Phthisis

Phithisis

In the blood – it’s going along in – the blood it is going

Your lungs are a breathing net of coral – a fibrous salmon flange
swaying in the tubercular swamp

The thing is – all of this will melt down – chocolate on the stove
it will pile and melt down – your fibrous roots will disintegrate

Root of clouds – the chest seed planting root – of clouds

You control the air like you control infinity – by drawing circles
around it in continuum – in ball point pen – in sharpie
The more permanent the better

Hoard

Hoard 7/30

You’re endlessly turning towards Manhattan
constant pirouette            your coat a balloon            Why
are you leaning into the Verizon building
Your face a crimson checkmark            eyes vanishing
under clouds of reflected blue light

These buildings with their Nazi marching
are cramping up and floating            having eaten
too recently to bridge themselves to Brooklyn

But you still turn toward them
away from

Senator

Senator 7/29

High stick parapets
blocking Lego wall of China
inching down the greenery

                        Castle your inner thigh
                        IHOP invasions and skidding griddle
                        butter and slide over your walls

This is a sticky coup
peeping marshmallow blood
Please remove your panties it’s time

Slushy

There are times where the connections in my head make sense.

There are times where you will just have to go with it.


Slushy 7/28

I.
Joan Didion dreams of a floating turbine            hovering
spinning wildly over a prairie expanse
Her frail hands are reaching into the spinning blades
            claw-like            her tips bending everything backwards

II.
In the grave yard in Auvillar the oldest crypts are breaking
piles of dust and pebbles
The newest stands open            a flame on a candle shaking
violently

III.
This is where a rotting hand rises fist from the earth and wormy
where a skull with one eye crawls meanly from a hole in the ground
This is where they pick up tools and set out into the world to reclaim
where fires start and blood becomes currency

Sighting

Sighting 7/27

Among the faces of Times Square I see dead relatives
walking places where hookers turned themselves out

They are wearing the old uniforms                I <3 NY shirts
and baseball caps with Yankee logos

Hollow eyes coin-fill and bending bone fingers
carry purses                backpacks                shopping bags

Here I find a curled frail woman                unrelated
amongst all this morbid touristing

I grab her hand and help her to a subway entrance
tell her it will be alright that I cannot control reminiscence

Multiring

Multiring 7/26

At that part of the cave – the path is expanded
iron platforms bolted indefinitely high
The blue and green lights they use only make the deep
more obvious
The comfort of light in the dark – of that idea
of seeing behind closed eyes
vanishes into a pool of ink

The creaking of the metal – that expanding shrinking
heat cold metal sound – like it’s rumbling from the walls
makes the jumping impulse amplify
from the walls and bounce into the ears of tour guides
A dotted line from the body position to the
possible position begins
A morse code of wingless flight

Mayor

Mayor 7/25

He’s holding the plastic cup to his mouth            lips moving quickly            he’s whispering secrets into the bottom            they amplify and become incantations
            the trees shake themselves            turn their leaves to look at him            the dogs silence themselves and cower in shadows
The cup lowers and his eyes are wild            he wraps his towel around his shoulders
                        digs hands into pockets and watches the sky move quickly

Non-custodial

I imagine that Charon's job is terrible and lonely.


Non-custodial 7/24

When the pole hits bottom
fingers ache knuckles
buckle under the weight of coins

The heat of their eyelids still lingers
This is when there is doubt
and the river’s stillness infuriates

Those ghostly pale hands
beneath surface cold
dead white eyes that roll always

Home is on the raft the
ferry a sudden killing in this darkness
When the pole lifts is when there’s pleasure

Subtle breaking of the dark mirror
a sound in the blankness
A reprieve from infinity

Tend

On the walk home from work there is a small park near the Brooklyn Museum. For the last few days there has been a dead squirrel laying on its side. The first day it looked alive and sleeping. Then the eyes vanished. Now it is bloated in the 100 degree heat.

It is horrible and beautiful.


