Jungle Riddim

When it got too heavy
the canopy fell down:
the cats pawed at confetti—

Rain fell with it, and San Franciscan
bands of fog to emend our lists:
errata, one, and corrigenda.

I inhabit these too deeply:
thin disguises, broken glasses,
water bottles, table textures,

hoarse falsettos, soft tortillas,
shrewd predictions, cauliflower,
mandarin waffle irons,

gray amazing paper scrapers,
lasers with an eye for fashion
cascading rather like an onion,

ears for fears, A Love Supreme,
my alter ego in a dream
(where I was played by Johnny Cochrane).

I wrote a poem when I was twenty one
in which the moon in horror shone.

I Was Worried About You, Tiger!

I was worried about the tiger
and played my blues upon the lyre,
my worried blues, my sickened soul's own song,
I worried about the tambourine and gong.

The water poured like coriander blue
if the spice, that is, could pour like water true.
Gnu chew phooey silo full of glue:
I worried about that tiger like it was you.

Margin Poem 3: Wack Brackets

That's a lot of
dragons
in the water
low & stagnant,
I'm asthmatic
& pragmatic,
but I lack a
strong aesthetic.
In the pool
I spoke too soon,
& drew, w/in
my heart,
a gun.

Margin Poem 2: Long Triangle

Do you give
them the same
amount of time?
Of information?

I want you
so bad.

Equal time,
would you say?
One of the policies.

I want you
so, so bad.

You don't have
to blow
the student off.
"Knows in advance,
how much time
they need to
devote to you."

I want you
so bad.

Margin Poem 1

Do you feel
love--can
you trace it
to its source,
its fountainhead
where the warm
water braces
itself in holy
expectation?


[Written in a real margin.]

Ethical Lyric

As a fine print is matted my hair is matted
and like a gefilte fish I’ve been gutted.
One sweet Sunday I went to the pictures:
stir-fried okra, stillness, scripture.

Have you heard the name unspoken?
Not Jon Hamm, not Kevin Bacon.
Segue please. Can I get sponsored?
Am I a boil and you a lancer?

The basic rules have been restated,
the truth, like parmesan, been grated.
Fresh bananas, cookery flocks,
chicken or hickory-dickory dock.

Stuck in the mudflat the MIDI chimes
and signals the start of some boogaloo games,
no shame is attached. Mahi mahi from Maui
allows me to bow over sorts in the galley.

The cool void exposes a quiet eclipse,
just a kiss away, dead on the cusp.
Gilded, bewildered, filtered through process,
but not clear enough to be swallowed by phosphorus,
coiled in fortuity, famished and prosperous.

ACCIDENTAL TWEAK

My mind is not silent.

In real-time I hear the same peppy chorus
repeat repeat repeat
plugging direct

into the center
of my attention.

I drink from a yellow cup
and my thirst cannot be quenched.
The digital clock is the sun,
which no cloud mitigates.

I cannot be overcome;
my thirst cannot be quenched;
my mind is not silent.