Consonance

late, in aqua and ermine, gardenias
scaling her left sleeve in a spasm of scent,
her gloves white, her…

A resemblance in sound between two words, or an initial rhyme.

I climbed through woods in the hour-before-dawn dark.
Evil air, a frost-making stillness,

Not a leaf, not a bird,—
A world cast in frost. I came out above the wood

Where my breath left tortuous statues in the iron light.
But the valleys were draining...

you know I ain’t mess w/you ’cause of yo’ friends
wouldn’t have you caught slummin’
know you hood 'cause you said

I look the same
and I said
you look the same

and I said “it don’t crack, doit?
and you said “Uh, OKAY?”

that’s that thing right...

then the clouds rolled in
young is the night that is to say
a cellophane softness ensued
which blew across the sky like wisps of straw
their firearms—a job well done
young is the night

and when the circus tent begins to blaze
beneath the eyes speak...

picture this. I’ll play the killer. 16 millimeter.
ebony and ivory. the purest contrast. iris closed.
open sesame. a screen of creamy white satin.
on that wedding lap a white persian cat. a pale
hand pets. milk purr. pan up slow. it’s me see.
in...

A body must remind itself
to keep living, continually,
throughout the day.

Even at night while sleeping,
proteins, either messenger, builder,
or destroyer, keeps busy

transforming itself or other substances.
Scientists call these reactions
—to change their innate structure,
dictated by DNA—cellular frustration,

a cotton-cloud nomenclature for crusade,
combat, warfare, aid,...

bleed bull (lip, hair, spine)—sad candy fad—
anon, i shave a dad, dig a staff into mud,
stir daddylevel dick in hole—figpink sequin
froth—an idol (lunate god of ivy, cunt, anal,
riverdoes, holy bitchwolf, form)—oh whir of
illustrative land—oh sedate eyes, tell
nothing, deny map—chew he-twig,...

            We real cool. We   
            Left school. We

            Lurk late. We
            Strike straight. We

            Sing sin. We   
     ...

It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as...

Felicity the healer isn’t young
And you don’t look him up unless you need him.   
Clown’s eyes, Pope’s nose, a mouth for dirty stories,   
He made his bundle in the Great Depression

And now, a jovial immigrant success
In baggy pinstripes, he winks and wheezes...

i.
here: our forsaken home

mesa breaks desert
dialing curve of mountain

territory of anthropology
of the outlaw

where you taught me how to shoot that .22 real good
rifle butt steadied against the shoulder socket

a wild pulsing third arm

postures of stillness and reserve
practiced cunning of the...

"How does the water
 Come down at Lodore?"
 My little boy asked me
 Thus, once on a time;
 And moreover he tasked me
 To tell him in rhyme.
 Anon, at the word,
 There first came one daughter,
 And then came another,
 To second and third
 The request of their brother,
 And...

The big doll being broken and the sawdust fall
all scattered by my shoes, not crying
I sit in my dark to discover o failure annulled
opens out in my hands a purse of golden
salvaged sovereigns, from floors of seas culled.

The dancing doll...

Sit on the bed; I'm blind, and three parts shell. 
Be careful; can't shake hands now; never shall.
Both arms have mutinied against me,—brutes.
My fingers fidget like ten idle brats.

I tried to peg out soldierly,—no use!
One dies of...

Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade
How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash;
And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.

Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt...

Crashing
again—Basquiat
sends fenders

& letters headlong
into each other
the future. Fusion.

AAAAAAAAAAA.

Big Bang. The Big
Apple, Atom's
behind him—

no sirens
in sight. His career
of careening

since—at six—
playing stickball
a car stole

his spleen. Blind
sided. Move
along folks—nothing

to see here. Driven,
does two Caddys
colliding, biting

the dust he's begun
to snort. Hit
& run. Red

Cross—the pill-pale
ambulance,...

Use a new conductor every time-out
you have sextet—before foreshore,
before pen name gets anywhere
near any bogey opera glass
(to avoid expulsion to any bogey
flunkey that can carry infidel)
Handle conductor gently

Put conductor on as soon as
pen name is hard
be sure rolled-up ringworm is...

Myths of the landscape—
the sun going down in the mouths of the furnaces,
the fires banked and cooling, ticking into dark, here and there the sudden flaring into roses,
then the light across the long factory of the field, the split and...

Like the waxwings in the juniper,
a dozen at a time, divided, paired,
passing the berries back and forth, and by
nightfall, wobbling, piping, wounded with joy.

Or a party of redwings grazing what
falls—blossom and seed, nutmeat and fruit—
made light in the head and...