bound

not kangaroo
bound bound

but self-committed
hand and foot

   and hesitant

not hesitance
of hummingbird
at flower's lip

not hesitant
before the rain


Deep Recon

They hoped
he would return
after a week or so,

packed some
of their own foods
for him to share

and treasure
to trade
with the natives,

and prayed
he would bring back
at least

a book of names
if not
a huskless grain.


Sundrop

In a day and age of far more blooms than hummingbirds,
you shut up shop at any hint of wet
and don't reopen until the sun has shone again for hours.

Have “nothing ventured, nothing gained”
and “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”
ever been so on the button?

Don't go the way of choosy prudes. Broaden your net.
Kiss a couple of frogs. A lot arrives on the skirts of rain,
and not everything good throws a shadow.


Simple Homage

Since the prophet George Carlin died,
who is my prophet?
During each shit-storm, I ask
"What would George say?"
but the only answer I ever get is
"If I knew what he was going to
say, it could not have been him."


to a deep hearted child

i just realized
when love is too fierce
     the results
     are rage, tears, venom

finding yourself
so near your suns
     burns, scalds, blisters
     threatens

you avert your eyes
I avert my kiss
     so we can remain
     as close as this


What's Better Than Polliwogs?

What's better than capturing polliwogs,
putting them in a tall bucket of pond water in the shade,
and watching day after day as they grow hands and feet,
lose their tails, and become frogs;
or building a snow fort and filling it with snowballs
to bomb the other kids with when they charge?
So many other things have gone disastrously wrong.

The great fish obliterates
everything else. Occasionally
it bobs down underwater
but then when it resurfaces
it erases everything again.
You are part of what will
be consigned to oblivium
over and over and over again.
I'm sorry. The great fish's
grip on my heart is physical,
tangible, strong, complete.

When it dives, we can kiss.


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serial

1. mandy
it wasn't a laser
saber after all
slipping through
her young neck
but a trickle of
icy brook water;
there fluttered
about her in
the dappled air
blackwings too
numerous to keep
count of; busy
striders rowed
this way and that;
the gloved hand
that had gripped
the saber glided
up into a beech
as smoothly as
a turtle dove.

2. laurel
did anyone find an ice pack wrapper, blue or purple, in their car?
I brought them so players could put  ice in them and then have
a way to wrap it around their wrist or throat, then forgot to fish
them out of coolers where I put them. also, found: one slender
clear green water bottle, one slender clear blue water bottle,
a large black segmented glove, black and pink nail polishes.

3. joyce
my gate ajar until sun-up, black iron posts festooned
by a spider's dewed web, like the lace drop necklace
of small pearls I always fantasized of being buried in,
Cleopatra-like. but décolletage in the casket is not
everybody's cup of tea. pearls sewn onto the gloves
too, myriad pearls sewn all over the gown, ant eggs
poised over skin lingerie-less and so cool to the touch.

4. sarah
the gloved hand flew
and dipped and dove
and from it sprang a
line from Joe's hymn
and the rush of wind
and spurt of joy that
come when Easter is
late and cold and he
falls through the ice
and there is his face

5. zena
my fingers grip your wrist
my fingers grip your wrist
nothing else here for ever
nothing else here for ever
fuck    you      fuck    you


my francie

imperturbable,
egalitarian as ferns

you cultivate
companionship
while neighbors strain
for ardor

beauty derives
from the collective
sigh and a constant
legerdemain


Itch the Mensch

I'm neither the first or last
louse stranded in a thatch
rooted in incompatible Rh.
But must it be history's least
social human child, sisterless,
brotherless, parentless, yes,
apparently friendless? Serves
me right for my impatience,
setting out across the abyss
between two domes meshed
in a schoolyard fight like Itch
the Headstrong! If remorse
could fill a stomach, I'd hatch
10,000 eggs on this outpost
of adolescent tenderlessness,
have him scratching himself
till his scalp bled and Nurse
is forced to look, to caress.

