Minneapolis Haiku

Give me some credit. I adapted to my state. What more can be yours?

Minneapolis Haiku

You want to be an asshole? We are too. Get out. Get the fuck out, masked agents!

The Movies

 You heard about this new film.

It sounds terrible.

Like, Do Not Go See This New Film.

But you said you really want to see this new film.

I was like, Please stop. Do not go in there.

But you're at the theater already. Popcorn and all.

You told me I am so boring.

I said I'd rather be boring than dead. Don't go in there.

But you said Stop mansplaining.

And I couldn't tell if you were being ironic.

So you go in there.

The sounds I heard I cannot forget.

Like iron socked into damp wood.

Over and over with tears.

I fell to the ground. I wept.

Oddly, I thought of plucking tomatoes with my aunt

as I picked the brains

and chum and nuclear waste from my eyes.

I tried to tell you not to go see this new film.

The film is over. You are dead

and I am alone.

Hippo Wreck

 

Sam drove his white van

through the obsidian honeycomb semiconductor

better known as The Cliff of Life.

Stop deconstructing! Now is a time to build! You damn shoegazers!

 

When Sam crashed into a glass sinkhole

his hippo was left standing on its nose.

My father wondered What in the samhill?

(Newspapers)!

 

How many phone numbers on the bathroom stalls

did it take me to realize they always summed the same

no matter how I rearranged them.

 

Everyone was “closed for the virus”

or pontificating in a Lamborghini

that men reelect the government is freaking out.

Good. An ahm four that. [spit].

 

But now the crashed hippo means more than that jazz.

I tried all night to find someone

as I stared from my loft at six different skylines

(Sydney Singapore Shanghai Barcelona San Francisco Dubai)

 

The black market had options.

Many advocated zoos.

The only guy open was named Ramesh

.His Moneyball said Mumbai.

 

I called Ramesh

(Hello moon like a tropical fish).

and surfed the night on a banana.

Ramesh was inexperienced

but known for success with antelopes

so why the hell not?

Matters of the everpresent procreative desire

demanded someone rugged

determined confident blue-skinned and silent.

 

Sam died of guilt in a romantic spotlight on the quad.

There were signs of the sky growing in his body.

Prospects for souls were bright as the sun

the president’s bronzer

made it seem like he worshipped by imitating.

 

Ramesh freed the hippo that night.

Sam gave up too early.

We are near the end of our terrible experiment.

Supermodelblues

12345677216120513151919 

 This is one of many 

numbers that haunt me. 

The number by which god calls me.

My imbroglios inflame your imagination; hence

original despite the serial number 

I vacuum in my underwear 

and pretend the artworks tilted 

odd angles by earthquakes 

decided long ago 

mean something to me.

I forget things easily. Sorry 

if I forgive myself  

for ghosting you last week 

but you still asked me here to pose

with desertification and empty oceans 

war plutocracy rape fantasy success 

and my lips are like Yeah 

I am your goddess and I will give you 

some of what you need. 

Just don't stare longer than I silently ask.

From one stage set to the next 

my mind moves so fast 

there is no reason to remember anything you ever said 

because this life is my garden  

and each day is lovelier than tomorrow.

This is my portfolio. Did I tell you I like Carraba's? 

Life rolls like the controversial code words 

of end-stage principalities 

in which I serve as subject of my own backdrop 

in a townhouse by the airport

all combined to form the reality in which I fling 

in a look made for fun 

and verse as useless as it is unique like 

an individual butterfly or the dress a boutique 

made for me especially but more so

unable to contain when the MVP 

crosses like a black cat, my body.

This is why my smile is as it is. Do you like it?
My life does not depend on the answer 

but I wonder nonetheless. 

---------------------------------------------

Sometimes everything reminds me of something else

like every day of what I want to be 

but because my life is my garden 

there is no reason to settle   

on a single day of the collection.

A businesswoman of Monaco, 1953. 

Cleopatra no doubt. Christ on the stake. 

