the elephant thought

"this world"
is a religious saying
"this " figures

the countingman

joiner is the countingman you see
none wilder, littler, vested
w/ his countryish hamstand mouth
you can fuck your own germs
to see a milkshake land alot like hm
to really be the wobble

the illiad is beautiful in the fall
apples fall
you can fall into your own plush vote
its fall and touching your face stops
the morning so core, prime
you can truck
a big fucking truck
down hand and cock street
down jack and son street
dis countingman
chicken
nugget
from
real
white
chicken

horseriding

No you do not want to
No you most certainly don’t
Up the the ___ LORD
and push the key in
as round and as soft as you
transpire / look out
for nets, weeks, locale

tit is kind of short
for the future
nation of delicate samplings
swinging beasties
moods
erasers
prefixed
you up
horseriding
un-
horseriding

The Names

The names are utterly every surface engaged. They asterick across our cheeks, heartpump straps, watches, brackets, pins. Let me look at you. Outlet. Names born unto us like holes Pour us they in great lakes dirtywe point at pickles cereal sushi too much bottoms us out our names fall thru our chairs unbecoming. Names snag / yes mam. You ask questions like a real cunt cunt is a name its flowers tagging the wet glass before & still/until our purpose forward makes no aquaintance, no marks on the mirror, on the shit shore. The tongue of the sea. silencer. silence her names in gelatinous fields, in crushed ice fields, in purples and roses, herculean fields so hard to park. I will back up. My name sword onward mitfitting parabola my legs are two names for my life, my fine tooth comb, word.

sonnet on the back of a vintage mountain poem

will not / won’t / walnuts
a because I feel orchard
the closetlight aglow in the heart of a tree
Give away it. will you.
Thethingis
Thethings is
things welt
things is long silt flections
harangue black pieces of
papernight
a zone one-notes upon a carpet
slipfaced
and I this amiss / morass
by sectional, by carpetlight

Trees and stars.

skunk roll on
down road
down brief flare
tell me about it
shoot I love it super-
stitiously, utterly
weather the shit
continuous rain
shunts up our hands & feet
the second story


I see a skunk rolling on the balls of its shoulders and hips like an elliptical. down the road down in a brief flare, cutting across the beach the same way and falling into the sand. tell me about it. I love it like a shot and point superstitiously into the dark, between trees, utterly. The weather equals the world. The shit continuous pulse of rain turns over addresses. I see a skunk rolling one time down the road and set fire. Cut into the water, reach into the circle of water to sleep in. A sign for the the floor. I love it coming to me in a shunt, with no hands or feet in the deep continuity of rain for days the rain gave me tips.

she explained how to put a blanket on his back. how to put a blanket her back when he died. twice she told me with her hands how to put the blanket on without ruining everything. she said star is far away and I kept thinking about how alone a horsewoman is, discrete. The morning is no place. The day is a wash of rubbing out the indescribable evils

star is an amorous sign

she built her house with lots of bedrooms and painted the kitchen the way she remembered venice the smell of venice the fruit overripe flies overfire swoon of venice as if in a tube income

'ville in el

the horses break / Fort
nights, break
in bed, reek / addendum,
bits & flies round up
me as an egg
mighty porous/ rakes
tinking about it
chandelierly
the soft of birds purchase
lastly grand indignant motion
out window
/ pisses again, flies
burning rubber junket
next stop new york
/ breaks it so / likely rain will
all morning and sheer addendum
files off / often
for reasons uninteresting
its units / yak
andarenotashamed

Larry and Larry

Last night I scrabbled for the last time with Sean Bishop, a poet in the UH MFA program. We couldn't have a more different approach to reading and writing, but we're aptly matched scrabblers and enjoy bitching about our prospective poetry universes. We were sparring about whether Larry Levis is a genius or a hack, I realized that I had no idea what I was talking about. I've literally forgotten what that kind of poetry is like. It's gone. He said the name "Larry Levis" and I knew I'd read at least one of his books and couldn't remember anything about the poems, what they tended to, what they read like, zip. I just knew he was in my don't-care-about box. So this morning I went a-hunting for Levis online since all my books are currently in boxes.

