bunch of poems

i decided to post a bunch of poems here today, from the most current ("There You Were") to stuff a few years old ("why you write" for example). just got a bug up my, umm mouse, i guess.

i am a very private person, that's why my poetry is so obscure at times, hawhawhaw. or is it that i am a very confused person, and that's why my poems are so private at times? or am i a person at all? i know i'm people, but am i a person? ya know?

babbleblurblebleep


so long, modesto, you've joined the ranks of the painful...


john e, private first ass

title poem of my first imaginary book

remainder of thursday afternoon





hue the
stone
window

dirty gold, sun
dust rocktop
after all what

it is hard
stone you
pretty we

want pretty
shop display
pretty window

you are sad
sleepy paper
parasols

relevant hair
sad stone
pretty window

your blue
robe tries
color inside

hair flies some
blue reason blue
soon goes white


~


2004

'nother old un

mood swing, for PJ




yesterday you were a ROCKET SCIENTIST
today a bridge of sand

someone who doesn't completely understand
told me about this i wasn't there

you mean yesterday when wood rot bloomed
and aphids danced i asked yes he said

yes i exclaimed and the moon the lisps
of peasants the marginal scream

you were there he questioned
are you a ROCKET SCIENTIST

no i admitted but i used to know
a beauty good with figures heart be still

yesterday matter of fact but days are different
all the time hard to understand to fight

hourglasses dripping sand
so different all the time



2001

old poem

why you write



creating instead of knowing
is a dangerous indulgence. so much
is vicarious, so much self
deceit. create the proper pink

being filled by appropriate size
and everyone's happy staying
down on the farm. but the city
of lust, the world of self, the cosmos of

how a leg swings
is really where it's at; and that
crack in the plaster you saw, until
seeing wasn't enough?

it's still chipped the same way now, long after.
her climax booked your memory
solid for years. there was nothing
more to know, done is done. so you created.


~


2001

old IM cutup

when i emailed you, you hadn't told me you were a lump, lol





there are cowgirls, sports nuts, lonely old ladies
computers are easy to run, any one can do it
yeah

So, is this like a Jonestown thing

look for women with snazzy webpages and send an email

appear with your name on it, untitled,
walking around and absorbing the world

it said that i had no interest in sports and outdoor activities, that i did nothing most of the time, and that i wrote poetry

But fuck geez,
fuck geez,
fuck geez,

stare at my toe,
stare at my toe,
stare at my toe,
oops

i wrote a letter to adrianna the other day (she had sent me one)

...and some spots in the poem seemed to be the writer peeking out from her work -
not meaning to, the thing just happening. sort of like a private moment, partially
broken from the poem itself. like being able to say to myself: uh huh,
this is this person intruding on her own poem, and not even knowing it.

whopper of pretentious spoiled bratness
with brief flashes of you.

: too fuckin caeful
: careful

yes there are millions of writers out there but honestly,

the whole idea of DATING is alien to me

there are cowgirls, sports nuts, lonely old ladies
computers are easy to run, any one can do it
yeah

:i was wrong, for the life of that ad anyway
:i dunno i dunno...


~


9 12 03

some poem

Stingray



we aren't words
we aren't animals
pity we're grasping,
needing, ing-ing things

maybe we're not even
things
a tree is a pile of ash
a pretty rock
sooner or later

we cruise the bottom
of each thesis
bump against argument
sometimes heal

i see what has become
i am hearing a word
and it can become anything

paint the sky
bubble water
die in my arms

die in my arms

be silent


~


4 1 06

for paul

stroboscopic, for Napaulm




also like blood on the sheets in the streets
daybleak no light no heat blackout
sidewalk sweet and cool tap the empty
music's the rule the bottle chimes
she a kaboolanichtinsstoolha wa wa wa wee word
in scent he make the bottle chime the lady climb
she sent to hell a love divine as easy as blood    night    booze
just the topper slack on that a while full throttle
the on the off we got'll blind the joy spasms
now on the street and blotto and the fools    shed    tears
whoever gets 'em or has 'em
takes red beer and pills just to freak the dance
piss pants by chance not ill, yeah    by chance
all the sorrow the minutes of piss and how
there's no sacred fight from the will
poetize sacred prize cow the now's the all
motionless through motion, this
       until we hit the wall



~



1 13 06

posepoem

Two Heads or What Have You



Most of my friends have two heads, or only one arm, and some of them aren't really my friends, but close enough. More than a few of them have told me things that made my eyebrows curl and smoke rise from my toes. They're my friends because they are like mirrors, and I can see myself: twelve-toed, earless, butt so fat I can't get through the door. It's helpful revelation, visiting friends. Last Tuesday, for a change of pace, I went to see this enemy of mine, and boy were my eyes opened. I'd stutter describing how peculiar he was!


