Refer also to...

www.edpicasso.blogspot.com

Ed by the Sky and @Ferrini/Kaplan Poetry Reading in NYC

Turns, Like in a Screw

Eons ago, the mimosa grew on the thorax to squat
As we roared into this clearing,
Which not hard to do, was the throat, a uterus
Pushing words out with all her strength, to extricate
Everything but the one part, what lodges there
Has rights to - the human turn toward earth.

The moment our feet sunk in, like hungry animals,
We knew the bluff on our backs, carried up that bevel,
The grudge the universe will not forget, wanted back
The missing something that was jagged & unswallowed.

The only thing certain: something in the skull,
A tap on the shoulder, accusing as a lone hawk
In the neglected sky, perfidious like a floating lair.

It counts that we remember when we did not
Mean to use words or the jaw for that, that
Chewed up itself & the world with it, smooth
Enough to swallow whole.

There contains a forest in us no one can find
Or conjure but is a polished lie, a soft breeze
Which offers the faint smell of a truth
Leaving you pleasured without the trouble nor able to
Take credit for it, so that we must invent as we do
Every standing blade of grass.

We are on a rock
Listening to the sun speak into it, to grow.

www.tableofthepermanent.blogspot.com

Power of Appointment

Indiana night driving in heavy snow
a single car stretched across route 74 at midnight
a truck two miles back slides out of the mirror
fierce wind & onelight houses by the highway
bones of prehistoric animals & lovers & theorists

100 miles of crowded solitude & jelly beans to stay awake
tossing cigarette ashes on the floor

we are salesmen in the thirties with belted luggage
we have families back home
it's Thursday January 24
Indianapolis to Cincinnati

the brain is one third fat
two thirds extravagant gold sash

you are therefore never alone
angels are deft & spidery
drawn to drapes & lampshades
sit like parakeets on our shoulders or shadows

standing out in the cold between a satellite dish
and a double vision

as in love
as in death
as in the organized sex of our red bandanas
as in the serious theatre of her blood
as in being alone in the middle of a country at night
as in forest

I am surrounded by a ton or two of man's rigor
peeling off into the organ moon as we always did
constantly surprized in our trauma
it's a kingdom of crabs chains mace plums
emeralds brats and the unretrievable
the wood in the trees
the wind in the wind

The Port Authority Poem

the woman in Walgreen's whose hands had butter
or something wet and not alive
who saw through her puddle of eggs
to the basin
it's wild murmurs
bruised saucers & cups with significant chips of struggle
floating in the fallacy of suds

her arms clipped
rattle as she twitches
mad as a goose
like anyone is
waiting for the bus
the animals waiting to be fed
and for no other reason
going crazy

or the black woman whose socks are slipping
her ankles like the skeletons of tiny birds
paces the floor like a peacock on fire
an experiment
something to do with electricity
a clinic
her hands frenzied
constantly explaining shoving protecting praying
her eyes reliving whatever it was
and though there are no tears she's crying

or the cowboy who can't exhale for fear
he'll lose a precious something that's irreplaceable
a rose
a lapel
his eyes full of buffalos

and me
the cyclops
the ticket
bound to express the corrupt geography of our bodies
bound for some reason with crossed laps
bound as spawning fish are
in the freak contrivance of language
the port authority
where no ships dock nor seas touch
the vibrating sand

Arctos the Bear She is North

on which the mermaid rose
a connoisseur
a tail is healing
the past
precocious
sebaceous
a hatchery
eyes of kerosene ignite
of which the moment now
is a window
is a perfect match

we the crop imminent
between parentheses
of circumstance
in transit
life stenciled
deathless in the past
which is north of us
we throw our eyes back
who are captured
on the surface

a bear is hugging you
now filing your ribs

pepper hay ermine

rows of us in marble
belonging to the morning

on her elbows
swung two gods
one with donkey-eyes
one with tenacious jaws
an oil spin in
the flaunting cave she is
up to her fins in ice
at that rainbow
frowning in the sky