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Ramparts of Sound

There is no further trace of the painter and wall this house out of heathen legend. Her feet in our boat. In a green meadow I saw madness. Were singing. There is a word which means dark or blue or the black stream. Having spent years there darkening mountains—sea-caved and frayed. Walk before me still…

The Bistro

Chitchat—an amalgamated moan. Pisswarm Zywiec at a table of crumbs. Beneath the pine-white floor pertains To the barman flipping cassettes. Real worms articulate our options Through darkly blistering earth— From bones in soil most at home The mole builds his swimming pool. Nearby, the guns of the alliance heat up, Snag and burn on the…

Plan B

to turn on the radio to rearrange the scenery to gnaw on the end of the alphabet is to soften it I could swallow its enzymes when I’m silent I could hammer through the windshield and crawl onto the hood where it is warm I’ve done it before to dismantle the snowman he is melting…

Last Song

You sang to me throughout the winter the same desultory song. Each flake of snow, each pellet of ice fell like music to the frozen ground. I lived on crackers in a cardboard house. Got down on my knees and sang to the dirt, “Go ahead, my dear. Eat all his fruit this year. Each…

Ornithology

:    One might study ornithology & the bird elude him. :    The bird & the study of birds are ordinary things. :    The ordinary’s most beautiful: how earth endures itself      in building’s brittle sunlight, gecko’s scuttle under aloe,      these shadows puddled in mortar & bark & the wind      milled blue through palms….

[I Took a Picture]

“I thought a bench was a simple possibility: one could sit on it.” —Rosmarie Waldrop I took a picture of the bench from behind because I wanted to show the vantage rather than what was seen from it—in this case, a stand of trees angling outward, away from the bench, over the river. Although I…

Burnens (ii)

Never a question of staying, the end never named. His words move my hand, he speaks then listens, the lid pried free, the brood-hum now open to the sky. They have a very nice sense of proportion & the space required for the movement of bodies. My ruler measures the gap, I count each worker…

Sweetheart

Beautiful cars Slant away in the dusk You can drive through Honeymoon orchards Where time is one foot above the ground With kiss Or pause for night’s cold career To be alone The crickets Do not think with me of your daughter There She bathes and I sulk In the dirty water left behind Since…