Bodies and Antibodies

Why does the physical seem more real to me than the spiritual?

For Plato, reality was pure intellect.
Why do I feel different, not unique?

The body seems more real than the soul, that’s all.
Only a knee can genuflect.
That’s why the physical seems more real than the spiritual.

But Plato required the real to be eternal.
Well, the physical itself must be eternal in some respect,
quickest by becoming unique—

by becoming One, a singular not a plural—
not just a hamburger but a Big Mac—
the yummiest spiritual

entity of them all.
Unlike the physical, the spiritual is perfect,
genuine, and unique.

—Not wanting to expose either one of us to ridicule,
Plato, my friend (depending on how the deck’s
stacked): your spiritual takes my physical;
my different takes your unique.

Gift of Warmth

            Image borrowed from Eavan Boland, “Quarantine.”

Why be ashamed of what I really am,
a body?
Who says I’m ashamed?

My body’s made it all the way to Mecca—
a hadji.
Why be ashamed of what I really am?

My body’s a ham—
my body’s bawdy.
Who says I’m ashamed

of the shoddy thing?
I wear bling to make it gaudy.
Why be ashamed of what I really am?

Give the fiddler a dram,
I say—if it’s after five o'clock, pour it a toddy!
Who says I’m ashamed—

starving husband in that Irish poem, drawing her feet to him,
cold and already soddy?
Why be ashamed of what I really am?
Who says I’m ashamed?

Quarantine

Separated from events and friends?
Partly a relief the events aren’t coming round.
Few days, few days.

Some of the events still happen on Zoom—
propinquity not necessary, we’ve found,
separated neither from events nor friends.

Not near to one another in a room,
but we can still all have another round.
Few days, few days.

Some day they’ll reopen all the bars
and we’ll be in one another’s immediate presence
again, no longer separated from our friends.

Will we be in one another’s arms
again? No, we were never all that close.
Few days, few days.

I’ll pitch my tent on this campground,
not separated from those who are nearest me in my heart.
Separated from events but not from friends.
Few days, few days.

For All the Mansplainers Out There

Actually, the raga I’m thinking of
has true passion in it.
Forget about the other ragas.

The sense of time I care about
is the organic not the inorganic one
like all the inauthentic ragas I’m not thinking of.

Imagine time endured only by
minerals and hunks of magma—
like all those other ragas, I guess.

Or think of an Inuit's sense of
snow, so much richer than our limited
notion. The raga I’m thinking of

is like the enlightened sense of love—
not our mundane human
loves, forget about those ragas.

—Some hard-to-grok comments
smell like hierarchical control:
not letting us know if our poem
is like the raga he's thinking of.

They Saw That It Was Good

God, I’m horny today!
my horniness disturbing my sleep.
Can my day still be well-made?

I chanced to end my sleep too early
today, after lounging in my horny dreams
too long, and today I still feel

pretty damn horny, I’ll say—
my private life just what You think.
I’ll feel my day is well-made

if I just manage to play
my mandolin
a bit. I’m horny today,

and I’ll be horny tomorrow and the next day
too, as You had forseen
I’d be. Will my day be well-made

if all I do today is lie in the shade—
just a horny old derelict?
God, I’m horny today!
Makes my day!

Don't Try This on Zoom

I’m an animal that ejaculates.

I really can’t shut up.
That’s why I always hesitate,

always waiting to let words incubate
before I put them in my stump
oration. I’ll ejaculate

before it’s too late
in the date, I hope,
but I’m obliged to hesitate

and dwell on possibilities that both terrify and fascinate
me—like freeing the rope
and going ahead and being the animal that ejaculates.

Feeling I’ve been on the straight-
and-narrow path too long,
singing the “Hesitation

Blues,” with no one for whose sake
to get down and put on my make-
up. I’m an animal that ejaculates.
That’s why I always hesitate.

Handed Over to the Art Police

Do I have something to impart,
or am I just gunning for attention?—
thinking I’m so smart.

I am, therefore I smell a rat.
The universe smells vile in my apprehension,
so I have at least that to impart.

Apprehendo is a third-conjugation
verb. I might be grabbed by the shirt and
flung into the hoosegow, smart

guy that I am, with my bleeding heart
and all the tintinnabulation
that's needed to impart

what’s been clear from the start:
my charming contagious enthusiasm.
I didn’t have to be smart

to find a road to the Palace of Art,
where I’m a completely different person—
one with something to impart
that’s big-time smart.

I Contain Multitudes

I have a phobia about submitting,

and I’m always on myself about it.
Who’d pass up their chance to be the next Milton?

