Can you speak louder than you think?
The length of your ear is exactly
The same as the length of your nose
Or a line drawn between the dots of your eyes
I can look only look at one part of your face at once
I can look you in the eyes or the mouth
It’s up to you
Replacing worship with wonder everywhere
So then warship, wander?
I feel my way towards an order
I am what my body can do
Rapturous sunbeam interruption
Mauled by quick brown fox
The peace ship sails at dawn
It never occurs to me to address god,
whoever she is. It occurs to me that
that reads like a bumper sticker joke.
It’s true I must ignore or hide from
god because when I was a small girl
he was in every classroom, full of
spite and smite, palms full of nails.
Father son and little bone-carved
replicas of suffering floating over
the threshold. Was I left with a
paucity in the shape of god.
Have I been running and hiding
from god and other angry men
my whole life. I’m trying to imagine
a god I could talk to: jocular, gentle,
rocking a chair on a porch at sundown.
Long white hair and a nightgown.
But instead I see myself ducking down
a stairwell to a garden apartment
during a storm, and the lightning and
thunder is god, not a stranger opening
the door, as I did once for a boy named
Mohammed when we lived on the other
side of town. The rain and wind were
punishing. A knock came at the door.
We’d read the Bible. We knew what to do.
But as a woman alone, I never would
have answered; such is the fear of god.
I never want to interrupt people reading
I’d rather be hired and help myself than ask her to look up from her book
the title of which I was trying to guess based on thickness
To stand and read is to say I am paid to do this
It doesn’t take much to move with confidence
Why did all but one blackbird fly away
Everything changed and was the same at my father’s funeral
I enjoy working everywhere
so I could organize supplies and talk to people
In the downtime I would read books as I always read books
with a pen and notes for poems nearby
with urgent adventure
connective collection
Maybe I could pass out basketballs and mock hunky teenagers while reading
Everything is about class
Class money class power
I want to hug the boss with obelisk disappointment
We don’t have to stop just because it’s time to go
& because I could not sleep I forced myself to shut eye & imagine a butterfly but the monarch remained mystery & instead some winged thing smearing gray-white came fluttering & I thought fuck me is that a moth well might as well be Woolf-noise siphon to signal one zombie spirit blaring on speakers
Woolf-static tap to signal zombie spirits deafening sleep slipped out window
while I am left
in mystery of black surrounded by deeper black a car passing drags the ear & then
falling silence
the terror of a singular heartbeat, how many do I have left thump thump goes
something night
thump thump went something seconds ago— an anticipation of another fracture, men desperate to kill each other & war is ever near rocks in pockets stone piercing hrt I did not want die not for you & your senseless horror I imagine burning all my credit cards getting dirty in the deceit of debt
A more permanent now is on temporary hiatus
When it returns you may have lost patience
Waiting for a word that rhymes with the unnameable
Even then it refuses to do what it means
You never expected such a conversationalist
To join the conversation
You thought the rhythms would announce themselves
Like a fanfare of gibbons
The fires you lit were more for light than warmth
But these were the dark blue hot ones
Not the bright red tall ones
Blazing in the braziers
That was what they were made of
And if you held out your hands to their foreheads
And peeled the fingernails back
Saying “get along or be late to the world”
You’d see there were no bodies under the armory blankets
And the damp trays from the refectory dishwashers
You’ve given yourself away always with a squeak of a door
That you would break if you tried to repair it
So you carry the story like a bag of air
Not enough, the magicians announce
We can do better even if it’s already good enough
Do you believe them? Does it matter if you do?
A big branch with white blossoms broke
and fell to the ground. I snapped off a piece,
came home and set it in a small glass globe.
I wandered away from my notebook to send
a teddy bear holding a balloon to the hospital.
The bookmark, I saw, was a receipt from the
record cabinet I bought on the way out of town.
The sky sent us to the basement and the sirens
kept us there. The pages of the magazine were
wrinkly and damp from sitting in the mailbox.
We rushed through the room to the other side.
The return to normal life? Then I see something
on the internet and remember. Wasted summers!
Filling boxes, not wandering the streets at sunset.
Who wants love?
Does the state wants love?
Does Diet Coke? Does the state “wants love” speak
in triangles . . . ellipses? Lemon trees? Tentacles?
Does it have a shield? Does “wants love” speak
freely? In tongues? Does it have fathomless eyes? Its own self-
fulfilling alphabet? Do all of the letters reflect
themselves? Like capital B? Like emu feathers double-
plumed? What does that sound like? Should all languages
sound? B describes a balloon a holiday a house a womb
a dwelling making room for primal feelings
the bulb at the hinge of my jaw taut with poison.
D like doom or dare. J an arm extended with open hand
to take, to give. After “That was
‘Who Wants Love?’” the DJ said
“Maybe you wants love” then
“Nothing can be done”
Most immediate tasks have no recompense. This social media schedule,
for example, as if I walk my roof at dawn, leaning onto the parapets,
leaning into sunrise. Kickoff, am, pm and post-event posts. I lack the emprise
for a complete schedule. So, the half-made schedule. The draft poem was this:
I want to buy so much stuff, and I want to buy it on credit then never pay it back.
