You coulda been rich, boy; you coulda owned the mountains.We coulda done business, boy; we coulda hog-tied heaven like rodeo clowns.But you wouldn’t meet my aspen fist, boy; you wouldn’t flirt with the slightest sandbank.You shorted the wrong stock, boy, and got nothin but colors in return.
Desert Drug
Nothing, no effect, which is to say I’m not brilliant.Which is to say that when I pop this jaw my tongue only goes so far.It does not put out fires or fill parking lots. It does not taste basil.The stack of books I burn, the stains of paint I cover with newer, truer stains.And tomorrow do the same, sodden … Continue reading Desert Drug
Snow
by E. Brook Haley The sky and earth collidewhite on whitetowers and steeplesfloating in the air
He Wanted to Bring Back the Big Bang
Describe how this island
became an island; whether
it was once all water or once all rock.
The petrels matter to the ocean.
If they do not fly there is no island—
there is neither coast nor reef.
Under the reef, more rock,
originally hot, now cooled to stone
by the slender hand of God,
reached down from dim Ceres
to leave an invitation
for a séance at Vesta 4.
An invitation we never got.
How could we have?
For, it was buried beneath coral and lamprey,
meant only
for the minor gods of magma and pumice;
for the soft-boned fish,
born in the teeth of the mako,
circling in waters above.
St. Vincent
My thrift-store friend
has no money.
I have a little.
Tonight we’ll slide
down the gray Missouri
throwing foreign coins
at a midnight moon.
Narcissus the Drunk
Occasions for celebration
are plentiful as lost hairs.
He passes a mirror
and catches his glance.
"Not bad," he thinks.
Indeed, he doubles back
for an encore
but ice cube echoes
tell him no.
A glass of cognac waits, melting.
karaoke woman
I can't remember what I miss most,
the poetry in me,
its nickel-hot core,
repeating all the things I say
and wearing that
goddamned purple bra,
repeating all the things I say and
signing the check with a smile.
World Cup Football
Full of air, seamless.Drawing men like a magnet.In two hours, put away.
Mollusk
men are dying to say—you must get something done, now. Marines decide to drivepriuses after a second tour. The neighbors are startinga production company andyour current nemesishas just received a ten thousand dollar grantto complete charcoal drawingsof sea cucumbers and othercephalopods in the Lesser Antilles. It’s either that or Iraq.
The Moon Wears Glasses
Wow, that bright light
with its hand outstretched,
begging for money at dawn
is the Moon—
waning and wanting a fix,
tired by now of filling in
for the Sun at night.
The Moon beseeches
comets passing by,
suggests an arrangement of
light bulbs slipping across Earth,
a necklace of radiant pearls,
a release from celestial debt.
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