Behind the tacky mailbox sways a stand of Queen Anne’s-lace
craning above the pothole only deepened by the mail-truck.
Car-keys have scratched out most of the purple appliquéd butterflies,
no longer idealized outlines that dance above the digits,
antennae brushing numbers feebly re-emphasized with magic-marker.
You’ll never rid the hillside of those clutches of sumac:
now they are yours, touched with choke-cherry bushes and nightshade,
berries crimson as a blood-drop that oozes from a pricked fingertip.
Emperor butterflies were supposed to feed on these weeds.
When the Queen Anne’s lace makes brown and broom-like bundles,
the caterpillar was supposed to crawl the stems
feed on dead lacy flowers. And once hatched from the chrysalis,
they’d flock the land the mailbox represents,
settle above the lawn, cool the sky with just wings.
That doesn’t happen. Not a single black emperor butterfly
hatches. Nothing climbs the wild carrot to feed on the flower.
After the dog-days, the lace is clutched and unmolested.
This scene makes the lakes a carriage ride away feel remote as Arabia,
mocking-birds among the wind-stripped oaks and maples.
The neighboring mailboxes are uniform and standard-issue black.
The remaining vinyl butterflies become an embarrassment.
The Emperor butterfly is said to feast on Queen Anne's Lace,
wild carrot flourishing in soil as poor as this, and weed-pleated.
The caterpillars were said to crawl the stems of the weed,
To metamorphose among the late no longer lacy flowers
That neither beautify nor hide this hillside of shale.
Neither one thing exactly or another: only unwanted mullein
Rival the wild carrot and the cones of sumac:
So beware of theories, of things heard about, of hope itself.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Saturday, April 9, 2011
From Oct. 23 2010
Nature is a shop casting out more prototypes than it keeps.
Its factories and foundries, its offices and exhibition rooms are among the clouds.
Its numerous divisions cannot be counted.
Its designers contemplate a species in a conference room the boundaries of which are never fixed.
It is the most generous of employees to a fault.
And its modular business model, rhizomatic and infinitely adaptable management structure the object of envy of any multi-national enterprise.
Its campus and its branches are everywhere.
But the location of its officers is a difficult question to answer.
Its factories and foundries, its offices and exhibition rooms are among the clouds.
Its numerous divisions cannot be counted.
Its designers contemplate a species in a conference room the boundaries of which are never fixed.
It is the most generous of employees to a fault.
And its modular business model, rhizomatic and infinitely adaptable management structure the object of envy of any multi-national enterprise.
Its campus and its branches are everywhere.
But the location of its officers is a difficult question to answer.
12/6/10
The nurses belly-dancing in their group exercise class. Among them an overweight woman purses her lips. Each dancer sports a belt of golden tassels at her hips that the exercise instructor handed out.
When I rose from the dentist's chair, the hygienist handed me a day-lily. I placed it on my car's dashboard. They spend the afternoon excavating caries from a human cave. On the dashboard, the day-lily dried, not leaving any fragrance.
In the clan the shaman was the weakest member of the group, the one most prone to outsider status, helpless at felling the macroceros or wooly mammoth with a spear. The rest let him stay by the hearth and hallucinate. Was mama the first word uttered from the mouth of the human species when it could shape vocables, or was it a hissing mnemonic sound meant to represent the snake? Whether you're inclined to the former or the latter reveals whether you are Lockean or Hobbesian in outlook. If of the latter stamp, like Dr. Moreau you believe the human species must be tamed, his toenails clipped, his excess hair removed by electrolysis, his impulses medicated to the grave. From womb to tomb, the species can only be constrained. Only harsh lessons lead to the learning necessary for the tribe's survival.
What at first sounds like a woodpecker driving its beak into the already hollowed out and rain-softened trunk of a dying maple tree must instead be the sound of a hammer as it either breaks up concrete or drives a stake into the ground, perhaps hammering a post where a highway guardrail had once been.
