the everybody-dog

 

I used to love

everybody I loved

like a big stupid

dog

it made every day exciting

but it hurt a lot

anyway I am trying

to get back 

to that

IDEA

summer: brutalized by the Roman sun

reduced to weird circles 

out and back again

with badly-planned groceries

    my books are sleepy

    my head is hot and dry

like Keats and Shelley before I die

(though I do hate

to repeat myself) it would be nice

to sing unselfconsciously 

like some kind of bird:

that is the exact idea

if not the most precision wording

but I’m talking about freedom goddammit

freedom to be obscure

and from within that obscurity

to rob empires

emphatically not talking about those freedoms

always referenced by Americans

as having been died for

by soldiers

listen:

as we are learning now

those were always very low-utility freedoms

but you, Laura, with your medical knowledge

with your fresh laurel

di Padova se non erro

and delicate hands

if you could just kill me, perform the operation,

then bring me back

such that 

some kind of bird

like that one I often heard

in the Protestant Cemetery

(I’m willing to fly to Rome

for this;

we'll do it in the graveyard)

might rise from the chaos

just to hang out

and be itself

...I bet you anything

it would work

could you read up on that?

I think we should try it

THE TRUE LOVER

 for Molly

Ovid says

is not quite right in the head

also lovers find clothes too restricting

and are happier in underwear and hosiery

Cercamon says he is

both luxurious and sick

and ‘my sickness hath a wonderful appearance’

according to Wyatt he's all about

long small arms 

and pallid thighs

naked feet and imperious looks

all in the aftermath 

of a pleasant guise

for Housman he's a melancholy corpse

whistling so softly

you can barely hear

you'll taste before you see the blood

that drips from his throat

which like enough is slit from ear to ear

That is a pretty scary picture isn’t it

maybe it will give you a nightmare

and if it does I hope 

with all my heart

I'll see you there

'SPELLBOUND'

'Spellbound' runs

through unresisting brain

around and around

like getting stoned

with Molly and Lisa

or drinking that tea

de Quincey switched to

but I forget

my watch is ticking all by itself somewhere

in the dark

raging

deprived

berserk

I hear and I am sorry for it

 

horns drive

through unresisting body

train horns

hornsmoke

cry of Dandelion the one-horned goat

knowing it will soon

be pushed though a very small opening:

death

I hear and I am sorry

being far from innocent 

in the matter of Dandelion

 

a shudder runs though unresisting bed

it's a cave-in all right:

a collapse somewhere in the deep

spreading quakes

around inside the planet's terrible head

which will not stop

absorbing its food

 

from everything

everything

an electrical ghost it

runs right through

neurons

passages

of infinitely binding

narrowness 

and beatings

by which I never fail to be entraunced

NO TELLING

 

Suddenly I do not know

what cruelties 'our leaders' 

are not 

poised to commit

wolves and jackals do not

in the least

            overthink

    their remit

INFESTUS MAXIMUS

 

the demos is fucking

infested 

with lazy bloated infants

who think the sun rises and sets

on their doughy asses

    all righteously powdered

    and fed to perfection

while all around them 

nature 

is

screaming

            "i feel like a hot dog!"

when you call them on it

they look at you like:

"I am sternly following the market

how dare you"

MEDEA

AEGEUS: The dramaturgical 

        unlikelihood 

of the dragons that draw her chariot 

touches not her

Medea’s overturned bags

of horror

she comes with toxic surprises

yes she gives them to everyone

Thus clarified

are age-old questions of right

and redress

for, you know, of fractions she hath 

a breathtaking command

the which she hath imparted to the kids

Now she bears her meteoric car

abruptly into sylvan marshes

her gaping jaws

are a thing of terror

to the creatures living there

It is a season

of death and disfigurement

all around

    particle damage

    brain damage

    damage control

but let her come

I am the bitch-absorber

PERICULUM

Solitary divergence on a point

of physical law

is nothing on which to found

a theory of liberty

but maybe it is

not all experiments

know they are experiments:

some of them think

they are the happening itself

and furthermore

that it's a success

and good for them!

go, little swerve

sail on, silver bear

IT’S COOL, THO

I can’t hear Chet Baker in Tokyo

    (whose deathward drift

    by ‘Funny Valentine’

    is well underway)

    over Francesca’s

helium-voiced europop

whose rabid cheer 

opens a wound in my braine

from which billows out

a literary night

to cover the earth

contaminate the whole horizon

or else coagulate a gulf

wheels of confusion

are all in motion

no airbrake’s got a purchase

on that

a contagion of letters

in an access of decay

a scun

of sunshine

chucked in the window

tied to a rock

a swivet

a stab

of retrograde caution

against a mob of communicants

you should know by now, professor:

you can’t fight Francesca’s europop 

        with Chet

that

is an errand 

for Sabbath.

