365 poems, 365 days

Familiar Unknown [160/365 | July 29th]

2009-07-29T01:35:00.005-04:00

These feel like the end days. This is the age of nothing in particular. Mt. Rainier is a discoloration of the sky. Into the unknown I am driven. There is a city here I am sure. I think I've been here before. I am excited and worried. If I turn a particular corner I'll be on the shores of Botany Bay.

[I have to call time on this project. A few months ago a novel I wrote in Icelandic was accepted for publication and between that and other related writing projects I simply don't have the time or energy to write poetry. This has been a lot of fun. Special thanks to Steve for launching this thing with me and to Adam for getting me into this. Thanks to all of you who've followed the blog. I hope you enjoyed this.]

Tanka [July 8th | 159/365]

2009-07-08T12:43:00.000-04:00

A long exposure
photograph of a waterfall.
Hair rigidly gelled.
A snail crawling up a green
stalk that is not yet bending.

4 Scenes Involving 2 People [July 7th | 158/365]

2009-07-07T13:31:00.000-04:00

1.

Dancing in a foreign kitchen
Pavement blaring loudly from a beaten boom box
Thinking about how wrong I was as a teenager
Dismissing them as nothing special

2.

Looking at the clock when I shut the phone
4 hours holy fuck 4 hour long conversation
I haven't had a phone call like that since my teens
They didn't seem very abnormal back then

3.

Stuck yet again under a shuttered store's awning
Waiting out a thundershower listening to my iPod
Ten years ago I would have walked on through
I lived in Iceland then and always wore long coats

4.

Drunkenly running away I nearly fall into the river
Barely keeping my balance on the bank
At least I haven't tried to climb a building
Like I used to when alcohol was fresh to me

Fox in Church [July 6th | 157/365]

2009-07-06T12:21:00.000-04:00

A fox trotted up the side aisle
Most features of a church building have names
I do not know the one for aisles
That run alongside the pews
Next to the walls
Nevertheless that's where the fox was
Seeming to me to move with confidence
A sleek coat
Sharp eyes
Up front it turned and went past the altar
Then down the opposite side aisle

Years later I still see its shape in the window

A Poem Suggested by Umberto Eco That is Not about Milan Kundera [July 6th | 156/365]

2009-07-06T12:19:00.001-04:00

The eighty legs the size of future's towers all moving through the city crumbling beneath it, the mouths, eyes, wings and mandibles, the beast screamed: I bring a horrible tranquility. I give you the love you have never known. There is nothing and then there is my peace. Love me! Love me! Love me!

Weather Poem [July 1st | 155/365]

2009-07-01T09:48:00.001-04:00

The cold front in my head
Was dispersed by the sight
Like slanted sunlight through cloudgaps
Of two men kissing
So public yet at an angle to the world
On a street corner
Like pantomime actors
At the end of the play
When the lovers triumph
As others passed by
Paying the two men as little heed
As the man sitting against the wall
His head leaning forward
And holding a sign advertising his poverty

If I had turned my eyes inwards
I would have seen the beast uncurl its tail
As it disappeared like time during depression

Function at the Archive [June 26th | 154/365]

2009-06-26T21:59:00.000-04:00

I could see the awkward young man prepare bon mots he was too shy to utter, but he resembles a parliamentarian.

The books on the wall are precious in inverse proportion to the stiff, flat portraits of people no one here can identify.

There will never be a fire here, never a thief, never a vandal, never a conqueror who will be blamed by future scholars for scattering the papers.

I was awkward at first, unsure of the etiquette among these foreign scholars, but then I started talking without thought.

Once I searched the shelves for texts in a language I wouldn't be able to identify.

I try to speak to the young man but his murmurs are barely intelligible.

There are always politics to speech.

It'll surprise you to find out who gets blamed for the inevitable, who the future tyrant is, who'll be infamous to the coming bookish young.

Haiku [June 26th | 153/365]

2009-06-26T21:54:00.001-04:00

Shadows dappled like
paint on the damp undergrowth.
An empty cop car.

Radicals Never Leave [June 22nd | 152/365]

2009-06-22T20:54:00.000-04:00

The old men of the Revolution
Sit silent in the waiting room
Like love too intense and insecure
To confess itself to the People

Declarations pile up on low tables
When the call comes they will rise

Waking Nightmare [June 22nd | 151/365]

2009-06-22T16:01:00.001-04:00

The serene Horace is dead
Like a popped soap bubble
Nothing remains but a stain
Let us wreathe him in Persian flowers
The sphere of reality collapsed
And felt myself chosen to retain its structure in my mind
When I tried to write it back into being
The words in my brain became nonsense on the page
Horace cannot weave a universe together
Happy are those who do not know
All words must die

Haiku [June 21st | 150/365]

2009-06-21T21:23:00.000-04:00

The drop of water,
held together by tension.
The stone in darkness.

Exhuming Martyrs with Dynamite [June 20th | 149/365]

2009-06-20T16:16:00.002-04:00

the machine's profane machinations
are obvious to all
the only question is
whether it's intentionally thus

screams from human throats
pierce the ear like
shouted appeals to god
to end earthly tyranny

am I a fool
to sit and write
thousands of miles away
about others' violent deaths

how can I respond
to images of apocalypse
with nothing but words
but everyone's mind responds

Haiku [June 18th | 148/365]

2009-06-18T15:38:00.000-04:00

Having risked too much
the ship, overfull with fish,
was sunk by ripples.

