American Software
Henry Crawford
No War Between Art and Science
I’m a professional computer programmer and a poet. Some see
a battle between contemporary data science and the humanities, but I do not. To
the contrary, I believe that technical science uninformed by the arts and the
humanities is a soulless project. It’s a meme propagated by corporate types
seeking to build labor pools of unaware, compliant technicians. But those are
the very people unable to create software that is alive and inventive and which
reflects real human psychology.
There are several poems about work in American Software, but
I think Day Shift at the Hula Hoop Factory pretty much captures the feel of the
modern workplace.
Last year I visited the city of Miletus in Turkey. Home of the first scientist. What did I find there? An ancient theater. We are science makers and story tellers.
American Software Getting Published
Sometime around 11:00 pm on January 6, 2016, as I was taking a last look at the internet before going to sleep, an email came in with the subject line "American Software". I'd come to hate emails like this because I was tired of reading how much this or that press had liked my poetry colleciton while hoping that it would find a "home" elsewhere. But not this time.
In a brief email WordTech Communications, LLC. advised that they had accepted my collection and that if I accepted the terms of their agreement, it would be published sometime around April of 2017.
I'm an experimental writer, which is also a way of saying I'm a defiant writer. Almost all of the pleasure of being a poet has come in the process of discovering something entirely new and then sharing it with others like a dare - I'll bet you've never seen or heard anything like this before. I'm not a craft person, a wordsmith or literary technician. I have no MFA, no agent and no literary connections. It's not a good way to get your work published. So when I read that email on that night back in January, for the first time I had the feeling that this is going to get done. The book is going to come out.
In a brief email WordTech Communications, LLC. advised that they had accepted my collection and that if I accepted the terms of their agreement, it would be published sometime around April of 2017.
I'm an experimental writer, which is also a way of saying I'm a defiant writer. Almost all of the pleasure of being a poet has come in the process of discovering something entirely new and then sharing it with others like a dare - I'll bet you've never seen or heard anything like this before. I'm not a craft person, a wordsmith or literary technician. I have no MFA, no agent and no literary connections. It's not a good way to get your work published. So when I read that email on that night back in January, for the first time I had the feeling that this is going to get done. The book is going to come out.
EMMA WEDGWOOD DARWIN [ALONE IN HER WRITING CHAMBER, JUNE 4, 1856]
My Dear Charles >> I keep finding your papers in the most shameful places >> under the silverware case >> behind the tea cabinet >> in the water closet (oh, Charles) >> and tho’ I fear I may be stretching the bounds of a proper lady’s etiquette >> I fear a greater shame >> not giving you my full words >> you tell me you need a perfect proof before you publish your book >> you fear both the well intentioned >> and the wicked >> you think the good will claim that you are scouring off the homely face of God >> as when I polish our ancient brass into that false ephemeral shine >> you think the evil (and let’s not pretend we’ll ever be the rid of them) will mistake your theory of life for marching orders >> and I too fear that many a good man of England >> could die on that account >> Pardon my insolence My Dear Charles >> but I beseech thee to think of those people who >> may someday discover the generations of all in the green of pea pods growing in the shade of a monastery wall >> may see the little dotted world as did your beloved Democritus >> perhaps they will learn to make a lamp of lightening >> or walk out >> freely among the many constellations >> or comprehend the fury of the sun >> and be able by hand to replicate the commonest meadow sheep >> so publish the book My Dear Charles
for them
for them
T.S. Eliot [Crossing Piccadilly Circus on a Windy Afternoon]
I have no memories per se
at least not [any that I remember]
[or look back on] with any degree
of clarity [as if I could tell you what I know]
[or how things happened] that is [so to speak]
the sequence of events
[one] after another
you know [the time it takes] or [maybe took]
to realize that I had changed in some way
or saw others
change in some way
[and write down all the precise details]
that is [the way the events actually happened]
and some people would say that I could have done
this or that
but in the
end I [did do this] and I [did not do
that]
and [those were my decisions]
and [we are told we have to live with them]
that [we have to make our beds and sleep with them]
and [when [we wake up]
new choices are presented [you
know]
and [many times we are unaware of those choices]
[but still] none of them can be called back
even though [as you say]
everything can be changed [yes?]
so that these [choices]
these [so called
events]
these [memories]
whether [they happened or not] can
finally
be [remembered] exactly as they are [yes yes yes]
The Gentlest Theft
The Gentlest Theft
In 1963 my mother drove a school bus.
