Projecting March 19, 2009

Quantum free sonics,
auspiciously surrounded,
suspiciously sounding as if
hooked on phonics worked for me
hounding me for answers
that didn’t just sound good
but fell off the tongue like drool
and the commentary: “you rool”
said the friend who was
by the way imaginary
and disobedient
always saying something
you heard before
but scantily clad in wisdom
you shook your head
to the rhythm of not knowing
not agreeing on [...]

Very Superstitious, Writings on the Wall February 13, 2009

On the eve of Friday the thirteenth
fifty people fell from the sky burning
No, this is not a metaphor
The black voice recorder
was unable to capture the color
the roman candle in suburbia
the red white and blue of their burning
An American flag in the neighbors yard,
marked with soot,
furiously moved by the winds
of change.
*
Yes, we can
imagine ourselves there -
singled [...]

My Life February 10, 2009

The shortness
of it
none of your concern
never having experienced or learned
of long hallways outside of your own self-isolation.
The tether of your claustrophobic probing of space,
a displaced regurgitation through darkness
out onto some veranda awesome only to you
the smooth Rhine between your toes Dionysus
frozen strawberries, line up all your poems
your beauty surrenders to the truth
imploding unlawful juries of [...]

Tell America February 10, 2009

The deletion of the word “love”
from the body of poetics
precedes its own construction
as if animators drawing flesh on a skeleton
had misjudged the proper width
of a torso, heart to breast, abdomen
to waist – the proper length of a leg
encased in its own delusion of scale.
So, forced to erase what anomaly was
misrepresented there, they sketch new
boundaries hoping [...]

Sleep in, it’s a Holiday December 23, 2008

Listen to the music
of thumping drums,
four invisible white Broncos
bruising the landscape flat
with snow-
Listen to the ploughs
pushing angels aside
the 3 legged north american reindeer
sabre rattling in the wind-chill
at night, for fire safety, a father
like some municipal clicking a pen,
shutting down the
metropolis of xmas lights flashing
in his living room.
When you went to bed last night
only [...]

Dear Stanza Clause, December 23, 2008

Mario Lanza singing spaghetti and angels,
Tony Danza on pause, always on my paws,
I have many memories of you that I can remember,
the earliest of them involve wearing pajamas
myself, ear to the train track of nylon braids
getting smaller towards the center of a rug
my eyes flamboyant and unregulated by tax
thrown about by interest and attrition to [...]

i have no title December 19, 2008

The slow hum of the water heater
inquiring a way down
into silence -

the muted scream of
the failing snowflakes outside,

the shiver of fleece
that keeps me warm momentarily

like the synaptic jerk of a thermostat
a pilot light warily wavers
like some ritual engulfed mayan queen
seducing the darkness.

I can’t sleep & neither can this storm.

Outside of Love December 13, 2008

Or “Eros” as the buzzing neon sign read,
Candy was busy kicking
a loose piece of gravel from her stiletto
some stranger lit her cigarette
but they didn’t look each other in the eyes
she rode his lap inside
her drinks were free.
The stage music was muffled and exhalted
each time the front door opened and closed.
The night was somebody elses [...]

Inside of Love December 13, 2008

The parable of a parabola
forever approaching zero
I told you about the last time
I was in Toronto there to give
a book by bob Dylan to a friend
and pretend to be Artaud
as I listened to her memories
wrote about the street cars,
the rickshaws, the many people
little china, the old lady
with eyes like jade
abrogating my existence
in the parking [...]

Searching for the Funny, Finding Nothing December 9, 2008

Might as well lose yourself among the coupons
the obituaries aren’t ready yet,
throw yourself over there, next to the fireplace
where we throw old news, you aren’t even funny.
Look, a new edition is out, the headlines have changed
something hopeful, something scandalous -
three dollar ham sandwiches down the street
an arms race, all of us stretching out at [...]