffiti pissers
Though rage-cocked shout mastery pays no bills
Th[r]ough the bend sinister wending neighbor indolent
insolence neverending
Though weeks pass between fistclicks Though through
the rough thought caustic chaos meaning emergent life spark
Still we rust brothers
Probably my favorite thing about Rafeeq is that he tells his truth and damn you if you can’t handle it. The other night at his reading at the Lit he told us that unless we write from personal experience and belief our stuff is going to continue sucking. I’ve been really struggling with writing lately, and I think this is because I’ve been trying to train myself into some sort of conformity to status quo and acceptable emotion. I’ve been putting an emotional condom on my poetry. Rafeeq’s stuff is very personal, and reading it in front of a bunch of white folks who’ve probably never even seen the inside of a jail cell must seem so futile. Paraphrasing, he said that though we might appreciate his writing, we can’t empathize with it, and that’s very true. I’ve never seen the inside of a jail cell, and while I can’t empathize with the experience, I can empathize with the frustration that he must sometimes feel. I’m just grateful that he’s sometimes willing to share those strange sides to me. Once Andy posts the video of Rafeeq I’ll link to it here.
I signed up for a membership at the gym two blocks from my workplace yesterday and got up at 5:30am this morning and rode the 23 in for my first workout. I feel like I’m in the worst shape of my life, and I likely am, so I made sure to take it easy. There is a room where they have group exercise, but as none of the classes are scheduled until 8 or so, I have it all to myself for some basic calisthenics and happy-joy fencing footwork. I did that for about twenty minutes, had a good long stretch and then ran for a half hour on the treadmill and watched some dude stab an inflatable snowman on television. A set of crunches later and I hit the showers: without a towel. [This oversight will be remedied tomorrow.] There is also a room at Fitworks [warning: noise] where they show movies, a sort of treadmill cineplex, where people can run in the dark and zone out. They were showing Christmas at the Kranks yesterday. I wonder if I can convince them to play Criterion films…
One block from work is a CVS, where I imagine I’ll be getting my post-workout breakfasts. I bought some yogurt and granola bars today. Riding the gym, in the dark, on the bus, listening to Orion by Metallica, I felt like I was having a real-life training montage.
The city steams on winter mornings
like a spent horse
buses squall
in the dark
lockers hold ties
and work boots
another
heart pumps legs
pump heat hunts for
release—
powering this
restive beast called Cleveland.
At first,
a hip sway
a bough bending in the wind
reiteration.
Fishmarket lovers wrapped
in classifieds
fingernail
collarbone
leg slide
naked, up
past our bedtimes.
Our laughter has sticky
fingers and a sudden
sunrise.
When I look at her I
feel like a man.
That old crutch called
objectify.
Still,
when she talks I listen—
as if words mean
more when she
says them.
I liberated this idea and made little books of my shorter poems. I didn’t want to invest too much time into it, and since I’ve been going through another Eric Gill phase I thought to make it a limited edition. It is a limited edition of 25 +1 and I’m going to sell them at $1 apiece tonight at the C-Space benefit with the proceeds going to C-Space.
One of my next projects will be to create a somewhat useful poetry page on my site, with audio samples, and a way to get these lazy limited editions if there are leftovers. I’ve been feeling crafty lately.
The city is tired
and the people are watching
tired
of watching the city’s
collision
bend sinister,
with the same sorrow
and the same song
and the same
sometimes.
We, the city,
harrowed,
the valiant
hence.
Kookaburras
watch
and
laugh
and
wonder
why nothing
happens.
Why time is laconic;
abrupt.
Performance note: Wear “who the fuck is tremont?” shirt if reading.
This needs to go somewhere else, but right now I don’t know where to take it and maintain its sparseness.
v.2
The city is tired
and the people are watching
tired
of watching the city’s
collision
bend sinister.
The streets roll over in their sleep.
Where are the valiant
on the ten o’clock news?
Who still wonders
why time is laconic;
abrupt
Still not right, but better.
Because I don’t watch
TV, all women [except
skinny ones]
become more interesting.
People ask: “How do
you keep up with
the news?” and I say
“She could use another
10 pounds.”
At the creek I found
the older boys’
stash of beer.
Cans sailed over rocks
like drunken philosophers,
beards floating on the water.
Induction and alcohol
spilled from their mouths
while I made crawfish
fight.
I’ve always wanted
somebody to love
me.
Somebody
I’ve always wanted
to love.
me.
I should have been
a small appliance
repairman. I should have
taken more drugs.
