My sisters, my
ghosts, the elves.
The way it was
isn’t the way it
has to be for
always:
dragging along
the whole rustling,
clanking
entourage.
My sisters, my
ghosts, the elves.
The way it was
isn’t the way it
has to be for
always:
dragging along
the whole rustling,
clanking
entourage.
[ w/ bright green large format dot grid & black ink ]
some things that resemble pain are unrelated
to pain, or related to pain only by blood. sooner
or later blood leaves you. her body made the
monster and the monster made the rules.
[ w/ bright green large format dot grid & black ink ]
some of us are addicted to turning
whose gentle medicine works even
against a curve. this is a wet body
with a lump in it. there is no such
thing as the perfect mutation. let me
code you a plain. let me plateau you
a fingerprint. ok so our fingertips
distribute what’s been given us
amplified by what sharpens us. ok so
i’m back to uncounting my circles
ok so it’s easy to bleed the pen against the animal
it slows
it tries to tell you
it tires of
telling you
i’m back
to seething in circles
i’m wagging
anyone’s tongue who’s available
seering thank you
into a steak
complexing a sauce
in a series of bowls
it’s easy to bleed
some of what
slices
does so in secret
some blades
automatically drawn
if i drew you a picture
of what happened
it would take
very little time
if i draw you a picture of what’s happening
the center of the page cut out
the center
unbusy
default scraped out
the demon’s just
a little picture
i drew
the dream’s just
a little thought i had
no worries
Who doesn’t love a dinner-and-a-couch friend?
Like, you have dinner and just sit on the couch
discussing orange-peel theory.
Or not.
Maybe you just sit on the couch.
That might be hard for me.
I can talk for hours.
Like, about how the Sámi people
of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia
have hundreds of words for snow, and the British people,
of Britain,
have hundreds of words for “drunk.”
They just add “ed” to any noun,
the weirdest ones being:
gazeboed, carparked, oreganoed.
I think I could invent some weirder ones.
I might have to use a hypen, tho.
Like “criminally-infanted” — as in
“Wow, I got criminally-infanted with my
dinner-and-a-couch friend last night.”
Or, “I am way erinaciously-spiled right now!”
Doesn’t have to be limited to drinking, either.
Like, ” I went to the salon and got mob-wife-aesthesized.”
Or, “She Scouse-preposition-W’ed me in the chat.”
Or, “I went to Ikea and bookshelf-wealthed before I 75-cozy-journeyed.”
Abbreviations might work better, tho.
Like, “I got MWAed at the salon.”
Or, “She SPWed me in the chat.”
Or, “I went to Ikea and BWed before I 75-CJed.”
Pretty soon, all communications would just be abbreviations.
Like, “PS, all CMNs WJB ABs.”
But that feels like TMW (“too much work”).
facts are the meat
of robots but robots
can be selective facts
always subjective like blundering
into rumination of a lost
friend Tamara liked the tithonias
but I should
have planted more there
is no ceiling for AI
because it’s
the floor how
every billboard
in SF makes
me unforget
every department
meeting over a screen
in Boston we had lots of sun
we were young 5 to house
in a row of houses
in Eugene a lawn to nap
on bikes for quicker trips
to the river
to the woods
no one carried
a phone Elizabeth
had to wait
all day to tell
me that Allen
Ginsberg died my hands
still dirty from an afternoon
stocking records we took
a bike ride
I read my
Howl rip-off
poem to a stand
of trees maybe
later Elizabeth played
Joni Mitchel on guitar
her voice I still sometimes
miss today its tulips
everywhere & find
myself wondering how old
Tamara would be if she
hadn’t died the memory strung-
out from years in between death
courting sudden to see pictures
of Elizabeth, Amanda, Kim
myself & Tamara—glory Eugene
daze each lost in other each
lost in ourselves green
stems extending ever sunward
that particular green
the grass gets at 3 o’clock
sun boys in bunches some
of them in temper
tantrums girls all cupped
hands & whispers lame
thing about parenting
is how easily stereo-
types are reinforced like do
boys really
behave like that
or have I
been conditioned
to expect that wait
I was a boy once
but neither I nor
the robot remembers Elizabeth
is absent from scene a coast
in Oregon me standing
top of a hill wasn’t Dave
there Tamara on her side
half in sand
her face split
in laughter a picture
remembers what
I forget
I open
an AI browser
type in
memories of
a boyhood
naturally it’s all
gibberish still exercises
in futility
can refocus
the eye out
the window delicate
line of cream yellow
Tamara it’s Spring
again, let me
tell you about
the daffodils
Translation of a poem by Yen Ai-lin
*
Vagrant
*
Autumn grasses
spread across his scalp,
his two eyes dry
under those withered vines.
