Grade Change

If you were instructed to do this: to place a letter on how well you take change into your hands and hair and eyes. How would it form and what assessment would you wind up giving your extremities and your poor poor clothing, your one box room, your slow wintering? Oh there I go projecting. The light from the lamp is not set to throw shadows on the wall, to make pictures move. The lamp is set in the corner for doing naughty lamp things.

I found a broken mirror on the sidewalk. This is good I think, but maybe bad luck to take home and place on a desk say or into my mouth. On my hand the reflection of some letters that were written there days before. No cuts. The fake-like fingers bending and pressed together. The skin all one piece except where it opens.

historically things that enter into phases are not.
lists get undone by lines through them.
the letters in my hand are not meant to be shipped.
there's a sad song on the radio and the dashed hopes in bed.
a starling does not stand a chance against the better handled gun.
the nickel is a weapon, too in its witness.

Odd bedfellows I stole (with an observer)

eventually the tiger will grow tired of being kind and playful and the orangutan will grow a beard and my own beard will wander off into the streets to be with the others. hands will shake and grasp. but now, now is the swaying hour of friendship. look longingly after each other.

for in time: water grows still. for in time: eternity knits its brow. for in time: the tigers of wrath come wise and the horses cross and the owl blind but to the heads of things it kills. and below the trees, stray bodies gather

committed too/tolerence for violence

happy drunken irish day! and in the past the snakes were ridden from a small island and out further from the hipsacks of druids. but several other things had happened.



country shed like a shirt. take my hand
signs and the cold that comes. take my

miles from this year and transfer, there
is no lasting converse/people with their

quiet bodies scrapped, especially at the
workplace. if you intend to lay

claim to thoughts you better
possess another head entirely

formed of instructions for what
to do with them stray and

unkind things--a shaft
of light superimposed

on the window, a whole sky
made of glass and waiting

in accidental lines below. my back
is made of brick and mortar, my

my my my my my my my my
glitch in the recorder. your getting

your used to.
hands in pockets

and kids at war
with the carpet.

Not Good For Transportation

the bus ticket receipt says in big bold letters on its face. the face of the bus says something in a different manner in equally bold letters. the brakes are fire headed things that scream. the windows allow only a little light in. the wheels are relatively round. the music is of people sleeping, their dreams obscene and hovering about their heads. a lay trouble doll gone from one state's smoke filled station to another. in the night and in the day it's a different world and a receipt can not get you anywhere.



insert picture of busses sleeping and people gathered with their angry things outside:






into their faces they're walking already away. go more, says greyhound. and a dog is stuck on its metal outside unable to move and elusive on the highway's shoulder.



you might as well get up. on your way.

Noted, duly.

Directions for Care:

pipes not burst
multi-purpose solution
scores are low
remove deposits
littler up from ground
here is your free
to pay by
may explode or leak
do not carry loose in your pocket
press it here
critics say it must
wolf to keep warm
please submit the name
you're making sick
one intimate portrait
committed to like struggle
obtain your correct address
bustle upsidedown
guaranteed against defects
remove when not in use
a wonderful sense of pace
please read this careful
new way to experience your world

Say goodbye to Madam Joy

is Van Morrison the third level removed from what killing means?

Offer to
squash lemons by the sung throttle. Goddamn I'm glad I grew
outta that. All night station heaven. On the paper a bundle of words
line up:
clog
clutter
collision
colossal
coma
open their hearts and here
this guy was easy to imagine, but some humans
are given more details. They screw you when you're sleeping.

reality is the standard or in the immortal words

i meant to make you comfort. i meant
to make you last. --m. koosman

Hopping along the trash-lined street with a moving van idle in the middle of the road, the man with dog-yellow eyes switches voices from the high pitched plead for (drug/change/assistance) to the baritone, post-question, response of, "yeah, ok, ok, i'm doing ok today." He blows his nose in his hand and turns his head toward the ground.

The pigeons dress up for the sky and each other. Lately a lot of irridescent plumage and display of girth by seemingly desperate males toward highly uninterested females which leads to erratic flight patterns. The sky suddenly empty of wings and a line of birds on the cornice, jockeying. And for this, people hate them.

As for me, I continue to toss and turn, sleepless, waiting for daybreak. And this month, the Department of Agricultyre would like to pay you not to grow potatoes, darling (emphasis misplaced on you and not not). Time configured like a wheel, the city roaring its own disappearance. Within this, another turning.