sand monster

ground away glass, a little
danger, a little bit, noted and hidden
safely tucked. I bought the wrong
kind of bag, a weak kind of bag.

Some one punched me, and I with a weak bag in my hands
held up like a shield, cowed by a breeze

shards of rocks past, secret fungal city
a little bit, a little danger, noted, hidden
away I went, and back, unaccomplished as ever

My nose hurts because I think someone punched me
ground away, a little, glass just a little
I think someone threw a glass of juice at me
not even liquor not even anything
but just juice, it hit me, i think, the glass

ground up away, a little glass
my nose, the wrong kind of bag
I want a window, to welcome, to see

Home

couch around alone, and around around
spin on wine-stained axis, myself a pivot, super-strong

I have a mirror so high it shows the top of my head, and love is about
not changing that, or wanting to

so high the couch now, reaching to the mirror, afloat above the table,
chairs, somehow, absent, zippy little things

this is what it means to be one person in a big room
one person in the big room, to let go of the others

BC

Dear B. I miss your musty
leather-bound, books and basement
Grandpa wood, your generalized knowledge,
car and tennis court your creek.

I’ve been thinking about homes and hovels, holing up

How do I say “radical kindness” and actually mean something?
Dear B., I think your politics are naive but I
love your figurines, and clocks, your walnut bowl.

Chaos

Dead already
full moon Tuesday won't change won't help
it's Monday we'll forget
his chest expanding into chaos
his death, chaos, for me, for July
on Tuesday I'd like to go swimming
to remember past Monday, to Tuesday, and stop

it was a lonely thing
for me, for everyone who talks to me
now it's been so long, embarrassingly long
I barely knew him, a cautionary life
his structure already re-aligned, I have yet
to face horrors, though i fear forgetting
to swim, becoming too shy to plan to swim
I don't fear I'll face chaos on Tuesday
or on Monday, or after Tuesday or soon.

When it happens, the bad bad day, I'll forget him
he's already dead, a bookmark holding the bad day's place
training me, forcing me to love wrongly, to fear not.
On Tuesday, on the full moon, open-mouthed, warm
looking at my imagined parallel, oppressively relating
waiting for thunder, on Tuesday, the full moon
and Wednesday is the Fourth of July.

Emma, remember Rocks and Trees?

It will be too dangerous to swim on Tuesday
I was never a girl-scout, I think that's why
I tried, and forgot, and failed, and still have not seen chaos
have not been refreshed

coffee table book

a nude woman's face

also nude

nude faces

air on them

faces

them faces noodly

non-committal

I think I've had no drama,

boys under

a string of edison bulbs, all night

dancing, noodly

in brooklyn, the past, the summer

nude airy faces

wind-touched,

edison bulbs

outside, at night, a string

women, the past

no drama boys, four tearless ears

peerless years

brooklyn, bulbs

non-committal, summer

years

women, nude.

Giving Up

sleep too long to ever not again
old age red sauce, arm in a sleeve
arm in a sleeve

blueberry binge, sonnet tank head
inevitable enemy, foot in a shoe
foot in a shoe

"Do you remember Peggy?"

Maybe if I saw her (sock grows long,
sock grows long.)

No need to pull up
or adjust, to powder or
protect

arm in a arm in a arm in a shoe shoe shoe shoe shoe

New York Desert Narrative

link

no

sand stretch, desert deep

bridge

no

how did i get here if...

road

no

who do i know

no

who is not looking

to comedy

for help

one last noble thing

no

Not a librarian. I am not a gardener.

Bleecker Bob's is closing. Nothing connects.

Dump

There is already an acre of everything

the form of the thing is begin again, but why?

Take instead what's there: plastic, boot, floorboard

that instead of everything, of the form of the thing is

begin again

I'm so exhausted by my shoes; an acre of shoes

a new thing to exhaust the acre

depletion through more, more

I work in a school about things

this school is about things, they said

do you want to work here?

The form of the thing is over and over

plastic, boot, floorboard

I'm 27 now, an acre of things, do you want to work?

Yes I said, but I'm not doing it right

what's there (plastic)

What's THERE, plastic?

Difficult Pudding

Richard said Bernadette let herself go

o parody of parodies; Bernadette let herself go on and on into heaven of words

Richard did not, could not, and sees only a woman in Bernadette.

How awful insult, to insult him saying how he sees her and her by him in seeing thus, ugh.

Bernadette was so hungry, and I ate a pile of chicken fingers just now, with red wine, and cried.

It's too warm to have anything to look forward to and anywhere I go could be my NORC.

Lurking NORC, waiting to transform me, and I you

slowly. Slowly moving from chair to bed, chair to bed. I want my NORC here, I am ready.

I am not ready. If I jump over the fence, just turn around. Turn around,

wire craftsman, old butcher, car mechanic, love. Rheingold Gardens, hid your face.

Give me a beer; wrinkles are the manifestation of pore loneliness, and the end of it.

I can't believe Richard said that about Bernadette, and that my mother still says "That's hard for men"

And still apologizes, having said so. I can't believe

There are no more geodes in the house and no paperweights.

