Hogmanay

I became obsessed with entropy in 2007. My thesis paper in grad school was about it. This poem is about it.


Hogmanay (12/20)

There is death in this world - asphyxia - cotton
On the horizon everything levels into line
Mountains become plains become valley become oceans

And our bodies - yours mine - become less bodies
that feel nothing but the coolness of water then not even that
Our hands will smooth will become rocks in a river

My electrons will separate will form evenly spaced fields
Matter heaping and never touching
The universe will expand until it doesn't

Some Mary Tyler Moore Dick Van Dyke sleeping patterns
A safe sex video - static at the dirty parts
You take the left bed Mary I'll take the floor

Weakness

Weakness (12/29)

That I'm easy - that my emotions get away from me
travel to the other end of the country- get jobs

My mind seems to creep up on me - with a knife
I'm some lady in a shower with a bar of soap

It's all going to spiral down the drain eventually
This is the secret - I'm a jetty in a salt lake

Being covered with saline - washed in fry larvae
bodies floating on foamed surface tension

Apparently I am ephemeral - a vacant lot in Manhattan
There is a condensing happening in my stomach

The knots run up my spine - tension fill and
nothing - there is never release here

My weakness is that my mind latches onto the very idea
of being unit - the concept of snuggling up to love

Legendary

A bunch of these poems turned into poems about poetry. Or about 'muse'


Legendary (12/28)

Arms spread - the mountains I make will glacier
leave a plain of rubble and sadness behind

I am expanse - force meandering
I am the great wall of silence
inching in the back of your throat - a voice beckoning

That itch causes you to stir in your sleep
My fleas are in your ears

My thunder levels all playing fields - makes oceans
of your bodies

I am void - a star dying
I am the magnificent lie - entropic evidence of leveling off

Rhapsody

Rhapsody (12/27)

The sun is up I am walking
            along the break of land - the cliff
                        is a finality -

Here one thing ends while another carries away

The last of night builds
            itself into angry dots on the horizon
                        they melt inward -

Pink of morning seeping - tentacles reaching

The glorious sun is taking its hands
            sweeping the corners - its oozing
                        resentment -

I am walking in a wind now - I am coming up -

Upstanding

Upstanding (12/26)

And we're walking - on two legs all right
            through some sparse desert expanse - it's night
you can see the Milky Way - it's clear
            dark and the sky is velveteen but not soft
really - looks more like marble spotted with
            white paint

And we're starting up a fire
            making the pit and dumping the bones
of cactus - whatever tree we can find
            you've got some matches in that pocket
and they keep dry when we cross a river
            they keep their little heads covered

And we're bedding down on rocks for real
            walk all day - sleep all night
we're some sort of Conestoga train us two
            going as long as legs will take us
we're moving west - east - south - north
            as long as we're moving

We're not going back - that's for sure
            we're taking whatever we see - we're eating
every last bit

Boxing-day

It's weird sometimes. Since the OED updates from England if I check the word a little too late in the day I get tomorrow's date. Sometimes it doesn't matter. Holidays are hit and miss. I like the odd future-tense of this though.



Boxing-day (12/25)

It's a must - a sealed universe

Int he back of the shed - marked toys

Instant 1992 - the smell of California

Christmas-tree

Christmas-tree (12/24)

Pretty - not even Christian - we all know that I suppose
As far as arguments go it comes down to falling needles - that smell
I don't even bother - I go home and look at my parents'

Santa Claus

I apologize to all children. Everywhere.

Santa Claus 12/23

Eye you up form across the street and ask you to service him while he looks into the lights of the Gowanus at 3 in the afternoon his name is Fred and he'll be all jelly rolled and big-dicked and say things like 'good boy' 'taste that for me' 'like the precum boy' it will smell like crotch and sweat and his skin is pink hairless except for his stomach where the line jumps over his bowling ball gut to the root of his prick lips will slide easy cause it's cut and smooth and you should just cross the damn street and not talk to strangers and don't look him in the eye because it's way too fucked up to think about

Noscitur A Sociis

"Noscitur A Sociis" is a latin phrase that means: It is known from its associates. The phrase is used mainly in law where it applies to the meaning of words. I use it here as a way to imply that one cannot be distinguished from its 'hive'. It's also a poem about the subway.


Noscitur A Sociis (12/22)

            The swarm is halved - then thirds

You are running in a bowler and overcoat
            a train slowly leaves you behind

            The individuals stop - stunned - from the air
                        pebbles shocked over sand at night

The platform is empty
            your shoes clicking on cement
            you kick at the chipping yellow paint
            the edge slopes into void

            The swarm are periods - falling loosely - eighths

What do the calcite formations speak of?
            that this is a lonely underground?
            that the R train will never come again?

