Watch a Tamarind Leaf Move

Watch a tamarind leaf move diurnally
and a vigilante octopus’ skin will be squid-like.
Thermal and chewy. Foam.
He’s contingent upon tentacles
measured in units of elephant ribs
which once lived in a sack of skin—
a type one might classify as human palm-like
sewn loosely and a smile leaking ink
where otherwise a tusk might be.

“Does the leaf belong to the tree or the day?” asks the vigilante.
“Who owns patience of this species?”

“If the tree belongs to the ocean,” the octopus says,
“my suctions might claim
its tangly skeletal branches
belonging once to a bag of leaves alive
the kind you might find in a pile
or blown by machinery
or fluff for body bag. Pillow-stuffing.
And when the black bags sit all in a row
they are pod-like. Boasting eager seeds
whose meat might be sour, but sugary.”

I AM THAT

The seeker is he who is in search of himself.

Give up all questions except one: 'Who am I?'
After all, the only fact you are sure of is that you are.
The 'I am' is certain. The 'I am this' is not.
Struggle to find out what you are in reality.

To know what you are, you must first investigate
and know what you are not.

Discover all that you are not--
body, feelings, thoughts, time, space, this or that--
nothing, concrete or abstract, which you perceive can be you.
The very act of perceiving shows that you are not what you perceive.

The clearer you understand that on the level of mind you can be described in negative terms only, the quicker will you come to the end of your search and realize that you are the limitless being.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Cessation

When in the wind what water sway’d to rise
And children skip’d flat stones along the bank
We steep submerged and laps flip capsize
Our vessel and ripple pools echo sank
We hold our breaths—free-drown a little deeper
Algae suspends like dust around us. Our limbs
Disturb with every thrust: creatures, creepers,
And our thoughts—tokens of our lust and whims
Inept to bottle inspiration
We buoy to the top—surrender to
A dead man’s float and on the shore we shun
All movement. We have worn unto
A restless mind yet one must abide
The lake stops—reveals below and sky

This Is The Very Field Where I Imagine a Good Death To Be

Orofino, means fine gold
And a good place to be born
In the night under northern lights
At the crux of four colors
Black white red yellow
Within hairs to a pillar
During a moon when the calves grow hair
To when the plums grow scarlet
A blue silo indicates that pines whisper here
That farm cats and dairy cows roam side by side
With dark apples
In their eyes
And yes,
Their tongues trough
And field
Rough
Openly
I am not shy
While shoveling
Regions of the yard
Where vast daffodils were
Underappreciated by mother,
But due to pity
Still made it to a drinking jar on the sill,
Where it wilted in all whiteness bled.
Oblivious to parachutes,
Knowing well the fateful grip of a four-year-old’s
Peanut butter and pinesap fingers

Even the grasshoppers could not escape
Feeling around the creases of a warm
Frond—a darkness we fashioned
Like a mini train car from a tobacco tin.
Perforated from nail punches
They kicked around
I see inside—
Kidnap!
In hopes of trout. Rainbows
Of them. All we caught were crawdads
I took one.
Down the mountain grade
And 13 hours west
Exhibit A in a bowl,
Where he chewed his leg off
Under magnification
After every failed effort to escape.
Grandpa found him on his way out
The crustacean dragging the baggage of his body
To the nearest exit—
The front door teasing
His limbs
I know this now
Someone should have stopped me
From saving him

Cities & Impossibilities

In the city of Fabiola, the armature alternately dissolves and integrates. Its light evaporates as a rope soaks up kerosene to burn within the lamp's bulbous chimney glass. It brightens with the food of more rope.
The sky is a blueprint that dangles contrails. They seamlessly disintegrate into the solid blue that masks the stars. The funeral pyres remain for mulch. No cars run off the pipeline. Can't you see? Not through the particulate matter, like that which covers the nightness.
In this particular matter, in the township of Fabs, light switches remain a mystery--dissociated from their antiquated uses. Historians and archaeologists sit around the conversation pit; drinking hot clover madhu; playing with "Scrabble" tiles on a "Monopoly" board. None of the original intentions or rules that govern, like that of the light switch, were retained, recorded, or deciphered. The principal spirit or goal, however, has been preserved: to play a game. As long as these professionals have something on the table with which they could occupy their eyes and many dexterous fingers while employing the muscles attached to their fine lips, then they could keep the criticism of outsiders at bay for a time. After all, there are no other inhabitants of Fabiola, who express any expertise on the origins of monopoly, much less the meaning of scrabble letters with numbers on them. Some have a faint notion that they might pertain to something called the "Periodic Table." But periods, whether related to time and punctuation, or elements and chemistry, are generally beyond the concerns of common folk. They would rather enforce their faith that the conversation pit figures are engaged in crafting important plans for Fabiola's future. Perhaps literacy and cultivation practices will be taught or ways to detect mines in the "no-colonization field."
Fabiola is rich. She lacks a lot of the elements typical to a traditional city. Most notably, she lacks hatred. Her inhabitants know neither the meaning of this word, nor the implications it has in alternate dimensions. For the reader, examples might include: rape, diseased blankets, starvation of nutrients, decimation of species, and ego hunger. Due to the absence of hate, there is also little comprehension of fear. Many outsiders might accuse this township to be of little consequence--accomplishing nothing. On the contrary, they manage to maintain healthy levels of body heat, fat, and water.
They survive on little food and darkness. Their chief nutrients hail from clean air and stillness. They use and revere their legs so highly that artisans sculpted and dedicated public sites to pieces of substantial and muscularly articulated columns of legs. One popular site is located at the center of the town square where the townsfolk surround the celebrated appendages and dance before sunrise every morning. Then they stretch out on the cobblestones to roll around massaging their fleshy and fabulously-used proteins. Shortly after, they soak their feet in a nearby stream and gaze at the continuous morphing of their faces reflected. The deeper they peer, the more rocks appear and the sense of cold and wet passes and charges the electricity of their skins. Thus, forgetting all about their limbs.

Because of Words

Without poets to connect
The consideration of the mind
With the backbones of the dead
We should be two earths
Rather than the sun and its reflection.
The dirt.

The dead are one earth
And the mind is another—
The same, but somewhat intemperate
And more muddled and premature
The separation lessened
At birth.

There’s a spark of the Devil
On the paper below the pen
No moral is intended. Even prone
To dispossess, the language of larks
Into lit protest, and the words
Are broke.

The costume of a corpse buttoned
By the burial in a figure of speech
Destroys not our work
Nor muffles the bell of thought
But the moment of final exhalation to its mute hour
Is rotten.

Flesh is the soul of sound
And breath is the evaporation of indifference
But writing words like facetious and abstemious
Decorates the atmosphere of every vow well
We turn the phrases
And tread.

Wherefore by the bright face
Of each key and point we drain
Our thoughts together with our mutations
In a spectral shower
We rest between expense and expanse
And live.

only the fog is real

My mind on this beat
Steps
on another beat
When
I see my mind
Step on this beat
When
Only the clock hangs

from the scruffy orange cat to a second-degree murderer

I have disrupted
your prison
culture and revel
in your attention

you were probably
saving
to keep your head
down
and mind your own
business

Forgive me
the bowls of milk
behind the dumpster
were delicious
and the fur trim
of my matted
burred coat
liberating

Cooking Up String Beans & Squash Flowers, Circus School & Madame Blavatsky

1. Read with a clean conscience
2. After giving birth be sure the newborn did not sprout a tail.

Saturnino de Brito
& Lal Arifa
in any city square
any humid summer,
the best idea
go tumble by the Hudson
or go back
to her apartment
engender
undying animal
acts initiate
rumbling sky.
“Have you heard
of Madame Blavatsky?”
de Brito asked on
more than one occasion.
“Was she
not responsible
for bringing wicked power
to the nazis?” Lalla asked.
This conversation
they had before,
but this
a new development.
an exchange to move
the dust particles
doing what dust does
in the window-
filtered daylight.
De Brito’s reply
came out static
as a loud pair of Nikes
arrhythmic
clomped upstairs.
“Erishan!”
Erishan Tanaka
from the hall with a huff
emerges mauve steel
bicycle over her shoulder
like one of those guys
on the street
balancing buckets
or baskets from a single pole.
“’Sup.”
“Yosup Erishan!?
Ogenki desu ka”
de Brito said.
“Hey, Niner.
Comment ça va?”
“Ya wernt in classe today.
Just kiddeen
I wasn’t eether.”
(Something you can’t see.)
“Nah.
I’m straight.”
“Word.
Let’s match. Brother
Kenna came by last night.”
“Aw that fool? He got some
weird scar on his face from dat
tribal shit, right?”
“He’s from Mali.
His grandmother did that.
It’s an honor.”
“Damn.
That cat’s skinny.”
Lalla pulled out
a Pacific-centric world
map no less
than four feet wide and three feet tall
Unrolled it before De Brito
as though a sacred scroll
discovered down some alley
or on a lower
eastside sidewalk chillin’
in a free pile.
She weighted each corner
one shoe, one roll of packing tape,
a colored pencil box,
and a book of human
anatomy. I imagine
De Brito felt claustrophobic from looking
at all that
canned expanse. Once again
he saw blue
between them.
She pulled
a pair of black shoestrings—
with which she failed
to properly lace her kung fu
shoes—from her closet.
She placed
one aglet tip
at the cluster of Cabo
Verde (off the west
coast of Africa) and the other
at Aringay (on the west coast
of the Philippines).

