cantos

I.
i am a physics professor
rubbing a blue balloon
against my head

but my memory
is fuzzy
concerning the whole event

there are only discrete chunks

II.
she is
then alone in
the drawing room

with the china
and scintillating glass cabinets

as i take breaks
from writing my lesson plan

to consider how i will approach this

"i have to be honest with you.
i am about to tell you a lie."


III.
as the moss
begins to move
indiscernably
towards the inside of the house

a deer will exit the woods
stepping lightly
from brown
to green

and the dogs will remain calm

and when i return from angling
at the creek

i, too, will sit
with iron orbs
hovering before me
and let him look upon us
as a still and silent ideal
of family

IV.
the parhelia
will then turn toward me
and i will begin walking away

to be standing
with cigar fingers
counting cuts
on my ankles

punching pores
into
the hotel wallpaper

puncturing
paper
plants

with
a complimentary needle

is you

"hugh?"
no, you
with a y

to be lying
on the city street
fingering
the back breaking grooves

is a new infancy

first words read:
LISA

or maybe it was "L is a ----"
and the derision worn away

poor L

p
o
o
r L

for you, I will tattoo this hotel wall

10/16/2007

for precision's sake
ill bring my shaving blade

each early morn
ill rise in the dark before dawn

lift it to my face
with the muscles in my arms
that i use to lift concrete blocks
at the site

you'll wake up then, too
nakedness spilling pink
like a flood of industrial hand soap
across the hotel room

if you are liquid
then, the small of your back is the meniscus

if you are coffee grounds
and boiling water
spitting and steaming
like a boxer
fighting in an outdoor arena
during winter

then i am sinking
into the descending hallucination
the blow allows

sonnet

oh, darling to your pallid skin it clings
to flesh and flesh alone in august’s heat
amongst your gardening movements you sing
your white, thin summer dress misses not a beat

and from the brambles, glass eye raised to mine
i kneel upon leaves and fallen boughs
and sing to myself some paean lines
which arc crescendo, then decrescendo

like this, i have watched for sarcous eclipse
to fill your evening bedroom window panes
like any patient man with wont of glimpse
with rods and cones from the dark of your lane


some night soon, i will descend upon you
like some blood red bird, offering its hue

sunday

suspend the poison tongue

of military talk

and

pin it upon the cross

of its compliment

passing the

mustard powder

to the king

who's crown

is forming a bruise line

around his skull

like an equator

human aluminum

10/04/2007

here goes nothing:

red china wear

chalk skeleton

delicate and ornate, bare

like a red bird

pecking at your window

the ghost of mother absurd

short story today

the car skated with ease down the soft slope of the road. it sloped as to acclimate the traveller to its curves, never surprising, never unsettling: a smooth descent.
she was driving, cigarettes, with the ash blown from the hyperventilating windows like funereal confetti of some grave celebration.
the embers have floated before, she is sure, of it. as i am, too. we have driven at night, and watched those small orange specks in meandering orbit, sent up like the arbitrary firecrackers of some inoculation. we got to talking, when the radio faded out. sure, did, yes we did. she spoke of general topics. this conversation could have been with anyone. this went on for some time, my attention naturally flagging, and shifting towards my right side: fields of oatmeal colored tinsel, with great creatures standing:symbols of prominence.
her eyes were bad, so i was the first to see the shape. it was a brown one. and as we moved closer, the amorphous image gave way to form and life: as if in those movements towards it the entire period of conception, gestation, and birth had set in motion and completed. a great, sad looking bull looked upon us with the eyes of dead relatives and friends forgotten. there was no passing it, fences on either side, and creature standing at the gate.
i got out of the car, with my hands outstretched as to offer peace to him:
he spoke: put your hands down, its okay
-my woman and i need to pass, dear friend: a few steps is all we ask of you

he spoke: tell me your name sir, and i will be on my way

- i will not

and at this they froze and remained in that grotesque position of obstinance, as night spilled across the pastoral scene like mercury-transforming the earth as they remained in stasis, like two puppets set down in the dark of the dressing room in an empty theatre: with frozen expressions.

my twenty second birthday...

and the most exciting thing i've ever done
is go for a jog

my father cut my hair
most years
before i left home

before i found a woman and lost her

and now
its time
for me
to go
back
and
have
pa
pare
these
thinning
brown branches
down
to reveal
my face
as young
again