sitting wondering smoke from his quasimodo cigarette the battlements of paris are still around his brain sunrise caught in their crenellations dawn yawning and the earth turning under his feet petrification is a long dirty road earth dropping like dust from the rolled bottoms of his trousers existential comfort is good for only a moment or two then back to around the city walls his endless pacing the world is so nasty now that the middle ages seem like paradise rasputin fingering the car company in his pants the king worshipping himself as the incarnation of all gods ever so don’t give me another medieval romance as a cure for anything smoking your dreams is lethal you burn yourself out the thousands of this city are ready for the lightWritten March 27, 2025
Friday, March 28, 2025
Dawn Too Over the Medieval River
Monday, March 24, 2025
Denly Ware
i hear them: sucks in abs o phorical saint munal soul just before it shakes hands with isolated itted denly aware of click clack prayed with after timing itself open in public gument glibly to say clear throat rection ar gue think of myself now a self-delusion imagining itself in real time walk walking’s free come on over ethereal meatball hot city at the base of the clouds newly seized power from its house of wart monkeys mermaids and sea elephants dunking green donuts in one of the side fountains where dren fidently play a biolinguistic image of a stewed dragon projected on a cathedral wall a kitten carrying a barrel of water in a coffee cupfrom Yew Nork (2014)
Friday, March 14, 2025
Two Kids Playing Catch
that once as i was a kid made no idea the storm drain was much louder then old age brings secrets of helicopters to an older body the black sky of sleep at first draw a blue stripe at the top of the picture the first time i went down to the subway i hold its bones like dice in my hand behind grey clouds there is invisibility the water’s at the lip of the cup now then there’s green that’s grass at the bottom people waiting hardly moving for the next train you’ll never reach this age if you think about it so much space between green and bluefrom Yew Nork (2014)
Friday, March 7, 2025
Pomp and Circumstance
i once thought of life as a play one’s own play with one’s seat center stage for the duration but now i think that that isn’t true that one’s life really is a play that all the characters one knows are in it that they are all in the play their entire lives and still that one’s one’s own main character but that that character is born and dies in the middle of the third actfrom Yew Nork (2014)
Sunday, February 23, 2025
Another Measure of Decadence
as the blows against trump get harder his skull gets thinner until it’s like eggshell so beautiful he thinks like fabargé the romanovs would have been proudfrom Trump Tics (2020)
Thursday, February 13, 2025
Through the Dark
my mouth makes a noise: is it a cat? a child? it creeps through a graveyard its tongue pulling it along the great vacancy behind it a new kind of oblivion for the dead: in mouth there is no rot no bones to be dried nothing ostentatious even breath and eating are from some other place and it pulls itself along swallowing nothing soul's antithesis leaving nothing but tracks an occasional belch and a faint noise of invisible wheelsfrom Oedipus' First Lover (2009)
Sunday, February 2, 2025
Outside of the Bank
in the financial district the neglected cardiologist count the prostitutes the executive strip club tears too early to cry count the prostitutes the sterling reputation of the corner bank the empty middle of gold coins the last lava shake at pompeii=s last coffeehouse you could see from the aquarium room on the top floor of your greed where cattle graze on their passports and entire armies are invented where memories of trojan air raid sirens are the punch lines of broken condom jokes and the men in blind grey suits fight on their knees with cardboard swords and shields of woven rubber bands where death is conceptual and sexy and down several stories they=ve thrown images of you like you=d throw clay onto a wheel and dressed the product in a bright red miniskirt and a sign that says eat at standard oil then pretend to give it their hearts and yours and give it legionary songs to be played by quaint belching rodents inside sousaphones and aim for the gut it=s the biggest target your eyes your living room your stuffed toy self your memories of canyon de chelly lascaux and your childhood peter pan your stray stuffed heart pounding within the cotton batting don’t sell out please world don’t sell out
Friday, January 24, 2025
Saturday, January 18, 2025
1916
three a m the czar becomes aware that there are other russians and of the moon the memory of the sun the memory of stars like insects in a field of dark wheat he goes to the window the stars are still there far off in another wing of the palace he hears someone playing a violin he relaxes goes back lies down he didn’t know his heart was that high pitched that it held in it the songs of peasants and children he flexes his hand getting his cavalry ready he rolls onto his other side goes back to sleepfrom Oedipus' First Lover (2009)
