How our lively natures were rapt away by post-modern science fiction

“What temper at the prospect did not wake
To happiness unthought of? The inert
Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!”

William Wordsworth

February 2021 — Why doesn’t ugly start a revolution? The intellectual farmacie of traditional media, rife with fit, reasonably attractive folks earn profiles in the The New Yorker. Unless you’re an old white man, in which case beauty is rare and, take it from me, things are relatively frictionless—we will write your story of greatness.

If our obsession with youth can be explained by an attraction to that which we, statistically, were not: precocious, interested, prodigious and destined for the top rungs of the social ladder, than maybe beauty functions the same way.

Shall we ugly design the end, throw a rock, hold our bodies hostage? What kind of hunger must we become?

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Endless war

The man in rags approaches the bricked barn
camel and needle yarn strikes
With no breath to confound
Though no one sentient around
Hears this knotted rotten demand
Buries his tires in the unyielding sand
Keeps the guests at bay
Perhaps just one more day

See the threads of desire meeting needle
knowledge binds together various
fabrics of self at uncertain edges
emerges eyes of crucible
crocodile burning fog & cloud
unity of irreducible information
unit of unbound dictionary lightshed
gathered father and son in bodied
survivalhood emergent territories of
thought escapes in breath

Dressed in silversbane protect my faith
new mother — holy anymother — lose
her holy see scatter her across
the January 2021 Facebook Pages redesign
her brands are luminous with nostalgia
or panic there intuition sings of a songbird
two fingers pointed and retracted
come-hither autocorrect
rub graphite like grapevine phantom to flesh
to thought

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Endless possibility

The sun hangs low on two points
connected in electrical circuit
Obsessed with the minister
of reflexive language
as lovers panchromatic grey perhaps
a different meaning the new center
of socialist joy and recreation
I contemplate the aquiline but
refuse to rush into the masses
I rise elaborate as embroided
air vast plains of testosterone
encased in shadow
engorged with the forgotten god
and his abandoned metaphysics

I am a snapchat filter in the eyes of oblivion and beg for forgiveness a man
who collects comrades because even kindness needs a posse
a man who in the infinite stretch of sand finds god’s black wall
and in an instant his purpose a woman who builds rooms
inside and outside of the modern poets’ vague allusions
to common knowledge the radio has dinner
the terrible thing inserts a gun into its poem of
simple relational delight and dilemma
was no gun only infidelity changing lock letters
everywhere in shadow usurping men shooting bullets into the sky
almost every evening when I lived in the country who
permits this you have driven language
like a dead ox from the meaning of the field

Must is the greatest word in the English language
also it is the most misused among the lot
must is my daddy
must is my savior
must is the end of a snowstorm
as the cupboards go bare we must
not accept this way of formulating the issue
if we do not we shall be in serious trouble with the virtues
of curiosity our grammatical assumptions
enshrine themselves
within our philosophical arguments
and that is death

String a pair of slipping records the great colonial spasms of blood against dirt a free exchange of birds and rival ideologies coincides with the rise of criminal networks in cyberspace house of hexagon open to the possibility of retention of sky sound of brutal dictatorship string I do not know the woman’s name nor her side of the dialogue nor mine I must ring the bell though it is of form and weight without she is without voice string in this instance to look at me you wouldn’t know my hands repeat insincere gestures I was listening to that string together at last after years of waiting the smell of skin and

Waiting for the other shoe to drop it is what it is i drink whisky i drink beer beer made of sculptures her words not mine borrowed really from peter to paypal paul and talk about geometry ugly repulsive apparitions on a wet black bough lazy mapping doesn’t know how to read a nap no sense of ambiguity an obsession with youth glowing skin fresh powder a reliable reit wilbur ross financed spac takes it public no sense of ambiguity the poet and the programmer vindictive academics both

Obsessed with the minister of reclusive language the character pans the screen not the player like a patient etherized upon a table I deny myself the opportunity no one’s said it explicitly — actor, writer, set designer, executive producer — but the show is about memory no one can take that away not the ultra rich who pile vindication and swim not the blood and shadow brokers cointreau spiked with lsd at a cia retreat al spoke of destruction finally getting its break if it’s good enough for the abattoir why not right here at home?

