(public disservice announcement)

is what this won't be called,
the title slated to be replaced
at the outset. I search for
sediments and impediments
beneath the gravel exterior,
feeling superior, enough.

Not another sound,
lest you suggest
that I start the poem over.

We're in this now,
so listen.

The title, never part
of the show as strives
to be. Looking in.
From the top on down.
Keeping up.
Sticking around.






















Oh,
thought we were finished.
Well,
it's over
it's over
it's over
now. Good riddance!

Warbler

Never got to decorate

your shrine, plaster
polaroids of you smiling
on pink spider-string,
stuff so strong it holds
your drink while you
attempt that routine
you've been practicing,

where you tight-rope
across my puffed-out
chest.

I'm no designer of interiors
or explorer of frontiers.
Not one speck an exception
to pursuit's golden rule.

Just a peckish red warbler

yodeling to the great blue,
treating the vast resplendence
the way I would treat you.

SPEL FOR BODY

Oh god, body.
              Oh, god body.
Body of ghost.
                             Most godlike body.
              My body most godly.
              My ghost, no body.
                            Nobody's been god.
                            Nobody's got body.
                                        No one's been body.
         Body me.
                                                    Body god.
Body blame god daily.
         Body say good golly.
         Body brave some body.

Some body gave god.
                                                               Some body got ghost.
Some brave's a body.
          Some body bathe.
                     Some body never laid.
Some depraved body.

           
                                                            Body up on auction.

                                                            Body broke with sickness.


                    Body brave god.
                          Body goads response.
                                   Body stuck in quandary.
                          Body count days.
                    Body slick with malaise.

                                             
                                      What body but your own?
What ghost got body sewn?  
                         What sees with body?
               Who tries to be some body?
                                     What body question effect?
                                     What body display defects?
Who markets body?          

   
                                                                            Who dispute that soul be body?





Let go banal pursuit body!

                                             

                                                               Let lie grumbling crooked body!



                                Let drag tongue body!




                Let play on ribs body!




                                                    Let voice existence body!




                       Let sweat coat stifling body!




                                                    Let steam nettle body!




                 Let fly copious body!


                 
                                                                   Let determine body!



                                   Let slack sour body!



                                                                                      Let filth body!



     Let love lock body—

Will you be my Vice-President?

Will you speak for me when I am gone?
Will you walk with me astride the wharf?
Will you shore up my heart’s coalition?
Will you store my passwords in your pocketbook?
Will you tease and hint at your future without me?
Will you lend me a taste of your credibility?
Will you ease me through this metamorphosis?
Will you honor more than my policies?
Will you gush about me when you are tipsy?
Will you reach for my hand on the tarmac?
Will you water the plants when I am away?
Will you attach your name to mine so that we will never again be the same?

best things

The best things
said to me
are the hints

that keep me
going,
not too different

from the way
a con-man
is kept going

by the thrill
of previously
successful cons.

Been here all this time

Light

drips down

the window-well,

portends
a little peace.
Conflict

carries no
ID. No

flinching.

Parsing
my recklessness, 

I shave

every time
I swivel my
sight toward 

the window. 

My hope-

sprinkled

projects gorge.

Gelatinous
cage-lining.

My just
desserts,
deserting me.

Subluxation

I enter the office in my pajamas,
under the weather and undeterred.
My chiropractor, swift spirited,
usually smiling, crosses the dividing
curtain into the Body room, where
my body slumps over the table.
An "adjust-mint" slides around
beneath my tongue.

He quickly assured me that, yes,
I've pinched some nerves over
the years, but that it's time to let
some of the pain go. He held me
expertly, and with a sudden spasm
my spine crunched like a bag of
kettle chips.  

Oh man, he says, how were you
living with that? Genuinely, it
seemed, even knowing he says that
to everybody. I had grown used
to pain, an ache long absorbed,
and indeed, I felt better. But
when he said, Now you'll
start to feel happy,

I nearly burst with laughter.

Ambassador

I vacuum the company rug—

witness the couple
in the cozy booth
garnish their meal
with a kiss—

and feel that I could
use a hug.

Sick Day

Orange goo
packed inside capsules
meant for solving,
or, distilling the sickness
into a bite-sized,
sideshow distraction.

Phooey.
I accept rest,
but cannot
accept a lull 

in my skull's 

lullaby.

I would drink
a bottle of lotion
to skip prying
the clam
with casual
fingers and land
straight
on the tongue
of the pearl.

Before The Fall

Lion! Your mane is matted red,
you've gone and mussed it up again.

Anglerfish! You are spinning circles
chasing the bob of light between your eyes.

Human! You lack the filter to decipher
what's room-ready, what's mood-groomed,

you scratch your scalp and stick out your
tongue, always the amused one, pickling

yourself in mine. Look at you, loaded
and game-faced, crooning a crooked

song to flow through those who look
for their princess in the fortress—

not comprehending brick as brick
is, mortar as clinging together,

facade of it scuffed with tartar.
Human... you fall through the same

crevasse, wide enough for two,
until you learn that flossing gets you

one blood-letting closer to the kingdom.
Always the intentional alternative,

again the move as antidote for sinking,
the perfect, the exact, the inevitable next,

the dulcet modes of persisting.  
Like sparklers spitting as you roll,

human, you cling to your twin signifiers:
honesty, and what comes before the fall.