"statues in the square, thanksgiving Night"

just as much object of granite
formless, Many received implied frays said
to impact on crucifix

found industry may be her.
apparently made once of the cots,
Persian, rug villains of the membrane
go by once more frigid
rolled over in the stenciled moonlight
surmise, formally Attica weeps
from her name terrible stars
over and long as the roofs tear off
and the sky of molten brass
Pan hides under the soil
plants amidst the roots, long as
fingernails tearing into earth

there were none toying,
weeps a motionless effigy formally
(were it to be a longer wager)
How for finite at all
in a lake amid the boats of tires,
and it was she
starts the rest was family
up on a tome,
only predictions
sharp thoughts they hadn't
truly fallen so far
to pierce the surface.

friday, may 21: Citation For employee misconduct

On prison:



boxes
,
our ship
torn, animal shelter's
-windows shattering

"that it would be easier,"
that silence leisure-
complacence, simplicity.

Shuddered at the thought of tranquility-
tomorrow our daydream

Sunday memory rendered.

Mousetrap would know;
he knew investigate, tiptoe near to
were twelve thousand miles testament to our efforts?
-our shattered necks

light renders in silent rays,
for vision's adherence-
surrender accompanied the keychain, a
grim look on the Warden

floors strewn with the letters
was to rebuild effort past
nor through footsteps of pounding through aircraft-
was the flight once complete.

ATV trails in the Woods

"Look", she says

eyes at the garbage-monolith
feet comb the tall grass


rain poised to attack
clouds over this imitation jungle


"the squirrels conspire," she warns

She's right

I hear them whisper in trees

acorn grenades in hand
attack from soda can tenements



to walk over logs
No, she climbs

tip-toe arms outstretched
crucified on the air



and the power lines overhead
tear through the woods for us watching
thread of the wasteland patchwork.

last hour, Thursday evening

...



S-
apart f
rom the porch lights of dreaming

who hadn't yet to show
jagged edge o
f horizon
so of moths followed


had looked t-them all far
not as far






Anticipation dodged to left-t
she is whispers:

painting mas-
cara across shirt

blind, impotent charcoal.

weeps into pillow eyes buried
lacri-




"woke when it was time"


..
--watching the pavement through

car window as

it is

-thrown at

us-ours

oh mischievous Dusk
oh every minute you thieve

hold out ours





Wait for me as running
not apart as far/

not with headlights to glare
you, third into dock
behind me and ahead

--invoke
Sun, escape from her hollow womb

to tear apart behind
& fled from tonight.

Wednesday

Here, the sun pushing artifice
she folds her hands of restless,
wind in falling eyes




"Watch," she says,
"There are dogfights about the lantern;
noble soldiers of the air"




All I can see are moths
in twilight's screaming symphony
pounding at the wall




Outside autumn peeks of tomorrow
to the lullaby of hammers
fleeing into concrete




outside, on the step
she scribbles on her arms
quickly, before there is anything to forget.

player Four times, on Repeat

Here are these shapes the sky is folding
of the books pressed into your eyes


Here we are in
tired intrude to come

rest your head to lights

glow of the channel murmur

in heels of tiles of snow

tired acknowledge in passing hail
in dull lectures of shadows on wall
to rest head to windowsill




dusk to tire of tomorrow

still wield it high above your head
of their hallowed shouts

out of the overdone
through fog of her sonnet lost




Her door slumbered ajar
constable throwing traffic of light

he is the solitary player
screaming at empty theater
to applause of silence;
and he slips from chimera

to become the drunk man
screaming outside my window.

beneath Lawrinson tower, 9:02 AM

-watching the tundra of concrete

slept to the rain of dusk, now
it bathes the vacant obelisk.




