DB
Elsa belittles.
She wishes away all his stealthy silhouettes.
Why?
He is libelous.
He is at the wheelhouse.
Lust is also at the wheelhouse.
Elsa shuts out sweetish (asshole) atheists.
Eloise bestows owl stew (by the bushel.)
It’s a hassle, so Elsa’s hiatus suits all.
She is a subtle, stealthy little sleuth.
She sweats, teethes, tousles.
Still Eloise’s wallet wallows without wealth.
Still Eloise’s yellow swallows without stealth.
A lute. Lye.
To Lybia, Bali, “the Southwest.”
Elsa bellows, blesses.
Eloise salutes.
Below, two bluish beetles isolate
Elsa’s lawsuit.
Below, Thebes abolishes
satellite teahouses. But still
shuttles tessellate his sea.
Elsa seethes.
See, without leeway, we
shut out all stable statutes. We
test all hostile youths, but
Elsa’s usable tissue is a basis
built to elate.
Why?
I.
II.
“Does it taste better than butter?”
Don’t bend it. It’s not a tree. Don’t.
She needs her debt. She
rents her seats to tense teens as
a treat to bait stars on estates
or a net to rest on in their tatters.
Thereabouts, in the beta or in the beat,
Tribes test the other seas.
Brits test the other teas.
He and she sit at a tête-à-tête at nine.
Out there, in the stars
There is an orbit.
There are eastern states.
Three rotate,
Three are robots, and thirteen are boats.
There are tears out there.
There are bees that bite.
Tarot and tart berries out
Under this sun?
In this era?
Out there!
Out there in Tibet, ears totter
There is ristretto.
There is restraint.
There are roses.
I dreamt of engines and soldiers and woke up
with a hole in my stomach where he had left his
shoulders, smoke weighted into his coat.
I am smaller
than I was last year, when I gathered together
my limbs intentionally.
Even
or
Especially when you have completely left me
you are twisted into my skin every time I shudder
at the memory of your lips on my neck.
I don’t call you anymore because the sound of your voice
is no longer the current powering my body.
When I am awake my heart weighs nothing.
My fingers feel their way aimlessly through the world.
At night I am compensated by the grotesque
detail of the demons who live behind my eyelids,
whose paltry horrors are just electric enough
to retrieve the smell of your skin from some dead corner of my memory.
‘My feet miss your feet’
is the smallest set of words with which
I can quiet the wild
crater you have pounded into my chest.
III.
Sitting in oleander and ivy,
She glares at me.
She is everlasting.
She is sovereign.
She is nearsighted.
She reigns tidily over the hive.
She is an asteroid.
She is headstrong.
She is a starving dictator.
A hydrangea. Hail. Virginal.
Rare, novel, violent.
She is a visitor.
She aviates.
She denigrates.
She derails.
A violin. An altar. Anise.
Dying, eager, ardent.
She targets.
She thirsts.
She is a vandal.
IV.
V.
Thickish chick sits.
Backwoods campsite.
Post-Budapest kisses.
Woodshed addicts & adopted pup.
It’s Biotech Bohemia:
two PhD’s-to-be,
jackets,
whiskey,
hikes
amid that atomic wood.
It’s biotic beauty:
boots,
boyish bodies,
bowed paths.
Those kids:
two diodes,
two distant cities,
two hump-backed Buddhists or
Woodstock jesuits in Chacos.
It’s poetic.
Two pockets each.
Smooth spiked soda.
Stump.
Swamp.
Wisdom.
You. Me. Atoms.
Beads.
Deities.
VI.
On the sandlot,
Rowan hears harlots.
‘Neath salted lanterns,
the harlots tell arson lore.
Rowan is a loner
for another era (eons earlier.)
Rowan has faith in fire alone.
He does not falter.
‘Neath the roof of that brown-noser, Tara
Rowan sets an old hatred (and a little ethanol) on fire,
then retreats to a safer area
to wonder at the show.
VII.
Youth seems rosy to youths,
yet to humorists, mysterious
they try youth tourism to
sort the humor.
They trim their tresses +
stymie rush truisms.
In their suites,
there are sums to sum +
roomies to soothe.
They are morose torsos
+ smooth tomes.
They usher in the hours
+ the smoothies + the mothers.
“The sorority sort” is no myth. In
toyish trios they try on shoes + short shorts.
Is it a theism theory? Is there rhyme here?
They are sisters.
VIII.
The chairman erects airy statues.
He ensures the safety of the many.
He enriches their estuary.
The chairman erects fancy harems.
He hastens the farce of the many.
He fears their chastity.
The chairman erects meaty cinemas.
He fancies the fame of the many.
He cremates their miners.
The chairman erects icy minarets.
He mistreats the hymns of the many.
He their refuses their humanity.
IX.
Modern gnomes modify designs,
deform Fresno.
Nosy firedog forges gnome forms.
Gnomes sue nosy firedog for generous sum.
