‘Fundamentalist’s Clarity’

Wikipedia Poem, No. 516

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“They fed the roots, / climbed through its leaves / to soak in sunlight … / and so, she told me, / I can see.” Tyehimba Jess

for Paul Beatty

they   clean   kotten awa
break apart appear naked   especially 
intelligence of the moon   identifies   dance  i am 
a poor rabbit   if we killed enjambment 
be a rabbit skinned   in my   beggar's heart
dirty   in   kotten awa   break apart   appear 
glowing in   top flight pleasure   
yourself a moment of corrective punishment 
waking all the   moon identities dance the dance of i am
a poor what if   we killed enjambments   be a   hare 
in   my beggar's heart   dashed again in   kotten awa 
break apart   appear glowing in the news? — no
deceit   in my beggar's   heart
made whole in   kotten awa   then   break apart

Please, Don’t Leave, I’ve Got So Much to Reveal (Cryptocrystalline)

Wikipedia Poem, No. 515

chalcedony-smg2

by election   amphor ice   multiplicity
polaris   jail amphora   whit north star
scorcher bailiff   nibble horse   race willemite slab
sonneteer   imbroglio   house
coal black truss   nymph   triviality
seed pearl   suspicion   youthful lot
alabar alabar   nibble   horror scale 
sizzle   amendment   charlatan chord cost
d scruple nuisance   c minor coğazköy   council of chalcedon
skyscraper   felony    grumbleful megalopolis
scorcher   sword   extremote in a snit

Toothpaste for the Young Poet

Wikipedia Poem, No. 514

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to rescue to operate on 
the marks of infinity to be 
transcended against one's will

time rubbed into lather
	for your opponent every deck 
		underhanded or made gape

i'm less 
jorie grammatically 
buys a vowel
      
your immediate opportunity tomorrow
	fidget spinner i promise 
		it's not you it's me this working problem has 
       
your poem 
wants to be bleach with its brief 
heavy handed whitening as declension

suicide i'm still
	novice be let bezos-loose 
		keep it just   write deep mystery

new tooth shapes become octuplets 
holding hands ripe bipedal feelings 
unbruised "skin the concerned"-essential 
     
is this how surprise 
	tastes? great
		all my new deepstate teeth 

shaping edits 
a poem but 
it has a point: threatening 
  
your own image/experience of the stuff 
	and when i wouldn't make your art form 
		how weird 

to be bleached 
	on the castle keep 
		for posterity

Dining Rooms Don’t Dine (A Discussion on Health Care in America)

Wikipedia Poem, No. 512

“In using a certain expression to refer someone to something, you are trying to get them, via the fact that you are using that expression, to think of it as what you intend them to think of.” from Kent Bach’s “What Does it Take to Refer?”

governments don't 
don't govern men america 
must precisely shame our nation 
into contemporary amazon
american culture antagonistic stone 
      glow health 
  care sizzling
republic 
swing together 
    with the future of word america
tyranny woolcapped proposal revolution 
overthrow the 
      glue 
   that choice of 
         false rule be it
      tolerable tolerable 
      tolerable tolerable 
    tolerable crush 
tolerable crescendo
be it touching my tolerable hand

“What Rings But Can’t Be Answered” by Rebecca Lindenberg

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You are beautiful as a telephone, colors
of bone, rocket ship, and cocktail lounge—

Hmm, says the neon sign, starting
an unfinishable thought.

Where do we go from here?

I’m a balloon,
each minute you don’t call is a breath
you blow into me.

I want to be the crackers in your soup,
I want to be your brass compass. Oh, mister,
just thinking about you curls the ends of my hair.

The clock tisk-tisks.

Moon, you old spinster, don’t you mock me
with your pockmarks and your slow, slow travels.

Moon, what would you know, cold as cheese?

Hmm. Tisk-tisk.

Behind a far-off door, a thought about me is being formed
out of nothing but light.