I wanted to name Desmond Beckett before he was born, imagined building
a small dovecote in the backyard, but instead dug garden beds and built low,
slightly tilting brick divides. I am agnostic about schedules but faithful to strategy:
I made this special schedule for you, without strategy. Gallant, I send it early,
knowing it will remain unreviewed, imagine printing it on pearl-colored paper, revel
in the bureaucratic beauty of a schedule with no design except itself, the beauty
of charts and graphs and slides, of timetables. The parapets prevent accidentally
falling into the sunrise, but I’d prefer that to this damnable marketing brief.
On behalf of the team I note that although this is a roundtable discussion
there will be no roundtables in the room and no repercussions for their lack.
I go to a shared workspace, sometimes, with a new, difficult-to-open window.
Imagine the courtyard is a canal and below the window a basic boat que c’est
bateau. But it’s enough to float away from work and capitalism and drift on
a lazy wave to somewhere reasonable, where everyone understands that being
overwhelmed and rageful is the only feasible response to knowing how much
our taxes go to war and the contractors of war. Somehow I’m a poet paying
taxes and making social media schedules, interviewing for other jobs via
text messages with robots. There are no detractors of poetry, just disparaging
non-listeners or former and secret poets. I would buy so many different serums,
so many button-down shirts in various bright prints like my dad used to wear. Batik
shirts. Guayaberas. Shirts with ornate prints like 18th-century British wallpaper,
and then I would buy out of print art books and ugly crocs, cut my hair every four
months instead of once a year. Die it pink-magenta ombre. Amazon orders as
an archive of distraction from everything, everything, from knowing that children
might sleep through a bomb blast then wake up in dust, or never wake, that I
make social media schedules while my country sends bombs everywhere,
everywhere, while empire carries on but somehow, something bursts through,
though prior power remains and I feel dumb saying things like “burn the castle,”
because what is a castle? This campaign has no strategy except to please
my supervisor, I promise. Once again, I abstain from strategy, from belaboring the point.
Translation of a poem by Yen Ai-lin.
*
Cold Food Festival
*
WW I WW II
guns atomic bombs
poverty desolation
pain sorrow
global summits
armament talks
*
Laid out on the diningroom table
(A cloud of buzzing
flies hover nearby.)
*
Wine poured
Splatters on a diner’s snow-white scarf,
Suddenly it’s……
blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood..
blood blood blood . blood blood blood. blood
blood blood blood.
blood blood blood blood blood . blood
blood blood . blood blood
. blood blood
blood blood blood . blood
blood blood blood
. blood blood blood
. blood
blood . blood
. blood
a flood…………..
*
**
*
寒食
戰爭I 戰爭II
槍砲 原子彈
貧窮 蕭條
傷痛 悲涼
高峰會議
限武談判
*
餐桌上的羅列
（一群蒼蠅的翅膀
響在不遠處。）
*
倒了的酒
濺到用餐者雪白的圍巾上，
居然是……
血血血血血血 血血血‧‧
血血血‧血 血血‧血
血血 血‧
血 血血血血‧ 血
血 血‧ 血 血
‧血 血
血 血 血‧ 血
血 血 血
‧ 血血 血
‧ 血
血‧ 血
‧ 血
的氾濫……………
Horror I am
falling for it
like I always fall
for it this time
of year when pumpkins
are carved fangs
& bat sonar set
to feast brisk
breeze while
sun slips air
slowly turns color
of smoke threading
through last blue
& it calls to me
as it has called
to you twisted
desire to watch
madmen running
through woods
with revving chainsaw
or its Friday so let’s
let Jason play here’s
a hockey mask
& blunt wood seduce me
with urban hymns written
for final girl while
pretty skulls makeup
morning face button
up expensive shirts pull
up pressed trousers
white knuckles pulling tight
an argyle tie silent sound
obnoxious accumulation
offshore privilege oxides
belabored crystal chandeliers
stiff backs robotic legs move
in rhythm to dance
track loose light while
it filters through
abandon house climb
a hill to greet
haunting hereafter noose in
an antique amulet fading bronze
barn in a forgotten
town hunt moves
through too-tall corn
“He Who Walks
Behind the Rows”
thrash guitars mugging
sky cult kiddos
with bloodied choppers
flower crowns wilting
in hair slacker
slashers file into streets
top-secret hackers reeking
in airtight doom rooms
80s malls forever
our screens the screams
of teens every parents’
fear & perverse dream
ah there’s familiar Freddy
newly manicured
so settle in this is going
to be classic
male violence
& she sits with witching
eyes warming
waters & bears
with nowhere to
go radioactive ribs
alien feelings under
ominous moon cliché
full shadows of
fools ignore the
feeling of fear
tremble if you
must banal waking
hours horror almost
invisible comes to
play—
(unfinished)
crabs & crabs & crabs & more crabs
momentum loves a shell, a pinch
a future into which well wait
in the suction hush in amongst
a muck skitter skip slink patience
The mist arrives, fogs the windshield, crashes the car.
All the long necks of geese measure the same height.