Documentary Theater Poem [June 17th | 147/365]

2009-06-17T23:53:00.000-04:00

Alternating flashes of blue and red
People walking around swapping information strings
Yellow and black plastic ribbon strung between lampposts
The motorcycle twisted
The driverside door concave
Hair, much, much too long to be reality
A comet
Spermatium

Tanka [June 15th | 146/365]

2009-06-15T00:46:00.000-04:00

The quiet city
doesn't suggest ghosts to me,
metaphorical
or ectoplasmic. No, it's
the din of summer I miss.

The Swamp is Elsewhere [June 13th | 145/365]

2009-06-14T02:57:00.001-04:00

monsters and odd bugs
live in the swamp
we should escape there
or at least try

you and I can
believe impossible things together
the reality of elves
and people on TV

the orderers of truth
have nothing on us
but the mere universe
pas de deux quarks

in my current state
I refuse to believe
that you are here
I imagine you elsewhere

On Being Told to Wait Until July [June 11th | 144/365]

2009-06-11T15:33:00.001-04:00

July will never happen. July is the End of the World. July is when the Sun steps down from the sky and scorches the Earth. July is the laserbeam that cuts Time in half. July is an illusionist's trick so that we think that June will one day end. July is the tsunami crashing upon the shore. July is the Void, the Abyss. July is the Earthquake God, screaming for blood and rubble. July is the hurricane over the sea. July burns like the flame catching the tree. Don't believe in July or July will believe in you.

Summer Haiku [June 10th | 143/365]

2009-06-10T22:31:00.000-04:00

The first drops of rain
were warm. A firefly joined
me in the doorway.

The Fumes of the Underworld [June 10th | 142/365]

2009-06-10T22:16:00.001-04:00

You told me:
"Slantways glimpsing
the elephant rampant
augurs a peripatetic hereafter."
Which sent me running for the dictionary.

Then you said:
"A basaltine mycospore
acculturing upon an elmet balustrade
forespeaks a distatic amourance."
And I said: "Hey now,
you're just making up words now."

Your final words to me were:
"Andepanditure maxies
marecal sandomixtants
af saken lackryssics."
"Oh, fuck you." I said and left.

Letters are Pictures of Sound [June 8th | 141/365]

2009-06-08T23:02:00.000-04:00

This might as well be language
But let's say it's a picture
Or perhaps a series of images
Either way let's agree on something
So that we can start from a solid
Rather than dance through emptiness
A tomb ditty ditty tomb ditty tea
A tomb ditty ditty tomb ditty tea
Tomb ditty tea
Tomb ditty tea
Tomb ditty tea
Tomb

Scenes I May Have Misunderstood from a Movie I Know Nothing About [June 8th | 140/365]

2009-06-08T02:47:00.001-04:00

The forty something movie star surprises her maids by getting on her knees to angrily scrub the floor. A gentleman caller shows up and they have sex in the shower, the movie star and the gentleman caller, not the maids. Here I stopped paying attention because my friend offered to get me a glass of Southern Comfort from the bar because I had never tasted it. The movie star is now a mother and the gentleman caller a distant, uninvolved father. The baby dwells in splendor. My friend arrived with gin and tonic because another friend had already ordered me a drink at the bar and then the band started playing. I was once presented with the opportunity of becoming a father and I said no, not now. Later I glance at the screen that is showing the film and the movie star is cutting flowers at night dressed in an evening gown. A girl, six years old I'm guessing, hands her an axe. The movie star cuts down a tree.

Summer Haiku [June 7th | 139/365]

2009-06-07T01:38:00.000-04:00

The summer rain wets
the caterpillar. A snail
lies cracked on the road.

6/4/89 [June 4th | 138/365]

2009-06-05T00:00:00.000-04:00

The students sang the Internationale in an effort to remember that there was something to stand for as they watched their childhood heroes demand they lay their heads down on the block to a tank tread a human being is pulp the young woman crying about the desire for death the far too familiar hope that everything goes well and the citizens who try to keep the soldiers from entering the city are also meat to a cleaver and no the hand there is a hand and there are hands guiding those hands and brains sending messages and the teachers die alongside their students and when they had finished singing the Internationale they sang the March of the Volunteers because those are the songs they know the bulldozers will pile up the debris there is nothing to their name their names ruthlessly unrecorded but for every person dead there must be at least one other who remembers who they are and where they died and the students watch the tracer bullets and someone will say that they sounded like firecrackers and there are people alive today who are responsible and in whose name will they be judged those human rags the students are nameless but there are people whose names we know and the students left as faint light spread westward across the sky and the students left quietly when dawn arrived like an army sent to murder night.

The Algorithm for People [June 4th | 137/365]

2009-06-04T01:29:00.000-04:00

the boy machine knits
his eyebrows into confusion
and shame at his
heavy incorporeal almost nature

tensing up at happy
noises and joyous words
the algorithms of thought
shutting down without warning

we met out here
away from anyone else
not expecting fellow travelers
inside our own brains

I stumble frequently because
I don't pay attention
to the near once
my thoughts stretch far

Sound by Bird [June 1st | 136/365]

2009-06-01T22:52:00.000-04:00

Death would have to be a tricky subject for self-conscious birds, who would have to worry about dying in flight and having their well-regarded physiques mangled and grotesqued by wave or stream or stillness.

