"The poet is of no party." Baudelaire
1.
Mark today I learn his name
is Mark fastened to his apron
a button that says
FUN METER arrow turned to “high” I like your fun
meter it goes up a little each time someone says
that he suggests sipping this stout room
temp with my feet up by the fire this market is a mountain
outpost an aisle of hot sauce and greeting cards ah clear vision
Mark here I am my left foot by the blue
reconcile my life spent guarding against surprise
attack leave the gun / take the cannoli I ratted on
my family a gay falcon C. reading Duncan
saying I AM DUNCAN and that is my sad knowing who among
us belongs to a failed
mission do not read on read Parra a dose of ANTI
Dunparra!
in the blood boil of high romance where H.D. is a little bony
but all to the mustard lads they shred his flawed logic I say
it’s like going to a holy place and seeing a reliquary of crutches
cheers to the poet who told me never to read another Whitman poem
“read Auden” but it turns out that old crab has more tenderness
in one wrinkle
W. wonders if the classroom is an extension of the state
come to room 210
research every name that comes out of my mouth
2.
if you
are still
reading this
the truth is
my lover
turned my
glasses into
dust drank
cords of me and
built our house
broke the bed fucking
I’m going to show you
upper limit fucking
what I learned when next we
swank for fucking
which will be
I assume
before dawn
die fucking
die fucking
can’t tonight
rooster goat cat bunny bunny cat
whippet at the crook rooster train whistle
finding her by decibel desert red bat
3.
I prime a crew
once upon a page
words are sacred
don’t edit
scrapit another one primes a crew
devotes herself to rightly
place their every word
CHRIST
4.
somewhere in Brooklyn there is
a storage space of all of my likes and dislikes
and the uncertainty of “the Boss” cock
in a blue suitcase with a painting
I should like better
today I could not remember
myself in the early aughts
check her records
upon a golden cushion
of a Danish modern chair
I am often invited to hear told the decline
of the grandmothers my prophets of conflict
one of them hides her own teeth
though in a moment of lucidity tries to teach
Sheepshead to someone in a fugue state
alert of government issued weather report
from the financial capital my closest bank
branch is in Idaho last week when I couldn’t
sleep I tried to predict the market cardinal
with a fat check we ate eggs in Tucson
and later that night she put a litany
in my ear lit row after row of tapers
my fist was a bell and her back a tower I bawled
Spira, spera mingled
into one angel
green leaves over
a heart in ruins
GOTH
HUGO it is
true … my crow Pluto
a psychic home
for our coffee has clear glass windows
5.
P. dreams Ozzy Osborne is
my real father I love you all; I love you more than life itself
but you’re all fucking mad!
A. says tell her I say thank you
for rescuing Stacy A. has sat with all of our corpses
and said Buddhist things buckle let go
6.
stirred for birds
+
love
prove
move + buckle
high there
no wonder of it
the priest has a watch
tells the 12 stations of the cross
Bishop lost her mother’s watch
the priestess has no watch
E. recites Prufrock in a trance with she/her pronouns
the Ladies of Night Prosody laugh
Cocteau Twins first US TV appearance
Liz took great liberties with her voice on “Bluebeard”
making it even more inaccessible
and wore a monastic garment!
+ we have always known you wanted us
7.
each of my steps boot chains to ice echoic foot
the walk home from prosody we can all agree on ode
to even silly things we love
but can we make amends in dreams?
a tall glass of wool in a western town
eastward loved imperfectly
mountain
ain’t got no
rhymes for me
give me your morning hand for hand
word for word
wet for life
tender band
Baroque
Buddhist
noisy nothing
capitulate! at last no more to do
airy
devilship
removed
8.
pulled a long shot
like an Americano
Prince Bestie and I
relieved to exchange
a platitude over the phone me and my Bialetti snowing sideways
never walk and drink the dirt at the same time
I’m fine
mother is still my mother description of a gruesome
murder of a half-Italian as I steeped with my lover’s soap
ask who gave me the note? they don’t wonder
whose heart was lost for me to take heart
everyone who decided against their heart
You will often tell the story. If you do that you/will be able to marry those you love…
you are going to have so much fun… YES it goes up a little
each time you say… in NYC the tundra the desert … we perceive a form
a householder
of actual meaning no they don’t wonder who fastened it there
at the same time
in the inference of their care
a sweet burn
we learn slowly (gnostic)
less stoic bed rolls
record a word for a word a regional Baltimore
clean ears for Alidio
stirred in the lower belly
I rest my butch head