4 Poems
Cabaret / Life Alert / Flat Champagne / Dazzling Acquiescence
Cabaret
The speaker addresses us with dry language. The language rasps against the air. It is dutiful. It has no romance. There is the smell of burning. The speech develops itself. It does its work. Is this the place you’re meant to be?
Life Alert
turnkey torn cardboard comes direct sound (a country too far away to really think of there’s some dry grass tufts on a shady ridge the soldiers’ boots come down and crush them they turn into dust) note in the recycling 2160p smudged junk fingerprints they try themselves across the floor and leave a streaky trail behind them at the end of the dying branch the leaf admires its slender form it does not comprehend the grayness of the water over which it hangs (an upholstered stage the interviewer asks what inspired you to write your new book ten secrets of successful self-optimizers? well first of all my father says the author flashing blinding white teeth and most importantly god he spoke to me in a vision and gave me the strength to capitalize my purpose and be what the country needs me to be claps and cheers come up somewhere offscreen) clamps and clothespins litter 60kHz a neutered animal sniffing the rotting fat scrapbook the warmth of a fresh photocopy sullage
Flat Champagne
I’d been enclosed watchwards stalking dial woolenly reported the salt bark was over all the catch crammed with youthful genius my youthful wife an interrogation in yellow cloth dread massive dripping rolling boulder in nighttime pushed plug phrased interior and concession Introduction: Toil Unredeemed passing under the toll gate a bird cut out fragile family bleak rippling flag chalky felt substance crusting devoted_cliff my lips taste flat champagne and plucks out on the sea a grinning sea bird engine sewn upturned very vaguely I’m made at least half-alive and my guts the wheel pumps through me and ashy muscles, mucus star alignment 9.999999999/tile mindless sun panels beef gelatin hole punch documented sheets covered me technical occlusion distance between the full eyes of the toad tightened registers my semicolon smile seen without another mention retired marble castle / juice_wisdom tunnel murmur full competition the sanguine scene of levitation Hammer Protruding From Yellow Wall the monument standing on the sound the bedizen noise floor burning rubber the squeak of my shoes my wife visits me [Archive Copy]
Dazzling Acquiescence
the scan was first – then everything scalding lines in the tablework colophon masks grout between grinding teeth the line goes in the arm first teenagers come after the camera equipment everything seems frozen for a moment then the motion starts to come in the specks arrange into clusters and glittering webs someone sobbing into the silent receiver the plastic shell with the ticking apparatus styrofoam peanuts packing tape wires split open going all different directions turn and fire – the black suitcase gazelles circle the thing itself father counts time dry flaring in the depot midnight the interval was preselected albumen glittering in the mirror – other side casement – final frontier at night school destruction proprietor the coalition dissolving it was wept over but not very long