Fragments

Criticism works away at what one knows; if it is to have any value whatsoever, an erosion of faith must be the inevitable result.

Man is nothing around which he practices a precarious posture before an abyss that is his immaterial birth.

Coffee is the philosopher's sacred mud. It sustains him in his state of agitated repose.

I would choose Blake over Shakespeare because his innocence is greater, though it is Shakespeare who exhibits more violent charm.

Poetry consumes various insults in order to produce one singular shame.

The writer needs at least three cats who will torment him with their greed, beauty, and magnificent indifference to Art.

The writer is first and foremost a reader.
Page after page of scrawl: the miseries of an ecstatic failure.

Another Machine To Praise

I might lie to you.
The way wood rots, growing darker
like a coastal edge receding
over the earth’s curve.
At this desk boredom is a fire.
I might light a wooden dog on fire to praise your
Beauty which is illegal in the country
Of my brain-pan where dictators
Follow easily each other
Soft and large and prone to sweats.
One pretended he was blind.
I might lie again like a tongue
upon your various fractures.
And if I lie what then, what tools
do we need to save the carousel, the hammered lion,
to feed him with our hands.
I might wish to hold you before the trumpets
And later the skyline.
I might lie to you about a childhood
When I drank from a creek
Because I was far from home.
It was hot and I liked it that way.


***

Here is a revision, suggested to me by my friend Adam Tavel.

A NOTE RETRIEVED FROM THE DYING MAN'S THROAT-CAVE


I might lie to you the way
Wood lies, growing darker
Like a coastal edge receding
Over the earth’s curve.

At this desk boredom is a fire.
I might light a wooden dog on fire
To praise your Beauty which is illegal
In the country of my brain-pan
Where dictators follow easily each other
Soft and large and prone to sweat.

One pretended he was blind.
I might lie to you again, cleanly,
Or tongue the armor of a tank.
In either case, an incurious compass
That aligns the various fractures.

And if I lie to you, what then, what tools
Do we need to save the carousel,
The hammered lion, to feed him
With our hands. I might wish to hold
You before the trumpets
And later the skyline.
I might lie to you about a childhood
When I drank from a creek
Because I was far from home.

America's Favorite Hemorrhoid Cream

a

Swivel it my way
I mean coin
Or coins
Plural is genius my turnips
Gone to far away hills
Dirt on this here map you aren't
Saying it like they said it would be
I'm the disappoyted King of Malaria

b

No matter, cat
We dun brung groggy you home on a hand basket
You kin bite if you like
You kin bate in the lake
I don't care
We all friends here
Killers aint welcome

c

I warn't borne here but I learned
The language I learned the language
Of health and crime I learned
How to praise her pubic kite
You know the famous slogan
I wrote that one I wrote it:
America's Favorite Hemorrhoid Cream
That was me that done that
That totally owned it
Stone cold disowned it