sailor Yank (2001)

travesty

be the travesty still embryonic
it's with canine fangs
and with the superiority of a camel
it stalks the daily battlefield of survival
by making the land hilly and hillier,
milking the cash cow,
bragging of petulance,
and as a final exercise in insult,
teaching the hyenas bel canto.
but there's a subtle limit to our zest
despite the generous measures of excommunication
we are first appointed then disappointed
the dogwood rots, the catwalk warps,
the protective drink crusts up
the spirit sinks, goes spelunking almost
and this our spartan pantomine of life falls inertly
a victim of one of the painted cloudtraps


fourth season / fifth season 

brown leaves rot in the shallow pond
you can say that again
i must maintain a self-conscious moral rectitude
you can say that again
to keep abreast of my ignorance

of what disposition?
of what elemental resilience?
in vain you poach your emotions

the season's bleak
the light's tainted, the air light
no catalytic starlings hover
over the pond, over the mud,
over the land over

and what's you gonna do?
plagiarize? pursue
remote demarkation lines?
you would, wouldn't you?
but the phonetic vigil just won't do

you need a crowbar, you need to pogo
you need stunts, stamina, nail polish and neon lycra underpants
to overcome this platinum dear paradise
so i get giddy,
so i go skippin' into the sunrise


almost exactly

wind blows the trash
dust blows the wind
the days are steeped in petit crime, drug craze and lust
and turpitude is the mid-wife of action

it's the case of
the treason of
reason

profoundly disturbing
someone has left the telephone in your heart
off the hook
you know the sign:
very deep water, not even for swimmers!

having prematurely and collectively lost utopia
we dream in broken lines
we walk carefully (through this summer of life)
                         in case there is ice on the ground
and buy sg new in case we have any money
and burn with a fever of 90 fahrenheit

the news is uninteresting and informative
can you ask for more?
almost 412
and we dance-massage our water-injuries

whoever you might overhear
chances are they are talking about a soap opera
tomorrow and tom

you can get in one sentence from privacy to piracy and back
almost exactly 412
tactile and reluctant pleasure
the moral orphans that we are

i, too, solidly believe in the future of spurious uprightness


self-portrait at 30

i never gave up the pubescent habit of squeezing blackheads
and i love to sit aimlessly in the pools of thermal baths
my skin is my lung, my ear and my liver 

the street i walk is Hardly street
no one can much call it deceit
poems are only my way of marking time

"constitutionally lazy" and "symmetrically drunk"
i can only read, eat, or write if i'm lying in a bed
"i guess it's hard for a fella not to have faults creep into his character"

i readily accept any irresponsibility
but still forsake the velvet straps of commitment
poems are my only way of marking time

and neither is this meant to be a caricature
it's a real strain these days to keep a body immature


still in flux

dressed as water
he did just the opposite of hunting camels
the odds are evening out
behind the blue shades
there's an aviary of thoughts
in case you can't quite identify that vague
and vacant efficiency
when fruitflies hover around your eyes, around your mouth
and the inevitable annual breakthrough
like sg coauthored by s. king and h. kissinger

i don't really know but i've been told
and you'd be surprised
the association of roller-coaster brakemen and the voluntary homeless
this is what's going to keep us young
creative orphaning / come smell my heliotrope
i've half a mind to it to
disobey the swimming directions


moral pool

me, we must needs, and record these deeds
don't know what it was or what it were
sg in the air, coffee for breakfast, or my hangover
but april 7's gonna be a day to remember

soaking my soul i sat in a pool
a plaything to visions and an utter fool

for in a cruel backlash of a flashback
i could but watch with consternation
my mind creep off in sure gradations
and as my consciousness did peter
i could think but in rhyme and meter

my obsessions i could not quench
at my toes i had to clench
every woman seemed a wench
was it perfume, was it stench?