I could have been the next Milton,
but fear prevented it:
I have a phobia about submitting.

That’s why I’m never shitting
and always getting off the Duotrope
pot—powerful database of chances to be Milton.

Blind Milton could see
very well that he was better
than anybody else—he didn’t fret about submitting.

I wonder how he arranged the printing
of his work. He couldn’t broadcast it on the internet
like Bob Dylan, the closest we have today to a new Milton.

Nah, I’ll just keep posting
on my blog. Submitting’s too much of a pain in the butt.
I have a phobia about submitting.
What’s wrong with wanting to be like Milton?

Epistle to Mensa

Wanting to be a member of no club that'll have me—

If you will have me, the worse for you,
but you don’t want me in your club, believe me.

The logic of club membership's funny.
If I don’t join the club, who
will, wanting to be a member of no club that'll have me.

I’m starting to see why
you didn’t let me in when I first sued
for admittance. “You don’t want me in your club, believe me,”

was how I started my
elevator speech, making it all the easier for you
to blackball me and be no club that’d have me.

(But baby, you’re gonna be the one that saves me!—
my baby refuses to join the club too,
but I’m sure’s hell happy we're in our club, believe me!)

I’m not in your club and I never will be!
I’m sure it comes as no shock to you
that I want to be a member of no club that'll have me.
You don’t want me in your club, believe me.

Essay on Love and Poetry

I hate when I have to be aggressive. I don’t like my aggressive self.

What does it mean to be aggressive? There’s something you want, so you ask for it.

Something I want—a lover, a job, a publication.

There’s always the question, do I really want them?

With love, I want the other to love me, but I don’t really want to fuck them.

Why does it always seem that aggression would destroy paradise?

Sweet collaborative flirty relationship—for me to be aggressive would kill it.

Sweet writing activity—submission and performance a completely different brain process. I couldn’t just indolently admire myself anymore.

So now I have to read “Ode on Indolence.” Keats is ambivalent about love, ambition, and poesy. He rejects them, choosing indolence.

Keats sends love, ambition, and poesy (the three urn figures) away because "I yet have visions for the night/And for the day faint visions there is store.”

But for me, love and poetry are forms of indolence, and aggressive ambition is counter to them.

That’s why the aggressive sex act is inimical to love, and why performance and submission are inimical to poetry.

Odd that sex turns out to be a superego imperative. It shouldn’t be.

Flush the Damn Toilet!

Always things I fail to do.

I collect them like Roman coins—
little bearer-bonds of poo

that I retain through
the successive epochs of
my life—all I failed to do.

For example, I failed to make the crew
because I had the wrong kind of pants on.
Please accept this little bag of poo in lieu

of proper payment. I do
my work and have my fun,
but there’s always some aught else that I fail to do—

some ass-kissing salute I fail or refuse
to give. But collecting little bags of poop
is stupid—no one wants to be paid in poo

because of some dumb superego
imperative about shit I should have done—
the things I failed to do,
whole bank vaults of poo.

heart sutra

I found Red Pine's the heart sutra, the womb of Buddhas a fantastic introduction to Tibetan Buddhism. Rather than giving me a translation, it led me to make a version—I find these words written in pencil on the inside back cover:

Gaté gaté
paragaté
parasangaté
Bodhi
Svaha

Gone gone
gone  beyond
gone completely beyond
to the other shore
Amen

Note: I don’t offer the English version as a translation, much less a "correct" one; it’s only a trace of my engagement with the sutra through Red Pine’s book.

Uncle!!!

When will I be done?

When can I stop writing?
When it isn’t any fun

anymore, that’s when.
There’s nothing riding
on it, so I can be done

whenever. The sun
won’t stop shining
its loving-fun-

light on my friends
when my final sonnet
drops the scene,

iambics kissing the screen
like souls alighting
on another shore when I’m done

with today’s poem.
Any day is a good day
to quit fighting
and let words win.

Interrogating the Blood

What am I not doing?

Am I holding something back?
Probably, I’m not loving

enough—if I loved more,
I’d be on a kinder track.
Is what I’m not doing

just being
altruistic
enough, loving

with devout unselfish passion?
Do I lack
concern for loving

others? (and do the others
love me back?).
What is it I’m not doing?

I think I’m just boo-hooing.
This is the sake
for which They died—what I’m not doing—
loving.

Poor Unhouseled Soul

Walked to Target yesterday,
although the days are fading into one another.
But I couldn’t go in anyway—

had to stay
at least twenty-five feet away
both yesterday and today.

