On election day, sulfur smells like beer.
On election day, the minister quakes in fear.
On election day, the Pole and the Jew dance the foxtrot.
On election day, the shoe does not fit the foot, the bullet misfires in its pistol, the hungry waiter reels before steadying himself on facts.
The grid does not gird the fiddler, on election day.
Galoshes and tears, on election day.
The sperm cannot find the egg, on election day.
The drum beat becomes bird song, on election day.
I feel like a nightmare is ending but can’t wake up, on election day.
4 November 2008
LAST WORDS
from “Sentences My Father Used”
fields.
to
is
the
that
at
reflection
complete
slowly,
intricate
to
that
to
chairs
surprise
Straps
around
disconsolation
as
eyeglasses
pulleys
like
a
discoursing
more
grass
rocks
Or
that
blazing
to
street
to
which
descends
eye
arrests
spirit
serenity
with
Shunning
promising
can
steady
Best
by
not
inferior
who
their
embarking
pages
misapplication
is
powerless
useless
Silk
My
well
aggravated
got
But
accumulating
challenged
found
to
very
Which
We
I
but
put
came
are
shop
the
scraped
had
looney
in
sultry
to
the
eroded
the
imagination
you
the
new
cures
through
I
a
that
make
Nice
Pleasant
swinging
Crystal
Just
remnants
Gad
everyday
lose
to
didn’t
care
Which
journey
past
late
transportation
there
a
thought
what
had
into
advantage
opportunity
do
No
forces
Interesting
of
recognition
perfectly
all
leading
In
of
looks
never
divorced
it
onto
Never
feel
breaks
evading
bent
then
eroded
over
lights
possibilities
above
that
which
to
endless
Leaving
whatever
for
tumbling
discarded
laugh
amid
counter
course
let’s
you
recover
your
mind
and
its
circular
transparent
rectitude
POMPEII
The rich men, they know about suffering
That comes from natural things, the fate that
Rich men say they can’t control, the swell of
The tides, the erosion of polar caps
And the eruption of a terrible
Greed among those who cease to be content
With what they lack when faced with wealth they are
Too ignorant to understand. Such wealth
Is the price of progress. The fishmonger
Sees the dread on the faces of the trout
And mackerel laid out at the market
Stall on quickly melting ice. In Pompeii
The lava flowed and buried the people
So poems such as this could be born.
I WILL NOT WRITE IMITATIVE POETRY
I will not write imitative poetry.
I will not write imitative poetry.
I will not write imitative poetry.
I will not write imitative poetry.
I will not write imitative poetry.
I will not write imitative poetry.
I will not write imitative poetry.
I will not write imitative poetry.
I will not write imitative poetry.
I will not write imitative poetry.
I will not write imitative poetry.
I will not write imitative poetry.
I will not write imitative poetry.
I will not write imitative poetry.
I will not write imitative poetry.
I will not write imitative poetry.
ALL SET
for Gerrit Lansing at 75
No matter, say what you will,
when the slide comes, and it
better, or sometimes bitter knots knit
their brew against an all-encompassing
(recompensating?) agenda, not set of burdens,
nor gravity, like the image of
the cat jumping at the image
of the canary only to find
the bird has flown the loop
in a figure of love wasted
on the o’erlasting. Spear hay where
aloft is high and spare the
poltergeist faster than a whip catches
the gloom, then slides into a
hailstorm of regret.—You know what
I mean to say, to intend,
to proffer without hope for suppler
thought, a stupor a day to
drown the neighing in a sea
of bougainvilleas, vines for the marrow
of the soul’s sartorial passage to
points beyond even the imagination’s imaginary
capacities, like the day the turtle
told the teller . . .
THE SIXTIES, WITH APOLOGIES
I remember the future, how it was
So much like the past, those days
Rowing on the lake for the sake of
Rowing itself, never looking out, never
Any ducks lined up, only the fragrance
Of fragrance, the similes on a smile
Touched by an angle. As if our fund
For hedges was any more effective than
Duping, duking, doping, throwing
Cold water on sizzling runes. Jesus
Would have dug it, before he got hung
Up
in all that superstructure. Even
The water withers in the mouth, like
Hope evaporating in the words of the
Town criers and motion sensors. Gale
Winds diminish in the mind since
Whatever is apparent and clear in
My brain is so much Yukon flu.
