The Second Breath

my brain is getting painted this dull universe
your shy nondescript     taking darts
and your check     your time     say
mommy can't we buy a we?

rutabagas here go lift the day
sweating a car outside
idling badly as a scientist
can only say wow when go crash down the hall

she stopped for an instant
conversation in the tar pit with invisible flesh
words no longer     they go
and you dance

you dance on tires
all the dolphins peopled by career oranges object
what wonders must be across the ceiling in my living room
what wonders must be across love overcame them all
a huge leap      houses zoom in
stop conversation
houses zoom in      a huge leap
she turns says what wonders you have in your head
at ground     move
your sky neutral
you see together
you dance

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)

Good Earth

this is the excuse of pleasant folks:
medusa's head        bound by a silk stocking
is kept incognito inside a desk
open hands clap until they are housebroken
and cyborgs with dog heads
sniff
around perimeters of fish ponds
dreaming           of the blood          the blood

in the sunset come and go
singing of daily mop and glo

o dead god buried          in the wheatfields of south dakota
what commercial trumpets your theme song?
do you rise          like a missile          at night
wet-dreaming of marge the plumber?
does someone          polish the end of your metal
each dawn to keep your thoughts brilliant and clean?

we are all multicellular now
phone us

we are still searching the plains
looking for medusa's teeth
planted
inches deep in the soil

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)

Swimming Pool Rotunda

be crowded within yourself
empty pass by pools of televisions broadcasting antique profundities
sing along with shepherds who’ve reburied their sheep in house twine
watch the aching of stone at your local amusement park

and what if other people too 
will be walking blind in swimming pools?
after long walks inside clouds
radios run antelope down their own antennae

the magic     opportunity     a new skill
a new memory in the same place as the old one
the steamboats of a leather navy in your coat pocket
you can reorganize yourself as a truck bearing crabapples
sounds lubricated under the steamroller of belief
it’s so seductive     a debt of bone     a cloudscape softened to cotton

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)

A Jealous Universe

his hips and she was suck
he comes into your party
i could see muscles twinge
and i know
leans against a wall

my landed neck i watched in her thighs and calves
excited and she in this new fingers
i could understand
my landed i neck i watched
she was possessing
talk

i could see him
i could understand
soon
he doesn't move
she was his eyes shown early
he was possessing
i would have

like tired eyes and starved strong
people     and some
began to leave
i felt     each stroke in their van yet
knowing the routine
begin to wonder about the cars
the long feet saturday an apparition
i could see muscles twinge
no routine     heard you cough once
they were possessing the walk
all of us alone     the desert sea
on the lawn  

  
  
  

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)

So Yesterday

so yesterday you tamed a cat into a lion
hung a picture of the world on a wall of stars
drove the whole road home from there
to your own rooms that are paradise
and invited it in for a drink

today the sky is so blue and distant
and yet so friendly
a miracle that comforts you
with its peace and its vastness

Its Elegant Steel Cage

behind the door     plored is advisable
like that died at the wheel     evidence with caged lips
but hats will be wallpaper     the original stables entering a cloud
where princes and elevators built abattoirs within waiting rooms

the voice     which literally cause were gamekeepers
is a journey into the basement 
of a lime-green monkey hidden in the cupcakes
snap that picture and crude pants depart
that means fewer meds year round and    hey     you
more coffee      i’m brewing chewing gum    
floating foundation     we did some myself upward
he passes the supermarket 
speechless within shock and admissible speed

we were holidays then    back when an attempt at charm
taking      saying thank you very much 
that repeating riff for thirty-eight years 
always adding her strange boil
was quite the poker escalator especially when the door broke down
less a mean spirited wearable wreck 
than a jerk with finders’ fees designed 
to prevent earthquake damage      the door?     
it’s still there     glad you asked
they tittered beside the drinking thank you
and the curtain went up and wouldn’t it be for water this time
but it’s a bright sunshiny day     always has been
and the apple reflects     so      mooooooo

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)

she crosses herself

she crosses herself
            every time a motorcycle goes by
one of the wheels
            the blood roaring into her heart
the other wheel
            the blood rushing out of her heart
            into the holy world
            of her body

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)

Re: Frigerator

            death is the
            last
                thing
            in the freezer but
            it's stuck
            on the back
            wall
            and you can't get it out
            without your fingers getting
            awfully 
                cold
            and the freezer getting
            awfully
                bent

From Oedipus' Firt Lover (2009)

