Yips

Yips (Jyllands-Posten Publishes Drawings of Muhammad  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

Lump (Construction of Washington National Cathedral 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.

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

Colour

Colour (Champollion Deciphers Rosetta Stone 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

Mira

Mira (Francis Drake Completes Trip Around 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

Scratch-Off

Scratch-Off (Last Magdalene Asylum Closes 1996) 9/25

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

Brave

Brave (Unniversity of Mississippi Ordered to Admit James Meredith 1962) 9/24

James Meredith’s arrived in town
Ev’rybody’s got their hats bowed down

The sun don’t shine above the ground

At lunch when he comes ‘round

The bodies get up and leave him ‘lone

Ev’rybody’s got their hats bowed down

At night they bang on the floor and hound

James Meredith with thumping sound

The sun don’t shine above the gound

He graduates and thinks he’s done

But everybody wants him on loan

Ev’rybody’s got their hats bowed down

A peace fil’d life a family home

James Meredth won a war and is done

The sun don’t shine above the ground

Oxford Town, Oxford Town

Ev’rybody’s got their hats bowed down

The sun don’t shine above the ground

Ain't a-goin' down to Oxford Town

Prejudice

Prejudice (Nintendo Founded 1889) 9/23

The Mariners are owned by Nintendo

You know how the Japanese love their baseball

And Seattle

            Apparently

Polygraphy

Polygraphy (First Issue of National Geographic 1888) 9/22

National being the point it is said they push

some American view of the world

that it Transfixes its readers with exotic photos

of third world Individuals in native dress

or at least Ones that will be interesting on film

and if Not interesting clothes well

then At least some naked flesh preferably dark

Lean and not European

Generally it all seems overstated

sure Every time they go to Africa they come back

with photos Of bare breasts and hanging children

of deserts and General poverty and

sure its all about Raging scenic passes blinding

unwhite color the maps And environmental messages

but with those Pages they try to turn back time

and recreate Honest adventures for a world

penned In with modern grid streets

Canned air and blocky work life

Foreigner

Foreigner (Galileo Mission Ends 2003) 9/21

Small metal traveler

your fourteen years

in space were dark

cold and silent

And it all ends with

a quiet turn and decent

Tossing yourself

into the fire the crush

and pull of gravity

into the endless void

Glazed

Glazed ("Walking Purchase" of Pennsylvania 1737) 9/20

This is Edward Marshall’s shoe

the leather is rotted out and crumbling

Under glass permanent forever

pulsing with the history of a great run

How far in a day and a half can man run

if it is to land grab if it is to move west

Here is Shamokin Valley

full of the displaced tribes of Pennsylvania

They are under glass

hidden beneath this stupid shoe

Beantown

Beantown (William Joyce Sentenced to Death in London 1945) 9/19

Jairmany calling, Jairmany calling

We are counting out dried beans into tin cans

and this asshole is on the radio again

in his faked high class accent

Jairmany calling, Jairmany calling

The rumor is he’s from Ireland or America

was a fascist was the head of the BUF

and that he ran off to Germany in 1939

Jairmany calling, Jairmany calling

The beans are for troups

on the lines and he is telling us

that our cause is the wrong one that theirs right

Jairmany calling, Jairmany calling

He will be caught after the war

may he be hung until he is dead

may they leave his head on a pike in the tower

Viscous

Viscous (Peg Entwhistle Jumps From The Hollywood Sign 1932) 9/18

A ladder is all that is needed

On the back of an H

In the hills of Hollywoodland

A figure in the night

I am afraid

I am a coward

I am sorry for everything

I wish it wasn’t so but Peg

Is suspended in the thickness of time

A sacrificial archetype

Sliding down a windshield

If I had done this a long time ago

It would have saved a lot of pain

           P.E.

Biocomputer

Biocomputer (US Constitution Signed 1787) 9/17

The button is buttoned

lighted

and all the lights are on

Motors revving

Etc…

Untune

Untune (Mayflower Starts Journey to America 1620) 9/16

In the air there’s that sound

What is the discord of 66 days?