i smelt the pool's chlorine and nitrate
and thought this sure was not the right rate
to pay for a night so modestly spent
but logic came and jumped and went

i could have sworn it was hydrophobia
it was such a mental cornucopia
it was so subtle, mild and intense
and completely lacking in sense

i poked and pulled and pried and pushed
in vain to get these furies flushed
from my weary eyes, to get a respite
the light stayed hairy for all the despite

so if you need a handy moral
most things are best when they are oral


outskirts 

on the outskirts of the town
there is no grand design
no theory or thing reigns supreme
the colors don't match
the dogs are shabby-looking
and a fence leans its slow leap
sure to end in a fall somewhere down the years

the vertical is only occasional and incidental here
abandoned railway station
dangling fire-escapes
this wasteland is our only hope


in search of an ode

oh compound adjectives
so laminated and oftentimes synoptic
fly me over a precipice, over a promontory
be my succubi
mercenary and incendiary
agitate
this stunted ballad and parade
or be fragile
like the snow rose, the glass panther
and foul and exuberantly dire
poppyseed fish and rhubarb stalk on fire
bust up the sickly reason
that like a winged goat
with baboon conscience bleat and bloat
whip up my aversion
tenfold
let me detest, let me abhor
but most of all
be peculiarly purposeful
a sparrow-camel in heat
with piezo-electric feat

else i shall abandon your extravagant burden
and lacrimose commiserate


questions

are you my kind of girl?
do you believe?
in god, free market, or in the state?
in astrology and fate?
do you draw?
do you play an instrument?
do you drink and dance?
by any chance?
do you smoke pot?
do you sleep late?
do you procrastinate?
do you cook?
do you keep a house clean?
do you keep a pocketbook?
do you flirt?
do you wear a mini skirt?
are you my kind of girl, lass?


it leaketh

why is i drunk
and on what
the world it leaketh
much
i drinks, for
sure i drinks
have you a problem with it

some say
the word will end in fire
some say
win some, lose some,
choke on your own vomit;
it's all a game to me


on philosophy

     are you
     i am
     an an-
     ti -
     wittgen-
     stei-
     n


random thoughts

well past the gates of letoonia
the night's heavy
with the smell of bougainvillie
with the smell
of oleander

they kiss kids on the mouth 
here
and their slow sounds
all the time sound nearer and further

dogs are like cats here
lean hounds - they sleep all day
from the pillowed room
my morning looks out on a quiet bay

who is who
feasting, fattening on rose petals
seven goats?
these were/are my random thoughts


cloudtrap for a cloudless sky

the wind is not right today
so horribly refined
i've been eating all my life
good clean fun
they show signs of native pessimism
fondling the private parts of farm animals
bad hair day
impersonal is the word
sore holes
licence and lice
the fake sea-sound of a pool's water-cleaning system
it's not half so bad if you don't go blind
lone traveller, silent comer
the plain sense of things
reading pornography in old age
if you can help it
anarchy on holiday
oh you are more advenced in your incompetence
a bad poet is a poem by itself
summer flies buzz with boredom
for once, then, something
the day passes out
for here or to go
for all we know
the cigarette burns fast
my nails are growing long and strong
desirous thoughts malinger
i swear i didn't do it
oh rare upholder of civility,
let us hear you speak again!

there is sg in an ant that wants to be killed


the right word

mujer,
it feels like good earth
solid, heavy and arable
the fertile female principle

mujer, 
it tastes like a palatable nourishment
sg to sink your teeth into
sg to lick, fingers or lips

mujer,
it smells like hay
like rain, like lust
love spent in a cow barn

mujer,
the word is slow, soft and lush
it is warm, deep and slimy
like the inside of a vagina

mujer,
the sensation,
the word is right


undone

"one more victory like that and we are undone"
for good
and in broad daylight
and what is you?
living on 
a staple of salt and cement
and the worsening situation
"my wife
Thinks I'm in Oslo - Oslo, France, that is."

