It must be Spring again
Here’s the desk that once served as sofa table,
a receptacle for mail, loose change, keys,
things set down first upon arriving home,
now a desk in front of a bedroom window
looking over a bayou, the same bayou
in all the poems I’ve ever written,
the one that has run the same way
for all the years I have lived here
and for many years before.
The same two trees, oak and cypress,
hug a little closer.
And if I move the screen just a little to the left
I can type while watching the big brown squirrel
sitting on a branch of that same oak
and the new green grass reaching
through leaves left over from winter,
the pink buds on dwarf azaleas
shaking their ruffles in the wind,
and what just last week seemed an eternity
now begins to feel like spring.
MA 3/2/04
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
the purpose of green in the bikini machine shop
The bikinis passed overhead on hangers, dripping their green dye onto the floor, tapping undecipherable code as I considered the events of the previous day. I remembered Gregor Samsa and how he couldn't stop dropping things as he crawled from exit to exit inspecting the amount of light coming into the factory.
The first of the week was always the most difficult and unaccommodating as pressers relaxed in anticipation of the coming days. It took a heavy toll on us and I fear that it will last until the day we die. Minutes are stolen quietly in such places and dropped into someone else's clock before we realize what has happened. But I know because I have deciphered the code.
The first tap of the drip green is a lie but I am not fooled. Fair bright fading kiss. Kill and kill and kill I'm riding my bicycle-bicycle home.
It was simpler when it was only once upon a time, before the nimble life or a beheading to order cracked like a nut from paradise to inferno with just this laid bare in between. This.
Fucking thing. I twirl between two fingers and roll into the palm of my hand.
But what of the noise? And the grinding? And the textured electricity that hides rage behind something called—I don't want to say…
Gregor Samsa said let us be numb and give language only shells to batter. Not cannonade or abuse or hit or stamp or punch or kick or drub or assault or pummel.
Legs walk and compass remote from my expectation. There were high windows all round and the way someone stood with their head down told us nothing. And I knew that it was always like this––that silence told us nothing even though we were led to believe otherwise and think of our paltry moments as gifts holding mystery.
Once upon a time:
A boy received a hat for his birthday, wore it to school and made lights change along the way, made other kids spell hard words, made them run faster when they played.
Once upon a time:
All I ever wanted was everything and to live between the tops of trees.
tap…tap…tap…tap…
Green is the color of my genie. I'll say it (swinging) again because (unthunder) it doesn't seem (slow motion rhino) to be getting through.
But there is work to do in the bikini machine shop and the bikinis pass overhead on hangers, dripping their green dye onto the floor. I hear the whistle-not-proper connect me to ear-transparent's wunderkind though not enough to hide the tapping uncoded second pause. A movement glib with skin and blood and the stretching of their connection. Pulled from the bone and nibbled on by impending.
It's been wonderful.
But where is the girl? She is there. Sitting two rows over by the wall. Black hair down to her shoulders, covering most of her face but not enough to stop me from wanting to reach across space to touch her.
That small piece of skin is enough for now.
And then the bell rings and the bell rang and the bell will ring and the bell would have rung and the bell should have rung and the bell could have rung and the bell is ringing.
Once upon a time.
The bikinis passed overhead on hangers, dripping their green dye onto the floor, tapping undecipherable code as I considered the events of the previous day. I remembered Gregor Samsa and how he couldn't stop dropping things as he crawled from exit to exit inspecting the amount of light coming into the factory.
The first of the week was always the most difficult and unaccommodating as pressers relaxed in anticipation of the coming days. It took a heavy toll on us and I fear that it will last until the day we die. Minutes are stolen quietly in such places and dropped into someone else's clock before we realize what has happened. But I know because I have deciphered the code.
The first tap of the drip green is a lie but I am not fooled. Fair bright fading kiss. Kill and kill and kill I'm riding my bicycle-bicycle home.
It was simpler when it was only once upon a time, before the nimble life or a beheading to order cracked like a nut from paradise to inferno with just this laid bare in between. This.
Fucking thing. I twirl between two fingers and roll into the palm of my hand.
But what of the noise? And the grinding? And the textured electricity that hides rage behind something called—I don't want to say…
Gregor Samsa said let us be numb and give language only shells to batter. Not cannonade or abuse or hit or stamp or punch or kick or drub or assault or pummel.
Legs walk and compass remote from my expectation. There were high windows all round and the way someone stood with their head down told us nothing. And I knew that it was always like this––that silence told us nothing even though we were led to believe otherwise and think of our paltry moments as gifts holding mystery.
