half hour

symmetrical brackfuss

oak lure the humming dog

kicking whelps, the three-time thirst

when we had arrived once again

here in this horrid house of dust

which beb sweats to make livable

we filled the bowls w/ water

and a nylon bone that is uncrackable

tug-a-rope that is unbreakable

S-P-C-A, Delaware county, unreportable

mischief and rattling neglect

The drive to the Philadelphia building
I had timed it at an even half hour

Juniper and coffee fronts

Fujianese master barber

(no to gel

and the girl's soapy dialect

(the color purple, strong fingers

I tip her two less than the master

who had instantaneously returned behind his newspaper

The woman who cried once in front of me

due to money issues from a landlady

she gives me change

I step out, changed

slip on my hat and cig

sidestep the steaming urine
the man w/ a dragon tattoo

and an old man inspecting

the bottom of their door
once again a half hour over

w/ no one to give it to

see translation

1

Today is a rainy day and weeks look week. 

Lost umbrella. 

People are pretty 

and praised for her umbrella. 

If one goes to slap the yoke. 

I am my own things 

the body magnet, 

this by itself for me not to lose

more than just stuck? Done, 

              I hate the rain,

too awful to not 

(also known as positive as long idiots don't) 

walking in the rain to fall on some 

front where

              Goengeumi heard.

Never heard a gunshot, 

but actually makes sense,

so the road completely, 

having hit the deck in the bars bars-toed kid 

car tires were going through

Umbrella 

head strap hairpin

socks buy buy buy

more stuff away, leaving

a world where rain

is a dimension

2

In the last 12 hours, 

small to larger space of the universe

at only 11 years of night

broken water heater,

could it be that 2012 has to return to basics

back to d original life?

tenderness and violence

2 days in a row 

to receive

     "lightning to the teacher of love letters

big of me

small as I yam, it is hard for my eyes to linger on any sentence for too long
therefore it is hard to study the TSS packet that was mailed to me
therefore it is hard to embrace fully my pal, who is best
therefore hard, initially, to gain your trust
hard initially, to gain your love
hard initially, to slink my way

simple though, to stay hard
simple though, to keep your love
simple though, to keep your trust
simple though, to keep my way,
keep the lowest as the Chinese say,
and all others who have lived on this very earth
simple though to invite your embrace and to hold it, singularly, as in each night,
that is best, not to wear one out, for someone such as small

as in what is taking for the big is what I might call gaining for the small
all in all not the same things, I do not take!
(once this girl who was smaller than me
put her two fingers together as a measurement
the nerve of her, later, I realized, as she was off in the large world
although smaller continents, to feel big
that she wasn't,
that she was minute,
and hardly significant

as I remember I was on a train to Manhattan (right, of all places, Manhattan
w/ a friend of a friend, she had bigger expectations of me
and what am I to do now, you, take the next stop and go back,
back to my small city

as I walked one laggy pace
I opened up my book in this coffee space
and read to myself and wrote letters, not poems, that I did once w/ my small friend
who drove a large car and I kept it folded in my breast pocket
it was, at the time, for me,

        a big poem
        about a small girl
        and our big love

        on a long road
        under a big moon
        over a long time

        as I read, it seemed
        so big of me then

california

Even at hundreds of miles and thousands of feet,
I'm doing the same old
we got there and the girls had to loop around so many times
who has ever picked anyone up at an airport and not have to loop around

I, with my grey shawl sweater that I have no damn idea where it is anymore
looked critically at a palm tree
and shrugged and had my cigarette,
raised my eyebrows approvingly of the warmth of the air

and then we drove,
   
              and that was most of it,

I would like to say I fell in love w/ the highway,
or the lonely taco truck, or the curious museum,
but I remember smoking up often

and making one girl angry and the rest of the trip
blurred like the sandy recesses under my feet into the water
The sun I watched sink beneath the horizon clearly for the first time

and the Pacific was cold,

                       like the other ocean I've been to

Songs (cont.)

