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From the
E Conspectu canon
Bookmark for further contributions
Thus far:
From the album SWEETNESS THE LOVE BOMB
"Sweetness,
The Love Bomb"
"You Know When Something's Missing"
"Filing My Steps"
"Can't See Diamonds" (Dig That Rock) LISTEN
"Reclining"
"The Brain is Good"
"Sanguini" LISTEN
"Bin o' Soap"
"A Horse on Wheels" LISTEN
"The Brain is Good"
"Ace"
"Patty's Walnuts"
"People Always Got To Let You Down"
"Have Gravity"
"Cliff God"
From the album GROUT INSTANT
To hear all the songs from the new album, sign up for the
Song of the Month Club.
It's free.
"Skids
Morpheus"
"Brooch
"
"An Ounce of Trepidation"
"The Cur"
"Views of the Star"
"Vintner"
"Bricks in the Sidewalk"
"Maniacs "
"Tomato "
"Sandwich
Ready"
"Hockgrain"
"Filing My Steps"
"Trespasser Climbs the Fence"
"Krumangapik"
"Bicycle Spring"
"Sweetness,
The Love Bomb"
Steppin'
out for the evening
Thinking I know just what to do
Watch the climb steepening or decide to dig through
You don't look right with those socialites
And I don't know which one you want
But the more ignoring you endure
The better I tend your real haunt
Don't watch me crash that game
I'm tired and I don't know how
Every move's a disaster
And I can't help feeling we're stepping down
Don't watch me crash that game
Join me at the one I usually play
The faces and places are all the same
But we'll always last until the next day
Sometimes when I am your savior
I know about the blessed, sad
And tired, craving one hidden place of rest
But now I can't seem to imagine
That I will find you out
You're happy and I'm scratching a head gone crawling with doubt
Steppin'
out for the evening
Thinking I know just what to do
Watch the climb steepening or decide to dig through.
"You Know When Something's Missing"
"That don't
belong there now!"
Yeah, she was getting cross,
"In the middle of the room or else it gets lost!"
She is reaching up to the sky in a sty,
Man, that pile's so deep, you can't get by.
She tried
to run my life,
I hit the road to relax,
A trailer full of trash
For fear that she's on my tracks.
Well don't you know there's something missing?
It wasn't
long before that pile needed support
From a female gingko tree the tartan had sprouted forth.
Now she walks around under boughs in the house.
Man, that wood's so deep, you can't get out.
There only
are two things
she knows she'll never find:
Thrown-away scissors
and the keys to a fast chrome shine.
Once she gave the boy with the long hair the wrong pair,
All day long she yells, "that don't belong there!"
You know when something's missing.
She tried
to run my life, I hit the road to relax,
A trailer full of trash
For fear that she's on my tracks
You
are asleep.
I hurry down, the pleasure seeps.
Minding my thoughts is harder than
placing my will in frightened Pan.
Would Michael bear this twist of chance.
Ten thousand miles might make him dance
to another cruel yet cold embrace
while you try to bear my naked face.
Images of
crystal do appear.
Behind the cracks they are so clear.
The windowed rocks, they have no heart
to chart the charge I want to start.
I once desired volumes of praise,
a bauble, and a place to blame
all of the insults, jabs and nods.
But now I see myself a god.
Just the other day I saw him laugh--
insecurity so rash.
A jealous mind may come undone,
result in Cain or worse in some.
To satisfy your every whim
we'll listen to his whimpers din.
"Can't See Diamonds" LISTEN
A
gem compressed by time sits in my hand,
It's finely cut there is no question now.
'Til curves aligned I could not understand
That it was rare when it was all around.
So what
I did was maybe incorrect,
I tried to listen to my Sargent side.
Would reason have destroyed what now is wrecked?
To what half of myself should I have lied?
CHORUS:
Am I going to know if what's mine is mine?
I've been digging so far in search of a sign,
And now it's happening! I've spent all my time
Trying to pick that lock
for something worth saving,
But I can't see diamonds in this rock,
'Cause I'm afraid of a cave-in.
I can't see diamonds.
My fingers
felt like ice in rapture's glow,
My hardened, cold, numb hands would ache to thaw,
But drawn from frozen comfort by my foe,
Mechanical reaction at her call.
Oohs and Ahhs
I touched
her palm of pink and felt ensnared,
Though I could not enjoy it for the fear.
I had to stroke or scratch that feline fair
To see if her reactions made things clear.
CHORUS
I can't
appreciate a dream come true,
However powerful the wish might seem.
