Dan,

The incorruptible are unattractive and
Clearly invisible. I never see them.

The corruptible fill the hedges
Of this neighborhood. They
Take the place of curtains, and
Hang from my walls.

They start life as gentle landscape
Reproductions in heavy frames.
In two years they are beautiful
Women in swimsuits.
In four years they are beautiful
Women not in even swimsuits.
These things take time.

Or they are born as acid loving
Hydrangeas which make white
Snowballs in summer.
On my suggestion of
Aluminum Sulfate, next season
They shout blue snowballs.
A third year later, and
They are bald cypress.
These things take not as long.

Do not worry.
You can free yourself of all
Corruptions by speaking only
Italian for a year, drinking
Moon black tea on the back
Of an elephant, and
Marrying the first underage Polynesian
You meet in a burning warehouse.

The action in the lines of just

Everything is a math of
Rough sex
And Hawaiian guitar,
Delco radios and midnight
After driving
In the leather Mercedes
Open to through curves.
Good things when they are at their best.

And Nurses: tonight no more needles – just –

The television crawls between the patterns
Of films. A steady flickerings
Of Oscar winning roles
For difficult women (on screen and
Off goes the joke).
We spend all of hey laughing.

Your fingertips on my wrist – just –

There is not a cave with enough
Deep. Even hiding in the cave
You are found
As the voices make echoes.
The lights shine in after you.

Put your lips over my chilly mouth – just –

I have a confession.
The summers did not happen
As I remember them.
Instead... I did not fly.
I did not wear laurels.
I did not advise
A future that would actually come.

Run the fingers of your fingers
Over my chestbone – just –

That I think if anyone, you.
There is a math to be created.
Visualize the entrance of numbers,
And convert them to dancers,
On point,
In a train hallway.

Press me in an urgent way – just –

More than slumbering occurs
While I am neither
Wrapped in Irish arms,
Or in a cradle of Irish earth.

The Hawaiian guitars
Assemble their pitches, and
Mourn on stoney peaks.

The Rules in a Perfect

The gables of houses align
From one block to the next,
And from porches beneath them hang
Two person swings painted white.

A breeze would cool them.
Marigolds also would shake
Their yellows.

The cars are quiet when they pass.
There is no thump of music,
Or unkept muffler sounds.
The sky is undivided by the
Vapors of airplanes.


I promised these mouthwords
At the refuge camp in Nigeria.
The mothers stared at the gospel
Of my words. We filled out
The immigration forms, and applied
For vaccines,
Until the camp was strafed
One midnight.

The agency flew me back
To Nairobi. In the neon
Dance clubs, I peddled
My winning lies
To the braless girls
In skirts and sandals.

The Afternoon of Savannahs

A lion in crave with nothing.
The springbok are fleet, and
The hartebeests already gone this season.
The sheepish things that don't live here,
Don't live here.

A lion in a crave without
Spending the afternoon in a pant
Under a heat of brush.
No scents in the wind, and
No springbok, no hartebeest, no creek.
The land is wide and unlush.

A lion in crave with
A brown blood dried flank
Poached poorly by a caliber,
Then hiding away
Under hot brush.

With thirst he went,
And went away.


A lion without crave
Was tracked in his skin
By a boy who watched
The sky swagging birds
As they dropped
To the heap
Of his nodding slump.

With words like 'terror,' and
'History' can you reduce
Other words like 'Leopold,' and
'Milosevic' to thoughts that will
Slip between your fingers?
That they would fade away?

You've read it in a book, and promised
To bring it up to people
Who will appreciate the atrocities
In a heartfelt manner.
Even if they are drinking white wine.
Then drive home.

Something about Rwanda?

Sleep with beautiful women all the time.
Millions of them.
Until it refuses to end.
The heartfelt atrocities here
That don't kill many people.
My beautiful vehicle.

Refusing to breakdown bones although
They are breaking.
Muscles cramp like steel.
There are other traumas and atrocities
To consider
That can be reduced from
A score of charts
To laconic chords,
Or 'terror,'
Or 'history.'

Somewhere the garden,
Somewhere the trumpet,
And neither being played.

If Morning Had

I was as good as then,
And weary of these a.m.'s.

The first break of bright across
The street trotting east.
A morning. Another.
A way to wake and feel
The candles in your feet
Are burned out burned.
That means the light, too,
In your hips is dim.

And though she's only a whisper
On your arm,
She is tired.

The dogs are in their nightclothes.
Apparitions are back in the wall.

This, with sleep in its
Bruisy eyes,
Is the sockdolager
Of your life?
This doppelganger,
Shaped like a sack of change,
Is your life?

May as well go back to bed
Before the guilty voices wake
And rattle the trees outside
This drowsy boarding house.

It was not a decent thing, not
A decent way to do it.
There against the wind
On the side of the cabin.
I pulled her hand into my hand.
The sound was her shoulder
Scraping the dry panel
Of shutter
As she came to me.

It was not a decent way,
Knowing she loved me,
That I pulled her in
To smell my chest.
Felt the ripple of her body
On me.
Felt my bottom lip
Against her ear.

It was not decent
With my hands around her shoulders,
Or her tip toed feet
Reaching to me,
Or so quiet her breath
Reaching my jaw,
That I could not love her at all.

But with the pine
Smell in the woods
We lashed our bodies together.
The perfervid swag of time
Held us until morning.

It was not decent
When she was gone
And I wished she would stay gone
The rest of the spring.

Definition 1

A poem
Is me buying a
Fifth of gin from Andy.
I've known Andy seven years.
He knows my first name, last name,
And ex-wife.

It is illegal
For Andy to sell me
A fifth of gin
Without first glancing
At my driver's license.

Two, sometimes three
Times a week,
Andy first glances at my driver's license.

I also buy lottery tickets.