Cock-a-hoop

Cock-a-hoop 6/30

To set all by the ears - to bung the hole

There is cheering and calling out
a dart board fills with arrows

Lights dim - the neon casts everything blue

An underwater slideshow of billiards
Quarters trade hands

Headcount

Headcount 6/29

She walked molding on the battlefields
                        taping back hair

She reversed their faces held them in her palms

She poured skin into negatives
                        all the flaws of death in highlight

She made eyes rolling beautiful

Patient

Patient 6/28

It’s            a                        running 8
                        A                        dripping                        curve

The                        broken                        tower
is                         testament                        to a battle

                                                that was                        lost

It’s                        a                        running 8
                        A                        dripping

There is                        a                        haunting
occurring

                                                                        I am
appearing                        behind                        you
knife                                                pulled

Noblesse

Noblesse 6/27

Nothing can make one die inside more than -

Perfuse

Perfuse 6/26

                                    Still
air slides in this turquoise lung
Burns phosphorescence            a silver fire-work
            down the rue obscure of asphyxia
            Eyes go white
turn into mother-of-pearl
and beat themselves trapped sparrows on Titanics
                                    Arms go numb first
            then the trunk creeps inward
Feeling that layering go icicle            Slow terror
                        of warmth leaking into not warmth
            This solid breathing flange
                                                this rusty bellows
There is a crawl
a spider over the carpet            shadow
on the tiled world
An image of lovers embracing on film
Then of lead-filled limbs in Auvillar
It shifts to light                        filtered through water
                                    before that too fades from dog
                        into wolf

Strawberry

Strawberry 6/25

crawling white (popularly so called) flower
bag-shaped receptacle starting green moves to redness
juicy acid pulp dotted over with tiny acorns
crushed with sugar cream poured into bowls
the smaller wood kinds creep at tree feet

Plurality

This is my 300th poem!

I'm in England until July 6th. There will be no interruptions in the posting. I am way too dedicated to let that happen.

Enjoy!


Plurality 6/24

No to marriage
No to tension
No to hostility
No to ignorance

No to taxes
No to morality
No to snobbery
No to defacement

No to negativity
No to forgetting
No to regret
No to silence

Yes to devotion
Yes to release
Yes to passion
Yes to knowledge

Yes to health
Yes to right
Yes to quality
Yes to expression

Yes to polarity
Yes to wholeness
Yes to change
Yes to solitude

Bumper

Bumper 6/23

1,05
And the Kinder
Surprise is in my hand
The white and orange foil
a dried leaf in my fingers
It smells the same
it did when I was 8 and
it probably only cost 10p
at some corner post office
The melting chocolate
is better than my first sex
Which was not very
good to be honest
The milk and white
melt the same as always
Slow breaking of the seam
reveals the same
strange colored plastic yolk
I raise it examine it
try to figure out what
might be inside
            It is never what
            you think it is
                        One time I was probably 9
                        my mother broke the eggs
                        over the pan and it was all
                        feathers and blood one
                        unopened eye purpling in the
                        hot grease
I pull apart the halves
it is a witch a magnetic broom
As you push her across a
table the sweeper runs away
The last toy I remember
was a frog that hopped
The toys are always things
that move away from you
The Kinder Surprise
is that you never are closer
then when you have it
in your mouth

Pitot

Henri Pitot invented the pitot tube in the 1700s. It is L-shaped. Like an arm bent at the elbow. The tube is used to measure fluid flow.

Dreams are a sort of measure. This one was definitely a nightmare about the end of things that I care about.

Side note: I notice that some of my lines are too long for the posts. If it looks like the word should have been on the line above, it should have been. Like in this poem.


