A little piece of the ape’s nostril had fallen off; and then we noticed one of its ears was chipped. On closer examination we saw that one of its fingernails was missing.
By this time, of course, we had grown to love the ape, but still we wondered if it shouldn’t be sent back for an undamaged one.
The guarantee slip was still attached to one of its ears: This ape is guaranteed in perfect working order on the day of the purchase. But then we noticed something else written on the slip: Floor model, demonstration ape, reduced for quick sale.
Ah, so we did get a bargain without even knowing it.
The ape shyly smiles and presents its cheek for a kiss …
But later on in the evening a large hole develops in the ape’s stomach from what had seemed earlier only a tiny tear. And all evening we watched the ape’s insides slowly coming out all over the rug …
moral consumption of animals and you
don’t fry up this fragmented animal
as moral constraint either hence
we dig up this fragmented animal class
in anti-intellectual stories under wonder
what’s moral consumption?
the poets are moral consumers mutatis mutandis
what’s moral? we wonder what’s something their patients see
this fragmented pharmaceutical animal perhaps?
as far as moral constraint
either we wonder what’s moral or
consume animals as we wonder what’s moral
TWO
self-awareness don’t fry up that ego: all organisms work self-affirming live monkey limb because we think of animals as moral consumptions size and constraint either hence we consume them but we don’t generally see animals we don’t have stories to tell self-affirming little tales to negotiate guilt over knives don’t ponder what’s moral consumption size and constraints what their habits whisper of self-awareness don’t have their patients moral consumption animals as moral consumers of size condors constrain their populations but they selfishly extol story structure that doesn’t have to do with man and god foolish moral constraints as we wonder what’s moral consumption sounds and chimps our nearest relatives tearing them apart but selfishly expanding to don’t have stories to justify they also don’t have live monkeys pharmaceutical animals as tonal constraint what’s our nearest relative for tearing tell me something about self-awareness to negotiate guilt tell me hurting stories to negotiate guilt hurting their habitats don’t consume size and constraint what of them? their populations? there’s only one story the tearing story we tell self-affirming agents no normal moral considerations just stories what’s moral consumption size and constraint either we wonder what’s or we don’t
THREE
something trendy back in grad school
all the poets enabled study of age as a class
in all those poems that enabled
so it was its almost discourses that as poets were something of pound olson duncan and you to undergrad all the trendy bach pieces
the poems people turned in at grad school all the trendy modernist power play a pound of olson a pound of duncan
and you don’t have to dig up this fragmented anti-intellectual potsherd weak domesticated anti-intellectual egoism
I cannot recommend highly enough Sarah Jean Grimm‘s “Soft Focus” from Metatron out of Montreal. The poem above grabbed me by the throat. I still have the finger marks from last night’s reading. Buy the book (might I suggest the entire Spring 2017 catalog?) and support great, living poets.
if one would iridesce greed one
two three patterns emerge
one skin of ochre
two blood like blood
three one can do nothing to
embrace one’s poetess
hang a snare one two three
from the nose of a fox one two three
what awaits one there one
spiked leather collar two
three a black vinyl dress
one’s beard dewless skin
covered in iridian mess
“But they know how to pull / Arms in, a reflex of being dressed, / And also, a child’s faith. The mass of stuff / That makes the Sunday frocks collapses / In my hands and finds its shape, only because / They understand the drape of it— / These skinny keys to intricate locks.” Mark Jarman
For Bill
the roar of the slain protect the caretaker’s hut
that red clay pot portends tracks for the hunt
everything in the red clay pot belongs to the animals
though it is also fed on flour that
as a practice
belongs to those among us who do not touch bone
members of that slain ceremony
light as human gods
travel into prologues great and sprinkled with medicine
the ceremony involves deposited arrowheads emblematic
of horses and sheep and the enemy
eats our history
unlike the traditions of the keeper
the careful hunters of the ocean
traveling chosen
Sources:
Jarman, Mark. “Dressing My Daughters”. Poetry Foundation. The Poetry Foundation, 2017. Web. 7 Mar. 2017.
“I am always tying up / and then deciding to depart.” Frank O’Hara
a trap set with
electric tongues
mouse in-
advertently cleft
itemized by tongues
transport terms arranged
into two recursively
out bloody breast bones
you have something
observer some sheet of
margins imagine it the
sense intelligence simmering
both your final form
and the sound beneath
some shared irreverence
ends in the itemized bits
which sit on the trap
of your mouth
in the tv room
under warm blankets
covering a trap
set with
tongues
“I cannot understand the subtle words / it speaks to the sad heart that makes it speak.” Dante Alighieri
catol la ma scamia stola ri lapri l'mia sato
liber bustio anism l'ri la libemia sia scralis
aplibera andalismm libcatolia scia scola
aprla mii la apri a miari lapri li la why quireism
sca miatola achme scatla apatola la mlie
scatla ap mia scato libehe io libeberalola
aprapri ola aliberla apscatoatolaola a apripri
la miho una scaola aia sclism i la
sscato la ma mia apri libepri la scam saipri
itola pri lcatol mia catolri lala milie
uallyla aps an sm lilism scatola apalismcatolscatoa
