New York, Today

New York, today, was bestiary, estuary, salt and fresh,

profusely animal, unblessed, all unexonerated flesh

and untoward flush of river water, blaming and untamed

and bound for slaughter in the Fall. The Fall is resolutely

named – it heralds New York’s imminent innumerable ends

of enemies and friends, its immanent indifference to either:

New York, today, with these or those or them or they,

has had its underhanded way and will, to many but not

everybody’s sorrow, have its overwhelming way tomorrow.








.

Pepper Jack and Diet Orange Crush

Pepper Jack and Diet Orange

Crush, Black Forest Ham

and Pepperidge Farm Rye

Seeded Bread upon which

that which claims it can’t

believe it isn’t butter’s spread

its bland inert emolument have

put a dent in your demeanor –

your soul has gotten leaner

and the stroll you tried to take

to wake it has devolved into

a vapid mush of dissolution –

a rabid brush with what it must

be like to be entirely unseeing –

a touch of learning something

harrowing about Nonbeing.

.

Passion With No Object

Passion with no object?

Unalloyed experience.

You find that you’ve enjoyed

the Void! A vast luxuriance.

.

A Translucent Partner

Choose a translucent partner –

conjoining gain and lack –

take him everywhere you go –

and always bring him back.











.

How People Die

People don’t die prettily and yet they do.

We misconstrue the flesh which

coughs up gunk and goo at death

as an unsightly mess. The thing it is

and was has brought the jest abruptly

to its rest – passed its test, done its duty.

The mess is beauty.

.

Toward Which the Absent Tulip Flies

Awkward and dressed up

like some great stalk toward

which The Absent Tulip flies –

or tried to fly, but glided by –

she stands there gladly

in the glad rags of her mint-

green gown – looking up

and down like an entreating

bride. I am always by her side.








.

Rooted

 Reputedly

imputed

to be

rooted,

when we found him we could see

it was indubitably true.

We do not know if he had grown up

through – or come down to –

the

Earth,

at

birth,

but here he was

in plainest view –

demonstrably

what you

had wondered what

it would be like to be

enfolded

into sweet stability –

something now

it gladdened you to see –

which was not the case

for me.

.