I still have no answers. I tried reading about some 7 or 8 poems and didn't really read them. It wouldn't be fair to argue if they're good or whever. There were these lines that distracted me to the point where I couldn't pay attention. So Sean, if your reading, here's the lines I stopped on:

Anastasia & Sandman : I refuse to explain.

For Zbigniew Herbert, Summer, 1971, Los Angeles: No matter how hard I listen, the wind speaks

In a Country: we could / make out the wide river for the first time, blue and / moving.

Readings in French : Which is what happens


I think that's about all I can offer as a rebuttal. A puny little rebuttal. Might even be called a gripe.

*******

This morning Paul sent me the letter from another Larry. Such a wonderful mangled letter, full of broken stuff and misdirection.

'....Abt 1970, 9-10 yrs after the
freon gas, my desire to write long pieces dimmed enough so
I got willing enough to end a poem at any point, any word,
I think that's how the poems got clearer, while before
they were Obscure much of the time....'
and so on...


I have nothing else to say on why I like and don't like these things. It's all very uninteresting, if not totally irrelevant. But I will say I'm very thankful I have people to talk to and argue with. very.

OFF FLAW

xx


White page cipher mop
hark untenanted




xx

spring birds egrets ibis
pelican face raven I bid w/
birdtoast duckshuns
rome you some wrens


xx

insignias have i
placed a purpose
rose on the hole
a wet rose
on window-
hole bearing
winning highlights



xx

Hand eat dis
ruddily up
my legs, back
up, body haul
days a week
tightpants

xx

the body of land

in flips my deep body
inside where water wheres
the darkness butts
chortles waterfiles
hands them in too
light uniforms
exorbinant
stints

OFF FLAW

xx

lover i pelt a note
via button
must i wear on
my stipples

stealth loans

xx

off flaws the sun on
the table
switches the lights serif
tears you catch the
babyday and come bach

xx

violet also wearing
your suit of yours
baywater sewnwater stereo
blue

xx

orange DAYS
on pyramid STEPS
a smaller up there ever
more pronounced
'roach'
you are
we
in the difficult glare
we st amp

xx

witches which
hairs fleas flies
bees itchily
dish faggots
stop day cart
decant

xx

if not night
then then then
a long un

xx

hound dog sack
clothes down
dog kick it
loud down
me putting my-
self together
w/ shirts



xx

flat house port flows
genuine diffractions
a slot of stars
house my life down
to dot you
suits leaflets & sticks

xx

off pilgrim hemorrhaging
sanctioned flies off
the flaps at your ears
a leather
human pilgrim hat flaps
fly off blood pilgrim
wolverine unto
the new worldish
short story

xx


no is a call no is a call
your voice is a purple bear
no saw the errors
on your face
bright
pushy
you my no,
no purpose purple
awe

xx

The blood inside me
turns a white white place
infundibulum
a noise you issues
forwards in white balls


xx

you naturally you
nature rally you rats
u tallyrag
you are so natural
al aural
whole the o
atchoo

little well

little well I look so down in the poetry mirror. there is not much difference i say very little differential. on fields from another: they look likely like one and sum slipping some slippy no big dif between the not yet famous the not yet famous-er in owning this poetry well-ness I tell you my leaf wish gone down the readership onwards and upstarted everpresent poetry poncho I am a good plum and that my friend is another plum

fie you sleepers

fie in the morning of the middle ages heavy is the head I hold up and drive with outgoing bedraggled a hatchet thru the sinews of the day fie fie the sleeping ones the ones curly cue asleep in a field of not-knowing of happenstance feathers a field of chickens sitting tucked in chinny chinness and shut-ness and down

Galveston

THE FLAGSHIP

It is the placement a place symbol, hurry clap hurry down the sea flagging down the seemly windup wishing hag grey bummer sea. Me ruiny seasoned ship meant to make good get crabs totally dashed out red things stitch me self a nest inside cheap swilling sea. Meant to watch ways around. Are. Time to bide.

