30 December 2010

Lang Syne

Lang Syne 12/30

She’s sleeping on the couch.

And I’m watching some news show.

There is that sound of her sleep breathing. Static-y.

And while she is silent I turn to her:

            Mom – I think I am the person you think I am and I
            think you are the person I think you are – somewhere in there.

            And we are all the people we say we are some of the time.

            The news is about war, famine, earthquakes in Haiti.

            And those people are something like the people we know.

29 December 2010

New-for-old

New-for-old 12/29

Sink the refrigerator into the water
with the door open two can sit comfortably
the otters will stare at us and wonder what
the hell we are doing but it won’t matter
we will be down stream before the water
line sinks us before they can get their
little oily fingers on us.

28 December 2010

Wastrel

Wastrel 12/28

…at your fingertips
                        …an incomplete spell…taint…

                        a broken haiku to
curse your neighbor…one word less

than you need…
what word fills in this blank…

                        …
if you mistake it will you become a toad
or worse…

27 December 2010

Tenter

Tenter 12/27

Hands on face – skin is thick
cloth on tenter

Laid in the sun and baking

Pores are craving yellow light
to cover the sallow – a touch
of jaundice helps in winter

This bag of skin – this disease
waiting to happen

Teeth looking grey – thin

It’s in the water – nano-things
echoing the sound of sinus
pressure-filled

Hands on face – pulling back
at the eye flesh

Still red and beating in there

Still a gooey mess

26 December 2010

Underground

Underground 12/26

A blind root is white against the darkness
            winding round rocks

It seeks only the water table
the sound of it moving is a fright-train

All that pushing of earth
            that boring tendril is a finger
pointing effortlessly

Sometime it points everywhere at once

25 December 2010

Christmas-box

Christmas-box 12/25

Look into the branches and see those little star-points
They glitter – are roses on the mantle and food in
our bellies

We can break this day open like piƱata – contents
pouring over the parquet like thick gravy – this second
will become a shimmer in our memories

A ball to place on a high branch at Christmastime
Take it out examine it and put it away careful like
It will be our treasure

Reflections will splinter the room into what is beautiful
and what is more beautiful – your face – mine – the
sound of snow on snow

These little twinkles hold our souls – they cover this
greenery – wrap us in some kind of warm – why
it is forgotten within a week is anyone’s guess

Pressie

Pressie 12/24

That one time I got gonorrhea then gave it back to myself because I put on what I thought were clean undies –
                        priceless

23 December 2010

Sleigh

Sleigh 12/23

Hitch up this whale jaw to a team of dogs
                let’s ride until sunset then sleep it off –

22 December 2010

Pegging

Pegging 12/22

place                        every
thing

                        in its place

valium                        tastes
like

                        the clouds
over                        New
Mexico

make                        days
count

                        for some
thing

or                        get
the

                        fuck out of
Dodge

chain                        link
lives

                        fall apart

like                        every
thing

                        else does

slowly                        over
time

Pill

Pill 12/21

My mother can’t help but call the sweater old looking
and she starts pulling on the little knots of wool around
the elbows

We are in the living room and it’s Christmas and it
doesn’t matter but she’s balling little brown bits of wool
into a ball of cat fur and calling it all old

I look into the ball she is making and try to focus on it
on the light gray thing that is getting bigger like it’s a
super massive black hole

Her voice is soft and she is meaning well and the
sweater is a few years old at this point and I don’t mean
to hit her chin when I pull back my arm

But I do and she drops the ball of cat and wool and it
drifts to the floor to the floor and stops and she looks
at me with such surprise

There must be something there then and anger over the
years pulled back into focus through the ether of space
gravity doesn’t just let go like that

20 December 2010

Abode

Abode 12/20

Science pours cement onto ants
archeologies the results

Discusses the ingenious networks of this Pompeii
dusting at frozen bodies

Science looks into the camera and marvels
at how wondrous life on earth is

Oath

Oath 12/19

I will preserve the purity of my life and my art
So help me God I will not cut for stone

In every house I will keep myself from the pleasures of love with women or with men

I have not any property real or personal conveyed or concealed
All that may come to my knowledge I will keep secret will never reveal

18 December 2010

Zoned

Zoned 12/18

Feet – cold – check
Ankles – weak – check
Knees – in pain – check
Legs – general cold – check
Hips – don’t lie – check
Dick – meh – check
Belly – troubled – check
Chest – breathing – check
Hands – see feet – check
Elbows – bending – check
Arms – general ok – check
Shoulders – neck sore – check
Neck – stress sore – check
Face – cold nose – check
Head – see belly – check

17 December 2010

Mecca

Mecca 12/17

I beat the rug with a broom – shake out the old
I lean over the fire escape and see the chasm of New York
The Barechu is beginning over Brooklyn – I light
incense that smells like soil patchouli and oranges

            There is a balm in Gilead –

Clouds break into pink drifts – there is
a great schism between sunlight and vision
Everything is glass shifting under water
hemorrhaging reflections – the sound of pigeons

The cloud of dirt from the carpet hovers in the cold
and shimmers – it passes for breath
hiding in brown colors – I take the rug in my arms
and wrap myself in its redness

            There is a balm in Gilead –

And it is passing over my hands – oil down legs
It is a word on the tongue and then drifting over lots
The sky is red then purple then night – a bruise
healing itself –

            I am a strange sort of knight –

15 December 2010

Cellar

Cellar 12/15

What did you keep in the dark
your holy relics – boxed secrets – turnips

Musty cellar-physics all
those things we keep but never use

They ferment away – oxidizing
            lessening or gaining
Depending –

14 December 2010

Inculturation

Inculturation 12/14

like a coat – right
            this culture

your veneration is a strap-on
your ancestors are idle worship

we absorb with pride
the quicker picker upper

            this culture
right –

13 December 2010

Mere

Mere 12/13

The edge of mind is a cup overfull in the sink rusting
The sound of water dripping in is a heart beat in a cathedral

In this space is where one paces the ‘what now’ the ‘how much’
The columns of smoke are not from fires are not for warmth

Borderlands are dark from not knowing what they are
The house is a shattered safespace its portholes mouths

What all this adds to is the feeling of drowning while on land
You’ve been stabbed you feel fine keep walking smile for the cameras

Each breath your lungs fill with blood your heart seizes
But you will feel no pain you will slip effortlessly over the cliff

12 December 2010

Sentient Book Part 3

Folks. Volume 3 of the books is out today.
Go take a look in the STORE

It would make a great gift. It's only $7. There's a $2 pdf version too for all you Kindle folk.

