CONFESSION NIGHT IN OUR HOME
confession hour
penetrating our expertise— this ceremony, no
not thank you,
not assertive,
particular jelly oozing from praying walls
where they meet, a defendant,
listening
blind reporter, where are our blind busboys—
sweating teenage pride having
kidnapped victory this ceremony, yes
wear something velvet,
the sum of our disorder
installed on the
winter ceiling.
our regular marathon
like auction,
like exile,
false hours clattering between error,
complaint documents smashed into
stripped floorboards
to enter is to
abandon participation where our
incentive is so available,
where our posture improves
in vital blue,
thanking explosion as it
allows for newness
hide our disciplined
hall-promises by turning the lights very low
How could normal be so cold I wait
How could
Normal be so cold I wait
For those things to be built:
Homes, teeth, forgetting
It’s
Sundaydinnertime and the sunset had been so beautiful that day
I told them about the multiplicity of colors being directly
Linked to things like pressure and explosion
And they did not listen
You were down at the stream, looking at the lettuces
Their translucences growing up towards
The sun from the cold water
And you want to pick one, a delicate little something with
Its tendrils being towed away from one another by the current
In the forest there is no dust because everything is new.
You don’t deserve anything
That knows and lives its age
human kindness
i am the last hospitality, lacking
perfect formula gradual and
dramatic only in my spine rings
true meaning (i cross over my
self and am advised to jump) an ideal riot
working for payment
relief from effort
a diplomat of the most incredulous variety
(i mean really what did you think was going to happen)
my reality now: paralyzed, fragrant,
a negotiation straining off-base glances
trying to smooth out ample
trying for a child
forgoing politeness
discovering simplicity (on the basis of some deal)
i offer you a sacred person
and finally, a last contradiction:
(my love is in my humanity)
rise, shy
crazy flowers successive
possession soft, brush-like
a wildfire sympathetic
stunningly bright, fluid,
orbital, a secret—
faint and memorable
deepening,
its gravity ravished,
pulled taught, tugged:
entwine the unloved
soften the illumination
startle the conflict
being so delicious
wispy, curdling
visual richness unsurpassed
crazy flowers successive
crazy flowers successive.
2:33 a.m.
he says he doesn’t
remember the tremor:
waking fitfully, night hanging cool
and distant, easy sluice slipping its
apologetic way between bones and bodies and
the gaps in teeth—
all sorts of pressing sorries,
loving hands,
secondary, familiar, recalling:
to wait is sin,
to have the unwanted, careful.
amber forgettable,
talented sleeplessness,
encouraging the ambiguous,
clutching the threshold,
discouraging dialogue,
post-suspicion and warning twitches.
the panel slurs tragedy, a premature taste, well—
could be downfall, could be
a coincidental explosion
of the gallery
in which you hang.
the race a blur
he talks first never more than once never more the prized and only he talks like
saccharine saturating my pallet and likening spit to the blood of Christ he takes every sacrament from my hands he knows exactly what he’s doing he says it will always be I who is floating but
while he talks he loses his grip and then I am the first with him right behind
but a step
but a slow dance
but a translation
but a transition
but a child prodigy
but a long walk
but a few dead rats in the cupboard
but a time last week when I thought I’d never see my only again he the great forever the dog from hell with the sharpest teeth with my only now he runs burgundy only on the best day the day of days the day of forever he spits in my eye so now it’s in his hands touch like adrenaline a slave to tomorrow the great beyond shines a beacon on his sloping forehead he is the descendant of the first he will have
new flesh on which to feast it will still move me
he is the only sleepwalker:
built to last to spill too fast.
poem 32
big ol all like floaty tonight
come out come out n he comesoutround
3:27 am all like
ohh h
h
h
h
you’re my only baby
lovely but I being shaken up all ways n having waited 5 days go
what is wrong with you?
oh my oh my big ol he
all backflips now
n more like back hands now
my big ol all like floaty tonight
my big ol all like floaty tonight
counting all ten fingertoes with lips
cooing the harm into itself
as it becomes large n drippy n too too much oh
my big ol makes too much too good
n it is just that, because
he will swear it all like susurrus
at 3:27 am.
he will swear it on a Thursday.
he will swear it howling.
he will swear it,
cause that’s my big ol big ol.
NO QUESTION
NO QUESTION, NO QUESTION. WOULD DROP EVERYTHING FOR SPRING AGAIN.
NO QUESTION—WOULD LOVE TO REPEAT MYSELF IF THE WORDS STOPPED
BEING SO LOVELY. WOULD LOVE TO GRIP THE WORLD. NO QUESTION,
NO QUESTION. WOULD LOVE A WRAPAROUND FRONT PORCH AND
AN OLD BLACK DOG AND A BABY BLUE TELEPHONE AND
FOR YOU TO COME AROUND WHEN I ASKED YOU TO AND A THIN
GOLD CHAIN AROUND MY NECK THAT SOMEBODY ELSE GAVE
ME, NO QUESTION. NO QUESTION, YEA, NO QUESTION—HOW
I WOULD LOVE TO GIVE SOMEONE EXACTLY WHAT THEY NEED.
WOULD LOVE TO DEVOUR, WOULD LOVE TO CARE THE LEAST,
WOULD LOVE TO LEAN ON YOU ALL LAZY AND BELLY-FULL. IT WOULD BE SUNNY.
NO QUESTION. WOULD YOU LOVE TO ANSWER MY CALL?
WOULD YOU LOVE IN THE EARLIEST HOURS?
IN THE DARKEST? WOULD YOU PULL UP IN YOUR
CAR AND KISS ME ALRIGHT ON THE HOOD?
NO QUESTION, YEA, NO QUESTION, YOU’D SAY. NO QUESTION.
WOULD LOVE TO SAY THE SAME. WOULD LOVE TO
TASTE YOUR THOUGHTS, WOULD LOVE TO LIVE FOREVER.
NO QUESTION, NO QUESTION. WOULD YOU BE CONTENT DOING
NOTHING? WOULD YOU MOVE REAL CLOSE IN THOSE
EARLIEST HOURS? WOULD YA? WOULD YA?
NO QUESTION, NO QUESTION.
1066 COMM. AVE
turns out that the world is much more vast than one person. more vast than you, more vast than me. i mean, truly, 300,000 miles away there is
some old woman shaking her fist at the setting sun and its missed promises.
another 100,000 miles away there is a little baby with heavy eyelids who
does not know exactly what he wants, or how many species of sea mammals
die off every year, or what my favorite color is [lilac]. look, over there,
the trail of a biplane swells and fades in a single instant, and forgets
all the lonely lovers crying with the TV on, just for sound and not for picture.
a car screams down I-95, a 40 oz. hurricane is smashed on the
hood of a Philadelphia cop car, a catholic schoolgirl hides behind an oak tree,
so nervous she nearly wets her day-of-the-week underpants [Tuesday]. a rat
inspects a peach pit and is scared off by the grating shatter of the hunched old man’s stolen shopping cart teeming with crushed aluminum, green plastic, pathogens. the next alleyway over the spine of a farm-raised salmon is thrown to an orange cat with one ear but a mild disposition. the artist in
black lycra minces meat in a room full of electricity and misses no one
[a problem i wish i had]. in the mailroom, possessions are sorted like
chess pieces, and cigarettes are smoked until plastic is tasted.
something fervent lingers, some opus, wider than the arc of the moon,
maybe explosive,
assuredly permanent.