Whip

I just watched Nobuhiko Obayashi's 1977 movie House.

If you crave watching a strange blend of horror, 70s animation, and comedy that is blended oddly into an obsession with pre-teen girls a la Henry Darger and a soundtrack that is pure Monkees...this is your film.



This has nothing to do with my poem. Or maybe the pure disconnect makes it perfect?


Whip 3/31

Making waffles – toss
in some chocolate chips y’all
Make it malty – bubbly
mmm

Pulsate

Pulsate 3/30

You are a quasar – a twin star
pulsing in sinus rhythm

There is endless darkness in
endless worlds – your eyes
are spirals of light

Aggie

Aggie 3/29

Walk down the line – pop the seed in the earth – wait

Daily

Daily 3/28

Word divided by time
subtracted work expended
multiplied by definitions
added (in brackets)

Cuckoo

Cuckoo 3/27

Sit on this

I will push your babies to their death

Feed me keep me warm teach me to live

Sit on this

I will abandon my child and you will be kind

Like a basket baby down a river

Sit on this

Privation

This is my 600th poem.

Privation 3/26

black                        smooth                        smell
of erasers burning paper            cornstarch and
tires
wrap your head in this mask
its mouth is a cup                        a urinal
smells of burn                            of porcelain
and silver cleaner

your wrists are tied to the pipe over the bathtub
with a pink tie

no food
water                        nothing
not                        even                        sex

Party

Buying clothes from a thrift store is always like rummaging through the leftover glitter from a New Year's party.


Party 3/25

Everything is purple
Rows of jewel-toned cotton
pressing on the blond wood
Your head is swimming
in the clear water of clothes shopping
This room is neon and metallic
It is a segregated must

Reflex

I'm sure you've heard of this new social app Color.

Today, a poem, about color.

Not "in honor" or "inspired by" so much as on topic.

For the record, the idea of an all-seeing eye app on my or anyone's phone? I'm so not into it. I like the idea of having access to crowd-sourced photos at a public event I am at but I do not like the idea of my life being crowd-sourced.

The concept of a social network that helps you meet new people and isn't primarily about sex is great. The incremental knocks to private life being private are not.

That being said...I bet this thing blows up big time.


Reflex (ROYGBIV) 3/24

Blood color – a face in darkness
you are the epitome of someone
I want naked

Citrus and juice running down
my chin – there is a field and
it is filling

with dandelion – a cluster of
dairy land – a boy in stiff
pants

In March everything is winter
still is slow turning – the fields
are first to push the eyes

Amish people is their pressed
overalls – on the line drying –
your eyes – his

are pressed corn flowers – are
the sound of wind in fields of
wheat – the smell of

straw and horses
The leaves of the plant are felt
are cat ears – everything white

Envenom

Envenom 3/23

The pillow pulsing on your arm – it is
your heartbeat – you feel it?

Ticking in your ear – this is the smell
of linen and 3AM – whose voice

Wakens you?

Sagitta

I like to steal.

This is putting it mildly.

Art is a sort of great culturally approved of con.

You pick and choose the bits you want to use and leave the rest.

The second to last stanza of this poem is not mine. It is Frank O'Hara's

And I'm not ashamed to say that I think I wear it well.


Sagitta (Mayakovsky) 3/22

It may be the coldest day of
the year.

Mother,
I am sorry that I
did not turn into anything
anyone wanted.

At least, I’m sorry
I feel that way.
Who am I?

Cherry trees are blooming
like they always do. The sun
still lights St. John
the Divine’s glass windows.

Who am I to think
of these things?

What a poet!

The world is a trap, I am
a trap, a book that pulls
and never releases its contents
is a trap.

My mind is a looping
reel of film. Holding.

It is going to burn through
the image of La Chiene, it
will cease, turn brown.
It will become the dead actor.

I am a copycat. A cipher.
If he would just come back
and run his coarse chin over mine,
I guess, I could get dressed,
take myself for lunch.

Eat something heavy
that will wound, knot.
Make enemy of my stomach.

I have never had
much appetite for reality.

Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.

And what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? I mean,
what does anyone?

Bid

Bid 3/21

what would
an angel say
the devil
wants to know

Miss

Miss 3/20

                        …hiding in the pine trees there was that spring limb that was strong enough to take the full jump of weight and would launch you through the trees into broad daylight and you’d land in the clover and the bees would swarm up into the blue sky full of cotton ball clouds…why were you hiding there…why were you jumping there…dragons…

Court

Court 3/19

I want you to miss me.
I want you to think of me before you go to sleep.
I want you to want to talk to me.
I want you to think about things I think about.