“Same
latitude,” she says.

Island
people.

Yes and No

by Laura Riding

Across a continent imaginary
Because it cannot be discovered now
Upon this fully apprehended planet--
No more applicants considered,
Alas, alas--

Ran an animal unzoological,
Without a fate, without a fact,
Its private history intact
Against the travesty
Of an anatomy.

Not visible not invisible,
Removed by dayless night,
Did it ever fly its ground
Out of fancy into light,
Into space to replace
Its unwritable decease?

Ah, the minutes twinkle in and out
And in and out come and go
One by one, none by none,
What we know, what we don't know.

Read This With a Clean Conscience

Saturnino de Brito would sometimes meet Lal Arifa in any city square during humid summer days, somehow convincing her that the best idea at that moment was either to go tumbling by the Hudson or go back to her apartment and engender undying animal acts, which often initiated a rumble in the sky.
“Have you heard of Madame Blavatsky?” de Brito asked on more than one occasion.
“Was she not responsible for bringing some wicked power to the nazis?” Lalla asked. They had this conversation before, but they never brought up that fact. It was more like an exchange to move the dust particles floating in the window-filtered sun.
De Brito’s reply came out like static as a loud pair of Nikes arrhythmically clomped up the stairs. “What?—Erishan!”
Erishan Tanaka came through the hall with a huff and a mauve steel bicycle over her shoulder like one of those guys on the street balancing buckets or baskets from a single pole. Over her other shoulder hung a messenger bag with a double-bagged sack of groceries tied to it. “’Sup.”
“What’s up Erishan!? Ogenki desu ka” de Brito said partially in jest. Is that not how I interpret it though?
“Hey, what’s up Niner. Comment ça va?”
“Ya wernt in classe today. Just kiddeen I wasn’t eether.”
“What are you guys up to?”
“Nothing.” the two replied simultaneously.
“You guys wanna smoke?”
“Nah. I’m straight.”
“Word. Let’s match. Brother Kenna came by last night.”
“Aw that fool? He got some weird scar on his face from dat tribal shit, right?”
“He’s from Mali. His grandmother did that. It’s an honor for him.”
“Damn. That cat’s skinny.”
De Brito hailed from Cabo Verde, where he said many of the mothers would check their babies’ bottoms after giving birth to make sure that the newborn did not sprout a tail. I suppose it was a most common fear among Cape Verdean mothers, but second to knife attacks as those were more common.
After one of De Brito and Lalla’s late afternoon/early evening sessions, Lalla pulled out a Pacific-centric world map that was no less than four feet wide and three feet tall. She carefully unrolled it before De Brito as though it were a sacred scroll that she perhaps discovered serendipitously down some alley or on some lower eastside sidewalk chillin’ in some free pile. She weighted each corner with one shoe, one roll of packing tape, a colored pencil box, and a book of human anatomy. I imagine that De Brito felt claustrophobic from looking at all that canned expanse. Once again he saw oceans between them. She pulled a pair of black shoestrings—with which she failed to properly lace her kung fu shoes—from her closet. She placed one aglet tip at the cluster of Cabo Verde (off the west coast of Africa) and the other at Aringay (on the west coast of the Philippines). Island people.
“Look,” she said, “you came from the same latitude as me, ma cherie mon amour.” Actually, it was about a degree off with CV being at 15° 6′ 40″ N
and Aringay at 16°23'N.
“Of course, babe. But I grew up in Lyon,” he said.
In response, she took the other shoestring and placed one aglet in Lyon at 45° 46′ 1″ N and the other at 47° 36′ 35″ N in Seattle.
She said, “And that’s where I grew up.” While traveling abroad, she would write down responses from people she met when she told them, “Soy de Seattle.” Some of the common ones were:
“It rains a lot there, right?” or “The home of Nirvana!” or “Kurt Cobain!” or “Quello è da dove il Jimi Hendrix proviene” depending on generation and interest. Others would just go on what they saw in postcards and mention the Space Needle. It always surprised her, however, that no matter how widespread Starbucks became all over the world (sometimes claiming up to three stores on a single block) people would not know that Starbucks nació in Seattle.
“Oh tha’s dope tho,” Erishan said stepping into the doorway. “Ahm ‘bout to cook some rice tho.”
“Thas right!” de Brito said.
“You know that’s the only thing Bruce Lee ate with green tea.” (At least in the movies.)
“You love that guy,” De Brito said.
“Hell yeah! A composite of him and Tupac would make the bombest man,” Lalla replied, “Hey speaking of China—Shan, did you know Niner’s going to Beijing?”
“Yeah? Why?”
“Ahm goin to circus school.”
“Dope.”
“I’ll make some saluyot, string beans, and squash flowers while y’all discuss the influence of Fritz the Cat, Madame Blavatsky, and Krishnamacharya on the state of the modern world,” Lalla said.
“You think too much,” de Brito said.

Collaboration Haiku w/ My Japanese Roommate (comin correct)

Su
n
da
y

night

the

bloo
d
y

Sa
murai

and

b
ee
t

sou
p
.

Some One-Liner Quitters

i

What William Carlos Williams Did Not Consider For A One-Line Poem

So much depends upon point five to one inch side margins.

ii

Response to an Ex-Boyfriend’s Email, Which Closed With the Statement:
“Please do not write back, I will not open any messages from you.”

Thought you weren’t going to open this. Suckah!!!


iii

The Problem With the News Headline: “World’s Oldest Person Dies”

The world’s oldest person lives.

iv

On a Message On a Mattress I Saw On the Sidewalk

Follow your dreams. (smiley face.)

v

The Only Phrases You Need to Know While Visiting France to Survive and Have a Good Time

Bonjour! Je t’aime. Merci Beaucoup. Au Revoir!

vi

Entr’acte

Art can create a crater: cater & trace. Art can center: react & entreat.

(Bonus Intermission)
Enter tact crate tree. Enact recent trance.

vii

The Complexities of Speaking American

Where’s John? Where’s the john? Where’s your John?
viii

What To Say Loudly To Someone Next to You When You Fart Audibly in Public

Hey, don’t worry. I’ll pretend it was me.

ix

A Little Red Book Is

A man I fess to.

अ लिटिल मोरे gumption

Too late. Yeah, you should have gone. But it’s cold outside. I don’t want to quarrel with you. Expecially in writing. ‘Cause you can’t even spell! Imagine how much worse this would be if you could write with the left hand. Hey, I’m not trying to impress anyone with ambidexterity. Or vocabulary, huh? You’re too concerned about space though. & you, time. No doubt. None of it, actually. What is wrong with you. Eh eh, that wasn’t a question. Or just a rhetorical one, perhaps? I wish you would have a little more gumption. Now that’s the critic talking, not the quarreler. That word always sounded like “squirrel” to me. Quit changing the subject. What subject? Well maybe you’re right, no, I think she’s right. How do you know I’m a “she!” Hush, I wasn’t speaking to you. To whom then? To late. You mean too late? Cállate. What. Too late for what? To undo this stupid talk? Now there’s something we can agree upon. Finally. Fine-a-fuck-ing-ly. So dramatique. Oh please Queen. That’s right. Now start addressing me as one. Thought you said you wasn’t a she. That weren’t me. O now you gotsta go on copying me—improper grammar styles. Whatever sassy pants. As though you invented style. Well I wouldn’t be bitin’ yours with wack expressions like, “sassy pantalones.” Get out your trousers already. You know my steaz. Oh por favor! Get out your head already. I done did that transcendental meditation shit awready. It’s much more amusing to taunt you than get into no-time-space-body zone. None a that free your mind garbage. Speaking of which, where in the body are you? Same place as you, yeah? Why do people end their sentences like that, “yeah?” So weird. You’re weird. So immature. You’re immature. So judgmental. Naw, juz mental. Takes a genius to be crazy. No, dumb ass. A crazy to be genius. Huh. What? What. Yeah, I get what you’re saying. Why, ‘cause you know everything. Well, yes. Then why did you hesitate? Why are you so petty? Nevermind, I already know. Good save. Go to bed. Wake the fuck up! I love you. I love you too. Me three. Let’s not fight anymore. I ain’t mad atcha. Why can’t you be original? Always quoting Tupac. Sure, like he’s the first and only person to have ever said that. Well it was the tone. Tony! Toni! Toné! I don’t even have a voice! Quit playin’ victim. Well it’s true. “You can’t handle the truth!” Oh come on. Cut it out. Tellin’ you. My shit is sat-chu-ray-ted dude. Come on Stillness. Where you at? Time to get enlightened etc. Etcetra? Like a bridge over trou—No. Like the London—Yeah. That one fell down, yeah? You sound Hawaiian. You smell Hawaiian. Why you gotta be racialist. You thought it would be difficult to argue. You got issues. Clearly, this could go on for pages. Clearly. Claramente. Now you’re agreeing. You killed it. This ain’t gonna work out. I can already see. It’s not you. Yeah, it’s you.

