body – other animals

light blue dark blue sky peppered stars
the dog lingers sniffs a neighbor’s
pumpkin and music from somewhere
far or near I once loved the feel
of night on my body wanders
under what little light comes through
though I still haven’t found it

the way the night gloveless treats this body full of holes

(First published in Under the Basho.)

Having darkened my hand with dark ink in
an age when close and
distant are cloudy unaided having
made so much that no

body wants to eat I wait for the latest
historic storm and the
scrape and salt that wakes us too early
or too late

model mountains pen in
sugared cars I try to

lift the snow with a wave
of homemade rhythm into
sky like berries almost black

but do I fracture some rule with
this spell how many feet do I have

to long for long-lasting mud
and the birds who

visit though we won’t learn
their names this year

either but the tracks lead
to a curve turning

back on itself with a smile
the breath leaves

green leaves shake

so let’s finish off the crackers
and call them
cookies we can watch
a movie through the neighbor’s
window just
balance on this skull

From the Loathsome Autobiography of an Aspiring Hermit

we were all impressed that he had trained himself to overcome the sweating and fits that accompanied riding the elevator to the top floor where all those who helped you get to where you can finally hide the body in peace once you return those calls but really there’s nothing out there but the occasional chirp the grinding

sound of some industry in the distance that we all struggle to identify and some vague concern about retirement which tends to stay asleep except during certain phases of the moon in early autumn before the serious shopping starts and we depart for one day the air goes out and not every part of us is of use and of course those unseen forces you

go on about we peel off and set to one side to admire the fine and final finial detail but then we risk wandering past the border of our little park where we make miniature watercolor landscapes to please the passerby no matter how full of rage or foreboding before retiring once more to the dark closet with the machine that spits out hot air though today even that might be welcome as we question every word

choice and how many bodies we’re inhabiting while we wait for a more immediately impressive one to leap to the lips and be able to sing clear in the narrow streets where we wasted our youth on such games as need not be mentioned here though we remain softly pleased that its secretions were not the same as those found by the famous detective or his brother for that matter

moving toward what with blurry eyes an empty hand lies to the whole body nightly nodding I thought I could escape the flies

counting the hairs of my body the poem of thunder

one paper crane on top of a larger one the body’s thresholds

————–

for no reason a song spills out of me as I recycle this cold grey morning

————–

walking between autobiography and nonsense I stop on my walk to murder the sunset

————–

gulping my drink like a man just found in the desert why can’t I be more like George Clooney