guess what I am listening to now.
Sent at 1:26 PM on Friday"
as it fries you mind the thou;
soon the fire sickens into a bowl by the sink
and we bring somehow to line a found array
I mean, as long as we're doing the same thing.
A thought bothered, I read. I’m told
that it is needed by the people. I point to the people
and exaggerate for emphasis. Would you
let yourself go for the buzz of a good nom de plume?
Sometimes a name begs writings to it.
As for whiplash—Eastern Europe has
no concept of whiplash. Perhaps this whole shebang
is charcoal and blackening fingers. Football makes me sick,
though I mean soccer and people tell me I can’t be taken seriously
if I keep using words like that. We mean so well
in America with all our we, so unused to one
another. We began to make plans for what would happen
in the new year by which we hope to recover
but until then we are housebound and contacted
with pink eye and bodily decrepitude which may not be
much to get wise over but we could afford to miss entirely
the secret we could worry we really could if you will mind
our ungainliness against the gain, that’s possible.
We just need to crest on talking to one another
dumping water onto water, sitting in the room
that has slowly gone dark, sitting in the dark
just say you would like to keep listening, that you liked
thinking I am hard to read but knowing I am not, even a little
ventral segment you could worry about
between two nodal points, holding a tune.
So I’ll give you a call. It's hard to get together.
After a series of paintings by Emily
We saw everything you could imagine and there were hundreds of them.
My question is: you slept alone last night. So for all this time
I've been Nixon and you've been yourself, sitting by the window
where, somewhere in the gathering, light rain wooshes a cloud's edge
just above the blue midsection of a lightly tinseled tree
clear against the lighter blue wall, which is background only
thru the elimination of less likely colors in a similar kind of pattern
which he almost points out, saying "I have been awake for eleven hours
and I am ready to go to sleep now. I am that to which you would say NO to
but you missed me: I was twenty minutes late. I did see something, it does relate
to looking into those townships groups and communities because
of the way the growth of the city had formed ignorance or disregard
of the deep river below the drift of snow which obscures it, purely. Rosy too,
as smoke and fog will allow; as little bits of red creep everywhere
and a comet will disintegrate backwards. We are loathe to drop it out,
lest there is deliberation. You draw a cherry branch towards them.
It rhymed in the car, when you tried harder.
Which eye do I contact?
How close are we when I want
to read? I volunteer most things
I think about, though not
in a row. Had you heard the song
of the days when SHIFT was locked?
How many car accidents ought you survive?
You approach the counter, all
that remains in
the bank behind blood vessels stopped
up with stolen toilet paper, the soft expanse
like skin to get past. The brain’s white film—
you can wipe it off but not off your hands
or faucet. Get at me soon; say “Hello!” for once
in your eyes. The coffee stammers on the stovetop.
We had not thought the path would still be flooded
when the rain stopped while we were talking.
“See it seep
out the crack in the mug?” A finedrawn scalding
sticks my arm, the veined scape to mouth
five petals out for sun, drinking
where it can reach. The track of orbit’s fancy:
an odd look
strung between the buildings
with two screw-rings in the sill, some length of nylon
bracing bricks through the underframe.
We are making believe America, always making where
is there to start. But you approach, ask:
“What is it you can tell it from?
How badly would you like it to matter? I have
a sentimental attachment to my mausoleum. Can they help?
You’ll think of them
dying often.
So how chosen do you feel? Soooo
idiosyncratic, we breathe in
in the manner proper to one. My envelope and then,
the gasbag of an aerostat itself. How unthinkable you are.
You will not buy out of the system we
are all busy thinking about how to-
gether we all are. I’ll wait
for odds, sink costs in gulleys. The bridges
get fixed, fall out of memory on
one side of which we drop distinctive twigs
to watch to the other, coughing up fog.
It’s the largest deal in history.
Now people live for decades.
First sleep like words you live by
as style and error in flightless
birds outside your window--lit through
as precise as the effort on
How many car accidents ought you survive?
You approach the counter, all
The remaining green army men in
The bank. Blood vessels stopped
Up with stolen toilet paper, the soft expanse
Like skin to get past. The brain's white film--
You can wipe it off but not off your hands
Or faucet. Get at me soon; say "Hello" for once
In your eyes. The coffee stammers on the stovetop.
We had not thought the path would still be flooded
When the rain stopped, while we were talking.
"See it seep
Out the crack in the mug?" A finedrawn scalding
So I stick my arm, the veined scape to mouth
Five petals out for sun, drinking
Where it can reach. The track of orbit's
Fancy: an odd look strung
Between the buildings with two screw-
Rings in the sill, some length of nylon
Bracing bricks through the underframe.
We are making believe America, always making where
Is there to start? But you approach, ask:
What is it you can tell it from?
How badly would you like it to matter? I have a sentimental
Attachment to my mausoleum. Can they help? You'll think
Of them dying
Often. So how chosen do you feel? Sooooooo
Idiosyncratic, we breathe in
In the manner proper to one. My envelope
And then, the gasbag itself. We will remarrow you
Of an Aerostat. How unthinkable you are.
You will not buy out of the system we
Are all busy thinking about how to-
gether we all are. I like to wait
For odds, sink costs into gullies.
The bridges get fixed, fall out of memory on
One side of which we drop distinctive twigs
We watch to the other, coughing up fog.
Its the largest deal in History.
Now people live for decades.
Though beautiful, I know your kind: a grace
in stride and conversation, a charm that blights
all guests. You smile, so well, and you watch fights
break out among the rash, stirred by your face.
All this is known, of course. I find this place
but idling: the young know what they want, they see
already without my aid. Your coterie
is staunch, decides here all that is the case.
But here I am, to sing of you yet more
because I love, though my too-familiar timbre
in me itches like a cracking bell
does hurt its maker, I still sing well
enough: your father keeps me on. With limber
voice I'll stay, I suppose my word I'll pour.
Via Montale
You don’t remember the house on the boardwalk
with the sharp brow above the dunes
and doors swallowing wind,
your swarm of thoughts stopped
restless in the sandy foyer.
The East flecks the outer walls
and the slats your laugh has sunk into
make a creaking walk, loud with dice
and giving like a snake's ribs.
A thread ravels out, you don't
remember, another time stunts your memory.
I hold a still end; but the house
is on the move, its weathervane
turns without pity, black with smoke.
I hold an end, think you're breathing in the dark
Now on the horizon a fugue of rare light
from shore pooling oily on the water.
Is here the way?
You don't remember the house
in my night. I don’t know who goes, who rests.
A screen with holes, with barken vines
never before caught in the act of piercing
but now I see them, blown by the the wind
squeezed in between these buildings
into the window, into the room.
I jump at them, unwisely. I get them, they fall
a few floors slowly, I think, though I suppose
thats wrong. But I am hanging on by my free margins,
an evocative name for the fingernail,
the part of it that leaves the finger.
To be fair I hung on for only a second.
Then it hurt. I fell slowly.
I thought, this must be wrong.
This plant in the gutter grows up
and curves down like a long nail
that hardly scratches the face of brick below
as the wind fidgets
its distal edge along the mortar.
Looks good like proper red suns knifed from paper skies,
compendious, bland like the paper. Its been printing on
these days. You ought to find some arrière issuances,
defeased coupons or like bodies, soft.
I sit down to sketch that other thing
that sun became today, when the cameras turned
towards it, too late. It tentered itself on radio towers
to the south, swinging low as it happens
half the time. We can pin it down by 4:50.
Trips aren't as difficult anymore, and my legs
are reground, so to speak. I can walk.
