It is not the conclusion that is wrong but the premise.
-Werner Heisenberg
A notable poet wedded
a ten-year-old student.
Their love was never consummated:
he discovered and feared
the hair women had
atop their mons pubis.
When he asked if I wanted to get lost
he told me to look up
and I did and it was gray
and so was everything else.
It ranged from white to black
in uniform and I laughed
wantonly
like herbaceous plants.
A Rubik’s cube that can’t be solved
is still a Rubik’s cube
revolving around itself.
A poem is ink on paper
until it becomes
something felt.
Keep up with me now.
In Edo period Japan,
Jinsui-kidney water is semen
Dokketsus are poisonous lumps near the coccyx
Fundoku is “fecal poison”
(which should be washed with urine)
and Joketsu means “superior ass.”
These terms, created for protection,
classified the body of potential suitors
in the quest of male-to-male love
between a teenage boy and a man.
This is goofy but it is May.
It might be the eleventh.
The lightening struck
a couple miles off
and echoed
I didn’t eat,
the clouds were too fat.
I abstained.
It was wet.
Stark lit in nicotine sweat
is how she remembered
sleeping on a pile of blankets.
She dreamt of shaving
her pubic hair
for the green weather
before a rain storm.
She is watching
the rain somewhere else.
She is drying the dishes.
The cardinal pitcher broke
(the bottom came right out).
Her thumb was almost severed
in a similar accident
involving a hand plant
on a ceramic bowl that broke;
its bottom shattered nonsense.
When his waistcoat advanced
in misty sunlight spots
she watched sand dust
from a garbage truck
that tapered past.
Maple leaves helicopter
from tall canopies,
whirring into the smell
of recently paved street.
The clouds left the city.
It is humid today.
I taste undoing
in the dead rain.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
la vie douce
J'ai goute' la douceur du votre amour
comme le sirop d'erable et beurre
de nos jour chaque lit est un peu de mort
pour mon gourmandise de l'humanite'
'sirop de poteau' course dans mes veines sans electricite'
encore toujours mouvement; froufrous!
la vie est la farce a maner par tous
comme le sirop d'erable et beurre
de nos jour chaque lit est un peu de mort
pour mon gourmandise de l'humanite'
'sirop de poteau' course dans mes veines sans electricite'
encore toujours mouvement; froufrous!
la vie est la farce a maner par tous
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Nothing Did for a Long Time
1.
Sometimes I forget to stop
plucking an eyebrow and
before I know it, one frowns
while the other stares with
an almost open mouth.
2.
Does a moth eat a sweater without
tasting the holes it creates with its mouth?
3.
Depending on the longitudinal width,
a hurricane is given a “type” that is
used to classify the storm’s potential.
The force is then gauged before it hits.
4.
The two boys across the street saw
me pick my nose so I ate whatever
it was that they found so interesting.
5.
There was a year in the fall of 2001
that waited for things to happen.
The non-events that ensued kept us
from living for a very long time.
6.
After digesting milkweed, a
butterfly secretes poisonous
liquid that is necessary for it
to lay eggs which it does so on
the weed and without hesitation.
7.
Like nails, hair grows with little effort.
If a man suggests that both continue to
grow at a steady rate after death, he is
lying: a seat-belt should be worn when
he drives you home from school.
8.
I’m not sure if I derive pleasure from my phenomenal ability to —what was I saying?
I think pleasure is an expression we use when —excuse me—I’m on the bus tomorrow
from eleven to four. How do I use the glue gun? It usually plugs right in. I’m not sure
if pleasure is a virtue but I know sexuality is more of an emotion than, say —that cat
scratched me again. I’m going to have to explain to my psychiatrist that no, I’m not
9.
Looking for truths in written work is
like trying to find twilight in the sun.
The facts are in the classifieds and
a North American atlas from 2005.
Also: ink will not make you blind.
10.
Upon dusting a mirror, how clear
is its reflection supposed to look?
11.
The landlord installed screens on the sixteenth
floor windows because spiders kept sneaking
in and she and her roommate don’t like arachnids.
