systematic practices aimed atThe annual pie contest has taken
on the prestigious new role of cancer doctor to try to improve the electrical & thermal properties of carbon nanotubes. It’s a dev- elopment with worrying aspects, since the disciplines have their own languages plus sets of ass- umptions that may not be shared; & instead of collaboration, comp- etition may ensue. The literature has differing views, & no single paradigm has gained the ascend- ency. One thing is increasingly obvious—no matter who wins the popularity stakes, there won’t be enough apple pie to go around.
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THE MERMAID’S TAILThe mermaid’s tail patting the water
With a lovely little splish splash Foaming up the water around her rock Where she reclines in the sun, Looking toward you with her big brown eyes That brim with sin and promises. You stand at the mast, ready to jump in, Ready to swim toward her And her breasts bare and pointing to you. The mermaid’s tail patting the water As if a hand tapping on the bed Calling you to come and lie down The way she is calling you to come And rest eternally in the watery grave she has dug And you? You will put the blame on the sea. From the coast the birds gone fishing watch you As you falter in your great swim, Only your right hand visible as if waving goodbye And you will put the blame on the sea. Ganymede Within the VivariumMy image of a man’s hand in the form of a fox reaches its apsis in relation to Ganymede as its station in the wetlands dissolves. My own hand performs as the phantom of negation. A fox twitches and the western edge of an aspen grove opens to show its translucent soul. Sparks cast by an axe blade catch the blue grasses. Its formlessness prevents an auroral inferno. There’s nothing mysterious about the vibratory mewl of the stray cat. Fragments of pottery abandoned to the kiln become clouds drifting through forgotten atmospheres of the seventeenth century. A man’s hand fingers the moon as it rests, wedged among the rings of Saturn. Its brain starves with pleasure. As ozone molecules decrease, the foreign magnetosphere grows, inverting over a span of centuries.
A marmot’s bark signals to its tribe: the day is rising, its narrow throat opening to the dawn’s constellation. JUST BETWEEN USWhat I never told you, is that.
Yes, our special that. The thing we share. Why are you doing that thing with your eyes again? I could remind you of those robin’s-egg shoelaces. Our souvenir butter dish, your fiddler crab earrings. Isn’t that right? The hammered tin heart also. We have kind of the opposite of a secret. You know everything I know. Seriously. But maybe this walrus postcard will refresh your memory? I never told you what I never told you because obviously you figured it out yourself. Obvious to me at least. You’re smart that way. The tartan umbrella? Yes? The spare emerald nose ring? Truly, that’s all I have to say. 1000 Piece Puzzle1000 puzzle pieces
All cool grey #4 You’d rather play dominoes Or even a classic video game But they offer you only The grey puzzle To keep your devil hands busy To remove you from yourself A jumpsuit slumped While its skeleton takes a shower How many other inmates Pinned the blooms of their eyes on your nakedness Using a cactus’ spine Bury yourself in scraps of your own white meat Your hands are pork rinds Curled around the soap Your mother was no Mrs. Beasley, she was a Half-baked nova, her hugs from a toy oven But god you miss her! When they offered you the Fisher-Price funeral, the Barbie doll prayers You mounted your Tonka tractor & mowed them down PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE (#1-10)Silence, seated in golden hour sun, disintegration looping along with cicada song. Reflection at the end, reckless, feckless, regrets upon each other, nothing to show save the memories lost with me. I hold myself back in hopes that others will hold me. I shouldn’t have to remind you. If only I had an answer, singular. We, all, survivors deserve applause. A bottled scent with hints of leather and hay. Wishing this could be better. Patience. But, darling, if I only told the truth, the story would be so boring. My outward appearance belies the storm inside.
FROM THE GUTThe poet was reading, in a bar,
his latest great work, page after page of scarifying, self-immolating, soul-flagellating, verse. A dozen people were listening to him. But two men, both drunk, were being loud and obnoxious. The poet asked them to quiet down as people wanted to hear. One of the men flew into a rage. The other tried to hold him back, but to no avail. The big galoot grabbed the poem out of the poet's hand and tore it to shreds. Then he grabbed the poor guy by the throat and slammed him against the wall. The audience was stunned at first as the poet, when he could momentarily free his throat from his assailant's raw grip, shouted something about "evolution" and "Neanderthal." His twelve fans packed up their stuff and left. They were willing to listen to other's troubles but didn't want to redden the bar floor with any of their own. The bartender came over and tried to put a stop to the one-sided fight. With the help of the man's buddy, he was finally able to separate the two. The poet lay bleeding. The honor of the other was brutally satisfied. "Are you okay?" asked the bar-tender of the broken scrunched up figure of the versifier. A simple "yes" or "no" was out of the question. SCENE ONE KECK stands over LONG, who sits naked, slumped in a chair. KECK: Your mind is weak.
LONG: I’m washed up. KECK: You’re a quitter. LONG: Always have been. KECK: You’ve squandered your gifts. LONG: A waste. KECK: You’re an embarrassment to the dignity of the human spirit. LONG: Would that it had never happened. KECK: That what had never happened? LONG: My conception. KECK. Oh. Right. LONG: A low point in human history, superseded daily by my continued existence. KECK: But we can rebuild you. LONG: Make me strong. KECK: Restore you. LONG: To my potential. KECK: From which point you can-- LONG: Conquer the world. KECK: Rule it. LONG: Subjugate it. KECK: Tyrannize it. LONG: Terrorize it. KECK: And ultimately-- LONG: Destroy it. When do we start? KECK: We’ve already begun. I see changes. Your golden complexion. Your hardened physique. Your mind—sharp, focused—a weapon. LONG: I am a god. KECK: You are the demi-urge. LONG: The unmoved mover. KECK: The founding father. LONG: The big bang that keeps on banging. KECK: Creating constellations/with every exhalation/of your cosmic breath. Time’s DecayThe unspeakable the indeterminate
hiding in shadow as cold as sadness as cold as absence as cold as winter spring’s shore was caverns and the traces left by tide the plasticity of ocean weed and the rusted remains of failed seacraft our hearts skipped arrhythmic against the monstrous worldliness of tourism chewing its way through the July swelter October was a desolate month filled with the odor of summer’s dreams a feathered hook to pierce a lip to drag across the wave something scuttled at the periphery of our vision spiderlike in the intensity of experience only existing in relation to silence we never expected to remember we never expected to be remembered but hours leached into days and the ice was melting everything ends in time everything blossoms from the remnants of last year’s numbness before fading once again. |
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