JANUARY

Somewhere inside my soul
I try to talk about this
in a way that will make
you be drawn to me.

I sing of the me you
are in one last
early try to let you live.
If I imagine myself

in your absence, nothing
manages to happen.
But in the wild light
of January I invite us

both into a secret sorrow
and turn the meaning off.

Paul Hoover

It was Paul Hoover who first introduced me to the works of Paul Hoover. Thanks, Paul. Paul's latest book of poems, 56 SONNETS, is magical, funny, and flarfy.

YELLOW

Something superbly not this
may come for us after all.
The sky moves slowly
in the morning, picking

up speed as noon draws
near. I think I hear
an echo of the time
years ago when we set

out to discover dawn.
Naked men chew
the ground with their
hands as we pass by.

A yellow flower
turns to watch us die.

ORDINARY

In defiance of
snow's solemnity,
a crow digs
a hole in the sky.

Dark water
ricochets
out of the river.
Trees refuse

to step
aside or even
spread their wings
outside the closely

guarded gates
of ordinary things.

REALITY

Being one of you
is knowing
what I know
at the only window

of the necessary
angel. Philosophers
visit young women
on their way

to the woodpile.
Reality solidifies.
Touching it
turns our fantasies

to clay, our inarticulate
eyelids into words.

THE RAPTURE

An unusual haze,
having lingered for days,
rose up and started to change
into an animal so strange
hitherto empty phrases filled
themselves with meaning.

Light
pierced the night
in spots the dark had missed.

Heating devices hissed
our warnings. Cleaning
fluid appeared where spilled
milk had splattered.

None of it actually mattered,
since the earth soon collapsed
into a gorgeous heap of ashes.

God

appeared in the shape

of a cod

fish eating a grape.

Djamila by Asad Faulwell 2010

AIR

Unmade mistakes wait
impatiently around the corner.
I think of a promise's
moist petals as I press

you into the pages
of this book. You were
wet when I met you,
alive with what mattered

more than breath.
Now you are paler
than the last memory
I have of you standing

outside, looking around
for traces of the air.

Sometimes

Sometimes I just like the way it sounds. Can you dig it?

Thanks, Barry

It was, in fact, Barry Schechter (author of the amazing novel, THE BLINDFOLD TEST) who first introduced me to the works of Peter Handke and Donald Barthelme.

ELECTRIC

There was no time
left in my clock
(whose tick was missing)
when I went in

to check up on yesterday.
A door that didn't
close behind me seemed
not to know what to do.

The moon kept track
of what couldn't happen
(the dish and the spoon
both frozen in place)

as I carefully made my way
away from what seemed electric.

PREEMPTIVE

Hand me that grenade,
will you, Rose?
I want to drop it
down a hippo's throat
to see what else can happen.

EVERYWHERE

Forgive me
in advance
if I die in your house.

I have tried
not to be
inconvenient.

But we all
have to die
somewhere,
here, there,

everywhere.

Or So It Would Seem

Roussel's accidentally surrealistic writings remind me of the way rain sometimes falls without seeming to mean to.

Zhora Drif by Asad Faulwell 2010

BIRTHDAY POEM FOR SAID

Because you are so much more
than you seem to see
in the mirror we call "you",
we'd like to take this opportunity

to remind you of yourself.
Look! There you are again
being brighter than April
in all its glory is. And

there you stand where only
you can be. Because we're not
you (since only you are), we'd
like to invite you to a

party we throw in your
honor every time we think of you.