Element
doleful heroic //
on the poet’s indebtedness to Black Thought
a wild hare goes
anywhere — quick
as wind. bears,
as scar, the scripted
mark of trickster; wisdom
of prey. knows never
to set dull footstep
in a question
that is only
a noose.
//
e.g. Black Thought, etc., etc.
understated //
telescopic texts (avec “?”) (7/x)
suppose a parable is just like her —
desired and defiled in equal measure.
his chivalry requires a blushing knight
to guard the word, who is incarnate treasure.
i heard of one such rescuer of women.
who, for his lovely sin, was de-mountained
by crippled foot, and fated never nimbly
to climb again. but faith in constancy
makes deliberate gifts, arms built from hours
spent torquing tongs before roaring earth-core.
therefore, no purity of heart is borne
that lacks an alloy in the sooty forge.
thou shalt not fear the courage of your virgin
is the limping gist of this comparison —
her shining is at once translucent bloom
and armor’s lustre, welded by humble Vulcan.
//
p.s., and yes — to service chthonic Muse,
Hephaestus becomes god of cunnilingus.
sifting //
telescopic texts (avec "?") (6/x)
we used to call you man of twists and turns,
the dynamo — reckless, drowning, sea-rendered
until perennial blue, the one i knew
well enough to know, i loved nobody.
his thirst, prostrated, clutched me from below,
desperate to conceal from winged word
a history of suffering. a babe
buried his need in bosom of my nature,
drunk on the deep milk of disappearance.
his subterfuge despair was mythical,
until he made her fiction. he may not
remember me. but i keep by my heart
a wavy lock of sunset-auburn hair.
//
insurgent //
stellar veil //
Æ.5 (butane lighter)
are you ungovernable,
and getting hot — like me? we’ll be
tempestuous, together.
ours, of cosmic squabs,
result in smoke-stained sheets
and purple bruises. of Mars,
don’t worry, baby
your revolver is magnetic.
let’s go collapse.
//
not a monkey, but
it’s true that books
can take you anywhere.
hunger roots you
firmly in a body.
reading, i become
voices in the dark.
poetry is
a voice, self-
lightening.
witness to ways
waves move, as their own
mostly hidden seasons.
everything independently
becomes a turning
Inferno.
we are sloshing buckets,
pitchers pouring
into rivers, subterranean.
all of it true,
at once.
Hanuman is only
a secret patron
of poets.
//
unquenching //
our stinging silence
what are the things
you know of me
that you keep, unspoken?
the secret me you keep
and by extension,
my undiscovered twin.
is it family or alien?
or do i have no right
to such distinction.
i have been, for some
two thousand years
or more, dissolving
in waspish creation.
i am, who has been long-
forgotten. already, i am
not of conversation.
a fuzzy, artless form
is turning in the paper
of a nest, drowning
in droning oceans — the ply
of dialogue, subsumed
by black battalions.
can you hear them?
they are humming
the densest metaphors.
//
lapsed momentarian
seed fluff billows
across the black mat
(inhale
jump back
chaturanga)
so much
for so little
for so much
immaterial
globe, a memory
of lost focus
dream
of a body, as wind
seeking structure
the velvet blue
of a butterfly wing
i don’t know why
things are shaped
the way they are
sent
published, and yet
anecdotal
birds who can’t fly
insects without words
studying
to be a container
for the already
understanding
it is needful
to be broken
//
telescopic texts (avec "mon oncle") (3/x)
O man, if you could see her witchlocs now,
or what’s become of Eastern expertise.
she is swamp-bitch, and twisted, twined and hitched
without romance by ruby claw to thorny
crown, her hair, each barb a bell, each herb
a suicide. she’s heard of nobody’s
outrageous feats of raw technology.
in wracked rumors of Western fantasy
she knit a while textiles anti-exotic,
but sweaters have no use in the tropics,
where skin is king. and now we’ve come uncrimped,
uncrumpling, algal anadyomene
of muddy water, Charybdis of the bog.
what’s history is past. nevertheless, he asks —
why, woman, have you gone au natural?
//
pale tender //
idea for the public-facing garden
three fates
with gigantic anime
boobies
Clotho
Lachesis
Atropos
dewi
of some
stranger land,
bodies carved
painstakingly
in wood
are set
to rule a while
from garden,
rambling
flowers bracelet
round their
skinny limbs
bending over
facing up
as if to see
the water aspect
of they and their
bosoms reflected
pornographic
sanded and grainy
thread-makers,
rippling
serene cut
in glassy pond
of koi
//
telescopic texts (avec “mon oncle”) (2/x)
well, i make believe an uncle, dead
and dear. less clear is fortune of the bird.
to fly, to seek, and what on earth to find
but torrent of an obsolescent mind,
(he said), obscure and arduous to hear.
and yet, it flies. and though he doubts her crown
and midnight sight, she will fly too. and though
her silver glows in anecdotal mood,
her lilt, of stellar tilt, still loving, lingers
in braided dancing round a pool of blue,
tuning her clutch in nesting eddy of
red bird, whose course is old and hardly true,
and yet, he lives. rising, as golden-red
in flight, crowing like Scorpio in the east.
rest easy, uncle cold and fluttering
and lately of rambunctious residue.
a dove survives heaven to choir anew.
//
irretrievable //