Here's today's poem:


Sentient 12/12

Exhausting all avenues the writer
walks away from the pen

There are just no words to describe what red feels like

Evening skies are not
grand symphonic reflections
they are just skies being

There will never be words enough to speak in red

Having walked all avenues the writer
reaches the sea finds a great deepening blue
and sits on the light sand tossing
rocks into the setting sun

There are piles of words around red
none that point to

11 December 2010

Nasal

Nasal 12/11

Everything in New York is white
covered in a silent blanket

The soft burn of feet compressing snow

The sound of addition – everything
is negative space and cold

It is the smell of fresh paper

10 December 2010

Transit

Transit 12/10

Jupiter is moving into Aquarius
this is going to make bad dreams
and easy moving loan making

Or so they say

The farmer’s almanac predicts
a long hard winter full of cold
and ice and slowness

The stock market will rebound
the world will rebound every
thing will do it

Jupiter is a moving ball in space
a balanced cue tilting on a crystal
sphere of influence

Or so they say

Kepler invented new maths
that brought all of this into focus
moved it closer in transit

These water-filled god gifts
will come and pour throughout
the year and then

Will end

Or so they say

09 December 2010

Maiden's Blush

Maiden's Blush 12/9

Old lace
fraying at the edges
folding unfolding
in time with breath

The moth
rests on the bark
looking like thinned
rose petals

It flattens itself
and is pink and gray
like the sound of
rain at sunrise

07 December 2010

Topical

Topical 12/7

There are these faces and these eyes and we look into them every day
We never understand what they mean

I’m watching the news and they are talking about war and tax cuts and Elizabeth Edwards and the x y z of the x y z and I’m thinking about how far I could throw a television out a window

And what movie staring Robert Downey Jr. I want to see this year

These faces communicate even less but we feel more somehow
And we never understand what this means

Maybe it means that Robert Downey Jr. is somehow very important and the diseases and the wars and the xyz of the xyz are blips on the radar that is everyday or maybe that television should be thrown away

06 December 2010

Plump

Plump 12/6

Opening – the press
            of trunks
becomes
oppression of space

All that air –
            filling
everything

Multiserver

Multiserver 12/5

A finger in a jar
bends at the knuckle
in its liquid home
wrapped in amber
some mosquito in a movie
it bends then flexes
its nail grown horribly long

The skeleton of the hand
hangs in a museum across town
‘This is the hand
of saint so-and-so-and…
who was…
then left for…
the halls of that place
are haunted still’

What was left of the body
was buried in a hole
in a field behind a house
somewhere unknown
there was no marker
and there were only
two people who knew
and both of them are in
some holes of their own

04 December 2010

Especial

Especial 12/4

On that shelf in that bottle is this dark liquid that was made 200 years ago it smells like smoke and fire and alcohol and the shavings from piƱon wood it was originally meant to be a cure all a sort of snake oil something to be sold from the back of a cart by a man with a booming voice and a red coat on maybe there was an invalid who suddenly could walk and see and feel again after tasting the salty water that might have had something else in it but mostly it was water and ash and some charcoal and maybe a bit of juniper and now this bottle won’t open and the stuff has condensed until it is thick like oil like tar like molasses and it actually might do something for you now might actually cure it all it might even take away pain hell it could kill you

03 December 2010

Skank

Skank 12/3

– could take your money – all your worth
is in that wallet

            by the bedside – with a watch
your cell – bet I could sell that

to the papers – sure someone would care
for the affirmation of your taste in men

– could print those dirty photos – your
almost famous face

            break those hearts of those
starlets – bet she’s a lesbian anyway –

that’s why she keeps with the guys who
vanish – seen it before really it’s all so

typical of your type –

young and stupid and rich

– could take you for so much – already
have – I get to sleep here

            there’s that – I don’t see
starlets in here – and my photos in your

expensive phone which makes me some
sort of lady of the manor or something

            and you let me hold that award
while I fuck you

02 December 2010

Nitramine

Nitramine 12/2

Got this 5 day load – got this dynamite in your hand

Reserve

Reserve 12/1

Kiss me but
don’t move your hand south of the border

I want to remember your face like this
eyes discovering me

The first man on shore in the New World
on the surface of the moon

I want to
remember the wanting before we forget

30 November 2010

Theek

Theek 11/30

If there are arrows – and there are arrows –
            arching from an unseen fortress

And I am holding my arms up to protect my head

If these things are happening – and they are –
            who is to blame

As real as any ice covered lake – my feet –
            splintering cleaving in spring

My feet against rock – if these arrows hit my arms
            and I suddenly have wings
            of wooden shafts –
            my feet are still bleeding

I cover – the ice melts – an until this second unseen
            flock of geese
            takes flight in unison –

They form a V and toss southward – they are –
            the arrows cease a moment

29 November 2010

Tartan

Tartan 11/29

Family right – it means something –
colors path over each other and the lines
turn into a tree

A map right – fingers reaching
into the air – each branch a memory
a stone in a broken castle sitting in a field

Mute

I have two poems today. To make up for my lameness.

Mute 11/28

In the dark I run the streets of New York – sounds of
fire crackers of gunshots of snapping sticks
I chase an imagined you – I am a hound
for this mythic person – I am said to run mute
you shot fowl broken thrashing in the water
I will dive – the darkness a fold of my coat
slashing the air – it is raining or snowing or falling soot
I crash into walls and take them – I – shadow of this city
build then tear – I do not gnash so much as bear it with me

Monotelic

Monotelic 11/28

You wait for the one day
when you drop a segment
and duplicate yourself

Rookery

Rookery 11/27

Black and covered in silver
the cage –
is a shining object –
is filled with luminescence –

Orle

Orle 11/26

…and I owe so much money that it aligns around my bed at night and outlines my body in little dashes so that when I am gone my body will still be there a murdered shape hovering over the blankets…

it will come to stand in for me and it could even go about my life for me…

go to work and stare into the eyes of companions and no one will know the difference that these floating dollar signs bring to the table will the shape speak to people in different tones will it only talk in decimal points…

26 November 2010

Macled

Macled 11/25

The beauty of speed
is that nothing is seen

Everything becomes base
colors and shapes

The sum of parts

I am a second person
that is only seen at speed

Sitting quietly
waiting to be seen

Cranberry

Cranberry 11/24

I wear the shirt on days I’m feeling low
it is deep red pink maroon

It absorbs light and feels like sunset

The dark recesses of my mood vanish
become berries floating in cool water

This is irrational and clothes cannot change us

It is easy to forget oneself in sunset
the promises of nightfall are a lot to bear

Blackness and stars that unblink endlessly

Who among us can stare back into that face
of universe and remember what the sun was like

That is warmed our arms and bleached our hair

I like to imagine that I am comfortable with entropy
that the melting of everything is all right

But it is late November and the world tilts cold

I pull the shirt over my head and pray
that once again it will being the magic forth

Purple my vision today and tomorrow

My lows are not based on events they are
the product of thinking about the lack of them

Inner warmth is hard to come by

Versioning

Versioning 11/23

Kings are born – they are not an object fashioned in fires of a forge – they are unmade by the machinations of man – they are gods on earth suddenly immaculate before us – someone old has died someone young has ascended –

Oliver Cromwell is riding in the hills – he is not hunting – he is looking at the greenery that bears his name – it is only in name that it bears anything – untouched Oliver Cromwell pulls some cape he found in some closet in some palace around him –

Sometimes the old are not old but are boring or are out of date ‘elections’ might be held – coups waged – will is rarely involved – it is an act of time is an act of fashion is a cause of whim –

Oliver Cromwell is not hunting because he has hunted in the past and no longer needs to exert himself in this fashion – he is wandering – kings rarely know what they are doing – they just do it in accord with the shifts of wind –

25 November 2010

Thanks.

I only got one response to my Thanksgiving poetry request. Here it is:


Thanksgiving by Jose Angel Araguz

One can see it
In the light

Off of buttons,
The old coat

Swaying
In the dark,

Still here,
Another year.