No one can weigh
the heft and nutritional value of his soul;
they only see the signs of hunger,
written upon his loose and wrinkled skin
by protruding ribs.
*
Who is it that failed him?
Or who is it
made him fail himself this way?
Or is it those of us who should’ve been charitable
and refused his existence long ago?
Look at him now, still with a polite air,
take night be the arm and walk
unsteadily
dragging his humble shadow.
*
**
*
流浪漢
*
秋天的草
在他的頭頂蔓長起來,
他的雙眼乾涸
在枯索的外形下,
沒有人能秤知
他沉重而營養的靈魂;
只看出一種飢餓的象徵,
以他突出的肋骨
書寫在鬆皺的皮膚上。
*
是誰辜負了他?
還是誰
使他如此地辜負自己?
或則該給予施捨的我們,
早就拒絕他的存在?
只見他仍以禮貌的情緒
攙著夜色而行,
蹣跚地
拖曳謙卑的身影。
-for Z
it's late for this an undertow
death faithful inevitable
not yet yet the choose to say I
don't know when asked are you okay
rescue so literal clung on
As reported from the top
of the tower at the top
of the hill towering above
a baby surely somewhere
Can someone please heal this
unelectable doom? Did you mean
ineluctable? Is the state
ineluctable? Could you restate
your question, dear? I was that bartender
not as I would wish at The Page
but the Afterwit somewhere
at the axis of splitting
and cohering, I’m a god/damn rose
Time to dip your toes in the ocean
the toe-cean and tendril out to sea
I sip coffee from the orange Fiestaware mug
Heather gave me maybe 20 years ago
set it on the La Reina Santa Fe coaster
I took from the bar Lauren put us up in
I’m staring straight at the champagne-
scented candle Austin just brought me from
Mexico City in honor of Leo as Gatsby
now fully a figure with a life of his own
among me and my friends (are inside jokes
memes with a limited audience or are they
the opposite of memes which must be
replicable says the old book E left near the
toilet called Lifetide wherein I read about
memes before the internet and feel uneasy
learning about how memes are like viruses
we’d better figure out how to harness the
power of the meme which is not a virus
nor an inside joke nor a gift like the ones
from my friends that surround me) I
never had a wedding registry never had
a wedding did have a marriage once
briefly and many long friendships
building a life happens gradually
more plants and cats than Cuisinarts
gifts aren’t even my love language
but sometimes I squint in the right
angle of sun and try to keep the doors
of perception wedged open a little
wider and I see I’m living in a sea of
friendship in which I have a hard time
throwing things away so instead of
space junk or ocean plastic I am caught
in the orbit or swirl of the landfill of love
Trees are the only way you can tell it’s windy, he said.
That’s not true, she said. My hair blows in the breeze.
You must be a tree, he said.
that’s OK –
you see me
being ridiculous
all the time
“When I arrived in that town, everyone greeted me and I recognized
no one. When I was going to read my verses, the Devil, hidden behind
a tree, called out to me sarcastically and filled my hands with newspaper clippings”
– J.V. Foix
I do not live in a seashell’s heart, but I pick up Coco and Desmond at school
and imagine with fellow parents that a groundswell change of public opinion is
enough to end the relationship between wage labor and time while our children
play hide and seek. When I sleep, I see clearly, and when I wake, I go to campus
and forget to pack after-school snacks the day before a full moon. Empty freedom
from fear, I made a list like a border and another like desire, I await the stars
and moon like a good poet dabbling in vatic verse. Not as in Vatican but as in vates
or wood, woden, Oden. Some distant ancestors probably worshiped him and his ravens,
mead and runes. Narrative is always strange: drink this mead of fermented blood
and honey to answer any question. Walk back to the car through the little forest
carpeted with fig buttercup, a beautiful invasive spring ephemeral my ancestors
brought from Europe, not knowing it would crowd out bloodroot and wild ginger.
There is nothing to write about, and Coco asks how many things there are
in the world. “A thousand?” She guesses. Trevor tells her it’s all about what counts
as a thing, the politics of aesthetics. There is one Desmond with ten toes.
I go outside to look at the moon. Whatever I count can’t matter, but I’m looking
at the moon, and looking is a kind of counting. I mean storytelling. I mean reckoning.
In this season of misrule I pick up my babies from aftercare, my babies born not within
a seashell’s heart, but within the territorial dominion of this country, not murdered and
left unconsecrated. Sometimes I go to a desk in a shared office or wrapped in blankets
work in a cold studio. I try to get Desmond and Coco excited about visiting the arboretum.