Hop skip jump burn hop skip jump burn hop skip jump burn hop skip jump burn

The mass destruction of tourists
The mass destruction of production
The mass destruction of typewriters
The mass destruction of jealous music

Poetry policymakers conspiracies fourteen women share a couch destruction everywhere their feet behind them behind the couch a trio of monochrome musicians a hot light a baudrillard disclaiming suprareality a wedding ring i toss behind the couch like an anchor rides in veins of the venal need flower print — imagine that — in black and white the posterity collapsed like a pharaoh’s lung fat legs crossed surely worm food by now all these artists care so much about dying disclaiming flesh of wristwatches

The memory, bound with piano wire, is something of a meditation. Not intended to pacify the hungry, curious, and violent child-made, by polite society, to sit still and earn their wage. The memory, bound by piano wire, is something of a primitive chant. Primitivism as if to say committed to the ursheriff and the supraellipses. The memory, bound by piano wire, lets blood through an unmarked limited liability company. Too many of us have been dragged through the mud to reserve comment — to forget — to watch Everybody Loves Raymond nailed to the crucifix.

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Endless war

ritual of expulsion: setting proves important to the audience, which, in city after city struggles to understand why the woman in the white bandana suffers so and why the small-town cat buzzing in and out through the open den window bob and weave with puritanical, firefly charm. Symbolism escapes them until it doesn’t — like an embolism.

In the 18th century a rhino named Clara visited the capitals of Europe and inspired various French hairstyles as the sun crashes down on city hall where the streets are torn up to be repaved what does this have to do with ugly women? Everything!

At 2:22 a.m. I provide the characters with made up properly seasoned rips in time. We, as an audience, have nothing to worry about. The average theater-goer had a hard time separating entertainment from criticism and I am here to avenge that loss. Tears streaming down his unwashed face, he raises his hand like it was his own. Cold but well bathed, the poet runs his imagination through the treetops — rouses a eastern screech owl.

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Endless nobility

That you were buried before you could confess doesn’t mean the asteroid didn’t strike too proud too catholic too ferrous doesn’t mean you didn’t suffer and I didn’t love you more the pain in your endurance love is all I can offer now and forgiveness forgiveness for stitching up the wound unimagined queen of collisions dark and ceaseless coverings always there always lurking

Our patent pending technology attaches a set of medical grade dentures directly to the upper thigh to create the world’s most authentic prosthetic leg a photo is a list of ingredients and a set of instructions called preconception one might say there is no such thing as false witness actual theft or actual inspiration some personal news I am thrilled to hear the poet quickly come to the adjective’s defense.

My wife in the other room alone moaning it’s not what you think by being obtuse obscure obdurate I insure reality what a mitzvah a single poet in a kettle being trusted and truthful and godlike in a drained pool of diction they can be kind and determined all ears all fingers all backbone a penis is a penis is a penis we fetishize nature by its nature his repetitive conceit — I’m thrilled to announce I’m being specific for once — is tiring but not in a bad way exhausting like an Eggleston picture

Exhausting here comes the sun is the first song you heard silk where the green silicone pacifier reds your chin snow falling black against a holy sky every molecule on the horizon vibrates against the desire to regulate to survive navigating generative strangling not the winner but first place itself broken

On the political streets broken maddening itself like ants on a sugar cube here, February, or, interrogations you built America punched down and out by the sidewalk, you’ve lost the game saying too much abyss oblivion no one in my family tells stories broken and yet young bodies baked through with organic poisons in hushed tones around the breakfast table while i burp her

Under the christmas tree my gift unopened for thirty years shallow breaths deep water the lights dim in concert with listicles year end reviews lizard-content basking in the vast nourishing copper field you were invited to motherhood and chose virgin purity invited to fatherhood and chose putty imports a well-built alarm clock a gingham turtle shell split down the middle kintsugi impossible and inevitable, sky hunting its platinum trophy