NewYorkTimeZone
We want to be in your special life
sometimes, this dynastic tradition
movies they make of you
in your apparel.
When students bring pieces of us
or not so obvious vignettes,
the way our lives led
to unsolicited errors at 2 a.m.
under the window and houselight
of someone we do not know
saying he shot himself in the heart.
Dick said that.
I said in the heart?
and Dick said, Yes, in the heart.
Even though we are not necessarily
in New York, things are still happening.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
October 2010
(What Kept Me From Saying This)
The scent we leave behind
and the shade in the curtains,
always around.
The sudden accidents of time
not so accidental ,
the right of these to exist
in me, in a refractory
grimace-
I should not have wandered
there anyway, like a loose child,
none of this would have happened,
not even this.
Or the countless exhumations
we don’t deserve
as survivors,
the way we ought to play
grateful
in our tones of voice.
The generators of interest
play hot stove
to some indecency,
no more than a slight
excitement of our hearts
followed by a trim report
and then, acquittal.
No blood or tear
was ever so unimportant.
(So these I stopped sharing
finished slapping them on the line,
tended them in the orphanage
although their parents were alive
out there, going to work,
buying new clothes - indifferent
to all the fuss back here
where the dead dogs
we remember
keep our secrets.)
We left on empty - without
train tracks or tattoos,
the various futures entrusted
to us had broken open
and been filled with damaged goods.
The fieldwork of exodus
is bent belongings and torn books,
nothing but scraps.
More weather was never felt
in any thrift store
nor any price so high.
(Truly it will say -
my work has appeared
here and there.)
Not entitled to thrills or anger,
several lost years that way
picking up steam as they go -
tethered to a country
and meaningless phrases
where I so obviously belong
and bouncing back,
every ounce of whip lash
a touchdown or
mis-demeanor
as if in our most sullen moods
there might be a broken law
rather than the wicked
human fetish of extermination.
No wonder it is cherished
and has become a career.
It may be a secret
to ourselves,
a family of definitions
innuendo to entendre
hatched open by imitation-
not entirely sure
if reading about this
is as good as writing about it
but they sure are
(the poets)
and were not even there,
a secret to most of them too.
What worries and excites
me the most is the loss
of a world view,
including dirt that enables
more victory to acquire
access to this quaint
inability to tell it
effortlessly, convincingly
enough -
erasing the problem caused
by censure in the first place,
a casual pass at logic
and swift stab in the dark
at magic.
We cannot escape the age
we live in
but it can be painted
as they all were
in desperation prone syllables,
paraphrased, jumbled
latent tutors
paintings tend to be.
It is hard to hear a child
mumble these things
in the decadent gibberish of fools
that their parents probably were
and the marketing told them to be.
Hard to hear about
the consequences of it.
Obfuscation
The things in the backyard
of my head,
of anyone’s
wars - sleeplessness - finances
the undernourished soul of it all,
to think that some stop
at the beginning of certain phrases
and others have no plan
taking great pains to reveal
dog milk and fat action
instant terms,
so be it!
The soul grows weary
the bones of the soul
nearly broken and the skin
was never there at all.
Everyone pointing fingers
at everyone else
so without knowledge
there is no creativity
or is there?
I’ve never learned to separate
what I think and what I write
and this I believe
is the problem.
Things are true for all
sorts of reasons
and to know how unimportant
I was while I was
is important.
The exegesis of the earth
near the stagnant pose
of particular racisms
frozen over centuries
that melt quick and then
disappear
shows the price sticker ghost
and inhabits all there was to say
about a thing, the choice of it
and how it lived a long long time.
One can say that about it
and probably will, it is how thoughts
are finished by time
and the heirs of time’s tomorrow.
There is this sense that we
all know, we all must know
the thresholds and windows
between mornings and mornings.
Here where all the kitchens are fixed
or fixing now,
wanting to be fixed or waiting
to be kitchens again
unlike the past in which
kitchens actually were full
of the legs of old ideas:
domesticity, civility, forgiveness.
Does it matter that the old Gods
were as simple as the new ones,
the back door of Greece opened
up to reveal a precesssion also?
Now a still photo is placed
in the fore of a moving picture,
a dead man perhaps whose heart
was still beating as the bell
was struck,
did not the Golden Calf low?