I would have
gotten high and
talked to broken toasters
saying “Does it
hurt
when I do
this?”
Take my advice;
tell a story.
Two men set across a valley,
have many adventures
and return home safely.
If you still have loose jaws after—
that
is the moral
there remains a cauldron
inside you—your speaking
grew less or more than you wanted
as I grew less
or more
or differently
than she wanted.
Who is she? My mother
thinks this is about her, my girl
thinks this is about her, but
the mad tongue
begs retelling; this is about a
story.
I have a sad friend [like water] who
wears a large hat to keep the sun
from his face
[I want to tell him Sing!]
and a fat friend with
a typewriter shuffling letters
that shake the sky when he reads.
[I want to catch that lightning]
And an old friend who plays
dead-fingered guitar and a
friend I’ve never met who
will not use his dying
grandfather as an excuse
to write.
[If only I had their morals]
Because here I am writing—
about them and their
dying grandfathers
and reading
about them and their
dying grandfathers
and I am
angry because I will
not hesitate to do this
even
when I still
can’t tell the story.
They understand; [I hope]
we are subservient
to what is inside.
I would
sell my grandmother for tuppence and
still try to talk my way into heaven,
as if life is just practice
for that last great excuse.
the mad tongue
begs retelling.
I changed a definite article and “am/angry” to “howl” in v1.1.
v1.1
Take my advice;
tell a story.
Two men set across a valley,
have many adventures
and return home safely.
If you still have loose jaws after—
that
is the moral
there remains a cauldron
inside you—your speaking
grew less or more than you wanted
as I grew less
or more
or differently
than she wanted.
Who is she? My mother
thinks this is about her, my girl
thinks this is about her, but
a mad tongue
begs retelling; this is about a
story.
I have a sad friend [like water] who
wears a large hat to keep the sun
from his face
[I want to tell him Sing!]
and a fat friend with
a typewriter shuffling letters
that shake the sky when he reads.
[I want to catch that lightning]
And an old friend who plays
dead-fingered guitar and a
friend I’ve never met who
will not use his dying
grandfather as an excuse
to write.
[If only I had their morals]
Because here I am writing—
about them and their
dying grandfathers
and reading
about them and their
dying grandfathers
and I
howl because I will
not hesitate to do this
even
when I still
can’t tell the story.
They understand; [I hope]
we are subservient
to what is inside.
I would
sell my grandmother for tuppence and
still try to talk my way into heaven,
as if life is just practice
for that last great excuse.
the mad tongue
begs retelling.
Hate breeds
Hate.
I write
catch!
on a shell and
throwit
at
theFuture.
pass it on
play Death
Tele
phone
the only
game where
last picked
is
best.
children
stone
window
haring
off.
———-
v2.0
children
stone
window
haring
off.
laughter
time is
laconic
abrupt.
we
ex/ins/
res/pers
-ist
in
singularity
.
-for Nick Traenkner
There is alcohol in me tonight, alcohol
and yes I have breathed in smoke and
breathed it back out out to you surrounded
by words unctuous, bombastic, evangelical.
Dress me in horse hair, the hair what was once
a horse and a belt of leather from what was once
a cow so costumed words take on legitimacy
or invest me in silks as the new pope of continual
omnipotent excess. The dirt of life is death
death death! The dirt of life is the fruit of death.
The dirt of life is a scientific experiment where
you tread on wheels while I spume and wrack at
you, your bare feet hatched with the turning
tide. Proud in persistence. I will talk until
you listen.
-for Eric Alleman
He works at
the Record Exchange. I didn’t
know this until I
saw him there.
I knew him despite
his lost
play-off beard. He did not
know me.
He was not
friendly, this man of intent
gesture.
His voice:
a thumb
holding your face
to the wall.
Outside
you hear something
howling.
I’m writing poems about poets I’ve seen in Cleveland. They’re meant to be read in the reading styles of aforementioned poets.
I am going
outside
and there is
nothing
you can do about
it.
racecar rraceca
acecarr racecar
cecarra acecarr weres
ecarrac cecarra awari
carrace ecarrac rends
arracec carrace
rraceca arracec
flckr shdw
ftprnt
thndr rmbl
trnchct
wckr rstv
bmbl b
wnch thrt
cght cgh
mth rhthm
pm slp drk
ngl wth grs
fr wngs
Do me a favor, buy some vowels, fill ‘em in above and tell me what you think it says. Y’r m gn pg.
Martin Luther King
has got better things to do
than put his hearse here.
