tonight, up there

2.

have you felt that the sun, the
great earthwarmer itself (oh, but think about
what is has helplessly endured! the trans-
formation of nations that once had no
bones or landmines 'neath their soils, blood
daggers digging through the roots of all
innocent.

the curses and ignorance of little
ants with different colored faces and
hair, keeping them warm without speech. the
staggering loss of hope brought by the
icebergs and glaciers--water was
meant to flow pristinely.

and of course, the loneliness. even if
we wanted to kiss the sun, to show
it our tears, to explain that humankind
is worth saving...)

has the patience of
a million sages?

tonight, up there

1.

have you felt that out
in november in the early morning
when you have been warming green
things with a bic, out there wearing
a sweater and jeans in the
sink and shrill autumn, shivering
not because you are cold, noticing
every single seventy six leaves
casting down to the ground, murmuring
to the squirrels and the nightcrawlers
that do not mind the temperature

(as if you were a word on the lips
of earth touching her somewhere at each
second and she touching you, as if
the earth said to you i have breathed
you falling out my mouth in vapor i love
you and now you have inhaled me the
crystal tendrils of me now hang from my
limbs until the old man winter comes
to drag you down,

as if there were
seventy seven leaves)?

2.

continued...

VI. Our respiration
keeps us strong for each other
keeps us together

VII. When I hold my breath
my body cries out to me:
why'd you betray me?

VIII. Could not bear the stench
livid chemicals and shit
hold it, hold it, hold

IX. Nostril to nostril
breath to breath and hand to hand
stand up, counterparts

X. In the air it feels
like the sun has given up
so grab some blankets

1.

Ten haikus on breathing. Go.

I. Inhale angel breath
wingtips tickle my nostrils
resuscitate me


II. Because today's air
smells of lemon redemption
we could use rebirth


III. Souvenir from space
never able to go there
never able to


IV. Involuntary
brain thinks for my benefit
repay it with beer

V. Because I believe
you breathe the same air with me
I'm life, volatile

4.

checked the back door.
checked the front.
dead
bolt.

this is the mantra:
namaste namaste namaste namaste.

chin lift throat catch,
the friendliness of silence.

fingers trickle, lung heavy,
gargantuan cats all of them black
sifting into a realm i call bedroom.
where i was is not where i am.

the wintry brevity.
the slowly turning wheels
of Pharoah's army. behind me
a feline snickers and moses splits a sea.

i recognize you God, there in
the bathroom mirror.

3.

I have incriminated myself
I need an out-of-body experience
to shed my snakeskin to sprinkle sawdust
suck it up in a transparent
vacuum

so everyone can see it.

My putrid tornado of wasted energy
laced with sweaty headaches &
a Holy Bible opened to
some page in
Exodus

Exodus(t)

not even
cold air
feels good
right now

2.

about those rotten pears i
lathered them into my hair when i finally did
(yes i did) take a shower and now
everyone has been asking me what
sort of products i use and i can only say
sadly

the shit of flies the pungent
rotten flesh of fruit long gone the
choking pesticides and

on my hands the dust of dead cells the
sticky cannabis stuff the semen
from last night when i masturbated
and couldn't find my way to the
thunderstorm outside and the
dry and coagulated blood of christ
that i have always kept in my fingerprints

1.

I don't have the heart the
heart to tell you certain things like how
I brood with fruit flies swarming around in my kitchen
sucking the remnants of rotten pears and I
haven't showered in four days because this is
as clean as I'll ever be (who me? yes
me)

5.

stuck to the soil
or concrete (if i am lucky?)
my duration, and you may
call it life if you want, will be
chalked out on the ground.

stuck to it, something about gravity,
the same thing that makes bird shit
drop onto
my car.

despite this,
and i say damn the birds,
my head is up there in the sky
isn't it? that must count for
something. (my car is clean)

cawcawcawcaw says a blackbird
(in english this is fuck you stupid human thing!)

and then, of course, rain.