I’d never be the ambassador, but I might be the aging charge d’affairs, writing her memoirs,
getting drunk most evenings, free to actively undermine Empire’s tenuous mandate.
Settlers don’t prioritize how their own ideas of nationhood and haven-making
undermine even their own ideas of nations and havens. Post-bloom redbuds
across the street not quite yet leafed out. All of this is true. I am not an allegorist.
UMD students started an encampment but no one from central mentioned protestors.
A coworker pings me saying bla bla bla, but I pick up the phone as if I want an injury.
I pick up the phone and almost read the message. Coco and Desmond argue in the car
about the school playground, and I know any coming to account for this day
requires details about bulldozed farms in Gaza and my piled unfolded clean clothes
half off my desk. When I hike I look down every cliff and imagine losing my footing,
worry about the dove nesting over our door and her future fledgelings.
For Jerome Rothenburg
[ w/ bright green large format dot grid & black ink ]
some molecules leave a syrup behind, it pools
reluctant to gel anywhere in particular. some turns
of phrase turn green when you’re not watching.
some haunting isn’t haunting, it’s host-engineered.
what’s one more bump if we call it something
broader. what’s one more yelp mutating back too
close to its original. what’s that one familiar digit
in an unfamiliar number. some technology removes
its own buttons, but slowly: no one plays fabric
the way that you play fabric. no one stops the move
before the end of the move the way that you stop.
no one wants to keep knowing their own circles
having been handed squares but color reveals and
revolves, color sneaks out of you, color gives you
away, color sends you back. you’re dull and color
knows it. you’re down where color is up. smear
your face, it doesn’t make a difference: some
molecules were there the whole time.
How far can you walk with your shoes untied
How far out into the ocean do you change your mind
What are you doing when you’re not burning fossil fuels
Using the word animals as though they were all one thing
Some day you will thing
You will decap
You will cornea over something else
You will think about your love syndrome
It is Folgers that brought you here
He is not showering today because he showered yesterday
Who made this policy
Go for it under the table
Waddle to your maker
I don’t remember losing molars
or what she said when they had to take me away
she draws & colors in a vigorous yellow sun so that from paper we arise to meet our other selves one breath at a time, one step followed by another cutting a curt trail across a landscape of terror be damned our mouths full of mango & we are leaving a trail of palm fronds
following a trail of palm fronds under a pastel Miami sky sometime or another I
finally fall into it & days
& nights come & go there she is now older singing Taylor in another city Tokyo a
disfigured bridge from there to here & here in this room
& here in this room slowly it falls over me, it engulfs me the terror
of our waring world
the terror of capitalism
the terror of parenting
the terror of being alive
& accountable subsides into a hard fought slumber
a hard-fought slumber comes with less & less frequency still occasionally it comes which means there will most likely be a tomorrow there will most likely be these words & coffee & it will be May already & we are here for each other in between the words in this poem each with our own odd music
I stick my nose out into the universe
A basalt on the waters like a floating island
Of language where fear was a redoubt of
Don’t be fooled by last night
I hear equally what I don’t understand
Facts are me at the robots table
Where the warp and the woof
Go perpendicular then upside down
Seeking advice but getting
Only actionable information
Intelligence is too expensive
The savvy dear if you want a thing
First thing to do is already possess it
Assume a position, any position
Describing a nightmare
You shouldn’t be ashamed of having it
But only having been scared of the having
While the having was happened
And you were sleeping in a sulk
And people were fleeing for their lives
Does scarcity inspire you?
The organs you see
In the magic books of my childhood
Are human hands painted and carefully posed
Impersonating animals or an orchestra
With cymbals affixed to the thumb and ring finger
A tiny tuxedo has been daubed on
The paint must have been applied by the other hand
The book is called something like Handimals
But that’s not quite it
When the Internet can’t help me
I look at the dirt and the satellites surveil only hair
I keep thinking home is my refuge
Page 4500
Whole truth half rhyme
Rendering half of a circle
Why so serious about the other half
Spin your arms in the shoulder socket
Loosely, looser, almost there!
There is no partly upside down
The last time I was in an airport, a private company bamboozled me
into signing up for a trial of their security screening program and later
I was rueful about it and canceled. Even in errancy, I could pack a bag
and fly, before babies, before covid, was always self-assured at the
airport bar, lollygagging a last drink before my flight. Sixty percent
of the time I’m nauseous and trying to hide it. My body dissents in
any way involving ears or hives, so many birthdays flying between
hemispheres, as if being vaguely bilious, itchy or tipsy in concourse
whatever was my particular predicament. What counterforce changed
my fate? I’m not immune to immanent what-ifing or zero-sum thinking
that maybe I exchanged x for y, that I shouldn’t have done a stint
as a daytime bartender and dog walker, should have immediately
gone to graduate school, should have obediently followed an intelligible
path to something like a livelihood. But I don’t actually think that.