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A Dream of Exhilaration

A still summer day that didn't even seem to know it was alive,
Then a hot summer night that kept insisting no one wanted sleep.
They both had points. I sleepwalked dawn to dusk, then tossed and turned past midnight,
When a stiff cool breeze sprang out of nowhere like a patrol car rounding
Up the curfew breakers and whisked me into a stream of consciousness

So delicious I didn't want sleep or anyone to bail me out
But said, Just drive. We drove, fast, until the blacktop ran out and orange
Flags gave ample warning but there was no stopping and no going back
For the steed I was riding so I held its mane fast in my bare hands
And next thing I knew I woke in a blazing red hell, dying to pee.


The New York Bonze's Favorite Saws

To see more,
stand still
and make your
self smaller.

Make me one
with everything,
I asked the
hotdog vendor.


The Fancier's Sentence

...a woman closed her eyes and danced without moving her feet. —Alan Furst

It's you, or rather, the woman inside you swaying sensuously
As you trot your boy back from the grocery store or sweep out your garage,
A uranium rod giving birth to heat but no interest in what
It heats up. That I still pursue you amuses and slightly charms you,
Although I know you'll outlast me even if my dream comes true, the fuel
Surviving the reactor. The day I rust and fall apart—How did
You do this to me?—then you become distant without moving your feet.


Fleur de Corse

You cried, “Est-ce
Immortelle de Corse?”
but it was
only wishful smelling
and the essential oil
sugar-ant repellent
Holly mixed me for
my birthday. We've
never been to Corsica
nor share your ache
for chestnut bread
with asphodel honey
but we have grown
to love you as much
as you love your land
and when you go home,
our noses will search
and stretch for signs
of your scent, too.


Team Photo, España

The crouching front row of the World Cup squad
look like they're perched over invisible toilets,

#18 eager, on his way down
#8 like it's his favorite place
#7 like he fears the seat is dirty
#16 like he's in some kind of trouble
#2 in the pee-colored shoes, like someone walked in and caught him.

The alternative interpretation
that the rear row
#1, 11, 15, 3, and 14 sharing with 9 (Fernando Torres!!)
have their dicks up the front row's butts
is equally fruitful

to a certain kind of alarmingly immature mind.

Thanks, Cheryl. Now if I could just be sure that no one else was going to count, I could stop doing it myself! Tom

Following a Grumpy Train of Thought and Stray Smile to Inspiration

An error thinking the world has purpose which is not being well served
Instead of admitting simply that the world is not serving me well,
A complaint so absurd on its face as to force reassessment.
This is narcissism's pith: existence not given proper instructions,
I and it unloved free radicals unless I bind myself to serve
God or a maharishi or this freckle-nosed girl on the subway
Who looks up from her black paperback and treats me to a friendly smile.

An error to put more stock in it than warranted but such long shots
Do make sense when stakes are high and stakes are high when existence itself
Teeters in the balance as it does, this friendly girl as easily
The straw that breaks the camel's back as anyone someone else might clutch
So why not make a scene and jump up and let everyone in the car

Know that I accept this invitation to a long life devoted
To the proposition that one soul burns as bright as any other?


July 8, Last Two Outs in the Red Six Dugout and Then the Clubhouse, in Major League Baseball Pidgin

Ortiz decided that Soriano izupitchingu.
"I do have success with it?"
The home run, he hope to bat in the game.

But first, the wind. Then Kevin Youklis please.
Youklis flying in the middle. The Red Sox defeated.

"Dad!" Youklis is equipped with a wall Please note.
"It was cheating on me broken-bat trick at all!"

"Ja Ja!" Ortiz belly laugh out loud.
"It is great fun if not, Youk is!"

Tito is dressed. Ortiz walked right past altogether.
"Dad why do you all this?" He is.

"Navigation, we joke," Ortiz said.
"I do not like," Tito said. "You and Youk
please refer to my office clothes."


No Magic

This time I brought no magic so you're exactly as you were but less
Interesting. Not a sow's ear—though what's wrong with sows?—but no silk purse.
I want to say “It's not your fault” but that more than likely says it is.
Another dead spot there. Uneasy, you start fixating on your hair.
Sorry. I just want to sneak away, order some beers and count my change.
It was incredibly stupid of me to turn to you for a boost.