Staring into the Past [May 31st | 135/365]

2009-06-01T00:36:00.001-04:00

I realize from your body language that you assume I was staring at you but in reality I was merely staring into space lost inside my own mind. I apologize, I should have been standing in a desert staring expectantly into the night sky waiting for the center of our galaxy to rise above the horizon.

My Relationships with the Arts [May 31st | 134/365]

2009-05-31T19:58:00.000-04:00

I'm a little bit in love with Schoenberg
like wanting to fuck a windy day I see out the window
leaves and branches flailing in harmony
the occasional cloud rhythmically screaming across the sky
like I want to buy Pynchon a cup of coffee
and ask him if he likes it rough

The 88th Thing to Do with a Lobster and a Slightly Soiled Pair of Lederhosen [May 31st | 133/365]

2009-05-31T00:18:00.001-04:00

A man will call, he will tell you he's a lobster, but don't believe him. Nevertheless, tell him that you're wearing lederhosen and when he asks you about the barely perceptible stain marks tell him that they're just crustacean eggs and definitely not the viscera of the last man who crossed you. He will ask if crustaceans lay eggs and tell him you don't know, you're too busy eviscerating people who ask inconvenient questions to keep track of the procreation methods of the various subphyla, something he'll say he understands. He'll tell you that the money is where it supposed to be and all the trawling reports too. Tell him he's a good lobster and that he can lick your lederhosen clean. He'll say that he doesn't think lobsters have tongues. That's when you know he's a traitor and that there are men outside who'll break down your door three seconds hence. Hoist up your hosen and leap out the bathroom window. Run, as fast and as far as your leatherclad thighs can take you.

Regrets Flap Their Wings [May 30th | 132/365]

2009-05-30T21:19:00.000-04:00

sensibility crushes idiot improvisation
under drive and force
sweeping all poor decisions
into the quiet river

diving after flying objects
is a matter of
muscle memory not thought
consciousness is a hindrance

then suddenly you threw
paragraph after paragraph of
contract law at me
like birds swooping in

there is a breath
to me like stops
and starts like being
beating like a wing

You Are Where the Trees Have Yet to Lose a Leaf [May 28th | 131/365]

2009-05-28T23:48:00.001-04:00

Hold on to my elbow
I will keep my arm close to the body

I will get you across the river
All the way to school

Spring Tanka [May 28th | 130/365]

2009-05-28T22:51:00.000-04:00

In this weather I
can't tell the difference between
the road and the sky.
Even the violet seems
not to have color or roots.

Relations with the See [May 27th | 129/365]

2009-05-27T18:42:00.001-04:00

he pretended the insult
was a joke but
the apology was ebbing
and flowing like tides

whistling like the bird
perched outside the window
startled the humans inside
unused to beastly noises

you watch his hands
while he touches you
and he angles away
when your body approaches

the cardinal sits eating
the offering in silence
we watch expectantly waiting
to hear doctrinal pronouncements

Making the Tendentious Real [May 25th | 128/365]

2009-05-25T22:53:00.000-04:00

a hole into another
universe passed over me
like a plane traveling
across the Atlantic Ocean

his story is simple
it is always simple
the world is what
makes the events complicated

I will sculpt your
shadow out of clay
I will hew your
iris out of granite

he said he would
rather the musicians stopped
paying attention to themselves
and focused on you

Haiku [May 21st | 127/365]

2009-05-21T20:31:00.000-04:00

Jet trails pink against
a blue sky fading to white.
The birds are soundless.

Sickly Menageries Seen Boldly [May 19th | 126/365]

2009-05-19T23:31:00.001-04:00

the delectable comestibles you
have selected most carefully
sate my hunger joyously
at a journey's conclusion

the lamentable is imaginary
when simply ambling away
as if measuring borderlines
marks a serious distinction

red splattered ink bleeding
prettily unto the evening
paper under the settee
in the patterned study

meeting on cold beaches
calls for building castles
so that lastly we
can banish calendar discordance

Entropy Doesn't Work Mysteriously [May 18th | 125/365]

2009-05-19T00:09:00.000-04:00

you hid the true
image by drawing out
the lines making it
look like an error

if we remind me
often enough I might
forget because all information
must submit to entropy

signatures are very hard
to forge but easy
peasy to fake because
few people compare rigorously

I thought that if
I focused on all
the good the bad
would drown from exhaustion

Daydreams Are the Realer [May 17th | 124/365]

2009-05-18T00:57:00.000-04:00

picture a great factory
waiting for a time
to start production again
of its outdated product

the spires that invite
descriptive terms of flight
and halls that suggest
size beyond human comprehension

the silence inside feels
like it has weight
and it presses down
with purely mental force

a bird has interrupted
your imagining with song
or so you think
you are not sure

Orienting the Senses [May 16th | 123/365]

2009-05-17T10:04:00.000-04:00

The bark and scream of the bird beneath my window cleaves the air setting pressure upon fragile tactility threatening to collapse into floating nothing

The sky through my page-shaped window is aged frightful and unwavering in hue and emotion blue as the memories my brain is unable to bear on my consciousness

Minds Failing in Sync [May 15th | 122/365]

2009-05-15T19:56:00.002-04:00

you asked me about the last day
I would ever forget
I never even knew there could be
a final forgetting
I thought the erasure of memory
was forever
that nothing could remain of us
but the lie

