Nobody in the rain

This Morning

2009-10-22T08:12:00.001-04:00

I'm on time.
The road moves
under the car
against the grain
or all the same
still at war
and going back
for more
no time to
wave. Continuous
disruption
thoughts that lapse
into the lack
of continuity
dark morning brings.

Oh Yes

2009-10-15T08:29:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I died.
It was my third and final time.

At least at last
there is no more
falling leaves
hostility.

I should have been a pair of retractable claws
clicking across the hardwood floors
of quiet living rooms.

Death fit around me
like a brand new sock.

Over-the-calf,
tube,
the way life entered:

I in
you, I in
you, I in you.

No idea what to do
with myself now.

All of the people I loved
are here except
of course the ones down
there.

Only there is no up,
no down. No here here.

I saw you standing on our maple tree
on the lowest branch
no human can reach
and you were smiling
not remembering that I was gone.

“Good times, good times.”

A fatal belief in things
coming together.

Cartoons shout Hooray
therefore I was
OK with my children watching
them in moderation.

The white breath of waiting
for the bus
against the multi-colored leaves
in late October . . .

where I would have been
today.

As a century is
something only thought of.

Yesterday I died.
My daughter climbed our tree
three years from now.

This Morning

2009-10-08T07:25:00.000-04:00

A blue jay splits
the arborvitae screen;
a tight blue-green spiral
launched from the hand of
my three-year-old son.

This Morning

2009-10-08T07:13:00.003-04:00

Cold fog over Candlewood Lake;
upside down on the rocks
a white row boat points the way out.

Collision

2009-10-08T07:11:00.001-04:00

When I die
Will you marry me?

Nonsense

2009-09-25T07:33:00.000-04:00

We are a sculpture
or an open
book? We accumulate
no detail in time.
We reside in our tent
of fire. Remember when
we froze too big to think.
Hushed little creatures
under the sea of
some raptor-named
fantasy world.
Smoke waves
against the sky's lost page
we no longer stand.

This Morning

2009-09-24T07:56:00.001-04:00

Water boiling for Vaughn's oatmeal
in the kitchen behind me.
Chorus of “surf's up, surf's up,
ho daddy, ho daddy,” coming from
the living room where Vaughn and Dash
are kneeling on the hardwood floor.
Harsh hush of cars rushing by outside.
Sharma's claws tug at her ottoman
tucked under the desk
in the dining room. I stir
the oatmeal and bring it to my daughter
not because she asked politely
but because we must be going soon.

Proverbial Sonnet (55)

2009-09-23T07:47:00.004-04:00

A movie's a fine bulwark against time
but nothing outlives a powerful rhyme
like an insect of radiation-resistant airs.
I should have been a cluster of spiky hairs
stretching out and vibrating my wings
intuitively as I play my courtship songs.
My hate is a purple hydrangea that stings:
a yellowjacket tucked under mophead poms
with hard-shelled face and long black-seed eyes
and well-developed primitive mouthparts
for capturing and chewing what I should
have been. My hate is a minor pollinator,
a sweet-toothed scavenger disrupting picnics
and, nest-back, passing it on in trophallaxis.

Yesterday Morning

2009-09-22T07:50:00.002-04:00

Tumbles of low fog
over Lake Lillinonah;
an empty parking lot
of dandelion seed heads.

This Morning

2009-09-21T08:30:00.000-04:00

Cold morning
Gas pains

I was trying to think
Of something that
Was there

What time is
Dew

Some attack
Is coming

Long Coat Variations

2009-09-19T13:32:00.001-04:00

I know that long coat.
I know that gray
striding through
the lost grass
of the golden brown
plains. I know
because I was there
watching through
the hole in the sky
just over the horizon
through which that long
coat man
was being shot,
framed by silence
like any old word
exactly placed,
and moving that way, too.