4.

no wind, as two blackbirds
(I like to think they were
blackbirds)
perched symmetrically atop
a telephone wire saw
me

me, erasing their
brief, rancid mark of existence
them, drunk off birdseed and
chirping this conversation:

Bird A: There he goes a'cleaning.
Bird B: And for what?
Bird A: We'll hit it again in a few hours.
Bird B: If extraterrestrial life observed us, they
would think that birds are greater than
humans.
Bird A: It's not like we're cleaning up their shit.
Bird A & B: Caw caw caw caw caw!

the birds are right
they navigate the pristine blue firmament
while I, the humble farmer, scrape away
their feces from the limited ground

3.

bird shit tastes like berries
and stomach acid, and
i know this because
my hands my hands were slimed in it,

fingerprinted bird shit high gloss finish
          and, if you're careful (i wasn't)
          you might dilute the crust
          with water from the snaking hose
          that curls potentially around
          the corners and curves of your house.

wasn't it so easy
to pop my index finger between
my lips like candy?

weren't the birds whispering
something about damnable mr. snediker
ruining their art? the oil smooth feathers

preened prudent pride
of birds

ruffled suddenly, no wind
in the leaves.

2.

but the rain, the rain
never came (painful as
novocaine); I

wiped the bird shit off myself
arduous labor that I
later
appreciated, like a farmer
with his fields

Concerning Gettin' By/1.

I would've said,
"Yeah, you're right!" just to appease
you and to sustain
our friendship, but
I wouldn't have really thought
that.

But I would've played Ninja Turtles 'cause
I ain't no square.


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


The clouds can't make up their minds
somebody keeps flipping coins and
they're standing up straight, not committing
to a side (in the firmament)

Firmly
we need some color in the spectrum
we need it imbued because
raindrops are like pheromones and I
am attracted to you
am attracted to me
am attracted to being productive (and green tea)

and
I am too lazy to wash the bird shit
off my car
myself (a little help, God!)

on gettin' by

of course the 90s
are cloudy to me now (and then, i suppose)

but what would you say
if some photo of us,
together, in 1995, surfaced?

like we were
best-of-friends
all along (along, along the I-40 corridor)
and you had asked me then,
what constitutes poetry?

i might have said
"poetry's for weirdos, man. can i come
over and play ninja turtles?"

and that, i think, is poetry.

Concerning T.S.

Real talk:

we were basically raised in the '90s.
What, in your mind, constitutes
poetry, man?

Is it gettin' by with eloquent verbiage
and masterfully conveying various
images?

I think it's just gettin' by,
you know?

11.

You are an untapped section of my
subconscious.

Yahweh, you had your chance--
I have to eat.

(End.)

10.

like so i might pray:

lord do not take your hand from
me, do not loose the rope
or pull the infamous lever.

(the floor might disappear beneath my feet)

lord thrust me into a mountainside,
curtail the daylight in my eyes.

lord do not leave hurriedly,
scabbard and shield be damned,
the sun and the moon be

damned.

lord take me out to sea
so that we may touch the backs of whales,
speak their language, their whorls
and swirl-speech echoing to another
ocean, and let my fingernails grow long.

lord what is your name?

lord you are
lord you are.

Concerning T.S.

Don't abandon me now, fellow poet.

9.

Oh, He smote me alright!
Sent me flailing down an icy gyre
(my limbs were skin-tight tessellating), sent
me down, but I know I'm still alive because
of my trivial thoughts:

who won the game at Yankee Stadium
have I finally become complaisant
the rats probably devoured my pizza crust

(I don't know, maybe, fuck them)

If you were spinning down with me (old bath water
down the drain), I would hold your
hand.
Our phalanges would freeze together, intertwined.
A carefully woven Navajo basket from the loom
of the Great Spirit--the Great Spirit who has no
sword, inconspicuous or not.

The Great Spirit who, when asked by the metallurgist
if he wanted to purchase a sword, replied,
"And do what with it? Cut down the vines on my
weathered trellis? No, no, I love those vines..."