- mind you, ...
- mind your head!
- mind your own business!
- i'd rather convalesce ...
- that too,
  you would, wouldn't you?
our fabric seems strongest at the seam
and even there
a little snake-infested, a little bruised fish

are we but
offish scions of an aloof history?
are we chewing the cud
of this aloof history?
are these but questions of dust and cheap jewelry?

book of numbers, book of worms
go on counting your insane
born geography geniuses
stuck in paradise hospital
permutated by a sense of evolution
conserving a magnitude of uselessness

the panoramic hatred
and dangerously inessential
is it 'i did it' or 'idiot'?
of all things also thieves
not cunning, chronic or classic
just thick

as blessed with a natural lack of curiosity
we prefer its own ways
and only like to work in imperceptible shifts
there are always basement bargains waiting
'two for one' specials
'nothing more to buy'
'ever'
but mostly we look for things to do in the dark


confessions, I

madam, i'm mad ...
i'd rather say malodorous.

madam, i'm anorexiac ...
oh, spare me your indecencies!

madam, it's a matter of tambien and depuis ...
don't try to be so dissimilar young man!

madam, i tell you, it's mandatory ...
aren't you a bit overinterested?

madam, die rose!  la luna!  l'amour!
hubcap, 
       and if you don't take your hands off my boobs
       i'll kick you in the balls too!


aubade

the lagoon
blue as at knifepoint
under the music of spheres of stars
thick with their thinness
dense with sin
sick with dancing-sickness
the inside of your thighs
excite me
the patient drain
the parley

in the storm of the still waves of medieval
the air sticks to the tongue
has the flavor of sloe
words struggle, wash against the soul,
soak, soften its scabs
while the wind, a weightless floe
full of glissando
drags dreams and sleep over our heads
feel the pull of their cerulean dungeon!
their not-untoward galactic undertow

mooring under the growing moon
the eyes shift
sg caresses
arpeggio of roving fingers
like a brook smoothing a stone
or the aquatic mingling of shiny, slippery fish
image is thirst
thirst to play unknown standards
and then
the broadening of the horizon


moiety: the third of it:

northern tendencies
toward the unemotional and the indelicate
southern predilactions
for idle and momentous times
uncle statue, brother siesta
a kind of a sort of a type

dienfranchised in conceit
misguided in grappling
amoral in linseed oil
a strict and orthodox neo-seldom
one part gringo on part gentil

basking in the stunning colors of satiety
and marked by graffiti tattooes
the body electric
oppositely charged

with low-fidelity absolutes
a unique combination of locusts and ants
one who carefully overspends

whether the disowner of ideas
or the dethroner of consolation prices

it's always the missing half we seem to possess


petit tribute

a poem's not a window
     but 2, or 3, or 5,
a poem's not a fox-trott,
     or an airport, or a wife.

a poem is a coffee-maker
     and the shingles on a house,
it's a horse race and the accounting
     of sandfleas on a mouse.

a poem's not a BBQ
     and it's a BBQ as well,
it could be a glove-compartment,
     Marylin's dream or a bell.

a poem is what you want it to be
     sometimes entirely different,
when you want it straight and shallow
     it comes out perfect and crooked.


a state of affairs report

poetry, an empty science
snakeskin drying up under the sun
     of welfare and commerce
a chunk of shiny dark obsidian in a time of lighters, cell phones, swiss knives and
     walkmans
with great days behind you
now you have to compete with billboard hits, video games, video clips,
     pornography and drugs
"is it the same league?"
you cough your consumptive question from the darkness of yesterday's high
     modernism
but there's only the noise of traffic for an answer
and the dialing tone of modems
     eager for hexadecimals instead of hexameters
so you bend to the toil
look for caves, for folds, look for
     the drying mud of stale brains in which
to weather


content

the long oh so limbs
adagio in nivea
or modest in proportion

letting the hours pass
watching the sweat of blood trickle
birds of heat

manifold pergola
green aquarium
indirect non-pursuit

covered in fine ash
the road running away from you,
from under you

the long limbs oh so
fond of fondling
washed in ethno-froth

a little tired, a little sick
i take pleasure in the weakness of the body


placebo test

excellent standards
i am trying to decide between outwit and aquaduct
all festooned with the zodiacs
don't balmy me

actions wrapped & drenched in condolences
magic water
miracle can-opener
amorph cogwheels enliven the grind

and the precise little mechanical triumphs
bacon-like savory
and iconoclastically acoustic
links in a second-hand transaction

living on the border of the triple
emotions of surprise, happiness and violence
dear hypocrite reader
i is more like you

and we can always do the old test
and get the old results
that placeboes work, a bit

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page