pigsy

there's a vaccination scar
on my left shoulder
from when i was
a kid in vietnam
and on the 66 once
i saw an old vet
with the same scar
on his shoulder
       
 an indented circle
       a nub

i didn't know
what answers to give,
so i felt foolish.
i know now that
it was because
i never asked the questions

  my dad drew
a cartoon of a man
on one of the hundreds
of Smith Barney Shearson
paper pads we had in the basement

( i never knew how we got so
         many of those pads and i believe
         we were told, or rather what we told
                ourselves was that someone

   in the family
    got it through
         work

"i used to draw
  a lot as a child
   myself."

he drew a strange
creature that resembled
a man, with two arms
and two legs and clothing
but with a very large snout
almost like a hippo
  or pigsy

the same room,
the game room
the nintendo,
the cold floor

i remember not being very impressed
with my dad's drawing as he grinned
and laughed sheepishly for how rusty he was
having almost drawn nothing but blueprints and boxes
for almost as long as we've been here

www.emersonquietkool.blogspot.com

hey you!

ive been writing the poems i want to write.

i don't really

have a point

                      but

if you read this

they might have

some

no anger here

just having what

is abundant

until the real thing

comes along

chupa chups

did he ever get me with the Deems tune
I was in the alcove of the place by Oscar's which sold
shoes and in the door of Bikram Yoga, I grabbed everything
she's idle in the minds of men

I quickened my pace once double-stepped it out
of Oregon and saw the layering of the purplish-grey clouds
knew I was in for quite the sweat
and quite the cold shower

long

living in the manner of care
which is farcical,
I yam dulled by reeding
and righting, am pumped quickly,
deflated over years,
with only humor
as the sole

what ruff skin forms
after a time w/ the English-mades
need that pumice, man,
after all the sweat is wiped
I make my intended mark

settle into my mind
laff all night
long

cave neck

tried rolling

my neck to the left

and then the right

all around really

hearing the crinkles

and low fizzing

popping,

was essentially a noodle at the desk

I had closed out several potential clients

Holden Ransome was one of their names

I didn't close her, no, she was one of the few worth

putting down in Dave's notebook 

( he had categories:

celebrity, prurient, 

first names that were similar to last 

[e.g., Richard Richardson],

and downright silly

don't get to see much of him now in my cave

I have an 'experience the experience' poster board leftover

from a time before I had started,

clipped two of those suckers together

and created a neat little roof for myself,

it's for my eyes

I tell people when they ask

they're very light sensitive

poems - june 25th

big goose has a
     fitting caboose
shakes her
     droplets loose
only to vamoose

.

hey friend w/ a cig
I liked you
when I stood big.
some way in the
past, 9,000 days
when you stand
at the lake --

Some way,
I felt a reluctance
to speak out

and Knowing there
was nothing left to
shout about --

in my own interests --
practice empathy,
yes, why
        yes
it's your virtue
     but not mine.

.

hold a washcloth
over Niedecker's
head,

bump her by the river,
smell the grass
     between her toes,
think  &   ready
  to imagine
    Ryan Eckes as
an infant in her
    arms.

.

Some damn slope
                      crammed.
choke - slump on
the rug.
take a long meditative
shit, give myself a hug.

.

how do you hurt me
by living out the
rest of your awful
                  life?
And w/ that awful
                   man?
And what you call
    a plan?

.

Mirror was her
         grandmother's
   elbow sore from
  poetry  ( believe it )
and the tip of the
 lamp (from U-ARTS
 - lounge, stolen)
  peeks out of
       the bottom.
     Not yet in the
        egg,
floating helplessly
  through spacetime.
  To lose is that.
To win is also that.
  To not play
              the egg
     is to
       further delay
          toes
          from
           waves

.

I propose blood
         brother ritual
having none all
of my life
    and only learning
afterward
                 how to
rally for blood.

where the night is deep
I have a place for you
after I am sapped of strength
you are devout to the color

.

walking over the flower
my mouth reddish at the gate
full and wonderfully articulate
biting for its own pleasure

.

I wasted much time in water
roaring rather than stillness
she smacked the surface
in a moment of boldness

play on play on 36

The dry tones bide, they bide. You book out
to nowhere.
-- E-Z, E-Z, Mr Nimh, the words are on yr side,
companions, too, keep grief.
-- I sent a leaf away, spat in my hair
cuz clever. Wif all them in line (some again)
they've sympathy, at least I can breathe.

-- Shiet. 'Ow you figure me, ey. 'Ows you & I?
A pill for that worrying rasp; do & die.
-- Yeh, don't pick up no cents
even in the interim, then. And if I
rolling & smoking & choking, red eyed,
rummaging for that single token?

-- Some bouts just meant for studs. Yr heart ain't lost.
It's alright, I'm a fool for that.
The boy & his hair
looked at each other. His feet in moss
& wiggled light through his tears, his fat.
Yr favorite poet's where?

(Quyen laying on the ground.)

rough things

she's not a swallow,
but she flies:
 ow I see what was up,
 let all cars return home.

