on, from, after Churchill's Far Away

"I've always liked abstract hats."

hats are ephemeral

"I think what we all think."

"I'm not saying that you can't kill."

"everything's been recruited."


outlandish and fabulous hats the absurd, outrageous hats absurd when placed on prisoners heads, ragged and sad, parading toward execution, not death, execution. but elaborate hats like celebration. e-lab-o-rate. celebrating good vs evil? right vs wrong? depending on sides. or sides of sides. dear Caryl, which side are you on? do you wish there were no sides? have you seen so many sides? created absurdity? without purpose or reason or enough thought? how are sides, alliances, enemies, determined? what does it mean when it comes down to which side the crocodiles follow? the river. the enemies and the others. and their others. dear Caryl, what is it that we all think? i go to walmart. everyone goes to walmart. i hate so and so. everyone hates so and so. except so and so and so who love so and so and their others, or allies. this sounds like a donald rumsfeld speech. you are with us or them unless you are against them or some others. rumsfeld loved his abstract hats. absurd. and completely logical. can speak anything into rational form. on one side there is convincing language. on other sides, passion value or whatnot. convincing language does not make it true. it makes it convincing. constructing truth. confabulation. words, specialized, sharpened tools.

I promise you this            intention

an international

sense

                       of compassion in

alternating
layers              (languages)

fog horns in the middle of a day

I hear this beyond

                       traffic   and   snow

among snowy things

an eye of

intent

        layers of the absurd
        dramatic inquiry

toss me that hat
dear
    
        let us parade
        our affiliations
      
directed toward
or among

spaces between ally

                        enemy

                        hyperbole

                        and the like

my stein

a short response to four saints in three acts


oh Gertrude, you are a saint... in fact you are all four saints in all of your acts. what little I know becomes you. a pigeon a pigeon. really G. what is with that pigeon? It is 1929. It is 1934. it is 1939. and there are only 1 or 2 or 3 performances. one I loved two I loved (oh is that another piece altogether) do all of your pieces make sense together like how words, any words go together when the are together. sense is some other kind of sense. any words put together will "mean" find meaning make us mean(ingful). a narrative of prepare for saints. i am prepared. i have been to catholic school and we have had this conversation before, G. remain to narrate to prepare two saints for saints. narrate the saints. the lives of the saints. saint therese in her own words narrates herself. her young tragedies her early death. yes, of course, G. the difference between saints forget-me-nots and mountains have to have to have to at a time. a juxtaposition of sound. of sense. an interlacing of the tangible, the concrete, the absurd, the completely sensible in some other sense of the terms completely and sensible. but what is more or less sensible making any kind of sense. the fact that our politicians are absurd. or the idea that any kid can go to college after being told all her life that she can't. how are you making other or less or more sense, G. than these current wars or the nonsensical things these people say. defund planned parenthood. punish gays. take money from kids' schools. it isn't english. your american english is everyday. we can see it and know it. your words take us to this other place(s) where we know. if not we are afraid to know. afraid to know what is not entirely ridiculous. oh G., yes it is very easy in winter to remember winter spring and summer... i have been there. am there. i also want to ask why should everybody be at home. / in idle acts. why am i here in this act. in movement. of words. and their sound. yes, G. landscape is continuous. we can learn much from mountains. about romance. about bellies. about our human habits. is it human nature or human mind. we try to use our minds for this. gingrich uses the back of his hand. scratching his head. have you forgotten the 90s altogether, newt? did your mother give you that angry name? won't you listen to G.'s opera and learn to say something useful? bring your other politician friends and let's all work to change the world with art. with words. real tangible words. why not. what are you so afraid of. saint therese lost her mother found jesus and remained purely generous and kind. where's your jesus. i mean the real jesus. the one the four saints are talking about. G. tell me more about what you think of these saints. you're not religious. but saints are like artists. and they write their lives. dedicate their souls. yada yada yada. enact saintliness. enact art. arts as life. life art. for saint therese could not be young and standing she could be sitting. of course. saint therese could be. she could be anything. or she is everything. she lost her mother. she dedicated herself to what she believed. how much of it is finished. it is never finished. a play is continuous. to play continuously. like landscape is continuous. a play is not like a novel with a beginning middle and end. once in a while. when. once in a while. to be determined or not. yes, G. pigeons on the grass alas. pigeons on the grass alas. i love you for this. alas. pigeons large pigeons on the shorter longer yellow grass alas pigeons on the grass. / If they were not pigeons what were they. I have no idea. do tell me. or not. what were they. they were exactly this question. saints and artists and pigeons seeing further into this, into what they can't, those otherwise blinded, blindingly articulating rhetorical nonsense.

friday poem

just start here
green ink
black fur    she sleeps out
of the cold

i dream you
into my tea
like german sugar cubes

perfectly, in january
and continue

notes or equations
don't equal the snow
at midnight

in zero degrees
instead      i travel
from one town to
another

keep going

dog settled into the chair
hints of otherwise in
through the window
ignore him

he bleeds nonsense

and i tell you
i can't stop thinking this
into the future
green ink

various and movement

as an instruction of consequence one might recall an intense particular moment (there is coffee more coffee for just this recollection) a falling snow unbearable sky the witnessing of entire seconds lapsed and evicted. Dickinson sits in a box, the dog tangled on a rope, and insults play like rhythms across this gritty morning -- one will not move from this fog voluntarily one will entice gravity and fail. sure, for every cause and consequence there is a lesson a series of moments an undetermined number of repetitions before the warnings manifest. how many sweets might one encounter before the memories begin to make any sense at all. oh Emily, we are here like shadows quietly inserting marks on the page, wondering toward any other eventuality, until

how I might, in the end

exclaim

(does one require

punctuation?)

foretold!          like a profile

governed by pure emotion

            (amber and gentle)

please, I tell you

toward the middle of things   (declare!)

            (more loudly!)    a particular

use of ;

a sentence on either

side –