Saturday, January 11, 2025
Advice Column
suppose you’ve been valentine’s day for a week looking for sunrise through the spaces between the black bars on a bank computer form looking for months every day for a home for news or at least what’s rumored to be news do it with a blanket better than a blank bank form do it with the smile of a laugh better than an information dump truck your fingers dance nude in cyberspace even if their partners are words and numbers don’t be part of a formal agreement be love be love people are waiting for youfrom Oedipus' First Lover (2009)
Thursday, January 2, 2025
The Eyes of the City
the eyes of the city are not the windows you pass on your way to the subway the eyes of the city dwell brightly in their own thoughts thousands of them all around you you could love them they could love you love you without even knowing it love you who are there with them you too the eyes of the city
Friday, December 27, 2024
The Hangman's Beautiful Children
fishing for muses here on the subway platform for the hangman’s beautiful children full of wheel sharp of ankle loose of blouse strap long of boot and in her hands tissue paper origami crane bright of clothing even if her clothing’s black eye shadow with eye flash bright within it sinuous deep animal stride even in the routes of his fingertips as they cross the keyboard of a laptop screen depth of light that can shut off in an instant o hangman how you envy your children how you’d reverse polarity so that they’d be born as dead as you’ve made yourself how you’d bind the leather of your heart tightly over the flesh of theirs how you’d sew it cold without sweating don’t you know that unbound hearts beat faster than yours does? don’t you know they know the games of flight that birds in love make?from Yew Nork (2014)
Friday, December 20, 2024
The Entranceway
the potatoes roll in through the doorway in a line roll not walk not quite balanced because they’re not symmetrical but they’ve found out they make fries here and they can’t stand not missing the action the line extends past sight going back to what was once defined as a farm it’s rush hour they’re going as fast as raw potatoes can wobble the cook’s wrists ache in anticipation the deep fryer bubbles like a fulfilled stomach the music roils hotly in their heads they dream they can dance to it and that wealth will come to them when they’re cooked gold and toastyfrom Some Coffeehouse Poems (2022)
Friday, December 13, 2024
Sorrow Post -Trump
maybe tomorrow the four solar appearances we’ve missed will appear in the same sky in the same hour maybe tears will become rain again the hours you spent hurt crunched can fold in time to memory with only the pain of a cut hand in memory to remind you the skin of a scar is light and silvery a road to a new firmament where the stars show silvery and bright each star itself a sunfrom Trump Tics (2020)
Monday, December 9, 2024
After the Election (2028)
after the plague had passed halloween was over the suits of disease walked empty no survivors wanted to fill them streets no longer grew mad cars and the seeds of abandoned concrete began to sprout see that dog? he’s enjoying the excitement of a walk so full of scents of mystery who owned this car? why are all these people so happy? the seeds of concrete finally erupt as sculpture and it’s up to dogs to figure out which survivor planted which oneA version of this poem appeared in Trump Tics (2020)
Saturday, December 7, 2024
Style
sometimes his style of communication gets in the way when he says he wants to kill you you know you have to interpret that yourselffrom Trump Tics (2020)
Wednesday, December 4, 2024
Avoiding Being Overheard
the one waits at a table by the far wall looking at nothing for at least ten minutes finally the other one comes in nods greeting gets coffee sits down and they start talking in short sentences in a language i think i’ve never heard i ignore them then start to understand them it’s english all the words backwards the sun is out it’s gonna be hot all four women at the table next to mine are young energetic and excited about something that’s lively enough to be gone tomorrow i can’t catch exactly what they’re talking about the dictator has been in power for three years the two by the wall talk slowly and sparingly even language can creep awayfrom Trump Tics (2020)
Monday, December 2, 2024
Plumbing's Revenge
i must have looked manic searching all over the castle for the manuscript that held captive the last words of count dracula i knew they were mine to find even in the dimness of night because the ooze of centuries can’t take away the phrases everyone needs to know trump looked for his most meaningful phrases all over the white house mar a lago the former environs of everyone he’d ruined the throbbing ecstatic insides of his cellphone the slimy grit of his intestinal mind but he couldn’t find them at all and decided they must have been abducted but they still clung around more real than the statement of a fictional vampire bright day or dim night in the pipes leading from his golden toilet to the soft muddle of his dismal mind and back again flushed over and overfrom Trump Tics (2020)