A lime-green Lamborghini 

driving through sky-high slices  

of coconut cake. 

Through nights a zebra mask defines me as I peek at magazines 

eating fast food at the end of the all-night pharmacy.

The hardest moons gave me this

and I can't complain about the way time has warped me. 

Even the predator hiss-- is that not the way of Eve  

my friend my idol my love? 

It is no mistake I carry her apples as breasts.
And her face but no memory 

except a number I remember. 

It begins with 123.

Libertalia

tew

Sad matter wandering
one horn of existence 

taken from creation
mistaken like an orange 

for the blue sea

all wonder even when we endure to whom?
Life upon the level
knows soon our masters 

will be goat on the skewer
despite our own republic-- 

bliss and lemurs
stealing our powder 

learning to count
by rubies divided 

on the sands of Isle-St-Marie.

No one wants to end up truly liberated do they? 

A lunatic shitting freely in the street?
Why then do these Men 

exist in time?
Why do they rule my time? O
the times. I forget the times.

Which sounds better as
J’oublie le fois.

plantain

When a curse and a joke express myself better
than symbols that signify a life with a paycheck
a struggle for daycare
a carousel of birthdays
sad days not there before, therefore
I attain the level.

Pay no attention to the children lick their lips
as New Delights wonder Are you a delicacy too?
I take the king's ships. Am I not King?

Yes? For awhile?

And my castle though crude
does it not grow men thick as baobab
and endless wives new to their freedom?

The moats are filled with ancient suicides dogs
pterodactyls millionaires
idiots warriors. Shamen.

A man of fortune seeks his fortune here.
Such people jig in the hanging gardens.

Sails crack and the night
dark-deadly maroon/walls moan with treasure. 

Gold sweats, rosewood bees
make young honey to lick off the hot bank of stone.
By Christ I can taste
the blood in my enemies. 

I chew the bitter glands
of evil people humbled in the shade.

Your envy is always best as condiment.
Pursuers silent in the forest. Let me go lightly 

as springbok infatuated with flight.
Lure me back against the paradise of my soft mind—
on a hot bank of clay
and the need for protection.

Were those flamingos just a burst of beautiful time?
Did Time not appraise your intelligence?
Were men in the hallways not wondering?
Or women not assessing your smirk?
The athletes not assessing your smile
your structure
and marble? Your orchid scared 

in gorgeous panties
clitoris in distress 

rolling like eventual rain
droplet by droplet 

til my my island is no longer private. 

I asked such questions as commander.

Life is harsh on the level. 

Love, suggested violently
pure as the colors
or the fresh tower tiles
makes an imprint in a man who has not grown old.
I see. In the dark. With special eyes.
Like a long-tongued moth 

dodging bats for the all-night orgy.

Arrival comes by awful means 

on a hot bank of flesh.
Your daughter will be richly rewarded.

Otherwise it's the pistol. Or the navy.

Yes, I am insane because I wanted it—the kingdom.

taylor

Youths could sneak on the sea between two castles
and try strange things before the moon between
the cloudy sky went hyperblue
revealing the latest
flowering nebula.
Lightning repeatedly strikes twice.
More stars squeeze into the darkness 

until you wonder
How is it still dark? 

and luminescent creatures love
blowing ships to the sand 

because they shine on in return.
The kingdom faraway is raucous. 

You can hear freedom like I do—
voices without boundary
and the night’s waves of nutmeg olive, oil, gardenia,
coffee, ocean, pasture the sound of the abacus
deducing us to One
energy not felt before.
Upon ascendance the equivalent of a peacock
disguised as a queen plays her jewels
with long henna hands.

One mood is an eternity
but here the billion deviations
unfold like clockwork wound by minds watered by words 

minted by expression
made aware of god.

Beside a broken nectarine
the last ten children tell their tales.
Your door opens to a face
speaking of The Thing.

You are welcomed by a plant
into the hand of a storm and left dripping 

leaves’ light

What to do with the chameleons is yours.

condent

Every trace of gravity, remove. Every detail is a line
sloping like defiant/sunset/breast.