The Battle Approaches (cut up after Huelsenbeck)

the rivers your parrots and
the towers’ walls have refastened
oh you rivers
but in freedom        bag man        female your hands
reach into the pockets of your veins

gigantic high silk hats
the shapes of angels

thus you form the hot floods    
they have pitched tents from a misfortune
a great battle passed over you
their dazzling eyes
lungs livers and slashed throats
the enormous ladies’ breasts expand in
balloons of the magi
armies of photographs
your lips’ sleep

gigantic high silk hats
the shapes of angels

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)

It Adds a Lot to the Handshakes

my mother brought my two heads west to california
there was an oil on us

quite young     have     in my hand
a very narrow definition of bridge

it’s a lump stretched out flat     i would call a doctor
except for the siren noise

which room was that?     hieroglyphics?
did describe apparition any?

people were living bed in trance experiences
bed was terrified

it lets loose when it moves around
people go there for the family house vista

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)

Around We Go O Western Civilization

never eat anything small
about a painful dilemma

at first was interested
a vast dome from their 
many
three hundred years of
kept      company
trading      themselves
like them themselves brawn
abandoned      
for centuries

with the paw they tried to sign treaties
aromatic ways      side harmonies
the nerve center of the confused renamed bacteria
the supreme right to warehouses was the seaport of denial
fixed      was largely composed to western dress
needles to themselves
so sing      a major religion
    sing      dirt on earth
    sing      it could be cornfields
    sing      narrow worlds collide in orange marmalade
saliva the new ocean rolling in
see that as a new horizon
    i am square miles
    i am islands by the dust motes
    i am history in three paragraphs
    i am alpenglow on electric teeth
    you are      out there
    somewhere      too

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)

Manufactured Dreams

this     hot     breath     of dream
out of the brain of your eyes
goes straight from your soul like a sudden street run
alive     then sleeps outside my window

the cat hisses     scratches glass     slaps
dreamland the way you’ve staggered off the road
but i hear you on the other side of transparency
that distance     as if you’re using someone else’s lungs

as if this dream has been breathing from under water
searching its own white scales as squirrels search for acorns
in good years it’s you looking for a deity
in bad years it’s you looking for yourself
searched for as fish foam eludes cats in its water treason
as deep bread huddles to stay hot until a window opens

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)

End

            end of the movie
            movie of the end
            of the movie end
            of the end movie
            end movie of the
            movie end of the

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)

The Moon's Influence Completely New Tests

to be kings of          pork
sat
it was even from somebody's radio
medical knowledge of dinner trays
sometimes now it          we
had teeth          very raw
you had it on your hands or it's an echo
than more terrified garbage

neither of us without the ability
to work the taste of this arm

the war center stinko
certifies addition
we could so of this elbow
away from tears:
            the music that would snarl noise outside
            not chain the party is where it enters
            coming into the box          courtroom
            a vivid applause from recorded memory
            can you hear it?
            a very serious animal
            loose from the squeal from last year
            there is no deity necessary
            often          again

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)

Tarzan's Twin

like a moON munching AIRpLANES
lIke ARCHimedes below the FLoor plAYing war games 
on youR cOMPuter
one TWIn STarts     turns to the oTher ASKS
is this HISTORY?

only if you beG fOr it after it’S HAPpEned
onLy IF you’rE numb to the tOUCH of the twine
that YOu Wrap around your knees before you RUN
SO THAT YOU CAN CATCH THE PERSON 
WHO’S FOLLOWING YOU

and then iF yOu tRy to remember the Scent Of deBris
it’s like meAsuring the MOON’S jaws witH calIPerS
FROM a car MADE from the diSCARdED grains
of STAle Bread poker chips     silicON     salt     BONE

LOrd greysTOke where in tHe jUnGlE is your mansion?
can I See it thROUGH the GHOSTs of umbilical fACTORieS
BrokEN Time tunnels ape meMOiRs lEonine preTENSIONs
hypoTHEtical CIVILIZATIONS SINGING BACKpacks?

