Pratyeka

I carry my shopping bags straight to the second hand shop.

I shit out my food the moment I’ve gobbled it up.

Even better, the stove sits beside the rubbish bin.

I’m bailing this ocean as fast as it’s trickling in.

I knit at the same rate the sweater is being unraveled.

I pay at the tollbooth, then hit the off ramp when I travel.

One hand writes my memoir as fast as the other erases.

I envy old Sisyphus, blissfully slaving in stasis.

I skip from the table of contents straight to the appendix.

I lose my paycheck to poker before I can spend it.

Foreplay/orgasm conjoined by a single thin stroke.

I overdose from the very first butt that I smoke.

The peaks get sanded down, troughs fill with sand.

Erosion and gravity flatline the pulse of the land.

Flip over my birth certificate to print my obituary.

I’d get out of bed, but it strikes me as unnecessary.

Porpussy (for and inspired by Devo)

It appears on the screen for a mere thirty seconds, wedged in between an ad for a new drug to encourage erectile dysfunction and a used car commercial featuring an old man in a cowboy hat riding a hippopotamus. (Bareback, no less.) The commercial I’m currently focused on is for the Darwin/Warhol Institute of Re-evolution in Ashtabula, Ohio. A bespectacled scientist in a lab coat screams at the camera like a desperate salesman. “Important research is being conducted RIGHT NOW at our radical new facility!” he insists. “Because YOU demanded them, we now have Punkies!” he screams. “That’s right! Pint-sized pocket simians made from combining the most adorable genetic traits of puppies and monkeys! What could possibly be more adorable than that? Well, I’ll tell you! How about our brand new cetacean mannequin hybrid?” Onto the screen flashes an image of what looks like a slick plastic dolphin in a wig and tight-fitting dress. “Come spend some quality time with our prize specimen, Flapper! See how the water runs right off the synthetic fibers of her beautiful wig, beads up on the waterproof lipstick which accentuates her luscious blowhole!” Maybe he didn't say that part. The camera zooms in for a close up of the creature's idiotically smiling face. “As you can see, she’s very, very affectionate!” The scientist leans over her tank for a kiss. “We give her Listerine to combat that pesky kipper breath,” he whispers. “She’d love for a chance to get to know you!” The dolphin’s eyes turn into pulsing cartoon hearts and an enormous tail springs from the back of the scientist's lab coat. “Babydollphin!” he cries, and dives into the tank with a splash. The creature squeals with fear, or perhaps delight. The screen fills with a map of Ohio, showing the Institute, perched like a crimson wedding cake on the lip of Lake Erie. My eyes are bugging out of my skull and I’m gnashing my teeth, rocking back and forth on the couch cushion the like I have been all night, unable to sleep, unable to tear my bloodshot peepers from the boob tube, tearing at my clothes and hair and now feverish for a taste of forbidden love with this 20th century mermaid, this synthetic sea creature of love. Unlike all the other girls, she has no arms or legs with which to push or kick me away.

The Conshohocken Curve

The cars roar along the winding Schuylkill river with its splinter skullers seeming, at this distance, to drift without friction beneath the bridge. If one could zoom in you'd see the grimacing, the sheen of perspiration coating the arms of the men. They stroke against the mollassees as we navigate through the traffic, parallel in our respective channels, shifting rush rattling gravel bed overhead wires of the Amtrak lines cut through clumps of gypsy moth cotton candy. The flipping cards of spraypainted billboards and defaced murals suddenly thud to a halt. Trucks sit like dead hulks on the road, engines chugging. Across the river from the cardboard cut out neighborhoods of Manayunk, we are stuck. But there is no accident, no obstruction, no flashing lights anywhere. The road is dry. It's just the curve, the fear of the curve and its possibilities that has frozen us in our tracks until we can hit that gas pedal, tug at the oars, while the boats beside us slide effortlessly by.

Eulitz Brilliant

She claims it weighs nothing, more, that it is powerful enough to float up and carry her along with it, by the finger, as it cuts through the crystal air, winking facets shattering the sunlight, shooting piercing laser rainbows in a flashing spray. I sigh and nod and the salesman slips it onto her finger and the moment he does her hand goes crashing through the glass case, splintering through the wood cabinet and down to the floor where the gem tries to dig into the ground, tries to drill into the earth, to worm itself back into the womb, return to the crushing darkness that formed it, dragging her along with it.

