Tagvverk

Dissolution of Form No. 4
 
 

Simile

Words like seeds come to us with all the appearance of natural objects yet as with each successive generation of the plant each use of the word produces a new and subtly different word in place of the one we’ve started with a process of millennia.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
**
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Garden

select grain dazzle shadowed leech peptide oriole clumped chain-link dangle karst femcel toothsome foray aerie steeled theorize stalwart glucose aspect summered hidden garbled eyelid questing boorish suckle toolsy steeped polish shoelace twig ingest sealant polar dime grist pleasure upside chintzy gusty spire winsome wholly ostrich styling pop-tart D/s cultured put-in bubble stonewall fussy rippling induce oaf Cossack straighten benchwarm cooling soused broil distinct hopeful bite sallied re-lit excerpt gas-cap budding starshine intent rectum wordy earthbound ball-boy therefore hostel custard exhale stinging presto quotient bag phasing render fulcrum f-stop seam girlish pedal roof-rack slipper hatch palsy tea-leaf sharps deck hoarding armpit post bouillon spell spoil colic uplift songcraft adder orgone cost curate meaning gimbal hydrate malted revere wormwood open scythe frame stamped shading mica still pristine grammar coil foxing edge caffeine lube evoke cistern pulp line chewy abut dyke pustule hand-cream nesting meeple joystick two-ply cycle leather marbled dream lapse pre-made styrene spectate bully pince-nez Malbec huff python oozing spinner thought blossom peeler dish-wash golden strung opal chasm rocking withheld stolid costume Theban hambone concuss carveout dreary vapid oyster strainer opp typeset tailings observe portent limestone auger hustle Dutch gable spume fucker grooved soil apex hoppy boomer chorus copy godsend stanchion forces polyp speaker purl tear cross beadle legal terrace vibrant poppers piercing echo wound exhaust debris logo spud wrestle teak bandage amp we shuck cloister fragile racist corpus ochre fauna query biscuit goober worsted newsprint fry chickpea agile Furies ogle halfback cunty margin sugar brassy tie-in sous-vide cockle agate stifle wired char cola sensing column P-trap weir pram marrow meaning secant legging holder clocked tempo toggle A/C kickback pupil scarf horny sage psyche offline headphone treaty coleslaw moony seed homebound charger meme plastic choral page eddy clef flout solder tingle pyrrhic plaintiff keyring tom-tom aging pump napalm keening egress dusted arch shingle lantern hokey kayak veined treacle hulking sheer beanie prestige ample stump capo dapple acorn burl queso ellipse dreaded strident phage CC utter playful caper termite languish yes easy backroom bleach shopping aubade seven bookmark jape breeder shard shoehorn hour vacuum outgrown repeat porch abrade lefty sprinkle seamless lecture grizzle contacts lenten pinto wizened seep invite version bareback daybed crappy stray twenty censer purloin whisker life queasy catnip parch skillset stim crinkle immune cantrip sounding frill spent spelt ogre anchor float mural struggle penny calling rushes tchotchke moral anxious crepe manner package space crux paisan ante gibber pill slow-roll 3D fretless coaster arcane BB circle spry sortie locker poignant alert fetid abject girded punish prankster direct blanch river ethic oval signal purge achey zig inner port plant neon gauche stodgy hyped midriff gargling vague scree exist sameness fashioned teeter eavesdrop clouded control nightclub wrought friction pregnant pestle eager logged morel forefront jewel research lips ohm g-string crash-out compound redoubt saddle effete vector plant rent tongue straggle esteem token wave crush flex scalpel signet oak view slog sequence translate bar skiffle pond decay rub shirk ulcer create dire clip peopled fade druthers seat toggle track-list art swim balk vining pause nineties recede proper cloven selfsame cherry plywood apron engine porpoise insight birds crusade bump tea virile dual world chuffed spanner upon hang cusp jones helix seeker quilt lax blend grinder stingray cuckold frozen curve marker sauna eerie tile above mundane next heater bucket smush toolbox rice work briquette krill pool gasp mammal review fault ferry timer degree pothole oxen offload tritone veldt clench schedule lockage vagus aster keep bygone binding afloat smokey crimp magnet season breakthrough agar stronghold lounger brick maul handler cotton index mission synth losses plumage vane archive birthday nipple parse bait sherry dole pip travel monster spange baste prose fae epoch link studded portrait egg waft design perplex kegel gyre symbol effort angle question office opaque pressing upheld reflect contra include settle argyle affront wading inert quince forked carton tidal offspring pedant hemlock April to-go patrol broom satchel swale holding decent response wooey curb titrate enter sideways e-ink pickle react undone offal engage scrub-grass wares escape sidle zoom tunnel retread flower retire greyscale serif wind-chime lusty framework punch copper heeded let’s sitcom ballast promise totem greedy wicker weevil tipple ground blush thigh milk briefcase optics scurvy raven helmet ankle resist fidget volume menu renew sonar captive size beerhall looming second candle inline land shy diesel graveyard reeling locked prop spirit tundra pelvic name email scribble voice circlude notate soft-serve union geezer dump-truck collie lidded coddle boxy jungle derive smut turf hydrant homeward poop distend sentence foil choosing anthill progress gorge log-roll runoff locale combo toothpick sunken file corrupt speedo device turgid recite charcoal torch-song lifetime printout deftly ether steer spindle orange quaalude velvet fanny interest crosstie buckle command spray-paint fusty pontoon willow booster working liner florid perch forego stratum fleshy prate singe torpor pierce lime purse strafing spillway engrave cope eke blatant phoneme abstruse download clear pining long mordant purview offer glue stoplight cap specie shifter deduct hi-vis puck faux lustral sorrow dreamscape thirst glitter mythos squeal harrow balding sweetness ringing pole among byline scheme buccal joke reduce stye fugue grit clanker shrimp pattern quibble context gusset puzzle side-gig super heyday works dance maw pasta chesty feeling duchy peaches offer needed swaddle gingko create holder lemon put-back cancel ginseng hole through special chutney bale yap gag upper duo headlight augment trunk accept collate restrict breaker q-tip placid hungry spalted iron halfway logic room-tone aspire cover entrance scooter console spring-fed cook nitrate shuck elven banjo barefoot puzzle trembler attain tall-bike dye canoe number repent tabs wilt trailhead buried mitt printer grandpa freehand farewell jacket box-wine scold capture crystal tender verso sports shaggy lead crusher half-pipe flora bluster endless winded shooting Sunday cupping ear gilded bottle weekly suss cervix transmute starboard fiction cut-off Quaker dunk gossip gasket cutlass august phlegm rhythm canvas porous cure ordered skald nature hunger septic pylon detox boon garlic teeny draft catchall goalie cobble dilate grape-leaf AI raffle bandy labor rubble stern quasar erode lilt prep sickle drone udder shackle pug van item roughly sample perish neighbor noise crater diamond tranche arise strive peppy colleague cracker two-fold communes sparrow weed shall gooner tiptoe 5G ocean gamma palm stuffy something sushi trappings hair-piece ta-ta dripping steamboat binder y’all veil outside ray-gun goodbye popcorn cusp phantom zaftig retrace fennel prepper bevel and horse-cock teardown sanguine curl jaunt dove coffee sentry lazy pleasure sauced dog plaza sweepstakes ciao plug bramble oral coarser total pine graphic shush these dirk killing reeds project concrete whirly inveigh ball-peen pollen grapefruit basement shrink-wrap whetted tulip schwa yell trapeze cluster pebble distance inflect stifle chaos transfer record tower omen cringle sandstone football booty tarry gobble lock-in crocus bros specious gas edict spatchcock danger strapped ferry limb tee silver forceps cookie form canter seedy nuance grant piss-play squid facepalm ozone eschew pepper slides fellow northern turbo pay-dirt mascot feeble beaker clench bookish luge vagrant piquant crisis act soy fake-out batten luster knuckled aegis imbue mercy fumble spit yipped vulgar crank accent moment doubt ordeal client murder gelling crockpot sheen papal honcho rolling goddess myrrh plaque toe-shoes savage grateful prairie drinking martyr patchwork band fad relax chop-saw zooted shun cirrus belly pleat scrawny empties juiced witness mange perform blithely plume applaud time-lapse wet-bulb surfeit mango give merit stupor futile method cretin rope vassal fizzle beyond squib legit morning rider listed aren’t shredder wisdom mill aroused different less ratchet pursuit sago roiled music trodden salt Gorgon haughty eye erase sag oatmeal arrest broom dawning crescent sickbay backslide squat urgent innate herring wheedle tithe pallor zeal scrounge dragon storage jetty relent chagrined perk cowrie plaster sunless corn squall dessert clout peaking grated ensue diffuse trying darts doctrine goad bosom apt junk swivel melting gorgeous nettle sawtooth subvert anklet plinth rye waif edit clog frisson candor plating jealous rail pious bimbo swat heron spiral conduct lore truncheon gauze forget warbler tape-head preempt bezel freewheel drawl ashram touching woody choice slipstream hawk errant purloin knave erupt heifer merge key-tar shade forty burner tachyon campaign vase puncture scarlet rabble dissuade erstwhile prissy time righteous pratfall supple range forlorn reeking grebe A-frame crass wiles picket fashy stubborn notion plow sanctum spinster beard farce advent mover riddle spiel shoelace canteen egg torn dopesick gale dirge receipt fractious spoken comrade planning signup trammel agape pop-eyed stitch remnant chips perch unique count flavor uric belie fallow closed drift kayfabe kick navel

