1683

DOCK STRIKE

To close a place, then feel
Unused to its light...

I expected the colors of day
To shine above the weed-dream,

The pace of a mail-sorting room
Clocking along. Boats zip

Through the harbor, little
Black dresses yielding.

That's class in America,
A sensuous bit of piffle

Disguising for not a second
An endless array of iron bars.

Evergreen. Hanjin. Maersk.
The idiot wants to say,

"That's where the real poetry
Is happening," and we want

Him to say it. It feels good
To feel superior. Nothing

Keeps changing, lately
By getting hotter than ever.

The thing is, everybody
Knows. Also, a lot of us pray.

1682

REMARKS ON COLOR

Cocaine nights flee
By wide-gauge trains.
Who we dream waves, smiles:
Caves fields streams.

Deep pale eyes go through me,
I see no face, save no date,
Green white blue ochre.

Pain truly saved loot
You'd take only to weigh,

Size, mete like cake.

1681

ERRANT THISTLE CIGARETTE

A mass murder and a cow
Keep the world economy going.

An allusion and photoshop
Keep the world economy going.

Tell us your story. How did you
Keep the world economy going?

Tony Blair blames the bombers to
Keep the world economy going.

12 of 12 top pharma companies
Keep the world economy going.

Draw a contrast,
Keep the world economy going.

Keep walking, Johnnie Walker,
Keep the world economy going.

Bring your daughter to work,
Keep the world economy going.

Brown bag public speaking seminar,
Keep the world economy going.

Hourly rates at the Interconti
Keep the world economy going.

Democrats and water pressure
Keep the world economy going.

Low-grade depression and rock salt
Keep the world economy going.

Lobbyists for lime, bauxite, and sorghum
Keep the world economy going.

Lime, bauxite and sorghum
Keep the world economy going.

Time, boxkites, and sour gum
Keep the world economy going.

Louis Zukofsky and Bjork's husband
Keep the world economy going.

Dressing up as a frozen harbor may
Keep the world economy going.

Rum, sodomy, and the lash
Keep the world economy going.

The millions in their dentists offices
Keep the world economy going.

John Cage and performance poetry
Keep the world economy going.

Smoke inhalation and diversions
Keep the world economy going.

Studies debunking bisexuality
Keep the world economy going.

Gossip columnists googling themselves
Keep the world economy going.

Churning self-doubt to a froth, poets
Keep the world economy going.

Breaking free of your stylist will
Keep the world economy going.

Tossing the umbrella of record will
Keep the world economy going.

Soaking up the marketing at home, you
Keep the world economy going.

In a barrel with a candle, you
Keep the world economy going.

Responding to all situations bitterly, you
Keep the world economy going.

Fighting your way to an academic muddle, you
Keep the world economy going.

Seeing no point in seeing a therapist, you
Keep the world economy going.

Harboring authoritarian impulses, you
Keep the world economy going.

Questioning questioning questioning, you
Keep the world economy going.

Quoting Brian Eno we
Keep the world economy going.

Deregulation creates a new breed of banker to
Keep the world economy going.

The police presence on the streets will
Keep the world economy going.

A harder-edged war on terror will
Keep the world economy going.

Repeating the word Islamist will
Keep the world economy going.

1680

Diamonds even-spaced along the crime scene.
I'm like, hold up. Just because we taped off
This particular indifferent zone
Doesn't mean we're getting everything down.
Blur your blurry lips. What else we observed:
The women. Why only women around,
Is it a salon and convent district? Nein.

1679

Bad lading undermines the force data.
I try not to let my affect overdetermine
The prototype, but it's not like
Boiling corn. They're better about
Letting me stay in the room since
I agreed to some rules of debate.
I'm sorry, was I not supposed to care?

And were you, having identified
A passional streak in me, then free
To roll over and set up a pool
On when exactly I'd bring it to ruin.

The carriage can't stray from arc,
And won't, unless we've stopped watching.
Not checking for variance equals
Stopping watching, by the way.

1678

That's the mood,
The meanwhile of a star
Backing up the side
Of a clay hill. What gives
Beneath the code
Is dark as a bar
Down the service road,
No one lives
There. What you owed
She forgives,
And where you hide,
They're filming a war.

1677

Meditating
In the woods
On the end of Manhattan
On the hum

Of the calculator

And the way the paper
Comes flying out
Into a new world
It numbers

One step
At a time

Suddenly I'm flooded
By the need to be close
To my people

To lift a skirt of course
But also to listen
For some quiet also
A part per million
Of where I'm from

Here
Here
And here

The point of everything
Has a bird on it

The light of day
Has a point

1676

It's so difficult to believe
anyone could like a poem
anyone wrote. Anyone does.

1675

MODEL RISK

The analysts
Hovering among gladioli

Are diversely
Bilingual --

Patchwork earth's
Filmy buttericks

Go drifting
Off the sideboard,

The thriftiness
They embody

Rising in value
All the same.

No such thing.
The worst music

Slowed down
Enough... could...

Be...
The oblivious core

I am living
In the country.

A social dream
Fears bloom

Into, disease
Being only the most

Literal
Imagining. Nearest

Neighbor's a mile
Down. There are

Still enough miles
For us each

To videophone
The cartoon truth,

Bless the 3rd
Airborne for that.

The core's hot,
The light

On the canal
Gong-bong

This alone wish
In the densest

Favela with easy
Access, no plane,

Just parking.
Do I even know

What I'm saying?
Used to.

May yet again.
Risk correlates

To the ability
To recover dreams,

Reward to
Vocabulary.