Under the harvest
moon, the farmer
mourns his dead
wife. In his black
suit, sitting on
the white rock,
he looks like
a question mark.

She’s renovating
the old house.

The kids are
making costumes

—he’s a ghost,
she’s Cinderella.

The apple tree,
recently dressed

in red and green, is
now nearly naked.

How to describe
awareness: deploy

an adjective and  
a noun that say

nothing, then depict
a keen eyed hunting

dog, then an immense
space, then draw a cat,

slowly on the
prowl, and label it

a verb, then a
sentence about the

vast beauty of the sea
that is left incomplete

because it is so

A ***** martini
in the shape of
a Christmas tree,
a Christmas tree
in the shape of
a cup of coffee,
a cup of coffee
in the shape of
a gun, a gun
in the shape of
a man, a man
in the shape of
a ***** martini.

A newborn
in the shape of
an old man,
an old man
in the shape of
an electro-
magnetic coil,
an electro-
magnetic coil
in the shape of
an empty kayak,
an empty kayak,
in the shape of
a newborn.

Maybe I’m a fraud,
maybe I’m not the
guy who empties the
trash bins, maybe I’m
a theoretical
physicist failing
to piece together
a story of
everything, maybe
my wife is really
dead and I am in
love with a memory,
or maybe I’m the
guy who has a gun
loaded with blanks
ready to fire at
anything that moves.

Nine words
scrambled
in the wind.


are

habitable

They

democracy

a

planet.

and

of

ending

Like everyone in
this place, he’s a
cowboy, riding the
digitized horse, writing

his self-styled myth
with spray paint and
gasoline, a fire
breather, and always

off balance as his
head is seven times
too big for his
body, which, for some

reason, he believes can
be compensated for
by talking very loudly
and continuously, he’s

the sheriff of Main
Street, a seer of
the nonexistent, a
near-sighted marksman,

but in reality, like
most of us, he
is just another version
of a rodeo clown.

The sun illuminating
one side of her face. An

argument with her sister
rattling around in her

head like a baby’s toy.
On the counter, a plastic

bottle whose contour is
like an exaggerated

shape of a woman.
A glass of cool water

in her hot, angry hand.
She stands before the

paper-white wall, her
shadow slowly forming.

The wind-up chimp
in the swimming pool,
dressed like a sailor,
steering the vessel
shaped like a man’s body,

when a noun dressed as
an exclamation point
falls off its stilts, landing
on the chimp and they
tumble into the water.

The noun floats but the
chimp sinks to the bottom
and as he winds-down,
prays to The Savior
Marionette and in his

mind she dances, in
her tutu, toes barley
touching the surface of
the water, expressionless,
the strings barely visible.

Awareness descended
on me as it ruthlessly

cut off my head
and split me open

exposing everything,

then left me dead in
its open field, where

I’m now fertilizer
for everything green or

golden or blooming, and
ready for whatever

new thing nature will
make of what was me.

What I saw at the
moment of my death:

a mouse trap,

a card trick,

a woman riding her
bicycle in the park,

a businessman

who lies for a living,

an empty kayak
navigating the river.

All day she tends the garden behind

the house. Every morning she lines up

clear jars on the kitchen counter,

like rows of pacifist soldiers. In the

evening they are filled with fresh

yogurt. Some evenings we sit by the

fire and she reads Haiku poetry aloud.

Nothing expository there, she says,

then winks and laughs like a church bell.

One night as I was passing by the

drive-in movie theater, I saw her

up on the screen, playing a spy

disguised as a goat. Last night she

sat in the meadow, in the moon light,

wearing the robes of a Buddhist monk.

In the morning I asked if she was

rehearsing for another movie role.

Oh no, sir, she replied, I can assure

you I am entirely the real thing.

Then she crowed, exactly like

a rooster at morning’s first light.

The boy on a bicycle
speeds by in a blur, as
a paper airplane drifts
over the dog, curled up,
falling asleep, and
the egg sitting
on the counter
waits patiently
to be cracked open,
like the sun suddenly
rising in the morning.

Six objects in
search of a poem:

an overheated planet,
an obsolete

pencil, a burned-
out light bulb, an

overwhelmed young
woman, an unripe

avocado, and a
selfless form of love.

There was a
snowball fight.
A ****** nose.
A forgotten glove.
The evidence now
under a blanket
of white. Only
partial footprints
remain. Soon they
too will be gone.

The centipede inches
along on the ceiling
as she watches
contemplating its future,

and he sits on the chair
and opens the half-
finished historical novel
which is illuminated by

the artificial overhead
light, while their young
child parts the curtains
and kneels at the window

to gaze upon the night
sky and the brilliant full
moon which appears
to have a human face.

In the explosion the nouns
are blown to pieces—short
words, syllables, and letters
scattered along Main Street.
Action-verbs and state-of-being

verbs are maimed or dead
in large numbers. Forensic
investigators attempting
to reconstruct the original
scene are, so far, unsuccessful.

The great author declares
herself to be a bright white
blank page. The enigmatic
costume designer, La
Gioconda, dresses the entire

cast in bright white attire.
The terrorists: the adjectives
and exclamation points escape
to another realm. Luminous
question-mark-shaped celestial

talent agents hover above the
scene and announce that the
new narrative will be wordless
and staged in the park, among
the saplings and baby strollers.

This new and experimental
production, entitled How It
Starts will begin its run sometime
in the early spring, according
to the publicist Mr O.B. Pieriod.

The drunken clown
breaks his leg as he’s
singing and dancing,

and the bird in the
room sputters, boxed
in, disoriented, as the

brother outside has
his trained ear to the
ground, listening for

their disturbed mother’s
angry mob, coming to
reclaim her lost home.

In the butcher shop
Bob sees Salvador
Dali, who is carving
a life size figure of
a woman from a side
of beef. When finished
Dali whispers in
her ear the question,
“How do I obtain
a clear mind?” Bob and
Dali wait for an
answer. She is silent.
Bob eventually
gives up, but whenever
he visits the butcher
shop he sees Dali,
sitting, his limpid eyes
wide open, waiting
for the answer
from the woman
of his vivid dreams.