Google Translate (Mother/Teenager)

Mother says: Your jeans look nice.
Mother means: I love you.
Teenager hears: You're fat.

Teenager says: I hate you, Mom!
Teenager means: You're calling me fat.
Mother hears: Go fuck yourself, Mom.

Mother says: Don't talk to me like that.
Mother means: But I love you so much.
Teenager hears: I hate you even more!

Teenager says: You called me fat.
Teenager means: I love you too.
Mother hears: I totally reject you.


Hung Over

Someone has come in dead of night
with colored chalk to draw princesses
and unicorns by streetlamp light
on the sidewalk in front of my house.

This morning a good-sized dead limb
from the curbside sugar maple tree
lies shattered on top of this tableau.
I look up. What do I expect to see?

Hardly a cause for fright
But it still pulverizes me.

The Well-Tailored Sentence

Okay, there isn't any iced beer stand in hell. Nor is there any
Hell in uniformity of suffering—that's just junior high school.
So what are the levers of relief down under? A fleeting shadow
Lowering the heat for half a second as a new batch is cast down?
The flash of joy at recognizing someone who once delighted you
Before it registers that God strips all delightfulness away as
Singlemindedly as those who pull gold teeth from the fallen at war?

There's a word for people who design mini-reprieves to keep torture
Intense. Assholes. You've seen them working their magic on hard city streets,
In penitentiaries, in ER waiting rooms, where God scouts recruits
He then trains in Limbo so painstakingly that by the time they get
Their maiden hellbound soul to manage, they're unerring and efficient.
Torture, Tailored is their motto and their competence would give them joy
Except God forces them to blink each time their victim flickers with hope.

Original arrogance led God to think that distance from Himself
Would scorch sinners to perfection for eternity but He misjudged,
Though not long at a loss, keen student of human nature that He is.
He saw how hunger knifed those once well fed, how cold it those accustomed
To thick coats, how loneliness howled in hearts that had loved well, and been loved.
What had His son said? That the spikes were nothing next to what he suffered
When he realized he would never wander hillsides with the Twelve again.


Two Love Sea-Dogs

Strip away the flourishes, shake out all the innuendo, hold it
Up to the light and toss it in the thrift store box, veil the details of
Our sex, erase the stylistic differences. What we're looking for is
Love's subtext, what we're doing, and why we're doing it with each other.

Marriage counselors' ears perk up at such talk. Mother's hidden yearning?
Father's withheld blessing? Their marriages Passion Plays we reenact?
What a load of nonsense, one school of red herrings chasing another!
Whatever shoulders we stand on are not what we're reaching for at all.

We can blame it on instinct or pheromones, write it off as mating
Of convenience or just following convention for convention's sake
But we reject such mumbly-mouth. Mighty tides course in this channel
We swim side by side, tides that can only rise in oceans of pure weight.

I chose you to go the distance, no other reason, and you chose me
For similar persistence. Where we wind up, or how pleasurable.
The going is, is not our main consideration, two love sea-dogs.


A Father's Prayer

Sure, you have a tower of problems
a mile high, and we could all spend
our lives laboring up the stone steps
toward the streamers flying on top,
or we could leave a squad of scouts
to keep an eye on things, mount up,
and ride on and explore what's over
the next rise. Worst comes to worst,
we reach another tower of problems.


The Sentient Sentence

are electrons energy? mass? flit one to the other? both at once?
matter and antimatter? gravity? masturbation by numbers?
do people really think mathematics keeps the universe in line?

Scintilla is everywhere present in what we conceive of as place.
We observe it since we are nothing more than its misorganized face,
Dregs aping fatigue, circumscription, stupidity, resistance,
Dead skin in an otherwise vibrant basin of possibility.
Longingly we explore all the elsewhere we are temporarily
Removed from—this the lifeblood of the mathematic counting off of
Heartbeats pushing back the inexorable and always possible.

