a dead boy (2009)

(after Jack Spicer)

the river is lost

the flowers dry
and fulvous

shards of cold glass in the bed
for which you are now too tall

the brown bird in the tree
is made of paper

the tree is made of paper
and green glass

another insufficient song
slips under the earth

here where you are sleeping

Found Poem #2 (2006)

(after
John
Giorno)

He
carries
the
long
staff
of
a
Buddhist
monk.
The
rings
on
the
staff
announce
his
presence
as
he
seeks
alms
and
clears
the
path
of
insects
so
that
he
will
not
trample
them.

Note: from plaque accompanying a statuette of a Buddhist monk at the National Gallery of Victoria – International Collection.

Found Poem #1 (2006)

(after
John
Giorno)

The
cool
/
creepy
thing
is
that
Sylvia
Plath
went
to
my
highschool,
had
classes
in
the
same
room
I
do.
When
some
one
I
knew
committed
suicide
the
administration
wanted
to
take
the
plaque
for
Sylvia
Plath
down...
I
was
ready
to
protest,
but
they
decided
not
to.


Note: as posted by grillparzerkarma on Bluelight, 27-11-2005.

For Ted (2008)

(after
John
Giorno)

Good
morning,
Ted
Berrigan
at
my
breakfast
table.
Wildebeest
bobbing
through
milk
&
muesli.
A
tome's
a
tomb,
tone
is
tone.
You
float
the
meaning
of
random,
don't
you?
I
have
always
meant
to
tell
you.
Figure
I
could
tell
you
everything,
hope
I'm
not
too
late.


Below: Ted Berrigan by Alex Katz.

ny dream (with bits of Berrigan) (2008)

It's 57am in Ted Berrigan.
Never been to New York but
how hard can it be? OK.
Came to me 'first thing' - words
woke me. I needed a gun
in the dream & knew why.
Now I've no idea but
gladly. I do need peach /
tree / mountain surgery...
"What am I saying?

Only this." City's a cut-up.
Pass the scissors. Stray. It's
raining bots & eggs, but
this isn't that poem so
it was really snowing &
raining car stereos
pushing out hiphop grinding
woofers gorgeous blaq-
skinned it's 2008pm in New
York it's 5am in my bedhead
street surgeons pulling fast ones
that one's got a knife! thank yr
stainproof suit time your
coffee so you're peaking
for the meeting 2:15pm.


Note: "What am I saying? / Only this." - Ted Berrigan, 'Words for Love'. "it was really snowing & raining" - Frank O'Hara, 'POEM (Lana Turner Has Collapsed)'.

As published in Otoliths 9 (May 2008).

refuse (2008)

(after Silliman... sort of)

A day under repair. Remember my foot dead as a book. Was trying to type but the window was ghosted. Coming down with something: perhaps a poem. My turn to cook? Half-life: blurs of transaction between us. Go through phases, moods, like some old moon. Naming will not keep pace. Downloading Derrida. I just looked as it ticked over. All have a tic about time. Distraction blizzards. Dwelling in the centre of your hand. You’ve lost me. Cherry-fingers blemish the page. A guilt that grows back. Comedown. Log out and log back in again. Need to work back late, keep watch till dawn. As the market clouds. Subtler words leave exit wounds. Remove nothing from the scene of the theft. All this slowdying. Emissions. Heavy myself with. Punjabi pop music strays from another apartment, as if dappling me with colour. I wasn’t quite full. Was deleting old songs. The crouched hand of love (from a song of Creeley’s). New window. Drawn to stories of failures. Driver error. Lab rats in lab coats? They were subtitles for a different film altogether. Photograph these powers of persuasion. But does he look happy to you? Shooting animations in Timezone. Heroic dopamine flow. The doctor suggests closing both eyes. Hyperrealism of high definition. Have fun with it. Happy snaps, sad snaps. Exit the bed as if this were the only exit. Bivouac: noun; a military encampment made with tents or improvised shelters, without protection from enemy fire. We have overslept. Just one more snooze before we assemble. Living faceless, mouth grows pretty dry. Keep meat away. Touch of the air, air of the touch. Refused endings. Everything’s not you in one sense, but in another: come home. Swim your body for the first time. Untie these roads and lift them from you.

notes on status (2007)

Today you toddle off
elaborately inane, to where your profile

fills out like a bin-liner caught by the
wind.

– John Forbes, ‘Colonial Aubade’


ha survive in a corporate office
without actually working (just
live there, haunt the espresso
machine)

see brother, la revolution begins on every page, in
every line

in gel caps /
in the deepest blues

only to find that
nothing beards us like a lack
of ritual responsibilities

a life of not being able to
pop a balloon with a stick of celery

(not the place itself but your slim scared imaginings of)

like spring racing ‘carnival’,
fashions in the field yet
another vocabulary for
status to shake around in...

deep in the bowels of
some corporate tent or other
you realise luxury is irresistible,
has its own set of ‘classique’ emotions

& one day, with a dab of brio and your lucky haircut,
you could have your very own war

(thief!)

After Bukowski's 'Too Much' (2002)

Bukowski was a good sort,
if you saw him in a bad light
you'd say he was
lecherous maybe

but then again he
got plenty of life under his belt,
quit worrying about
appearances,

took that wretched dog, cynicism,
for a walk.
When I saw his photograph
in second-hand biography,

next to the bottles
of Bud
I saw rings
of years

like piled medallions
around his pupils:
you bet, he wrote about the everyday
hiding places of fear.

And with each inspired
pitying burst
I imagined him
turning

more lonely with
blues -
a battered guitar
twanging out the tunes,

his words careering into life
out of his gut.
His typing hands
lurching

like a guideless kite,
after whetting his
appetite with wine
then conversing again

with the old saddened voices -
I could feel his battling
pulse, smell sweat
netted in his shirt.

He just
cursed and cursed
and lurched and
lurched and

he was telling me,
"Son, you gotta walk out,
take a stand, go look for
your home, your heart."

"Where are you?" I asked him,
and he just groaned.
Now when people
say to me, "That

Hank Bukowski,
he was such a gem,
glowing through, glowing
through all that haze,"

I agree til I'm blue in the
face; then we push him aside,
talk about steadier writers,
like 'old' Dylan Thomas.