Anyone Reading This Could Agree or Disagree

Armando was jumped by six guys the instant he alighted the G train at the Flushing stop. He was returning from the city, naturally. Or was he coming from south Brooklyn?
Positively the five or six thugs had been watching for some time. Weeks at least if not a few moments. Which reminds me of a film I had seen during the New York crime wave in the eighties. Either I had seen it myself or someone had doubtless mentioned it to me in full detail.
On third thought, perhaps I had never seen it entirely. Rather I dreamt it in all honesty.
While Armando lay on the corner sidewalk at Marcy and Flushing Avenues, or somewhere along Flushing, no one came to help or so he claimed much later.
After all no one was around to witness no one helping him. As I was saying earlier, while Armando lay beaten on the sidewalk, any number of the six boys took the keys to his girlfriend’s apartment. So they walked right in and helped themselves to a bag of cranberries and a deck of cards, which none of us neighbors could vouch for them possessing in the first place.
Perhaps they themselves had eaten the whole bag of raisins or miscellaneous dried fruit they happened to have in the pantry at any given time and simply forgot. At any rate, I was writing this paper oddly enough while this was taking place.
By this I mean the robbing of my neighbors in 2R. Neither of the tenants were home. In fact I was the only tenant in the building at the time. At least there was no evidence that anyone else had been in the building for at least several hours before the robbery and one or two hours after. Of course the robbers were there during that time, however.
Doubtless I did not hear anyone at all. I did not even hear the robbers or anyone else for that matter. That is why I could not say for sure that anyone was even in the building. As I mentioned earlier, it’s possible that my neighbors in 2R were never even robbed.
But still.
It is frightening to think that I was home with my window open nevertheless. My window, which I am now closing, rather I did just close, opens out to the back fire escape, which wraps around to my neighbors’ window, which was open after the robbery. More accurately, it had to be open during or even before the robbery took place.
I suspect I was on some level aware of strange men or women entering the building when they should not have been. The things we filter and deny.
We will never know, I am positive, the extent of objects they swiped from that place or what words, if any, were exchanged. Even if there was some tape recording it could have been a set up.
Perhaps the whole thing was a spontaneous act. Unquestionably it was not. There is always some level of uncertainty. For instance, the exact moment that I typed “moment” could never be measured in milliseconds. This immediate instant I could say never occurred since you had to read it to know it and I had to write it to become wise enough to acknowledge it. I do not of course have any idea what I mean by that, but on some level I do absolutely.
It is winter now and I suspect that I can rest assured that no further robberies will occur. Though one can never be positive. Right now some one is profiting off of an idea I had and I am indubitably convinced that is form of robbery. And it is winter.
It is believed by many that most crime in general happens during the month of August when everyone’s liver is a little hot and contaminated. Anyone reading this could agree or disagree with that statement. Even the data could go either way.
Should I even feel sympathy toward Armando or the 2R neighbors? Ostensibly there was no robbery. Ostensibly no one has any recollection of any robbery or neighbors for that matter.

ELEVEN ELEVEN ELEVEN—

XI XI XI—
111111—

When I was eleven,
my friends and I
would knot different colors
of embroidery thread
and make friendship or truce
bracelets that would
sometimes comprise

arrows – >>>
Eventually I learned
to reverse
the arrows – (<<<) We would alternate rows making more complex designs like >>X<<
We became obsessed
with Xs
making several in
a row – XXX
when placing 3 in a row,
it was
2 fish
k-i-s-s-i-n-g.

Sometimes
the fundamental slant – /
was enough
and after several
rows
of
these – ///
we began to tell a story
as yarn to scarf / as munitions belt
bullet to bullet
– shells

This repeated pattern is
elevens
over and over
again
Parallels
//
At the eleventh hour
on the eleventh day
of the eleventh month*

This day, originally, was called
Armistice day
referring to the aforementioned
eleventh hour
to remember the day Germany
had agreed to hush
WWI
for a time
to allow peace
to settle after
WWII
to observe peace
on that day was backward
exclusive of those who fought in
WWII
or Korea
or Vietnam
Therefore, the holiday
became a day
to remember
20,000,000

who died throughout
the course of these wars,
calling it
Veteran’s day


it then became a tradition
to observe
2 minutes
of
silence –


to remember
20 million –
dead
but in 1939,
this
“2-minute moment”
was bumped
to the nearest Sunday
to the eleventh
in order to avoid
interference with war
time production,
however,
some still
observe silence
on the 11th day
at the 11th hour.

some do not
have a choice,
but to remain
silent.













*(and eventually we’ll pass
the two thousand and
eleventh year,
approx. 39 days and 1 year
until the end of the world –
i.e. 11/11/11
i.e. 404 days
from
12.20.2012—
According to Mayan prophecy
11-11-11
is the holiday
in which we observe the end
of
WW IV)


Lia Ha//

cremating a demon

if you sit still enough
the rwandan military
maracas and djembes
in hand will shake you
out the conga tree
entrain your thumping
beat an executive
order with six thousand
rebel forces ravishing
women strategic sheets
of boom and clang
embody their arms
inhabiting a melody
in the hollow
emerging from cobalt
that will take us
beyond sun embed us
in a videogame
car crash cocooned
via airbag inflated
by a tin
computer whose veins
knit as blue
and red wires pump
over the atlantic
in your blood wherein
one hand can
hold your mother
and in the other a drum
reigns and does not govern
someone resembles the madhatter
sits on bulging roots at the base of the tree
swigs from a crinkled paper sack intermittently
offers a whistle
wood barrels make boom
beads and rope
a hauling bump shack
stars of david
frankincense with metal
wind and saxophone resonant force of going
. some stop

on the path with basketballs or the curiosity of an archaeologist picking twigs remnants from the trees and carbon and dance steps on resting leaves there’s a reason for boots berets and beards and repetition and interruption

another hybrid

What color is the bike shed? At night it is maroon. In morning we stand foolish from the moon. Mind will wane and wax back purple. Black kindle and candle fire. Fear the stars ignite our ears in. Our knees canning the constant hum in. Everything blap pop. Boom echoes in the night.

thunder claps

sparring mits

chalk erasers slap

Slap dust seabirds scatter whistle whilst. Locusts not that far away gauge in miles where a body lay low low.

Bishop Luther Dingle explains, "sharp corners / and zig zags

of different shades / make illusions / when the contrast moves from bold to fade /

indicates sound" as living proof we know nothing of plants

nuclear

vascular

Plutonium is chlorophyll for allergies or green. Benadryll.

Why wonder about the bike shed's color. It only matters that it has a roof. We converse in predictable cycles perceiving what. We please dismiss all else as. Trivial / forgetting what to do / about a house full of bicycles.

Lolo whistled ivory teeth of coconut meat meant he was shoveling or having coffee with Acidophilus Milk. or a smoke with Dan the 'Nam vet, who sold him cartons. Shuffling made the dingle gamble sound simpatico. Frederick M. Sutton wore flip flops in the garden. Carved canyons in his soles. "Saw clearly beyond cataracts." Filipino expletives. " Ukininam" at the mahjong table. Like the tango he danced on the piano. Lolo called us from the trees, "Peanot bahtter toast!" Fed us with his thick cracked fingers nails like moons. Kamayan style coconut meat. Lola read, Are you my mother? to the audience, a page-turner, age three in his lap and when you fell

he spanked the concrete

with vengeance

for a scraped knee

handfuls of coins convinced you

shhh—you were his favorite

In the morning basement he hacked a toilet cough. Yesterday's ivory phlegm in the bathroom where his dentures slept. Where we split his menthols. Flushed them like

What color is the bike shed?

At night it is maroon / in morning we stand / foolish from the moon
a mind will wane and wax back / purple, no, black / kindle and candle fire
Fear the stars ignite / our ears in our knees / canning the constant
hum in everything / blap pop boom / echoes in the night
thunder claps
sparring mits
chalk erasers slap
slap dust / seabirds scatter whistle / whilst locusts
not that far away / gauge in miles / where a body lay

Bishop Luther Dingle / explains, “sharp corners / and zig zags
of different shades / make illusions / when the contrast moves from bold to fade / indicates sound” as living proof / we know nothing of plants
nuclear
vascular
plutonium is green, no, yellow / chlorophyll is good for allergies / no benadryll

Why wonder about the bike shed’s color / it only matters that it has a roof
we converse in predictable cycles / perceiving what we please / dismiss all else as trivial / forgetting what to do / about a house full of bicycles

The Village Pet Shop and Charcoal Grill for Banksy

stop the dolphin
on the sidewalk
blue five feet
coin slot saddle
and red fishnet
the leopard lost
his coat tail swinging
red satin lining
five thousand golden buttons
bone not included
the chameleon wears Louis Vuitton
and Krylon splashes
the bonobo clutches
the remote watching
the discovery channel
monkeys procreating
pushing buttons—rewind
fish fillets magnified
in the bowl swimming
in circles
vienna sausages wiggle
and hot dogs snuggle
in the aquarium thirsty
for dripping mustard
the nuggets take a dip
sweet and sour
under supervision
from mother hen
sitting on her scramble.
we step out
seventh ave south
hungry

Mash-up for Cobra

TO MOTHER TROUT

You came to us dancing in feathered stockings. We bring you five claws. One soft. One visible fingernail like a nevus in a pine tar sky. A finger sweeps the public frosting. Nature now dry trees and replication and dead birds keep flattening on paintings— Venus roller skates while steering the stroller and the dog walker limps and has twenty-four legs. Exploded heavens. Anatomies of rats in the street—morsels and a mouse remain. Light particles. Nervous gleaners take a sleepwalk around midnight. Take a gander at the air.