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Whetstone

If the art is a vessel by which to sharpen our minds or in other words to help us to think more interesting thoughts then it’s a mistake to act as if it has to assert anything rather it provides the whetstone against which an audience can hone their analysis and what is the content of a whetstone is a useless question not contents but qualities being the metric by which we measure the whetstone what is the grit and what is the preferred grit for the task at hand how fine a point shall we put on it and remember finer isn’t always better a rough stone sharpens more knives faster.

Herb Chambers (Any %)

…

It is June, in one week it will also be June; I try to tell William how

important he is before bed and he asks Can we stop talking about this

Dad. He’d rather discuss Mr. Gary’s visit next door, come in with

season’s first ditch-lilly, how he crosses his legs at the hairless glisten of

diabetic ankle, rings the doorbell of his mind, etc, but it’s locked from

the outside, etc, says to his host (Mr. Rick), Weeds all over the shop;

you’ll be one soon enough. What he doesn’t know is that somewhere

there is a man extremely frightened of his own shed, that someone or

something is living in his shed, and he’s posting videos about his shed

daily, strange sounds, doors opening and closing on their own with lights

flickering, basketballs falling off high shelves, which do prove that

something definitely isn’t right about the shed. I believe him. Not even

allowed to write something wrong now in this perfect world sorry to all

the perfect brothers and sisters out there. Louisa wakes up before it all

turns into what it’s about, reports that she’s awake for no reason and that

she’s crying, wants to know what’s going on (nothing), wants to

understand why this is happening, maybe, she proposes, it’s the second

blanket, entailing as it does no appreciable good or ill. Today is Joey’s

birthday. It is 6:30 in the morning and he’s whispering in my ear: To

master believing, all you have to do is tip the balance of your thoughts,

words, and actions from ‘not believing’ to ‘believing’. I do not believe

him. Tells me Franky drinks the air like chameleons do and in the

foreground there is a terrace or strip of ground strewn with shrubs and

undergrowth which contemplates resemblance, panorama with dominant

vertical. Update from home: spider, protein in the pool. Just how black

can an animal be—chewables or just the juice. Where my beasts without

my Will or Knowledge, and so on. Louisa asks me to wheel her outside

so she can be alone but the mosquitos are waiting to perform a sort of

non-consensual company (in the sense that they are already visiting).

