Zebra Mussels

Zebra Mussels are small & hatchet shaped Zebra Mussels will attach to anything: boats, other mussels, turtles, crayfish, your mom, etc. Zebra Mussels have been found in many romantic locales: Lake Dardanelle, the St. Francis River, Bull Shoals, & Plum Bayou in Arkansas. And your mom. Zebra Mussels can live for days in moist, dark livewells and bilge areas, abandoned grain silos, and under your bed. Probably not your mom. Transporting Zebra Mussels across state lines is a crime, but only for immoral purposes, so check for ID. If you find a Zebra Mussel, do not loan it money or introduce it to your mom. Northern Snakeheads are actually okay if you like to party.

GETTING HOME

We may fly fastest home On a broken wing -- The pain a spur onward, The goal a golden door In the near distance -- Because of the hope Or rather keen anticipation Of succor there, a warm hearth, A loaded fridge, a kitchen table and all the accouterments thereupon -- A welcome smile at the door, The dog too attentive, drooling with delight And moreso if you pet his head -- To be taken in thus, Without a question or pointed look, The secret grace of home too rare In the sad old world, Of knowing but dismissing The not important details of the day -- Come on in, they say, Come on in and sit and rest -- You are family, no guest -- Your face alone at this late hour Is a happy turn, and we are blest.

AN ISLAND IN THE MOON

No one sleeps in the sky. No one

Not even the still indescribable crocodile.

I used a crocodile head mummified

For a crystal ball, for a little while.

I have come from the countryside.

I do not believe that man is the

Most important thing of all.

The ball of white across the sky

Is why I stay up thru the night:

Occult sensitivities, peril, and flight.

Shadowed in the gibbous pale light.

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.

ANCIENT EMPTINESS

I dont even wives
I walked a rap for the table
From fixtures
That we never hear me come in was good
Its never rest; theyd like a tomb
She little soul misplaced into the door tooth
She was talkin down
Upon the locusts sang off in crime
Discussed like a big bouquet
Of ancient emptiness

POEM FOR THE LOVELY LESBIAN FROM MANITOBA I SAW AGAIN THIS WEEK

my roommate said

"not only is she

not thinking of you

tonight, she is

in fact imagining

a utopian realm

somewhere far away

and wonderful yet

totally devoid of Penis."

 

well, shit.

POEM FOR EX-WIFE #3

I knew a girl who sang the blues,
I married her at length --
We lived one summer till I fled,
I didn't have the strength --

Five feet tall one hundred pounds,
I'd loved her 14 years --
I've never drunk the way I did
That season lost to beers --

She calls me now from time to time,
I listen to her keen --
My life's gone boring nowadays
Far from my drama queen.

JACKET BLURB FOR "HOW TO PICK UP WOMEN IN BARS AND OTHER PUBLIC PLACES" BY DR. LOOMIS BURKHEAD, ED.D.

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HEARTBREAK WITH A HAMMER

death is a rough ship
rudderless on black water,
a big cold moon
that takes up the sky
and blots out the stars,
and maybe they become
how you must be
too soon, too soon--
ah, desolation

BENEATH THE BIG BRIDGE

The swallows swirl
Beneath the bridge
In chaos, patternless
To the eye, their mud
Nests projects off
the Iron beam above --
I am looking for their
Pattern, where is it?

They are like us,
Making mudpies in the sky,
Purposeful I guess
Beyond the naked eye.

POEM

coral or old wine
i can't look out the
window without
hearing you run
up the stairs in a
rush to give me
that welcome
shuffle knock
o my girl of the
evening primroses!

REAL LOVE

i know something about love
hate & love are clarifications enough
of themselves, pleasure in the
collision & juxtaposition, when
you think about it what else is there?
the simultaneous coherent incoherency,
whole days drenched in sheets, twisted,
the air an avalanche shot with golden dust--

the morning flows like twilight in reverse,
sodden thoughts, the white arm on the
pillow, sweet in some natural way--
the sudden desire to do some manly deed,
like rustling breakfast despite the uncertain weather:
everyone knows it's windy

A WHITE BIRD

Gnarled briar pipe
On the shelf with
I-Ching coins,
Caller ID, nail
Clippers, green
Deco ashtray full
Of change, the
Bettie Page baseball
Card tilted to it,
A roach, mostly
Smoked, at her feet.

My girlfriend's hand
Passes over it, caught
In the lamp's halo,
A white bird dipping
Down so delicately down
Then upon the orange
Zig-Zags. And is gone.

HEADLONG INTO THE FLAME

it brings terrible risks (they warn)
i do not see them, only currents
of fire and air consuming me
gladly here now

it is ordinary, like smoke
although i cannot sleep
and long to burn the cities
of the earth in your name

or lay roses at your feet
love and drink and song
a madrigal to you o mine
fair damoiselle, dark like the burning sun

DINER POEM 5 A.M.

Morning rattles again
Takes a deep breath
Stirs up some early light
Along the street, blue
A little, as if a hand
Somewhere had thrown a switch
The sound rising to meet
The blue dawn light
Venus there suddenly remembered.

HOW ENTIRELY MORTAL IS THE LOVE I BEAR FOR YOU

forgive me, i am dazzled
by your sorrow darling
girl! washed away by all
this icy rain, caught up in it

my world's the blue crown
on the throne of my
kingdom of yearning, there
forg'd by tongs of hunger for you

holy and fine the pulse of
breath on your lips each
day, hope roaring out from
my excellent prayers toward you

and yet it's you. you. i ache
for love of the holy and luminous
sea, which is you, which is
the dawn there above the waves

XMAS POEM

For my sins I live in the city of Fayetteville--
Everything is clear from here at the center
To the end of my block, I can see thru the trees
Past the house with the mannikins
At seventy miles an hour--
This is my certain place, a pleasant smell of
Apples often fills the air.

