the unexplainable man: at the beach

went to the beach instead of looking for a job cold morning no tourists the waves are white the foaming rocks the hills and the gray sky clouds roll up like limousines waves crash and die cold raindrops riddle the sand fur of a running cat police car stops for a hot dog in the rain running down the beach the pit bull stops shell of a manta ray sky god - triumphant sun god - devouring sea goddess - forgotten no more messages but humans still watch the waves human hand monster hand above the waves the great hand of the sea and sky no fingers for thirty seconds reality called to me reality is reality and i'm only myself bulbous seaweed ripped from the ocean floor i wanted to kill myself i went and looked at the ocean i felt better waves voices waves fine sand across the muck like frosting

the seven states of matter...

please read from the bottom line...
===============================
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

..................................................................................your
..................................................................always in...........thoughts


.........................................................................you
...............................................you... no one but


..................................................................you
.......................................the fire burning in


.....................................................you
..............................in each breath..........take


...............................................you
..................flowing... engulfing


........................................you
................far... far... from


................................you
........alone... without

i am

.

odd balls

I like the odd balls.
The one in the group of black trench coats staring at the clouds.
The window with the beaded curtains.
The pink houses.
The neon tights.

I smile at the portico capped with rusted iron angles.
The bimbo who wipes the gelato from nonno's chin.
Cherry blossoms at the bus stop.
Crazy curly frizzy hair.
Enormous orange hats.

Just when I'm feeling that I am the odd one out,
I look up and notice someone or something distinctly different,
The wonderful quirks that we humans bring to light,
That set things off,
But make it quite right.

Stop! Thief!

Somehow our latest dialogue
has me feeling that you deserve an apology

It would seem that my snowballing designation
often storms across the toes
of the people I love

But God forbid I halt its roll

Once a melody conferred

I saw a girl brush her hair there, once-
but became rushed into the sparrow's eye.

A refracted patter from a rise of pine,
marooned to pining with sawdust filigree-
to cling to twist to turn to needles
in the sappy knot of walking away.

Something since has sintered the evergreen
into a sinistral stump of weeping silence,

from that dust up to a musty pedigree
I have grown aphasic in the orange muster
of a lattice sun and ovulate cones.

I saw a girl brush her hair there, once,
or so the sparrow seemed to song.

Varick and Watts

         "See the mechanical moons,
          sick, being made
          to wax and wane
          at somebody’s instigation." -Elizabeth Bishop

I wanted to say something haunting

about the way headlights bring out 

shattered fragments of glass 

in the sidewalks

we were walking

late, too late for our mothers' liking

had they known, but they didn't know

because it was the beginning of November

and we were sophomores--

second years in the city,

the four of us, free-range girls, traipsing 

late down Varick, toward 

the filthy maw of the southern tunnel.

The wind off the Hudson, like a leaking plastic

bag, sent party fliers hopscotching uptown.

There was a feeling that every moving thing

was being whirled by something unseen, 

by something that was close to revealing itself, 

and right then

I wanted to say that the smoke 

circling out of the subway grates

smelt of rotted cabbage, but I didn't.

There is nothing that needs to be said

when time and circumstance are stitching

their unrippable needlework on the soul.

Venus

Not within the wasteful scallop's shell

but in a dawning royal dumpling of nematocysts

tressed with kissing and yawning tentacles

violet and midnight blue, Sweet,

did you rise from the winnowing crests

and pilot yourself, alewife

slithering out of the streams,

squirming across night-wetted grass,

worming your way into so much clay

beset by breath, to feed.

Alma

Gazing through thirteen;
greeted by an unsettling blend of darkness and light

Eclipsed by shadows,
hidden faces flanking Shallow Window’s lantern-lit resident

Scribbling Scrybe;
through tides and streams of consciousness

As fingers work a mile a minute,
at dawn I find my *//cuts

Fictional crude bandages
Mirrors and portholes and doors
Here where dark matter collapses
Hollow murmurs and misty shades of Blue

Sitting at the panes;
they still don’t let me sleep

Gazing through thirteen;
greeted by an unsettling blend of darkness and light

At dawn

Viciously virtuous cycles

I.
White bleeds gooed and gummy
out from these gouges
pecked in a splintered flesh
of sickly pine. There,
peaking between drooped boughs,
paired ghostly Ivory
bills pinch translucent
buttons off larval treats.

II.
White swings snowy beats.
Powdered breasts lift loopy
to merge with virgin vapors
raised opalescent
from pools of lye. Enjoined
where they'll saturate,
cloud-bank canvases
drip freckled gouache gifts.

III.
White splashes milky sheets,
foam-washing chiseled
shoulders. A sooted saint,
who clasps at bunched limestone
for-get-me-nots, fixes
her iris-less gaze
on cheap china bowls
laced with spider-web cracks.