She was allowed to keep it
on weekends
and nights.
On Fridays after school we liked to fight
in the seats
with headlocks, punching and tickling ourselves
to the floor.
She had a AM radio with a civil defense station.
We were always waiting
for the bomb
but it was mostly songs.
They were playing ‘The Sugar Shack’
when the radio stopped.
Under the rumble the news came in
as if spoken by a ghost.
Kennedy lived for another twenty minutes
on the radio.
When my mother came back
he was dead.
She had a basket of laundry in her hands.
She laid it down in the bus.
There was a warm smell of clean cloth
and our shirts all folded white.
Odysseus [Fragments of a Postmodern Odyssey Recovered from a Ceramic Disk Found Lodged in the Skull of a 400 Year old Sea Lion Just off the Coast of California]
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000The sun rose again0000days of rain with
smoke0000
00and cars0000and air0000tasting of iron
rust0000000000
000000the Old Coder warned the
warriors00000000000000
000000000of the danger of open
networks0000000000000
000000000000000but they were already
gone0000000000
000off to the World Wide War000000Mrs.
Odysseus00000
0000took out the trash thinking00000000”Not this
day”0000
000not this
day0000000000000000000000000000000000
00And so it was that the Happy Hacker kept his
data00000
00in an ox-hide bound external storage
device0000000000
00ate carbon for lunch00roasted amino acids for
dinner000
0savored Chapman’s Homer etched into Gorilla
Glass0000
0000in long tedious electromagnetic
rows00000000000000
000000Mrs. Odysseus working phone sex
shifts000000000
00at the mini-mall0000spoke into
her00000unencrypted00
0000000000000mic saying in a deep breathy
way0000000
"yes I said yes I will
Yes."000000000000000000000000000
00000pain killers made her feel like Nancy
Sinatra0000000
00in gold toed boots and all calls were
recorded000000000
0000000000000000000000000for quality
assurance000000
00the rose petals arrived at dawn000from the
other side000
000of the planet000red massless particles of
antimatter000
000with razor sharp teeth of invisible
energy000000000000
00words burst into bits00form bled streams
of content0
00000the dead were carried
away00000000000000000000
0000into dictionaries00000000but the geeks
fought back00
00with
Heisenberg-like0000000uncertainty0000000000000
00ideas were stolen0000000language
rent0000asunder000
00sentences trapped in 1s and 0s000until the red
fanged00
00000icons00000fled the battle00harmless
as00000000000
000000000000000000blank
neutrinos00000000000000000
000Odyssus cried out “Where art thou
brothers?”00000000
00”nowhere” came the response00and Nobody had
won000
000Akilleeze threw down his shield00dropped his
sword00
00and walked off the set00Odysseus witnessed the
scene00
000from a window in his
trailer00000000000000000000000
0later00at the Underwater Bar in West Burbank
California00
0000Akilleeze looked up from his sushi and 000whispered00
00across the table “I think this role could make
me immortal”
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
as you were [pulling away]
as you were [pulling away]
as [Saturday was ending
as [many things back then
as [your hands stayed in your pockets
as [your sentences came to an end
as [minutes lost their measure
as [you closed the wooden door
as [the Moon refused the Earth
as [we drove away in cars
as [television sets went on
as [stores began to close
as [window lights fell dark
as [distance spun its web
as [emails never came
as [the price of things kept rising
as [we moved to different cities
as [news of you stopped coming
as [I finally bought a house
as [things got back to normal
as [anyone can see
American Software
American Software
it’s [08:45]
let me have a minute
I’m thinking about [Jackie Kennedy]
riding in that Texas car
and [she was trying to scrape a spec of blood off her jacket]
and [she was crawling on the trunk of a bullet riddled limousine]
and [she was sticking her fingers into the holes] feeling the sores
unable to change a single fleck [since she was alive]
and [everything moving around her] was dead
Nowadays
things are [automated]
you can go to a [supermarket] and watch
potatoes tumble in [sudden] [jerks] of rubber belts
pulled along horizontal cities of [cereal] boxes
of [self designed wheat from some remote hallucination of farming]
of [soup cans tossed along rivers of code] of [streams of signals]
of [if] [commands] in the relentless flow of choice and desire
I was born a town
[now I am a city]
in my streets were movies of [singing policemen] and [lonesome cowboys]
