Category Archives: 100 Poems 2011

85: coma, interlude 17

interlude i told her I didn’t eat the roses; I told her I didn’t eat the coffee; I told her I didn’t eat the cat; I told her I didn’t eat the tires off the car but nevertheless, the woman with the tulip cup had soft lips; soft lips; I remember them, driving Interstate 10, […]

84: coma, interlude 16

interlude my father once told me a story about a choreographer, a man who made his life by inventing masks, who never, he said, wore his own face but other faces contriving smiles and frowns for whatever occasion when he looked he saw claws, gorilla, bird hands, saying: my hands are not my hands, other […]

83: coma, canto 28

canto 28 we are geographic beings, I told Henry and Imelda, as I pressed keys for this or that stock, read for this or that news on this or that market, the red lines and the blue lines and the green lines and the orange lines going up and going down and across and the […]

82: coma, canto 27

canto 27 in myths, one builds an arc to save a family as not many other forms come to hand for maneuvers just so: We’ll build a floating house, Gilgamesh said, no, come floods or great rains, and it is known that my father, to extend his feel, his sense, his outlines and thicknesses, smell, […]

81: coma, canto 26

canto 26 him, how to describe, tall, somewhat big round the gut, though slimmer after sleep, slenderer on the diet supplied, wearing neither barbarian skins nor an old prospector’s hat, but buttondowns and a tie, suit pants, huaraches brown, tan, or white depending. he with Crenshaw, discursive on studies, reports, the latest in the science […]

80: coma, interlude 15

interlude my brother and I, trash collecting became our first business, managing the daily and mundane tossoff of accountants in their offices, which smelled of coffee grounds, dusty curtains, pencils, and ink for copying. Empty and fill dispensers, remove deskside garbage, remove hallway garbage, remove the shredder bags, dispose of paper cups, vacuum the rugs, […]

79: coma, interlude 14

interlude and why not escape? Were or are there rumors of it, during transport maybe, where the gate crashes down and elephants, hippos, rhinos gallivant and crush the tables, chairs, and bright canopies of the streetside cafes? where I raise my hand against a massive Hammer and say, It was Henry, for whom I have […]

78: coma, canto 25

canto 25 but there were crashes: Crenshaw the doctor said: Yes, all the words have come back, miraculous, yes, he used that word, a word I’m not given to tasting with wine and cheese. Miraculous, I said, meaning miracle. Which is impossible, I said. Yes, all the words came back. My father and his great […]

77: coma, canto 24

canto 24 so, Henry, Lucy so, Maricela, Cruz, all going to rooms I had, telling more, with more beer, then wine, oh, Henry, watching me with the embarrassment of the sinner given to sinning as he followed his love to Lucy’s room, her room, I laughed to myself. so, I rose into the window, when […]

76: coma, canto 23

canto 23 I urged Thor to understand that it was beyond my understanding why I found her toothbrush, her creams, her combs on the bathroom sink, why suddenly foods accumulated in the larders and how Lucy would stand and when I appeared the woman with the tulip cup would wink, say goodmorning, and resume the […]

75: coma, interlude 13

interlude he asked with a cold beer glass in in his red hand: What if you’re wrong? I said the trouble of it reminded me of feathers (or something to that effect), my girl gone, this hotel waybar a mere convenience. But, he said, again, What if you’re wrong. And I said again it reminded […]

74: coma, interlude 12

He tells her he’s doing all right. interlude Lorenzo, though I’m guessing, had his trials before turning great, I will never be great, my brother will never be great, buried and forgotten, and for being stabbed the Pazzi conspirators were drowned, hanged, their accounts wiped from the earth, though I’m guessing, and, so, wounded Lorenzo […]

73: coma, canto 22

canto 22 yes, reader, we Lucy and I and You ascended, and home in my place, my place of rest where a fly persisted like a black asteroidal and astral bird, persisted through a column of slanted window light and Lucy, in her room fingered her things with her small butter hands, I thought of […]

72: coma, canto 21

canto 21 she said: I need my things, what things there were, in this world where foreshadowing is like a squeak in the dark. yes, reader, she said, she needed some things, and so I followed her by blocks and blocks to a hole in the city out of which blew an electric scent and […]

71: coma, canto 20

Surely the heavens don’t play favorites? No, of course not, yet there is a hue that can be heard when what is meets what might be and the color of cherish develops in the center of the sky canto 20 my mother called and said, Come. Come over now, to see your father, who, when […]