Queening
The only thing you need to know those is your eyes
And I capsize in a tearing curl of spirit—look at
The blanks until they’re fecund: Crispin in Carolina.
Clouds shadow Crispin concurrent to doubt
But not for long: his faith isn’t for long and always.
That Paradise was a place where you’re made to
Do work you love—where the world doesn’t
Think beyond today—beyond immediate
Need which is to say there’s no need to trade
Our airs soils and waters for a fortune the future
Cannot sustain—especially if justice isn’t
To go the way of more a running joke than an
Admirable attempt. A crisp crepuscular
Curled its way into view pleasing Crispin
In a manner similar to the pleasure
Of dew on feet greet the outdoors—
For a few seconds figurations flicker
This place into striding moors a snowy day.
“In the manner of his hand’s” a redundancy of touching;
Plants whose leaves are lancet-sharp sway in a breeze.
If you were here with me looking at this photo circa 1894
You’d ask is Crispin’s face a happy blank or judging
Something sternly and fairly and he made a fortune
In experience and another dude sits somewhere
Feeling equally in the world; perhaps my
Fears primarily stem from the possibility
My feelings are wrong—that someone
Will be able to elegantly demonstrate this
And furthermore prove my objection—
What has elegance to do with this subject—
Is the antithesis of the truth unlike brooms
Brush stone floors which can now be seen
Properly—in light of Cezanne— as a cat
Crosses from the window-bay to hunched
Within a horse-blanket. Arielle; Godiva;
Red-eye; 3 time-zones later: simple thoughts
Are laboriously pronounced. Paralegals
Pirouette in front of porticoes—partaking
Of absurdity wherein essential vitamin.
Is there such thing as a happy person who
Should be sad? “Dividing and indifferent blue”
Nonetheless keeps us alive. I shan’t risk—just be—
A queen—all levity and sting; bitch who likes it
Doggy-Style—stylus few people fall into the groove of
But those who do know damn well it’s hard to beat.
In a Paradise which is not mine we eat
Airy substance for the entire meal.
A quail covey framed—forced
Into my field of vision—by timothy.
Gay is. Gays was. The chorus hits a club.
Naomi Campbell’s not there and the cutest
Tenor silently laments this with a face
Fails to muster enthusiasm for a toast:
He really wants to hang out with her—at-least in
Theory: is this its “pure good”? My adoration
Purifies her bad qualities: this isn’t tooting
My horn it’s a matter of looking—her existence
Does the hard work—catches my attention
Too happy in its attendance. Truth is beauty
And beauty is a bitch doesn’t contradict.
I’m glad Naomi goes to AA but I’d rather
Snort lines if we ever go out; we’ll never
Go out unless I’m lucky. Bahama
Breeze makes my life better: Mojitos
While reggae plays—and pina coladas and
Beer or margaritas and wine if you want:
Capitalism affords such splendid array
If you can afford to pay; here’s not
Expensive unless you’re on the fringe:
Begging at a corner—begging isn’t the right word:
Or is the right word because there’s a chance
You know what’s meant but it’s nonetheless inaccurate.
The thing that dazzles this man’s hands is the degree
Obliquity can dare impress. Obliquity is comically
Distinct—not a euphemism for muddled or mashed
Or mixed or crossed—although difficult
To perceive; perception is parallel taupe widths
Lined with intricate drawings that simply
Look shiny from a distance. She always tried to
Drink coke—and not diet—when in public
To make people connect to the commercial she
Co-stars in with a polar bear; she’s been to
Bars in the dead of winter when its 3-deep
—suddenly people are ordering whisky and cola
When buttered-rum seemed like it’d be the backdrop
For beer reigns. In northern Mexico with no drink
She waits to spot a jaguar while an owl delights her.
I’ve drunk four beers since my last saunter through
Written language. The realms I could have looked within
Syllable by syllable excels life off the page but
Without there’d be no page; connections
Go every which way
To make encompassing days—raffia legs
Cast shadows “like phantoms from chronologies.”
A drunken boat misses a mote. “And thou
Hast hands” “weep no more”: understand thou needs
Walking Sabian shore spice wafts.
Is it never the case that over-say
May reveal the broad array
Like pots and pans skill lofts
Into bites excite
Groans. Since soul and body are
One let’s go rock and roll; those lateral presses
Give you a rock-on edge of extra definition.