June night exists, June night exists,
Even here in our December and the rain--
O you who are wrapt in velvet
Drop by sometime with a peach
In one hand & a firefly in the other,
Come sing old Cole Porter songs to me--

PERSONAL POEM

Every possible thought charged with sudden
Meaning, loose high energy, leaves skittering
In a gust American Beauty-style across the pavement
Like little children, laughing, then up up a big
Yellow lemon balloon into the blue wide sky
Right out of sight. Terrific!
Out of two eyes gazing amazed and welcoming at
Me, up late, impossible to misplace
Under this light and anticipated light--
Not: come live on the floor with me, she said, and I
Did--she didn't say that, but I would, I would

THE MILK OF YOUR LIGHT

You go too far, but what to do?
The trees are indifferent to each of us,
The faces of virgins white boats, oars tucked

Waiting (Your being beautiful, say,
Younger than the trees, morning
Fed on explicit song: the other

Morning a clue to the question of
My angel which I take enormously
Seriously. You should know. To know this

You can navigate the river of night.
Think about it. Strange birds sing
Red-faced and shy, a regular fleet in

Expectation. I love this strange life.
I love crying in the kitchen, what am I
To do now? Call me please when you get this.

9/17

crickets outside and rain. slept 11 hours. diet dr.

pepper. brain hurts. today my life consists of: a

ceiling fan with a broken blade, the sound of rain, no

money. books. unrequited love. a taxi shift every

day at 5. drunken sorority girls who overtip. a tarot

deck (the prince of wands: "intensity; blossoming

love; intuitive creativity; out of darkness into light"--

maybe). absent friends. poems. the girl with the

limp who never tips and always tells me what movie

she just saw. she doesn't like pretty actresses. they

"annoy" her. i try to imagine what her life is like.

staying on top of the movies like that must be a full

time job.

DREAM

I mean I don't know what you mean
Stopping me like that when I was just
Getting to the good part where the
Procession of my Ancestors was walking
By, real or imaginary, great-aunts and
-Uncles, from my childhood and they
Still knew me bearded and almost forty.
You threw me the golden dagger to cut
Through my bonds which turned into
The pearl-handled little pocket knife
Aunt Mazie gave me when I was just
Six, that I lost in the yard and
Never could find though I searched
For days. I cried and cried over that.

ALBA LONGA

Women get under things. In the shadow
Of the pink moon carving ice like the
Night sky, ice grinding stone,
Carving strange signs there into it.

Never the same later. Wouldn't want to be.
Flesh is real, transitory, we are made
Of it. The marks show. Even in the
Dim moon light, even then, if you look.

Looking back, almost seen, never quite.
Finger tips feel the grooves in it--
Trace ahead, try to guess. Never guess.
It never shows that way. Flesh is frail.

POEM NOT BEGINNING WITH A LINE FROM PINDAR

By their high & ancient light
You saw the nature of yourself--
You are not a pinnacle
Of creation beneath a protected
Veil of sky, you are
A fierce bright atom of
Self-hood encircled by fire.

I stand in doubt, surrounded
By holy wood--it is this
Hand hiding in smoke,
A cherry button heart,
A blazing circle of rum--
You are here, shaping
Suns & arrows, a halo
Of moon-rays, bright at 2 a.m.

Thing is to cut a shape in time,
A shape that's the shape of you--
No goddess, you must be revived,
Devin among the grasses--
Hearts revive with you:
Every moment then is light.

BIRTHDAY 38 POEM

Puerto-Rican girls are terrific!
But I don't know any
Puerto-Rican girls
Here in the pool hall:

I will pretend you are
The Puerto-Rican girl--
You look that good
In your little dress
And your eyes sparkle chica!

A WAY OF SHOWING FEALTY TO THE POETRY GODS,

Taking cabs all over
Town on a Friday
Afternoon sick with
Hay fever & love.

SONNET AFTER ALICE NOTLEY

Certain gestures repeat endlessly in recollection.
It is night and you are sleeping. The big cold
Night is singing softly to itself. In my dream
You are on a balcony--there is sea-air
And bougainvillea. Now in the alley I am
Singing to myself--I hear the night sing too.
I am alone in the wet and purple night, so sweet
Like air, and not discontent: hands in pockets, happily cold.

We got our feet wet in things, didn't we? and so are
Formed like angels, like bougainvillea. Really
I'm glad. Certain gestures repeat endlessly
In recollection, in dreams. My shoes scuff
The paving stones, marked by moonlight. You are marked
By moonlight, too--so sweet like air, so fair.

SONNET

At a party I went because,
I went because I don't go enough,
Out, usually I just go home, I do
Remember distinctly faces, music--
Across the house you were there
I saw you elegant in furs distinctly
There poised I thought in the distance
Across the faces past them on the other side.
I thought standing across the house
By the music then mostly of your
Lavender sock, and mostly then
I wished I had it back, and was
Back home looking right then at it
On my chair.

NEW POEM FOR SABRINA

Medea's a Phoenician wench, Sabrina's
Pasadenan/ hails from boulevards &
Constellations, surface undersea Galaxies
Near the beach

My world has made/ an Oriental turn
Meaning: mysterious! orphic! fun!
And I walk my day on Fu Manchu
Standard Time/ Have come to
A fork in the road/ & am taking it

Things whip toward the center
Sweeping me down/ to the floor
After my Odyssey up & later
Further down below

My angels were losing/ patience,
Christmastime so near, trees
Standing stark naked/ On my street
In a line. It is December 6. I'm 39.