22 November 2010

Maternity

Maternity 11/22

I couldn’t understand – almost would never want to

Middle Order

Middle Order (Y.O.) 11/21

Something – breaks across the path of the rising sun
Crosses into the deep blue of sky and leaves white trails
Rose-colored and opening – it is a finger across water
Etching the surface of heaven with its print
Are the marks permanent? – Are you?
Make what you will of this contrail – missile – plane

1. Against the wind – the sun rises and then pops
the clouds open
            every fire escape will scrape and creak
            in the light

2. Against the wall – you face whatever lives
in the recesses of your mind
            it breaks like dawn in the heat of August
            it fizzes like a voice across water

3. Against the sky – a line traces the path of the moon
and draws a face
            smiling
            open-mouthed

Mate

Mate 11/20

I wrap the edges in tape to smooth the sharpness I drop it in the cool water and smooth it over the bearings and the tarnish is gold and brown and black with flares of blue and red and purple

I wrap the knuckles on my right hand in tape to hold the skin together and protect my joints from impact from heat from the grating flesh of metal I drop it in cool water and then into talc and then into air

I wrap the bed with layers of fabric a sheet another sheet a thick cotton blanket and then wool and feathers it goes yellow white red orange then open room sifting with late autumn light

I wrap the body in clothes for the day and the edges are uncovered and skin breaks open and the bed messes itself and the world drops into cool water as fog rolls across the bridge into downtown

And the city is a punching bag for the seasons and the light is breaking across your brow like water on a ship and I punch my hands into the earth until they are wrist deep

Apothecary

Apothecary 11/19

Here’s the history – it is
sitting in you – your sweat
smells like old paper – libraries

What is your card catalogue made of

19 November 2010

Thanksgiving

Reminder!

I need your Thanksgiving poems by Monday!
I only have 1 so far!

Use Thanksgiving as the title.

I'll post them on Thanksgiving.

Send your poems to wilsonmj@gmail.com or leave them as a comment on this post.

Masticate

Masticate 11/18

Those lines are ground into a pulp are turned into fuel
The literature tells us that a balanced diet is a must
Cook up some Whitman and dash O’Hara liberally
Follow that pyramid well

Finish with Dickinson and Carson
Like a glass of red wine after a meal
Those lines can be ground up and snorted
They are mighty powerful and treat you like a bitch

Whose depends on how well you absorbed your meal

Revolt

Revolt 11/17

The line is a cage – a tiger lurks
behind the bars – deeply growling
ticking – a bomb that never stops

It expands – fire storm – black
lines and orange – a schematic
a room becoming parts of a room

The line is a floating bar – they are
a hovering forest – bricks are stairs
the tiger – lifts from the ground

And here is a universe – the sun
howling at the center – everything
swirling – exposed – in parts

The line dances – collapses into itself
enclosing the animal within –

15 November 2010

Racked

Racked 11/15

Your
hands
up here
and your
ankles
there

I
hold
you down
press
into your
palms
and
push
you
to the edge
and then
to
breaking

Prenetic

Phrenetic 11/14

Streets of New York
Taxicab driver
Those screens that won’t turn off
Manhattan Bridge
Little pools of light
Dotting by like bugs on windscreens
Endless streets I don’t recognize
Cosby neighborhoods
Dark rooms
How drunk is this bedroom
The breeze in the window
Maybe we will sleep
Sheets like liquid
Heaviness and the sounds of cars

Kindle Schmindle

I Finally Got a Kindle and I Love It but I Am Scared of Fascism

Exactly.

Wreath

Wreath 11/13

The leaves are all red and yellow and brown
            finally
they are sifting in the subway grates
the air smells like apple and cinnamon
and this morning there is a pile
of candy corn on the sidewalk

This time of year reminds me of family
pine trees filling with light
red sweaters with reindeer on them
and table clothes in rich colors
covered with plates of cookies

That smell of a fire place lit for the first time
is the smell of every Christmas ever had

It is the sign of everything yet to have

Blooter

Blooter 11/12

Fart noises and blowing bubbles in chocolate milk
pressing to window and making faces at passing cars

It’s close enough to Christmas for toy catalogues
and decorations in the streets to shimmer at dusk

I want the talking Cookie Monster doll and the Lego
castle with the skeletons and glow-in-the-dark ghosts

Mom will tell us to stop making noises at the breakfast
table and to get ready for school and we can talk

Letters to Santa that night and on the way to the bus
you throw a stone at the back of my backpack

12 November 2010

Old Order

Old Order 11/11

Common wisdom says not to make promises
etc. etc. etc.

That everything comes in time

In time the voices will slow and fade from memory
like the exact features of a dead relative’s face
or the position a felled tree was in the day it was chopped

When the alarm sounds and we end up in the street
and we watch the building smoke then inflame
it is cold and raining and the trucks are loud and bright

Out belongings turn into thick white smoke ash
etc. etc. etc.

I hold the hands of a stranger neighbor and we hug each other

I look into her eyes and she looks into mine
we make promises about things being all right about
the sky not falling on us

And it doesn’t

10 November 2010

Generation Why

First off. Go read this:

Generation Why? by Zadie Smith | The New York Review of Books

thoughts?

My feelings about Facebook and all internet 'social network' sites have always mirrored Zadie Smith's. It's reductive and shallow and kinda boring. It's great for people who like to self-promote. It's a good tool to get people to attend a party or show or rally, but it doesn't actually connect anyone to anyone.

People like to use the line 'I reconnected with so-and-so whom I haven't talked to in decades!' but in reality they 'friend' them and never talk again let alone actually connect or catch up.

I don't like to sound like an old man but here:

Blogging Makes Joan Didion Uncomfortable

That kind of sums it up for me.

It's like talking, but without any of the actual interaction. It numbs us to real human connection. I'm not about to claim that Mark Zuckerberg is a sort of lonely nerd who has created his ideal world and wants everyone to be the same so he feels better but...honestly...if I had the ability to make everyone be my friend, even if it was on the internet, I would do it.

Would I feel better about myself?

No.

Ordnance

Ordnance 11/10

So you stay on your side
and I will stay on mine

I will cease using your blood
to sign the hillsides with my name

And I hope you would
give back every part you’ve taken

Barony

Barony 11/9

Each finger is a servant clicking at its plot of land

08 November 2010

Boy

Boy 11/8

and you’re on that swing
weightless and floating
the world is a spinning green blur
and everything is just your shoes
pushing back and forth

Replevin

Replevin 11/7

…then it came back

and sat on the shelf

pulsing as always

in its crystal case…

Abduction

Abduction 11/6

I want to make a list of the things you’ve taken
post it on the fridge and leave a pen to check them off
as you find them and return them

But that list is too long to begin and what would go first
my brain, my heart, my arms…

The magnets are shaped like fruits and vegetables
little carrot bunches, radish, lettuce, tomatoes
the best one is the orange peeling itself to reveal the insides

It’s like showing a leg or lifting the hem of a skirt
and transmitting an important message

05 November 2010

Palliate

Palliate 11/5

If we hold hands long enough
the lights will dim and our fingers
will start to feel like they belong together

Gunpowder

Gunpowder 11/4

The tea leaves are tiny fists
waiting for hot water to unclench

We sat on a bench in October
and talked about barbecues and fireworks

The fog rolled across the plaza
and the smell of fireplaces began

Americans like drinking and explosions
in parks in rivers at Disney World

Take this city and flatten it out
make it a rocky plain and farmland

Here is a house of stone
uncoiling in the mind into reality

Like one of those little black tabs
that you light and watch turn into ash snakes

04 November 2010

Pungency

Pungency 11/3

His handlebars are wound with a pink feather boa
and he washes himself in the sinks at the cafƩ on Union

He smiles a lot and you see the bike more often
then you see him

The homeless smell like clothes stained with coffee
left to stale in the bottom of a closet

Like everyone smells when they first get out of bed
all hot breath and crusty eyes

02 November 2010

Free Energy

Free Energy 11/2

Breathe in deeply and crack your spine
and get that rerun body high

I can talk about the colors pressing from me
a flame heating the sky

I am a tree with leaf fingers
they will drop and drop and be pressed into the earth

