August 22, 2012

Hello? This is Minnie

To Ashes: How do you remove yourself from your poems, which
to most, me, me am most, is yourself, in a form, in an intimate
revealing of signs. No longer a repository of felt experience

Give me another sign, cigarette, which goes, "spew!"
Having trouble being myself and seeing how it fights
like being alone should I blow up? What does Ashes think?
When I used to feel like smiling, I noticed that now, not so much,
and now it's like you can notice that through my poetry.

What were the seven courses Berryman took over there? And how ugly
were all these women he slept with? It was Minnesota the place of his
death and all these times I've been saying, no, the golden gate bridge,
which is wrong. The golden gate is merely a popular place for those to
jump but Berryman didn't die a popular death. Splish splash! His final
poem. With a crash.

I had a writing teacher back at UArts who made her class meet up at
The Last Drop cafe, back when the walls were still red,
to review essays.
I bought Lunch Poems by O'Hara
and was obsessed with name-dropping. N here and S this, L to me.
Just vivid in descriptions of the living city.
Lights and poles and parking spaces danced and cooed out at
pedestrians. Dogs all sorts would pile up.
Like their own piles, which get picked up.

Place an order just like that: two hot fudge sundaes in two minutes
carrying by phone a ding, Hell o?
This is Minnie, are you home? You're gonna drive me crazy.

The Scene Before Marriage

Steak? This is a spaghetti and meatball joint.
Throw me some premises for the script you want me to write.
Right now, these are just "conversations"
I speak mostly this way, like at lunch,
I go on my nerve, in a car, much the same.

Gena Rowlands' fist hangs to the right of the frame,
waving it to the mother,
                             which is always a terrible idea

The side of the right is reserved for friends;
we are some of those friends, we hung out and had times.
Fought and never shared women. The moon would not be
a viable military base, he argued. There's no sense in capturing
them, ours or any other. Not Europa nor Titan or whatever.

Wilt thou, wilt wit
streamed his beard across the table laden with poppies
and glasses full of brown liquors, sung in an unusually
high-pitched voice, songs of the country, songs of the city,
songs of the fishermen who sang no sunday songs

Oh and everywhere was wet with lights
we compared poverty stories,
my father he had always told me of how he regretted selling the house
and I'm constantly applying for money elsewhere, please, here,
Mr. Sir, look at the three of us, I have no marketable skills!
What is a press release? If you have some children, well,
fork 'em over and I'll see what can be done!

Please, I'm nothing when the fun is over.
What are the plans for tonight? Console a friend
who recently ran into some bad hands, back here to my country
for some R&R, a little Q&A, some tea and buj.

August 20, 2012

day off

1.

Some men, myself, you, the folk concerned, between the islands
whose sister, westward hopes for him. Thick and much allowed
rapidly rotting like a fish, rowing our gently in pure sense, listens
too early in the day, old holdings as far as plenty, arrives at breakfast
call, on feet. Calls it out; the earth, the apple, the inward-outward
being, the mulch, already all that is merchandise, the sow, the sowing,
the space, the rocks, Ptolemy, the palette, the breastplate, the your,
yours the own hand and body in everything, so as birds and animals
make love, the decline from animals, the hunger in eyes, travels not
too far off into the wood and turns on its heel, celebrating nothing
sleeps, is one. Subject to feeding that night. You and the legs get
yrself caught.

In other moments my father is a landscape between me and my father.
I wait for him in the smoke, carrying blue-backs and lights.
The bay that time, clamming, young fuzz, salt lips to kiss with,
you were in a cage much larger than the one now, and the flight
has always been set. I dove under the water and swallow
sand and ancient parts. Sundays broke us. By the time I had nothing
but poetic sweethearts -- it was too often I had made an encounter
that simply, I could see myself using it as a literary device.
The order is hidden in my town so I walked over to the next and
watched snows drift, lapping each other in waves, clings to things
makes gentle sounds.

