Recalculating Read online

  On election day, sulfur smells like beer.

  On election day, the minister quakes in fear.

  On election day, the Pole and the Jew dance the foxtrot.

  On election day, the shoe does not fit the foot, the bullet misfires in its pistol, the hungry waiter reels before steadying himself on facts.

  The grid does not gird the fiddler, on election day.

  Galoshes and tears, on election day.

  The sperm cannot find the egg, on election day.

  The drum beat becomes bird song, on election day.

  I feel like a nightmare is ending but can’t wake up, on election day.

  4 November 2008

  LAST WORDS

  from “Sentences My Father Used”

  fields.

  to

  is

  the

  that

  at

  reflection

  complete

  slowly,

  intricate

  to

  that

  to

  chairs

  surprise

  Straps

  around

  disconsolation

  as

  eyeglasses

  pulleys

  like

  a

  discoursing

  more

  grass

  rocks

  Or

  that

  blazing

  to

  street

  to

  which

  descends

  eye

  arrests

  spirit

  serenity

  with

  Shunning

  promising

  can

  steady

  Best

  by

  not

  inferior

  who

  their

  embarking

  pages

  misapplication

  is

  powerless

  useless

  Silk

  My

  well

  aggravated

  got

  But

  accumulating

  challenged

  found

  to

  very

  Which

  We

  I

  but

  put

  came

  are

  shop

  the

  scraped

  had

  looney

  in

  sultry

  to

  the

  eroded

  the

  imagination

  you

  the

  new

  cures

  through

  I

  a

  that

  make

  Nice

  Pleasant

  swinging

  Crystal

  Just

  remnants

  Gad

  everyday

  lose

  were

  to

  didn’t

  care

  Which

  journey

  past

  late

  transportation

  there

  a

  thought

  what

  had

  into

  advantage

  opportunity

  do

  No

  forces

  Interesting

  of

  recognition

  perfectly

  all

  leading

  In

  of

  looks

  never

  divorced

  it

  onto

  Never

  feel

  breaks

  evading

  bent

  then

  eroded

  over

  lights

  possibilities

  above

  that

  which

  to

  endless

  Leaving

  whatever

  for

  tumbling

  discarded

  laugh

  amid

  counter

  course

  let’s

  you

  recover

  your

  mind

  and

  its

  circular

  transparent

  rectitude

  POMPEII

  The rich men, they know about suffering

  That comes from natural things, the fate that

  Rich men say they can’t control, the swell of

  The tides, the erosion of polar caps

  And the eruption of a terrible

  Greed among those who cease to be content

  With what they lack when faced with wealth they are

  Too ignorant to understand. Such wealth

  Is the price of progress. The fishmonger

  Sees the dread on the faces of the trout

  And mackerel laid out at the market

  Stall on quickly melting ice. In Pompeii

  The lava flowed and buried the people

  So poems such as this could be born.

  I WILL NOT WRITE IMITATIVE POETRY

  I will not write imitative poetry.

  I will not write imitative poetry.

  I will not write imitative poetry.

  I will not write imitative poetry.

  I will not write imitative poetry.

  I will not write imitative poetry.

  I will not write imitative poetry.

  I will not write imitative poetry.

  I will not write imitative poetry.

  I will not write imitative poetry.

  I will not write imitative poetry.

  I will not write imitative poetry.

  I will not write imitative poetry.

  I will not write imitative poetry.

  I will not write imitative poetry.

  I will not write imitative poetry.

  ALL SET

  for Gerrit Lansing at 75

  No matter, say what you will,

  when the slide comes, and it

  better, or sometimes bitter knots knit

  their brew against an all-encompassing

  (recompensating?) agenda, not set of burdens,

  nor gravity, like the image of

  the cat jumping at the image

  of the canary only to find

  the bird has flown the loop

  in a figure of love wasted

  on the o’erlasting. Spear hay where

  aloft is high and spare the

  poltergeist faster than a whip catches

  the gloom, then slides into a

  hailstorm of regret.—You know what

  I meant, maybe, but not what

  I mean to say, to intend,

  to proffer without hope for suppler

  thought, a stupor a day to

  drown the neighing in a sea

  of bougainvilleas, vines for the marrow

  of the soul’s sartorial passage to

  points beyond even the imagination’s imaginary

  capacities, like the day the turtle

  told the teller . . .

