I measure my faith
mapping
an imperative topography
through disquisition
tongues volatility
contesting end
but soon the lines began
intersecting—reaching
shorter distances until
they became
dots markers references
location— place—
as in: you are
here

Yet no image is decisive
as the fog moves in
and the creek rises
we have our own wounds
in this geography.  At nightfall,
I thought I heard sirens,
the wet streets
my abandoned city
speaking to me
babies contesting for mother’s milk
tongue—a classic love story
two desperate entities
talking in
nonsense rhyme

We have been here before
you and I—but now as day breaks
we are constantly changing I am
reminded of false closure
our best impulses disembodiment
speech through glass throats the light
rises suffering at its roots
opening a window entering your tongue
touching my tongue
tasting the space between words
dimly lit lips lunging
love smothers I am
your blank face
dismantled by clear-cut storytelling

There is a story
I never spoke about with you
come into this cold room closed consciousness a flat blackness
without recordable distances
I was you
earlier tonight a convenient and communicable form anything
to make end occupied
by the questions of light
the long annihilation of another
the procedural grammar of the supernatural
that unbroken thing
limited by the edge of the paper

The quietest and most intimate
grammar is left behind lyrical
disruption a fragmentary belief
shutting the finally struggled out
contemplating the convergence of old forms darkness the disconsolate and powerful
one modality transcending narrative synesthesia its occupant—a life
lived the beautiful
dwell as randomness speaks
the poet unobtrusive echoes
confused by prose
sound converted into image
the self-lunging throat

We have been made a brilliant beginning deception
the darkly autobiographical
ongoing mystery measuring your tongue and my tongue this intensely progressive labor:
we all inhabit we district—elastic surface: delighted
syncopated
a dense juxtaposition of life lived
partially cut open
intimately yelling—shaken vigorously
into writing into vision
the accidents of attention
the sound of falling alone in an open city
|

The collisions of unshackled tongues—bathe language bad mouthing the stutter: compulsively salivating
spasmodically aphonic—catastrophic love
a kiss and what more is there to say
than this:
I hesitated before undressing your hands
on my body followed the sound of birds wings trapped in a narrow chimney
the anticipation made you hold your throat and squeeze wanting to dissolve into noisy dreams far from here and they were here and for a moment uninterrupted constricted endlessly eroticizing ingestion

A Final Abstraction

They all go into the dark
With all the old nocturnal smells
Meant to attract attention without eliciting a response

Beginning with consciousness
Preserved as adolescent revolt
Through all accidents of circumstance-

An individual spider web
Where all wars are ready-
Someone turns the page and laughs

The last twist of the knife
Let the dark come upon you
Growing like a tumor

Why am I so enamored with myself
particularly an erection
too brutal to waste on romantic love?

It speaks, it moves—

To be able to and not to
do it—

Let us break through
and go there.

Dear Cut/Throat,

If I could keep her
alert for the swift
interrupted lisp

useless rhyme cluttered
mother’s bitter tongue
episodic heap

language an old house
now a lulling sift
uncorrected script

and you before night
answered other than
poetry uncut

artists continue
their defective re-
cord like the trusting

animals they are
as if beautiful
thing/to discover

this passage follows
a pessimist and
the great sex spiral

enclosing next to
nothing—impossible
yet we stand transfixed

hoping frailty
supreme and the way you
walk and the way you

watch the water’s edge
slowly arriving
that your futile might

hands clapped together
first foot stepping down
hearing/touching/drifts

into the next verse
and sets a slow match
to a mouthful of

phrases old branches
brought down by the same
gesture used for dance!

Dear Cut/Throat,

Blind idiot you
uninfluential
poet stranger cling

only closer still
to sobbing sonnets
and pendulum dreams

a cavernous house
unfused and defiled
dark deserted womb

speak of reason last
there penned into thought
a tortured body

this freezing weather
love sequestered still
this scene has altered

these enclosing walls
a simple story
unless we are lost

I have learned much in
my life simply called
it the sea alone

a heavy dirty
shirt on the bathroom
basin candle lit

your curled lip slid out
beside my penis hung
down pressing darkness

soft sad derision
for your genial
compassionate scorn

idly frightened we
glide our high spirits
past midnight into

frozen cold poems
the oppressive weight
of barely touching.