Tower Last 'Til Morning

Waves slap the beach, rake fingers across the sand, ooze around a tower built of chicken feet and blackened claws and cracked beaks held together with toothpicks and bits of twine. Someone spent a long time constructing this skeletal structure, this scaffolding of scorched bone that juts like an antennae, a sentinel, above the sand. It seems too intricate to have been built by just a single pair of hands, it must have required two sets working together to tie the delicate carcass bits together, tug tight the hundreds of tiny knots. Yes, we worked so long on this, you and I, and this is what we built, this intricate, rickety beacon, stuck here and there with a scrap of sinew, a greasy bit of gristle. Its pinnacle is crowned by a single black feather, lustrous and perfectly curled, bobbing slightly in the wind that blows off the sea, nodding yes, yes, yes for a few short hours more before the wind snatches it from its perch, before the waves reluctantly pull the entire edifice straight down.

Cramming for Finals

Gray tiles formed of pressed gravel honeycomb the path of the park, dappled with irregular splotches of sunlight that leak through the elm canopy. Ferns, starting to wither with the warm weather, burst  in furry clumps from the crotches of the trunks. An old man's arm vanishes as he rummages for cans in a garbage bin. Where are the girls passing on their way to class? It's too chilly for skirts, but I'd settle for slacks. Instead there's just a pack of street kids, lolling like hyenas on the benches, a bald kid with pillows tucked under both arms, stomping on the sunspots, kicking through the gulls, one of which waddles hurriedly away from him across the young grass, across the gray tiles with a green apple speared on the end of its beak.

Black Friday

He stared out the window at the city beneath him, his tie a black tongue lolling against his chest. The buildings seemed to be floating, their bases erased by the fog. A flash of red, a flash of green: two distant dragons flying through the air, twisting like kites around one another. Their scales were dull with city grime, and the bald spots on their hides were visible even from here. He spat, shooting a bubbly glob to quiver on the thin nub of carpet. A flash from somewhere in the mist below, the rumble of an explosion on one of the side streets. No one would investigate.The heavy wooden door behind him opened and he turned. And older man poked his head in, eyes flickering left and right. The old man smiled and entered, crossing the carpet to stand beside his protegee. The two men watched the dragons silently. The creatures were nearer now, two ribbons fluttering around one of the nearby office towers. They were close enough that the men could see their fins, the huge eyes squinting in the rushing air. Suddenly the green one broke away from their twisting aerial dance. Its body shuddered violently and something squirted from its backside. The two men watched the pale streak disappear into the fog. The ticker tape machine spat out stock prices in the corner, gears whirring beneath its glass helmet. The old man clapped his scaly palm on the younger man's shoulder and leaned over to hiss something in his ear. The young man nodded, no expression on his face as the claws gently pricked the back of his neck. 

Drones (Render Safe Procedure)

You thumbed the head of the lighter, introducing it

to fuse after fuse

that stuck out like stingers from the butts

of the paper bumblebees. You pinched them 
by the wing then released them

to corkscrew madly, buzzing into the night.

We’d spend weeks plucking them from the gravel

which the city refused or couldn’t afford to repave,

no matter how many times we called to complain.

But tonight, we couldn’t see where they landed,

couldn’t even see where we stepped, the streetlights

were all shot out, and your heel teetered

on the lip of a gaping pothole just as you thrust

the cardboard baton of a Roman candle

high over your scalp like Lady Liberty wielding

her cold, green torch. Your whoop of triumph

turned to surprise as you toppled backwards, just as

–piff! Piff! Piff!- the bundles of lit gunpowder

shot from the mouth of the barrel, flying not skyward

but directly towards your own front porch.

And you, who pay your taxes just like everyone else,

you who are just as chained to this fool’s bargain

as the rest of us, you cried out at the explosions,

though there was little damage aside from some

black ash on the yellow siding,

the singed straw of the welcome mat.

Deciding this was a sign we should lay down our arms,

we strolled tipsily through the dinky nearby park

where an aging fat couple sat on beach chairs

beside a plastic cooler full of more impressive July 4^th ordnance

than most of us in the neighborhood could afford.

Every few minutes they’d sigh and wearily rise

to set another one off, reluctantly, as if performing

a loathsome but necessary chore, an obligation.

On autopilot, merely going through the motions.

