Trees In The Pasture (for Judy)

if i were in a high place
where gold shivered like money mattered
and eyes     shone
in incoming headlights
and people driving by looked low
and sneered

if my calendar
were stuck on one day
and were illustrated only
with black paper

if your halo
were seen bright as a hubcap
encircled with rhinestones
and a drop     of black velvet
were behind all paintings of you

if seeing the world
were an organized religion

if chickens
spoke english
but never spoke to us

i would not have met you
even in a high place
would not even have dreamed of you






from The Troubles (1993)

National Anthem

the world's     country
stretches
from east to west
and extends southward

its seacoast     mainland
miles of islands

climates
while generally     varies
a range

cities
centers
regions
and population are situated

is virtually uninhabitable






from The Troubles (1993)

The Scream

i've left it in there for now
with my teeth

somewhere inside
where alligators are tearing it up

please understand i do not want this scream
to be left for posterity

the points
of this scream
are too mean to be covered by anybody's hand

it bellows inside me
i will not let it at you
until i know it can cut you down








from The Troubles (1993)

Reported Dreams

the third baseman of car lights
mother's other toe
reported dreams
nightmare problems
this neighborhood

the excitement of used lightning
she asked me
cleaners at four
this night this slice of
these streets are dangerous / backsliding
becoming me
there was no romance in this
still committed into bookstore
now even get it together     where?     how?
just something waiting for us
saw it in her eyes
perception of reality the night if only by a little
rainstorm home

she asked me if i could walk her one block home
this night this slice of foggy streetlights
still committed jurisdiction of the courts
there was no romance in this
and the streetlights weren't overtly scary
just something     waiting for us

the fortune cookie fortune says:
when you have to deal with something
deal with it

i could see it in his eyes
has claws and waits for you     just you
around a corner of your building     and like it
oh     how     killer

abstracted as pass the salt

gotta stop that     line drive
where? in one of the most beautiful cities on earth
rainstorm diets fade the bookstore perception of reality
killers roam streetwise            dip long fingers
into public wells of abstract knowledge black lace and headlights
coming at you like a line drive
the third baseman of car lights
gotta stop it     throw     him     out

in some persons this abstract forgetting
what would you call it?
as being part of themselves
lamplight haloes round entire neighborhood
paranoid rage they raise their toothpicks slowly
you know     urban     dangerous and sexy
like erroll flynn
as the walls bleed / killers make lace deep
in imagination /
in severe persons these nightmare problems
the first eight to ten years

when you deal with it
you just deal with it
if only a little sells then perception of night
dwells around your building like suffocation
we see monsters out there but their shadows
go a lot deeper
these haloes     extortion of used roadblocks
they raise them     how would you say?
extreme anxiety     fun at the malt shop
in some persons eight to ten years
and now     you seek     them out

after that     a lot cleaner /
feeling
lightbulbs     come on
in their pants
they walk
zomboid and sexy

you
the perfect escorts







from The Troubles (1993)

sucking your blood

sucking your blood
like reverse gas pump

into his tank
under the tuxedo

dracula
oil






from The Troubles (1993)

Inside the Harbor

in death its eyes were still open
neither one of us could get it to speak true

a small boat of ribs afloat in a blue lake that night
like cats fish massaging against its thighs

the next time i met you
i was directing traffic out of a storefront window
dried fish hung around my head like dead angels
that was seven thousand years ago

i saw you standing in front of the glass
and unzipped the door that was yours
you had with yourself the pleasure craft
you wanted to trade for dragon horn and ginseng

i can still see that light in your eyes
i'm still looking for a cord to that lightbulb

all our boats ride mechanically now
all our fish carry red plastic lanterns








from The Troubles (1993)

The Ban

the ban wasn't them     and many groups are
politicians of power

artists quate security underground
contracts that stated the happy road

will     until no
the board is mental

people could mccarthyism pression

ban on decision?     stabbings?
the light keeps changing
think of me     a lot of people
hurt
it seems someone question:
presence like money
isn't hollow







from The Troubles (1993)

mickey mouse's nose

mickey mouse's       nose
opens up a missle nose appears
his voice gets deeper     pointlessly as
one sees sharp teeth
he gets down on all fours
wheels sprout
the voice threatens
the little red pants splotch insignia
everybody salutes

we have spent billions for this
and picnic our children on a hillside to watch
they play with their plastic cartoon characters
there is wind in the trees
the monster below us spins tries to keep up
its wheels seem mudproof
the crowd applauds
this circling






from The Troubles (1993)

