[You're eighteen]

You're eighteen
and sexy
even though

you plexiglas
and evenflo

are relics of
a bygone time.

The tape that binds
your luscious hair

the way you and
your clothes despair

are siren calls
of a bygone time.

The hut you keep
and live within,

the way you keep
your secrets in,

the way you are
a little pin,

a little prick
to let it in.

The way you wear
a jaunty cap,

the way you and
your hope collapse,

the way your form
is like an asp,

the way your teeth
are prone to gnash.


The way you are
my precious mouth

a tapered thing
and pointing south.

[A weight drawn tight]

The weight drawn tight
the pendulum
of everyday with gentle on
to plumb the depths
of an unknown sea

[I'm so glad that you are dead]

I'm so glad that you are dead.
I could have shot you in the face,
if time had not conspired
to keep me from you in your final hour.

The Illness Lair

The hot
is like the world
it's not

a silver streak
but's bracing.

This afternoon
the subplot's
brought

a sickly lass
upon a cot,

though what disease
she's really got,

is false, or vain
or else ill got.

And here
we sit,
or there,
or there,

and her disease
is everywhere

and we both know
a pear's a pear

stuck here
turgid
the Illness Lair.

Without reprieve,
and in despair.

Sick! Sick!

[The children]

The children
are swimming
alone
in the evening.

The water is lithe
it is cold
it is pleading.

The appellate court
will soon purport

that apathy
is no retort

or sympathy
at the airport

or cherry torte
the swirling Oort.

And when they hand
the verdict down

the gallery
will frown and drown

in that we can
not love or hate

and that this state
will not abate.

[Sapping power]

Sapping power
from a tower,
shallow reserves.

and in the afternoon
I swoon

faint

a tree
wheels me

enduring
the summer
sun

caves evade
me then.

an Ode to Rosalind E. Krauss

Oh accidental,
sour axle
hold us to the ground

your main export
is detrimental
to our chief propound.

Cat in the Attic

There's something
in the ceiling,
moving

I can hear
footfalls
from here.

[When I was a boy]

When I was a boy
I wasn't.

and paganism
was so
much easier

in the black
black church.

So so.

[Sapping power]

Sapping power
from a tower
how tedious the words
and shallow

in the afternoon
I swoon

faint,
in the sun.

A breeze
wheels me

enduring
a cup
of coffee,

caves evade.