Pitot 6/22

They all come walking into the field with their elbows bent outwards like pitot
They are pulsing their blood flows and making their eyes bulge
Somehow they control the dropping of bombs on the assembled guests
This is a barbecue for everyone you've every known
They have all assembled and are eating hot dogs hamburgers
Zombie Nazis are coming over the hills your guests sing your praises
With their akimbo arms and popping faces they are eating across your family
Your friends are rising an army of undead people you love they come at you
Elbows bent pitot the pressure coming up as the bones melt under the weight
They are coming up the hills a terrible history of somehow some when

Millernery

There is a small hat shop near my apartment.

It is always filled with the most amazing hats in the most amazing colors.


Millinery 6/21

The ladies wear large hats to church
Inside the shop there is a lime upturned brim
These doors never open they reflect your face
We discuss the use of such gigantic 'ugly' hats
Though I covet the lime upturned brim daily
A little lime upturned brim makes any life sweeter
That much less repeating gray
Like these streets flushing in front of the apartments
The sad little trees with peeling bark sickly leaves
Hundreds of pigeons goose-stepping pavement
It's not that this city is deadened
It's just constantly weeping mercury
Constantly shedding
A snake with a box full of skins in a closet
Our brims are stiff we are always fresh and new
But little is lime upturned brim
The ladies all wear their large hats to church
Worshipping in these non-gray ways

Vivacity

Vivacity 6/20

Aperitif in small doses

Cool slinging to the skin - a love affair in old age

I walk through the botanic gardens in Brooklyn as slowly as possible
Stand beneath the weeping cherry tree for the same measure every time
There I count to thirty and rub against the black wrought iron boughs

Steady rain - creeping over the hillsides

Tawny port fills glass

Machine

Machine 6/19

The clear night is frozen to the silver of a vehicle

Blades spinning a revolver moment in the expanse of a canyon

The egg shape moves in closer to the houses

Wolves smell nothing and see only their reflections

Starch

Starch 6/18

What is this anger - this hollowness

I seem to carry a bucket in my belly
            sloshing meniscus swirl - the liquid is a sap
sweet - sure of itself like the wind

Maples know they bleed amber
            parade helicopters with searchlights
calling - bees get caught here

When I dreamt of mother packing - her dead sister
at the window - the roof was leaking
even with holes
            buckets will move you somewhere

That void of reasoning -
            heart-valve of the sternum - branch
of the cock - places where you feel the cold
in summer

I cannot fathom this ocean
Pictures of everyone twist into a brown mess - it hums
            pallid - teeth opening flytrap

The pink in there is too inviting
Smell of honey too intoxicating

I will carry the suitcase onto the ferry for her
            it will fill with ash - earth
aspen leaves collected on the Sangre de Christo slope

Now this is my funeral
            handfuls of dirt - the coffin echoes a storm
pebbles - endless

And will I carry myself out of here
            on the backs of giants - say -
rolling along the shoulders of horseshoe crabs

The banging sound - wood clotting
            its own blood - sealing it in stone

After the echo stops - there is the sound of eyes -

Ma'am

Ma'am 6/17

Got your petticoats right here
your breast handfuls pink undersides
Place your foot in my pocket
I want to taste that manicure for reals

Desegregate

This poem was inspired by this image of Elizabeth Eckford at Arkansas Central High School in 1957:



Desegregate 6/16

In the picture she's holding her books close to her chest
her skirt is plaid they are all open teeth and snarling
snaking strands of saliva their eyes tearing themselves
from the heads

She's walking quickly in the photo but with her head up
her face is stone but you can see behind them a scream
broken wings beating her body she is a bandaged sparrow
thrashing

Are there chains on everything around her the barricades
barely do their job the police are crossed arms and hats
batons pocketed hoses out and watching the stream of
children flowing

River of stone faces rush the walk brown faces moving
through white frozen water in a fading photo but there
she is skirt in the breeze moving she is walking and she
holds her books close

Marrowbone

Marrowbone 6/15

Slick the soft spaces - beak over dark
            You are brittle - failing

A lone aspen shaking the morning cold at the void
            Bruised clouds pooling above