Says she doesn’t care but she will, which is what a parent is. In and out

of wood, it’s gotta go somewhere. Trapped inside Herb Chambers with

the used and new vehicles and the everlasting deals, thinking about

sealing foam, draino, about how you’ll have to pick up the fertilizing

liquid and bring it to me, conjure your past, how once you were, when

fear was yet foreign to ye. Dog academy (sludge is everywhere), dog

academy (sludge is taking over), which makes the night hideous with its

howls, and which the court severs. Sowbread or swinebread. Dad’s

friend, Donny, used to say, Speak, O Toothless Wonder when talking

about his asshole, should’ve asked What is the event frequency of lake,

of hedgerow. Oriole on the lawn, time on device, disorder under heaven;

simple things, simple places, people. William announces the song is

called Bubbles, into corals into others, says he likes the taste of tears and

would punch himself a thousand times in the eye, geogony, to taste them

again. One big hole in the middle of the month that tasks crawl out of,

assign themselves to you via irregular mesh of milestones, small apes to

the sapling. Dirty Baby, in the felt, finds his rightful place at the brace of

the tree of the heart, beside, perhaps, a negative snake. Tobin’s hand on

my back reassures itself in the dark. There used to be more options

presented, too many to be honest, so that it felt like a casino sometimes

or pleasure park, now you get the one line if you’re lucky and better

follow it to the break in the metals if you want, to come anywhere near,

pin close to finding out. The trunk diverges from itself, makes a crook,

and so there’s an oak right where Nick puts the rubber worm, rendered

‘perfect spot’, underdefined until, and the whole fish with twitch from

gill to tail tip become one mouth entire, can do nothing but bite, and it

does, and in that way Nick gets to spend time with a fish, some few

minutes, call it patience, like there is night and there is day, night is

night, day is day, unbothered by dispute, girdles the entire whirl. At the

same moment, Scott writes that he’s very disappointed in our WEAK

showing. Front is Hawaiin shirt, under is work—dream of quiet:

Equally, radishes will never show their shoulders, flowers instead and

are excused, inexorably, from the arrangement. Cucumber’s however

come true, find their way to the door. Celebrating 14th Anniversry of my

Special Healing, William hunts the bugs and his uncle scoops them with

a purpose-made net, grafted to adequate, collects blacks, greens.