Will sprout into homes to live in

01 November 2010

Mothersickness

Mothersickness 11/1

Let’s sit in the graveyard all night
and light candles for everyone lost

At sunrise we can collect the memories
and count out the candy bones

Take them home and rebuild the skeletons

Apparitor

Apparitor (Pope Lick Monster) 10/31

Right-hand man of the devil
evil goat demon thing with
slick-backed hair and hooves

Jump from high on the trellis
as the train comes and you
can leap through the window

Into another universe into
a space between heaven and
hell and maybe that’s the point

Maybe he is taking souls
is stealing people from Kentucky
for some evil purpose

Or maybe it’s all made up
a myth written down on paper
and in the minds of man

30 October 2010

Ghoulish

Ghoulish (Jersey Devil) 10/30

She is pushing and she is moaning and she is in pain and it is her 13th child and she is swearing to the heavens and to hell and the baby’s head is bald and red and shaped like a horse with two deep black soulless eyes and then a neck and arms and it has hooves and wings and is covered in wiry black hair

It makes a sound like nails on metal on chalkboards wet shoes on linoleum and grabs its mother by the leg and bites into her ankles and suckles blood like milk and the doctors are speechless and the mother is screaming and the universe tilts out the wrong way for a moment before it crashes through a window and into the sky

Parathyroid

My work schedule is all sorts of crazy. I will continue to post two a day when I miss one until things level out. Bear with me y'all.

Parathyroid (Con Rit) 10/29

And all things that fall
fall into the gyre of river
beneath the Tower Bridge
and spin for eternity
plus your age when you
first felt sea salt in your hair

The great lymphatic system
of the continent stucks itself
at the Thames Barrier
and newspapers collect until
they are putty against the
metallic sails

Up and down go the footsteps
and the small waves of high
and low tide reek with gray
a dog plays in the lines
between water and sand

Another is a head only in surf
and it rises and falls
becomes a thing unlike dog
is serpent is giant and menacing
will come up to London and eat

28 October 2010

Regurgitate

Regurgitate (Dover Demon) 10/28

where
            am
                        I

I            was walking

and then
            here

with these fleshy            men
walking
                        pouring
light from
                        wheeled
machines
            what is
                        that
noise
                        who
            am
I
if I am not
            where I was
where I know

27 October 2010

Backlist

Backlist (Chickcharney) 10/27

& on the rocky path I will meet you
furry-legged and nodding

& if I treat you well I will be blessed
with good tidings and fortune

& if I mis-treat you a fog will lower
on my life and my eyes will fade

like lights along the east river at daybreak

like rusting wires on the tracks in Altoona

I will melt into history and never be thought about

26 October 2010

Consume

Consume (Kongamato) 10/26

The universe is a broth
spilling from the open beaks of giant storks

We are but bits of meat
floating in the periphery of such beasts

Remember when you were a child
and you wished you could live with dinosaurs?

Here is a target painted on your chest
and a rope to hang yourself with

Loop it over the pick of the bird’s beak
and knot it under your apple

What flavor is the universe?
mostly dark and reeking of the Cretaceous

The scent of asphalt bubbling
and the call of seagulls off the coasts of Africa

25 October 2010

Duplicate

Duplicate (Flying Rods) 10/25

And in the sky the parachutes are falling
like seed pods in September

Across the clouds a blurring line of light
a plane and a flock of birds

It is a dragon a fish of the air

It is the drama of things you don’t understand

Dole

Dole (Kala Bandar) 10/24

Little buttons on its chest with glowing eyes
a helmet made of silver and sharp claws

The monkey man comes from the sky
and attacks anyone alone in the dark

It is sadness and its black fur shines with tears
it is Hanuman it is deliverance

23 October 2010

Y'all!

Reminder!

I need poems.
Send me a short poem about Thanksgiving.
The concept, the holiday, the food, the politics.

Use Thanksgiving as the title.

I'll post the best (or all of them if I get 1) on Thanksgiving.

Send your poems to wilsonmj@gmail.com

MFA's CORRUPT and UNFAIR!

I stumbled across this article by Anis Shivani called Is The MFA System Corrupt and Undemocratic?

The main thesis seems to be that MFA's are very similar to medieval guild systems. Shivani sums it up thus:

Talent, in the modern writing guild, has been discounted; it is craft that counts.

Then concludes the piece:

The apprentice produces a "masterpiece"--a chief d'oevre--to pass muster and receive the license to teach--the ius docendi--upon conclusion of his period of training in the workshop. This signifies adherence to standards of production, and forever after, as a journeyman and perhaps as a master himself, he must not deviate from these standards. The master always retains the right of correction--the ius corrigendi of the medieval guilds--to guarantee quality; there is an infinitely intricate system of withholding rewards and recognition from deviants.

Basically, Shivani goes to great wordy lengths to say that MFA's tend to turn everyone into the same writer as their teacher and that everyone is afraid to veer from the 'norms'.

And I agree. To a point.

My experience in and out of the MFA world is that, as with all things, connections and nepotism matter the most. That you must play the game perfectly. I have never changed my writing to get published. The one time I was asked to I withdrew my poems instead of change anything.

Not that I'm above the idea.

I definitely feel the pressure to change or play a different way. The question I always run into is - what can I live with at the end of the day?

Collide

Collide (Owlman) 10/23

It’s behind you

The pricks on your neck
are up and tingling

What if you turn
and are faced with
glowing red eyes

With stretched out wings
with hovering above
rooftops and falling
feathered claw hands

It is behind you

Tall and burning
and then it will be gone

So what does it mean
this floating ghost of
bird and man

Who does it protect
and who does it destroy
the feathers of your neck
will fall will needle

Botch

I'm going to go ahead and note that October is the month I've totally botched when it comes to being on time with posting.

So here is yesterday's poem. Botch.


Botch (Fairy) 10/22

Imagine we are in a garden
that our hair is gently folding
in a breeze we cannot feel

And that the sun is autumn rich
orange and everything glows
amber lamps in a dark library

We stay here until a chill
rises from the leaf-covered earth
and the sky is burnt purple

This is why I whisper
in your ear and around you at night
while you are sleeping in our bed

Because us holding hands is like this garden
and it is silly and trite to say so

21 October 2010

Review

Review (Peluda La Velue) 10/21

One tortoise foot into the river and the banks will swell the pricks will stand and aim into the heart of the nearest maiden
Let us count the evils:
            withering crops
            shooting quills
            flood steps
            invincible
            flame breath
            strike of death
            acidic vomit

And everyone will fall like dominoes until one can reach the tail and slice through the thickness of it and the demon will die

A Point.

One thing that I am disappointed by in my 'blogging' is my honest lack of interest in the publishing world. Truth be told, I don't read much poetry. My reading habits aside, I pay little attention to who has what coming out when.

This isn't to say I don't absorb some of the information.

The new issue of Poetry arrived today. It has a very beautiful cover by graphic artist Seth. When the new issues come I usually gravitate towards the reviews and letters to the editor first. The poems inside Poetry rarely interest me. A quick run down of who is in the November 2010 issue will tell you why : Donald Hall, Alan Shapiro, Billy Collins. These poets have appeared so many times in these pages that I simply don't care what they are writing anymore. I will give the editors some major credit for including 7 writers who have never appeared in their magazine before. But this is faint praise and a magazine devoted to the art form I care about with as many resources as Poetry has should do better.

