I photoed a clod of earth shaped like

the sole of a sneaker, on macadam

asphalt.

An artifact made palpable by the

swarmy crush of gravel.

Left to harden, as its sneaker went

off to something far more particular

by design.

How reality comes across.

I'm convinced

the day that doesn't

live me, will be my last--

like: 'We just met & I feel

as if I've known you my

whole life.'

I'm not much of a talker

anyway.

Skulls were honey dippers--that

dripped & drizzled down to

dribbled filaments.

A long line of suns rode a ray, as

a hand went up & a figure

approached.

A bouquet of balloons dragged its

comedown on the side of a road.

Gumballs spiked green space, as

it took on amphibious richness--

while an unsaid curfew lifted from

the ground.

January made any movement feel extraneous, as if something nudged to
haunting irresponse.
Sing Sing Prison was beyond all that, but
never more there--yet not even its
manifestation would have it.
The Mahicannituk (Hudson River)
followed the land two ways--to conceive
more than water.
Ruth Snyder saw that as Sing Sing walled
alive--smothered her prefume, crouched
over lights & coughed out iron.
Queens was a place, this was not--food ate her, water drank her.
A place to make out surroundings that
don't want to be seen, that are put forth
just for deprivation.
"Ruthless Ruth" appealed to her thin frame, dropped it like a hankerchief on
the cold floor.
Almost convincing herself that one's true
nature is unpunishable--as she stood up
again.
"Old Sparky" (name for the electric chair) was seated across from an indefinite coming--its unapproachable presence growing into its features.
Ruth was roaring with the twenties as her lover tried to go thru her--while her
husband wagged his tail somewhere.
So Ruth enlightened his sexless naivety,
with a couple of cold puddles outside of a
long lay.
Her lover (Judd Gray) smacking back his suspenders in answer to a Who Done It.
Their body-exploring-finallys & whispering hot sophications--saw a door
kick open to the rest of the world.
A lot came on in, Ruth needed luxuriating, to writhe on high-end furniture.
See again: "Old Sparky", now it's all about
"Old Sparky"--it was never not about
"Old Sparky".
Led by the hand to a modern-day witch burning, of course there was an audience--they arrived in cathartically shaped veils.
A latched heap, held by safety--holding their peace.
Figuring into the law, & willing to watch
a subcutaneous thunderstorm.
Especially Tom Howard of the New York Daily News, who had a camera strapped to his ankle--expressly told it was for:
Private Eyes Only.
His Life's Work was strapped to his ankle--as The Mahicannituk's current flowed.
He lifted up his trouser cuff & squeezed
the shutter buld, then ungripped it.
The room met the designated height of the switch as it was flipped, its current
flowed.
Ruth conceived something more than electricity, as she made hairpin turns--
blowing toward unsuccessful ejection.
She cocked her head calmly as she watched herself beat leathered husks,
her scalp smoking like twigs.
The witch they came for surged upward, & was restrained as if she were reacting to Latin commands.
If she had the **** for a last meal, a menu put to taste congealed & what thirst there was ran dry.
Tom got his picture, & Ruth was blurrily
venting mid-fry on the front page of The Daily News.
Which read: "DEAD!", the first public picture of its kind.

They're blue in the face, vitally

impeded by the implications of a

a misstep.

Requesting cleanup in aisle two.

Gladden them with it, draw it out--

torture the itch good.

Give it to them, release them from

wicked thrall, crowd a crowd to

distribute feelies.

Remind them how good otherness

looks at its worst.

Your public needs you to come apart

like there's nothing to see.

It'll prove useful someday.

Park Avenue's rubber flood, its mastered
whoredom.
Hermes' passage, whose sonorous cleft
is repeated after--until its vehicular
usurpation is complete.
As if an anciently overdubbed rite.
On Oct. 4, 1986, Dan Rather was making
his way home.
His kindly signed-off face was fully
dimmed, as the American public filled in
the blanks of a broadcast.
Able to speak when spoken to.
Did he scrub off Live Makeup, or leave it
on?
Early autumn air was warmth's incorrect
remainder, intimating a tailorship that
cooly spun off Mr. Rather.
As his profile heightened, so did his
senses--beelines like rulers.
Eighties NYC was characterizing its deity, horns running up facades--Yeeping.
Dan's gentlemanly earnestness, hueing
his lips with delivery--while being stalked.
Nick-of-the-eye holograms of cityscape
intensity--a closed plan of attack that
already conquered variables.
Karma's streetless address of supposed
firsts.
Of foes, feet & frequency--homing in on
Dan, three dots about to connect.
Not that it couldn't be, but that it could &
would be--Dan was about to sweat-up his
suit.
His large eyes maintained innocence as they tried his skull like a fish on deck:
"Kenneth, what's the frequency?"
a voice asked.
Repeatedly this question was posed,
as feet & fists reached out from each word.
Mr. Rather clocked in the jaw & kicked, saught refuge in a building lobby--
"Kenneth, what's the frequency?!"
Two of Manhattan's Men in Black took turns tweaking a radio dial.
The staticky melee blipped, booped &
zipped straight out of an unfeeling
extraction of alien information.
There was CBS' voice of reason,
rained down upon by a white beam logic.
Mr. Rather's signal eventually came in
clear, as he was helped up, asking: 'Who
on earth is this Kenneth fellow, what of the frequency?'

Solidities love to give their spiel on

distance, as anthill multitudes are

dispersed by feet.

To the tune of whole houses jostling

around unissued shadows, armed with

soundless chimes.

Worked up to spit's private tiffs pelting

pavement, tracked onto the vacuum

tracks of living room carpets.

While a little boy getting called inside,

holds up a glass jar to a star.

Sighing hand-swipes of evening reads

drifting off into the context & tone of

certain conversations (the day's).

Space airing out its fringless purity,

clanks with clanking plates--runs with

running water.

Suddenly there's a judicious ring that

dissolves just as it's accepted.