Political Hope Poem

is
the building has to offer and
inhospitable weather

hand on the roof i know is no
is
turned to iron has to wink
a tyger's eye

the rest of this foreign see stormy
born     is
and the golden age of drink
taste water     flavor
and the fourth consecutive increase
the roof's monotony

you're back
lightning
you're back
but it was coming anyway






from The Troubles (1993)

After the Street Party

long walk
down the long block
after the street party

can't tell the difference between broken pottery
and the abstracted angles of moonshadowed trees

dinosaurs roam the lawns
in front of castles formed by moonlight
still you keep walking

     all of the street barriers disappeared at nightfall
     none of the common-sense predictions came true
     at the end of the block there's a new park
     you can see it now     dusk's mists are gone
     the party is history     important as any
     the name of the park is yet to be recorded







(2012)

Influenza

all the doctors of the world
have come to your bedside
to analyze your influenza
they gather like flies at a stadium
to watch the game
discuss
concur
and shrug:
given the choice
the body chooses to remain fat
the great men rise and shake hands
promise to use the money
to study warfare on the moon
pose for photographers:
dragging their dead chickens after them
the doctors file into the street







from The Troubles (1993)

Sign of Belonging

excuse me for a
                  fly in the window
and an hour before the bus takes off
should i wear my curly wig?
will that stop the fire in the mountains?
alfred packer built a good car
but the muzak on the rock station
being beaten by his father
                  horrible        that's ridiculous
let's pose
the fly's walking the sill outside the window trying
to get in
and people are looking
                              drinking coffee
still an hour before the bus takes off
couple walking out of the cafe
matching blue shoes
shows they bought them together
though hers are dirty now
his clean        a sign of belonging
still an hour






from The Troubles (1993)

Abstractions

i have drunk my own blues

i am drunk on them and your fury

i hate it that you may get killed
for no reason by a hand so like yours
that it might as well be your own

i hate it that you've made a wreck of your life
that you subvert your own fury with your own
ultimate silence

i hate it that your own dead body
shot or coked out
may lie on my doorstep or feet from it

i hate it that you may cause my death
as stupidly as you cause your own

i hate it that people glory in this







from The Troubles (1993)

For Elizabeth Dagenhart

when the stars like claws
  and the night sky like someone else's secrecy
  and the city lights like false nature
  conspire to make beauty
when yesterday's pages of armed robbery
  and last night's phonecall of attempted rape
  and this closed car's best attempt
  to pollute planet earth to death
conspire to invent safety
  we know we're home

they come up on us like hydrophobia
  panhandlers turned muggers
  hunters turned predators
  hustlers turned rapists
your sense of safety like a dead bird in the gutter
no sophisticated victim

welcome home city of god
  remade with rapist's smile
         robber's claws
         murderer's scent for news
welcome   home
  that won't last
  without collapsing
that blesses us
  with our own blood
    only at certain points in our histories

from The Troubles (1993)

Steamer to Greece

in medusa
the seeds of pattering feet under the volcano of innocence
plowed under interplanetary foreheads' 
intimations of time bomb
soloed at la scala    presented the prince's pin
at the end of the time of the blueberry sandwich
the traded for a polar bear
declared at customs left the officer a harsh glare
which he took inside to sharpen his motorcycle
leaving her to a steamer to greece

she arrived steamed
nine-headed dogs hounded her feet
television sets glared from serpents' heads
the rock cafe where she ordered butterscotch
refused her babylonian money
she grew fat on a ranch with a one-eyed giant
watched her island shrink to respectability
adopted circe for establishment of ages future
then went to the caves     to her stay-at-home sisters

in medusa we have her two sisters
plowed under by the sharp motorcycle of babylonian money
nine-headed at the time of blueberry sandwiches
teeth declared and traded for a television set
medusa alone among them alive enough to die

from Twisted History (1999)

