The Monday subway station’s
full of faces
fair as flowers
– See!
Then the rush, the push,
the train’s electric flexing
the shut doors’ hush
the deliberate departure
and upon the vacant station
silence settles:
the bough stripped of its petals
I heard of a girl who told that she was haunted by her father
even when he was still alive
she was a Lesbian and lived in Berlin
back when you’d still capitalize Lesbian
like there was a homeland you’d visit some day
she’d let you know her father had more than one quirk
That man’s name goes in a drawer, was a thing he’d say
I heard she told that her father was unforgiving
unforgiving like God, that kind of unforgiving
I heard she was the kind who stayed careful always
not to allow love to overcome
respect for distance
and recognized that after all people, they are dangerous
even if they never act, even if they smile
and that you’ll never know everything wrong with the world
That man’s name goes in a drawer, her father would say
not to beat around the bush
I heard after her father pulled the trigger
they opened the drawer, sure enough it was full of names
I heard that was always the end of her story
but I believe it must have left her to wonder
what else that her father had said was going to come true
That man’s name goes in a drawer, that’s what he used to say
you were a work of fiction
you were a solo cloud
baiting the Lord
with your sourest word
sure that His sword
was as light as a feather
you were clever and light
you had spent time underground
wasting your breath
in singing, your health
in fucking, your death
in not caring to go on forever
you were still somebody’s baby
you were a commonplace book
you rode the rails
you might have gone through hell
in the end you sat down on a tumbledown wall
we sat there together
you were as sure as a bird
you kept your friends to themselves
you had that place near Paris
you had a brother who called us
your cousin bent God’s ear
but we brought you a plastic tiara
* * *
you were a fiction
light as a feather
you were a sword
baiting the Lord
let’s sit here forever
singing your health
sense, the way a dog
is a machine for barking.
And just so, there are side effects:
the mess that takes you by surprise
(the wondering when did that happen?)
the licking your face
when you’re trying to sleep
and unless you take precautions
always more poems.
Siddhartha as a boy is willful:
shirks his chores and doesn’t listen
to his Mom — who maybe knows,
but doesn’t really care that his en-
lightenment one day inspires
a needful world. Instead, she’d quite
prefer Siddhartha do his homework.
Tell me (she says) this enlight-
enment, it pays? You’ll need a job,
it’s no fun living always tighten-
ing your belt, believe you me.
At least a fall-back when enlighten-
ment won’t make ends meet! — It’s well
Siddhartha pays no mind, content
to poke about, mindfully aimless,
ambling toward enlightenment.
Zeus had quite a head on him
after last night’s binge
too much nectar and ambrosia
hoo boy! So this morning
when Athena in bright armor sprang
full blown, well sure
he was proud of himself
(who else could have after all?)
but honestly he could have done
without the clanking and
(Ye gods!) the glare!
Continue reading
Honest Al got a yard full of cars
always tells the truth
about them anyway he wouldn’t
bother to lie about a thing like that
if Honest Al wasn’t being
honest he’d probably just tell you
anyway This one’s a piece of crap
you want it?
got a junkyard and a junkyard
dog an alley and alleycats
got sufficient military firepower
for this neighborhood because
you know you never know
Honest is one thing but
no rule you gotta be stupid too
got a lot of other shit
to deal with too like banks
and trucks and insurance
and taxes and traffic
and rising sea levels and
bad air and this raised
brown spot on my arm
it’s been there
a while it’s probably nothing
anyway
Honest Al’s going to the beach
to lie in the sun for a while
forget his problems watch kids play
and read some fucking poetry
1.
New rule in your city:
Everything you know about blackbirds
Is about to change.
2.
The blackbird told me
One simple trick
To get the IRS off my back.
3.
Check out these
Hilarious blackbird fails!
4.
Revealed: secrets
Of the world’s richest blackbirds.
5.
Click here to view
Celebrity nude blackbirds!!!
6.
I am Nigerian prince
Recently come to possession
Of substantial Blackbirds.
Transmission of a small sum
To pay Customs duty
Enables their release to you.
7.
Watch how this chance meeting
Between two blackbirds
Erupts into violence.
8.
The unblinking eye
Of the blackbird
Is our last bulwark
Against terrorism.
9.
Here are six wild predictions
That came true
About a blackbird.
10.
Yes! Yes!
Blackbird!
11.
Red wing; black bird;
The all-in-all.
It takes millions of colors
To make this clear
So buy a new phone now
12.
Secret brain pill blackbirds are using
May soon let them
Replace humans.
13.
True science:
This blackbird
Kept in a sealed box
Was both alive and dead
And neither.
faith is a coherent structure
of lies, but the insistent
endless inhuman beauty
of things is incoherent truth
and nobody ever went to jail
for making well-wrought urns
but not by these
shall we come to glory
mumbled the old man squatting
in his handlaid tower
looking out over the sea-churn
high up and foreseeing everything
including its inevitability
.
then standing stretching
walked away from what should
have been the tied-off
end of it all
descended the stairs
stepped over the doorjamb
walked into town
to buy groceries and gin
the traditional unwilling challenger
impassioned, nearly all-powerful
but drunk with it
hardly a friend to humanity
ruining everything like always
.
always doing that one more thing
Bag of Anything 