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how much of the map could be labeled terraincognita how much        unknown        invisible to others how much of myself    could I shake off abandon               those undiscovered places [I barely know]        exist though the map is not the territory how I am drawn        to leave behind the pattern for the path        for a minute an hour        for one whole day I'd be like a Wintu               describing the body using cardinal directions he touches me on the west arm the river is to the east when we return          his east arm circles around me        and the river stays to the west

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck If a woodchuck could chuck wood? As much wood as a woodchuck could chuck, If a woodchuck could chuck wood.

from Sonnets, Second Series XXIX How oft in schoolboy-days, from the school’s sway Have I run forth to Nature as to a friend,— With some pretext of o’erwrought sight, to spend My school-time in green meadows far away! Careless of summoning bell, or clocks that strike, I marked with flowers the minutes of my day: For still the eye that shrank from hated hours, Dazzled with decimal and dividend, Knew each bleached alder-root that plashed across The bubbling brook, and every mass of moss; Could tell the month, too, by the vervain-spike,— How far the ring of purple tiny flowers Had climbed; just starting, may-be, with the May, Half-light, or tapering off at Summer’s end.

Moisturizer is important to me like a car is important. I’ll never own a car and skin is incidentally mine. Truth is, skin seems to manage pretty well on its own. I only travel in cars to sing to the radio. My skin is such a brute! It needs a regime! I need a drink. My car and my skin need a drink. I want to say ain’t you a cool glass of water. My skin is so dull and I have no car. My eyes, however, are ritzy. I favor the non-abrasive. My cult product is an anti-aging self-emollient. More often this is new pajamas. But pajamas need multi-talents! I’m not yet old-old. Thinking of crystal decanters makes me feel young, they are inscrutable adulthood. My skin can’t be so bad — sleep is like a drink and my controls are set to bed. This is my mitigation against stress, stern weather, assorted irritations. Being ravaged is my own fault! Proper living requires routine, tiny adjustments that make life better. I’m making plans with no muscle to them. Sleep is no artificial skin, despite its gauzy potential. Rose water — by the by I’d rather drink it as the hokey pendulum swings. I’m looking for something foolproof, aplomb that withstands the interrogating nude.

are our spirits, these loquacious silver gods who glide at some safe distance above their rank and proletarian bodies. Foul though fascinating landscapes they are that they traverse, besmirched with armpits and fruity genitalia and belching gobs and those impulsive blurting sphincters in whose hot updrafts they might ascend and soar. O, but our spirits are so lustrous, so hairless, so advanced in their glass-bottomed flying machines which run on just about nothing! What quick and icy notions they have that slot into one another like the tightest clocks, and how they lick their lips as they gaze down in anticipatory glee, for though they would not themselves wish to rough it, they certainly will peep through their bedroom windows, each a jiggling voyeur of its own ardent body when that body has chanced upon another, and the pair of them have knuckled down to their immersive work.

