1. 

 

Oh, gorgeous Monday! 

Blue goodbyes by the avocado stand. 

Men hanging Christmas lights in alleys— 

painting fences. 

 

Children on worldwide vacations & 

school trips to mountains, 

synagogues, college campuses. 

 

Under blue hill, I’m asleep. 

My Dylan Thomas memories  

of Autumn are 

the only things awake 

in the house. 

 

2. 

 

If poetry made a living, I’d be happy 

to sit at my desk all day, 

stare at clouds, watch earth’s endless undulation 

rising like lungs over the trees 

—Instead, bored, shivering 

in empty rooms, 

signing so much my throat 

hurts, guilt-addled— 

 

The sun flashes—maybe behind clouds 

somewhere. I read, despair 

around the house w/ no money— 

 

A million books to read. 

 

3. 

 

Hullabaloo over the hills: 

 

“Jesus, I gotta get outta 

the city, I really gotta 

get out. The walls are  

closing in on me like 

walls of the grave.” 

 

He sat in the noisy bar on the other 

side of the white hills 

w/ Jazz playing on sweet 

jukeboxes—rainy afternoons 

in his head— 

 

heart burning all nite. 

 

4. 

 

Frost, crystal cutting grass, 

ankles of cool remembrances. 

 

Winter mornings of hot 

tea on the hob, above ancient guitar stores. 

 

Green cacti in electric light, 

heat from the stove— 

 

What does this all amount to, 

I wonder. 

 

5. 

 

I sneeze & my nose explodes! 

Oh Mother! 

Oh Father! 

The birds are arguing about feathers 

& windows & a growing sense of 

hatred in the West. 

The funeral parlours are closed for weather. 

 

Morning has broken, O sweet Blackbird. 

This is a command! 

 

6. 

 

Medals flying about the atmosphere 

when I step out of my shower 

& into the universe. 

 

& goddamn, again there’s 

a cat out on my 

sidewalk—sunning his belly 

in the snow. 

 

7. 

 

Cigarette ashes in 

purple ashtrays— 

the summer moon shivers 

above the garbage bins— 

barbed fears blossom in the night 

beside the broken bottles 

of Arcady. 

 

8. 

 

Thousands of words lost in— 

 

The scraps of paper floated 

down windy streets— 

chased after by everyone— 

 

Years of phrasings lost in seconds— 

elephant tusks clacking 

in the distance. 

 

Ivory pinching suburban hearts at home. 

 

The windy streets are free to 

all. 

 

9. 

 

Smoking cheap cigarettes in bar bathrooms 

& high school hallways— 

 

never knowing what to write 

about. Sitting in class 

 

dreaming all afternoon. 

 

five o’clock shadow of home-time dark. 

“Boy, I better get back, 

it’s getting late.” 

 

 

10. 

 

(Jan 6, ’22) 

 

The best lack 

libraries of madness— 

beer-soaked basement apartments— 

hats to keep the sun off their faces— 

one final night of moonlight on snow— 

 

While the worst 

stand in hallways “liberating” congress— 

eat onions next to national monuments— 

mutter in the alleys of private Torontos— 

stand on highway overpasses 

waiting for wind— 

 

11. 

 

O, sweet A.W.P. 

the literal oxen of your poems 

ring in my head all morning. 

 

There’s some old god there on the road 

to Damascus—some sin 

of poetry in all the backyards 

of the world. 

 

12. 

 

Small books on shelves looming 

like cities—million windows 

cloudy w/ rain—endless 

babble on the streets, under 

neon soup-signs & great 

 

animal tail distractions of night. 

I slide off the edge of 

the universe into big, warm 

nothingness— 

death-fascination drama sighs. 

 

13. 

 

Poets mooning around the city, 

starry eyes, almost 

floating above the streets. 

 

Windy words at dawn in perfect 

apartments of fluttering drapes— 

lights twinkling like airplanes 

in wrought iron windows. 

 

The City all behind their 

Poetics now. 

 

14. 

 

Paper shoes on sidewalks. 

Birds on updrafts of Buddha-nature 

under ropey muscled wings. 

 

This morning sun breaks in a  

deep green valley. 

 

Forget everything you know.