The hole in the ocean floor

that eats water like light

spins the universe like clockwork

It ticks and whirls

gearing up and down like bodies

on the deck of the Mayflower

Sick over the sides 

Endless pull down and spit out

Immunity

Immunity (Nikita Krushchev Visits the US 1959) 9/15

Nikita – you seem to not care about much

Computers don’t wow you – and the trip

to Disneyland was meant to be the highlight

What do you take back from this trip – what

is learnt from America – Self-serve cafeterias

and a supermarket in San Francisco?

Oh Nikita – did you run into Ginsberg?

I’m sure the Soviets will love self-service

and markets are a wonderful thing – but

the brink of change is only a few years away

It doesn’t matter what groceries you fondled

and I’m tired of knowing what foods are

bought anyway –

Such queer things – arms and un-arms

Nikita – would you have bought a mouse hat?

Carried it back to Moscow and shown the people

your name in gold thread?

Croft

Croft (British Empire Adopts Gregorian Calendar 1752) 9/14

Suddenly eleven days are gone…

Here is a fenced area…small painted white

and perfectly square…

Eleven days rest silently inside…vegetables

in rows for them to eat…throwing pennies

into a well whishing for people to live them…

What of the adjacent house…where

the rest of the year lives…

What of the years before and after…milling

about in the fields beyond…

Fisher

Fisher (First US Death in a Car 1899) 9/13

Loop and catch

The pull back is key

Stiffen the rod

like an extension of your arm

and release into the sky

Henry Bliss

you stand firmly

at the end of one era

Stepping off from a streetcar

into the blank road

at 74^th and Central Park West

You are catching

like an extension of arm

in the air

You are releasing time

feeding the extra line

to the tugging future

Tug hard and the line breaks

Henry Bliss

this is a man named Arthur

he is driving he is coming

from below suddenly

The line is snapping your arm slacks

Everything gets away

Red-flag

Red-flag (Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany 1990) 9/12

the track is sloped curved these cars go damn fast the black curls

they are blur lines color blending in time ink in water on paper

immersion

you cannot separate motion speed time from the space air breath

this spot            here the place all bodies will come to rest die end

applause

sound of speed curve breaking open the walnut the rip of fabric

here are four bodies blur of red relapsing into black and yellow

there must be release

letting go not forgetting but healing there are wounds in the soil

rock screams and falls and here is a spot divided checkerboard

the lights go red red red yellow yellow green

there squeal rubber smell fire smoke burn and peel out and track 

sloped to center pull churn twist spit back out into daylight

Ransom

Ransom (Henry Hudson Maps Manhattan Island 1609) 9/11

The French Blue was stolen today

Then re-cut into the Hope Diamond

And Henry Hudson came across this

Ridiculous island and named the river Hudson

He sailed on to Albany leaving the natives

To their Manhattan

Pinochet began a coup in Chile and ruled 17 years

Somewhere in Maryland

Ground was broken

On the building called The Pentagon

It’s like a dare

What are you thinking about right now?

Bloomer

  










Bloomer (Large Hadron Collider Powered Up 2008) 9/10

Health, freedom of movement

The beacon is blinking across the water, it flashes Morse

Code for the coming gale, the echo of an older one

Here is a crinoline, bending

terribly as you sit, it will thwap you in the face

The center of a fabric solar system in floral patterns

Are you the sun or a black hole?

See, there is a decision to be made, are you

pulling everything in, or will you benevolently spin your light

into a golden aura for space to absorb?

Health, freedom of movement

Here, let your knees knock, let the sound fill the room

Tap out the sound of woodpeckers, the sound of cicadas

the sound of deathwatch beetles 

Fluster

Fluster (Elvis First Appears of Ed Sullivan 1956) 9/9

Easy to forget how simple it was

this small black and white box

glowing in the corner of the room

Not everyone could afford one

And then this man with pitch black

hair and guitar looping around his body

like a moon in orbit

The tide coming from that box –

How many eyes were fixed?