Tend 7/23

Forking the ground – these rabbit hands are diggers
searching – searching for something unfrozen

Matutinal

Matutinal 7/22

It goes pink first – soundless blush on the blue
then the little pips come up

They chat to each other – quiet and to themselves
until the first bus rises and moves

After the televisions wake – and tune up the news
as the stoves of the city bacon

It rises – converges until it is a booming
a swelling ocean of day-rise

Pause

I got a new phone today.

It's a smartphone. That means it does more than I need it to.


Pause 7/21

Pale skin – freckles
Auburn hair – reddish beard
Under current of sincerity
Sex – willing to cuddle
Extroverted – in isolation

Presential

I wrote a lot of poems about my aunt's cancer.

Cancer is an oddly creative font.


Presential 7/20

She’s at the window again – the black birds are spiraling
it’s a Goya painting – our bodies are reaching
                        skin is sallow

Remember chopsticks at the piano – always staccato
breaking in – shafts of light over carpet
We watched chipmunks horde – peanuts off your shoe

The pear trees were sickly – blighting and then gone
There was a game we played running
                        weaving around them

Apples were knotted and rotten – most fell early
the dull earth pack sound without an echo

In the high humidity the pig farms reached out their hands
and touched our tongues – hooded and black
                        we never told the trees we missed them

She’s at the window again – that chopstick window
with the craft white washed glaze
A bird smacks into it while you play Rainbow Connection

This is the hazy memory – hollow skin sagging on her form
more a Freudian portrait – a Rimbaud venus
                        waving as she vanishes

Tortuous

I was on the subway and watched a woman scream and hit her kids for several stops.

It was insanely uncomfortable.


Tortuous 7/19

Her hands are chalky
You notice the knuckles – swirling knots
                        blights on oak branches
She’s leaning and the kids are fighting
You notice the knuckles cause they rise – an arc
                        over the metal grate of subway
And they land on the back of the closest kids head
The crack is louder than spark firing on the third rail
                        than the un-oiled wear
The pause – while the kid isn’t breathing
                        while the whole train is watching

See we’re waiting for the screaming to start
For the tears to well up
Anything

The kid breathes in for everyone – the
                        biggest inhale ever
And cracks tender twig-knuckles across
                        his mother’s face

Relator

If I admit to actually wanting to do this...am I crazy?


Relator 7/18

I communicate with animals.
They stare me in the face and pause.

I want to grab their faces
scream:
                        you know me!
                        you see me!

Dirty

This is mainly about sweat and the nastiness of NY summer.

Mainly.


Dirty 7/17

Pearls of sweat peaking on arms
            hairs thick with glue            a lashing of skin
Hovering wet cold            an icy grip over pores

Fingers move the dirt in circles            make pudding
                        of the flesh

Collect the spheres on thread
wear them            crucifix            of slow walk the cloister
                        of Eastern Parkway and count –

                        Hail
fire truck through the intersection

                        Hail
                        soup haze over the subway entrance

                        Hail
                                                gloss of water in manhole covers

Demurrage

Demurrage 7/16

Not sure what they were selling
            some basket of fruit tinged with poison

that would make us all see saints
            floating in the rafters of our minds

I ask where the tree was
            who harvested who cultivated

was the tree a fusion of cuttings
            or pure unmolested thoroughbred

Will the knotted branches make good walking sticks
            so the mud of history can be crossed

Those gray-haired men floating in the ether
            of our collective minds

What are we to make of those empty promises
            those hanging grammars

those dangling parts of speech they left behind

Drape

I don't get to do this enough anymore.


