{"id":6977,"date":"2020-09-02T23:11:20","date_gmt":"2020-09-02T23:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/?p=6977"},"modified":"2023-07-08T10:19:40","modified_gmt":"2023-07-08T10:19:40","slug":"disappearing-acts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/posts\/disappearing-acts\/","title":{"rendered":"Disappearing Acts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/span>\r\n\r\nGregg Glory\r\n[Gregg G. Brown]\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nPublished by BLAST PRESS\r\n\r\n\r\nCopyright \u00a9 2017 by Gregg G. Brown\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Stuff and Nonsense<\/h2>\n
 <\/span>
\nDark Poet, your pen scratches at the heart of life. ~~Antonin Artaud<\/em><\/p>\n
\nNonsense is often the most sensible kind of sense. This is counterintuitive, but trust me for a moment as we proceed. This is no three-card monte. Nor is it like the wonderful magic of Emmett Kelley the clown sweeping his spotlights into a single circle, and then putting that circle in his pocket, patting his pocket and smiling like Einstein after he\u2019d eureka\u2019d light into a corner.\n<\/p>\n
\nNonsense reveals all of us\u2014our self, our situation\u2014in a single pop of recognition as we are trampolined from our usual assurances and then forced to regain our footing, to regain our meaning, on the fly. Like an old-fashioned photographer\u2019s flash powder, we are exposed to an extreme of light, with no visible space left for secrets or lies. This is part of the odd exhilaration of nonsense. And, don\u2019t get me wrong, nonsense isn\u2019t some sly encyclopedia where all hidden truths are stored and we must simply discover the index\u2014oh, no. Rather, the puzzles that nonsense reveal are genuinely unsolvable. Gregor Samsa will never come back from being a cockroach; his transformation in the story \u201cMetamorphosis\u201d has simply revealed the pickle he was already in, but didn\u2019t know that he was in.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhat nonsense reveals, at its best, are genuine mysteries.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnd, like Gregor Samsa, the character in the poem \u201cNagging Question,\u201d who wakes up with a pile of feathers at his feet after having torn his pillow apart in his sleep, all he can do with a true mystery, once it has been revealed, is to go back into the realm from which the mystery emanated. Gregor cross-examines his family situation, and the character in our poem returns to the realm of sleep and dream. But, with new, perhaps sharper, questions in mind with which to confront the mystery that has been revealed. Or, it may be, with no questions at all, simply with one\u2019s eyes widened.\n<\/p>\n
\nThis process resembles the scientific method, except for the fact that there is no control group. What variables could nonsense ever control for? There may one day be a science of comedy, but never one for true mystery. The only control group we have in poetry is every other poem ever written. Their mysteries abide, and it is into them that we go to confront those mysteries again and again\u2014and to find more of ourselves more truthfully (or at least more fully) revealed.<\/p>\n
 <\/span>\r\n   [With] the pillow exploded uselessly between\r\n         your hands\r\n   And what looks to be a chicken carcass\r\n   Piled in an inscrutable white mound\r\n   Headless between your bare feet [...]\r\n   There\u2019s only one place for you to find your answer.\r\n\r\nGregg Glory\r\nAugust 28, 2017\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Other
\n(How To Be Invisible)<\/h2>\n
\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Disappearing Act<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe shaggy sea wagged its big, wet tail.\r\nI walked right into its open mouth \r\nAnd was never heard from again.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Culprit<\/h2>\n
\r\nThis entire time\r\nI\u2019ve been stealing peaches\r\nThat look like my face.\r\n\r\nMy hand\u2019s shadow\r\nGrows crooked over their innocence\r\nAs if I were shaving them.\r\n\r\nSoft as they are,\r\nThey talk softly in my pockets together,\r\nAccusing me of many crimes.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Ruby Woo<\/h2>\n
\r\nI knew a girl who began disappearing\r\nFrom her feet up.\r\nFirst her toes faded out, then her heels,\r\nHer arches were twin bridges to nowhere.\r\nYou could still hear her clicking down the sidewalk,\r\nBut she no longer stopped at the shoe store\r\nTo windowshop.\r\n\r\nHer knees gave her some trouble\r\nAnd you could see the kneecaps gleaming\r\nLike little cat skulls.\r\n\r\nShe was so relieved when her ass finally disappeared\r\nShe threw a big party and danced all night\r\nBut mostly alone since no one was sure \r\nExactly where her feet were, or if she still had any.\r\n\r\nLast week I went around to visit\r\nAnd had to let myself in.\r\nShe was just a pair of lips on a throw pillow \r\nOn the couch.  I spoonfed her a little chicken broth\r\nAnd blotted her dry.\r\n\r\nShe talked a lot, various histories and opinions.\r\nWe talked over each other quite a bit,\r\nAnd I wasn\u2019t sure if she could hear me.\r\n\r\nOn my way out, she asked me\r\nTo apply some lipstick for her, ruby woo.\r\nBut, I couldn\u2019t oblige.  I\u2019m all thumbs.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The Poet Wild<\/h2>\n
 <\/span>for Joe Weil<\/em>\r\n\r\nAn echoing bear snuffles woodward.\r\nHis head sways heavily back and forth,\r\nA shovelful of earth.\r\n\r\nThe bear has eaten the world.\r\nHis eyes are full of sorrowful stars\r\nTyped like whited-out asterisks.\r\n\r\nThe bear pours out his voice,\r\nBlack licorice poured on roaring waters.\r\nIt echoes in the earth and air.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Reading in Eden<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe books are more like trees.\r\nTall, with letters like people bending.\r\nYou run across the pages naked,\r\nRoll endlessly into the binding laughing\r\nAt your clumsiness, the pages like cream,\r\nThe sun warm applause on your back as you struggle.\r\nThe flat people around you stare wide-eyed as Egyptians,\r\nSilent, your foot caught in the plot.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Evaporating Lines<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe magician disappeared into his hat.\r\nThe rabbit had hopped off long ago,\r\nBut, there was his shadow.\r\n\r\n*\r\n\r\nI am ferried everywhere on the back of an ant.\r\nA leaf, an aphid.\r\n\r\n*\r\n\r\nI am disappearing like a silk scarf pulled through\r\n     a ring.\r\nA small hole, an ear.\r\n\r\n*\r\n\r\nDisappear with me, the best is yet to be.\r\nQuoth Browning, quoth God.\r\n\r\n*\r\n\r\nI ride in upon a magnificent wave of birth, raving\r\n    and foamy.\r\nWhen I retreat back to death, I leave behind\r\nA salt grit, a stink.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
A Hard Wind<\/h2>\n
