Is it the Aids virus you thought you had?
or, Melissa?
life so painful i remembered to cry
i forgot how to stop
walking down 34th in yr ninja outfit
what year was that
what world was that
now you can question the questions
now that your new job
private eye
in the public fist
always first
in my book
_________________________________________________
--for David Hammons
Bbbbbbbbb
Bluelueluelululu
Blablueblablueblablablablue
Booloo Booloo Booloolu
Blackalackalacka Blackalackalo
Tuntuntunnel
Blueblack Blacklack Bluelackablueblack
“Coooooaaaaalllllll Aboard!”
Bound for Soundtown Frowntown
Browntown Downtown Pronoun
Handsdown Hoedown Knockdown
Thumbsdown Shantytown Ghosttown
“Coooooaaaaalllllll Aboard!”
Goin so fast it’s slow doncha know
Blue train downtrain beattrain piano
Piano blue train
Piano blue coal
Piano blue tunnel
Piano blue train coal
Cool
Cool coal
Cool coal coal cool cool
Blue cool too blue to cool blue
Trainchugga woochugga woo woo
Blueloo blueloo blue
Bbbbbbbbb
Wooooooooooooooooooooooo woo
_________________________________________________
BONEMAMA
BONEMAMA!
(A Prayer for Mouth Almighty)
Lisssen.
We shall overcome, Babes. We'll roar this sucker round
bendski, make the frou-frou Cappalinski, go all the way
to the Velvet 88's, keep the tacos snappin at the Gates ---
Mouth Almighty's just Be Gun to ROAR
Evermore baby EverfuckinMore
we'll find new distributorship
or fuckem for a buckem on the tenderst lip
_________________________________________________
Unbuild box!
Deboxify box!
Unbox antibox! Call it
No Box!
_________________________________________________
You only live once, so why not make it forever?
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Yes, act now & receive absolutely free (15.95 postage & handling costs), a rare psychedelic relic: a genuine Plastic Splinter from the Cross;
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& for your late-nite ecstasy, get way down at our Traditional Holy Hop, a moment of shared experience in the flesh with all your favorite gurus, Mother Superiors & Father Inferiors,
the Flock's in the Foal for God's Rock'n'Roll -
So Rev it up, reverend - saving your Soul has never been so Goddamn much fun -
& remember - it's never too late to start all over!
It's Soul-a-matic Time! A chance like this may not come your way for another 2,000 years.
So bring the whole family & slouch on down towards Levittown!
_________________________________________________
<<My chronos is in radical disjuncture
(which shouldn't happen so easily to a
medievalist). >>
1 morning, not
so long ago, 1215
something like
or, 1315? round
it off a shoulder
time was
different then before
the invention of traffic
lights and swinging
doors, before
the gym floor
buckled under
the mighty muddy
Ohio that morning
in New Richmond on
and sometimes
in was in that morning
1964 I believe it was
you stranded on Main
Street (65? spring!)
to court you in a boat
_________________________________________________
Wind ices beard. You can hear Mississippi
Hiss in its sibilant syllables, listen,
Yo, Mr. Bones, bury the man! Stars
Aflicker like an obnoxious angel’s spit,
I'd grab for the first partner, I was you,
Who has a flask, and dream a song of sleeping
As the night edge cuts the bridge span in half
Should of listened to anyone else, but how to hear
Other than your own country? Call me Big Mouth.
I can cross this bridge in all directions,
The sides rush in to meet me like a train,
Number 5 painted in gold on the engine,
That head-on smack, that no escape
All the poems, lined and rowed, nod encouragement
As the frozen river plummets to my kiss,
The suns spin wildly
And the spittle freezes lips tightclosed, what a hoot.
Old owl, Forever in the midst of middle
Repeating the Truth to make it true.
_________________________________________________
Dear morning's day, dear possibility
As if it made a difference you say don't you know
You are the difference, the one who, the being
Possible. How easy to sit and type poems
As if someone else were writing what to do, what
Do we do? Over in the corner affectionately known
"The Love Pit" we call it as we come up for air
"Where are you where are you" tattooed all over
The empty space where we were, drinking
Each other now, holding tight make it so.
