872 Life poems

Moissac, France I walked to the baker’s and thought about the bread. And at the corner store the butter. Four kinds of butter! I bought them in order of saltiness. I studied slang in secret. I said little. And my students were so beautiful I couldn’t teach a thing. Instead I made them sing. Twenty-two. Nothing to do. New York had vanished, Connecticut, too. My students grew hair and got haircuts, grew hair and got haircuts, and sang. I’d lie in bed and masturbate and wonder why I’d come, and come and come again and then rise for some bread and a run. Does the village persist? It must. Right now, someone hums “Nowhere Man” and thinks of that shy teacher from — Manhattan? New Orleans? Bel Air? And she brushes her lengthening hair.

On a parking lot staircase I met two fine-looking men descending, both in slacks and dress shirts, neckties much alike, one of the men in his sixties, the other a good twenty years older, unsteady on his polished shoes, a son and his father, I knew from their looks, the son with his right hand on the handrail, the father, left hand on the left, and in the middle they were holding hands, and when I neared, they opened the simple gate of their interwoven fingers to let me pass, then reached out for each other and continued on.

Once, I was as large as any living creature could be. I could lift the world and carry it from my breast to its bath. When I looked down from the sky you could see the love in my eye: “Oh, tiny world, if anything ever happened to you, I would die.” And I said, “No!” to the hand. Snatched the pebble from the mouth, fished it out and told the world it would choke! Warned the world over & over! “Do you hear me? Do you want to choke?!” But how was the world to know what the truth might be?Perhaps they grant you special powers, these choking stones. Maybe

This is a paean to relief and ecstasy. A man's poem of course—the electric ah! in the long stream arcing a rainbow under the spotlight moon, a covenant between mv body and the earth's. I think of Li Po smiling silently on Green Mountain and can hear Rumi drunk on rapture—drink my brother he calls to me, think of the elephant loosening a great ebullient stream that floats a river past your house and drop turds so immense you could build a hut from them along the shore to shelter your children. What release! Think of your child pedaling under your hand and of a sudden—it just happens—you let go and he's off on his own, free for that first time— the achieve of, the mastery of the child. See the stalwart trees in their silence the stones resting in the driveway, the cat curled asleep on the front porch, the smear of blood on the lion's mouth sitting over his fresh gazelle the morning paper and its stories shouting for attention. The plenitude of it all. And perhaps somewhere a friend is dreaming of me, or someone a stranger is peeing ecstatic under the same moon. A covenant then between us. True or not. It is no matter.

Wake up, get married, be born First A and B pick up the trunk, then C relieves A and A wanders off, then D takes B’s end and B goes in search of A, but A is nowhere to be found, and C and D make off with the trunk Long are the lazy man’s laws, the kittens are in the kitchen, the child’s chin aids pronunciation Maybe I’m dreaming I’m naked except for a long black t-shirt I’m dreaming Bring on the aspirin and bread, the vitamin C and gin We have fourteen names for blue and that doesn’t even count “meridian” Diderot, Audrey Hepburn, Hegel, Charles Dickens, and Gertrude Stein Shadow bird shouting White coral fencing The butcher on Sunday, Pablo Ruiz, lives south of here (in F___) and has five kids—how full of vitality he is She leaves us behind in the interstices of competence Origami, irreverence, sand on the wing of an ibis She drops a bucket down a thick well, she whacks a golfball longer than a marble Rude and shoed, should and lead, reed

notice how my forehead approaches you at a high speed notice the contortions on my face; hear and feel the impact of my forehead against your eyebrow never get angry if someone doesn’t do things for you react to disappointment by being quiet and nice and alone, not by being confrontational or frustrated in 1952 a DSM copy-editor removed ‘headbutting’ from the entry for ‘psychopathic behavior’ thereafter the headbutt has thrived across all social, political, and elementary school gym classes today the headbutt is a sign of friendship, stability, and inner calm the exponential effect of your repeated lies makes me afraid what will happen to us; ‘the perfect headbutt’ destroys both participants and impresses even the severely disillusioned, and the phrase ‘giant poem’ reverberates through my head with the austerity of ancient ruins, the off-centered beauty of repressed veganism, and the lord of the rings trilogy I forgot what this poem was about

