It never rained

It never rained 

                        instead it moved everyone
who saw you in the early morning grey sunlight
throat full of nothing and dust from the walls on
your shoulder where everything is crumpled like
an old newspaper and the historical context is lost

the weatherman is always wrong it never rained
hundred percent chance of rain it never rained
instead the sullen clouds rolled into the 
bedroom and hung around until now it had been 
easy to be sober not a little not a cheap thing

we said don’t be so vulgar Nancy this isn’t the
time to reflect on the reasonable taboos of our 
life the shit the bits of damp unrecognisable food
in the drainpipes I stayed behind with
my delight and stairs rooftop always falling apart
like something no one can ever translate 

It never rained

                        instead you left with gigantic foot-
steps killing everyone who saw you and it was
the day that did it the weatherman and I stayed
behind I heard on the news eighty percent volume
on the neighbour’s television that cheeseburgers
could prevent cancer but—this was the point—a
heart attack would probably kill you first  

Tuesday afternoon Peace

It is not Tuesday afternoon  
                 there is no instant coffee left 
                 let us assume for the sake of argument 
                 there is a French Press waiting almost
                 a moment of peace            we are out of cream

It is rather like Sunday morning 
                 ill and eating leftovers from El-Mayor 
                 earnestly anxious to get something done
                 and something must be done we said and
                 so we did it 

It is not Tuesday afternoon
                 there was a violent knock and  
                 we are drifting listlessly in the paddle boat 
                 on the surface of River Canard green 
                 milkshake foam thinking again about war
                 and the illegitimacy of our passports 

Progress! Progress! Progress!

we run through the enigma shouting vulgarities
to the squatting previous generation who get their 
knuckles black in gardens and oils we are the lucky 
ones keyboards and sensual intelligence even if we 
never knew it until for the sake of argument there 
is a French Press and the lingering traces of 

                 Tuesday afternoon peace

plenty on Their minds

they set fire to the church for insurance purposes
or boredom or something their excuse was that 
the good citizens are dull and loose full of learning 
to accept the furrow in the brows of neighbours 

why are you so unhappy did you forget to be alone
or desperate or was the sky too blue or did you 
have another aesthetic ideal for your life this is your
life haven’t you learned that you must brush your 
teeth and cook every Sunday or are you still immersed

in that book of moments where the geometrical events 
are reassuring and blissful except you are a spectator 
and they are the players they they are immersed in the 
climate of the unreal and you are living your life

your life the good citizen Costco the health kicks
the quieting of music for cranky neighbours who
in their defence have insurance issues so they burning
their own money try to burn down New Song Church
isn’t that funny no that is past the truth in their defence
they have plenty on their minds and so do you

woke up to Greenness

tap water cranberry
juice and tequila 

       ten am                                 on a Sunday 

knot-whole without dancing WHOLE
grassblades                       forgive

                   forgiving     drunk

fell asleep amongst the black mushrooms
        a rock imprinted

into 

my forehead 
queer twilight of my drunk

                      few this
leaves quietly 
grassblades 

                                      can assassinate 

ideas and women can digest greenness  

                                       dancing
into so much 
drunk overflowing         greenness
and no one could have loved that rock

                   more than I

naked in

                                       Graceless, I am the visionary 
who recoils face downward into the chrysanthemums I fell
in love with the freezer I sat naked in the front yard ferns
“the most beautiful things disappear underneath you” you
told me and I found myself in California again locked into 
my many selves my eyes bubbling with that dark mahog
any Indian blood

                                        you live and you die and you 
play dress-up and those few dirty men will always chuckle 
when you turn your head toward them and the prey will al
ways be fragile always slow they think arson is the last thi
ng in Canada gigantic forest fires 80 mph wind heavy hu
mid gales if you say culture I’ll grab my gun

                                         my gun what makes you think
I have a gun? we are together in a new land and I am not
fit to disclose any information I do not have I am actually
an African Prince I am Joseph Goebbels I am the tender sc
alp of Medusa to some degree I thought this might get easier
but who would have thought we would be closer to terror
and Hollywood and strength