_________________________________________________
DISSOLVING THE FIX, FIXING THE DISSOLVE
I want to thank you for sneezing when I was born
My theme today is melting
Theme, melt! theme
Lovely weird, how it is
To think about you way over
There in your sweet new moon
The rent’s sky-high! three minutes
From the middle of Middle
In case you can’t tell, I will
Wish I there were swinging the chandelier
With your big team. Instead, I am here
Listening, as usual, to the “Poem
: The Lizard’s Eye” this one is
Called, the tease of your absence
How long the endless poem, fly to Detroit
Remember this, I loved you,
And the camera of words, during, and love
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
ensor not the oobly
of yr doobly doo
Let it crown the crow
Grow a can of cow corn all shorn
For sure
It was the sea
Twas that the sea?
O! What a beautiful Absolute
Walking around, a beanbag of blood
Keeping pace with the air, a purple
Brilliance abop the brilliance
Because the poet tastes
The words as she makes 'em
The rules and roles are sweeping
Up is up wherever
The sea unfurls itself your hair
To make itself the c
(in censor not)
_________________________________________________
--Koon Woon
Thinking music moving furniture plunge
into fountain frisky-like adore the glint
on you!
I will teach beautiful theater to mammals dance au'jourd'hui.
I will not be home till the moon has had its fill of you.
Then to slide gently beside.
_________________________________________________
FOUND ON SOMEONE ELSE'S HARDDRIVE
As you predicted, the package arrived today.
I am in the middle of the Idlewild-Samizdat
controversy -- should I move into the airport?
feed you cock cocaine, there is so much Greek
I have to translate tonight and only one (sigh)
piece (sigh sigh) of Nico. This latest version
of the tape is more finished and rougher, it is
therefore unlistenable. Giant Sand has been
pricking my hair back. And so (und zo) it was
has been is quite a day. Mainly on line 2 hours
with my girlfriend, a tight-pussied young delight
(you'd swear she was a virgin I tell you, but she
has been around you can tell), who leads me down
the blind allies that I may see round the corners: I
call her my periscope, and she lets me look inside
her orifices till I can't stand it anymore, have to
appoint like Consulates and Ambasadors to her
body parts, while she continues to read aloud
some dope poetry shit, I don't know what
it means but I do know I love it like heroin.
Two hours ago we filled up the message box so it
couldn't take it anymore, and then I couldn't save it,
but I found a way to strip the .temp file off the hard
drive and paste it straight onto my skin, like a nicotine
patch tattoo. I love you can't live without you I'm just
glad you're here, breathing all over the place, playing
suicide footsy with me as I fillet the trout with a razor.
yr hardon'ed future dude
_________________________________________________
HAS THERE EVER BEEN ANYTHING BUT INFOTAINMENT?!
Purpose of headline is to sell the paper
Purpose of the anchor is to keep you from the zap
Best-seller found in a hotel drawer:
Miracle Man Whomps Apostle Upside Head
Read all about it!
Twixt thumba and afore fing a girl twirls
A tiny globe, we are shaking, which way
Is up anymore! Lugubrious comfort
Who can keep the Faith that insists you
Learn History instead of Become It,
A Giant Can opens,
heartless lover,
Making you quit the job that held it all together
(You equals seam of Can, holding Can closed.).
The world's foundation is quicksand
And is getting quicker. Out back at Le Brea, it's humans
On exhibition, hyperstacked moments of "Actual
Occurrence" brain pattern display: there, in amber,
La belle Amherst sans merci realizing
That fly buzzing by breaks all news
Like water bag readying birth! Light bulb pops on
On Sir Newton's skull, as grave Apple of Pure Reason
Rumbas air.
Sure, we know Chaucer ripped off Boccaccio,
But that didn't stop Braque and Picassio from cubing
That square, so now everyone can reverse screed
And check all sides simultaneously! Racism
Dies. I marry a hologram.
At midnight the cobbler's shop
Will become the fifth video store
In this town of 8200.
And just yesterday I was complaining
That resoling now costs more
Than buying a brand new pair of shoes.
_________________________________________________
this sounds not good, these pogroms. i'm very proud of you for not going to that meeting -- maybe you can shake things up. I HATE CAPITALISM where the idea is to have the fuckin Meeting and not DO the fuckin thing! you're right, it's a taking away from an idea, this superficial committeeizing. so fuckin internet. Altho i love internet when it brings me boots (already here! most cool! and, perfect fir ha ha). and NYTimes has article about love a-bloomin on the net, hmmm. supposedly for "verbal" people.
