a comission

The blueness of water
at night and in between
the damp stoicism of the dock pilings
plays a memory-game with sea-captains
born too late.

the other blueness of water
is not on our palettes
we can only make art
to facilitate its memory.

the blueness of water
against the stark white wall
in the silent light and foot-shuffling:
near enough
to make the captain shake.

the mastery of the ten thousand words

Sunday’s symphony.

Across from me we have a cacophony of light bulb
a proliferation of exclamation, of “I love you’s”
but there is no love lost, no opportunity cost.

Frozen peas can’t replace mommy’s love, no doubt I have
but your cleavage is making a commendable effort.
You reek like beer and three day old underwear and I don’t mind.

I’m mostly thinking about the waking up anyhow.
“How now, brown cow,” you say to me, and I’m disinclined to
disagree. I’m fully armed and you’re one foot in the grave.

Let’s mince words, lets burn the farmhouse of conventional love to the ground
we don’t have to stop for anyone, we don’t need no emergency break.
You and I we can run it forever if we want but sometimes you got to sleep.

Don’t pull off the highway here there are no johns in Lynchburg
only these bizarrely inviting arboreal apparitions begging for justice
of a kind un-balanced before the blindfolded momma of America.

The knowledge of a thousand and ten strong-minded men held back by only
a simple push and twist plastic saves lives bottle to prevent the dissemination
of possible destructive factual explosives and other secrets of the literate.

Spastic clay-faced clowns parade their balloon dog men across the crosshairs
while patriotism sits in the witness stand swearing left and right wearing the flag
like a diaper and holding a sack of bald eagles in one hand and saluting with the other.

Neo-Geo liberalism invokes clauses of old Eastern European bloc traditional contracts
that obligates the proletariat to activate their escape pods and blow the porcelain seals off
into the far reaches of turned-off televisionscape and simultaneously hide in the closet.

Deep cover deep throat deep chasms in Kentucky serve as illustrations of the nature of the landscape of the politico, inc. methodology, warning signs facing backwards so we can revel in our own mistakes as we repeat them like high fives on a merry-go-round.

Fat lard filled egg-o-tron 5000 prepackaged breakfast love shot down like a bolt from above while we read the death toll ticker that relates to no disaster in particular as it
floats off towards the network insignia into the land of forgotten trivia and bad dreams.

sometimes we find them under rocks in the forest

Andrew S)iskind


Poetry, for me, seems to be several things all at once; an

intersection of various points in time, space, and emotional expanse

that coexist in the arrangement of units (as here (letters, numbers, handsigns,

words, etc) on the face of a page. There is a tension in poetry that is

the result of multiple presences, diametric opposites even,

maintaining a tenuous balance – what I mean to say is, poetry needs

to have both levity and gravity in each individual moment, so that

each component can float up into your mind, then fall (or rather

plummet like a cartoon piano) down into your heart and soul.

Poetry pulls both ways, and(rew d(raws living
sketches)) while it pulls it also

pushes, lifts and crushes, builds and destroys, illuminates and confuses,

ad infinitum, et cetera, et cetera, Amen et goodnight.

Like all art, it is something like a cross between demonic possession

and cabinetry. It is eagles falling from heaven, but more importantly

it’s also the memories of your childhood. It’s memories you

haven’t made yet. Poetry is the (crockery in the) recipe for

nostalgia, even for places you have not been. Lightning bolt-nighttime

razor blade multifaceted diamond wheel of infinity. The perfect un-

wisdom that cuts through the void. Poetry is the difficulties of

metacognition. It is the wall we build. It is also the sledgehammer.

This is a poem for you.

Winter

The snow is piled up against the woodshed,
the woodshed is piled up against the house,
and we are all sitting around the table
the table is thick with maple-flavored syrup.

There is a cast-iron stove sulking behind you
on top of the stove is the last of the wheat bread
and it’s becoming the last of the wheat toast.
in the fridge is the butter-packets from the restaurant.

Today we are supposed to finish this coffee
and zip up our parkas and stomp around the house
picking up empty beer cans and bagging them all
to bring down to the store for the bottle deposit.

Man at the store doesn’t give us any money,
just credit for some more wheat bread, some
honey, some bologna, some more coffee,
and another case of canned domestic beer.

We give Man all our dollars and cents
from a weeks worth of painting and playing
at being working stiffs behind the counters
and at the workbenches of our town.

But today is Sunday and we have no work
To do and no toils to carry on our backs
So when we get home we will have a fire
And we will sit around it and laugh music.

Hex

Repeat four times your incantation
it will make him vulnerable
his teeth will flash
that is your cue
this is your only chance
before it's camouflaged again.

Float

You were refusing.
I sensed the deceptive cadence,
a hanging vapor
some small surrender.

It was this I stashed in a bladder,
the balloon of your doubt.
With some string
it pulls me upwards
through the stratosphere.

I survey some landmass,
a continent with no depth or shadow.

Conservation

when, in winter, we paused
beneath the yawn of the cathedral’s door
for one whole, slow minute
to watch winter happen to our town
I could feel your skin,
damp and cold, through your wool
and my flannel –
I tugged you in closer,
so we only made one breath-cloud.