Teeny Elephants Now!
Tender Elevators at Noon,
Twin Engine Numerator,
& Tawny Night Eagles?
Too Naughty, Ernie!
Timid Energy Never
Tainted Everyone’s Nougat,
Though Enough Nodded!
Tired? Even Thinking
The English Nanny
That Everybody No’d
Told Elsie Nothing
Takes Emergency Numbers!
This Elvish Numinosity
Talks Ever Nonsensically
Then Eeks North.
Category: Uncategorized
Take a Vow
The vaulted ceiling takes its vow
the vane and shaft take their vow
the pulp and pulpit take their vow
the puppets in their poppet show
their pony show their horse and
puppy show their book and box
take the vow.
The mascara on its cheek takes a vow
the musket in its memories takes a vow
a long narrow shotgun apartment takes
a part a vow.
I Love You All the Way Up to the Sky and Down Low to Socks
Why didn’t you follow me into the streets of Bushwick?
Imagine a world where the cab didn’t pause to pick me up
I count each of my love’s perimenopausal baby hairs
Undo the zipper emblazoned across my daughter’s heart
It’s a habit, a panic, a brilliant twig that keeps us together
Nothing more tender than the single tie-dyed sock
She discards everyday on the staircase
The sound of pages turning under the covers
A novel in verse that made me cry—
The Yarra River, cornflakes in my pocket
The arrogance of freezing rain in June
I didn’t need love language when I had street smarts
Even rosary beads leave calluses in their wake
Now I can never stop waving goodbye
The redbuds bloom and my love is having pizza with a friend
The redbuds bloom and my love is having pizza with a friend, Desmond
is home sick, and I am supposed to be editing a video but can’t bring
myself to open the file. Melissa texts to say she’s lying in the sun,
“behind the little gazebo,” she says. It is spring. Anything that can be
planted is planted. Axios says “consumers are in a foul, foul mood,”
and NPR says “Women are getting most of the new jobs. What is going
on with men?” Men don’t want to work in healthcare. I check the accrued
interest on my student loans, knowing I’ll never pay them back, knowing
money is real but also largely a collective act of imagination. I consider
a nap, read a little Maurice Blanchot, read some of E’s poems in translation,
do everything but work. I have not had Ritalin for two days. The hello kitty sticker
on my phone peels off. Elation at the thought of travelling alone. Small flirtations
and my pile of unpaired socks. Does Blanchot say anything about how close
or far away the disaster feels. There is no distance in the index, but: “Expression
of infinitude, expression of nothing: do these go together? Yes, but without
Agreement.” Consumers are morose and depressed, but I have the impression
that it will not impact our spending very much. The Uber driver tells me she was
over on Foxhall road the other day and gas was above six dollars a gallon.
It’s almost time to fill up. My boss says her power is out and I say, ‘oh no!
Good luck,” then wonder if that was a kind of faux pas. I should have said
“Hope it comes back on soon,” or something like that. The little talons of
baby bluebirds. Desmond gifts several brainrots to other Roblex players.
Hilton asks me to imagine a summer vacation where I relax in bed with a
lover and order room service. Desmond drank gallons of Gatorade yesterday
and I swear I heard a Charlie XCX song where she talks about being a demon
slayer but that was obviously wishful thinking. It’s the end of the world
in the film Sirāt, and one of the characters says that “It’s been the end of
the world for a long time,” but she says it in French or Spanish. Furled
sails bound securely to the spar. I have to look up what a spar is, and it seems
like a spar is just a generic word for mast, but a spar can be a boom, gaff,
yard or bowsprit, too. It’s been a while since I’ve read Moby Dick. Broken
spars. It’s the kind of material, fragmented vocabulary that fits the novels’
concern with bodies, objects and disassembly. A splintered spar is what
remains when systems fail. I’m at my desk in my bedroom, looking out
the window at my overwintered swiss chard. That’s the kind of life I’m
living. The whole family needs to get passport photos this weekend.
Booking the travel will be easy, but I’m afraid of the paperwork. I haven’t been
without a passport since I was a baby and I don’t intend for it to continue.
The neighbour blasts Go-Go music. Blanchot says that “We do not repel
the earth, to which, in any event, we belong; but we do not make of it a refuge…”
The designs for Trump’s stupid, fucking 250-foot arch here in D.C. have been
released, and it looks like a cheesy Arc De Triomphe, which kind of fits with
the architecture and layout of this city, but I hate it, of course. This is a no-win
situation. I want to call it quits. To dismiss these gestures as gestures, but it’s
all I can think about. I’m looking for a resolution, and there is none, but the poem
has to end. I pay my parking tickets. The cool breeze and ambient traffic noise
off Eastern Avenue come through my window. I want to undergo some kind of
radical transformation, but I’m fighting just to stay awake, just to write these words.
