2003 / 2004

A MILLION RANDOM DIGITS

Almost surely nothing up my sleeve.
Nothing like a sleeve, for that matter.
No story, no instant winner, no glade
Where the traditional "elk dance"
Precedes the coronation of the flower king
And the dukes and duchesses of the forest,
No bindi manufacturer, no waterslide,
No ack ack, no Brest-Litovsk accords
And certainly no infinite monkeys
The book of only numbers
Is remarkable for its persistence
And stylishness -- five by five
Albers Reinhardt Mondrian Martin
Have we seriously considered the grid.

Have I seen you carrying your plate
Across the grassy sunlit field, stopping
Abruptly and then, a moment later,
Changing direction. No time for sergeants.
The pretend family. Pleasure
In the long run. Well. I've seen you
Spot me across the park. I've seen
You learn a complex polyrhythm, tapping
On the drayage. I have seen you naked

And have talked when saying nothing
Would have been at least as fitting,
The gibberish my neurons found meet
To haul into the light received by you
With generosity. Lomography.
Captivity narratives, earned run averages.
The walls of the underpass mosaicked
The cornsweet illusion.

Tomorrow red groovie screamed mega,
Einstein didn't fuss much with his hair,
Contrast and compare starvation builds
Character, race is not a factor,

And there were sunshowers and sparklers
Caving in the parking lot.

The light on my chipmunk garden

But these are voicemails
When what I want what you want
Is a few wrongs amended
With decimal points curving
Making knock-knock jokes watermelons
The jacknifed tractor trailer
Scatters on the off-ramp,

The woman across the car gums
Her lips, squints closely
At the tables and charts
In this month's Lotto News.
Who's going to tell her
They call that game a "math tax."

The first recorded lottery
Paid for the Great Wall of China.

We were praying in the desert
When the meteor shower
Struck the enemy camp.

None of that. A tub of hot sauce.
An encounter with Human Resources.

Numbers are not letters, not words,
Irony is not chance. To speak
To each plant in a loving voice.

Who wants to know if we revise?
Tell them every single night.
Tell them carbon dioxide, tell them
Waves of light, of water, of sound.
Tell them I'm feeling lucky,
Repeated strings appear then
A story is the intersection of
Permanence and unpredictability.
The book of random numbers
Allows us to conduct these tests
And all things being equal
See consistent results, a cup
Of tea, an Enigma machine;

And when I'm able to breathe,
All reverting to the mean,
They'll run a Monte Carlo simulation
So I can step out for a smoke break.
When I see you, I'll cross against the light.



*

100,000 NORMAL DEVIATES

star Rare bald ibis

wants rented room
Ahmed told Press.
Maroc aisne Mario smash Stage bresil lorraine
Awesome Landis takes Tour

Rome Stockholm Sydney Tokyo
controls. function tune orders.
Summary Dec Material contained herein peer reflect
LSD PCP

inodes
Tuhy:
docs targets. PentiumM
vote counting deceitful Theatres Weekend:

Property FreedomIt occurred circle Peres thought Syria Rabin.
informed proceed completes
Symantec critiques security
handson breakdown

dealers location
Extended voltages permanent
Gates
intervene Bid quash




[These poems were funded in part by a grant from Daniel Nester]