Disrupt
Fall Up Beats Fall Down.
Better if you turn around;
Change why into sound.
I went
to the courtesy clinic,
where I converted
my curdling sweat
into cigarettes,
rotgut scotch from the
maw of a folgerphone, those
shingles stapled with
gum-colored smegma,
springs reformed
to a scowling pallet, and
cereal milled
from coho salmon and grosgrain.
My cat
(the little adorable derring-do dandy dandling darling)
said something akin to, in Yiddish, Who’s
a girl got to fuck
for some snake meat,
and duly implored the door to creak.
She was always a little bit grass-sick, that one.
That Sycamore
there on High
and Smill St.,
bald and pale as some steel-cut country surgeon
cagily telling his son
that Old Yeller was pregnant,
sprawled like a cross of camargue
upended,
elbowing chins
of this stalwart wall that solely’d
stood to exaggerate
sleepy hills the city
had, days ago,
taken,
forsaken, and
seized amidst puzzling
ruffles of
concrete—
(bow of a whale rib thrust, unwound, unwrinkled,
the murmurous paneling pinned in Gigi’s den,
this weeping musk of prosecco soured
and glib as a shriveling oil slick)
reaches forth forever to scrawl some sloppy star in the
jowls of a prowling
sun, forevermore bellying
yellowing, on the lam,
congested fugue of a reprimand runnied,
a soft-boiled egg compelled to assuage
the throat of old Jupiter Morgan open,
that sumptuous surge of suppling grubs
that stormed his pregnant paunch
so thinly imprisoned—
And then
the valets,
who’d never read
P. G. Wodehouse,
leant upon shaded stands,
who ran, it would seem,
as a penance,
for what was a pittance,
a black-eyed child’s allowance,
a pink-bellied toddler’s savings swept
in a wistfully trickling wellspring,
sapped,
that dapper mosquito resigned to unglamorous amber,
signing to passersby of what terrors beyond,
what terrors before or abroad,
what wallflowers lost at the codfish ball. And
O, what cars what turns of fortune forged and
dandled and bobbed above bucking curs
such treacly snickering keys, like
stars rewired to speak
of untenable things, like
somebody slurping up oily oceans whole,
what souls some lick amid hips of an oyster,
cars like cloisters cramping a cult for one,
wan mitre and censer cocked
like a boa some whistling striptease saws
on the backs of brittlely queasy knees,
like tire marks swell in the ermined train of a peafowl.
And here,
beholden to everyone,
inchoate Woyzeck moans
like sizzling sea foam,
fair and anemic heir of atlas
wiggling bones of a tyrant’s throne
and chalice chucked at a hobbling skomorokh.
I am in my
plant buying
age of pleasure
eyebrow shaving
unmasking
belly hanging
taking up space
bonnet wearing in public
drinking my water
and minding my business
eating the donut
Era
(also known as)
loving and basking in my power.
I wax nostalgic
about our studio apartment
cramped with boxes
of books and piles of clothes,
the dirty mixed with the clean.
I would love a s’more
made over the hibachi
on the small cement slab
called a patio
and to have you clean
the dripped Hershey’s chocolate
off my chin with kisses
that linger just enough.
Poolside instruction
They learn to swim by splashing-
Schools of tiny fish.
Nasty gnomes are dancing in my garden
Midnight snarking sneaking in my garden
The roguish moon has sparked their chi to life
Its gleam through tree limbs leaking in my garden
Loathsome rascals stomping beans and daisies
Damn devil’s mischief wreaking in my garden
Deep inside my cups I grasp the horror
Shaking trembling freaking in my garden
This is not the aura Li Po penned to paper
Not the solace seeking in my garden
Poetic plans frozen with rabid terror
With nightmare creatures peeking in my garden
I hear their vulgar sass behind the willows
Those lippy gnomes cheeking in my garden
They stampede off their nasty odor wafting
My nose recoils such reeking in my garden
Their lusty scamper frightens off the dog
I cloak my eyes to streaking in my garden
No more wine and moony writing ventures
I’ll stick to day critiquing in my garden
Lurching home I hear my name unmoored
A chilling farewell shrieking from my garden
It’s comforting for me to know that you’re under the same moon
Under the same stars
Under the same night sky
But are you thinking of me?
Are you wondering where I am?
Are you rubbing the pages of the poems I wrote to you that you didn’t respond to?
Tonight, a night like any other
Another night of me realizing that I’m never going to get over you
No matter how much you push me away
No matter how many people say it’s wrong
No matter how many times you scarred me
I’m never going to get over you
-another cut in my heart just pours out love for you, go fucking figure
Ducklets flocking to their mother—
benevolence nestled between
their bones like teacups
fresh from the cupboard,
begging to be broken
Kits and kids coexisting
as ash in the underbrush,
a periodic pantry of prey and predator
Tadpoles pooling together
like pies rising in the oven, plump
They will grow to greatness
as vineyard into victories
unto drunk frogs and
early morning elegies
Into swansongs and out of
playing in the prairie
There are no longer playgrounds in the prairie.
There are no more elegies to give.
Hear me today, the wind in my hair,
seems to take flight like birds on the air.
Down to the river, down to the shore,
can you ever make me a little bit more.
A mother is sometimes straight out of time,
all my life was I was cast like dice,
like Rodin’s Thinker was blast by bombs,
cruelly engulfed by whiskey’s sweet balm.
I kiss them goodnight as they slumber away,
kiss them goodnight while they sleep in the hay
of Little Boy Blue and I love you too,
I couldn’t hold on, I couldn’t stay.
Hear me today the wind in my hair,
seems to take flight like birds on the air.
Down to the river, down to the shore,
can you ever make me a little bit more.
And goodbye to all the kisses I blew,
goodbye to Boy Scouts and Little Boy Blue.
The trouble that grabbed me hard by the throat
was the bottle that killed me drowning my hope.
Think for a minute that I can’t come back,
think for a minute that my children are fast
held in the arms of their mother dear
and crying I’ll never know more than fear.
Hear me today the wind in my hair,
seems to take flight like birds on the air.
Down to the river, down to the shore,
can you ever make me a little bit more.