Instead I have to think my actions through.
To truth is memory, and all I dream.
CHORUS
At the height
of the rain, I slid into base,
So covered in mud and grass after the game,
When I shook the hand of an old neighbor.
For the life of me I forgot his name.
With
a firm smile and a tarnished lyric,
I told him how his kindness always raised my spirits,
But excuse me, I have to call a cab.
"Come with
me," said the nameless friend,
"Back to where as children my wife would send you to hop
With butterscotch into the sun again."
But I walked to the dugout and picked up the phone.
The uncooperator left me in the rain alone.
"Wait!" I yelled back, "I'll come."
The hall
still smelled like pine
From chairs and desks he made.
The lathework rose like vine
From seats with roots inlaid.
He took the uniform downstairs
And he began the washload.
He brought himself a knife and stick
To whittle the grip of a hand-hoe.
And under an oval fluorescent,
We recalled Halloween,
When an Arabian king at seven,
I had come to be seen.
I knocked
and held a golden bag,
But he kicked open the door and bore
His delivering wife to a waiting cab.
Then he
asked,
"Do you remember how you sat at the cafe reading the style,
When you heard the shriek of a tire and the cyclist in a pile?
You only watched from the curb,
Getting involved just too absurd.
How about
the night when you were ten,
You got my wife and me out of bed
Because your mother fell enraged against the bannister
And swore she'd soon be dead?"
"No, I must
have blocked it out."
"Do you remember my name?"
"No, I blocked it out.
Must be too much strain on my vain."
He rose
to begin drying my clothes, lying strained,
And he amused them.
Upstairs I mused,
"How does he generate?
Must be what he ate.
Generosity couldn't self-perpetuate.
He needs my respect,
yeah there's nothing I forget."
He also
said,
"I made sure they planned
the field where you play
To the west of the hill
for the latest of day."
My
head is buzzing like a fly,
It's all I hear I think I'll die.
On the stove I'm roasting sap,
Listening to the crackle-snap.
Hot dogs
yap in boiling o.j.,
Because something's happened to their day.
My head
is filled with kettle breath,
That stirs my coffee, cream, and meth.
To keep it cold, I'll pay the price,
With a coaster that is made of ice.
Toasters
toss out burning brains,
The coaster's lost to Krazy Jane's
I told you not to worry about these Binges,
your cringes just Make me want to eat alone.
Yum
KEYBOARD SOLO
Inside out
bags of garbage
Lurk about this scene of carnage.
Krishna's
the thirst that Mead must quench.
First the honey must ferment,
Then I'll blend it with cement,
Until it's thick enough to stick
To a rusty
knife I'm going to lick,
I think it's going to make me sick.
A Cognac washing down my throat
Ignited when the storm cloud broke.
When I awoke
and found my knees
Caseload in blackened mac n' cheese,
I asked myself to rate the food,
It heard and said,"the brain is good."
I told you
not to worry about these Binges,
your cringes just Make me want to eat alone.
"Sanguini" LISTEN
No neighbors,
See the
light on next door almost every night,
Whoever hits it never comes in sight,
Now the tear's aware without ever caring till I see it's a reflection of the
room upstairs,
(Now the town's aware when it shuts off its lights and the windows all reflect
mine)
No neighbors,
And having to put up a fight 'cause of the pain,
(No neighbors)
When your home is defined with only half of its brain,
(No neighbors)
Who's coming over tonight?
(No neighbors)
Hey anybody knows neighbors
The racket
always starts as soon as you settle,
Too far to reach the window,
Then you have to sleep while hosting the ghost,
And imposing sound alive with your indoors,
It's a mind around you with a life and a language,
With halls and rooms you already feel,
And there's a mess in the corner of caring and fair,
Where a teacher made a fantasy real,
Be strong, belong, and know right from wrong, the tradition lingers on,
No neighbors,
Why do you make such noise,
And having to put up a fight 'cause of the pain,
(No neighbors)
You keep the whole place dark,
When your home is defined with only half of its brain,
(No neighbors)
You fetch your newspaper nude,
Who's coming over tonight?