THE HAIRS OF THE LORD

Thistles stick-on ropes sewn into sewn into the listless hair of the lord ye fishes switch between knowing things and known things step aside the not-hair sea. skin grows over the eyes of the sea looks blinkingly anti remembers what it was to look out don't trip sit on the sea and bob like

TO WHAT THEY ARE TO

Hairs to what they were to, attachments, nerves flash broken sequences, rebuilding instructions & a boat plops on an orchard & marries the trees they sway their noses touch speaking frankly we can't help it we love loops our hands make shady fronds over holy roofs the boat belly grows and is again dashed the words work into braids lace up the sun fill in the pool break off into sleep fraying the rain the rain the rain out comes

THE PRESIDENT

address the hot pot say you are seemly a representative a rare hamburger your pink airs stay shrimpy the ocean rises it wobbles it arms it makes spicy the feeling we now have a president drawing heads and tails on the chalkboard sea

THE HOUSING BUBBLE

picture a popout box bar crawling left to right coming soon the letter slot opens capital letter I for invisible capital letter to who the people ask making plans to meet up in florida drink juicy drinks the stiff sea is a wedge opening letter slot slightly enough the eels slip in capital E people lose faith the picture of the sea hangs on letter slot incoming florida coughs glottis open things flu in

rays of heaven

headed into. in
the stippled presence of
of half-things junk
a squirrel white & grey
the necessary is

identical. identically present.
it is

threads the squirrel insisting
be exquisitely altered
see altar, hairs
headed

valor

rays of heaven stinging
his tail gold a hologram
rises
hath taxonomy
standing
water

eyes vibrate along the line
of green and grey shadows
the activity
of heaven
essays

runs on

laces up w/ little bones commas sticks
doublesided paths

in the wet leaves of
on the wet earth of

obelisk head as any one
thing would look outlying
the rake pulls back
the rake

earth day poem

god said secrets are stupid and then he created earth he flushed one for number one two for number two he made a buzzard machine he folded the sea together he unfolded it gave us this architecture of birds made us wait for what he created lies he hallowed his own name when you think about it he volleys us on jesses and we are paper squares we breathe up eat earth up but come back to his leather hands he said so so we try to say so the wind picks up water oaks our grandparents die we wonder if everything’s already been said if ideas are exercises the way of the worm is the way of god the earth is interface we likes not knowing we dislikes not knowing we itches in ditches foretold us

Bombs Away

Weddings remember started parting the hips elbeaux wrists of native acres, roundabouts' dark javelina hidden between roadwork, the glassy brassy knolls. you call that an orchard? yes the psychedelic feeling lasts and lasts.


Call Josh John Lennon Josh Paul McCarthy Call Josh Yoko Josh Lynda Fung Call Roadside Assistance Josh Just Below Josh Calling Donning Black Wig in the Starlight Ringo Starrlight Paul McCarthylight Call it a Raven Sitting On Your Head Josh There's a Raven Sitting on Your Head DrumAway DrumAway DrumAway Pixieland.


Chickeny nametags. Crop-circle nametags. Disco napkinlight happenstance nametags. Down to fraggle frocks. Clap, Clap. Round two Fraggle Frocks.