~


3 3 06

don-type poem, john e style

Most of our assessments are capricious



That may be a good thing in rewarding us
with light lives, a flutter, turn and stare down,
giggle and sweat, forge ahead ahem see the wave
before those on shore, shape it with our ride
our ride, our, our, ou...

I buff my stone. I love this stone,
beyond my understanding,
love it like light, its is
like light's penetrations, its silence
unspoken vows on a deathbed.


~


5 18 06

poem again

I want



to turn a circle into a square,
a square I think is easier to understand
than a circle and if you stop and make the leap
from square to circle it is easier to understand
the grandeur of a curve complete in itself

even though no start end or stopping,
perfectly balanced, drawn out to its own
inscrutable conclusion. How did he
yank out that rabbit, remain in water, bury
himself alive and remain? Cheap tricks;

wouldn't we rather smooth logic to truth, send it way up
tied to balloons, draw it down to bury in damp dirt,
to know wounds and stars for instance
are also something else

and are more truthful for it.
Look again, and the corners
have disappeared; I want to make corners
disappear, a lovely belief
one might find in a poem.



for simic and neruda maybe



~



5 23 06

some etc. stuff

Goldie's Paper Appeal


~~~~after Mary Desti's Ass, by Frank O' Hara



In Philly once
we knew the young Andy Warhol
and during my exhibition
of painted tin
he broke down and sighed
that's the way it was in Philly

the way it was in Tijuana
was about the same
except no one saw anyone
(unless they were family or cops)
especially in the tittie bar
you always wondered

in the woods of Westchester
we gave chase through the Tudors
the relentlessness of over-endowment
was gaining on us

no one felt relieved
living in Lauderdale
you are calling it a different run
for me a vacation, light different
from Westchester, vapidly friendly

I was motoring down the campus
in Missouri
when I met Ronnie's brother
and we pretended together
and maybe that's why I liked him

then in Turlock the weight of furniture
broke my neck and my back was worked and crippled
the worst part was the heavy drama
of the train whistle
at night, rolling through my eyes with its blue tartness,
a comforting thing, so debilitating

from Taipei it's a few hours drive
to see the man who can tell you
when you're gonna die. this was all too spooky
and i walked to Cave's Books and on the way back
found a Taiwanese fashion magazine with pictures of hot looking chicks

and Frisco where I saw Rent
and La Boheme both some composers
are so well-liked and some come after
and their afters become well-liked
and some don't and it's all history

i've never had the desire to go
to Paris
what with all the lights and love eternal, maybe the fog
of a hilly English countryside,
driving at night, peaceful and unsettling both, is not knowing enough
to know


~


11 25 04





Mary Desti's Ass


~~~by Frank O' Hara


In Beyreuth once
we were very good friends of the Wagners
and I stepped in once
for Isadora so perfectly
she would never allow me to dance again
that's the way it was in Beyreuth

the way it was in Hackensack
was different
there one never did anything
and everyone hated you anyway
it was fun, it was clear
you knew where you stood

in Boston you were never really standing
I was usually lying
it was amusing to be lying all
the time for everybody
it was like exercise

it means something to exercise
in Norfolk Virginia
it means you've been to bed with a Nigra
well it is exercise
the only difference is it's better than Boston

I was walking along the street
of Cincinnati
and I met Kenneth Koch's mother
fresh from the Istanbul Hilton
she liked me and I liked her
we both liked Istanbul

then in Waukegan I met a furniture manufacturer
and it wiped out all dreams of pleasantness from my mind
it was like being pushed down hard
on a chair
it was like something horrible you hadn't expected
which is the most horrible thing

and in Singapore I got a dreadful
disease it was amusing to have bumps
except they went into my veins
and rose to the surface like Vesuvius
getting cured was like learning to smoke

yet I always loved Baltimore
the porches which hurt your ass
no, they were the steps
well you have a wet ass anyway
if they'd only stop scrubbing

and Frisco where I saw
Toumanova "the baby ballerina" except
she looked like a cow
I didn't know the history of the ballet yet
not that that taught me much

now if you feel like you want to deal with
Tokyo
you've really got something to handle
it's like Times Square at midnight
you don't know where you're going
but you know


