LOITER

By wreck I mean red
miles of rusted chains

Time is a rundown
part of town—our passage
deputizes us

We note the shape of our
waking but not the drifting
through

What else is there

Views from high bridges
and hospital windows

On some rare
free paper I write
my insomniac clouds

You know how it is

Day by day I fill this world
with pieces of the other one

__

APES MEN CHILDREN

They all need a little encouragement
to know how all along
they knew what courage meant

Let's not cling to names as they were
first written
Let's move on from this rotoscopic rendering
of yesterday
Because the blues is only
a number, and we are worth more
than cash considerations
from the Kansas City Royals

You've seen the little girl who climbs out of the television
I am the man who climbs into the culvert
I live on the wings of prophecy
catching lobsters for my master
wilting in the cabana

If you shine a blacklight on your dishes you'll see death the rambler
But stop first and visit the Zen wildlife
Don't forget your Walther PPK

__

On "Loiter": I remember sitting outside the coffee shop on a warm day, reading Noelle Kocot, wanting to channel some of her impressionistic force. I wrote a few poems that afternoon, and this is the one that stuck. I tinkered with it off and on for months before arriving at something that wasn't too dramatically different from the first draft. It doesn't really sound like Noelle Kocot, but then, no one sounds like Noelle Kocot except for Noelle Kocot.

On "Apes Men Children": This came from a free writing exercise I came up with a few years ago during a period when my brain was completely fallow. I would write two pages at a time, double spacing between each line, writing quickly and not worrying about if one thought was connected to the next, or if any of it even made sense. Then, I'd go back later and cut what I liked from the exercise and try to shape it into a poem. Most of what I wrote during this time was nonsense (because it had to be), but the stuff that wasn't usually turned into something interesting.