What use is
Knowing
The mouton has nearly finished climbing.
Clench your fists
Grit your teeth
Gaze into the empty eyes of the heads in the basket
Perhaps you could shout
Some too radical words for the jeering crowd
As the white paint peels from the dry, cracked lunette
And a panorama of empty eyes
Hunger for someone else’s blood
You have time to think
And feel regret
Every time two paths diverged in a wood
You chose the guillotine
The frame shudders at the mouton's climax
What use is
Knowing
The blade is shearing through the air
And once you’ve stopped knowing
It will take another
Poetry & Fiction
The Test
I shouldn’t be writing this poem.
I should be working on my book.
Or my other book.
Or one of my essay ideas.
But poems are so sweet and tasty.
I would have failed Mischel’s test before he left the room.
Writing a book is such a long arduous process
But a poem
From concept to finish
Takes a couple of hours.
There is no research involved–
I might look up someone’s name.
I could do some thinking work
Seated at the long wooden table in the research laboratory
Staring at the fluffy lump of gratification in front of me
…I need to study Wittgenstein, and go over the Gorgias again…this scene has to be just right…
I might mean something to someone
I might make some money
I might become an author
Then again, I noticed something today
A small detail that I could make meaningful
An image that seemed poignant
A phrase that bit into me
It could be delicious with a touch of processing.
It’s right in front of me, on a pink porcelain plate.
Cylindrical and lopsided
And velvety smooth
The fleeting sweetness of a poem
Would not leave me for so long
With the burden of possibility
I haven’t written a word of the book in months.
Perhaps I don’t believe it will be as gratifying
As a completed poem–
A moment on the lips…
To struggle in the laboratory
For only a pair of marshmallows
Is a cruel punishment.
Gimme A Dollar
I found, as expected, a card in my mailbox.
Sealed with a sticker
Embossed: “Happy Birthday”
I wondered if there was a gift card inside for a bloomin’ onion
(There wasn’t)
Let me fish it from the trash–I don’t remember what it said–
“We hope that your birthday was as amazing as you are”
It’s management dogma:
Never give a worker anything useful
Wages are kept low
So we are kept weak
I wonder what a birthday card costs–I never buy them–
Everything costs twice as much as it did yesterday
(Except labor).
Signed with love, from my [redacted] family.
My [redacted] family,
Who’d just turned my brothers and sisters
Out in the cold
I suppose I should be grateful
For the chance
To feast on their flesh
My parents took me out to eat for my birthday and gave me a hundred dollars.
They spent time with me and we talked about the world.
They know I don’t want a card, though I’ll still check it
For cash before tossing it in the garbage.
How wonderful it would be to come to work on my birthday
And find a crisp one dollar bill
With love,
From my family.
Billionaires
One thousand leeches suck the blood of America.
Weigh them and find them wanting.
Liquidate them.
Grind them up into meat,
And let them feed the hungry.
What I want is for every dirty, lousy tramp
To eat his fill.
To fatten his belly;
Let it not be a war,
But a packinghouse line.
Let their pleading
Be answered by a form letter.
Two thousand maggots gorge on the world.
Take back what they stole
From those who hunger and are not fed,
Those who are cold and are not clothed.
Drop the bombs on soft, pampered heads
And melt the flesh from their bones.
Let them learn what it is,
As they burn,
To beg.
Ode to the Lint in My Belly Button (2011)
Originally published in Tributaries (2011)
Oh lint in my bellybutton,
Whence comest thou?
Surely you,
Who keeps my navel warm at night,
Are the manifestation of love
And warmth,
And all things good,
Which cradle in the center
Of my being.
Lint, though you are gray,
Do not despair!
Those who wash you out
Are empty inside,
Where I am full.
Oh lint in my bellybutton,
How I miss thee so,
When I search
And find naught
In the center of my being.
Lint, you Omphalic dust
Collecting in the center of life,
I mourn for the outties
Who do not know you.
Lint you gay gathering
Of dust and of hair,
May you ever return to my navel:
May we ever be paired.
Up and Down (12/21/06)
She crossed my mind today like
a long, slow train crossing a busy road.
You know, she always seems to do
that to me when I’m under a heavy load.
I tell myself “what does it matter?”
It matters, ’cause it makes me feel so...