WHAT IS A BONE-PENCIL?

 

OK we’ve got problems

politics problems

hardware problems

software problems

GARBAGE problems

and water problems

vocabulary problems

dream problems

and waking problems: massacres

and genocides

we’ve got

murder problems all right

and problems we can only forget

with stacks of comics

and satan movies

all night long

which themselves

also have problems

 

also problems

bone-pencil

summers-day

imperial

psychic

overload

 

plus in the university

administrative oFermŌd

 

but…

these are practically our

ONLY problems!

THE BRINK OF DOPE

Elderly demons always seem

slightly taller than you

and it takes them forever to leave

they talk so much

since they have a surplus of heads

(however many is too many, says I)

it is people like that

rudely congregating

always talking, belaboring the obvious

that leave you standing

on the brink of dope

THE SECRET POETRY OF EVERYDAY LIFE

The secret poetry of everyday life

is not undone by indifference

to its total continuity

and infinitely suspended punchline

in expectation whereof

we toil dividedly but I digress

!

the secret poetry of everyday life

bears its odds and ends

lightly

look

some of your own stuff is going by

there it goes

NOSTOS

Don’t be so impatient to get home.

Everything you remember

is waiting to destroy you

the moment you return

that’s why you need a really 

killer boat-song:

like ‘The Sea-Farer’ or 

Columba’s Rhine-poem

or the Bunnymen: 'Ocean Rain'

(But not like Caesar’s 

lost (thank god) poem ‘Iter.’)

Because whatever it is

you think you remember,

the magic is different now.

Don’t be in such a hurry to check your 

messages

either.

SOPHOKLES, AJAX, ll. 646-647

At every pass

time, vast and measureless,

brings strange and unexpected things about

while everything that's obvious

is plunged into doubt

SPACE VOMIT

 

where does this strange new vomit

come from?

deeper than stomach

deeper than bowels

it rises up

from more abysmal depths

than body

can possess

 

it comes from hell

no!

it comes from space

 

as if on purpose

to eat your face

WHAT DAY IS IT

poetry books filled with slime

pages of this year’s books

full of damp

covers of paperbacks curl upwards

what was the problem?

not enough rigor

no motivation

or a crowd of lesser, but easily got, satisfactions

blunting the will

and spelling the death of hustle

not enough witches

not enough wolves in the throne room

not enough darkness on the throne

perhaps there was never enough geometry

to begin with

I sure as hell neglected

mine

LASS UNS LEBEN

scream the German elephants

which if I had the imagination

I would totally do

why does my cellaphone smell

like meat

why  does my plasama screen

smell like alcohol and mold?

why do all creatures run away from me

how far in that direction am I

allowed

to travel?

SICKO

 The doctor said, 

‘the pure products of America

go crazy’

you would know that better than most

if you weren’t so damn crazy

but I’ll say this for you

you are robust in your naked criminality

your  lust and puerile prodigality

your disease

whatever it is

is having a good ride

 

but there is no Asclepius with a cure

for your sovereign sickness

the doctor's got  no ℞ on his pad

for the thing that ails

your slowly boiling self

you’ll just have to lobster it out

NOSEBLEED PROPHECY

with a deep-crimson nosebleed

i started the day

i raised my flag

days of rice and beans

days of rice and beans and blood

afternoons of loneliness and tears

recordings assist

in bringing to life

the wailing of the children

beyond

and well within

and all along

the borderline

anti-psychotics

for children in tears

banners for nosebleeds

hollowed-out retail space 

for concentrating

small inconsolable captives

here is my prophecy:

  when this all flips

   you will die

most horribly

cf. Sophokles, Oedipus Tyrannus, ll. 1-13

 

O CHILDREN

of old from the Kadmean line

what brings you even here

strewing the porches of the shrine

with laurel branches

wound with wool

and assuming the contorted postures

of supplication

?

The city's air is choked with incense

and heavy with groans

and the murmur of prayer: therefore

I must know

from you

what is up!

*

...such was, and is, a good thing

for a king to ask

his suffering people

even if the answer

will ruin his house

and cause him to tear out his eyes

and send him forever

alone

to his shrivelly place

SOMEBODY REMIND HIM

 

If you don't remind me I'll forget

to send you that bibliographical source

to read your poem so full of beauty and force

as I already know that it is

alas the brain

is lousy with concepts and appointments

whose purpose the soul cannot fathom

so please remind me

that everything except

• poetry

• bibliography

• and sex

is completely useless

please please you freak

whoever you are please

remind me in case i forget