The opposite of gravity

I was sure on that day a generation ago

we bought our first color tv
to watch the grey-on-grey grains
the screen & the surface
& the very first footstep

I’d raise my family in space
or Tranquility Base
& life would float lightly
with many marvelous things

one of the first things I still can remember
was my ABC book
I think it was called
Space Alphabet
b was for booster
v – Van Allen belt

& the world took the shape of its vessel: hope
that echoed the hope of an eight-year-old boy
(that’s eight-and-a-half & moving to space)
implicitly promised space-age adventures

Gus Grissom’s death was the first one I cried at

& now family is coming & I still live on Earth
& I have to admit while watching tv &
some sci-fi comes on & someone
flies off across space
I might feel the small hollow where that historical future would have snug fit
In the pit of my stomach
but then I remember that we rocket along

67,000 miles every hour


& that helps me float lightly
& seek marvelous things
(tranquility base)
& I wasn’t far off

June 20 2004

35th anniversary of Apollo 11

The Montana of My Mind

{i started a new notebook, but there are always a few bits that never quite became anything else, in the old book; I think of them as orphans. the title of this poem was going to be "orphans from a notebook", but then i came across one that I thought was a much better title}



The Montana of My Mind
(Orphans from a Notebook: ‘08-‘09)





•••••

Transparency is good
for governments, windows, &
water

Not so much
for Granny Panties

•••••

Agnostics are ontological pussies

•••••

Slowetry

•••••

What if Prez
had worn a
porcupine hat?

Would he sex his sax
more carefully?

•••••

The most redundant book
ever:
The Bible for Dummies

•••••

The distant thunder sounds lonely
or is that me?
I always get us confused

•••••

radiation rover (a malignant sonnet)

(in memory of charlie rush)



hollowed out by explosive growth
sadder than a fado song
walking his dog that’s lived too long
boneshadow shared by both

shufflewalk snuffle
each aged in dog years
each looking dog-eared
under the scuffle

radiation bake; will it kill or cure?
golden brown & remissious?
cellular stalker, quite vicious
the host or the cancer? unsure.

you have to take a breath sometimes
when you choose between life and death

Outside Ottamanelli’s

there was a second there
even though I had forgotten my black and white scarf and the April wind
blew the New York wet and cold that can only be blown in New York
when it isn’t winter and it isn’t spring and the sun hasn’t shined since you got back into town
and there was this still second when I knew spring was coming under
my fur in an animal way like that red sense of food just off awareness
maybe fleet running prey or yellow papaya
but I knew something else some sidewalk satori
all motion ended and focus was tight
and everything CLICKED and I loved New York and I loved
all these people and the deep chocolate taste of grimsweet reality
and felt the spring that I smelt on that absence of breeze
in the middle of the block right there on York Avenue wasn’t a matter
of orbits and daylight and axial tilt but rotations and revolvings
of a more metaphorical sort and
rebirth never needs dying
and then I turned into the butcher’s and thought about dinner (duck I believe)
without even realizing what had just happened and just what it was that I’d just forgotten.

Acting the Asshole for all the Right Reasons

… didn’t want my skin
to make a promise
my meat and lightning
couldn’t keep

Skin can be treacherous
a snake sheds
skin for absolution

You turn
silence into song
doubt into depth
unaware how love’s
engendered

Skin on skin
is a common goal
sparks fire fine as far
as that goes
but silence and depth
deserve lightning

Fundamentalist Orthodoxy

Not a platonic cock
Not Jesus’ cross nor
Washington’s spire
Not Shiva’s linga
nor any potent metaphor
Not a doodle doo cock
Not an abstract cock
Not your cock
My cock
soft @ rest or hard to rock
I worship my cock
like a phallic Taliban

phallah hu akbar

(middle)East Side

Yofi Yofi
Let me buy you a coffee
or kiss you – even better
cause it makes me feel b’seder
like a varsity letter
on a blue and white sweater
from Hebrew university

When you fress my banana
it’s just like Rosh Hashanah
Yeah- the head of the year
like primo red-Leb gear
of kif from Morocco
psycherotic sirocco
blowin’ down my spine
and blowin’ my mind

Good thing I’m circumcised
cause you know I’m super-sized
and I don’t need no trayf cheese
Hebrew national to my knees
you know this kosher meal
going to make you moan and squeal
like a hazzer in a sty
So don’t be toyin’
with undersized goyim
who don’t know what to do
like Snoop Jewy Jew