Perigee full moon
a white, blazing gaze stares down
close as it will come

BESEECH

Oh, the various & virulent spirits we beseech!
We make faces into the great unknown, & hope
the cutting edge of our smile is immortal...

After Japan

My friend asked me for a prayer of peace
but I can’t give words to contain such suffering
and everything I offer is less…

Jet squalls past above
turning the night inside out
I still watch TV

Headlights seen through mist
like choreographed rain drops
lit up as they fall

Riverside oil tanks
grey against a fog-grey sky
the day is fading…

Sidewalk newspaper
pages flipping in the wind
no one to read it

Suburban Haiku

motion sensor light
this privileged motherfucker
has a sudden stage

DRACONIAN ERROGENOUS ZONES…

…have been established throughout the city,
hoping to defuse the current social climate
with a self-activated shame cycle, accomplishing
what tear gas and a reflexive leaden thumb could not.
We ask you to examine your own bodies, and their
corrosive agenda of base desires, and wonder
if you don’t come up short. Further, we ask
if a loop can be established, a closed circuit,
between achieving those desires and the white noise
we are currently funneling into your subconscious.
In conclusion: What if Play Time was Work?
What if we could make you strike against yourselves?
What if love was the inverted spearhead
that ended the heart?

Sirens rend the night
dark windows splashed in red light
some stranger’s problems

Flash from my window
rumble through the whirling white
that was Thundersnow!

the hawk lands heavy
before taking off again
empty oak branch thrums

Snow falls in Bushwick
M-train rattles overhead
sparks and snowflakes mix

another late night
moon muddled through windowpane
I should be asleep

My glass is half full.
I don't remember drinking.
This is not my glass.

(Poem by Doug Roussin)

I saw the future
my friends were busy texting
I was left speechless

APPLY THEME

Rampant Tenderfoot
Current Protector
Inaccurate Lingo
Leisure Removal
Forward Thinking
Ash and Fire
Ash and Fire
Ash and Fire
Dark Wood
Deep Ocean
Magic Paper
Drinking DNA
Black and White
and Red All Over…

WHITE MILK SUBSTITUTE

Am I a shadow of a man if I cast none of my own?
Are we the sum and total of eight essential ingredients,
minus emotional baggage and excessive wear and tear?
If we can split the atom, the logic goes, we should be able
to gut the infidel and point his entrails to
True North. We should be able to find ourselves
on the face of the compass, by the bias of magnetism
alone. I’m all for short term myths, but we’ve
got to get the order forms right. One slip can lead
to a simple paper cut, which in turn could lead tothe slow, onion-like unraveling of my cover identity,
and since I don’t go much further than skin deep,
that’s not a view I want to keep.

INCOMING FEVER DREAM

The eyes may play tricks,
but the mind’s got its’ games
rigged; one way in, many ways
out, and it’s up to individual
participants to rend the veil,
to ignore the hallways filled
with unemployed centaurs
and harlots, the avatars being
stripped of their momentary mantles,
crucibled in fire and restarted again.
What is really real is really
not the point. It’s how you
navigate the system.
It’s your fever. It’s your verdant
forest to burn to the ground.
We supply matches, blowtorches,
even premium vintage napalm.
One way in, many ways out.
Proceed.

to-do list has me

approaching paralysis.

I did something else.

(haiku by Doug Roussin)

THE MOON AIN’T NEW

the rust-colored moon
grown old in a brief eclipse
I almost missed it

REDO/NEED YOU

I keep hitting the button,
but nothing ever happens.
Or, rather, it keeps happening.
The uninterrupted flow, the intake.
No pause. I can’t find the pause.
I want to hire a security consultant
to look back at our less guarded
moments for points of entry.
I want to second-guess my third
personality, I want in.
I want a frame, and some bubble wrap,
and a one-use tranquilizer dart
to help capture the moment.
I keep hitting the pause, but
nothing ever happens. Or, rather,
it keeps happening…

MEMORY CHECK

So many of us gather at the checkpoint,
our fingerprints frayed at the edges,
smudged, indiscriminate, our identities
already a muddle, currency a second guess.
We hurry through, busy shadows inside
a larger frame work. We are afraid
to be empty, but we had to leave
so much behind. Memories are what
weigh the most, dragging us beneath
the roiling tide. Now, new ones
are being supplied, to anchor us here;
entire stock photo galleries of family
and friends, pinned to our tattered collars.
There are PowerPoint back story presentations,
seminars on the ties that bind, helpful hints
for awkward small talk around the kitchen table.
It is dizzying, a burden and a release at once.
To be able to point at a blank spot on a page
and say, “The story starts here…”

BESIDES

Doing yard work for my mom
a heron swings past the treetops
its' heavy wings tipped dim red in sunset
I stop for a sec/besides myself

BETTER NOT…

Across the heat-stricken Afterscape,
the bodies scattered in cindered embrace,
widening out in concentric circles
beneath the looming, blank-faced monolith
inscribed at its’ base (in the finest of print):
“Better Not Named”

TRICKSTER 2.0

My spirit guide got lost
on his way to meet me,
huffed glue for visions,
and was the most flat-footed
dance partner I ever wobbled
across a prairie rug with.

