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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

Something There Is Doesn't Love A Stone Wall

Dutch florals
A crisp bond:
the knot continuous
the Atlantic most resembles love.
the khaki leaf salty far away
pressed to the ground
listening for fish : your life
convolutes in the head of mine

I have watched you sleep
rings of you

nothing can ever stop now : your hand in incredible ways
holds
to no ends
nor Logos
the wrist be named even if
you throw at a stone wall
something
you will not come out on
without me


back into the sea floor & the mellon breasts of dolphins

all we are

the ligament of the wing
the indefinite bell in
the hips of night
the cold skin of an unbargaining
sky

loose and soft and crazy
with flesh

New York Bends

[a broadside by Tightrope Press, back in the day]


Arthritic hip, midocean, flounders in a sofa
MacDougal Street, incorruptible, sand
On which the old white man burns
A young poet, into, staring into the sun
The lunchcounter depth, at, heartbreak
Welcomed, flares of jelly shoot from
A donut with bad hips rolls from the place
Sinks to his knees, pours out
From his future, the floor like crabs move
He, at his place, a note on the linoleum
Wash the fish.

In My Religion

Everyone is created as they get serious.
Each person will sense when in each person.
Animals are not sacred as a group; individual
Wholes blazenly surmount the human bias.
Recriminiations must be sung through a
Lamb's wool curtain, in triplicate
Open to rebellious warmth.

At any given moment things can get black or white.
Special itinerants itemize pessimisms.
In the city people are praying all the time on their feet.
A man makes no bones about it.
In my religion there are still responsibilities.
What is ordinarily true you find hard to believe.

I remember no further events from that night.
Busy being innocent, he confessed a wall between him & the
Blond - the animal again.
I'm saying we must expect interruptions.
The government is willing to make priorities.
Each is assigned a brain from which t travel.

There are gods who run on impulse.
Many schools of thought apologize for struggle.
Consuming restlessness fuels the interference.
Witchcraft takes years to learn.
In my religion no one will
Feel futile to be perfect.