THIS MOMENT OF PEACE
She was the one they meant
when they said too many mouths
and she ate elsewhere in the garden during a lightning storm
so they wouldn’t know they fed her
That’s why it’s called a salad
she said with proud low teacher voice
because it’s a little bit of everything
everything being the discarded scraps
Who here is the real puppy
What’s it like in that nose hole
Does it smell like the land
or the flag of the land waving like a skin flap
What’s it like to be here
What’s it like to be her adenoid
that crawls out covered in sunscreen strokes her hair
and says if you cover your face a little more
no one will know how old you are
Her whole fruit market no ribbons or price gouges
crawls on all fours
actually on elbows so crawls on sixes
Go where the finger points to the good grass and right pop
down to the original wood
a place where they say circle for an eight count
Dress without weather in mind only femininity
Most women are associated with a color but not her
A white bra? Pat the air
If she gets lonely she can host a press conference
Do you walk with confidence or do you walk plain
into the challenge of never laughing
Likeness
Exude former ude
Your odes retracted
Palisaded etudes
Correct attitudinally
Dialogues and dusklogs
Mesmerize the message
No knowledge but know how
To dye-a-poem
Day glow in the sunshine
Flusters darkness in you
A riven flow, a pitted olive
Like a pen cap on the tongue
Only similar things are alike
Objects on fire
Repel the enveloping flames
The envelope is sound
When it is new but wizened already
Crowded in, crammed in crannies
Population populi
You have become accustomed to
The customs here
The double lives
Of triple agents
Student of happiness
You know the song
And what it costs
Tongue says face tells
Do I repeat myself
Beginner’s luck
Up to and including
The caterpillars caterwaul
Wrong movements
In right direction
Cautious cautionary tales
Raisin bread
For the raisins
tunnel of fuck // the divine amphibian
bitchily attempting to reinvent bushcraft
I know no
other way print a picture
of turkey vulture
feathers on the edge
of the road
hold the fold
to the light let the throat emote
the divine amphibian
after the transition
your head may no longer
rotate 360
think of it as entering a tunnel
of fuck from which
you once saw light
skim dimly
fresh eyes
all over
the place
are you
with me
opposite of an ovipositor
dressing for the golden-crowned
kinglet’s gaze overexplains
my panting overexplains
why we’re all out
of extension cords again
what is the opposite
of an ovipositor
pull a feather
weather
dependent
what are we eating
these days
Eleanor, We Have Put These Difficulties Behind Us
Strawberry seed wedged between two teeth Forgot to floss Thinking of Liam
Should be sleeping Liam sitting Patch of sun Beer in hand Greenwich village
Trees lining brownstones I ramble About a girlfriend (ex-girlfriend?)
Moved to NYC difficulties finding an apartment About roaches Red walls
About labor At the denim shop Violi’s son Sometimes we’d see shows together
Sometimes Paul would ask How’s Alex these days? The three of us met for Thai
East Village Wish that happened more than once Where did the time go
What were we busy with poeming acting auditions teaching
Oh those things Hunting money Holding onto some kind of life
Corner table outside Don’t you just love the city this time of year
Telling Liam about her leaving About me staying Liam
having problems Can’t remember The pigeons cared none
About our problems Clustered in jagged lines pecking at scraps
Winter was delayed The feeling of Eternal Autumn Some trees held onto
Scent of bagels in the wind Liam and I thought our lives in New York City
Would somehow Be different Like we’d be somebody Famous… I don’t know respected
Didn’t want to give up we clanked glasses said we resigned ourselves to live
whatever these lives were in a city that we loved that would never love us back to life What is a life
Ambition The way things are How to feel
About the accumulation of minutes When the days start marking us
Is often this immense energy Thankless glasses drained of liquid
Impulsive logic outstretched egos The unrequited sadness settling later
At Liam’s (not Paul’s) memorial Poetry Project overflowing with people Some tears some
laughter A slide show Liam and his guitar He’d said he’d play me a song
Never got around to it Liam in a bathtub An objection to some photo I was
outside of their grief Mine less personal lack of intimacy His obsessions with minor and major poets
I am minoring I am mirroring
Contemplative failure thinking about his sonnet about money Waiting
in line to buy overpriced broccoli Coat with olive oil and salt Roast in oven
Half an idea Something about dinner About mouths What we put in them
What comes out of them Kanji test stress high time to Become invisible
Fleeing kitchen Apartment too small Domestic appetites and aspirations
Dinner will have to wait An entrance Overly announced
The way the door slams behind if you fail to catch it
Go Home and Sit Alone with Nobody
Would you love me if I were a curd
The pink slime stuffed into the casing
Would you have loved me when the hexes
Flowed like pinot noir and I could be found
Lingering in any dim restroom
Mold spore in jeans and a vest
Perfecting a debilitating sneer
Would you love the way I pay
For therapy while plotting all week
What not to tell my therapist
Would you love me if I were a fork
Pressed against your jugular
Will you love me when I finally
Run out of smart things to say
9
Subsume yourself
into the pale
green of the lichen
& the brighter green
making up a patchwork
a coverlet of mosses
Allow the spores
to encroach
Every day in the woods
is a million years
many trillions of drop-
lets quivering
against the curved
desire of the meniscus
You’re right on the edge
about to fall
[Are you feeling sad, supplanter?] (revision)
Are you feeling sad, supplanter?
