the Norwegian

his face was lupine. His father was a cattle rancher and corn farmer in Iowa. He steadily ate rare beef from boyhood to recalcitrantly adult life. When the hair softened he died it black. When access was restricted he found the Norwegian

*

as a boy was way too big for the stroller he was in, too, delighted in infantilizing kids that were younger than him; or animals; or even inanimate objects, too staid for the pensive Norwegian; showering only ever other day at first out of rougeish jouisance, then because he couldn't maintain the ritual, then because he cared more for himself than others and it sometimes is hard to smell your own smell-bad

*

when the company suddenly went public—and did well—entrepreneurialism was not a tough thing for him, but maintaining the tension of washed cotton was, finding and buying Dutch cigarettes at quantity to keep the Norwegian happy, trying to accede to the notion that though the first warhead he designed was lauded; that was years ago, after the successful community college drop-out, after his first true love, after fatefully tripping down the concrete stairs to a basement concert in the East Village in 2001

*

because the Norwegian could never spell the name right and loving is in the letters, and the oxford shirt turns to a violet one, and then to none; but a vest, then to a black rawhide tee shirt, and then to a white-tan Lanvin cardigan, and the sleeping in a hammock was a childhood idea that he couldn't Peter Pan; but having a new stoppered bottle of white wine in the fridge was, and the Norwegian was growing nervous, and the level was not in the drawer when he'd needed it

*

and England, O! England, that greeny isle set in a silver sea; or some such, from whence all of this shit; shapely Bristol with the big cock, York, Kent, Wolverhampton, Queen Mary's College campus in London where he had the herpes scare and drank too much ale, the empty cans piling up in the corners of the den in his flat, and his mother was from London, and his awkward teen years and his late teen years were spent elsewhere, and he grew a distaste for curries and a love for fried fish, and it was mostly like the west coast

*

the hard cock, the deciding that he could be as effete with beer as with vintners but not following through with it; never following through with it, the positive mental attitude, the new resistors that the Japanese were putting out and the holographic storage (swelling mass—at first—before the total bust), the kids with Hensonian unibrows in a mass of passersby at Picadilly Circus. Is there a sound to realizing that the Norwegian was already cut loose?

SOME PAINT NEVER DRIES

(for Kristin Hayter)

PERENNIAL

that on a Sunday morning, say, reflected light bouncing up into your eyes, and while you are making tea, the electric kettle plugged in behind the french press, in the anticipation of steam residue, would go back and sit down at the small kitchen table, stare into the wall between counter and hung cabinets, and not having taken out the skillet and bacon (both to eat and to grease the pan up) for, toast, say, and the news is on, say, the radio, of the internet radio, if never transmitted by wires. Get to the point! Not having any of the things, but the tea, just one bag in a mug and hot water.


JUST NOW, "preparing to alight the tram" OR SOME SUCH

this, that some paint never dries, like, medieval pigments held up by their media that's still wet, I am talking celtic knots, the type that Joan would've liked, like when Joan flipped through the mail at the kitchen counter in the afternoon, but every afternoon, every single day!


A WET NIGHT

I have so much to carry, like my briefcase with the broken handle, and small straps of leather tied into a bundle with jute twine, and egg whites, sap from plants, animal fat, urine and blood.

Spring

As prosaic as the Norton Anthology
of Theory and Criticism is. Horrifically,
friendship has been. Things change
over time. Butler delighting in dust,
Stan Fish crying. Sontag, still dead
and that's metaphors, on the sideline.

However much warmer, spring is not over,
however wide open the windows are.
You would need a paperweight
to hold the book so you could have
both hands in the hoodie pockets.

Then your feet would need to have
socks on them. Where is the Bahktin?
Is the thesis of this asking me
to imagine climbing up a steel structure,
like Tatlin's monument to the Third International?

That is a tower that's rotating!
increasingly slow.


Rise up retaliators! Put on your
socks, because it's too cold to go out
without socks. Yes you will need a coat,
I'm sorry. If it gets very much warmer you
can carry the coat. Fine! I will carry the coat.

the Filigree

Even if the world weren't
offal carrion and cherries jubilee

the Anglican union
of sexy tetragenarians,

who made a gay chorus,
are febrile, use magic.


A third or a fourth more
access leaves a fifth blockage.

Even the Rock, raucous.


Easement Christ took of water;
the pillory pillaged,

the filigreed surface.