Dear Cut/Throat,

Until you let down
barriers escape
language of yourself

nameless destiny
clouds outline other-
wise concocted skies

pretending body
and brain unbodied
tongues washed and purged shape-

less a published word
than rain against tin
mind filling alone

quite free exalted
before words concerned
stems leaves roots roses

delicately you
diffidently you
we are unraveled

I kiss you as you
pass a crimson tongue
threatening to speak

the anesthetized
man consonant mad
here mourning poems

left to the un-throat
the uncouth truth we
more penitently

worn by young couplets
abandoned bird’s nests
the rest remotely

gendered pretentious
sympathetic drag
throw back your head: yell!

Truculent waltz wake
wanton to protect
a lifetime of song

bemused syllable
at mere sight of you
I pedestrian

flaunting you starling
body translated
you do not catch them

searching a landscape
you never knew what
happened to the dance

collarless wagging
your finger pressed close
pitifully alone

Dear Cut/Throat,

To coax language out
of poets is to
rescue and neglect

become the feared shape
a lively terrain
relieved in the blood

made up of despairs
the impossibly
crumbling towers

departed before
the faint, climbing moon
to coax language out

I saw you approach-
ing welcoming me
to interrupted

quiet to the grim
retreating waves with-
out outstanding

virtue and delight.
You slapped my face and
and the melody line

laid tentative smiles
measuring the tread
of the setting sun

and I wonder why
the cold headstone closed
unclothed by each dream

tramples each flower
buried in the mud
announcing spring is

here! Silently look
at me in the same
bed dancing, dancing

surrounded by a
heavy printed scent
metaphor’s descent

and at the moment
of impact we are
composition’s loss

Dear Cut/Throat,

Let us not façade
fall loosely waiting
with a very slow

and easy motion
the contents of the
poem the dish of

fruit rotting in the
pantry carelessness
which I have compared

to a flat glass dish
in the bare blue skies
a woman’s gesture

the contents of the
poem broken ice
still carving new lips

but even the chips
find you on the page
astonished stammer

and they look crushed here
as your tight lashes
the sun wet with dreams

            slowly feeding a
            delirious speech
            to a taut barbed tongue

Dear Cut/Throat,

Let us resume
unmarred, that is
to say more civil

save in the poem
in our winter clothes
where our bodies take

for a moment
anonymous
reluctant holds

over modern verse
ironically for-
getting a naked

girl half rotted
on the half rotted
bench underneath trans-

mission remitted
without stirring sod-
den paths the poet-

ic zig-zag through near
indecipherably
hollowing our hearts

though I must confess
I used to follow
you from the ladies’

room to the ends of
the earth emerging
pitifully in love

like a scared flower
whose roots are restless-
ly learning the lines

cleansing mystery
this too I love art
below the belly

a low dissembling
reprehensible
tenderness denied

a blood-spattered walk
whose encrusted branch-
es compromise kiss-

es witnessing mere-
ly preservation
itself as descent

Dear Cut/Throat,

A.

In your mind
you jump
from an unmoving roar
mostly silent
beyond the hill
the sharp light of stars
winding through
and out a distant bombing.

B.

In the damp night
by the laboratory
carved by the pulse
of your counterfeit sex
your entrails
rock like a baby carriage
layered and beaten
as an unchanging mountain.

C.

In the first act
the burden of all
outward forms must break
through.  The broken hinge
completes the picture
which has already been celebrated:
Icarus drowning bare-assed
everything in motion.

D.

In my world you contract to
a recognizable image this
climate a missed
syllable miraculously fixed
on a sensitive young boy
the modern poetic
thinking of Venus dead on
the lawn by a magenta flower.

Dear Cut/Throat,

           

            “My secret life
                        has been made up” -WCW

We forget sometimes
that no matter what
no one knew
or exactly knew
the delicate defeat
could not endure
completely
the lost symmetry

the contents of the poem
like fumes of a burning
automobile
the eyes of a fly
the petty imagery
of clichés
pursuing our mouths
the squirrels and pigeons
defying death in their
shallow suits
the disconsolate tegument
a flayed rose
hunting the poet

and no end
among the woods
and no end
among the words.