Every letter to the editor this month is about a review of Robert Haas' The Apple Trees at Olema by Michael Robbins from the September issue. The review, Are You Smeared with the Juice of Cherries?, is long winded and mostly ambivalent to Haas' writing. I wouldn't go as far as the responses this month do in calling Robbins out for being overtly negative towards an 'elder' poet. I would also not call it a young man pointing a finger at the older and crying foul. A glance at Robbins own poetry leaves me just as cold as Haas' if not more.

Robbins has no warmth, a problem many poets of the Y Generation seem to have. I see that he likes to toss around war, airline security, computers, movies, and a sort of wide overt intellect that is meant to quiet the doubters. This is also a problem with my generation. We like to appear smart, we like to toss around the things that make our grandparents alarmed like they are badges of honor. We are at our core spoiled children throwing an oddly quiet tantrum on the page. And it means nothing.

This is not to say that Robbins is not talented, that my generation or the last or the next are any better in any way. He is talented. Each generation is what it is. History points out that things never actually change we just have slightly different gadgets.

I started this as a sort of quiet tantrum. I was complaining that the same boring poets show up time and again inside the pages of Poetry. I don't take it back. I think that Robbins was responding to the same thing I am. A frustration that the game of poetry seems to be for the over 40 set. That the young have little place in the world of writing poems or talking about them seriously. Was Robbins over reacting in his condemnation of Haas? Probably. But Haas can be dull and can be achingly terrible. So can every poet, Robbins and myself included.

Postilion

Postilion (Black Shuck) 9/20

The angels in the rafters are hiding their eyes behind wings
they cover themselves in worry of igniting royal flames

Lightening will strike and destroy the spires and the devil
will leave his fingerprints on the northernmost door

He is a dog with burning coals for eyes and a flaming tongue
and all who see into them will die within the year

Everything is a herald of something else
it is not a line it is an algorithm a continuous looping sigil

19 October 2010

Flatness

Flatness (Flatwoods Monster) 10/19

Spade-faced glowing-eyed cloak-man

Your head is an air shovel and you came here in a glowing orb of red

Claw fingers you are a barn owl in a man suit

Bringing rain of illness

Bringing the doubt of emptiness in the universe

18 October 2010

Upraise

Upraise (Bloop) 10/18

Calm glass surface rippling like water
then bubbling then boiling
the bubbles pop and sine waves pulse
across the expanse

It is making blood into sound
and sound into air

So...

I know that there are about 4 of you who read this blog.

But.

I want to try something.

I'd like people to send me a short poem about Thanksgiving. The concept or the holiday.

Use Thanksgiving as the title.

I'll post the best (or all of them if I get as many as I assume I will) on Thanksgiving.

Awesome

Send poems to wilsonmj@gmail.com

Singing Dixie

Molombo

Molombo (Grootslang) 10/17

in the
            blood

a virus of the land

            pushing
from here to the sea

this cave
fills with diamonds

hardened
            tusk

a nightmare

in elephant
            and serpent

16 October 2010

Miss Baker If You're Nasty



















Josephine Baker is amazing.

So is THIS essay about nannies and caring for children in the US.

Whorl

Whorl (Kraken) 10/16

The world is a sewing machine
spun with crimson tentacles
and ships running through sea

Stitching space between sun and center
between this continent and the next
the clouds swirl faster

One cold hand on the rocks
threading the beaches with purple
highlighting every gold ray

15 October 2010

Non-voting

Non-voting (Bigfoot) 10/15

It’s going to be November
and you live in those places
where politics are hot

Where are your door to doors
your promises of military service

Where are your inalienable rights

When you go to the polls
and cast your vote the ballots
aren’t even in your language

Will you stomp the ground til it breaks

Leave your size 18s in concrete

Tell me what sort of campaign promise
a Bigfoot desires from a candidate

More schools healthcare

Barbers

Sherman!



14 October 2010

Probationer

Probationer (Naga) 10/14

You must wait – until the full moon rises – until the fire begins

When the sky is dark – and the river spits pearls of flame

Then –

Privy Seal

This is a day late.

I've been experiencing the NYU Dental School.

It has not been enjoyable.

Privy Seal (Kelpie) 10/13

In the field
a black horse
with 9 children
on its back

The tight skin shines in the sun
like seals basking on rocks

Its eye is the size of the moon
and the universe reflects in it

You touch its nose
your finger sticks
and it begins to gallop
towards water

In your pocket is the penknife
it will only take a minute to be free

The Kelpie is screaming in the shallows
and the blood in the water and the blood –

12 October 2010

Hide

Hide (Beast Of Bladenboro) 10/12

1700 people

1 cat monster cougar blood sucker

In the bushes
leaving behind a trail
of dead dogs
goats and cattle

This is some Mexican shit right here
coming up North Carolina way

1700

People – 1700 and 1

Mine Craft

I don't know how many of you have heard of Minecraft.

It's essentially a world building game. With some zombies and giants thrown in for why nots.

This video is both an amazing example of the game and of someone using a video game to create something beyond the playing.

11 October 2010

Home Invader

Home Invader (Mongolian Death Worm) 10/11

Sleeping in and then the storm starts

Hail and wind like tornadoes

It is the coming of death with its electric stare that kills from twenty feet
it’s corrosive and yellowing mucus

The streets fill with water and it looks like winter

And all three red feet of evil are staring at me

Are preparing my end

Go to this...if you can

If you happen to be in NYC on October 23rd Birdsong a great lit mag will be holding a show to help raise funds to support their various publishing ventures.

The show will be at Silent Barn (915 Wyckoff Ave off the Halsey L stop) and the doors open at 8pm, show starts at 9pm, $5-10 dollars sliding scale.

The show will feature sets with B0DY H1GH, Paps, Algae & Tentacles, Baby Alpaca and Making Friendz.

These guys are putting out great content and are doing it on a shoestring budget with a great home made feel. At the least head over to their site and check out their goods.

Skatathon

Skatathon (Yeti) 10/10

…and your knees will give out before the day is done
you will be skating and it will be cold and everything
will be white save that tall man by the rocks watching
you and crouching and pulling at the small plants that
grow in these altitudes

…and by skating you know we aren’t being literal
because you’re waist deep in snow and wrapped in
all these layers of fog and fur and wool and that man’s
eyes are coal black and silent and the wind is the sound
of blankets in the dryer or the telephone at 3am

…he is wearing a long coat is going to whip it open
will be naked and exposing to the elements and you
are just going to stare until you turn red embarrassed
and fall over yourself to run the other direction as
quickly as you can in all this mountain

…and your knees will give out before you could even
start to climb the Andes before you will make it half
way between base and sky and this yeti will still be
standing there at the rock maybe he is a rock maybe
he will be eating shrubs and waiting

09 October 2010

Potwalloper

Potwalloper (Sea Monk after Guillaume du Bartas) 10/9

The water is parting

And the bald head is rising up

The seas have – as well as skies – Sun Moon and Stars

Not enough for the mytred Bishop

He comes ashore

Water spread like a book – peeling open for him

He spreads his cloak and the Milky Way falls to the sand

Spills like a jellyfish

Shapes itself into a sand dollar – spins gently

08 October 2010

Cadge

Cadge (Kaijin) 10/8

Out of the sea
knotting sea weed in your hair
across the rocks

Fishman
with webbed fingers and thick
eyebrows

You sit at the bar
order a scotch on the rocks
and eat peanuts

07 October 2010

Epoche

Epoche (Loch Ness Monster)

Saint Columba is walking in Scotland

And there ahead – a funeral by the river

            How did this youth die?

            He was swimming the river – the beast
            came up and chased him down – dragged
            him under

            Was there nothing you could do?