I wish I had more money, sort of. Coco screams because the pajamas
are wrong, then screams because she needs someone to be with
her while she screams. I’m at my screaming threshold. Parenting
is helping others when you feel like an incompetent wreck. I think
of escaping to the Cotswolds, walking between pubs and eating
chestnuts, Trevor helps Coco find not displeasing sleeping attire,
Earth holds me when I scream, or the car contains me while Earth
supports the car. Where am I, was I? Post-bath and bedtime, I
read about the status of the ceasefire talks in Gaza, Passover begins
tomorrow evening and I will go to work in this not really quagmire
of an Imperial capital. If it were swamp I’d love it more, but we are
sinking, I hope. I used to feel some vaguely magisterial presence
on the Lincoln Memorial steps. Maybe I need to go there and pray,
connect with some omnipresent collective grief, feel queasy and obscure
by the reflecting pool, drive thirty miles an hour part way round the beltway
at rush hour as if I lived in Maryland. Instead I bike to the studio, string
and unstring a loom, go to yoga, do a forward bend and then another,
again I wonder why no one has written an anthropology of airports. 48
hours in London, Heathrow. Why didn’t I get a hotel room? It’s now late
April and I am thinking of Moses’ adopted mother, the Pharaoh’s daughter,
how the Jews’ Egyptian neighbors gave them gold and silver and clothing as
they left Egypt. The song sparrows abandoned the nest and now above the
door a dove incubates her eggs How in Exodus The LORD seems
like an explanation not a cause. I can’t dispose of these contradictions.
In dreams I swim deep or float through various apocalyptic landscapes,
the flood is coming but I have learned to live in the water and my dream sea-
scape is calm. Sometimes I picnic in airports, imagine regime change,
sometimes a lover or friend brings me food and they are always a sign of
the dream’s plutonian dregs, a baseline for the sweetness and trauma
transforming. In the non-dream world the waters rise, too. When the end
comes, I’ll go to the Full Yum on North Capitol Street. I’ll bring my babies and sweethearts.
We’ll get pork egg fu young and beef chow fun to go, and then we’ll float.
while she’s in the hospital
I’m a little freer
with my seeds
star aster
packed for 2023
impulse buy by the register
in Taos
I pour the packet
into the ground
I’m here breathing
walking eating
things she says
she has to relearn
I did what I could
to keep her
on this side
not the great beyond
the small right here
seeds & spells
I slip the empty packet
into a sack
out falls a slip of paper
a million-mile copilot
grandpa on grandma
after she’d passed
The fortress on the cliff that in the mist
could be an old money or military
lair you point out is Fulsom
which at first I hear as fulsome
with an e and not the end on m.
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude
except as a punishment for crime”
“Change things by changing their names?”
It seems telling of imperial history
that fulsome very long ago meant aid
and in modifying form, first meant
plentiful then came via the sense “causing
nausea” to mean excessive flattery
in a confusion of abundance and excess.
How did we get to the Golden Edge of
Everything and miss the stairs? Google maps
directs you around the Tenderloin not through
and instead by a guy in a suit, gun cocked
in front of Hermes. At the gates of a different
hell the anemones have teeth and the succulents
and clocks grow eyes to see everything
you couldn’t do and didn’t know before.
In another version you get a branded cuff
no eye contact and a courtesy card for what
you’re not sure. In another it’s the thought
hell is other people. In the one you can’t control
however, someone’s there to help you
So who am I?
If I am only slightly sad — really more like “emoticon-sad” —
and brandishing an alchemical retort as I enter my serious period,
and if I am
layered,
ineffable,
vexing,
merely the shadow of moving leaves on a brick chimney five floors up,
with a falcon on my left wrist and a missal in my right hand,
but don’t know who I am,
am I the integrity of victims daylighting near the equipment?
the eggshell colors of the ‘90’s multiplying exponentially toward tonal dissonance?
And if I inherit space but borrow time,
and it’s Christmas day on the radio and I stain your blouse with my fake
cherry cheesecake,
and there goes my adrenal distraction again,
and I am dwelling in my motherboard mementoes and dead-zone fold-ins like a good homo sapien,
applying grout between three big sensory bluffs with my “War Is Hell” in safe mode,
then who I am is a socialist uncle
adorned with chunky academic advisor jewelry,
who just found out that the word for “small penis” is “cookie”
in Hungarian,
and the word “Hungarian” is Hungarian for
“violent grapefruit eater.”