07-14-2012, 02:23 AM
I
The Point That Baby Breaks
Baby’s first words were live my life: you wanted to eat
on the meat side of the table and live under the tomato plants
Conservation demanded our integrity while we:
boorish and unkempt, straddled work and charity
Our best intentions crook under our worst faces
our summer parties reek of cheap shots at the winter’s air.
Her motivation: little Baby wishes her pen pal out of
Anbar; writes with determined knuckles swelled at the thought
of war, and when will mom stop serving those animals finger foods:
concessions to women who clean faces with hand soap containing the smallest
hint of human blood, hint of what’s to come, dirty rumors washed with
discussions of me, for once: I, as entity living in a confined space – I, as
host to problems of increased governmental leaning – How we can afford
a language school? Is it important for Baby to learn French?
to grow with grace and still manage meat from the bone – finding substantive ways to say
Dieu n’est pas dans les details. Les détails sont dans Dieu
And does baby mix up? Does baby lack proper translation for the job? The orders? What forks stab at What concerns us is Baby has been saying nobody puts her in a corner:
she has found American video and sweaty men – she has danced with American buffets full of choices: the fish looks palatable: the desert looks unsalvageable- what now?
II
sees Ghosts,
Where Toledo was made saccharine by song; wishing wells,
good to see you’s, let’s get togethers for a small portrait,
ghosts that live in fall-out shelters on the shores of lake Lake Pontchartrain
Danny got his drunk-on up in Montreal with fighters: glass-jawed beasts,
targets of the census – we moved westward, our eyes sewed shut like test tube
babies who will learn how to dance one; snuck looks at the Tetons: cosmic laugh
angles cut by parallel weekends: back and forth from rise to run – baby who will
learn how to die, haunt us with summer stock, dinner theater, WASPy nests of clay
-amber preserving the memory of her father in a room that breathed underwater
fishing poles, fishing nets, bottled ships, World’s Greatest Dad plague(s) under
the teeth of old men: fedora armies, minds set on children who would find a way
home to stoops of Brooklyn, hand in hand for Christmas dinner: amber encased
rooms,shrines to ghosts that live in kitchens,
that don’t want to go to bed; please, please
one more hour
III
road side bomb houses,
Yet they are an angry pride of eagles, well-wishing the sky away with thoughts
of home – and Baby who has taken a new lover: the suited, successful type.
Her net of rhetorical stickery: Blue: the populace as welcome host/holy host; country with greeting banners of gun muzzles and hemlock for afternoon coffee eager think-tanks
We always thought you bigger – thought you able to pick out grains from the dunes.
Instead we’re sold foaming history that skips hearts with shape-charged chest caves:
see-through pupils weaned on the beckoning paradise of repressed sex concerns,
static electric screens that crack and snap at ingrained sword and sandal faith
Patrick Swayze admires a desert sunset through the crosshairs of discovery
says original programming used to be about the dialogue of war:
the decent things men say to preserve an empire – now left to large scale bar room brawls where anyone hits anyone and the Rotary Club savages the prisoners for road side clean up rights
For customs: you tip the tender that serves you poison, you watch for signs of over saturation, you talk strong men out of overplaying their hand – discourage back room sleaze fucking
Frances Houseman will wait for you in the Catskills –
she is having the time of her life.
She takes traditional Jewish levelers to bed under a blanket of mountain air – she dreams
of unknown war – of “gloves on” duel custom – of presidents unafraid to take a bullet
while you dance and surf and fight under cover of God’s original sky mold: decaying
tape that turns eager, romantic gestures into violent subjugation:
too much, too much
rewinding of a pleasant memory – or constant rental of what is not ours: borrowed
America it’s time to come home for dinner – time we talked about movies like they were
important – time to forgo the blood beat of the war dance for popcorn and sore wisdom
Baby prays for rebirth in placeholder beds of cowards; prays for absent men who would
bring back proximity threats that pulsate in sun-dressed groins: deep rich throbs,
heartsick wants to soundtrack the earth
IV
and ultimately questions the sincerity of her leading man.
as if he said secret in muted tones of
grey, as if you wanted his name to be
soft – or sacred. as if you worried his midnight
be crows feet clicking on the edge of the Catskills
click click
baby remains dumbfounded about punishment
heaped on organisms devoid of brains
in cell form
The Point That Baby Breaks
Baby’s first words were live my life: you wanted to eat
on the meat side of the table and live under the tomato plants
Conservation demanded our integrity while we:
boorish and unkempt, straddled work and charity
Our best intentions crook under our worst faces
our summer parties reek of cheap shots at the winter’s air.