12.
An earthquake has a “magnitude”
that is recorded by a machine
immediately after its impact.
Asbestos clouds and cries of
help don’t have time to settle.
13.
I fell asleep at the drive-in before the
second feature began. She held a cup
that I woke up stroking until my pinky
was too wet: I offered it to the sunburn
on her back until she miffed Stop that!
14.
Nothing happened when the Boeing
Hornets flew overhead. It was in
the quiet aftermath of their engines
that fear realized it was what we
asked for that year in September.
15.
If everything I ate had to be dug
from the ground, I would be more
attracted to a monarch than the
solitude of a lunar moth hatching
work for crocheting hands.
16.
Skin retracts and degrades long after death which is why
many people think hair and nail growth does not end.
Sometimes I forget to stop
plucking an eyebrow and
before I know it, one frowns
while the other stares with
an almost open mouth.
2.
Does a moth eat a sweater without
tasting the holes it creates with its mouth?
3.
Depending on the longitudinal width,
a hurricane is given a “type” that is
used to classify the storm’s potential.
The force is then gauged before it hits.
4.
The two boys across the street saw
me pick my nose so I ate whatever
it was that they found so interesting.
5.
There was a year in the fall of 2001
that waited for things to happen.
The non-events that ensued kept us
from living for a very long time.
6.
After digesting milkweed, a
butterfly secretes poisonous
liquid that is necessary for it
to lay eggs which it does so on
the weed and without hesitation.
7.
Like nails, hair grows with little effort.
If a man suggests that both continue to
grow at a steady rate after death, he is
lying: a seat-belt should be worn when
he drives you home from school.
8.
I’m not sure if I derive pleasure from my phenomenal ability to —what was I saying?
I think pleasure is an expression we use when —excuse me—I’m on the bus tomorrow
from eleven to four. How do I use the glue gun? It usually plugs right in. I’m not sure
if pleasure is a virtue but I know sexuality is more of an emotion than, say —that cat
scratched me again. I’m going to have to explain to my psychiatrist that no, I’m not
9.
Looking for truths in written work is
like trying to find twilight in the sun.
The facts are in the classifieds and
a North American atlas from 2005.
Also: ink will not make you blind.
10.
Upon dusting a mirror, how clear
is its reflection supposed to look?
11.
The landlord installed screens on the sixteenth
floor windows because spiders kept sneaking
in and she and her roommate don’t like arachnids.
12.
An earthquake has a “magnitude”
that is recorded by a machine
immediately after its impact.
Asbestos clouds and cries of
help don’t have time to settle.
13.
I fell asleep at the drive-in before the
second feature began. She held a cup
that I woke up stroking until my pinky
was too wet: I offered it to the sunburn
on her back until she miffed Stop that!
14.
Nothing happened when the Boeing
Hornets flew overhead. It was in
the quiet aftermath of their engines
that fear realized it was what we
asked for that year in September.
15.
If everything I ate had to be dug
from the ground, I would be more
attracted to a monarch than the
solitude of a lunar moth hatching
work for crocheting hands.
16.
Skin retracts and degrades long after death which is why
many people think hair and nail growth does not end.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Paranoia
John clips the whole plant to individual branches,
hands us each latex gloves and shears, says
“Cut off the fan leaves, trim the close leaves,”
we start, “but please don’t cut off the crystals”
we nod attentively “that” he says “that
is money.” We don’t want to cut his money.
His children need to eat. They’re asking for new toys.
The smell is overwhelming: it’s fresh cut grass,
and roadkill skunk. I clip the small branches
around the thick buds—there are greens,
dark and pale. Sweet and strong, the sap drips
from the fresh cut stem. Stephen swears he hears
sirens and sees flashing lights, but we’re just harvesting
medicine; we are pharmacists in the living room.
With precise movements, we snip and watch an interview
about a sex-addicted golfer making a comeback.
I’m thumbing through a book.