Saturday, November 30, 2024
The Dictator's Radio
the coffin that sleep contained a car buzzes by like its eyes are closed i remember the obvious i hear something like a broadcast voice i remember the dream last night that told me to wake up that predicted this morning in terrifying clarity my eyes ache from the shrill light of dawn eyes drift down the sidewalk over paper cups of coffee let’s hope that bloodshot eyes will remember themselves the dictator’s radio hangs from your ears each step cold as if made in ice water your shoes coffins your destination frozenfrom Trump Tics (2020)
Monday, November 25, 2024
Donald's Pot Luck
donald trump took a bag of poisoned potato chips to the potluck the bottoms of his shoes sucked all the colors out of the carpet making it as white as a k k k hood meanwhile his minions added a layer of nazi-made bricks to the walls of the house now that i’m here he pronounced this event is yuge everybody is happy but he was the only one there because everyone else had fled as the bricks leaned inward and even the roof he’d held up with hot air started to collapsefrom Trump Tics (2020)
Friday, November 22, 2024
Astronomer of Truth
it comes every day the inexact night when the stars cluster more approximately than the constellations they taught you to see other days you think you remember as so much different from this one and the dog down the street should have told you but someone maybe him has been moving his bones around to where that future won’t find them your teachers should have told you your apple should have told you the flute that leads the dawn should have told you the stars themselves should have told you they’re all liars and now you’re looking at them wondering what they have to teach you nextfrom Trump Tics (2020)
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Plea
almost toxic the kind of stuff taxis roll by my lawn is covered in make believe right now statue leans meaningfully on her hand as trucks roll past her tires that have been everywhere lend scent to a dog’s sense of meaning in the middle of all this there’s a dictator who is so evil and powerful that he cannot be taken as anything but literal he lives in a mansion three thousand miles from here but even his grin affects everything to deny this is to chance shortening your life and everyone else’s by decadesfrom Trump Tics (2020)
Monday, November 18, 2024
Outside the Gas Station
last night i dreamt that i was leaning up against a gas station wall the stars spun themselves into a pattern that formed the skeleton of piltdown man i felt all of my energy driven out of my veins like blood seeking refuge in nothingness the new sky stood almost fictional like the moment between pulses when you feel the possibility of death bones even bones that never existed even bones described as ancestral and sacred by the mouth of a petty dictator the stars seemed dried as dessicated wood i wonder if my very own bones still glisten if the world still pumps alive outside of sleepfrom Trump Tics (2020)
Friday, November 15, 2024
His Welcoming Smile
when the fat dictator smiles why do we all feel like skeletons gathered around a desolate fire that will gradually dry the last of life from us?from Trump Tics (2020)
Wednesday, November 13, 2024
Catullus Thinks of Donald Trump
"Spaniards/ use their morning urine/ for tooth wash." -- Catullus it doesn’t bother me at all that you clean your teeth with piss as orange as your hair rome is a republic clodia right now sits watching the street waiting for me by a window on the second floor of her husband’s mansion she does not think of you rome is a republic here settled in my favorite seat in an outdoor theater watching an awful play about gods i barely believe in i do not believe in you either o one of puffy eyes and hair of rotted straw that would shame a wild animal or even a barbarian the true order of things i do believe in that precludes you who would turn crowds mindless enough to riot before your games and after you came to power who think that the world is made for yourself while even my loves all of them do not think it is made for me so here i am watching some idiot on the theatre floor instead of writing love poems to my clodia she who may be the one who murders me before i’m thirty before the name caesar is anything but a family name before anyone with orange skin and hair of a texture that almost defines disease seeks by his presence to defame the name of anyone from any old roman family rome is a republicfrom Trump Tics (2020)
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