Buzzing Wire Vaguely Song

willow said to be weeping
joy said to be mocking
hope said to be thin
and the cargo was not slaves

this is the verbal energy
that surrounds the contemplation
of difficult (I mean ravenous) things

a bit daring I do say,
unlovely hand,
you are the subject given over
just like the dead
and in such quantities,
such well-meaning forevers

Check out other work in the 17/18 Poems series here.

Check out other work in the Paint Chips, Cracks, and Decay series here.

In every life, there’s a moment or two.
In every life, a room somewhere, by the sea or in the mountains.

On the table, a dish of apricots. Pits in a white ashtray.

Like all images, these were the conditions of a pact:
on your cheek, tremor of sunlight,
my finger pressing your lips.
The walls blue-white; paint from the low bureau flaking a little.

That room must still exist, on the fourth floor,
with a small balcony overlooking the ocean.
A square white room, the top sheet pulled back over the edge of the bed.
It hasn’t dissolved back into nothing, into reality.
Through the open window, sea air, smelling of iodine.

Early morning: a man calling a small boy back from the water.
That small boy–he would be twenty now.

Around your face, rushes of damp hair, streaked with auburn.
Muslin, flicker of silver. Heavy jar filled with white peonies.

Every time I read this it takes me to my room somewhere. I first experienced this poem on the page. I wish I could find a recording of Gluck reading it.

Check out other work in the Strange Faces Other Minds series here.

This is a great example of how lightning can strike anywhere. I photo copied this page from a book of poems in the library. I didn’t like any of the other poems. I don’t even like this poem, but the second stanza by itself is probably the best thing I’ve read all year. It kills me every time I read it. I tried to track down who wrote it, but wasn’t able to. If anyone reads and recognizes it, please let me know.

The reason I can’t write the story is that I believe in the idea too much. It would be the same as writing one dimensional characters that are surrogates for pure good or evil. I don’t have the ability to interrogate the idea.

Robert Saunders was a good friend. He passed away 10 years ago and I still miss him. It is hard to know if I’d like this poem as much if I didn’t know him personally. It definitely reminds me about what I loved so much being around him. I guess it doesn’t really matter though, if you love a poem, you love a poem.

Birdseed

by this kind

he means cancer

the prospect he attaches to firmly

narrative abusing time…again

he is the tom of love now

all windows

in the mood to be forgotten

while others discuss

bribes and blandishments

instead of the love

they are too afraid to want

let the heaven we inherit approach

out of the deep business of some dream,

that heaven so stubbornly former

My company for eternity

Would be “onerous”

Said the devil

And that is how second hell started

I called to the cloying

The grating, the unambitiously mean

With no small pride

I say we are many

no, Mrs. Khokhlakov, no

what can one say

of how to live a life

other than

to just survive it

burnt shame

darkening memory

can God even caution you now?

I hope, but hope only

waiting to be told

that Icarus melts the stars

from where the animating myth

such a thing including

the farmer/cow rehearsal

always like we call them

we first and death as dead

I was young once

mind big like a city

human above the body

two ass-clenching years of it

like a bird too chirpy

practicing my no-one in a bar routine

you don’t know how shitty perfect feels

Justice is not an us versus them problem. It’s an us versus us problem. Any inversion of social/economic/political class just perpetuates injustice. I.e. the difference between labor/capital or high/low class is only an accident of history, not written in our biology. That is why “taking” power only results in “taking on” all the moral problems once despised in an oppressor. A deeper kind of a revolution is one that frees oppressors as well as the oppressed.

and if not why not

talk to me

I’ve given

a wonderful way

a wordful song

a foolhardy love

sometimes you need

off and unlike

various and blinding

I’m not saying stupid, stupid

porn

there falling wasted

when I think closed down

with such a thing including

if by yes

of course I’m telling

what?/but cool

a sign of grace

these woods, these old people

the spring of morning

the bones I still remember

It is kind of hard shaving your asshole.

It’s a bit of a blind spot really. I have many.

Blind spots, not assholes.

Why do I do it? I do it like I do many things.

Like writing poems.

I am wondering if poems are like assholes–

hard to find, delicate,

somewhere you shouldn’t go near with a razor.

Yet we feel compelled. I even listen with razors.

If I was like Burroughs and could

write a man to teach an asshole to talk,

what would it say? Mine always looks angry

at least in the mirror. Mirrors are funny though.