Drape 7/15

The sun bakes my bed – bleaches my green blanket
I lay there at 6 o’clock and feel it scrape against my back
            a parade of bedbugs across my spine – I feel the mosquito insert
The sun has long nails made of iron – keening the death of Greek gods
            she etches her loss onto me – I lay there every day and sleep

I could close the curtains to her advance but no one else has a window
            that she peers in at 6 o’clock
No one else bares their back

Able

Able 7/14

I am able to go days without eating anything substantial
It’s not really a super power                        more of a test

Smuggle

Smuggle 7/13

I watch sparrows for signs of seasons changing
their eyes are reflection – mirrored unbreakable blocking

I want to know what you watch

Do you mouth words to songs in the condensation on the mirror
I sing Nina Simone in the shower
            shake my ass – I can convince myself to feelin’ good

Late at night I sweat in my room and do nothing about dehydration
            my cat wakes me up at 5am on my days off
            I don’t go out on weekends – I’m a catch

I am convinced that I will bump into you as we turn a corner somewhere in Brooklyn
            That you will be wearing something purple
it will be like a movie

Swindle

This was an attempt at a mood more than any real narrative.

Though I suppose there is a story here.

There's always a story.


Swindle 7/12

You take off the purple shirt when the sun goes down
Placing the iron in the cupboard while it still glows – you’re
            using the mister on us – the fan’s
going at gale speed and I’m putting on my leather

Lacing up the back – taught and crushing ribs
            The purple on the sand looks like water in moonlight
Puddle of t-shirt – spoonful of sun
There’s that song about it weighing a ton – Superman
            couldn’t pick it up

I did think it was time to get on the boat
The tourists will all turn their heads when he says September
            11
They take pictures with their Sonys – save ones where breasts
look pendulous – bronzed

You leave your clothes in on the shore – denim breadcrumb
I will pick them up and wash them – wait for you to grow legs
Swim like that fish in that movie for me
like some koi in a pond in Santa Fe
They’re just expensive goldfish – just enlarged morsels

Gut-buster

I should point out that I do not find horses sexually arousing.

But they do have nice skin.


Gut-buster 7/11

A horse walked into a bar
            on it’s hind legs
That subtle arching below the knees
            that slides gracefully
to the hoof
            Is what caught my
eye – made me notice
            that this was a real honest-
to-god horse
            It had balls and cock
and the whole wax
            A mane all running over
its shoulders like some Fabio
            A clopping of metal
shoes on wood floor
            This horse was 100%
He sat in the corner alone
            ordered some horsey
drink – I watched him all night
            feeling that burn
between my legs
            His dark oil pool eyes
blinked at me with long lashes

Halberd

Halberd 7/10

This paper is filling with your blood
                        It is a mosquito gorging – small footed
and resting gently – unnoticed – on your neck

This page is pressing its tweeter into you
                        all novocained up – sliding
until you feel that pinch

This paper will bleed you dry
                        An army of leeches – suckling at your
gangrened stump – inhaling the rotting ends of you

This page is a mercenary
                        I am sending it out – rolled into planes
It comes back periodically – I pocket the toil

Providential

I spent a week in the south of France. I lived in a farmhouse and ate amazing home cooked food prepared by this great French woman.

We visited a pilgrimage site.

There was a thumb encased in glass.


Providential 7/9

The little glass sphere is full of a dead fuzz
            It is filled with green foil and a lump of flesh
                        The sphere is the center of the filigree cross
The cross is a green and inside the sphere is orange
            Around the orange is a discoloration
                        This darkening is the space of the fuzz
Which is a deathly gray staring out from its tomb of glass
            The lump of flesh is purported to be a puce
                        A puce is melting in the sphere
A puce is a thumb a big toe this one is a saint
            A melting saint puce in its orange and metal coffin
                        Waiting for something to break glass
To steal crosses in this small French room

Parc Ferme

Parc Ferme 7/8

The tree is blooming orchid faces            tiny
and falling into the water            it’s dark and muddy
            but moving through the trees

The leaves are needles            black lacquered green
that crushed velvet coat on New Years

We watched him dancing in the middle of 12th street
His legs kicking out from under him            the street
            waves of soot

Scuffed black dress shoes skirting yellow lines
like some sort of nursery rhyme breaking backs
far away from here            tonight

The quiet of that street            he was humming
Rainy Night in SoHo            then kicked that can
            into your lap

At ______ there were lights on
            making the spires black the grass amber
The city was cut out of the sky

It was splintering            wood panels in old libraries
into needles            green            frail            opening in the water like lilies

Unlikeness

I'm back from England. I took a day to relax. This is yesterday's poem.