INDIAN SUMMER

Earthworms organize, cicadas
Chant their alien chorus--
Weeds circle like Indians or tigers--
The black cat investigates,

Looking for clues--
George Washington on my book
Has the blues--
Words like "micturition" & "malacosus"

Hang like seagulls in the air
Looking for fish upon the dock
The cat licks my fingers
Lingers, anxious for a taste of love

INLAND WESTERN

But that was years ago. is my concern
My lifetime listens to yours, written
On the plane. we are alive in an hour
Cold, sunny (too sunny), fast traffic

I want to live on abstract pain
Not like this. what the calendar has undressed
All my ghosts, bend down with strife
And everything a witness of the buried life

A date for the eleventh hour
Who needs that now. not I
The bright noon street the crooked faces
The flaming torch of December sinking sun

JELLO'S SO GOOD WITH ANTELOPE

How repulsive it is for me to
Heave & lust for delirious neighbor,
Juicing sausage champagne down mother,
2,000 heavy moist blue busty women
Work wet for young thinker

We ask the yet question,
Love naked tom-tom in America
When strong grain petal--
Wild & warm,
Diamond symphony women

God is a TV--
Eat magic moon ice & you
Can tell him no.

POEM

Brevity is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Bye!

POEM FOR MY GIRLFRIEND

robin is the one
robin is wonderful
robin is currently an assistant professor at the university of
robin is the future
robin is new edison director
robin is a jedi
robin is left out? ;
robin is 7
robin is available for adoption
robin is a
robin is a common spring flower
robin is
robin is the half
robin is having fun
robin is officially over the hill
robin is so fine
robin is batman's sidekick
robin is doing good business
robin is doing well
robin is the one?
robin is there
robin is saying her prayers
robin is even gaan zweven'
robin is the future alex corretja lost out despite beating lleyton hewitt bbc sport's iain carter
robin is even gaan zweven
robin is currently employed as community producer
robin is good
robin is back
robin is "bad girl" again
robin is a caring
robin is one of my closest friends in fandom
robin is a brown bird
robin is teaching beginning and intermediate bryce courses online at the eclectic academy
robin is a member of the bluebird and thrush family
robin is impatient; robin is cool
robin is a channel protection script written for ircii clients
robin is still there
robin is back after serving a prison term
robin is a prolific composer
robin is a common breeding and migratory bird in estonia
robin is a gabriel
robin is a progressive group project
robin is a law unto herself
robin is flexible and will turn to whichever food is most readily accessible
robin is to the greenwood gone
robin is good but not so
robin is having fun june 2001
robin is very much the hunt down and capture the monsters substituting witches for vampires
robin is one of the finest works of art to emanate from david fryer's studios
robin is also a radio regular
robin is founder of the purple heart foundation
robin is migratory
robin is a development dimensions international
robin is a welcome sign that spring is here or at least very near
robin is an exception to the ordinary and so are her doors
robin is a frequent speaker at conferences and has conducted several onsite search engine
robin is technically a chat thrush
robin is one of the most native and democratic of our birds; she is one of the family
robin is the fourth installment in the popular movie adventures of the caped
robin is just too familiar
robin is a new tonearm from graham engineering
robin is not extinct
robin is now doing quite well
robin is on good terms with the queen and becomes accepted by the king
robin is a cartoon
robin is yellow with a black tip and the throat streaked with black and white
robin is pretty much the opposite of what is probably the best recent superhero movie
robin is don's personal goldsmith & is responsible for designing
robin is set to look on completion pictured left
robin is really sir ruthven
robin is restricted to rainforests of the wet tropics region
robin is equally at home on both the atlantic and pacific coasts
robin is captured
robin is also an experienced orchestral bassist
robin is part of the mrp birel racing team in 2002
robin is president of the star centre library
robin is actively involved in helping to update and modernise these qualifications
robin is a total sweetheart
robin is most known for her working in the area of water conservation
robin is a strong believer in destiny himself
robin is "gay"
robin is not one of our most charming songsters
robin is a fully functional spinning wheel
robin is an excellent tool to minimize the risk of combining several teams in one parlay while still capitalizing on higher payoffs offered by parlays
robin is found throughout north america
robin is framed for murder
robin is a bird
robin is one of a small group of artisan distillers who compete with the europeans in the market for high
robin is een
robin is devoted to helping dogs and their people
& that's why I love her so

IN MEMORIAM

Sophie died last night
On the road--
It was quick
But not what came after--
Our laughs at her
Staccato happy
Dog-girl ways
(Cat roustabout!
Blanket burrower!)
Gone in the
Beating of a heart,
And we lay with
Her in our arms--
It hurt.

GREEN RING

sweet perfection of you
in all its vagaries
alongside mine, alongside
me in bed, in the store,
in the kitchen, you are
a myth within my heart

LAST NIGHT THOUGHTS
(for R.L.S.)

Caterpillar, mirror or tomb--
You're a brand-new sky
To hang the stars upon tonight

Idiosyncratic & particular,
Like language itself--
Your ashtray is full like my heart

Guys my age
Ride bikes for health--
I drink 40s in my car

Your DAUGHTER passed a semi- going uphill
At dusk, into a blind curve,
Double yellow. Me strapped in back. Motherfucker!

Aetherial spirit bright as morning
Water blue as November dawn--
I are not a 42 year old (un)/happy poet

The deer on the hill
Console me. I'm behind
In my life

What is patriotism but
All the good things
We ate in childhood?

Music on the car radio,
A river in the distance
Marked by a line of trees

Do I dare
Disturb the Universe?
Rabbit-proof prince...

The legendary stardust cowboy,
"Paralyzed"--a festival of
Unmade beds, a tub with rope handles

Pink stucco, traffic, broken
Loveseat. Weight bench, notebook,
Robin. Plants in sun. Robin. Robin.