~~

a slight aftershock, nostalgia towards small revealed beauties already

There You Were



a period of morning


Then all
the other sentences


down home country and western miseries
with no truck

I hated the dense metal skies
I had loved before

hated the way
they went dark


There you were
a period of morning
small and round
overtaken by
the sunlight soon due
though my eyes lingered

still upon you


~


5 28 06

month or so

squeaky transcendance


is all i get. why is nostalgia
easier to take than anticipation?
things i think of have to do with
a calliope and a test signal
mittens winter skies and spring breeze.
there's no looking forward
from the tasks at hand to their completion,
whether your favorite building
will still be there next year,
when your best friends will turn up lost lost,
or pass away, whether you'll ever get it.
ah, but backwards or forwards either
and the dance goes on, i'm wobbling
from americana to nirvana,
grabbing onto all these words
to fill my pipes.


~


4 9 06





Big Business



Anyone can talk themselves into success,
or maybe I should say: everyone does,
no matter aptitude, talent, perseverence -
any of the incidental graces we say we are
blessed with. Talk is the pipeline,
the cargo carrier tough enough to do the job,
if the specs are right. I know I did.

What comes from a pitch, an equation,
a list of rules? I'm not sure. But speech,
yes, speech can bring you face to face
with a monkey, bring you to birdspit soup,
an expense account, a free lunch. Sure,
there is such a thing as a free lunch,
only sometimes it's on the other side
of our world. But forget about all of that,

I know I did. Tired of talking opposing language,
tired of watching people dance steps that rock
from harpsichords to harmonicas, Bach to blues;
this is not talk, this is not success. Success comes

when we finally shut up, stop flying, just breathe,
only look into green eyes, strain for the whisper
which makes us foreign, yet for that straining, and
for the listening, remembered perhaps, sold without
a sale, dare I say loved.


~


4 20 06





I Want to See You Naked


And it's this imagination that's interesting --
even more so at this moment
when I haven't yet seen you naked --
more so than what you look like
at this moment, possibly naked.

But I'm not seeing you, right now,
even if you're naked. And I want
to see you naked, and I have to be there,

no imagination. Though now I imagine
what it's like, seeing you naked:
you stand, you sit, and oh yes
you turn slowly.

My whole imagination is in slow motion:
your hand moves slowly to me,
you press your body to mine,
I smell you as we kiss and your scent
comes to me in bright wisps,
foreign, slowly overtaking.

Even if you tripped out of your undies
and lost your balance and steadied yourself
in front of me, quick quick quick --

I want that more than imagination, I want to see
you fall upon me naked, my body wants to see.


~


4 28 06





Sky


I'm the grey smudge band
between green treetops
and sky, something doomed
to always be, something
of my own making, sky-drunk,
life-bloomed. A hand reaches
up past life, into nothingness,
tells me Enjoy. Some
whispers: Unbutton her
here, under my tree, in my air.
Dip your grey tongue in my dirt,
kiss her everywhere I tell you,

make her disappear,
disappear each other.

I'm hearing my voice
it's me speaking now
to myself cultivate
irrigate sun-touch
us,
sky.


~


4 28 06





quiet bedroom


contrapuntal
folds of curtains

sheets gliss
tickle the hot ivories mama

everywhere
breeze touches
on fire

moments
we are absent:

trills in melody

tongue the final chord


~


4 28 06






to myself, at 52


there are times when you tell yourself
you're not old, you still struggle to prove this
but somewhere a voice mimics your own
and the sounds it makes hope for a speedy end,
hope that it all ends soon - the struggles, you mean,
all you meant were the struggles. there are times
you look in the mirror and, except for the wrinkles
and sag and missing hair, you can still see the guy
ready to rock downtown, surprise a girl, drink all night.
but don't pull out the old pictures, that really was
another guy. not too long at that mirror, either,
by yourself, in your bathroom. there is no one else,
and so no passion or conflicts or joy. dangerous ground, this
longing come by unexpectedly. age is one thing, look around,
it's everywhere this decline of light but this is the opposite,
isn't it, this true image, this reflection you can't make sense of
for it's always changing, and never for good. too long here
and you'll be nothing which is sometimes what you want,
isn't it? 52 means nothing, you mean nothing.
you mean this nothing to no one, not even as one nothing
might comfort another, your pleas for senselessness
echo and disappear. instead you get numb, don't you,
when what you want is to disappear within another,
at least, if not disappear into the clouds over the water
near the trees. disappear anywhere, then, anywhere
but into yourself. you don't know cold, you don't know green,
yet you can move as though there were a destination,
warm soft arms around you, haunted by a body's fragrance,
numbed by the wait for the next joy, the next conflict,
numbed when you get there too. you don't have a hard time
convincing yourself it's all temporary, do you, except when
in dim light dreams of flesh turn any way you want them to
and you usually want them to turn to embraces,
and you still won't disappear, will you, you'll keep
your eyes open against her skin and detail will disappear
all the frustration and fear and bits of nothingness
taken away by an impulsive lick of a shoulder
thought circling tomorrow's specifics
mirrors at 52 a woman can
give you the world see?
it's over there.


