The Ferrari California parked outside The porn shop on Broadway Is red like the roof of my mouth Poked by the jagged corner of tortilla chip Red like the cartoon heart Glistening and throbbing To the techno bass beat Drop top drop panties drop acid Washed jeans in the parking lotHeat shimming over concreteRed like … Continue reading Cupid’s Outlet/Rainbow Video
We destroy ourselves as ants build a colony as birds build strong nests We enjoy ourselves as winter presses onward absurd awaiting We depress ourselves watching the clocks on the walls seeing not learningfrom the evergreensand the redwoods I’ve heard of and know still stand talland mystery itselfand her great three-lettered name as our books … Continue reading I Bet One of Us Is Manic
The day the fox staggered into the barn my father didn’t own a gun, his whole life, a pacifist, with no desire to harm, or hunt, or defend with force. At the time, I saw this as a failure of character, as a listless boat floating without hope of shore, hated his inability to kill, … Continue reading The Politics of Violence
It was an evening out of Goya – foreground disarray, distant hills, Coal tar sky, the whole thing soundproof and sullen as a grease trap. I can’t say if I imagined the needles snapped off in my wrist. Tomas slashed away with a dull switchblade like a schoolboy Made to do lines, then explored the … Continue reading Sonnet in Relief
To say I am sun obsessed and weary would be like saying I am a pharaoh who has crawled from the necropolis with a mouthful of hunger. I am the one who is afraid, biting the reins, crossing the desert before the wind takes my pale voices back to the womb. Say you cup your … Continue reading Queen of the Night (Night Blooming Cereus)
If you look closely, there in the narrows of Penn Station is a ghost whittling his tune in the gutter-water. He fiddles his song in the graffiti, if you stand long enough to listen, whistling along wires of yellow construction tape. In the silence of strangers trapped in separate oblivions, the ghost pauses and smiles, … Continue reading E Train (8 Avenue Local)
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The water tower dry, the name erased. The city: bisected, then again, then again. Pulsing lights. Chimney smoke. Rippling flags. There is order in death: a hall of power atop a mountain of stairs. Warping sirens. Garden beds. Sun-smeared glass. Decay has no allowance for chaos. Carbon: halved, then again, then again. All is putrefaction … Continue reading A Group of Vultures at Rest is Called a Committee
We expect her to be a diva or a monster, or merely fabulous; maybe she'll gyrate in the local co-op? But she’s normal and sad, it's said, of never being enough. When she turns up at the cricket club one Sunday, however, she’s eclipsed by rules even more never enough than her, a tea-time so … Continue reading Jennifer Lopez Moves to A Village in England
I went to Greenwood Cemetery with a bouquet of flowers The color of cheese and a jar of Maraschino cherries to suck and chew And spit among the many rows of unfamiliar names. This was February; the year was still in deliberations. I don’t suppose I’ll ever visit the graves of friends, refuse to See … Continue reading Sonnet at Greenwood Cemetery