Content and Disconnect

I

Live Oaks East of the Mississippi

The only difference being the salt jumbled in the divided atmosphere, she told me rather perfunctorily of the formulated life detached. Feeling at all, realizing my work has just been a hobby, plushed through the sympathetic aperture in a streaming search for adjectives, we’ve dredged the bridge to silent curiosities discovering wakefulness amongst other deviant childhood falsities. This town’s discordant philosophies tend to dangle spring through spring like question marks on the run. All it takes is one proper rubber band to make a smile. A rose to the moon absentmindedly lisps: “Later, I’ll be there for you. We’ll preoccupy ourselves with forgetting how to write, staining our chastised bodies with grass and sunlight. You’ll fill my lines with hieroglyphic obscurities and I’ll paint the fleshy fragrance of your chirruping dreams (pink, don’t you think?) until we both run out of pencils or simply evaporate Himalayically. How does that sound?”

The echo reverberates beyond sight.

II

Self Expression of a Dandelion

baby-

why haven’t you forgotten

my fate supposes

pre-supposes

all while dandelion crosses

dandelion.

smelt purloined,

grinningly

came to me,

isomorphic education

included. teaching the

children antitheses

aposiopesis mis-

connected and

opportunity. behind

with feeling and

life and box matches

lit, all wind repented

by dusk today

III

As Thrips

from the tip of the tip

we do not prune

frantic as a fuddled white finch

flapping its quips

boastful as winters pruning sits

taking note of every ripple ripped

The nitwit becomes the cutie and becoming

the cutie never says “What do I say?”

The hooded elders process, differentiating branches brittly

with aspirin, napkins glowing into the night.

Trailing audibly, my breath absorbs every “hey moon.”

Softly hummed bebops cover the soon to be dew

with the energy efficiency of a resonant prude.

The scheduled neighborhood blackout arrived with malice.

“Why do you say things like this?” I don’t know.

“Do you sing?” I don’t. “Do you dance?”

I don’t. “I see. That seems to make sense.”

The tender moon broke apart and fell into the sea,

steadily refracting your memories to me.

CASUAL DATING

We do not prune - we are not natural
Soft as winter pruning - it is or is not notable
If you didn't tell me to speak to you
I would speak to you, though not softly as before.

The nitwit becomes the cutie and becoming
The cutie never says "What do I say?"
Differentiate the branches brittly with aspirin
Their napkins glowing quite brightly at night

Trailing, audibly thanking the server like: "Hey moon..."
Softly humming music now covering the soon to be dew
Their energy efficiency always reminding the prude
And the forgotten scheduled neighborhood blackout was untimely

But reminded me: I've never seen the scarf. I called:
"Hey, cooper-" "Hey! I finished the scarf."
So we sweetly ate the innocent, scheduled sandwiches, casually.

suresure

tending beauty - and beauty itself
appreciating not the goal-
not the conformity
accepting beauty to dinner
excepting uninformed phonetics
expecting sureties of nothing
except surely, itself - oft repeated
(pseudoarchaities - posed to loft
purpose lost)
expecting my own country
loaned or lost
nothing is beauty
    except itself
nor humanizing
    despite itself
meaning: when she smiles
beauty says "so," and "so?"

CONFESSION:

I thought your love had left
or worse, your love had gone
and I do not want to live-
not amongst this loss
accounted for, resolved, and
    echoing -
the future and past wound
    tight -
something seeming suspended, heavily-
    yet

Perhaps not proper perceived
    have I made it all about me?
What if the love: never a lover
    was once there here a bed
bricked in the bedroom it framed
    I couldn't yet see a name
I turned the cover into a wall
    then turned the wall into a tomb.

Perhaps the bird was just a bird
It could have been that winter was here
Perhaps it could have been spring
and I am simply a bird
    seemingly doing my thing
I am simply a bird

Perhaps that sound, that obvious blur
    mightn't have even been mine.
Ignoring the people just pointing at mine.
What is this love - this new land
This strange beast yawning
    divine or damned
Spiraling-

fawning us in - circular eyes
    around again - pleasant as privacy
sucking us in - seeming so gentle
    to last at all - keeping things even
and sucking us in - looking around
    around again - circular skies
a love a bird - sucking us in
    feeling around - feeling complacent
Where have you gone?

What is that, wind?
Speaking so gently,
    perhaps it was wind.
Floating the bird
    soothing the love
Speaking the season
    conceding the bird
Becoming the state
    yawning the blur.
I think it was her.

