poem: miss if

drumhum megarapidshare
we are in the fallen times
cherishing fixtures
regaling the puppyloves
sensing the long division
of vigorous anonymity
these were the wheres
when she gathered the rest
of you and by the Hoovers
and catalytics left you begging
for more. quickened, you
lacked plenty, lacked soul,
lacked the multigrain variety
of sensate virility: gather
gloom, you reminded,
seeming treasure,
refinancing yesterday's dreams:
Friday aftertimes,
all your little Dickinsons
tatty natting while
world and brother &
little Suzi all go to hell
why trill the blowzy news
when your banana mantras
hail the returns
I saw you in the midnight
I rang for the rest we'd
left in the wicked mire
I sang the reminders,
the severals
the red severance
down the mountain the rains
the stenographers of
grackle moons, rushing
the lithe, the pre-sorted,
the charisse'd calves
mesmerized by the dashboard
catch that little miss
if you can
if you dare
if you care
to last the rest of your daze:
triangular
occipital ziggurats
you know how to
& in the latter days
all
will
tell.

Saturday Tunes

Pure goofiness. Kirk Franklin sampling EWF and Patrice Rushen. Will Smith jumps in on the Rushen bandwagon. Playing for kicks.

EWF's original take:



Kirk ramps it up:



Patrice's offering:



Kirk kicks it:



Patrice ain't forgettin':




WS takes it astral:

Your Passion Play

[I saw "pork 'n bean promises." I took it from there. Ms. Stein in the house. Anything else probably ain't worth asking.]

"Had enough of your pork 'n bean promises. I visualize Andy and his hoard of plenty. I never figured you for decimation."

"I forge my way. The simplicities always seem to shipwreck the fallacies. I'm more a pigs in blanket man."

"More film school nonsense. I ride the covers, between ptera- and -dactyl."

"Iambic pentameter's more my style. I buried Berrigan and Notley, both in their shabby cardigans. Pretense and the loveliest of shams. I'm partial to corned beef filibuster, when I ain't livin' off the shells."

"I tend to cruise the beaches when that happens. My noli me tangere glistens under the soldered moons. I hesitate to mention - "

"Then don't. Do yourself the favor. Five clenched his teeth; trucking his bosom friends, tarrying by the water's edge. Hell of an edge it was."

"More simplification, sadhu. You might want to run off left tackle. Holes there Pavarotti could spin through."

"Nessun dorma."

"I never filch. I'm on Downcrust Avenue."

"Savor that."

"All my puddles in Osiris green."

"Veggie man, back from the heydays? He tip off JC on the back from the dead gig? Some kind of Martian flashdance?"

"You weighed your heart yet?"

"No point. Weighs a ton. Ammit would have my ass."

"Always wondered whose feather."

"One mightier than the other? I think not."

"Best to titrate it anyway."

"It?"

"Truth."

"Truth. Sheeit. Feed that to the crocs, Ray."

"It's a tender spot. Fanta feeds the soul. We regale it. I ain't seen hide nor hair of that action in a long time."

"Thrill me."

"May I present - "

"Bardo fools. Nothing more."

"You sure about the caress?"

"It simplifies things. Amplifies the sugar fields."

"The blackening night, cher. The blackening night."

poem: swarming belfast

call the lunatics
the immigrants
the ferrymen
the facile dead
littering the streets
called out to meet
the morning's elephant clouds
punctuation of the risen moons
calibrated by viviparous hands
the restless call, the restless sleep
gathering the ladies' vote
facile twists
the lines were drawn
the sands in blue filigree
monsters in the blue-eyed smiles
red the wire that saved
all down the avenues
white castle bliss
Sammy D's eventual disarray
claiming spring in summer in blue
fall respendent
axis reeling
savor the fever
indulge the yellow fields
cast fate, cast memory,
cast vulcan roar
the fires are lit
swarm swarming
Belfast Avenue
the dying die
memory-stained in the withers
casual mention, Isaiah's knuckle-scrape
blistered, the grass in the ribs
never 'scaped never
tangled down the reverent
the itinerant
the bubble-packed
the O housed
blue.

poem: macan tutul

(Yesterday's Gospel reading from Luke told of the ten lepers who approached Jesus on his way to Jerusalem. I heard "ten leopards" at first and knew it would have to be used somewhere.)

10 leopards
scything through the towns he'd
sent them to:
algebraic steel bristling
at the day's next
victim, wondering
through which door,
down which throat,
salvation waits.
the river towns were
riotous with their hunger:
a greed no night
could squander,
and he -
evercalling,
till one
might obey -
for whose slaughter
was he asking?
what thighbone
would complete
his sense of One,
the abacus
scratched across a lingering
fate.

poem: parlous

i cure the heights
i call the hearts
i mass the vacancies
the perilous depths
simon in his netherwhere
africa in her silence
you and your shores
you and your calling lies
no one knows
the stage
the voiceless rage
for you i call
crawl so low
the tired silence in
your heart's care
the silence of lies
we show the world.

poem: longing fire

sacrifice the crunchier:
the easier paths
lead home past
the aspidistras of longing
fire withers in the withering
night, life lives its
breezeways, its vagaries,
its anthems of the
gathering womb, i see
the angels of
san angelo, angelicas in their dark
angel hair,
foam on the ships
of plenty, i saw
the passing fanciers,
fancier digs,
the pies in the sky's eye,
the vestal blooms
blooming past fusion,
past fission,
past all the hollow tombs
she might have cried
she might have sung
she might have wrung
from your heart of
hearts, your last
gasping
dream
of the castaway night.

poem: robbers singing

riverside mooniacs
the blistering limestone fog
caramelized onions, dipping the
soul sisters of bangladesh
the dairy queens of
lactose intolerance,
intolerant fashion queens
frisky in their spunky tights
robin hood robbers
singing in the church
for four hours, it
was after that i
couldn't sleep, i couldn't
say what i was saying
mardi gras in
the infinite glory of
joan of arc
driving, driving the
polish divas
nouns and hours
in the nunsense
of the riverside,
the dairyside,
the everside
quarry.