By rote I wrote
Attached the words and their prescriptions
More balls in the air
I wrote about the flood that washed up all the books
I spelled them out before they were gone
Now time is up
Up!
Flooded with common expectations
Keep them away from your face
Wanting and loving are different
I'm slumped over my own bones
Antique bric-a-brac
Decades of sitting or lying down
Spelling something out
Out!
Dreams of poems are up for grabs
Concentrate on people
Dreaming or no
Their silhouettes if not their features
Some are dead
Shake out their coins
There's no ghost story
No greeting cards for spirits
Dreams keep for weeks
Years even
Now awake
The United States in blue and green
All its earthly possessions
More trouble than they're worth
Hiccups
Poems squeezed out across the states
Flying through the air
Wheels outnumber their spins
But who’s counting
I can write a poem cheaply
In my sleep
B is a poet of possibility
Have you met?
Her words taught me English
I hope the Dinah Washington stamp will be available soon
Saturday afternoon B recited her longest poem to an audience of six
While the rest of us drank Pinot Grigio and chit chatted on the mezzanine
Though who really knows how to chit chat anymore?
Everywhere you look: more matter
B offered to leave
She wanted to be alone with her luggage
All days have hidden moons
Up at the top
Behind the steeples
Seen by a few with attics
Poverty is the economy of the rich
No matter how you wring it
Ones with more fuck over ones with less
Thank the Greeks for that
I’ve been writing to the dead
God and Mohammed both dead
Look at all the people still at it
On the opposite side of the sun
I follow the sun to California
I’m dutiful
My father said don’t go there
When he meant go there
Typical
It’s going to be a wet one
Then some dry ones
Do you ever think about your work?
No, seriously
Words themselves are work
And there’s economy
As you know words are free
That’s why they keep coming
Causing cancer, WSB reminded us long ago
No end in sight
Poets only have each other
Though many hate each other
Who else gets it?
Academics?
Tea drinking types?
B believes poetry will save the world
If we get that far
I’m taking bets
But poets, I beg you
Don’t write novels
House sparrows have tiny heads
Unlike European starlings
I was wrong about the trumpet flowers
Today I worry about greasy fingerprints
Getting on everything
The sky looks down
Listening to us
We are so boring
Why does it tolerate us?
Your long lost friends can hear you
Staying in touch isn't easy
You buy the newspaper
It tells you everything in a nutshell
Who died, what they did
Why you didn't know them
How could you?
Those people outnumber you
Forget the subway
Start with the ones you know
Where to now?
Upstairs
Which eye is bigger?
Look harder
I started off so clear-headed
Where does knowing get you
Forget certainty
Get lost, they say
Don’t look in the mirror
It's all happening beyond your reflection
Orpheus got lost
He did it for the press
One thought knocks the other off its pedestal
It's last in a long line of punch lines
Greasy fingers pointing at things
Are words good for nothing?
I feel a memoir coming on
Not my own
Not a poem
When words are all used up
There's always touch
People or birds
Let me clarify
I don’t have a thing for birds
I’m fond of bird books
I find flight fascinating
I wish for it
Everything everywhere
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