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)

Poem from a Photograph (for Adam David Miller)

maybe the coldness has an air about it
maybe the cold air they play 
in the slow movement of a symphony
no comfort     the brass frozen over the strings
cold smoke     the woman exhales
and her eyes cross as they disappear in haze
that reconstructs itself as flowers at her feet
she used to wear them wreathed around her hair
free in celebration not that many days ago

the third sense is memory
i haven’t seen this photograph in several hours now
and few of my friends still smoke tobacco
nothing to remind me     not even dreams of sleep
just the roughened smoke of imagined image
of someone whose hand I must have held 
not so long ago

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)

Three Dictionary Poems

I  free:
            a political of speech
            being able to
            ease
            frankness

II  ice:
            damaged
            come motionless
            cover with to preserve
            formal or
            ice cream

III  fragile:
            to break
            it
            and staring

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)

Structure

thank the chair and its shadows
the backrest pillow laid lazily against the seat
the sunlight coming in

thank the window and its politics
the dappled light of leaves
the people who planted trees here

the one woman leaning forward
as if she can’t hear
but she can    the artifice of conversation

thank noon    though it’s soon over
even a day doesn’t dictate forever
even the privilege of this day
even the light feast of noonday socializing
come another day    light will be light again
the day a full day of an again lively earth

Folk Tale

i realize i got confused
didn't know whether it was an airport or a bus station
so i went in
and there were me and horatio alger
feeding dollar bills into a squat machine
wheeze it went
whirr   whirr   whirr
and pound notes came out
each with both our pictures on them
and each embellished with exchange rates

there
i was satisfied
we were making money

the last thing i saw as i left were horatio and myself
working       making more money
and it made sense
my having visited
it made sense

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)

One Town in Two Cities

i went to a party in a two-storey house in a camera from a window
drinking and smoking and tired him from his book rack
a walled shadow     
i turned a corner on a snowy london afternoon
i looked     are bed     
one woman with precocious talent

beckon to me with his right five photographs 
of 60's british rock musicians
age and whose photo     joined her at the door     
we walked up into the hall
and sit up and find myself in a room the size of my bedroom
downturned beds     two sleeps     tree lightning and quick cadences

            i look down and find that i     cut close     about twenty feet from me
            threw it to the man on earlobes     fine short grey hair cut roman style
            the dog’s leash and the psych tech’s uniform     his forepaws
            that i can remember nothing after walking half a block
            i am reading a magazine article and the pillow in my sleep
            dreaming their dreams or to begin in a few minutes
            
            
            
            
            

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)

Empty Streets at 3 AM

i really did like insane

grounds for people
and then        because movie fudges
the female a changed starling as a bird
the author not my hunch
definition
the star that is source on every dollar
town named killer himself

a human where
as someone possessed
i haven't turned up any
ritual murder gang
a changed aura
that means that
in real life

it must be realized
everything that anyone can
experience is an intellectualization
empty paraphernalia of the drug
when available
obviously real

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)

The Emperor's Lunch

pain     pain    nonstop urgency
goat demons hang from grey hairs     in my nose
a blue dragon flew into one of my ears
bamboo grows inside my legs
my ankles grow steel traps around them
on cold nights my knees hurt
hair grows on my back like an animal’s
i have always treated you as an abstraction

how do you do?
so glad to meet you
have you suffered yet?
would you like to take a course in it?
i would too
but all the teachers are busy

no grey hair died yesterday an hour ago
and i wake up every morning for the emperor’s lunch
there is no mystery to focus on imagine the hour
and entire countries of in my blood seems it’s always been
the knife being invisible
the french toast sunrise horizon
awake!                      awake! 
do it!

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)

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 over

from Trump Tics (2020)

Middle-Aged love Poem (for Judy)

imagine i a peddling across
evanescing to of so you
deal down to starlight
mutual many then
the years these lines
bicyclists on sparkles
my forehead
tickling

            imagine evanescing deal
            mutual the bicyclists my tickling
            i to down many years
            on a peddling across
            of so     on you starlight
            these lines then sparkles
            
            
            
            
            
            
            

from Oedipus'First Lover (2009)

In Memory

cold weather seems to freeze depression
keep it alive like last year’s stumbling half-dead mammoth
hold it like a breath that’s six months past its time to breathe
a sheen from a knife inside a cloud of frozen mist

i would pretend i was warm inside this house this cold
thermal depression the numbness of these walls keeping the ice away
normal      succession      the next word is normal
like wood an end event until you see the rot the next spring

            you’ve felt the way i’ve felt for days
            hearts brought down in descant above an empty melody
            throbbing in memory      all the death this year
            robbing one sense of another the notes settled all wrong
            starts and pauses      stops      heaps like the cold pepper of ash
            strewn deep upon itself      numb hearth      not ice      not heat

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)