for Darlene—in common ordinary, licentious adoration of men—when they aren’t there, we miss ’em—hair patterns, vocal timbres, silhouettes &—

The lion yawned, he sighed.
    He has his pride.
He has his tool and a waving tail.
The winds he faces all blow toward him;
In his arrogant stance, he’ll never know
                                    what gored him,
His elegant tail or the puff
                                    of circumstance.

                                    9-5-86

it's my birthday: write my own birthday cards, right:
    ? how to do that???
this poem means more to you than it does to me, my darling,
    What shall I send?
Do Not, Lot, Lock This Salt Cellar
    into 25 words or less
HUGE TREMENDOUS CAPITAL LETTERS—“TRAP MEESE”
    might care for everything in & then
    some luck bringing tee-heeing cats stringing out

a new eeh, a new aah, drawn wash
upon the line as clean, such a one as mine
    is pulled by wind, pushed
    by the rind of the quill’s sucking, the drinking
    grind fiber’s mind’s welling loosens into
    the mammary d’arching field
the rushing paper to the lips of peach,
running inky darkness into hearts of speech
jamming finger, probe of wrist

slowly wondering before the four reaches,
arms, legs and the teaching roll
speaking woman unrolls the scroll;
each of us writes with tongue and teeth
the mouth of soul, our inmost cave
    filling page
    and all the spaces of space
    we know
what a waste!

I cannot catch a baseball
and since the age of
ten or so
            have not
            taught the undersides
of Model A’s
                as well as I might

do what I do
is look: say gee
what
      a long time that pipe has
      lifted
            in curves up
          from the concrete
        into the chassis

        so hot    even
thick green-black grease exudes
its own particular
                            plops
                     of sweat

                        for J. Kidder 3/22/77

«just a lit-
                le in extremis
let me show you my Bemis bag
drawn & corded at
                              Acoma
apples take too long
credit goes the safe
                         way opens
                  350 ? ) feet
          yawning in either direction
wakes one up to a knobby-knuckled moon
reaching the guts of night
(that awful place where our eyes are horizons)

and the sun beyond
takes all our time
                              cold haunch hunkered
                              for it
                                    waving
                                    man’s

                   locus

catching
    light’s
        noon

(Actor’s Warmup Exercises—To be Recited Aloud & Clear, Each Line in One Breath)

CrackerJack swats damnably insolent stolid wafer-thin rapid dice

Nasty stances of pillow distances vacate Jack’s indifferent lips

Tinned men shelve pillowed wheezes into tendrilled nostrils of the pits’ spittle

Pitch loops to hottest attentions while turning swivel’s ratchet sharply sternwards

Fake wafers waver roundly before lusty sluts tell sound tales stiffly

Check seven lollards soon through ten farcical cycles of zit

Never underestimate the rip-pulling power of tender-mated beauty operators

Italy’s smashing place hits the DT’s at densest pointings piddle-height

Pinned apples crave telling instances of DT’s tsetse flies

Slipping guts jerk quickly to slobber Robert’s mnemonic-numbered member (9!)

Prosody is articulation tickling total timbres from poems’ well-coated rim quotes

Two’s crossing-place between licorice pipes and my mukluks licks culture itself!

“Buttercups” states taxidermist Stan, extricating bits of petal-yellow tids from the mastodon’s bicuspids

Lastly but not beastly pretend dope mends toward pterodactylic raptness amid mucho raptorial crap

…on that scaffolding
                            bed
up there
            beating off
        T H E   H A N D
of God

        touching
    us
all

sighing
        crossing the Bridge of Sighs
over the river Arno
why here’s Arno himself
crossing the bridge with sighs
what country is this?
above the river
                    Arno why here’s
the river itself crossing
under the Bridge of Sighs
the sea in sight
                    sighing

A		B
sinew		cancer
spine		cancer
nose		cancer
throat		cancer
lung		cancer
breakthrough		fear
liver		cancer
prostate		cancer
uterus		cancer
blood		cancer
bone		cancer

                                        —for Steve Zendt

Well-suited Steven Zendt was sent to sit at a well
Suited for slanting xylophonic spells of
Ah well suits me, Steven phonically spelled upon
The Rip-rap of the well-drinked water vessel; lisping
Stones, palating bones; ’s all Mocks Nicks; how did you
Get here, Max? By Lion on Water, Ephemecamera replied
With more than enough gurgles. Likewise I’m sure.
Of One Thing neither knew, but the streets did
Shine with a meltingness that was not hid. Closures
Opened sails to erratitricities of a waning Sun-
Person. “Jolly” said ol’ Mr. Sun peeking over the
Bright Green Meadow; “where’s the Dark I miss?” Over the
Shoulder of a slow-eyed corner dragging a ditzy tango after,
She came in her slip to mark her own Sweet Time.

under me
the rug (turkey red)
      pulled out from falling
                  falling in

love again never wanting 2

       pulling
      out the tub stops

water, air, the all bath

      warms extremities
    of our dance
            here, this tip
    there

rightly through
    mine and yours

            wet
            and dry
      together

Ellie is as Ellie does;
Ellie wears such funny shoes.
    Does she do? In-
    Deed she does.
Ellie chooses funny shoes.

Bashful is as bashful does;
Ellie chooses funny shoes.
    Some goes spit &
    Some goes spat.
Ellie still chooses funny.

this field of blue places nothing in sight
marks no time for black
still    blue    here    charges    evening
                                                            all it’s worth

darkness does not descend
expression has no end
                                    of day

lightness is
without telling of lingering
holding us
                its dark hand of color

sweet fuzz of summer hours
& in winter
does not go sour
& in spring be the power
      (that’s not springing
      that’s my heart)
laughing & calling
she falls off
autumn’s shawls
& shows
a rose
that skills
cannot break apart

ten thousand cups of thirst’s lips
meet at the final wall
there is no drinking
the trick’s for the eye’s tit while the wall
takes its vertical place so
the weeping can run regularly down

there’s a hole in the middle of a lasso
we all know that rope burns, knees knock
and baby comes home

the funny color darker than singe or squeal
around the edge is like mint by smell
and touch is something else
keeps whooshing its way beyond the shush

“To make something happen to me”

someone folds a garment like a story
dolorous and gleeful
Fend, hands, for yourselfs!
Ah ha is caught at the corner of glasses
and the sliders of drawers have
the guts to be butter! what it takes!
leaving and taking leave are such differences
I expect wisteria drooping about an ice cream parlor
to stand up twisted
into a bas-relief beyond relief
and if you can like it without a hoods,
the crocus really does cry.

membranes of sweet and blue crawl
as the cowboys close the meat locker
closer behind them our nails feel slits
summer’s blondeness blue intense light
that garbage with all your belts
baby has eyes for

elm, birch, maple and sure rushes
flickering between on and off
newly seen—lately won—quien sabe?
the petals of the land blind us like pepper

I get just so high and
wolde ich, nolde ich
my knees fly apart
Cassopeia, the chair
if there are edges to anything
aren’t they of silk?

there’s a hold in the center of the thread

kill it fill it