Perhaps I am less
an artist
than a sonnet buried
under savage snow-

What good then
expecting your
warm still arms
startled
before dawn
for practically anyone?

Dear Cut/Throat,

Yet no image is decisive.

As the fog moves in and the creek rises we have our own
wounds in this geography.

At nightfall,
I thought I heard sirens,
the wet streets of my abandoned city speaking to me.

The baby in your belly
argues that mother’s milk is indebted forever.

Your tongue is your only accomplice, a classic love story of two desperate entities. 

Don’t touch me.  Don’t touch my private language. 

We can only talk in nonsense rhyme.  

Dear Cut/Throat,

it began as a drawing of lines
a measurement of faith

mapping an imperative topography
the disquisition of tongues
a volatility contesting end

but soon the lines began
intersecting—reaching  

shorter distances until
they became dots/markers/
references of location/
place—as in: you are here

and drawing lines
became something
we only did in sand

but there are no beaches here

61.

phone sex isn’t a long term solution
as we travel along this path of challenge and change
it is simply a belief in reach
a rubbing against the cut
a person in the room who never speaks
the poetic-critic
the nets
more slowly, losing altitude

27.

appealing to the reader’s self-interest
I have scribbled the following notes on pages 14, 15, 16, 23, 26, and 29:
the last time we rubbed faces
someone turned the page and laughed
and yet, it didn’t seem to matter at all if they stayed or left
they didn’t exist anymore except as a warning
like a cat ignoring the traffic
an incinerated butterfly fathomed only as ash

51.

the war you only just heard about
for Allen Davies
bottomed out selling promises
in Los Alamos or something
rushed from the crucified city
to start again
climbing up the back of the legs to the silent crotch.

7

I turn now to the book’s methodology
when the fog hangs low
jostled as are the waters approaching
rewritten from the perspective
of the little old lady

one manifestation of what I call intermediation
gathering mist and letting it fall
and to concern myself less with the publishers of poetry
the very concepts of homogenous national cultures
there against the fierce blue of the sky

making, storing, and transmitting
in renitent release
the human situation that motivated my phone call and visit
of the asymmetrical worlds that exist
there in the home of the little old lady

however, in regard to the poems I left with you
I like to think there is overwhelming evidence
of the city that extends before us
complex transactions between bodies and texts
contrary to a sculpture in a museum

the last night of the earth

I go through these periods
of poetic inscrutability
these moments of panic
as if I’m never going
to write anything
substantial again
as if
in the middle of night
she had risen
packed a quiet duffel
and left under the headlights
of a yellow cab
but it’s usually
before going off
to the punch clock
thinking it the last night
of the earth
that I’ll be spending
my final moments
with half-wits
degenerates
the perpetually depraved

scale

we’re six months deep
into this pregnancy
and last night
she tells me
that not only
can he hear
our voices
but he can
see bright lights
if you shine
a flashlight
against her belly

so she does this
and her belly
jerks

she does it again
and her belly
jerks again

and I think of myself
every time
the sun
shines through
the curtains
or the womb
of my bed sheets
and I kick
and punch
pointlessly
against
the new day

if only
we could
turn off the sun
for a few more
moments
of darkness

then again
life is full
of impossible dreams

but fortunately
it’ll be a while
before
I’ll have to
tell him
to shit
in one hand
and wish
in the other
and see
which one
fills up faster

Inspection

at the auto mechanic
the other day
while I was waiting on
an inspection
a meagerly dressed receptionist
recorded sales and
answered the telephone
occasionally leaning forward
exposing her acorn breasts
before quickly closing
the space with one hand
and eating potato chips
with the other

but even more curious
was a little girl
7 or 8 years old
clearly of no relation
shifting on a stool
beside her
to get a closer look
at those tiny
misshapen breasts

and as I watched her
watching them
tremble ever so
slightly beneath
a flimsy blue blouse
and yellow brassiere
I could see her touching
the space where hers
had not yet grown

and it made me
remember the urgency
with which we all
seek maturity

how nothing ever comes
fast enough
or with enough gusto

and how that perception
of living is often
carried over
into adulthood
as we continuously
seek things
we do not
or cannot have