"from READ WHETHER (in-progress)"

to say, telephone or the coffee
or endless conversation. pure
serendipity, beautiful & divine,
like a Tulsa honeymoon or like
advice, like: "Descend with gravity
and doubt removed, the Moon
don't run on gasoline, the planets
creep like spaghetti on a lampshade"

Achtung! gamma rays, hydro pickles, a sort
of chromatic doorknob of the heart,
always present. roof. kerplunk. armstice.
pickle. pickle pickle pickle. it's
like it builds a hill at the base
of your brain. sometimes it rains.

BREAKFAST SONNET

The temple of your volcanic kiss is burning,
Edges charred, smoky air, submission
To an unfinished heart. Such comeliness
Flares cobalt blue, lemon, carmine red
Against my dull tones, fog and sand.
What night fenced in is poised between us,
Towering above the rest, above your
Curtained air, above my giltless charm,

River-daughter, real as you are real,
Hitting upon things--the chair, the cup--
Behind our studied loveliness, a flame-
Hurling devil angel, not unwelcome here--
Buried certain fathoms beneath the earth,
And above, down the abandoned heaven to us now.

NO AIR ON THE MOON

Late at night he hustles wine,
Believes in things--"Baffling combustions
Are everywhere!" In my backpack,
In Heidi's sweater, across town off Garland Ave.
In my x-girlfriend's goddamned spice rack!
In this Friday slush I stride through
Off-balance and stern.

Four walls mean something (others have noted this),
We make love to pretty girls when we have time,
Otherwise stomp Lyrically across the wet & purple day
When on fire, like now, pregnant w/ mandrakes
& making "vast apple strides" toward the ice floes.
Caught up in the talons of a gigantic eagle, a really
big One, the biggest one of all!

"It is winter. We are here. AND THERE IS NO MONEY."
My dream a nest of light & heat, the 2 a.m. quilts &
Rain at the windowpane & Love: "real as keyholes,
Real as affadavits"--

The trouble with comparing a Poet to a '64 Mercury
Comet:
Comets don't develop scar tissue blazing across the
sky
At 2 a.m. like a remonstrance--

But you will.

MERMAID THIRSTY

In the tidepool of memory / flooded, the salmon
hover, gills moving in the still clear water,
subsisting on scraps in a distant room--
Regret is a series of sadly foregone /
Conclusions / a cold isle in a northern sea--

[Now] here I am at my
Desk / driving along the winding shore road
in search of : Melody Ritter, Katie McCauley,
Wilma Shively, Patty Warfel, / Carol Rhatigan.
Even Maefern Shroeder! Dolores Sneathern! Helen Tidmarsh!
[loudly:] Where are you girls? I am alone in the wet &
purple light. / Plodding through the sand / Loose
sand & these lousy goddamn shoes--

Whose wet swimsuit there by the tree
And small damp footprints going
Out to sea

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.

LOVE-POEM AGE 37, 26:III:2000

a desire now to go out into the light,
wobbly, blinking, trying to remember,
unshaven, to take with grace long breaths
of chilled blue morning air, like wine--

replete, somehow, sinew'd, girt for the
labours ahead: a desire to be of use, in
short, to the actual exercise of innocence
in a complex situation little aided
by theory.

LOVE, GONE AS LIGHTNING

so pick your terrain with that possibility in mind:
a million times over, to be born in the
silver light of the midnight moon, standing
among waterweeds, head cocked
benightedly

i would return to the sea with you
(possible even on the west coast)
on top of which, i eschew godly wisdom, thus:
"O my son, rise from thy bed / & work at what is wise"--
pfui! so maybe i don't wanna be wise!

CONFESSIONS OF ALEXANDER CALDER, 1898-1976
(confession #1)

beneath authentic pink honey Buddha
lighter than air, worshipped beneath
eternity, chanting like enlightened
demons eating the sky
& licking the animal sea

my dream is to be
present when near
some still enchanted happiness
Burning drolly, upon some more
unquiet spirit, attentive to
me alone
here

Jesus, red roses!
Would you think I'd want two?

THE CATS IN ANNIE'S ALLEY

the cats in annie's alley / annie who
broke the blue jeep with freckled hands /

down her alley / in florida i guess
where one sometimes goes "i wish i

were there" / or had gotten just one
pearly kiss / for the jeep

BASEBALL IN THE DARK

The girl downstairs & the girl in Indiana
& the girl across town--green, past enchantment--
she isn't "in love"--Jack & Ted playing baseball
on LSD in the dark (1993)--after a party--
last beer the whistle of the ball in the dark--

Little blue pills the color wheel the bare shoulder.
I have $8 & some change they turn off the gas tomorrow.
We are living in the Future it has a slightly metallic
sheen. I cannot date my checks it is all a little
wobbly, & cold too

All those old letters. Grain of salt! Points on a curve!
Flat beer & a book of wet matches I had the flu & couldn't
Church on Sunday, Bible & prayer book in red morocco with
gilt edges. Cold supper in the evening And I almost felt
like crying myself just because he was crying

A drunken cheerleader peers through her fingers
Her boyfriend knows everything he has ever known
So do you

SHE STAPLED THE WING BACK ON THE ANGEL

I swing the words, electric around the Gotta life
toward the syntax of your smooth thighs & Summer knees
dancing, flooding the room with light

candle apple breasts & the slightest
hint of blue lace panties; this salty decade
my ruins, broken stone, like a postcard found in an old book

paperclip pretensions: real as you are not real, enticing--
(the biological bureaucracy files its damned charts)
formless summers, a book of wet matches, flat beer

outcast on a cold & distant shore

GARDEN FULL OF CHARM

They are very shallow people who take every
thing literally / but not us, *we* don't!--
Fiddle tunes in our sandy hearts! / Whiskey,
my girl! my men need whiskey!