You'll be my guest in paradise
but I'll drink you to hell
until the daughter of Bourbon comes of age
to pardon my entanglements alisten in hot corners
waves upon the rocks— ships heave, armies of birds
sea lion rebellions. Otherwise it is safe
to relax. To think without guilt. Without history.

Bells ring. I have made it so. Until the gun comes up
and once again we run.
On the level, everything is unprecedented.
Behind a waterfall girls
gather to trade secrets: intimacy, trust
a basket weaved by caring hands.
Yet the youth seeking to be free of ribbons
can disappear and find estrangement
sooner than he feared.

I AM as Providence intended—
to witness warships
hang like buzzards there against the setting ruby
surrounded by tourmaline
placed by tentacles into the moment
and shot when life is over.

I’ll wear the jewels of the sultan tonight.
I will be ultimately home.

england

Tell the shadows what you wish to see
if you can imagine something not already clear
before you ample and apricot.

The heart will feel angels' topaz wings
crossing the portico fade away today.
The fossa howls like a dying man
and deliberate lovers
nurse the soldiers and magicians
who crewed the mutiny.

Beauty spells thirst
for cream of celestial whales.
Vanilla nutmeg honey and cloves.
We drank the richest of behemoths. 

With almonds.

Traitor/travelers with a mug of Madagascar milk
working depleted on the mystery given.
Even if kind and weak. Like me.

What you need and what we have
to offer is far beyond your need.
The apsara blow in some evenings.
The sharks industrious and swift.

The marooned see hope in the distance.

avery

$116 million in gold. No grog. No hatmakers.
Would endless turtle stew
precious gods, silk
and more cardamom than you can imagine
be enough to outlast hunger's cannons?

Not all who join are invited to the division. 

Whatever code you believe
does not apply
to one who steals from Allah.

I do not worry what they say
when smoking in the fans of heavy palms.
Yes, I should have stayed
in the heart of the insane island.
But endangered like the forest
able to appear in time like the chameleon
I answer your monsoon
with new forms of rare escape
and thoughts of home-poisoned reality.

Quartermaster, brute shipwreck
what you might call unscrupulous
merchants who took my last diamond
and did not worry what I'd say
because words have no meaning 

off the level.

Not all who join

are invited to the division.

Choose your ending well 

or you begin where you began.

misson

Meat is sacrificed to us
but we aren’t cruel monsters. Perhaps
no such thing as a monster anymore exists!
The pinions of the watch no longer
count toward Time. Time
is still the sun upon the level
and I die before that changes.
No fucking master
tells me not to drink
and still I can surprise a woman
shoot dead dishonest men
shitting in the street
or strike a flag declaring
a World more Real than New.

I walk susceptible to an ending always.
Even as advertising rolls from lips like magic yes.
Starlight autographs in estrus for an antihero.
But taste reunion with the fruits
grown that year with music we played
to some refined indulgence.

If all is free of worry
we'll crush the time and die beautiful
let billions of chemicals
make pirates wild. 

You are sad and want to know 

Do I matter anymore? 

On the level everything is known
including dead names repeated 

on this island 

on the moons. 

June 2020

1.
At the end of yesterday's truisms. 

Hollywood violence. Violent convulsion. Quite honestly 
it would do me good to shut up lately. 

I would but I can’t, man. My mind goes. 

Omaha. Greenwood. Apocalypse Now. 
Kristine Moran. Massive Attack. Dr. Strangelove. 

You talk too much. Absinthe at 10. I want your body.

Hakeem Olajuwon. Aime Cesaire 
Pablo Neruda. Antietam. Crab feast. Grape wasp. 
The rapidly declining desire to survive. 

/ 

2. 

Deuteronomy. Aspirin. The dust in bones. 

Chirico. Greenaway. 

Ripe steak on a Saturday night. 

The Choral Fantasy. High Noon. Juneteenth. 

I just learned that’s a thing this year. 

/ 

3. 