This is them thusly this is thimbles this trims the timbre thinner this tremors the thistles float forward thinking this and that this is


Anna looking a little like sardines looking forward certainly sardonic overlooking sedona looking at the fish in the air looking fishy liking to look fizzy likely fussing from one future event to its apparent ending concluding to remain mainlaid to hold course to not rock this nifty boat

SHORT ESSAYS

the Walrus

Note the relationship to alchemical literature is fetishistic at best. To collect phrases, spellings, patinas, ordinarily. To compile. At best, to skim along. To set out on vast instructions, put a bookcase together, a recipe, turn the reddifh rich Virgin Earth, impregnate it with ferene and dew, till the end of May. To guess. It is like writing a walrus stomp the snow. Captured, at best, quietly. At a good distance. To stand for the good distance. To watch nature make a mistake. By nature, be specific. Walrus. Between each motion is snowy blankness. Between each line. Between teeth. Mystacial vibrissae 30 centuries long. Writing whiskers 30 centimeters long.

o. romarus divergens

walvis ros / wal reus

hrossvalr

Its blockish history, ornery, onward. Sounds like. Typography. Tea-stains. The burned edges of Xeroxed pages. If it shall and it has and if its puffy text steps on. Blusteringly. A figment thrumming clams, its ungainly offerings, its see-thru show, is a vague perpetual place.

on Anchemy

Alchemy attends to language. Which whatever way. However lovingly applied. In the wet nursery of science; smudged, blooming, the alchemist. Writing by touch and smell, folds the question in on a particular color, ascribes, atones, imagines. This is the juicy center of science. Stretch it out, temper it, droplet one at a time to a piece of glass. A glass eye. Memorized like prayer. Unfoldingly. To Sublyme trewly therefore thou fhall not mys: / If thou can make thy Bodys firft fpirituall, / And then thy Spyryts as I have tought the corporall. It is and is not partaking. Taking a part. Taken apart.

Take Philosophers' Mercury, prepared and purified to its supreme degree. Dissolve this with its wife, that is to say, with quick mercury, so that the woman may dissolve the man, and the man may fix the woman. Then, just as the husband loves his wife and she her husband, the Philosophers' Mercury pursues the quick mercury with the most supreme love, and their nature is moved with the greatest affection towards us. …Conceal both in a glass vessel, thoroughly fastened, so that the woman may not escape or evaporate ; otherwise the whole work will be reduced to nothing.

the Economy

One step further. To maintain an economy of language. A system of hoodwinks, kickbacks, dead-ends, loopholes. Value slides around. To namesake it. To narrate the invisible performances of science. To capitalize, package assets, to price to sell.

These symbols... already start the mind on its way toward that fiery purification, that unification and that emaciation (in a horribly simplified and pure sense) of the natural molecules; on its way toward that operation which permits, by sheer force of destructive analysis, the reconception and re-constitution of solids according that equilibrium of spiritual descent by which they ultimately become gold again.

Every procedure, balanced on the tide of consumer confidence. Symbols for earth, air, fire, water up, up for exchange and then down smashingly five, four, down to three and two and one. More powerful now crashing, writing the orchestra down. Wreathed in whispering flames . Snapdragons. Whooping cranes. Extinct sounds like there.

Go outside and find something new and convert it into freedom.

Wind Song

Wind hawk part
wind sock
take this
night
gold on your nose
and over,

go
you

river runners
thru smudgy
open flames

take this
shell
ex on a shell

take two
REASONS
THAT WORK


go
river
no
down

no whirl

so stew
so sweet
heapings oh!

wingy rattle-

tooth
nooks

mini-pins
whiteheads
look
where
there
where
there

REASON
WORKS A CRUX
IN

a magisterial beaver

straightup
teeth
affix the fort
da fort da
take two

wooden
wedges
where

the short stick
clocks
the bay
take two

shadows
Achoo! Achoo!

Alligator & Cormorant
Pelican & Banana Spider
Pineneedle & Copperhead

take two dogs on leash
fast on saturdays
on dandillion bridges
thru wooden air
and tubes of light

Take the eye ten parades
of our economy
metal ladders up
chubby vats

Hello

word was
listless
see yer
fingers shuck
corn cobbler
Bottleface
Count the corn
Sitter, git. in. a. hole.
shorn meal-dog
muffin tooth
relax n’
sniff
this
corny
corn canopy pan-
opticon corn
trucked
loaded
on a stick
it's you
unique corn
who stun
you stun
who stun
you stun