This time I’ m not going to say a thing
about deity. It’ s not the blizzard,
it’ s three days after. Trinkle from thawing
roofs, ruined crocus pronging through.
Ruin, I promise, won’ t be mentioned again.
Trees, sure, still begging in the road, split
to the bole but this isn’ t about the chainsaw.
A pruning saw will have to do. The puppets
aren’ t hanging themselves in each other’ s
strings. Everyone’ s easily identifiable
beneath the funny mask. Somewhere in Oregon,
Mary has another month to go, she’ s comfortable
in any position for thirty-five seconds. Lulu,
we know you’ re in there but no one’ s
blaming you for reluctance to come out.
Poetry is the grinding of a multiplicity
throwing off sparks, wrote Artaud
and look what that got him: toothlessness
and shock therapy. Your dad, who has the worst
teeth of anyone I know, once ordered eggplant
in a steakhouse. Do not order eggplant
in a steakhouse turned out to be more
than aphoristicly true. Do not spend a lot
of time in an asylum writing cruel poems
if you can help it, one Artaud is enough.
In Kandinsky’ s Blue 2, there’ s a shape
in two rows of shapes that seems okay
although to the right’ s a capsized canoe
full of mathematicians, to the left a bow
about to launch the killer astrolabe.
By what manner is the soul joined to
the body? How about climbing a ladder
of fire? No thanks. On TV, a rhino’ s
lying in some red dust, munching a thorn.
You wouldn’ t think he could ejaculate
for half an hour straight, but you’ d be wrong.
See that cloud, it might weigh 10,000 pounds
which is about average for a cloud.
Happy birthday, happy birthday to you.
Tony says Mary is always writing about the sacred.
Talcum powder, binoculars, this decimated
planet. I know, a promise has been made
but Tony’ s been sick for years and no one
knows with what. Flax oil, bark tinctures,
corticosteroids. He’ s not exactly someone
you’ d trust to drive your car, but still.
Something awful’ s coming, isn’ t it?
Would it help if I said Amen?