(No neighbors)
You don't have no car, you need a job
Hey anybody, anybody knows neighbors
A mentor
disappeared today, and went on a long walk,
After many years the boss decided she was lost,
It gets so dark around this part, you've got to keep at least one eye shut,
Instead of missing half of this, direction out of the rut,
It gets so dark around this part, just like the place from which I ran,
And I find myself looking for you,
And I find myself looking for you,
Everywhere I am,
Then she saw the house a shakin' then she recognized her achin',
Then she suffered my immersion just to give me her version,
All I hear
from you is that late night rage,
And I only see the neighbors a fifth your age,
Find topaz from within light lined streets,
Leave everything grey where the Beatles could meet,
Not enough open and too much keep,
To recognize the trouble of your sleep,
I wish you wouldn't try making noise,
It denies all the good and might of a voice,
If you want a new rule,
You want reason and truth,
Step out of that brood,
Your home just grew,
Yeah anybody, anybody knows
Tonight's
the last night I'm gonna wait here with you,
Keeping the room lit a cool shade of blue,
Tomorrow you won't see me because I won't sit still,
I'm gonna listen to the rain,
I'll be sitting in a mill,
Unlock my eyes you leave me blind,
Let go sofa you give back my mind,
Next time
you see me I will be racked with disease,
Until that day you'll find me climbing the trees,
I've been looking at photos from before you were mine,
I used to go out lookin' for friends and I'd be doin' fine,
Unlock my eyes you leave me blind,
Let go sofa you give back my mind,
(Steve take your TV away)
You make
so much noise that you're quite unaware,
Of the traces I hear of songs in the air (that you air),
You would envy me if you care where I ride,
But there will always be someone else there by your side,
Steve take your TV away, Steve take your, Steve took his TV away,
I think my brain is made of clay,
I think I'll listen to what you say
"A Horse on Wheels" LISTEN
Until
I had the means to move along,
I would beg and crawl,
Past tiny hands in windows,
Over the wheels I'd watch flat out stall,
Even though their golden waves would never carry much in gifts,
I'd drag my nails across the streets for anything they left,
You must
think you understand,
You think I wonder how it feels,
To have the land at my command,
Astride this horse on wheels,
Now we're
looking up inside this luxury sedan,
Connected to each other by a tiny hand in hand,
Maybe in a year I will have finished paying off the bills,
Maybe by that time it will have learned to handle hills,
You must
think the beast is tame, you wonder at the gift she steals,
(The wave crash)
And returns me just the same, I'm riding on
(I give to you)
A horse on wheels
I'm trying
to ignore the twelve crows sitting on her back,
And feel the motivation for the play that we enact,
I fight the urge to just roll the down the glass and claw the road,
The brakes are gone I have to try and steer this fancy load,
You must
think the beast is tame, and start to pay for all my meals,
(The wave crash)
And beauty gonna make you want control, don't ever put
(I give to you)
A horse on wheels
I really
should have shocked her, sent her to the doctor,
When she said that Ladysmith had taken my place,
Driven by her wonder I had come up with the hours,
"Everyone will die," she said,
Whim-blown back to my estrangement,
Like a midnight shower,
Falling over ears who read,
I have a
crime so serious that shortly after hearing us,
The guilt of it will comb your hair,
And speed your mind and spice the air,
But I had
no desire to part and slick back wires,
Or quicken any liars,
Or wake up any tires,
Having aced
arrangements, breaking our engagements,
We would find a quarter sold us out of the race,
Without that inspiration I was jaded and immobile,
He was all we had, it seemed,
But I couldn't face the bitter end was so ignoble,
So I hung my brain and screamed,
I could
have saved the industry,
And overnight untide the sea,
Wilting Western Grape CDs would no longer outsell me,
But I could not write tunes to rock and roll the moon,
Or overtake two spoons; I think I spoke too soon,
Tripped
by fate and crippled,
Stability was tripled,
Firing up the energy to pick up the pace,
Do ever the gears freeze up on you,
And what derails the train,
Every time she said, "That's hot,"
Do you find its easier to sing about the pain,
Now that it takes what you've got,
I'd like a system for my pen, to know that I could do it again,
And knowing what it's all about,
I wouldn't have to deal with doubt,
But I am not empowered to pull up weeds and flowers,
Encourage men to cower or sweeten what is sour,
That mouse
has really got my brain,
Rolling around on a mattress,
Looking for a place to rest,
Or walking through the snow at best,
I didn't realize she could flip my id,
Ask for mustard on the run,
Look at what I've found here,
Searching for another beer,
While I sit people look at me,
Puffing on that cigarette,
Chaste in a line in front of me,
She finally saw behind a tree,
Is this
just blind cold regret?
Did you quite figure this one yet?