With the arrival of winter acoustics are crystal clear, but the sunlight is harsh and blinding, as on the facade of the new library, all picture windows and brushed aluminum siding. The characters that grace the glass panels nearly vanish in the winter sun's reflections. They spell library in several languages. But the ring of hammers is as bright as if they struck the rim of a crystal flagon, or piece of solid quartz whose molecular alignments were so straight the minutest light-beam could travel far within the blink of an eye. Now I hear the chainsaw taking down the dead tree at last. In languages other than our own, library means biblioteca, bibliotek from Biblos, Greek port city that supplied all the papyrus strained from the bulrushes among which Moses' barque drifted, lost.
A glass and metal wall of words forcing passersby to crane their heads to view completely, only for them to be blinded.
When I rose from the dentist's chair, the hygienist handed me a day-lily. I placed it on my car's dashboard. They spend the afternoon excavating caries from a human cave. On the dashboard, the day-lily dried, not leaving any fragrance.
In the clan the shaman was the weakest member of the group, the one most prone to outsider status, helpless at felling the macroceros or wooly mammoth with a spear. The rest let him stay by the hearth and hallucinate. Was mama the first word uttered from the mouth of the human species when it could shape vocables, or was it a hissing mnemonic sound meant to represent the snake? Whether you're inclined to the former or the latter reveals whether you are Lockean or Hobbesian in outlook. If of the latter stamp, like Dr. Moreau you believe the human species must be tamed, his toenails clipped, his excess hair removed by electrolysis, his impulses medicated to the grave. From womb to tomb, the species can only be constrained. Only harsh lessons lead to the learning necessary for the tribe's survival.
What at first sounds like a woodpecker driving its beak into the already hollowed out and rain-softened trunk of a dying maple tree must instead be the sound of a hammer as it either breaks up concrete or drives a stake into the ground, perhaps hammering a post where a highway guardrail had once been.
With the arrival of winter acoustics are crystal clear, but the sunlight is harsh and blinding, as on the facade of the new library, all picture windows and brushed aluminum siding. The characters that grace the glass panels nearly vanish in the winter sun's reflections. They spell library in several languages. But the ring of hammers is as bright as if they struck the rim of a crystal flagon, or piece of solid quartz whose molecular alignments were so straight the minutest light-beam could travel far within the blink of an eye. Now I hear the chainsaw taking down the dead tree at last. In languages other than our own, library means biblioteca, bibliotek from Biblos, Greek port city that supplied all the papyrus strained from the bulrushes among which Moses' barque drifted, lost.
A glass and metal wall of words forcing passersby to crane their heads to view completely, only for them to be blinded.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Select All in Flow
Airbrushed catalogue model, imaged in black pixels,
flies to Arizona from the coast, her splayed pattern
gaping exit wounds through which a crow could fly.
[Arizona’s where the alphanumeric information]
is construed, input and returned to said machine.
Licking an envelope, or batting an eyelash in a windstorm.
a woman in lingerie swells with acupuncture points--
O fudged Noguchi autopsy. Black isn’t color of my true love,
only being where the holes meet, front to back.
Granny’s catalogue lost, she didn’t want the items.
As the pages pass through the postal belt,
shiny form tears from its content. The OCR
[form that shines tears away from content. The OCR]
could not recognize the address (the video screen
displays someone’s autopsy darned with needle-point).
But the person keys her interpretation of the number
bounced to the sorting machine, when the catalogue,
tears and all, drops in the mail tub, labeled correctly.
But to residents of our address in question,
All mail is bad news, and no mail is certain,
re-affirming countless ties, invisible dog-leashes.
Toilet arm-rests, dahlia-patterned shower-curtains,
the TV tray, the recliner, the pillow for posture,
and ultrasonic denture cleaner fitting a hand bag,
say marked for death: you bought that? Why
do you think they sell that stuff at cut-rate prices?
Just wait and try to get replacement parts.
flies to Arizona from the coast, her splayed pattern
gaping exit wounds through which a crow could fly.