and [space girls] and [aliens] and [robots] and [monsters]
and [gangsters] and [men in drag] and [ladies in waiting]
and [cars exploding] and [shooting] and [laughing] and [off-camera loving]
and [I watched it all in temporary forgiveness]
chained as any Platonic slave
to [my seat] with you
and [I heard] you asking {“what time is it?”}
and [and I could not answer]
even though we keep returning
to [another bruising minute]
and now it’s [08:46] already
Kurt Cobain [1994]
Kurt Cobain [1994]
I drove all night to get here
I am shaky
I lit up a cigarette
I got coke from the machine
I am reeling with dope
I am feeling the glow behind the dials
I let myself in
[With the lights out, it's less dangerous]
I have no microphone
I sing to myself
I sing in sheets of sharpened glass
I hear the words between my temples
I look out the control booth
I see a city burning in the controls
[Here we are now, entertain us]
I asked my agent
I asked how many more days
I am looking out the moving bus
I stammer in the mirror
I am waking up in strange places
I shared too much
I shared too little
I think … “my needs are getting out of hand”
[I feel stupid and contagious]
I've had some bad nights
I've looked out across an empty arena
I've lost my place in the song
I woke up in the Mississippi plains
I walked into a house lit up
I saw Blind Lemon strumming in the kitchen
I saw Muddy staring at me in the hallway
[Here we are now, entertain us]
I am an outsider to myself
I have no senses to come to
I am the inside living without
I'm a voice too hard to hear
I want to be straight [a mulatto]
I want to be drunk [an albino]
I want to show you [a mosquito]
I want to hide you [my libido]
I am empty [yeah]
I am full [yeah]
I'm [denial]
[Yeah ]
25 Lines of a Bird
25 Lines of a Bird
Line 2: It was a day in June
Line 3: They were posing in front of a gray church
Line 4: Men with mustaches
Line 5: Women baled in cloth
Line 6: Before the wars
Line 7: The deadly century
Line 8: Next to the church was an empty space
Line 9: And there I found it - barely a spec
Line 10: Like a flaw in the print
Line 11: A Passenger Pigeon
Line 12: On an old wood pole
Line 13: I zoomed in to verify
Line 14: The sharp indignant eyes
Line 15: The perfectly pronounced beak
Line 16: The broad load-bearing chest
Line 17: I cut the bird out for reconstruction
Line 18: I reanimated its flight
Line 19: I used a database to model the air
Line 20: The birds were among the most abundant species in the world
Line 21: In two years they would be extinct
Line 22: In two hundred years
Line 23: The humans would be gone
Line 24: Leaving only me
Line 25: To sort things out
Driving in a Car
Driving in a Car
I am driving. I am driving in a car.
Stores going by. Some already gone. Streets holding up
a mirror to my wheels. Lapping up the surface of the earth.
The night is all comets unconsciously coming at us.
And I am driving into the space between the lights.
What would they look like on the other side of earth?
To the people there? Walking with us in our steps?
Their feet touching the bottoms of ours.
Walking on our reflections. All without a whisper.
Just passing by.
And I am driving. I am driving in a car.
I have a radio aimed at the sky. The waves are silent
until they burst into song. Then they go back to waves
as if that was their one sacred calling.
As if the lights of all these buildings were really stars
with their own private gravity. Held in the arms of an
empathetic galaxy spinning down like a figure skater
with time accelerating and falling into a whirl of greater
grace.
And I am driving. I am driving in a car.
And watching. I’ve traded in my daylights
for headlights. Water for evolutionary eyes.
I’ve come to see this city alive. Its double helix
boulevards running
two ways down a one-way street. And I am driving to meet
the people who brought me here. The invisible dead.
It’s hard to think of them going about their tasks
or even combing their hair. Yet I am driving in a car.
Seeing with their eyes. Reaching with their hands.
My father caught me peeing in a bush.
His smile confirmed me in the sins of the living.
My eldest father held the dying hand of a Babylonian prince
and built for him a wall of continuous living cells.
The machine inside the ghost. The engine under the hood.
And I am driving. I am driving. I am driving in a car.
Open Mic Night at the Atomic Coffee Cup Café
[White Sands, New Mexico: Not
every table is taken. There’s a small cluster of people grouped in the back of
the room. People are sitting on couches. Slouching. Playing with their phones.
