POEM
The horse in my calf is named Charlie.
And that's okay. My foot is cast in fiberglass,
and that's also okay—even par for the course.
I keep swinging and swinging, as the grass
cuts up. The sky flies green with terrible birds.
It’s all I can do to keep my mouth running over.
The virus spirals backwards and settles
in the cities. The redhead so pretty, I can't
write it in a letter. Instead, metaphysics.
I desire a bath. How much longer will I be able
to vanish in the muses, the news blasting forth
like my heart on a spring? Today alone
I read for hours, two friends meeting
in a lime-tree bower, then throwing a party
and throwing it away. Hunky dory. What
a finish. Part of me smiling in a world
with no message, and another part spitting
in the mountain's ugly face. You should see me
wallow in the pleasure of the meadow my mind
has made up in the wake of your feeling.
I don’t care if it’s starless. It’s okay that it’s ending.
But what isn’t is staring at some dumb, lost horizon—
hallucinating feeling, feeling nothing.
STILL LIFE WITH LANDSCAPE IN EARLY MIDDLE AGE
Very few birds I walk
the green light, light like lime paper
and the margins grow dimmer
It’s a new time Now I have more of it
Drop the little girl at school
Then talk to ghosts as if they were
with me I don’t know exactly
who’s watching, as I slide into home,
then down to the dugout I call my basement
office Smell of maple syrup still lingering
from breakfast The Object Stares Back
Philosophical Investigations I feel
looked after, though the sky’s clearly empty
Everything creaks when I open up
the books I read The day is ever ready
like a tiger in the rushes, which isn’t
so nearly heavy-duty as it sounds
I glue myself risen to the chapters
on The Muses Faintly, a worm-glowing
tree like my mind And the artists in the stories
and the artists in knots remind me of someone
saying never give up and also that one
saying Rooster to my face, a term
of endearment, like a flashlight forever
In the books, the characters sit beside me
on a lark One the interlocutor, the other
broken sculpture They ask me my reasons
It was 1969, the year of my arrival, woke up
from a mountain with a flower in my heart
already missing what I couldn’t remember
It was golden My friend in the airport
who’s a donkey was with me My fiend
in the flytrap was always on the floor I’m
laughing in your ear hole so you’ll understand
my feeling And also I’m telling you
the whole world at once No daffy duck
makes sense in a row Happily ever after,
I call the moon my own I like
the funny breathing suits, the look
of your confusion Puke and cry
the wily dinosaur continues And blast off
the goldfish’s sad little bowl The crux
is finding the crux in the caboose, winging
in the face of a dissonant note Totaled
by niceness, I’m destroyed in the bushes
I swallow the horizon and the book’s
congratulations, the one about the rabbits
and a new revolution Now the limits
of my language are the limits of my limits
Forty years later, 2009 Ancient glowing
phone booth, the moon on my mind One giant
step for Beauty and Sadness, the Muses crying out
for a story where it hurts us If you want,
we’ll hit the parking lot and feed the bread
some ducks The kitchen argues gracefully
for making a lasagna The sculpture
most convincingly an art school education
I spout maple syrup from the spigot
in my neck and hack at the page
with a Remington machete What can I say
to the gathering Greek darkness My wife
is a flood and I drown in her amusements
The little girl crying when she ought to be
a stone I thank everyday for the blessing
of nonsense Otherwise, I’d die dining out
on your liver Very few birds, but the words
I have no problem contrapuntal Ibuprofen
My Aegean Sea The black cat on your forehead
The comfy pink pajamas The wind blowing
whitely as I try to catch the ball The mistake
people make is in believing this is offal
when the truth is that it’s sad, but it tickles
when you bite it So much liberty the car-
washing infants My mouth full of lobster
when you turn to paint the wall
I walk along a wooded path and flip
our light’s existence Stormtrooper costume
Ratatouille The Rooster Poetry’s amazing, I said
in a dream, then woke up, adding, not mine in particular
but somebody’s sure And the little girl waiting
in the hallway for her other A little bit messy
when I’m riding my scooter Gum on my fibula
Speed in my pelvis The way to the bedroom
so gossipy and long Very few birds
It all blends together Tomorrow new glasses
through a jumbo Margarita Cincinnati, Ohio
Might as well be explosive 1969
the year I was born The wind so whitely
and the books going blue Forty
years later at the bottom of some paper
Scissors and feathers and glue