[Arizona’s where the alphanumeric information]
is construed, input and returned to said machine.
Licking an envelope, or batting an eyelash in a windstorm.
a woman in lingerie swells with acupuncture points--
O fudged Noguchi autopsy. Black isn’t color of my true love,
only being where the holes meet, front to back.
Granny’s catalogue lost, she didn’t want the items.
As the pages pass through the postal belt,
shiny form tears from its content. The OCR
[form that shines tears away from content. The OCR]
could not recognize the address (the video screen
displays someone’s autopsy darned with needle-point).
But the person keys her interpretation of the number
bounced to the sorting machine, when the catalogue,
tears and all, drops in the mail tub, labeled correctly.
But to residents of our address in question,
All mail is bad news, and no mail is certain,
re-affirming countless ties, invisible dog-leashes.
Toilet arm-rests, dahlia-patterned shower-curtains,
the TV tray, the recliner, the pillow for posture,
and ultrasonic denture cleaner fitting a hand bag,
say marked for death: you bought that? Why
do you think they sell that stuff at cut-rate prices?
Just wait and try to get replacement parts.
At Best Buy (11/18/06)
Post-boomer couples rebound from their Elements
If from Vermont or from New Hampshire Hummers
to buy boom-boxes, or home entertainment tuners
or high-def liquid crystal wall-screens on which
to view in Blu-ray these untamed animate bestiaries.
From the Best Buy demo leap out luminescent
elastic-limbed cartoon zebras, to the naked eye
as detailed as bas-relief or mosaic tile.
After the party Dad with his sportshirt untucked
forks out plastic, the kids rebound in the backseat,
all that equipment squeezed inside the van.
They had to wear matching shirts and ties
as sales personnel. They were his friends,
suburban post-boomers whose children bound
from the SUV to browse screens and double woofers,
fill each freezing McMansion with light and sound.
If from Vermont or from New Hampshire Hummers
to buy boom-boxes, or home entertainment tuners
or high-def liquid crystal wall-screens on which
to view in Blu-ray these untamed animate bestiaries.
From the Best Buy demo leap out luminescent
elastic-limbed cartoon zebras, to the naked eye
as detailed as bas-relief or mosaic tile.
After the party Dad with his sportshirt untucked
forks out plastic, the kids rebound in the backseat,
all that equipment squeezed inside the van.
They had to wear matching shirts and ties
as sales personnel. They were his friends,
suburban post-boomers whose children bound
from the SUV to browse screens and double woofers,
fill each freezing McMansion with light and sound.
Some minute particulars
And when he spoke, he specified a polarized visor, bullet-proof vest,
Hollow shells, balaclava, and Kevlar helmet, he specified
Fragmentation bombs burning magnesium at 2200 degrees Fahrenheit,
Also a 9 mm Glock and Lee-Enfield with scope and serial number
Filed off the registration plate. He specified a leather-sheathed
Bowie knife and two pearl-handled snub-nosed pistols
To fit inside a pair of winterized Cabelas hunter’s boots
And six potassium cyanide capsules stuffed inside the breast pocket
Of a camouflaged surplus army jacket of the 10th Mountain Division
And he specified ampules of pure meth for he also specified fire,
And he specified two cell phones from two separate carriers
And a portable hand-held with frequencies for fire and police
And for every baby monitor in a twelve to twenty-five mile radius.
He specified a tablet computer with built-in Wi-Fi, enough MREs
Pilfered from neighboring commissaries to hole up in a bell tower
For three weeks; he specified canned water and sucrose tablets
For he who is willing and able to raise the cudgel against the evil
In this world on behalf of the Lord. He specified laser tracking,
And a fifty-meter perimeter of invulnerability and free-fire
On behalf of his messengers. He specifies the tiny logics of the drone
To elevate the righteous, drive the Amalekites from hearth and home.
He is specific, and he is literal. He doesn’t leave the details to you.
It’s His plan that He specifies and you are its vehicle and vessel. The book is open.