In a car once with my brother, I heard

an interview in which DFW said

he believed something down to his asshole.

What he believed, I can’t remember

even at the time it didn’t seem

as interesting as the fact he could

feel that belief in his asshole.

I’ve never felt anything that deep.

Maybe my sphincter lacks conviction?

I’ll deal with that later. For tonight

my little rosebud will have to be content

with being groomed: bald and beautiful.

Now I realize a poet asks a lot

when he asks the reader to contemplate his asshole.

It is a little past “don’t go there”

and more into “what the fuck?”

If you are still reading, thank you for indulging me.

Where do poems come from and why do I like them

is a knotted mystery to me.

Tipping my seat to DFW I never fail to feel

that kind of uncertainty where the poems don’t shine.

a break like a bend

more or less alive

many rains,

desires, and ideas

dude raw too afraid

the whole jealousy

a suitcase of a man

or a tarball ruining

someone’s beach

the freckled little milk

the mall of dead commerce

the sad clock of particular energy

it’s mixed character

tick, tock, tick

This Nikky Finney poem is too long for my usual taste, but just took me in. I heard it first and was enchanted by the multitude of conflicting emotions that one event could elicit. Having since read it, I still really enjoy the text version. Here is a link to both versions on the Poetry Foundation’s site.

before and astonished, poems.

beneath the honest

and worse the sincere

by hook or by crook?

-crook.

down, as in, to the bottom

then a lateral move

at slow velocity.

And said twice

it seemed

the truth was being told.

There was a woman at the meeting. She was older with a huge Elvis caricature on her t-shirt. I wouldn’t have noticed it but the pompadour fell right across her large breasts. Every time she moved or spoke Elvis’ coif gesticulated wildly.

minimal, slow, and well put

his mode, total attention

a clever view of necessity

and well worth the fight

here is limbo

you didn’t expect that

yet the world opens

the very kind of north

we are talking about.

a place of faith

deadly serious, solemn

the silence

like a prism for words

and their separation

shakes and groans. shivers

the sky was two

was too watery

what a week

how feels a fellow?

the patient, the fellow

lives to fail

must operate soon

In Dantos Gallery there are many red squares. Some are framed hanging proudly on the wall. Some are being prepped for artists, Giorgione for example, to further adorn. Another is by the stairs simply waiting to have ‘exit’ stenciled on it. Being spun through room after room thick with the presence of red squares of every sort… oh look, there’s one on the shoulder of a security guard…the question one is intended to ask is this: is art camouflaged in the banal or is the banal camouflaged in art? How does one find art when it is so cleverly hidden? Or stranger, how does one find art when it is so clearly abundant?

No spare of the headier side

my soul but a devil

the sheath of personal nature

sweating in the shed

prone to need

a list of battles

the body, the great landlord

it’s complaints, coercion,

never-ending

I’m having trouble starting from the beginning. I could start in the middle at an actual meeting. Or maybe a reporter interviewing one of the founders.

of that much.

both be foolish.

spaders.

smile bones I.

get lost.

are now.

into the work.

a true report

as in the rock

the mind on words

the rush to gather

many great songs

the real suchness

he’s a person that knows better than love

but can’t stop himself all the same.

she was a church in the sky

dropping birdshit on people below.

in Britain, things were done differently:

more slowly and with less passion.

okay, something hit me somewhere.

is it that

I can see myself a portion of malice

or at least the meander of their doing?

our hero arrives in take charge mode,

but who can ultimately confirm or deny the world.

we are left with its giant question.

hero cowers. It’s okay big guy.

This is an old favorite. I only know it from a audio compilation of poems from Giorno Poetry Systems. It’s read by Charles Stein. I can’t find the text of it anywhere. If you have the poem or can find it online, let me know. This poem is as smart, playful, and funny as any I know. Here is a link to the album I found it on. It’s called Seed Poem.

beautiful drunk eyes

through which they fall

memory’s sunburn

all over my face

a dangerous inlet

a poem perched on arrival

the elegy blowing through

I thought an early humorous episode by the founders would be to have them create a list of white guilt/shame provoking outings. They would call them field trips.

her sad

it seemed

to the dying

I’m saying.

money,

can we say,

is the most

that matters.

so I have heard

and do in part believe

a wall is a door

you can’t open

am I the one? honestly?

is it Japan where you are?

the distance loving subdivision

compellingly unlikable

(influence felt here)