Our sigh is the rest of creation's pass-the-salt. When will miracles
Spring back to being and instantly redissolve us into the ether?
Is that less likely than the skein of happenstance that spelled disaster
In the first place? We must not pray. The last thing in the world we want is
More focused stasis in an unconscious sea sufficient to dilute
Sporadic consciousness and ease self-replicating constipation.
But holy, holy, holy, lord, heaven and earth are swarming with glory.


From Your Lips...

The somniloquism
that's shown me
how dirty you think
is now diagnosed
by a sleep clinician
as a “parasomnia.”

Tamely you agreed
to a full sleep study
a week from Friday
but last night about
3am you cried out:
“Sit on my face!”

Before they make
you sleep normally
tell me one thing—
is that dark person
using your mouth
at night only talk?

Mr. Riggio's Lily

Id ex similitudine floris lilium appellabant.
         —Julius Caesar, COMMENTARIORVM DE BELLO GALLICO

Jill's hatred vindicated his failure to teach her. Sexual love
Rearranges not only genetics but full-formed personalities too
And when her mom caught him staring at Parents Night and glared he wanted
To say “I wasn't looking at your daughter” but how could he? The way
Was to become a different person, a better teacher, the kind of
Man a bad student's arresting mother might be drawn to—might come to
A later conference wearing an even more revealing eyelet blouse.

This tawdry thought lit a fire under him, he dressed better, he prepared
Better classes, he answered questions thoroughly and kindly until
Jill appeared at his desk one afternoon as all the other students
Stampeded out, she smiled at him and told him pointblank, “I want to ask
My mother to come see you. I think I could still pass this class. Maybe
You and she could make a plan for us to get together for an hour
Or two on Saturday for tutoring. Is that allowed?” He knew it

Was a calla lily but he trotted forward anyway and said
“I'll call your mom.” Sexual love rearranges personalities
Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, and sometimes first one
And then the other: a petty man becomes better and then corrupt.
Jill's mother called the principal, complained about his leering and his
Rule-breaking plan to see Jill on weekends. Jill corroborated both.
Her hatred vindicated her failure to help him, and he was fired.



Toole Men

Them Tooles
are brutal men,
cry at the drop
of a dime,
they're a mess,
black your eye
then weep
for forgiveness,
I know,
I married two
of them,
and now there's
my son Jack.

I don't blame
one of them,
they come by it
honest, that
much is clear,
and somebody
got to be their
wife, and mam,
so that's me.
I do lay blame
on the do-good
kind who wag
their fingers
at the lot of us
and keep their
own fine boots
nice and dry
all the while.

Toole men are
who they are,
they're brutes
that weep
but Jesus made
them just like
you and me,
made a wife
for them, gave
them their boy
to raise same
as their daddy
raised his,
so what's the
women's lib
and their kind
got to say
about that?

Putting men
behind bars
like animals
hain't hardly
Christian, is
it? Tell them
yes they did
wrong, no
it hain't right
to hit a child
nor hit a wife,
but Toole men
are like that,
then soon as
they're done
they weep,
sweet as
your helpless
little kittens.


Heat Wave

The heat wave changes life,
slows brains, overloads circuits,
and for the first time the earth
seems decidedly inhospitable.

We could revive if rain came,
though possibly permanently
damaged, something greyed
or just not seeming the same.

Death may be a lot like this,
malaise, the threat of decline,
the comprehension of decline,
and then its plodding triumph.

I am watching out for things
that may be similar to death.
I want to train in the desert,
high altitudes, arctic wastes.

I want to fix mental scenarios
in my head that might click in
when the time comes, leaving
me equipped to inhabit them.

Isn't that better than waiting
passively, giving up on being
prepared, hoping somebody
already there will care for me?

What if nobody else is there?
I must prepare for that too—
have a methodology in place
for populating my experience.

My wife says, “You've already
died. Just listen to you.” I say,
“I've also made plans for you.”
She says, “Leave me out of it.”


Speculative Self Knowledge Bear Loin Love Poem

It's arrogant to write “You don't know who you are”
but it's arrogant to write at all
so I dedicate this to you anyway
even though you'll have no idea that I mean you:
that's who you are.

I've seen enough savagery tamed by letters
to say literacy is a spiritual path
as much as an acquired skill
so that's why what I have to offer you is not a bear loin
but three stanzas.

