from exorbitant air. But remedies
abound. There's a remedy for everything.
And a remedy for every remedy.
92 words. This poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).
PINK
Among the cherry trees, they fell in love.
Later that month, he took her out for
deep pink soup and pale pink tea. Together
they peeled and fed each other pink fruit,
ordered expensive pink beef, went on
vacations and viewed pink sunsets
on paradise beaches. His memories
included pink medicine, pink taffy, pink
panties, pink lips. Hers included pink
bubbles, pink slippers, pink horses and
pink sheets. Neither could imagine a heaven
untinged with pink. They were right:
the afterworld is splendiferously pink,
the exact color of a child's new wound.
92 words. This poem appears in Blasphemer (Lit Fest Press 2015).
THE DEATH OF SHERWOOD ANDERSON
He was on a cruise ship eating hors d'oeuvres
when he swallowed the green toothpick
which punctured his intestine causing the
peritonitis which corrupted his blood and
catapulted him into an alien grave. Or was it
bald sadness? Unhappiness upended by
misery? Desolation made grey by despair?
Whatever the cause, he died, like the Bible in
Mauritania, like a mouse in a vial of ammonia,
like a retired coal miner on vacation in the Alps,
like novelty in a nursing home, like streptococcus
in outer space, like panache in sundered life.
91 words. This poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).
PRECIPICE OF QUESTIONS
He stood with the bride of quietness
on the precipice of questions
and whistled the music of the spheres.
His bride wore cropped pants
and a paisley top. She was the summer
of 1979 and the winter of his discontent.
He talked to her of navigation, excavation,
irrigation, nolo contendere. She heard him
with impunity and a sawtooth grin.
Above their heads, birds watched planes
stumble through maneuvers. A war was on.
He enlisted her fierce indifference.
What can be manufactured in the time
jettisoned by the flashing of the past?
91 words. This poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).
THE TAPEWORM OF SELFISH MAMMON EATS ALL THE GOOD WILL IN THE WORLD
She caretakes, he takes care
She is inclusive, he feels occluded
She takes on all comers, he takes on all commerce
She's out on a limb, he's still on the lam
She has a Bachelor's in Niceness, he got his Master's in Tasks
She hurt her thumb in yoga, he bumped his head in law school
She begs to differ, he begs to defer
She collects curios, he licks Oreos
She works all the angles, he walks the perimeter
She flies east to Cape Hatteras, he drives north to Cape Cod
91 words. This poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).
JULIA
One day she took a lover, a Québécois
mortician, who mollified her spirit as he
mortified her flesh. She found her escape
in a letter from her sclerotic brother whose
neurosis demanded companionship. She'd
fly to Escondido to be his renewal. On her
way to the airport, her cab was rear ended
by a bus. She suffered three broken bones.
Six months later, she was teaching theology
to refugees from EST. Her brother was in rehab,
his prognosis good. She felt healthy and happy.
No clouds anywhere. Pseudocyesis does that.
90 words. This poem appears in Blasphemer (Lit Fest Press 2015).
A PIECE OF HIM
for Gil
People who lose a leg to a battle
or disease often describe the feeling
of having a phantom appendage,
experiencing the sensation
of still feeling the absent limb.
When I lost you, I lost a piece
of myself. I haven't felt whole
since that day. It's not that I can't
go on; I can. It's not that I can't
think straight; I can. It's not that
I can't focus; I can. It's that the
future is now incomplete. It's
that with your radical vanishing,
the dignity of infinity is diminished.
90 words. This poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).
RATATOUILLE
"The good years shall devour them"
—King Lear 5.3.24
The body receives its embrace but
only by the anti-body. Effete angels, stoic
guardians of suffering, circled by the birds
of perpetration, look on in translucent hopelessness.
Spurred on by anesthetists, I fall on the mercy of the corpse.
The world enforces the larceny of living. A widow vacations
in the Alps, falls in love with her concierge. Across
a desert, a Bengali widower walks a crooked
mile. Bring spices, an incensed container,
and, for the sacrifice, a decorated carving knife.
90 words. This poem appears in Blasphemer (Lit Fest Press 2015).
BEFORE THE DOOR
You just can't believe your key
won't open the front door anymore.
