Don’t roil the water Wait for the paint to dry Sssh! the children will hear What are you burning Commingling with the ashes of the dead? Surely you know the matter— Particulate—we breathe Is someone’s uncle Or sister floating in air At 300 ppm
Recycling You say bilious In cross-bone stance Dead planet nimbus Blinding Chunter of dead Rasps & tongues
A passing thought I hooked & threw back
“We made the world we’re living in and we have to make it over again.”
— James Baldwin / “Notes for a Hypothetical Novel”
Fissure kitty at a neighbor’s glance—under the shake-up of a manic-depressive trend—laden with oppressive fudge, in August heavyweight. I initiated it.
My fissure sunbather fuzz, with fanfare drums—from Miami to Kankakee—to backfire applause and Janus-faced adulation.
Faun joined us then on an anachronism-fueled jag. We didn’t make a record until we tarred 48 housefeathers in Idioteque, Arizona.
I witnessed faun’s beauty—an undergarment so severe—it was a triumph. A homily to downy wool.
A “hello” at Arrowhead—followed by another record. Produced by the very weightlifter convicted for ordering 40 Chomp Bards about in a wanton manner.
I took fissure kitty and faun for an early morning jaunt in search of Beatles-subcontract-hairstyles. The barbers motored with clippers called Mr. Potpourri, Ms. Headlamp, and Mrs. Dingleberry.
Another jaunt. The peace broken. I didn’t understand why faun and fissure kitty fought so intensely and frequently to the syncopation of the weightlifter’s discharges.
We broke up the band.
We separately formed the BeetleGees, The Third Dinghy, and Neil Dichotomy.
None of us separately ever as artful or popular as we had been together on The Budgie Enema of His Benefactress.
Some call for a reunion. Some are nonplussed. Most never knew or ever cared.
Imagine a soybean model as one might see at a redeemer’s onstage rage steamroller.
I think that was you trying to stay out of your own web.
You reduced and hosted ragbag shows for fifteen yogis. Your vocatives mixing bobbins—always at the fireguards.
Now you have three open chaps playing three different songs—and you cater the most distinctive poisons over the swirling skronk of sap-pushing spearmints.
Who will brook a soybean libertine?
You stay out of the red-deed microbe. You steer clear—avoid diversions and whither northward.
You slog louder—the swirling skronk of soybean push spiking red.
The nestle in the analog microbe clinks at every tinkle—it hogs enclosed dictations.
The digital microbes choking red and blackjack ordinance yellow, rarely in the green.
All is a swaddlle of magic grinding above the playpen.
All this planned in headquarters.
“What’s wrong with me, what’s wrong with me, never tranquil, seething out of my dirty old pelt, out of my skull, oh to be in atom, in atoms!”
Sometimes I wander about looking for some sensible artful words to say— I find I scramble in public domains— I breathe life different— not better or more artful life into said words—
I suck the joy out
give you a bushel of moldy lemons— you ain’t making lemonade out of— you’re “making due.” (do do do do)
Let there be a day when frozen brown rice, shredded cheese, and raw unsalted sunflower kernels are government issued—sometime today.
See if you make a nutritious pablum from an unpalatable bolus and how it changes your life. No one is pleading for joy— everyone is looking to get paid— It appears like this, inside this skull, inside this skull, anyway.
oy
oy the wind the oi wind stalwart flood me rain flash silver
i abandon i i desolate stumble down wild
Joy by Clarissa Scott Delaney
Joy shakes me like the wind that lifts a sail, Like the roistering wind That laughs through stalwart pines. It floods me like the sun On rain-drenched trees That flash with silver and green.
I abandon myself to joy— I laugh—I sing. Too long have I walked a desolate way, Too long stumbled down a maze Bewildered.