Ok what’s up with this: grammar-check—
Yah let’s give it up for Microsoft!—greened queening
(Now sans caps it’s red-lined) but offers queering as
A substitute: is this astute or heterosexist stereotype or both?
“Dividing and indifferent blue” floats wasabi plants.
Sublimity slants: the porcelain-fine legs of thoroughbreds.
Listing in a final atmosphere I conclude the grandeur
In poetry is its fact: “finikin thing of air”
Dares the truth a moment—gone—new greens
Sun strikes mustard; she looks from her mansard-roof
Pretending she sees country not Capital and breathes
A sigh of relief this isn’t the French Revolution
Though she likes revolutionary locutions.
Marx would have liked the Catskills:
A moon brighter than the mists; a fire; sonnets
By Wyatt Donne Herbert and Shakespeare.
Looking at the leaves between its spine
One sees Hamlet ripple where there’s a ghost.
Its spine is almost split—Friend—we must get
Out of here; good: we’re out—that is:
If you believe we are; if you don’t then
We’re endangered in the ways we know well—
Now where? Breathbreadth is the limit.
He makes a brooch of a falcon
As if stones are worth more than blood.
Life happens—apples scent an entry—Alephs
Lie ready to pounce—fatigue sets in until
One’s camouflaged catching a second wind.
It’s impossible for me to say what I’m not
Besides things like seraph and Cockatoo begot
Me or I’m good-looking as Michael Phelps
Whose probably not the hottest of the Olympic lot
But may be most recognizable; if I were smart
I’d run off to be great-looking; what’s the right word
Compared to biceps and the best razor and cream;
Writing comforts with its wider range of acceptance
Than body-types down a runway. Capitalism
Displaces animals and earths and waters—the beauty
Of a diamond is the ground which overlays it
As-if pave diamonds have become fecund aside from
Someone grows more coca. A macadam glitters—
A dead Ortolon lies in a lavender bush. “Paratroopers fall
And as they fall they mow the lawn”—is this scene
One in which the resonance would cohere
Knowing the etymologies? What are the
Origins of capitalism—in which syllable
Is there the chance for piecing wellness?
An Italian passport crinkles in the pocket of
A man in Guatemala daydreaming of Jamaica.
Acumen and ailanthus partook of the same
Ineffable stance which makes the world which
Doesn’t stand still at least throb into trance—
The harmony now addressed to you
Has already happened—had time to
Goes its many ways yet there remains
This wholeness: wholesomeness no number
Of blowjobs can spoil. Agapanthus thump
Windows where neither of us live nor
Strive to. A place can be
Made denizen for
Citizens of imagination;
It’s true this text may infrequently
Resonate in the poor person reading:
Perhaps it does as well as any ones’—
No—whose “finding fang” seems a bit much
For a thing which is “finikin.” Language
Versus citizenship—as a way in the world
Which is which matters more matters less.
A Mekong catfish in a fishpond is
A different issue altogether; no not so much
Different as apart: distance that cannot
Just be thought across. Clouds like peanut roots
Catch a way of looking at the world in their webs.
In the time it takes to get a dialectic going
So many decisions have needed making.
Nothing is more inclusive than time—
Take some—see if we can do more.
The answer to what time is it is always now!
Somewhere on a Friday morning a plough shares
In the gleam of vistas near and far—
Air around the eyes as they walk and
A tree-line several freshets flow past
Before one crunches on the first leaf.
Anyplace content to cover up girls
Knows nothing of glamour.
The ears and the thing making the noise are
Not one—the sky through the window blankly
Refracts our vision into sight—they spar
Until there’s no point miffing you can’t see
The point of saying we’re seaside. No gulls
Cry to form an unkindly company.
I’m too hurried to let “mother of souls”
Impress itself most days—rent-checks beer tea
Are common sense. Slow-cooked flesh pulled from skulls
And put into phylo translate as one
Fabulous bite not massacre. The hulls
Of ships are barnacled; soon the sun
Will be setting and the quarter-moon nulls
Any optic posits breathing’s not fun.
It could be that flying to Caracas
Is a fracas not day after day done
Starting with fresh juices coffee and plus-
Sized lines of coke; then a passion-fruit bun
And a chauffeured vehicle while a bus
Which isn’t crowded this moment goes by.