I read aloud a poem about queer fear and
the husband, father, customer service rep,
and cannabis farmer says “That’s me, I mean,”
he pauses “that poem, I’ve felt that.” I shrug, he’s right.
They’re looking for him like they’re looking for us.
We conspicuously affectionate and unusually effeminate,
needlessly friendly and strangely hungry victims.
We’re clipping off our dead yellow bits and they
are looking for us. They want Stephen and I to burn in hell.
They’re trying to send John to jail. We’re chuckling about
the piles of leaves that stick to our shoes.
We’re telling one another about the open-caskets we’ve seen.
Ruth says she’s tired of being laid off, she
wants to be a mortician because death
never ends and sorrow never goes bankrupt. She
wants people to smile over their dead friends,
to say “They look so peaceful” and eat cookies,
drink punch and hand over the paycheck.
They’re looking for us and when they find us they’ll kill us
and picket our funerals. They’re going to make our parents
cry. The TV interviews will ask “Do you think they deserved it?”
They want to show John’s mugshot on the news,
they want to arrest Ruth and put the kids in foster care.
There’s an odd silence as we sit and clip
and think about our own open-caskets.
There’s more growing in the other room.
The bright lights are blasting through the spaces in
the door frame. The yellow-orange light makes the plants
look vibrant, and makes us look peaked. John says
“There are more clones, we’re adding lights and vents
to this room next week.” There’s a plant that is outgrowing
its bucket, getting stronger and taller.
I ask, “When will this be ready to smoke?” The room
is barewalled. The room is crisscrossed with branches
hanging on twine. “A week or so,” he can’t stop smiling.
The room is a dusty spiderweb of fresh green pot.
We even have to duck and crawl as we exit,
in the dark outside I understand
we are growing stronger and taller.
hands us each latex gloves and shears, says
“Cut off the fan leaves, trim the close leaves,”
we start, “but please don’t cut off the crystals”
we nod attentively “that” he says “that
is money.” We don’t want to cut his money.
His children need to eat. They’re asking for new toys.
The smell is overwhelming: it’s fresh cut grass,
and roadkill skunk. I clip the small branches
around the thick buds—there are greens,
dark and pale. Sweet and strong, the sap drips
from the fresh cut stem. Stephen swears he hears
sirens and sees flashing lights, but we’re just harvesting
medicine; we are pharmacists in the living room.
With precise movements, we snip and watch an interview
about a sex-addicted golfer making a comeback.
I’m thumbing through a book.
I read aloud a poem about queer fear and
the husband, father, customer service rep,
and cannabis farmer says “That’s me, I mean,”
he pauses “that poem, I’ve felt that.” I shrug, he’s right.
They’re looking for him like they’re looking for us.
We conspicuously affectionate and unusually effeminate,
needlessly friendly and strangely hungry victims.
We’re clipping off our dead yellow bits and they
are looking for us. They want Stephen and I to burn in hell.
They’re trying to send John to jail. We’re chuckling about
the piles of leaves that stick to our shoes.
We’re telling one another about the open-caskets we’ve seen.
Ruth says she’s tired of being laid off, she
wants to be a mortician because death
never ends and sorrow never goes bankrupt. She
wants people to smile over their dead friends,
to say “They look so peaceful” and eat cookies,
drink punch and hand over the paycheck.
They’re looking for us and when they find us they’ll kill us
and picket our funerals. They’re going to make our parents
cry. The TV interviews will ask “Do you think they deserved it?”
They want to show John’s mugshot on the news,
they want to arrest Ruth and put the kids in foster care.
There’s an odd silence as we sit and clip
and think about our own open-caskets.
There’s more growing in the other room.
The bright lights are blasting through the spaces in
the door frame. The yellow-orange light makes the plants
look vibrant, and makes us look peaked. John says
“There are more clones, we’re adding lights and vents
to this room next week.” There’s a plant that is outgrowing
its bucket, getting stronger and taller.
I ask, “When will this be ready to smoke?” The room
is barewalled. The room is crisscrossed with branches
hanging on twine. “A week or so,” he can’t stop smiling.