He left my pockets empty
and my eyes like tea cups,
awaiting scalding intake.
He claimed to be the latest
hybrid model: Trickster 2.0
but I had my doubts.

He left my sore-toed and thirsty,
my forehead a blazing billboard
for lack of thought.
He left me folded up
like a lozenge to lay
on my own tongue…

(PS: I tasted terrible)

JUBILATION JUDAS GOAT

Amen. Wait, you didn’t hear the ending.
We left their throats cut, we thought cash
up front was pretty self-explanatory---
pillars of salt and golden calves, et all.
Call it on the job insurance, a few false
idols swept under the carpet.
Call me anything, but not
late for dinner. So you’re saying
the DNA corrupts the crime scene?
Get in line. Don’t believe, unless
it’s been left out to die…

A RELIABLE FICTION…

…just showed up, batting her eyes,
sporting surplus war paint,
saying, “I’m nothing without you, baby”
and me racing to recall whether that’s the code
to break this chance encounter, whether
my credit card # hasn’t already been
compromised, identity theft a forgone
conclusion, and I think,
“Better you than me, mate…”

THE GLOWING IMPERIALS…

…which are just the next door neighbor’s windows
lit through the shadow of fir trees at 3 AM,
which become, briefly, B & W stained glass,
then totem pole god heads carved
from the bone of our memory
and then, at last, nothing more than
what I actually see…

RADIO SILENCE

The wind spins like a derelict surgeon seeking a scalpel point.
The satellites sputter, a sudden
blind-eyed chorus with one push of a button,
and all that’s illuminated is now dark.
All the cell phones just lost their charges, all the servers down, all the wire relays garroted
by larger wire relays
and so on and so on.

All for this moment of silence, so I could hear you…

DUTY NOW/DUTY FREE/DUTY LATER

Penniless at the border, I recant my last cant
(Wait a minute, is that legal?)
And didn’t you just move the border,
according to convenient product placement?
I’m stuck out here pissing into the wind,
while you’re busy keeping warm
off kindling from all the shaved angles.
I look at you, and don’t know you at all.
You look at me, and know me too well.
And the wind howls around us,
measuring spaces…

INTERNAL DOCUMENT

Forgive me. I was busy applying myself
to the fundamental principles of Manifest Destiny,
knowing that everything is free until you take it,
when I suddenly find out I’m interfering with an ongoing investigation…

[This conversation is presently being rerouted.

Everyone is innocent, until the new app is finalized.

Papers, please.]

STARING INTO THE APPARENT DAWN

The veil of air lifts,
shadow itself is undermined.
Out of the mist, a tree trunk
writhes its’ limbs like Gumby
in a passion play on the Cross,
which makes me think
what a pagan bit of clay
we all are, after all!…

WHOLE SALE NIGHT

The moon, immutable, punches
tin-plated grey calligraphy
across the swaying tree tops.
The slow rotation of the electric
fan like cars shushing
down a distant desert highway.
The words can’t be read, or even
said out loud. The night will close
us whole, if we just let it--
leaving us reduced to our essence.
Like the quickly ticked-off items
in the police blotter of some
small town newspaper, random
acts of petty larceny and
drunken vengeance,
the ink of mingled lives
coming off on our fingertips,
as the night’s heat disperses…

VIEWFINDER FINDS HORIZON

All the cowboys have been scalped.
All the Cities of Tomorrow a cindered prayer.
I am back on that 2nd grade shag carpeting,
oversaturated afternoon cartoons
spilling from the wood grain console.
I am aware of the treaties
and foreclosures of the past,
a tired trail whisking me
into its’ vortex that fills the screen,
the blood of every footprint
reduced to a color cell;
undifferentiated background detail.
I will streak my cheeks red
and play the Indian in the back yard.

EPITAPH

After a day of steady rains has ended, some one plays a warbling, mournful tune
on their flute by an open window, 2 AM, Brooklyn.

CAPSULE REVIEW

The Garden Mother lifts her skirt
and hence, the verdant plains.
I stand at attention
deficit disorder,
and generally miss the point,
which rests on a much-needled
voodoo doll that the angry mob
has taken a sudden dislike to.

I will take religion as a mouthful,
and want it reduced to an even
more concentrated capsule;
one slip under the tongue
and it’s done.

Salvation turns on a dime.
A neck thin enough to break
between two fingers,
like a wafer.
Hence, the verdant plains…

NAMELESS ZONE

The red war paint of the van’s reverse brake lights
washes over my apartment’s walls as it pulls in next door,
casting me in momentary blood and chain link shadow
relief, and suddenly, I am nameless, in some forsaken
war zone that will also remain nameless, and they’ve come
for me and I feel the weary resignation in my bureaucratic
bones, sitting on a front stoop late at night in Brooklyn…

ALL I ASK…

…Is that the elm tree cast its’ shadow
(writhing in wind) on the apartment building
across the street. All I ask is that
the imposing matronly silhouette in the ground floor
window doesn’t mark me down as “suspicious”
as I smoke a butt on my front stoop
and enjoy the incongruous night winds of Brooklyn.
All I ask is that time opens up
and you can step in.
All I ask is that I’m not mistaken
for who I actually am…

TEST GROUP

Bird song has been decoded
as a complex, orchestrated algorithm
intended to lull the human senses.
Tweets follow a similar pattern.
White noise has been proven to be
Mozart’s greatest symphony, left unimpeded.
All we can hope for is a conspiracy of silence.
I’m ready to join. But how will I ever
know if you are a part of it?