            We chased after in a boat and threw a line
            he came up in two pieces – bloodied
            a foot fell off in the boat

            I will see for myself

Saint Columba sent Luigne into the water

And there – the beast rose up and chased him

From the shore – Cloumba signed the cross

            Go no further – do not touch the man – go back at once

And as if hooked – tied to the water

The beast sank below – vanished – and was quiet

06 October 2010

Sell-through

Sell-through (Almas) 10/6

As a child I played with a little boy who was covered in hair. We would meet behind the shed in the woods and run until the light dimmed in the sky. His whole family lived in the caves near the big valley that ran deep in the woods. He could run faster then I could. And he never wore clothes.
My parents say he doesn’t exist. The old man down the street says he does.
That he had a friend when he was little.
Who lived near the valley.
Who ran faster.

05 October 2010

Misdeem

Misdeem (Hoop Snake) 10/5

A field a desert plane
A cycle of fire and then of ice

Small green snakes
bend at the head and feet
bite their tails

They roll off into the rocks
to hide to sleep to cool themselves

Then up behind you
to sink poison teeth

They are the beginning and the end
they are the day and night

04 October 2010

Spouse

Spouse (Simurgh) 10/4

At the lakeside
I touch my finger to my finger reflected

The ripples send out waves across the water
and break the clouds of afternoon

I was looking for the secret to living

I traveled far and crossed many perils

There is nothing under this heaven
but the rock and air and water

Only a reflection of everything
and I notice the quiet of this place

The calm of myself in this place

I inhale deeply and feel my lungs expand

The lake was meant to house a secret
all that is here is my face and everything else

I leave the lakeside
my finger singing with the chill of the waters

Varicose

Varicose (The Grinning Man) 10/3

Always alone
and then this
tall man this
unreasonably
tall man in a
metallic green
jumpsuit
always on the
other side of
a fence or the
road or outside
a window at
night

He’s grinning
like a nightmare
big and toothy
and like it’s
painted on
and there’s no
nose or ears
and possibly
no hair

Then he’s gone
and it’s still
night or you’re
alone and there
is a space where
this man was
staring back at
you like a hole
being burned
in paper

Slow and steady
you never sleep
without thinking
your eyes
will open
he will be
above you

02 October 2010

Heptathalon

A heptathalon is a seven-part race run by women.

This is a poem about a strange creature/man who attacked mostly women in the 1700s in England.

It is not in seven parts.


Heptathalon (Spring Heeled Jack) 10/2

In October
a girl – Mary Stevens
worked in Lavender Hill

On her way through Clapham Common
a dark man – possibly a man
held her arms tightly – began
to kiss her face – rip her clothes

She said with claws
she screamed – he
leapt into darkness

The next day – near Mary Stevens' home
a dark man – probably a man
jumped in the way of a carriage
and escaped by jumping a nine foot wall

They said – bell-like laughter

Jane Alsop – months later
February – answers the door
on vomiting blue flame

She said his eyes were balls of red fire
wrapped in a dark cloak – a helmet
and white oilskin

He held her arms tightly – began
to kiss her face – rip her dress
his claws were metallic – cold

He caught her on the steps
tore her neck with his claws

She said her sister saved her

Eight days later – Lucy Scales
returning home from Limehouse
with her sister

Along Green Dragon Alley
dark man – maybe a man
standing at a angle

She said – a quantity of blue flame
fits for hours

She said – tall thin gentlemanly
carrying a police lamp

In August – years later
in Aldershot's barracks
a sentry – in darkness

A figure advances from the gloom

He said – stop or I will shoot

The figure is quick and upon him
slapping him – one – two – three

He is shooting at the dark man
most likely not a man
then the figure is gone
with astonishing bounds

01 October 2010

Kalamata

For October, I'm writing a poem about a cryptid or mythic creature.

I'm going to be interpreting the word of the day very loosely.

Today, for example, I took the word and used it as the location for the creature.

Kalamata (Scylla) 10/1

You are a beautiful woman
Tall with as many earthly talents as one may have

And you stand here
Your waist ringing with the heads of wild dogs

The tail of a vile sea creature
Flicks about your ankles and wraps around rocks

What have you done to deserve this
How did one so young and precious anger the gods

To become this hideous wraith
Reaching out to any sailor and breaking every ship

Was it the love of Glaucus
Whom you turned down whom you ran from

There is a dark tale hidden in your breast
One of women running from love they cannot bear

30 September 2010

Yips

Yips (Jyllands-Posten publishes drawings of Muhammed 2005) 9/30

And you raise the club – you swing –

You biff it –

With everyone watching
you miss downhill
from 10 feet away
with no wind –

And you blame everyone – your caddy –

The time of day – this climate
of war –

The fact that you receive death threats
at work –

The fact that you draw cartoons for a living –

That you didn’t sign on for this –

That the whole thing is kinda stupid –

Lump

I have a sinus infection. So that explains the lateness this week.
I will do my best to keep it going.

Lump (Washington National Cathedral built 1907/1990) 9/29

In 83 years
not much occurred really

Theodore Roosevelt
laid the first stone
before 20,000 people

George H. W. Bush
watched the last finial
rise into place

Between
a few wars with little
to show for themselves

The invention
of television

Space flight etc.

28 September 2010

Strap

Strap (William the Conqueror invades England 1066) 9/28

A body
on metal table
wrapped in
the flags
of the dead

Until
it is mummy
of color

Release it
into the water
or soak it
in honey
until soft enough
to eat

Color

Color (Rosetta Stone is translated 1822) 9/27

And there was understanding
across this great world

Things that we once knew were returned to us
and things we thought were known
were shown false

Everything turned an onyx reflection
inwards and then outwards

Like a ghostly version of your own face
staring out from behind the mirror
after a hot shower

27 September 2010

I've discovered a snag in my word of the day.

The e-mail with the days word arrived at 8:30PM in my inbox.

I am at work Sunday nights until after midnight.

SO

Monday will have 2 poems. One early, one late.

Mira (Francis Drake completes his trip around the world 1580) 9/26

The Concorde landed in Texas today
493 years to the day
that Francis Drake completed his
3-year trip around the world

And what monsters were found
at such high altitudes
floating belly up like otters among clouds

That night we were looking at the stars
and just below Pisces you pointed
the sea monster Cetus with its star Mira
demanding us to look

There is the beast that swallowed Jonas

The hunger of deep space must be gigantic

We will keep our noses down to avoid our fate

25 September 2010

Scratch-off

Happy Anniversary to me!

Starting today, every poem will be written as it is posted. So each poem will be unedited and posted as soon as it is done.

Wish me luck.

And be kind!

For the rest of the month I'm going to write a poem about a historical event that happened on that day as well as using the word of the day for the title.


Scratch-off (the last Magdelene Asylum closes 1996) 9/25

This is how it happens :

These nuns sell some land

This is in 1993

The land developers find 155 bodies

Like some horror movie

They take the bodies and cremate them
toss them into a mass grave

These women
most of them just young pregnant
or mentally handicapped “socially dysfunctional”

They washed clothes and sewed

Weren’t allowed to talk

It started in 1767

30,000 women
most never allowed to leave again

Not one eye blinking

Not one word raised
for 200 years

It took a land deal

And the invention of cheap washing machines

24 September 2010

Mapuche

Ladies and Gentlemen it is this website's first anniversary.

Send me something nice.

Or buy a book.