I’ve just seen a face
I can’t forget the time or
place. I couldn’t go in anyway,

but we met a thousand days
ago. Your face looks like my mother’s
face in my memory today

as I walk to Target. But, of course, we can’t be near
one another now because of covid—
which takes vicinity away,

we’ll see about eternity.
Hoping all our good times are not over.
Walked to Target yesterday.
Can’t go in anywhere.

Wrestling the Greased Covid Giant

One hundred and eleven Minnesota covid deaths

as of today.
My mother read me the story of David

and Goliath,
who was not a sympathetic character, I’ll say—
kind of a cyclops

was Goliath,
killed with a stone to the eye.
Because in the story my mother read me

Odysseus blinded Goliath with a red-hot
poker and said No Man did it.
But the one hundred and eleven Minnesota covid deaths

will probably be blamed on Delilah now.
David’s hair grew much too long
and Delilah sheered it with a pair of scissors.

So we’re defenseless against the death that’s coming at us.
All of our Biblical heroes are dead.
One hundred and eleven Minnesta covid deaths.
My mother read me the story of Moishe and the plagues.

If I Speak, the Universe Will Explode

Sometimes I only have the choice

to shut up or make somebody mad.
There’s too much noise

as it is.
It's sad,
but silence is the only choice I have

if the trees
are to be allowed
to breathe. I want to lower the noise

level so I can work in peace,
in no mood
to make a choice

to raise my voice.
My voice sounds much too loud
to me—it makes more noise

than a pack of hooting geese
passing overhead.
Sometimes I wish I only had one choice:
to listen to the geese.

Shutting Up Already

Life is messy.

It’s tough to say so,
but I can’t have a “correct” take on everything.

There are some Facebook
posts that I should just ignore.
My feed is messy—

I don’t mind the silly
threads, it’s the righteous ones that make me feel I should  share
my “correct” take on them,

but I’d best shut up—
there’s no use commenting if I just make people sore.
It’s tough to put up with a messy

chat situation, but I can’t take responsibility
for it. There are a lot of people in the world, and none of them are dumb
(how’s that for a wild take on something?),

though I must confess,
the dumb ones might be all of them.
Life is messy.
I can’t have a “correct” take on everything.

Poor Boy, All He Had, Started Down the Road

Did I set out in life to be a maniac?

What might have placed me on this path?
That’s no way to get along.

The best was when I took off in a truck
of freaks and headed for the pass—
I was a maniac, walking down the slope with only a light

day pack. It was a jabberwock
experience, sliding on my ass—
only way I could get down—

then huddling in the cold in my friend’s grasp.
Late April, do the math!
Only a maniac

would camp out overnight without a coat.
That it didn’t snow was
providential luck—

a happy stanza in my karma-song—
breathing miraculous rebirth:
in that fateful night, confirmed a maniac!
That’ll be the way to get along.

Hippolytus Counting Their Luck

Try not to miss

a few of the opportunities
language presents.

You only have to use
words to weave profundities
you'll be happy you didn't miss—

you can even re-write the works
of Archimedes,
language presenting

you with the leverage
to move the Pleiades
out of their tracks. Don't miss

your chance to kiss
Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons.
Language presents

a jackpot choice
of eventualities.
Be awake
for language-gifts!

Goin' Paradin' Before It's Too Late

Too late to work on my book
(it’s been two days now)—
my bloomin’ būk.

I might jerk the throttle and flood the choke,
or I might get on like a house afire,
but it’s too late now to work on my book.

I’m too starstruck
by my own cute face to take a bow,
so I just sit here like Ringo readin' a bloomin’ būk,

like a line without a hook.
I'm the ace with the sweaty brow,
but if I’m going to publish my book,

I’d better get crackin’
on it. It’s really going to be a lot of work,
my bloomin’ būk!

I’ll have better luck
trying to trend the Tao.
Too late to work on my book,
my bloomin’ būk.

Janitor Caeli

          Easter Sunday 2020

Taking inventory.
Counting the telephone poles.
What I do every morning.

Making a foray
into my Facebook world,
taking inventory

of words that might be out there,
like mine, with modest goals.
But this morning

some words went missing—
I was reading them, then they were gone.
So I fear my inventory

count is wrong     
(my log book’s very messy).
Never mind, they were just moved to another

location while I wasn’t looking—
inattentive janitor,
taking inventory.
What I do every morning.

The Narcissism Project

I take pictures of myself in briefs.

Do I make myself prettier by admiring myself?
Self-love is alluring.

But I can’t make myself funnier by laughing at myself,
right?—self-comedy is boring.
I take pictures of myself in briefs,

and they fail to make you laugh.
But I’ll go self-whoring
and you won’t have to watch me admiring myself,

reminding myself
of Gustav Aschenbach in Death in Venice
(the Grand Canal’s no river anyway,

with its dank plaguey mists),
that pretty boy Gus loved so achingly
drowning in oily water while he strutted in his briefs.