Let the music from the kitchens ruin my heart
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl
If I come away with salt in my beard
As dark as the hours we have tasted,
I remain: alive in my old black boots, car keys,
Harry Smith records, keenly anticipating

The curve of your thigh on my couch /
Pale in the pale moonlight

POEM FOR 3 WOMEN

deadheading roses, withered petals cut away--
dark eyes, perfect criticisms, big ecstasy
settled, bill paid, put away, almost forgotten--
surprise! but no autobiography ignores crucifictions

were you trying to paint over shadows?
the wine & mediterranean arches
like a coal kept banked for morning,
pale in the pale moonlight

my delightful emperor is like cool rain,
a crazy uncle wanting to get laid--
(I touched her bra-strap when I hugged her goodbye,
my hand tingled for 1/2 an hour)

thse longings surprise me: promiscuous fireflies!
a river, one arbitrary red barnacle on the hull of old memory

LENTEN POEM

Fat Tuesday Lent has begun
Here by the bottom of the rainbow, like
A cast-off shirt Across town
She is in bed with aflame and
Fun 2:27 a.m. She mentioned
mentioned despondent this guy She
Called like I really wanted to hear about
Called despondent this guy At
The bottom of the rainbow Tonight the
Stars are like a crowd of faces of faces
Faces lips pressed tight Across
Town Lent has begun Like a
Cast-off shirt like an old suitcase she
Can just drag around Her legs
They ought to be on stamps Across town
She is in bed with a coffinful of angel
Wings me I don't fly too good
Anymore The butterfly on the
Wheel across town across she is in
Bed 3:00 a.m. the best time to listen
To NPR cool sibilant voice like sangria
An old suitcase she can just drag
Around Be my icon she said
Tuesday the canal waters of Fayetteville
I cling to my paddle watching the
Mermaids swim past endlessly
Across town my candy heart snaps
Across town she is in bed She is in bed with
Go she said:
Go down and peer among the fishes
she said Lent
has begun.

SHE WALKS IN DARKNESS LIKE THE NIGHT

She walks in darkness like the night--
Bumping into the furniture a lot,
Fumbling for her glasses, frightened
By the mound of laundry shaped like
A dinosaur--but also: A sky of diamonds
In the moonless dark, grass wet with
Dew, the hum of traffic in the long distance.

571-4309

Look, my dear friend, look:
Situations arise, despite
Our least intentions, of
Which I was one,
I guess, doubtless.
Still: I love you, a constant--
Please someway understand
The passing nature of such
Eternal Call Song &c.
So: again, I'
m home, so
call

BALL LIGHTNING

The telephone keeps ringing & ringing--
Love comes in a sort of sly & winking way
& goes, the wooden clack of pigeon wings
across the grass & past the bluegreen hedge.

Ha-Ha it's so fun to run out on the long front porch
The winter moon (the cat's-claw moon) & she,
slamming her car door & bounding up the stairs--

Thank god we're living in the future now,
everything has a kind of metallic sheen
to it, did you not notice? That's how you know
it's future now, she never understood that part.

Boss Poet, stumped by her cold balk--
I may be the fool she limns each night
(our pillow talk) yet if it's so I remain
Happily poised.

She squeezed the universe into a ball
& then pronounced its lack. It isn't her world,
She's living in her own future now--& besides,
She said, I don't read Poems anymore.

The telephone keeps ringing & ringing-
I can't believe you're 37 she said again
(Well Christ, I thought, if it were just
a matter of that)

BIRTHDAY POEM FOR SABRINA 3/11/00

I wanna roo you from two til four,
Until your seminar. I know it's hardly
Fair: Me Tarzan, Heap Big Intellectual--
You Jane, Full of Mysteries--I know you
Put on socks & hate Wal-Mart (& shop
there anyway) like everyone else. But you are
Bubblicious, Buddy! I light a clove & watch you
On the stair, your legs they ought to be on stamps!
My bounty in other words is boundless as the sky,
In the land where they have the Big Sky; or the front
Lawn of St. Elizabeth's Catholic Church, the one
You enter thru the steeple, up below the Crescent Hotel--
Shady & full of squirrels.

So: I'll water the fern, I'll read your kid to bed--
Dig thru the books for something I've not read,
Doze on the couch til you get back.
(Your valentine candy heart said, "Be my icon,"
It was *mine* that said, "In the middle of the
River of our lives, the long sounds of trains
Reach to us across the silent moving waters."
I like yours best.) And now your footstep
On the stair comes like a piece of dream, & in
Their windowbox, the bougainvillea
Shift their roots in keen antici-
pation.

LETTER FROM SECTOR 7-G

One hen; two ducks; three squawking geese; four limerick oysters; five corpulent porpoises; six pairs of Don Alverzo tweezers; seven thousand Macedonian soldiers in full battle array; eight brass monkeys from the ancient sacred crypts of Egypt; nine lyrical spherical old men on roller skates with a marked propensity toward procrastination and sloth; ten poets.

TOP TEN PIRATES OF 1794

1. Edward Teach
2. Wm. Kidd
3. Stede Bonnet
4. Mary Reade
5. Cheng I Sao
6. The Dread Pirate Roberts
7. Henry Morgan
8. Capt. Hook
9. Jack Sparrow
10. Long John Silver

TIBETAN LOVE SONNET

I'm still on the mountain,
Kept away from you by
Avalanche, snow leopard,
All manner of time & space--

I love the very idea of you
So right, the cricket in the corner
Of my tent beside the lantern
Sings your song.--

The sherpas speak of you
In whispers in their tongue
Of Shangri-La which I do not
Understand,--

The midnight moon which shines
On me this evening shines on you.

POEM TO ABSENT FRIEND

"O my love across the river
Of days your name is
Like a catfish, rolling above
The wake of the riverboat
Of sad detail, which is gone
When I think of you!"

(from "Red Weather, pt. II") (in-progress)

But not so, & here I now am
Outside at night, surrounded by
Chaucerian groves of greenblack trees
Chorus of night music, Brahms & frogs

If nothing happens it is possible
To make things happen; a binding
Together of the real between us,
Commanding large fields but cultivating small ones.

