Without Goggles
D Press 2003 Sebastopol
Cover photos by the author
WITHOUT GOGGLES
Seeing beauty, seeing
the grotesque—
the light on a leaf
insects eating the same leaf
a smartly-dressed woman
parading her charms
creases in her skirt
plaque on her teeth
she touches her mane
with a manicured hand
there's excrement
on the hair in her crack
a lingering smile
raises my heartbeat
and the tumor
MARILYN MANSON ON THE RAG
for Tamara
Billy Blake wanders in the chartered streets
crying weep weep weep
Sylvia Plath lies in a basement
her cunt full of worms
Williams Carlos Williams crawls
to his Asphodel
Dylan slashes his eye
Villon thrashes on the scaffold
and The Old Gray Poet
mad blind gay
SEES
all the stars and all the grains of sand
all the bacteria in the shit pile
are children born trembling
FLYING WHITE
Rising with sun,
arguing with darkness,
I set my hand to move
willynilly through a repertory
of cyclic gestures, assembling
lines which wittily approximate
a sea a tree a hill a face.
This is the best day to be alive
because if I'm dead, I'm dead,
and even if I'm dying while I'm alive,
Creation is receding to it's center
to make room for me.
Glory! Glory! Glory!
THE GULF IN US
We're on a longitude
on our way to a latitude
on our way to a kill box
flying around with hot ammo
intending to kill anything that moves
or
we're rowing across a lake
getting nowhere fast
talking about the causes of happiness.
My brain stalls—
PEBBLE
too much—
not enough
SONG AT MIDNIGHT
hard white—infernal yellows—
sulfur and yellowgreen—
UNCERTAIN, CHAINED
rocked—laughing in the rafters—starburst—
splendid—rage mixed with joy—unsubdued
STRESS IN THE FIELD
I'm waiting.
I am exploring non-thought
on Occidental Road
as I hunt in litter.
(Silence.)
I am the world.
The world is me.
(Sounds.)
I think to say something.
I try to say something.
Music
prayer
death all around me
of which
I know nothing.
CLOUDS
clouds
like smoke
like mist
like smoke
feathers
smoke
fur
smoke
perhaps
each
POIPU BLUES
I'm sitting on the beach at Poipu, daydreaming about the 15th century
Joan of Arc is cast out for, among other abominations, wearing men's clothing, her judges are determined to get her to change, condemned in much the same way the Elder Bush condemned John Walker Lind for wearing his hair long, saying, I can think of no worse punishment than to bring him home and make him keep his hair like that
Dubya argues Axis of Evil and scraps six-hundred years of humanistic philosophy, says he will go the last mile, although going the extra mile is what we need—overheard waiting in the checkout line, They don't believe in God; they believe in Allah—John Ascroft holding onto his face, doesn't let his face slip, God has many faces, can his be one?
O ke ola no'ia o kia' a loko Look for the life within
Kiei ka'ula nano i ka makaui
Peer towards Ka'ala, look at the wind
Ho'olono i ka halulu oka Maluakele (pa)
Heard is the roaring wind Maluakele
I watch an old man sweeping the sand with a metal detector, I'm wondering if he's found
anything good, when he stops and stoops to sift for a quarter, a boy in red trunks faces him,
fascinated with this mysterious operation, trickle-down economics
Maui e ka pua, uwe i ke' auu
Bruised is the flower, wailing in the wind
Maui e ka pua uwe i ke'am
Bruised is the flower, wailing in the cold
My reading, this morning, included Borge's "Zafir" where a man finds a coin that is one of the faces of God, or he might himself be one of the faces of God, or the static which whirs in his earphone while he searches the beach might be the face of God, or the face of
God might be the boy, or the whales flipping their flippers right offshore
Ua Hana' ia ai pono a pololei
That which is done is true and correct
Ua haina'ia a kuno 'ia 'oe
That which is spoke stands before you
I'll make a cup of tea, put on sunscreen, and walk across town on my broken legs
INSTALLATION
for Gay
Turning off Fulton onto 12
maneuvering to the left
no, right
Different scripts reverberate
in the inclined box with masking
tape, paint, brushes, pan
& roller tumbling to the floor
The doors to my senses
open—I envision my room in the gallery—
eyes, ears, nose, mouth
Black rectangles the size of doors
painted on the interior walls
thin strips of black running parallel
to the black kick board
Using stick pins, black yarn, wire
neither nest nor web, a handful of fog
mirrors & masks
wrapped thoughts
Boxed images
Revealing the true phantom
speaks the truth
HISTORY TEACHES
I'm expanding my dominions
with might and right
living on the pulse
expanding with axe, rifle and plow
I'm expanding with mini nukes
I'm drowning in life's flow
laughing at inertia
All for the stars of empire—
Throwing myself out there
according to the logic of history
letting come what may
NOT REAL DEEP OR ANYTHING
In your face—
backing off
Look at this—
and worse
The glory, the ruin
the laughter and the tears
What goes wrong
goes and goes
What goes right
just goes—
Walking through shit in
nice shoes
DUAL IN THE SUN
rise/fall
short/tall
high/low
fast/slow
good/bad
happy/sad
yellow/blue
false/true
matter/mind
loose/find
heaven/hell
buy/sell
O, pockmarked moon, I don't
have anything to sell,
either
FULL MOON
Which switch?
The witch switch?
You turn on
the witch switch,
and what happens?
Archaic
Old
Provincial
Yes, and
Yes, closed—Yoga
Concise
Long Poems
in Latin it means,
that's strange, DNA
Enzymes
I'm transported to a place of clarity
and movement.