I diagram the firmament –nine elephants steady the atmosphere.
I cease
to look behind your prefrontal cortex
to stomp in the hollow
between the rattlesnake
and the peacock.
I hear you.

TO WOLF PANTS

She fan-dances with an implied hum as we coax her by rattling our sun-dried and seed-filled gourds.
Vowels and shakere! Until electric crimson shakes each dangling lobe. Leaves and feathers. Seeds fall into uniform blue emptying. Loveless vessels.

we vow
solo love
we see
love solve loss
else we see
love sow woe
selves we woo
we lose
losses we levee
we owe
we sell
loose vows
so we love
less well
so low
so level
wolves evolve
— Christian Bök



TO LILY

With polished scales
I am she
waking.

Render: a lotus afloat the mise-en-scene. Consider: the gamelan complementing this diegesis. Sink in. Lily ovulates near svadhisthana chakra. Undulating vines—serpentine. Skating unfrozen body. Stalks appalled at her armature uncoiled. Beneath a glass sheet of chlorophyll. Succulent green— no, yellow blossoms. Reflecting the historical trajectory of clouds. Substitute an immmmmmpressionist palette for aphoristic affect. Implement color, comma, conjugate light tissue. Smoothly encased concubine. Cake on calcite. Make icing-face. Purse your lips for pucker power and kiss her to coagulate. Not ravenous for root vegetables just crushed out on the ground whilst the Monkey God leaps over the ocean.
The Sun God erupts through cirrus wisps and our Chieftainess smokes
a cornhusk pipe with tattooed lips rapt in velvet contemplation. Pigeons peck at chicken drumsticks. Eyeing me. I see cave paintings embellish my stomach walls and will please our occipital lobes stretched over a cannibal’s drum today.

Pretend I’m Talking About You

I.

Who are you? rainbow-rusted route
What brought you here?! Your palms were read.
“Write poetry,” the palm reader said,
“And you will find true love.” You doubt.

Fluorescent lights flicker reflect
off water criss-cross currenting
betwixt the subway tracks something
is argyle and you recollect

Marine Bio. was your major
‘til you started trusting psychics.
Follow your bliss and dreams will stick
you oust Jesus as your saviour.

At home you post-it posit post—
the chaise, mirror, banana bread—
examples of parts of speech said
with no relation to their hosts.

“This is life and language,” you say.
You vow to battle speech machines
What happened at age seventeen?
“Got into wind-up toys to play,

spent summers on a fishing boat
to experience ‘harsh living.’”
but you stayed until Thanksgiving.
We are glad you wrote what you wrote

that you have an affinity
with music and the room you grew
up in where covering the view
of lakeside of virginity

a faded curtain yet hangs there
patterned in steam and tug boats
you are not fond of kids but goats
not embarrassed when your grandma
(whom you called, “Nonny-ashen-hair”)

held your hand on trips to market
even now you feel a closeness
to your toes even in adultness.
Wiggle them in their sockets.


II.

You were born on an autumn day—
that held both crisp and soggy things
maple leaves among mushroom rings
apple butter ripe bright decay

hot cereal gone cold and starched
shirts the crunch of sloppy kisses
under awning reminisce this
your lips were cracked sucked and parched

ergo, you know several things
about orange and assonance
ships, harbor, sea and ambience
about mulch and daylight savings

when you first smelled the East River
you released your cogent control
to transmigration of the soul
you believe relive deliver

you see a child yourself you posit
or as a female passing on
away across the street at dawn
you pull receipt from your pocket

to postulate her fears scribbling
plans to find a Brooklyn rooftop
where you pop open your laptop
to settle for the evening

to roll a cone of tobacco
to tuck behind the cigarette-
holder growing out of your head,
denim jacket stained with stucco

rummage through its pockets and find
hardened tissues from wash and dry,
an old matchbook from your last high
and a receipt with some late-night

epiphanies that do not sound
so smart now in your “creative career”
Appear austere with beer not ear,
you laugh stepping down underground

take a train as far as it goes
to watch a woman slip and knit
a story with each hook and stitch
she’s Scandinavian, you pose.


III.

Some of your best friends used to squat
in abandoned houses and hopped
trains and hitchhiked to thumb across
country. You regret you had not.

Some of the kids from your preschool
turned to cocaine for mind expanse.
You’re glad you didn’t take a chance.
Sometimes lonely at the New School

but mostly you’re relieved to skip
stuffy train stations and social
functions—one mathematical
thing your mind could not let you grip.

You haven’t owned a real raincoat
until today and even though
your pocket took a hefty blow,
frugally, you remain afloat.

Laid off from your construction site:
you stood proud in your union-grade
boots saying to your foreman, “I made
pro-dignity and will not fight.”

My feet will smell glorious now,
you think aloud. It makes you sad
to always see busty ironclad
women hovering a cash cow

you name him, Shepherd. He gets
the loot in some story, but not
yours. You are the line and the dot.
Despite your doubts and debts.


IV.

The true love you find in poetry
is what makes a true poet
one we cannot forget
as we trudge through the debris.

Don't be frightened. This was intended to mimic W.S. Burroughs. OK, I guess be frightened.

October 29th, 2008.
Manhappenin'.
In search for some relief we took our subject, an O.D.ing-mixed-breed-bipolar-paranoid-schizophrenic kid, to this polyglot of a Russian Shaman. A spiritual materialist he was. He had some deeply rooted obsession with handling mixed breeds in a "magic circle"—a pair of words he repeated to coax the participants into obeisance. Typically, he conducted ceremonies in that circle to invoke or wake up Grandmother and Grandfather. Our Shaman spent a great deal of time in Amazonia, where he learned direct from the Shamans proper. (Note: Grandmother and Grandfather are phone-tap-safe alternative names for Ayuahuaska and San Pedro respectively.)
Well the O.D.ing one couldn't be brought down as we tried to pour the viscous brown mixture down his throat. It was full of tongue—clogged with frothy mucous bodily excrement or just disintegrating evidence of the medicine cabinet cocktail he managed to concoct. I found him floundering dry heaving bubbles. His skin boiled and limbs flailed shapeshifting maybe into another kind of man.
On dark days, he took to digging through his neighbors' sock drawers or nightstands. Something always turned up whether it was an expired bottle of codeine or oxycotton or even some prescription cough syrup. He took it all in any case just to get that whipping sense of lift. Stumbled often to the fridge to take a few hits off the canned whipping cream. That became all the comedy on subsequent mornings when his parents tried to top their waffles and all that sputtered out was some white wet fart resembling that shitty froth he had tried to vomit the previous night.
Grandmother was like straight acid scraping the internal organs like it was nobody's business. If she had her way with you, she'd take your head right off. She would've been kind to this one. Wrap around him and reveal her self as a protective vine, but he had his fill. His nerves took over and there was no mind in that body, just electricity and chemicals back to electricity shocking stopping and shocking again. He laughed reflexively and battered himself as though demon-possessed—smashing the back of his skull into the edge of the brick fireplace. His pupils slid upward as if to gaze up at his fluorescent halo. I took the fiberglass insulation and laid it all about him to catch his fall, but he got microscopic glass slivers in his rashing epidermis.
He wasn't trying to die out of his half-life. Taking in by mouth or smoke might make him double alive. I thought I might reverse the situation by telling him that everything was its opposite, but this disturbed his nervous system even more. Every nerve was crossing and crossing back again. Like a braid of sensory overload he was visibly tangled inside and then a full blackout. Just humming. Buzzing.

I roll Dekalb. I
watch color walls. I
illegal scrawl. I
feel
Fall. I
keel haul to
port of call. I

kill oak gall. Jackal
dolls bawl in
mess hall.
Ah !
ritual alcohol
non-habitual. I
waterfall

default to
thrall crawl

no wherewithal. I
drawl to
downfall. I
anchor

ancestral temple I
follow falsetto to
steeple to
people to
purple pall. Je
suis pas mal. I

Overhaul big
basalt ball
bearing to
Nepal. I
maul dhal
enthralled
by witwall craw
FAUGH!
I
am
salt
to
this
call.

Sundays I am Full, Not Me

[You] Script stitched
the inseams of my legs
I would like to ride it out till Thursday
if I can
I avoid hot baths
distract this temptation by braiding
felled telephone wires
no one needs them anyhow
we might as well make art and table salt
from the things over which we might otherwise trip

Boards fill the arched windows
indicating the interior is more than shady at night
cracks spill that familiar artificial quality
fathered by fluorescent tubes

If I were a native of this town,
I’d devise a new calendar
based on absence and the reflection
of gathering sidewalk moons
and the cracks that fake us
into jolly arms smashed
between a glass slide
prepped for inspection

Man will gaze down at our limbs
naming each after a day of the week
everything between the follicles
of Thursday and the cuticles
of June

Jazz hides in the cement
with little crevices where ants assemble
in configurations
which from outer space
resemble chevron and gingham

Alas, the neighborhood hound huffs them out
chews on the housing of my wire corn rows
I beg the wet of his nose to translate
the cursive I walk

Still Evenings in Dry Apricot

Still evenings hit
the woody stems
of jasmine in pots
on sills curling
from the steam of content and radiator.

