-
“Mother Asleep” after a painting by Leon Kossoff
What if the mother is always sick, what if for her whole life, she is sick — when we were children — weren’t we always asking: is that sleep she is sleeping or is it a slide toward death? What is it to be always in fear, isn’t that ridiculous, that one’s hug or one’s […]
-
Hair of Insight (for my friends in and of Chicago)
A man in front of me fainted and fell as I waited in line for my flight to be changed. I felt nothing in that moment except an urgency to make it to where I would see again and dissolve things with my breathing. I was not cold. I was there, but only in a […]
-
Splayed in the Nave (for Joe Donahue)
Beast, lurid with scripture. Feast, putrid with nature. Days. Days & calendrical days. Aztec anticipations. Cataracts of fever. . Praise of the sun is ancient avarice for nightless surfaces deep fuels agonize with light holocausts —: pure creative force. But the soul — even yours Apollo — avoids sunshine; cool to the touch it’s nacred […]
-
The Gift
Once again ensconced safely In weariness, a showdown Of weary sentiments, the Mellifluous hobgoblins Pretending right thought, right thinking, Right truths rightfully decided, Myriad philosophies. This day, this hour that steals From you these fashioned triumphs, Cradling imagined beasts Easily defiled, knowing Neither thicket nor wild.
-
Lifetime
Is not the channel Between my dry Wry English humor Your coy French Champs d’Élysées Is not a compound Word that sentences Us to doing time Simply because We got life It’s the arduous strolls Up North and down South Beach by the bay window At dinner in Edinburgh Lunch on the bay in Sausalito […]
-
To Earth
No way into your face, just a flame to be at home in, and so I come to understand cold. Far away, slowly, shapes take the place of snow, until even weather appears to be dead. What late thought, what careful error — that hearing in you spares me.
-
Untitled
Ask not reason, Klytaemnestra, or probe your ice-pick through those multiplying diptych grams. Ablutions rain down worthy patronness, the saint between cleric and layman gesturing prosperity and war. Black lines border yellow, red and the white poofy quiff tangles in a down-heaving brand. Shave me clean as an ice- pick, pink soft fasten bulbous. Splooge […]
-
Guns & Loans
gory bone good war read I’m out of my jurisdiction but string infinite progress along in theatrical homage to patricide I’m lucky, I’ve the filthy powder that tips the bucket spilling itself entering into is a displacement of having been kindly invited ~ ~ ~ we arrived the hardest […]
-
The Division of Labor
The book opens, tangled in misfortune. One walks into this world having been silent and suffering out the universe, remains. If bruises place damage, bodies are nothing more than banned books. Complete waste of images. The book opens with an evacuation. My father scrapes into next century, but barely. His wife a wilted centerpiece. In […]