Here is Mark Doty’s poem Ararat. (text, audio) I first heard this poem on the Poetry Foundation’s Poem of the day podcast. This poem works for me either way.

if you break a name

the cause it gives

the action I mean

is/I have no idea

but think of it this way

because coming north is impossible

what could be ________

and why such hot blood

other than they hate you

and hate you in every color

I was thinking about plot points for the story. Here are some possibilities:

-origin story

-the club’s first black member

-a visitor misunderstands the club to be a solidarity club not a recovery program

-media attention

-a pc crusader visits the meeting

-a meeting is protested

-founders brainstorm how to adapt the 12 steps

-a nationwide tragedy happens like a Charlottesville, police killing, or a black church is attacked

of that much.

both be foolish.

spaders.

smile bones I.

get lost.

are now.

into the work.

a true report

as in the rock

the mind on words

the rush to gather

many great songs

the real suchness

the dislocations of summer

head behind the stars

thinking right now

something ought to

fall out of the sky.

if we feel a who

where a what should be

or a when that reveals itself

to be a why, then

let time fall back on itself

think it’s own tomorrow

swim like an ocean

an Athens of thought

Once Snevets had to chase me. It was a strange inversion. I’d found his pen during one of our pursuits. He wanted it back. A pen? Why did it matter? I didn’t understand, but I knew it was connected with his power. He wasn’t full Snevets without it.

Things moved slowly. He knew he was being baited with it. I wanted him. He wanted his pen.  It was coquettish. Sometimes I would catch his crow eye as a reflection in the mirror in the morning, or the crest of his black hat behind a hedge. The whole thing was awkward really. Sort of high school prom. I didn’t know how to run. He didn’t know how to chase.

Even though Snevets was physically imposing, I knew he was avoiding an encounter with me. Honestly, I had never seen him touch anyone. I talked the situation over with my superior. He said I needed to risk something. It was suggested I might need to release the pen from my person to break the stalemate. We decided to stage a scene in my bedroom. The pen would be on my side table while I pretended to sleep. We’d have one man in my bathroom. And another monitoring the bedroom door from a hidden position in a hallway closet. Around the house would be a covert perimeter of five men. Snevets had to know a trap was set for him. I just hoped that the minimal security would entice him to take his chances. He probably wouldn’t even show.

That night waiting, fully dressed under my sheets, I thought a lot. Why did Snevets do these things? And why did I spend so much time trying to catch him? Was it worth all this? My thoughts were interrupted by a slow heavy tread coming from the hall. The steps seemed to take forever. Snevets had taught me patience if nothing else.

Once I was sure Snevets was in the room I shouted in my radio. The bathroom door flung open the light was blinding for a second. The man from the closet showed up in the door to the hallway and I had sprung out of bed. Snevets was surrounded. We all looked at each other. None of us could believe it was finally over. I spoke to Snevets.

“I’ve waited so long.”

Snevets listened for a second and then repeated my words to me, “I’ve waited so long.” Only it was like he had slowed the words down in his saying them. I struggle to describe what really happened in that bedroom. It was one of his language games. Each of the words was struck and allowed to ring as if we were examining the resonance. The two officers and I started to move to apprehend him but could move no faster than the speed of his utterance. By the time the last word had rung out, Snevets, seemingly immune to all this, had pocketed his pen and made it into the hallway. My only hope was that the five-man perimeter would pick him up on his way out. In my heart I knew they wouldn’t.

some trick of harlotry

both signal and noise

sonnets bonnets

and backwards again

young once young always

and life a sort of monster

using weapon love

to hollow your bones

Like AA, the Racists of America Club needs some corny slogans that the members embrace. A few ideas…. “excavate the unsaid”, “call in racism”. They could also start their meetings with something like

Honky, honky, honky

Nigger, nigger, nigger

Kike, kike, kike

Spic, spic, spic

Goomba, goomba, goomba

Mic, mic, mic

Chink, chink, chink

More than the usual pissed off

the inauguration of birds

waving poetry’s flag:

Mick Jagger’s sweatpants

The full-on

tit-craziest

ass-grabber

ever

where is our grumpy

keeper of the peace?