What course of action I should take,
While waiting for that one great pet,
Continuing on a silent note,
Where your roll has changed so much,
That I could use it,
It wasn't
really difficult,
And kind of pleasurable, they'd say,
You can take another course,
And wipe it off my bathroom floor,
Five years I've spent aboard this shipwreck,
Waitin' for another day,
Playing in the woods somewhere,
Or walking through our town in pairs,
Distance
doesn't seem so much a gadfly,
As a paper rug,
Will I feel
the guilt once more,
While they see me sick and poor,
I'm still thinkin' of myself,
With a passion thick as bells,
It's me I'm looking for,
So she will
sit and stare,
Hidden in the leaves somewhere,
My ego will be justified,
Dignity might save (my pride). n
"People Always Got To Let You Down"
People always
got to let you down,
Those whom it's too easy to astound,
And the ones who don't want you around,
If they're near you recognize the sound.
People always
got to let you down.
A little child will hide a smile to stick to style.
People always
leave you feeling cold,
Toss you like a snowball that they rolled,
Tell them something you have never told,
When you're needing somebody to hold,
People always
leave you feeling cold.
I've found the key. I want to be only with me.
People always
got to lose their minds,
When you've finished peeling off the rind,
And you think you need no more to find,
That's when they leave what you find you like behind,
People always
got to lose their minds.
I'll fall again. Love moves my pen, since this is when,
I have always got to lose my mind.
You are
leaving America,
That's the steward
he'll starve you, buttle you or blind you.
Leading off.
Next to
him,
and you can help yourself,
if there's a settling of senseless.
Good King
Sven discovered himself drawn to the lass who remained steadfast.
She was in the place.
She characterized her space.
He would
bend his hovering wealth on to the grass as a train did pass.
He deserves a plaque.
King Sven was the mac.
He told
her, "There's a brand new land spit up by an underwater volcano.
It has mountains that seem to rise like clouds,
full of fossil fizz and the caves of a bubble labyrinth.
When we
get there I promise you we'll explore.
We might find the core."
She said
"Sure, but I'm poor."
And he said, "Hey, this is more than some lure."
And then he told her what for.
Without
needing a pair of tickets,
That was the ignition, oh no, you don't get an initiation.
Heeding
a heretic,
There's a chance of recognition, or a chance humiliation,
Period of isolation.
You are
leaving America,
That's the steward
he'll starve you, buttle you or blind you.
Next to
him,
and you can help yourself,
if there's a settling of senseless.
I feel strange
here. It reminds me of the future.
I feel wonderful. It reminds me of the future.
Ranking
up there with unmitigated passion,
Is an interminable air of sleep.
Senor Cueva puts faith in the latter,
Despite the scattered plastic forms of eleven lone runters with range of the
place.
Behind the
door of his fruit and vegetable shack,
Is a modest, tattered ranch house,
and a sofa ripe for the dormant.
In broken
Spanglish our man pleads
for silence from the grackles and mockingbirds.
They fill his half-open ears
Acerbic asparagus and brooding bananas.
They scratch his skull.
Pierce his dull, unimposing frame.
His wife, with a mind for business, breaks through with constant chatter of,
"Order more party platters make Hector pay full price you don't eat right
Lights out!"
Slammed
on a simple charge,
He earned ten years hard labor,
And a prominent place in the local papers.
They secured his hypercontented life.
Never wanting
out. Happy locked on in.
His half-toothless grin says
"the harvest festival has left, once again."
Frozen in
sweltering saturation,
he maintains a sufficiently satisfied face.
Every once
in a while a caring customer would scream,
"Why didn't you try out for the Olympic team?"
He would humbly respond,
"It wasn't my call. I'm just a cliff god."
The fantastic qualities called me first thing this morning
and the telephone
sounded like chimes.
I knew it was them of course because for one thing they let it ring at least
seventeen times.
Getwithis and echoes of it came in here and all of a
filter, yes, or
something of the kind,
I left the test there on the desk:Ê "Identify the natural jilter".
No conversation can occur.
The patient, so gruff, yawns, "enough dawn."
The stuffed pawn.
The night painted pads and my family plays
Outside the maze.
I know I have to leave the homonym home,
I see the dogs and days,
but waking up is so hard to do
In a bed of comfort you can taste.
No conscious stream can interrupt the dream.
No clock alarm can shock and harm and lock charm.
The busy confused, the driven accused, the late fused,
And God's parasite ended dead,
Wishing you had taught the last few to sing him out of bed.
Even though
my life is much the same as yours,
I give myself good grades,
My advantage since I'm out of school:
My scores eclipse Golden Key range.
(Congratulations)
As a congratulation to myself for making myself president,
Impressed by my own skill,
(My own self making)
I made myself a brooch which I pinned
To where I would have a lapel,
Had I to wear a suit.
