WINTER STORM TRAVEL SONNET


Why do they kill so much
Situated in/where spit covers her awkward burden
I like the way they his arms
Oh the dog, he sits in the mud and watches
The vagaries, butthole flush with
They're like a little homecoming party in the distance
The runt with his dike dripping finger
Was a feeling of the imagination
Why do they pray over the open water
Echoing through the wishbone
If it isn't fun, don't think it
Are Dole bananas the only real bananas
Pandemic of conception, lover dashed in a tree
All they have are opinions (which are heavier than knowledge)

A BALL AND A BAT

I once hit a baseball.
Later, under
A grandfatherly catalpa

(The wind made those
Big leaves sigh, swinging
As they were, but not

Crashing), a friend's
Brother mentioned the forest
That once covered

The entire Midwest right
Down to the Great Plains.
No deer here then (no undergrowth

For food) but a squirrel
Could make it from Muskegon
To Saint Louis and

Never touch the ground.
Blue sky, and a bat.
Years later I'd collect golf

Balls around the park
Where I worked. I'd tee up
In a soccer field bordered

By old (relatively) woods
And smack those balls, watch
Them disappear, then listen

To the sound of the trajectories--
things ripping and falling,
The sky opening, the mood

Getting larger, and larger.
I'd light a cigarette, kick
Over the last can of golf balls

Start swinging that two wood.
My years as a ball
Player had been rough.

I wanted too much something
Beyond feeling that flight that I loved,
Something I'll never name.

RETURN


The eye blinks inside an eye,
I believe I'm injured,
But all that's needed is

A walk into the amphitheater.
The piece that holds up
The car's hood is coated

In some membrane feverishly
Twisted from my gut.
Two wings burst through the back

Of my skull. It's like a call
Goes out, all the organs sinking
Toward rest, a few hot seeds

Are discharged. The world is
Cold, the stem back down to God
Is steaming. It reaches.

I don't know how but at three a.m.
I see white snow so thick
I feel I'm rising up.

Insects and roots lurch out
Of the light, like the hole in my side
Spits what feeds on a body

Onto the smooth wood floor.
The tendons in my legs are taut
And reeds spring up, silver

Like the names of minnows.
I'm--moving now--dreaming inside.
It's hard to find the glass door home.

THE STONE HOUSE

She stands, water
Running down, wires
Trailing off her

Arms, an off-white
Bathing cap, breasts
Pink in the steam,

While in adjoining
Unenclosed spaces
The sun casts blue

Parentheses of
Shadow in three
Day old deer tracks

Left in wettening
Drain fields of snow.
Vivid as wild

Grass, dirt, the light
Defines the knots
Of his knees. He's

Remembering
The kitchen full of moths,
A broken bedpost,

Catalogues and nests.
She's razor-burned.
A bulwark of

Guttered ice crashes
Out of sight. There's silence.
Something old between

Them both roars back
Like flames then squalls
Across their hairless bodies.

PREEMPTIVE

Trying to decide
About the ornamental
Space fillers, pages

Stuffed into a dying
Man's mouth. Professorial
Apologies. Life makes

A mockery of
Influence. That's not
What you intended.

EDGE TO EDGE


I took the baffle
Out of my Suzuki
125, I tore

Out fences. I dragged
My ass out of bed
This morning. I needed

To check on the over-
Head projector in
Room . . . It's not such a

Bad story. Though the
Computers resist
Me. I liked the new

Sound my motorcycle
Made--not the whine
Screaming through your teeth

Climbing a hill. I
Liked the authority
Of the engine idling

Right after. I liked
How relaxed it made
Me. Sometimes I thought

I might fucking cry.

THE DAYS OF THE WEEK


Kick boxing,
Get your eyes off
Me. Saturdays

Can kill a thrill.
Tuesdays. Enough
Counting--no order

In sequence. No
Laughter. The
Little white belt

Can hit. And films
The bleeding. Desire
Takes advantage.

Your instinct is
An end in itself.
Not enthusiasm

For Friday. Sunday.
Monday, Thursday,
The lamb lies down

On the lion.

STUFF


Some notes. Poems should appear soon in Zoland Poetry. Poems
should appear in a few months in Pleiades and Center: A Journal
of the Literary Arts. New poems have recently appeared (just
out) in The Laurel Review, Barrow Street, and Blackbird.