I want to meditate on one thing — the mist, the snow, the will
to change, but bad people call my friends groomers
for existing in their bodies, I who learned to people-please
from men who learned what to do about pretty girls
from great literature. I listen all night to a bleeding highway.
Tires splash around the killed mist, indifference like wind
snagged in an engine. If I could grasp one thing, a pigeon
comes to me. The lilac chest, a pearl beat within, the red eyes
of a reformed demon. Once, I came across a hawk in the snow
kneading its talons into wet earth. It flew as I neared and out
popped a pigeon from beneath, dizzy with life, dizzy with death.
It walked once, twice, then was earth again, purple blooded snow.
feeding two dollars
into the jukebox &
accidentally playing
all of Mingus
while the poet-
on-poet pool
game clicks &
stabs nearby
after tornado
sirens, sheets
of rain & a four-
hour power
outage
the tulips
blown out
like umbrellas
a found-text message poem
Oh no I didn’t survive
the first
vibe shift.
Will the vibe shift
bring us to a post-social
media moment?
Is the vibe shift
back to
twee??
His winning response was
“Did hair like this
go out with the vibe shift?”
Yeah it’s weird to call
“no longer being cool”
a vibe shift.
Is this the vibe shift?
Karen O with a touch
of gremlin?
Fuck around and find out
that the vibe shift
is menopause.
Is the vibe shift
a return to the
feminist sex wars?
Oh yeah, we definitely
got stuck
in the last vibe shift.
No one knows
what the vibe shift
really is
it’s hidden
behind a paid
subscription portal
*
I always want
to circle the word
“vibey” in green ink
write in the margin
“something more
concrete here?”
*
I don’t mind
“what’s the vibe?” or
“is that the vibe?”
invitations toward
shaking the sack
of reality
*
I need atmospheres
and ways
to describe them
after a pandemic
after the internet’s
unscented elevators
*
I broke my own rule
said “vibey”
about the party
with flower crowns
dueling pizza ovens
& a giant foot piñata
*
what I meant was
a pagan
almost Shakespearean
rites-of-spring party
under big oak
& waxing moon
*
its bright crescent
the same shape
as the sun
it had 88%
rolled over
five days before
[ w/ bright green large format dot grid & black ink ]
look
you are wearing the fold
grains in your pockets
the paper bag of the
rippling future
next
a flicker of light
forces distinction
some leave risk
shakily intact
to fold in on oneself
was once described as
fluorescence
to fold into the other
was looming
//
one loon
screams across the lake
brilliance
was never actually reserved
parties of four or more, please
tact shakes you
risk sweats you
distinction
also known as info
prior
greening echo
unpacks itself
into everything
preparing to green
look
There is nothing you have to start over
except this hat
Everything takes an effort
and when it is too much
it is okay to change the hair of the little plastic doodads
A cancer is a secret my body was holding
and I knew it was there
When they take it out I want to see it
I want to show it to people sitting on my couch
and laugh about it
It was a nothing cancer
not that lethal
while a neighbor wonders around my house looking for his dog I am petting
I never had a strong feeling for gold
but I wear this ring made by my great-great uncle
Was he known
Was he known to be kind
Why didn’t he leave
If class is good I will draw a perfect circle for you all
I never want to leave hot water
there were rich people houses
in architectural designs I’d only
seen on TV shows & magazines
overlooking the bay or what-
ever swathe of water that money
pays for & there were flowers
in purples & reds & vibrant pinks
the succulents all ancient & leaning
towards where the sun sits throned
this time of the year content day
with daughter climbing rocks
running down hills, looking at
books & I thought back
in Boston no one has ever
even bothered to think
of me—that other life—
that stupid
ridiculous way that hurt’s
hunger feeds
Weaving, grieving
All the letters
On top of each other
Is it sexy or just heavy
Watching people
Holding hands and holding people
Watching hands
I’m looking for a smell I remember
Grasses that let the field recover
Rye and red clover
I would the whole meadow
But the seeds don’t take on the hills
Does salt do that to skin?
I’d listen to you talk forever
But when the action arrives
Ideas of music too high to hear
Colors just beyond cellular
What feelings can I feel
When I just stop
Blinking, breathing
The cockatrice and the basilisk
Stare each other down
How much yes
Can I feed to the fire
Verbs at absolute zero
Stacked into a moon gate
Gargoyles smiling in the woods
* Thanks Elisabeth for the cockatrix inspiration this morning!
Questionnaire: does the state have a rooster?
No? Does the state have air? Does the state
get up when it pleases? Down oysters like
a binary star that swoons from one abyss
to another? Does the state have a cock
that crows late morning among the emus
in the arid glittery air? Does the state like
Puritans? Does the state, like Puritans,
strongly prefer rooster? Is the state in dialogue
with its one-eyed cock? Is it after all this time
self-administering? Did I mean autocratic? Good
question. Ask again next year. Does the state
like Chaucer? Does the state, like Chaucer, poet
and administrator, use cock for god? Cock’s
body, cock’s bones, cock’s passion, cock’s
country, cock’s plan. Does the state have
a plan? Does the state have a cockatrix?