CLASP

to come undone
to ride the tension conduit
out to its’ farthest reaches
a kingdom stricken and bare
to annex the virgin territory
of an open palm, reading too much
into what is already there
to grasp for the essentials
and find them on back order
your very need to hold on hold
to clasp, to come undone

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS

You mean for today? OK, let’s see,
after weeks of heat, the rain finally came,
the humidity broke, and the early evening
was suffused with soft, gentle light:

Through a chain-link fence, sea birds
dive for fish over an inlet of the east river,
the tanks of a fuel depot station
and the Manhattan skyline behind them.

A misted full moon rises against the black silhouette of a disused smokestack.

I’m lifted for a moment out of myself…

OK, that’s it.

THE DEAD ARE THIEVES, TOO

They’ll pick your pocket clean,
like that Ozark you left by the river.
How many times do I have to talk to you?
Taking up double-time in the mirror…
The bones I carry are the bones I’ll throw.
I’m ready to forget—
What have you even left me to sell?

THE FANFARE…

…has left the building,
and donated us an exquisite corpse.
Far be it from me to suggest set dressing,
but the cheeks are less than rosy,
the pupils not quite marble-like in their focus.
If this is not one for the diorama history books,
then why bother knocking?
The scene of the crime is still innocent.
Let’s make something of this…

GHOST TRENDING

In an effort to expand our existing
marketing spectrum, we have recently
tapped into a previously un-mined
demographic resource: the dead.
Who better to hot-spot the future
than the restless spirits of the past?
Whatever’s old is new again,
recycling remains a moral imperative
(stick some “Go Green” copy in here)

The 80’s are back, if the recent spat
of hauntings in the Hamptons are any indication:
big hair, shoulder pads and “Members Only” jackets
were there in abundance.

Perhaps not being able to let go
Is where our consumer stream can buy in?
There’s no accounting for taste
(can ghosts taste?)
but we can account for that.
(note to R & D: Please look into ways
to make ectoplasm go viral…)

FOXGLOVE
Digitalis purpurea

What can make the heart grow stronger
can also kill it, can also be a tall, belled bloom
in my mom’s backyard garden. I ask her the name
of it, she can’t remember, angry with
the encroaching fog of old age.
She calls me later on my cell, as I head
back to the city on the train.
“So, you remembered the name?” I ask, as I pick up.
“Foxglove.”
“Foxglove?”
“Foxglove. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”

And the connection is broken, but remains.
There is something so important to us
in the naming of things, especially
the smallest of things, till they become
the code for something else, the vines
that bind us here, the trickster fox
offering palms full of poison
and salvation, and we can’t help
but shake both hands at once.

THE SHADOW’S TATTOO

The wind coils a succulent rind
out of nothing. It briefly lifts
the raspy skin of my T-shirt.
I stare into it, and I see nothing.
Invisible currents, coding the light
with their touch, relays within relays,
the way a tree sways in the dark
leaves no mark on me.
The shadow’s tattoo could be chain-link,
could be the last inscriptions
of a pure-born medicine,
could be…But why would you want
to finish the wind?

FALSE BOTTOM NARRATIVE

Sorry, where to begin? I’d see myself
out, if I could find a way in.
I was about to pull a parlor trick
in the portside stateroom, when
you suddenly reared your ugly
two-timing head, and stole the action
right out from under me. But I knew
I had to buy into your cover story, that
all storms are washed up with this one,
all slates wiped an oily sheen, am I right?
As the ship goes down, the bottom becomes
the top. I’m working overtime, I’m trying to see
clearly here: What’s my part in all of this?

ACTOR/SUBJECT

I bow before you, loyal only
to the level of your sustained scrutiny.
My life is an open book---please read!!
I would offer an abridged version, but
that bridge has gone too far, and left me
without a proper hand-shaking arm.
I fear I cannot survive beyond the sub-viral level,
that I’m not about to catch on.
This nation continues without me.
I’m a slave to the impulses
of my ghost limb, a nub glibly reaching.
I can’t hold onto this smile forever--
Catch it while you can!

CIVILIZATION AND ITS’ DISCONNECTS

Turn off your computer.
I know, I know. I will cease to exist.
I will return to my cave of shadows,
hang my puppets to dry by the back window,
and turn a blind eye to all the scrubbing
that needs to be done.
I will recalibrate.
I am nothing without your input.
I respond to your touch.
But you hitting restart
is like a blank check to me.
We give and we slake
in our mutual thirst,
and all I’m asking for
is a moment of silence.