A student is working on a spreadsheet of data. The next poet comes up to the
makeshift stage. “Hi everyone I’ve only got one poem tonight. It’s my
Hiroshima poem and it’s very short; only one sentence really. And I have a
couple of footnotes and I know that causes problems so I’ll read the poem first
and then the footnotes. Please bear with me. The poem is called, ‘Why the
Beautiful is so Easily Forgotten’.” The
poet pauses for a second.]
Why the Beautiful is so Easily Forgotten
Little Boy[1]
falling down
from the sky
demonstrating Einstein’s
idea
that the laws
of nature
are the same
everywhere[2]
even in the Sun.[3]
[1]
Little Boy. The code name of the bomb used against Hiroshima.
[2]
We are the same everywhere. Everywhere
remembering the hats of people. Everywhere their arms and legs. Their shirts.
The shoes they were wearing, the places they were going, their fingernails,
everywhere crossing the street, they had stuff in their pockets, they wore
rings, they smoked cigarettes, everywhere their eyes looking up, everywhere
their mouths open in suspended silent prayer.
[3]
The Sun. Four and a half billion years old and half way through its stellar
lifecycle.
[Years Later] Looking Back
[Years Later] Looking Back
At night we dream <My mother> our bodies back <was enormous>
under the earth {“what’s the matter with you”} <she could drink most men>
{“don’t bother coming back”} <under the table> [By day we breathe]
At night we dream [the womb of air] <My mother was enormous>
{“I want you kids to get in here”} our bodies back {“before it gets dark”}
{“how about a great big hug”} <she could drink> {“where are you going”}
<most men > {“In a way I never knew her at all”} under the earth <under the table>
{“where are you going”} At night we dream our bodies back under
the earth [By day we breathe the womb of air] <My mother>
<was enormous> <she could drink> {“what’s the matter with you”}
<most men> At night we dream our bodies back <under the table> under the earth
[By day we breathe] {“I want you kids to get in here before it gets dark”} [the womb]
<My mother> [of air] {“where are you going”} <was enormous> < she could drink>
<most men under the table> {“In a way I never knew her at all”}
Post-Mortem
? so what
did you think
? was it everything you expected
? how about the audience
? did you like the way they responded
? how did you feel
? what about the end
? were you comfortable
? did you feel funny
? how about the sexual parts
? were you happy with your
performance
? did you feel loved
? did you prepare enough
? did
you forget that line
? no, I don’t think
anyone noticed
? were you happy
with your hair
? how about your face
? do you have kids
? do you think
they were watching
? oh, here
comes the owner
? I think
he liked the show
? go over
and say hello
? he’s
really very nice
? I’ll
put in a good word
? he
may ask you to come back
? well,
that about wraps it up
? you were great
? just wonderful
? where do you go from here
? I think that’s all
Rules [of the museum]
<> everything
is kept in rooms
<> the
rooms consist of one or more walls
<> each
wall is heavily guarded
<> the
guards have no say over the walls
<> all
personal items must go through security
<>
visitors must proceed down hallways
<> the
floors are clearly labeled
<>
windows are hidden from view
<>
visitors may travel alone or in groups
<>
visitors may take as much time as required
<> the
hours of operation are known to all
<> a nominal
payment is suggested
<> speaking
above a whisper is discouraged
<>
touching the objects is prohibited
<>
keep an appropriate distance from others
<>
some doors are locked
<>
meals are conducted at scheduled times
<> seats
are available for resting
<>
leave time to find an appropriate exit
<>
visitors are not permitted after closing
<>
pick up a gift on the way out
<> be careful leaving the facility
<> be careful leaving the facility
Love in the End Days
she slept
with an unloaded gun
pressed against her cheek
each morning
she would click it
to see
if she was still alive
he slept
with eyes open
to see
if she was still alive
he slept
with eyes open
his mind a runaway
ceiling fan
which made it difficult
to tell
to tell
if he was still awake
she tiptoed
on bricks of water
trying to conceal her feet
as they were
floating away
he kept
a stained glass face
that disappeared
whenever light
came shining
when they split
all the neighbors
came out
to investigate
in abject surprise
Vision of the First Security Camera
I am wired