As the starbursts and streamers whistled and boomed above,

I thought of Bradley, recently back from Baghdad,

having finished his third tour of duty and returned

taciturn as ever. When badgered, he’d mutter

a few vague anecdotes about guarding alleged insurgents

in a Green Zone warehouse converted into cells.

The scorching heat with no relief, the days banal beyond belief.

An IED leaves a hell of a pothole, but he escaped

from the burning desert unscathed. 
We swivel our heads at a screech 

from a couple rolling lustily around

on a blanket: her spine has just connected

with a hidden stone. The two old-timers

look bored by all the racket.

Is this what it comes down to, in the end;

apathy in the midst of the explosions?

The thrill and horror dulled by the sheer

persistence of all this drudgery?

Does boredom become our greatest enemy?

Tired of slapping our arms to mash the mosquitoes,

we head back, careful to skirt the tines of charred sparklers,

the cardboard shells of dead incendiaries.

In front of the house, we once again trip

on those same invisible gouges in the road,

skinning our knees, too tired to cry out,

too tired to laugh at our clumsiness.

The night is dark and reeks of drifting powder,

the only sound a crackle in the distance.

Those sudden flashes of light are so rapidly spent:

no sooner do they fade, then we forget.

Gluebirds

A hooded falcon swoops
from the wire-laced sky to land
on the gloved and beckoning arm
of the leather-clad mannequin posed in front
of the porn shop by the side of the interstate.

Inside, coins clink into slots to trigger
invisible mechanisms. Tinny music dribbles
and drools. Computer screens flicker. Pages rustle, flip.
A tuft of down pasted to the paneling interrupts the path
of a single opalescent drip locked in a sluggish race
with itself towards the plywood floor.  

The machines grindand clatter. Soft-boiled eggs plop
into a hairy nest of coiled twine.
Fuzzy cobwebs garland the shelf of lotions.
One dusty tube has burst its seam,
leaving a scab of dried lubricant
encrusted along its spine.

A ribbon of gristle dangles from the raptor's talon.
A hand snatches off the hood off to prevent
the predator from flying away.
The bird blinks, twists its neck to eye
the dirt lot, listening to the snap
of plastic banners in the breeze.
A ragged magazine, slithered free of the store,
crackles beneath the flopping heel
of a balding snakeskin boot.
A truck roars past. A register drawer dingsopen. The hawk clamps shut its rusted eyes,
stretches its sticky wings, winches its dripping fistful
of feathers into the sky.

Blue Rabbit

The gentle pulse of crickets stuffed blue rabbit on your pillow

you’d kicked off all the blankets I stood there trying to decide if

I should tell you or I finally undressed and slipped beneath the sheets

beside you in the bed you stirred and made a little sound I laid

my palm upon your scalp and in your sleep I saw you smile I stroked

your golden hair you murmured No. Still smiling

no alarm clock's incandescent dial. You smiled

and no is what you said I know I'll  never sleep again.

Longest

The night is filled with those young girls, whose gauzy petals are both a joy and a torment. Is it worse to think that you never had a chance with one of them, or to think that once there had been such a chance, and you blew it? It's after ten, and there is  still a good amount of solstice glow clinging to the ragged fringe of the sky, at least where the clouds fail to blot it out. This is my first day without my crutches, the end of a year of terrified hobbling and wondering what would become of my mangled foot. A muscle car growls incoherently from blocks away. A horn from another vehicle blasts in its wake. The smell of urine wafts up from the sidewalk. The old man on the bench beside me is reading Thomas Hardy. I want to talk to him about it but I am afraid his voice will sound like mine...or mine like his, which may be worse. A girl bubbles into her cell phone -how much easier poets had it before these things. If I could, I would erase all evidence of the things from my work. Huge spot lights shine tirelessly where they're doing road work or shooting a movie. By the time I have finished writing, the light in the sky is gone. The girl on the phone has spilled her guts and is still nowhere near done jabbering. Her hand flutters about like a flower in the breeze. I turn to the old man and say, "Hardy, eh?" but he doesn't look up. I notice the wires trailing from his ears. Tomorrow the stretched-out days start shriveling back into themselves again, clenching up like a leaf thrown on the coals. I keep waiting for the sound of a crash in the night, a wrenching metal tone held longer than the others. I wish I could keep the light from escaping, from leaving me completely, but what good is neverending twilight? What good would it be, if the world sounded but one eternally suspended note?