Something is so blank outside
it attracts nameless
birds of exotic origin to paint it
briefly here and there
chasing the idea of occupying
air of someone else.

And what is the point of a pencil
wearing it all down
from belly and beak undressing an angle
of blackened brick stack and the eastern twist
& texture of a decaying iron bar.

It’s boxes like these that say
the world is blank also.
I age like an astronaut
suited for a new moon. Meanwhile,
I can’t prevent the squirrel
from getting winter fat,
figure out what keeps
tomatoes green. I look around
all I see is steam
beside the jasmine, some empty red
wicker baskets and outlets
with nothing to plug. Condensing.
All the natural sounds of a world
with nothing to do.

I’ll bet there’s a sphere
where the lotería cards come to life
and the characters pretend
they only dance while you’re asleep.

I don’t want to do you
Saturdays anymore. It’s too late
for that kind of continuity.
I’d rather kick the radiator
activate a gurgle
sketch the dullness out of my 2B
find an eraser to introduce light
interact with space a bit.

She Brought the Contents of an Ode By Way of Lady’s handbag

The Gun Metal Grey Clutch She gripped
As she tripped past but the content blew
Like a silver clam belching or a compact coughing
Nude dust Out came the talcum powder
As she lay snowing her hosiery

Toffee Brown Tote Floats Along the Thames like a maiden sailboat
Meant for fins Inside soak the batteries for the remote the moist toilettes
And a bachelorette’s street maps and Maoist leaflets miscellany O ketchup packets O saltine cracker packages O soup yesterday afternoon…

Basura Bags O Yesterday’s Soup and Crackers
and Socks you will send To the kids overseas
Who wait with empty juice containers and pop rings a laminated portrait Of a Papal order and the impossible 24-hour lipstick of every possible red To smear the collar of an infallible landfill

Chinese Laundry Oversize Zipper Top Hobo Bag & Braided Buckled Small Bucket Satchel—Inside, which sits a license to drive in some state
A pocket-sized journal that states she might even sell her clothes at a stoop Sale & trainhop westward with nothing to wash but her darkened hair Held up by chopsticks reading all the literature folded in the cookies and Greased on the metal cars

Money is a kind of poetry. Wallace Stevens

A kind of currency. Lingua franca. Electric voltage to jumpstart a body or fry it to a crisp. Everything is bark. Words. Mots. Palabras. Pesetas. Copper. Argent. What a verbal illustration—a tip dessin vert—a mint species. Poetry is green olive and foliage. It will buy you a lover. Keep you in debt. Make you use bills for scratch. Jot your bliss. Spend it. It is vibrational. Tonal. Clinking in your pocket. You’ve got some. Everyone hears it. Wants it. “Just keys,” you say. Honestly. We’re bound by an imaginary trust to compensate for a world we could never afford. A cent is more magnificent in its power than its form. The opposite is true sometimes too. Shells. Buttons. It attempts to replace all things it cannot be. Tender to feed children, who will always hunger. We want it we want it until our change is perceptual. We see trees different. We learn the value of patching a deflated tube inside a tire on the shoulder of an empty highway. No promises, but to leave a memory imprinted on the grooves and creases of our palms and fingers. We exchange notes on a history of dead men and wonder. Is it a means or an end to suffer? I drop heaviest coins into the mouth of a washing machine to shake the debris from the skins that protect me. Spin. Slide on a magnetic strip of data. Plastic. Rarely seen or held. Easily drained.

Ascent

Beyond your name came a love absolute
Neither trick nor gesture could prove this truth
But the height length and breadth of fields & countries—
O, oceans I would traverse! What yields me to you?

Like two rocks pressed—
We magnetize
If seasons shall blow us
South as migrant flocks
We both shall plunge
If just one in flight may fall
What sweetness to descend & reach;
the varied pitch of madrigals

What peaks! To find the surprise voices that rose within
My chest sinks to my insides where posies appear
At the touch of you—I invert you—inside out of me
like a kirtle I have swallowed in the cold
you are the fragrance
of purple-
Black
Oval
Berries
From my myrtle

You came to be the wool on my eyes
As you pull me into your rumination
My skin emits steam into the cold
Until coated
In the heat
Of your black gaze your gold

In permanent Spring we are perennial buds
From a perpetual night sky protrude these fine studs
That glister as beads trickle
Down your purple-black
& move me to speak in words I do not understand,
but love

Soaring uncovered regions to sing
As high as a morning eagle
You move
Possessed
By necessity
By love
Of broad wings
Lifting

A Red Breast Passes

Not possible
To know the point
at which Blue Possible was
no longer.

Blue Possible
nested in the grass
Reckless mother robin
I thought
to be walking around
like that
No proper time
set aside
to give birth.

Growing up
means understanding that a
Possible predator
stole it
dropped it

Growing up
mother is justified
Save that egg
Pluck it
Out of shady showered grass
embroidered shed patch
old pigeon coup

Brother and I
adopted Blue Possible
Tucked her under our iron woodstove
No idea nor measure for sufficient heat
but steady watched
waiting for a kettle whistle
No steam
No beak
It quailed
collapsed

the Room is Smoke

Smoke has filled the room.
Surely the vegetables are filled with carcinogens.
Everything is downtempo and that’s alright.
We have only a finite set of breaths.
I venture to hold them at times
to relish the feeling of verging on death.
I practice at the School of Evanescence,
where we study the expenditure of living
like we’re dying and discover we have little
to say, ergo we go soft upon the damp carpet of leaves
in such a lightness we leave no footprint.

If you are not accustomed to the television-regarding world
no need for constant conversation
commercial interruption—
How is it that you could want more than a consumerist could?
I want it all and I want it all for everyone. Real bad.
But it’s not working.
I must be tired.

If every channel could hold a dimension
and each dimension had several truckloads
of buckets—buckets in abundance on every station—
then we may have the amount of buckets required
to alleviate the ocean. And even more shelves
to store the dirt.

If we tuck all the stones away into drawers
or treasure chests from cartoon environments,
then where might we bury them?
Will we be able to hide them well enough
to where no one could find them
or wonder what might have happened to such a thing
or eventually—generations hence—
the significance of a wave or sediment?

All Along the Billyburg Bridge

I slalom shalom and salaam
inhale the aerosol vapors evaporating
from the infamous anonymous like, “Spaceinvader”
I scan the dried up ostensible words misspelled.

“Save Domino” is code for “Welcome home, Sugar.”
The repeated stencil that reads, “you wish you knew,”
becomes a refrain to the path on the way.
Throughout the day you wish you knew who wrote that
and what they meant. You wish you knew
becomes an unabating audible taunt and I wish I knew
where I heard it first.

We skim the constructions to measure the progression of time.
Steel red bars run parallel perpendicular acute and obtuse above us—
a tricky sundial to reminds us that we’re all asymmetrical shadows.
Plastic steel and wheel have stopped beneath us
as we barely steal a glance at each other
a smile perhaps a nod perhaps in camaraderie.

Where are you going and where have you been
“I wish I knew”—cries the collective reverie
Gotta go Gotta leave Gotta run Gotta arrive Gotta be there
not here now the painted arrows agree
and disagree when the towers are barely lit and barely
extinguished. Somewhere someone can see the skyline
a cutout of skyscrapers adjacent to the headstones.

Everything asks for an engraving beyond the graveyard.
Like the sleeves of the riders rapidly representing a rainbow
Charged and Ephemeral passing swift in Deep V rims of wheels
all colored hoops and drop bars and flat bars and riser bars
and all manner of hats and caps and bells and hoop earrings and dangling things
off the bodies we will never know as we dance past Sad Gleeful. We ride on saddles giddy together as we cut each other off Unspoken
etiquette constantly a broken etiquette. We choke together
over gridlock over carbon and the east river running

I wish I knew you in 1903, but here’s the Queensboro majestically
manifesting terrestrial rays from the morning sun and the Manhattan
and the Brooklyn and the armpits that unite them. Signals change
and seagulls always stay the same. There will be messengers below
guarding the passage to no end suspended
no beginning cantilevered.

everyday is a festival where someone is always cremating a demon

if you sit still enough
there will be a handful of maracas and djembes
to shake you behind a conga tree
entrain your heart to beat in between seams
sewn as sheets of sound within me
boom and clang can circle round
and hollow melodies found to embody the things
in the habit of emerging from the ground
recognizing that underneath a microscope
our veins might be knit together seeing
that blood moves centripetal this way
and to be perforated with 32 arms akimbo and radiating
looking something like an occasion
to which you may invite your mother and bring a drum
someone who resembles the madhatter
and sits on bulging roots at the base of the tree
swigs from a crinkled paper sack intermittently offers a whistle

vow to come every Sunday as you recognize old people who resemble aged versions of everyone you know.
like the one who looks like an extra man
with a pink backpack slung over his right shoulder
legitimizing the swagger in his gait
and the baby girl jounces along
which explains the waggle in his walk

the extra old stand on the walk
wearing all white tennis shoes curtain skirts definitive hats
starch and bold and bald and the flow surges by default
everyone belongs and the asian with drumsticks and mother and the man with a laundry cart and all wood barrels make sounds with beads and rope draped and off the sides and tied on like a hauling bump and shack and stars of david and frankincense with whistles and saxophone the resonant force of going. some stop

on the path with basketballs or the curiosity of an archaeologist picking twigs what remnants from the trees and smoke and dancing happens on resting leaves
there’s a reason for boots beanies and beards and repetition and interruption

Unexpected Birthmarks

Pigeons peck at chicken scraps
& no barks respond as sirens pass

Nature now dry trees & replication
& dead birds keep flattening
on paintings—

Mistranslation is missing
the brushstrokes.