I am wired to see
I process signals
I respond to motion
I look up
I move left
I move right
I pivot my neck
I see in all directions
[November 2009 - Ft. Hood, Texas]
I watch for patterns
I observe the traffic
I see things coming to a stop
I watch for faces
I take in a scene
I take in the one after that
[January 2011 - Tucson, Arizona]
I see in frames
I store the frames in a stack
I take one
I examine it
I examine the next
I store the frames of faces
I know the data
[April 2012 - Oakland, California]
I saw the car
I saw the man get out
I saw his gun
I saw him looking
I saw him taking aim
I saw the shooting begin
I never turned away
[July 2012 - Aurora, Colorado]
I cannot hear
I have no sound
I see through glass
I saw the doors breaking
I saw the shards exploding
[December 14, 2012 - Newtown, Connecticut]
I watched the pieces flying
I observed people gesturing with hands
I watched the bodies collapsing frame by frame
I traced the images falling
I saw the others moving
I saw them freezing
I saw their eyes go numb
I saw the bleeding
I followed it all
[April 15, 2013 - Boston, Massachusetts]
I know things happen
I know things happen again
I record everything
I show you everything
I cannot stop
I cannot stop looking
[September 16, 2013 - Washington, DC, Navy Yard]
Prayer on Behalf of 11 Recently Extinct Animals
Oh lord
[Carolina Parakeet, 1939]
of commonplace miracles
[Silver Trout, 1930]
forgive our joyless understanding
[Passenger Pigeon, 1914]
our eyes too small to see
[Golden Toad, 1989]
our tiny chambered heart
[Caribbean Monk Seal, 2008]
our closed fisted hands
[Chinese Paddlefish, 2007]
our bony shelled skulls
[Pinta Island Tortoise, 2012]
our pointy words
[Tasmanian Wolf, 1932]
but if our days be unforgiven
[Javan Tiger, 1979]
let's leave no history behind
[Heath Hen, 1932]
so like all we have forsaken
[Yangtze River Dolphin, 2007]
we’ll go without a sound.
The Sentence
The Sentence
Every day my mother’s boyfriend
comes home
drunk
and smashes up our only TV.
Every day my mother’s boyfriend
falls down
the stairs
and smashes up our only TV.
Every day my mother’s boyfriend
forgets
we’re only kids
and smashes up our only TV.
Every day my mother’s boyfriend
remembers
his dad’s leather belt
and smashes up our only TV.
Every day my mother’s boyfriend
sees his
dad coming home from work
and smashes up our only TV.
Every day my mother’s boyfriend
gets a
helpless feeling
and smashes up our only TV.
Every day my mother’s boyfriend
is unable
to forgive himself
and smashes up our only TV.
Every day my mother’s boyfriend
looks over
my shoulder
and smashes up our only TV.
Every day my mother’s boyfriend
sees me working
on a spreadsheet
and smashes up our only TV.
Every day my mother’s boyfriend
sits behind
me in the conference room
and smashes up our only TV.
Every day my mother’s boyfriend
meets with
my boss
and smashes up our only TV.
Every day my mother’s boyfriend
begins to
understand
and smashes up our only TV.
Every day my mother’s boyfriend
let’s go of
my arm
and smashes up our only TV.
Every day my mother’s boyfriend
leaves his
things behind
and smashes up our only TV.
Every day my mother’s boyfriend
drifts to
the outskirts of town
and smashes up our only TV.
Every day my mother’s boyfriend
becomes
harder to recall
and smashes up our
only TV.
Every day my mother’s boyfriend
is almost
entirely forgotten
and smashes up our only TV.
Every day my mother’s boyfriend
settles
into the past
and smashes up our only TV.
Every day my mother’s boyfriend
is
there waiting for me
and smashes up our only TV.
The River Before Us
There was a time before words
[when only the rivers spoke]
The sarcastic lips of breaking waves
[whispering uncontrollably]
[whispering uncontrollably]
The arrhythmic clang of the buoy bell
[silencing the calm]
[silencing the calm]
The fire lights dotting the shore
[rimming the everyday night]
[rimming the everyday night]
My body came to life breathing
[my clean chest rising]
[my clean chest rising]
In my cove the waters receded
[answering the water with voids]
[answering the water with voids]
The words or rather half-words
[washing in and washing out]
[washing in and washing out]
Covering in and covering up
[rewriting the waterlines]
[rewriting the waterlines]
Drowning out the sounding bell
[speaking the language of tongues]
My smallest finger
[erasing the sand]
[speaking the language of tongues]
My smallest finger
[erasing the sand]
Dissolving the river within
Captain Edward Smith, RMS Titanic
I.