Hollow shells, balaclava, and Kevlar helmet, he specified
Fragmentation bombs burning magnesium at 2200 degrees Fahrenheit,
Also a 9 mm Glock and Lee-Enfield with scope and serial number
Filed off the registration plate. He specified a leather-sheathed
Bowie knife and two pearl-handled snub-nosed pistols
To fit inside a pair of winterized Cabelas hunter’s boots
And six potassium cyanide capsules stuffed inside the breast pocket
Of a camouflaged surplus army jacket of the 10th Mountain Division
And he specified ampules of pure meth for he also specified fire,
And he specified two cell phones from two separate carriers
And a portable hand-held with frequencies for fire and police
And for every baby monitor in a twelve to twenty-five mile radius.
He specified a tablet computer with built-in Wi-Fi, enough MREs
Pilfered from neighboring commissaries to hole up in a bell tower
For three weeks; he specified canned water and sucrose tablets
For he who is willing and able to raise the cudgel against the evil
In this world on behalf of the Lord. He specified laser tracking,
And a fifty-meter perimeter of invulnerability and free-fire
On behalf of his messengers. He specifies the tiny logics of the drone
To elevate the righteous, drive the Amalekites from hearth and home.
He is specific, and he is literal. He doesn’t leave the details to you.
It’s His plan that He specifies and you are its vehicle and vessel. The book is open.
Jan 23 2011
Friends fall away,
A camel crosses the Sahara.
They buy in the suburbs.
We reach a gorge
Where water cuts rock.
The potted bougainvilleas
On the front porch freeze.
Pine saplings swamped by snow
Cannot block this wind
Stripping the flower bushes,
Making the abandon
Of the English garden
Less likely.
Stony land-spit,
Sharp slopes, the drive up
Far too steep
For most four-wheelers.
Weeds on the banks
That thrive on poor soil,
Erect saffron ropes of mullein,
Wild-carrot, the stems up
From tough roots.
Thinking butterflies
Eat the Queen-Anne’s Lace
When dead and clutched,
Black emperors fly
From the broken cocoons
Nestled in the corymbs
Only in your dreams.
Hardened faces of housewives
Who live near stigmatized trailers.
[Housewives’ faces harden
Near the stigmatized trailers.]
Dairy farmers fix their fence
Before yawning ditches
Once filled with rain.
Who are you demands their looks.
But I’m just passing through.
To your face I won’t tell you
How ugly your house is,
Put you on the spot.
City slicker, how far
Are you above us?
And to what station
Do you aspire?
Put your boots
In manure
With us. Get real.
Beige concrete blocks
Of the shower stall
As waterproof as enamel,
An enameled tooth splits.
A camel crosses the Sahara.
They buy in the suburbs.
We reach a gorge
Where water cuts rock.
The potted bougainvilleas
On the front porch freeze.
Pine saplings swamped by snow
Cannot block this wind
Stripping the flower bushes,
Making the abandon
Of the English garden
Less likely.
Stony land-spit,
Sharp slopes, the drive up
Far too steep
For most four-wheelers.
Weeds on the banks
That thrive on poor soil,
Erect saffron ropes of mullein,
Wild-carrot, the stems up
From tough roots.
Thinking butterflies
Eat the Queen-Anne’s Lace
When dead and clutched,
Black emperors fly
From the broken cocoons
Nestled in the corymbs
Only in your dreams.
Hardened faces of housewives
Who live near stigmatized trailers.
[Housewives’ faces harden
Near the stigmatized trailers.]
Dairy farmers fix their fence
Before yawning ditches
Once filled with rain.
Who are you demands their looks.
But I’m just passing through.
To your face I won’t tell you
How ugly your house is,
Put you on the spot.
City slicker, how far
Are you above us?
And to what station
Do you aspire?
Put your boots
In manure
With us. Get real.
Beige concrete blocks
Of the shower stall
As waterproof as enamel,
An enameled tooth splits.
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