No, my love for you is mainly empathy
with your own feelings
about yourself.
Self-love is alluring.

Words from a Dead Peckerhead

Getting harder and harder to stay cheerful
(didn’t I already write this poem?)—
more numb than fearful.

But I don’t want to give you an earful
of my problems, while rhyming on poem again.
Some rhymes are closer

than others when you're attached to life’s umbilical
cord, singing the old refrain:
More fun than evil!

Recognizing that I’m sort of a reptile,
sluggish when I’m not in the sun.
A reptile is at its most cheerful

lying in a warm asphalt road bed, where motorcycle
wheels can rip the sin
right out of its less-numb, more-fearful

skin. “Let’s ride back and cut the rattles
off of that one!”—
voice heard from the cheerful
tomb, bright and hopeful.

Soothing Thoughts

I was all covered up,
and I was sleeping OK,
but I woke up because the comforter knocked over a teacup.

Luckily, my cell phone didn’t get wet.
I had to go to the bathroom to pee anyway.
Then I got covered up

in the comforter again, with a big cat
sleeping by my head.
Hard to get back to sleep.

I lay awake re-thinking dire thoughts.
But it was way too early to get up,
so I just stayed covered up,

feeling the smoothness of my feet
rubbing against each other in the dark,
imagining they were your feet, my buttercup.

So, I drifted off,
and in half an hour I was sleeping like the dead
again, all covered up,
snug as a bee in hyssop.

Iggy's Return

Should I try to work on my villanelle book,

or is it too cold outside?
Does that seem like a non-sequitur?

Well, maybe it is.
I’ve given up rhyming too—
plenty of that in my villanelle book.

But a rhyme can be very faint
and still count. Something can’t
be a non-sequitur if it rhymes—

that’s the secret of the form,
the secret of poetry
itself, as I try to show in my villanelle book.

It follows that to give up rhyming
altogether would be to give up meaning—
everything would be a non-sequitur,

including the sawing caw of a crow in the tree,
just now flown off.
How can I work on my villanelle book

if I just keep on writing more villanelles?
I can’t keep up. My friend sent
me a picture of a poem in my earlier villanelle book—
Iggy revenu.

Walk to Denoyer Park

Walked to Denoyer Park, by the railroad tracks, taking pictures.

Shot several hobo camps on the way.

I didn’t feel unsafe crossing the bridge with a fifty-yard trestle-wall on either side of me, but near the highway I interrupted a woman peeing behind a shed. 

She apologized, but I was to blame. 

Did make it to Denoyer. 

An overcast day.

Had my work cut out, walking home from Denoyer.

Done taking pictures.

______

Walked to Denoyer
Park, by the railroad
tracks, taking pictures.

Shot several
hobo
camps on my way.

I didn’t feel unsafe
with a fifty-yard
bridge trestle wall on either

side of me, but near
the highway I interrupted
a woman urinating

behind a shed.
She apologized, but I was the one
to blame. Did make it to Denoyer.

An overcast day.
Had my work cut out,
walking back from Denoyer home,
done taking pictures.

—

Outwaiting the Quarantine

It’s hard to keep my chin up,
though nothing tragic has happened
to me or those I love yet.

Last night, seeing the sun set,
I still felt I could gather up
my sails and sharpen

my thoughts by writing my snarky notes
for anyone who wants to wander
into my bailiwick. Nothing has happened

to make me stop yet.
It’s a crazy mania but it makes me happy,
while I wait in separation

from everyone except my wife and cats.
A half hour since I brought the coffee up.
Shall I go up and join the hibernation?

It really doesn’t matter, if I’m wrong I’m right.
Something will come up
to help me keep my chin up,
while nothing tragic has happened yet.

Erato Answers

Can I be sanctimonious about my most precious
feelings and experiences?
—No, that would be tedious.

If you want to fetch us,
you must use modest images to clarify your messages,
or you’ll send us

woolgathering. Dodge any hedges
to boldly harvest the fruit you’re feeding us.
Love fetches

the best price, but its lure lashes
us to the mast and makes us feel the blizzard—
the most precious

truths arrayed n imaginary baskets
laden with real fishes, when you’ve
figured out how best to fetch us.

Showing myself living my delicious
life, harried and hazardous—
never smarmy or sanctimonious,
till death do fetch us.

April 5th St. Paul Backyard

Green tint on the ground.

No leaves on the trees.
Loud chirping-squirrel sounds.

