HIDER ROSER

You want to write about a horse
but you have written hose. Think of meat.
Meat thinking of jogging.
Meat going out on a date to see the water.
The water is beautiful and she allows you
to put your arm around her.
Smell her ear, part of a star
that exploded when you were negative
10,000 years old. It smells like vanilla.
In a few hours she is gone.
In four years, even goner
and Dan is telling you something about nothing
the sparrows in his tattoo
forever flying out of a rose
until Dan is dead.
Pretty soon you have a loft
and people are getting to know your work
rearranging the letters in horse rider
to get hider roser, which means something
you will never understand
with only a few minutes left
one end of the hose going into your head the other
going don’t know where

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THE BRAILLE OF EVENINGS IS WRITTEN IN POEM

I stare out of my window with a flashlight behind each eye.
I do not know what I am looking for.
The bushes barely quiver in the wind.
A few people get into a mauve truck.
I return to my couch.
Darkness creeps into the corners of the microwave.
A river disappears into a plastic coffee cup.
I pet a moth as big as a baby.
The desert approaches
inch by ecstatic inch.
What did the lamp say?
Permission to drink ink from the sink?
I feel a vineyard growing inside me.
No need to be alarmed.
Shut the door. Glass of wine. Try to sleep.
My eucalyptus grove can hardly breathe.
Memories of pagoda duck-pond relief.
Diode, diode, nomenclature.
Nocturne for Susie.
The people return to the apartment complex.
Their suits and ties are torn to shreds.
Their cars are barely audible songs.
A grizzly bear snags a salmon made of dreams.
I remove the duct tape from my naked body.
If the sun comes up
I won’t be a different person.

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I IS TO VORTICISM

as red leaves are to riverbanks.
As American History is to blackout drunk.
As blackout drunk is to flying away.
If you come upon a vortex in your laundry tonight
don’t be afraid.
Give it a name like Scheherazade.
Take it to dinner,
feed it oysters and champagne.
They don’t teach you this in college
or how to deal with moving faster than the speed of light
into a brick wall,
but that’s how I got my diploma
knocking around in the chrysalis
until they pulled me out
and the figment in my wings dried
and my tongue refused to bifurcate.
Mighty big snow-globe head.
Mindful of harmless laser beams.
Three or four ideas spinning around a coat hanger.
Lasso after lasso.

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