Highly Disturbed

What the frock coats of coal crows
hidden shears to leaden leaflets
a white table cloth, a slashed cowslip
The fall of the landscape to crippled cliffs
hand kisses on the backs of dim dead soot
everything takes place in a civilized way
First pupils enlarge to feed on effigy of light
under open shirts never so much Manhattan skyline!
ceiling candlelight in the bottle of childhood to
keep out, Cod's heads are bleeding all over the land.

Ash For Wednesday

I didn't mean
that I didn't
that an I melon
is which than
the blue tourmaline if there is tourmaline
if there is ash
if there was fire
that we are no longer

It was here in the morning-
Skin pepper
When you were your breath
Like my father's port but your arm was
sleeping music
crumpled like sheets,
Eyelash folded wings.

Didn't I
Which me alone
That I didn't want
If there was ash
If there was burn and hips
I could tourmaline
Just hovering


That we no longer

Orphic Letters 1-9

Letter 1

A thousand and one times today I thought of you.
Purr at my hands,
Breasts rising like heat, the celebration of bodies different
You, bearded and strong with need.
You, mouth and tongue and hands.
What could I say today, that I wasn't delighted, that my body didn't wake to a
Calling for more, that a thousand and one times today I thought of you, that like the River Merchant's Wife, send word that you are coming and I will go out to meet you as far as Cho Fo Sa.

Letter 2
It was hard to call you-
Bare and bear. Kids later, busy now
No plans and letting go, letting go-
The problem with getting closer is the razor sharpness of the slashing
Hands undone.



Letter 3
I am undone, not by need,
But by the risk of need.
After a steady diet of crickets, I sing and call
But hide in the dark.


Letter 4

Missing is like knowing in a vacuum.
What powers this
Cyclone
fencing, thistle and glass.




Letter 5
Imagination is better than knowing,
Goethe knows the secret of curiosity,
The disappointment of known.





Letter 6
S- We called off everything. Popcorn, dogs, candlelight.
Down at the mouth it was dry.
He was so afraid of me. Me, softness and epiphany, strength and eclogue. I touched him and he rose to it, amazing need, need-based and conflicted, I left him like that. Spring without the fruit.
There orange, the rind pulled back, the menace of seeds-
and it was like Christmas, but in July and we couldn't get the music.
I wasn't dressed for it and had to go home to the place where graves are, my own half, my father's, the place I died as a child.



Letter 9

Who will sign up to be no more than that?
It is spring and the smell of his shirt clings to the ground.

Letter to Jack Spicer

Dear Jack,


Barnacles are complicated things. You delight in the strangeness of thick ribbed carbon laden shells, where I do not. Sometimes picking up a sand dollar off the ocean inter-tidal zone with barnacles on it is inspiring, but when I've looked closely, the barnacles were still alive and it bothered me. Unlike words floating into the universe of forever, these things smell. I don't think poems should smell.

Once I read a poem written by a poet I like about thrashing his wife. It really stunk. Speaking of stink, my pot-roast has a pleasant smell which indicates a certain doneness. Poems should smell done, even well-done. When released through sound they should fill the air and satisfy.

I find reading some poems to be like side salad. I do not get full. Sometimes I have to imbibe Lorca with a side of Notley or Bernadette Mayer. The airiness of the duende poems aren't as grounded as the cunt poems of Mayer. Eating some poems is more like an Atkins diet. When I read Whitman I stay full for days. Your poems stir me up sometimes and sometimes they are intoxicating.

Do you like scotch? The smell of scotch can be deceiving. Sometimes it smells like paint remover, but with a few drops of water, the sweetness is released. I try to stay away from scotch because like paint thinner, it takes the color out of me.

Barnacles on words can add layers of interest, inter-textuality and depth. On the other hand, sometimes the barnacles and chitons on words build until they distort the words. Poetry shouldn't be so laden with extraneous fauna that it collapses. It shouldn't be so spare that it wants dressing. Poems should approach the uncertain variety of sunsets.

Jack, thanks for listening, and keep writing sunsets.

Jesse

Red States

I imagine cutting myself tonight
Letting out America. I imagine my arms spread like
Jesus with his arms blown off in war.
You think
the cut would be the wrist in
A pristine enamel tub, but you are wrong
I imagine
My white forearms spread with a knife, but
One is not my hand, maybe it is you that cuts me America.
But I am cutting
And we are there with our white, white skin
Thin and young with this mouth built like a bruise and I cut the blue vein
With the point
Letting out America letting out the red under the white and blue. It is red.
Very red cutting me, cutting.
Letting out America all over the world.