One girl emerges

she lifts her umbrella of sun
erased stray marks of the clouds

shuffling across the sunken pavement
healed in her wake





the sun lies in the slum of horizon,
hiding in frigid blanket.

drawing Finches in the park

Mice pulverizing usurpers
was a swan brightens the insides

friends up awoke things


held shaped with those who had
and had my bread taken by rowdy Aztec kings


I scraped four hours of them shouting
sustenance, swung below and stole her
told would Sunday it to hours




into into of flat, a lake fixed


god its have Ballet, labrador ears come up parted,
god its burning stereo read and god where smithereens,



Its morning let feathers fall



Within was me making for its night
freight train of broken wings fluttered outwards




my flat and point its conductor
smashed to it confines until;


back crumbs without on the North End bus
pecked its system, Saturday misfortune

all sights, again
sprouting incandescent in silhouette of sun
smiling at the pyramid eyes



Then it it and its shabby talons



wounded to ringing still
but shifted to manage
Its rewired shouted drowning
at the smallest of everything

the furious Disassembly of a Thermostat

The furious disassembly of a thermostat never spoke to me of artistic merit, only the failures of a thermostat, though I would later mount its parts on canvas. Circumstance had led us to little more than confusion. Everything that had been left unspoken we found in a bundle on the stoop, perfectly explicit.

The weeks passed by quickly. Those who I'd been accustomed to had already left for winter. The walls were repainted a cold blue and stripped of decor.

There were dozens of metal pieces on the thermostat that appeared to have not any purpose. I tore it apart. A ball bearing slipped and traced the creases of my clothes to the ground. I heard it click on the debris, it slipped into the river of floorboards. The twisted strands of metal spelled out letters of contempt.

I have built this home of tall grass so that I may stand above the deserts. I have hidden my children in the walls for safety.

The snow cautiously infiltrates as we sleep. I hear the wind whistling through the cracks in the windows. I stand and the blankets fall softly on her. I have found a violin in the cellar, I say, so I will write you the works of Van Gogh. A brilliant undertaking, they will say. I never had aspired to anything more. On her bed of willow she lies, the curtains hang in leaves.

I sit with my head to the window. There is a glimmer of light off the porch. The gears have their pilgrimage through ether.

The Billboards, like Giants, are Illuminated

There is a whole new variety of Calliopean tofu in the supermarket. It is still tofu, however, and I refuse to consider it any different. Vegetarianism is no incentive to enjoy tofu. I wander over to the section containing fruits. This week they have pomegranates, but they are oh a whopping two and a half dollars each but I never can finish them and winter has dragged on far too long already. I will reconsider buying these pomegranates. I am mildly annoyed by the TV overhead shouting recipes at me. Oranges, tangerines, clementines, they are all orange so what is the matter if I am to choose one over the other? Instead I will buy kiwis and truly nobody will be content.

People are not so much content to fill billboards with nonsense as they are to fill them with advertisements. I notice this over the course of fifteen thousand billboards between me and Long Island. The only people on the road at 3 AM are either truck drivers, insane or drunk. I am none of these, however, which makes me a deity. The highway is composed entirely of wool to be sewn. I have a better idea: I will suggest to you a list of States to speak the names of and you will speak the names of those states. This game is boring.

She moves her head around when she is excited like she is eating off of the floor. This is somehow endearing. More on this topic later.

Now. We are told not to eat off of the floor. There are bugs. Indeed there are bugs, but are we to question the benevolence of the bugs? Truly they themselves might be offended by our reluctance. Instead we will clean the floor carefully before eating off of it. Are we truly to find so much beauty in things only from idiosyncrasy? Is that in itself beautiful? Aberration? Is a house filled with exotic animals truly more welcoming? Nonetheless, she is full of raccoons and so I will cherish her. Maybe I'll marry her someday.

She tells me that we are not to swim at this beach because the water is full of bacteria and people have become sick by swimming in it. The beach is connected to the harbor. The harbor is connected to the ocean. Water flows freely. Something to do with local rainfall. There are too many factors that I don't really understand. There is another car in the parking lot for the beach full of high schoolers smoking pot. We wander over to the shack and pound on the door until an alarm is set off and then leave the other kids to take responsibility. I offer to play some music but I forgot that I have filled all my CDs with static. An unfortunate mistake. I rest my head in her breast and sleep for several days. There are centuries full of things yet unseen. I will paint for you every tragedy of the future and you can have them but you can't show them to anyone.

Please follow the instructions on the cabin door:
1) The highway is composed of wool. This is a truism.
2) Everybody will disapprove of your work because it is esoteric. This is also a truism.
3) It will be decades before your work is appreciated.
4) Snow is actually made of cotton and it melts because it is so small.
5) Contradiction is actually truth.
6) People hate your work because it sucks.

