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I caught a bird which made a ball And they thought better of it. But it is all of which they taught That they were in a hurry yet In a kind of a way they meant it best That they should change in and on account But they must not stare when they manage Whatever they are occasionally liable to do It is often easy to pursue them once in a while And in a way there is no repose They like it as well as they ever did But it is very often just by the time That they are able to separate In which case in effect they could Not only be very often present perfectly In each way whichever they chose. All of this never matters in authority But this which they need as they are alike Or in an especial case they will fulfill Not only what they have at their instigation Made for it as a decision in its entirety Made that they minded as well as blinded Lengthened for them welcome in repose But which they open as a chance But made it be perfectly their allowance All which they antagonise as once for all Kindly have it joined as they mind

Snarls, bread trucks, yeast breathing inside huddled bags, and sleepers completing lives behind their gray windows. A whistle on the phonewires, feathers, twitches, whistling down to the hot loaves. Reeds everywhere, pulse, flesh, flutes, and wakened sighs. An answer. Radio news and breathers behind our windows, birds’ new voices changing, changed, to the unforgiving hunger screech of immigrants.

The stars are Although I do not sing About them— The sky and the trees Are indifferent To whom they please The rose is unmoved By my nose And the garland in your hair Although your eyes be lakes, dies Why sigh for a star Better bay at the moon Better bay at the moon . . . Oh moon, moon, moon

How blest the land that counts among Her sons so many good and wise, To execute great feats of tongue When troubles rise. Behold them mounting every stump, By speech our liberty to guard. Observe their courage—see them jump, And come down hard! "Walk up, walk up!" each cries aloud, "And learn from me what you must do To turn aside the thunder cloud, The earthquake too. "Beware the wiles of yonder quack Who stuffs the ears of all that pass. I—I alone can show that black Is white as grass." They shout through all the day and break The silence of the night as well. They'd make—I wish they'd go and make— Of Heaven a Hell. A advocates free silver, B Free trade and C free banking laws. Free board, clothes, lodging would from me Win warm applause. Lo, D lifts up his voice: "You see The single tax on land would fall On all alike." More evenly No tax at all. "With paper money," bellows E, "We'll all be rich as lords." No doubt— And richest of the lot will be The chap without. As many "cures" as addle-wits Who know not what the ailment is! Meanwhile the patient foams and spits Like a gin fizz. Alas, poor Body Politic, Your fate is all too clearly read: To be not altogether quick, Nor very dead. You take your exercise in squirms, Your rest in fainting fits between. 'Tis plain that your disorder's worms— Worms fat and lean. Worm Capital, Worm Labor dwell Within your maw and muscle's scope. Their quarrels make your life a Hell, Your death a hope. God send you find not such an end To ills however sharp and huge! God send you convalesce! God send You vermifuge.

The news, descriptive. Rhetoric, void. It’s finally here:inarticulate brachiopods have no matching teeth and sockets and their valves are held together only by muscles —

Once, a man named a thing beautiful& so we wore it, buried it, turned it into currency. Somewhere, maybe here, maybe now, I stand completely still until he looks in my direction. Sometimes I don’t believe I exist until someone calls me beautiful. Sometimes any warm thing will do. Sometimes it’s me, a warm thing in the low light.Beautiful is what the man called me after he did what he wanted with — I’m running out of ways to describe it — my body, my silence. Beautiful. Why, I ask, in order to love yourself must you, first, be loved? A bone sucked clean of its marrow. A trail of ants magnified into ash. & of course, I’m asking no one. & of course, I know the answer. Of course, I know it’s not me they’re looking for, the men, I mean. & I wished he didn’t feel the need to speak, really wished — like me — he just kept quiet, but no, he had to speak, he had to say beautiful— & now, goddamnit, my body appears, trapped in the long tunnel of a telescope. & now I am here attending the aftermath of my own ruin, with nothing but beautiful to keep me company. Maybe he meant the city beyond the window. Maybe he was talking to himself. Maybe beautiful, as in good job, as in look what I just did with my own two hands.