(This poem, “Joy,” is in the public domain. The poem originally appeared in OpportunityIV, no. 26, in October, 1926)
“and she wipes the weary from her eyes still glued to the no-good glued to the high-definition glare of low-definition life”
— Jason Reynolds & Jason Griffin / ain’t burned all the bright
My viscera holds all creation / a cornucopia at the edge of blur / all creation / the smudge in my hypnogogia / I am exhaling / all creation / sugar skulls, tripe, & the pelt of the trickster fox / or am I inhaling / yet upon my broken back / the fissure at the center of my pain / to live through another moon day / the moon aloof admonishes / the fiery giant going cold on itself / on the burn to white dwarf
I hold the key to plate tectonics / to all phases of macrophages and mitosis / the faces of the lost & the haunted / all this extracted in my tears / tears upon the golden mean canted / my easel & two-post bed / frame & bisect me at the point at which I am already broken in two / seethe cold center-heat of my being / nail screws & plates / amorphous as the primordial rock / a sentinel on my moonscape
This is a recursive moon / myriad moons will blot out the sun / here with fowl plucked indignant / among these worlds / this world superheating in its own greenhouse / I hold all creation / I and I are all creation.
“Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.”
—Zora Neale Hurston / Their Eyes Were Watching God
“Be a good steward of your gifts. Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk. Take the phone off the hook. Work regular hours.”
air hot & full of rancor / can’t breathe / the bestial reliquary open on my chest / body full of foul humor / a plague doctor nowhere in sight / fallow fields & mud / so much boot-sucking mud / skull encased in mud / the pressure of 10 andré bretons & 3 1/2 tristan tzaras / every other breath an exquisite corpse / pustules full / venom sacs stretched to leaking / my own worst enemy / uninhibited by the showiness of ages
“How do you know what you’ve forgotten? He knew only that he was a case of nerves between two eternities.”
I have no idea what she says, or what tongue she speaks. She doesn’t speak English or Spanish, and that’s all I can muster. I haven’t the slightest idea of what she is up to, out in this perpetual gloom. But she keeps saying: “I dag ar det tisdag, I dag ar det tisdag, I dag ar det tisdag…”
I must have an odd look on my face because her lower lip quivers and her eyes well up. I don’t know what I can do for her. I offer shelter. She doesn’t understand, just repeats the same thing. I don’t know how to help. I want to help. What is she, ten or eleven years-old? How can she be out here alone?
So I say “yes!” and give her a big old bear hug.
What else is there to do in this hard-dead world? We once contented ourselves with keeping our families safe and near. Those that were content, maybe had a close circle of friends (some circles were larger than others, some were merely small frayed arcs) — maybe we tithed and volunteered to read or feed others more needy — for some this seemed enough.
But we don’t concern ourselves with the wider world anymore. Is there a world anymore? We’re safe here. It’s all waste out there.
She doesn’t battle this bear hug and she stops speaking. I squeeze to give comfort. She evanesces. Atom by atom all that is left is air.
I’m left at the shelter doorway looking like I’m hugging myself — that is, if anyone were there to look. Who would, who could, in this darkness? I’m alone, wondering why I don’t do this more often. Hug myself.
I go back into the shelter and down the stairs to the writing room. I’m down to a ream of paper, a handful of pens, and two candles… but I must compose some lines…
I.
Did I hear it in a dream? Or is it a long-distant memory? I dag är det tisdag…
A drooping of the eyelids in a sleepless Moment As you fight the sweep Of darkness Upon you. Only the whispered Supplication From the darkest corner Of childhood Releases you from penury. Peaceful Sleep never comes.
II.
I condone what you done…
In the wimple sun I slapped away the wattle arm Of the man that bred Me to a hardened son.
I agree with your version Of sublime reparation.
I condone what you done…
III.
Condone / Condemn
I dag är det tisdag…
“But in a dream I don’t worry about touching you, ruining you in that way. In a dream, I dance by myself, and I collapse.”
— Carolyn Zaikowski / In a Dream, I Dance by Myslef, and I Collapse
thee istsfor manity reader 