\r\nA hard wind is bending \r\nThe wintry world.\r\nTree after skeletal tree \r\nSeems tentative\r\nThat had been solid \r\nAs wainscoting before.\r\nWalls holding in, \r\nWindows looking out.\r\n\r\nBlue corners of the sky \r\nAre being torn.\r\nThe straight line of the horizon \r\nWeeps like eyes \r\nBowing downward \r\nAt their sad corners.\r\nSad world.  \r\nAnd no tissue big enough.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Life<\/h2>\n
\r\nLife is shit\r\nThey all said.\r\nBut, they didn\u2019t\r\nReally mean it.\r\n\r\nLife is suffering\r\nThe wise man said.\r\nBut, he\r\nDidn\u2019t really mean that.\r\n\r\nLife is\u2026 is\u2026 is...\r\nUnavoidable!  one blurted.\r\nAnd they \r\nAll laughed at that.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The Reader<\/h2>\n
\r\nPolitely, devoutly, \r\nWith head bent down, the reader \r\nAsks permission of the text:\r\nMay I see what my imagination\r\nHas already cooked up?\r\nCan I smell the key lime pie, \r\nLick the great comedian\u2019s face?\r\n\r\nLoyally, I wanted to kill Issac, too, \r\nBut I stayed my hand.\r\nIsn\u2019t that right, little book?  \r\nDidn\u2019t I chase a white whale \r\nAnd feel the harpoon\u2019s spur?\r\nI kissed with Eve, \r\nAnd I hissed with the snake.\r\n\r\nThe pages fell over me \r\nLike wings, like ashes.\r\n\r\nPages spangled \r\nWith ant-like letters.\r\nWalrus words thundered \r\nInto the sea \r\nAfter the good fight,\r\n\r\nTheir white tusks \r\nHidden underwater, \r\nTheir eyes mysterious,\r\nHuman as a mermaid\u2019s.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Riding Fido<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe last time around I was a flea for sure.\r\nDodging the dog\u2019s teeth, the dirty claws of his foot.\r\nMounting the spine of an eyelash to make love\r\nOr see the endless dogscape.  How the world moved\r\nWith the slow gait of an elephant, tilting\r\nPrecipitously as a great sailing ship in a storm.\r\nSuch vistas of grass and sky and dingy living room furniture!\r\nThe dog was splendid, a saber-toothed bear in battle\r\nWho slept all afternoon after a meal.\r\nSpeaking of which, there was always plenty to eat,\r\nYou bet, steaks of skin and gobbets of blood to spare.\r\nPull up a chair.  Hair of the dog and all that.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Words Without Music<\/h2>\n
\r\nWhenever I think \r\nThings are going too great,\r\nThat the total amount of joy \r\nIs adding up \r\nTo one fantastic finale, \r\nOne oceanic applause line,\r\n\r\nI stop eating for a fews days.\r\n\r\nJust to remind myself \r\nHow things really are, \r\nOr usually are,\r\nOr are often enough, \r\nOr were once,\r\nJust to remember those things\r\n\r\nThat come to mind as your stomach shrinks.\r\n\r\nLike carrying a goldfish \r\nHome in a bag with a leak.\r\nThe fish flips \r\nHarder and harder \r\nIn a smaller and smaller \r\nCorner of the plastic bag\r\n\r\nAs its gills get bigger and bigger.\r\n\r\nUnder the transparency,\r\nRed and agitated\r\nAs a cut under a fingernail,\r\nYou feel them\r\nDesperate against your palm,\r\nGolden under your thumb.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
God\u2019s Hooks<\/h2>\n
\r\nWho could\u2019ve put the stars up to it?  \r\nShining up there like God\u2019s hooks.\r\n\r\nBait for what fish?  A soul in a gown?\r\n\r\nOnly our satellites have gotten so far.\r\nTossed burning from the Earth \r\nIn a dash of hope, like poetry.\r\n\r\nThey send back pictures of vastness.\r\nSame as the view from here: vastness.\r\n\r\nWho knows?  Maybe we\u2019re already hooked, \r\nAlready being reeled in.  Our invisible line to God \r\nAlready tightening, already shortening.\r\n\r\nEventually, even the satellites we sent blink off,\r\nDrawn out of black water and eaten raw.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
How to Be Invisible<\/h2>\n
\r\nLook like yourself.\r\nFind the average wavelength of conversation\r\nAnd neither exceed it nor cut it short.\r\nWhen strangers approach you assume\r\nThat they are looking at something \r\nOver your shoulder.\r\nYou\u2019ll almost always be right.\r\n\r\nTry to go around feeling\r\nLike you\u2019ve just stolen an apple,\r\nOr a dozen, your sweater pockets bulging.\r\nCarry on with an anonymous air of savior faire\r\nPasted on your face\r\nAs you exit the supermarket.\r\n\r\nGetting married can be very effective.\r\nYou\u2019ll be talked to half as often,\r\nAnd couples are twice as hard to see in a crowd.\r\nSoon, you\u2019ll be like a cloud no one remembers,\r\nA misty uninsistent thing.  After a few years, \r\nShe won\u2019t even know you\u2019re there.\r\nBut, trust me, save it for a last resort.\r\n\r\nAnd don\u2019t ever, ever call the police.\r\nThey\u2019ll just take your fingerprints\r\nIn ten little puddles of ink,\r\nAnd you\u2019ll have to start \r\nFiling them off daily.\r\n\r\nOne last piece of free advice\r\nTo feel invisible as fishing line, as sky,\r\nAs all those assumptions you make.\r\nDon\u2019t buy a dog.  Seriously,\r\nWhatever else you do.\r\n\r\nDogs never let you forget\r\nThat you are loved.  Loved utterly.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Objects<\/h2>\n
\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Water<\/h2>\n
\r\nWater.  \r\nI keep trying to think of it.\r\n\r\nI only get as far as thirsty.\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Consider a Stone<\/h2>\n
\r\nIt\u2019s already too late.  Whatever lava\r\nRoared like a furnace in the Permian period\r\nAnd made it a stone, has been stopped cold.\r\nA stone is a stasis.  Chipped littler and littler\r\nBy gossipy neighbors nipping at its reputation.\r\nLocked in grey skin and quiet, there\u2019s endless time\r\nFor regrets\u2014like after getting married or arrested.\r\nI\u2019d say it\u2019s a frozen tear, but that\u2019s too lachrymose.\r\nIn your hand, there\u2019s weight enough for murder.\r\nWhen you put one up to your ear, you realize\r\nAt your feet everywhere roil fossilized bubbles,\r\nDrowning men crying for help. \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Pinpricks<\/h2>\n
\r\nRemember that movie Hellraiser?\r\nAll those pins pounded in his skin?\r\nAn army of darts.  \r\n\r\nWhen something creepy happens\r\nWe get those same\r\nPins, prickles of intuition.\r\nHackles raised as if we were\r\nReverting to wolves.  \r\n\r\nThere\u2019s a parable I know about that,\r\nBut I\u2019m too tired to tell it\u2014\r\nTrying to get back to sheep, I mean sleep,\r\nTurning over and over again\r\nAs if basting in an oven.\r\n\r\nAnd all those pins digging in\r\nRight where the wings\r\nAre starting from my shoulders.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Cages<\/h2>\n
\r\nStep right in, ladies and gentlemen--\r\nGilded and ribbed, there\u2019s\r\nA cage for every occasion.\r\nOne for being born\r\nNubile and pink, soft cordons\r\nConfused in the wet umbilical.\r\nA cage for work, oh yes,\r\nAll varieties, from rust\r\nTo resolute platinum.\r\nA cage for marriage\r\nRed with love, red with strife.\r\nRattle them, my inmates!\r\nMake sad music with your cup!\r\nSway when the master walks with you\r\nDown the streetlamped way.\r\nA cage for every occasion,\r\nAnd a cage for happiness, too,\r\nFit as a shoe and able to dance\r\nA whirligig jig or two.\r\nOne last cage, a bonus cage,\r\nA cage of stars for your soul\r\nWhere the mind peters out\r\nIn the dark, far, far before\r\nIts ragged hands reach the bars.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Spoon<\/h2>\n
