TFTCKNCTRBNMK:

In court with the current conqueror

we can laugh about the others. “He

doesn’t look like he takes care of

himself,” said Alfred of Paul. Later,

cruelly, “he is a child and an asshole.”

Of another is pronounced, “he is a 

twat.” Preferences in neckties, in music,

in authors, these are all called forth

and sharpened as weapons before 

the eyes of the glad traitor, who despite

the vicious gleamings is never struck 

dumb, who holds like a key inside of her

the store of raw material. Memories 

under heat and pressure turn into

diamond, the hardest thing there is. 

She knows whoever is most often 

made a fool is in fact

owner of the throne. 

FMNBMDPNRFTLN:

Theory of Beauty #1 (Adrian)

Hands behind his head and broad back to the bed, 
you he said make me feel strong, only to correct
himself graciously, pardon me: stronger. 

I have examined creatures up close and from far away. 
Some are made of brick and others of gold; I look at him
and imagine how the ancient civilizations invented god.

Temples were made by slaves like me. Greater women
have knelt to smaller altars for weaker desires. Temples
are made by slaves like me, in the service what they know
is not religion but unassailable truth. Blessed be my rock,
wrote the prophet, exalted be my God. The bigger the belief,
the stronger the foundation, the longer may it live.

There are building blocks to your age-old beauty.
It comes in bulk. Baptize me. 

HTKRMTSKTBSND:

Petra

Hello not real name, hello what it is I answer to these days, goodbye mother’s blessing, holy baptism, birth papers, penmanship practice. Hello, city of rock, Christ’s apostle, she who survived a great wave, as I wave goodbye, given name, hello, moniker, sobriquet, pet name, hello, Petra, Petra Pan, turning my head toward shadows, away from glum certainties of old age, call my name and diminutive, the child replies.

—

(Just let me keep writing these terrible things, okay, I’ll get to the good stuff maybe, maybe soon.)

BYRLMBLYDGBYDG:

Mourning

With all due respect, sir Gilbert, all you said of the heart
was that it is as helpless as crushed birds, it lies to itself
because it must, it is a foreign country, like language too is a lie.
You wrote to us about the heart: it one day stops, going so far
as to show us how it does, how it does, what has it done. All heart,
without you, I stop where you left off, the abandoned valley,
the white streets of Greece, or Rome, or the wonderful room
where you watched someone die, I survey the words and agree,
maybe none are enough, none of them will do, but you, sir, are not me.

Hi.

Happy new year. High time I started this up again, but excuse me if I move in directions unknown!

INTERLUDE #291,482:

I am writing this from my apartment, a small white box. I am writing this from a small white box, writing this into another small white box, intending to send it by email into another small white box, which you will open in order to read this. I am inside this small white box, thinking inside it, in terms of small white boxes, all of which you are reading now, having opened the small white box that is my writing, my writing from my apartment, my apartment. None of these boxes are alike, but inside this particular small white box, they are one and the same, the same small white box.

INTERLUDE:

Being Young Back Then
by Jack Gilbert

Another beautiful love letter
trying to win her back. Finished,
like each night, just before dawn.
Down the Corso Garibaldi to the Piazza
Fortebraccio. Across to the massive
Etruscan gate and up the Via
Ulisse Rocchi. To the main square.
Past the cathedral, past the fountain
of Nicola Pisano. And the fine
eleventh-century town hall.
To the post office so the letter
could get to California in three days.
Then to the palazzo to stand always
for a half hour look up to where
Gianna was sleeping. Longing for
her and dreaming of the other one.

FMCBTPKWYCLW:

Eve, Anew

The body the many animals bound, the mind the leash.
The furred monster in your throat that snores in its cave
of dark sleep, and the sedate pigeons of your ruffled,
ordinary hands. The wolf, two large cats, the flamingo.
The desert of your back, my dry mouth, your face an oasis.
Your mouth a neon sign that says Enter. Some nights 
you are a safari, by day a petting zoo. I wander through 
the brush, surrounded by your beasts, they watch as 
I pretend I’m blessed enough to name each one.

TWGTBTFPTMNTM:

Have you been thinking? she hissed as I stumbled into her apartment
at two in the morning, reeking of metaphysical unease. All night, I told her,
a fine spirit, aged twenty-five years in the oak barrel of my mind. Lets me
feel grown-up, I told her, makes me look older than I am, to drink deep from
this dark spirit, to choose to have it on the rocks.

—

Something too-easily dashed off this morning. Am unhappy with my writing but at least I’m writing. 

NTCPNSBMTBSTSW:

1
I’m dreaming in.
I’m your bed.
In your dreaming bed
I’m dreaming

2
In desolation we’re in sleep