this has started filthy

Nothing corners the eye like orange

they walked the location

whereupon all force resides

and stopped

give this some air, he said

I myself am almost being played

hear the music rough as bark

he now looking cross

the silence distressing

as one block of memories

in question stood

enough of them

darkening his eyes

the subject of his body

Newcomb is probably the most charming bachelor you have ever met. As a boyfriend one couldn’t ask for much more, he is courteous, good looking, and seems to always know what you want when you want it. It is this last skill that really sets him apart. His ability to intuit what you want, need, or will do is uncanny. The only thing that explains his very long bachelorhood are two boxes. Newcomb wants to get married, but he has a rather strange way of asking. For each of his girlfriends, when the time is right, and Newcomb always knows when the time is right, he gets down on his knee and asks her to marry him. Instead of producing a single ring box, he produces two. One is red, the other purple. He tells his girlfriend that the red one contains a ring worth $1,000. On the other hand, the purple box contains a ring worth $100,000 or nothing. He explains to his girlfriend that she can either decide to take both boxes or just the purple one. The contents of the purple box is decided by whether he thinks she will take both boxes or just the purple box. Earlier that day if Newcomb believed that his girlfriend would just take the purple box, he fills it with the $100,000 ring. However if he thought she would take both ring boxes, he left the purple box empty without a ring. This kind of proposal has come to be known as the Newcomb proposal. Newcomb tells people that he sincerely wants to get married, but must propose in this very odd way. Some have accused him of bad faith on this, claiming that secretly he desires to avoid marriage and this is his way of doing it.

he’s a person that knows better than love

but can’t stop himself all the same.

she was a church in the sky

dropping birdshit on people below.

in Britain, things were done differently:

more slowly and with less passion.

okay, something hit me somewhere.

is it that

I can see myself a portion of malice

or at least the meander of their doing?

our hero arrives in take charge mode,

but who can ultimately confirm or deny the world.

we are left with its giant question.

hero cowers. It’s okay big guy.

And he said to his friend, “What if there was a group that didn’t try to cure you of racism, but presumed that we’re all racists? Instead of teaching you to be “sensitive”, it went the other direction and asked you to say the stuff that you weren’t supposed to say, how you actually experienced race, when you were conscious of it. So you could say anything, like a recovery program. There isn’t a person in America that doesn’t need to recover from our racial history.”

the order imposed by conflict

the metallic tasting air

boot heels furrowing the ground

we are flying their flag in risk for glory

from simple death there is no escape

from a complicated one

you can always run

I push at my insides

I feel a bit more cushion than stone

that is the conflict’s center

a structure of inspiration and concern

has escaped in the moonlight

and you got thinking life might

be alright for a minute

don’t pretend

it’s beneath your notice

it’s not

(just for the moment

I’m saying)

you rush to gather

loyal and murderous

and ask on Wednesday

is poetry young or old

the corners are sharp in the light

kishmet is hell, what I say

like a collision

talking bird and window here

you don’t mean that, thud

the shame is deeper, thud

I, thud

you, thud thud

Oh God, crack

Pyramid is the best poem I’ve read in a long time. Here it is on the Poetry Foundation website. You can also hear Hera Lindsay Bird read it. I heard it first and fell in love with it. Sometimes I have the strange experience of then not enjoying the text as much, but I love this poem in either form.

A white guy gets the idea for the Racists of America Club after a required diversity training at work. Actually he has attended the training twice due to an administrative error. The first time he is mostly silent. The second time he knows all the things you are supposed to say and not being remembered by the trainer is praised for his answers. Leaving the meeting though, he feels nothing was really accomplished by either his first training where it was too risky to say anything he really thought, or the second riskless meeting that was merely performative. He goes and talks to his buddy, one of those guys who is down for anything and pitches the idea of a club for racists.

like the heaven

we can’t figure

or the subject

we inherit

taken on clumsy authority

the liberty for new mistakes

shot or hell shot

instant nature

not to be one

or to be one

we can’t figure

the wall waits

a sign of grace for the head

mixed character and whole jealousy

remembered nonsense forgotten wisdom

and certain interests

whose personal nature makes them

unsuitable objects of

impersonal concern

the thought to leave her

far away behind

rolling contemplation

between your fingers

slowly

how do these things get decided

is this a break or a bend

when do I know

trying too hard

is between her

it’s my rid

Better than nothing. More fitting than otherwise.

A thought that starts that way never ends well.

With pleasure a footnote, and so without striving.

Please note the cares I’m full of

The acts of correction on my body

The thoughts I guard

Their often differing ambitions

The heavy use of question