The story of how she bowed to her brother. Who has whom as his. Did she bow to her brother. When she saw him. Any long story. Of how she bowed to her brother. Sometimes not. She bowed to her brother. Accidentally. When she saw him. Often as well. As not. She did not. Bow to her brother. When she. Saw him. This could happen. Without. Him. Everybody finds in it a sentence that pleases them. This is the story included in. How she bowed to her brother. Could another brother have a grand daughter. No. But. He could have a grandson. This has nothing to do with the other brother of whom it is said that we read she bowed to her brother. There could be a union between reading and learning. And now everybody. Reads. She bowed. To her brother. And no one. Thinks. Thinks that it is clearly. Startling. She started. By not bowing. To her brother. And this was not the beginning. She has forgotten. How she bowed. To her brother. And. In mentioning. She did mention. That this was. A recollection. For fortunately. In detail. Details were given. Made an expression. Of recollection. Does whether. They gather. That they heard. Whether. They bowed. To each other. Or not. If in. They made it. Doubtful. Or double. Of their holding it. A momentary after. That she was never. Readily made rather. That they were. Whether. She asked her. Was she doing anything. Either. In all this there lay. No description. And so. Whether. They could come to be nearly. More. Than more. Or rather. Did she. Bow to her brother. PART II They were a few. And they knew. Not that. She had bowed. To her brother. There were not. A few. Who knew. That she. Had. Bowed to her brother. Because if they knew. They would say. That a few. Knew. That she. Had bowed to her brother. But necessarily. Not a few. Knew. They did. Not know. Because they. Were not there. There are not a few. Who are there. Because. Nobody. Was there. Nor did. She know. That she was there. To help to share. And they can. Be there. To tell. Them. So. That. They know. She bowed. To her brother. More. There. Than. There. III It might be easily pointed out. By the chance. Of a. Wish. No wish. He might. Not wish. Not to. Be easily. Pointed out. By no. Wish. Which they. Might easily. Not be pointed. Out. As. A and not. The wish. It is not. To be. Pointed out. That. There. Is. No wish. Not. A wish. She bowed to her brother. Was not easily. Pointed out. And. No wish. Which it. And easily. Pointed out. And. No. Wish. She and. No wish. Which  is. Not easily pointed out. And. So which. They. And. No wish. Which. And not. Easily pointed out. She bowed to her brother. And no wish. And no wish. And not. Easily pointed out. And no. Wish. For them. Which. To wish. Not. Which. Easily. Pointed out. And. No wish. Which. She. No wish. Easily pointed out. Which. She easily pointed out. Which. She bowed to her brother. And. Which. If she had been likely to restate that doors which relate an advantage to their advancing. And not at all. As a coincidence. She bowed to her brother. This was a chance. That might have happened. Minutely. To interrupt a white dog. Who can occasionally. In instance No once counts alike She bowed to her brother. For. And. Counts alike. She bowed. To her brother. Could be lost. By their leaving. It as lost. By. The time. In which. They feel. They will. It is. Indebted. That able. Presence. As very much. And idle. If she were walking along. She would be. She would not. Bow to her brother. If she were  riding. Along. She would. Be. She would. Be. Not as bowing. To her. Brother. As she rode along. Easily. By driving. As she rode. Along. She. Bowed. To her brother. It is. True. As. She drove. Along. She. Bowed. To her brother. Just like that. She bowed. To her brother. They were. There. That is to say. They were. Passing there. They were passing there. But not. On that day. And with this. To say. It was said. She bowed. To her brother. Which was. A fact. If she bowed. To her brother. Which was. A fact. That is. If she bowed. Which. If she bowed. Which she did. She bowed to her brother. Which she did. She bowed to her brother. Or rather. Which she did. She bowed to her brother. Or rather which she did she bowed to her brother. She could think. Of how she was. Not better. Than when. They could say. Not. How do you do. To-day. Because. It is an accident. In suddenness. When there is. No stress. On their. Address. They do not address you. By saying. Rather. That they went by. And came again. Not. As. Or. Why. It is. What is. Even. Not always occurred. Just by the time. That it. Can happen. To be curious. She bowed. To her brother. And why. Again. In there. Should have been. Not more. Than. That. Which. She bowed. To her brother. By which. It is. In tendency. To more. By which. It is. In tendency to not. Have had. She in the. Three. She bowed. To her brother. Would it be. In a way. Not they. Would. Not. They. Be in a way that is. To say. She. Is to say. Did. She bow. To her brother. In. Which way. Did. She come to say. It was. That way. She bowed to her brother. If it was. Separately. Not. To separate. Separately. No one. Is there. But there. Was it. With them. As perhaps. Portions. For there. Which. In which. She bowed to her brother. Not. After. In intention. The same. As mention. She did not mention. Nor was there. Intention. That she. Bowed to her brother. She bowed to her brother.

Dora’s gone to Ireland Through the sleet and snow; Promptly she has gone there In a ship, although Why she’s gone to Ireland Dora does not know. That was where, yea, Ireland, Dora wished to be: When she felt, in lone times, Shoots of misery, Often there, in Ireland, Dora wished to be. Hence she’s gone to Ireland, Since she meant to go, Through the drift and darkness Onward labouring, though That she’s gone to Ireland Dora does not know.

at neck, at shoulder, that stokes a man as he grows older. Nothing rages, nothing fumes. No one races through the rooms, alarmed. How casually he's armed. How gradually arises what surprises in his mirrors. Unawares, as fall runs colder, pulls he only slightly tighter his good wool sweater, thinner than ever now at elbow, at shoulder.

