In the Style of D. H. Lawrence

The B-52 Cockroach

I once woke to your crispy wing crunch between my lips
and though I disowned your family years ago,
you keep naming me godmother to the thousands you spawn.
I want so much to juice you, but I shudder to think of
your sister floating through my jaws as I wail.

In the Style of Gertrude Stein

The Three I Never Knew

I.
Lemongrass, Shelly, lemongrass.
Lemongrass ingratiates if you go towards underworlds.
It is teflon Shelly it is teflon. Polytetrafluoroethylene Shelly.
Do not go the way of the weaker go the way of the weaker if you go that way is not the way.
Rub thyme leaves Shelly your needy leaves lips.
Slipping into your thyme leaves. So slip.
Thyme leaves are solid and when sold sold becomes shoelace strings.
A rabid meadow. A rabid meadow is ending of medication time. Quivering medication.
It will twinkle your twinkie Shelly it will twinkle clown you.
Twinkie organs bust in porcelain icons. Icons can chrome Shelly.
Corn canister. Homeland security nickels. Isotope candy. Watermusic. Sword openings.
You open them all when you open them all.

II.
It is L.
When it is la la la la la.
You are a la.
Why are you la.
La la la.
Statistically a blue la la.
Prickly blue bow rainbow.
Tow a toe on brow below.
Boing.
La la la la la.
Not a peach or impeach in peace.
Research a piece of peace in piece peach please.
La la la la la.

III.
It should be aptly put cupcake.
Cupcake cupcake cupcake.
It should always be solely because it waters tersely.
Cupcake ache awake. Do not awake the wit will pop lucid.
Glow swim swim. Swim it is a whim.

Brittle birds alone.
Bit around strongly. Bite it bite it bite it.
You are because it is a knot. Or are you not you are not.
Bite it bite it bite it.
You are caught unless you are not caught you are not.

In the Style of Gertrude Stein

Inspired by poetry class, but written for a statistics class.

A poem to assignment #1

The dependent variable.
Depends on deep ends ending.
Eating things.

Access decision assess decision assess decision.

Factor analysis.
Fact or analyze this syst.
Syst is system
Stasis is taste.
Plot of items, lot of items, lost stems.

Teapots and caraway.
Away you weight.
Wait waited loadings.

Interaction none.
Action in ion terracotta.

Hypothesizing hippo thighs accept.
Hypnotize eyes reject.
Apothecary.

Duende/Ode Poem

Ode to Three Years of Melting Time

I emerge from my nest, carpet booth in the chimney building,

and through the portals I can see winter like black glass and baby powder.

Hidden beyond, the spears protect the shadow balls with wheeled cages.

Back there, there is proof of the psychedelic campfire, where the cult pricks together.

But I blow by the darkness, beneath the pavement slides bent like monochrome rainbows,

Because up the hill are mad scientist masters like doctor genius monkeys

and I help them birth their caste one f*cking elbow greased lie at a time.

But for one hour each day, I am my own deity:

   I slide down the brown boxes of imprisonment, and I own Thayer Street.

    Shall I carbo twist kiss like Paula Dean? Or pay $3.50 to suckle brown bean juice?

   I'm thinking I don't want to taste something that will oink at me from the inside later,

    so you win, FALAFEL!

    (The girl in line behind me drove from New York City for you.

    She says she's in love with you, but I think she's just one of those lonesome melon eaters.

    I know you're shaped like a donut just to tease me,

    and you have no jelly inside so you couldn't possibly love me - or that melon eater.)

When my 60-minute affair is over, I slip back up and shackle myself awake four more hours.

Ring, ring, ring. Accept, deny, lie. Ring, ring, ring. Deny, lie, deny, lie.

Then it's time for that mad dash through your heartbeat,

I board at the dock of an artery, and with each metallic diesel pulse I am closer to your red core.

I pass the aquariums - the ones that hold faceless money like black suits,

I pass the site of the mobster bloodbaths of your past

(where there are now gay men that make topiaries out of messes like me),

I pass the clowns that dance to Enya as they set the water on fire

(what is so amusing about water on fire that it deserves kettle corn celebration?),

I pass the forgotten windowless slabs where those women fly stealth

(and get drunk on gold as they bulldagger swagger),

Oh, Providence! Only in retrospect can I see:

three years can ghost away as time melts, but I'll never forget.

Life Sings

I arrive at the altar of your radio wave rainbows

Painted in bumping bass tones, rejoicing in rock-us harmonies

Unresolved, discordant dissonance - but only for a measure or two until you

Resolve me, affirm me, alter mood, attitude, and together fuse sweaty hearts;

Echo not just in maestro swings or strings, strum and drum

But in the rejoicing of human hallelujah hums,

Thread strung from om monks overseas, genealogies, and family trees

Quaking as inter-generational, transnational voices join to amazing (roof raising) saving grace;

Then there is that haunting familiar of everyday rejoicing:

Rubber-tire traffic screech on street, lifesaving sirens, and amplification of railroad vibration,

Cough drop chokes, gaping gasping jokes, and the slithering slime of business folks,

But we pay for and pray for the diamond of rare and elegant beauty of the in-between, silence.

The Trauma

The phone

rang but it

was on

silent

maybe you

woke me

to find

mom's voicemails but

I sort of knew

you were gone

before I got to

the hospital.