BYWATER

(have you) seen the red grit, paper, television, salting sound

bobbling through the everywhere

like a bubblethin grenade I've become

a sly, tried soundless sigh

numb, but it's okay

if you can distinguish an orange

from an orange, calm a catamaran

float an apple for not being an orange

and quiet the proper situation

sometimes you're a hero

sometimes you're a wave

of peppers

(you)

abandoned strand of Christmas lights

gracing the post-winter pre-spring

transitioning trees, graciously

gathering drinks

skulking through

skulking black bushes

becoming one with wrought iron

you said what you love

below the daymoon

lying in the dirt burning

sand

burning like citrus

I want to spend time with you.

"The daytime birds are still singing

and my face is so red."

but it's okay

NUMBING OF THE EAR, TIMELESSLY

disguised with inundation
hands of a mason's youngest son
across the crepuscular evening
thinking of you, soft as none

streetlights stilting, lighting sidewalks
(commonplace, not cobblestone)
shadows and headlights catching
twirly maplepods, competence, fastness

tattered greenmoon pearlights
as in, theatrics. smaller than innocence
a pistol: antique and unloaded
harmlessly painting a picture of none

still. "ain't comin' back."
malignant peace treatises
some remember, some forget

"NOTHING BAD IS GOING TO HAPPEN, AND I DON'T FEEL STRESSED AT ALL."

spread thin with millions of eaglets
eager and earnest and so young
with cheap tickets to hemingway
readings. shrapnel included and easily
sweetened faces on faces shouting "friction!"
"these days"
whoever to be cared for
followed, with care
confronted with being cared for
following with care
sweetened
how much honey required
for momentum to hover
the hump and cover the
speed bump? I only ask
because sunlight reminded.
seizures of sunlight
through breezes through branches sweetened
I think I can see your sorrow
and sweeten it
and in this, this is how we met
to have never heard of love
rather than gnawing through
expectations of life and life
I kind of how I like it I feel
as if I could with no memory of before
nothing ever ends/this never ends/because I'm so young

ONE OF FIVE, ONE BEFORE, GENERALITY, TANGENT

dancing on broken branches
(but I don't dance)
it didn't adapt-
or, adopt-
onus unknown, I
usually lose myself
(or at least, occasionally)
what I'm saying is
I wasn't very me
we weren't very we
people say passion
probably don't know

(don't lone alone
or together-
see that fruit?
completely confident)

comely pineapple
slow train below
segmented stop sign
sporting caffeine
with some shopping
(groceries, mostly)
wet, without rain
still without sun
green enough
still mostly gray

she seemed so plain
face heavily powdered
purchased- 
no, puckered - lips
perhaps she secretly sniffs cocaine
eyes heavily powdered
too thick to see into
freely forgotten, possibly a shame

people say apostrophe
people say slash
people sit on couches
and chairs and
watch television in pairs
and fall in love or
maybe just lust and
lay on couches and 
toss and tumble then
fight and fuss and
sit on couches watching
television with hate,
indifference, and maybe
not even lust and confused
feelings of necessity

making dinner
for a friend

SELF EXPRESSION OF A DANDELION

baby-
why haven't you forgotten?
my fate supposes
pre-supposes
all while dandelion crosses
dandelion.
smelt purloined,
grinningly;
came to me,
isomorphic education
included. teaching the
children antitheses
aposiopesis mis-
connected and op-
portunity. behind
with feeling and 
life and box matches
lit, all wind repented
by dusk today

COURTNEY BARNETT - DEPRESTON

You said we should look out further, I guess it wouldn't hurt us. We don't have to be around all these coffee shops. Now we've got that percolator, never made a latte greater. I'm saving twenty three dollars a week.

We drove to a house in Preston, we see police arresting a man with his hand in a bag. How's that for first impressions? This place seems depressing. It's a "California bungalow in a cul-de-sac."

It's got a lovely garden, a garage for two cars to park in ("or a lot of room for storage if you've just got one"). And it's going pretty cheap you say? "Well it's a deceased estate...aren't the pressed metal ceilings great?"

Then I see the handrails in the shower, a collection of those canisters for coffee, tea and flour, and a photo of a young man in a van in Vietnam.

And I can't think of floorboards anymore, whether the front room faces south or north, and I wonder what she bought it for.

(If you've got a spare half a million, you should knock it down and start rebuilding.)