Her motivation: little Baby wishes her pen pal out of
Anbar; writes with determined knuckles swelled at the thought
of war, and when will mom stop serving those animals finger foods:
concessions to women who clean faces with hand soap containing the smallest
hint of human blood, hint of what’s to come, dirty rumors washed with
discussions of me, for once: I, as entity living in a confined space – I, as
host to problems of increased governmental leaning – How we can afford
a language school? Is it important for Baby to learn French?
to grow with grace and still manage meat from the bone – finding substantive ways to say
Dieu n’est pas dans les details. Les détails sont dans Dieu
And does baby mix up? Does baby lack proper translation for the job? The orders? What forks stab at What concerns us is Baby has been saying nobody puts her in a corner:
she has found American video and sweaty men – she has danced with American buffets full of choices: the fish looks palatable: the desert looks unsalvageable- what now?
II
sees Ghosts,
Where Toledo was made saccharine by song; wishing wells,
good to see you’s, let’s get togethers for a small portrait,
ghosts that live in fall-out shelters on the shores of lake Lake Pontchartrain
Danny got his drunk-on up in Montreal with fighters: glass-jawed beasts,
targets of the census – we moved westward, our eyes sewed shut like test tube
babies who will learn how to dance one; snuck looks at the Tetons: cosmic laugh
angles cut by parallel weekends: back and forth from rise to run – baby who will
learn how to die, haunt us with summer stock, dinner theater, WASPy nests of clay
-amber preserving the memory of her father in a room that breathed underwater
fishing poles, fishing nets, bottled ships, World’s Greatest Dad plague(s) under
the teeth of old men: fedora armies, minds set on children who would find a way
home to stoops of Brooklyn, hand in hand for Christmas dinner: amber encased
rooms,shrines to ghosts that live in kitchens,
that don’t want to go to bed; please, please
one more hour
III
road side bomb houses,
Yet they are an angry pride of eagles, well-wishing the sky away with thoughts
of home – and Baby who has taken a new lover: the suited, successful type.
Her net of rhetorical stickery: Blue: the populace as welcome host/holy host; country with greeting banners of gun muzzles and hemlock for afternoon coffee eager think-tanks
We always thought you bigger – thought you able to pick out grains from the dunes.
Instead we’re sold foaming history that skips hearts with shape-charged chest caves:
see-through pupils weaned on the beckoning paradise of repressed sex concerns,
static electric screens that crack and snap at ingrained sword and sandal faith
Patrick Swayze admires a desert sunset through the crosshairs of discovery
says original programming used to be about the dialogue of war:
the decent things men say to preserve an empire – now left to large scale bar room brawls where anyone hits anyone and the Rotary Club savages the prisoners for road side clean up rights
For customs: you tip the tender that serves you poison, you watch for signs of over saturation, you talk strong men out of overplaying their hand – discourage back room sleaze fucking
Frances Houseman will wait for you in the Catskills –
she is having the time of her life.
She takes traditional Jewish levelers to bed under a blanket of mountain air – she dreams
of unknown war – of “gloves on” duel custom – of presidents unafraid to take a bullet
while you dance and surf and fight under cover of God’s original sky mold: decaying
tape that turns eager, romantic gestures into violent subjugation:
too much, too much
rewinding of a pleasant memory – or constant rental of what is not ours: borrowed
America it’s time to come home for dinner – time we talked about movies like they were
important – time to forgo the blood beat of the war dance for popcorn and sore wisdom
Baby prays for rebirth in placeholder beds of cowards; prays for absent men who would
bring back proximity threats that pulsate in sun-dressed groins: deep rich throbs,
heartsick wants to soundtrack the earth
IV
and ultimately questions the sincerity of her leading man.
as if he said secret in muted tones of
grey, as if you wanted his name to be
soft – or sacred. as if you worried his midnight
be crows feet clicking on the edge of the Catskills
click click
baby remains dumbfounded about punishment
heaped on organisms devoid of brains
in cell form
