Below are a series of poems from a working manuscript, entitled Crazy Talk.
Whimsy in Orange Alert
We
fear tinsel town’s ferocious
furry frolic.
Marauding bands
random cotton-candied
dandies might make you over
rearrange after-school specials waterboard your
icky boy-band highlighted roots.
You might put an eye out
while you brighten
your smile.
Splinter groups of teenage exegetes
swear off all Judeo-Christian
sexcapades. Mohammed
blushes giggles twirls. Shiva moisterizes
her creamy afterglow.
Under a red carpet no-pantyline burqa,
Buddha twitters his nervy hymn.
.
A merciful idol
delivers us from zeal, while we watch
America’s next top
pop-up goofy intemperance. Even
Mrs. Kravitz elides her pied
genetically-modified A-line skirts. The twinkle
from her washboard abs
may cause premature wrinkles
logorrhea
incontinent lip-synching.
BAM!
Only one photograph left.
Yoo hoo. Unveil yourself of your
fantasy of mass gentrifying gingivitis.
Sleeper cells rove
asynchronous lispers like uh
pillage ellipses.
Regimes inflate float skyward
D-cups plummet.
Get your pluribus unum on.
Strategic so-you-think-you-can-
back-up dancers peddle
hand-blown, knock-off baguettes
proselytizing the young with faux
intoxicating vaccinations.
Tehee. With minty-fresh breath
passengers whisper
Let’s roll.
The aftertaste of your
Whatevers,
Savory viral a little tannic even
tsunami-ish I shiver. My
lunchmeat pantsuit
unzips. Wednesday’s child rides the pony
bareback.
Flirty socialites outbreak and wield mirth
plant bulbs in your good things
spread baubles and golden parachutes
Shiny paparazzi multiply glitter glitter
No one is immune.
Your medication may cause
goosebumps or board room buzz.
Nah nah nah nah nah nah.
I’m not touching you.
Toxic wrecks of September suppress
smart-alecky sestinas. Let seratonins
ring. Suzie sells bees knees
her sissy selective schemes.
Candy pants hedges his detritus.
He retires.
So killer.
When mavericks release bedazzled headlines
great winters
appear, sidewalks
crack curly-q
Mother-may-Is bloom.
Exquisitely useless
el niños crash
the planet’s surface
forces the wiggly glitterati to
swallow their aurora borealis.
Y2K ceases alien immigration. UFOs no longer deliver
forget-me-nots.
No more probing Saturday-night third-rate encounters.
No more inter-planetary interference. Imagine? No more star fuckers.
Are we alone? What if?
like LOL
like
OMG
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How do we get home from here?
Nothing like the brochure
A fine azure font
of jet stream not even a cloud
the reliability of air pocket turns wind shear
Sorry? So? Ha!
Grammars of aerodynamics err.
Of this sure you can be.
Of this control I have full.
This to the you can take bank.
(The fickle foible of these acts of God: 1. Navigator chokes;
- Pilot reneges;
- Luck of the Hindenburg;
- Oops
40,000 feet of unparalleled rejoinders: Look Those clouds
resemble
madness.
This will be a perfect landing. The skies are clear. There will be no delay. Bing Bing
Fasten your seatbelts.
In the unlikely event of unforeseen-ness
what you can’t foresee can’t hurt you but for now poked in the eye
of the storm, we hover.
Forever
Sudden
plummet condescension dense
as girders aghast
crumble
of envelope
Gravity pressurized his hiss grows thicker quick kick to the abs
of steel I tried to be good—never stole
Hillside of a mountain mound of confetti ending endemic
in the Andes and I
love you and we were not meant to fly
upon such fragile
fatalistic wings in such a season
of gust
We were not agile
to soar these windy reasons of flings
fatal seal
rent upon slings so sly the sunny
sky repealed replied I love you not enough enough not enough
gravity
to have to hold the emptiness
of this still seeping vessel
to earth’s equal
and opposite embrace
Survivor surfaces white sterility
Suspens-
ion of ache
neck brace
nurse
whisper
drip
Where am?
Where is?
Be still.
I fear this fragile flask, the improbability of the predictable lottery of landing
No choice in the cabin, we heal
Helium dirigible (prick)
We frequently fall
flakes
plumes
conditionals
If you tell me one more time I’m not important enough for this calamity . . .
I will burst.
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Winged Triptych
- Father’s Wings
They said cardiac arrest, yet
the eyes were abducted first, taken hostage
to an outlet where chenille wings
hang discount.
A moist gold god murmurs
Just believe in Jesus I quip
Final Sale No Return
- Son’s Wings
The terrorist smirked
slipped
down
clandestine corridors
painting graffiti of Man’s square breasts.
Outside, he gasped
paused
His father hung under a cumulus
of silent, salvational breath
At the services, he imagines his own wings:
black leather, bedazzled, cropped short.
- Holy Ghost’s Wings
Batman, the Boy Wonder is a cave
filled with sun-kissed guilt
and a cacophony of gospel
Really malaise
deformed anatomy under spandex
pressed deeply down
disturbingly dangled
He mispronounces a nearly dead language
flagellates his own masquerade the porthole a plunging
peek-a-boo slit
While lip-locked super heroes sweat
While the Bat car revs
While Deuteronomy looms in the Gotham skies
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(Dis)satisfaction
Eventually the inbox
runneth amok
plethoras happy posts
delivered and repeated repleted
a megalottery of LOL
a listserv of plumped lips and sassy suitors
responses from instantaneous Saturdays
Wiki-licious!