You are pretty with birds
on your arms. One day
I will startle them and
they will carry you into
the sky to see the heart
laid out below and feel
my smile in your hair.
v.2
You are pretty with birds
on your arms. One day —
startled into
the sky —
A heart laid at
your feet —
a smile in
your hair.
At Sterling Pond the reeds are old women whispering; the redwinged blackbird a priest with a martyr’s stole. It will not cease to preach nor the wind kill its wild sermon. This is where you were beautiful all those years ago, when we walked along the shore listening to small waves and tree frogs, hand-in-hand. When we walked on the stones like drunken things and found ourselves surrounded by drumlins. I kissed you then, and they watched with flickering hope in their patient resignation, as waves wash them through the winter. I return alone, as I did on that day so long ago, and wash my hands until next year.
My first key had no keyhole
but I felt grown up anyway. I had
responsibility now, and secrets
though even I did not know what
lay behind its lock. I would play
with my parent’s keys and ask
them to tell me stories about
each, this one opens the
door to work, where things I
wasn’t quite grown up enough
to understand were done so that
I could have Frosted Flakes and
new shoes.
for Megan
I don’t trust the postman. My letters
arrive in a certain order on certain
days where the shadows of limbs cross
on the mailbox like a lock. I never hear him
arrive; I try to watch for him but always
something makes me look away—Nicodemus wanting
water, flickering leaves, a strange noise
from my other room—and a full box
a moment later. Who is this phantom in
blue, impersonal herald?
I take my letters to the post office, affixing
the stamps like seals on a pharaoh’s tomb,
preserved thoughts, the paper folded
just so, the creases tight and strong. I
hope the rain won’t smear the
address. Anticipation and
the scratch of my pen.
He saddled his
Sopwith Camel
and went on a milk
run for some cheese.
snap trap!
No more
Ace in his hole.
Billy the Bully, a
school-yard terror,
likes lunch money
shakedowns and
pulling girls’ hair.
He’s mean and
mad and rude and
big. Even the
teachers think
he’s a pig. But
I’m his friend.
Sisyphus and Tantalus
are arm-wrestling on
their coffee break. One
has cracked and dusty
fingers hard as rolled stone.
One has algae in his hair
and lips like the Gobi.
Sisyphus is stronger, but
Tantalus talks good fish-
tongued trash. They’ve
got a bet. Each wants
what the other has, but
break time is over.
I haven’t written a poem of even middling quality this month. I haven’t been able to get my head in the right spot. I can’t reach the tipping point that I usually stumble on when free-writing that sparks creativity. Very frustrating.
When the siege and assault
had ceased at Troy, Aeneas
paid me a visit. I offered him
some plantains and he told me
“vegetables are what
food eats.” He strode around
my wattle and daub, grimacing.
Pulled on white gloves as if
it were inspection day,
my billet a master work
of jackleg engineering. He
asked if I was still a loyal Son
of Ilium
and opened my cupboard.
He asked:
“Do you have any whisky?” and
“This place is far too dirty. You
must clean it
if I am to stay the night.”
I wanted to explain that my home
was made of dirt; that I had
no meat to provide. Yet what
does one say to our savior? My
hand grips the sickle. There are
crops to get in.
The first clause is taken from the first line of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight [Tolkien's translation, naturally] and the “vegetables are what food eats” was taken from here.
Every ime I wri e his
ll of he s, s, and s
dis ppe r. I hi k here
mus be e er
hidi g be ween he li es.
A great cloud of smoke hanged
over town. The color of my mother’s
lungs, orange-dawned sky, white
birds ravelled like thread. The
Goodyear clock hadn’t been lit
in months and even then it
only flashed the wrong time.
Okay, so
Tom Waits, Roberto Begnini
and John Lurie are in a
jail in Lousiana and they’ve
got one cigarette left. The
concrete walls sweat with
humidity and the mattresses
stink like stale sweat and dry
urine. These guys have one
cigarette and a pack of cards.
Begnini don’t play gin
and Lurie won’t play spades.
Waits would play with himself
but the others might see. So
no one uses the cards and
instead they all worry about
that last smoke. Lurie’s
got the coffin-nail in his pocket
he knows he’ll have to share it
if he lights it up. Maybe if he
waits until the others are asleep.
Waits sticks to his bunk like an old gym sock
and Lurie paces. Begnini won’t shut up.
They’re all thinking about the last
cigarette. Well, Waits is thinking about
waiting until Lurie falls asleep and stealing it.
His name is patient. Begnini is thinking about
baked ziti and what it felt like to crush
a man’s skull with a pool ball.
