31 July 2011

Iberian



In 1944 Harold Fisk finished his Geological Investigation of the Alluvial Valley of the Lower Mississippi River. The maps show the many pathways that the Mississippi River has taken in its history.

The maps are available for download from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The files are very large. And very beautiful.


Iberian 7/31

There is a line of mountains breaking
and Andorra is sitting Pyrenees
France and Spain co-prince
Everything flows south from here
enters the Mediterranean locks with Africa

30 July 2011

Temperament

Temperament 7/30

Glass is clear – spill of ink drifting – smoke across surface
turning the eye a cover – tented – some paw will come down
take every food source

Everything clouds in time

Rises – becomes rat king – what color will spill across eyes
then grasp your hand in the night – polish your silverware
shed a tear for your dead

29 July 2011

Translate

Translate 7/29

Contra una puerta de la parada de cuarto de baño

Soldadura del dril de algodón alrededor del eje

Madera gloriosa de la digitación del ojo entre la mierda

Floración de los botones sonidos del agua

Un pelo se provoca lentamente
            se encrespa contra la teja encendida punto bajo
            reflexivo primavera – un reloj no hace tictac – bang
            bang – bisagras que dan una palmada a los tornillos
            cuarto de baño de mierda de la pelá­cula
            nos conocemos al lado del olor – él nos
            está mirando mientras que él caga
            está puñeto
                                                filtrando

28 July 2011

Piesporter

Piesporter 7/28

I love Reisling

She’s flirting with me and I am getting paid to smile at her.
I’m sure she loves Reisling. I pour her the glass of Skoures.

Mmmmmmmm

I’m waiting for a schoolgirl giggle. She is trying so hard.
What pushes, on a Sunday night, a grown woman to this?

She leaves two dollars and wanders into the room. She is
alone with a laptop working in a corner.

This is all suddenly sad as hell. I think I will pour myself
some whiskey. I grab the nearest bottle and it is vodka.

And there it is.

26 July 2011

Moon-eyed

Moon-eyed 7/26

It’s green I tell you. Green. Like emeralds. That green.
So green that you can’t see it. It’s a white-out. Blacked out.
It’s an empty store front. It’s all shadow and dead eyes.
Shaking hands on a hot pot. Will spill all over you and erase everything.
I tell you that it will. You are a chalk drawing. It is that green.
So green that everything else vanishes. So green that there is no meaning in it.
There is nothing but the hollow street and the sky in comparison.
The lake still and reflecting. Clouds rushing and a sky going purple then grey.
The moon is out and that is making everything darker.
Your tongue is dry from it. The night is hot. The alcohol tastes like sand.
Everything lessened. Drained. Behind panes of glass in a museum.
And those tiny lights in the gallery are making it all look its best.
But it will never be enough. Ever. I tell you this. You don’t believe me.
That is how green it is. So green that it changes everything that ever happened.

25 July 2011

Reverse

Reverse (Billy Collins Directions) 7/25

Piercing the ground with your stick
heading up toward the hill
into the crowd of maple and ash
to the house, until you disappear
I will watch after you and not turn back
with one hand on your shoulder
I will walk with you as far as the garden.
Come knock on my door.
Let me know before you set out.

Taking the vast outside into ourselves
where we stand in the tremble of thought.
Passing over the hills and the ground
through a meadow and the shadow of clouds,
greener than ever, spring water flowing.
The entities that continue to return
will soon be gone. Rregard
its breast made of humus and brambles,
how the earth holds us painfully
and begin to recite their stories,
how the voices of light enter the body.
It is hard to speak of these things.

Driving overhead toward some destination
spot a hare or feel the wing-beats of geese
and if this is your day, you might even
fall a cone through the trees.
A sprig of birdsong or leafy
things and you will hear nothing.
Breaking into the shapes and tones
the light pouring down into the woods
to sit on, you will be able to see.
And, when you find an agreeable rock
the columns of trees, you are hiking up.
When the sun strobes through.
The best time for this is late afternoon.

A good enough place to stop.
Which is as high as you can go.
Ridge with a border of pine trees,
you will eventually come to a long stone.
When the going gets steep, you
might have to grab on a sapling
and if you go beyond there you arrive at
the small footbridge with the broken railing
and farther on, you know…
Against the light-brown fallen leaves
and a grove of tall hemlocks, dark green now.
Down, during the horrors of the Ice Age,
to a heap of rocks.
Walk into the woods, you come
and you know how if you leave the path
where all the yellow primroses are
the ones that bend around the far end of the garden
the ones you see from the kitchen window.
You know.

24 July 2011

Economical

Economical 7/24

Warm wet cloth over wood counter
in circles the arm reaches and pulls

Here the tendon tightens across bone
it sounds like dry wood in a fire

A bird pulling a worm from the earth

Here is a pound of flesh
spreading out from a focal point

Counter clockwise
air drying and sucking

23 July 2011

Onsell

Onsell 7/23

Here is a thing that you need and that you will buy

It is more then you will ever have

But you need it in your life it won’t take up much space

Just every inch that you need

Flosculous

Flosculous 7/22

A field of green                        bulges
then fists the air                        bursts
like streamers

This is a party                        in your face
is confetti is air                        exploding
in sweetness

Manufacture

Manufacture 7/21

A blank sheet
begins to map the
continent edge

A thick black line
making the coast
of Antarctica

Here is the place
the world stops
making ice

The tree line
is a green mark
across the places
you held yourself
at night

This sheet
is charting places
you dreamt

A sound across
imagined waters
is a call from deep

We hang this
in our apartment
and use it to break space

20 July 2011

Dump Bin

Dump Bin 7/20

I’m not good enough
but I am the best

Pretty?

