SNOWFLAKE

she talked out the side
of her mouth like a gangster
i think she did a lot of
coke back in the day --
she said, rub the lining
of yr nose raw with sandpaper
then take everything you own
out in the yard in a pile
and set it on fire:
that's cocaine

"Pirate Queen, Let Me Melt Into You." 

"It is me, I write this down in the air.

I'm on mandrake time now,

Moon-root, halo'd glow as if seen

Through naked winter limbs of trees

In Vermont or perhaps the Spanish Main?

What is it like where you are now?

Does it sing a lot? Describe

The quality of light filtered thru

Your weltanschaaung, okay?" etc.

who tampers with the moon tides

the morning turns

"love is not mocked whatever use

you put it to" ~ Jack Spicer

nerve movie

there's not very much of that left, either.

as a swarm of golden bees

circle around & around & around & around & around

FOR MY FATHER (AFTER PHILIP WHALEN)

Being a modest man, you wanted

Expected an ordinary child

And here's this large, inscrutable object

ME

You recognize part of the works

Ones you first donated in 1962

But what are they doing?

The transmission slips, and

Was there a warranty? doubtless not.

Why couldn't it be more like a

Farm truck, or a sports car? Something.

Not this baroque moneypit

Which with great elaboration, gears

Spinning and too much flash of the wrong sort,

Produces a thing like this, words,

Sometimes worth $ to folks in New York, or not,

Nobody knows why.

ASCENSEUR POUR L'ECHAFAUD
but first one perfect twilight
in the middle of the river of
sunday april 15, 7:29 p.m.
(the Poet lives in the slums
of the reader's imaginary city)
it spreads out to the north & west
all green & gold, cold
in the fading light--there is no place
that the past can take place except
in the crosshairs of my big poetry gun
I rebel against the tyranny of the calendar
The muses count onetwothreefourfive
Daughters of Time, count the sun
in the green limbs what do you see?
leaves like trembling jazz notes in a nightclub
you heard once, smoky nightclub air,
you were supposed to be somewhere else
that night what happened?
But you weren't. Life is what happens
while the girls circle the pier looking
for dropped bread crumbs for gleaming
silver fish scales the waves surge
up against the pilings wetting the legs
of the waders, kush
kush.