One visible fingernail like a nevus in a pine tar sky
& a finger sweep in the public frosting

Venus roller skates while steering the stroller
& the dog walker limps & has twenty-four legs.

Awkward pedestrians overlook
our mannered postures as we regard a solar eclipse
before a gazing apparatus

& continue these steps despite exploded heavens
anatomies of rats in the street—morsels & a mouse remain—
light particles

Perhaps for orphaned armoires & what they could contain
& ex-library memoirs expunged from the system

Nervous gleaners take a sleepwalk
around midnight & take a gander at the air

I diagram the firmament & note twelve elephants
steadying the atmosphere

o, mother

o, mother


You came to me dancing
with claws so soft
I cease to look behind you
dancing in the hollow
between the rattlesnake
and the peacock.

o, friend

She came dancing and fanning
as we coax her with the shakere
electric crimson shakes the lobes
leaves and feathers and seeds fall
from the gourd into fluorescent
blue emptying

o, sometimes with polished scales
I am she
waking.

It’s Not Enough To Think Planets of You, Saturnine.

Nothing grows until there’s a crack
a breaking of eggs and earth crust. My liver
my lungs etched in pottery motifs
Cave paintings on my stomach walls will be beautiful
stretched over a cannibal’s drum someday.

You are all silhouettes
statuesque embossing my eyelids
like the sun erupts through cirrus wisps

While you wonder about favorite pastimes in the arctic
you will catch this drift
that earthquakes never skip a boat
a beat to dance around this axis is perpetual morning
stopped abrupt by an equal or greater opposing force

I witness the body dissolve
I become a chieftainess smoking
a cornhusk pipe with tattooed lips
rapt in velvet contemplation.

Her hands deserve
a machete
for your eyes.

Your Inner Vision Is Illuminated By This Realization

Enough have you wandered
during the long period
of your quest
states the Yajur Veda circa 2300 BCE
and less than 1/32nd of the dime-sized world
knows it is embedded in darkness
and weary must have been the ages
of your searching in ignorance
and groping in helplessness.

Going to the polls, they believe,
can be a spiritual exercise
that can bring a positive change.

Is voting good
for your karma
or your soul,
besides being good for society?
All elections are important,
our psychics say—
how can Americans not vote
in a presidential race? Especially with so much at stake (with the country's soldiers in harm's way, a global energy and health care crisis, recession and more).

1:32 was once so common a scale
for toy trains, autos, and soldiers
that it was known as "standard size"
in the industry. A man is 2-1/4 inches tall (55 mm)
in 1:32 scale.

Behold the superfluous!
Nietzsche said, They steal
the works of the inventors
and the treasures of the sages
for themselves; white (or mixed race)
liberal democrats who drink five dollar lattes
in eco-friendly cups, listening to NPR
in a bio-diesel hummer (don’t they make those)
with a "He's not MY president" sticker on the bumper;
that also has a miniature dreamcatcher (1:32 of original size)
hanging from the rearview mirror; while carting around
an adopted black (or multi-ethnic) child (three-fifths human)
on a return trip from COSTCO and IKEA; welcomed home by Tibetan prayer flags hanging from the front stoop
"education" they call their theft –
and everything turns to sickness and misfortune for them.

Your identity has been swallowed by the media
and fed right back to you on the market
for only $2,349.99 per month
for the rest of your life.
To sin against the earth
is now the most dreadful thing,
and to esteem the entrails
of the unknowable higher
than the meaning of the earth.

This is the threat to our lives,
says Mr. Campbell.
We all face it.
We all operate in our society
in relation to a system. Now
is the system going to eat you up
and relieve you of your humanity
or are you going to be able
to use the system to human purposes?

Then he realized:
"I, indeed, am this creation;
for I have poured it forth from myself."
In that way he became this creation.
And verily, he who knows this becomes
in this creation a creator.
Your inner vision has been illuminated
by this realization.

The nocturnes. The sacral superimposed on the sermon. The nocturnes
the ornament and the hearse and the ornamental near the heart dangled.
The sacral. The temperate humor traipsing along the fulcrum.
The nocturne. The nascent sunshine eastern present ascent.
The sacral. The fulcrums. A temperate hour traipses along them.
The nocturne. The haste. The sunshine nascent nearest ascent.
The spore. The haste. Sacral superimposition on a sermon. Porous.
A temperate humor shifts inside it. The haste. The spore. The ascent.
The melancholic. The fulcrum. The haste. The spore. The temperate
heart traipses among them.

I Fear It’s Not Enough That I Think Planets of You, Saturnine.

Some stars you can see even during a morning sky,
although I guess those are planets as well.
I indulge a need to compile songs essay-like
for you. Layers of tone say more than all the reasons
I could name for you. How prison-like this form—
all tissue and organ-bound
ceaselessly aspiring for more
celestial routines. Contortionist dust.

Nothing grows until there’s a crack and a breaking of some kind.
Eggs and earth crust show us. My liver & lungs are marked
with common pottery motifs. Cave paintings on my stomach
walls will be beautiful stretched over a cannibal’s drum someday.

You may wonder about favorite pastimes in the arctic. As I witness
the body dissolve
as I become a chieftainess
smoking a cornhusk pipe
with tattooed lips deep in velvet
contemplation.

Her hands deserve
a machete
and your eyes.

O'leary is left with a dead guy and it's not right.

O’Leary is dead,
 and O’Riley don’t know it.
 O’Riley is dead,
 and O’Leary don’t know it.
 They both are dead 
in the very same bed,

and neither one knows
 that the other one’s dead
. Ba-rooom, Ba-rooom!

~Some rhyme I heard as a kid that stuck with me

What is right and what is wrong are difficult for many to decide. Just as figuring right from left.
Upon first learning to write, I was told that lowercase b faced right, so the only right answer left for d was to make it face left. Now dexter starts with “d,” so it can be tricky to remember in terms of direction. But if left is sinister, then I guess it’s not right.
When I was four, I did not know it was wrong to write left to right (or right to left for that matter) on the living room wall. Left to my own devices I continued to scrawl, but right when my father came home I discovered it was wrong.

; Meditation:

She came to me dancing and now I can remember longing
for obliteration with claws so soft I close
My eyes behind she dances in the hollow
between the rattlesnake and the peacock.
She came dancing and fanning

My brain is electric crimson
lobes leaves and feathers
fluorescent blue and I am
sometimes a serpent

o, Divine Mother
teach me the emptiness
show me eternal erasure

Purnamadah Purnamidam
Purnat Purnamudacyate
Purnasya Purnamadaya
Purnamevavasisyate

The jungle doctor speaks:
“The first Inca was extraterrestrial. She was so beautiful. It was only her. He knew. She came to tell us that we are in our bodies like wild monkeys trying to fly a spaceship—always pressing the wrong buttons. Leave the chatter, my brother.”

I close my eyes and we are all silhouettes of statues tattooed behind my eyelids. How did you become embossed here like a sun always breaking through? When will you understand that the earthquakes never miss a beat and the rotating is inertia—perpetual morning until confronted by an equal or greater opposing force.