Of course you are brittle - of course
            The mountain is tall - menacing

Always chalk-like
            Your body a bamboo of milkweed

That gnawing over yourself - hungry
            Bleeding gums - the instant

Echoing in a gun chamber - roulette
            Pounding - thumping

Crock

Crock 6/14

It is a tub of honey         you say
it is, this curved earthen jar
full of golden, clear, smooth

I hold it to my lips
pour it over my head
the glazing comes down

Like a new born         the slime
of bees, fills all space
you say         you made this

Bees tipping on last years nettle
when things were different
simpler         you say

No, not easier though
curved, like this jar, darker
dirtier, you say I'm morbid

I laugh filling my teeth with
honey, filling my lungs with
the scent of things no longer around

Mettled

I saw the Joan Rivers documentary tonight.

I haven't laughed that much in ages.

It felt very very good.


Mettled 6/13

In the dream
your back is to us I'm folding
clothes the woman is screaming
tears flood cheeks
The other fixes holes
in a pair of pants

In the dream
as your back is to us
you are singing
and I tell the woman sewing
that she only does this now
that you are dead

On the window that you look at
forests of apple trees grow
You sing a song about railroads
The woman sewing throws yarn
at the screaming woman

I fold clothes into a suitcase
the train fills the room you are
singing with your back to us
it is about how you died

The tears rend the room blue
she is coughing
The holes in the pants grow larger
soon everything will be a hole

Multiplicate

This poem is the one I've most edited in recent weeks.

It is really about the project, but I think it's about life in general. It sort of captures my mood perfectly as we begin a new moon phase.

It's the Strawberry Moon.


Multiplicate 6/12

There are a lot of days stacking up
useless cartography
the landmasses are imagined dragons
that evaporate before ships
the compass spins idly

Those days sand themselves
levy then break in any drizzle
bury themselves in sorry

Those days make paper burn promises
pretend enlightenment in their folded
airplanes that they soak in tears

The roof leans inwards then allows faces to peer inside

Book-jackets for these days
convert themselves into folders
to keep track of the failing
They track a pile of books
in an empty office
a madman at a desk catalogs the waste
the evaporation becomes clouds
the clouds pour forth

What will pour forth...

Possess

Possess 6/11

Arms upraised wide-eyed shaking hands like claws
the bear is watching from the river bank and coming this way
the clouds rock in their orbits

Shaking fingertips like talons once more trees grow to cover the clearing
roots tangle in shoelaces and catch on pant-legs

A twist in underthings and a breaking to the core

Remediless

Remediless 6/10

Ten thousand words balled n paper still
cannot kill your cancer

I sit on the edge of a fire pit and press ashes back
into branches back in to trees into seeds
I bonsai the crumbs of your bones into miniature yous
Clip their branches once a year give them small
fields to pick daisies in

In the dream about work there are endless
piles of sand filling endless coffee cups
The roots choke n the waterlessness despite
Sahara preferences

There is no eye on the dead sparrow
only holes and things banging about beneath

Perspicuous

Perspicuous 6/9

Pink rabbit run like the pink sky
drip like suns and red plums turning rotten
Run like a shotgun shell over the Atlantic
like the steady movement of ants on a hill

Illyrian

Ancient Greek y'all


Illyrian 6/8

In the desert of trees that is the Balkans
The husk of grapes waits
Each eaten by a lost choral voice
The only words left behind :
snake
 :    :    :   fog
 :    :    :    :    :    :   pool of still water

Balti

This one is complicated. I will point you to the Curonian Spit for clarification.


Balti 6/7

Last Russian outpost among the EU
Sitting Curonian Spit, jutting westward
Maybe some sort of reaching
Maybe some sort of statement about holding on

The spit reaches across the Baltic
Forested, a finger touching Lithuania Kaliningrad
Holding the brackish waters back
Swirling phytoplankton blooms iris

Dunes thirty meters high roll endlessly
Some sort of statement about testing about time
Some sort of reaching out from the bowels of geology
Touching the faces of faster-paced shorter-lived beings

Plankton, green and moving across watery homes
Press against the spit, wash the sand
Cover the one road that reaches north and south
Connecting one Union to another...