  THE SIXTIES, WITH APOLOGIES

  I remember the future, how it was

  So much like the past, those days

  Rowing on the lake for the sake of

  Rowing itself, never looking out, never

  Any ducks lined up, only the fragrance

  Of fragrance, the similes on a smile

  Touched by an angle. As if our fund

  For hedges was any more effective than

  Duping, duking, doping, throwing

  Cold water on sizzling runes. Jesus

  Would have dug it, before he got hung

  Up
in all that superstructure. Even

  The water withers in the mouth, like

  Hope evaporating in the words of the

  Town criers and motion sensors. Gale

  Winds diminish in the mind since

  Whatever is apparent and clear in

  My brain is so much Yukon flu.

  The utter white spaces of deception.

  It’s ok, but I did that 20 years ago.

  Millions of miles beyond care, sobered

  Up on 12-year-old bourbon & lobster

  Rigamarole. The blood on George Bush’s

  Hands keeps coming out in my stool.

  Night is never dark enough because

  Everything I see frightens me.

  PROSE

  A poem can’t be sold like music can, can’t be sold like a painting, like a song can, nobody gives a dime, a damn, a poem don’t live beyond its words, its dark and backward suns, can’t be sold like prose can, only as if it were a story or the mocking echo of a poem, can’t be sold like junk can, chunks of mango tree in a garden (or fragments of a garden hose), vats of burnt oil, even like a goldfinch can, singing in a trash dump, the black tongue of the sewers, where algae bloom, can’t be sold like graffiti can, like a photograph or video can, or any arty film, can’t be sold like a print or card can. Me, I’m a lousy trader in worthless things, beset by a plague of words.

  Régis Bonvicino

  NOT ON MY WATCH

  Then on whose?

  IN RES ROBIN, NIBOR RESALB INSCRIPSIT MENTASTRUM (XXC)

  for Robin Blaser

  Matter over mind or anyway

  mattering, muttering, sponge

  warp, cup, meld, then again

  clutched, shred, shrift. Blister

  origins (orangutans) in souped-

  up monkey wrench. Prattling

  till the itch in pines becomes

  gash (sash) in the pluriverses

  of weft & muck (wept). Pleat

  as you may, fellow traversers

  on the rippled road to hear &

  however, ne’er so near.

  STUPID MEN, SMART CHOICES

  I was on my third scotch and Maalox

  when the phone rang. It was Veronica

  again. Her sultry voice cracked on the line

  like lima beans in a popcorn popper. She

  was in trouble but this time there was

  nothing I could do for her. I listened

  to her story like the Roto-Rooter man

  listens to a drain: all ears. She’d fallen

  again, this time so hard and so fast

  she felt she had been clobbered

  by an Acela running amuck

  on the slow track from Boston to

  Gloucester. She said she liked the rhythm

  of his talking, it was so down to earth

  she sometimes felt she was buried alive

  a comforting feeling for someone whose

  anxieties were often indistinguishable

  from her ecstasies. But things had gone

  wrong, terribly wrong and now she was

  on the run, not only from him but from

  herself.

  Like a dream about a dream, it always

  began that way.

  LENNY PASCHEN REDUX

  What’s the matter with you?

  What’s the matter with you?

  Did time shove your face in sealing wax?

  You never looked so blue.

  Nothing better to do?

  Nothing better to do?

  Go stick your head in the microwave

  Till there’s nothing left but goo.

  Sometimes we all need a friend

  A guy who’ll see us round the bend

  Someone who’s always there

  To push us down the stair

  Or out the door, into the cold night air

  Wanna sniff some glue?

  I do do you?

  Then hit ourselves with a two-by-four

  Till we know what’s true—

  TROUBLE NEAR ME

  Were You There?

  by chance, ill defined &

  awkward

  values uncast immobility—

  eyes the joints

  or jettisons drift

  (debtor’s pension):

  from those calls

  this insolvent throb

  who hears then falls—

  Sometimes It Causes Me to Tremble

  My rudder’s bow-leg

  My nipper’s gyp

  The only out is

  Flop—flap—flip

  Deep These Wounds & Red

  all we know impales

  what we never will

  like a harpoon

  the imaginary whale

  bleeding all the same

  Trouble Is Near Me

  In the morning of my life

  there was a smell of burning plastic

  but today, but today

  putrefaction

  No where is your smile

  more radiant than on this beach

  LATER

  Wake me when the movie’s over

  Let me sleep till then

  Wake me when I care no longer

  To ever get sober again

  IRRECONCILABLE DISREPAIR

  Thump, thump, thump.