I was attached to it.
A gorgeous
thing, really,
No pastels in the color scheme,
An acrylic nest centered by a pointy carrot, chewed on by a parrot,
(A new brooch - oooh!)
I felt like my own man when I'd wear it,
Which was now going to be all the time,
Stepping out for my first appointment,
I noticed people staring and smiling,
(They're smiling at me)
I was just glad they were enjoying it.
Stiff the
muscles in my back,
Better than loose in this instance,
Considering my stance, ecstatic as a fish,
At least the muscles had a good grip,
On my vertebrae,
Like barnacles to a fin.
At the
decent hour of ten I met a man who paid to consult me,
He listened patiently for over an hour, then asked insultingly,
"May I see your accreditation?
You're saying I should put the arbitrators of my cases on the payroll,
Makes sense with what you said before about having more control,
But I don't suppose you'd want to brush this by the unions."
"What bias do you base that on besides that of your own rhetoric?"
In a mirror
in the uncomfortably posh hotel lobby where we'd been meeting,
I saw my client arranging his papers,
And my brooch looking like a plume,
It didn't suit me it didn't suit my mood,
People had been laughing at me all day.
"I'll give you a list of my clients," I said,
And he thought I was being sarcastic.
I have
a grip on the curtains,
Held up as they are by tacks,
I do like the fact that most of my furniture is upholstered,
But I only have a vague idea where the armrest begins on my sofa,
And only by getting out of it the first time,
Did I learn how close my weight had sunk to the floor.
With an ounce of trepidation, certain discernible
nerves,
I stomached the notion that I wanted to serve.
Imploring with hors d’oeuvres, loosening appetites,
I wouldn’t sit you down to some balanced diet.
I said, “Come on try it.”
The fool of finger food lay down the napkin to reveal
A random utterer of the intentionally cruel,
like, “Let’s skip dinner - you look cute. Come with me to the movies.”
But I added, granting myself impunity,
“That is, come only if you want to.”
Next week, you had a hickey, a discoloration
of the neck,
A curiosity, a testament to a non-event.
“Are you being fickle?” neither one of us giggled,
“How much do you care if your allies needle?”
Or did you talk about me?
Wait, I don’t know?
I better wait until I know for sure before I try to go!
You were soaking the bruise.
When your foot follows through against the corner of a desk,
You’ve no idea how that can ache.
And the sun shines through the panes behind
the blinds,
Through the see-through sink to the floor.
You watched the water fall through the spigot, over your arm, and
down the
drain.
It is here that you remain.
Skin akin to hide, aching with each expression,
Lenin blush with pride, levels good but pH high.
A curious guy, exploding with questions,
Pressed to Yea Right As Republican,
Licit police to enter the pub without warrant to end the violence.
Amid the dense and humid acres, insects, leaves,
and airborne debris,
Have done the job of the parasol I feel I still need.
Under the canopy of an enormous tree,
There lay a limb with many branches on the ground,
Down for months, I reckon, judging by the lichens.
I stepped up to break the branches down so I could walk through,
But they bent back in support of my weight.
They should have snapped,
But because of the humidity, the dead wood wouldn’t crack.
The cur’s boss says he loves the company,
And he burns and he smiles and I feel like a prize.
Looking for a veil on every motive, I’m missing mine,
Even when I tell myself that I’m fine.
Right into the middle of the tightest crowd in disguise,
Here comes the cur and that’s not allowed.
“I will win the friendly grace of the servant,
To stir deliverance, mix in opinion,
Just something to discipline the cur who observes me.”
I don’t need discipline, I get plenty.
What employer never needs to change
He carries His own light, you walk His stage.
The beginning stretched all through
And how I would love to end the story
By wrenching the lush chaos of caring out
And onto shelf o’curry worry.
It’s not the kind of thing we can share, some will express,
As a pan-stellar day bathes our faces in light.
The cur’s boss reinvents the company,
He burns and he smiles and I feel like a prize.
A wink and a spin on any grief, my foes and I
Take off our masks and start to die.
Polishing your character would be sweet.
Gorgeous, meet your portrait, you’re discreet.
I will win the friend, a simple foundation,
And stir liberation, mix in opinion,
Just something to discipline the cur of observation;
I don’t need discipline, I get plenty.
Erasing stars into the eyes of someone tall
Published for my wedding at the Feast of Gall,
Pineapple has no place in a porcelain hall,
But I want you to pass me the ball.