The end of our privacy
to tradition, the end
to a fancy privileged few,
the Luxury of Gloucester
is everwhere, the anti-war
is almost reasonable again
but it is impossible to argue
with myths,
impossible to drag up the bones,
the pyloric valve of assumption
is long ago closed.
Luckily the West is still
too far away to change,
the silence of the other sides
so dark to bring along.
The Rice Calendar
collects power
and hamstrung camels
as she threads her needles.
Is the first migratory bird
here yet?
All four parts?
or has the sound
beat us to it,
the jewel-case satin -gray
clouds in which the stars lie
wherever did these come from
if three letters
in or out of context
prove scripture, variant
glittered readings
daze us and endear
that sneer of contemplation
called smile until we prove
that baking with honey
is as good as lying about it
to protect the sluggish
and less coherent
from the boredom of accuracy.
Heavy weight champions
of the world,
how do you do!
How are your prizes?
The boys burned dead bugs-
there inside the fire
of boxes and old cloth
were ransom notes-
perplexing as it is
to warm-up to
the process of stylizing
and decomposition.
Here we wait for the how-to
shows to come on
wearing big, cheap bracelets
and push-up brassieres -
our confusion adores us,
clings to our every curve.
Second
“And I call you a feather, and recite:
Thy life’s a miracle. Speak yet again.”
- The Landing: A Stage in The Waker’s Corridor by Jonathan Thirkield
His hand comes up empty
every time from trying.
Fish. Cards. Quarters.
None of it sticks
but it all works
like glue -
we love it so much and talk
that way after the lights out,
the news of the day gels
in our instincts, he is
one of them, a curator
of grief - a helpless victim
with a brain storm -
such delicious preparations
economical - the satire starts
gun fire - down the road.
They too act dangerous
and compose the gospel,
the too pray a lost God
just at different times
and voices: their fathers
playbills, ours with a mouth-
ful of salt, sometimes
the easy meal wins.
With constant work the whir
of words tattles on the truants.
Why would a ghost darken
his shadow so? A demon
or a windy day - some say.
Your song is a whole language.
How many bulbs burn
until then, the verbatim
repose of tonite - lack luster
objects do up and fail
except the stars
while we watch
and while we father
this and many others
who for sundry reasons
don’t believe it matters
if a Jew or that one
yon feather falls forth -
you still don’t know why.
You still don’t know why.
The scent we leave behind
and the shade in the curtains,
always around.
The sudden accidents of time
not so accidental ,
the right of these to exist
in me, in a refractory
grimace-
I should not have wandered
there anyway, like a loose child,
none of this would have happened,
not even this.
Or the countless exhumations
we don’t deserve
as survivors,
the way we ought to play
grateful
in our tones of voice.
The generators of interest
play hot stove
to some indecency,
no more than a slight
excitement of our hearts
followed by a trim report
and then, acquittal.
No blood or tear
was ever so unimportant.
(So these I stopped sharing
finished slapping them on the line,
tended them in the orphanage
although their parents were alive
out there, going to work,
buying new clothes - indifferent
to all the fuss back here
where the dead dogs
we remember
keep our secrets.)
We left on empty - without
train tracks or tattoos,
the various futures entrusted
to us had broken open
and been filled with damaged goods.
The fieldwork of exodus
is bent belongings and torn books,
nothing but scraps.
More weather was never felt
in any thrift store
nor any price so high.
(Truly it will say -
my work has appeared
here and there.)
Not entitled to thrills or anger,
several lost years that way
picking up steam as they go -
tethered to a country
and meaningless phrases
where I so obviously belong
and bouncing back,
every ounce of whip lash
a touchdown or
mis-demeanor
as if in our most sullen moods
there might be a broken law
rather than the wicked
human fetish of extermination.
No wonder it is cherished
and has become a career.
It may be a secret
to ourselves,
a family of definitions
innuendo to entendre
hatched open by imitation-
not entirely sure
if reading about this
is as good as writing about it
but they sure are
(the poets)
and were not even there,
a secret to most of them too.
What worries and excites
me the most is the loss
of a world view,
including dirt that enables
more victory to acquire
access to this quaint
inability to tell it
effortlessly, convincingly
enough -
erasing the problem caused
by censure in the first place,
a casual pass at logic
and swift stab in the dark
at magic.