Well, good luck in yr interview about MEN. You are the only expert I know without penis.
sweet & hot, that's good,
sour and hotter, yeah that's right,
all night all night alright tonight
_________________________________________________
HOW TO SAVE YOUR SOULD WITH ROCK'N'ROLL
Start with a Bloody virgin Mary & a French toast Host
Breakfast w/ Champions & a Holy Ghost
Holy guacamole! a Papal Bull roast
Get on yr knees so yr disease can be diagnosed
Don't slosh it w/ the sherpas to some Himalayan height
Visit our heavy‑hittin' Tibetan, his 3rd eye's out of sight!
Be careful yr not blinded by his clear white light
On a toot w/ the Absolute? The price is right!
Levitating in Levittown
All the gurus are getting down
Get a mighty holy high from a roly‑poly holy
Gonna save yr soul! Gonna steal yr dough!
_________________________________________________
The Very Last
_________________________________________________
Swing sweet and low chariot.
Bright day, eyes skies, bless bower rise
I want eat!
Miracles are in the way! Give me ‘nother Authotonic sheer heteronymicality
(Fernando Pessoa, my love).
Wassup? I do believe the same sound covers the earth like a skin. Skin me, please. Thank the archduke for everything, esp. the war. S.th. else: I forget, so busy being, Busy Bee. Crank my crank. More television for the mass, Sunday mass, the umbrella fits so neatly on your head. Holding your head, I think your thoughts.
Good afternoon from
the loon
_________________________________________________
You are awake. Morning is happening
all around you birds sing. Like a dot
on a map you are part of Morning World,
you are it in it. This is comforting, the sun
entering, invited or not, tide on sand.
What else? Everything, slowly returning,
positioning, chairs, rugs and bedside tables.
Gray and ghosty, eyes unfocussed,
focus on nothing, drifting.Sleep leaves
like breath from someone dying.
The idea of getting up, out
of bed, is a thought that crosses the river
on a raft. What you will do is this:
the big pants, the long rubber coat,
the hard red hat that covers your neck.
Step into the boots, slide down the pole
to the barking dalmation, hop aboard.
Off you go to fight the fires of morning.
_________________________________________________
Many say the smell is overpowering
but their nasal insecurities are not sufficient
to keep me from setting up basecamp in your armpit
Dewsweat, coalfire, beaverfat, marshmallow,
cross-stitch sampler HOME SWEET ARMPIT
I’m reading Ogotomelli, feet up on orange crate,
your face on label
I’d never seen it there before! how’d it get there?
the way you superglue
Photobooth minisnap over author’s photo (not Ogotomelli)
it wasn’t there! till I 1)finished book 2) put it down 3) sighed
like reading completion good meal -- you!
The book, the sampler, the conversation with Ogotomelli
I had and you were with me
looking at me from places you aren’t
always me astonishes
How everywhere you are! It’s a mystery, a word I never
use because language itself
(Words I mean) are the answer to all mystery. In
other words, how can it be a mystery if it is
the word “mystery,” there’s no mystery bout that!
Just as there is no answer to “answer” in answer.
When I ask the question about the Yummo
the twin pre-beings (Andamboulou) of the Dogon
I need to know all this because air
Is water when you are pre-being which sounds ok
but instead of legs
Serpent tails ok ok. It is like looking right
through you to see the world because
you are not here and that is the mystery
of love not to be solved or answered
or at least I hope not
View from armpit quite pleasant
smoke from coalfire curling as hairs do
I am dream and driven totally crrazy with the smell
smell deep covering all the complete interior decoration
find world’s softest skin rough nest for tongue and sleep
_________________________________________________
"One of these days" was what you said to the waiter, who brought our breakfast into Rm 317 and who didn't even blink or smile at the bed that looked like a giant flag of Japan that morning; we should've ordered sushi, I keep thinking, to cover it up. Instead I had ham and you took fruit.
You were looking out the window long enough for me to know that you had noticed I was looking at you lookng out the window but you would not turn and I would not stir. My ghost slipped out and held you from behind and your ghost fell back into my arms. We were the ghosts then, as much liquid as solid, as much ether as earth, and when we looked to our bodies so still looking at each other still, we couldn't help but laugh, sneak between a laugh a kiss, hugging, rolling, cracking up with life.
