Ho|ma|ge
to Cocktails for the Holy Dead,
image by Daniel Y. Harris
CONTROL
Porcelain Quan Yin
with gold movable arms
Assembled from a dead poet’s vanities
Postcards from Colorado
filed randomly between pages
of any book in the library
Chipped crystal pyramid cut in Amsterdam
A gift for my mother
Orchids snagged from air gardens
Jungles woven in spidery time
Jasmine incense manufactured in India
What ever happened to that crazy dancer?
Her finely crafted anger
Painting of an imaginary planet
dries slowly in my hand
I walk the dog down the street
Souvenirs secure a mortal landscape
Until I dissolve. Then I dissolve
Alien’s eye
Dog’s eye
Sticky rice
Ass brain
Last gasp
Jaw metal
Low blow
I used to collect stamps
but they tell me they’re mostly worthless
Which I find hard to believe
because they’re all so beautiful
Eventually robbers stole my silver dollars
Now those were really
valuable!
So long ago, sensation’s DNA, who you were
in that hording, identity
Organization
Musical composition
Rocks, stocks, and barrels
Rocks, stocks, and barrels
That’s enough.
Remember how things used to be
this morning?
Butterfly’s velvet strum
Hummingbird Vroom
Jump!
Duck!
A knife in the head
Entrails derailed and strung out
from catapult to capital
Heart roasted on a stick
Prized, anthologized
Poets make great companions
but lousy husbands
Edible mushrooms
Lotus blossoms
The canyon we crossed
to turn the page
The fire crackles
Tomorrow it’s supposed to rain
Walk up and down, look for a sign
Rain
The creek roars
Rats in the studio
The list begins again
4:21 a.m.
A recipe for destruction
Disappointments become a mantra
She said I was this and that
He won’t talk to me
Maybe I have cancer
4:27 a.m.
I’m still alive
Unfinished business will
never get finished
More rain
Cramps
8:38 am
About that business
that never gets finished
It never gets finished
It never gets finished
Really
About a week ago he fell on the floor
while talking to me on the telephone
Yesterday I called
He was on his way to the hospital
Today nobody answers
Where’s Ira?
In the Waiting Room of the Holy Dead
Hemorrhage of some reflection
Lenox Hill Hospital, Room 723
Angels glide up moonlight corridors
Angels glide up moonlight corridors
Test imagination for conversion
He’s testing the mirrors now
Split oak
Illegal aliens
(from outer space)
make a mess
Dishes in the sink
Bake Sale
I feel the
sugar. . .
Lonely
The
intoxication sabbatical
Sun
on the car roof rides by
Bye!
Bye!
(I would like to be someone’s friend)
Yellow roses & baby’s breath
in a vase on the gelato case
(I probably am already)
Blueberry walnut scones
Pumpkin
bread
20 pounds overweight?
There’s no excuse
Universal shame
Some things just won’t lie flat
Who is everyone?
Chocolate
chip cupcakes
Sweet
rolls
“Fat,
indeed!”
“He
grew fat on dishonest profits”
“also
meaning GOOD”
You’re out
selling cookies
when all
the cookies
are right here
Delicate and cute w/ pig tails and
venereal disease
A
springy Christmas tree hat
Imagination
makes
Yoplait out of
baklava
Proles on the
loose
as are the methheads
Little minds
swallow up time
in
a small town
Ashamed of
ideals
“neither a John nor a pastry be”
Some things are worth looking at
In Muse based wanderings
There’s no
innocent way to describe her
Fudge
chunks
Burnt
stars with sprinkles
Caught in
transition
Let’s make love now!
Lavender
blue sky
Fall
golden red leaves
Christmas dinner
Ham, macaroni and cheese
Stuffing, turkey, cranberry sauce
Sweet potato pie
Three lettuce salad with peppers and mushrooms
String beans and onion rings
Mash potatoes and artichoke hearts
Black beans, gravy, scallops and crab meat
“tis the
season” to be real FAT
Let’s make love now, please!
Chew, swallow, sigh, belch cherry cola. . .
“Fa la la,
la la la, la la la”
Let’s
really make love now
Chew, swallow, sigh, belch
A work of
ART
Bladder
Control Diary
Time of day
Type of fluid consumed
How much did you drink?
How many times did you urinate?
How much did you urinate?
Did you have a strong sudden desire to urinate?
Did you have a wetting accident?
How much urine did you leak?
What were you doing at the time you had an accident?
Watching
the news. . .
The assassination!
I’M PISSED OFF!
so the urologist
gives me 2mg Xanax
and runs a camera up my prick
A snapshot of the Bush Administration
and 300 million citizen-slaves
SOOO PISSED OFF
Nothing matters in America
Shopping aggravates the bladder
Jams up the works
20 times a day
Up all night
I feel an urgency. . .
New Year’s resolution
Disconnect the cable TV
Exorcism
Black and white polka dot curtains
In the redwoods
I hear the teachers say, “Eat salad”
And take the day off.
—Michael
Rothenberg
December
12, 2007
Michael Rothenberg is
editor and publisher of the online literary magazine Big Bridge,www.bigbridge.org and co-founder of the
global poetry movement 100 Thousand Poets for Change. His poems have been
published widely in literary reviews, including Exquisite Corpse, Golden
Handcuffs Review, House Organ, Jacket, Prague Literary Review, Tricycle, and
Zyzzyva. His poetry books include Man/Women, a collaboration with
Joanne Kyger, The Paris Journals (Fish Drum Press), Unhurried Vision (La
Alameda/University of New Mexico Press), Choose (Big Bridge Press), My
Youth As A Train (Foothills Publishing) and Indefinite Detention: A Dog
Story (Exstasis Editions-Canada, and Shabda Press-USA). His editorial work
includes the selected poems of Philip Whalen, Joanne Kyger, David Meltzer and
Ed Dorn (Penguin Books) and the Collected Poems of Philip Whalen (Wesleyan
University Press)