They are a good egg, down by law.
I watched Jim Jarmusch’s Down By Law a while back.
oh,
[it is like leaping once from a mountain,
then kneeling at
the earth's core;
with wind still whistling
past your ears]
yes.
I have cut them
three times and they
are still too short.
I will
force
it.
Save me a dollar
my matreshki, work
bigger in smaller.
When I steal your
sheep, thank me
for doing it.
Say: “Verily!
Ye corporate
gods.”
jet fuel does not burn
at first; there must be
that first spark there must
always have been a first
spark, like when we greeted
each other our hellos
collided and there was a
flash but no clap
of thunder
though there
should have been and the
sound of trumpets or at
least something more than
just hello.
Here I am in love with a ball
of hydrogen ninety-three
million miles from me and
every animal
[including man]
enjoys
being scratched behind
the ears.
The entryway always smelled like something rotten
in late summer. We didn’t have time to
do more than wrinkle our noses, Billy and me,
those double-glass doors with the wire inside
were just part of the distance
between mom’s apartment and the street outside,
like the torn and curled rubber on the stairwell
like the scary old woman who yelled at us in Italian
while we played stickball.
When Leon got his head put through the drywall
I was the one who found him the next morning
when I brought the trash downstairs. His head was
still stuck through like you do at the strong-man
cut-out at the amusement park. The cops
hauled him out and he was laid out in a suit I hadn’t
known he’d owned next time I saw him.
When the man came to fix the hole, he tore out
the whole wall and found a pile of bat skeletons
rattled together in a skein of bones with one
live bat on top.
None of these this week have been any good, but they do have potential. The biggest problem with this one is that it doesn’t have a point, although I think there are glimmers of one. It is loosely based on actual bats that lived [and regularly died] in the entryway of my house on Stoneybrook Lane. The crazy Italian grandmother was real too.
¿ is a
naked lightbulb
always a good idea
-
When she walks
her hips curl like
smoke and back
room deals
-
old now
bent like
a question mark
-
she bends from
? to ! in his arms
then
.
-
imperative?
imperative.
imperative!
-
What you say?
there is a caul of dust on the stairs
where, past his bedtime, he used to
watch freedom through banister rungs
the feet on handmedown pajamas
too large; sleeves
too short.
he still wonders
what they meant
by
“you’ll grow into it.”
If you can’t tell already, this is speed poetry week. I’m spending ten minutes or less on these, although I will go back and workshop ‘em as time permits. This one in particular I think I’d like to flesh out.
When the bell rings he
comes from all angles, short
water drop jabs to face
and shoulders; feet cat-confident
sly-eyed with years of training.
later, a single uppercut
undercut slips by and while
he takes it standing, the
judges declare
defeat by decision.
This one goes out to anyone who has ever worked extremely hard for something only to be [what it seems like] arbitrarily dismissed as unworthy for that very thing. It needs plenty of work, but I’ll save that for later. Workshopping is always welcome on these.
rail
spli
tter
tall
like
pine
thin
like
reed
lick
any
man
that
will
wet
his
horns.
you’ll
talk’em
down
first
if you
can or
if you
cain’t
you’ll
put
fire on
the
mountain
and in
our
bellies
teach
us to
speak
lead
lead us
to
speak
of your
speaking
as of
prophets
and
martyrs
you
were
all
of us
and
so we
pay
homage
at
your
monu
ment.
leader.
grim
visaged
American.
Well National Poetry Month is here and I’m going to write a poem each day Monday through Friday until it is over, much like last year. Today, since I watched a movie about Lincoln last night, my attempted poem is about Lincoln.
heartbeat
hear
eart
h
beat
be
he r
ear
art
bea
r t
he
hea t
I don’t think I woke up because of the silence. And in any case it wasn’t as completely silent as I led myself to believe. Initially, I thought that I was wheezing; something that only happens when I’m sleeping in a place that has cats. I took a deep breath to test this out, but I was breathing easy. Then I realized that the sound I was hearing was my heartbeat. Not just the “What does a heartbeat sound like, Timmy?” sound that Timmy would make if someone asked Timmy what a heartbeat sounded like, but something almost preternaturally keen. I could hear and feel my blood being pushed into my ventricles and flowing into and outof my veins and arteries. A heartbeat sounds nothing like what Timmy thinks it sounds like. You don’t hear pauses between the beats, it is almost like listening to the tides of the sea.
So now I’ve tried an attempt at concrete poetry and another thing.
- thanks to Joseph Campbell
“Through me; the way to the woeful city;”1
a hero
with a thousand faces;2
a story you
always wanted to hear.