\r\nA spoon lays down \r\nLike a droplet,\r\nOr buries its head in the soup \r\nLike a ostrich.\r\n\r\nIn the mouth, it\u2019s like \r\nAn extra tongue\r\nWrestling \r\nFor a dollop of ice cream.\r\n\r\nConfined all together,\r\nThey clang in the drawer.\r\nA folded xylophone,\r\nA music of muffled intent.\r\n\r\nTurned over, a flock\r\nOf silver peahens arrive,\r\nAll of them pecking\r\nFor a beakful of feed.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
House<\/h2>\n
\r\nHow can I be alone in my house\r\nIf I\u2019m not alone in my soul?\r\n\r\nFolded together from memories\r\nA house imitates a home:\r\n\r\nThe buried dog\u2019s outstretched skeleton,\r\nThe cozy oven, Christmas omelettes.\r\n\r\nIn the empty street the houses\r\nBlow about like paper lanterns.\r\n\r\nThe windows wisely lock me in.\r\nThe trees keep count against the panes.\r\n\r\nMy mind\u2019s not right, when so much night\r\nPours ink upon my sins.\r\n\r\nVoices vanish, yet whispers stir\u2014\r\nA fly that lands upon the skin.\r\n\r\nTime keeps to the clock.\r\nI was, but now am not.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Wiping My Lips<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe seamstress is feeding\r\nBat wings into the sewing machine,\r\nDoves\u2019 wings, pecking\r\nMy stitched initials.\r\n\r\nThe finished handkerchiefs\r\nFlutter at my neck,\r\nCrouch in my lap,\r\nKiss me after dinner, a peck.\r\n\r\nOnce I got this set of six,\r\nMixed, semi-transparent,\r\nJust clouded enough to keep\r\nMe embroidered.\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Buttonhole<\/h2>\n
\r\nCome to me, little blue button.\r\nStop up my gaping smile.\r\nBe held and whole.\r\nServe our warm closure,\r\nSure as a handshake.\r\nLet\u2019s survive another loveless day\r\nTogether, hugging.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Electric Fan<\/h2>\n
\r\nA whispery fan \r\nBrushes \r\nMy exposed skin\r\nWith coolness.\r\n\r\nIts brushes rush\r\nOver me\r\nEagerly \r\nAs dog wags.\r\n\r\nI can\u2019t quite\r\nMake out\r\nWhatever it keeps \r\nInsisting.\r\n\r\nIts blowdart\r\nHas missed and\r\nThe propellant breath\r\nIs delightful.\r\n\r\nWhatever it\u2019s saying\r\nI\u2019m sure that\r\nEventually I\u2019ll \r\nAgree completely.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
White Threads<\/h2>\n
\r\nA needle traveling\r\nIn the dark is not\r\nMore mysterious\r\nThan I\u2014\r\n\r\nSeeking its splinter \r\nOf light, it\u2019s gap\r\nIn the night\r\nFrom which\r\n\r\nIt can emerge\r\nWith its\r\nTerrifying face\r\nIntact.\r\n\r\nA needle is less \r\nInsistent \r\nThan a question.\r\nIt pricks,\r\n\r\nBut it doesn't \r\nGnaw.  There\u2019s \r\nA politeness in needles\r\nI hadn't considered,\r\n\r\nPulling their surgical \r\nWhite threads\r\nAgain and again \r\nThrough my skin.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Chairs<\/h2>\n
\r\nOnce I saw a man make a pyramid of chairs.\r\nA dozen, perhaps.  Gangly, ungainly cane chairs\r\nThreaded together somehow, linked leg to leg,\r\nA strange assemblage Duchamp would\u2019ve painted,\r\nAnd hoisted in one elegant lift to his chin!\r\n\r\nOur hands applauded in a burst of gunfire.\r\n\r\nHe continued to stand like that for some time.\r\nArms out, eyes fixed on the swaying chair bottoms\r\nWhich made a sound like trees in winter.\r\nThey twirled like a chandelier hung over his nose,\r\nA little smile spreading under his mustache.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The Far Side<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe windows are falling.\r\nThey are pieces of sky falling.  Or pieces of air.\r\nAt first glance, a window seems like a kite stuck\r\n    in a tree,\r\nSomething simple, a thin pane of clarity trembling\u2014\r\nThere to help us feel the tug of flying.\r\nThat\u2019s what windows are, in essence, \r\nThis sense of something falling that keeps on falling.\r\n\r\nWe fall through windows with our eyes,\r\nArriving at the far side of walls, in open space.\r\n\r\nWords have windows in them, too, vowels and ladders,\r\nInvisible squares we fall through to an otherness.\r\nWe sit reading in an attic with Anne Frank\r\nOr a tree suddenly grows in our Brooklyn.\r\nOur parents faces change when we look at them,\r\nAnd we are no longer who we were before.\r\nWe have fallen through this invisible thing.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
TV Remote<\/h2>\n
\r\nIt\u2019s a Rosetta Stone by design, a solution stone,\r\nA Stonehenge with the eld symbols still visible \r\nOn its tall, crooked tooth.\r\nCombine them at will and light appears\r\nSquare and docile before you, a rag quilt\r\nPulled blurrily over the entire room, a cloak\r\nOf fire\r\nThat gives a ghostliness to the life\r\nYou inhabit.\r\n\r\nThe Rosetta Stone in your lap\r\nWhen held before you like a wand\r\nWill help you to make sense of the ghosts\r\nThrown like sheets all about the room,\r\nYour life now softened by their omnipresent glow.\r\nIt will help.  You will find it helpful.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Two Supplicants<\/h2>\n
\r\nShoes take the first step.\r\nThey come to us like petitioners,\r\nTheir tongues turned out for a drop\r\nOf holy water, the impish benediction\r\nOf a toe.\r\n\r\nThey wait below the waterline of our attention\r\nTo embrace\r\nThe calm presence of an arch,\r\nThe elastic pressure of a ball,\r\nThe flat command of the heel.\r\n\r\nAfter a while, years maybe,\r\nHaving given their soles to our direction,\r\nWe peel them off like grapeskins and \r\nExamine their pulpy interiors dark as clotted grottoes,\r\nRank as dead fish.\r\n\r\nAnd then we discard them\r\nWithout noticing even once\r\nHow perfectly, like supplicants, they have taken\r\nOur image inside themselves, the weight of our identities\r\nShaping them and breaking them at last.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The Washing Machine<\/h2>\n
\r\nIts face is a Charybdis \r\nFull of soiled underthings.\r\nWe come to it as to a confessional,\r\nShed our daily skins like dirty snakes\r\nAnd pour ourselves in for punishment\r\nTo leave with a watery burden.\r\n\r\nRefreshed, we drag the burden\r\nOut and pin it on the line to dry.\r\nThe human figures dance, though the sky is grey.\r\nSoon the sun looking down makes us\r\nAshamed, and we pull our old sins back on,\r\nClean-smelling, one leg at a time.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Thing<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe name of the thing is Thing.\r\nBut it\u2019s really a hand in a box\r\nThat shuts itself in with a lid.\r\nSometimes it pops out of another box\r\nOr shuts another lid, after helping\r\nTo hold a nail or straighten a tie.\r\nThing\u2019s shadow-puppets are dramatic and informative,\r\nA kind of one-handed hula.  Today,\r\nThing loops a lariat, or is it\r\nA noose, and leaves it neatly coiled\r\nOn the old-fashioned table for later use.\r\nNow, what am I to make of that?\r\nThing dances a little, gives a firm OK.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The Beginning of Spiders<\/h2>\n