The shampoo I had used to wash my hair before you came by: Pantene Pro-V. By midnight my hair was dry, I didn’t want you to know I'd taken a shower. Maybe you were just dropping by to bring me a travel guide to NYC. But then you didn't. And the smell of Pantene Pro-V still reminds me of thinking that the taxi from Duane to Clinton might not arrive (and how it did).
The same thing but black. The same steps the same white the same evolutionary construct that left us with such farcical elements as "feet" ("the better to play with you m'deah") the same barbecue the same gin buttons the same grimy air the same uptown downtown uptown the same ticket forever on the windshield the parabreeze the not touching and the same touch.
_________________________________________________
A performance by Bob Holman and Chris Tysh
<< My gesture that destroys
My tongue that ( I can't quite read myself) ...fire
I tried taking off the mask >>
I tried husking the do, the don't won't, the tired try, the rest caboodle
"No, don't get up. That would be a gesture, and every gesture interrupts a dream"
"I ought now to feel unimaginable hands stroking my hair...it's the gesture they say mermaids make."
"...the past of marvelous people who never existed."
"A stream used to run near my mother's house. Why should it have run there,
and not further away, or nearer?"
"There are waves in my soul...When I walk I rock myself"
"It horrifies me that soon I will already have told you what I am about to say."
"I speak, and I think about it in my throat, and my words seem to me like people."
"Why do we have to speak?...It's better to sing, I don't know why."
"Year after year, day after day, in a continuous dream, the mariner built his new homeland...Every day he placed a dream stone on that impossible construction."
"Don't wring your hands. It makes a noise like a furtive snake."
"The whole of his life had been the life he had dreamed."
"moreover, the music of your voice, which I listened to even more than your words, leaves me discontented, perhaps because it is only music."
"I feel my eyes burning, from having thought of weeping."
"What voice is this you're speaking with?...It's the voice of someone else."
_________________________________________________
POINT A FINGER AT THE THERAMIN
The brute force of White's endgame
Will devour the bitter moral integrity
As music? A thin rope
Of encouragement
Keeps the surface
In line
Truth dissolves into persuasiveness
The irritating hitch of an unreliable chameleon
You are entirely right to argue
Keep arguing
_________________________________________________
PRAISE POEM FOR DREAM WORKSHOP
Scheme of DreamsDream ThingTeam DreamDream CreamDream SoupLife Is ButtaDreamsliderDreamsBeamsSupreme WorkDreamresisterDance Dreams WordsDance Dream WordsDream KulchurBox o’DreamsDream TasteDream Wreck CreamDream SoupLife Is ButtaDreamsliderDreamsBeamsSupreme WorkDreamresisterDance Dreams WordsDance Dream WordsDream KulchurBox o’DreamsDream TasteDream Wreck CreamDream SoupLife Is ButtaDreamsliderDreamsBeamsSupreme WorkDreamresisterDance Dreams WordsDance Dream WordsDream KulchurBox o’DreamsDream TasteDream Wreck CreamDream SoupLife Is ButtaDreamsliderDreamsBeamsSupreme WorkDreamresisterDance Dreams WordsDance Dream WordsDream KulchurBox o’DreamsDream TasteDream Wreck Dream Scheme of DreamsDream ThingTeam DreamDream CreamDream SoupLife Is ButtaDreamsliderDreamsBeamsSupreme WorkDreamresisterDance Dreams WordsDance Dream WordsDream KulchurBox o’DreamsDream TasteDream Wreck CreamDream SoupLife Is ButtaDreamsliderDreamsBeamsSupreme WorkDreamresisterDance Dreams WordsDance Dream WordsDream KulchurBox o’DreamsDream TasteDream Wreck CreamDream SoupLife Is ButtaDreamsliderDreamsBeamsSupreme WorkDreamresisterDance Dreams WordsDance Dream WordsDream KulchurBox o’DreamsDream TasteDream Wreck CreamDream SoupLife Is ButtaDreamsliderDreamsBeamsSupreme WorkDreamresisterDance Dreams WordsDance Dream WordsDream KulchurBox o’DreamsDream TasteDream Wreck Dream Frank Gehry had a Dream EIEIOooooooo Frank Gehry had a Dream EIEIOooooooo Frank Gehry had a Dream EIEIOooooooo
_________________________________________________
PRAISE POEM FOR JAN HOET ON HIS BIRTHDAY:
The artist climbs into the ring
The museum director climbs into the ring
The poet climbs into the ring
The musician stays outside
The ring but the music
Climbs into the ring and puts on gloves
Lovely music played by violinist
In boxing gloves in fact
Everybody’s wearing boxing gloves
And the gloves are happy red
To sleep with boxing gloves on
Have boxing glove sex beat breast genitalia
The media climbs into the ring to declare:
Art Is the Winner!