Territories lie and networks span,
Old bones link and nymphs command,
A walking nerve on my way out to dance,
Straining for revisions to the old can-can’ts.
Without a sale or a trade,
I just cross the glade.
The path that you’ve obeyed
Is a real estate, it has to fade, but
If I can find myself the perfect car,
I’ll jump in and drive to the views of the star.
Magazines slide and tables slant,
Mountains rise and riders pant.
I fear you would refuse or you can’t,
But I want you to give me that plant.
Opposites plunder pat, pat persona:
Punch and Polar Eyes.
Cleat-feet prefer to even the sides;
Once I was so wise...
Smiling in sunglasses, sun streaming in.
Must be the kind of love that I’m all dreaming in,
Anticipating the face that you’re beaming in.
You can’t flip on the ascention that I’m seeming in!
Walking out to see you one day,
Happily expecting dont je connais,
Conjuring where statues curse their clay,
But you introduce me to the Model of May.
I am underneath
Spells and cogwheel teeth.
All I do is moan about
Patterns overgrown.
Magazine mollified
I follow from outside.
Mountain bound I rise everyday and I set in my pride.
(Magazine mollified)
What can it be to fashion such a crab?
I want to fail or win, at least to stab.
I saw what all the anorexic ate.
How far can the aesthetic rate?
(Magazine mollified)
My face has warts, a lot.
My pate is balding now.
I’ll take the photo, but I fear
I’ll never blink aright, my seer.
Opposites puzzle and solid rocks melt.
Everyone recovers from a dent and a welt.
Enemies tested the passion they felt
And told each other, “Why thank you for taking my pelt.”
Chew the raisin:
A cheap thrill.
But I age the grape another way.
Fermenting a procession of firemen
Riding four tremendous engines
With plow power, and decked with flowers,
Marking the death of the Fire Chief.
In this wine I make:
Pistons that wail
At alarming scale -
You start to quail
At the gun-like hail
- A brick of firecrackers, carried on the trail,
Placed and lit, after supper,
Under an upside-down pail.
You don't look back until you've high-tailed
To trees the metal shards assail.
Firemen will wear black
With yellow helmets
Their protection from the elements in there.
Four parts carbon,
Ten parts hydrogen,
One part oxygen:
I've added these to the grapes
To refine the wine
To make
Embers under the tongue,
Still orange when morning comes
And we rise from our bed rolls.
Our lungs, the bellows,
Blow the old coals
To start the breakfast fire.
The trick is to build a beanstalk
Without estimate or sketch
Using pencil and a straight edge,
So people know you built it,
That it didn't just sprout where you spilled seed,
Like plaints let curl by the chants of those
Who shout to rule the world.
The trick is to build a dome with brick.
The bricklayers know it,
But they're getting old,
Still quick to slap cement
But they've got to take it slow
When they stoop to set
Bricks in the sidewalk.
First down on the knees,
Short inspiration from the trees
Before planting their left arms
Forward on the ground to bring
Their heads down from the charms of natural things.
Such a structure could never be an eyesore:
Making curves from the straight is the only aspect needed to make it great.
So let the bricklayers retire!
Go apprentices,
Indenture the masons,
Stop construction of masonic miles
To tablespoon cement for mosaic tiles.
Down in the cellar I tap the cask
My jaw pulls back
As wine pours in the glass
It's half-solid, not half gas.
Gripping the glass I spin it,
The liquid rises around the rim
I'm surfing it,
Surfing inland on a bob,
Not afraid of falling in
But terrified of the opaque wave never breaking.
"Maniacs"
How did I get to this point in my life?
I hate everyone of them.
And they're just going to get it in the face when I'm done.
Don't blame me for what I do. (Love me.)
Don't even approach me with part of it.
We'll approach it in good time.
How do I get to this point in my life?
I watch every one of them smiling at each other
And then without the party going:
Don't misunderstand me. (Love me.)
Clubs of understand don't mean nothing to me.
And that's that.
Off we go to play this evening.
Off we go to fly.
All we can make light of has a glaze.
All our bluster fits into the maze.
Just like magazines into the fray.
This pack doesn't recognize a phase.
Banana.
How did I get to this point in my life?
I hate every one of them.
And they're just going to get it in the face when I'm done.
Don't blame me for what I do. (Love me.)
Don't even appraoch me with part of it.
Chill my leftover.
Please repeat -- over.
I'm sleeping over.
Can't hear you -- over.
And I see you trying to make friends
in you're own inimitable way.
You think people will respect you for your character.
But I'm sick of it.