The utter white spaces of deception.
It’s ok, but I did that 20 years ago.
Millions of miles beyond care, sobered
Up on 12-year-old bourbon & lobster
Rigamarole. The blood on George Bush’s
Hands keeps coming out in my stool.
Night is never dark enough because
Everything I see frightens me.
PROSE
A poem can’t be sold like music can, can’t be sold like a painting, like a song can, nobody gives a dime, a damn, a poem don’t live beyond its words, its dark and backward suns, can’t be sold like prose can, only as if it were a story or the mocking echo of a poem, can’t be sold like junk can, chunks of mango tree in a garden (or fragments of a garden hose), vats of burnt oil, even like a goldfinch can, singing in a trash dump, the black tongue of the sewers, where algae bloom, can’t be sold like graffiti can, like a photograph or video can, or any arty film, can’t be sold like a print or card can. Me, I’m a lousy trader in worthless things, beset by a plague of words.
Régis Bonvicino
NOT ON MY WATCH
Then on whose?
IN RES ROBIN, NIBOR RESALB INSCRIPSIT MENTASTRUM (XXC)
for Robin Blaser
Matter over mind or anyway
mattering, muttering, sponge
warp, cup, meld, then again
clutched, shred, shrift. Blister
origins (orangutans) in souped-
up monkey wrench. Prattling
till the itch in pines becomes
gash (sash) in the pluriverses
of weft & muck (wept). Pleat
as you may, fellow traversers
on the rippled road to hear &
however, ne’er so near.
STUPID MEN, SMART CHOICES
I was on my third scotch and Maalox
when the phone rang. It was Veronica
again. Her sultry voice cracked on the line
like lima beans in a popcorn popper. She
was in trouble but this time there was
nothing I could do for her. I listened
to her story like the Roto-Rooter man
listens to a drain: all ears. She’d fallen
again, this time so hard and so fast
she felt she had been clobbered
by an Acela running amuck
on the slow track from Boston to
Gloucester. She said she liked the rhythm
of his talking, it was so down to earth
she sometimes felt she was buried alive
a comforting feeling for someone whose
anxieties were often indistinguishable
from her ecstasies. But things had gone
wrong, terribly wrong and now she was
on the run, not only from him but from
herself.
Like a dream about a dream, it always
began that way.
LENNY PASCHEN REDUX
What’s the matter with you?
What’s the matter with you?
Did time shove your face in sealing wax?
You never looked so blue.
Nothing better to do?
Nothing better to do?
Go stick your head in the microwave
Till there’s nothing left but goo.
Sometimes we all need a friend
A guy who’ll see us round the bend
Someone who’s always there
To push us down the stair
Or out the door, into the cold night air
Wanna sniff some glue?
I do do you?
Then hit ourselves with a two-by-four
Till we know what’s true—
TROUBLE NEAR ME
Were You There?
by chance, ill defined &
awkward
values uncast immobility—
eyes the joints
or jettisons drift
(debtor’s pension):
from those calls
this insolvent throb
who hears then falls—
Sometimes It Causes Me to Tremble
My rudder’s bow-leg
My nipper’s gyp
The only out is
Flop—flap—flip
Deep These Wounds & Red
all we know impales
what we never will
like a harpoon
the imaginary whale
bleeding all the same
Trouble Is Near Me
In the morning of my life
there was a smell of burning plastic
but today, but today
putrefaction
No where is your smile
more radiant than on this beach
LATER
Wake me when the movie’s over
Let me sleep till then
Wake me when I care no longer
To ever get sober again
IRRECONCILABLE DISREPAIR
Thump, thump, thump.