  The bedrock disjoints

  the numinous irreconcilability

  as when the maestro pleads

  for one more chance

  & all the subsequent supplicants

  adorn their plates

  with polite demurrals

  & astringent chanting.

  Go away, go away

  & don’t come back again.

  I loved you in the morning

  but not on the way to the grave.

  Sorted ever looser

  when the fill is frozen

  bundle every juicer

  until you’re all undone.

  Flip, flap, give, gasp

  & the fever dies

  in the fire of lies

  and no more matters

  ’til the tipsy platter

  falters on the plain

  of inordinate & procrustean

  (discordant & proleptic)

  transinsubstantiality.

  SORROW WHERE THERE IS NO PAIN

  for Philip Whalen

  what marks here? score skids, fill up

  like the ice-tea truck my grandmother kept forgetting

  before the wave closed over the gap

  & none the wetter for it

  or that gives you something to wail in

  8 June 2002

  A THEORY’S EVOLUTION

  The Theory of Flawed Design is not a scientifically proven

  Alternative to evolution. It is based on the everyday life

  Experience that natural selection could not have produced

  Such a catastrophic outcome. Optimists and the religiously

  Inclined will naturally prefer evolution as an explanation,

  Since ascribing Design to the state of humanity is almost

  Unbearable. For the rest of us, we must continue to insist

  That the Theory of Flawed Design be taught cheek and jowl,

  Neck and neck, mano a mano, with Mr. Darwin’s

  Speculations. The Theory postulates a creator who is Mentally

  Impaired, either through some genetic defect or because of

  Substance abuse, and is predisposed to behave in a sociopathic

  Manner; although some Benign Flawed Design theorists, as

  They call themselves, posit the radical alternative that the

  Creator was distracted or inattentive and the flaws are not the

  Result of Malevolent Will but incompetence or incapacity.

  TODTNAUBERG

  after Paul Celan

  Arnica, hold-in-trust, tear

  Trump out dim Bruise admit dim

  Stern waffled drought,

  indigo

  Hut,


  die in that Bush

  —lesson Naming nouns off

  where dim mines men—

  die in die’s book

  gust’s ribbons fail one

  I’m an huff-none, hurt

  Oaf I’m a dunken den

  commends

  Wart

  in heart’s end

  World-wizened, uneyed and bent

  Arc is un-arc is, eye’s realm,

  Crude, spatter in führer

  Deutsche light,

  Tears a fog, dear Mensch,

  dares admit abort

  die halved

  beschmuddled Cudgel

  fade in Hock’s moor

  Folded,

  veil.

  HOW EMPTY IS MY BREAD PUDDING

  for George Lakoff

  The conceited poet believes the entire world to be his poem.

  As if you could or could not, would or would not, were or were not; as if the day ended and a new one popped out of the imagination, free of shadows, hurtling to an end of hurt, beyond sorrow’s gate; but could not nor can not, would not nor will not; as if promise were just make-believe and make-believe a veil behind a veil; as if the news were never told and ignorance took the place of this incessant, miserable rain.

  All the signs say no passage; still, there must be a way.

  Sometimes one has to shake off even the most sophisticated modes of self-presentation (or self-concealment) to find a sense of where you are.

  Particulars and their constellation: mosaic, seriality. Imagination of the negotiation of democratic social space: the particular not consumed, not made into an abstraction nor into stone, not dominated.

  The arrival of a station at the train.

  Everyone is talking about memoir but I just want to forget. I want a poetry that helps me to forget what I never knew.

  Show me the baloney and I will immerse myself in last season’s mausoleums.

  The new is never new, but we make it new in order to keep it from becoming dead to us. The motto shouldn’t be make it new but make it live, but necrophilia surrounds us and we take its stench as the perfume of our hip indifference to art as something that changes in time, shifts against the tides, hollers out in anguish and exasperation at the suffocating banalities that seem to call our name out loud, as if we were written by them.

  Poetry is too important to be left to its own devices.

  Show me a man with two feet firmly planted on the ground, and I’ll show you a man who can’t get his pants on.

  The questioning of the beautiful is always at least as important as the establishment of the beautiful.

  Not the desert clarity of my lamp

  But the blanched consequence of my intransigence

  [after Mallarmé]

  1848—Faraday: “A slight efflorescent appearance was seen on the broken edge.”