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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