insane tripe / painkillers

to speak is
more difficult
than putting words

on a screen
(where?)
nobody might anyway

see this what --
them heard words or
something goddam, who
cares? pass these please-
believing-sweeties, plz

remind us of our cold-
cut crops regard us crops,
rebreed us foodthings,
make us wayward, make us
hum again

with threads and threams
of memory like wheening
sky memorizing deens, these
krebbed believers doaning,
like Doaning Pipers feared
the wrath was snurg, the
coop was fledge, the corp-
oration done, the bankrupt
bridged. 'twas started. the

men in their suits were here,
where, i couldn't say why?
could i!? the men were here
in gray charcoal suits like
ooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooor was it Tomlinson,

nee Bakersfield, with his
thumb up his ass and his
Megan (his wiferight?yeah
youknow) or Colleen in the
background like Grimace,
this motion verbing and

I don't believe this
means what you
think it does

- - -

meeting, wow ; unthought regrets ; what is past

in the edith
i met a woman
named forest

and like wow
her face smiled   or   the room

TURNed,  ;  in some fashion  ;

"things" weren't        as they say
t h e  s a m e  a          n y m o re

whichisn't tosay i'vebeen waitin
g foranother chanceto makeright
whatwas wrongand iknow aswel
l asyou i'vedone thingsthat didn't

HOLD  UP  in  the  light of day
Q  U  I  T  E as well as i'd hoped

(there is a mouse in the house.
be it cute--no matter--the rodent
shall die.                           ahem)

which isto say
that she smiled
and everything changed

Ciñamon

Return of the Mexican
fresh out of mescaline
booze from the mezzanine
don't mess with him

Dream of the pauper
Proud papa to Cyndi Lauper
dropped her as a baby
but she was (more than) fine

For what purpose is this nonsense?
Is nonsense ever for a purpose (yes).

the most compelling tribes

the most compelling tribes 

are the ones we haven't found 

yet, can only guess about, or

so it seems. i mean i think i've

got enough to figure out, it 

seems i already know a way 

around it, i know garden paths

etc. to walk down. round about, 

cold winds, down the alley in 

the place you wish you grew 

up. strange winds, strange thoughts

about what could have been, 

too much to consider, too unsafe 

a mental habit. mental habitations, 

rental computers, barking dogs

in the alley my dad grew up 

next to. we drove them in our 

memories, we drove them as lovers

collect each other's belongings 

to give them back. meaning we 

haven't. they're still here. 

recently

like a man in bed with

maybe a cold speaks up 

when the thermostat falters, 

eventually, he'll have to

do something about it. 

i know, i am that man, just

laying here, just breathing 

in the snow, the golden glow

of every piece 

of every known love. i went

to her house when I was ten

or so. I didn't really ever see

her again. I didn't know that 

love was something more than

feelings. she called me. in 

the morning. she wanted to 

talk. i was 

in the basement. nine years old. 

i held back the urge to 

ask her why, like, 

"is this about an assignment?"

but even then 

i was savvy enough to reign 

it in. still full of wonder that she

called in the morning, though. 

"hey doug," she said. me: "who?"
she called in the morning 

in her yellow sweater and her

lacy black 

don't-tell-me-what    I have, 

uh, already discovered. this isn't

a graveyard, or no seminar. 

i've caved in less than ever 

recently; a new era begins. 

Heated Swimming Ways

There are ways to do this
thing where we move through
the water with our bodies

less coldly. Modern tech,
modern institutions surround
us like gauzy fakeclouds

that you can ignore but
not really avoid, nor outrun,
for their shadows are every-

where. "That's okay, that's
alright," we repeat, society's
ubiquitous refrain & salve

for any pain, we are still
here, we still have eyes to
see the light, obscured though

it may be, we say. "Everything
will be okay." Sure, but that's
like agreeing upon staring

straight ahead when terrible
things are happening in
the periphery. "That's just

life, man." And, to be fair, this
pool--in the middle of a damn-
ingly cold winter--feels great.

(New York, 08 February 2015)

super b0wl sunday poems #1 and #2

1.
At the intersection
of is this happening?
and isn't it
I have a reason, I think,
for stopping---
this or that wind
has eloped again
woken up for the moment
sent its regards
asked for affection
found it wanting,
traveled,
studied Scops owls, gone to Lombok,
done that whole "indonesia" thing
found women to whom to make love
with / this / and / or
had an idea
wrote it down
burned the paper
scattered it seaside
took a pill
woke up,
did it again.

2.
And like the buried animal's pigments
are secreted no more--a white mole rat,
a colorless worm, a grub to whom hue doesn't exist
--the whiteness befalls us all,
gets in our teeth, in our affect,
drains into the cracks in our earthenware
seeps into our transmissions
leaves us stained and breathless,
with reason, for once, to stand there
silently thanking the spirits
for what has us befallen.