The bedrock disjoints
the numinous irreconcilability
as when the maestro pleads
for one more chance
& all the subsequent supplicants
adorn their plates
with polite demurrals
& astringent chanting.
Go away, go away
& don’t come back again.
I loved you in the morning
but not on the way to the grave.
Sorted ever looser
when the fill is frozen
bundle every juicer
until you’re all undone.
Flip, flap, give, gasp
& the fever dies
in the fire of lies
and no more matters
’til the tipsy platter
falters on the plain
of inordinate & procrustean
(discordant & proleptic)
transinsubstantiality.
SORROW WHERE THERE IS NO PAIN
for Philip Whalen
what marks here? score skids, fill up
like the ice-tea truck my grandmother kept forgetting
before the wave closed over the gap
& none the wetter for it
or that gives you something to wail in
8 June 2002
A THEORY’S EVOLUTION
The Theory of Flawed Design is not a scientifically proven
Alternative to evolution. It is based on the everyday life
Experience that natural selection could not have produced
Such a catastrophic outcome. Optimists and the religiously
Inclined will naturally prefer evolution as an explanation,
Since ascribing Design to the state of humanity is almost
Unbearable. For the rest of us, we must continue to insist
That the Theory of Flawed Design be taught cheek and jowl,
Neck and neck, mano a mano, with Mr. Darwin’s
Speculations. The Theory postulates a creator who is Mentally
Impaired, either through some genetic defect or because of
Substance abuse, and is predisposed to behave in a sociopathic
Manner; although some Benign Flawed Design theorists, as
They call themselves, posit the radical alternative that the
Creator was distracted or inattentive and the flaws are not the
Result of Malevolent Will but incompetence or incapacity.
TODTNAUBERG
after Paul Celan
Arnica, hold-in-trust, tear
Trump out dim Bruise admit dim
Stern waffled drought,
indigo
Hut,
die in that Bush
—lesson Naming nouns off
where dim mines men—
die in die’s book
gust’s ribbons fail one
I’m an huff-none, hurt
Oaf I’m a dunken den
commends
Wart
in heart’s end
World-wizened, uneyed and bent
Arc is un-arc is, eye’s realm,
Crude, spatter in führer
Deutsche light,
Tears a fog, dear Mensch,
dares admit abort
die halved
beschmuddled Cudgel
fade in Hock’s moor
Folded,
veil.
HOW EMPTY IS MY BREAD PUDDING
for George Lakoff
The conceited poet believes the entire world to be his poem.
As if you could or could not, would or would not, were or were not; as if the day ended and a new one popped out of the imagination, free of shadows, hurtling to an end of hurt, beyond sorrow’s gate; but could not nor can not, would not nor will not; as if promise were just make-believe and make-believe a veil behind a veil; as if the news were never told and ignorance took the place of this incessant, miserable rain.
All the signs say no passage; still, there must be a way.
Sometimes one has to shake off even the most sophisticated modes of self-presentation (or self-concealment) to find a sense of where you are.
Particulars and their constellation: mosaic, seriality. Imagination of the negotiation of democratic social space: the particular not consumed, not made into an abstraction nor into stone, not dominated.
The arrival of a station at the train.
Everyone is talking about memoir but I just want to forget. I want a poetry that helps me to forget what I never knew.
Show me the baloney and I will immerse myself in last season’s mausoleums.
The new is never new, but we make it new in order to keep it from becoming dead to us. The motto shouldn’t be make it new but make it live, but necrophilia surrounds us and we take its stench as the perfume of our hip indifference to art as something that changes in time, shifts against the tides, hollers out in anguish and exasperation at the suffocating banalities that seem to call our name out loud, as if we were written by them.
Poetry is too important to be left to its own devices.
Show me a man with two feet firmly planted on the ground, and I’ll show you a man who can’t get his pants on.
The questioning of the beautiful is always at least as important as the establishment of the beautiful.
Not the desert clarity of my lamp
But the blanched consequence of my intransigence
[after Mallarmé]
1848—Faraday: “A slight efflorescent appearance was seen on the broken edge.”