\r\nNot, certainly, a splat of teriyaki on the tile\r\nWhich then wriggles and walks away.\r\n\r\nNot that shadowed corner of dark crinkles\r\nYou ignore at the edges of your eyes.\r\n\r\nNor spider veins that invade the body, spikes\r\nOf blue midnight, cracks of live lightning!\r\n\r\nNone of these is how spiders started,\r\nThose inveterate inhabitants of nightmare.\r\n\r\nSpiders, with their crowd of eyes like pustules \r\nOf blackberries, began just the way you did.\r\n\r\nJust the way Socrates got started all those millenia\r\nAgo: by cell division: wheels within wheels.\r\n\r\nLike Socrates, spiders may be given poison\r\nTo drink.  Unlike Socrates, they\u2019ll bite you first.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Green Apples<\/h2>\n
\r\nSweet isn\u2019t the word I\u2019d use\u2014\r\nA parrafin, a first bite of sour gum\r\nThat never gets chewy perhaps.\r\nJuice like a fourteen year old\u2019s kiss, syrupy, thin\r\nWaterfalls down your chin as you laugh\r\nAnd go in for another green bite.\r\n\r\nThoughts are green like this apple.\r\nTimeless, bright, with a circle of brown seeds hidden\r\nIn all that sour whiteness.\r\n\r\nWhen my stomach is full as a fist,\r\nI reach back into the packing crate\r\nAnd start whipping them against the side\r\nOf the Eden Orchards barn.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Shadow Puppets<\/h2>\n
\r\nAll night spent practicing\r\nThe flop of rabbit ears,\r\nThey grey trunk of an elephant,\r\nThe giddy-up of a horse.\r\n\r\nLater, there\u2019s the legs\r\nOf two lovers dancing on the wall,\r\nGetting the narrow feet to leap\r\nAnd land just right.\r\n\r\nAround 4 a.m the lamp\r\nTilts a bit drunkenly.\r\nOr is it the yellow moon\r\nLeaning in on the fun?\r\n\r\nLast thing I do\r\nBefore dawn takes the wall\r\nIs work on the little, square\r\nEye of a crocodile.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Paper<\/h2>\n
\r\nAlone as a dot\r\nIn a snow-filled meadow\r\nYour pencil tip \r\nSheds black feathers\r\nLike an old crow.\r\n\r\nThe sheet is ice\r\nOr desert,\r\nVoid or supernova.\r\nIt doesn\u2019t say which\r\nAnd you don\u2019t ask.\r\n\r\nYou slide down whiteness\r\nHolding hands\r\nAnd stop on tiptoe\r\nTo acknowledge \r\nThe endless cliff.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Sex<\/h2>\n
\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Difficult Clasp<\/h2>\n
\r\nIt is when you were absent,\r\nVisiting your mother, or missing,\r\nThat night most advanced\r\nIts absence.\r\n\r\nBut it was when night was gone\r\nAnd you were here again, that\r\nYou, wearing your hat or not,\r\nWere most absent. \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Solving for X<\/h2>\n
\r\nLab tables of fireproof resin\r\nKept partners paired\r\nIn their experimental setup,\r\nX and Y chromosomes gleaming.\r\n\r\nThe Bunsen burner\u2019s flame\r\nLike a needle between them,\r\nAnd a walnut crucible balanced\r\nOn young tongs.\r\n\r\nIt was delicate, wasn\u2019t it,\r\nThe way her curl\r\nWas drawn like smoke\r\nTo the blue fire?\r\n\r\nMy fingers still sting\r\nWhere I patted her out,\r\nLeaving a small scar\r\nVisible behind her ear.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Exes<\/h2>\n
\r\nLong ago she stopped asking about you.\r\nStopped making inquiries into your welfare.\r\nOr wondering what you were doing right then\r\nAs she pur\u00e9ed the skinned tomatoes from the garden\r\nAnd poured another tall afternoon Bloody Mary,\r\nFalling asleep in her trashy novel on the chaise lounge\r\nWhere you\u2019d made love to her with careful athleticism \r\nLetting the little wheels help ribbon the rhythm,\r\nHer face turned aside for an imperative sidebar with God\r\nAll while you\u2019re cursing and grinning like a demon\r\n     possessed\r\nTo the cool applause of the pool.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Dinner Engagement<\/h2>\n
\r\nMy tongue loops over my tongue \r\nSlipping into a slippery knot\r\nAs she shifts out of her dingy peacoat\r\nAnd sits down to dinner with\r\nMe again.\r\n\r\nHer hazel eyes are to die for\r\nBut I resist their deadly insistence,\r\nCooling my heels and blowing my soup\r\nWhile daintily she slurps her minestrone\r\nLike a lizard.\r\n\r\nFinally we\u2019re alone on the roof\r\nHolding hands with the moon\u2014\r\nHot as two dinner rolls, making out,\r\nButtering, unbuttoning her tight top,\r\nTying the knot.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Romance<\/h2>\n
\r\nGussied up, the broom\r\nWags its golden wig\r\nOver the debris, the dust, the days\r\nThat have fallen to the floor.\r\n\r\nI like to think of it as a romance.\r\nThe broom, beautiful and slender\r\nPicking up after her drunken husband,\r\nThe lout in dirty work boots\r\n\r\nAnd no time to talk.\r\nBut, years ago he would sing Johnny Mercer tunes\r\nSo beautifully to her in the car.\r\nLike I say, I\u2019m a romantic.\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Cherry Lozenges<\/h2>\n
\r\nHere she comes again\r\nHanding me another\r\nCherry lozenge because\r\nMy throat\u2019s stuck coughing\r\nLike a motorcycle choke.\r\n\r\nShe comes back a bit later\r\nWith spoon after spoon\r\nOf blown-on broth, and a\r\nPalm on my teakettle forehead\r\nLike cool water.\r\n\r\nWhatever patience is\r\nIt has a face like hers,\r\nBending over a car wreck\r\nLike a tree bending over a river, \r\nIn its leafy hands a wrapper\r\n\r\nAnd a cherry lozenge.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Editor’s Note<\/h2>\n
\r\nHow, if it happens all the time,\r\nCan it count as being a surprise?\r\nThis moonlight \r\nAlive in dark rhododendrons,\r\n\r\nThis tension in a whisper,\r\nIf it\u2019s you whispering in my ear?\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Third Attempt<\/h2>\n
\r\nDucking, dodging \r\nThe swipe at my puss \r\nLike a pro I land \r\nA kiss like a fly\r\nSix-legged, delicate \r\nOn your apple cheek.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Time<\/h2>\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
One by One<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe senses arrive\r\nWith daylight,\r\nLike birds \r\nLining up to sing\r\nOn a wire.\r\n\r\nThey take the small \r\nSeeds of dawn\r\nInto their alert beaks\r\nAnd break them\r\n\r\nWhile the pale shells\r\nPile fluff\r\nBetween the claws.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Too-Early Morning<\/h2>\n