how callous the gods
that even in youth
we are taught
to want
to be
what we’re not

as the receptionist
bends forward
once again
a gold cross
dangling from her
deeply tanned neckline

and the young girl
and I sneak peeks
at those little
buds having
never formed
into anything more

despite years of education

if you were
to saw
open
the skulls of
college students
on summer vacation
you would hardly
find the complex
topography of
scholarly wisdom
rather
a very soft
gelatin
sloshing
from left
to right
like a slow
arrhythmic
tide crashing
against the
hard heads
of stubborn
and irresponsible
malcontents
but let’s
not
forget
their teachers
piddling away
in gardens
wearing
over-sized
hats feeling
dangerous
after two
half-glasses
of chardonnay
their highbrow
magnificence
slowly paddling
to the middle
of their own
senselessness
stopping
to admire
a pair of birds
circling
birds they can’t
quite name
as they slosh
back and forth
over delicate
currents of
aberration
and ineptitude
but
I suppose
that’s what
summer vacation
is all about
various points
of error
like dimly
flashing buoys
some close
enough to swim to
others
only a distant eye
blinking through
thick fog
as just
another reminder
of our own mortality

low heat

all I can hear is that
goddamned apron
batting around
the dryer

a constant reminder
that we have all
been defeated
by one
thing or another

trying to speak
out against
its clotted tangle

over the slapping
strings of the
work apron
hustled
in the sheets
of another
sexless day

a constant reminder
that we’re not
becoming
what we
always
aspired to be

I have a dream

we are in the baking goods
aisle at Wal-Mart
and there are octopi

shaking flour and baking
chocolate into the air
and over themselves and everyone

else is weeping
or laughing
depending for some reason
on their weight

except for us
because we’re protected
by a gigantic bubble
blown from
the adjoined mouths
of hundreds of seahorses

and inside this bubble
you are getting
an obstetrics exam
from Admiral Akbar
to check on the progress
of our child
who is actually more
of a castle made
of cardboard
and tin foil

but Akbar needs to ascertain
the development
of its drawbridge

so he removes
the baby
slowly
to avoid
breaching its walls
examines its
drawbridge
for durability
and length
and then slowly
pushes it
back inside
your vagina
but not before
you make
a sound like
you’re swallowing
down the wrong pipe

and as if this were a sign
of internal hemorrhage
or premature labor
Akbar begins shoving
packing peanuts
and bubble wrap
up inside your vagina
to make sure
our castle
is secure
and only
once he’s sure
does he then
apply packing
tape to your
labia strip
after strip of
packing tape
telling us
it will dissolve
in time
for you
to give
birth
to this very
tiny castle
which has waited
many days
and nights to
lower its drawbridge
to an unexpected
traveler

it’s funny

how we are the worst
we’ll ever be
to the people we
most care for

you just wouldn’t
think it
would work out
that way

but sure enough
I exchange
such jovial compassion
with cashiers and mailmen
bartenders
men in bathrooms
waitresses
gas station clerks
the boy at the theater
who tears my
ticket

and it’s only when
they begin
getting closer
lingering for a few
moments more
that I can feel
our sympathy
for one another
sliding away
like a dull
dream

as I keep the attention
of the boy at the theater
by asking
the way
to the restroom

as the gas station clerk
winces
when I discuss
the weather
or The World Series

as the waitress refills
my burnt coffee
and makes
substitutions
for my indecisive wife

as the men in bathrooms
piss and grunt

as the bartenders
tell the same
tired jokes
and I order
the same tired drinks

as the mailman
delivers a
package
and tells me
about his exhaustion

and the cashier
at Wal-Mart
double bags my meat
before slipping it
into another
bag with
carpet cleaner
and lemon scented Joy

we are the worst
to the people
we most care for

and there’s some
injustice in that
as if we’re being
slowly screwed
into the wall

and all we can think about
is the weight of the frame
never considering
even for a second
the smiling faces
underneath the glass

