1583

Hand me a book and call it The Transcript.
Take me to the bathroom and put your makeup on me,
Talk to me in your serious voice.
Come stroke my head until this fever breaks.

Pull me aside and do something wild.
Play me that television program you used to love.
Talk to me in your serious voice.
Put your hand on the small of my back until it warms up.

Show me your "mountain falling into the sea" trick.
Meet me in the bar at eleven.
Talk to me in your serious voice.
Call me when you get out of the exam.

1582

I sent the fiddle packing
You made the mascara run
We sat down to the hard work
Of who to blame for fun

It was a little before
You couldn't break the news
That we couldn't have the money
You'd been keeping in your shoes

That was when I stopped trying
To be friends with the real world

I got back to fighting shape
You explained what mash notes are
I wouldn't squash that grape
You wouldn't go that far

You said, sweet feet, listen
Let's run with the salmon
I said creole waltz,
Let's get in the car and drive up to the Schwangunks

And that was when I stopped trying
To write American songs
And looked back in the morning
At what could and could not be

1581

I feel dizzy.
I'm going to get up and open a window.
I'm going to shout at the top of my lungs

It's a Monday and the ambient light
Isn't hoping to be part of drama.

It's a craving for fennel

The month is spilling everywhere
And I am wondering when in the starvation
Will I start feeling ravenous

Love for all the passing traffic

No I'm not.

I'm sitting at my desk hating the internet
For being more interesting than everything
Real and delicious and given up for lent

Religion as detox it's many minutes
Into the Brian Eno composition
I am such an xy, I like the liking

Of varietals

Honesty compels me to treat the alphabet
Like a playing card I have to live across

Wait, wait for me a minute longer.

1580

There goes the charming
Murderer. In a taste test
We prefer her, eleven
To ten. Oh to be out
Listening to someone angry
Make some angry music
In another language.

1579

All the songs
Have a spirit
Belying
Their swirly
Poverty capes --

Buoyed up
In secret.

If we're test
Driving this
Art, I'd prefer
To see my way
All around it
Before we lose
The scent.

I'm nothing
If not pragmatic,
From the Greek
For thing--

American
Philosophy,
Inarticulate
To the core.

1578

Who here
has done this
before?

Who hasn't?

I like the idea
of having enough
so much I forget
to bathe.

Getting up I let
the seat slam the wall.

Magic would be
the best control of all.

1577

Down the platform
I catch a glance;

Someone else to put me
up for adoption!

The ballpoint pen makes
lousy fireworks.

"Crap feels
better than you."

1576

That shape is
abandoning
the mother
of us all.

It goes forward
singing into
the night
's pants.

Still angry
about that at
your house?

The gradebook
is soaked
with Coca Cola.

1575

I'd rather not
feel that way
if you don't mind
(even if you do)

Let what's
tough as a top
spin as long
as the floor allows

1574

I don't believe
that cameras steal
your soul
which may explain
why I don't take
pictures of people

the homeland security ban
on subway photography
protects me from
seeing myself in cartoons
of a baby mouse
left in a bundle
at the door

to wit, it's not a quality
of the young woman
in old woman clothes with
a quatrain in ball point
on the back of her hand
I wanted to see again
or forget, whatever

the work order says
that's the one thing I won't do

1573

You want me to get out
and help?

The 8's
stuck between an SUV
and a squad car.

Waving,
still waving,
still waving.

He comes around
and flips the SUV
's sideview mirror back.

We squeak
through.

What kind of
cop parks
like that, on
the no parking
side of a one
way street, off
a snowbank.

The driver doesn't
seem to mind.

Had to sit for
fifteen minutes
behind a school
bus the other

Our ad hoc traffic
guard resumes
his seat.

Next stop Lewis
Warsh gets on.
I tug his sleeve
as he walks past.

It's been months.

He's going to Africa,
A little country called
Lesotho. The Switzerland
of Africa, I say.

He looks good.
As usual he is in love.

I half want to tell him
to send his novels
to the New York Review
to be reprinted.

Instead, I hop off
at Astor Place,
having complained mildly
about my job,

and go pick up
some gratis contacts
for M., taking pictures
of the sun finding out
how good it feels
on the sides of
Gramercy, then Gracie,

and then I'm in
the doctor's office,
admiring the smoke
Con Ed uses to light
up the dusk.

Please excuse Jordan
from finding a way
to reprise the image
at the beginning
of this poem;
being born once
was plenty, thanks.