We continue
though we know we continue
ending.
A desolation of hope.
That is the story.
and I say: This
must be
a prophetic life-
Why else cry to the deserted places?
Why seek wisdom on mountains?
—
1 INFERNO III, 1
2 The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
I think this one is going to remain in pieces; appropriate I suppose. The main ideas are there, but I think the tone is wrong and that is why I can’t get them to bind. Any suggestions?
we wrote love poems
before pomo.
now, all must
represent,
symbolize.
not just
your body
under mine
its
t
w
ist;
but also,
a hand;
under the
table.
A run across Carnegie Bridge,
I see for miles.
The north
rock towers,
Lake Erie
distance. Underfoot
swans tack the
Cuyahoga snow crust.
Art deco, overhead
eyes swaddling Cleveland,
steel carved in stone on
steel under stone.
Traffic
is light.
There is silence
even in my stride. The pace
a great muffler:
my girl,
her slow smile,
that dead-end job like
dish duty.
now
else
where
wires in my calves
tighten unstrung
rewind. That heart
beats—
my
heart?
—slowly faster.
The south is
a whole county
of people; none running.
Amen.
Amen I say.
Still Sunday, a pilgrim
eastward, mantra of
foot in front
of foot
body bends to
shape the street
eyes on graffiti, backs
of billboards,
concrete concentrate
mouths forget words
feet forget miles
This tang of street salt;
this winter air.
2.12.2006
-for r.a.washington
These are-
granite days,
they demand-
hard men,
fortifications
of strange shapes
watchwords-
must blend in
We split
the rift
wider-
brother gives
grift- but my
words are
foreign currency
in his hands.
The songbirds
The long words
spill into our
ears- “from
whence came ye,
wanderer? to
loiter in the eaves
of spring.”
”I cannot fiddle,
but I can make
a great state
from a little city.”1
Local anomalies
in the second law
of thermodynamics.2
-raw vocalized.
Watch
the candle’s wick.
The times change
and light multiplies
but men remain
the same. Their
tongues estranged
by taxonomy.
I hit you
because I am
small.
And you are not
like me.
I am small, but
territorial.
Any truce
segregates our
speech, as war is
two cheaper
than peace.
How do I solve
for x in a language
that has no letters?
these riddles of
arranging adjectives.
—-
1 cf. Themistocles
2 cf. James Blish
I’ve been working on this for a few weeks now and I think it is finally sounding good enough to appear here. I’m still trying to tighten up some of the words and images, and smooth out some of the rhyme. Any suggestions or questions or workshopping would be appreciated.
Bachelorhood:
I have four
different kinds
of mustard
in my fridge
but no mayo.
Today is for
you; for today
is you; euphoria
is to dance more
enhance your
glory; ignite
incite rewrite
history; trust
mystery; reform
horror storys
and remind all
to recall today;
for today is you
if
you are for today.
Doggerel helps dust out the bats in the belfry.
[initial late-night jot]
the minnows are flown in to camp
on a single-prop sea-plane and
kept aerated in an open-top
Coke machine. At dawn I go
get a dozen or two, depending on
how well we hope to fish.
The wind is good for walleye
who hunt in muddy water and
are themselves hunted
by me. I take off my glove
and thrust my hand into the minnow
bucket, grabbing a handful
and letting all but the fattest
swim free. Hook through open
mouth and secured through the
thin calcified bone of its head,
twisted, secured again through
the spine and finally put in
the water. Routine. I wipe a bit of
blood on a towel
smelling like a week of fish slime
tug my glove on with my teeth
dream of dry feet and torn aluminum
with mushrooms, peppers, and
a bit of fish. if i’m lucky.
[v 1.0]
The minnows are aerated in an antique
Coke machine. At dawn I get
a dozen or two, it’s hope,
not necessity.
Lake-wind
is good for walleye,
hunting in muddy water-
themselves hunted
by me.
I take off my glove
thrust into the minnow
bucket, clutch a handful
and let all but the fattest
swim free.
Then routine hook
through open mouth,
barb-puncture the
calcified bone of its skull-
twist, secure again through
the spine. I wipe a bit of
blood on a towel covered
in a week’s accretion of fish slime
tug my glove on with my teeth,
turn my back to the wind.
[v 2.0]
These Canadians keep their minnows aerated
in a rusting Coke machine. At dawn I get
a dozen or two, for hope, not necessity. Lake-wind, good for walleye,
searches my pockets
a gloveless
thrust into the minnow
bucket, barb-puncture its skull-
twist, secure again through
the spine. I wipe a bit of
blood on a towel heavy with
a week’s accretion of fish slime.
tug my gloves on with my teeth,
turn my back to the wind.