            The swarm has become a trail of ink
                        the world is littered with stoppages

Tap out the Morse of your thoughts
            that is a wing-tip sound

Poincare

Poincare (12/21)

Stars turn into diamonds
            when they die - they

            implode or
the matter condenses - they
become diamonds

Balls of ice
            glacial drifts - they
cease to radiate

Stars become reflection
            they turn into mirrors

Majorana

Majorana (12/20)

They lowered helium until it made a universe in a tube
the major and minor ions doing an alignment dance

Everything pointed the right northward

I'm imagining little rods and cones circling
a pattern forms an inner eye at absolute zero

My window condenses the universe every night in February
the water bubbles and slides in its closed system

A fog of light will fizz the wooded pane

Look through and it is space from the mountain top
a milky smear across everything making haze of Brooklyn

The sound of airplanes landing at JFK is the sound of entropy
it is the full on expansion of everything the epic pull

Everything is aligning everything is dancing their asses off

Nassanoff

Nasonov (12/19)

bread crumbs on petal road
        you dart in trumpet mouth
                make with the buzz
covered in glaze then remove
and trail to another

Merchandise

Merchandise (12/18)

What do you need?

This silver bit can pop and spend - think about it
and count the divisions you can make

How many of whatever can you get
for half of a half of a half?

And can you get it for half of that?

Edge-ways

Edge-ways (12/17)

Bridge of the nose a sluice across the room

You part the waves of people and become a cube

Each cheek a concave where shadow becomes reality

Your ears place themselves edge-ways and bore holes

This is wood on a broomstick drinking amaretto

You make the room geometric

Everything will become grids before you

You are floating over the stool in pieces held with string

Span of catilage and tunnels of endless smoke and stars

Plunk

Plunk (12/16)

Let me set Iraq down on the table and refuse to bring it up again
a loaded gun that will never go off

Politics wrap the room in ivy
that will take over our arms and keep us from gesturing

Or maybe it will just sit there jamming itself
become a coin toss that we call wrong

Will it sink into the table-top and leave rings on the linens
it may make everything black and burned in the shape of a finger

Does it point at us or into some vacant space
out the window at the shed where animals could be skinned

Let me just say that I appreciate the sentiment of it and acknowledge
that it exists I hear it humming over here where my knife and fork should be

Macromodelling

Macromodelling (12/15)

She wears theatre mountain well and wonders theatre fields
becoming theatre marsh - her skin is liquid running
Theatre rocks arecoline tumbling and bones - her fingers
become branches woven into chairs
Rocking she wears theatre sky - hurricane her lips
her eyes are coated grass - she marches to theatre sea
she moves a glacier carving theatre landscape

Droop

Droop (12/14)

Decline and go
into the hills - hide
my bones in the rocks

Root the nerve endings
at the cliff base - I will lean
a lone pine threading the wind

Decline and wear
smooth with rain rising
Fine lines across my face - a doll

Decline and end
a wilted sunflower husk
a boneyard of red lines over stone

I will bend once and turn shadow

Monochromatic

Monochromatic (12/13)

Everything is pink - opening
Unfolding everywhere
Wet paper with bruised edges

Nature is refilling
Spring is a violent season
All breaking redness

Peonies pop their leather seals
Dogwoods uncurl then die
The rupture of ice - thrusting grass
Everything a greeness that insists

A knife to the throat
A sheet of blood over the body
A sandpaper rub that callouses

Cereal

Perfective

Part of what I love about this project is the surprises I find within my own writing. This poem is a surprise to me. Which is always nice.

I included a link to the Wikipedia article on jicama. I realize most people know what it is...but some might not.


Perfective (12/12)

Tongue this grain
of sand into a diamond - the edges must
perfect themselves - become cumulus-nimbus
We have to become moisture
crystallizing in the atmosphere
our rationalizes thoughts becoming
snowflakes - reaching
out with feathered points - a tree - a root system
A nervous energy of highness rolling this muscle
We must become eroding
beach in calm mouth
Here - this slice of jicama in lemon - Here
a pomegranate seed - roll this until it goes clear
Until the juice is water and it can be worn

Overexpressed

I'll be honest. Some of the words just didn't grab me. This was one.

Overexpressed (12/11)

Cock roaches are
horrible dirty creepy crawlies and will
outlive
us all

Visiting

Within a period of a few years both of my grandmothers and my aunt died. So began a long period of writing poems that dealt with the issue at hand while trying to deal with the cliche of the issue at hand.


Visiting (12/10)

It should be raining. Where is that great wind?

This is all wrong
there should be a hill to climb
a lone tree
a great gaping void with a box
there should be that humid smell of flowers

I should be alone in a long dark coat tears running
I should be offering words that no one understands
I should be speaking in tongues in sobs
I should be on my knees in the dirt

I can hear trucks coming from the quarry
the road runs ten feet from here
you are flat against some other dead grave
everyone here is packed like garlic in oil
sardines in some terrible DMV

Shouldn't this be reverent? Where is the hush that stops the world?

No one threw themselves on your plastic corpse
Our faces are pink and swollen
I looked on your face and felt in the pit of my stomach
something
Why didn't I throw up?

Shouldn't someone slip? Where is the permanent grass stain?

A rain should be falling. Where is the pain of nature?

Shouldn't we all be drunk and screaming?

Uganda

The bill introduced in Uganda to 'execute' and then amended to 'punish' homosexuals is a horrible human rights violation on its own. Add to it the virtual acceptance of the proposed law by several American politicians and I start to wonder where I live.