And when that phone does ring—

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from “Love, An Index” by Rebecca Lindenberg

Anti-Villanelle

Wikipedia Poem, No. 513

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“My Mom watches Oprah to brighten the drear / You can keep your eyes open, see nothing at all / But it might be the zombies are already near” Tim Seibles

never trust a
lawman a tragic
figure a
brass roman
pendant hooked
upon a poke a
magic recursive idol

this brass poet oinked by
the academy of american
pedants click here to sniff at other
work
from poets
click here to hang
either/or

an exclusive
commission for the academy
of american academies
or click here to see
exclusive longbone huts
or a thirty-two-inch side of bacon
choked with gold filled nuts

so see the modern condition
for the american academy
of royal jewels a heliodor pendant sliced thin
by poet-warrior tragic figure this
colossal brass-polishing adipose lyre
measured in floral-print
current events fill the airless vents

crass pendant heiress
the one true idealist talisman
dangling like swollen testicles from the academy
american pork belly
mythological pokes and
tragic figurations pierced together
with self-acuminating ribs

Did You Mean Más o Menos?

Wikipedia Poem, No. 510

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“How about an oak leaf / if you had to be a leaf?” James Schuyler

c
short
sea suicid
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cha them all n euticals
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of pharma lying on a cigaretthe day afe
point—heuicidal ornd the rooith this lth this
looke with cd he was drette and t with charalled
him t to the ces at someke with chchelsea
where tth charles at some pll whetherr
the all whethabsentmind took themea
absentmid the roomat some po
up the das bed withs
suicidalent to
theis
long
haefinitely arette
anded him he a lot of p
to the chrles i wend he was d suicidal
went to tim he was they had aim he was
ing on his installedals does asuicidal os definitetminded
hechelsea wh charles iint—he toodid what aint—he
tooe they hadlready ins with charentminded
ady instalte and theinstalled t up the dor
absentmsentmindedhis long h i spoke
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and tthe chelse charles isuicidal
ohelsea wheay after iely
smokint of pharmwent
to thentminded
they had aes
i went hem
all whg
hair’s
wheady
instay on
a lotroom went
suicidal helsea whewhat
anyboy up the point—he f
pharmacem went up r it’s suig
a cigareed he was all wheth smoking
atminded hee and dainstalled he took thinded
he wtely smokiroom went ere they hoint—he toe
was lyin point—he ceuticals the day afe was
defii went to what anybthem all w does
at s absentmin had alreae took the’s
suicidasuicidal o went up tll
whetherether it’sefinitely
some poind he was
with this hairhad
alread or
absentd
he was
d the room
all whetheirtook
them l whether nded
he wath this lois long hadoes
at soes i went em all wheitely smokrmaceuticawas
lying ot of pharbsentmindeg hair had alrea
day afterlled him hroke with che took
tht’s suicidlong hairat some po
hair and the rabsentmindhey
had alme point—hefinitely
ely smokininitely smok
them albed with t
day aftere with
chabody
on
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lying on
hll whethertook
them icidal or a lot
of em all whehim he
waspoke with hat anybodthis
long ea where ty installerles
i wenntminded hspoke
withdy on a loicidal
or i went to
himinded
already
italled
he
wlready
insly smokingll
whetherd
what
fly
hi
i

from Percival Everett in “The Art of Fiction No. 235”

Everett: “I remember loving Lewis Carroll from an early age, and not just “Through the Looking-Glass” and “Alice” but the syllogisms and a book on logic. And then I remember quite well, early on, reading something I thought I shouldn’t be reading, Maugham’s “Of Human Bondage”, which I got from my father’s shelf. I think I was nine. It was fun because I didn’t think I was supposed to read it. As I look back, I think that it’s reading, probably even more than writing, that I find important. Reading is subversive because you necessarily do it by yourself. Which is why books scare people like Donald Trump. What’s interesting to me is that the poor people who identify with Donald Trump, they think of themselves as unlucky rich people. If things had just gone differently, they would be rich, too. The system has worked against them. It’s the same reason people play the lottery. Overnight you could wake up rich, and that’s an exciting thing. What you can’t do overnight is become educated. That requires a lot of work, so that’s not a goal. It’s something to fear. But that’s exactly why I find books so important. I don’t care what people read. If they read anything, then they might read something else. I just want to participate in making a different culture. I’m thinking of that line of Walt Whitman’s—”Produce great Persons, the rest follows.” It sounds flip when you just say it, but it’s true. That’s not to say that people are bad, but I want a readership that wants to read things because the work is difficult, not because it’s only fun. I want the fun to be in figuring it out. That’s what reading is all about, and to me writing is really just an extension of reading. But there, enough of my soapbox.”

Read the entire interview in The Paris Review.