This is another poem I’ve been working on for quite some time. It just isn’t falling together, and doesn’t have the strong resolution I like my poems to contain. I can still read it and see the seeds of something that needs said, but I can’t figure out what that something is. I hate when that happens.
world
war[m] bloodb
eating a
crack of yellow a
sliver
s[train]ing
again [st
a [res]]
stomach
[g]rumbling
smoke
[stop
[s]tart
s]tacks. engine th
Rom fortune-telling.
the opened do[horr]or.
g[r]ay men
[p/h]unching
gunbutts
all divided
sonderkommandos
[a sh]ambling [jews] guards think
what[?] a g[h]as.t
This is the poem for which I requested primary sources. I ended up reading Maus and rewatching Triumph of the Will. Maus filled my need to some extent and Triumph acted a bit as a springboard to allow me to extrapolate that pomp into pathological hatred, but was ultimately ineffective. So here is the poem as it stood when I first asked for help. Mainly what I’m trying to do is use the same letters to represent the forced intimacy of the prisoners with their captors and show how forced intimacy is dehumanizing. It is also an experiment with form, which gets too busy I think. I wonder if Fiat Tabula Rasa is going to be the only one in that sort of form that sort of works for me.
If you’d like to read something good, read this: Persimmons by Li-Young Lee
You beat me again
and again I run
and again I return
to the familiar comfort of
terror and the bruises you leave
and I leave
on you
on me.
[no this is not about my life, for]
we jump not toward the sky
but away from the earth;
a moment of tearing,
a primitive need like
penetration or
face deep in the fold of a pillow
breathless
the strain against the atmosphere
the eager joy of possibility
that fraying sense that
this time
we will
break through
be free
of this earth we love.
[and again I fall
through the familiar
comfort of terror
and back into your arms]
Since I’m not codependent I could be way off base here with my association between it and the attraction of gravity, but I also tried to do things in this poem that I normally don’t do in other ones, expanding thoughts into multiple images, and being what I think of as more cliché in my subject matter and exposition. By that I guess I mean I’m trying to write with less intent and more instinct. Feedback is welcome, since I don’t really know what is going on here.
[v 1.0]
this mourning
77 North is dark
until
a pageant of
emergency lights
and
19 Action vultures reporting
the oldest
News there is.
[v 2.0]
this morning
77 North is dark
until
a pageant of
emergency lights
and
vultures reporting
the oldest
[19 Action]
News
there is.
[v 3.0]
this morning
77 North is dark
until
a pageant of
emergency lights
and
vultures reporting
the oldest
News [19 Action!]
there is.
[v 4.0]
this morning
77 North is dark
until
a pageant of
emergency lights
and
a pretty woman
[camera-right]
picking her teeth.
[v 5.0]
this morning
77 North is dark
until
a pageant of
emergency lights
and
vultures reporting
the oldest news
there is.
[v 6.0]
this morning
77 North is dark
until
a feast of
emergency lights
and
vultures reporting
the oldest news
there is.
[v 7.0]
this morning
77 North is dark
until
a feast of
emergency lights
and
a pretty woman
[camera-right]
picking her teeth.
After a
fuck I
feel like
every salmon
that has ever
swum upriver
and spawned.
A moment,
any thing
but love.
In this way I
am a suicide
bomber. Yet,
in these
times it is
incaptious
to State
such things.
[v 2.0]
After a
fuck I
feel like
every salmon
that has ever
swum upriver
and spawned.
A moment,
any thing
but love.
In this way I
am a suicide
bomber. Yet,
in these
times it is
incautious
to State
such things.
angry men
why
[do you]
[you do]
insist the
∪ ∧ ∩
of desire
are ∝
satori ∋
[pain, finitude, Δ]
Shakti ≠ Buddha
[but]
∅ ≡ ∞.
Loosely translated:
angry men
why
[do you]
[you do]
insist the
union and intersection
of desire
are proportional to
enlightenment contains
[pain, finitude, change]
Shakti does not equal Buddha
[but]
null and infinity are congruent.
If you use FireFox you should be able to read all of that w/o weirdo squares. IE, probably not.
There is a twig on a tree in my back yard
that the wind uses to scratch the sky
and every day when I come home
a tough little finch is sitting
there all puffed out and thinking. I’m
trying to figure out what he is thinking
and why he has to think it on the tip of the twig
that the wind uses to scratch the sky.