Big money bets on the artist to be the winner (he’s the favorite!)
Nobody bets onthe museum director to be the winner
(it would be impolite!)
The poet holds the money (‘cause he’s really a poet!)
Crowd roars ring gong bell
Banging boxing mixing moshing
A tired brown dog from Kosovo climbs into the ring
Coach Balanchine, Coach Duchamp
The audience is shrieking blood art blood art!
Art clobbers entertainment in the ring
Then art marries commerce in the ring
Puts ring on in ring then fornicates in
The ring makes More Art in the ring!
The audience climbs into the ring
The French frites climb into the mouths
Of the audience the Belgian Chocolates
The boxing glove figleaf centerpieces More beer!
Climbs into the ring the testicles and labia in the ring
Flash bulbs live broadcast ring pow pow power
O pugilistic art!
O patron saint of poets in the dark
Painters in helmets, painters with gloves on
O glove of communion
A handy rings
A mobile, a cellular rings
Ring ring ring
One by one the audience climbs out of the ring
Art is the winner is climbing out of the ring
The media is busy manipulating the TIE
The artist the museum director TIE
Happy we all win, the artist is carried out of the ring
On stretcher speaking on cell phone to King Leopold
It is for you it is for you
The dog from Kosovo becomes overnight art star
Poet writes poem about climbing Into the Ring
Museum director is crowned Champion of the World
That is the report from the ring
It all happened in the ring
Words spoken by poet by dog
Ring ring ring ring ring. It’s for you.
_________________________________________________
PRAISE
POEM FOR SLAM:
Why Slam Causes Pain and Is a Good Thing
<< sigh. why does this have to be such a pain?
Charles Ellik >>
Because Slam is Unfair.
Because Slam is too much fun.
Because poetry.
Because rules.
Because poetry rules.
Because the poetry gets lost.
Because poetry an endangered species Slam finds and revivifies.
Because you cannot reduce a poem to its numerolgical equivalent.
Because hey it's poetry in everyday life every Sunday at 7:30 PM.
Because I can do that.
Because everybody's voice is heard.Because Old White Guys as usual.
Because it's the opposite that includes the opposite.
Because do not institutionalize the anti-institution!
Because it's meant for middle and high schoolers so they get their adrenalin poetry shots.
Becase Pepsi and Nike have conflicting ideas about the team uniforms.
Because competitive.
Because Allen Ginsberg says, "Slam! Into the Mouth of the Dharma!"
Because Gregory Corso says, "Why do you want to hang out with us old guys? If I was young, I'd be going to the Slam!"
Because Bob Kaufman writes, “Each Slam/a finality.”
Because Patricia Smith has more truth in her little finger than entire Boston Globe front page.
Because Marc Smith and because Chicago.
Because Nuyorican Poets Cafe and multi-culti.
Because Taos World Heavyweight Championship Poetry Bout.
Because rap is poetry, and Hiphop is culture.
Because three minute pop song.
Because the point is not the points.
Because audience.
Because heckling.
Because judges selected whimsically are instant experts.
Because Dewey Decimal System of Slam Scorification reduces possibility of Ties and Dreaded Sudden-Death Spontaneous Haiku Overtime Round.
Because the National Slam is summer boot camp for poets.
Because first six years only women win Indy Slam Champ Boot.
Because local heroes finally have national community.
Because democratization of art.
Because Best Poet Always Loses.
Because cool mediaization of poetry is rooted in hot live performance of poetry.
Because when in the course it looks like poetry is disappearing, the furious uproar of the Word will not be stilled.
Because Wiliam Carlos Williams wrote, “It’s hard to find the news in poetry,” but we say, we’ve got news for you.
