Editors' Note: “Pinky’s Rule” has been adapted into a seven-minute animated drawing by artist Amy Sillman. Image on this page courtesy of Amy Sillman.

It always starts
fast then begins
unwinding.
A relatively
straight shot
right to the
moon (in freeze
frame):
as if you're
almost at the
point of being
nearly ready.
Abrupt shift
as in I'll
catch you
next time, wipe
that stare off
your filmy
inconsequence,
give me a
rain dance, a
walk around the
projected parking
structure,
my indubitable
loquacity, the
ice machine next
to the ice
truck, Sunday
morning chill.
Mellow the way a
lemon calls out your
name in the dark,
only it's saying “Alice”
and your name is
John, or then it's
saying “Paulo”
but you hear
it as hollow.
Instrumental,
that is, only in
the name I
find when the
shooting's over
and the bed linen's
on the line.
It comes to this
or it came to that
or I shouldda
listened harder or
I heard too much.
Just don't bet the
ranch on the chance
your horse will come
in second. There is
no place like
a blue pipe on a
blunt background:
that would be a
pony of a different
stripe. Heaven doesn't
ask and won't tell.
Here on the ground
you have to make
a lot of guesses, but
even the most astute
hunch don't
change the course
of all you've tried
to push against.
The fuel's not so much
finite as tainted. Perception
bows to the low-person
on totem's pole.
Or forms a filter
against chance
encounters, meteoric
ineptitude, undeniable
resemblances. You
don't got to be
Plato to see the
shadows on the wall.
Going where
you think you
go, coming from
wherever
you thought you'd
come from.
I go in fear of
fear but on the
flip side of
the coin, early
risers cut short
the night. Illusion
is always 9/10ths
collusion and half
wistful thinking.
Take another look:
there is no more
collateral damage
to that thought
than to the beach
when the wave
breaks over it.
The picture can
say only what
the words tell
it not to, as in
the pope is
in the silo
while the poetry
boy redoubles
his and her
effortlessness.
It's a running
dope, or more
kind to say,
inept propositional.
Where did you
say you put
the pliers?
She's only this
far from destiny.
But they only sell
one-way tickets.
The warp of the weft
is beset by fits.
And then it comes
to pass that the oblong
is covered in shadow.
As long as you
both shall spill.
 
Pinkies rule.
This is what
she told me.

         •

For every two
there’s a
third, for every
one a z. The road
knows but not
to tell nor who
might see. She
bade me swear
and I went home
with scarce a care.
The road, limbed
with light in
feckless flight—don’t
go there. In every
three’s a pattern
finds its form
in bars of crimson
melody: it hears
and what it
hears it sees
in crimson bars
of malady. Third
becomes one as
second’s z, I
become three as
one returns to
me. The road
gels where
patterns tell, breaking
into lines that
spell, don’t speak
but swell: an alphabet
tinged with regret.
As one becomes
z, none hides the
three—this much
has she told
to me.

         •

We stand erect
but for a price
I never know
my left from
right. I'll change
it even so, if
you will only
let me know.
I'm on my
knees this time
Fortune's pissed
right in my eye
and tapped his
hand on the other
band, left me
low and dry––
That's a place
right close to no
just on the other
side. A circle
around an A 
with nary a
time for a z
as long as
you both shall
spill, as green
glides only to
your will, as
sure as a frown’s
frown’s a frown
or an n or an r
of ap. This is
what she told
me: For the price
of o, with the head
of a frog, a sliced-
up q with a dress
made of pipes.
Meet the man
almost made it
the girl the man
became, the woman
in the boy, the
fiddler in the storm.
If pinkies rule
you'd best remove
your right foot
from my left.
Once we danced
with ants in our
uncles before we
rushed to Ghent
for truffles. Sissies
rule, aces are spare
sashes are violent
purses uncertain.
Pursue your sudden
passion, but never
without two shakes
of fashion. As
x makes three
or seven, when
the shoot’s shot.

         •

Quisling’s rule, what’s
on second, who’s
the one that
heard. You go
up and then
go tumbling down
into the segment
that was just
the frown, that
blanks you out
in a blink of
a sound. There’s
no point beating
round the bent,                                      
no point beating
trees into well-
groomed hens—or
a bush into
a bee. The sparrow
she sings it
differently. Sings of
orange and green
and all the colors
in between. White’s
blue reply, red’s
recalcitrant lover, aquamarine
in tin, torn covers.
But colors are
too bright you
know. You might
as well paint
shadows against
snow. Since sometimes
shadows is all                                                
you can see
(and that includes
me). The picture
can tell only
what the words
hide and the
words are hiding
for their lives
in a witness
protection program
on Three Pony Drive.
Paint flies when
you’re having steak
with fries, a stake
in  what you care
to recognize. Care’s
the lost cause
of our descent:
the gulls that
guide us with their
shrieks: no more
lament, no more
lament. Lullabies
hum the tunes
we thought up
at lunch: the pie
in the heavens
or the pickle on
a paddy wagon.
Even the littlest
fingers know better
than that. Pinky’s
rule: Winsome
and lose some.
Thick grey marks
as if of chalk.