Heavy health, who will tell me when I'm unwanted?

Blood Organ Poem

chair arrangement montage; the places we have sat together and/or should have.

chairs shyly touching in eyebrow lift glare

chairs angled upwards in acrobatic retirement

chairs challenge chairs with vinyl rage

chairs in a somber row.

I chair up to you to show you where I would have been in other chair arrangements where you might have been

alone

In this bend I am, unnatural pose

so lift me

place me

hours before

in every chair

that's ever been

empty beside you.

The House Carpenter

No cadence found at women's singing club

for me, no way to make my sentence song

I've lost my lilt I'm down in tuneless talk;

the women drop their bows with doleful eyes

They rise and trail their skirts along the tiles

though when they sat their legs were smooth and bare

Shirley Collins weeps and Dolly too

to see my urge to merely sit and speak

apologies to all around the room

to all to whom I no longer belong

Ursula K. Love

70,000 women

defiantly reading science fiction

circle seated

a grey old day

few trucks passing

unlearned tears one

by one

wet frustrated furrows

hot from resistance

Lord let me not do

as I was raised to do

Canticle

Slow steps quickened by radio hiss
Wanda
Wanda is singing and friendly on Fridays
Hums that swell past the bathroom threshold.

Wanda.
Wanda returns and returns again.
Once we both had carts,
hard protrusions in stacks of space -
I laughed/she didn't laugh.

Wanda was singing, was friendly
was a little blind, maybe
cross-eyed.

In the bathroom, ashamed
I hide from her,
from Wanda
Shed head after head of hair
sighing garlic in the echoes

Wanda sings in tongues, maybe
her body made of powder.

Family Friends, Long Since Legends

Lacey you were like me weren't you?

growth of drone in absent assent

Lacey didn't we understand each other?

hiss of ill used air; unused voice

I jumped from a golf course into the sea

both were decreased, weedy

Lacey in Jersey City, Lacey and her parents

aimless type-tap, proper drift

Brain Fog

It used to be numbers;

God abstraction particles up and down worm-tunnel cracks

cracks and closes and fog descends

numbers, sightless, crash, crumple, are useless

What are you trying to say? to say? to WHAT? is WHAT are you talking about you universe talker you false throat you wrongly-born too late, too late

too late to live where I would not have been allowed were I on time

to live leather-bound life-mind in circles, in halls

It used to be words reprinted behind my eyes

the memory of everything, all the time

wares on wears one

hayr lyfe

The problem with life is this endless cycle of hair.

Unable to catch up, unable to forge an identity without/unable to find renewal with

My inner monologue is off-brand rumpelstiltskin dead-cell tyranny all the time -

and song, but that's a secret.

My inner monologue is unknowable angles and blade-mistakes, is almost someone else

Victorian Ornery

Amber spider chunk of black bordered mermaid breakdown

I hid my honey in a cabinet, where all was glass and hiding hair.

I felt curiously I felt

bad

about that.

Amber brain and post card too

I glued a fin to my heart head I held a human skin

I gave him a skeleton key and it worked

everywhere

everywhere.

nap

from deep in floor
hi hello, my knees hurt
climbed up through salvaged this and that
pillow-y and easy
and peaceful

The Lais of Marie de France

Marie waiting for responsibilities

springing to verse like a carnival game.

Guigemar left the court

an old lady left the court

a cat left the court

Marie left the court

Thomas left the court

My old professor left the court

Mom left the court

Aunt Francie left the court

Anna, my dog, my dead dog, left the court.

Marie mentioned rich gifts and we didn't know

if it was tradition or plot

you leave rich gifts, Guigemar leaves rich gifts,

leaves the court with rich gifts,

there is no leaving without dispensing,

there are no rich gifts without Marie

We don't know what we are supposed to do

Mom went to Flanders to seek her fame

Guigemar was badly wounded,

Guigemar gave not a thought to love

Aunt Francie went to Flanders to seek her fame

my old professor went to Flanders to seek her fame

And out of love for her you'll suffer as much

may you never get neither herb nor root, herb nor root

nor herb nor root, only a woman can heal you

Anna, my dog, my dead dog, went to Flanders to seek her fame.

Thomas found his fame, not in Flanders, he found it though.

Marie gets frustrated with me

an old lady cocks a knowing noggin

Anna, my dog, my dead dog, my dead dead dog, suffered for her

her vassals full of curses

his wound hurt, he looked out to sea.

Guigemar's wound hurt

Who

wait

who is Guigemar?

I went to Flanders, failing, failing.

Distancing

No heartsick I
without a wall to hide me.
For clarity, he waved pizza-ways
saying see?
And pleading and I saw.

No heart, my dove,
no sad sick I nor heartsick
shall
without a wall to hide me.

No gut glue, love
nor scabless scrape
without an arm of wood.

For clarity he waves
to tv screens, and tv screens,
ephemera, ephemer-ha,
and pleading so and saying see?
And pleading too I saw.

In turn I speak and croak and bleat
The sacred tongue of crap.