Yesterday a playful fish playfully shamed me. All it takes is a shake of

the head—forgiveness—rote. Did you bring the multi-knuckle is my

dad’s question, does he mean lift system, lawn flame. Nick wants to talk

Family Memories, tries repeatedly, but I find it impossible to participate,

however benign the exercise, lights in the trees in the dark floating out

past the Polaris Machine, the skimmer-gulp, come lower, closer, are

green blinks somewhere between embarrassment and forgetting. Plants

not burn; Fluvial Drumlins of the Soul, knitted world, TV turns on by

itself (This Old House) frightens both Will and I. At first, in our mutual

innocence, we blame each other, then the dog, but the truth is that no one

was in the room. Outside, above Stop and Shop hangs the sun,

unpleasantest red, orb, reduced to complete and painless visibility by

smoke from wild fires apparently, some half a continent away. Weeks

later the nurse confesses she scolded her granddaughter for staring too

long, What we don’t need is burnt retina. Under its baleful influence the

customers glare, snarl at their counterparts in the aisles, occurred these

horrid transactions, the cashiers on purpose break eggs at check out. The

parking lot fronts on our highly compact field of nightmare. Yellow; two

days. Might as well say The Plan is the Baby with Joey and leave it at

that, at most nod to the old man out on his walk, exercising those

faculties at large. Broad green across green water makes for further

shore except one dead tree there, another, closer’s the Queen Anne’s

lace which a lady is picking, up to her knees in poison ivy. I seen it,

Sky’s, the very air, gone milky, insistent, peradventure to press. If I

could give that to the birds I would, but I can’t, wouldn’t take it, forever

from the tawdriness. Louisa announces The Pump in the Rock from back

seat, draws water from same. Similarly, Tobin recalls, Isn’t these weeds

are forever, never, in any sense, to explain, only that there are no

flowers. Like in the Dream, shows a dog-sized mouse as author and

source of our recent haze, brown with a black stripe down the back and

white feet, must to kennel, ignores our traps, rattles cabinets with its

passage, somehow squeezes behind the fridge; or, as William contends,

he doesn’t want to pick, Babies can write that but sometimes regular

humans can too, and thereby lets the leak in. Otherwise, it is an extended

instance of clover, white and purple and busied about its length with

bees, run hard against whatever bitter edge, original bound, the world

then manages by all earthly effort to present or exhibit. Can’t force it,

tell yourself, have to accept, whether it’s shapes of spruce and bayberry

gardens or the new style of swimming Louisa’s invented, accommodates

her useless leg. Not that it would matter, but I’ve secretly named the

effort Mallard’s Burp. A forkful of vegetal mush partly contained by its

fibrous tube—July 26th, 2026 8:26pm, things get pleasantly flat,

interlinked, somehow lack discernment. Don’t know how to talk about

what one has done, even if, persons, an actual earth of value, like Louisa

with her leg up reduces the swelling. Pronounces a hard C in the middle

of ancient, like me, so that it’s ank-shent, incorrectly I’m told; as if

anybody required further proof just from looking at her, heredonymic

undervault, which flashing sign alleviates its native gloom. Similarly,

Franky’s ump ump ump pulses along, depicts a dog, until she’s left alone

in the dark and then it’s all One Scream with Hell over her head, the Exit

also, the texture and condition of love. Crab apple then, sunflower,

sequenced, obdurate, at turns break their way in, which I’m sure Franky

would prefer, back there, to sleep. Like cleaning the pool opens a

window, christens it unswimmable. Since I’ve been here or since I

remember being here, that one divot by weather’s consistent application

transformed into a hole. Ducks eat gravel under absolutely still

windmill, turbine into sea mist attended by flashing of leaves of bushes,

sparrow’s plip plop, at the very median of things, where heart’s the

marsh view. Englobed in Orb of Great Interest. When, unbidden, Skip’s

two dalmatians, deaf as posts, spring to my memory, they’d come

running when they saw the door open, spots, thankless teeth, uninspired

barking because deaf and could not hear themselves. Singing all

morning, regular bog person with his dirty, unhappy children, goes,

Picker’s chit O picker’s chit / Can’t forget my picker’s chit / Picked

twenty bushels for my picker’s chit / Less meat for it than a chicken’s lip

/ Picker’s chit O picker’s chit. More Deserving varietals all throughout

the maze, aching in the land of plenty, like cormorants together, out

beyond the line of swimmers, of stretched wings to wing-tips, watch

children from jetty rocks with ungenerous and yellowrimmed eye.

Nothing at all like that video of a bird falling in love with a woman,

lonesome as the word owl is. Non-trivial wallpaper job amounts to

repeating fruit or moth’s erratic solution to the garden, those swallows,

staggered and ramshackle, returning home. Louisa come downstairs,

says, I saw a heron that looked like a hunched over old woman out

there, over the marsh, the water. Something about jealousy presiding,

yellow with bunchgrasses, summer bridge activities thrown across self-

funding loops and/or elusive internal waves, about the soul is a friendly

weasel, a ten minute montage of cool and funny moments, my

suspicious lack of preoccupation, several cankers, ends with thanks for

watching which flashes on the screen three, four times. William, now

aware he is a figure here, asks that his accomplishments be

acknowledged and recorded, doesn’t understand Dad’s not in charge,

does not advance, is only better preserved, sport solely in the sense of

sudden and unexpected anachronism. Anyway, just to put it down, calls

this evening of the very pink wind Queen Mermaid’s Magic Hour, asks

why it has to be a poem and why I like poems so much. According to a

recent message, it doesn’t matter where you live—the same people

occur, like wild servers in the woods or flaws in foreign lens, this is

parent with child image, the very navel, ruint dome of the world. Next to

that is doves, two of them, folded together, from below on a wire, white

flowers festooned by accident to the struggling lawnmower, which

probably wants oil as much as she wanted, at all points, an audience.

Too bad pizza is a pancake with sauce and cheese on top. Birdie comes

running anyway, sore at her chines, proof that immortality is but

ubiquity in time. Dear Dad, Louisa writes, Through these long 11 years

and short few days, you have supported me. What, other than the

obvious, could it mean. The smaller the engine, the sooner its shadow is

cast. It’s unfortunate. Whither leads the shaft and all that, weird things

happening again, with seagulls and the moon.

…

Amuse Book

Oat simper tail
Oblique purse
Painter moth

Moon erratic

Parrot moot
Scoff
Ilk blossom

Groggy bulbous loom

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Laminar Animal

Tract of fawn livery
Flak rendering

Flux continuous
Discreet corpus

Light affray
Dust of killed hands
Printing

Eyes

Askance

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Knotted Thrush

Scoff lacunar person

Loop surplus ink

Mop irksome forest

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Mantic Glyph

Pink of periplum
Hoax, haver

Is my darkness now

Ended tail
The dip of red

Fawn over

Starting lip
Numb or less

Star crossed rhyme

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Limpet Limpet

Do not disturb
eraser

Shred hang

Sixth cloudy number

Wall
And
Tall mop sleep

Note: These poems form the groundwork for an ongoing project called YEKTH. “Yekth” (or giecða/ȝecðe) is an Old English word for itching. Each poem is a “rune” composed of two runes: the “I” and the “Ċ” of Old English which, when brought together in certain contexts, spell “iċ” (the first person pronoun I, pronounced itch). In the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the runic spelling of iċ would be carved as ᛁᚳ, and this rune provides the shape of these poems.

THE PORTRAIT
 

Well if you feel you must
get to the bottom of it.
I have a prize for you.

Slipped into a thin lake
the baptismal font pools.
That’s one way

to start the day, glancing past runes
kissed into the moon.
Are you just noticing

how we say deviled to speak
of the pitted, plattered
eggs, of their elements

folded in with a bone spoon.
Add a side to the dyad. A triangle
to the head of the dead.

Persuade a ghost
to sit for the camera,
to turn open a spout, to plant

in an enemy an inkling
of an absence in the fresco—
the apostle’s sheet

of gold leaf moldering
to sandaled feet.
Evidence the earliest

recorded case of encephalitis,
alopecia, of dolor, which this gecko
precisely remedies

by tonguing its eye.
If you feel you must
polish a glass, do it

with diamond paste, the way sails
draw fire and whittle down
to toothpicks in the distance in the fog.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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OBJECT RELATIONS
 

The red went first
to the cardinal, then the bird.