\r\nSunlight makes everything grow up.\r\nYet still the night comes, is coming again\r\nEven though it is barely past pink dawn\r\nAnd the friendly mirror is waiting for me\r\nTo comb my unruly hair like a good boy.\r\n\r\nThe cereal is waiting there in its white box,\r\nThe patient milk in its red carton.  Spoon, bowl,\r\nIn their dark drawer and closed cupboard wait\r\nLike springs in a clock. Tick and wait, tick and wait\r\nFor the morning the owner winds down, and rust\r\n\r\nCovers the clock.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Knifefight<\/h2>\n
\r\nBetween the stabs of rain,\r\nI remain.\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Vernal Equinox<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe first cigarette of the morning drifting\r\nIn through the open window.  Ah, Spring!\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Life Forms<\/h2>\n
\r\nA few disheveled \r\nBits of scenery.\r\n\r\nA bus that drives by\r\nIn the mid-distance.\r\n\r\nThe little girl\u2019s bicycle waiting\r\nFor her return from school.\r\n\r\nEvery day this neighborhood\r\nBecomes a moonscape.\r\n\r\nI\u2019m the only alien left\r\nTyping on my magic box:\r\n\r\nThe man in the moon\r\nMade of shadows and craters.\r\n\r\nThe sundial ticks,\r\nMy nose grows longer.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The Bite of Memory<\/h2>\n
\r\nBite your fingernails.\r\nBite the clouds,\r\nIf you\u2019re up for it.\r\n\r\nYou could spend hours practicing\r\nBiting smiles in faces,\r\nSpitting out the seeds of teeth.\r\n\r\nYour mouth will empty itself\r\nEventually,\r\nA bucket done with fetching.\r\n\r\nLook, in one day you\u2019re old,\r\nMaybe even a little lonely.\r\nYou will be bitten back.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The River Forever<\/h2>\n
\r\nWatching the snaky surface of the river forever,\r\nDim in the river valleys, light on the river crests,\r\nI ask myself: \u201cIs the river moving downstream, or is it\r\nI who am moving down rivering time forever?\u201d \r\n\r\nThe river only hisses, shows me snakes of sunlight\r\nThat writhe in a pile like spilled lines of mercury,\r\nSeemingly going nowhere, the striving river flowing so.\r\nI\u2014who?\u2014watching the snaky surface of the river forever.\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Death<\/h2>\n
 <\/span>\r\n   Hurry home, dark cloud.\r\n   ~~ Charles Simic<\/em>\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Just Like Heaven<\/h2>\n
\r\nThat little corner in my dream\r\nWhere the buildings are made of Legos:\r\nA pretense of an apartment, a town, a country.\r\nLittle brick dogs sniffed other brick dogs.\r\n\r\nPeople shook hands like constructing a friendship.\r\nThe clouds were a heavy, discolored white, drifting...\r\nLarge rudderless cruise ships or giant squarish sheep.\r\nMy best friend was there, his face a grey diagram.\r\n\r\nHe had died some years before, but here he was.\r\nThe clocks moved their crooked, blocky arms.\r\nIt was always the same day, again and again.\r\nIt was my favorite place.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Loitering After the Funeral<\/h2>\n
\r\nMisfortune scrawled her phone number on my hand,\r\nCurled my fingers shut slowly, my hand in hers,\r\nAnd whispered: Call me.\r\n\r\nBad luck follows me like toilet paper sticks to your shoe.\r\nYou never know that it\u2019s there, trailing whitely,\r\nBut everyone sniggers as you go by.\r\n\r\nSadness isn\u2019t so horrible if sad things are happening.\r\nThere\u2019s a congruence to it, not some hangman laughing\r\nAt the radio as he pulls into work.\r\n\r\nTragedy, frankly, is more than I can lay claim to for myself.\r\nEven on my bleakest, blackest days, I\u2019m not tragic.\r\nRained out, sure.  But tragedy is art.\r\n\r\nThis isn\u2019t art.  Wheedling a cop out of a ticket on the way\r\nTo the funeral home, shoes clubbed with mud\r\n     and crying\r\nBecause your friend or mother has died.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Dead Feathers<\/h2>\n
\r\nChildren circled around to look inside the wheelbarrow\r\nAt the dead owl, its eyelids blue like Grandmom\u2019s,\r\nThe dead feathers speckled, not yet full of fleas leaving.\r\nThere\u2019s a solemness in the little ears like marked pages\r\nNever to be returned to, never to be read again. \r\n\r\nThe claws are amazing, longer than a lady\u2019s red fingernails,\r\nTines still sharp at the end of their forks.  \r\n\r\nTommy looks under one eyelid, bravely touching it;\r\nThe great eye seems alive between his fingers,\r\nThe head just about to swivel 180 asking \u201cWhoo, whoo?\u201d\r\nThat\u2019s when Steve backs off toward the woods, \r\nUninterested.  \r\n\r\nFrom his back pocket there dangle\r\nThe two rubber arms of his slingshot.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
So That<\/h2>\n
 <\/span>for my Dad<\/em>\r\n\r\nI don\u2019t remember what he called himself.\r\nLank as a construction crane,\r\nHe passed through town like a hook through a fish,\r\nAnd taking the town with him so that\r\nI\u2019m missing him terribly at an empty table.\r\n\r\nThe four corners are the four corners of a map\r\nThat\u2019s all Sahara, blank as a sandbox.\r\nHe\u2019s nowhere now, the back of a M\u00f6bius strip.\r\nThe toys have run off to play with the neighbors,\r\nThe child who smiled here has died.\r\n\r\nI feel this answerless vastness, not even an echo,\r\nLike spending all day counting graves,\r\nWalking to where two iron fences meet\r\nAnd turning back through graves again, through\r\nA few trees, a wind like a scratchy record.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Long After<\/h2>\n
\r\nLong after you are dead\r\n\u2014Yes, you are dead\u2014\r\nAs your head lies in a bridal veil\r\nOf galaxies, and your feet \r\nHave rotted through your shoes,\r\nAnd everyone you knew is written off \r\nAnd has written you off,\r\n\r\nYou will begin to find\r\nA way back, a secret hole\r\nThat leads to your old self,\r\nNo matter how far you have gone\r\nNo matter how dead you are,\r\nLike waking up still drunk\r\nTo the acrid smell of coffee.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Spare Parts<\/h2>\n
 <\/span>\r\n   One passed in a fever.\r\n   One was burned in a mine.\r\n   One was killed in a brawl.\r\n   ~~Edgar Lee Masters<\/em>\r\n\r\nIt came with less surprise, less and less,\r\nWith each iteration plucking\r\nEyes out of those wayward dolls.\r\n\r\nNow they are lined up naked\r\nBlind and dead,\r\nThese waxy cadavers of the field.\r\n\r\nTime had been as broad as daylight, \r\nFiery as wine.\r\nThey ran around the house like secondhands.\r\n\r\nNow, no houses will be built in this field\r\nExcept little stones ones leaning on crutches,\r\nGrooved with names\r\n\r\nEvening fingers touch and pluck.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The Quotidian<\/h2>\n
\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Morning Routine<\/h2>\n
\r\nCut a slip of door\r\nOpen to find the light\r\nSpill like a lampshade\r\nInto day.\r\n\r\nThe sun\u2019s an old man\r\nWith his beard on fire.\r\nQuick, before it goes out,\r\nSee everything.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The Statistic<\/h2>\n