Reactions of a Disbeliever [May 13th | 121/365]

2009-05-13T23:20:00.001-04:00

no I'm pretty sure
this isn't a long
lost parable of Jesus
he didn't barbecue pork

John Wesley Harding didn't
buy you a sandwich
no matter what this
credit card receipt says

you realize your story
only makes sense if
Che Guevara really was
a twelve foot reptile

the headwaters' chemical composition
tells you little about
how a river tastes
upon meeting the sea

Eternal City [May 12th | 120/365]

2009-05-12T23:35:00.000-04:00

The Thirteenth Rome is being founded one tent at a time under the majestic sweep of a highway overpass
We glimpse it as we drive by but do not comprehend the sight of the Empire demanding its existence back

Impressions of the Crowd [May 12th | 119/365]

2009-05-12T00:14:00.000-04:00

Beneath platinum hair
An iron face regarding
With a look alien and impersonal
Bending towards an openness
Emphatic of suggestion

Noting discolorations of surface
Without tone or hue
The mark of picture upon idea
Heading towards the sounds
Of a universe of justice and love

Sleep privies the unlikely dreamer
Wakefulness the alert
There is no need for imagery
On your bare walls
Only a disassociative mind

Satisfying Yet Essentially Considerate [May 10th | 118/365]

2009-05-10T22:56:00.000-04:00

crawling out of ashcans
and spreading like floral
centerpieces across a table
between uncomfortably extrovert guests

the pressure to be
expresses itself as sounds
pushing through air towards
ears open by necessity

a martini must be
what cleaning solvent tastes
like to the floor
said the expressive poet

exploding like raucous shrubs
riotously expanding across gardens
setting color against contrast
slipping between the senses

Division of the Faculties [May 9th | 117/365]

2009-05-10T22:49:00.000-04:00

our trust we do
not put in poets
their highly contentious arguments
and charged public language

it is strange to
stare at yourself in
the mirror as you
sit on the toilet

all the words lie
flat on the page
one dimensional vectors on
two dimensional wood pulp

and thus he was
out of the pool
of his own vomit
pulled by gentle minds

Slicing Categories [May 8th | 116/365]

2009-05-08T20:07:00.003-04:00

The dew glosses the blossoms
Swinging below the scrawls
Written in the windowmist

The letters abruptly wither
On the pane

Tanka [May 7th | 115/365]

2009-05-07T02:47:00.000-04:00

A spider reflects
in a pool as it's walking
along a broken
branch that was broken last night
off a tree by heavy winds.

Spring Haiku [May 6th | 114/365]

2009-05-06T01:21:00.001-04:00

The glow of the moon,
faint through clouds threatening rain,
keeps me company.

Next in the Progression [May 5th | 113/365]

2009-05-05T01:47:00.001-04:00

it wasn't the sun
that made me panic
but the glowing stain
I couldn't see through

the only way to
avoid falling into this
hated dance is to
know its steps unthinkingly

the republic of those
who know they're right
lies unseen asleep down
in the hollow Earth

the sun arrives dancing
rising from the poles
I see a sun
darken our exposed eyes

Alloy [May 1st | 112/365]

2009-05-02T01:49:00.000-04:00

I touched the skin gently
Where it looked the most angry
Hinting most at disappearance

Your metals aren't poisonous enough

Nothing's nothing anymore
There's always an imprint
A memory to cherish or hate

It is too soft to leave a trace

Calm the forge and let your tools fade
Heat will only create a glow
The rigid shall not bend for you

Accept the shape it grows into

City Darkness Humans [April 30th | 111/365]

2009-05-01T01:01:00.000-04:00

empty sky stars
house open window
silence shadow fence

running man garden
shout cry grimace
flowing liquid wet

head eyes stillness
thoughts mood knowledge
moon fear terror

The Motion of Nothing [April 29th | 110/365]

2009-04-30T00:30:00.000-04:00

I rearrange my sentences
to avoid using the
second person singular pronoun
when you're within earshot

a dark blue sky
mountains in the distance
whiteness without any shadows
footsteps in the snow

Brownian motion makes certain
that eventually we will
find ourselves crossing paths
without having planned to

a light blue sky
wispy clouds hanging still
the city we inhabit
a door I've exited

Birds of Poetry [April 28th | 109/365]

2009-04-28T22:32:00.001-04:00

poets transfigure wings
into words and
hope for transference

birds of paradise
live in forests
with easy foraging

mask the emotions
with quick movements
spelling out fiction

EURO PEAN DREE MING [April 26th | 108/365]

2009-04-26T16:27:00.003-04:00

ican tsee thes tars
disa pear buti know
they must havf orme
tobe this affe cted

youd idnt want meto
undr esss yuan ymor
howb orin gyou said
lets gett oobi znis

astr onom ical trms
were poor mate rial
form akin rhet oric
ford escr ibin love

ther isal ways time
forn ewwd ansm oovs
ipro test dqui etly
know init wass gone

Tanka [April 26th | 107/365]

2009-04-26T16:27:00.001-04:00

The familiar
song reminds me of other
sun-excited days
I spent swatting mosquitoes
waiting for you to appear.

The Pleasant Interrogation of Madison Gallas [April 26th | 106/365]

2009-04-26T04:27:00.002-04:00

I'd describe as a stabbing motion, yes. No, I never see any moment but I feel the piercing. Sometimes it's simultaneous, sometimes sequential and sometimes it's a singular incision or perforation of the mind.