Mapuche 9/24

I don’t want to be a white man writing another guilty poem about brown men

I don’t want to be a gay man writing about anal sex on a subway

I don’t want to be an English man writing about history or the way things were

I don’t want to be a young man writing in emoticons

I don’t want to be any man writing about breasts and vaginas with teeth

I don’t want to be a son writing about fucking my mother or killing my father

I don’t want to be an educated man writing about the less educated like they are dicks

I don’t want to be a man writing about the low classes or high classes

I don’t want to be a poet man writing poetry about poetry

I don’t want to be a man trying desperately to leave the shadow of the 20th century

I don’t want to be anything to anyone

I don’t want to be a white man writing about other white men

I don’t want to be a man writing for other men writing

23 September 2010

Splenic

Splenic 9/23

It’s red and moving – the spleen is where it all goes pooling and filtered out
Everything ends here – here the purple goes blank

22 September 2010

Enormity

Enormity 9/22

I
In which a statement is made and the first layers of understanding are expressed

II
A metaphor is presented and the statement unravels until it is a tiny point of light

III
The problem is restated over a vast field of background information that resembles a lawn strewn with corpses

IV
A conclusion is reached but it is unsatisfying and the period lingers coldly

21 September 2010

Musaf

Musaf 9/21

There is a roll under your tongue – where
you write late at night – the jaw drops and you scroll
the unrooted organ

It is a spoon – held over a flame melting

These are instructions sealed in your chest – you are
made of mud – someone sent you out – unlocked

You dropped your cases – the arms tick
The letters are thickly black and illegible – you are
piling tongues

The scroll is tongues? – It is a dead father’s voice
calling down your throat

20 September 2010

Molecular Electronics

Molecular Electronics

The thought of my cells dividing makes me sweat

There are mites on me right this second – on you too
We have eco systems – regions – continents?

At the window the moisture is pulsing into a map of space

My toenails brittle themselves and become yellow

I sweat at the idea of lice

I sweat and it freezes into salt

Inside me there are bacteria rotting meat that I ate yesterday

Your shit is food

Those cities of mites are crawling in your bed – in mine
They have cars full of children

19 September 2010

Mounting

Mounting 9/19

At the light there is that river of space
divided by the small white line bridge
Across the void he is standing sunglassed
and moving his head around looking
There is that sudden announcing and the
checking him over
When the bridge pulls out of the concrete
and the little man begins to blink walk
we cross ourselves and watch each other
After the first eye catch
there is a moment before the discovery
of an abandoned building and the dust kicks

18 September 2010

Something Interesting

The soap opera As The World Turns aired its last episode yesterday.

The show was on for 54 years and was the second-longest running television soap in the US.

There were 13,858 episodes and it was the first soap opera with a running time longer then 15 minutes.

The show was also the last broadcast before President Kennedy was shot. ABC was the only network airing original programming at that time of day. A few minutes into the episode it was interrupted by Walter Cronkite. The episodes were aired live and the actors went on performing not knowing that the show had been interrupted.

Staid

Staid 9/18

Columns are staid in attendance to the site they are placed
they wince over lovers angry leavings and the coming dust
They are staid in the face of advancing tanks and raised bayonet
The coming barbarians do not faze them and the fog
only manages to slide over their arched marble surfaces

We are staid in our houses across the country managing our affairs
We are staid in the face of lips coming and going and saying
any number of things we regard as true or false
The advancing is only an advance if we take time to notice
the cold raised skin on our arms the deep thickness about us

17 September 2010

Stringing

Stringing 9/17

Line down my finger over my wrist – it is the bridge of a viola
plucking up my arm – my veins are purpling against the grain
and I am tightening everything against this moment

I am raising against your chin – everything is prickled hairs
on the body – my arms are bows moving across lines – we
are moving across lines – we are poles in a field transmitting

This is a grid of poles – a line of violin strings playing against
lightning – metal and making a net of electricity – the bow
land pressing against – humming

Cupola

Cupola 9/16

The building has an eye and it is watching – fixed
It centers on a drift – clouds drawing on a board
This dome is a stand it’s legs are catapults
Launching the stones upward – it is a beige eye
An unblink – a sunspot looping blackly

15 September 2010

Niente

Niente 9/15

We breathe
We are all locked eyes and pupils dilating
Our skin is raised against air
We are post-fucking and locked
Hands leaving white
You say don’t let go of me now
Our noses are pressed til cracking
Our focus is hazed
We breathe
And are dripping

14 September 2010

Farm

Farm 9/14

Palm on palm – the edge of the woods are clean
We lock eyes when we pay debts
We measure our fields – we come daily
upon them in the fields – picking lettuce –

What if I give you chocolate – not gold –

And then the foil tarnishes to pewter –

13 September 2010

Psychograph

This is sort of an automatic writing moment.


Psychograph 9/13

..,,,,;;;;;;::::,,,,,,;;;;;;;””””””””;’’’’’’’;;;;;…….
;;;;;;;;;;::::::;;;;…..,,,,,’””’’’’’’’’………;;;;;:::::……
,,,,,,,,,,,,,:::::::;;;;;;;…,,,,……
:::::::’’’’’’’’’

tres aboreal shantih catorce de juliet

burn break blow

12 September 2010

Lekach

Lekach 9/12

Apples make a cork noise – a screw down into the wine neck noise
and the metal slice goes through the skin – it is popping
it is splitting – separating – a pulling wound that is red
and it is coating in honey and filling the plates

It smells like fall – like leaves on the sidewalk and the rain falling
over the grasses

Tongue burns the white brown and the golden mass fills the cells
it makes everything burn brighter – makes your nose
skim the surfaces for familiarity – each section leaves
a noise on the surface of the ceramic plate

Each core squares firmly on the wooden plane – and sits
darkly holding its seeds

Monogenic

Monogenic (chair) 9/11

A rightful sit an upright solid thing filling with light and flesh

Dead tree you are carved up and stoic in your cage

Smooth from asses worn until dirty and never washed

Chair you are a rain spotted site a fresh filled meadow covered in dung

An essay on resting

10 September 2010

Pant

Pant 9/10

if I   have a         hard         time   looking you
in the eye   and speaking   clearly         it has
nothing to do with your         eyes

nothing to do with your         smile or the crinkles
around your   mouth
         it’s just the air   the tight pants
the something I ate

I am not in love         this is not about love
   my breathing is regular   see
your hands don’t make my   heart   skip   at all

I don’t think about your stomach

if I seem   shaken         it has   nothing to do
with you   it’s gas         or   caffeine
or the sick uncle in Florida

it is not your leg touching mine under the table

09 September 2010

So-so

So-so 9/9

Trees are a black foreground and the clouds are
a glowing white backdrop painted onto the light box sky

It is the first day of cool weather – the first fallish moment

I have placed my ass in New York for a year – what
have I received from this tower?

This glowing sky – this September – I have been given
a rotting flower – a pumpkin carved with Jesus

No – I have taken these things

Scooped out the insides and placed them on a table there
are knives and I am taking each apart and making a collage

I am using the blood of things to make alphabets

This A is bone marrow – the N a failed romance – what
am I doing here?