VOCATION

_______(for Robert Creeley)

Front-loaded,
Every
Day back once again,

Reminds me of the
Hotel rooms--
You know the hotel rooms--

You sit on your bed with a smile strapped to your face

A farm pig . . .

Perhaps wondering about sex

Or bedbugs

But let's get ourselves far far away from all that

*

What's the secret to sitting down?

(owning a stopwatch)

I still remember grandma when she was a fetus

What's it mean to be wise, or right?

WITHOUT CONTEXT


Don't think that, and then
I simply went ahead
And did. God's dress . . .

So we're gonna go with "man"?
I closed my eyes. I blushed
Inside the relevant

Moment. I could feel, after
All, what was by witnessing
The silk girders that made up

That spider's web, the web
From which the spider'd
Dropped (they all did--the sound

In that field was the sound
Of sudden hail), the inside
Rings brightly scribbled with

Scripture . . . God's Levis. God's
Photo on book jacket.
It all conspired to

Confuse me, the warm air
In the wind, like care, some-
One brushing my hair. Living

Amongst the garden spiders.
I take it back. These things
Appeared. I sometimes thought

A woman should be God,
But enough with the math.
(Her neck was long as a

Deer's is more like it.) I
Woke in a house far away
From the one I grew up

In. I began the process
Of un-bonding, a symbolic
Gesture (or series of

Gestures, petals flying
Away on the sea). We
Hooked our teeth and hands to-

Gether and chromosomes
blossomed on top of the milk . . .
O perpetual Flux.

Let the pieces of the
Spider fly in through the
Roaring fan while I sleep.

What happened to me I believe.
The Polaroids had melted.
He moved away. Cross-dresser.

EVERYONE STOP TALKING


I forget every
Day. The things I see, the
Million other--contrivance

Of interpretations,
Not mostly worried over--
Eyes. Framed, or blinking through

A peephole. Something that
Might someday make a
Squid. A bowler hat soars

Through the blue. When I was
Born I still believed I
Was nothing but mind. More

Than a little shock up
The arms when I jumped that
Fence in Newaygo. There

Goes artificiality.
The pasture stood up in
It's frame. I've gone from zero

To ninety in nothing flat.
Then we go deeper. The
Hallway gets wider. I

Enter a room. A wall full
Of windows looks down. The
fish light that river at night.

WORKING SPACE

Get ready to try
It again. Black maps
Of canvas dangling

In toward themselves,
The geological
Scandal like some intimate

Congress of hands,
Courageous with veins,
Her total collapse,

And the way it all sets.
Tar, then, including
The smell, and an unprimed

Redeployment of
Anger, the day spent
Pissing in bath tubs--

A goddamn homage to
The ghost of figuration--
Blowing off progress.

PART OF IT

Not polite, it'll
Come back and bite. The
Motor stops. I've seen

On such green afternoons,
My spine easing like
Air flowing out of

A tire. 2006
Air, but what I breathe.
Spirits. I can almost

Feel a subtraction,
The circle of life, so-
Called, a vaporous

Blouse rising some wind
Brown maybe a white
One, or down, the ground

The nipples gasp for
The "injection" and
We're not lighter, we

Are rinsed by dimensions--
You see? The person
Comes, the person goes

And for certain days
You can see him, she's
"Laughing," or leaves flip

Over backwards even,
You can talk until
You can't. You think maybe

You know someone at
least in part. And you do.
But that's not the whole story.

ICE RINK


Perhaps you didn't
Want to be sexy,
But you were, Ponytail,

I wanted to gobble
All the smoke as it
Left your mouth,

The smallest of moles
On your throat,
Pale, swallowed up in

Your big blue coat,
And wasn't it so
Warm inside? It goes

Like that. The boys. I'd
Like to get under
All those feathers. Oh

Sure, you say that now.
Merry-Go-Round full
Of stars and snow flakes,

The grooves and cracks in
The ice. I was sure
You'd be interested

In sharing a joint.
The steel in my skates
Felt American.

LOVE POEM


Listen, you in the
Lanolin, you're mouth
Dragging. Dead, sweet then,

Pitiful in essence,
If only we could
Replay those old worn

Hardships. Now we do
A thing and we pro-
Mote it. I'd say to

Replace your presence.
Goddamn. You had one
Good sense of humor

For a Republican
Catholic. I can
Almost see you out

At sea throwing keys
Into the fucking
Wind. I'm convinced of it.