I've never felt this tightening you describe, I always have enough leeway within to expand and contract freely. There is nothing for me to defend, either from or against. The space I have scouted is empty. There is no sense in violence, I have no one to attack.

I suppose many would describe it as a fight if they had watched but no one is watching now and no one watched then. It's all a matter of simile and metaphor, really. Some things the mind consider like one another, though never completely, not the same at all.

I'm loath to consider it realer, to describe it as a truth, but I could surrender to it all the same. My constitution can barely survive as it is. The eyelids feel swollen, the skin cracked, an unseen hand pushes on my chest and my mind is pierced. My mind is like a dancing flame.

An Excuse for Inaction [April 24th | 105/365]

2009-04-24T01:21:00.001-04:00

these letters represent nothing
just wind flowing through
vibrating matter and we
know matter is higgledy-piggledy

the order of letters
is only a fluke
not ordained or chosen
by a thoughtful being

meaning is set out
unsystematically and without purpose
by arranging accepted signifiers
in somewhat ordered fashion

the unpremeditated is suspect
of being simply rote
thoughts manifesting in action
that is my excuse

The Great Declaration of Learned Helplessness [April 23rd | 104/365]

2009-04-23T03:27:00.002-04:00

The message we send forth today
Let's stop your heart
Out of the depths of horror and sacrifice
Will be born again
The glory of mankind

You restrain a dog
And shock it with electricity
It stops trying to escape
Once it realizes it can't
That all it can do is whimper

This then is the message
Which we send forth
States and nations bond or free
All the men in all the lands
Who care for freedom

You put that dog in an open box
And shock it again
It doesn't jump out
But lays down and whimpers
And stays there until its deliverance comes

Scavenger Hunt in Hell [April 21st | 103/365]

2009-04-22T01:46:00.000-04:00

he just kept shouting
why must you godammit
always cry when you
don't find it first

all teams must disband
the only reason you
hang around him is
his lateral thinking skill

you call this shit
a fucking scavenger hunt
she shouted pushing him
into the birthday cake

the guests didn't expect
that the last clue
would turn out to
be a suicide note

The Release of the State [April 20th | 102/365]

2009-04-21T01:20:00.000-04:00

The ball of the Sun dips into the sea
And disappears like a man mistaken for the Messiah
We all know what he is going to say
But we await it eagerly just the same
And fall apart with joy when the words are shouted

Spring Tanka [April 19th | 101/365]

2009-04-20T02:06:00.000-04:00

The Buick broke down
on the way to the airport.
The daffodils droop
by the side of the highway
moved only by the brisk air.

The Quiet Song of Madison Gallas [April 18th | 100/365]

2009-04-19T01:39:00.001-04:00

I see acts that aren't there and I can't tell what or who casts the shadows around me and I'm sure that I saw movement in the abandoned building across the road.

I sit on the balcony and listen to the hum of the currents and think about turning on the light in the room behind me so that I can be backlit.

I am lonely it's that simple and I savor my involuntary solitude while I feel gravity pull me into the chair while I cease to think.

The arrangement of clouds leaves visible only fragments of the constellations and the freedom is terrifying for how can I move when my movement could bring me anywhere.

I have stopped asking what will become of me since I started getting answers I didn't like from people I couldn't see whose voices soared like electric wires.

Spring Haiku [April 17th | 99/365]

2009-04-18T00:18:00.000-04:00

The first mosquito
of spring hovered, ready to
feed on the sleeper.

The Beasts of the Earth [April 16th | 98/365]

2009-04-16T23:38:00.002-04:00

Our arms were ripped off by contradictory paradoxes
Which annihilated each other on contact
Leaving the reflecting constellations to form themselves in the blood
Pooling around us

Nothing is the mother of thought
Nurturing the ungainly and the impossible
Mindcreatures tottering on unreason away from light and matter
Falling apart and alive

The clemency of the brain towards the dying young
Makes our morals pornographic
Subject to the whims of revelation
And not the forever desire of old communities

There wild animals of elsewhere live unimagined
Bothered with intelligence and a familiar sky
The everchanging viewpoints of logic
Cut through imagination and unravel the lack

the speed with which [April 15th | 97/365]

2009-04-16T00:43:00.001-04:00

stumbling as I run down the hill hoping my legs don't buckle and I keep upright

the thoughtless organism swims in her bodily fluids wandering fast and aimlessly digesting what it can

the velocity with which we exit the tunnel suggests a temporary reality to my overstimulated mind

rocketing towards old age we treat our lives like journeys with destinations instead of an existence

Four Pillars of Language [April 13th | 96/365]

2009-04-13T23:48:00.001-04:00

air give him air
so that the machine
makes a note of
his words and inflection

fire still leaves imprints
at the low resolution
edges of his vision
but not much else

human thought is extinguished
by the swift rearrangements
of the possible channels
it can flow through

earth is cartoon contrasted
by the relative emptiness
surrounding it like black
around a word balloon

Faded Surfaces Suggest Time [April 13th | 95/365]

2009-04-13T19:07:00.000-04:00

faded flags and spines
of books sitting in
an office abandoned at
least a decade ago

the only person repeated
in photographs must be
the former occupant his
smiles look like hisses

he is missing from
the photograph of children
with teeth the hue
of their white shirts

a dictionary collapses during
my wait the pages
heaping in the space
behind the other books