What stranger are you living for?
It is only amateurs who feel keenly
The loss of the sky, that gloss upon
The surface of sin.

Full moon out tonight,
Dance on the patio in its light--
Forty-one years old,
Feeling all right.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF QUIXOTIC GESTURES
(after starting Tender Buttons)

wet sand in my skull, I wonder
how all the gestures here, and
the light of Bohemianism,
in window you cast about
in the genius of energy:
a mouth to fill it?

go, like a fly
jangles its route,
our being as we live thru them
the kinds of the window
of time, yes a cold glass
of energy, a street closes but me.

me, up with a girl in the
cycles thru knowing the cold,
open sea (it is yet the
tombs of human talk,
the quiet shatter of
things more important than cynicism)

not to lie to rain Christian terror
down from the kitchen floor
a state with a clock also
what do if I do it
would be here turns everything pure,
as I let it makes us hope.

I AM WRITING

I am writing at the table on the porch--
A beauty will be finally formed
From the train, the crow, the mrrr of passing cars--
Rising and falling like the tree,
Moving against itself into the wind.

LOVE,

your
face
the center
in a series
of rushing
water over rocks
in the stream-bed
of my real morning
awake 1/2 dressed
sensibility
where
you now
lie glinting
in the cataract clear
and pure as I mug at
my reflection and love you

SONNET FOR MATT

a mode of energy our being
as we are, above & outside
postcard collection floating
melodies & riffs on now
too familiar themes we are
but they are ours,
you know? and we live
thru them the cycles & thru
knowing the kinds of things
more important than
cynicism (not giving a
damn can carry the day
only just so far):
only sometimes it's hard.

BEHIND THE ELF HEAD

magnolia limbs framed in window
you can cast about in your mind
without inhibition without seeking comparison
a mode of energy, a soda pop
verdegris morning birdsong
wind sough, blue broomstick

SONNET AFTER JOHN WIENERS

The poem does not lie to us. We
Live under its law. The morning sun
On the window reflects it on the
Motes of dust in the air. The smell
Of the coffee and the sound of the
Passing car. Somewhere a dog barks.
It is too easy to sit here and wonder
Why I do this. The dog's bark is
More meaningful than mine is.

The coffee gives us hope. The dog
Barks because it must, that is
Its job. It punches a clock also.
The motes of dust make their
Own days as they coalesce together.
I hide a poem under my tongue.

POETRY BURNED ON TABLES

Beyond the window of ink
Bitter campari & a sheaf of
Confederate notes coeval with
My state--Maine? Rhode
Island? Providence is a state
Of brown-on-black with a cold
Open sea. It makes a difference
Having the ocean right there close that way.

Now I walk through light of mother-of-
Pearl & God emerges in a minor
Key to coax me out, now, my
Ordinary life. No wife. I always
Thought it would be more some
Other way, less like this. Dumb clarity.

Everything magnificent & tough,
Pale December sidewalk light. I rise
Each day from the tomb of sleep,
Captain of my fate, knowing we don't
See that much. Some things are really
There. I try to do it right.

BLUE THIRST

patterns of time
a cold glass of milk and
the moon's bright
falling towers tumbling

ice rattling late against the
window panes and, and
a passing car shushes
things made out of human talk

the quiet shatter of light
patterns of time flowing
colder than ice
in the night kitchen

POEM

To wake up with
A girl in my bed
Flickering like a
Green candle flame
In the sheets
Bare foot exposed
Pink tipt naked

Kiss me down
Into your memory
Beauty I wasn't
Born high enough
For you

AS I DRIFT DOWN

as I drift down
your presence
spectrum blue
ultimate blue ray
which is you
or minha percepção de você
of you yourself,
the whole skein of things
and lives

today wild green parakeets
on the tree-shadowd deck
screaming
love in the trees
on tv
I make the gesture
here, and elsewhere
carved in runes indéchiffrable
all trace out your name

SONNET AFTER BERNADETTE MAYER

As for me, when I saw you
You have the balls to say
You will be with me
Come be here my baby
And I'll take you elsewhere where
So many things--passion, my heart
Pushing its way back into my body
After we talk,
All in the present
Measuring itself
After so many steps
As you bend down to
Make something happen and
I rise like a moth to the light.

AS ABOVE, SO BELOW

A clean sweep, bereft of all posturing--
Ill-paid & surviving on nothing
Ultimate love testing always
Modest home in New Hampshire
or Eureka or the Big Island,
Eddie Murphy as Gumby,
Alcoholic Pokey,
Cops visible down at the corner,
But me, up here on the porch,
Inside my force field,
Thyroid children milk:
*That's* what I'd do
If I won the lottery...

"from RED WEATHER (in-progress)"

Drums in the pre-dawn. In my head my brain churns like bald tires on a gravel road. Wantonly. There was so much I wanted to say, telephone or zebra or goddamn. But I let it go, like the Pope. Ego te absolvo. Antarctica all the way, & that's if she's lucky.

All I had were the trees, which is a lot, & the birds, especially that goddamned nutty-sounding kind, that jungle bird. God. I wonder how all the other birds deal, like someone who gets drunk at a party & won't shut up & keeps on saying the most excruciating things. Hello, Mr. Inappropriate Disclosure! Goodbye!

"...in the years they lived there, carrying on with books, babies and endless conversation." If you make the space in your life will events rush to fill it? Yet the war goes on. Is this what it was like during The Crusades? You want to be home with your hippie chick girlfriend, the baby crawling on the kitchen floor, instead you're 2 knights down from Richard the Lion-Hearted, poised to rain Christian terror down upon the Turk.