I am having some trouble following them but am quite reluctant to ask for assistance. Am I to question the integrity of the instructions themselves?

I am going to write you a letter, God. Dear God, if you're so tough, why don't you own up to your actions? I think I discover some universal truth about cigarettes that will allow me to quit but that truth is only useful if I have the strength to apply it but what use is the truth if I have the strength anyway, and is the truth even true if it doesn't stop me from smoking? I haven't had a cigarette all day. I get to Melissa at five in the morning and we walk to some Long Island diner in the freezing cold. She orders a coffee and I order a toasted bagel with no toppings. I regret this decision immediately upon receiving the bagel because I have not slept and have been staying awake on caffeinated gum and my stomach is in knots either from this or Melissa. There's only one other group of people in the diner and for some reason they've decided to sit at the next table over. As retribution, we will loudly ridicule their conversation. What use is writing songs if you use the same melody? What use is sitting at the same table week after week, ordering the same shrimp casserole?

The sun rises over the sound and the billboards like giants are illuminated. I have discovered anxiety even in static and empty roads. I cannot adequately put this into words but try anyway. I have discovered the sun atop her stomach and my head basks in the light. Her guitar sings of bicycle shops and sunlit taverns and I rest on her pillows dimly listening.

Odysseus

Muse, you walker so languid;
daughter row whiteness of the storming machine
&snow look at beauty it sees
with golden sun had no worships we be



go by frantic; wise if they ran to me
spectate her lingering echo



moon is crossing its eyes
thrown your splintered shins to the water
& and the locket up aether you waved through your hands
he stuffed in his pocket





radiators spout illumination lapsed in recycle bin
windmills windmills windmills windmills

and he sits on the ledges of of pyramids
watching her paint Congressmen on the frogs
only to hurl them at the lake

remitted was the end of everything
shot Christmas lights from the television'd door

For Several Decades, Although-

she is carving mice into mountains of paper
and there are holes in the drawers into
which you will bury the sun

she sends letters upstairs each Wednesday
a short walk to the park, followed
the sundials of sidewalks your feet
tap on the cobblestone
fled on the branches each as daybreak
ducked behind the trees

ate bread cross-legged on the floor
sang to me each limpid intimation
I laid on my back with the wind from the harbor
piercing into the creases
sewing together the walls in piano strings
rang still, wintered through this broken chord



she is carving mice into the sun
there in the ocean are their tired silhouettes
there in water's blanket-folds
I have shoveled the weariest tunnels

Vladimir

Noon broke through the windows of the cafe.
the orphans gathered outside the hotel
laughing and hubcaps tore down the street

The violinist serenades the passersby,
the drunks have gathered to gamble on the traffic
while the alleys spill out into bicycle chains
scratching the doors at news of summer's death

Twice today Vladimir shouts his poems at the corner
there is an assembly of junkyard dogs to heed the words
scanning the meter with scissors and sculpting vultures of the cars

scarcely have the newspapers fallen out of the truck when they have trampled them to pave the street

Twice today Vladimir shouts his poems at the corner
there are ships colliding in his eyes
we have hardly reassembled his arms but how fiercely he waves them about

Sunday I heard her laughing
carried our hands to the fire escape, shouted
"Vladimir, boy, you are always sinning
what jokes you've carved of the tenaments
for you we paint our doors with your blood"

Vladimir wanders through the lane
builds chapels of the pebbles, crafts the steeple out of wolves

On dress rehearsals and the death of American-made instruments

1) accelerando

halcyon microscope jumbled up stages
"the actress moon falls to the earth in dinner plates," esteemed yesterday ponders
repeating the letter 't' twenty-seven times
exactly
and tomorrow watches casinos sprout from our mouths

I pressed the button seventeen times before
realizing the elevator was a revolving door
I trusted that pillows have safely arrived
and slept on my hands in the alley

I have sang- 1,2,3, is he still listened for?
I have sang also 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, there are
aforementioned notes shatter of our eyes
rogue of the parlor removed all the clocks
choreographer lit up
as the balls of your feet pound the floor
your father stares at his watch
rang tolls of last solstice,
cars tore from the empty parking lot

2) diminuendo

alight in shards of brass
the moon is reflected and ignites the trees