~


5 1 06






What is Music


Examine ice crystals. No, don't. They won't be there, their symmetries brought down, like what grime on the windshield does to sense of purpose. They're now dead words, these patterns. They might be meditations if you're lucky. But mostly not what they are, by the time you're true with them. Only if you're apt to see angels who scare you or a moon hiding behind a moon will you survive to understand the patterns and how every circle is different, how they're spinning wheels chattering with basball cards, rolling away. Windless harmonicas settle for second best, no choice in the matter. Blow your harmonica, son.

I've written my first symphony, alone by an icy window. I'll admit there are some rough measures and questionable melodies. I hardly disturbed the ice crystals though, hardly aware of spiky echoes and their godly roundnesses. I think I'll get rid of the second movement, I think that's where I touched the glass. Across the street a little boy in a red cowboy shirt stuffs his hands in his pockets. It's cold and he has no jacket. He's saying something. I'm hearing What you think are questions are not questions over and over. Mother arrives, singing showtunes. Why is tombstone a word, what are we saying? Is song brought down to this? I love the ambivalence that fuels my art. I get it from half-looking at ice. Sometimes being sneaky is appropriate. Beethoven loved big fat notes, big stupid chords, and look how many of us went along with it. This windowglass, frosted with trill upon trill mathematical, white prison of soul heat, melts when I touch. It's the just the way it gets sometimes, here in this trad kazoo, limegreen scherzo, icy conundrum.


~


5 2 06






Critique, like love, is constructed of apparent contradictions


I read some of his stuff, this poet.
I enjoyed him before I knew who he was.
I'd tear it all apart now, even having to check
some books on poetics for new ways to prove
how he has failed in his work. Once perhaps he
failed you, even if this has somehow
brought you to me. One type of critic or poet
would use irony to turn and unlock
this situation. Another tears through the work
like fangs through the dark,
don't see blood, but you bleed.
I have the silly grin.

O those poets, I'd smirk,
or jovially concur, or slip someone
a tickle, some sharp abstraction everyone
knows they should turn away from,
look for postmodern glittering rainbows,
some drug hallucination    they know
they're being tampered with
and so on. But, you know,
I have the silly grin.
See you Saturday?
Though we don't dance, well,
you know.


~


5 3 06







What I Want To Be When I Grow Up

Look me up, Loch Ness, spotted a yeti
New as I am to the world of the chuckle
Things get you through, like rice and spaghetti
If they ask what I do, I swashbuckle

I don't have the nuts to be a Svengali
My lurid romance steams one hot tamale
Want two, or three, and to be obscure
Zen moments bloom from each nonsequitur

My need, my need, is to have a spoon feed
In red-bubbled hot soup de jour
A rollicking bald tumbleweed

~


5 4 06






quick poem


i
was
thinking
about you

when the sky
went dark
but lit by
moon

how
angels sing!
another
matter

lit by spring
i nearly didn't
notice until
some po
et wrote
some t
hing

that triggered me i read it
on an internet poetry board
actually this whole thing is a lie

the
fancy
dancing
softly
soft

inside i'm
roaring i'm
thinking
of you

~


5 5 06






then there's this


time in my life when nothing works
and it lasts for years all those years
i find without looking    people passing
stores where the signs are all crooked
churches locked and fenced    i have no
notion to carry me further along in these
discoveries    who sent me and where do i go
schools have different names and my fingers
not properly calloused to play the guitar
in those years when nothing works i can't
sing    i like to walk at night all night
this time in my life when there are no incidents
only weeks or more at a time    this sort of time
imbeds itself in every moment now
not days or hours
but moments    a little piece of a missed funeral
all of this time