The room is a dusty spiderweb of fresh green pot.
We even have to duck and crawl as we exit,
in the dark outside I understand
we are growing stronger and taller.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Judgement on the Open Road
Whitefish sits on the Northwest side of a large valley
whose population idles somewhere around eighty-
thousand people at any given moment. The climate
never dips below ten degrees Fahrenheit but when
it does, the snow politely asks where to go
before settling like the artificial kind dropped
from two stories on a movie shoot in New
York City in the month of August.
Front seat question: where are we going?
The door was shut, then opened,
so I closed it again. Wondering
when you would notice, I made
another whiskey diet.
Please excuse the consonants it is trying speak;
the ice goes on about power points
and statistics, earnings reports
and right wing politics. In a few
minutes it will be quiet,
sit back down and watch the sun
set as it considers the speed in
which we are approaching it.
The churches in these small
towns have tall steeples
that can be seen from anywhere in
a three mile radius. Sometimes
they have clocks, as if time
were given to us from a god
and not science.
The cities back East
have buildings that were first made
of splintered trees sanded down to
look neat. After that, stone grew
fashionable when the cities ran
the risk of burning down to ash.
The glass skyscraper next, like
brick and battlements, wasn’t
built as a testaments of faith;
it was erected for esteem and
prowess. The attitude of
“look what I’ve done, you
can’t top this” but then,
someone always does.
Back seat answer: We’re almost
there, hun. Nails grow faster
than grass so don’t expect a
lot from where we’re going.
The 20th century shrank after the
industrialized countries began
to communicate on a global
level. There was competition
through violence, Tulip, but
offerings of peace always
begin as innocent as the
gesture of the sacrament:
a bead clutched in the
palm of a shadow in an
empty alleyway.
At night Spokane, Washington sleeps
differently than other cities. At least
that is what I think waiting for this
car to leave at one-twenty in the
morning. It is dark and I have
little evidence to support how
dark it actually seems. I’ll
smoke a few cigarettes by
the light of a myriad
constellations with
different names
than the ones I am
familiar with.
I ask which direction
the reservation is
until someone replies,
You‘re in it
whose population idles somewhere around eighty-
thousand people at any given moment. The climate
never dips below ten degrees Fahrenheit but when
it does, the snow politely asks where to go
before settling like the artificial kind dropped
from two stories on a movie shoot in New
York City in the month of August.
Front seat question: where are we going?
The door was shut, then opened,
so I closed it again. Wondering
when you would notice, I made
another whiskey diet.
Please excuse the consonants it is trying speak;
the ice goes on about power points
and statistics, earnings reports
and right wing politics. In a few
minutes it will be quiet,
sit back down and watch the sun
set as it considers the speed in
which we are approaching it.
The churches in these small
towns have tall steeples
that can be seen from anywhere in
a three mile radius. Sometimes
they have clocks, as if time
were given to us from a god
and not science.
The cities back East
have buildings that were first made
of splintered trees sanded down to
look neat. After that, stone grew
fashionable when the cities ran
the risk of burning down to ash.
The glass skyscraper next, like
brick and battlements, wasn’t
built as a testaments of faith;
it was erected for esteem and
prowess. The attitude of
“look what I’ve done, you
can’t top this” but then,
someone always does.
Back seat answer: We’re almost
there, hun. Nails grow faster
than grass so don’t expect a
lot from where we’re going.
The 20th century shrank after the
industrialized countries began
to communicate on a global
level. There was competition
through violence, Tulip, but
offerings of peace always
begin as innocent as the
gesture of the sacrament:
a bead clutched in the
palm of a shadow in an
empty alleyway.
At night Spokane, Washington sleeps
differently than other cities. At least
that is what I think waiting for this
car to leave at one-twenty in the
morning. It is dark and I have
little evidence to support how
dark it actually seems. I’ll
smoke a few cigarettes by
the light of a myriad
constellations with
different names
than the ones I am
familiar with.
I ask which direction
the reservation is
until someone replies,
You‘re in it
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