I almost forgot to tell you:

the milk has gone sour
the bread is
stale
the cat pissed
in the coffee pot
there’s dog shit
in the bedroom
the living room
and there’s
cat litter
all over the clean
folded laundry
the internet
keeps going out
you got a call
from a
creditor
concerning
your X
then
the power
went on
and off
three times
then
stayed off
there’s no
ice cream
for the ice
cream cones
there’s nothing
to eat
for dinner
the light sockets
are empty
in the pantry
and the back hall
I look the last
of your
pain medication
when I got
stung by
a yellow jacket
and the cable
bill is overdue
hope your
day was
great J
love EM

even though cupid has hemorrhoids and you’ll never be famous


don’t go worrying
about everything
I mean
there’s not
a hell of a lot
you can do anyway

I mean what’s the
point of turning
inside out
over a
little thing

but we do it
and we
do it every day
and for
whatever reason
we do it pretty
damn well

we swallow
the tigers
of our
own insecurity

we dress ourselves
in the shadows
of enemies

we fight back
against
the swans
and the rosebushes

we charge
up
and down
stairways
hollering at
postmen
and little girls
jumping rope

we refuse
the sunlight

we embrace
rainclouds
and earthquakes
dirty toilets
and stale bread
and for
whatever
reason
we do it
every day

we can’t seem
to live
without it

without deflated
basketballs
airline wreckages
drug-addled
teens and
unpaid electric bills

without these often
disorderly and
wreaking misfortunes

but still we wake
every day
drop two eggs
in the pan
while we check
our phone
messages
and our
Facebook messages

hoping someone will
love us as much
as we love
the idea
of being loved 

public relations

after attending
a reading
of some
mediocre poets
I sat on the balcony
of our studio
apartment
drank gin
and listened
to the Mexicans
in the parking
lot across
the way
argue
and throw
stones
at the dumpster

somehow
arguments in other languages
always seemed
less
threatening
even
benign

but the cops
eventually
arrived
with their
batons and
bracelets
and
hauled
off a
heavy mama
into the
stench
of uniformity
and calm
but not
before she
smashed
a beer bottle
on their
windshield
and
kicked
one of them
in the shin

*

that night I awoke
on the toilet
with my pants
and shorts
down
around my ankles
to the sound
of my roommate’s voice
sliding in
through the
cracked frame

I pulled my pants
up
having left
nothing
in the pot

and she helped me
climb the ladder
into the loft
where I fell
asleep
wheezing
on the air mattress

if it is truly
other people’s
reactions to us
that make us
who we are

there may
not be
one soul
saved from
complete
annihilation

and I tend
to like
that

all of us
mixed
in the same soup
acting and
reacting
your A
and my M
rubbing off
on each other
waiting
for another
letter to
float by
and
change us
forever

so it goes

finally alone
but now
the coffee is cold
the dogs won’t stop
barking at
imaginary agony
the smell of diaper
rash cream
still lingers on
my fingers from
masturbating
earlier

Williams is open
to page 33
and all he can
tell me
is of
the fragility of flowers
and Persephone’s
cow pasture

and then there’s O’Hara
thinking of me
as I shake hands with LeRoi

my crippled wrist flinching
from another dog fight

imagining two corpses
holding each other
in the summer sun still 
trying to show us
love in a world
consumed by cruelty

but it’s raining now
cooling off

the cat is sleeping
in a basket
with the remote controls
and I’m wondering
what Andy Peterson
is doing right now

I imagine him stretched
out over the sheets
Bill Berkson in his hands
at 10:08 a.m.
on a Tuesday in July

and how I’ll probably
call him soon
and leave him a poem
over his voicemail
before going
off
to work

and then of course
there’s Bridgit
who will
be having her
baby any day now
as Jared reminds us
that the end of this is us

and talking yesterday
about the marvel rooms of chance

it occurred to me
that if I hadn’t
driven drunk
and stoned
with Armentrout
in Boulder, CO

I would likely have never
met my wife

and as we consider
these eternal
questions of life

it’s important to stop
and occasionally
reflect on
reason and purpose

to think
I’ve come all the way
from Buffalo, NY
through acne
and glasses
an abortion
two marriages
two mothers-in-
law named Jane
graduate school
expecting a child
an alcoholic father
a speech impediment
trips across the country
and back again
poetry pills fried eggs
ice cream cones
and credit card bills

to write this poem
and to mention
the retarded
Wal-Mart greeter
the one in the wheelchair
drooling on her collar

a lavender streak dyed
into her hair
her hand-me-down
sneakers having walked
a thousand miles
on someone else’s feet 

practically perfect in every way

she talks on and on
and at such
volume
about her
genius brother

I don’t know
where he
gets it
she said
he’s perfect
and he scored
perfect
on his SAT’s
and near
perfect
on his LSAT’s