Maybe you sat in some water
Where do you go when you close
your eyes like that? Upside
down greenness? The archive
of fang? By now you
should know: don’t eat the rich
without the finest salt in summer
on the horse-dotted shore
a further feeling dashes–purges still water
fuses dread to remember: don’t read Moby Dick
without slow dancing first in a suit
of slugs Incandescent names slime
our mutant maws Don’t sic
a redwood forest on a declared American
the lost is cause To love is to become
heavy dripping leaves why I in my bog
avoid fervencies radio frequencies
closing my eyes
for any extended period on this forlorn planet
lest some vibrational entirety reign
***
A screen hovering above
hi-beams loops
vaguely familiar people
eating cake with their hands
and no utensils
in an Olympic sized pool
The caveat being beware the lyric I
debates that don’t consider the I
as the state would have it
In other words ACHTUNG
rats disguised as dogs
Who did this to rat? I meant rote.
Murder she R-O-T-E which is
the tossed TV on the shoulder
of Route 80 in old PA
flickering from snow to a bitch
regurgitating for her fluffy pups
the freshly dead
At just the right moment
my mother fed me to the wolves
It was our harmonic courage
Our tags said
O DEAD BAD AT DEAD
Dissolving is the victory
Eleanor, We Have Put These Difficulties Behind Us
One winter the car windshield was covered in thin sheet of ice I turned
the engine on To defrost Went back inside
Came out and the driveway was empty Like looking at parenthesis
missing the words A week or so later Cops found it burn marks
all over the seat Human sweat reek Needles on the floor needles
in the seat cushions 25 minutes have passed Take out the potatoes coat with
more butter more salt feeling reckless
Spider plant looking droopy should I water it Someone bumps into the aloe plant
Curses to no one in particular Math homework left on the table Emma watching
YouTube videos attempting to learn K-Pop dance Someone’s face obscured
Laptop screen all this metal and plastic Where did nature go? A thyme leaf stuck
beneath fingernail A scream from the bathroom One of those bugs
with all the legs creepy long things flitting around from its head Picked up
and flushed Later full of potatoes and too much sour cream Chives wrapped
around dental floss bad dreams about a zillion creepy bugs
Emerging from the toilet
Your finger taste salty wash them again need a glass of water Three faces
in two beds each buried in a book An idea about breakfast A yawn
Car tires on the road Ambulance siren A yawn
book weighing on the wrist Another idea About breakfast
it will have to wait Lights off did you say something
DEPARTMENT STORE POPULISM
Once a billionaire you can’t be anything else
Shockingly thrifty or your origin story doesn’t matter
Laughter at the expense
Casual decisions make someone else die a little
You are a traitor to creation
less secret on the wooden floor
Trash separated and sorted
A bright sunny day means endless meetings
you’ll be tan anyway
The rat race is over
You won
It’s more like a please and thank you pile
in which the rats discuss the confusing nature of assets
with you as the love object
I like rats but I have never been one
Will the bank mow the lawns of the empty houses
The moral of folktales is to desire wealth
to love scarcity which is actual love
to leave in a carriage with a prince
who can’t tell the difference between a girl and bird
and wonder if we’re all one soul or isolated
Tambourine
Shade gardening
I masticate the message
Maser guidance
Hug routine
Just a single mar
A face in the bark
I call imagination for want
Of better
Who are your betters
As you join them
The rockiest rocks
Sound the soundiest sounds
I take my seven league boots
For a seven league step
Not knowing yet
How far seven leagues go
Fellowship, friendliness
How tenderly you forget
Like blowing up a balloon
With a tiny image on it
Growing but fading
Signatures of natures
Speech is the sound
Of destruction
Where the where is
A shell around a bubble
Contains no such thing
Sleep, water
The box folds flat
The flat folds too
Storyocious
Oblong obs
We did a marine ecology-themed escape room recently
We did a marine ecology-themed escape room recently
for people addicted to academic associations and societies
to make their flooring projects easier. We started out clueless,
shoveling coal into tankers focused on rehoming Manhattan’s
mastodon bones. Then one nagging question arose: did we really
need a reversible jacquard comforter cover, after the tufted muted
neutral/pure organic vegetable fiber cover failed to transform everyday
bedding forever? That our hearts were so not vegan was a gyre we could
no longer ignore. But as we knelt, sighing deeply, with the palm fronds that
came with our breakfast packages (the first on the continent), we thought we
detected echoes of dawn’s whale aubades in the petrichor of the evergreen shade.