I want our phalanges to freeze together.
I want so many things
like a warm draft every now and then.

Even after He
smote
me
and I'm spinning down to join the
brown tulip garden, I think about
how I always wanted to travel to the
Dead Sea of all places.

I'd watch the sun boil the salt and
wait for equilibrium, not worrying about
fish nibbling at my leg hairs. I would
float on my back, and maybe even
pray.

8.

you are dead. i am putting riddles
to prostitutes in transit.

your cheeks were pits.
your curls were flaccid
like my dick all of those years.

there are no children
to wear our hand-me-down genes
out into the sunlight, the green world
up up above the cavity i sleep and breathe in.

i am at last the last.
(before the flat line oozed
i bit my lip, tasted blood, fled)

children that possess not a mote
of my dust:
          julian tosses a candy wrapper.
          grace smoothes her skirt.
          vicki picks her nose.
          clarence whistles.
          bethany grips a brown tulip

the flower wilting is not me. it was
and is you, shrunk into a skeleton.
the bones of my bones quiver. the flesh
of my flesh sparks in your waxy fingers.

i have the devil in me.

Abba? He has just flitted past
in a pressed gray business suit,
sunglasses underground, swallowed
into the ticking tocking beast.

gone into the folds of time,
the folds of a dress, the folded
steel of a sword inconspicuous in His hands.

7.

Oh, you again!

Mary Magdalene of 42nd St.--tall, able-bodied,
red stilettos
click-click-clicking.

We wait in line together to see if our
names are in the great book, sharing a cup
of coffee ground from
the bones in Golgotha. Tastes good.

Peter is a smug bastard, and I already
know where we're going. I'm going to savor
the hell out of this coffee at least.

But see, I'll just go back to my grease stain.
My asshole-of-the-universe perch against the cold
stone subterranean wall:

A semi-circle of loose change.
A pile of corroding magazines.
A deceitfully bright blue tarp.

Might as well be a shrine to
old Satan himself.

Might as well be 'cause
I see his demons and minions
every night, coming
out to play on the subway
tracks and in the hearts of
children.

And I am one of those children.

6.

jesus on a white horse in the clouds
(in the event of)

i know i know i know
you in your stiletto reds clicking
here and there, a hen escaping a hen-house,
the naked woman fully realized.

a young man tosses a coin at me,
mistaking my plight:

i am not the beggar on the street corner
day in and out, i am not the president
wearing ivy league chalk on my hands, i am
not the blue-collared red face.

I AM.

still you supersede me.
still the grumbling subway.
still my hands at dusk when the shadows
crease the upper airs.

i paw at the coin but it evades me.

jesus is on the obverse.
(RAPTURE!)

5.

The naked woman, I recognize,
is merely a passage from a literature
book.

Libido, Libido! You are part of me.

From in between the dirt under your fingernails and
toenails, the gruff of your beard, and the
general stench of your apathy comes a
magnificent sign--

hope of existence.

My life is squandered, but I exist.
Your life is failing, but you exist.
We exist, and oxygen does not
discriminate--we both breathe it,
we both THRIVE by it.

I lean against the concrete wall after
the last train has gone by, and I think of
the periodic table (I learned that at
some point--I cherished it).

Let's say I'm nitrogen and you're carbon.
I supersede you.
Let's say I'm hydrogen, and you're, say, bromine.
I supersede you.

Let's say I'm everything you wanted to be,
and you're everything I wanted to be.
You supersede me.

The fourth rail rushes in suddenly--a cacophonous
battle between alloys and friction.
I plug my ears, nod at my half sandwich, and beg
for the Rapture.

Nothing surfaces.
I grow hungrier, and I look at the sky.
It's glowing periwinkle, and I can see myself
drifting among the constellations and various
celestial bodies.

I am there (and nothing else).
I am here (and nothing else).

I am.