\r\nA chalk stick figure \r\nWritten on the blackboard\r\nJumps off to sit beside you \r\nOn the train to Long Island.\r\n\r\nYou worry he\u2019ll rub off \r\nOn your suit sleeve.\r\nBut you ride out together, \r\nEventually leaning back,\r\n\r\nCrossing your legs in sync.  \r\nYou two are much alike\r\nYou decide, whistling tentatively \r\nAs the scenery passes.\r\n\r\nThe chalk figure \r\nPicks up the melody easily, \r\nIts lips \r\nA perfect circle, \r\n\r\nAnd you harmonize until \r\nHe rises at the next stop \r\nTo hop off, his slim center bend\r\nLeaving a white dot on the seat.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Winter Waltz<\/h2>\n
\r\nWinter picks its way carefully\r\nOver the rolling summer meadow,\r\nA big fat ball of snow\r\nOn stilts.\r\n\r\nIf you stand under the winter \r\nYou get rained on, \r\nCold and salubrious \r\nAs a fever bath.\r\n\r\nIf you follow the winter\r\nAll summer and into the fall,\r\nTracing its tipsy steps\r\nBlue shadow by blue shadow\r\n\r\nYou\u2019ll wind up back \r\nIn the meadow, only this time \r\nEverything\u2019s sheeted white\r\nLike a corpse.\r\n\r\nWrap yourself up in the sheets\r\nAnd start rolling!\r\nDon\u2019t forget to grab the stilts\r\nOn your way out.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Blood Light<\/h2>\n
\r\nSmall reddening lines creep under the curtain,\r\nCracks in a delicate shell.\r\nDawn is welling like a cut, a blood light\r\nTo walk dogs by, piss quietly beside the sea\r\nBefore the dark tide of tourists unpack.\r\n\r\nI follow the dog as I follow my body outside\r\nAs we go beyond the scalloped alcove of curtains.\r\n\r\nFor now, the rocks are still sublime, green outlines\r\nLike pensive bottle shards huddled close\r\nAnd the sea fitful between them.\r\nWhite spray lifts in bliss, in blessing\r\nAs the small moment passes. The dog tugs my leash.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Dim Air<\/h2>\n
\r\nGod must be at home in this muddle.\r\nDim air heavy, a hot muggy wig\r\nAs Suzanne says, her blond hair\r\nLimp and damp, a slap of yellow paint.\r\nDots of sweat fit for a goblet \r\nPinprick her fatal forehead,\r\nClear and lickable as champagne \r\nPoured down in glimmering lines.\r\nMy beer is blind and wet with sweat.\r\nInsects were born for this hot, humid glue\r\nThat has me losing my dry binding\r\nUntil I fall apart soft and crumbled \r\nIn your hands again, Suzanne,\r\nNeither God nor insect.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Night and Day and the Poet<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe painter looks up at night\u2019s enormous suave.\r\nThe singer listening to the choir of stars is calm.\r\nThe poet is unhappy in the sweaty bed.\r\nHe counts the fleas in summer\u2019s threadbare fleece\r\nGroaning on arthritic knees.\r\n\r\nBy day, the painter packs a lunch, details the regatta\r\nLike a thousand flags blazing all at once in the sun.\r\nThe singer is trilling and making her tea.\r\nThe poet waits for the mail, but it\u2019s always late.\r\nThe box sticks out its silver tongue,\r\n\r\nEloquent beyond his labored sonnet\r\nLying misspelled in the cluttered grass.\r\nAs they trot back down the drive,\r\nThe dog looks up at him with hope \r\nBut is always disappointed.\r\n\r\nA hundred birds erupt from the bushes as they pass,\r\n    singing mightily.\r\nShut up! the poet screams at nature and himself\r\nAnd goes in to lie down on the threadbare bed.\r\nI know, the poet decides finally, sweatily,\r\nI\u2019ll just write down whatever the birds were saying.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The Optimism of Opening a Window<\/h2>\n
\r\nWhat\u2019s out there,\r\nI find myself asking\r\nLike irregular clockwork.\r\n\r\nI\u2019m stuck in this\r\nAir-conditioned stasis\r\nListening to flies.\r\n\r\nSuch know-it-alls!\r\nCruising the fruit bowl\r\nOr praying on the television.\r\n\r\nAnd then I spot a thumbprint \r\nOf sun on the windowpane.\r\nLet\u2019s touch it!\r\n\r\nA moment of pain,\r\nAn almost sizzling gold\r\nMixed with Bhuddhist orange.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Pure Arithmetic<\/h2>\n
\r\nThousands of invisible mice\r\nAre pulling the shadow of the barn\r\nEastward as the sun drops West.\r\n\r\nMillions of unfindable doves \r\nRace upward with matchsticks in their beaks\r\nTo light the wicks of stars.\r\n\r\nBillions of underwater sleepers\r\nLie swimming in their beds\r\nTo arrive at island dreams.\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Endless<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe children have been playing \r\nTheir endless games\r\nOf hide-and-seek, \r\nWaterslide, hop-the-sprinkler\r\n\r\nLike so many flowers \r\nUprooting themselves \r\nFrom the field\r\nAnd running around \r\n\r\nScreaming in endless joy\r\nUnder a sky \r\nScuffed with clouds\r\nOr endless blue\r\n\r\nOver a yard called home, \r\nWith father and mother \r\nThere\r\nEndlessly tall\r\n\r\nCleaning up the icky barbecue,\r\nPacking up fork \r\nAnd plate and \r\nEnormous soda bottles\r\n\r\nAs sunset sets \r\nAnd everything goes slightly\r\nLemonade-tinged.\r\nAnd the children at last\r\n\r\nAre called in by their \r\nRoundelay of names\r\nFor the endless walk back \r\nTo the house and to bed.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Usual Procedure<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe songs of birds are for other birds, mostly.\r\nSo I figure that laws are for lawyers to obey, mostly,\r\nAnd taxes for accountants to pay, etc. etc.\r\n\r\nLeaves seem so at home in trees, why do they depart?\r\nClouds move from place to place so peacefully, then\r\nA zipper of thunder, and they pour themselves away.\r\n\r\nAre the birds lamenting the leaves\u2019 hasty departure?\r\nAre the clouds paying their taxes all-at-once?\r\nLawyers stamp around on the damp ground,\r\n     looking satisfied.\r\n     \r\n\r\n     \r\n<\/pre>\n
Walking Later On<\/h2>\n
\r\nCountless pebbles \r\nIn the darkening road \r\nLook perfect\r\nAs statues\u2019 eyes\u2014  \r\nBlind white,\r\nRound as clocks.\r\n\r\nAs we walk together \r\nThe late afternoon \r\nCloses them shut,\r\nAnd evening leaks \r\nUpward like rust \r\nOn an empty shed.\r\n\r\nThe pebbles chuckle \r\nLike hens, even though \r\nThey are just eggs.\r\nLeaning here, we find \r\nTime for silence \r\nDespite ourselves.\r\n\r\nThe country sky \r\nOpens, unfolding \r\nIts somber umbrella\r\nAs we continue \r\nIn the small rain \r\nOf pebbles falling.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Getting Lit<\/h2>\n
\r\nOver the summer tavern with its rocking chairs\r\nA cheap electric string tenses in the wind\r\nAnd then relaxes back into a lighted smile.\r\nThe clear globes have one filament of brain each\r\nLike a jellyfish, flashing dimly yellow\r\nAbove dim patrons dipping into beers:\r\nA row of bar birds, like those ones you see\r\nWith little tophats and thin beaks of glass.\r\n\r\nDrinks are emptied, and laughter shoulders\r\nPamela high enough to nab some bulbs\r\nAnd pitch them against the swinging tavern sign\r\nWith the plosive softness of puff mushrooms\r\nWhile glitter gathers beneath it in the dirt.\r\nA stray dog whines and circles excitedly.\r\nAbove them darkness recedes, who knows how far?\r\nThe moon seems close enough to unscrew.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