A woman came into my cafe one morning at 8:00 and started drinking wine. She had 3 glasses and kept talking about her husband who would be there in a moment. A little over an hour passed and she began to talk about how he had said he was parking the car.

She left and never came back.


Unlikeness 7/7

Ju-just calm down
he’s coming

Watching her like you do
Waiting for the angries to begin – shake
up her spine like a tingle of winter
Some cold metal on your inner thigh – a gun
or maybe a knife

He’s ju- just parking
we had a fight

Streets empty – you know how it is
it’s early in the morning – the wine
looks like cranberry juice
Half of two glasses – swirling in
There’s that sound of AC and fans

Loo-ook I
need a cigarette

Door open – shut – it’s hot outside
only 8 in the morning
I’m just saying that I’m not drinking this early
not that I wouldn’t
or that I haven’t thought about it

Slander

Slander 7/6

The fans are passing overhead and he's talking about the time he arranged for the trip to the movies to go perfectly wonderfully well and there's that girlfriend mentioned and he's going to the Hamptons he says and he needs to arrange for the perfectly wonderful weekend off of work and then he's going on about the movie but of course only she went...

Phason

I am back from England tomorrow. So that poem may be late.


Phason 7/5

Beyond the window of the plane
                        the clouds are a sheet of cotton - thickly
blanketing - we are descending -

                                                Resting our belly
on the quilt of vapor

It is dividing itself and we are falling -

                        A rush of blue
and the sudden wheels -

Meter

Meter 7/4

I want to let the measure talk about itself
Tell a story of what it does in the quiet times
Let it stretch itself out and dust the shelf

So to speak - play out its story on the tines
Of some old fork spinning in a drain
Caught all whirlpool like a nice rhythm and rhyme

I want to give voice to the concept of rain
The expanse of the valley - of space
Of time - I want to give voice to pain

Open mouthed and screaming encased
In the paper cage of harrowing that can only be torn
And never erased

I want to speak the sounds of the just born
Let the voice of the fields be mine
Let it flow from the page weathered - worn

I want to let the measure sing about time
Let each moment tell about another

Drollery

Drollery 7/3

At the back of the eye - pulsing
            crimson splash of headache
            bursting slo-mo vein
            stretching the length of a lifetime

There's the feeling that this has to be manageable
            that you have to - keep the demons on the page
            trapped between the mark here - and the
            one traveling off the margins

Labyrinthitis - sudden vortex suck
            this is the pain of leaves in the eusophogus
            crunching catching - the mildew
            of thinking

Then what becomes of the life
            that attempts to take the paper
            fold it into a houseboat and sail - headlong
            into coming storms - make it reality

What inner Minotaur searches - inner
            catacombs and oubliettes
            What inner Minos
            rolls up all trace of thread

Enforcement

Enforcement 7/2

A man in a long coat loads the business end of a yawning musket He points it to the tree-line I am crouching in the tree-line naked He points and the uneven metal drifts through air some sort of breaking of waves The smoke drifts up through his face he is and is not Rough metal at skin breaking limbs of pine there is a falling of cones a needle rain A thousand pricked chest blooming like roses in a pocket A sudden pocking over everything Sap over holes emptying...

Non-smoking

Non-smoking 7/1

The haze over the city blinks pink
and the pink is masking lightening
The pop of the green fireworks
ignites the air around lower Manhattan
I walk through the thickness
a light wet on my arm slicking me
I'm knifing down Sterling Place
and watching the booming in the clouds
So like war tapes on the news
and I imagine that I'm in a terrified future
that the streets are blackened
by tire tracks and glue
The gunmen stalk alleyways and disappear
the mothers and sisters in hoods
At night when I am asleep
the vampires of this future come into
my room and splinter the edges of
my door frame
They rub it down to smooth and
create reflection in the roundness
They unhinge the battlements of dreaming
and cannon until morning