I dance excessively with my wifey
our story was always straight,
no welts or grubs nor did the earth
chuck black clouds at us

if you keep an air conditioner at 72 you're cheatin' it,
when you come home to a damp towel
-- can someone give me a light outside?
I'll meet you anywhere you say
does it have an inside?
do you have an inside?

now, if you'll allow
me, I'm going to
suck out
the remaining
      poison

floral echoes
of an airplane
jet dress

some dude's
    asscrack
as our space
invaded
reminds me of
Denki Groove

was it laughter
or a sneeze
the man did it
after a cough

after a
concern about
 bald head

an older gentleman
w/ a limp and
heavy pack
stopped in

           food supplement
                        program

combed his beard
up to eight
times, then
walked on

---

throw snowball
watch a crow fight
clouds so close
i can almost
pee on em

fresh ass summer poems

Set sun set!
Before long I'll
     forget

unbutton two,
also unhinge

foom! it's the wind
       on the roof
whiskey and ginge

I'm looking into the
     sun and not
     giving a shit
   for a little while

Even after
all these years
the beef ho fun
     at Tasty Place
is still incredible
it has gone up
at least $2
   now $6.

when you close yr
       eyes and look
 you got sunvision

  swivel yr eyeballs
  around and see
         dark spots.

---

cracking my back
   pop pop
         snap!

sometimes nothing
    comes out

what wind blown
helicopter breeze
brings me
          fodder,

for solitude:
4 boiled eggs
sitting halfway
in cold water
the sink drops
gang on 'em
while I sit outside
facing the west
everyone has a
            satellite
                 dish

so hard evenings
     to sink a few,
sit, smoke, and
      grow sick by the
absent pudge
        g-ness how I luv
        green beer glass
            half sunken ass
by the carbonated
            fountain      fizzy
but do not let
  the sky paint
itself

last night, toward
the west,
  one broad
stroke like you
wouldn't believe it.
  I sat and slouched
smiling as never
all the possible
shapes of states
in dry tar
white countries
          to gray and
          us black
mouth of islands
from a rust ring

instant motorcycle
instant alarm
modern church
bell tolls
digital Dodge honks
and a third
alarm!

something like a
whacked-out
      symphony of
south philly
precise V   tool
rosewood to go
seek out
anti-intellectualism

-- and always my color

two

a Celestial & an
Irishman sat
a+   a   +able
in a bar

You hear
        about my little
                        wind
                         fall?
I wasn't busy
killing my wife
                 either --
cut my leg w/ sharp
    corner of bag
I believe it is
     good afternoon

   I suppose you
   came for a
        confession,
chance at togetherness

you're gonna love
what              facts
             we got here.
   
        roughly cost?
                    3,000

anxiety relief
come in the form
          of 1600 dollars

sunday breakfast

draw us in that escape, brother!
if the entire thing fuckin' all of a sudden collapsed, first:
throw remaining joint in mouth,
throw ice coffee through window into bedroom
dive through window into bedroom  or
if too late, brace yrself tight against the iron
for use as rollcage, aim for minivan roof across the street

tanks for saving my liiife

what new finds at the bottom of the sink screen
I was there, without my father, he,
who was chewing on the two
Oscars   I raised, I cleaned
rocks found on the side of the blvd
to set them at a natural angle.
One day in my uncle's, perhaps 75 gal,
I found a young albino
Cichlid, pale pink
laying at the very bottom
on the multicolored gravel
struggle struggled to take water
I plucked him out of the tank
gently pried open his mouth with my nail
and saw a bright orange pebble caught inside

'a' or chinee foo

Yeh I feel like we all trim
that stanza like a bonsai
take out the 'a' and say
while stroking beard
and holding birdcage

a place!

Ready to rock
steady de kane,
home with
arthritis African
Rift the new moon,
she making positive funs
of me, the essay
set forth the technical
                                    principles
that composition by smell of pork
and rhyme schemes

as the modern stave, I haven't
yet purchased the breath
form is ever
from the inside out, returning Onion
to its Pepper

Beauty simply destroy me
in setting, city, lamb,
where the rest of
us could not be seen

awaiting a land lord's reply
pink and sprinkled
with money

to Stir,
with Love

The Schuylkill (The New Pastoral 1871)

The Schuylkill,
Its green banks
Faire Mount
Lifted as
The height
Pours, from
The stream
Here, stranger
Which knew
Here trod

Lenni Lenape Indians
called it 'Ganshewchanna'
meaning 'Noisy Stream'.
They made Penn a small canoe,
a light birchen, quietly
propelling him.

He claimed in a letter
to the Society of Friends
that the river be 'hundred
miles boatable.'

    I flew my silken pennants down the river and found myself often thirsty and at times, bored.
   

Old Vinegar (or Old Vineyard's Folly)

a well for every heart & house
a well for my eye
though my heart is upon
some spirit drive me
more than a cen-
tury

up from Pennsylvania