The world around.
A fairly cool breeze.
Green tint on the ground.

No fault to be found.
We've paid our dues.
Loud chirping-squirrel sounds,

treble, resound
in my ears. Lower-pitched chattering birds.
Green tint on the ground

almost more like moss than
grass. Beneath blue skies.
Chirping-squirrel sounds

not loud enough to drown
out a finch’s arabesque.
Green tint on the ground.
Loud chirping-squirrel sounds.

Signifying Virus-Free

Now under a regimen

where we’re asked to wear masks—
does that seem

like a necessary precaution?
Depends on how much risk
our health regimen

will abide. May I swim
against the fast
currents of air that contain

measurable traces of Covid-19?
The last
thing I want is to die of my own regimen,

allowing me
to walk outside without a mask.
Wearing a mask’s at least

a semiotic form,
like crossed bones on a mast—
a regime
of seem.

The Old Farmer Pronounces on Zoom Open Mics

All these Zoom sessions are annoying me.

Couldn’t we just settle for solitude,
while the future appears more and more alarming?

Having alarmist me
in a Zoom session is not recommended.
All these Zoom sessions are annoying me.

People “get together remotely.”
They’re shut-ins, their jobs have ended,
and their future appears more and more alarming

to them. They read their poetry
to the others, which may or may not feel like a companionable
way to interact in a Zoom session, or even

face to face. I wish we could just play Parcheesi
or titillate one another on Zoom in the nude,
while the future appears more and more alarming

to us. I’m the same about open mics,
Zoom or otherwise—I don’t really enjoy them.
Zoom seems too claustrophobic to me,
now that I’ve dedicated myself to ocean farming.

Appointment in Samarra

The mind can trap you in a box.

You can teach yourself the rules of death.
What do I really want?

Always wanting to be a fox
not a hedgehog (bee not spider if you’d rather).
The mind can trap you in a box,

thinking thoughts like breaking rocks,
biting leather.
What do I really want?—

To take a walk in harlequin sox,
dancing each step.
The mind can trap you in a box,

but you can wink the cox,
whatever cleaves to the measurement-faith.
“What do I really want?”

you ask, as you try to avoid the pox
by refusing to look death in the face.
The mind can trap you in a box.
What do I really want?

Written in a Time of Plague

Living in a time of plague,
phrases come easy,
but my descriptions are vague

(I look like a hag,
and the skies are hazy).
Before the onset of the plague,

summer was big
and the living was breezy,
but my preferences were vague,

and I waved no flag
but a pink hanky.
And now, living in a time of plague,

my prospects are vague,
YET I’m on the make—
with this ring I wed thee.

Going out for walks every day
on my sandaled feet—
something to do in a time of plague.

And I post on my blog
and a few people see it.
My pretensions are vague,

trying to give and not take—
not taking’s not friendly,
but understandable in a time of plague
when our entire future is vague.

Domesticating the Snake

Things make a lot more sense
when you realize
life is only about sex.

The hard evidence
surprised
us—we couldn’t make sense

of the fact that assholes and pricks
always win the race.
If life is only about sex,

aren’t assholes and pricks what we’d expect?
But now that God
has stopped making sense,

we can conceive of love as a new project,
something that can still be won
in a life that is only about sex.

The world can regain its innocence
because the snakes have moved in with us.
Now things make much more sense.
Life is only about sex.

Better Than When I Was in the 9th Grade

When I was in the 9^th grade

I wrote nothing but love poetry,
but I was afraid

to approach the one who made
me sad and mopey—
I just wrote 9^th-grade

poems that I never even gave
them. They kept their distance, which was fine with me,
afraid

as I was to interact with them and try to make the grade.
And would it have been worth it anyway—
my 9^th-grade

self and my precious love in a roll in the hay?—
an unimaginable reality,
I’m afraid.

Yet now in my old age
I have a friend who puts love-zing into my poetry
again, much better than when I was in the 9^th grade,
because I’m not afraid.

Poetry

Something I’ve been aware of all my life

(my school friends clued me in):
most people are turned off by the word “poetry.”

It’s that hard-headed American reality
test that’s applied to everything—
something we’re aware of all our lives.

“I too dislike
“it,” said Marianne
Moore—turned off by the word “poety.”

Imagine calling yourself a “poet”: half
the people will dismiss you in
a minute, the very half you’ve kissed up to all your life—

they write you off for fluffiness and faggotry—
that’s why you’re so reticent
with the ditties that you make—your poetry.

When it comes down to it, reality bores me.
I’m putting my money on impossible love—
whatever hard-headed American reality
prohibits—you can call it “poetry.”