In Praise of Moon Rocks<\/h2>\n
\r\nAll the grasses like green minutehands\r\nAre keeping westerly.\r\nThey stop when the frost arrests them\r\nAt quarter to midnight.\r\n\r\nI want to feel the grass barefoot.\r\nI step outside\r\nThrough moonflower wings of faintest gauze\r\nAnd sliding glass\u2014\r\n\r\nOr through flies\u2019 wings, and the frozen buzzing\r\nOf metal grinding backwards,\r\nI think when my feet crackle the miniature shivs\r\nAnd a shiver undoes my back.\r\n\r\nI proceed to the old garden patch\r\nGuarded by stones.\r\nWhen I pick one up and inspect it closely,\r\nDense as a brain in my palm,\r\n\r\nI\u2019m holding a moon rock.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Commute<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe 6 a.m. train coming on is a lion\u2019s roar\r\nWith a mane of carbon sparks.\r\nWe ride inside an electric eel\r\nAnd read the illegible graffiti of frogmen.\r\n\r\nCold tunnels appear and swallow our longings,\r\nHolding us in echo after echo.\r\nWhen the station platform arrives like a diving board\r\nWe rewind onto it\r\n\r\nGraceful as exclamation points!\r\nWe swim off to work.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Lesson<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe teacher erases the blackboard so carefully!\r\nSo carefully, so completely.\r\nThe equation that explained time and motion,\r\nThe history of East Texas\u2014gone!\r\n\r\nWhat\u2019s left is this presence from behind the stars.\r\nA black potentiality, a malice\r\nDemanding never to be marred again,\r\nChalked, degraded, colored-in.\r\n\r\nThe first letter, an I, lands like a feather\r\nFrom a passing tern.\r\nSoon the whole silent universe is crusted over\r\n    with feathers:\r\nCrabbed letters, a line of hunchbacks, rockettes.\r\n\r\nAt the end of the day the teacher\r\nExhausted with explaining everything once again\r\nRemoves all evidence of herself\r\nAnd goes home, wherever that is.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Snow<\/h2>\n
\r\nEverything was peaceful at first.\r\nThe wheelbarrows brought in the whiteness\r\nSilently overnight\u2014and everything looking clean \r\nLike a napkin before the soup course.\r\n\r\nLittle by little during the day, the edges\r\nGet a bit soggy, or a corner tears open\r\nRevealing the black, dank eye\r\nOf a log in the woodpile.\r\n\r\nMore and more of the napkin\r\nGets dirtied by passing cars, by lipstick, by soup.\r\nRandom dark spots appear on the x-ray\r\nAnd start connecting like cancer.\r\n\r\nSoon, all that\u2019s left of whiteness\r\nIs a grimace or a grin here or there\u2014\r\nA stray piece of spaghetti\r\nStuck in your teeth.\r\n\r\nThe final photograph in the series shows everything\r\nExactly as it was before the snow\r\nBegan to fall all over itself.\r\nBut now, everything\u2019s miserable, cold and wet.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Stealing Kisses<\/h2>\n
 <\/span>\r\n1.\r\nWinters I talk to the mendicant fly on the wall\r\nOf metaphysics, starry-rayed emanations,\r\nThe sunlight falling filtered and pale.\r\n\r\n2.\r\nEach spring I grow a new leg, or two legs,\r\nJust for dancing, for running\r\nUp to new lips to steal a kiss.\r\n\r\n3.\r\nIn the fall the leaves do all the talking.\r\nI practice being a beetle, opening and closing\r\nThe valves of my coat.\r\n\r\n4.\r\nIn summer\u2014have I said what I do in summer?\r\nIn summer I drink wine\r\nAnd let my beard catch my meditations.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
History<\/h2>\n
 <\/span> \r\nWhether the knife falls into the melon or the melon onto the knife, the melon suffers.\r\n~~African proverb<\/em>\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Conjuring a Yawn<\/h2>\n
\r\nBefore the world turned\r\nInto a computer screen,\r\nI watched leaves play\r\nIn the scuffed yard.\r\n\r\nEach leaf was a little country\r\nOn a map, an outline,\r\nOr a man standing up\r\nLike a shadow,\r\n\r\nArms and legs wide.\r\nSometimes at sunset\r\nThe man, the country\r\nWould flare up on fire,\r\n\r\nBurning incandescent red\r\n(A sacrifice, an emblem)\r\nBefore rejoining\r\nThe dark conversation.\r\n\r\nOnce, a wind came.\r\nThe whole sea was burning.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Hitler\u2019s Gardener<\/h2>\n
\r\nAh, here they are now,\r\nFresh from their decapitation.\r\nFor your vase,\r\nFor your buttonhole,\r\nTo bring out the blue in your eyes.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Day After Tomorrow<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe police artist is drawing my face\r\nIn charcoal, line by line, in grim brimstone\r\nFor a stranger, one who attended the ill-\r\nAttended impromptu poetry reading\r\nUnder a chilly streetlight flickering\r\nWhere we used the forbidden words \r\nWith facile ease as in the old days:\r\nShe is as in a field a silken tent.\r\nGenders, pronouns, she, he and all that.\r\nThe stranger hadn\u2019t seen much, though, \r\nJust a zee zaying zomething, a blur \r\nLike a face wearing a beard or sprouting one,\r\nTwo feet, or maybe one was fake, the stranger \r\nHesitated to say: other-abled, some color\r\nOr other.  Yes, yes, I think zee was a shade.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Watching Rain<\/h2>\n
\r\nWatching rain gathering in a street gutter\r\nAs it picks up twigs and leaves along the way,\r\nLittle by little, on a growing gush of silver,\r\nThe hurrying water twists like a wet\r\nTowel as it swans down the drain...\r\nAs it goes cavorting down the black grate\r\nLike oil returning to the dinosaurs, bearing as it does\r\nA red ant rowing a broken stick to oblivion, looking\r\nFor all the world like Christopher Columbus.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Picture from Life<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe newspaper unfolds like a bird\r\nFlapping, squawking, almost extinct,\r\nIts chicken scratch of facts\r\nPassive as mirrors passing\r\nOn the side of the glassworks van\r\nDeveloping pics of sidewalk life\r\nIn their instant emulsions.\r\nA slouchy kid, a happy couple strolling.\r\nAn armed guard with his rifle\r\nTipping the lids of garbage cans.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Good News<\/h2>\n
\r\nIt always feels like you have to go too far back\r\nTo find any good news to report.\r\nMen all across Germany shaving their Adolph mustaches\r\nJust before the Allies roll into Berlin.\r\nThe breadlines getting shorter as the war machine\r\n    cranks up.\r\nChamberlain\u2019s \u201cpeace in our time,\u201d the pages flapping\r\nAs he descends the long gangway of the cruise ship.\r\nThe war before that ending, the one to end all wars.\r\nThen there was the invention of canned foods,\r\nBut that made the Civil War drag on, I think.\r\nOr was that Napoleon driving a bayonet through Europe?\r\nIn any case, the French Monarchy was toppled at last,\r\nAnd there was a moment of holiday in Paris\r\nBefore the guillotine was trotted out for L\u2019Terror....\r\nAt least the king\u2019s old chief of secret police kept his job\r\nAfter the revolution.  That\u2019s something.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The Way of the Dodo<\/h2>\n
