By Circumstances Fed

Which divide attention
Among the living and the dead,
Under the blooms of the blossoming sun,
The gaze which is a tower towers
Day and night, hour by hour,
Critical of all and of one,
Dissatisfied with every flower
With all that's been done or undone,
Converting every feature
Into its own and unknown nature;

So, once in the drugstore,
Amid all the poppy, salve and ointment,
I suddenly saw, estranged there,
Beyond all disappointment,
My own face in the mirror.

I have a plan to go mad
It will not take time or money
You don't have to do a thing
But bring me lunch
A sandwich, maybe, on the train.  
No, on the steps to the platform
You will see me.
No, you do not see me,
tu me sentiras

------- ----- -------

I put my best bottles in the recycle and I was proud watching you take them.  
I thought to myself, they are doing a service, and I them
by washing the bottles out first, I write this until it whistles in my ears.

There are two typos in my last poem
There are two types of poems, my last one and the one that is being written.

I am serious about the ringing in my ears.

Black Stone Lying On A White Stone

I will die in Paris, on a rainy day, on some day I can already remember.

I will die in Paris--and I don’t step aside-- perhaps on a Thursday, as today is Thursday, in autumn.  

It will be a Thursday, because today, Thursday, setting down these lines, I have put my upper arm bones on wrong, and never so much as today have I found myself with all the road ahead of me, alone.  

César Vallejo is dead.  

Everyone beat him although he never does anything to them; they beat him hard with a stick and hard also with a rope.  

These are the witnesses: the Thursdays, and the bones of my arms, the solitude, and the rain, and the roads.

Until today
I could not see you
too afraid to look in a mirror
Skin loose
Jaw tight, a motar grinding teeth

A confused looking man,
already?
Are you ready?

Adrift, we alive are dizzy, mad, confused, or blank.

Stroking our nostril hair,
portraying different parts,
one a banker, a father, an assassin
Once even a sort of Irish troll, slash, Quasimodo,
do you regret the metaphor?

How it happened...

akin to looking back
And thinking nothing,
black on black

Whiteshade in light
Static void (smiling cow).

Who was chaufeured around Paris in that film anyway?

That girl, you know, the one who won't wear shoes
Or socks

She plays in several scenarios,
once a mother, a nurse, a nun on the run,
a chemist, a voluptuous ventriloquist,
pregnant, humming, doing the dishes, going to church,
staying up late to feed the cats

can you imagine

playing all those lifetimes on a raft
an inventive vehicle wouldn't you say?

I'm a nobody
Arranging words so they align with thoughts
Uneven and impure

These poems are like living on snack food

What I want to say is,
half of me is out the door

Living with the ants.

Frz have you forgotten me?

I hear your voice, but its me saying do not listen

Anyway I say, how are you?
the court records a divorce, a child, and a republican,

You were once a brooklynite, a beloved chassid gal, so hollow to hide, have you moved upstate?

me? maybe inappropriately concerned

I dreamt we will meet one day.

I see you, you see me, then run away furtively,

I race head long, trying to catch you, to touch you at last.  

Mind numb, you duck in the LGBT centre.  I stop.  

Leaving you to minds damnation and hell, a palace of fears, fool for years, you lead me down some steps, through an alley,  open a gate, and smile,

stay here, you say, between two buildings.  

I sit next to the garbage cans against a wall with leafless vines, its the first snow, you never said when you'd be back.

It is now a year before I die, cars roll by noisily, far off a lone siren, someone is digging in the garbage for scraps, it seems impossible that inches away you were within my reach

I forgot what i was going to write  you
I know it was important
It had something to do with life
Or was it death

I'm not a word man anyway
I spent my lot
It's gone

It used to be like an eternal fountain
The gifts just kept on coming
I was a zeitgeist monsoon
A freak outbreak of the
had to do's

There was was never a question of asking
if
Or
when
It would come

It was just

the

Viscera

Of

Life

sometimes i feel like i am in the midwest
sitting in queens
dyslexic
listening to Jessye Norman (who listens to her anymore)

sometimes i am flying over the sea
algae deep,
crashing mountains, ocean green

its the same every night when you are not here

i get home
do dishes
heat rice and dahl
open a beer

wait, wait, something on the weimar republic is on tonight
that's not new
the same questions
why the jews

how could so many
die in broad day light
while He walked the earth?

biblical tales that still
need interpretation

who is the weaker of the two
before now or after?

Jessye now sings Samson and Delilah,
the announcer announces

the singer sings,

"my heart opens to your voice like a flower

my dearest let your loving words dry my tears

tell me you are returning to Delilah

repeat the vows you made long ago

the vows i used to believe in"

the vows of heaven on earth?

the vows of justice?

who stands to inherit the earth ... the meek?    

c'mon!

by G-d she could sing