Aleatory Accumulation Anti/Ghazals II-III, II-IV
Literature, Poetrythe past is a myth dreamed up by the present to account for itself
this way leads to death
“it used to be called The Barn”
language is a blunt instrument in my hands
that place of utter helplessness before your misery
that dog is a purebred swinehound
clean up that mess that just gets made a mess again
row of lawnmowers covered in snow
my hair is the hair of a 70s Dutch painter
I’ve been too quick to declare my allegiances
awoken by a skeletal parade banging pots & pans & shooting guns
like a stuffed pig
when you are finally helpless before your work, it is probably done.
Five words for my hometown: “sorry, Mom; drunk in public.”
Transcribed from a cafe napkin:
ground beef = beef you find on the ground
it took seven years to escape
people don’t want to know me
I sleep in on
now you’re always dreaming
the cool of night descends upon the people
remember your dreams!
You put the moon in place of the sun
the lenses fall out of her glasses to reveal nothing
red black vampire cape
she looked just like the Queen of Space.
Marked by the intrusions of the empire
(poor impulse control
& yet I have all these… dead perceptions
the aspirations of a year sneezed away
Prince George is not in line for the throne
I answer my own question
future blank as a gun
my heart’s rotted outta my chest / made a mess
we bought a house next to a house that doesn’t look good
there are no true silences—buzz or hum stalk the perimeter
saw an empty paper cup on a stump, thought: “a poet put that there”
the streets are beaten clean by feet
can’t get that graveyard stink out of your poems
“there are no more bees in Volhynia” —Isaac Babel
come on—you know those guys are just talking shit (that is, shit that can talk
so sings the sleepwalker
rock n’ roll Land of Nod
somehow a prisoner in his blue work shirt
she’s a certain kind of smart, & she’s got a lot of it
& we both hate it when I’m right