Insufflation
for Tom Raworth
Fresh start
she smokes
the color of his eyes
rat, maternal & sexual behavior
in that culture
there was husband capture
the word for inhaling someone else
“stay” plain
an insufflating venture
inventing all the ways of from
as for me and mine
we know how water changes
pitch as it warms up &
connects the poem’s skin up to
curvaceous thought
& open possibles,
pricks up the spring like
songs
my liner notes are
nonlinear notes
Linear Velocity
in a Velocity line
Children meeting
you can only try
Not to subsume
the title into the poem
Words like “crank” & “shift”
“frame”
Thinking as
sexually inspired not so
far from the idea of what
makes me write
Vibratory Ode
Not to work my Vibratory Mode
was one option
I close to forego
What happened to me?
I tried to be like everybody
else for a few moments
out the window
Insufflation
loss or relation or
In your face
elation
suffered inflation
Play it in its
identification
I feel like I can’t read
people’s poems
without loving them
Just having met he said
Tell me everything right now
& give it to me right now on stone
tablets right now please
My other story:
Upon trying to find some Barbecue
in Greensboro, NC on a Sunday night
& upon the suggestion of
a restaurant named I forget what,
She said, “No, that’s Black Tie”
& I thought she meant
“Pigfoot with Lemongrass”
I can tell Electricity
I’ve often been too literal & try
Always to fly over the wings
And what does a body do without its desires?
It tries to get them back (Carla Harryman)
I’m your irreversible Holiday Guest
The phone rang as we walked in the door
Sorry we missed each other
any exchange of info
or Phraseology
I limit my register
Relegation Regulation
Regulating
the specifics of her
encircling the rhythmic phrase
Embrace loneliness & get over it
“What’s normal to you
is strange to me”
Muscle in on
Collage as a grid
I am read
What would you like
(Morningfade)
Too late to lay straight out
Music spins too short to cut back
Amazingly unformulaic exchange of modes
No memory any more than
writing without remembering
Mural pout icy blue irises taste salty
Negative lotion or prosthetic nerve
Too beautiful for use
Exclusive of description
Distant radio blur pensive not
some kind of horrible rhythm
Grinning mask
The black church vibrates
That’s not nice
I’ll tell you a story
Meager income not sleep
Driver to tense up the flowers
Fetch the muscular job
Lack thereof when indifference flutters
Not impressed by personality
Scratch “Music”
Hanging up the phone
Any trick to sit still
Dependent on time not motor vehicles
In the mode of
grabbing the meat
Money exchanged hands
Laying the book flat
She worked it out
The sunlight offered solution
Calling in sick
the ceiling crumbles
Stages of dreaming
travel & funeral
Forgetting the text
Deserted not waiting
a titular running away
Writing for the “ing”
Every click startles my little