Well I recall my Father’s wife, The day he brought her home. His children looked for years of strife, And troubles sure to come— Ungraciously we welcomed her, A thing to scorn and blame; And swore we never would confer On her, a Mother’s name I see her yet—a girl in years, With eyes so blue and mild; She greeted us with smiles and tears, How sweetly too she smiled— She bent to kiss my sullen brow, With woman’s gentle grace; And laid her tiny hand of snow On my averted face— “Henry—is this your son? She said— “Dear boy—he now is mine— What not one kiss?—” I shook my head, “I am no son of thine!—” She sighed—and from her dimpled cheek The rosy colour fled; She turned away and did not speak, My thoughts were with the dead— There leaped from out my Father’s eyes A jet of swarthy fire; That flashed on me in fierce surprise— I fled before his ire I heard her gentle voice entreat— “Forgiveness for her sake”— Which added swiftness to my feet, A sad and strange mistake— A year had scarcely rolled away When by that hated bride; I loved to linger half the day, In very joy and pride; Her voice was music to mine ear, So soft its accent fell; “Dear Mother now”—and oh, how dear No words of mine can tell— She was so gentle, fair and kind, So pure in soul and free from art; That woman with her noble mind, Subdued my rebel heart— I just had learned to know her worth, My Father’s second choice to bless; When God removed her from the earth, And plunged us all in deep distress— Hot fever smote with burning blight Stretchd on a restless bed of pain; I moaning lay from morn till night With aching limbs and throbbing brain— Four weary weeks beside my bed, She sat within a darkened room; Untiring held my aching head, Nor heeded silence—cold and gloom— And when my courage quite gave way, And fainter grew my struggling breath; She taught my stricken soul to pray And calmly meet approaching death— “Fear not God’s angel, sent by Him, The weary spirit to release; Before the mortal eyes grow dim, Floats down the white winged dove of peace”— There came a change—but fingers small, No longer smoothed my matted hair; She sprang not to my feeble call, Nor helped to lift me to my chair— And I arose as from the dead, A life for her dear life was given; The angel who had watched my bed Had vanished into Heaven!—

Existence trumps nonexistence every time. It has all the colors and all the shapes and all the moves, it is rude in its bounty and its grotesque reach that overcomes all before it. This bit of stick I found in the park was showing off because the dead can’t have it. They can’t have any of it. It was sticky and prickled with a showy, dazzling presence, though it’s quietened a little now, now that I’ve taken it home and have it here on the mantelpiece. It has dressed in purple robes and carried its being like a chalice with such disarming mock-solemnity down and down the pale carved steps into its candlelit depths. Its being rests inside it now and purrs quite inaudibly with a sound like the most exclusive refrigerator, or a sound you might take for your own sovereign wheels spinning. Little stick. Wait for me. I’m coming.

who by the time it arrived had made its plan heretofore stonewall   it had not a penny thats not true it had several pennies can you make a sovereign nation a national park how condescending instead just tell them to honor the treaty what can poetry do it cant not not do nothing it must undulate w/ the 2:30 pm dance music the sole patrons at stonewall there was a shooting in ohio today the music made me feel a little anxious it was hard thumping dance music a notch upwards of 100 bpm notoriously the beat of life the optimum tempo for cpr I consider downloading a metronome real quick to test it to tap it out but I don’t want to be ‘anywhere near’ my phone meaning it’s in my bag on the stool 2 feet from me there is an amy winehouse video on no sound at least I think it is amy winehouse she is at a funeral black and white there is a stuffed bird slightly obscuring my view of the tv it looks like a kind of tall pigeon w/ mottled brown and russet with a white ringlet necklace and black dots is it a carrier pigeon I wonder I sent a text to jocelyn at standing rock several texts are you still on the road ariana and i r gonna go out there in december sending love to you tried calling bt yr mailbox is full send a sign when u can xoxo howdy.  thinking of u w love. hope all is well.  send smoke signal telegram carrier pigeon send love to my twospirits at the winyan camp. last night we prayed for her and for zephyr and l. frank & the twospirits especially at standing rock there’s no sign of that struggle here but they are selling tshirts commemorating the other and the six days of riots led by transwomen of color they later tried to whitewash in that terrible movie like it was all these hot angry upright downright forthright white gays so ready for the revolution and now people are treating standing rock like burning man a drink called goslings videos by the pigeon misaligned with the music the smell of booze in the air made both of us recoil slightly I saw or felt it I’m here to make a poem I was already paid for when I had less than $2 in my bank account (and I joked I would go right to the bar and buy every- body drinks ) not even enough for a subway ride and I used the 58 cents I’d gotten for busking for the first time alone in the long hallway between the library at bryant park and the orange line trains by the ovid quote ‘gutta cavat lapidem’ water (or a drop of water really) hollows out a stone.   lapidum a stone or rock ariana once described cd wright’s style as ‘lapidary’ I loved this as a description of writing like the hieroglyphics are literally lapidary and I told my grandmother about it as we were driving from mescalero to albuquerque she knew all about the plants and the names for all the rockforms mesas or buttes or ziggurats and I said how do you know all these she said by long observation and I used to study geology in college I wanted to major in it but they wouldn’t allow women to major in the hard sciences then so she began to study religion tho she already had medicine ricky martin on the beach or is it someone younger sexier the grand canyon splitting apart is it an ad is it a video even the sands at the beach are bouncing with the beat the tempo has stayed very similar this whole time a tick up I suspect from 100bpm

Dad would come home after too long at work and I’d sit on his lap to hear the story of Ferdinand the Bull; every night, me handing him the red book until I knew every word, couldn’t read, just recite along with drawings of a gentle bull, frustrated matadors, the all-important bee, and flowers— flowers in meadows and flowers thrown by the Spanish ladies. Its lesson, really, about not being what you’re born into but what you’re born to be, even if that means not caring about the capes they wave in your face or the spears they cut into your shoulders. And Dad, wonderful Dad, came home after too long at work and read to me the same story every night until I knew every word, couldn’t read, just recite.