So, I am lost in your eyes, ears, nose, throat–
You have enchanted me with a single kiss
Which can never be undone
Until the destruction of language
                                                       Kenneth Koch

 

from the lips of monks 
there falls the extolling 
of conglomerate masses, 

the hitherto, the and or but 
a hiss, oversimplified

if in fact there 
was to be a rebuke 
it might go along 
these lines, paint 
yr damn picture, 
write yr damn book, 
love yr damn girl

the deconstruction was a painful process 
a reinvention to open eyes, 
to bitchslap, to awaken 
a sideways glance might tell you as much 

one drag leads to another, you say, 
one poem to the next, levels exp(ou)anding 
in the florescent light of Brooklyn,
neutral territory, strange and harsh language fraught with 
real masculinity, a hard edge to all the plastics and the 
baby boomers so neglectful, strange 

how we ended up here

there's a sculpture of an angel 
pointing her fingers like a gun, 
French like us, similarly employed, 
the "intended function of the benign" 
diligently stable

a reserve 
seldom found 
a quiet like 
lonely fallen trees 
is this too loud?

in twenty years i pray 
for you, like now, on this eve, 
to be tweed clothed and wire rimmed 
stained with the splash, 
jaded, like now
a postcard, a photo, a breath 
inhaled and blue

o sweet ruddy boy ten more minutes 
couldn't hurt

again it's the agility of the dissonances, the clashing, c'est la raison que je t'aime

i will expose you 
you are exposed