                                         I slept naked every night in C
alifornia I slept everynight I slept we have advanced into so
mething so thick so sentimental that even the Greeks would
be envious my skin is painted orange against the sky and I
embrace Ramadan and ribs and I sleep under names of dead 
war heroes and I am still naked, cowering in the plants

 

Theoretical vs. Practical

Found Poem from Wikipedia page
entitled “List of shoe throwing incidents (2008)”

during the Prime Minister’s Iraq, Muntadhar al-Zaidi
 threw his shoes at George W. Bush —

           “This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi
            people, you dog”                 first shoe

“This is for the widows and orphans
and all those killed in Iraq“               second shoe.[1] 

           President Bush ducked twice
           (avoiding the shoes, the floor, the room)

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino was hit in the face
by a boom, sent flying, visible black eye

some offered apologies to him —
“It doesn’t bother me,” Bush joked: “It’s a size ten shoe…
           I didn’t feel threatened, ducking and dodging,
           I’m not angry with the system.”

A free society is emerging for our security!
and one guy throwing his shoe experienced a surge in sales –
300,000 pairs in just 1 week

           In Paris, al-Zaidi who first shoed, got shoed himself!
           an exiled technique

Sorry Sir, we’re out of size 10
try size 11 instead

The Stockbrokers Came

sobbing into the pot of spaghetti sauce
getting drunk every five years  /
ignore corporate loss 
sunken financial foliage or ruin / the smell of sperm 
swirling down drainpipes 
the smell of perfume in empty Motel 6 rooms /
each term produced sights of Greatness   / sell
visions of sea-ivy, ice worms 
excited insects 

excited insects 
excited insects 

sexy stockbrokers from Boston 
on vacation on another passionless day / 
learn to love cock & enjoy /    lady take the bull by its horns

The Promised Land

“so no, Shannon
it’s not that fucking nice of a hotel” - Jake


I’ve been to the promised land,
and it’s not Auschwitz! don’t dwell 
on it, it was just a mistake 

like that Planet of the Apes remake
like that whole business with Shell Oil
like that cop who shot down the ten year old
in Queens 

he just refused to be photographed,
was later handcuffed, beaten 
and given to Vice magazine           nevertheless

look at yourself! that perfectly succulent ass
those tits those 90 dollar milk & honey highlights

I’ve been to the promised land! 
the new secular Canaan, the Canaan 
of bliss of finite wonders and lasting monuments

I’ve been to the promised land!
I’ve seen myself in its natives’ eyes! 
I grab my crotch and translate it 
into layman’s dialect —

O how beautiful & true! 

Saturday, If We Should Eat the Sky in Sincerity

new dimensions of exhaustion
baggy daylight, composing houses out of red brick and plywood
cups of black coffee in mason jars, microwaved twice 
worried sick about being looked at, or not being looked at
the white hood of a Honda Civic, drying in the sun
one colossal insurance bill, honorably offered in Helvetica 
exaggerated concerns for stock markets and South Korea
tax returns and pizza coupons and articles about Christian Science
daylight slipping away in spite of this, heavy sky like milk of magnesia
a certain elegance, even, in the tepid, flickering street lights
and the figures of giants recovering, slinking into the distance 

Bicycle Palace

Inclinations toward violence
a child refuses to open his peach fist 
 pharmacology /
neurosis in the air  a mist in which in it 
we mistake for the highway 

discoveries of reptile 
accidents     I say! don’t be so bewildered,
Bonnie

may your first born son
prosper in the shapeliness of suburbs    / my
babe in blue in cool, curtain-shrouded rooms

fatalities aside, I savour my bicycle palace
the chickpeas scattered down
the melancholy hallways    rotten or not   

trays of pumpkin seeds   just playfulness  /
 we master the clotted day planner
the churning of one stomach
muffled laughter

the blood of pollarded trees clamour
in the backyard /     the beginning of a hiccup  

Metaphor

I left the mug of water on the countertop 
for seven years

wildly wheeling through the aisles of Fresh Co.,
I stumbled into some kind of 

unorthodox feeling of satisfaction —
I drank from that mug 

and I did not get sick