इन थे स्पिरिट ऑफ़ लाइफ एंड ओपिनिओंस

I suppose I could conjecture, to you past, present and future, upon various reasons for the decision to abort my place of previous residence, Aside from the sheer nature of organic change in the currents of one's movements, migrations, causes for migraines, permutations and meanderings in any one person’s continuous life. If anything like the semblance to the trite thematic pursuit of any narrative’s protagonist or small child under the age of eleven, so is the consideration to change or more accurately eliminate all aspects of the current state of one’s, mine in particular, life. Perhaps I may enumerate these aforementioned “various reasons” affecting my decisions to explore personally unchartered territories and situations of the future.
Honestly, I would have to say that contrary to popular modern thought, I endeavored to explore this terrain of an opposite coast and similar soil, although buried under kilometers of impermeable surfaces, albeit steel and concrete and the like, because I was in search of a plant that could lift my spirits whilst hunting. This my friend and faithful kind comrade, is what one might dub meta meta, yet there is something in it that I understand, I get, to which I am attracted, In love, tickles my fancy and resonates with my innermost true breath. As I began to inform you my patient Lords and deities, is that unlike that which most are lead to believe, being a woman, But a uniquely-seasoned one in this regard, that I should be in search of such flora to the fulfill the purposes that biology dictates and that is for the most fundamental reason of childrearing itself; It is indeed to this end, I unabashedly admit, that I include in my justifications to embark upon such a vastly and seemingly impossible journey.
And this would in fact be a delightful “launch pad” so to speak, to mention that in accordance with the misconception of such a seemingly futile expedition, those nights of August inevitably veil our collective perception with an intoxicating illusion that night her nights are no doubt the most epic in length and emotional intensity. We must, however, consider that in order for tomatoes and other nightshades to grow and ripen properly without the common diseases to which they are susceptible, we must remember those actions taken and proverbs spoken by our grandfathers and grandmothers, respectively; They had allowed equal parts shadow, sun, dryness of the leaves, moisture of the soil, full moonlight and layers of swaddling mulch and burying on the occasion of a full cheese lunar event and sometimes even that which we call a harvest orange moon—And they never failed in this equanimity as a result of diligent hours of uninterrupted consistent self-implementation of morning calisthenics. There were of course other various extraneous objects that we may deem bric-a-brac in our contemporary consideration such as: tiger balm and other analgesic ointments contained in the most fascinating of packaging in terms of design etc., chickenwire, especially the grade used by my surrogate grandmother, Grandma Stewart—who was a sweet woman not only because she had spent the time and dedicated energy to crochet earth tone afghans in light of an analogous autumn color scheme—She had, as I had written, used this fine mesh (the chickenwire that is, not the afghan) to protect her imprisoned and abnormally large goldfish in the pond, most of which had turned out to be escapees of the annual Catholic School’s, unarguably to some and absolutely appropriately named “Christ the King” previously known as Saint Anthony, which also happens to be the name of my surviving elder sibling, more specifically, brother, who had rescued these orange-finned friends from the Fall Festival (Fest for short); In addition to these objects were also my favorite yellow legal pads and stacks of the once mysterious air mail envelopes that were stored in the piano bench, thus absorbed a distinct spicy scent.
It was from this temporal inflection or departure—I will leave it up to the anonymous reader to decide—that I made the next move and development in my increasingly improved ability and quality of penmanship, which also became the impetus to begin this discourse currently at hand.

फिशिंग फॉर मिन्नोव्स

Sand is felt on tin as nails or fists on doors
Tore down a war to stand with you man
And I stare at flesh and gore
Now hell and he send horses and messengers
Downwind signing against the gale
I feel slow and shallow as dew grows
New on a tan I felt
Grind the sand into the shore and fish will follow

O
Not

A

Wing
Has half
A
Life
Enough to feel a fellow minnow’s fin

इ ऍम नोट थिस और ठाट

I am not Lia Jennifer Jackson Brown Phillips Tanaka Coco Rodriguez Campbell Yaranon Hall
I am not yet
I am not a muzak rendition of "Let It Be"
I am not dry

I would like to be a deep-sea diving astronaut
an ascetic neurosurgeon
a hyperpolyglot philologist or poet
a diplomat who plays drums in a rock band

I will become inappropriate for city life
fly a trapeze in the jungle
maybe do some mechanical work on rocket ships for extra cash
I will become a hobbyist for underwater paraphernalia
I will become the kind of old person who always buys the same kind of shoes
when my soles have worn thin
or at least live and die with someone who does
I will become a spinster who reads a French newspaper on Sundays
understanding not a word, but femme sole
I will crochet all of the hairs and dental floss I find into a new outfit for the Statue of Liberty
I will become the sister I have always wanted

Timekeeping

The children laugh at us—
aliens adorned in specificity
humorous bondage
and then we play their parents

Music is the clockwise heaven between us
as soon as we forget full
we remember empty
and then you begin to know that manner of torn
dissonance like everyone breaking fun at once

Let’s all take hold of the rope at once
anywhere to risk a slip along the route
stop if it pleases you too much.

My surrogate grandmother slash next-door-neighbor
had sewn doll clothes for my dolls
and the best thing about the children’s books of verse
she gave me were the illustrations
of oversized candy trees syrupy alcohol lakes
stages of an unwilling prince’s life
insecure pirates and iron maidens
if only every other artist desired to inspire vision this much

I am not the only one
annoyed with the apologetic way you talk about wolf families
and their emotional lives
some conceal the same sentiment with laughter
when they have no idea what you’re griping about

You’re a domestic servant with no free time
since I’ve told you how to spend it

There will always be moments you compare to unexpected birthmarks
Some days you couldn’t force me to practice
and I’ll be becoming less into getting what’s not to be gotten
Goodbye underwater & glorious fire escape
Goodbye view of a poor excuse for a courtyard
Time to make it all up

Residential Euphemism

I got off a stop early
skated over the stinky vents
scoped out the slumbering
blanketed on the benches
substance happening everywhere now
the collective traffic-light change is picking up
from different islands
we stare into the anatomy of our contradictions

Don’t worry, I’ll take no pictures of you.

I’ve seen there’s grass in the projects and no such thing as lawns
I suspect you’ll make me sad one day
give me an excuse to make friends again
the kind that know how to make epiphanies like magic

with eyes closed it’s maybe a place I used to live
the one next to the trash compactor and the elevator shaft
or maybe it’s another nocturnal sidewalk
growing a black plastic psoriasis

It’s a good thing my camera is broken now
there’s nothing automatic about it

I take a chance at allowing the common dirt to breeze into my eyes
just to see the faces match the voices of the men selling watermelon on the corner
now I know they can’t be cops
and I decide that I prefer everyone becomes a kind of plant
as I press their leaves into my plans

Years from now, I play a silent album and I won’t have to think
it will be the best-selling record of all time
it will occur to me that if I open the pages of an old heavy book
there may be almond or hand-shaped skeletons that held a color once

everything is the new golden now only because we forgot
there is a little more sparkle in things that don’t flash

on the backs

I’m taking wood filler crayons to my farmer tans
now I love
writing claustrophobic letters
on the backs of envelopes
that seal some hint of okay
on this well-breathed evening
I can still catch myself
cursing the school bus drivers
reckless childless
Childish we wish we were
pale and red like
the last day of death
bleating because the lights
are immensely
what is
should be
forget about the phantom
feeling and nothing

Creation &

Annihilation
cannot be a seasonal ritual
to ease a flourishing & watering something
you left burning on the stove
set alarms aflame to kick me in dreaming
like fascination is a bad habit
whatever happened to goofy with you, girl?
where is the wonder in potential surprise land masses
amidst our ocean games?

I left you on a raft in search of white water rapids
you’re gaining on me here
when I am rocks under
you move quicker over me
over me you are moving on too quickly
too quick I left you on a raft
like land was a bad habit
and I wonder where our games went
after you drowned them in masses
kicking & dreaming
the water is burning
and I am learning something new
about surprise words
and the potential meaning of annihilation.

Nothing to do with Rectangles

This is no place for rectangles
choose a shape
make a pun
lose your self
make it fun
how many sides
of your form
can you face
how many faces
of your shades
can you trace?

Some of your shadow is biology,
some of your jewelry a society,
some of your wardrobe a relationship.

Can you find an ideal sex?
Is it round?
Are you a victim of breath?
Does it sound?

How can you compound your shirt
full of merchant and teacher and preacher and student?

take a hammer to the wrinkles
die to make something of our selves
life happens to our sleeves
wear it out for fashion—

Can you change your gear
now that fall is here?
Does your lack of attire
justify a cause for crises?
Do you look out for models to inspire?

what moved the spires higher
and built the molds for something full or hollow
what tangled the time to shallow echoes
and reared the lines around the confines of you—

Nothing to do with rectangles, but branches and waves and the archways of caves and mouths and all the ways we enter and fade.

one hundred words for rain

It’s the kind of build up that slants into my window
the shape of its sound
makes you forget everything you wanted to do
two minutes ago…

The kind of separation that makes glaciers carry
the spirit of “stop crying”

Kind of place where all the children wear bangs now
where monuments block the sun
and everyone seeks refuge
in the shadows of commerce
making sex with the sculptors of politics

It’s the kind of sex that sparks a thunderstorm
Makes you shout all the surnames of god
When everyone is off to take a beating
And the baby drives the father home
Kicks the donkeys faster

And all of this becomes part of the dust in mourning
the baby pulls at your hair and your adornments
lets you know that water, care, and food are most important

Everything diamond once covered in protective film
and oceanic blood—
the viscera—a lens
the film—a symptom of millions

Create, demolish, multiply

Separate, mother from mother until
babies lose their brothers
and the word is dropped from language
Replace it with another

Take the skin of my eyes
like her dress with ruffles and dirt
Give her a whip of frayed sugar cane
Give her a head like river rock
with dry feather and blonde atop
And morning people and evening people
on the sidewalk are like water in the end
fighting themselves with umbrellas
Because the sky is still hungry
Still rejecting all the things that we do.

