Midnight’ s merely blue,
but me, me, me, I’ m
through
and through
sloe, cracked soot-
on-a-boot,
nicotine spat, licorice whip.
You can scratch, scratch, scratch
but I stay underskin true
to ebony, ink, crowberry, pitch;
hoist me up by my hooves
and shake till I’ m shook, I’ m still
chock full of coke, fuliginous
murk.
O there’ s swart in my soul,
coal by the bag,
cinders and slag,
scoriac grit, so please
come, comb
through my fleece with hands pallid
I miss the moshpit pushed to the side of the bed.
The hard and fast rules, the business,
Walking across town the baby’ s hand in mine
Gave me anxiety Rosado barely mellowed.
Who doesn’ t love to hear about anxiety.
You wouldn’ t be too wrong to wake from dreaming
Into an amusement park sluice of Rioja
Eau de post-Auden thanks a lot Timex hubbub.
Those feelings are in their way good luck.
I don’ t even need a communion wafer
To feel the need to broadcast imprecations
Fade like a docent as the hedge fund falls.
We drove through the gates
into a maze of little roads,
with speed bumps now,
that circled a pavilion,
field house, and ran past
the playing fields and wound
their way up to the cluster
of wood and stone buildings
of the school you went to once.
The green was returning to
the trees and lawn, the lake
was still half-lidded with ice
and blind in the middle.
There was nobody around
except a few cars in front
of the administration. It must
have been spring break.
prays for birds
before an ancient icon —
a stray cat.
The inbred need
to pray
is what makes God
necessary,
and not, she says,
the other way
around;
beyond that
it’ s all mystery,
so don’ t question
why Man creates gods
that demand
sacrifice,
condemning mortals
to spend their lives
trying to praise
godhead into mercy.
Better instead
to ask the frog
to bless the fly,
and, once the cheese
is in the trap,
to beg forgiveness
from the rat.
I always thought reality
was something you became
when you grew up.
In the square stands Fata Morgana
looking tired, shouting
Morning paper — morning paper.
The unit of wine is the cup. Of Love, the unit is the kiss. That’ s here.
In Hell, the units are the gallon and the fuck. In Paradise, the drop and the glance.
Ants are my hero. They debate and obey. They can sit at a table for
Eight hours, drawing. They spot out the under-theorized...
Have some. For they are as abundant here as the flecks of mica in the Iowa night sky.
What are twenty-sided dishes of fancy almonds? What use jewels?
with Dana Ward
Someone said you were dead
it’ s not that I didn’ t care
You were not bacterial
You were not frozen water in winter
You were not a hairbrush broken by hair
You were a treasure of gold in the world-toilet
For you appraised the world of grains
And flung the earth to the earth
The good wine is mixed with the bad wine,
come to the wine jar’ s lips and let’ s unmix it
Poor people only have one soul
but you and I have two
let’ s go on vacation to Mexico or Rome
Everybody returns home
instead of entrance
Goodbye means Avoir
Sved’ s dream said from nowhere
of aliquant angles
some spindle of the sun
empirically facted
deafening skin
open and afterwards
a cough is a couch
idled into
without rain
an island
easily a third worse
Indigo with a flame-red tongue
Night was and they swayed into it:
a pair of scissors, of sails
turning only into themselves
more other than become.
It is often five o’ clock.
Her husband has contracted not
to speak of her and she has forgotten
where to go. Where does everyone go?