4.

the naked woman in my head
the naked woman with erect nipples
the naked woman posturing

on the street corner next to the man with a placard
          "the end is near the end is near the end"
                     "repent and sin no more!"

the naked woman with glistening thighs
the naked woman on the wall in the Louvre
the naked woman in my bed

my brain swims in an aquarium
next to a fish named libido
his brother franklin (is not so conspicuous)

my brain leaps out from my head
and rolls (inconspicuous) across the subway floor
tussles briefly with a skittering newspaper (the end
                                                                 is near!)
splats through the door of the metro

a red-coated man reads hemingway on the seat next
a boy wears sneakers
a woman is fully clothed

my brain my brain my brain my brain
lost in a tunnel on a train full of bodies

a water main bursts
(those damn pipes!)
franklin swims past

libido swims past
and everyone wishes they hadn't
worn clothes at all

3.

HISSSSSSSSSssssssssssssssss

(it never disappears

completely because fricatives

are unreliable leaky pipes).

Each day I become more

educated in things like fly fishing

and pornography

                  because these magazines

come in with the wind from a

                  nearby unfortified newsstand.

I can tell you how to fish.

I can tell you how to fuck (and be fucked over).

I can tell you this:

       I feel like I live in purgatory, an

       eternal waiting room, with all of

       these goddamn magazines.

       And the receptionist keeps on

       ignoring my turn.

Things could be worse (imagine if

I didn't know what a fricative was?);

           things can

                                always

be worse.

2.

i feel the third rail reaching out to me
five and half electric feet away,
dragging metal serpents hither and
thither, through the quivering intestine
of america. and there is much
space (the empty star-filled sort)
between the come-and-go-but-do-not-come-as-you-are.

my very own carbon dioxide
fills the void.

am i Zeitgeist, crumpled like a filthy
poem by the grafitti? or am i flea-bitten
welfare flesh? or both?

the male Washington, powdered hair
cheeks and hands, powder in his boomstick,
fell to Martha like a cherry tree, felled
the cherry redcoats, spoke always truth
through false teeth.

i am a liar. water crystal clinging to my beard,
the gust of winter sets my dentals
chattering.

i belong to the skinny greyhound pup
licking at a cheeseburger wrapper,
to the indian woman, her rubied forehead,
cream white halls, orderlies and flat lines,

the pallid cement, the fricative hiss
of passersby.

1.

"The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls..."

Next to anarchy signs, four-letter expletives and

phone numbers for a good lay, I lay

down.

I think of you each morning, how your

body decided it despised you and

betrayed you with cancer.

Your organs, your blood cells, your soul--

all volunteered to host the tumor,

like quartering Redcoats in colonial America.

I think of colonial America as the people

pass in front of me, kicking my trite trinkets

and flipping coins in my general direction.

Martha Washington would have housed me,

fed me soup and nursed me.

Martha Washington's descendants will have

nothing to do with me.

I wish they would get cancer.

I wish I had a

blanket, and

I think of you each morning when the

metro makes its first stops and

passengers of the world exchange glances--

Arabs passing Mexicans,

Mexicans passing Indians,

Indians passing Britons,

Britons passing African (Americans).

How seldom we belong.

the rules.

there are no rules.

here is the aim:

to evoke an authentic conversation about life, love, metaphysics, God, death, et al. using poetry as the medium. to accomplish this, the two poets, andrew and tim, will author responsive poetry in alternating order, as if they were writing letters back and forth, or speaking together over coffee.

the poets may follow the other's form and subject, or they may offer tangential contributions. as aforementioned, there are no rules. the poets can speak as themselves, as historical figures, fictional characters, or pebbles on a sea shore. they can directly address each other, or speak abstractly. there are no stakes, no rules, no limitations.

the individual poems can be linked together to form a larger poem, or they can stand alone. as long as they are responsive. ideally, the poems will resonate--with the poets reading and writing them, and with whatever audience the poems happen to garner.

we'll see what happens.

after you, andrew.