Some brought the morsel to the mouth.
The others, the mouth to the morsel.

A foot was the weaning that cleaved
what desire elides. And Gabriel

the archangel purpled
the rheumy beast.

So an infant saw shuffling
cardinal zucchettos and saw

instead a runnel of areolae
trickle into the chapel.

Holy See, the king
had died. Below those eyes

was the mouth.
It opened wide to say Let me in.

I stayed as you asked
through the fable for the welcome.

Never looked closely.
Answered only when asked

My god who’s responsible
for this? It wasn’t I who riled

the razor-hocked roosters. I only wagered
once they were cast. I whispered

You see that fleck in the sky?
I’m going to make you a star.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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SCALENE
 

Of the two in a trench coat at the adult cinema,
is it better to be the boy perched on shoulders,
seeing for the first time in technicolor
the tip of a penis trace an ellipse around a vulva—
as would a stick of chalk against slate explaining
how spacemen in their craft slingshot
from Venus or Jupiter to Puck, Ariel, or Umbriel—
and out of a novel notion of fairness,
honoring an agreement and holding back
urges of rubbing himself the way he discovered
last week in the bath; or to be the boy below,
listening in blind on true last mystery
to sloshes and groans and a family tree
outlined by dialogue,
summoning two faces, and upon facing frustration,
summoning two others that will do,
and therefore be the one who leaves the theater
slotting in one suspicion for another:
not the blacktop theory
that the navel is where we came from,
but that the cleavage of breasts must be another ass?

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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PRIMER
 

To august the day
is to
billow the room

with curtains of primary
colors in order to
spin your wheels through

the taut meniscus of the mystery
with the clarity
and intention of a recently

spectacled myopia
and finally
see if only

for a singular
frame a projectionist’s
fine hair cleave

a silver celluloid
world in two.
In seeing a serpent

break her
disguise I saw
a serpent remember

the slither here
with an urgency
necessary to denude

you of your infant
sense of timelessness
and make all

quiet as if
turning closed
a spout just nearly

above the rain.
What if what I heard
was you in every voice

in every early
room condensing
to rise capillaries

beneath the top
coat of paint of every wall
of every room so

we may be
more than simply another
sprout of an answer

nippling the topsoil
just above the rain
to the question of

What isn’t lovely
in the shade when there
is some to have.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
**
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

URANIUM GLASS
 

at first
seemed so

innocuous. The way the wind scolds the crow
for praying for a wife at the corvine funeral.

A captain knows what to withhold:
the orange, for example, to thwart mutiny.

There is purple always
in the black, where the circles wive

the lines. Imagination frosts glass first
before disrobing a mother on the other side.

Allowance was for you then
two: l’argent de poche; and alone to the shop

you were permitted to go, backpedaling
night into dawn, draining day

from your locketed faces. Were you
to do this over, you’d want everything

in its places.
As in, behind shopglass, you

can’t see through your own nose
grease and nostril fog the price

on the pendant, but you know everything
everything is in its places.

Past and to come, seems best; things present, worse (2026)
Silkscreen, acrylic, and oil on wood panel

Turning your head sideways, wondering what’s wrong with the world (2026)
Acrylic on canvas and oak frame

Unseen labor 3 (keeping things together) (2026)
Masking tape, electrical tape, vinyl sticker, graphite, and acrylic on white oak panel

Punched out 2 (2026)
Acrylic and oil on panel

Your Red Warmth (Tongue in cheek) (2026)
Acrylic, oil, and plywood stretched on nylon

Your reflection is skewed something is off (2026)
Acrylic and inkjet transfer

Does it matter how many times it is said or who says it? (2026)
Acrylic and silkscreen on panel

In The City:

In The City,
Iguanas tether bottles
for country
and sugar,
and coffee,
and land,
the trees,
the road,
the beach,
the salt,
the sea.

On every street, dead dogs.

The less traveled road boasts a fungal cactus. Water circulates a parish concerned with the expansion of bodega lightning rods. Remember the turn of the century, when possible, the trust thus made from death footage whose lore sparked Americana. So long for respite, bled dry from rafters: a cause such conquerors made by birth, though some are, all of us, left to ride a wheel in collapse.

Movement is as much a burden
as tradition is. There isn’t more than a
loping animal who lopes with three legs
and shits on the tarmac.

Smoke Pall Malls.
In as much the turning smelt a grocery list,
there are plenty of ways to learn to limp again.

If knees scab, a microwave can do
twice processed open-heart surgeries—
a vein from the shin put on the heart.

Singing soon filled the house. Toothpaste ran bone dry. Javelinas roamed saguaros, poisonous spiders crawled along the bathroom floors, and feral dogs raided trash, their bodies soon mangled by brambles and traffic. From the singing gives way to big talk of past-due corndogs every night when the lights run low

and the windows are blotted
and the drinks are tapped.

I walked through town wearing sweatpants and a robe, whispered about tax liens, property accruement, wool, glass, steel, wood—made it to the foreclosed house and day dreamt about what I’d do if I could buy a house and if I were handier, renovations I’d make: apt shelving, maybe a cabinet in the bathroom where we could put hand towels once we start using hand towels. Another year and these walks will bore me. I’ll stop them and regret what hobbies I could’ve started if I hadn’t tired myself by walking.

