All of us are smitten by the cute. And the shine of symmetry. The clear, un- blemished skin of stunning’s layer. I could sing each varied note of your cantata. In its proper key. Something that’s beyond my scratchy throat. My wineless inhibition. You say the sweetest intonation was from a haggard in the alley, bottle on its side beside her feet—bare, sniffed out by a rat’s consuming hunger:   Mama take me with you. Reach down with your hands, gently tickle like you did. I rem

Heaven will be a never- ending church service. We’ll be singing our lauds to the Lord forevermore! And that’s the good  place? You mean Hell is gonna be even worse? We sat on a wooden pew for 90 minutes. The sermon warned of Satan’s crafty wiles. Our asses ached like the devil. When I asked if there’d be pillows, he said he didn’t know. But some of the Angels shed their milky feathers.   What’s the point of moulting if it brings no sense of comfort? My son who died at seven w

There is always something said of rising smoke. There is fire. But it might just be my camel’s cigarette. No, you read that right. I’m not  a shill for Camel,   their burning cancer sticks my parents smoked. I mean the one I’d ridden home from the Gobi Desert. There’s no other valid reason to visit the Gobi. Not for the superfluous sand. How it gets in your every orifice.   I’m not gonna bother to tell you how we crossed the Atlantic Ocean. It’s already clear   you don’t beli

I’m considering converting to Judaism. Only so I can don a yamaka. My bald spot’s like a cancer— one of embarrassment. I should be in a fucking monastery baking bread. But those are the Franciscans. Watch it spread & conquer every inch upon my head. Like the blob— goddamn Slavic genetics. Some idiot on Seinfeld converted for the food. I mean sure,  a knish is nothing to sneer. I won’t even mention circumcision. That’s not the biggest problem, believe- it-or-not:   According t

Nothing’s more divisive than belief.   The foundation for believing’s miles deep. Its wall beyond the cirrus. You insist the Earth is flat. You can only dig in meters. The sky is breached in furlongs. Touch its crystalline upon your ladder. Belief is loudly heard in our preferred   glossarium: Go back to your own country. Learn to speak in English.   Our parapet is guarded by those in camouflage. They come in triune flavours: jungle, sand & snow. They’re working on aquatics.

This website I’ve discovered is vastly sophisticated. It’s not imploring   me to accept intrusive cookies —rather, crème brûlée— its outward, sugared sheen, in touch with its inner pudding. Oatmeal chocolate- chip wanted to know my every going; who I’m voting for; whether I’ve an innie  or an outie.   The crème brûlée  inquires if I’ve ever studied Chaucer; my favourite Athenaeum; what I think of multiverse.   Cookies are moiety at best;     a crumbling, half-baked Mob,   thr

You’re the shadow on the floor who’s told to dance. The trot from an orange fox, willing to play the hunt. The hounds all bark at once. A...

You muttered under your breath I’m stupido, as though I’m too dumb to know what it means. While I grew up in Little Italy,  you say I’m...

Do not stoop and whisper your affections to my ear. Don’t stroke my bearded chin like I’m a cat, 3 ½ feet away, expect a murmur like a purr when we’re in public. You told me years ago: I don’t do the PDA. Even fingers inter- twined will give us both away. Displays are for the window, the mannequins all a-twist at Rowland Macy’s— faceless, unable to hear the rabble’s lame guffaw—   in order to sell some hare- brained Hasbro thing, dots the size of planets to a child—   a yell

Basho’s frog was just a toad. Never had a wart in all the years. I mean Basho, not the toad. How can he write of life without the...

Nothing is what it seems. You stared at the solar eclipse for twenty minutes, orbs of blue as naked as your birth, their flame like...

I think he’s bigoted. Complains about the Muslims, the script of Arabic,   its use of dots and sickles; unaware we’ve loved its digits...

Everyone here is racing yellow lights. No one likes to ponder life at reds. The fragility of tulips. The radio’s always playing the same...

A poet cannot make a magnum opus. It’ll never achieve the stars. Two roads diverged in a wood ? No, trees won’t get it done, and a path’s...

the only way out is in —Junot Díaz After lunch you’re pleading don’t sweep away the whits from the picnic table. Leave them for the...

As we sit upon a bench in Reynolds' Park, you say that I’m indifferent to your pain. Your neuropathy. Autistic bloody savant. Your...

Mr. Play It Safe, was afraid to fly —Alanis Morissette You click away Ironic, hear the morning gab on Radio Wire: Heroes come in varied...

—the 30 th  of September They say nothing rhymes with orange. I find that rather strange. Maybe nothing rhymes with truth. Goes with...

It’s the proverbial sledgehammer/fly, a Captain Hook who’s gashed  by his little itch, his cheek now lined by his lapse of memory. You...

Incident is a funny duck of a word. It can mean a clean-up in aisle 7,  the spill from a bag of salt. Your fear it will be re- taped, sold with a dollar off. How can you be sure it wasn’t sugar? There’s another “ongoing incident” at school. Eleven mowed down in class. The shooter acting out his manifesto. Bullets darting by like killer bees.   The keeper who is stung is just an incident. The wear of her crumpled suit. Bought at TJ Maxx. Perhaps for Hallowe’en. The holes in