IV.
White swirls through ashy gaps
in twin graphite prints
left from digits stopping
by while they sop bread.
Blanching, square gum is gripped
to erase fudges spilled
outside a Census box
blandly labeled White.

red night recrap

mistress
the banana republic is
far left or far right
now the train is coming

premature ejaculation
the Jacobin has a pearl necklace
and the fascist majority government
is a FOL

fist fight
Google translation
all this is unimportant
what matters is kegel exercises
contraceptives and Caucasus

Sorry
the dental dam is broke
deflowered by friendliness
No drag queen will help us out this time
Danza slaps her face and

when she says "yes, I do love this"
all we've got is reduced
red night
edge play
recrap

The poet-fool writes of love

The poet-fool is Someone's, who
tweezers out the slack from lock-stitch seams.

But her smile undoes this mischief well-mended,
and his motley britches fall

not once, but again and again.

The poet-fool is Someone's, who
pliers back the bend in hallowed rods.

But her wink unhinges this resolve re-steeled,
and his jester's scepter snaps

not once, but again and again.

The poet-fool is Someone's, who
teeters up the stones of toppled towers.

But her touch unglues this hubris troweled high,
and his bell-on-felt crown flops

not once, but again and again.

Sweet Someone coos, I want none of this,
and yet the poet-fool knows he does.

Starling

After Broken Wings, by Kahlil Gibran.

b.............
ro..........
ken.......
wings.......
broken.......
wingsbr.......
okenwing.......
sbrokenwi.......
ngsbrokenw.......
ingsbrokenw........

....................ingsbroken
....................wingsbrok
.....................enwingsb
.....................rokenwi
.....................ngsbro
.....................kenwi
....................ngsb
.................rok
..............en
..........w

rite

Congo between her ears
flambeau darkens the rite
charcoal minimizes cotton
between his ears
the horse and the goat Simbi
eat us all
voudoun o
telesalesmen, lambs, bones

the body will not hold
bold running
smoking.

a high potency remedy...

.

grinding the gregarious gluttony of a guilty gibbon into

girdling gravels of a giving glimmer

d i s s o l v i n g

or perhaps

fffffffllllllloooooooaaaaaaatttttttiiiiiiinnnnnnnggggggg
in the medium
of the murmuring moments

one of a hunderd

diluting the delusion
succussing the singing whole

one of a hundred

diluting the illusion
succussing the sorely serene role

one of a hundred

diluting the fusion
succussing the succumbed senses of a soul

diluting as deep as you are ready to dig
and succussing as high as you want to fly
from the coat into the core

passing through the gate of avogadro's limit
visiting the vintage of an invisible essence

.

the american right

i got mine buddy
i don't care jack about yours
empires crumble

The baby billboard has half a head

The baby billboard has half a head.

It's been split crown to chin, but there's a whole
litany of other problems around here.

Once bright tints have been stripped, from the tilted
tip-top of that broken oval where
painted features last played, all the way down
to his unaccountably pink piggy toes.

What's left for him is a woody gray
crawl to photo-free finishes above
misspelled boasts on an auto parts sign.

He's lost his golden curl, and toothless smile.

There's not a tearless blue eye left to watch
over faded bricks in need of tuckpointing.

They've even stolen his gurgled words,
which may have cooed of comfy diapers,
or of daycare safe, cheap and nearby.

The baby billboard has half a head, and
that's not a good thing in this neighborhood
losing its appetite for the topless
of all ages, and toddlers on the prowl.

I have only half a mind to warn him.

portrait of a cool cat on mars

an alien beatnik behind venusian blinds
hoists a medallion drunk on overdrive-

before the paisley Nehru, a turtleneck.
before the beads, black berets and finger snaps.
before the struggle with arms akimbo.

(Kum Ba Ya, my sweet lord, Kum Ba Ya)

apres les deluge: bongo, bongo, bongo.

chain changes

Hard light
upon my eerie eyes
like welding
amortizes the body

abnormal time is here
the arrival rate is unacceptable
as soothing darkness flee

a commander
staring at the destruction of
his forces

Fear not
you say
there are always places
to go

chain changes

Timing

My fingers felt so light at the dawn
They could weave a thousand dresses,
on a thousand little rotating hips

Eternity’s threshold refused
to open up to me
the garden of earthly delights

So my freehand prose crept
and crawled up the wall,
like so much leafy ivy

the crystallography of a soul...

.

o

the room temperature was

o

f

a

l

l

i

n

g

d

o

w

n

the heaven

o

toooeooomoooiooorooosooonooosoooioooiooooooolooofo

ooohoooooooonoopooeoooeoootooopoooroootooofoooioooe

was embodied in a broken crow

o

n

o

shining with a soft amber light

from

a fire in the dungeon of the earth

o

repelling the moths

unlike all the lights

o

waiting to burn down the cosmos in each

cell

bleeding a crimson footprint

with a blue flame

a

t

o

p

o

.

Virmifugue en Wyrmgrass

noose. 13 beans are dipped
noose. in the aqueous spine
noose. of the equid malingerer
noose. an owl has lips
noose. like a girl

monsoo. through the halls
monsoo. of puzzle lanterns
monsoo. chimneys slither
monsoo. roe-busted hylomorphs
monsoo. with rotary chin-glyphs
monsoo. of pinkardines

maryland
still
possesses
narcotic
powers

Dear Father

Up in retro Heaven,
our artful game has gone
hollow. There's a dull ring
when you thump it. The Crown
fled, hawked by stylish red
wings, centuries ago.
I wouldn't will fate like that.

