14 July 2008

trying to dwindle down my portfolio thing to 10

new york (state)

oh god

where the buffalo roam

and remind me

again and again

how bruce

smith never won

a super—

bowl

no relation

i always thought

my grandpa smith

was from cuba

like the missile

crisis

_________________________

newfoundland

caught myself peeking

ov'r the green—

shadows of ancient

american wars

perhaps a viking or two

once found something

here worth loving

and it becomes

a sinister issue—

where i don't know

how i'm going to tell you

not to dream this

tonight

_________________________

a snow

we were questioning the snow

of its cold

with our faces planted

firmly to the ground

legs up in the air

being dangled by moon

and its arms of tree shadows

you still new me then

when my face was a blue jay

pecking through the nests

of children

and in the freezing depths

of a worthless february

___________________________

titled

over the great plains of your back

roaming bison avoid railroads

in a sense of the plague that

moses never dreamed of despite all the burning

bushes and golden calves he could find

in forty years of searching out there

in the wild of a woman’s body

__________________________________

spring conversation

there are pieces of it over

there on the ground

where

by the tree

the cottonwood by the shed

yes

how did they get there

i don't know

why are you telling me this

because it's getting late and

you wont be able to see them soon

don't tell me that

it's getting dark

i'm getting the axe—

go inside

__________________________________

r and r

erno rolled

down the passenger window

lit his cigarillo

in impatience

reminding us it was november

everything turning colors

and shapes

i kept my mouth shut

a square in my own right

pulled my collar up to my neck

puzzles were

twisting through my head—

candy cane arm bars

two red lights—two read lights

i've been here before

he told me how

his mom used to write poetry

and i said that i can't stop changing

run through it he demanded

nothing is coming

___________________________________

the evolution of panda thumbs—

i.e. the bone that projects—

a branch a broom stick that witch

may swing soullessly through

a field of emptiness no

the eye of one great

white and black bear—

whale all at once wash across

the eternal night ocean

to here to bay to wave

a magical piece or tool

in an up signaling style saying—

good job muhammagod but

in my late days— o’ designer of clocks

where is my gold watch

to fade away with time beneath

the shadows of bamboo

stalking high over my windless sleep

so that i may go on forever

in bed with the unzoo’d forest floors

until my day comes when

i must rise

_____________________________________

summer searching

walking

it was night out

but the summer never really

seems all that dark

i pointed at a star

knowing it was actually venus

and told you

how you can see light

long after

the source dies

nothing else was said

the entire way

_________________________________

venom dots

i notice where

there were once

bald spots on my legs

patches of skin rare to find—

now hair grows

i wonder what

i've been doing different

in my life and assume

i've quit lying—

seven spider bites

pattern up my left leg

i count them

scratching all the while

as if i knew they had always been there

to connect—

i see everything

about myself

laying out on the driveway

beneath the motion sensor lamp

four am nude in june

___________________________

haiku two

a voice coming from each of your false teeth

it's true

you stare at the television set for hours and hours

at close range

and go blind

__________________________

an orange

for carlin

forge an idea

to sit on

sounds as though

it may be

a delicious one

but isn't

he would say

things

and i can't find

the means to dis—

agree

your nose

is a telescope

means everything

to me

and i suppose that

is why

_________________________

(twelve) a natural progression

for—

wasp just wouldn/t leave

the wasp wouldn/t leave just

would—not

i/m choking—i/m choking

i/m going to the grand canyon

this is bad for you

don/t go where i can/t follow

illegally climb fences

irresponsibly mending

and it leaves

it leaves

i believe

you

killing the grass—

breathing in the smoke

i forgive everyone

when i am invisible

i forgive

everyone for everything

and the leaving

the leaving

the leaves

the mending and the

wasp

naked and georgia

forgetting the canyons

i once saw

spend not enough time

explaining why

i feel so much

and eternity is inside

possibly in winter

i will show you

but nothing dies anymore

___________________________

midwest-voodoo-physics-pentameter

for jeff

never ending

sky

not so much the bison

both can be

killed to borderline extinction

i

drive faster the further

things grow apart

between potter/dix

in back country where

the rain is only a wall

that never seems to fill up

this dry bed

who can sleep

when there's no wind break

and the howling is

mistaken for hungry coyotes

nipping at

your feet all

because there are

no more

bison to kill

______________________

circles

burdens don’t mean

they are soft in ghost weight

and spill everything

into buckets of shoulders

storing rain

of the seasons that aren’t

meaning to be

burdens

buzzing ashes take note

to ears and flaps

and underwater speaking

to a game not played

playing it over

between a death

and a death

before swimming takes

reason underneath

all the want and distraction

of where weeds go

to pull themselves

and the spinning earths

eat it up like it’s

nothing

and then it is nothing

________________________

spicer

that marvelous finger

he gave it

after being asked

to take back

comments made on ted

williams' contribution

to the bosox

i was there

he said i was there

when he gave it

but it wasn't worth

a goddamn thing

if you want to win the pennant

and my poetry

does

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