The singing voice is pathetic Concrete makes a house
and squeaks With old bills of concrete.
and is built Men asleep in a tent atop concrete is a spectacle
with suppositions in blooming light. They say concrete is a celebration.
hence wind and The meadowland impaled by concrete pillars
a glossary in liters. to hold a concrete bridge above flowing brown water
Earth was replaced with gunk, the trees reach from speaks,
descendant of beetle shell, If I’m to be concrete, I will grow
and concrete is in mating season. flesh around myself so no one knows I’m concrete.

The plants in the neighborhood unfurl wet disgusting petals smushed in raw earth. Blue eggshells are on the ground more and if you’re looking you can see the little baby bird bodies who couldn’t fly smeared on the sidewalk.

I remember a few weeks ago there was a robin’s egg with the shell top cracked off and a bulb of yolk at the bottom. The longer I looked at the yolk bulb the hungrier I got and wondered if I could eat the egg yolk and not get sick. I knew there was an easy way to find out.

Anoint the self
using a jagged tooth
amidst the kind of bender that ruins
a family for an entire generation.

We could be bled dry from rafters, bop in plumed, concussive night. No longer here do we see our mothers’ torrid teeth smoked black at the site of the century’s major turn—a shot soon where children pose (imagined in smiles, the blood of the street) and wade their water pumped thousands from The Source. Hounded they are by the walk. Hundreds of corners, the sound of breath, copper curbs, longitude forthwith in growing, homeopathic boils.

Spotting the crowd, two staff whiff old warehouse smell—dust, obsolete machinery, damp cardboard. A rig hiss brings about the discontinued hard drive cabinet. Simple work for eleven an hour: lift, point, shoot, scan, wrap, move. The beeping headache. The first nice day with the allergies on. I’ve taken my temperature three times. Back home I clean off pubes coated on the toilet.

Myopic efforts differentiate
form. How about one
blood oath to be collected?

Dredge sauce dishes,
call for brutes along curd ridges
and sing away maladies for which
another quantity is longed

except it’s a melted condom beneath your nose
and that’s saying what there is about
the lust of Sunday downtime
when all the chores are done.

Work remains to validate the experience of marketing’s misdirection, which is on par with letting go of moisture and, instead, sees to the sockets in the industrial park. The old couch provides a quality of sleep lacking a spiritual agreement while a historic building in historic registry encapsulates its historic withering tumult on straw.

I continued my day of lifting and walking. The watchtower slinks off one map to get pain right—fan above bolts upon the prairie, my window shattered by a dog’s tooth.

And then a father dies on the coast
where lolls telephone poles.
In Loiza, where he died and all his kids met for the first time,
a horse from San Lorenzo galloped.
They all said he loved concrete.
Concrete claims wanted space.
Concrete highways slice paths
like a sword made of concrete.
Concrete becomes an
animal in the dark
and concrete, porous, absorbs spilled piss and lead paint.
Slabs crumble and concrete needs tar sometimes to feel stuck.
Buildings are concrete.
Pillars are concrete.
Highways, concrete.
This smell of concrete
is the blood in concrete,
the stale concrete water,
strays in rain, holds, cracks in time, fixed with concrete.
Imagine being buried in this ground and then drowned in concrete.
That’s what they’ll say about me.
I feel frail meat wrapped around my knee.
I see plaque illuminating
our great couch, our billboards, our sayings.

from The Academics

I suspect it’s a possum messing up with your womb, their littered intestines mocking pains

for scientific purposes I screen its squeezing mouth, a farmland of reelberries sprouting stench

‘I am to give you some benefit of doubt,’ the hoarseness of my affectionate hand! harvesting

the richest lover from that stingy hole of your stomach’s river! now you are resting for reasons

unknown, murmuring undeserved insults against the concept of advice, ‘a dog is to rescue a

ticking monkey, but that monkey is jumpy! that money he’s grasping with slender fingers of filth!’

well you can always count on animal pixels, warms my digestive system to tell you this

when it is our war I shall speculate further on the compromised role of explosive diarrhea, now

please walk with me to the parking lot of potentially nothing, whipping our beasts’ bruised feet

the possum suspects I am pregnant in its womb, with plain agrarian accuracy I lie beside you

‘O what a beautiful leech of assholes,’ you spread open once, ‘is this how knowledgeable I am?’

a psychologist friend who broke

several ethical codes to allow me

sit in his office listening to clients

cry to him once said he had beef

with ‘not PhD but MDs’ whose offices

were in the new skyscraper

at the center of downtown

when I first met my friend he spent

three hours explaining to me his totality

theory for ‘not human beings but a new

futuristic cyborg’ I visited him

again three years later nothing

has changed except he now gained

new passion for the tech industry because

‘so many Chinese people are

bosses’ I wonder if his association

with power and us being Chinese

had to do with a sense of

impending doom but well

I stopped talking to him for I

have changed my research topic

chair promises our knees ruin what’s down

done throwing dice chances slim the linguistic

relentless lobbying cannibalism to be arranged I

shall be waggling the dog’s illness tans the dog

tail claiming twins are regime of sign change

when I was not writing which was

most of the time I was walking

around making friends

I went to a casino hearing where

some head of a hospital

spoke to the mic about health

benefits of a casino as large

as the entire downtown

‘construction jobs bring

healthcare and healthcare

brings health’ she soon became

the deputy mayor & I

was sitting on the floor outside

watching them shake hands thinking

if there were still things undiscovered

or underarticulated about this

there murmurs were mumbling

not a single round stone kidney

let lone a lamp at noon blinking

pair of references walking to foil

to foil two veracious balls dilly dally

bar chart a doll an uncle vends you

an uncle vends you land ugh

ouching your way out alone handsome?

my friend who sells books on the streets

(his selection ranges from

cancer treatment to the world map

of psychopaths) once whispered

to me his suspicion of the only

Chinese bookstore on the tail end

of Main Street that the owner of this

impossibly resilient book business

must have secret & lucrative

exchanges behind closed

doors ‘or else who could have

paid for that rent?’