Fuck this noise. Rusty armor, stale sweat, bad food. The dog on the front porch, the whistling teapot, the hummus & tabouli are far, far away. Coltrane on the stereo, flowers on the windowsill.

The horse snaps its tail at a fly, jangles its harness. Dust & heat.

RARA AVIS

Dear C.,

The lifestyle of the urban middle-class dropout art-gypsy makes us both shine like Archie McPhee glow-in-the-dark rubber cephalopods plus the tilted architecture around here turns everything pure as gale and mist washing my skull. I like your cat. Have your people call my people. I offer you, here, now, with love, the Ten Warning Signs of Bohemianism:

1. Odd Dress
2. Long Hair
3. Living For The Moment
4. Sexual Freedom
5. Have No Stable Residence
6. Radical Political Enthusiasms
7. Drink
8. Drugs
9. Irregular Work Patterns
10. Addiction To Nightlife

You are the wonderful. Waves and Blankets of Stars regard your every move. I am entering the earth as a street closes but it's your street and then, as you follow the map with an extended fingernail, tracing its route, our homes in transfigured space, the furniture (surely) like darts scoring triple twenties across the landscapes of our autobiographies. We cohabitate chapters XVII-XXIII. The interesting ones. See footnote 2(a). www.amazon.com gives your review four and a half stars. You are responsible for at least four. Thanks.

With us no other work but the genius of present life.

Best,
D.

I REMEMBER (after Joe Brainard)

I remember my dog Blackie.

I remember jumping off the piano when I was 4 trying to fly & hurt my nose. I thought the cape was what did it.

I remember wanting to be a cowboy when I grew up.

I remember my first girlfriend Kimberly JoAnn Farris, when I was in second grade. She was also my cousin Jeff's girlfriend. She used to hold hands with both of us at the same time.

I remember when cokes were fifteen cents.

I remember three channels on TV.

I remember trips to Indio, California, when I was a kid & how hot the sidewalk was if you went barefoot.

I remember visiting my cousins in Lawrence, Kansas, & a kid on the street out front offered me a Tic-Tac & I thought it was drugs.

I remember the first night I slept in the dorm in college when I was 17. I was scared.

I remember the first time I shaved. I felt very solemn. And chafed.

I remember proposing to my ex-wife. I had to do it twice in a row before she said yes.

I remember walking around Tulsa on my honeymoon holding hands.

I remember doing push-ups in the Army in the rain in the mud.

I remember falling in love with Katie McCauley so hard it gave me a nosebleed.

I remember the first time I saw a girl's breasts for real. I thought they would be like foam rubber or Stretch Armstrong or something.

I remember getting drunk with Tommy Jacques & going to see Katie McCauley at the girls' dorm. She wore a polka dot dress. We sang "Rosalita" to her. Tommy fell down on the lawn.

I remember working as a security guard when I was first married & making contraband sandwiches in the big institutional kitchen at 4 a.m.

I remember when I thought Royal Crown Cola was exotic.

I remember seeing "Raiders of the Lost Ark" thirty-seven times.

I remember my roommate Kevin when he was ten and I went to school with his dad.

I remember Heidi Widder when she was sixteen with braces. She was very beautiful & shy. I sneaked her wine at a party.

I remember when I turned 33 thinking I had outlived Jesus, Alexander the Great, and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin.

I remember when my parents put me to bed when I was a kid & how if I needed to get back up for a glass of water or something, how I was always secretly afraid that if I peeked into the 1967 living room where they were watching TV or playing cards with their friends, they would all have giant ant-heads.

WHAT W.W. DENSLOW DID WITH THE MONEY
HE MADE ILLUSTRATING THE ORIGINAL
WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ (1900)

He bought an island off the coast
Of Bermuda and crowned himself
King Denslow the First, with his native
Boatman as the admiral of his fleet
And his Japanese cook as prime minister.

He died on May 27, 1915, of pneumonia.

THINKING OF "THE BLUE ROSE SONNETS"

thinking of "the blue rose sonnets,"
up late, I know how Columbus felt,
a secret route to the Indies, etc.,
the Holy Grail, which is you, the
Plus-Ultra!, & just because it
turns out to be Florida don't mean jack!
I mean, Okefenokee is okay, too,
and if you turn out to be real, too,
get pissed off at times, throw your
stuff all over the place, I can
revel too in flying plates and tearful reconciliations.

REFLECTIONS ON THE SHAGGY MAN OF OZ (1949)

I need the Shaggy Man's
Love magnet, man, magnet,
Mack--ack! Love magnet,
& I could drive up up up
Her street, & all her love would
Flooooooow down my way, down to
My street, flow on down to my neighbor-
Hood

(howls at yellow moon, all full tonight) / exit
stage right

Q & A

Q: I wonder what life was like
a thousand years ago?

A: It was probably a lot like
being in High School--

POEM FOR HEIDI AND HER BABY

zammis watches me
as I leave
he's seeing things
that no one else can see

everything is a-ok:
his mama's very beautiful today

DEVIL GIRL

because of those crazy heels
she was wearing

with her little lace
red devil dress

I carried her all around
outside that night

at the party
with her in my arms

for well over an hour
and her eyes sparkled

when I set her down at last
near the laundry room

EX-WIFE POEM

she disapproves
of the way leaves fall
from the trees
when they fall in my yard

ANSWERING MACHINE POEM

Beep!

David it's Dr. Tim. The eagle has
landed. Capeche?

Beep!

David, it's Lisa. Um...I just wondered
if you had any green paint...

Beep!

Hi, um, this is Chuckie, again, and
I was hoping to get some, some weed...killer...

Beep!

Ay, mate, how's it goin? Just called to
see if you were still holding the kind
stuff, you know what I mean? Ring
us up when you get this.

Beep!

Hi. David. I left my lipstick at your house.
I was hoping to come and pick it up.

Beep!