I mean
he could have
gone to medical
school no problem
and if he did he probably
would have cured
cancer
AIDS
pretty much
everything

but then we’d
have over-
population
I tell her
if nobody
dies
we’ll all be
living on
top of
each other

well he’d likely
fix that too
because I think
he also really liked
building things
when he was
a child

but I think
best of all
he’s not
negative
like you
you’re always
so negative
like your
life is so bad
she said

and he’s so happy
all the time
like he doesn’t
have a care
in the world

but he’s
all alone
in that big house
and he can’t
get a woman
to stay
longer than
a night
and I just
don’t understand it
she said

well
cheers to the genius
I said

cheers to the genius
she said

some lives were made
to be wasted

grace

to be graceful
is to deny
our natural
predilection
for shame
and
gaucherie

to do something
gracefully
is often
more
valued
to doing
something
without grace

however
both
may receive
applause
and
admiration

Marie Antoinette
had grace
Cleopatra
had grace
Christ
Beethoven
Earhart
Attilla the hun
all had it

grace is the marching
of armies
and sometimes
their defeat

grace is the flashflood
the wild fire
Dante
in the 9^th circle

it is the scavenger
the pear tree
matchsticks
and the light bulb

traffic cops
boxers
and clerks
in department stores

a herd of horses
chasing
the sun and you
tiptoeing through
the bedroom
after dark
your pregnant
silhouette
balancing the soft
white lines
of my
tired eyes

just like in the movies

we sleep on a foam
mattress
on a cheap wire frame
and at 5 a.m.
she awakens me
because
her side of the bed
is sinking

the middle peg
has inverted
and will
no longer
hold the mass
of her pregnant body

how did this happen?
she asked
you did this
somehow you did this
when you were
vacuuming
or straightening up
I know you think
it’s because
I’m fat
but you weigh
more than
I do so
you’re wrong

naturally
I say
turning on
the light

we get up
and I struggle
to straighten
the peg leg
half asleep
and hung over

I can’t get it
I say to her
my hand’s
all fucked up

you mean the dog
fight hand?

yeah

you barely got bit
you’re fine

but the tooth
went deep

oh stop
she said

now try pulling
off the mattress
she said
then straightening
the leg

so I drag off
the mattress
and then
she said
those clamps
are broken
how did
those clamps
break
that’s the reason
I’m sinking
I’m going
to end up
on the floor
on that
dirty
stinking rug
with the dog
which wouldn’t
be so bad
if she didn’t
eat poop

but finally
I straighten
the leg
put the mattress
back on
straighten it
climb in
turn off
the light
and begin
the long
climb
back into sleep

as the morning
birds begin
outside
our window

you know
she said
I bet
I know
what
happened
to the leg

oh yeah?
I said

it must
have bent
the other night
she said
when you
were pounding
into me
you were
going so hard
I was worried
maybe you
made me bleed
but no
instead
you just
broke
the bed

oh
I said

and wasn’t that a strange
movie tonight
she said
I kept waiting for
something
good to happen
to Jolene
you know
that turning
point in a movie
when they
finally
catch a break
but nothing
good ever
happened

why would someone
make a movie
like that?

