New Poems

Two new poems: Recollections of How I Smelled on I-90 and 22 For Babe's Blues (For Babe's 22).

An excerpt:

                I smelled like the exculpations of

                The weight of the world,
                The palimpsest
                Of justification
                And whateverness.

They are after "The Jump."

RECOLLECTIONS OF HOW I SMELLED ON I-90

Like a sandwich,

Or a painter painting.

Like colors, that

Taste like reusable batteries or

Something that hurts your eyes like

Your eyes are as vulnerable

And innocent and out there

And open and naive

And trusting

As your face,

Or something.
                           

                  Like a dead childhood pet

                  Found in the back of a closet
                  In a yard-sale short story

                  When you are at 36 years old.

I smelled,

As an 11:37 in the A.M.

Like broke again-empty wall,

Like a broken-up-with boyfriend,

Like smelled as like a person decomposing,

In a small compartment,

Like just smelling the smell.

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

I smelled like the last loaf

Of Wonder Bread,

The waft up and stay till stale.

                              

I smelled like an empty factory
And the shifty remainders of

A pre-service industry.

Like I smelled like the painted billboards

That wither and weather away,
Like 1960s/1970s.
And, like, kept like
A spectacle,

Like a kid passed out in the middle of the party.

I smelled like the exculpations of

The weight of the world,
The palimpsest
Of justification
And whateverness.
--------------------------------------   I smelled like an unpaid internship.

I smelled like a human.

Like a person.

Like something that is real.
Like pungent.

I smelled like a receding hairline
On a barely there career,
A career pol’s last last try,

A malodorous ardor,
I smelled like (freedom) fries.

                    Or Lee Fisher + everything he tries.

I smelled like an “Indie Rock” band,

Waving a peace sign,
Singing about capitalism,

At a summer “fest.”

I smelled bad, man. 

                   “And go see Nikki at the Merch Stand!”

I smelled like homemade speed,

Like things you buy that you don't need,

Like things you need that you can't buy,

Like trying to find your roommate
To find something
And do something
Or other
To get high.

                     Right?

I smelled
Like a dead person
Underneath a
Richard Serra sculpture
And the conversation
They had
After.


Post-Script:

I smelled like tap water.

I smelled like Klaus Kinski.

   22 For Babe’s Blues (For Babe’s 22)

 For Chartreuse, I have no use.

  Citrus, lemon-lime,
 Shed reason, dodge rhyme.

 Lilac is ransacked,
 Mauve is now a gimmick, an act,
Lavender and plum, another couple redacts.

   Those verdant, seem varmint,
 And scarlet appears a harlot,
Burnt umber: I cast asunder,
Sepia, caramel, coffee: only blunders.

      Hay-flaxen cadmium,
      And all the gold untold,
      Even the daffodil and the primrose,
      And each and every blonde girl’s day-glow,
       Become just youthful tonalities that I used to know.

Pigments turn figments,
Like a blackbird’s half-heard coo,
And all the machinations of my imagination,
Yield just a lone, blinding hue.

  All other colors seem untrue,
 Each time I look at my babe‘s blues.