We cannot escape the age
we live in
but it can be painted
as they all were
in desperation prone syllables,
paraphrased, jumbled
latent tutors
paintings tend to be.
It is hard to hear a child
mumble these things
in the decadent gibberish of fools
that their parents probably were
and the marketing told them to be.
Hard to hear about
the consequences of it.
Obfuscation
The things in the backyard
of my head,
of anyone’s
wars - sleeplessness - finances
the undernourished soul of it all,
to think that some stop
at the beginning of certain phrases
and others have no plan
taking great pains to reveal
dog milk and fat action
instant terms,
so be it!
The soul grows weary
the bones of the soul
nearly broken and the skin
was never there at all.
Everyone pointing fingers
at everyone else
so without knowledge
there is no creativity
or is there?
I’ve never learned to separate
what I think and what I write
and this I believe
is the problem.
Things are true for all
sorts of reasons
and to know how unimportant
I was while I was
is important.
The exegesis of the earth
near the stagnant pose
of particular racisms
frozen over centuries
that melt quick and then
disappear
shows the price sticker ghost
and inhabits all there was to say
about a thing, the choice of it
and how it lived a long long time.
One can say that about it
and probably will, it is how thoughts
are finished by time
and the heirs of time’s tomorrow.
There is this sense that we
all know, we all must know
the thresholds and windows
between mornings and mornings.
Here where all the kitchens are fixed
or fixing now,
wanting to be fixed or waiting
to be kitchens again
unlike the past in which
kitchens actually were full
of the legs of old ideas:
domesticity, civility, forgiveness.
Does it matter that the old Gods
were as simple as the new ones,
the back door of Greece opened
up to reveal a precesssion also?
Now a still photo is placed
in the fore of a moving picture,
a dead man perhaps whose heart
was still beating as the bell
was struck,
did not the Golden Calf low?
The end of our privacy
to tradition, the end
to a fancy privileged few,
the Luxury of Gloucester
is everwhere, the anti-war
is almost reasonable again
but it is impossible to argue
with myths,
impossible to drag up the bones,
the pyloric valve of assumption
is long ago closed.
Luckily the West is still
too far away to change,
the silence of the other sides
so dark to bring along.
The Rice Calendar
collects power
and hamstrung camels
as she threads her needles.
Is the first migratory bird
here yet?
All four parts?
or has the sound
beat us to it,
the jewel-case satin -gray
clouds in which the stars lie
wherever did these come from
if three letters
in or out of context
prove scripture, variant
glittered readings
daze us and endear
that sneer of contemplation
called smile until we prove
that baking with honey
is as good as lying about it
to protect the sluggish
and less coherent
from the boredom of accuracy.
Heavy weight champions
of the world,
how do you do!
How are your prizes?
The boys burned dead bugs-
there inside the fire
of boxes and old cloth
were ransom notes-
perplexing as it is
to warm-up to
the process of stylizing
and decomposition.
Here we wait for the how-to
shows to come on
wearing big, cheap bracelets
and push-up brassieres -
our confusion adores us,
clings to our every curve.
Second
“And I call you a feather, and recite:
Thy life’s a miracle. Speak yet again.”
- The Landing: A Stage in The Waker’s Corridor by Jonathan Thirkield
His hand comes up empty
every time from trying.
Fish. Cards. Quarters.
None of it sticks
but it all works
like glue -
we love it so much and talk
that way after the lights out,
the news of the day gels
in our instincts, he is
one of them, a curator
of grief - a helpless victim
with a brain storm -
such delicious preparations
economical - the satire starts
gun fire - down the road.
They too act dangerous
and compose the gospel,
the too pray a lost God
just at different times
and voices: their fathers
playbills, ours with a mouth-
ful of salt, sometimes
the easy meal wins.
With constant work the whir
of words tattles on the truants.
Why would a ghost darken
his shadow so? A demon
or a windy day - some say.
Your song is a whole language.
How many bulbs burn
until then, the verbatim
repose of tonite - lack luster
objects do up and fail
except the stars
while we watch
and while we father
this and many others
who for sundry reasons
don’t believe it matters
if a Jew or that one
yon feather falls forth -
you still don’t know why.
You still don’t know why.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
The Age of Ignorance
In order to get there
go out and return
or haven't you been there?
Up and up, to the shade
and forest, and down
again because to die there.
Have not all rules
been ignored then
and that is ignorance?