She smiles, and I'm transfigured.
DEJA VOODOO
for Ashlee
o, never always
would the mind
let go
even the grass
will attain
liberation
WARM LIGHT
for Brent
spring soon
still winter
still winter stillness
the brown ground moves
bees have no attainment
bees have no non-attainment
AUTOMORPH
Being in the body
being in the world
curves in space
I love it all.
A tree and a rock
a sacred spot
because it is
it just is.
I look
I think it through
I do or I don't—
two fish meet midstream.
JUXT POSE
for Meg
Here, rock stillness.
Here, a falcon's freefall.
Here, dangling tassels of wisteria.
Here, a Tibetan mudra mystery.
RISING FROM THE RIVER, FALLING
FROM THE SKY
Nymph, sylph, gopi, elf, seraphim, wild
and silent, outrageous and innocent,
you say my poems are notes for poems.
A blind shadow looms
on the door of my tongue
erecting a shrine to nothing
while ripples of snow and wind
hang by their thumbs
for astonishing rewards.
Hang on, baby, wait a sec,
let me...
SEEING ANGELS WITH THE INNER I
the river runs both ways
innocent, pristine, untroubled
in a clean environment
I'm always making the same mistake
looking closer I see sludge at my door
and the road detour through acid rain
as the bills of regret mount higher
I'm always making the same mistake
the river hugs the bank like a friend
I read love poems on the leaves
blessed by the air's deep prayer
I'm always making the same mistake
the stones simmer on the lake
and night feels like a rotten tooth
and to move I have to roll snake eyes
a million times in a row
I'm always making the same mistake
YES, REPEAT, NO
What constitutes outer avant-garde?
inner avant-garde, secret avant-garde?
innermost secret avant-garde?
Escaping foreword.
Attacking backwards.
Pushing the river.
Drinking the clouds.
All oink in the ink.
All in order on a plate of gas.
Beuys buys a refrigerator.
Rimbaud rides a skateboard.
Tension in a vacuum.
Hazard in a blank space.
Sweet unbearable.
No eyes, no ears, no body.
No ideas but in my underwear.
TRACE-TONES AND AFTER-DOTS
Smells of fungus and fir
rough bark and smooth rock
remind me of a boy
escaping up a creek
in search of Excaliber
or ever elusive El Dorado.
Now, on the more traveled path,
I rein in my passions and
act on consequence.
Crisp though I am from compromise,
a salty will o' the wisp
turned into a vulture snack,
my mind still shifts and drifts.
WORSHIP DOG
for David
some serious fucking parts of my brain
missing
spastic
streams of world sleepy mowing in harvest-time, sowing and reaping for growing field green watch the dreams of dreams in doubtful riot waves spent and wind dead—seems trouble where here quiet is the world
worship Dog
I think I know what I'll do
I think I will decide
to be happy
sitting in my porcelain garden
hollyhocks sculpting my sight
I try to win this war waged in my brain
and stop the war waged in my name
I'm a speck on the earth
the earth
in turn, a speck in space—
objects in my hundred-mile gaze
pulling away from what I designate
a gazebo, where two teenage girls
eat sandwiches on the steps
a pleasing visage of afternoon calm
also, a slap in the face
war begins with a slap in the face
a slap that has the precision of a jet fighter
firing missiles into my room
without disturbing the curtains
the slap begins with a broken promise
followed by harsh words, then a curse, then a blow
breaking my nose, blackening an eye, burning a car
as though I was a car
a car which would take you anywhere
down Interstate 280 to 92 East
getting off on 1st
going down a long hill
past the high school
I hear
"Republicans are good
for nothing."
two men debate in anger
the new candidates
frustrating business, smells
of winter, sound of cars
a muffler blown, laughter of girls, three girls, now
as though I was a girl
talking with two other girls
about taking a picture of ourselves
pink, baby blue, white tank tops
heads together, deciding to go
for ice cream
a boy, fashion conscious
pants halfway down his ass
keeps tugging them up— ass and mid-drift
adrift in the uncertainty
contour of wind making earth designs
at my feet, this activity in clear sky
haze around Mt. Saint Helens
visible between the trees over the stop sign
by the police station, lawn mowing going on
the hollyhocks
in the face of what I see
as though I was a Stalinist
Muriel Short is not short.
She is not tall, and she is not short.
She is about average height. A bit
overweight, but not overweight
in an unattractive sense.
as though I was true to form
it is this that
one means
it is this
that one
does
it is
this nose, dazzling in profile
that one
knows
She's to die for.
as though I was dead
you can spread my ashes
or leave me to be drug off by a mountain lion
use my thigh bone for a trumpet
and my skull for a cup
say, I was drugged off
a poetry junky
Billy Collins says
poetry goes right to the point, he says to
read a poem each day in school
read it aloud without any obligation
to study it, just listen and wonder
"All it takes is one poem to get you hooked."
I saw the best minds of my generation
destroyed by madness, starving hysterical
naked, looking for an angry poem
old, beggared poets reading poems in bathrooms
Anslinger's prophesy come true
poets selling their nickel poems on street corners
THIS IS A POEM FREE ZONE
junk, that poem is junk
The Salvation Army condemns the vice of poetry
Poets Anonymous meets in the church basement
My name is Richard Denner
I'm a poet
I have always wanted to write the perfect poem
Today I will write it
It begins with the sun rising, the morning
Light creating the world
The morning light that I create
By raising the sun with my perfect poem
as though I was a god