Language is full of words to describe the horror but instead we got poetry. [April 12th | 94/365]

2009-04-12T02:41:00.000-04:00

We think in terms of literal flowers when we should think of visceral guts.
Really no one cares about all this last century whatever whatever yeah.
Friends gather with a bottle of wine and disbelieve in the existence of time.
There's a shift coming some think and it will either do fuck all or destroy everything.
Tomorrow seems unlikely as a when to end the world but I guess every time does.
Minds are fixed actually you said but I find it hard to think that way.
Factual information can just as well be untrue it just has to be fact-like.
The speakable is nice and functions as description enough to go by.
We have to struggle to ascribe words to paper instead of fallible human beings.
Stories move close to a register intended for daily usage but we have to give.
Hands are part of this conversation and bodies from all and every degree and angle.
The experience was almost entirely physical and without words to smear it.
Let us make the soldiers march against each other into our freshest defenses.
Mud falls away from mud in clumps and buries the packed earth under feet.
Democracy is represented in these stories and must give account of itself.
Shelter in the face of chaos and a joy destroyed by setting men free.
Laughing children mimic stories that shine into them from their sun.
Give it to them give in to them give of their everything it is time to.

Spring Tanka [April 10th | 93/365]

2009-04-11T01:56:00.000-04:00

The attitude of
the rain as it hits the glass
changes with the wind.
I adjust the angle by
opening up my window.

In Want of Compline [April 9th | 92/365]

2009-04-09T01:34:00.001-04:00

the bells of dawn
sound loudly even now
an hour past midnight
and I can't sleep

silence becomes too loud
when the brain seeps
into the real world
through the sound cracks

not even a light
can dispel the shadows
of noise that night
casts on a city

dreaming should be enticement
enough to fall unconscious
dreams shouldn't simply be
but be worth dreaming

In Entropy [April 7th | 91/365]

2009-04-08T00:40:00.000-04:00

In youth the road away from my home city went past an immense name made by ripping moss out from a side of a mountain.

It took sixty years to disappear.

The basque sheepherders who moved to Northern Nevada learned quickly that a shallow cut in the white bark of Aspen trees heals black.

Their words rot with the tree.

If I tried to shape earth to have the plants sprout into the letters of your name I worry that it would grow as if translated by a bad dictionary.

My name instead of yours.

Fun Times [April 6th | 90/365]

2009-04-06T23:09:00.000-04:00

You have become a line drawing
An old sketch briefly handled
While packing boxes before a move.

I live in a forest of words
Like a lifeform entwining
The growth of others.

We should have abandoned our principles
And attempted madness.

Staring with Shut Eyes [April 5th | 89/365]

2009-04-05T22:41:00.000-04:00

wasn't there she said
this parachute regiment insignia
a heart in a
parachute I like that

people's bravado when recently
dumped is always alike
the for the best
and too good for

an epistemology in error
reduced to conceptual desire
anticipates memory she said
imagination needs mind control

squirrels should not be
this fat in spring
without starvation what is
the point of hoarding

Sleep Kills Meaningful Conversation [April 4th | 88/365]

2009-04-04T10:36:00.001-04:00

voices through the floor
some sounding from mind
others vibrated into existence
by an electric command

there are no people
only the shifting hardwood
and the air molecules
rushed into new positions

downward pressure by chemicals
keeps the brain shut
and the boy alert
and mobile during daytime

all this is elementary
or would be if
you were less needful
and wanting in companionship

Spring haiku [April 3rd | 87/365]

2009-04-04T10:31:00.001-04:00

Someone's vomit floats
in the fishtank. A cat licks
a sleeping woman.

Cold Constellations [April 2nd | 86/365]

2009-04-03T01:14:00.001-04:00

The cold air tunnels its way through every layer of cloth I place athwart its path reaching the skin and spreading in all direction like an alien flower taking over earth previously occupied by life not prepared for this new form of being like you is a certain kind of idea that certain kind I can barely resist and only if I strive to resist and make an effort to like everything it was eroding and eventually nothing would remain but before there would be nothing we would be nothing so as far as we were concerned it was forever and so we were happy and we laughed watching lines appear on our faces that one day we would be able to extend and make into patterns like the constellations we made out of stars on a winter night staring at a clear sky lying as close as bark to a tree.

Manifesto

2009-04-01T23:34:00.001-04:00

I was asked to write one of 13 manifestos for the website For a New Green Society. The one I wrote is called Art is Waste: Recycle It! The manifestos run from being serious to being satiric and some I can't tell where on the spectrum they fall.

Spring Haiku [April 1st | 85/365]

2009-04-01T23:27:00.000-04:00

Put screen in skylight
to keep out bugs. The sky is
now pixelated.

The Academy of Secrets [March 31st | 84/365]

2009-03-31T12:49:00.000-04:00

the sinister invertebrates oppose
whoever speaks to them
and appoint themselves doorkeepers
of every knowledge system

stones lie to us
professing metaphor which could
never be expressed by
the hammer and chisel

it was said that
a whiff of sulfur
escaped from his body
as it merrily burned

fossilized flesh does not
give way but crumbles
under duress and becomes
just so much dust

Fiction [March 30th | 83/365]

2009-03-30T14:44:00.001-04:00

He gave you a fake kitten
With a real flower perched between plastic fangs
Playfully and coyly he'd insist the kitten was real
Just as living as any other creature
Not a truth or a lie it was fiction fun and joyful
It made you think you knew when he was lying
But the lies were serious and told with insistence
And when challenged he'd imply and insinuate
He didn't understand why you had to hurt him

Now you don't go into the garden
The glimmer of the dew isn't yours
The taut vibrations of insects and the mobile shade
The smell of moisture and sound of dryness
You leave them alone along with the flower bed
Where the plants are allowed to die
In the soil they grew in

Spring Haiku [March 28th | 82/365]

2009-03-28T22:40:00.001-04:00

Sweating from a warmth
unexpected in early
spring. Birds squeal for mates.