The rain feels like pins
on my face the sun is hands
folding me like paper
and lighting me on fire

Sinking?

Cannot swim
will not swim

18 July 2011

Portrait

Portrait 7/18

The lines flash around
the head

His nose floats away from his face
and his limbs gnarl up and over

Reaching for the other
in another panel down the wall

Everything is orange
and pink

George died and burned
into Francis

Everything boxed itself in
and spun wildly

Then ripped apart
Then turned into pointing shapes

17 July 2011

Plunge

Plunge 7/17

Like in a spy movie I want to make a circular cut
in glass in ice in your back

And slide into whatever dark is on the other side

I want to drive you around and take this apartment
until the day breaks the night across its knee

Snapping spines unthreading all screws in heaven

Here is a shoe made of lead filling with water
take it to your lips and make everything black

Like in some noir film shadows hide half faces

Shatter across the fields I spread my arms and fall
backwards into grasses

I spread myself thinly until ambient light gets in

16 July 2011

Rattle

Rattle 7/16

sound of heating pipes banging on
and the breathing heavy like a run

it’s cold the breath is cloud white
blankets won’t keep any of this out

dangling from the ceiling is a body
with an open mouth dropping teeth

they collect in groups of three

Militance

Militance 7/15

Leaves sound like marching soldiers
rolling along the Thames

They are curled and wheel in orange
in yellow in deep copper

They look leathered grommeted there
steel in the veins

The water is mercury makes no sound
only reflects the cold purple sky

Things collect in corners of monuments
mount themselves prepare to go off

14 July 2011

Niblick

Niblick 7/14

On Sundays
they take the
walking sticks
and they golf
with them

The priests don’t
notice or choose
not to notice
the soft gently
curved handles

Small pocked
balls and long
grass chopping
sounds over
the church bells

13 July 2011

Osler

Osler 7/13

My heart pulls back – it bubbles
and pumps expanding my body

I am a resident of this place – am
a blanking verse in tones

My heart is a stick on a skin
and is walking the halls – sleeping

12 July 2011

Supposition

Supposition 7/12

The cat will sleep all day and will twitch once every hour
The cat makes noises like groaning and his eyes flick REM
The cat pushes his legs against the chair and slides along the chair
The cat extends claws and then spreads his paws open

There is a whooshing sound in the fan and a sun up and down
There is the dust in the light and the one cat hair on your nose
There is a crawl of time
There is cool and not cool weather

10 July 2011

Benison

Benison 7/10

The light is breaking over your shoulder
everything is peaking - white

09 July 2011

Polar Line

Polar Line 7/9

The line of winter
is a thin hungry moment
waiting in the dark of autumn

08 July 2011

Perforation

Today was the last space shuttle launch.

The first was on April 12, 1981. I was one month old.

I remember watching the Challenger launch and disaster. I remember collecting the flight badges. I even saw a shuttle up close once on the back of a transport plane.

Nothing captures my youth and imagination like space.

I've been re-watching Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix.

I want to fly.


Perforation 7/8

I want to point to the sky
so I reach out my arm and extend my finger
This is a gun I say and it is
and then I go BAM! and a hole opens in the clouds
Airplanes fly through
landing at JFK and people make their connecting flights

My imagination runs circles around my reality

07 July 2011

Mid-teen

Mid-teen 7/7

A : When I was sixteen

Q (posed by a future son or daughter) :
When did you know you were gay?
I don’t think I am. Is that ok?

06 July 2011

D-list

D-list 7/6

I have my A-game I can wear
that until your eyes pop out

My ass will look so good in it
you won’t breathe until I pass

In my head this is what I think
everytime I pass your gym

And you are working out
in the windows on a treadmill

05 July 2011

Daze

Daze 7/5

I like the raven line
                        thick – jet

The thought of conjoined twins
who can detach themselves at will

A wound is an orifice
                        to peck at

The space above the eye swells
an egg hatching stillborn

Rise amaranthine sparrow
                        from a dirt-bath

Here are your eyes
rolling across concrete

04 July 2011

Aright

Aright 7/4

Sky is purple and clouds grey
the whole is tilting just to the right
and it makes it all so perfect

The water is solid and mating
with the walls rubbing grains and
making pearls out of bone

Let the hands melt and nails rainbow
the road is going to flow gentle
and everyone will wake up tomorrow

and the next

03 July 2011

Star-spangled

Star-spangled 7/3

In this heat
My fingertips become suns
The room a burning skin
Peeling

02 July 2011

Iniquity

Iniquity 7/2

A tree is felled then planed
Sanded until smooth
It's vanilla skin dry and cool

Stained a sharp color
It is a table
there are scales set down on it

One side tilts low
Some metaphor that is heavy
The other side holds a key

And it all means

01 July 2011

Nicker

Nicker 7/1

Like skipping stones
Across the dark
there is that sound
Breaking glass
Which is the sound
Of a heavy body
the morning after a party
When everything falls
towards the feet
Here is a coin for your sorrows
That window
Looks in on a life
You can never have
Your body is slow tired
But you are a flash on water
Reflected in shards