The sweethearts were as follows; woman of floating voices and large
car, the bridge crossings, dark emptiness between branches.
Clusters of flowers that scowl, upholstered van seats that vibrate.
You on the right of me where my arm could stretch out and cover
you across the metallic road southwest of home, through mountains
that didn't seem penetrable, up through the hills and the symphony
of flatland. We hit before the storm did. Under the false warmth
of the blanket, I got a taste of a different snow.

That morning I was sick and only sick. Of what I do not remember.


2.

She is unchanging   shades up so delicate
how long have I been a fool?
one last time in Philadelphia
revisited the air, country toward the river
never will I forget the face   of a year
at least three days, give me so much
of you, between arms
carrying on on the stoop

but enough of cut -- cut
what was he doing slamming drawers
in the frantic search of some remaining part of him
a measuring spoon with traces
his sister came into the room one night
where I laid still as a stone, some deep purple sleep
which had poisoned us, and he showed me the fruits of his mind

we were tough when it was good to be tough
and shy when nothing else seemed appropriate
a paper slips by, there behind the buildings was a green
solace to be grasped and by one hand we stroked the hell out of it
throwing up by the pass, some seed, some awful visage
that hung over, going hungry

clouds come from my mouth
as does tears


3.

In the big plate where we went out to steal
drink, eat, fester, outward by the grueling dog
who assumes we could talk to it
at the church I noticed the high arches
and the color of the corners of the casket
and the men, who did not weep, leapt into brisk action
by the watery streets I saw her and clenched my teeth
sometimes, I had attempted to make headway, but that
she did not weep bothered me, never once giving a damn about
her own consolation, no matter how stoic one could seem
poetic sweethearts, burnt hell-money, fish, black basement
in new york, cry for me, please, when much is gone and my poems
are yellowed. When gums are nothing, grass splits and horns
play.

Leave it down and give a cigarette at yr most vulnerable
state, to a local man w/ white hair, stopping to see
what's all up w/ the black, and the white, and the yellow.
Ramp of Broad St. ice way that caused another silly argument.
I am selfish and you are selfish. Together that made us friends.

I have a hot suspect, I got my eyes on one
I got the finger on the dial and I'm suddenly at the end
of a fast busy signal. When the calls come in I wait them away
holy mackerel!


4.

Be it that I often require a line
to give myself a-going, what does that say about
me as a writer? --That's tough.
It's indeed myself in the old poems,
when foolishly I gave myself -- too much of myself
to him, whatever names he possessed.
All the loves he had and at times, squandered
much of,
Again I go back to a place, which has been here long enough
laying on the fresh carpet w/ my cousin
now our chins grow long

chirps a laser out there n the field of all sound
and a rattle of the air that crescendos in tune with an engine
be this the engine that gets us through to noon
crooning, birds, all glory and smoke
tightened leaves where the two keys get stuck
in time, in all these times, in times, I get to it
now, and again, heaving myself in front of the typewriter
fluidly typing the top f the rusted brown tool shed
soundscape of overhead planes
the pool that s now emptied and without overnight guards
taps taps taps

and drips on each other, a note on the windshield
it comes towards you, the sound of staying still
but a trip is needed so much the text comes in at 8am
but I don't want to reply


5.

When? Give me, uh, hour . . . hour to a half-an-hour.
I'll be there at the pork, meat you there.
East-side. That's the 6th st side.
Throw me some bones, all of you. Who's got quarters?
Thanks, bud. Don't slam the door. Don't open the door
before the lock pops.

Remember when we buried the ball? There? Now where there
are flowers and dirt.

I prefer to listen to your sound and talk to you.
But I never travel, love. Not many people hand-write letters.
I am writing poems, today is my day off.
Are you working now? It is 12:45pm?

I am late, I'm sorry. Let's try and have a good sized pan.
I am always interested in the killer's motive.
Publicize me and make me successful.
Here's some love, in the form of an email.

Would you care for a glass? I could also use, hmm, about
half a cup for my scallopini.
Do you smoke before you write or do you just have a free mind?
I can't read nor write when I smoke -- can't focus.