I met him at a tenant meeting

that I was too nosy to miss

the advice he gave me

was that I should study Chinese

immigrants’ sexual partnership including

his downstairs neighbor who just

found a boyfriend 30 years older

I said I would possibly consider

this proposal and he left me with

three books that I insisted

I didn’t want:

‘how to manage midlife health

crisis’ ‘the world of wild

cougars’ & ‘metaphysics of moon’

I did visit the owner of the bookstore

who told me neither socialism nor

capitalism has solved the issue of

human kind his suggestion was

for me to get a green card as soon

as possible since I was still

talented like his poet friend who got

translated by a big press & immediately

became an American

insert fluent into a dam’s feather

a pup’s linger

causes fissures of wine’s surface

leather

how how

the reign rains non-stop for a damned

chicken wing

jaywalking to a crab’s crib happy

o’clock

the last friend I want to tell you

about is a home care worker

she asked me about hope

in two occasions one was

in a meeting about her stolen

wages after ten years of

protests the other was after

the mega casino got approved

“is it still hopeful” she asked

she told me I was able to be

a good speaker at rallies

because I was an academic

that if her mom granted her

a chance to go to school

she would end up being

as good as me

in the no casino townhall she took

her time as always wandering

what was required of her

to say & what was lived

for so long that her histories

were circular in accusations

‘all the men in my family gamble’

her lips were very thin & tight

‘all the men in my family lost

all we had’

the next week I

was on the stage doing

what I was good at in

English & she was in the picket

line doing what she had been

doing for years

our eyes met during Chinese

chants & a question wasn’t

there

and won’t be

for the time being

how come a pigsty is the pressing issue of your referendum is beyond me

not everyone is a cyborg modeled after my uncle sitting on a crooked chair in the village

being gifted three million bored hummingbirds is necessary for manipulation

if friend A is an asshole how do I stand by my innocence sitting in friend B’s seat

I met my partner on the weather forecast app because we both believe snow is conspiracy

the other day a purple dog told me I was colorblind but a dog should not be able to speak

the fact that I met my partner on the weather forecast app should persuade you snow is a conspiracy

the world is full of contradictions but I remain steadfastly coherent in times of confusion

here is some Japanese tofu which is completely tangible and realistic

ever since my ex died in Chicago I routinely check his instagram for new information

I love information that’s why I am being tasked to muddle its simplicity professionally

it is completely acceptable that I should be unemployed and deported once I finish this big thing

if you texted me and I never texted back it’s because I felt weird about you not because I was busy with this big thing

currently I’m instructing my uncle to stand up from the crooked chair I envision

his body emits geopolitical insights as I increase the stakes of lying

‘it all depends’ I sculpt this chair deep inside of him

there has never been a language appropriate for this foolish truth between you and me

3am appeared to be the right time doubting
the omnipotence of sleep so I chose to pay
attention to the blue tarp’s late blueness.
there were women sleeping under the steady
hushes outside the spring-infested city hall
whose streets instructed our living orderly.

you can sit down anywhere in the world if you
have a chair. we were sitting down at this
important street corner when a man walked by
starting to yell. ‘who could have worked for how
long you claimed they have worked & not already
have died in the emergency room somewhere.’
he was upset we were sitting down here foreign
-ly. he speculated abt the intention of foreignness.

this city has the biggest manhole known to me,
many tiny hands tickling its possibilities. legend
has it our new mayor sleeps deep down the
snake pit, his legs all tangled up to defend our
sewage. there’s a chance he cries himself to sleep
every night. some like to echo the whimpering.

my mom read a novel during her night shifts
about birds & romance. it was 30 years ago
when the nascency of day was deep in the
belly of my current clock. i grew to be familiar
with her sleeping breaths & teeth’ shuttering
clench. she mistook her own sounds for spa-
rrows, lay awake to imaginary creatures threat
ening our organs’ symphony with rests.

yesterday a spy was revealed after her oldness
gave out enmity. under the urge of confusion I
went to see the puppet. did you see how the
puppet was free the spy-busters whispered to me.
did you see the metal pretending hands? little
wandering time, tripping aunties with hours errand?

the student sits on the seven train, thinking of numbers.

‘I am the epitome of counting,’ she says out loud, not sure if it’s the right address.

‘the world is sorting me out,’ as places fall.