Were averted?

How many minds changed completely?  

Challah

Challah (Unveiling of David 1504) 9/8

Over
in the church yard

the block of white marble

has sat as long as I can remember

Small pecks at it

what could be the start of a leg

Birds sit on it

And it grows green with moss

I saw them tilting it upright this morning

Men in rough cloth inspecting it for cracks

Then he ran his blackened hands

across the surfaces

held his ear to it

He pressed his face against the stone

and breathed deeply for what seemed hours

The stillness of the out of season cold spell

His breathing

I expected something to form from the air

to braid itself from the earth

and his dark eyes

Umrah

Umrah (Atlanta is Evacuated 1864) 9/7

Think of it as sacred travel
a long line circling out of the city

Galaxy of families and things
circling that black hole that is civil war

Atlanta is gravity coming hard
you must break from the experiment

It is Umrah in reverse : kiss
center then trace your way out

The destination is opposite prayer
is fleeing the burning cross of Sherman

Insensibility

Insensibility (Munich Massacre 1972) 9/6

Teeth marks on rope

The Olympics

Summer in Western Germany

The hooded man stands on the balcony

Israel

There are 5 no 8 no 3 terrorists

Palestine Ikrit and Biram

Three men shot at point blank range with a Kalashnikov assault rifle

Grenade in a helicopter

Tarmac smell in heat

Slimy

Slimy (Defection of Igor Gouzenko 1945) 9/5

Nothing like a disgruntled employee to ruin all the fun

Visitor

Visitor (Founding of Google 1998) 9/4

So I met you on a dating site
and we are going out to dinner
on a Saturday in September

I type your name into Google
and see what comes up from
your digital closet

How many bodies under your
floorboards what did you steal
from your parent’s house
when you were 16

The first three are some other
person with your name then
your Facebook page

The picture is you
dressed as a zombie

It isn’t Halloween
and I hate zombies

Date cancelled

Narrowcast

Narrowcast (Start of the Second World War 1939) 9/3

Today the sun rose
on the third day
of the thousand year Reich

And all of Europe declared war

And 5 years from now
the sun will rise again
as the last trains leave Westerbork

Anne Frank will watch the landscape
from breaks in the slats

Her eyes will search the landscape
for signs of life the fields will
still be green and the sky deep blue

There are sparrows a fox

A large tree standing naked
in the middle of everything
its branches black and heavy

It is a dead thing or soon to be

Desert

Desert (The Great Fire of London 1666) 9/2

There’s that image of St. Paul’s during the Blitz
shrouded in smoke its dome clear and white and not falling

Not running lead through the streets like lava
it’s stones not booming through Ludgate as projectiles

St. Paul’s has burned down in 962 in 1087 in 1666
and each time it has taken London with it

Leaving a cinder smoldering along the banks of the Thames
that acrid smell of blown out things and death

Imagine standing outside the city walls watching it all burn
the flames sending the country into orange

An ocean of shifting black sand and searing air
latching to your lungs pulling at them like worry beads

Holy this burning and restarting
English in its simplicity

Preach

For September each poem will be about an event that happened on this date in history.

Preach (Fountain of Time 1920) 9/1

Time goes, you say? Ah no,
Alas, time stays, we go

One hundred ninety years of peace

And these stone faces
Still pass, silent, before
The unblinking face of time

Many hiding themselves, in the folds of coats,
Behind the lock march of war, the flags of fathers

Here is the allegory of walking across a park at night :

The girl is young, is near a reflecting pool
She wears a red coat
She carries a basket of bread
She pauses to see herself and the moon
She is never seen again as she is seen that moment

Does she represent lost youth?
The rapidly declining British control in America?

One hundred ninety stories end this way

And the beginning is somewhere in history