I sat up in bed
and put
my glasses on

where are you
going?
she asked

I’ll be right back
I said

I went downstairs
and sat
on
the toilet
in the dark

I heard Nobody
scratching
around
his litter box

he too was
shitting
in the dark

I thought about
silence

I thought about
being

in the audience
when a hippo
swallowed
a midget
in India

I thought about
scrubbing
the mold
from the tub

and then Nobody
walked over
stretched
his limbs
and vomited
on my foot

the morning birds
were singing
loudly now

as I wiped
my foot
and then
wiped
my ass

and I could
already
hear

our toothless
neighbor
clanking
around
his
junkyard lawn

the engines
of another
day
beginning
again

the whistles
blowing

the punch
clocks
punching

the eggs frying
in the pan

the children
of night
tucked
back
into their caves

the owls
hollowed out
by the sun

morning bird
I thought
wish me
luck

tonight
I will try
for the other leg

so that maybe
together
we can
sink
into the
same dream

where a black cat
is gunned
down
by a silver bullet

and you
and I
can begin
again

just like in the movies

where I take your hand
as you’re about
to leave

tell you I love you

before you
board
a plane
heading east

a red rose
burning
in your hair

I thought of ships and armies and goldfish not in their bowls

dog breath
and
warm beer
and
nowhere
to go
but down

but it is not
so bad
growing
older

not yet
so
cruel

not yet
hunted
by
lightning
and
thunder
and
the sea

not  yet
swept
out
and
away
across
the earth

hoping god
is a cat
curled up
on a plush

pillow
too busy
licking
his asshole
to concern
himself
with
me

buoy

people are no good
to each other

but without an ocean
to swallow us

we will likely
go on being
whoever
it is
we are

and I suppose
there’s
nothing wrong
with that

if you can accept
a little deceit
now and
then
hunger
and cruelty
some of the time

without an ocean
to swallow us

but rest assured
it cannot
be war
all the time

otherwise
we couldn’t tell
love and hate
apart

and because
we’re all
in this
together
in this soup
old
young
thin
fat
dead and not yet
born

all without an ocean
to swallow
us

we must keep
an eye
out
for the good parts

it’s the only
thing
we can do

misdirection

even after life
even among the bones

in their beds late at night

so many disparate
elements

moonlight that hung
in the trees

the wires dance in the wind

sounds of myself

smoking
my hand writing

even after life
even among the bones

they knew this was never enough

the promise
that surpasses us

sobbing and shaking

like a pale-skinned virgin

completely emerged

in the lights
the wet streets
the person she thought she was

edenic

there is a constant barrier
somewhere behind
the invented centuries of our fragile backs

hurling forward
my dream
the enormous bliss
the event of our meeting 

if I may show you the future
a new delay in terror
a crude symbolism
without experiencing design

the incomprehensibility of my poems
and our connection
unlike their fathers may even be
grateful to you
to the abyss
to the multiplying endlessness

slowly caught fire in emergency kisses

photo shoot


so incredibly starved
for attention
he sits
on the wooden
rails of the bridge
staring up
toward the house
like he is posing
for a photo shoot

one
where the photographer
is always
the sun

the unveiling eye
of the holler

but he knows full well
he upsets the dogs
by posing there
like a degraded Gable

but there he is
anyway

shirtless
skeletal
bronze

brain waves
like a game
of pong
cluck
cluck
cluck
cluck
Paul Mall’s
staining his fingers

the sound of four
wheelers
whizzing by

as if there is ever
some place
to be
urgently
here in

this beautiful inferno

a marriage riddle:

the glass blotched
with concentric
rainbows

carry them away
to captivity

case study 4

a teacher
after reading how
word-association techniques
reveal personality
writes on the board

“good work improves reputation”

if she then
tells you
to prepare
for your presentation

do not instead
photocopy
your gaping asshole
to prove a point 

knowing her
interest
in David Bowie
she will likely
ask
for a closer look    

teaching english

writing your first line
will be the most
strenuous endeavor 

it will be highly
important
that you are not
diddling yourself
under the table
or using your dictionary
to look up dirty words  

but if you cannot resist
quickly jerk off
and get back
to your lesson

baby talk

            for Andrew K. Peterson

he said
nobody has ever
written a good
poetic narrative
about
pregnancy
from the
male
perspective

hell
I can’t think
of many women
who’ve done so
and made it
accessible

you could
really
strike a chord
with that
he insisted

if it comes
I told him
I’ll write it

if it doesn’t
I still have
the service
industry
academia
marriage
loneliness
dogs and cats
ham and swiss
gin and tonic
green bean
casserole
neighbors
bills
telephone calls
thunderstorms
and the endless
compulsion
to dance the keys

when the baby
talk comes
so will the words
however
mismanaged
and irresistible