I have always owned my oceans
I own them whole
I take everything they give
I swallow the receding horizons
I burn with unaccompanied suns
I sway the rolling jug of the world
I close my days in pointless motions
I close my nights in a tight piano
this was my desire
I ride the black Atlantic
I seek magnetic north
I prowl its iceberg fields
I touch them underground
I handle everything unseen
I am sharpened into shape
I take everything they give
this was my desire
I rise on melting shelves of morning
I feel the white blood flowing
I swell the emerging underbelly
I fondle the lump
I am drawn to the inoperable
I could give up
I could say, “Alright, I’ve had enough”
I would lose my harbor
I would run aground
I would sink below the plains of water
this was my desire
II.
Jenny B was sort of cool in tight black slacks
[this was my desire]
Playing LP’s in pointy shoes with half-cracked heels
[this was my desire]
Hypnotized in the rounding lines of spinning vinyl
[this was my desire]
Wrestling in bed
[this was my desire]
All night like those people in the bible story
[this was my desire]
And here’s the crazy part
[this was my desire]
Something was breaking off but I couldn’t hear it
[this was my desire]
My skin was finally melting away
[this was my desire]
And that’s when I discovered the underwater weight of pain
[this was my desire]
That only the future can reveal
[this was my desire]
But only the past can understand
III.
I troll the tall towers of water
I stand my ground on liquid rock
I sing above the flagrant waves
I sound the bass notes of the deep
I revenge the stars with stone
I watch with whitening eyes
I observe the sky uncharted
I remember that last summer
I saw a bright vanilla ice cream
I asked for a lick
I remember the lines boiling down our faces
I was one of many standing on that dock
I felt wood ache beneath my feet
I have always owned my oceans
I take everything they give
I leave like the end of a day
I fold the waves under my skin
I cover my flesh with flesh
I feel my heartbeat
I burrow my eyes
I think once again
I think “that’s it”
I say yes!
I dream the last cold
handfuls of
water.
I have always owned my oceans
I own them whole
I take everything they give
I swallow the receding horizons
I burn with unaccompanied suns
I sway the rolling jug of the world
I close my days in pointless motions
I close my nights in a tight piano
this was my desire
I ride the black Atlantic
I seek magnetic north
I prowl its iceberg fields
I touch them underground
I handle everything unseen
I am sharpened into shape
I take everything they give
this was my desire
I rise on melting shelves of morning
I feel the white blood flowing
I swell the emerging underbelly
I fondle the lump
I am drawn to the inoperable
I could give up
I could say, “Alright, I’ve had enough”
I would lose my harbor
I would run aground
I would sink below the plains of water
this was my desire
II.
Jenny B was sort of cool in tight black slacks
[this was my desire]
Playing LP’s in pointy shoes with half-cracked heels
[this was my desire]
Hypnotized in the rounding lines of spinning vinyl
[this was my desire]
Wrestling in bed
[this was my desire]
All night like those people in the bible story
[this was my desire]
And here’s the crazy part
[this was my desire]
Something was breaking off but I couldn’t hear it
[this was my desire]
My skin was finally melting away
[this was my desire]
And that’s when I discovered the underwater weight of pain
[this was my desire]
That only the future can reveal
[this was my desire]
But only the past can understand
III.
I troll the tall towers of water
I stand my ground on liquid rock
I sing above the flagrant waves
I sound the bass notes of the deep
I revenge the stars with stone
I watch with whitening eyes
I observe the sky uncharted
I remember that last summer
I saw a bright vanilla ice cream
I asked for a lick
I remember the lines boiling down our faces
I was one of many standing on that dock
I felt wood ache beneath my feet
I have always owned my oceans
I take everything they give
I leave like the end of a day
I fold the waves under my skin
I cover my flesh with flesh
I feel my heartbeat
I burrow my eyes
I think once again
I think “that’s it”
I say yes!
I dream the last cold
handfuls of
water.
Oh!
The old poets
sometimes said, "Oh!"
It's not really done anymore
so you could say the word
is gone out of use
but of course
the sensation remains.
It’s a bearded
word spoken through a dying mouth
almost like "Rosebud."
But when you
shave off the whiskers
and round your mouth just so
the sound gathers
in the sternum
just beneath
the bulbous meat
of heart and lung
and goes up the organ tubes
of throat where words
can no longer turn back
and there untouched
by teeth retracted
through smoke ring making lips
you’ll hear
yourself say, "Oh!"
sometimes said, "Oh!"