What Saw

art is large floors
brought to crowds and workshops

three exhibits attract films   seasons
art along influences

it was heart orphanage

yet another canonization

calamity of downtown royalty

survivor house

   and you must walk through the showroom
   grew up to be a new york journalist
   thousands of immigrants arrived
   i see their eyes   through eyes of my own
   the long deep line at the edge of the sea
   a young divorcee called civic duty

from Purgatorial (2004)

Missouri River 1820

the one in the front is about forty
leans     on the oars
and the grizzled hair on his chin
and his closed and toothless mouth
and his worn green wool cap
all add up to the mystery
of why he is still
out there on the river
as he glares at the painter

this painting is from my childhood
i will never be
a grey toothless bear
i will be maybe
twenty-five
then look like that forever

my children will
always be children

the young man with him
holds his chin in his hand
smiles
he has thick black hair
and a hand on an oar
he knows lord byron
he swivels toward the painter
he seems close friends
with the older man

from Twisted History (1999)

Compare But Only Behind

i'll hold it in uses its brain
sing hymns to a basketball
treat it     blue eyes and
as my own with psychiatrists
when it hears country and western ballads

and never got fixtures humming

i'll marry it and to mandalay
maybe it fits right under your pantleg

i need a heart
regular
never bleeding
i'll name it pants are loose enough
and in its tropics
i'll compare drink enough saxophone to find out
but only behind vomit passenger ships
whenever you think of her
and talk about the road to mandalay

the road to mandalay
where the frozen dinners play

as if i were     dogs
mouth shrinks it has blue eyes and
uses its brain for a basketball
dogs     that have more taste
not above more taste
i need heart fixtures humming
electrical like a vein called back
regular     the road's about to go off
sing hymns to treat it
as my arm

originally published in The Flying Dog (1993)

Pompeii

you follow your dog out of the subway
into the forum of pompeii

     a few decades
     that's all you get

he walks on two feet now
you know the forum from this morning

     a few decades
     that's all you get

where are the floors?
where are the roofs?
why are the paving stones
set so unevenly?

why is my house
so terribly ruined?
all the temples
they're ruined too

     a few decades
that's all you get

from Twisted History (1999)

Cutup From A Chain Letter

god created me from harm
made me better for all seasons

eat us not grow consideration
overwhelm us with most merciful

we need    of the state    of a mortal

there is pleasure    in misery    overcome

i have dinosaurs too     chained dog town
your heart and life

    love with your sins
    even apparently evil thankfully
    so they can grow up

    love does not hurt others
    so just wait
    your life will give you spice

from Purgatorial (2004)

po mo

po mo o no
po no o mo
o mo po no
no po o mo
o po no mo
no mo po o
mo o po no
no o po mo
o o o o
po mo po no

from Purgatorial (2004)

If Another

if i had a hamburger
for every fingernail lost at sea
i would be codfish

if i were a     tin     can
of marmalade
fewer bandages would get lost in the tundra

all of this
is true somewhere

     so soothe yourself
     moisten the tiles on your roof
     the shingles over your eyes
     cry upside-down
     laugh     to the fish
     tell them mountain-climbing jokes

from Purgatorial (2004)

Shadow

watching the light
as the pen
extinguishes it
with words

from Oedipus'First Lover (2009)

1350 AD

i remember the hour
when only rich men could possess fish
because the legs of fish
were too expensive for common people
to polish

i remember
the taste
of gold paint
on my tongue

merlin asked us to construct his castle of air
we all breathed in and out
then out and in
then exhaled mightily
and the countryside flickered
and the film began

i remember
silver tunics on mice
rats dressed in black
with white lacquered crucifixes at their necks
i remember     the fleet river
carrying its tribute of dead garbage bags to the thames

i hold a lantern
the link between your sinews:
are you the link
between pieces of cloth?

his teeth fizz
as he contemplates
the immanent death
of several articles of clothing

from Twisted History (1999)

As If You'd Added to Your Flesh

once the electronic is looking for you
camels are no longer imaginary

everyone agrees    broken pieces of detectives
are traded at pawnshops

as if you'd added to your flesh
as if you'd added

get it back
four months and twenty days
you made languages about

brush away the crusty lining
you warm to the mice

under her consciousness you have civilization
under the fingernails

under her consciousness you have fingernails
like civilization

under her civilization you have flesh
like consciousness

from The Troubles (1993)