Hey, I was going skiing this weekend, and I could
really stand to borrow those goggles
from you again, the ones with the half-inch lens?

Beep!

Hey, it's ELMO! and I am in need of your LOVE! Call me!

Beep!

Hey, Captain, whazzup? You around? Hello. Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello.
Alright, check it out, I'm thinking about taking out an ad in your publication,
a quarter page ad, wanna know your rates, right on? Call me
back. Bye-bye.

Beep!

(tape ends)

DRINK ME

"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice
(She was so much surprised, that
For the moment she quite forgot how
To speak good English). "Now I'm
Opening out like the largest telescope
That ever was! Good-bye, feet!"

DJANGOLOGY

django reinhardt & cokes
& comicbooks at 2:35 a.m.
are a great pleasure, at the
tattered end of the day

partly because of the secrecy
of our smiles, the pure
open gladness of seeing you
(& to be seen with those dark eyes!)

even now, you asleep far away,
awash in dream, makes poverty
almost fun, makes little
things big & beautifully true

gypsy guitar I hear
chords like my thought,
resonant, picking its way
across the open field that's you

CHRISTIANITY TOO

There was one black
Person in the church.
She was standing in
The front row of the
Choir, right next to the
Oriental woman.

A CATALOGUE OF YOUR CHARMS

You are the brightest apple of my afternoon--
green, blue, some kind of, like, burgandy birdsong.
You are more important than sleep.
(You like different drugs than I do,
and the same ones, too!)

You are a small song in the wilderness
You are a dovetail joint,
You are the honeybee mouth I coil'd my tongue around.
Ass of Venus! (the first champagne goblet
was molded from the breast of Helen of Troy;
the second one was you)

"Sorry I can't be more help in--not solving the
mystery of woman--but what? helping you
find a woman who allows you to look at her clues"
--letter from Cone Turner

"You are a Major-General in the marching band
of the Heroes of the Republic".

Someday you will be on a coin.

You are the chocolate-covered raisin of my morning,
the hottest band this side of the iron curtain,
a blue train ride, a stroll in the rain, the silence
of ten thousand crickets:

A halo of moon-rays, rolling downhill,
bright as day at 4 a.m.

AMBIVALENCE

I feel caught
Between two things

Wish I knew
What they are

Tangled star

DREAM-POEM

I dreamt I was taken
Within sight of a lighthouse
On a beach--in the dream
I remembered a trip to Florida
I took, that I never took.
What can this mean?

Tomorrow is easy, really really easy,
But tonight I am curious about the light-
House, what does it signify there
Just within sight? They are having
An awfully great time there on the other side,
I can hear the sound of the music
Beyond the big dunes.

OOMPA LOOMPA

The overpowering day hits
Like a circus midget! like a
Monkey in a cowboy suit!
Like a chocolate-covered raisin!

All its entanglements like
The threat of a hummingbird:
Lemonheads! Junior Mints!
Red licorice handcuffs!

I gnaw my way to freedom--
Willie Wonka, watch yr
Back, Jack!

EUREKA SPRINGS IN SNOW

this is where I live
I knew it would be like this
still, with the trees moving
seven a.m.
crystal
water trickle on
windowpane
air hurts
small town
shut down
glaciation

I'D LOVE TO BE YOU

September rolls like a wave over
Our cuffs, strains of Tchaikovsky
Hanging in the air. The word is not
The thing. Countries get crazy &
Go to war all week long.

Despair of hangdog love, her sunny
Lust buoys me up & then I go
Crashing down. Boom. Legs broken,
Collarbone, dying in a hail of
Gunfire in front of the Biograph.

Form dictates content. I'd love
A day in bed with her form.
Maybe next week. Roper of stars,
To be joyous is to be a madman
In a world of sad ghosts. Ha!

OCTOBER POEM

Red Bud Inn, Mountain View, Ark.
Rain tonight, out,
Silent sidewalk town
Who knows solitude
Of the polar night
In this dank burg?
The girl at Hardee's sweeping
Glad to see my ass go out the door.

I don't want to take a walk
Or read someone else's book,
I want to make love to you
In a field of wild flowers,
But you aren't here.

Something in the delirium
Of the night hours,
I am a universe etc.
I'm happy with our hermetic games--
(Do you love me
Despite prevailing conditions?)

Rough, beautiful intoxication of you,
Poetickal,--Breakfasting on rain,
I think of your eyes.

ANN POEM

Ann is sad today,
Or seems so,
Cheek pillowed in hand
And hair all willow'd
Down, sipping her straw
Cigarette idly smoking
In her palm and
That's all I know.

SHORT ODE #2

rose candle
heavy bass
John Q. Citizen
rolls a joint
on a kitchen plate
outside it is
getting late

SHORT ODE

smoke on the
new wooden
window casement
next door
Christmas
holly wreath
kiss me Kate!

"Whosoever shall encounter him by chance shall read to him
this poem. Who gives a damn about the bathroom door
rotting off its hinges & who gives a damn about a toehold
on a crowded ladder. Francois does not pity my delusions
nor those of the monks & black-winged demons painted
in gold & tempera onto the panels of my face. "
--Anselm Berrigan

MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY

I am harmed by those strikes
a that just happened to us one
of the depart. though it pains
me to all of the ocean is now
beneath our feet. as I watch the
sun go down I can be seen in
heaven's keep.

angels live they never
die, apart from us beyond the
sky, faded souls who've turned to
ice, so ashen white in paradise.
angelic arms spreading 'round,
protecting us without a sound.

I will see you I want is a good
I love you no longer felt like it
on a dozen, of those prickly
hedgehogs. life goes on. my day she is
my night she's my half that
makes me wonder; why? why?

the bees are truly amazing, but what
can I compare? then I told you
to know we've been through it
is and I smile I haven't
anything to reach for I see the
traumas of an eye.