in all the same ways

Well the Poems All Wrong go on about us. We're wrong too.

Stopped in corners to pee. Presently. About my discrimination

for you whom I like pretty well because you let me. But too

you are an attraction. I've never been one of them who'd shun

a good story for a meaningless mystery full of slop and too

many disconnections. Broken vows tunes covenants as conditions

you know. All that. It's just that. Well my stories too

can be taken as Discrete bits of something. Words & homespun

Artifacts. Or a jagged fence all rusted wood & wire & too

bloody spiteful for the simple blasted earth it's got to run

through. Forever it seems but I know better. My body's too

recently old for some lies. In any weather something goes on

touching something else even if you're not here. I'm not too

—hey it's going to rain all day—let's make a contribution.

If only to say I did. You made me. We had at last given to

the cause which—is it not finally the people the population.

They cried out so we answered not with deeds but with too

many words. Hush. Shut up. Be quiet. Can the noise, son.

crickets near by jackhammer far off I

was hidden and hiding I'm intentional now

like a rhino near-blind but purposeful as

a trumpeter swan in Fall a single red koi

you'd have to know things about to know

as well as I know my troubles I could have

been keeping a brief diary that would have

been something a beat for the years of days

why didn't I why didn't I make that thing

parts for patches

a morning of misreading

forgetting for forging

mourning for mounting

---------

very little feeling left

wolfman grinds his tiny green people

left me thinking I'm galvanized zinc

and you're a lane a deep-rut but I'm zinc

effectively zinc

---------

imperfect design

---------

the Poet stamps commingle

with a sparkling sky a sip of juice

just approaching thunder

---------

you can't trust me not that

i wasn't born naked or don't

stay put from sun-rise to set

but i'm of a piece with a dull

blind earth-eaten calamity if

that came to your country as

deaf to birds and rivers as

heart-lost in taking energy

for a colorful paste-board

wonderland of the special not

the ordinary performance

---------

"any single point is actually many or none at all

the sun ... point? what's a point? .... my point

precisely ... never so clear as imprecise breath"

---------

having read some French ones translated likely no good

no grip on a human fact fat chance of a soul or a scent

---------

"or even gestured at prior to this point"

---------

where all humunkind hangs out

This fleshy pink baby centered in straw sets a limit.

stopping by

The poet's face or figure—the color dress or shirt—

makes up more than half, way more than half. It's not

about the words then, not really the words. It's more

one trying to show up as a person full of content—

so full it overflows from digital to analog frames.

And the room smiles with approvals and deals largely

diminutive but hope-giving toward another morning,

such refreshment as whole beaches of perfect waves &

cool sun. Then suddenly almost nothing, mostly stopped

still. Just a little fanning tune like a Mozart piece

fading then just—if mechanically—performed by heart.

oh an animal

An apostrophe. Has come to on this planet.

Says behave yourself awhile. Be right back.

Which minority arrangement precludes backtalk.

He comes around here. Then as a comma. Says.

It's how the boys see it these days. A tooth.

some of this is inevitable

My commodities. Big days. Don't have 'em.

Eat your threads before you weave 'em.

Come like Groucho through the window.

Signs. Of everything. In ordinary jumble.

memory not so good

The shadows are metaphorical. These people live in their bodies

like they belong there. Strange to expect one had life given a

reason. To have become an automobile in the city or otherwise go

just to the point where two legs meet. A light. Have you got a

light? Substantially, sir. One is lit. Not so much these hot days.

breathing not owning

stopped writing when the days came

savage & plain natural wanted careful

in some way changing sun light turns

flesh-colored it's me in the morning

mind a lake shore hovering helicopter

some way off over there what we said

about

a black sphere

threadspun wiry surface

condensed to densest

spinning toward earth

in said dream

where now standing

aloof as models

young men statued for

darkness come to dooms

from the woods

to this country mansion

taking one and another

and me gasping

under a watery shadow

not nothing or gone but

not life either

repent

unsettled

        sad room a

cute turn to

        life like

        poems you

                understand

only small

        parts edges a

        corner

think he said

       round go round it

       now turn it 

go round it now for sure

a self-portrait anyway

in thought of a walk the solid current

of a window a solid tone from the chime

not not at peace but even worse

astounding in ideas this animal

body death pretends

thought

brightly

things are dire

You'll always be closer to something while the father waits.

You don't have to read my mine. You just got to need my bread.

You too can be a better person than you are.

You put me in mind of arctic expedition.

You alone is me I can do without.

You turtle. You truth.

for a small city

start in or as a garden

for each 'its own proper logic'

as a shaken object louder and softer come and gone

native light for paper

the journals not written for thirty or forty years were all lies

having put birds aside deep or light green aside fish

the thought you're dying for sure helps now

two artists know but mostly exclude the rest

three have a party but one insists

on anyway everything

face to face

Suppose you weren't the center or editor of prodigious friendship.

Your sky's a dull pond fish understand but you cannot.

What birds call 'an offensive last light'

that the person he stubbornly once

that over a stretch of years a pleasant

that everyone breaking in tune stalling

that an opening insists we must and

that we will is nobody's business

a romance without lovers then

haven't you walked too far then

found an edge like sky or shore then

tumbled off it: then.

here for the ordinary ecstasy

a few lines to pick up again as we

    pick up or take or lift up again

the job's usual subtle and internal

    combustion toward a foreseen end

and many unforeseen and inevitable

    call them fisheries at last cobbled

of all the names the the of of or

    these presents for everyone from all

we mean you should pick them up if

    that pleases or serves a felt desire

the poem you see a section of wave

    loaded looking back stuff you're cute

interested villainous shy a learner

    a wave of carcinogens travesties hope

even you running through can preserve

    us tall as we've ever been and just

here for wildflowers a basketball

    or all the difficulties of waking up or

settling down to work in play for good

    
what did you think of the trumpets

    near the end weren't they almost

perfect for that movement there's nothing

    in other life like a camera jiggle

(so jiggle) nothing sees LIKE a lens

    only to earn a point and move on not

like looking at somebody looking

    at somebody looking not like that

but the looking itself may frighten or

    not be possible anymore for you and

me wrapped somber toys that we are