The story goes from in a rainfall to sister walking a field browned autumn. And when she arrives winter has come, so the old man rises from his chair, picks up matches, pipes and tools, and walks out to begin again. The sculptures grow by the day, birds in ice, recognizable eagles, a bear who began as a man in a moment of dance. He does this in ice, all winter carving at dawn, carving at dusk. And sister after walking a field browned autumn, arrives, watches from the east window, waits, goes out to him in spring, taps him on the shoulder and points to the pools of water he's standing over.

Toys and rose               The zoo body zigzags I think fish too but I'm a polite social being, I'm a Ladle Lady or purple and blue I write green letters and gold editorials for the Krystal Oxygen Company I have one hip as far as I can see, that I see as I write say white tee-shirts upsidedown turn em around & put them on your muscles my angels or a semi-colon is blue window to me is that a haiku? I fly over San Diego in some one or another real despair and ask you to comfort me. You more or less do, you aren't even here my best me my worldly me my taste of spring my continuance my comfort will you comfort me? I offer you my heart over Tucson I can't use it take it to comfort me free me be it take it take it to be it which apparently you don't or take you help provide me it I think, that happens among true people, that poem I was writing no good poem but Moment framed the Pleiades The garnets ring more beautiful the longer you are waiting for me in them, where Deity makes me friendly there. But who put on all the tee-shirts in Hunter's Point? Well we're all good boys my son said so. A semi-colon is a semi-precious garnet cluster telegram; what we love are such depths between all the messages. Pass the salt; Ladies of the Tang, bubble of night; this book about Harry Truman is wonderful. I see the Gulf Moon Rising every night. I'm familiar with the zonked starfish. I've the sheen on under the fire-escape railing all streetlight-lit. The hollow suddenly appeared to enlarge and fill with a bright light. Wild with the taste of wine it does not remember the despair of an hour ago, which was true that is of a true woman. She was somehow hating her position on the round earth in the dusky sky on a harsh Sunday. On the ground forgotten flowerlike firmaments. She addressed in uneloquent hatred SMUG LIFE the one who soothes one's foolishness the Great Face Construct who loves you for your kinks child anyway, the Guru God: Oh I will come back a knockout tomorrow Useless to you! You're not it you smug face I'm not doing your yoga not wearing Your moondrops using your cream Rinse letting you fuck me Exquisite Like I was one of the Ones With Brains Too! Intelligence in panties with peekaboo holes— No I'm coming back raw I'm getting drenched in the rain It's rain and it's wet I'm soaked I'm Chilled and I'm coughing the air's raw To my throat, which is raw from Coughing, coughing so strong Coughing and laughing So strong from killing you! Etc. She didn't kill nothing. & I don't get to share no secrets with the stars. I make chow. I contemplate semi-colons. I despair as a mother. I scream at that kid I'm gonna crack open your big walnut if you don't go to sleep. Theories of grace, that it implies no surprise no shock. Ukrainians sudden on Sunday speaking Ukrainian, the cross not Christian but Gracious and when I want to cry or cough violently it must diffuse back into my embassy; hard, that takes hard. And if it weren't for you . . . not you smug life face, but real you. Please play cribbage. Pass the salt. Think of a garnet-black cabbage, a Ukrainian is selling it on 7th Street in honor of our marriage. A Spanish fan opens in my abdomen I have Spanish dancers in my stomach they're my arching striving in dance where it's black red flowers darken to be huge pleasuring the severe, tried Angel who meets transition, transport, as abruptly as necessary for everyone's are apt Says the Unassuming Graceful Whose down-hip-ness Is that window The dancers' sensuous flaw That admits Spring, Contingent upon our personality Spring is for the worldly just like the HaHa Room Just like dearest rockbottom suddenly gone buoyant To be black geese to be strenuous dancers is not to dignify a passion but to grip it. Not saints but always pupils pupils dilated fully black in full achievement of gut-feeling. Joy.