Lapo Elkman gazes out from the frame with a come-hither look. His wrists have soft bracelets around them & his shirt, black, is open. Looped on his neck pale strands of beads hang which causes a ribbon of shadow at his nipple. His facial hair, bleached by the sun, is brown-white. Tatiana Santa Domingo wears a floral printed dress. It is summer where she’s photographed or warm enough for clothes that light. Earrings perhaps of three golden hoops or two hang obscured in the shade of her hair. Her right cheek is touching the locks of Bianca Brandolini d’Adda whose own dress is dim purple satin. It has a black strap of lace an inch thick which, at her waist, intersects with another lace band even thicker & full of arabesques & Fleur De Lis. This lace is just above her belly which is pressed to the belly of Margherita Maccapani Missoni. White, with faint, almost invisible as flowers (maybe dots?) her sundress, exposes her shoulder. The left one is touching the patterned black stars on the silk frock partly covered by spilling brown hair, at its longest end, curled & falling from the head of Alexi Neideliski. Andrea Stefanowicz Sabrier lays on his belly wearing Ray-Bands & is laughing. Beside him on his back, with arm muscles slightly swollen, hands clasped behind his head & eyes closed Julio Mario Santo Domingo III laughs as well. Both are in blue jeans & t-shirts. Her blue & black checkered flannel clad shoulder hovers over the face of her sister whose cheek is buried in wildflowers. Each wears a ring, one is a cylinder of patterned white gold the other, more baroque, appears Victorian but isn’t wholly visible. Olympia & Fiona Scarry are un- comfortably positioned in these clothes & rings. Olympia’s eyes are wide, bright, but Fiona’s are so full of shadow it seems they aren’t there which gives her the look of the un-dead. White wife beater, ample hair in his pits, crotch the center of gravity here in this picture Harry Morton is laying on a bed. One arm behind his head it’s tattooed almost classically, twice, with illegible symbols. His slacks have grey stripes, they pour into a boot pressed on the soft white sheet at the right at the left sink into a blood-colored comforter, velvet. The chocolate toned pea-coat he’s wearing half-way reveals a hand, it grips the hem near the satin-coco lining. She has the the face of a mermaid, & the eyes Princess in her title, Elizabeth von Thurn und Taxis looks poised before apporaching the coffin. Count Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo is giddy & drenched having waded in the sea in his button up clinging his smile is one that gods give their children after hooking up with mortals for the fix. On a half-pipe ornate with graffiti the honorable Sophia Fermor-Hesketh rests a skate-board on her knee in black tights. She wears Docs. Her hair is blonde, mostly covered by a hat her dress is lycra black this is Madonna as eternal return. Yellow seal with ingratiating smile, caterpillar-seal hybrid antennae blue, markings pink, body yellow, silver dolphin, dolphin with desert-camo designs & dolphin dressed for jungle warfare these inflatables are harbored at the edge of a pool in which Bianca Brandolini D’Adda is floating on a sting-ray shaped raft on her belly hands under her chin three bracelets no bathing suit she’s swimming in her dress which is soaked & her legs are raised, ankles crossed this makes a diamond- shape between with liquid topaz. He has the cork in his teeth. In his left hand a half- glass of red. He is looking away at invisible friends & the ocean is beyond a grey mist with white bands Carlo Mondavi has hair that arcs at middle point a frozen cascade beneath which at right we see his ear half a sea-shell. The filigree is white, the buttons white impacted silk, the dots silk on sheer, on her blouse with short sleeves, she is blonde, her brother blonde his shirt white his scarf red she leans back on his chest his hand over his heart he takes an oath, Alexandre & Josephine de la Baume their lips closed eyes cold, unexpressive & imposing. JFK twice on a monitor his face & his back he is speaking Jared Kushner looks relaxed there’s a copy of the New York Observer on his knees which are bent he sits up against a wall smiles easily cropped black hair dark tie & slacks & white shirts by a window in the city. It’s a beach-house kitchen. Arnie Hammer’s by the sink. The head of his acoustic guitar nears its lip, & his ass sits near a rack where dishes dry there is one tiny elegant hole in his t-shirt, in his collar which is loose, low, reveals his long neck & hairy chest. The Corona in his right hand sweats. There is white foam all over my face which began in a canister, moved as blue-gel expelled by air-pressure then diluted with water was smeared on my cheeks, between my nose, lip & down onto my chin. I am shaving naked I have three rolls of fat each bigger than the last. Looking in the mirror I cough, draw the phlegm from my lungs with a suck roll it onto my tongue stick my tongue out examine phlegm’s color for blood but there’s none it’s like mud- infused egg yolk. I spit it down into the sink with the little hairs spiking the cream. The cigarette pulls like a kite from her body on a long arm suspended by wind. Her tea-cup she holds it waist high & with one finger pins the fabric lightly to the bottom of the saucer. The cigarette ash is precarious her dress has five little shoelaces white at sternum’s end. Margherita Maccapani Missoni is happy. Sophia Barclay has a grey cardigan under which she wears a Disney dress. Hayley Bloomingdale is blonde she has a kerchief on her head a thin slice of melon in her fingers a white strand of pearls her bangs are one soft shard that hook her chin. She turns like she noticed us following her, & ready with her smile meets our eyes Ivanka Trump is moving, carefree, through the city. A young Thomas Jefferson, Adrea Casiraghi stares proudly at the future of the world & finds it splendid, brown hair cascading over his wool grey coat his white shirt reveals his marshmallow chest which contrasts with his granite chin & jaw. Dasha Duhkohva reclines on a marble table outlined by hydrangeas in jeans & striped shirt a grey trench coat thrown over her body. In a little row-boat, in a tank-top across which in marker has been written River Keeper Amanda Hearst crowned by a loose, densely beaded tiara. Black rubber fishing boots swallowed her legs. She’s drawing an enormous black tarp around her torso & smiling while her head tilts to the left.

Dark thing, make a myth of yourself: all women turn into lilacs, all men grow sick of their errant scent. You could learn to build a window, to change flesh into isinglass, nothing but a brittle river, a love of bone. You could snap like a branch—No, this way

the grapes remind me of the whales gathering salt for the ocean this is a poem about my life you've interrupted my life and death schedule which gives me that poetic look each day this is a poem about my life where was I before I met you? I was eroding on my way to work and slept a lot deep in the subways this is a poem about my life then I met your lips on that windy day I stopped poisoning my life on Monday mornings this is a poem about my life when I met you you were undressed like a stone in the rain I swam after utterly naked this is a poem about my life before you leave me to heal I will find you someone to love who will be shaped like a box this is a poem about my life before you leave me to heal I will become an apple and hide in a clock this is a poem about my life I will plant these wild lines they will grow into honey and weep in the spring for you 2.14.94

All alone, you use kitchen to investigate wall and tendency to twerk and so on spotify channel called little ditties for strumpets metal, and make room a petal, shake doom and bevel