Ms. Milly from the British Consulate or Burkina
Faso forwards a customer’s wet dream, overnights
conditioning lotions, lies
herself on the proverbial line
for a no-more-than-five-minute
survey on quick cooperation. Free samples
of subterfuge arrive postmarked from paradise.
Subscriptions unfold their glossy
odiferous ruses, their colognes
pervade our sound-proof rooms. Credit scores
ascend. Scented of destiny or the occasional
trickery, illusionists reveal
minty breath, their secrets
of smoke screen mirror free next day
delivery. How do they make
these time-sensitive offers last?
Limited amounts left yet
accounts never reach limits Never
empty themselves of compromise,
paid vacations, daiquiri’s slushy
rewards. We have won nirvana
and an extra consonant. All googly,
the perfect paperless match,
smitten, dashes off emoticons
dangles his fiendishly good looking
endowment, finagles a perfectly duplicitous
double coupon at your mouth-watering
manufacturer’s guarantee. Satisfaction’s wily
warranty extends grows thick
as double entendres fills knee deep
in stunt doubles. Giga-bit streaming
at half the hoax, faster the fastest
connections dropped
in your thin, weightless laptop.
Your jeans finally fit. At last!
Alas! Until then
the optimistic screen save toggle
click click
wait and wait
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Ms. Malaprop’s Fierce-Isms
Impossible to know no memory why
In spirograph, their stilettos raised your heels high
No humdrum conundrum white weddin’ time
Beardedbootedtattooed boys in Chanel ain’t no crime
Diagram this beratement, Leviticus, kiss the bride
Two women, Lebanese? Put a baby inside?
Artificial incrimination, disseminate the decline
Adam + Steve, Eve luv Gertie Stein
Herstory/history; I’ll have centricity on the side
Contusions for inclusion – to collude or collide
On the phone Perestroikad; glasnost, you throw up
Libido sin-tactile; semen-antics corrupt
Penus of deconstruction: philo-phallus of mine
Baby you can shew me BartheFoucaultWittgenstein
Slanguage Game # 1: Listen, you hear?
Latex-covered wet willies inserted in the pier
Sonnets or Stryker libido of my tongue
Verse lost to memory;– I should be hung
Big sentence your unit; leather grammar the master
Rave maven enslaved, slut glutton disaster
Opulaextravagafabuladocious – Not!
Lady Macbeth in a ball gown, Out, out damn kulotte
Corsette and hoop skirt, lipstick, ding dong
Evangelist’s transgressions: O how sarong!
Put vowels in your vibrator, forget dangling fag bashes
Honey, peau de soie pumps or dusty licks to your ashes
Cremation in your coffee? One bump or two?
Naked twister in June will shock or construe.
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In My Absence
i
Please excuse my absence. I am somewhere
trying to put two words
together. It makes no sense to write
a letter if you’re present. I was going to write
my boyfriend a letter as he hasn’t
come home in two nights, but
it doesn’t matter if he won’t be
present. Absence. I always relate
absence to loss. The show where
three-year old Siamese twins are
separated—one lost to two. The one’s
horrible arm flailing where her sister
used to be. Can you imagine the
separation anxiety—sentience am-
putated from your body? No present
those girls were given. I know nothing
about loss—only losing and absence.
Absence is different from loss—so is losing.
Loss is a nominal, horrible,
flailing presence—an unwanted present unreturnable.
Losing acts and if it never finishes
there is never loss. Absence is really
losing finalized—a sentience
removed. I am absent.
ii
Dear,
Because
•
Millions of letters are lost.
Dead letters. I could
die right now
in the present
in my absence
in this letter.
iii
Dear Lost,
From the JFK to BQE query round slow down detour until for example a marvelous hat a cheshire cat a chiaroscuro you cannot love sins of the flesh or crimson synonyms heuristics to transgress intimate or imitate you’ll find a way to prose express your bald simplicity a paradigm to outgrow just call collect if you get lost 4Us in usufructuary feel free to count un deux trois quatre sanctions beyond the light last night you passed a yellow woods diverge and take a right IRT and MetroNorth hence New York Paris Rome if you take a taxi the axis may take you home here by myself (do you remember this) away from the clank of the world on paths untrodden furthermore no legend can unfold to map the junctions soon despite the sign signified in flight lexicon damn lexicon scale the mysterious cave sensibilia is not the Flight of the Bumblebee a movement artfully played connect at Station St. Lazare – croissant & crudité –hitherto the path so dim a hairpin turn a cloverleaf a rest stop on the pike join choreography of weary men stumble backwards on the train follow signposts you know are wrong never lose your way prepare for the tender stranger what time is it fall in love with me do you know the way count eleven red lights on two opposing thumbs stop humming enough to smell your breath raise your feet the bridge is coming soon we are not to be avoided a colony is not a leper a name is not a rule you’ve arrived here incidentally here’s the exit a wild goose chase a path of migrating birds the moment comes when you look back the intersection locks the tour waylaid results unfold no fares may be re-tolled the tourist wanders up the landmarks’ stair stares at the mark of land wondering how shall I live is it time to move on do you have a light these are places to remember mnemonics for the heart coliseum grand canal tulips in the snow honey can you stop the car no we’ve twenty miles to go hypocrisy of passing through yet saying that it’s your own the exit is the cruelest part when you’re the one who stays never feel it make a U-turn misread what they say.
iv.
We trek at each edge of word.
