Leftovers (June 2011 - July 2012)

northern cycle

a loon in june

a fly july

must august

remember september

sober october

dismember november

ember december

dromedary january

jumps-between-humps february

starchy march

payroll april

wet-hay may

& so soon again june

"Freedom is"

Freedom is

undisciplined planes

subtracting welds

& other blemishes

& meaning -

an indefinite chain

of small & solvable

problems

we live on grass

the doctor says

& fruiting

conversation

about animals

in prison

who know

their time's

coming in

Gull Brine

Seagull's black wingtips on

kleenex & qtips

a red pack of cigarettes

& two, with a 10-pound sack of charcoal

& the picnic-bench barbecue.

Yellow beak with

a black-tip.  like its feet (webbed)

eyebrows charcoal

wings grey

will they cook    a fish?

play back gammon

while the beer foam flotteth

& Hamilton's fires cool

till you can throw a steak on

the abrupt change in colour

from violet

to blue

& the tin foiled sun

stays warm for another day

Aufklarung/Bereishit

at the head of the hall, the hod heaved udder heaven ander hearth

under snow, the poverty of the evergreen is apparent

an imitation of rays arcing in glass, veining, covenanting



in the puddle (your eyes) he casts both shadow and reflection 


throws them away and reels you in

Picasso in the Territories

Often the self is determined —

there is the bulb, the eye, the bomb

which hangs in the U.N., in textile treatment

& often, over anatomical correctnesses, the curtain is drawn

a shroud where another image forms, flat figures

outlined in chemistry organic – pus, nitre and spit

what we paint with in the cave, mere matters of convenience

& goes on tour through the territories.

Paper dolls behind firewalls, or white friars

reiterate what a Marx brother said

while the girl with the elephant-nose

toothless crescent tattoo and headscarf cranked to 11

hid in the geometry like a hand in a pocket

rose, welcomes you to heaven, and

the family of nations — our similes smile

in tones chosen for reproduction  — can suck it.

Study scraps

in shade the dandelions stay yellow

in sun turn to grey puffs & butterflies

away from the consistency of the oak

ivy lingers on the bench; chipmunks stripe my legs

a comic novel and a doric air of irrelevance to my umbrella

the squirrel's tail circles as its hips gyrate elvisly

chittering hound dog chasing priapus up a tree

leaves of several shapes and sizes, all blandly green

a slow mammoth, becrawled by fleas steps through last years acorns

this years leaves needs fleas drowsing

wild things crawl between the theatre seats

the carved or splintered stones

alone with a stone bee

stripped down to suspenders & the shuffling walk

atone with the scalp of an acorn, nut gone

*

wind-spattered rain

blake's marginalia

on the windows of the train

exuberance adding beauty

as commentary

to the trunk lines

*

radiant in the rays of the setting sun

i saw the steel hive of the steel bee

riding high on my iron horse

with my robot lassie next to me

Half After Er

The Bomb boomed in this dead era

an inconvenience. Dirty to some

but that's assuming some assumes.

They know it and do it-

assuage the many, persuade with tools

in small wet windowless rooms

a few bodies of stinking moral misbirths.

The screen barrows out the gloom

pageless, outside where glowworms stage

a coup, a croup, for crampon office,

money and change gunpowder etc meet parallel to cross

one off. Ballot rots and rosters. Sex

remains as inventory, even maybe talk

uncease, of bombshells of identity...

"When I realized I was I, I nearly died, and

then I felt the seethings of a highly unstable

powerful and labile element" It was always the body, embouched

or barely the clock. It only goes down.

I breathe in it, it in. It's under the couch

(each chest or each field.) Show me a showroom

or chatroom where it don't live, lives not.

*

the bird sang, man

an hour before dawn

but had/found no companion.

the bird had all the words in the world

and any voice to be desired

the bird was tired, see

it yearned to return to its dream

uncrossed by eyebeams' scorn

to any country but this here pit of a tree

filling with awful light ...

torn, it split in two or three.

parts slopped in the crotch of its perch

among its evacuated desires

wrung new rings on ears

rang boo-hoo, boo-hoo, who, we? liars?

*

We love you child; talk about order

Plans got scuttled - saw it on the street, legs spread

Kid, that too is part of the order,

though sometimes it don't feel like it

And war, and bepoisoned nature

all part of some grand plan?

You mean conspiracy, don't you

I never was gambling man

*

the political and moral cost

of tooth decay may just be

nice smiles