Why don't you come to me for once?
I wish all the maniacs would get a grip.
Dolphin time.
Hey, the way you flap your wings
The way you flap your fins
The way you breathe through the porthole in the top of your head.
The way you breathe, the way you say "hello."
You wave your fin in the air
You wave your fin in the air
You wave your fin at me.
You love me.
You really do.
BACK
"Tomato"
Hauling buckets up the back stairs to dump,
Between the beware the dog sign and the
shack,
He sees in the grass a pale orange sack.
A dim yellow flower
Chaste not by choice
( Honeybees and he had overlooked it)
In a shadow of grass
It gave no light of its own
And so as well as might have been green
Then swollen unnoticed
Into a ball
Whose green skin,
Awkward as an igloo
Ballooned from the vine.
Five o'clock had all the colors flushed
When ten yards deep in inedible brush
Fanned by an August hay dust
One pale tomato on the vine
Takes time.
He flattens the path with the empty bucket,
And reaches for the unripe tomato
And plucks it.
"Sandwich
Ready"
The weighty tomato in my pocket insists that I snack it.
I raise my head from deference to the weeds
Maybe a little alcohol poisoning will make
them seethe
And fix my course on the kitchen in the despicable part of the house
The way I stammered a hello
In the midst of the ruthless critic at the pawn shop
Fixed my gaze at the weathered cask,
Put my thumb through the broken slat
and gave the salesman cash
Why not trot right through the bog?
It's in brooding over these whims that you get bogged down
You're easier to extricate stuck in the mud
Than when you stand back
Weigh the time wasted against the cleanliness of going around
And you get in such a muddle
I really should just press new grapes
And get the bugs out of this recipe while it bugs me
But then I just can't, won't, shouldn't yet
Guess I've got to put that unripe tomato in my stomach now!
Cut short the turn up the back steps
Bash my knuckles on the hand-rail
Set the buckets on the porch
Almost don't see the screen door
And put the unripe tomato on the cutting board
Stem down and resting so unsure
That it rolls off onto the floor
Bouncing as high and bruising as easily as a
shot-put
Microwaving the unripe tomato
Should accelerate the ripening
To make it red, Sandwich Reddy,
in under sixty seconds
The heavy clothes hung on him like ice.
He traded fur, sold his shoes and sled.
Honest eye crossing empty lands.
Strength and love.
Before he saw us he felt explore transform into settle.
Nomads come to this town and stay:
Snows meeting drifts.
Hundreds of houses, and double, in deeper:
Drifters weighed down.
Shrubs run to fences,
Rubble vests to gardens,
Boundaries abound.
Now there is a welcome sign,
But the name's too strange to sound.
An unharnessed cat likes the smell of his packs.
All the houses are closed.
A blue-clad bag carrier passes in stride.
Packs follow packs.
His face shows a whirlwind of thought.
It's real, like a breeze in the leaves.
He smells lands to till.
He can't believe in the months and the leagues with no use for his voice.
"Just a lone adventurer without any place to
stay?
Why not see the mail route?"
A quickened step and pulse.
The lifeblood is en route.
Boxes, slots, and trails all morning packs a talking-to.
If the weathered letters feed these hearts from so far,
And the cars outnumber houses,
Is this really fit to settle?
Notice: Come to the sale at the place.
Lines dropped through holes in ice.
Cars overload the fine lane in the dale.
Horns insult the birdsong.
Seniors chastened by desperate cops:
"Put your carts back!"
Kids abandoned and blue sky.
Safety for patriots, talk station politics.
Flags snap and fly.
From the spot where he camps,
The town looks a bowl;
All rimmed by hills,
Catches the human ills,
Like untended seal snares feed bears.
The winter months...
A stitch in all the time you've known can bind you to the term alone.
Frustration is your daily curse, and hopeless isolation, worse.
A nest of these will make your plot escape and freeze you to the spot.
Because when it seems possible, it builds into a crucible.
It brings your love back into mind in waves of loss from things you find.
It won't be long before you tear this skein of home you weave and wear.
...for the sole adventurer with many roads behind,
Asleep in the pines.
So heavy is his head,
His skins still make a bed,
Clearing his head is impossible before noon.
Keeping so busy in between these folks,
Making some jokes and forgetting each name soon,
In nobody's way, he needs to know how to say:
"This grouse I pack"
"The new home"
"No word yet on the slates we asked Fred for."
"Fran's going hoarse with him."
"I'm going to talk to him.
Oh, guess what the trailer got:
Someone who wants to live in there."