Perhaps I should mention that it is winter
and if the finch had any sense he would be
some place warm with its loved ones
instead of balanced on the edge of nowhere.
If the finch had any sense he would be
doing something with his life instead of
sitting around thinking so much.
Perhaps he doesn’t have any sense.
In the shadow of this steel mill
any creature could go mad. I’ve
heard that there is quicksilver in the
very air. When I fix my dinner I can still
see the finch on the tip of the twig. He
must not be hungry.
At night he is yet unmoved although
the twig still writes the sky
and the waxing moon shines behind it all
like sumi-e. Now I know what he is thinking.
He is the one doing the writing, not me.
v2.0
There is a twig on a tree in my back yard
that the wind uses to scratch the sky
and every day when I come home
a tough little finch is sitting
there all puffed out and thinking. I’m
trying to figure out what he is thinking
and why he has to think it on the tip of the twig
that the wind uses to scratch the sky.
Perhaps I should mention that it is winter
and if the finch had any sense he would be
some place warm with its loved ones
instead of balanced on the edge of nowhere.
If the finch had any sense he would be
doing something with his life instead of
sitting around thinking so much.
Perhaps he doesn’t have any sense.
In the shadow of this steel mill
any creature could go mad. I’ve
heard that there is quicksilver in the
very air. When I fix my dinner I can still
see the finch on the tip of the twig. He
must not be hungry.
At night he is yet unmoved although
the twig still writes the sky
and the waxing moon shines behind it all
like sumi-e. Then,
he is gone.
The wind stills, the moon
slides behind the smokestacks and
I wait for my own perfect moment to leave.
Somewhere,
along the distance between light and dark,
there are children playing pretend
at gravedigging. Tugged braids and
kicked shinbones startle laughter and
screams like cold glass rattling and
winter windchimes.
In those shadows
Why is not a question of reason
but a crisp casting of defiance.
There they are; liminal, insistent,
learning that fear is to be buried
until they have buried so much
fear they are neck deep in it.
Growing, then, becomes a need
to stay above fear, using it as fertilizer
stretch beyond it, strive
and all the while drive roots deeper
toward the riven rock until the trees
realize they have become moles and
now must pretend they are at play.
Now, digging blind, Now, shriven of all
but a thing called adultery.
v2.0
Somewhere,
along the distance between light and dark,
there are children playing pretend
at gravedigging. Tugged braids and
kicked shinbones startle laughter and
screams like cold glass rattling and
winter windchimes.
In those shadows
Why becomes a crisp casting of defiance;
a statement of instinct, not a
question of reason.
They are imaginary; liminal, insistent,
learning that fear is to be buried
until they have buried so much
fear they are neck deep in it.
Growing then, becomes a need
to stay above fear, to use it as fertilizer
stretch beyond it, strive
and all the while drive roots deeper
to bedrock until the trees
notice they have surrounded themselves
with dirt and must now pretend they are
playing as moles.
Now, digging blind. Now,
shriven of all
but a thing called adultery.
As always this poem is a rough draft. But what I’m going to do now is keep every iteration of the poem in the post, so the last one will be the most recent version. Your comments and suggestions are appreciated.
I was contacted the other day by a woman who wanted me to come by in the morning for a “no-strings attached sexual encounter.” I get many of these emails on a regular basis. So many women want to sleep with me that I have set up a system that looks for certain words in the content of the message and puts them into a hierarchy of folders. Most of them end up in the trash. Attachments are automatically stripped from the emails, scanned for viruses and placed in their own folder. Emails containing links end up in the trash, but all emails from redheads are flagged priority and sent to a special account that immediately sends a text message to my cell phone. With all the safeguards I have in place, it is rare for one of these emails to end up in my inbox.
That same day I briefly lost my keys. This was not a good thing. I looked in all the places I usually lose my keys, the pockets of coats, in my pants, under the couch, in the kitchen sink. I didn’t check the car because I can’t get in my apartment without my keys, and I was in my apartment. After I looked in the usual lost places I began to get paranoid. I tried thinking of all the places I would go if I were keys; the doors and locks I would open, vaults, diaries, empty buildings and closets. The keys weren’t there either, so I checked my coat and pants and couch and sink again. They weren’t there still. Where were they? In my car. There are only two things that can drive me to distraction, a woman requesting a “no-strings attached sexual encounter” and losing my keys. Is this really happening? The answer is always no.