THE PARENTS


It took forever.
The record turned on
The turntable. My

Sister put her lips
To the crack under
My bedroom door. "Dad,"

She said, "claims we have
A situation."
I let the needle

Rest in its plastic
Hammock. She made a
Voice. No voice-box. Like

Speaking into a
Machine. "Now wait just
A darn minute," she

Funneled under the
Wood. A puppet with
A plastic head. I

Think it was Freddy
Mercury next. Oh
Dear old Donald Duck.

I can't really say
it right. They think in
Nice human pieces,

Round and round the long
Lost dying subject,
Walking and lasting,

Wobbling toward our
Rooms down narrow hall-
Ways, speaking out

Of wind-up mouths. The
House wife's head explodes.
Someone's crushed into

A walking accordion.
I lift the needle
Once again and think.

THE SILENCE


Shoes grinding sand on flagstone,
Dark where the trees
Sat high, and then it stormed.

I was in church. I
Had no voice, and the green
Came through. It was as if

Something other'd superseded
God. I knew it would be
Warm for April. From the

Parking lot I watched the yellow
"Hazard" light at the crosswalk.
I wanted to be with my own

Kind already, like the weeds
In the pea gravel, without
Permission.

THE ANSWERING


Once, my work done,
I am able
To move where I'd

Like. Three soft pears.
It is dark now.
The bay glitters

Like a Cadillac.
I open the
Door. I want to

Hear it, like her
Heart. The gibbous
Moon wants for no-

Thing. I throw the
Pears, arc through a
Slight daydream of

Snowflakes, the sky
Split like the water
And land (they've made

Peace), birds with no
Eyes dive down. They
Eat from my hand . . .

Smell of the in-
Side coming out,
small prayer of thanks.

The hips divide,
The wrist bone clicks inside.
Impenitents . . .

MISHAWAKA AVENUE

I think the avenues
are shutting down. The residents

are pretty much such pretty people.
Twinkling in your jewelry boxes,

The satellite crosses and we ask How are you?
Or You got the check? Such a warm moment of charm

One knows, slicked in black slacks,
Standing outside the concession

In summer. The food in predictable rows
I hardly could have imagined.

Makes me notice the penny in one penny loafer.
The blinking goes between the stars.

I see it through my skylight.

The streets are hushed beneath the snow.

_________________(January 13, 2011)

THE EFFECT

Bran--
enough in that bowl

to kill
an ox

Easy-Bake Ovens
alarm

Why

Why won't the doors slide

Now here I come
walking down the street

"nine different kinds of teas"

Basement is full of
My

Camel crickets

Or I can't fall asleep right away

I'm that excited

(everyone we meet

Flowers made of construction orders

The i being somewhere

(these crickets think a lot

under it's lonely dot

Is to be alive in the dark,
subsisting, one kind of real happiness

For you?

THE WOODS


I see the buildings,
The brick. Like two dolls
Got together. The kids
Who found a price gun
In the woods. They're
Out there. I'd find pictures
And a pile of deer hooves.

They dot the highway, glass
Fronts, people eyeing
The rolling hot dogs, 99 cent
Liters of Diet Coke on sale.
I pull up to the pumps. Now I wear
Glasses. The old soaked pages would peel apart.
Pieces. The clerk inside the store is playing a clerk.

Ugly little movie I'm in. The toy
Tractor ran into that boy's forehead.
And then I dropped it. I make a motion
Toward the counter from outside, let my
Hand squeeze the fake pump handle. IT'S NOT WORKING,
I move my mouth. The clerk turns on the little outside speaker:
"Some things are more important than money," he says.

THE TROUBLED

Aspire to waste
A lot more time.
Disable your-

Self. Sit in the
Warmth of someone's
Interrupted

Attention. Stay
That long I mean.
Who cares where things

Go? Stop planning
All the time. The
World's easy, and

Automatic.
Don't look for depth
Everywhere.

Thinking is not
A condition
Defined by the

Pleasure of sleep.
The darkness of
Veins, whales diving

Deep into the
Ocean. Turtles
Dozing under

Snow in the earth.
Embryonic
Birds inside eggs.

Words as they form
Inside a brain.
A tree isn't

At peace due to
The company
Of other trees.

THE PLACE


And so I stayed.
Finally. So?
I had a dream.