"Should we have them for dinner?"
"Filing My
Steps"
Filing my steps you are asleep.
I hurry down; the pleasure seeps.
Minding my thoughts is harder than
placing my will in frightened Pan.
Would Michael bear this twist of chance?
Ten thousand miles might make him dance
into another cruel yet cold embrace
while you try to bear my naked face.
Images of crystal do appear.
Behind the cracks they are so clear.
The windowed rocks they have no heart
to chart the charge I want to start.
I once desired volumes of praise,
a bauble, and a place to blame
all of the insults, jabs and nods --
and now I see myself a god.
The the other day I saw him laugh --
insecurity so rash.
A jealous mind may come undone,
result in Cain or worse in some.
To satisfy your every whim,
we'll listen to his whimper's din.
"Trespasser
Climbs the Fence"
A real dog could root out groundhogs,
But my beware-the-dog sign
At least does the trick on the literate,
It keeps them from picking the vines.
Yet a trespasser climbs the fence,
And begins to pick vegetables.
His cheeks of radish skin, pinched in a squint,
It's Krumangapik.
"Krumangapik, hello,
Won't you come inside?
Do you take your tomatoes fried?"
"Krumangapik, careful with those candle
drippings,
It took a lot of candles to get the feel of molten lava."
"I always watch my lamps with guilt,
Tilting the oil to the wick, none spilt."
"If you think that's a waste of wax, HA!
Today I threw out a whole wine batch,
Trying to make it to taste like a lit match.
Krumangapik, you've relied on fire.
Tell me about a blaze,
An inferno from a little flame,
Something that scorched your diary,
The smell of drying skins smoldering,
Of things never again the same."
BACK
Krumangapik
My kinsmen fish;
Dumb as oars, they drink brine
to tell what time to drop nets over bows.
I bend bow, don't - eat snow,
To know when to let go the arrow.
I called my kinsmen to hunt the caribou coming from the tundra.
Five with sealskins on their heads readied their sleds.
I packed needles and narwhal thread so no one dies of a rip in his mittens.
We lashed driftwood to last til we got to winter camp
We leashed all seven dogs side to side as if to make a sea drive.
In a week we came to mountains.
Narrow passes hampered the dogs.
Driftwood ran low, Willows don't grow in snow,
And so they chose to go back.
I said, "We could dig for heathers, burn those."
They said no, and so,
Alone, I crossed further inland through the winter.
The snow, my tent,
cushioned my sled,
But quieted the steps of animals.
Like winter who worries, neither queries very much
whether the water runs over the fall.
The well-rested ferry of sleep deprivation
Severed the breadth of the squall
With a dull yet heavy swath
that, fathom by fathom, took to task
The unfathomable path.
The more south, the less clear the atmosphere,
So I held snow to my eyes;
Crossed rivers with unfamiliar names,
other side of mountain range.
Many nights I slept by an open fire,
Not enough snow for a snow-house.
Even under my skins I nearly froze.
Krumangapik, with you adrift,
To have handed you brandy as a gift!
I needed to be inside by a stove,
A gas range with blue flame,
So contained.
K
Bicycle Spring
Evil scenes are bound to linger,
And you can't help but stare
Let me tell you, this is fate,
and fine, and that
was there.
I was not exempt from this
Though no one saw ne care.
Popularity, my friend,
This will stall your calling.
Chosen from the start, you may be long
Before palling.
Four or five days with a friend for hire,
you will see that friend retire.
This was a game for the playing of us all.
We with the flame found employment at the mall.
Understand we need you.
Much as we misread you.
Never losing track of how free it is
To be so little at the edge of the sea.
Much too large to see you point of view, young one, am I,
But as your elder someday, let me trust to the wry:
Hide from your boss and his id
And your cops.
And stop still,
Priest and teaser will interpret your seizure
with frills.
She will show and give;
Her senses reach you first.
He will just refer to furs
And Burrs,
And Never Calling Me Sir.
I will not apply to that
And I'll see no one care.
Who buys lush bank of touristy but empty lagoon?
There I learned, by the looking glass, under the moon.
Four or five days at the resort in paradise,
You'll be ready to go back to work.
Something keeps me from the House of Fun;
I see the green man and I turn and run.
Understand, we need you
(Much as we misread you),
Never losing track of how free it is
To be so little at the edge of the sea.
Much too large to see you point of view, young one, am I,
But as your elder someday, let me trust to the wry:
Hide from your boss and his id
And your cops.
And stop still,
Priest and teaser will interpret your seisure with frills.
BACK