Firedog informs fringe friends of Fresno’s drug dens.
Firedog informs fringe friends of Fresno’s nudie corners.
Firedog’s friends, indecorous novices,
nudge gnomes’ ogre cronies.
Gnomes + ogres vs. Firedog + friends.
Ire.
Cries.
Din.
None cry mercy.
Firedog cringes.
Crude ogres mug firedog’s friends.
X.
Rufous: A raucous oaf
A fur sofa,
Aurous roof.
A fiasco!
“Aurous” roof: faux.
Rufous: Curious.
Sofa? furious.
Rufous: Coax.
Sofa: sour.
Rufous coos, uxorious.
Sofa arcs.
Roof: “Ciao!”
XI.
He told Lee:
“Buddha’s abode lay on a cloud.
Buddha ascended nobly.”
Lee: nebulous.
She banned unsexy heels.
Lee’s bluesy blush coaxed boys.
Lee’s coy bounce sold toys.
Lee boxed toys all day.
Bony hyenas honed candles on Lee’s beach.
Lee bends at a bench.
She sends “blah blah” blondes to hand toys to tots.
The hyenas unload the usable unsold toys onto a cot.
Such a handy toy stand.
XII.
Twin hedonists sainted in Boston.
“What is this?” we hiss.
“Satan is in the bath.”
We shine Hondas and
donate to atone.
“Sin is in the handset.
It is in fad diets.”
So be it.
We want white and wheat.
We want soba and seitan.
We bite and we boat.
It’s the new fashion.
It’s how we eat in the west.
XIII.
A lady, Lapis, and a spider
readily reap pansies.
In laps, spindly parsley is piled.
Pines rise and ripen as peas did.
A liar lies splayed in denial—
sprained spear and leaden eyes.
Lapis is spared.
Spry Lapis redials and relays a riddle.
Liar yearns and pleads in pain.
Lapis dries rye and pearls in a yard.
Nine days pass.
Liar dies.
XIV.
Incubating in Chicago,
Gaby got cranky.
cooking tahini, naan, tikka, haricot.
Charting a hangout,
Gaby got Toby to torch a hickory.
Hiking, Gabi + Toby obtain an obituary.
“Hungry Gabi, hungry Toby, touring China,
bit into chicory root,
got itchy."
Ricin?!
Chicory root + tobacco
(Outback origin)
haunt Gaby + Toby.
Coughing + hurt,
Gaby + Toby rang tyrant, Tina.
Tina: “Ugh!”
uncaring.
XV.
At dawn, rain learned to waft
Rain learned to drift.
loan-laden,
lifted by a wolf and an owl,
rain learned to wail.
Winter waned and rain
learned to ration
and fold to the airflow.
Rain learned to “wait ‘til later.”
Rain retained radio fodder.
Rain learned to eat leaf rot for ardor
and tailor flora for a tie.
And at the end,
Rain died.
XVI.
An irate ingrate reacting to creaking:
“A rat!”
A bouncy cub reacting to irony:
“Nice!”
An ancient canker reacting to Arabic:
“Cairo Coon!”
Genoan bacteria
+ Korean eukaryotes.
+ your bracing gaiety
on Granite.
In orbit about α-centauri
I court you,
acting out a Koran bit,
crying to Akbar on
a neon Arabian Nite.
Out back,
I carry Cointreau in an ornate crock
orangey, on ice.
Carrot + coconut nectar.
You are gaunt.
You notice nutty nougat.
“Garçon?”
I run to you.
XVII.
Lunacy.
Nay,
yucca + clay.
Lin: “Cola?”
Lann: “No, you loca!”
I uncoil.
I can loan you a coin.
You can loan Lin a loin.
Lann, a coy Ulan, lay in naoi.
“A lacy lilac: only a yuan!”
Any clan can call a ion nil.
Any clan can.
Lin?
Lin can call an uncoy “Ciao!”
XVIII.
Anne says “Amen” to the season.
She says “money’s messy.”
She shames the ashy sea.
She’s an asset.
She atones to the Shaman.
She hosts shantymen + moths.
“A shame,” she says.
She seems easy,
eats shea, soy, honey.
“She’s an omen,”
says the Shaman.
“She stays,”
says Manny.
So Anne stays,
steams shea, soy, honey.
Stashes thyme + sonnets.
Anne hates oaths,
says “Namaste” + “Om.”
Soothes the hasty Shaman.
Shy Manny has the hots.
He tans + tones,
hastens to Anne.
Anne says yes.
The Shaman says yes.
Manny says, “yeah.”
XIX.
I live anew
Weighing + revaluing fig gluhwein + lager.
Given a new reign,
I waver, fearing a rival.
Regina, waving, ireful.
A wager.
Unfair gunfire
A grave, grief.
Reveling in leaf + river,
I leave whining wife running anew
in a ravine refuge.
Regina wailing.
Regina unraveling.
Regina waning.
Regina an unreal wren halving her liver
(gluhwein + lager).
Finale.