too much butter; not enough ice

understand
that I am distanced from you people
only because
there is no way to distinguish most of you

and when I try at times
I go through; I meet and look at you all;
I am struck dull,
it’s not that I expect too much it is that

I expect something at all
and that is what seems impossible—this
overshadowed only
by the fact that you’ve got the same look

in every shot:
turned-head, squinty-front-eye, look sexy
for the camera darling;
only a Polaroid palisade keeps them

from looking into you;
realizing that façade’s your only hand to
ad rem originality.

DamageControl_Field_Manual

AdvancedCase_Study_01

You are / pacing the room / left hand occupied by joint
soaking / over night in æther / the sun rays open
this reminds you of something; you think of it;
turn it over; something is written on the underside—in
phosphor / you are charmed / obliquely
you begin to copy the words on a paper bag
the tongue’s dull / protruding point
more words appear / as though in the possession
and are increasingly volatile / you write faster
you feel / comprehendible;
it is a great and beautiful thing / to have discovered
you gloat & / lose your place / to the space above you
floating / there it is nothing / more than when it began
it is too high up to pluck / a strange hand hovers under it
it is scared / you are very scared / hanging—
the poem—loses all / bowel control.

fiddle & jug

I’ve got rolling papers
and some wheat grass
Have I eaten?  What have I got

left?  Little organs,
my uncle’s reeds;
the air goes in there

and you cover these with your hands
My bowie knife
That was a gift from

dad who saw the wars
and the inside of bars &

some female’s holiest gift
to Man
The box where I keep bread loaf

My mother had taught me
how to bake;
to leave it in ‘til the buns swelled;

send them kneeling and screaming
But she’s been gone & my old man,
he should be by now

What have I got?  All their left time
All Fiddle & Jug.  Smoky.  Smoky.  
Grass chewy.

looking in at your element

I am swimming upriver to reach you
when you would have come down;
there are thirty nautical miles remaining

I appear as the gasping prune on
your radar [brane defiance]

defy once—come back, back
the stones, tall, stacked; come
to Far, a long island

I follow willow boughs, their tips
dip along the banks—graduated
depth, displacement, confidence

grab one
stop
for breath

as you can see me,
a speck where you stand

but you cannot hear me, which
is better for you for now;

you should not see me so wet as I am;
things exist you should not hear, smell,

feel: paddling, swallowing salt water taste
& the trout, pea brains, taking me to school.