WRITING AND READING

                                      drinking Stella Artois

and how exciting to be firing

                                      again

                                      all my cylinders’ engines

after long week of working and dying to mend

                                      to conduct myself in flowerpot

                                      not to hate

to be floored

                            and now, more particularly

                                                                              to wait

for Melanie who will bring home Italian

                               aglio olio and fried mozzarella

Live from Cincinnati it’s Saturday night!

where I have already copied the poems of Commander

                         have said in my mouth both Ginsberg and Clare

                         What could be more mooring?

and the windows flung open and the yard in its thrall…

Welcome, swallows!

                     Consider your allegiances

                     Remington Noiseless and a clean white shirt

                                 Full throttle yours,

                                                            Nobody move

NEST EGG

It’s midnight, and I’m fading after too many drinks;

you’re blue-speckled, mostly sober, right beside me.

We’re wondering what to do next, but also what to do ever—

which leads us

                       frequently, if figuratively

                                                            to the question:

How is this beginning the start of something crucial? Well,

I have a sonnet for your trumpet, but it’s lost and now I’m laundry.

There are so many forests for the burning to rebuild.

Bob Dylan might say, “The vandals took the handle.”

And you might respond, “How now brown cow,” i.e.

“What on earth are you talking about?” an inquiry

which would be perfectly apt considering the circumstances

                     and to which I would answer:

this poem is little more than a chalkboard equation,

and you, with any luck, the fastidious after-class eraser. Still,

I have emptied my motor-mouth. And you have walked

                                                      through junk expired.

What we do ever

                          is significant magic

                                                     is better than teeth.

Bespectacled alive in the eggshell beside us.

                                           Anything else is beside the point.

NEW YORK SCHOOL LEAF LETTER

More than a hundred thousand copies. Massive

the piling of leaflets to burn. The cento.

The BINGO. The leaves and the letters.

This is not always so easy. This is not always

so massive. Nor is it more than a hundred thousand

copies. It is not Joe Brainard either. It is not

his painting BINGO. Dear Ron Padgett.

The cento. The aching machine. The

raking the leaves. You may think this is

nonsense or merely a penny, but it isn’t.

Nor is it. Nor leaflets to burn. Liberty’s

Statue proclaiming inferno. Joe Brainard.

Ron Padgett. Heroes both and towering

above me. The raking. The poem. Massive is more

than a hundred thousand copies. Otherwise sold to

a nonsense inferno. Joe Padgett. Ron leaflet

Dear BINGO,

SIRENS MUSES FATES HOURS

Consider the ages. The fates and the muses.

The face that amuses and despises a kitten.

A kitten named Podiatrist. O good grief.

No one despises a kitten, not even

the Sirens, and they have a lot of reasons

to despise us. Me And You And Everyone

We Know. A very fine movie by Miranda

July, starring Miranda July. July July

it’s the end of July. Consider the aegis.

The podiatrist. The rhinoceros. The fates

and the muses and the new Honda Civic.

It has all the features. Me and you and

everyone we know should buy one. Starring

Miranda July. The Sirens, the Muses, the Fates

and the Hours. They have a lot of reasons.

A lot of features. All new shipwrecks, 2007

Honda Civic.