\r\nWithout fuss, friendly, meaty, flightless,\r\nThey make their dim-bulb way\r\nTo the sailor\u2019s tin dinner plate.  They talk \r\nAmong themselves of evening things,\r\nHow pearly grey a rainy skein of sky is,\r\nHow docile the nest with its beloved egg!\r\nSo many good eons gone by scratching\r\nAmong roots for adorable grubs, edible\r\nBugs\u2014scratch-scratch, whistle, coo and cackle\u2014\r\nAs among them long white legs angle, and night\r\nComes, ever so gently, swinging its club.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Story Time<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe story where the boy set sail for the South Seas\r\nIn an overturned hat.\r\n\r\nOr the one about the old woman who lived in a shoe,\r\nHer children tightening the laces.\r\n\r\nThat one where all the animals stood around talking\r\nAfter killing the farmer.\r\n\r\nHow about the Chinese protester and the tank?\r\nThe flea who ran away to the circus?\r\n\r\nReminds me of the story where the mad composer\r\nConducted a beautiful sunset.\r\n\r\nOr the story where the surgery was a complete success\r\nBut you died anyway.\r\n\r\nThat story.  And the one after that.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Sleep Perhaps<\/h2>\n
\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
A Man Asleep Under His Hat<\/h2>\n
 <\/span>\r\nfor Charles Simic<\/em>\r\n\r\nEverything\u2019s normal at first.\r\nThe trees are just trees,\r\nHis dog is not a wolf,\r\nThe wife is not an electric chair.\r\n\r\nSo slowly it is unnoticeable \r\nThe flowered wallpaper\r\nBecomes a waterfall\r\nOf beautiful roses.\r\n\r\nThen, a waterfall of thorns,\r\nThen blood,\r\nBlood with teeth \r\nSalted in,\r\n\r\nHands trying to swim,\r\nButchered feet drowning.\r\nThe smell is atrocious\r\nAnd abiding as an abattoir.\r\n\r\nThe wolf wakes up\r\nAnd starts chewing on everything in sight,\r\nThe wife clicks on\r\nAnd her voice is 10,000 volts.\r\n\r\nThe hat shifts \r\nIn the sunlight,\r\nA hungry fly \r\nLands on his nose.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Nagging Question<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe last feathers fall like slow licks of snow,\r\nThe pillow exploded uselessly between your hands\r\nAnd what looks to be a chicken carcass\r\nIs piled in an inscrutable white mound\r\nHeadless between your bare feet.\r\n\r\nWhat the hell had you been doing in your dream?\r\nThe blue pajama stripes lead nowhere, the feathers\r\nCurled up like questionmarks everywhere else.\r\nYou lie back down carefully, no pillow now.\r\nThere\u2019s only one place for you to find your answer.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Sleep<\/h2>\n
\r\nSleep unfolds a staircase from its magic bag.\r\nI walk into its countryside in the ceiling,\r\nElbowing clouds awkwardly away.\r\nMy head pops out of an especially fluffy one,\r\nImpertinent, pale, as if on a pole.\r\nThis is where I\u2019ll unpack my suitcase\r\nAnd set up shop for the holidays.\r\n\r\nI lay back on the couchy cloud\u2019s flying carpet,\r\nWhite plush like a plucked sheep,\r\nAnd look up where the observatory roof splits open\r\nAbruptly, serenely\r\nInto a perfect square of stars\u2014\r\nAs if the night sky were lifted there just for me,\r\nFor my dark and my dreams.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Nighttime<\/h2>\n
 <\/span>\r\nif the night is long remember your unimportance\r\n    ~~ W. S. Merwin<\/em>\r\n\r\nFour walls of tissue paper\r\nAnd the stars behind;\r\nEye in my bed, a stone,\r\nAlone and blind.\r\n\r\nDays come like forkfuls of food\r\nI\u2019m forced to eat;\r\nNight shines a moment, red wine\r\nAcid when I drink.\r\n\r\nNight opens a little door at the foot\r\nOf my bed.\r\nI follow its black thread\r\nSpooling in my chest.\r\n\r\nDreams come like forkfuls of cloud\r\nI\u2019m forced to eat;\r\nDreams of doors and stars\r\nAnd shining thread.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
A Student of Insomnia<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe table walks \r\nLike a pterodactyl \r\nIn my dreams,\r\n\r\nSteps its highheel \r\nSpikes on one nipple\r\nThen the other\u2014\r\n\r\nUntil I stop it \r\nCold by dumping \r\nGranite study books\r\n\r\nQuarried\r\nFrom my backpack \r\nOn its sweptback wings.\r\n\r\nThese earliest vertebrates \r\nWith the power \r\nOf flight,\r\n\r\nI read.  I read \r\nAbout their voices \r\nOf torn aluminum,\r\n\r\nTheir extinction, \r\nThe dissecting table, \r\nThe surgical table,\r\n\r\nThe butcher\u2019s block, \r\nThe map table\r\nWar rooms use, \r\n\r\nWith battle units\r\nPawed like pawns\r\nAround the globe \r\n\r\nBy rapier \r\nCroupier sticks.\r\nThe kitchen table\u2019s \r\n\r\nWings \r\nGive an indolent \r\nFlap.\r\n\r\nMom\u2019s tropical plant \r\nElongates \r\nTo a green beak.\r\n\r\nI panic, \r\nDouble down on elbows\r\nAnd eye the clock.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The Doorknob<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe doorknob keeps saying \u2018turn me.\u2019\r\nThen when I get outside, I look back\r\nAt the other doorknob saying \u2018turn me,\u2019\r\nAnd I am tethered by my mind\r\nInside.\r\n\r\nNight folds me in its leathern wings,\r\nAnd I fold myself in my nest.\r\nFrom my bed I often hear a voice,\r\nThe doorknob\u2019s plaintive squeak saying\r\n\u2018Turn me.\u2019\r\n\r\nAnd my mind goes there, I am neither \r\nOutside nor inside, myself nor\r\nSomeone else, sleeper nor dream.\r\nI turn all night in my bed,\r\nA doorknob.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Pantsless Naps<\/h2>\n
\r\nOnly two more words.\r\nTwo more,\r\nAnd I can swing myself \r\nOff the hook.\r\n\r\nAfter all this banter,\r\nThis panting\u2014\r\nThe pantsless naps and\r\nApelike perspicacity:\r\n\r\nCarving poems in a boulder \r\nWith a toothpick,\r\nBlowing hundreds of clouds\r\nInto the perfect\r\n\r\nShapeless shape.\r\nOne, two,\r\nThen sleep:\r\nTHE END.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
  Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown] Published by BLAST PRESS Copyright \u00a9 2017 by Gregg G. Brown Stuff and Nonsense   Dark Poet, your pen scratches at the heart of life. ~~Antonin Artaud Nonsense is often the most sensible kind of sense. This is counterintuitive, but trust me for a moment as we proceed. This […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1770],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disappearing-acts","category-1770-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6977"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7340,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6977\/revisions\/7340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}