There’s restoration in looking at sky.
My friend William may well be painting a
Portrait. The scene seems intensely
Local yet you don’t have to know where.
Reference ineffably occurs; I don’t
Propose to know the world well—just at-all—
Just in time. A cynic says nothing scintillate.
In Miami—Gianni Versace
(Hurrah this fabled house checks out with this
Software’s spell-check) has been murdered and now
Years later we’re left with the less sexy
Designs of his sister or is it the
Times: that you just can’t bead that hemline
When it ain’t 1988; were it
Not for dears like Lagerfeld there could have
Been a swansong—sound-tracks
Serve to ensure we see her beauty stalk
Fashion-Weeks’ catwalks—oh the sheer
Glamour of arriving back-stage late as
Can be gotten away with; beauty gets
Me to let it off the hook. What’s a book
Compared to after-shows’ champagne;
Caviar on toast; white asparagus wrapped in smoked
Salmon dressed with chervil lime crème; in the 80’s
There was a song goes “back to—life; back
To—reality”; the two cannot be isolated
Thus I’ve not arrived at justification
Just clarified what’s fantasy. Zithers—
“Z rivers simmering”—surface flashing
Scales like serpents; a “zero green” pierces
With its nettle; the sun goes down in its
Promise to rise tomorrow. “Like serpents
Basking on the brow” is the only way
To even contemplate going out to
Meditate the garden—the strange markings
The “slings and arrows” of “outrageous fortune”
Leave; it is up to the mind to make wings
Of nerves as synapse fires them: bored-fun
Of passing some time: typing poems makes
More fun than most activities—someone
More than me (more than me because ink takes
Less space) like a fat man suited in dun
And apricot in a dun room; twin lakes
Marged by apricot trees lie through
The windows—a squall non-one foresaw breaks
A week of a crew’s labor; the new
Kind of heat and lighting while we our cakes
And ices is a triumph though I rue
The difficulty of reading at night
Thus I’m hoping that by listening to
Sounds sound will attend me—the way a bright
Light leads the way—allowing for a new
Fundament of alphabet. A tight
Ass drinks a beer in an out-of-the-blue
Bar. A street-lamp fizzes on; yes it’s quite
Enough to read by but if someone passes
It feels awkward. Earwigs become earwicks.
By being next one another they’re compared
As if next to and together aren’t
Different; as if belligerent isn’t a difference.
The grammarians in their gowns
Looked resplendent: “Rubies reddening”
On a Deal table—tablature or likelier
The air surrounding its seen-ness
Refreshes profound thoughts regarding
Fabulous miscellany—part and no parcel
Has a high success-rate for strikes the soul.
I’m tired of equating melancholy—
Not quite melancholy—melancholy with
A breeze—to soul—as if soul’s signal
Isn’t always splitting—making for more
Openness—”coast of trees” invisible
Matter from wind sheens the leaves of— a score
Of cockatoos flock off; ants swarm a soul
Hunched against one’s trunk; his eyes sting.
In a skiff slowswift he learned rigmarole
As barest fact—a serpent’s whispering
Flashing scales and tones which aren’t the whole
Of harms but a part in which I’m hopeful.
I’m less interested in the thing itself than the thing
Perceived—less but not not-at-all; there’s Skoal
In my cheeks; he spits into a Ming
Vase and he’s hot. His boot-tips reflect in
His cufflinks. He’ll be wearing a gold ring
In a few weeks; hers would make your head spin
If you two meet. Turn a page; turn; or else malingers.
Turn—turn; as in a geology; as in cliffs and
Water spouts through lava; pre-sap lings to trunks;
In parking lots in England boots slam shut;
To me parking-lots almost emblematize America;
How does St. Louis look according to
English English? Why would it look
Consistently more different
Than the difference between any and
Any. Water spouts into spacious skies
Or rain-clouds hem and we understand
The need for warmth; even attentive eyes
Need sun. Glare forms a gloss for our spirits.
Light makes the scene messier. Breath replies
By breathing: clickering a syllable splits
Being—help-hindrance. A woman “espies
Circumference”; a sparrow-sized moth flits
Around a bulb. Like a book-marker in
“Paradise Lost” a man sullenly sits
Ignoring Cardinals. Like a topspin-
Laden tennis-serve Commerce shakes its tits.