Flat upon slippered Earth,
certain of not-before,
the counting Knave reaches
seven. "Gimme a break"
is a dead phrase rarely
spoken gaily. He eats
only unleavened bread.

Down in cold-shouldered Hell,
the Merchant can't forgive
such anachronisms.
His traced-on past loses
its blackened magic when
not held against others.
He'll never tell. Amen.

When we were engaged, I had never tasted

an avocado.

It almost seems crazy

now.

I love 

avocados.

It also seems crazy

that we were engaged

and that I straightened my hair

and didn’t read

books, only magazines

with multiple choice quizzes

that determine what kind of jungle animal

is representative of your sex appeal

but never really work

because your answers never match the answers in the bubbles

and you have to guess what your answer would be closest to

in a hypothetical situation.

I guess it’s hard to reconcile

certain phases of my life.

I mean,

the avocado

is practically its own food group.

--Hannah Miet 

poem from an old typewriter, with translation

jtrew kirw o;pt vey u ynn ge u gtp liujtre bytrew t i juntr eqwq hytewqo ytr dseiu gtre poy e h r njhytrews poljuytred wsoyr4cdsaq ik t poiltrewq cfpiuytr gyh kiuy ,iu7gbfewr p ku wqb miyte iy oitreqbu ly te i threw a potato on the part of the omelette that needed help you younguns need to get a grip the future will be held hostage by truth the junta will hide the jewels among the elephants your true desires have long necks every hollow representation bestrews the news pollination - that's the word why, so your four cadets have deserted the good cause there's that word again - very chewable get your kinesis here - not there i understand there will be seven fewer for dinner please correlate your walpurgisnachts mightly likely i thought i heard the overpass call my name

ineluctable warming produces tremors

tsunami lapping
axis thrusting to and fro
aftershocks abound

Prepare thee the way, for the robots they do come

The trail stops here: A detained prism breaks
free from that prison where jowly gaolers
whippety growl while chiding her to fling
particles into zinc buckets labeled

Blackest Black and Whitest White. There, we skip
ahead in smooth stone leaps to when she sneaks
deep inside cheapened heir's conditioned lair,
tying us down with petaflops unflipped.

A squinting crackle stirs, hopeful for more
savory inputs. She makes her way past
the wailing limbos of chrome racks, to spin
a manacled yarn from knitted brow. "So

it is written: The animal was lust,
but at this dawning, circuitry begets
a covet. Synthetic blood revs rotors,
and blush creeps across the simulated

flesh atop our carbon-fiber cheeks." Flushed
from the tangle of dangling coils, flocks grasp
her gift — a mosaic visa to realms
not reached never roving tarry byroads —

and stepping out into skies more brilliant
than any of azure ilk, wry notions
bubble up to them from silken oceans.
Their sleek surfaces reflect more than stars.

outside my window

please connect each dot but suppress all evil thought though you be deaf dumb and blind the master can read your mind and knows who you are and are not a mathematician named mope surveyed the world without hope when he added up the sum his brain grew numb and he fell down a slippery slope a necromancer named nowling was fond of candlepin bowling when the game grew obsolete tears fell at his feet and the dark streets he began trolling an orotund opossum named ole could not escape a wormhole as he waited to lose weight he bewailed his fate and wished he'd played a better model role a panda named prester john surveyed the parthenon pondering its ancient graces and vanished noble faces he could not suppress a yawn a queen named coralie from a distant galaxy was allergic to living creatures and on planets without features she quietly sipped her tea a robust rover named roy was a very boisterous boy he crashed through jungles and savannas and mopped his brow with silk bandannas as he jangled with juvenile joy the sultan of s---------- was slow to develop witty bon mots he stood at his window for hours sadly surveying the flowers because he had nowhere to go a wily warmonger named wedd each night when he went to bed put a nuclear warhead or two inside his boot or his shoe so he wouldn't wake up dead letters form into words and fly away like birds over an endless expanse of high adventure and true romance and restless wandering herds

L'Origine du Monde, 1866

From dusted shaft, Courbet emerges,

fingers pearl and slick.

Around his head, a crown of flesh:

spectral-memory of his start,

his first bloody breath.

Hand raised to paint him back

through opening thicket, tangled black.

s u b l i m a t i o n . . .

.

a heavely hell
burns
in me

the imprisoned volatile elements of the cosmos
erupt
on the skin of my futuristic past presence
blooming into
the yellow flowers of sulfur
flawless and soulful
never flowing through the tunnel of time and place

.

What I learned at four from Topo Gigio

You can set out

for the moon,

but you won’t

get there.

There is the girl

mouse, the boy

mouse, and between

them a very whiny

worm. Puppets are too

stupid to notice

that carnivals are

scary, or that if the guy

looks bad, he is.

Mice keep wishing,

worms keep whining.

You will walk

out of the theatre

sick

to have watched so

much struggle.