Anger Gobs

I pulled them out of me by the fistful
And flew them to the pavement they asthmatic
Fell gelatinous and my body was sour grapes
Lifting my breathing becoming difficult and
All the sweaty exhales. I say whoosh whoosh
Whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh and
How much I’ve come to resent my own whistling
The muscle boney glob
My stares are out into
The spaces of blackness there’s particles
And tiny dustclods out my lungs
The fever around my temple biological
And boiling the way you boil hoppity hoppity hoppity
Boiling, the way the frog melts with every degree
Centigrade into a prince.

Orpheus Thinks To Himself

How gorgeous she is; her steps avid flirtations
Her hair a dance the way they’d call it lovingly
When lovingly was said before. He’s seen her before
Her ankles giving slender vibrations with
Every skip, down through the corridors,
Past the pale walls and ’round the corners
He smells her giggles as they were perfume
Her shadow reverberating off the stone
A singsongy echo he knows as she
Disappears lovingly to the bedchambers of Apollo.

My New Glasses

Are running away from
My new face.

Your Dark Dimples

Are like little lanterns in the
Moonlight, glimmering. The outline of your face an
Iridescent blinking. I clutch the wheel,
Our fingers locked, this morning’s recollection a reflection in the mirrors as we pass.
The flickers pass, the dark streets outside the
Window sounds of airplanes, your voice exclaims excited, the
Hot air the glass is rolled down I change
The music drowns the outside from the inside the sheets
My fingers locked inside of yours I bite my lip exhale slowly and
Push the accelerator to the floor and listen to the purr.

13 Coils to Tie a Hangman’s Noose

I

Among the murder of blackbirds,

The only familiar thing

Was the swinging of a noose.

II

1,000 people saw one noose.

1,000 people saw 1,000 different nooses.

III

A man and a woman are one.

A man and a woman and a

Queer and a pauper and a

Vagrant and a minority are one,

Through the eye of a noose.

IV

I thought myself a blackbird once,

Until a noose reinforced

My brown.

V

I do not know which to prefer,

The beauty of ignorance

Or the beauty of privilege,

The noose hung in jest

Or just hung.

VI

A blackbird tells a joke.

The punch line consists of the two worst words

In American English.  The punch line is “black woman.”

The laughter is as probable as a noose.

VII

In the fray of it all, the difference is grammatical:

Only a noose is hung.

Everything else is hanged.

VIII

The good cowboy shoots the noose.

The ugly cowboy falls, freed.

The good cowboy takes the ugly cowboy back to town.

The town puts the ugly cowboy in a noose again.

IX

Paul sings of blackbirds.

Wallace writes of blackbirds.

Lady was black, and so was Bird.

And Lady sings of nooses.

X

From the safety of a net post

Or a fence post

The blackbird says all nooses are a hoax.

XI

Their tears were diverse as their rose petals,

Marching,

Their unity indispensable,

Like the coils of a noose.

XII

In the time of caps and gowns

My degree on the ground,

I shall tie my tassel loose

Into the shape of a noose

And, upon my wall, hang it upside-down.

XIII

It was dusk for two weeks straight.

And after.

It was raining, and it was going to rain.

It never rains in San Diego,

Says the blackbird to the noose.

Cold Cereal 1: Jiggery Pokery

1. Jiggery Pokery

My bed will make itself today, the devil says.

Awakening, sitting beside. The sheets will change

Themselves today. I will bathe myself today.  At a cross

Roads. Handsome eyes, there’s a soul

To squeel.  Squelch it, for 3 units shy. A BS degree.

Cold Cereal 2: Goof-Off

2. Goof-Off

A movie with the family.  Adjust the tracking

Sound is best, VHS. They let mom go for being

An angel. Cheap food and chocolate.  On the coffee table,

Ice cream and strawberries and the

Unemployment check elephant inconvenience.

Cold Cereal 3: Lollygag

3. Lollygag

Nightmares in the day time.  Go to School, says the television

All day long. Television is evil, says the devil.

The static song.  A smell of socks and hair.

When I eat cold cereal it makes my gums

Bleed. Hold all my calls, I’m busy. Growing a beard.

Cold Cereal 4: Hanky Panky

4. Hanky Panky

A woman at the edge of the bed

More distant than sheets.

A smell of flame, sounds like Mary

Jane.  I’m sorry, but.  No thank you, sweetheart.

That stuff makes me depressed.

Cold Cereal 5: Boondoggle

5. Boondoggle

You don’t make enough money to tip so well.

Says the devil. This poem will change the world

Says the devil, I see rich people and wouldn’t you like to be one?

Says the devil, Ginger or Mary Ann? Or Marye Anne? Or Did you hear the one, says the devil

Where a person walks into a library and they say. Hey did you hear the noose?