The gold-plated ions
making a mockery of

life and carrying
current.

Ozymandias

My name is Ozymandias too,
or something romantacized

like Hedacious, or Lubedioc
who supposedly did real well

at pub-darts one Tuesday night,
ate everything in the apartment,

felt totally buh until noon,
said: "The worst part is

the crossword. I'm too hungover
to do the crossword.

the Belt

The whole bequeathment:
what AIDS one may've had,

what the other man knows,
the whole paternalism.

You will do something nice
and I will pay you for it.

I am literally crying on your
shoulder.


Putting adhesive letters
on a CD jewel case,

setting the jewel case on
fire, or eating each shardy

piece. Imagining the
ways of getting rid of it.


will be like being ridden
by it, with a saddle

and too tight belt.

the Integrated Circuit

Long lust
cut off.

Time is some
unwilling

haberdasher.


Jacket snaps
slackless

until chest
is made

of skin and
silk lining.

Encouraging
chest hairs

coming from
the lime green

tight dobby cloth—
stop it!


Skin is not
silken, even

on the relatively
hairless front.

Chest is not fabric;
less is not

magnanimous,
naught is not

endless if
noise informatics.


What once was
entropic now isn't.

Just less
insulative space.

Nostalgia for Now

Waiting for the comedown
from the profligate disaster,
with a spendthrift turned
to spender by necessity.

There is a kind of bunker,
hopefully, about us made
of dark brick because
it's really dark inside.

Spendthrift is a cheater
somehow. Being jealous
about him does no good,
but fuels nostalgia for now,

which is like jumping right
over what is happening.

Large Wave

even if this world
is a large wave coming
or completely underwater.

We both breathe air,
this means that we
are the same type of thing.

Go away from my house!
new island parakeets.

And they go away
from the island somehow,
away from the water

and stay living.

the Terrifying Place

There is a place
under the stairwell
where no one can go,
there is only access
in the inches between where
run meets next rise.

And there is a light in there

•

"You are a fine boy."
"Do you raise and fly
a flag? You do!" How
wonderful to tend

a pennant.

•

You are the Victorian house, besieged
by new growth building on both sides.

Bay window looking into a brick wall
and the wall looking back into it.

Passersby saying "What a pity that
such a building be encroached like that."

or "The sunlight can't even reach
the bay window to light the living room up."

•

The right triangular prism
of concrete block painted white,

so the light can blue-white
or pinky-orange the place up.

I am in it. There are no doors
or windows. Rock salt and

water trickle down from
the stairs above. It is cold.

Pride is not an issue, but
affection turned to problem is.

The unmade bed is. The unmaking
it is. The flag and inquiries about it

•

"This, this animoisity
is finely brewed," however

revenge is best served.

the Disagreement

I have a cold
and it occurs to me
that we've just been
passing it back and forth
between us.



*


Chrome-face
were it easier
to think of you
as only metal,
I would do it.


*


Content with
print affixed to page.

Not a letter press
—but think! a letter press,

the machine
pushing down

so hard the paper relents;
it could tear a finger off


*


The same amount
of money doing less,

and doing more
for the kids by it;

so we can send
your mother somewhere

nice and start sleeping
together again.


*


the insipid machine,
pumping volumes

from a little pipe.

Champions

Give us a sweet smile
or there will be consequences.

Even if you are a prominent
folkey with a lazy eye,

and new beard, cerulean
and white stripped shirt.

•

Orthogonally, as if Sidious
had know it for some time.

Intuited one standing
and a hundred ways around.

•

If the face is less the heart is waning.

If the sweater vest the heart is waning.

If the mimosa glass is empty
the brunch is still going.

•

Children are out of the question.
Loving them confused
with thoughts of loving them.

•

I am fucking optimistic
love does that.

•

The trees have made a cage like
loving living in the forest.

The bitch splice of dirt
and animus and sunlight.

•

Horizoning, as always.

Chamberlight in dusk like
we were fucking
champions.

Leslie

The littlest aspect of
wearing what you want to wear,
never moving your fingers
more than you need to.

Action to prehensile nub
then to ligature.


of a mind meet. Paper
back in the butt pocket.
Displacing tee shirt up
around the waist.

Something like
what Kerouac did
but each day.


If you saw no lack
of farming in the old houses,

or wore ribbons in your
bilious hair and knew Ludd,

then it would still be cold
in Detroit in the winter.

And everything has an
appropriate time of harvest.