Fathom

Fathom 3/18

A deep six – fingertip
to fingertip

Here is my reach – hands
cross each other
and lace

At sea – a pod of dolphin
click away

The body weights
to the floor of the world

Reciprocating

Reciprocating 3/17

I’ve never gotten the ebb of it
the moment where we shake hands
or wrap ourselves around each other

I give and get it
but I do not wrap my head around
the not being trapped by it

How does one not become addicted
to the feeling of it
the exchange of skin on skin

Oireachtas

Oireachtas 3/16

All actions must promote
            Prudence
            Justice
            Charity
            Dignity and
freedom may be assured
social order attained
unity restored

Whom is all authority

            We

hereby give to ourselves this Constitution

Pastor

Pastor 3/15

Who tends a flock and does not use the milk of the flock?
            1 Corinthians 9:7


Let’s put the image of altar boys
kneeling in darkened rooms
lighting the ends of brass snuffers
putting on endless layers of robes
off to the side

Instead smell
the heavy incense in its thurible
dusting the room in dark smoke
practicing his swing a priest
is whispering memorized passages

The room is wood lined
smelling of old cloth and stone
basements and ancient rites
in medias res
the sound of chiming bells

Paraflight

Paraflight 3/14

lift

            clouds            blue

feathers
                        smoke

gravity less

                        breathe in

release

Mother's Day

Mother's Day 3/13

A flower
printed on newsprint

Everything
softly out of focus

Forestall

Forestall 3/12

We have to stop talking

so I don’t fall in love with you.

Bob-sled

Yesterday was my birthday. Forgive the lack of poetry for the day. Here is yesterdays today.

Bob-sled 3/11

It is my birthday

This is a drift – ice – breaking after walking
three days you are staring at open sea
All that white – you think – all that goddamn white

I am carrying too many things
so much weight behind me

Staring into the abyss of endless sea

What is thrown from the sled
What kept for the long walk to the other side

Ideological

Ideological 3/10

it must (mean) it (must) it mean

Auxiliary

Auxiliary 3/9

…is back-up
            a broken-down tank
            blocks the road – a
            taxi honks its horn
            endless…

…distinct smell
            cheap perfume – the
            kind they sell to kids
            candy – flowers
            pink…

…

Coup

Coup 3/8

The mound of snow is melting
turning black – it is a pile of gravel
scraped off the bottom
of a riverbed – or from a quarry
near some graveyard somewhere in Pennsylvania

It is a glacier in Brooklyn
a piece falls suddenly – making that snow sound
under all of that cold there are
bits of road – seven foot slashes of curb

Everything pools in the center
to the side of the road in ditches overfilled
neatly arranged leftovers form a buffet of weather

Meek

Meek 3/7

Pressing on cotton – fingerprints
are sand dunes
roughing up the seas of the earth

Everything is pouring through glass

Somehow –
everything is a swirl of wind
banging the window pane all night

I just want my life to be what it wants

These sheets are low thread-count
they are yellow – they rough
skin enough to keep you excited

Put a finger on my forehead I’m real

In this light in this moment – we
are all just drifting to sea
but everything falls down slowly

Honestly – sand is everything equalized

Artisanal

Artisanal 3/6

This little purple potato is
grown on one farm in central
Pennsylvania

Is branded with a Nittany Lion
and sold in sacks like flour
for $5 a lb.

Ounce

Ounce 3/5

I break the thermometer
I pour out the mercury
I fill the glass with blood
I hold it over the flame
I wait

Assign

Assign 3/4

I want you be a captain – want you clean my sea

Cheater

Cheater 3/3

All that banging

Radiators make my skin crawl

I rub oil to fill the cracks

Cheater

Cheater 3/3

All that banging

Radiators make my skin crawl

I rub oil to fill the cracks

Exsolve

Exsolve 3/2

Dog on a lead –
pulling in all directions –

Sex is divisible – distaff –
cog in a great wheel turning –

Few things can be subtracted –
fewer added – roll a bit –

Pull this lead –
studded collar and dew slob –

Mini-system

Mini-system 3/1

place a
            hand on the
                        edge
of the couch
                        run your fingers
            on the raises
of fabric

these map your heartbeats

your
            skin

the friction
            is the pattern
                        of your eye
movements
                        when you sleep
            canvas
yourself

and allow everything to couch

without you