Once upon a time:
A boy received a hat for his birthday, wore it to school and made lights change along the way, made other kids spell hard words, made them run faster when they played.
Once upon a time:
All I ever wanted was everything and to live between the tops of trees.
tap…tap…tap…tap…
Green is the color of my genie. I'll say it (swinging) again because (unthunder) it doesn't seem (slow motion rhino) to be getting through.
But there is work to do in the bikini machine shop and the bikinis pass overhead on hangers, dripping their green dye onto the floor. I hear the whistle-not-proper connect me to ear-transparent's wunderkind though not enough to hide the tapping uncoded second pause. A movement glib with skin and blood and the stretching of their connection. Pulled from the bone and nibbled on by impending.
It's been wonderful.
But where is the girl? She is there. Sitting two rows over by the wall. Black hair down to her shoulders, covering most of her face but not enough to stop me from wanting to reach across space to touch her.
That small piece of skin is enough for now.
And then the bell rings and the bell rang and the bell will ring and the bell would have rung and the bell should have rung and the bell could have rung and the bell is ringing.
Once upon a time.
Sunday, January 18, 2004
i hope i'm not pushing what suse posted yesterday down too far or too fast. go to it now, i command you. this nonpoem of mine was written last year. that makes it old in my book but i'm trying to get rid of it so here it is.
caressed by crows
sometimes the rhythmic pulse giggles through my minds. i float mysteries through my pleasant cruise, ploy the wheel and pretend.
truth is told in shadows of the words you attempt to avoid. loosely held words fall right onto my confession. poor confession. mean confession. no words do justice to the nailed palms justice of manstupid
catacombed
spitting manic causative relic functionally despondent
rising semblance of slightly tittilated secondary germanic-type human tribe that we resemble
qualitatived measures of self inspect nets zero.
at another peer, clueless one anothers skinny breezing tightly. puzzle tempered mommys for jeezus love me too. but in the plot versus attitude wars nothing is winning. back to work, dreadfully. i try not to have little problems about me. i will deny my self. die with the rest of you. try to look past crooked founds and use words instead of the abstract bending of your spine. in the calm current pictures of separation let them be, let them be themselves. let them find illumination in mankindling.
let's consider the consequences.
let's count. something. our blessings. shock. cripples. come again. yes. i'm a player of many returns. i fight endlessly. save. save the indians. they will make their triumphant return and i will be their ancestors - in law. in peace. i can smoke with the particles of sin.
let's quantify our results. they abridge our attempts. they become one with all and forever fill your needs. or at least my fruit baskets are never eaten conveying joy and surprising juxtaposition one nation underwhelmed by leaders trip over that cliff, you lemmings. humph.
let's have many sappy returns nappily given and attired. let's crease things under foot, save a nickle, miss your prime. never fear the retarded sense, the natural worded coiffure for the ages. never mind a failure. a topsy conclusion. a bad clarification day.
never use the word "splay". i'm warning you.
and within that warning becomes the infinite. the hard crested shells of your ambitions splayed out before you and inedible. rotten for years. or what years become when they are no longer with us. what's the point?
the big God's stare is blankly staring on cattle being caressed by crows on their way to the abbatoir. don't ask me why you are bitch-slapped from here to eternity. that is why you cower in the corner with the primer for 'or'... buy a big house and will your lot to abel.
if i were to take any cake i made and baked it better... this is a promise. do not believe it. travailutionary. translate inception. score heavily on the oh sigh leaves me factor. we will slow down now, again, and look at things. dot. dot. dot.
trees rustle cattle and hang from the moon where the cup and the spoon have run away with mable. mable, it seems, had stolen the fakes, and left town with the assistant production. this did not stop the show. it still smiles smartly on the landscape forshadowing danger and rotting teeth - which die in life and thrive in their own shunt corners of planned escape later. but now, in this life, the director has decided to throw up his hands in despair for the maddening roar of serranno's piss-jesus. lest you forget, he will save you if you are easily distracted. that is a life lesson and should be taken with you to breeding parties and red sea skinny dipping. bring your reminiscenses of callow juice and fortune baked.
in the new life it's a modest emporium of clever silk laced handcuffs and wispy blow jobs. it licks tenderly on veins of superstition and drains freely through the fingers of desperation. it sips wine flavored testimonials to how you'll spend your night tomorrow if only you can reach yer wanna and have some left over for the mourning. i'd spend all night on this if i was disciplined by a round spectacled wearing crusading martinet. i'd hand in my paper in the morning and go out for coffee with bill the magical effuser. the f using son of a bitch might call me back and give me all his secrets of how to whip the willing and trip the fleecing. smack you in the face with this fishing expedition guide book. don't go back on your word to my figurative scene setting tarantula crawling. let me skip the life step into your spina bifida. don't reveal any monkeys to be. let yourself slip under the surface of this lake of jesus' pee. don't swim. revel. be happy shit. celebrate de cesspool. celebrate your disease. die of terminal laughter. don't go gently into that slaughter. or do. do unto you as you would have. you have no choice in the matter/doesn't matter anyway.
