Not sad

though all these poems seem to be. But they are so pretty, too. A good week full of smart chicks-of-verse. Yesterday was a long, wonderful coffee meeting with a someone so sharp and talented. Today, an interview that made it so I could hear Jillian and Kristi discuss their work. And soon poems co-written with Chicky. From the fishouse I read alongside my favorite of all birds. I love it when language is a blizzard I walk all the way home through.


Soul Train
Ben Doyle

Don Cornelius, we wish there were a channel
with nothing but crying or someplace like
Sesame Street but where they tear the words
to flour & every puppet has his arm up a man.

I wish there were a fog pillar here that could
levitate the remote in a translucent purple.
It would be nice to awaken one morning with
“What are all these white people doing in my house?”

Don Cornelius, the people assert themselves
into a scrupulous derangement, arranged
fisheyed around our lens, which sits in this den,
as I sit, toe to throat, smothered in comforter.

For something viral, Don, has happened its way
into my left lung. Something very sexy is
bound to occur in your coalcar, what with
the buttock bloom & thrusts touching.

I would touch myself but I’m afraid. A bandage
Would have to be broken. Could I keep these
Combos down? They made fine fire goggles after
I sucked them. I could see the fire.

Sometimes the whole hospital blistered,
these weren’t dancing circumstances.
Sometimes ice died, died in plastic
pouches on my painted chest. Oftentimes

A train could be understood as trembling
the readout. Must be nice, my friend, to have only
to unlatch the windows & doors, swipe them open,
blow out each ash from your tubular home.



Runaway
by Kenneth Rexroth

There are sparkles of rain on the bright
Hair over your forehead;
Your eyes are wet and your lips
Wet and cold, your cheek rigid with cold.
Why have you stayed
Away so long, why have you only
Come to me late at night
After walking for hours in wind and rain?
Take off your dress and stockings;
Sit in the deep chair before the fire.
I will warm your feet in my hands;
I will warm your breasts and thighs with kisses.
I wish I could build a fire
In you that would never go out.
I wish I could be sure that deep in you
Was a magnet to draw you always home.