
droll tubercular
internet community
saved from much later
as you’d predicted
the cockroach says jump and you
sad princess say high
her grief to sail on
bookstores are sold sparks set on
sale now wherever
(it should sale while looping)
I am not even vaguely interested,
though for a quarter I could be.
I was not allowed to move but when my leg went dead
I cheered it on in the first place.
When they whisper they ought to wear a lead vest.
Their lips look like personified oysters.
When they shout it is usually addressed
to the dead body who owned it before us.
We can safely assume one of them is born
every minute of the day.
When my rabbit ran away it was a great relief.
I could not say so—who would understand?—
So I cried for a week.
Source: Ruefle, Mary. “When Adults Talk.” Selected Poems. Seattle: Wave Books, 2011. Print.
but only therapists remain and projected to have no metaphors i am thinking the impossibly large brick school building the phone call and days ago holding no metaphors i am thinking about what i asked her in first grade the therapist holds the fragile invulnerable dictionary spasms outside the hand and apologizing about the boy i was how my motherapist and days ago holding spasms outside this thinking exercise writing about the fragile invulnerable world about the boy the impossibly large therapist projected toward me
among us knew many boys a half dozen? she was a retired pant and the fridge is full The tech tee fridge is full of bedrooms The window is open To Hackensack will you jump on my trampoline? The lights have sparrows and among us knew many boys a half dozen? said she was A crow alike at the phone; it's full the dog refuses, we're out of phones; it's full of lights here's a snake origami, your will jumps on our fathers Pressed pants and held us our mothers pressed porn we knew many like her, loved them even, but who among us knew many boys a half dozen? she was retired, hare and crow calls alike At the phone; it's full the dog refuses, we're out of phone and full of lights here's a snake Your will jumps on our fathers Pressed pants and Held us Our mothers Pressed porn star We knew many like her, loved even But whom among us knew boys a half dozen? she was a retired porn star. We knew many boys and a hare
Reading Ben Lerner from behind Without Ben Lerner's express written consent I am Ben Lerner "noctilucent" Against Ben Lerner's particular ass The pedals of the tricycle in Ben Lerner's front yard haven’t rotated, felt reciprocation in months But nonetheless, here I am, Ben Lerner Atop Ben Lerner, concerned about Death All tucking away the c-word from an old, untitled Ben Lerner poem, an even older poem by Wallace Stevens From Ben Lerner's mind To Ben Lerner's mouth And into, and onto, Ben Lerner's night-blooming genera.
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
try to maintain the deception through future good works or at least
Source: Keen, Ernest. Three Faces of Being: Toward an Existential Clinical Psychology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1970. Print.
what characters?
what images?
then
what emotions?
& how that
blankness
projects, flickers
onto the clean
white wall. where?
where is the heroism?
(cocksure bravado of loss?
the drowning son
saltwater bites his lungs
his inutile hand
breaking the ocean’s lens?
ooh, there
I’ve gone and given it
away—retreat!
peel through the pteridophyta
knee-high, back to skull-island.
they’ll remember you if you tell them
who? what character?
which image? emotion?
and what will they boil
for tea that morning
after his funeral
— well attended
— tastefully adorned (not too colorful
— a slow silent sob, no one weeps (not even …
will it be black or green or chamomile
over-steeped or sweetened? how
at a time like this, can one decide
so freshly alive, so gravitationally piqued
washed red-raw with compassion?
those old films
now significant, so
wall space, interior
as if the boy were climbing
our orange tree
higher, then higher
his fearless lungs full
of bitter citrus.
when?
what’s lost?
again, what emotion?