~


5 5 06






Of minds that would be entranced


We're in the middle of it,
and pretend it's over there.
We can see it over there,
but I can't see it in you
nor you in me, except for
its action which we see
over there. We buy supplies
at Walmart. Nothing so
Americana to me than black
lung and rolling hills with
that smoke and fog that
really does shroud. Even though
life was tough before wouldn't
you like to stroll down a gaslight street
garter on your arm, suspenders,
gal gettin' saucy and that new
perfume. Even the drugstore
was poetry, written not for poets
but for the fun of coming thirsty
to its fountain, downing new elixirs,
taking home notions. Did this all happen,
the parades and barbershop quartets,
talkies, ads folks really listened to
no matter if they're myths? I buy
supplies at Walmart, which we
see over there, not in here.


~


5 7 06






one moon's


phases pull
me to you

and when
you're not
around i

dance inside
and under
not even
moving

moonlight
in your eyes
a few miles
away

your colors
are perfect
pastel against
the real

the chill is
in the air

all is metaphor
spanish
in the park
cold coffee
and cream

embrace me
once more
by share of night
i touch you
soft fingertips
bright


~


5 8 06








dare i sign off with love


there's a grey-green balloon that popped
and all the monkeys that came out
weren't monkeys yet, they were still
children, blonde-haired, green-eyed,
chipped tooth and such. destined for monkeydom
these childbeasts boarded a train
and from its windows they saw golden light
curve in on itself, shapes left their feelings
behind, abstracted themselves, sent themselves off
to some other Smithsonian, an American symptom,
this growth towards monkeydom. at some point however
nearly every childbeast has a spot of recognition
as to who they were, what they were becoming and
how to stop it. and this spot is usually over their shoulder
and to the right, maybe not, who cares. because
this is like a book of monkeys already, full of the feelings
left behind. now who's going to clean up all this balloon mess?


~


5 12 06




The Legend of Starbucks


Twice or more upon a city
An apparition appears
We partook of its potions
White cocolate and strawberries
Forsooth! The dragon
Singes us with scrutiny
CDs at the counter
Drags its tail into the night
Ever after winds blow hot
Shrill with the change we hold
The fool's hymn just a ditty
Muffled in the crowd's noise
Of this second's century
Respite on the way
Busy and chatty

~


5 12 06








for a while


there's a spot under the moon
god misses small fishes still
in its light otherwise in a splash
heat drips from echoes
now how does it do that?
drips to sear my skin
and my eyes and every
word i will write


~


5 13 06







empty basket through frozen foods


you can keep
the movie, i'll mail you the book
after i finish it, is that okay?
or i'll bring it to you somewhere,
meet for lunch maybe,
or a long walk through the dark,
maybe catch a movie,
maybe talk.


~


5 14 06






Lost My Footing for a Moment



Last night at the winery I had to listen to the guys talk
about guns, cars and racists. I couldn't tell you anything
about gauges, rims and why the government is in a rush
to work the southern border, and not say jackshit
about the north. Pussy and reverse discrimination don't usually
engage me in themselves. But I'm thankful
a woman comes along once in a while whom I can adore,
and if all that black/white/brown stuff is for real
at least I can ignore it, and sometimes it even makes it easier
to see more of what some people really are,

just like pussy will teach you things you won't learn
anywhere else. I can overlay this with all sorts of curliques
and Viagra and what all else, but let's touch its beating heart:
before and within skin there is love, always. Take it as a given,
love for friends, family, love for beloved, all sorts of love.
How could you not feel it?

There's routine begatting other routines, and the routine of
falling into a routine begats another you. Word association is a cruelty too,
and suddenly we realize it's going on deep in our muscles,
even our eyes blink consistant with where we might be
who we might be with, and our larger shadows are even easier to spot.
Spics and porch monkeys, ragheads, fags, wetbacks, whiteboys and Gramps too.
How an arm goes up if there's too much disagreement,
decibels displace grace. Put a newspaper in front of my face

and try to remember her scent, buoyancy in her eyes
right down to her belly, remember, then it's gone,
and a high level alarm starts to ring, break is over,
fucking only an adjective, all the compressors are running
still there's silence upon silence, scent and its memory have no sound.
We all submerge again, swim in what we don't even know we love,
or what we love and cannot have, silence and the work gets done.


~


5 17 06