would you rather be pointless or have a 1932 map? you decide. because, after all, it's the year 2049 and you are dying of smiles. good for you. have a pleasant foreboding. don't forget the.
need.
caressed by crows
sometimes the rhythmic pulse giggles through my minds. i float mysteries through my pleasant cruise, ploy the wheel and pretend.
truth is told in shadows of the words you attempt to avoid. loosely held words fall right onto my confession. poor confession. mean confession. no words do justice to the nailed palms justice of manstupid
catacombed
spitting manic causative relic functionally despondent
rising semblance of slightly tittilated secondary germanic-type human tribe that we resemble
qualitatived measures of self inspect nets zero.
at another peer, clueless one anothers skinny breezing tightly. puzzle tempered mommys for jeezus love me too. but in the plot versus attitude wars nothing is winning. back to work, dreadfully. i try not to have little problems about me. i will deny my self. die with the rest of you. try to look past crooked founds and use words instead of the abstract bending of your spine. in the calm current pictures of separation let them be, let them be themselves. let them find illumination in mankindling.
let's consider the consequences.
let's count. something. our blessings. shock. cripples. come again. yes. i'm a player of many returns. i fight endlessly. save. save the indians. they will make their triumphant return and i will be their ancestors - in law. in peace. i can smoke with the particles of sin.
let's quantify our results. they abridge our attempts. they become one with all and forever fill your needs. or at least my fruit baskets are never eaten conveying joy and surprising juxtaposition one nation underwhelmed by leaders trip over that cliff, you lemmings. humph.
let's have many sappy returns nappily given and attired. let's crease things under foot, save a nickle, miss your prime. never fear the retarded sense, the natural worded coiffure for the ages. never mind a failure. a topsy conclusion. a bad clarification day.
never use the word "splay". i'm warning you.
and within that warning becomes the infinite. the hard crested shells of your ambitions splayed out before you and inedible. rotten for years. or what years become when they are no longer with us. what's the point?
the big God's stare is blankly staring on cattle being caressed by crows on their way to the abbatoir. don't ask me why you are bitch-slapped from here to eternity. that is why you cower in the corner with the primer for 'or'... buy a big house and will your lot to abel.
if i were to take any cake i made and baked it better... this is a promise. do not believe it. travailutionary. translate inception. score heavily on the oh sigh leaves me factor. we will slow down now, again, and look at things. dot. dot. dot.
trees rustle cattle and hang from the moon where the cup and the spoon have run away with mable. mable, it seems, had stolen the fakes, and left town with the assistant production. this did not stop the show. it still smiles smartly on the landscape forshadowing danger and rotting teeth - which die in life and thrive in their own shunt corners of planned escape later. but now, in this life, the director has decided to throw up his hands in despair for the maddening roar of serranno's piss-jesus. lest you forget, he will save you if you are easily distracted. that is a life lesson and should be taken with you to breeding parties and red sea skinny dipping. bring your reminiscenses of callow juice and fortune baked.
in the new life it's a modest emporium of clever silk laced handcuffs and wispy blow jobs. it licks tenderly on veins of superstition and drains freely through the fingers of desperation. it sips wine flavored testimonials to how you'll spend your night tomorrow if only you can reach yer wanna and have some left over for the mourning. i'd spend all night on this if i was disciplined by a round spectacled wearing crusading martinet. i'd hand in my paper in the morning and go out for coffee with bill the magical effuser. the f using son of a bitch might call me back and give me all his secrets of how to whip the willing and trip the fleecing. smack you in the face with this fishing expedition guide book. don't go back on your word to my figurative scene setting tarantula crawling. let me skip the life step into your spina bifida. don't reveal any monkeys to be. let yourself slip under the surface of this lake of jesus' pee. don't swim. revel. be happy shit. celebrate de cesspool. celebrate your disease. die of terminal laughter. don't go gently into that slaughter. or do. do unto you as you would have. you have no choice in the matter/doesn't matter anyway.
would you rather be pointless or have a 1932 map? you decide. because, after all, it's the year 2049 and you are dying of smiles. good for you. have a pleasant foreboding. don't forget the.
need.
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