1572

The wish for every color
To fade into each other as
The story carries you
Into the moment to give you
A present, this wish
Has led many a daydreaming
Journalist past the point
Of knowing what it means,
This "I will always need more."

1571

The trees do not wait until February or March to bud.
I want to go to a party and feel like I'm running down a hill.
I reserve the right to be a complete jerk.

1570

It takes intense concentration
To be fabulous. True, one can get there
By means of dissociating
And drugs, but to burn cleanly
Is the goal of all murmuring
That bursts open into ecstasy's chromatics.

1569

In the refrigerator you will find
Three bottles of champagne;
The Manhattan Fire Extinguisher.

1568

It's time for a new screenshot.
You have come up through the leaves
And are looking around the orchard
For a place to rest your camembert.
No, I won't hold the grapes above your lips.
Yes, I voted in the last election.

We who are working on our
"Long Suffering" merit badges
Are taking notes. Names.

1567

THE PIE CHART

Arise,
Companion! Pears
Are on the table,
Night
On the stairs.
Hup to! We have
Much talking
And chasing life
To do. "I had
That freak give me
A freaking book
The other day!"
Someone, give me
A pie chart.
Make me
Nervous.

1566

It is amusing to watch an airplane
Flicker doubled across the binoculars,
But more to the point is the passage
Across darkened lenses of the women.

But then of a sudden comes
A giant dragonfly bearing a man
In its jaws and the fields of death
Are momentarily in disarray.

One airplane passes another
And they give the airplane salute:
Tipping the "wing hat"

1565

The clouds move by off the coast.
The sounds of plastic bags and seagulls.
Discussions in French on the dollar.
"What! She's wearing all my clothes?!"
Rising, the women retie their tops.
The container ship lists to port.
The ventilator for the food cart kicks in.
It is nearly the sterile hour of four.
Printed silks and cottons move in the breeze.
I am wholly engrossed in this flickering scene.

1564

AT THE OPERA

Someone please advise the mayor
A good living comes from the sand
And our sunlit days away from the mess
Are the stinging's soft ruffled head.

Solitude. It feels like an apology
For wasting time.
I emerge a few questions away
From a new habit of thought.

We are out of bubble liquid.
Riding on his father's shoulders
A young boy calls out "Norma!"

1563

If you call it love
You scare it away
But what you don't name
Opens the door and stares.

The music will burn you
If it gets through the net
So whistle where it's dark
And wait with the trees

For the slenderest woman
To ignore the birds
On her way back
From the stone store.

She speaks the language
Without any accent.
A man can be forgiven
Certain infractions.

1562

THE NEWS INSIDE THE BOOK

Is that the filing was late.
Flakes of salt don't wait
For you to be psychic
Among the pasting.
They fetch a purpose for the difficult
Laziness you and I have yet
To insult. Also, quantities
Make speeches. The heavier
Clauses imagine a plaque
Honoring sleep - so may the feelings
Of love jostle me out of a code habit.
Strolling across the highway
(Abandoned). Everybody's lights on.
Nobody dead. No answer
Except intermittent giggling.

1561

STAFF MEETING

The white dots at the corner of the optical illusion
Have a good laugh at our expense.

1560

THE PAGE IS A UNIT OF TIME

Three dimensions are plenty.

Privacy wants to make the house cover its obligations.

Ghosts are givens.

The default settings are the world.

Quiet is a commodity.

Marbles going down the track; water falling down the sides of the mountain.

I hear someone I respect say something stupid, or worse, dated -- pain in my chest.

I make a sound; who would think of that as an intervention?

1559

THE LOST PEN

The shit of gold, kill lost under a blown-down debt to what rises, laughing, from the dust it's been offered to.

It's quiet down in the pursed lips, the movies traded into a quick nothing in that feeling bloom.

All the stories you'd heard (and some of the ones you made up) are true.

1558

THE KINDER OF STRANGENESS

I must alert you
To the sensation
Of sliding your shoes
On the track-edge bump strips.

In these times
We may be forgiven
For feeling sauteed.

Do not keep driving
Down 86th Street!
The Mayor doesn't
Live here anymore.

Stop telling yourself
What to do.

1557

GOING TO WORK

Bingo delayed,
I go to work.
I check the mail,
Read the papers,
Make some calls,
And check the mail.

When did I
Go to work?
I didn't notice
Me slipping away
To accomplish
Something. Something
On a piece of paper
I don't recall
Writing, at all.

1556

THE PANDAS

Coming back from the train station
I see a sign for the zoo.
"When it's warmer, let's
Go see the pandas."
You bring the car to a stop.