To each his own
they say and that is
our noble polytheism.
Sending these coupons
through the mail
to you, to your table.
Have not the laureates
culled their letters
for the laws they lived by?
Last Part of the Savagery
On the reverse rows
upon rows of untended
white, charlatans everywhere
engagin the swagger
chief chieftains in the bread
box all the chaf
pulled up too, the horizon
perfectly square or is it
there are no limits to nothing
only to the first
pestered side - this one
that aims to limit
discuss the aroma the shape
of the shape it would be.
Your creationist, not invisible
working only through
intentional parameters
and gauges - stipulations
as the Lord tried to un-mean
everything they tried the Lord to mean.
The book of tiny hearts
was written last year
after circling the block
in her light blue sedan
shoved into the push up bra
were instructions on
how to read it.
She couldn't keep anything
down, up came
everything from the fourth
grade on - dimestores and fireworks,
men with big hands,
lessons about fornication,
hand held digests
explaining the gesticulations
of the Church.
Say you're sorry if you can.
Say you're sorry as an apple,
a footstep. Here they preach
big excuses and retrievals.
Why the flour sacks?
A foreigner exile
to citizen as such
boll weevil,
the rules of fiction
and shallow myths
only partly buried
among the royalties
and remonstrations,
the back and forth party.
In order to get there
go out and return
or haven't you been there?
Up and up, to the shade
and forest, and down
again because to die there.
Have not all rules
been ignored then
and that is ignorance?
To each his own
they say and that is
our noble polytheism.
Sending these coupons
through the mail
to you, to your table.
Have not the laureates
culled their letters
for the laws they lived by?
Last Part of the Savagery
On the reverse rows
upon rows of untended
white, charlatans everywhere
engagin the swagger
chief chieftains in the bread
box all the chaf
pulled up too, the horizon
perfectly square or is it
there are no limits to nothing
only to the first
pestered side - this one
that aims to limit
discuss the aroma the shape
of the shape it would be.
Your creationist, not invisible
working only through
intentional parameters
and gauges - stipulations
as the Lord tried to un-mean
everything they tried the Lord to mean.
The book of tiny hearts
was written last year
after circling the block
in her light blue sedan
shoved into the push up bra
were instructions on
how to read it.
She couldn't keep anything
down, up came
everything from the fourth
grade on - dimestores and fireworks,
men with big hands,
lessons about fornication,
hand held digests
explaining the gesticulations
of the Church.
Say you're sorry if you can.
Say you're sorry as an apple,
a footstep. Here they preach
big excuses and retrievals.
Why the flour sacks?
A foreigner exile
to citizen as such
boll weevil,
the rules of fiction
and shallow myths
only partly buried
among the royalties
and remonstrations,
the back and forth party.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Translate burns and burn scars
but not burning
On Saturday, maybe
the light drags the moths
back and forth,
the local radio station
is nice enough in 2010
playing Shocked
when you wish
upon a star-
-used to be my town
when there was a small zoo
maybe 1966
a few predators and lost owls
surely those were in '70
one of those alligators
from the sewer
won at carnivals
predestiny versus extinction
you know.
Might go up there again
next week
look for old friends
in the stairwells
but I know they are not there
in those wormholes,
they've streamed
and pledged elsewhere
but to me this is it,
we happened here
and it seemed to land right.
but not burning
On Saturday, maybe
the light drags the moths
back and forth,
the local radio station
is nice enough in 2010
playing Shocked
when you wish
upon a star-
-used to be my town
when there was a small zoo
maybe 1966
a few predators and lost owls
surely those were in '70
one of those alligators
from the sewer
won at carnivals
predestiny versus extinction
you know.
Might go up there again
next week
look for old friends
in the stairwells
but I know they are not there
in those wormholes,
they've streamed
and pledged elsewhere
but to me this is it,
we happened here
and it seemed to land right.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Translate burns and burn scars
but not burning
On Saturday, maybe
the light drags the moths
back and forth,
the local radio station
is nice enough in 2010
-used to be my town
when there was a small zoo
maybe 1966
a few predators and lost owls
surely those were in '70
one of those alligators
from the sewer
won at carnivals
predestiny versus extinction
you know.
