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Patience
Is
The
Strongest
Attribute
Of
A
Sensible
Man

I think, I think, I think therefore I think I am
Mechanical little workings, I tick I am I think,
But there are no certainties in thought, that's why it's
ff*     uu       nnnnn         nnnny,
   ff       nnn           nnnn                        honeyyyyyyy     yyyy         yyyyy
                                                       ­                                 yy           yyy
She asked if I found Jesus, but he's laughing
Ha      hhh                                          ­                                  ha
     ha           aaaaaaa                                                         ha              haa
'Cause he just wanted directions out of the tomb,          *Ha
He don't have Alzheimer's or nothin,'             HA
He was just trying to find himself.                                                    ha­

My pockets are heavy, heavy, heavenly heavy
With prayer stones and dog bones
And secrets that tick,tick, tick therefore am
Am, am am amamaMAMAMA
                                                   ­    M
  I                           ?                           A                             am
         Who am                            M                           who am              I
                                             ­           A               *I
       ?                                            M
            ­                    Who                  A               am I

Wailing like a helpless baby                                                 WANTS
That at least knows what it wants.                wants
What do you                               YOU
you           what                                        you            ­                        wants
    WANT           do                     you                   wants      YOU
  you         what do you                               YOU         wants  you
               **want?

eating candies again
to keep myself happy
i popped one in
and another again
so oo oO oo   sw w eee ee ttt
it drives the bitterness away
give
me
more
more Ee e—
i finished the whole bottle
my body felt like it could float up to the sky
i felt so  h A p P y Y yyyY
i could die

[untitled]

today I was outside
holding my son
and hummed
into his neck
a man
resurrected
to faint

-

childhood
animals
deeply
unhurt

-

this machine can detect silence

this stick
if stones
are gay

~

[tenderness]

it is there
in the way
my father
refolds
a single
grocery bag
for a cyclops
that never
arrives

~

[having a disabled child]

means:

there is a tent
being studied
by dream.  

missing
more than snow
the ashes
of snow.

footwear.  and checking
our food
for holes.

means keeping
dry
a diver’s
eyelash.  and leaving

to finish
absence.

~

[jesus]

an unhurried ****** whose character development was orphaned by ghosts

~

[high-dive. dusk.]

as if any father
could heal
a cigarette
or remove
for a grey-eyed
newborn
the stitches
from a dream
    
~

[mother praying for two]

tooth fairy gone to salt

shell of a bee in an empty lamb

~

[/ yyyy]

doll burns its tongue on a teacup breast

at your abuser’s
costume party

~

[later meaning]

my eyes meet in a tunnel beneath the museum of things that belong. sister moons the moon. mother she buries the ironing board of a crucified dentist. childhood starts at the top. the painter of stomachs eats from a footprint. egghead shreds a pillow in the madhouse of snake.

~

[eremite]

the frog in the hood of my coat
has I’m sure
a later meaning.

my brother is on his back in a field he calls helicopter.

I know my father’s mouth
by its embrace
of doom’s
unconnected
dot. there are sounds

I can’t make. like that of a boy

squealing
as he rubs
a toy tank
under a blanket
for a god
whose mother
a face

could love.

~

[highs]

eardrum the airbag stomach of a lonely doll

brain
a blue
parachute

~

[handheld]

somewhere between satellites and baptisms

grief
the daydreaming
thumb

~

[days of bread]

the image
crucified
for its lack
of focus.

the loud music
over which
you hear
make
your blood.

the weakest
electric chair
this side
of moth.

father’s grip on a rolled-up magazine.

crow laundry.

an out-of-shape
coat hanger. & (and)

the news
that my nakedness
has died.

~

[possessions]

i.

chew toy
abandoned
at the throne
of old man
scissorlegs

ii.

a claw
from the lottery
of hands

~

[promising]

the girl wearing a scuba mask is not on a skateboard. this, after all, is church. I see what you see- the writing suffer. I’ll wash, later, a pair of black socks from the minefields of the one we call birdbeak and you can be the puppet with a needle in its arm.

~

[last names]

he cracks the motel room door from inside and ****** from wasp to spider to spared cricket.  he can smell the baby’s back as it begins to burn a hole in the pocket of a bag-headed hitchhiker.  the earth is 42 years old.  a car in the lot below moves over a body and stops.  the woman in the car is ******* a tooth through a cigarette.  whatever god put in her cake is almost gone.  

~

[for Eric]

I’ve held dogs as they die. vet’s office, 1993. a bad dream is a nightmare and a good dream is nothing. is a dog’s rib. I get an idea, here and there. design the same bathtub.

~

[lost grass]

eat loudly, mouse, for still I have my baby blood. loudly else you become a fish. else I jaw ear

from the character actor’s god.

~

[clarion]

heaven is art and hell the artist. regret matters only to the creator of regret. brother hops around like a drugged rabbit. headcount is the nickname given by sisters to the outhouse built on a sandbox. an ambulance from dogcatcher’s dream puts the hurt on a flickering cornfield. our cellar is a mirror where thunder goes deaf.

~

[for daughter]

in a wordless dream I’m nowhere near anyone I can’t be.  my dad’s mirror passes out.

~

[untitled]

snake
is the best thing
for snake.

I know you’re sad.
like a yard, a vandal, a roof.

seeing the future
takes time.

~

[laity]

the unmarried wind will comb its hair in heaven
but for now
in the Ohio
of the weightlifter, that odd
follower
of stillness
who built
on roadkill
tornado’s
church