I knew I was going to leave early, I never intended to eat
your dinner. I'm adding the veal to the pan, sir.
The boys at the lab got a fix on the poison.
It's a terrific poison.

From which I concluded, the answer was to get off my ass
and get off the computer. Here, love, read this,
swoon.

August 15, 2012

I woke.
In the afternoon, I read the text--

Tim doesn't often text me.
That he was gone and I thought
where? and how brave of him
to just leave but it wasn't

after, I grieved and drank and smoked myself
sick, resolved to sleep, and again
I woke.

August 9, 2012

It is a torturous condition here
not being able to get rid
o of my girl & girls & hair
countless times now. I never have made
that appointment w/ the dentist to get the nag
off my back, and a kid
                      who wears

my spirit and gums away, still, OK
for what's being done, that which nothing does come,
whispers, 'not fair',
in all them time still under pay and hay
I grovel at the sum --
show my loves a modicum
                          of care,

in those all out nights, still, I went out all nights
driving us through (to exhaustion)
the blackened landscape of the XX.
Collapsed buck in the halogen sights
warrants much caution,
moreover, I, looking for the next . . . next

August 1, 2012

misheard

I

near my noonish morning near eleven o seven
stretching, deep breathing the early glassy chill
cheering, the wind--blinds drying
cactus sunning the spring up into itself
sucking dry cold, thorns calming
jagged laser of sunshine across my frames

screwed into my head. Paid too much.
No insurance. A lotta reading to oneself
in the parked car. A lotta rolling around farting & snoring.
near my noonish morning. In bed with bread unleavened
caw-cawing
Pawing
books off the shelf

Shining, my new visions are alarming
once again breathing in deep for the simple pleasure of it
blanket & wood smell, the alcohol on the bicep, triceps
a wood burning swelling the sides of my tongue
while I tore off the bread with the sensitive flesh of my palate

I was mid-cigarette before I knew I didn't want it
it had been tossed before I knew I wanted it back for one more drag
and the wind, the wind and the bus will never wait for you
you ride it or get hit by the wall of zig-zags
in which you roll up the makings, as offering
for the ancestral wind

on my knees as if punished,
lobes red from the pinch
I've got that 'out' to get.


II

Neptune's father my honey nose
the hole in my head
you need neither a vulcan nor a polyp 
we need only heaven and earth
and these cawings
interwoven by the sea bell tolling
Misheard or hard, cat the correct cafe


III

Stormed the snow nudging you 
fail making a sight at the size I am
all over the graceful--
or was it. Haven't seen me
in the juice
the east volcano anyone of 
us does thus surprise, and dust
and sails the rift, moor rain, 
each puddle, 

           the
war of eurasia, 
gone & won.


IV

A little aurora the dream left shocked jaw 
of the sick brown mutt combs the teeth dreaming
A whelming crunch of the flowers mold off the tire, 
to my saint, to my saint of Finlandia
the left of the sea, red of 
pomodoros at this point
in time.


V

I saw the changes disappearing in the good feeling 
of the first line of the wilting city that was his legacy, 
the ability, resigning to the handed, new forms on inheritance
happy the same of this city sealed and described, imagined, written in a poem

in a snappy way, 

leaving the roots dangling where the first dirt 
comes from, pouring out
into the rest of this life, 
I don't have roots here in this city, 
things got worse as I lived on
which has no reverse on it, 
reserve on what I really 
see in this landscape

told lies on that shadow that came before, none of which I understand,
I don't understand and am unwilling
to find out when I look out

to the contrary, north
contrary, house
& home this the chime shouts and rings about
the blue van is gone from the drive
with poundage to sell
blue steel and blue ceramic workers
hard-headed the blue of the morning
deep blue of dusk

I'll go back and see what we were doing across the field there, the surface, 
and even further, the movement of this city
which is a giant plate of fire and fire-rock


VI

Two rocks out on the little boy
men smoke and talk in darkness
foolish of nature pleasant Chinese
Japanese Greeks Italians
wore the cloth away
anyone who had the love of letters and 
who lived on this Earth
knew that