What could have been
Lingered. On the
Island. I pushed

The tiller. I
Wanted to float
Over all the

Old wrecked houses.
When I woke up
Roots were snoring

Under three feet
Of new snow. Sun-
Light shifted through

A hole. A deer
Stepped onto the
Frozen river.

LESS MONEY


"Federal Reserve
Note" it says on our
Money, or at least

It says that on my
Money, something I
Take the time to look

at since I make so
little of it. Then:
BF37

81355
8C. One of my
Favorite things is

Finding money on
The floor, or on a
Sidewalk. In the blink

Of an eye I've got
More money. Cash, in fact.
Which is harder to

Hold onto. I throw
pennies right out my
Car window. With a

Crazed sort of glee. I
mean, what difference
Does a penny make

When you add it onto
Almost nothing at all.

THE BRAIN TRANSPLANT


So I'm face-down
On the linoleum.
A grandmother, crazy,

Is screaming out
On the street. A downy
Woodpecker is slowly

Eating pieces
Of her mouth. I really
Need a good book. I'd just

Made duck-sauce. Great
Deals on mallard! The truth?
I shot it. Do you hunt

Anymore? I
Mostly fish. A game bird's
Guts stink, all that death up

In your face. Give
Me a cold, silent pike.
Snow squalls. A farm pond

At night. I once
Watched a big sycamore
Leaf blind a bucket of rain.

THE WAVES REPEAT


I can't go out
Again. The lotto machine
Is broken. You

Have to see the self.
Walk out of that surf,
Old pal-o-mine.

I never would have
Thought you a beach
Towel kind of guy. Way

Up in the white
Pines you can hear the
Ocean. I mean

Lake. The waves don't break.
The vision doesn't
Stay. "This here is

A piece of transition."
You got a tan.
I've got a lot of time

To think. And is
Not thought alive? Per-
Petual motion.

Big moon. "Here are the
Numbers for Keno."
We carry on.

INTERVIEW

Nick Sturm interviews me over at Barn Owl Review Online.
The conversation focuses on Sky Booths in the Breath
Somewhere, the Ashbery Erasure Poems, and erasure
poetics (erasure in general, I'd say).

CHANTERELLES

I would not have called
it gourmet. Surround
A tenderloin with what-

Ever smells right. Food!
Palisades of light
Shine through. Lennon is

Dead. I recall that
From my little copse.
Johnny Carson. I'd

Cut round steak into
Strips. Almonds. Beer
Number five perhaps.

It would make a bad
TV commercial.
Waking early I'd

Catch the ruffed grouse still
Asleep. Pleasure is
Tearing apart some

Chanterelles. Then off
To see The Shining.
Dedicated. Holes do

Open in the earth.
The earth does undulate
Its hips. Not numbers

But jurisprudence.
This stew needs garlic,
Cumin. I could feel

It in my ankles.
Hello new souls! I'd
Sail past midnight.

Hawks wake up at dawn.
The next sunrise I'd
Be starving again.

SILKSCREEN BY MARUSHKA

He wasn't headed
In the right direction.
I could see his face.

It was flat, like something
in a magazine.
These were the mornings.

By dinner, fire. Windows
Popping. Of course the
Moon was right outside. A

Few years later an old
Woman. Okay, it
Was like somebody's aunt.

Until you got close
Enough. The flames swept out
Through the channel and

Over the rolling swells
Where the lake sponsored
Little brown bats and

Gulls. A ship tooted its
Ridiculous horn,
A baritone I guess

You'd call it. He ran
To this woman and then
He hid. The trees were

Already burned. Smoke trailed
Off the lady's back.
Up to the dunes I went.

REVIEW OF THE NERVOUS FILAMENTS


Popped up over vacation, at Gently Read Literature.
To check it out go here. Thanks to the reviewer!

THE GIRL


First we get hung
Up on the age
Difference. The

Girl, her sweater.
I've known her most
Of my life. I

Took the sweater
Off. The pier seemed
To scroll away

From her heat. It
Was a wholesome
Year. Yes, she said.

Getting smaller
In spray. Something
Seeking. She was

Not a spiral
Jetty. I nailed
A board to my

Bedroom door. I
Used an old claw
Hammer. Bodies

Falling onto
Rocks. No more draw-
Ing for him. That's

Why I moved to
Grand Haven.
Her torso made

A kind of tree!
The "men" I knew.
Neanderthals.

THE NEW YEAR


I saw a star through the snow.
First it got tangled in some trees.
Then it hit the lake in pieces.