Might go up there again
next week
look for old friends
in the stairwells
but I know they are not there
in those wormholes,
they've streamed
and pledged elsewhere
but to me this is it,
we happened here
and it seemed to land right.
but not burning
On Saturday, maybe
the light drags the moths
back and forth,
the local radio station
is nice enough in 2010
-used to be my town
when there was a small zoo
maybe 1966
a few predators and lost owls
surely those were in '70
one of those alligators
from the sewer
won at carnivals
predestiny versus extinction
you know.
Might go up there again
next week
look for old friends
in the stairwells
but I know they are not there
in those wormholes,
they've streamed
and pledged elsewhere
but to me this is it,
we happened here
and it seemed to land right.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
War Poetry
Clearly the war
need not be gone to
or suffered by
in order to win.
Like death or the forest,
a memory will suffice as well
as a common stance
as if War is Wrong,
War is Bad but not
When War is Necessary,
not only to poetry
contests but to truth
regardless of who
loses the legs,
opens the envelopes
or answers the door,
receives the flag
to make the front page.
There are few prerequisites
for either one
Clearly the war
need not be gone to
or suffered by
in order to win.
Like death or the forest,
a memory will suffice as well
as a common stance
as if War is Wrong,
War is Bad but not
When War is Necessary,
not only to poetry
contests but to truth
regardless of who
loses the legs,
opens the envelopes
or answers the door,
receives the flag
to make the front page.
There are few prerequisites
for either one
Anywhere or Here
The way it looks from inside
the over here and so-so
liberation, and the destruction
of statues means so very much
to those whose dogs warrant
pet parks and leash laws,
whose dogs are prescribed
kosher diets and lean meats.
Here they just run rabid,
amok with the locals, steal
intestines from the butcher
and laze on the lengths
of long abandoned streets
you left to us along with
the rifles, spent rounds and blood stains.
Their fleas carry diseases
that only you know the name of
and have studied at university,
but we know them by heart,
know all these things better
than you. We kick these dogs
as you have kicked us to prevent
untold quantities of your indignation,
and alas, our vets all died or ran away.
When we hear that none of you
deserve a broken bridge
or poorly paved road,
that the government has deceived
you, we nearly agree
and when we dance, we clap.
We hope against hope
that you are finally
waking up now until at last
we stop and wait.
And here we are, waiting,
nothing to do but that
and watch as these soldiers
adopt the pups of a spotted
black bitch.
The way it looks from inside
the over here and so-so
liberation, and the destruction
of statues means so very much
to those whose dogs warrant
pet parks and leash laws,
whose dogs are prescribed
kosher diets and lean meats.
Here they just run rabid,
amok with the locals, steal
intestines from the butcher
and laze on the lengths
of long abandoned streets
you left to us along with
the rifles, spent rounds and blood stains.
Their fleas carry diseases
that only you know the name of
and have studied at university,
but we know them by heart,
know all these things better
than you. We kick these dogs
as you have kicked us to prevent
untold quantities of your indignation,
and alas, our vets all died or ran away.
When we hear that none of you
deserve a broken bridge
or poorly paved road,
that the government has deceived
you, we nearly agree
and when we dance, we clap.
We hope against hope
that you are finally
waking up now until at last
we stop and wait.
And here we are, waiting,
nothing to do but that
and watch as these soldiers
adopt the pups of a spotted
black bitch.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Holy Roman Empire
Now that I can sleep anytime
on the couch, I cannot sleep
at all. The newspapers folded
at one end and I slide my feet
under them instead of grabbing
some blankets. My neck hurts
and awakening each hour
I check on the morning,
is it here yet?
The world of the night
is full of breaking newstories,
chapters of the Bible,
unending capsules of time
and faux turquoise necklaces
running out of themselves
next to table-top cookers
and cardigan sweaters
in five colors, machine washable.
Certainly there must be
something there about
which to write, something
left for me to tell and sell
some brilliant new scheme.
Now that I can sleep anytime
on the couch, I cannot sleep
at all. The newspapers folded
at one end and I slide my feet
under them instead of grabbing
some blankets. My neck hurts
and awakening each hour
I check on the morning,
is it here yet?
The world of the night
is full of breaking newstories,
chapters of the Bible,
unending capsules of time
and faux turquoise necklaces
running out of themselves
next to table-top cookers
and cardigan sweaters
in five colors, machine washable.
Certainly there must be
something there about
which to write, something
left for me to tell and sell
some brilliant new scheme.
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