There is a burning river running
from this city into my heart. It
coils like a trumpet past
offices full of white noise
and piles of rock like
old dreams. It stirs among
the buildings as a homeless
woman writing poetry and
flickers along the hands of
the hot dog man.
If you pay attention,
soon there will be
a burning river running
into your heart.
And punk rock kids dance
in the light of the water,
holding fast to flames
no one else will see.
Cleveland, 2005
some people some day
will get together and
weld a great white egret
out of what ever ideas
are still left over
and they will seat it some
where and other
people will fight over
it or rather fight over
what they think it
may or may not
represent
[the egret being
too itself to see
its own evil]
and
at some point it
will be cast down by
some one full of
weathervane glory or
an excess of relativity
there is some thing to
be said for equivocacy
some other time
by some one else.
Charles “Choo Choo” Justice built Ohio’s only electric chair at the turn of the last century, a bright machine of seasoned hickory, stiff leather and the gunmetal smell of fear. Unlucky thirteen years later he was executed in the same chair. Here lies Chuck Justice, killed by irony. The best way to perform a humane execution during the twentieth century was no longer something with such an honorable pedigree as being hanged by the neck until dead; technology improves everything, and someone had a bright idea. What if, and try to stay with me here… What if you strap a felon into a chair, secure his arms, head and legs with broad straps, place an electrode on his temple and another on his leg and then send 400 lightbulbs in one ear and out the other? We can zap him again and cook him up to one hundred and thirty eight degrees Fahrenheit, just to make sure. Now that’s progress, and as easy as flipping on a lightswitch. So easy, in fact, that a record seven men in Kentucky rode the lightning one evening before the stock market crashed. That seventh son, sat in a chair still steaming from the sixth and smelled what seemed to be fried chicken of all things. Some last meal. The effects of electrocution are negligible. Some burned, oozing skin, a puddle of urine on the floor, shitfilled pants. Just after World War Two, Willie Francis was electrocuted,and survived. Although lawyers argued that Francis had already been executed, he returned to the hot seat a year later and did his job right this time. Contrary to popular belief, the electric chair was not invented by Thomas Alva Edison, but by one of his assistants. Louie the Lightning Bug says: “Remember gang, you’ve got to play it safe around electricity.“
These days, people
complain about “gas
prices” and “poli
tics” and how
nothing makes
they veins pump
with flames except
”reality
television.”
That makes me
so mad. I
want to shakem
like bad rat
tles, dammit. I
want to plug
they noses with
Duracells to
light that bulb
in they head.
Folks want
others to
solve they prob
lems. They
refuse.
They lay
back and talk
smack because
they think apol
ogies are
“I’m sorry you feel
that way.”
These days, people
say “it’s hard
work” and they jerk
and play and
hurt and pray and
still fuck around and
still pretend they
sleep at night.
Because they got some
thing called “Entit
lement.”
One of these days,
people.
One of
these
days.
we all say
things we
don’t mean
to
mean until
they are
said.
the clouds over
the switchgrass
swear they
are just
passin’ thru.
today they are
the only orators
in Oz.
Our words dissolved
like a dusty
jackrabbit—
too proud to
lie in the rain.
(more…)
they say you are always an alcoholic always
addicted to nicotine that after you cease smoking desist drinking
each day starts from scratch and when you see someone
else drinking or smoking or
doing those things they do when they need
a drink or smoke
you get that itch in your gut or lips and can’t scratch it it
irritates and you twitch and fidget and smell
it and taste it and remember how good it was before it
got bad and then you get kind of distracted
because you know if you keep thinking
about getting some of that good badness back by scratching that
match to light a smoke or knocking back
a shot of alcohol you’ll do it—really do it By
Christ—and then where are you stuck
back addicted again with a burning throat
and dry eyes and now that you’ve got a new
ticket on that train quitting was never
more difficult which is why, you see, after what we had we
just can’t be friends.
(more…)
A sunflower is grown tall
between the path stones.
A month ago I paid it
no mind.
Now it sheds pollen
in my hair. Come
here, chuckling bees.
Here I am,
again Orion.
Orion again I
am here.
Here Orion
again am I.
Empty field witness
dark under
night sky
small watchings
small noise
silent.
Hail al-Jabbār!
chronic-combatant
star-clouded
rigid Rigel taut
cudgel, hoof, rudius.
Orvandil, Osiris
all name none;
famous heaven-belted,
celestial celebrity…
Hail!
tête-à-tête
yet—
cry high
above,
bright immortal.
Dark, down
below, me,
free to leave.
There you are
Orion.
Orion, are you
there?
You are
there, Orion.