5

The secret now, that I only discovered while talking
(but no one can ever call it as such
to bee, is not of the drink that this large, stomping poet
slams against the corner of the kitchen table,
(the stew brewing I toss the mess all in it
and while it goes I discovered then
of the changes in rhythm, where some sap on the internet
claimed he had none, the pacing here
from his breath, the lines, the sd syllables
arises from yrs of experience and having had read that poem
many times over
(the tomatoes now falling over themselves
W/ a tums I write this in my own stench
but alas, maybe I had discovered, maybe not so much a secret
as it is the pepper in my stomach
             
                                           I do most of my reading and
                                           composition-by-can
                                           in my favorite place


6

My friend of whom I am most proud
went ahead as a passenger to one of the Forts, there
where they make you sign a document
that proves your allegiance to your country
as well, makes you into a man because, certainly,
you were not one before,                            
       couldn't've

There in the lobby were many books of military history that no one must've picked up
and actually read! for godsakes, and a young man, younger than my friend and I,
who was quite nervous, you see, eager though, electrifying perhaps in his levels,
        This is hard to know

and that he did not know how to survive, the first rule: don't drink the sea water,
but this
            he did not even know!   That he swore, even, that the tropical waters of Puerto Rico
and elsewhere in the Virgin Islands, the archipelago, were safe to drink from

sure,
be all you can be,
but, gee

my friend he wanted to be in Intelligence
but they wanted him to start off in infantry,
as it was serving your country    either way
that it was being a patriot,
that it was, much like here in the inside world,
(that battle that is outside
you would work your way up the ranks

but it didn't take, him, no, my friend, of whom I am most proud
it took another recruiter, it took
someone from Intelligence
(that they say, they brought in,
now, this man said
if my friend wanted to get
into diplomacy
that this was the
  way                    
                   this later he found out, wasn't true, from a diplomat friend of the family
                                  this he had gotten sick of their accusations, this place, a Fort
                                  where the linoleum had gotten suddenly rough, the going; tough

                                  as nails as the heads of these men
                                  as pristine as the pages of history
                                  as sickening as the actions in articles
                                  he got the hell out of there, and we had discussed this later on,
                                  w/ beb, on 11th & Wash,  over pho


7


I always picture him in a diadem,
I, golden

my mother, always focused on my vigor
that I eat quickly while the food was hot,
that I be awake at all times even during slumber
so as not to miss one iota of experience that could
take me out of here, this place
somehow these experiences they get built up
almost as calcium

I was raised on the measure of a glass
my father, he, just about near insane at points, in the old warm-white kitchen
back on A & E. Louden, stuffed several tomatoes in a blender and made me drink
and it had this sanguine, bubbly texture that made me gag
it was nothing like V8, man,
nothing like it

still I made the attempt and promptly vomited into the sink,
almost proud, like "see, this is what we both should've known would happen
and that I, even as a small child, was brave enough to vomit just to teach you a lesson
                                                        brave enough to eat it down

sweep

the biological processes of myself, daily, tidal
I am continuing on the same circadian rhythm
stuffing myself fat at three, in the midst of bad company,

       sleepless,
in the cover of dawn, take my head into the folds
slap the brim and be done with harsh fluorescents

over me, eucaboard, stringy dust of canvasses
the awful anticipation of the stairwell door slam!
the frame as I jump up from my deserved nap

on Sundays, still make a habit of it, on Mondays,
the same, no differentiating w/o the window peak
take your watch and drop it, persist, even in the absence of cues
go to the edge of the season leave it by my low body

at twenty-one, melatonin secretes
at two, now, the deepest sleep

Songs

1

I've got all my money with me here,
all the bottom, this shell I had found in the heat and wings of,
the nauseating drunken heat of the Jersey bay, moreover,
young and plump, I, not yet as distressed that you can tell it to me by the photographs of my eyes
and the skin of my knees and thighs

yet time strikes as well all too soon
some things are out of place, not quite ripe, take to the protocol
she turns my red face on Canal
and then skips to the nearest XO joint   her hasty decision
watching my feet at the floor of the bus
feeling cold and not being able to do a thing