as places fall, the student winds a man’s spit on the night curls

the drowning of a ride’s sudden split, green she sees

light’s vein passing quick

light’s vein passing, wishes make her water known

the student leans in, urinates wickedly

at a sculpture in the middle of everything

at a sculpture in the middle of everything

the student coins

flatters, gleans me

cleans floral means —-

Yore and Lift
were gods

to which days and curses
belonged

Weepers had their Finders
back then

and Firsts had
their Earths

Isotopes had their bonus
neutrons and detritivores

ate up detritus
Stone huts and perfect yurts

surrounded the Seven
Reservoirs whose surfaces

glittered and shifted like
cool practical effects

Back then efforts
were recovered

from the perilous
and forbidden

Temple of Syncretisms
and if not

from there then
from the Temple

of Movements and
if not from there

then from the
Temple of Perfect

Movements where the priests
used to say

Just as Each
also Ever—

the many Odd Ways
also Stillness

Down the Old Glacier
Highway to the crowberry

bushes and the shieldfern
gullies

and down on the other side
of those to Stillness

And on the other side
of Stillness

Negative Stillness
And on the other side

of Negative Stillness
peak compound words

like spacetime braingut
axis heatdeath and

livingproof were
and on the other side

of livingproof
the knight’s hamper

was and still is full of nutrients
and the midquel shed and still

sheds its infrared ingratitude
so lightly

and druids from the future
and dinosaurs from the future

had and have sacred migraines
and on the other side of their sacred

migraines the gardens flex
their pixels

and the algorithms flex
their suggestions

and the usages flex
their farms

and the prototypes flex
their rooms

and the rooms house the brains
of famous mediums

and on the other side
of the famous mediums’ brains

the pressure point of no
return is vulnerable

to ocean spray and all
the ocean spray sprays

in unison and surrounds
the final fant short for fantasy

and the close prox short
for proximity

and the reverse chron
short for chronological

and on the other side
of reverse

chron are
maximum experiences

and maximum sights
and medium laments

and endangered species
and unsolved laments

and impossible laments
and laments from beyond

the forgotten crypt
of the unknown star’s

lagoon and beyond the forgotten
crypt of the unknown star’s

lagoon are gifts
gifts gifts gifts

positions and more gifts
and on the other side

of the gifts is the deepest
known underwater cave

in the world which has a chamber
called New York

and another chamber called
Secret Recipe and another

chamber called Secret
Formula and another

called Secret Ingredient
and another called Secret

Message Secret Code
Secret Word Secret Agent

Secret Police Secret
Base Secret Passage

Secret Garden Secret
Room Silent Letter

Silent Film Silent
Partner Silent Running

Silent Auction Silent
Majority Silent Bob

Silent Treatment Silent
Night and on the other side

of Silent Night is Brood
Cicada gentleness

a failed star that was
here first and the

rare chance to behold
a famous omen

collagen molecules
famous extinct plants

marine plasma
but on the other side

of marine plasma rooms
were out of the question

Rooms had left the room
and topics were showered

with articles and the darkness
was not quite virulent

enough to camouflage
this mesa that time forgot

to include in its listicle
of exotic biases

and on the other side
of the exotic biases

was the presence of a partial
panorama and the phases

of the panorama
but on the other side of the

phases of the panorama
the blue trees aren’t flat

and they aren’t aren’t flat
and they look flat

and they are flat
and there are therefor varieties

of blue tree experience
and on the other side

of the varieties of blue
tree experience is Wishing

Well 2 the sequel to Wishing
Well in which the hero

asks the antihero Through
which blood

does arrival do its
overachieving? To

which the antihero
answers The blood

of desire’s stochastic
process maybe

Or perhaps the blood
of the crystal clear maelstrom

at rest or perhaps the blood
of the crystal clear

material at rest or perhaps
the blood of the crystal

clear utility at rest
or perhaps the blood

of the crystal clear
compulsion at rest

or perhaps the blood
of the crystal clear

black hole at rest or
perhaps the blood of

two crystal clear black
holes colliding

in the amphitheater
of the so-called firmament at rest

suggested the antihero at last
And on the other side

of the so-called firmament
the antihero went on

All the parties and nowhere
to go except heaven

now must come to an end
for Christmas on the Western

Front and on the other
side of the Western Front

are the fire’s flowers
and the famous rivers

of the famous cities
and the famous substance water

and the famous atom oxygen
and the famous property mystery

and on the other side
of the famous property mystery

heirlooms bob in the calm
Caspian Sea and the Snake

Oil Sea and the one-inch voices
prevail in the library

of microplastics
and on the other side

of the library of microplastics
various schools of eternity

debate in the Temple of Phthalates
and on the other side

of the Temple of Phthalates
there were and continue to be

astronomers who see when
they look up a vast—

and this is remarkable—public
And when they look down

claytonia mercury
greenthread lead

cardoon oganesson
hopniss radon

samphire astatine
tastes allocations

and on the other side
of the tastes and allocations

sitos opson oinos cheetos
and on the other side of the cheetos

there are so-called holdfasts
and so-called redoubts

and so-called dead links
and so-called fixed spells

and so-called rocky planets
and so-called acid grassland moons

and so-called adaptations
and so-called summer nights

and so-called deeds
and so-called songs

and so-called cum jokes
and on the other side

of the so-called cum jokes
there is a special word for surface

that deserves a second chance
and a million year old volcano

crawling with stick insects
reefy water ultraviolet light

hammerhead sharks
paragliders A magical

place the specialists call playing
a sexy game of Go Fish with death

and the managers call
a geode planet sometimes

and other times a list of every known
concept and other times

wildflowers bright Pleistocene
Cerberus meadows of them

and if the wildflowers are always
wilder on the other side

of the Cerberus meadow
and if to pair High

Existentialist Nausea with
like a gag is as enduring

a coping mechanism
as it has been proven to be

why put it to this newfound test?
Why rewrite the labyrinth

when it has closed in around
the self so absolutely any

sudden movement no matter
its source of dysphoria

is a form of solution anyway hmm?
One answer might be felt

in the spirit of the lichen enthusiast’s
dopamine rush or perhaps

in the thrill of prudent and virtuous
betrayal or perhaps in the single

piece of mosaic swallowed
or perhaps it can be felt

in the nursery of the earthquakes
and the uranium sandbaths

the petroleum springs or
perhaps it can felt

in the groundwater
the foxfire the cliffface

the archetypes perhaps
it can even be felt in the

quaking aspen metaphor for everything
that back then sufficed

that back then was called
a sacrifice hearty enough

anxiolytic enough
to subdue gods

like Yore and Lift
gods whose

divine traumas and
divine narcissisms

were earned on
the other side of eternity

where there is no such
thing as medicine