Sometimes a Poet Has to Capitulate to the World [March 27th | 81/365]

2009-03-27T12:12:00.000-04:00

When you are searching for topics for poetry seeing
A house wren rip meat off another dead house wren while being
Told of the clandestine lovers of Garcia Lorca
Is overkill worthy of any flotilla of orca.

On a Smooth Surface [March 26th | 80/365]

2009-03-26T16:11:00.002-04:00

to harmonize our voices
you assume our consonance
which is not always
apparent to the ear

we cut the words
and sentences out of
four other people's stories
demand ransom from ourselves

it pens us in
keeps us in check
locking the parts together
making their rearrangement illegal

we gather in song
collect voices like scraps
washed up on shore
worn smooth by seawater

The Magnificent Mayflies [March 26th | 73/365]

2009-03-26T02:19:00.001-04:00

Maggie the Mayfly
woke up one morning
alive
and wondered
what that meant,

so she asked her mother,
but her mother was dead
(though her mother had died
with her huge fly eyes open,
so Maggie the Mayfly
could not tell).

After several hours of silence passed,
Maggie the Mayfly asked her father
about being alive,
but the conversation was just
the same.

So Maggie the Mayfly
asked a stranger
who was also a mayfly,
"Stranger?
What does it mean that I'm 'alive?'"
and the stranger,
who was also alive,
said, "I was going to ask you the same question."
And Maggie the Mayfly said,
"That's funny."
And they sat there in silence
for several hours,

and then they mated,
and Maggie became pregnant,
and then Maggie died.

But before she died,
Maggie gave birth
to Melanie--
Melanie the Mayfly.

Melanie the Mayfly
woke up one morning
alive
and wondered
what that meant,

so she asked Maggie,
but Maggie was dead
(though Maggie had died
with her huge fly eyes open,
so her daughter, Melanie,
could not tell).

After several hours of silence passed,
Melanie the Mayfly asked her father
about being alive,
but the conversation was just
the same.

So Melanie the Mayfly
asked a stranger
who was also a mayfly,
"Stranger?
What does it mean that I'm 'alive?'"
and the stranger,
who was also alive,
said, "I was going to ask you the same question."
And Melanie the Mayfly said,
"That's funny."
And they sat there in silence
for several hours,

and then they mated,
and Melanie became pregnant,
and then Melanie died.

But before she died,
Melanie gave birth
to Mallory--
Mallory the Mayfly.

Mallory the Mayfly
woke up one morning
alive
and wondered
what that meant,

so she asked Melanie,
but Melanie was dead
(though Melanie had died
with her huge fly eyes open,
so her daughter, Mallory,
could not tell).

After several hours of silence passed,
Mallorythe Mayfly asked her father
about being alive,
but the conversation was just
the same.

So Melanie the Mayfly
asked a stranger
who was also a mayfly,
"Stranger?
What does it mean that I'm 'alive?'"
and the stranger,
who was also alive,
said, "I was going to ask you the same question."
And Melanie the Mayfly said,
"That's funny."
And they sat there in silence
for several hours,

and then a giant hand came,
and Mallory and the stranger looked up
in the most reverent awe
that they would ever know,
for it was the last thing they ever saw,

and they knew, in that moment,
exactly what it was that they were doing.

The Presence of Death [March 25th | 79/365]

2009-03-26T01:39:00.000-04:00

the cable news blares
while the middle aged
men gossip passionately about
distant family and friends

the schnauzer barks incessantly
until he is leashed
which is when he
starts gnawing on furniture

the not so old
woman in the wheelchair
behind her there are
flowers in a vase

the pink flower occupies
the center and draws
the eye in like
water up a stem

The Army Ranger's Wife [March 24th | 78/365]

2009-03-24T14:30:00.000-04:00

the old Parisian dame
in her trompe l'oeil
sweater has trouble explaining
her loss to Americans

she's spent sixty years
in Rhode Island suburbs
and she still stumbles
wearing a foreign tongue

her husband who's radiantly
powerful in old photographs
retreats upstairs dragging his
feet when company calls

the front gate is
grown over with moss
her dogs make sorrowful
noises when it's opened

Only Fiction is Realistic [March 23rd | 77/365]

2009-03-23T23:40:00.001-04:00

I can feel you
like an alien flag
planted in my skull
piercing through the flesh

we enter this fiction
gladly allowing our thoughts
to slather narrative structure
over life and chance

there is only motion
just the one but
then all is moving
like a shook bottle

the shape of trees
suggests randomness that does
not exist in nature
only structure and choice

WORD REEP URPU SING [March 22nd | 76/365]