                                   it is all a difference, even the cheek that held her on the slope of the grass
                                   which goes now the other way,
                                   slopes even the other way,
                                   holds another,
there was a large crowd there one oddly warm fall
I scanned the expressions of the runners and mothers
that someone might've drowned even
they had a specialist brought out here to the Schuylkill
but nothing

I was lonely and drunk one morning after work and I had said all the nothings I could to win her

cool
suburban
northern night
sporting
familial
annual
on the carpet,
both bathrooms,
next to the cooler

my mother and father leaving me there, (upon my insistence
my sister, (so far off elsewhere she could not have existed,
I have stayed behind and shrunk, almost, (all I have are nerves now, raw

I lay exposed for the place
here, the city     here, this!

my head stems upward from a slight spell that dizzies me, is timeful,
takes me out of it, out by the southern sky where the glare of the city is a cover
and a quadrant of stars hold themselves barely together
a string of cosmos   where is this? that I am here?
                              full of food, thriving? partners w/ someone? in question?
                              in someone's love as well as contempt?
                              where are these children being hushed off to?
                              when will these matters reveal themselves, broaden themselves, lay flat?
                              I call them monsters if I may, I was planning on which door to leave from
                              Out in my fittest form upon the road where my flowers are heavy

too much so to break a wrist for a gal
yet Love, and so forth, etc., for a pal,
                                                        I'd
                           
                           
2

So it was another,
she had told me over the phone
that these events did not correlate
I was in my yard snuffing out my high flame,
considered it a moment,
and let it rest


3

Heaven shook everyone out


4

I was on a bus
when I was that young I had no head for names of places
I had two names for myself then, still, now,
hers was Adrienne

jacqueline

             I know of her by the hat shop there, it came into view once

by the timing of my pace, 

the foamy cider, warm in my hands of paper

in the corner of the narrow space

there, I saw her

again, back at the five-foot desk which I had two yrs behind

in the night slumping over, often forgetting

that this was work, to be paid,

to be granted yet another two

weeks

pain in my sleep, I woke

the bottom of my tail-bone rubbed smooth

almost a dromedary

frothing in the mornings

for a shared smoke

alas I was empty,

but at it again, the hat shop on pine from where I ran into her

I was driving up 5th into the northern slums

where she would've preferred to have walked

"Are you crazy

the many times I 

honestly considered this

the vicious brother, a doctor, o, he was vicious
truth if there were any
from her story, walking in the home of
the English that she found solace,
like a mage she stood,
diminutive w/ her TARDIS

we were muted in the diner with our Polish or Czech waitress,
that I'll never distinguish   I had the buttermilk there

tears    She would walk through Knightsbridge w/ her bags
that, I figured
was the name
 and how large she was in this city
  and offering up herself in autumn
   that which is her element

That horrid north Philly house, that I left her there,
w/ her bags from which she fled promptly the next dawn,
found herself back in one of the western burgs

                               her father,
                               all she had left,

me, who drove past full one morning after breakfast  
watching her take in the city

in her eyes,
I saw all of this

cornwall-on-hudson

I took the last shot and got the hell out of there
some dive in the middle of the wooded road,
two girls, they saved me from the Irish bachelors
who knew these lands
better from fire
rapid up rungs

proper driving etiquette
require that one promptly
switches off their fog lights
when approaching
another vehicle,
                             
                               we blinked through
                               the still black
                               of thruway 87
                               to, finally, the immense waters
                               of the east off my cuff

                               sharp fog-wind in my throat
                               at the lip of the Shore
                               to Pollepel Island
                               where legendary hounds
                               guard the ruined
                                         castle

to the swimmers in the bay,
I squint toward the highlands and return
my cautionary pace through the geese-shit
the field and from it, one long strip of gravel that summed up
to a ghostly gazebo laden w/ beer cans and
other discards

of the pink locals
of the old storm kings,
of the old Ketchams

Rolling towards Black Rock
which has since flooded a great deal,
the old men catch
fish & flies
have meetings

I, launching a ball high into the air
for a child to chase after, his mother,
who adored me, laughs through her cigarette and claps

Cornwall & Grandview Ave becomes a finger
that points toward the Hudson, and over
the docked boats, the blue-brown waters
toward Breakneck Rd      

