Five Poems

OUR TWO HEADS IN A VACCUUM
Now that you have come
over the hills, or at least through
the sump, holding light somewhat askew
for the world to pick its work from –
who really cares that the limits
are only invoked by mercy or the status
of stars, birds, certain trees, and these four
blades of grass that continue to interrupt
You wander around the city all day
and imagine the faces of strangers
engulfing your genitals, such wide
faces they have, it is only mildly
satisfying. The sun looks on –
“Hello!” it says, imagining your
face is a kind of crevasse deep enough
to conjure a population “Hello!
Look at me and marvel at the situation –
In this, the most ideal of all possible
worlds, young girls can grow up to be
pornstars, and young boys can grow up
to possess the cocks that go in and out
of them, and shower them with meaning –
the buildings can keep on growing around
them and the clouds who maintain the
balance between concrete and the atmosphere
will be braced for another round of flowering
amongst the nation’s questionable identity.
“Thanks Sun!” you say. “I hope that you
go down on me every day!” And looking up
you feel the global positioning work upon you
in mysterious but necessarily stunning ways
and understand your place more satisfyingly.

YOUR TWO BLUE EYES
For years he considers the arrival of crows
Now the lake seems omnidistant
All elegies go unseen along a line that stands for trees
It’s a far cry for elegance to hold so many fish
At least that’s how the surface of the water seems today
Shuffling a reflection of the sky he wants to say is oceanic
And the clouds he wants to say are ships sailing by
But the cliché police have caught up with him
Even this far north
So his son appears and quotes Blake:
Dad – my line’s snagged. On a rock!

PERFECT REPLICATIONS OF JAPANESE GARDENS
How fascinating could it be that a
google search will reveal more images
of people other than that of poor Pat
Tinmuth, brutally murdered in 1975 by
___ Lowther – leaving signed copies of her
work scarce?
 have you ever looked at your face
in a mirror under fluorescent lights –
like, really looked? You look ridiculous,
but at the same time, surely you’re alive,
having won something for your efforts, a
pinup of the latest foiled hero
doll, a variety of energy
you are free to touch, drain, use up –
tapped to a reluctant essence as of
snow, or time, as it falls and makes you so
tired assistance blossoms fail to bloom
hovering on their delicate references
half-heartedly
so what am I to do
when my mother tells me she wishes
to be remembered by nobody?
No one is that forgettable, and I refuse
to be guilty of remembering her against
her wishes, or to die first. But it makes me
wonder why it is we are given so little
control over our endings and the things
we can control seem so useless
in the face of that.

SYSTEMS I INVENT TO HOLD
The faces of the young
are so beautiful –
they are everywhere
& go well together
& compliment all
other faces so well
I twist into another
forlorn –
 I say it’s fine
it’s fine I say, fine –
you’ll get here too
some day
 but I’ll be
gone by then, or
somewhere else, & the
variations will outlive us all.
Oh brother, there’s that
essence again, the floats
& the quietude,
kids screaming
among the traffic:
Do you have
God of War?
Do you have a Wii?
A Playstation?
Xbox rules: You
should see me
blow that dude
out of the water. 
Sick! It’s on the
You Tube. Some
where. I saw it four
times, and then they
took it down.
But
you can find it on
MSN.
 What I really
want to know is
how do they spell
ridiculous?
 DS?
PSP?
 No, way!

RESPONSIBILITIES ARE WORN
part one:
in the middle
 of this
 dead field –
 it’s a dead
field
part two:
 a
 dead
dead
field
 dead, a
 dead field
part three:
 dead
 dead
 field
dead, it’s
 dead –
part four:
there’s nothing here, a dead
 field, empty
 and dead
part five:
 dead and empty
anything
 is
 nothing – there’s
 nothing here –
 it’s dead, a dead and
 empty field,
part six:
 a dead field
 where nothing
 lives, dead
part seven:
a dead field dead in the
middle of a dead field
there is a snake
part eight:
this is a snake
isn’t it?
part nine:
you are a snake
aren’t you
part ten:
I
 field

NOTHING ON MY BIRTHDAY
or, we could
dismiss all things
this pen for
instance, these keys
my brain is
mush mush mush
o happy happy feet!
 – once we were
transferred to a bus with a sober
driver, things came to life –
we drove silently through street
after street – the movement of
plants’ revolving nutation
pulsates through the light
domination windows cramped
slightly and with a modicum of
silent rooms and fluorescent
lightning.
 The animals we love
have suddenly evolved! O to
develop theories of other planets
that don’t require photography
shot through space and how to
live in them despite the high
winds and the endless sea
of faces waiting not in rain
but as a form of weather
tracked for years it is seemingly
diabolical, yet sweet. these forms
admit cats are translucent, as they
meander through space, the space we
inhabit in our attempt to live, they
pass through as most things do,
a vocabulary at least as valuable
as evolution and just as you
thought:
1 circumnutation