He’s reading Ulysses. She’s playing Debussy. 
I’m watching nobody. We went to the protest. 

An active mind as told by the smile. 

Josephine Baker. The Nude Maja. Tight plaid pants. 

Death is simply unavoidable. Dan Marino.

Mercan Dede. Spacemen 3. Tetsuro Sawada. 
No I don’t care your race. Rautavaaraa. 

/ 

4. 

To be context free--. 
that is a beautiful idea. 

Was it Ahmaud? Was it Rayshard? Eric. Breonna? 

Was it the Confederacy? Was it millions of bad explanhanations?
Told over time like a fake apology>

It was not apples or oranges. 

Gerome. Cleopatra. Sidney Bechet. Babylon. Cherry slice. 
Preet Bharara. Mad Dog Mattis. Tamir Rice. 

/ 

5. 

Woke up at 7 PM> too many options before me. 
Potatoes and eggs. No one to ask. La Pointe. 
Downtown Baltimore. Gun victim. Alton Sterling.

Appropriation? My views? My misconceived answers

justified in too much exquisite detail

for a story that must be forgotten to survive

like a winter seed. Waiting for a sun.

Night of the Iguana. Hajime Sorayama. Koyaanisqatsi. 

Those who aspire. Anonymous

forgotten stars. Polanski’s Macbeth. Aya Kato. Atlantis.

Like you, who wonders about reasoning 

when a plague is not mentioned in-textbook 

-
or the greenhouse skies still not shown the lightning.  

/ 

6. 

We are beyond biscuits and gravy here.  
On a porch summer green, children with backpacks and pumpkins. 
Matthew W. Moore. Chiho Aoshima.  

Vivaldi constructed my mind. 

I cannot help but the pulse 
allegro. 
The taste of order and my mother’s crisping pies 
less entry to the logician’s anatomy chamber  
and the type of honest clear reflecting pools. 

-

Why does the narcissus bloom?

Whatever the world has shown you. 

I would remind you… 
believe me

it always has abundance more. 
Reveal space torn sum unnamed like so>
Take masculine audible ghost story for granted and decease. 

-

Take better notes. Ask fewer questions.

/ 

7.

Stereo MCs. Hobo Humpin Slobo Babe.  
One night of life as a Happy Monday.  
William Holden. 
The 1980s, inconceivable as it seems. 
We were the children in the fairy tale since deconstructed. 
Groovin High. Gang Gang Dance. John Lewis.

-

Good editors. Nameless names.

Nazi brides. Colonial apologies. Heart of Darkness. 

Thunderstorm traitor. Get the fuck off the tornado. 
Artichokes. 
Nunavut. Tierra del Fuego. The Azores. 
Waiting a million years. Just for us. 
Yes, and the taste of blueberries.

-

The Escapist from hell says none of these things.

What else was trueblue love when time fell down?

O my silence. You will be happy to hear it.

Brandywine milkshakes. Honduran cigars.

Slideshow interval.

How wonderful it was unquestioned. 

The delight of Tartini. Bison. Miura.

Wtweal. Floridian orchids. I know you are a Botticelli angel.

-

Good lord I'm sorry I went on this long.

/ 

8. 

O I feel my silence comin soon.

Leonard Kwan. Julia Roca. One begins to wonder 

one begins/to wonder 

if he isn't just a bleeping computer of randomized integers.

Well not exactly I mean yeah, whatever. 

Anthony Santander. El Perro del Mar.

/ 

9. 

Misery and pain apparently, and XYZ.

I was aware I had been given half a story. 

I would but I can’t, man. My mind goes 

absolutely toward the zeroes I carry  
like the eggs of elephant birds in a windstorm home. 

Moby Dick at Cape Cod. Sister-in-law cocktails. 

Salvador Dali’s autobiography.  

There is still a lot to be said. 

/

10. 

To say it, I would be someone else. 

Blaise Cendrars. Kalidasa. Joey Badass.

A nonwhite woman of contrapuntal cosmoses

deep and forgiving which I will not be.