Determined to prove reality wrong,
you board a flight to Budapest
and walk wet streets in search of
a keyhole you're convinced exists.
And when you find it on the side door
of the Nicolae Bakery, your wry heart,
rapt with vindication, laughs heartily.
The key works! It really works!
But you don't enter. You don't dare.
Time passes. The seasons alter.
The world gives birth to triplets.
People drop hot pennies into your hat.
87 words. The poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).
PARABOLA TANGO
Once in a fit of pique
she poured vinegar
on the anniversary roses
which withered in his seeing. In
retribution, he became incontinent.
That made her, she who misunder-
stood love, love him more, and him,
he who misunderstood marriage,
respect her less. Is there a recipe for
lasting happiness? Look, perhaps, to
applesauce. The apples of attraction.
The sugar of indulgence. The water of
conduction. Everything improves over
time. Everything. Everything in the world.
Except the orphaned garden.
Except the consolidated body.
Except last week's fruit.
87 words. A version of this poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).
SERMON OF LILAC
I.
Our text today is "The night
was a cool bowl of lilac darkness"
from Look Homeward Angel
by
the American writer Thomas Wolfe
II.
The night was a lilac bowl of darkness
The dark was a sky of lilac coolness
The bowl was a darkened sky of lilacs
Lilacs bowed in the sky's cool darkness
III.
The sky was a liquid bowl of darkness
The dark was a sky of liquid lilac
The bowl was a lilac source of coolness
Lilacs genuflect in the darkness
83 words. This poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).
IN MY HOMETOWN
in my hometown pinhead Joe
plays mumbly-peg
alone with a sharpened spoon
in my hometown manila
is the flavor and cul de sac
is the address
in my hometown the Catholic girls
know all the words
to “Louie, Louie”
in my hometown the post office
serves Doritos
and lime beer
in my hometown yellow
Ford Falcons
people Old York Road
in my hometown all the crosses
on the mountain
are upside down
in my hometown the Thalidomide baby
just turned
sweet sixteen
82 words. This poem appears in Blasphemer (Lit Fest Press 2015).
BLACK SQUIRREL POEM
Without contrition, egregious black squirrels
inhabit upper Michigan and fracture the crystalline trees.
Without conscience, disorderly black squirrels
inhabit upper Michigan and scratch the ingenuous sky.
Without remorse, pedantic black squirrels
inhabit upper Michigan and spill the upper boulders in the sun.
Without shame, incendiary black squirrels
inhabit upper Michigan and append the tenebrous dusk.
Without thinking, outré black squirrels
inhabit upper Michigan and petrify the involute world.
Without regret, audacious black squirrels
inhabit upper Michigan and unionize the local rodents.
81 words. This poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).
NOT ENOUGH SIN TO GO AROUND
for Ray
Inevitability: it's what's for dinner.
Step lively through the arrogance
of landscape, step decisively across
the minefield of joy. Tread independently
the airport road. Treat your neurons
with respect. Do I have a second?
It takes only one grain of sand
to sabotage the aperture, to desolate
a lens. Place your glasses in a vial
of acid. The frames dissolve apace.
When information fails, there
is always information theory.
When the future falters, there
is always the redacted past.
79 words. This poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).
ANTHROPOMETAMORPHISM
I have known a head become
a callus, matriculate, stop
shaving, move to Vegas
I have known a mouth become
a gland, install a flange,
sail to the Western Isles
I have known a bicep become
a tear duct, argue its authority,
sabotage the badinage
I have known a skin tag become
a pustule, take up the flugelhorn,
extrapolate the Florentines
I have known a heart become
a kidney, vibrate, grow
wings, fly off into the piss
77 words. This poem appears in Blasphemer (Lit Fest Press 2015).
VILLON, STOP FOLLOWING ME AROUND
Villon, you've got to stop following me around!
It's enough already. I'm not going to tell you
where I've hidden the loot. Touchez pas au grisbi.
Villon, get the hell outta here!
My work is dangerous and you're an orphan.
Go back to the reformatory and paint with oil.
Villon, I'm not going to tell you again.
Shoo. Vamoose. Scram. Take a hike!
If I see you here again, I'll beat you like a dead horse.
30 words. The poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).
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