The sky is always like this in September – this weird calm
this Magritte sighing

I am waiting for fireflies to make comets – cicadas to sing elegies

Hunt

Hunt 9/8

I’m tired of love

Of the game – the endless parade of candy

There is a loss here – my head is hurting

I’m tired of everything that is

There is no there there – no – there is
but it is a quietly roaring hated there

I’m tired of throwing arrows

Slinging the energy of myself into the world

There are fibrous strings leashing onto strangers

I’m tired of being drugged

Dragged around by my hopeless naĆÆve sentimentality

It’s a field of clover bending under the sun’s hand

I’m tired of myself

Of being hopeless – of the taste of blood in my mouth

I’m very tired of not getting what I want

07 September 2010

Incompetent

Incompetent 9/7

I’m tired of love
            roses are tired – I’m allergic to perfume

If I just grab you and throw you down right here
            Now I mean – on this sidewalk

Nothing can explain how you really feel
            the trees are not happy for you – will never be

I want to be forever
            Leaves keep falling – keep coming back

Sun still rattles the windows
            and I am tired of love – of not being thrown

06 September 2010

Discomfort

Discomfort 9/6

– then he pushed me against the wall
my hands against stucco – bruises welling
up – held me and fucked me

I’m not telling you this because it was fun –
because it was – or because I like the
attention – because I do – I’m telling you
so you become jealous of your lack of wall

Your lack of support – no hands around
your waist – no rough sandpaper hair
on your back – no cock

05 September 2010

Pepper-spray

Pepper-spray 9/5

Admit I’ve got you by the lapels
that your jaw is hinging on a wire – laying
silently – your teeth are popping corn

I am holding you an inch from the floor

Admit that I’ve got your buttons in my fists
that your threads are undoing – rewinding
and jamming the gutters

This is a bloodletting

I am a stabbing

04 September 2010

Bulls-eye

Bulls-eye 9/4

Clear lens
subtly making rainbows
against the hollow of horn
            the inside of head
                        the cockles of tongue

03 September 2010

Gall

Gall 9/3

I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love I

02 September 2010

Goelette

Goelette 9/2

Water is a map of stars – a swirl of floating
points on a pulsing black

There is a sense of paint dripping from the moon

And above is the fixed porcelain sky – vented
lopsidedly cracking

We are sitting in a bowl floating that ocean

You are dipping candles – slow wax fingers
I am tying and untying lengths of rope

There are 100 corks filling 100 holes

Our little bowl has no spoon

01 September 2010

Band

Happy September!


Band 9/1

I am sick of beauty
There is a bag in the corner for it

                  For the eyes that shine when I enter a room
                  For the hands on my arm on my hands on my face
                  For the mouth on my mouth

The tie on the bag is silver
The bag is soaked in kerosene

I have one match and it is windy

31 August 2010

Monomorphic

Monomorphic 8/31

Hopelessly falling off the edge of a cloud structure

Hopelessly clutching a cream-colored purse and wearing Audrey Hepburn hats

Hopelessly romantic walking into a bar ordering two drinks and waiting for no one

Hopelessly romantic films are playing at the drive-in all weekend

Hopelessly romantic and falling through what one could take for solid forms

Hopelessly romantic stealing a bag and searching for chewing gum

Hopelessly shit-faced drunk making out with a mailbox

Hopelessly romantic burning up on re-entry or some other euphemism for sex

Hopelessly romantic and Holly Golightly about everything of course the book is better

Hopelessly romantic end credits moving in white cue Dido then Enya

Hopelessly romantic rainstorms off the coast of Bermuda Triangles

Hopelessly talk in that fake accent when you wear that outfit it’s just more yes

Hopelessly romantic waters flowing over funeral pyres and wetting postcards

Hopelessly romantic chord progressions that always sound like Truman Capote talking like Philip Glass

30 August 2010

Dept

Debt 8/30

            – and being a hopeless romantic I’ve come to rest upon the word hopeless more

I’m holding the edges of an open wound that is probably not going to heal very well and you’re all just looking at it like it’s some sort of novelty toy

            – I’ve watched the tide come in over the street and stood filling sandbags unblinking in various forms of weather

That is histrionic to the max but you love it what I’m trying to express is the feeling that my heart is flooding and I can’t hear the ocean

            – look at that churchyard filled with all the dead and soon to be dead and tell me that it’s worth something

The cochlea that part of the ear that hears a coil of sound a shell I’m peeling at these onion layers of skin and trying desperately to hold onto something

            – at least everything

Racket

Racket 8/29

fabric is liquid over the chest
rippling at the waist sending out wake
you are moving within the orbit of water contained

28 August 2010

Mosaic

I like to follow up clear examples of me being uninspired (yesterday) with long-winded poems about writers.

I also like to speculate wildly about famous authors.


Mosaic 8/28

Gabriel has said that he is an old man and that he is happy with his life in the hammock and out of the hammock; that the walk through the old town square that may have been his last was sunlit and lovely; he has said that the leaves made endless hallway patterns on his white linen shirt and pants, his tie matched the pale blue sky and he wore a straw hat with a taught beige band. He nodded about the flowers this year; that they came early and went late and what does that mean?

Gabriel does not have an answer but will acknowledge that it indeed means something.

Joan sat in her office last night and looked through her old notebook. She noticed a passage about a woman in California, in Sedona, who has crinkles on her eyes and loves the area and will never leave. The woman told Joan this while wearing a wide brimmed hat sometime in the 60s. Her name is unimportant now, she is probably dead anyway, remembered by someone else perhaps, perhaps not. What is important is that she liked Sedona and that she had on pink lipstick that matched the shade of gloss that Joan’s daughter wore sometimes while she lived in Malibu.

Joan reads on but skips the passage where she discusses working on a movie the same year as the talk with the woman in Sedona.

Galway asks you what a pullet is
then he takes the pullet away and makes it earn itself
He returns it thriving
a nest full of eggs and a basket of red feathers later

Galway will not eat the omelets made from these eggs
but will feed them to the earth.

26 August 2010

Jar

Jar 8/26

Why the smack – like a poker – a pickle?
against my cheek

You are just standing – idling – a bully
without realizing

It’s your smile – or something like it
all is lost – all

25 August 2010

Baffle

Yep.


Baffle 8/25

I want to walk in the park in the fall and kick dry leaves then make out in the grass until we have it all through our hair

I want an excuse to buy flowers without any reason

I want to write ridiculous love poetry that I will hate myself for but will still tape on your fridge

I want to doodle while on the phone and end up drawing hearts

I want a reason to make grand declarations of things I may do at random future times

I want to wear your shirts

I want the possibility of being destroyed by you because there would be the possibility of being born again

24 August 2010

Stand-up


This poem is mainly about this very famous photo by Nick Ut of Phan Thį»‹ Kim PhĆŗc. She was 9 when the photo was taken. Right after snapping the picture Ut grabbed her and rushed her to a hospital.



Stand-up 8/24

In slow now look at the film reels slapping :

            A hose is turned on a crowd

There is no sound, but you can see the mouths opening :

            Bodies are enveloped in foam

This is the moment, there are others :

            The foam evaporates will

A child running, skin coming off her bones :

Kodak 1922 Test

23 August 2010

Load

Load 8/23

Place your thumb in my palm
rough the wrists – I want you to hold them
want the nail to dig ‘til white
Use your knees against mine and hold
these legs apart
I want you to open on my chest – a firework
or a balloon

22 August 2010

Luminary

I have a deep fascination with fireflies. The little glowing dance they do. The way they seem to rise out of nowhere at sunset and then vanish all day.


Luminary 8/22

Firefly blinks are too much like cats eyes they are
too much the rising falling summer cool evening pulling
from the blades of green soft grasses

Feet catch on the sharps of rocks on the
breaking wave of August rising up over the fields mopping
up every dark space in the harsh humidity

With all these faces in the dark unblinking with all
these tongues licking at the trees that begin to motion
a beginning that motions a dance

Feet are a waltz of toes in dirt flowers dropping petals they are
so similar to everything and the weather is so close
the stars open up and the lights are off the curtains are vines