But let's pretend for a moment you do know who you are
and it is a bear loin
and I throw it at your feet (cleanly wrapped in banana leaf)
and I ask you savagely
“Is that enough?”


The Scrupulous Hairdresser

Her first cut?
Are you sure you want to?
Will she ever be truly wild again,
with the hair God gave her?
The burden of coiffures
is a life-long responsibility.
“I like your hair”
changes from an idle compliment
to a stamp of approval.
Believe me we do want
the business but we think
you and she should know
what you're getting into.
We have to look ourselves
in the eye at night,
sleep the sleep of
the innocent
and live with the results of
what we do for a living.
Some moms just burst
into tears, and some of
the kids too. We would hate
if that happened to you.
Pretty sure you want to go ahead?
Ok, just sign this disclaimer--
and a pageboy it is!


Decline and Fall, July-August 2010

A small bee harries a great wax moth so aggressively, a passing
Child intervenes and helps the moth crawl free. After resting a moment
The parasite redirects its attack on the bee-hive's nursery
As rumors swirl about a god who wages war on the moth's behalf.
The bees' own god was once debunked in favor of mutual hard work
But suddenly the priestly caste starts to emerge alongside the drones,
And theocracy resurrected on the embattled queen's command.
The altered chemistry invites Varroa mites' proliferation,
Dotting the ascendant ecclesiasts like bright rubies on vestments.
The end is near. The little child tramps the nest on her way to the car.

Known

I don't know who I am.
But my son's eyes say he
knows everything about me.
Such thorough knowledge
is very comforting to him.
That is comforting to me.
I trust in his judgment.

No one else knows me.
Neither friends nor foes.
They look through lenses
serving their own agendas.
My boy's agenda is purely
to know me. Not to reveal
who I am. Just to know.


Shots in the Dark

Lovers who take poison with fast clasped hands take as likely a chance as two celibates who pray for forgiveness of sins or geeks who pay to freeze their heads. There's probably a way to steer ships smartly to death, if uncharted. I'll beg absolution, pay the cryo-guys, and take my dear Beth's hand.


ismay

the greatest single thing
in life can be
a certain quality of sleep
the exact heft
of a child or lover's hand
or maybe even
an exquisite brown beer

such a number of things
it is probably
more a chemical balance
in the brain
an old gypsy love potion
ordaining
the next moment sublime

worst seems a different
animal
less random in its weight
a death
a clarion betrayal
pride exposed as a hoax
by plundering cowardice


Feline Funeral, Shillourokambos, 7500 B.C.

My human agreed
what I asked her to agree
so now she
my polished stones
and marvelous seashells
share my casket
for the sail to eternity.

I hear Bast chuckling
already at later humans
thinking I was killed
to keep her company
and the mummy army
at Bubastis are
human ritual objects.

Ah here She is now
the Goddess I have served
so long on earth!
Gladly I offer her
my ornaments
and the remains of
my poor, faithful slave.


Forgive and Forget

Ninety-three percent of our body's cells are microbes called “non-human”
Because their DNA is different from the other seven percent
And only seventeen percent of the species living on your left
Hand live on your right hand. Not only does one not know what the other
Is doing but one hand doesn't even know what the other hand is.
Who manages a person's complex biome? You guessed it, the microbes.

Believe me I have no desire to stir up trouble but if all this
Is true then it's really hard to see why you're pissed off at li'l ole me.
There is no one identifiable entity responsible
For the leaky sack of umbrage your own ragtag band of microbes feels.
The French say it best when they say “C'est la vie,” “C'est la guerre,” “C'est l'amour,”
And the Spaniards have to be commended too for “Qué será, será.”

Let's shake. Let's kiss. Let's fuck. The more of each other's hostages we take
The easier to follow Rodney King's plea, “Can we all get along?”
Let's leave bygones to chew their own bones in the water under the bridge
And come fresh at each other like the two blind clouds of drifters we are.
Science is on my side. Jesus—“the other cheek?”—is too. Why care who
Committed what? Left hand? Right hand? An inner eye caught on a rose thorn?