A light rain starts. There too,
I'll be distant, vague,
And subject to outbursts.
An open vehicle not unlike a golf cart
Will roar as it accelerates uphill.

1555

THE WIDE MAZE

In fifth grade
I would pass slow math
And social studies afternoons
Drawing mazes. Now down seventh
It's the same, except there
Are no dead ends;
Poem after poem
Lets me speak what won't be spoken.

1554

GLOMMING

Loneliness
In the ice cube tray
Of the streets.
All the friends I've scattered
By glomming
Onto the mustard
They use to garnish the day!

1553

BEAN ZIP

I'm not going back to the garage,
The smell and the noise
Are unlike the fields
Where we first performed surgery.
True, we are not wounded
In this comfortable apartment,
But all the same I have
An appointment with the avenues.

1552

VICTORIOUS

The numbers are in.
The gongs are wobbling in the van.

1551

COLD MORNINGS

How bright, exciting and stern
Home life is in a drafty house.

It's no good complaining about shoes on wood
When they're the ones you'll wear soon.

How much like wishes
These glittering fears.

1550

POLICY DECISIONS

A purple light shines in the middle of the room.

I remember my bank account number.

Bubble forced downward by the flow from the upended bottle,
Come closer, o smear on the mirror.

Blind as bread.

I want the follow music to pray with me for chase dust.

I don't crumple the fumes.

It finds its way around the experience.

It has memories, but not its own.

1549

THE PLANET LOOKS SIDEWAYS

Let's not speak of the death wish,
Nor rule out the truth as an option.

1548

PAY YOUR WAY

Where does the experience go?
The noise comes from
A need to eat. White as sugar.

We went out to see some allegories,
Fjords. Every day, in every way,
You leave your mind running,

A great valley in meaning.
Ice in the cup. Wind in the sand.
Come on, cadre.

1547

THE SKY

How many blues I need:
They're out there,
And behind me all
I can carry of green and tan.

At the research room,
A blank stare,
A pile of slips.

The woman waiting
By the pneumatic tubes
Is dancing in place
Without headphones.

1546

THE OCEAN

I don't want to
Play a song
That feels like
Seeing someone
I've been missing,

I want to set up
My Korg and
Come in behind
The beat,

The stereo
Type view of
Fathers and sons,

Learn enough of
Another language
To write the words
I can't even think
And sing them
In a foreign bar.

1545

Wake up, wake up
It's morning all over
And you're too controlled

You know so many names
And you speak them in fear

Don't you want the other kind of tears
For a change? Wake up,
My hard-working sleeper,

Put your feet on the cold floor
And feel for the slips

1544

HERE COMES THE BACON

Through the smoke I see the one I love
Relaxed, excited, make up your mind already

1543

WHAT IS VERTICAL?

Ambulatory perms,
Diminished typeface expositrons,
Limbic dedali umpiring news magi,
Fee beziers,
Comb barring false laggard strudel curds,
Tank maintenance dudes,
Pez whores,
Wrong number druid paymasters,
Lancome addicts,
Punk crit femur slammers,
Parallel universe dime-speedy makeover clues,
Numb ears,
Grab bags,
Dick jokes,
Good wheat.

1542

I suppose it might be possible
For an illiterate walnut gatherer
Living in the compost collection center
To choreograph hundreds of beautiful
And various dances, dreaming
Of burning plastic. The insects
Would gather around such an individual,
And the sky would, in comparison,
Always be vague.

1541

The thinking goes,
"Let me have tame markups
And precipices with mean seasons.

"Give me the stamina of luminous prudes,
I am feigning a disaster movie
For my overplus of thawed vanity."

Zoom in on the crew
As they disassemble
The raw data,

They're waiting to be
What America is waiting for,

The highway fading
In the mirror in the sun.

1540

I get up and turn off the monitor.
It's dark and foggy outside
But by the power of my imagination
I don't even need a coat.
Heat cascades off my body
With the indignation of a church
Full of women. I am greedy
For foods and flowers,
I want the women to perform
A Twyla Tharp piece in which
They pass inches from each other
In complete indifference. The truth
Is singing through me.

1539

ALL THE PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICHES IN VERMONT

The green fizzy fruit
Has chunks of apple inside it.

Some music annoys me
And I am wishing for a little
Knock-it-off energy
To come out through my eyes,
It makes me the target audience
For superhero movies.

The ceremony on the bridge
Involves standing on your head
On the railing. It's windy
And damp, I am
Waiting for an anniversary
To get moving. Use time,
They told me. Lean away
From the handkerchief.

This plaza was cleared
By goats.