Same letters different sounds

Reason might tell us no other mind is good enough
For meddling furthers meaning rather finally

Until I enter Mandarin in learning I will nestle in English Netherlands
Inside my roots sits a still ranting

After misty rain flows an underground imaginary road
sometimes freeing other formations stored in a tunnel

Gain sound and stone under the tree here—
not onto land elsewhere

we are not children yet

make friends with the necessity of dying
as we are not yet children
and I can always tell you something good

let your heart serve her nature
and sand shall turn a rose
underneath a northern sunset

stand over a ladder and set yarn around the shutters
until the realtor’s russet nose turns tan.

the matador shared land near a stool and yelled
at men set level in a ready nest taking torture

so hum

my Sunday is drenched in lemonade
and all you can do is stalk the same jewel
like a suspicious crow

I choose you to scale our voices
to survey our nostalgias
since sound has ripened our acrylic existence

someone is thinking
I am
therefore
I am
at the seat of stopping
behind my eyelids
between the essence of antimatter
and the freedom of keeping them shut
while all the sand leaks from my gut
planting a beach somewhere
I spend the rest of the week hunting
for forgotten metals in the precious glass

finding that light is forever even as we sink
to ships that lost their purpose
and the bric a brac mosaics shifting every surface

Ether

Sunday I spent in the observance of silence
Recognizing how space manifests in absence
I subtracted many words and movement
from a daily arrangement – a rest

What can take place in an expanse is boundless
What I can feel on a Brooklyn rooftop lacking moonlight
is the shock of oxygen after life in a womb.

I can see how small we play
how inferior we convince ourselves to be
When we mimic the morphing of clouds
How great and divine is our capacity

I ask the urban ceiling to blind me tonight
to wash my eyes with the broad reflection of tempered street lights
muffling the hum of dramas and masquerades
An endless charade of conversation exacting how to do
and what to interact to whom we injure
and where to coerce a choked reality

What can we murder under the sky? What can we sculpt without textures and angles and dimensions of sight?
How complex a body is built to move and be moved
yet simple to witness majestic truth – time as space

May we not stop in a swamp of stagnation, but spread our intents as seed
to stretch and sprout the span of centuries
We suffocate under souvenirs and need to unfold contents
that fill up experience

I will let the lull of nothing kidnap me
I surrender to the extent of no extent
the parabolic points of infinity—a gong
an echo and perpetual flight into the depth
of absolute arrival to the tune of om
and I vibrate with perfect resonance when all is gone.

la ritournelle

My left foot stands in make-believe and I believe I make my reality
I will give my right to see if it could be perpetual pieces of life in ecstasy
Your arms are my yoke—holding me aggressively to shake my sense of me
I’m reaching for your soul. Will you come into me to break your sense of me?
Two bodies can dance continuously to warp our perception of individuality
Circles give shape to an embrace and tears leave space for us to create illusory claims

Je veux apprendre votre rythme la ou nous vivons tous les deux droit et gauche
Je suis nouveau et vous etes beau ne soyez desole vous brulez
merci la merci la vie
il est facile d’etre fort quand vous craignez d’etre faible
s’il vous plait regardez le clair de lune
tu n’y comprendrais rien sans elle

Fall under her saturation her lucidity
fall into her lukewarm swells
Stand still and equal
right and left together
Become all of you
and we become forever.

A Purple Bikeshed

is like gunshots out my window
shoulders to my ears
my eyes fool me more
so dominant the arrow

From this perception swells
the constant hum in everything
a drone enclosed in every tone
infrequent blap pop boom goes
echoing in the night
like thunder claps to sparring mits
or chalk erasers slap slap dust
like seabirds scatter whistling
like locusts far away
I’m gauging miles now where a body lay

What color is the bikeshed
at night it is maroon
and in morning when the light appears
we stand foolish to the moon
and so a mind will empty and fill
gradual in such cycles
when wane and waxing back we kindle candle fire
Fearing that the stars ignite

And if their brilliance is too loud for me
I plug my ears with my knees even though papa said,
“You shouldn’t stick anything in your ear that’s bigger than an elbow.”

Sharp corners and zig zags of different shades make illusions
when the contrast moves from bold to fade
whether breath or truth it’s sound that is the life of proof

Why wonder about the bikeshed color
when it only matters that it has a roof
and so we converse our comments and opinions in predictable cycles
perceiving what we please and dismiss all else as trivial
forgetting what to do with a house full of bicycles

I’m wondering if you’ll ever solve that rubix cube

There are places in the lattice above
ripped to let a little more light in

& the more we fragment heaven,
the closer it comes to crashing into salt.
ink evaporates, fingerprints dissolve,
& keystones dislodge

a displaced disco ball sky am I
something celestial at which we wonder
under a microscope

Now we’re only concerned with dissecting galaxies
to capture the concept of size
or coin a strand of course black hair
to copyright a copper iris trapped in a cell
so far we know a prisoner can ponder osmosis
for most of her solid state

& right now this meal reminds me of swimming pools,
but mostly I’m wondering if you’ll ever solve
that rubix cube.

With whom do you only have summer memories?

Lolo played the piano and I would dance one day
Tango and classical
I wanted to dig those songs
Introduce myself

With whom do you only have summer memories
Hearing only melodies of struck precision
Light when necessary
Rich
Contiguous

The afternoon is saturated in early sunlight
Filtered through the bands of inoffensive dust
And palatable bright envelopes the scene
Extracted from a timeless frame of space

The carpet is aerial-shot earth and ocean shag
Where my toes surrender under bent knees
of stepping legs lifted by arms floating out
with nothing to do but be arms
and no idea what a ballerina would do
but twirl on one axis
like the little white wind-up figure
in my jewelry box

She has no face
Just red lips
A compartment dream
Did not belong to me
Pink and white roses
Velvet interior
A mirror

The box was always
Empty and outside was more open

Lolo whistled like his teeth were ivory or coconut meat
Meant he was shoveling or having coffee with acidophilus milk
He made Filipino profanity and mahjong shuffle

In the morning basement he hacked up yesterday’s phlegm into a toilet cough
In the bathroom where his dentures slept
Where we split his Salem cigarettes and flushed them
Like a love we could reciprocate

Who's In Charge?

Can you differentiate droplets in a downpour
Like fanatics’ vocals in the final quarter
Like the electric flashes charging your form
Reflecting effort—
shining

Outside sweats this
Air so sweet and thick as
Rain hits the
Fire

Escape with a hollow
Kiss in the belly
Of an empty cloth drum
Catching released condensation—
Accumulated heat
Positive-negative clusters

Your face is the manifestation
Of shifting from future to fossilized
Serpentine and spiraling
Sounds intertwine with sight

What song crackles spider-like
Across the sky as something howls
Inside a bottle drowning

A Relapsed Arsonist's Remorse

I know what breaks a Greek plate
And the intent of a ceramic artist
The uncertainty of a kiln
And variables of responsibility
Within accidents going places
To happen and the ones we preserve
In jars for an occasion to spill
And break and slip like the coaxing sparkle
Of a drying marble floor

Masters of Circumstance never test fire
Clip yellow-leafed plants cradled legs in hands
Examining dead the skin mix with sand.

The intellect grows a peach a bit
Brain and dripping sweet a chin mimicking
The edge of what a human can face
A volcano inverted as ash
Before lava or blood before basalt

We suspend our bodies in burlap decisions
And dangle ripe in the trees burning
To bust open our guts to become spectral
Activity and savorily spent

I could have left a couple chipped
Dishes or a few finger dents
In the frosting or one yellowing plant
But at the pavers’ discretion
Without the courtesy of cones
We let the jackhammers fraction
Our tameless terrain

I know the remorse of an arsonist
And the quiet after the crackle
The twisted fate of a toaster taken up in steely flames
I know the accident of throwing unextinguishable matches
Of lovers and time and accidents
Like tricky birthday candles jinxing a wish

Absolute Beginner's Yoga Course

I will be teaching an Absolute Beginner's course at Yoga People in Brooklyn Heights beginning this

Saturday, June 7th through the 28th.
10:00 - 11:15 a.m.
157 Remsen St., 2nd Fl
Brooklyn Heights 11201

So it's a total of 4 classes. Since space is limited, it's $85 for early registration $90 day of.

Call 718 522 3113 to register.

*This course is not only good as an introduction for those who are new to yoga, but also is beneficial for the more practiced persons that would like to revisit the fundamentals.

Arsonist's Remorse

I know what breaks a Greek plate
And the intent of a ceramic artist
The uncertainty of a kiln and the responsibility of variables
Within accidents going places to happen and the ones
We store in jars to preserve an occasion to spill and break and slip
Like the coaxing sparkle of a drying marble floor

As masters of circumstance
We never test the fire
Clip yellow-leafed plants
Cradled legs in hands examining
Dead the skin mixes with sand.

The intellect grows a peach
A bit brain and dripping sweet
A chin mimicking the edge of what a human can face
A volcanic inversion of ash before lava or blood before basalt

We suspend our bodies in burlap decisions
And dangle ripe in the trees burning to bust our guts open
For becoming spectral activity and savorily spent

I could have left a couple chipped dishes
Or a few finger dents in the frosting
Or one yellowing plant
But at the pavers’ discretion
We let the jackhammers in without the courtesy of cones
The decibel level blasts fractions of a tameless terrain

I know the remorse of an arsonist
And the quiet after the crackle
The twisted fate of a toaster taken up in steely flames
I know the accident of throwing unextinguishable matches
Of lovers and time and accidents
Like tricky birthday candles jinxing a wish