YOU HEARD IT HERE LAST

The hunt was on for mitigating fictions

A curt enchantress the snow studied

Appeared willing and able to meditate on.

She burped into town, destined for greatness.

Witnesses were left to reflect back

On their own gazes, to take each other lying down,

Stripped of artifice on the course our blunders were par for.

Having sniffed out and conquered

Their biological imperatives, these figures of speech

Were never heard from again, though the memory of them does

Admit the dead light of gratitude that penetrates

To every smiling portrait’s quick dissolve.

RELEASE PARTY

Don’t think I’ll bother going home tonight. The firmament’s cooked.

The goose is unhinged. There’s really nothing on TV; I checked.

Are you calling me an outlier? Go engage with meaning

On a thinking man’s dime. Abuse no cookies.

This night is all wet and good, but my coffee is starting to reek

Of a cobbler’s disquiet. I think it needs to be changed.

Dented furniture (the most forgiving kind) would cease

To rant or vent or whatever you want to call it if only

Certain individuals would stop putting their friends on it,

And in such awkward positions to boot. (Just gotta yank ’em.)

Jesus effing Christ, this is some release party.

The moon isn’t about to comment on it, though,

So give up now, while the giving’s good. Chaos resigns

If we’re not careful. A most agreeable vaccination

Lingers inside us long after we’re gone. That’s all the marching

Band is willing to admit. What a bunch of buttholes.

THE NUN

A nun walks into a bar. The bar is closed. The nun is trespassing.

Yes, it’s an old story, but it’s one worth repeating.

In fact, those of us who fail to repeat it

Are doomed to forget it. And where will that leave us?

By the side of the road, breathing heavily? Out here

We’re as good as dead, which is bad.

The sun beats down on our best years behind us.

I swing by the office. It’s boarded up.

One keeps hearing about petitions for freedom

For this kid or that rabbit, but nothing ever comes of them.

Slowly it dawns on me that the sun is rising

For what seems like the umpteenth time this morning.

It doesn’t get any more real than this, but reality isn’t funny

When it happens to you. I need some help with my bagging.

At home, the situation is even more dire. Nothing feels

Out of place. An end has been reached and embraced.

DAIRY ON THE LOOSE

Who set the wheels of cheese in motion? Their wobbly progress

Effects a subtle, inexorable swerve away from what everyone had assumed

Was the last chance any of us would ever have to use the bathroom

For good rather than evil, just as we were getting used to the idea,

Though you have to admit there’s beauty in our living daylight’s

Proud refusal to be bucked by trends or to distinguish

Itself in a way our present economy deems essential.

Meanwhile the basement door opens to reveal a classic domestic scene:

Death to patriarchy, a fun rainy-day game for kids of all ages,

Provided they’re willing to dispose of the body. “Any deed worth doing,”

Says your average brat, “is worth doing dirt cheap.”

And if you give it a shot, you’ll find there’s a lot to learn

From encouraging dialogue between systems and people.

Feeding time is one opportunity to get to know your family—

Their likes and dislikes, habits, dreams, personal statements, etc.

The resulting cramps are natural and are rarely cause for concern.

WEBINAR

Out in the wide open spaces made even wider

Via complementary volumizer, they’re telling me

Science fiction is becoming science fact.

This is what tends to happen when buttons

Depress themselves. Do the math? No thanks.

But if you feel you must, do the math hard to me

Long into the night, taking short breaks for comic relief

And rehydration. Not that I resent the implication,

But there’s a pill for everything now. My preferred dose

Enables me to fathom local primetime anchors’

Tepid assertions that the music of our youth

Will never die and be replaced by anything personal.

And won’t it be nice when I finally step out of an elevator

Into the loving arms of a darkness some say

It’s an honor to wake up in the middle of. They say rain

Is threatening. In response I’ve imported a bolt of satin.

DELUXE ACCOMMODATIONS

Perfume piques the air’s curiosity, disturbing the known unknowns

Our gazes undertake to delineate in the shadows

Of wistful and salient architecture. New motives pop up

In time to opt out, mumbling toward tragicomedy

As area nymphos presume to know us, having caught our act.

Heads turn on neon billboards and shake, lost to history.

Returning to the mattress at hand, I have a feeling

I don’t deserve, which I’ve elected to keep.

All this and more takes place within a partially ethical remembrance of things

Passed over for the latest malformed speculations

Concerning the question of how we managed to live it up without

Being swept irreversibly into no-holds-barred

Investment opportunities. No stranger to spectacles, I can see

Where they’re coming from, and how one might come to believe

In the powder of prayer, fine white granules glistening like

A cocaine-covered beach in heaven.

MATURITY

A name came glancing off

The ball I threw. I can

Throw a ball. I can

Throw a ball well.

An arm I knew

Was wandering oft,

Was wan. Another arm

Was wanted too.

A whole was halved

And fun. Fun was a name

I made to throw, a pall

Gone giddily through.