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A dress

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My poetry is bare, showing its pink and purplish imperfections and its injuries. I buy it a dress to hide its bruises, to ornate it a little, to make it smile. On its rather ugly and mishaped body, the dress looks comical, ridiculous, clumsy, like a bird with a broken wing.…

Jeans

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Jeans. You passed yours along to me with some helpful tips.

Announcing Human Season

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Contest rules are simple. Two teams of five hunters each are established by drawing from pools of interested volunteers and selected prison inmates confined for capital crimes and illegal immigration.

Dear Mei

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I planned and planned. I followed the veterinarians around and I took vials of panda tranquilizers when they were not looking, and it was often that they forgot to look. The earth kept shaking, they were hungry, and many did not know what had become of th

Song Against Unwarranted Cheer

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If I should stumble into cheerfulness/ remind me of all the business models

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 17

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So back to Berkeley we went, and started our own commune in a huge rented house on Derby Street where we could tear the fences down in all the neighborhood backyards. We created what we called “The Meadow.”

First Things Go First And End Up Being Last (the Big Enough Picture)

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I don't have to show you how to fly. I don't even know who you are still possibly trying to be in this crazy grounded world. But the words make us family. I can't help that or what you might do with that public tweet tweet…

Edward Ogle the fourth

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Charted stars by the dozens / with a side of frizzle onions / dawn showers us with glitter.

Monogamy

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cummings starts to sniff, his usual routine. He feigns aloofness while raising one wolfy leg to pee on Eliot's sneakers.

Alice in Hell: 13 slithy variations

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1. Having made Alice from one of the Mad Hatter's ribs, Humpty Dumpty told her she could do anything, except speak. “How bothersome!” she said.2. In the church, Alice was horrified to be presented with a talking lamb. “EAT ME!” it bleated and, as the…

Literary Intercourse

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Meaning is harder to sell, unless it’s an analysis of why there is a Justin Bieber.”

Cleaning House

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If you've ever cleaned house because a death is coming,you know it's the same as any other kind of cleaning.Wipe the tables.Pick up the floor.Sweep the crumbs under the carpet.For later.And for the ants.It's different, too.Because you're floating.On caffeine.On muffled…

A meditation on mint tins

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And I am reminded of river eyes: The summer we slumbered, Like mummies in the sand

Hush

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You think you are a perpetual motion machine, free of thermodynamic law. I’m telling you, you’re wrong.

ROAD TRIP

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to visit an old friend

The Washing of the Quilts

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Sweaty feet, drool from the weighty sleep of mid-afternoon naps, the inescapable perspiration of the South: all combine to create the entwined scent of socks and stale toothbrushes...

THE REAL MAP

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When we crossed the California/Oregon border, I had this vivid image of sleeping bags filled with human bones. I shook my head and the scene would not go away. The woods must be full of dead campers, hitch hikers, run-a-ways, and black teenage whores

Strawberry Daiquiris

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A hot summer night walks into a bar and orders a drink.

Everything Foreign

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In college, I made friends with my Jewish roommate. Her name was Leah and she was from Brooklyn. When she asked me home with her for Thanksgiving, she mentioned we could go to synagogue together. I asked if there would be other black people there. "No," Leah…

On the Anniversary of My Grandfather's Passing

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What I remember about my grandfather were his fart jokes. When he wasn't telling us kids about how young David defeated the mighty Goliath or how Saul the pharisee humbled himself to become Paul the Apostle, he was telling us about the baby burp that begg

Shovel

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each vertebra is a golden cavalier, brave in upright vigilance; stoic heroes.

Fundamentals

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You can have two threes, or three twos. I hear the beat both ways. It goes back and forth in my head, like magic, transforming from one to the other and back again. And I am learning the basics of music theory, and painting geometric shapes with primary colors. I am…

True Stories About False Dancers

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The world is a mighty funny place. It spins wildly and we are held down by its strong ghostly gravity. We're still able to communicate with one another over morning coffee and delicious cake donuts dipped in chocolate. Some of us used to keep…

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 15

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Steve Bancroft’s future wife showed up at his door that same night, slamming her hand loudly against the door and shouting for him. “Steve, Steve, wake up. Damn it, come on. You forgot to pick me up at the airport. Who are you in there with? I said wa

Homonyms

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Ascent/Assent Together the horizon/ Catechism of love

Small Boat Row Told Through a Roughed Out Dungeon Window

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The princess knew exactly where to find the annoying gurgling frog of her childhood, but she wasn't wearing the right shoes to step onto lily pads with, so she decided there and then to take a stolen boat out onto that soft mission, all by herself instead. It was a…

Beer, for my Gravediggers

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It's cheap beer, but cold you welcome that rushing hiss and the following long drink of chilly wetness washing away the parched, dust dry, cotton mouth of grave-digging in the desert sun

Thank God the Sixties Are Over With! Is All I'm Saying

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I am surprised that you’re not famous already. I remember sitting in your bedroom for hours just watching you while you wrote poetry. I was in awe of you, thinking you were going to be the next Dylan Thomas! Or Bob Dylan. Or Dylan Somebody! And I rememb

Stan Smith

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Ah we just sat on the flat roof of the school and looked out at what was beyond because sometimes there is nothin' to do but sit on a flat roof of a school and look out at what is beyond. Going up there I had told him to be careful with the bag because if he didn't take…

twelve tines

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till the tiny death may we remain true, me and you, to our flesh and blood and sinew, the springs and silver in our tiny hearts with vicious teeth and a hard bone need to fuck