Because performance is a see-through page, and the oral tradition a hidden book
Because it's called Slam.
_________________________________________________
he snorts, she sore, they
spent the night out
on the couch different
floors, she was in a pillow
fight they knew the airport
number was 61 who said
91 I know them! or, did,
I knew them when they
were young and silly and "in
love" which meant "in bed"
now they are always running
off to research the other phone
ringing in their other’s heads
_________________________________________________
SOWING STARS: PRAISE HELEN TWORKOV
-- for Helen’s 60th for us all
This much I can tell you
There is nothing easy about ease
There’s nothing difficult about difficulty
The eagle’s claw unclenches and the egg
begins slo-mo descent
That is the six unclenching, becoming a zero
So now we have these two zeroes lined up
As if the millennium were a gate
And the population of the world is lineup single file
To pass through into The Future
Which is not ours top see and of which I can tell you nothing
Except this: one day you call it the Gulf Stream
of Contentment and the next
It’s the Undertow of Desperation
You can go from zero to sixty in 3.9 seconds
and if there’s a brick wall it’s still kiss
the airbag if you’re lucky
So as we wait on line at the Gates of the Future
It breaks down until it looks for all the world like party party
It’s our line, and we can party of we want to
Which is all I can tell you, all that I can say
On the tilted edge of Sight Cove
Amidst the awesome comfort of Cape Breton
With Isle Magaree a single eye reflecting star after star
In the difficult, easy embrace of age and friends
_________________________________________________
In a message dated 99-02-25 02:30:50 EST, you write:
<< I don’t know about this closeness thing. >>
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
I do
Wanna come over
I’ll tell you about it
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
Take it from me
No one does
Let’s take off our clothes
And dance
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
You don’t?
Would you like to talk
About it?
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
I don’t know about this closeness thing, either
I’m coming right over
Such an astonishing coincidence
We must take advantage of the moment
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
Who does?
I once met someone who did.
Suicide. Closer to God.
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
The question is
what does this
closeness thing
know about you
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
I’m on my way over right now
We need to talk about this closeness thing
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
It’s not that you don’t know about this closeness thing
It’s that something is holding you
Back from knowing about it
Is there anything in your childhood...?
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
I’m impressed
You can think so clearly
With your pussy in my mouth
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
No one does
That’s why words were invented
And sex, so we could shut up
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
We could talk about it
We are 1,000s of miles apart
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
This closeness thing
Knows a lot about you
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
Really?
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
I’m sorry, what did you say?
I can’t hear you
Could you come a little closer?
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
You seem to be very close
To something here
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
I don’t either
Let’s fuck
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
I’d really like to talk
About this closeness thing
But my phone card will run
Out in four minutes
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
The key word is “about”
There’s something about “about”
What "about" it?
"It" is also a problem
I also don’t know "about" "it"
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
It all depends what you mean by closeness
What do you mean by closeness?
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
Too bad
Everyone else does
Except me
Want to get together?
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
What closeness thing?
I Don’t Know About This Closeness Thing
There’s no such thing
As a closeness thing
_________________________________________________
High-Stepping Horses With Purple Tails
Lift high, lift high! plumed legs
To fly! the Maypole, sturdy and festive
The sun is a hot bath -- hot as you can stand
Lift high -- jump out of the tub -- fly!
Jimmy Crack Corn
Went down to the station carrying my bags
So heavy. All the smells of Pineville funeral
Here -- the train comes to pick them up.
Smells poring into a rubber mold, and making
Me up. And I don’t care and I don’t care. My
Father’s gone away and I don’t care. Step back
From the train, please, Young Man. Young Man!
Tennessee
Ballfield! Big boys play! Sit watch!
Rub hand through grass, it’s clover.
It’s four leaf clover! And five! Six!
It’s rare, three-leaf clover here.
The smokey water under Tennessee.