2009-03-22T23:36:00.000-04:00

pour thep aper owwt
ofth eshr eder into
ther eesy klin gbin
itsb ettr that wayh

city bilt nsaw dust
ahau scon stru cted
ofpa king mate rial
coff nsre turn home

stry ving toop iece
toog ethr pree used
matt erin tusu mthn
pers onal toou stwo

ihoa pwee fayd each
inth eoth rsme mory
like disn tegr atin
phoe toas ofth dead

Night Invades the Other [March 22nd | 75/365]

2009-03-22T04:00:00.001-04:00

the paintdrums of dawn
lie covered while we
think back to past
dark nights in bed

all colors are faded
in rooms without light
even white and black
are seemingly less themselves

our pupils feel like
they're wider than irises
straining against the flesh
which surrounds the eyes

past the reflective surface
there is darkness no
light to illuminate the
inner surfaces of eyes

The Causes of Insomnia [March 20th | 74/365]

2009-03-21T00:25:00.000-04:00

The brick-eyed dogs run through my mind
Crunch junkyards with gemmed teeth

Rivers seep through scar and sudden cities
Leeching salt from radiating newspapers

Arrythmic marching bands saunter sleepily
Alerting squirrels to the onset of mating season

Nothing indicates the silence of the clock on the wall
Quiet icons replaced with sagging nails

Simple Rules for Living [March 19th | 73/365]

2009-03-19T23:26:00.000-04:00

don't live in solitude
don't hurt without dying
don't bear but make
don't work for yourself

skitter against invisible barriers
cover yourself with seed
reach for the nectar
swarm with your siblings

your flight is lonesome
your weight bends flowers
you're caught in webs
your sight is compound

dance with a purpose
put away the honey
stab one last time
die among crushed leaves

Spring Haiku [March 18th | 72/365]

2009-03-19T01:21:00.002-04:00

Inside the split drum
there is nothing. My breath melts
the snowflakes slowly.

Spring Haiku [March 17th | 71/365]

2009-03-17T16:50:00.001-04:00

I was sick in bed
when the last snowpile melted.
Snails moving through dirt.

Daily Pattern [March 13th | 70/365]

2009-03-13T20:45:00.003-04:00

The soft voiced middle-aged liquor store clerk making lewd gestures as he sells me beer has the same timbre to his speech as the 98-year old woman who thanked me for fixing her television and the same cadence as the disappointed man in his thirties who sounded like he was twice as old when he realized that I would not be able to solve his problems.

The other day everyone I met had dissimilar eyes.

We make characters out of people but we don't base them in reality so much as realism and that's how we can understand that just because it's untrue it doesn't mean it's a lie and that's how religion was eroded not by the sword or by technology but by the understanding that all can be text and story and allegory even truth.

We make patterns and we think they're beautiful and profound.

Exchanging Words Around Me [March 12th | 69/365]

2009-03-12T23:48:00.000-04:00

the female undergraduate telling
the male undergraduate that
she wasn't into him
for the right reasons

the Bosniak arguing with
the Austrian about whether
there exists a tradition
of Islam in Europe

the party guest disbelieving
a Rhode Islander's origin
you're from New York
you have to be

and yet they all
left my presence chatting
amicably without any rancor
but with some awkardness

Spring tanka [March 11th | 68/365]

2009-03-11T11:34:00.001-04:00

The dirty snowpile
resting against my office
building is all that
remains of winter's last storm.
It seems triumphant to me.

Sonnet After Catullus After Sappho [March 10th | 67/365]

2009-03-10T15:58:00.000-04:00

A delicate trembling of the senses
A sweet burning on the tongue
A pressure behind the eyes
That was the first meeting
That was passing through your gaze

A silent hum inside the ears
A wet taste against the touch
A lack of presence to the smell
That was my brain reacting
That was the release of chemicals

Who do you think you are, Kári?
Copying old love poems as if
Other people's words describe you

But they do, Kári, they do.

Spring Haiku [March 8th | 66/365]

2009-03-09T00:46:00.001-04:00

The silent mist soaks
the awning. Cleaning the ledge
I find a dead bee.

Random Motion Across the Between [March 8th | 65/365]

2009-03-08T01:45:00.002-05:00

Accelerating I find it harder to swerve in time to believe that there is such a thing as time when statistically speaking there only need to be distance to explain what happens in the world fills with the twisted motion of a ribbon floating down from a sixth floor skylight which makes it seem so easy just to align with the vicissitudes of flow but then meaning has a way of arriving out of nowhere seeking accidents by swerving personalities through a static crowd as the syllables flitter in my mind but they don't mean what I want them to mean and alight on you and even if they did they are skewed with averages when values for distance where worked into the mathematics of the language we use to hide meaning under words and dance and connections.

Nothing Changes with Time [March 6th | 64/365]

2009-03-07T00:31:00.000-05:00

He was pregnant with youth
Creating a thickening tissue of past
Out of scant fractions of life
There are two incompatible versions of a body
One views him as a handy measure
To the other he is the inescapable function
Something has to sound like a lot of noise
Arms flailing purposefully in dance
A familiar recital like tied with string
Like people speaking into the wrong mouth
Tonguing the wrong sentences and why

The Kids in Their Crawling Dragon [March 4th | 63/365]

2009-03-05T00:42:00.002-05:00

In a slow repeat they stare
At flares which illuminate a wasting
They are slow to understand
So that they will not retain
Any memories

It is best to forget
Until it is best to remember

Tigers hunt at night
Alone and from ambush
It's dragons that travel in packs
Lighting up the sky with fire