It's not really done anymore
so you could say the word
is gone out of use
but of course
the sensation remains.
It’s a bearded
word spoken through a dying mouth
almost like "Rosebud."
But when you
shave off the whiskers
and round your mouth just so
the sound gathers
in the sternum
just beneath
the bulbous meat
of heart and lung
and goes up the organ tubes
of throat where words
can no longer turn back
and there untouched
by teeth retracted
through smoke ring making lips
you’ll hear
yourself say, "Oh!"
No!
The "n"
is probably all
you need
in most
cases.
But "No"
wants a little
more – an "o" hole.
A circle of lost
histories. A ring
that even now
you might be
wearing except
that it's lost
somewhere
and found
somewhere
else.
is probably all
you need
in most
cases.
But "No"
wants a little
more – an "o" hole.
A circle of lost
histories. A ring
that even now
you might be
wearing except
that it's lost
somewhere
and found
somewhere
else.
Four Rooms
Father hangs the family secrets above the ceiling in a room without doors. Only the moon looks in listening to the murmur of unused furniture. |
Some days the TV is left on entertaining a bewildered living room. A woman in a black dress her fingers aflame dances before a charcoal pit each of her eight arms holding up a match light with no one home to seduce. |
In the kitchen recipes are recited over and over. Mother brings them to a boil and squeezes the mixture into small cylindrical casings.
Flavor is preserved
in the uniformity
of the cookware
and the
properties
of a vacuum.
|
Asleep the bedrooms dream in dark wood floors. A slight insurgent light under the door. After midnight sister and brother walk out the upstairs window glancing the tops of decorative trees falling smaller onto the long trimmed lawn. |
Living Under Roofs
All these years
of living
under roofs
holding back
the falling
water. Keeping
the ceilings up.
My first wife called me
“All Walls - No Windows!”
My second thought
I was a human storm
cellar. Neither saw
the leaks forming on
the floors of inside
closets. Nor
did they know
how sometimes I
had dreams
of running down
the emergency stairs
on disappearing legs
with handfuls
of empty
flashlights.
of living
under roofs
holding back
the falling
water. Keeping
the ceilings up.
My first wife called me
“All Walls - No Windows!”
My second thought
I was a human storm
cellar. Neither saw
the leaks forming on
the floors of inside
closets. Nor
did they know
how sometimes I
had dreams
of running down
the emergency stairs
on disappearing legs
with handfuls
of empty
flashlights.
Richard Nixon’s 1975 Journal
I have always been a careful man
I am methodical
I choose my words with care
I know that some will misunderstand me
I know others will use my words against me
I know how these things work
I am not guarded
I believe in being frank
I write on long legal pads
I collect my thoughts
I say what needs to be said
I am the one who is writing
I am the man at the desk
make no mistake
I grew up in an American town
I walked its brown brick streets and sawdust floors
I stood outside the train station
I found a nickel under my shoe
I wanted to be a man in this town
I wanted to be the best man
I knew there could only be one best man
make no mistake
I have here a letter from a soldier in New York
101st Airborne, a veteran of Hamburger Hill
I get a lot of these letters
I read every one
I treat this as a duty
I respond whenever I can
I got back from the war all right
[make no
mistake]
living on the streets getting high in the towers
[make no
mistake]
the smell of airplane glue and cinderblock
[make no
mistake]
at the top of the stairs the emergency door was open
[make no mistake]
on the roof the tags and condoms of left behind lovers
[make no
mistake]
I took out my toys and got off
[make no
mistake]
this was my body
[make no
mistake]
flung atop the needle headed city
[make no
mistake]
plunging into the open windowed skyline
[make no
mistake]
bombing into an all night coffin
[make no
mistake]
frozen with the untouched face of a child
[make no
mistake]
I will not be pitied
I am not a crook
I have no regrets
I face every crisis
I came to this job with eyes wide open
I remember my parents back in Yorba Linda
I saw my father sweating in the fields
I said to myself I can do better
I knew I could achieve something special
I set out to make a name for myself
I gave no quarter and expected none
I leave it for history to decide my fate
I want to thank everyone here tonight
I say carry on the fight
I wish you all the best of luck
I look forward to our future together
I am with you always
I will not be misunderstood
I will not be mistaken
I am Nixon
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