*

I remember turning
to my invisible sheriff
and sneering, “See you
in hell,” then pulling
the trigger and watching
him fall
back into the trough.
My teeth, like saloon doors
stopped mid-swing,
flashed as I smiled
at the splash and the blood
rivering through the white-
shirt valleys, out of
his chest and into the water.
I turned back, I suppose,
to the big black steed
my eight-year-old self
could never really mount.

*

It's been a long time.
It's a long time
coat. The buttons
on the coat
are entrances
to the cave
in which I am buried.
Let me show you.

*

In love, one
is Jesse James,
and the other,
Meramec Caverns.

*

The long coat
hanging like
a shadow from
the lowest limb
of the bare-
branched years.
Someone was
inside?

*

I will show you
the cave later.
I used to go there
often. A wild
cat would take me.
It's been a long
branching out
in the opposite
direction. I
don't remember
exactly what
it was that used
to rip me up
and take my bones
for firewood
that I might visit
with the sky—
an animal
or spirit man
from the forest
of dark long coats?

18 x 2

2009-09-19T08:09:00.000-04:00

and I still
walk around
with holes
in my jeans,

scarecrow
flannel, and
The Misfits
in my head.

This Morning

2009-09-18T07:41:00.003-04:00

Time is
someone's at
the door.

Under

2009-09-17T23:38:00.003-04:00

To be without mystery
under the trees, the leaves
among you, you star

          *

Beyond the highway
under the tarmac
across the bridge
wait a minute
under is misleading.

          *

Under the fountain water
I could see the wind
and feel gravity
and for a second
I wanted not to return.

          *

Under your eye
a yellow leaf
on dark grass
curled up around
the edges, holding
midnight
rain.

          *

I hit my head
on the rock under
the peonies when
I fell for you.

          *

Rock. Snake.
And what
comes next.

          *

Under the mirror
alteration

anything animal
still

chattering monument
sensation

mouth opening
till

the black blaze:
gone.

          *

Under a feather
pillow
fingers grip
climbing up
the tree
the sparrow
leaps
from when you sleep
at last.

          *

Under your tea cup
intuitive knowledge
wets and warms
the tabletop;
the light slants in
as I lose my page
looking at you
and all that I know.

          *
Under the range
where the mouse got away
from our cat
there’s a hole the size
of a silver dollar:
that is my church.

          *

Under the last page
or rather behind
a couple of blanks
to fill out the signature.

          *

Under the moment
indebted
by the window
the dog twitches his nose:

the deep unconscious
wisdom system
wants to go for a walk;
I put on my shades.

          *

Under command,
utterly damned.

          *

Under the sound
of cricket cliques
the animal worm
just moved along.

          *

Under the bark
the revelation
of ants
was lost on the beak
which pecked
because.

          *

Under the brick
nothing
but some ashes.

          *

Under the rosary
my mother’s hands
like scorched earth
under a forced march.

          *

I bury my loved ones
under my bed
every night
I close my eyes.

          *

Under the leather
the hair on my arm
stood defiantly
against the summer’s
ninety-degree sun.

          *

Under the bleachers,
mouth-to-mouth.
A thousand stomping feet.
Touchdown someone.

          *

Under the paper
more paper
and all of it under
dust.

          *

Under the sun?
Oh, corpses . . .

people voted for.

          *

Under the moon?
Beats me . . .

alone in my room.

          *

Under my face
I’m already
asleep forever.

          *

Under the sink
it sounds like the mouse
has returned.

Feet grown cold
on the kitchen floor,
I’m not sure I care.

          *

Under the stem
I pause and stare
at the golden skin
I’m about to bite.

          *

Under the vacuum
the spot that was missed.

          *

Under the river—
How the hell should I know?

          *

Under the eggshell
an aureole
flies
back and forth
through a cup of milk.

          *

Under the flies
it was starting to snow
on the stove
the kettle screamed
to be picked up
is all she ever wanted.

          *

Under the dawn light
breaking through the blinds
he imagined he was
a pyramid.