Titans!

Hydrogen seems to be vanishing near the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. This fits into theorized models of life existing on the moon.
I am so doing a little happy dance. What if we find life there? Kinda amazing.

Real life Titans!

Read the Article at New Scientist - Hints of life found on Saturn moon - New Scientist

Churchillian

Churchillian 6/6

I stood in this house, with these things, holding them to my chest like this, the wind was making scratches on the window, not like today, it's blue, clear, the clouds are cotton.

I stood in this doorway, in this large room, just like this, after the cold had got into my bones, the rust on the gate had been under my fingernails, holding these keys, these little rings, this envelope with a letter in it

I stood right here and wished the sun yould come up behind me, burn the cold and make it all easier, in this house I watch her sleep across the room, nightgown trainlng dust, bits of cracker, she holds the same things to her breast, scratches at the window, this is the same storm

When the sun rises she is not here to see me standing in the doorway

Pig

Pig 6/5

...and his beard is this rusty growth
like barnacles on ships in docks
He's lurching in his chair fatly laughing
about some song joke some woman
he probably slapped on the ass

He's holding one of the jugs round
deeply fired to a dark brown smooth
you can see the whole room in the curves
sloshing liquids make light more something
The mug slams breaking collapsing

St. Paul's

This is about St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

It's the one in Mary Poppins:



Paul's 6/4

Stone, pitted smooth releases ages
in a steady fix of water and salt

Through clear glass the trees are blooming
here everything is popping itself in blues

There is a feeling of reticence
which is also the feeling of binding

A finger placed here is touching
a finger here for centuries

Cowboy

I get tired of serous poems very quickly. I sometimes have fantasies of writing nothing but one line poems with ridiculous punchlines.

Maybe when I'm old.


Cowboy 6/3

I can dress like a cowboy - walk around
no one will bat an eye - but
if you come around
dressed in your teddy bear outfit
someone might think we're furries

Spread Betting

Spread Betting 6/2

I walk over the Brooklyn Bridge and toss a stone lazily the gulls screech and dive the garbage barges
The lines of thread pull the surface up the water flats underneath, I catch the gaze of a woman in her thirties, she holds a child loosely over the edge, the drop is slow
I sleep with a guy I met on the train, he fucks hard fast and tells me to get out when we're done, I don't ask him about the tattoo on his leg of the twin towers, don't ask him about the tired look in his eyes or the coughing...

The drop is slow...

I walk over the Brooklyn Bridge, pull the camera and take shots of where things used to be, I turn and take a picture of the Watchtower building and look at where buildings are being
I spider snake lines of tension cables cross an O'Keefe cathedral sky, ten shades of blue blink in the spaces
The guy watches me, sweating from across the aisle, he is staring at my crotch, my legs, my arms, everywhere but my eyes, which he says is like looking into falling...

Unwind

It's June!

This is a picture of a shower curtain.

With a Toucan on it.

And a poem about things falling apart.


Unwind 6/1

someone somewhere found us living in the shallows
flinging ourselves into deep wells and drinking that darkness
like spring water - we make circle around heat
call up whatever strength we have in numbers
and prostrate before the split cow's stomach steam
raised hands in fingerless gloves grasp the captured sun

the center cannot hold
they said this as if it wouldn't unhinge the universe
as if gravity would keep on keeping on
with everyone occupied with dismantling history
who kept the gears oiled and working

Joan Didion has released her history
whatever is good for Didion must be good for us
we hover over the corpse of what cannot be held
in the sky above the moon is a sack of fat held fast
that cup of darkness - the ground is a good place for it
soak up the warmth of a sun that shone years ago

take that with you to wherever you are tomorrow