Sometimes I look around me and what
I see is something I’ve never seen before.
And sometimes I listen to people and
it seems they’re asking me to open a door.
There are times when everything seems
so common I can't take any more
But every once in a while I feel so...
I can tell right now I can’t
make up my mind
but I’m pretty sure
I don’t know.
More often than not things seem far more
black than white.
And when I wake up those same
gray shades get so very light—
Sometimes it makes me feel so...
You know I’m blind sometimes
and sometimes I see everything.
Times do come when even I tire of all my bitching.
She’ll cross my mind tomorrow like a long slow
train stopping across a busy road.
You know she can do that to me no matter
how heavy the load.
And I’ll think to myself “It doesn’t matter
at all,” but then I’ll look out the window
and see how the traffic has stalled.
Gulf
“How's the woodworking going?”
James must be thinking of my brother
“It's alright,” I offer
Have you sold anything?
“No, nothing,” I say.
“It’s a hard business to break into. A lot of people don’t appreciate it.”
He tells me about a jewelry box he made that his daughter didn't want.
I have little patience for strangers.
I don't often care to disabuse them.
They call me the wrong name
I answer their questions
About things I haven't done.
I only have so much of myself
to give away.
I’ll ask the therapist on Wednesday,
“What's wrong with me? Why is it so hard to connect with others?”
It seems like there should be some kind of answer.
Something must have happened
To make me so alien
So haughty and undeserving of kinship
Strangers tell me happy birthday
And I am angry they know something about me
Dad asks me if I’m alright.
I very clearly am not. I have been trying to keep it together
So that no one will ask me what’s wrong.
“Yeah.”
He doesn’t challenge the lie.
Minutes later I break the silence:
“Well,
I’m going home.”
Severed Connection
Late nights for days–
unable to sleep or focus or do anything,
racing thoughts down the freeway.
I was thinking of the women I know and how lovely they are,
when something reminded me of you, and I reached out–
and you were excited about the people
who still matter to you
I slept last night.
No more racing.
I was thinking how I used to be part of your life,
and how quietly you slipped away.
You didn’t even leave a note.
I sat in a chair,
thinking at nothing,
until I felt bad
Bitter thoughts may be cruel–
but joy is no ally.
The good days are a Trojan Horse.
The bad days are reality.
And each day rewrites the last,
except when emptiness comes–
and both inside and outside the horse,
there is
nothing.
Sign/Signified
I’ve been thinking,
Lately–
I never wrote you a poem.
It’s strange to me.
I usually write my lovers poems.
But I’ll admit
I kept you at arm’s length.
I think being friends with you
Has made me feel closer to you.
And I feel the kind of love I want to feel:
Not the terrifying, heart-palpitating
Need
Of a new relationship,
But I admire you.
I think you are everything I want to be.
It’s challenging,
Writing a poem for someone.
You may love some tiny, offhand detail about their person,
And they’ll say, “that’s not me.”
And then you must reconcile [them] with them.
And I’ll always wonder
If I love [you] or you.
And now I’ve written a poem for you—
Or maybe for [you]—
And though I'm not sure the difference is clear,
I’ve forgotten what I intended to say,
Having gotten lost in sweet memories
Of happy smiles on your face.
Sometimes
I finished reading and slipped to the back of the crowd.
“I didn’t know you wrote poetry.”
We were both surprised.
I thought everyone wrote poetry.
Years ago, a friend and I floated down a river in Missouri,
love taking shape in the air between us—
“I’ve noticed you don’t speak with proper grammar,” she observed, approvingly.
“John Dryden can go fuck himself,” I replied,
“The way people speak is what is magical about language.”
I ain't worried too much about grammar—
But I spell as good as I can.
Grammar’s like color theory:
useful, sure, but not the thing itself.
It helps you tell the difference between
"I liked what she said"
and
"Her words caught me,
held me up in the light of her living."
My brother, when we were kids, would irritate our mother
Saying “I gots a new basketball,” looking her right in the eye.
I never cared much for the word myself—
But I wouldn’t have punished him for speaking his truth.
She wanted us to bear the markers
of civilized society,
But–
As Ross might have said,
I gots no time for that.
I’d be shocked
To find anyone
who never sang in place of speaking.
Sophistry and Solipsism in the New Millennium 