_________________________________________________
2 or 3 nights running
The yellow green dim tobacco shop
t-shirts, rain, hair
the stair leads both ways
arms inflect raking pulling
lips to say linoleum delirium
naked smoke the language
of kiss tear of ravage
_________________________________________________
Most Truth is fucked-up
And that’s the Truth
Tour to Canada
Password in -- Messin’ around
Out -- Actually
Guardians of the Edge
Flags form a protective sheet of patriotism
trying to become who gives a fuck
_________________________________________________
unsnownow
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In reply to yr letter of and in order to faclitate the, I proffer the large and grand sweet tiny fragmented apples’ consideration. Should you be of a mind to in other words there are always the other words worth every breath or some such. Can't recall the exact but the generous motivator please. I urge you to take a step closer and allow me to gently kiss you all over your deliriously beautiful body and, having concluded the moment with ecstatic yips and fully fulfilling growls, return to that from which we never left, ever, not even once, for a milisecond's revenge, the universe itself panting and waving as we leave it all behind.
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The corkscrew works just fine in the keyhole
Amazing recovery, there, finding the typewriter
Buried in the cellar (At last a cellar. Never
To go back to basements again!). Hmm
Intriguing cabbage aroma hovering wraith
Kitchen. Bloodstains, or shoe polish or something
In the hall -- the telephone rings immediately!
The first wrong number. Wrong wrong. Each
Address whites itself out, unscrolling, a Torah
Of Evolution, becoming the place we live in
And of course vice versa, the nest kicks
You out and the sweet familiar bed catches
On the doorjamb the hairlines mark the growth
Of the children. Where are they now? Upstairs
Is a question mark, an attic of promise, sunshine
Covering the past, simultaneously we can see
What we see is this: a woman at the typewriter
Carefully baking windows of promise birds
Gently crash into, new music. Family dances
in, future rears back into now the door again.
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"XMAS PRAISE" "I AM NOT GRAMPAW MERWIN"
-- To Zac and Will Holman and Liam Hanlon
Dear Boys,
Xmas comes but oncet a yar
Been a thousand times two now
That Millennial Fever has come to town
The 3 Wise Guys, they celebrated the 1st Xmas
When the found baby Jesus a-hollering
& gave it up, presents-wise, to hush hush
The enclosed fiduciary instrument
Is one pore replacement for a tin of myrrh
Win a prize every Xmas -- did Jesus blow out
His candles, make wishes, play pin the Jew
On the crucifix? You get the picture. However,
The picture this year is, as far as the NYC Murray-
Holmans (Holmen?) are concerned is cash
On the barrelhead, a check, rather, to be negotiated
By someone with bank account, said buck-o’s to be used
As you see fit,
Invest in Pokemon
Or go to a couple of movies or put it on an Internet stock or
Whatever.
But remember -- cash is for you for only one reason --
With your increased age
Comes the responsibility of knowing what you want
(I am speaking literally and metaphorically now)
Know what you want, Boys,
Then go get it
With Love in the Twilight of the Age,
Uncle Bob, aka, Big Bob
& Family: Elizabeth, Sophie, Daisy, Otis, Abraham, Tiger & Raisin
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i am thinking of you and what we're gonna do. like mainly, not much,
but a walk to the little river would be nice. i also think of the possibility
of a swim. not a marathon, a dip. i think of yr fingers, and then toes. i
think of yr neck, and then yr ear, no, the other one. both, i mean. finger
nail and nose, and the lips i join them with a lip. lip to lips, the corner
of your mouth and the roundness of yr curves and the spot i call "mine"
and also the backs of yr knees, inside yr mind i climb, ho ho, a glass
of wine perhaps on the long incline to the solitary pine. i sit there think
of you, all of you, every scintella and scrape, every word you've ever said,
door you've closed. what goes on behind yr eyelids, the brush of yr bush,
the lick underarms moment of deep inhaling, every breath and shudder
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Amen. Awomen. A one two three...
Gotta rock'n'rolling holy rolling re‑Revival
Born Again Again! Born Again Again!
Gotta rock'n'rolling holy rolling re‑Revival
Born Again Again! Born Again Again!
HOLD YOUR TONGUE
The nuisance of the body
Is not offset
By these fragile shoes
RAIN
for Danny O'Neil
How I love
To stand
In the driving rain
Blowing my horn
At the entrance
To the Holland Tunnel
THINKING OF LI PO
(a millennium or so after Tu Fu)
An imperishable fame of 1,000 years
Is but a paltry afterlife affair
What time is it?
Singing in the rain
I think I'll talk about
How difficult it all is
Lying here in bed
Writing with you asleep
On my shoulder
try another year?