Pat, standing always close to me,
once again, insisted that I take the trouble
to visit West Point for a tour

wsq

6.02 acres
Walnut to Locust
6th to 7th Sts.

we need only heaven & earth as he littered
the grass w/ an empty soft pack
said there, the glory area curling w/ the left shot jaw, combing
the lazy serpentine paths--the southeast square,
Potter's Field, they called it
I lay w/ my knees up facing the Sarcophagus
in cold darkness the fires make good fun, for us
for many, many men, same darkness that was none

brave

if there was a word, syllable--

brave

brave the label; 

it is not enough to just recount the images and earshots of the daily being!

this anthology rests on my chest as a heatsink

and at night the whiskey

the moisture of my body

keeps me from becoming the living flame

it is not enough to tell of pink men and the treasures that women sit on,

"I was mimicking the man next to me today except he had ice in his coffee."

"I was smoking but his was 100mm long."

People tell me of Bukowski so often that I'm beginning to think he is the only writer.

in the kit, 

not every tool 

should be blunt

gddamn williams

gddamn williams
big oily splotch here, that took the will from your name

leaving only CAR   S

Karen J Mueller, from Chi Omega House
10 S. College, your copy of Spring & All

I have thoroughly studied your annotations
underlinings w/ pencil, half brackets

are you now possessed of a knowledge, that which you know
is not apparent to others, that which turns the lives of others?

have you now escaped, truly escaped, in perfection,

in excellence, in technical excellence?

are you completed? revealed yourself the oneness of experience?

to others, the poetry which has the purpose of poetry put into it?

The wheel of rock & burning hydrogen in stasis
a Mayan carved this image, a capped man sells this passage

To me in mid-town Manhattan. I take it off his hands to read

that THE WORLD IS NEW       once more

mortise & tenon

I look back to the variations of my work and know that it is shit

out there across the second floor where there is none,
a veiled reflection of nature, if it has a carpenter
what attracts me, first, is this table
a Dutchman in there, made of recycled boat,
                                                                   an old house,
a proportioned foot,
held in place further down the line by a wooden wedge
a beautiful trestle table that surprises me

Pine with knicks & dings, if not properly cared for
I suppose the most formidable task
is to care for such soft wood,

narrow                 yet very long,
ten people sitting comfortably
taking sketches into their hearts

by way of the ear to the head
small scraps, the edges of the assembled soul,
three pieces, a foot, bracing my vertical member

mortise & tenon, white slopes
embarrassed by black rain
a young feather holding itself against the faded fence
turns my attention and finishes the inside of me

If you're feeling it, in Forest Hills

If you're feeling it, in Forest Hills
many men here, handsome, as some say next to ryes
on thick industrial stools, the rounded shapes of picks,
from Mt. Airy.

I had come under the impression that only my presence, see, from my pal,
of many flightless yrs, was needed.

Here, next door to the cold slope of the river, do the young bucks clamor
the din of gentrification, some say, betterment,
or say, here come less Irish, the transplants here in my home city
home city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

I was on Girard & Palmer between the two dark halves, and asked this man,
also dark, ethnic, from Queens, Forest Hills, for a cigarette
both of us lost to some degree,
he, waiting for his girl
I, waiting for my own self to make my quiet way into the draft house,
nodding, a sustained smile, to the two girls,
and two angels from the mountains north-west of here.

She suggested to me that I include artwork w/ my writing
(she was so kind as to engage me momentarily, a distraction, much needed
from the love doves

at my side, between us was a pink man
I had mistaken from afar, a Reds uniform for a Phillies
and would go the rest of the evening never bringing up sports again,
just nodding

John from S Philly who had lived most of his life there, w/ his mother,
next to royal, and was in the computer programming business before it overtook him,
passed him by, didn't have a last name that rhymed
unlike mine,
                 and sidestepped telling me
                                                        "doesn't rhyme, it doesn't rhyme"

A kiss, it is now April.

The most playful of months,
who should for reasons unknown
to me, not smoke.

John had gotten into a bicycle
accident and was really going
to feel it in the morning.