          *

Under the clock
the waves
smack the shore—

“It’s a long way
to the top
if you wanna rock . . .”

          *

In the Moses basket
under the crib
stuffed animals
impersonate the dead.

          *

Under the chair,
squeaks and moans;
over it, streaks
of silence and poems.

          *

Under the skull
the sun rises
and sets
among mothballs.

          *

Under my thumb
the page of a book
I was hoping
you would read
so I can ask you
about it.

          *

Under the night-
gown, the old
north wind blows—
the private language
everybody knows.

A Sheltering Sky

2009-09-16T22:52:00.005-04:00

Aurora borealis, born to dance . . .

Sidereal glaciers, love's invisible spiders.
Home is wherever I'm squatting with
Elvis houseflies in my hair.
Looking at the fjords of night between
The blue punk rock clouds, I recline and
Evaporate like juice in a pan. We sleep on
Rooftops whenever we dream, secretly
Inviting the leopards and cobras of
Night to stride and slither to our sides as we
Grind our teeth and sharpen our minds.

Solar winds, track changes, due north.
Karmic evolution, born to boot . . .
Yellow teeth of the sun tease my arm.

________
In memory of Jim Carroll
August 1, 1949 – September 11, 2009

And partly in response to Politely Homicidal's call for acrostic poems having to do with the sky

Proverbial Sonnet (54)

2009-09-15T23:34:00.003-04:00

We topped our Boboli with garlic and anchovies
and kissed so much we burnt the crust. We took
our halves into our first own living room
and sat down with a quilt on the worn blue rug
in front of the TV because we still didn't have
any furniture yet. I Shot Andy Warhol
was originally planned as a documentary
but the filmmakers found almost no footage
of Solanas or anyone to talk about her.
We fell in love with Lili Taylor for a little while,
and after, we wrapped around each other
like a metaphor. Puzzle pieces across
the floor, we snapped into. You had the hair
of a young Bernadette Mayer that year.*

______
*I was picturing Mayer's photo as I
remembered it from in the back of An
Anthology of New York Poets. I thought
KC looked a bit like the little face
in that photo of Mayer in those days.
I don't have a copy of that anthology
on hand, but I think I still remember
the picture well enough to describe it:
swimming sleep, the waves mail,
December sun, soft April sky,
September notebook, snowy July,
eventual belly, zippered smile:
a lot of action in that captured lack
of motion, entire movements to understand.

A Modest Response

2009-09-14T07:42:00.005-04:00

Was
it
all
we
could
bear?

Bear
was
Could
it
be
all?

All
bare,
we
saw
it
could

cloud
all.
It,
bare,
was
wee.

We
would
caw,
pall
bear
it.

It
was
bear.
Could
was
all.

It was all
we could bear.

__________________________________
In memory of Tom Sullivan,
Jul 22, 1938 – Sep 10, 2009

Hum

2009-09-11T21:22:00.001-04:00

by Ann Lauterbach

The days are beautiful
The days are beautiful.

I know what days are.
The other is weather.

I know what weather is.
The days are beautiful.

Things are incidental.
Someone is weeping.

I weep for the incidental.
The days are beautiful.

Where is tomorrow?
Everyone will weep.

Tomorrow was yesterday.
The days are beautiful.

Tomorrow was yesterday.
Today is weather.

The sound of the weather
Is everyone weeping.

Everyone is incidental.
Everyone weeps.

The tears of today
Will put out tomorrow.

The rain is ashes.
The days are beautiful.

The rain falls down.
The sound is falling.

The sky is a cloud.
The days are beautiful.

The sky is dust.
The weather is yesterday.

The weather is yesterday.
The sound is weeping.

What is this dust?
The weather is nothing.

The days are beautiful.
The towers are yesterday.

The towers are incidental.
What are these ashes?

Here is the hate
That does not travel.

Here is the robe
That smells of the night

Here are the words
Retired to their books

Here are the stones
Loosed from their settings

Here is the bridge
Over the water

Here is the place
Where the sun came up

Here is a season
Dry in the fireplace.