Here are two videos:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Olive Branch

Olive Branch (12/9)

A man climbs a hill
carrying an olive branch
It is waxy
and held in the teeth - crushed
berries send oil
down the chin

He is tired
trying to plant the universe
A modern Theseus - his weight
a barren field

What flood destroyed? - he
reaches the top
It is a rock - windless
He pours his blood
into the earth
and waits -

Unattended

This started as a poem in response to reading a bunch of Emily Dickinson. It evolved a bit.


Unattended (12/8)

There is a carriage moving in the wood with no passengers no driver no horses -

The metal wheels bump off roots and rocks the curtains spindle in no wind -

A suitcase falls loose and white things fly into daylight then muddy themselves -

The carriage is moving through countryside animals flee it carries -

Relict

Relict (12/7)

The ring sits on the shelf
A knot of dust - worn band

The mirrors are tilted away from my face

All the tile in the bathroom is cold

It is a museum - reliquary
Some thumb sealed in glass
        for three hundred years

Turning a light on is like taking a photo

Every surface will have red-eye

Nutty

Nutty (12/6)

The ginger is full of roaches - I scoop them out
            one    by    one

with a long handled spoon        they are growing
into palmetto bugs - are translucent - are humming
the
            ginger is a pile of beads - buttermilk necklace
            the    thread is        floss
a    chain    of teeth

around your neck
                        they are my baby teeth
roots are knuckles clawing your clavicle

In the dream where we are ninjas in a bank - a bank!
            we have katana
and sleep on couches

The roaches become dragons - scales tilting like solar panels
            one    by    one

They absorb all light - focus their eyes

            are    shooting        lasers

Pink

As cheesy as something like this



is, I can't help but smile a bit.

Parse

Parse (12/5)

A love despairing is not a despairing love
            is not a pineapple on a table separating endlessly

The room splits and the walls are peel
they slide and remake as an origami lotus

A table of glass is only sand after all
            is only a Ocean City beach re-purposed as Jesus

Books will melt again and again
show themselves to be molting winter fur

A fur coat is not a coat of fur

These pages are bodies and the will never keep you
you warm they are oil slicks on beaches

They are contrails diffusing quickly

Snowball Theater

Late post tonight. I was at Meg's New Friend. Which is a great play written by my good friend Blair Singer showing in the west village at Manhattan Theater Source. Go see it if you are in the area.

Speaking of plays. Tomorrow night I am going to see THIS. Be jealous if you must.

Today's poem is very seasonal even though the weather is not. It's also tiny.


Snowball (12/4)

Ice on wool palms - pushing round
forming tightly - until the sting
Tossing into the expanse - the cotton sound of impact

Profession Advent

My internet is back up.
So here is a poem for today:

Profession (12/3)

The labyrinthine mold of my brain aims to be the sun
It’s darkest corners alight over lands yet to be founded

I knowledge a room into existence
Purely to break it apart into microns

This particle of sand was a chair and it is now fodder
A tree was once a lily or a bedpost

I upright the world along a horizon that I cut from void
The maze will trick everyone in the end

It will pull you towards center then reveal nothing
There is no center that can possibly hold

This sun is a Milky Way spiraling outward alarmingly
Pulsing with the quickness of my heart and blinking

with my drumbeat eyes my mind is a guillotine
snapping at the necks of anything that comes close


And one for yesterday:


Advent (12/2)

New York opens its arms
The spreading expanse of Brooklyn pulling
Across the waters of the East River an aunt dies

Somewhere a leaf shivers on a bough – not having the good sense to fall
Snow drifts lazily and the bosom of winter is a subway ride at 5am

New York screams at all hours
A hushing sound more in line with an ocean than people
The leaf is still holding as buds begin to unwind

In the botanic garden the magnolia bloom
Each a teacup collecting water – a fragrant ivory curve

The arms are open but the breast is cold
Stony – she is too busy with the millions others
Across the waters of the Hudson more family drift silently away

Smiling and full of hope – dripping like the buildings
New York is a quiet succubus

Monoidal Popper

Internet should be back up Thursday. So here are the poems for today:

Monoidal (12/1)

Michael Wilson is sleeping through the day
He is dreaming about being a ninja - in a bank - in the rain
He is sleeping on a couch in a foyer - wrapped in down comforters
Michael Wilson is eyes closed

Michael Wilson is running a fever for weeks
He is feeling the pressure of skin on skull
He is watching snow - rain - wind - pile in the vacant lot
Michael Wilson is petting a cat

Michael Wilson is a geometric equation
He is a network frame with a cybernetic skin - a concept realized
He is walking through walls and magnetized
Michael Wilson is a recording of himself

Michael Wilson is walking dizzy in the city
He is unsure of the past and future - weary of this concrete - anxious
He is sleeping while awake and sees everything in pink Michael Wilson is becoming a closet of ghosts


And yesterday:

Popper (11/30)

- to enjoy the threesome - I pull
the string - a crown a fortune a
little plastic unicorn - lubricant
sheets over the floor - the sound
snapping fingers - a dick pulls out -