Here are the ashes.
The days are beautiful.

Complex Social Structure

2009-09-09T23:00:00.001-04:00

Boil water
pour it over

the idea of war

rises
through sinuses

            *

Driving through fog
with dog
in the back
of the pickup

“songs of love and songs of death”

open window
songs that bark

at trees

fog lifting
leaves

            *

Hot shower
the hour

friendly fire

wipe tile

crawl
enormity

back to sleep

            *

Afterthought rains
mud brains

“If I get back home . . .”

NOISE BOT

BUSTED TEES

homo sapiens
knees

            *

Roof, roof

regarded

as dependent upon culture

            *

On top of a
twig

twirling between
fingers

the little green
bud

more brown

            *

Bumper sticker
shock and awe

YOUR VOTE COUNTS

What?

like bodies

            *

REAL MEN
WIPE THEIR ASS WITH BARK

FUCK ME IF I'M WRONG
babe

            *

Lift the tea bag
from the mug

the idea of war

pressed
in sunken chest

            *

Turn on Angel

turn out light

watch
and forget

someone else
will write

There were all of these things to be said

2009-09-09T21:23:00.003-04:00

There were all of these things to be said
but no means to say them, no words.
I guess the things were feelings, things
that were felt, the way you might run your fingers
over leather or some other fine material
if you were a person who actually cared
about fine materials, which I am not
which is why the best I could come up with
was leather, though I did a second later
think of cashmere, but I instantly rejected
that because it made me think of Seinfeld
in the episode where the office cleaning lady
falls for George and anyway cashmere isn't
how I roll, although I did own a cashmere blazer
when I was in high school, we got it on sale
at Marshalls, which I know now is a discount store
for items which if they were books would be
remainders, at least I think that's how it works,
and so my mother and I we bought that gray
blazer there just before my sophomore year
of high school, I know it was then because
I remember one time in home room I made
the blazer dance-like to my off-key humming
rendition of Led Zeppelin's “Kashmir” which
I then medleyed into Scatterbrains's “Don't Call Me
Dude,” which was a hit with Rich and, later,
Erik and Dan, which was everybody in our class
who would get the Scatterbrain reference except
for Jerry who was always hidden under his hair
and pretty humorless at least until he got a few
beers in himself, but I wouldn't know that until
the end of the year and this was the start of the year
and I didn't mean to go off on a tangent, in fact
I forget what I was getting at originally, it's like
that cartoon in The New Yorker a couple of weeks ago,
on a dusty old west road these two cowboys
are walking away from each other, hands on
their six-shooters, the classic Hollywood
showdown, but the one in the foreground has
a puzzled look on his face and a thought bubble
over his head which reads, “Damn if I didn't start
walking in this direction for a reason . . .”
which is exactly my point, I knew where I was going
but now I don't, though I remember now
where I was then, when I didn't have the words
to get to where I wanted to go, wherever that was.

Proverbial Sonnet (53)

2009-09-09T08:27:00.005-04:00

Good morning, kiss. You are awake. Today's back roads
have blossomed behind my eyes. Ted Berrigan is alive.
The minute blue night was only pretending
to be awake. Your drive into work, a brown sliver
under the whirling print of an elegant finger, a middle finger
opening slowly in the direction of American Beauty.
American Beauty isn't only a movie. Good morning,
you, opening slowly, today's back roads, a kiss
in the direction of American Beauty. On the car windows,
commas, periods, and question marks of water —
no words wet this movie morning. A minute blue
blossomed drive beyond the wide rows of high brown
slivers. You are awake, on the back roads, which lead me away
from American Beauty, from behind my eyes, from the line,
“Ted Berrigan is alive.”

________
This is a knock-off. For the real deal, one of the most beautiful American poems, see Ted Berrigan's Sonnet XXXVII.

Another Quick Little School Bus Morning Poem

2009-09-08T08:30:00.000-04:00

The bus stops and Vaughn
climbs on, finds her seat
beside two other girls.

No wave goodbye this time.
No looking out at
Ayla,* Dash, and me.

The bus moves on, leaving
its exhaust behind. The days
of the week go by

so many times, one loses
track, like Thomas the Train
rushing to make good time.

_________
* Ayla is the Japanese Maple we planted in our front yard last year, named by Vaughn.

Cultural Moment I Completely Missed: The Book Trailer

2009-09-07T21:13:00.001-04:00

Evidently there have been trailers for books for a few years now (so sayeth Wikipedia). It's funny that “book trailer” is a trademarked term. (I guess it doesn't take much.) There are only 35,000 views, though, so I'm not sure how well this new marketing method is working out for publishers. Probably that's a great number for literary fiction, even a crossover novel like this one. But it's Penguin. They had to be hoping for more hits in the first month that that. Maybe they're rookies at viral marketing, or maybe 35,000 really does kick ass under the circumstances and I just don't get it.

As counterpoint to the trailer, Louis Menand's New Yorker review.

Hat tip: Elektra Luxx.

One-Line Manifestos

2009-09-07T12:55:00.005-04:00

Just posted these as a comment to a great little article by Robert Archambeau over at the Poetry Foundation.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

Don't pay anyone to read your work.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

Don't play their game; make your own.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

Shut the door so you can leave.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

Dress like a pig and hiss like a snake.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

Your poems may be food, but not to the homeless.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

Seal each of your poems in an envelope and mail them to random names in the phonebook.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

I am a walking manifesto.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

Short of breath is an urgent manifesto.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

Poetry is a door; there is no outside.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

Everything counts: syllables, words, caesuras, feet, none of the above, etc.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

A poetics of place is neat, but the poetics of silence is real.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

Poetry is its opposite.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

An apple twice its size.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

Nothing is relative, too.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

Soldier on: you're not at war (but if you are, I'm sorry).

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

Freak.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

Touch.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

Sing.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

Belch in public and be a peach behind the scenes.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

Hold hands and be proud, but don't hold them high.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

Don't be proud: You're not the name attached to your poems.

ONE-LINE MANIFESTO:

Your poetry is the garden you will enter when you die.

GREAT! or Some Blogs of Note

2009-09-07T11:38:00.003-04:00

The other day I was searching to see if anyone in the Wide World had posted Ted Berrigan's Sonnet XVII and found Robert Frost's Banjo. I've since been enjoying John Hayes's Banjo very much. It has great bloggy fare like today's Moose Tales, but what hooked me first was the Weekly Poem series, a great selection of poetry by many of favorite poets (Berrigan, Kenneth Patchen, Wallace Stevens, Frank O'Hara, Tom Clark).

Speaking of Tom Clark, he's been posting a lot of great work—poems old, poems new, some original translations—over at his Beyond The Pale blog. If anyone is a master of the lyric, it's him. Here's one of my all-time favorite poems by anybody from anyplace writing at anytime.

Even though I have submitted relatively little work to literary magazines since 1999 (a handful per year at most, excepting 2001 and, I think, 2003 which were a bit heavier than that) and had taken to posting blogbooks of old poems (mostly old, Sappho Does Hay(na)ku had been new[er] work), I hadn't taken the next step of foregoing magazine publication altogether (or virtually altogether, we'll see) and using Nobody here as as a place to post new poems as I write them. Two blogs in particular helped lead me to this leap, both regularly feature great poems by poets who are the real deal, whose works often enough make me envious, you know in a kind of calm resigned way, of their abilities: W.B. Keckler's Joe Brainard's Pyjamas and Todd Colby's Glee Farm.

Last but not least, Sephyrus by Rachel Andrews (it does sound like a sophisticated perfume or designer clothing line doesn't it?) has been a hotbed of words and images, with the same great art that's been there from the start and poetry painted with a minimalist style all her own.