millenials

steal from me, hungry mouth
steal from me, hollow-boned bird
dangle my words like worms
to your squealing young
to your precious babes
to your invertebrates
to your fuckboys

fairy tale, cont.

friday you keep me

up hour after long

hour as if, when sleep

comes, the gains of the day

will reset and we will awake anew and

start all over

from point a

and

if you can will the day

to not end, will

the next morning to come

before the magic slippers

disappear, break,

crumble, etc., then

nothing changes.

but mayhaps

the secret of the old

tales

is that tomorrow, long

after the clock

has struck midnight and

all the thorns, poison apples, spell-

breaking kisses (etc.)

have vanished into legend

(or preceding pages) --

nothing, indeed, changes.

time goes on, we remain 

the same, all things

that have happened

stay happened.

(so we revel

in perpetuity)

Urban haiku #4

One photograph, a
cutting word, brick building, mist.
Leave Sunday. Back soon.

when/if you are human

you do the most important
things with the fury
of a thousand
suns and
hope there's time
for everything
else.

also, before
I forget: do you have any
idea how difficult it is to learn
to burp
as an adult?

dear 45

dear 45

to smash a window is to speak
to march is to speak
and to sing -
o, round-headed man:
go suck an egg
or twenty. o, small-handed
man: a firm grip produces
only white knuckles. o,
orange man: does color
bother you so dearly? o,
carrot man: who is the rabbit
to your stalk?

to break or not to break
(storefronts, police
cars, hydrants, spirit,
will) that was never
the question. to bend
amend
ments,
to bend arms behind 
backs, cuff 
them in kangaroo
courts, to bend
and never box. o, clean
small-handed man, come
get them dirty
like the rest of you,
fermented,
ripe,
and maggot-ridden
as the fruit that rests
unpicked while the wingless
migrant birds
have been taxied home south
for the long winter
ahead.

The Guns of Nevergonn

The Guns of Nevergonn

/crosses her legs,
sits as straight as London
or Seoul or a hard pack
of Lucky
Strikes or the chipped edge
of a window sill 
as if someone measures
her every angle
& kilogram
for market.

One leg over the other
she opens a carton of milk.

Machines thump
and thud like cannons or an apple
that falls to cold 
ground in winter
and that's all 
you hear, not
the soft tear of the cardboard
carton as her fingers pull
it open to triangle
and press it
to her dark red lips, no -
it's hiss and hump
in the coinmat
hump and hiss 
and pungent pee-cock piss
on the floor
and in the air.

Yung-su
likes to taste
ass says 
the graffiti next to her lips
as she lifts her head and turns
to the right,
drinks the white milk
in gulps. Your Korean
is not perfect - Yung-su
may eat or lick
or taste, but
whump, like Pyongyang artillery
whump, you think, start
the war
right now, unleash
the nukes (whump) and end
things in perfect art, one
terminal flash, preserve 
this ultimate moment
before the last drop
goes down her throat
before she turns
to face you, uncrosses her legs
and the cotton white
between them bursts
like a popped pimple.

The whole place stinks
of bleach and leg sweat
and stale 
milk
and every washer
is smeared with the soot
of subway excre
tion - heavy streaks
cloud the cloth
as it tumbles and rumbles
like American
jets. So
she is done. Looks at you
now and folds
the triangle shut
with three fingers
then tongue
to fatty lip
corpuscles
saliva
taste buds, licks herself
clean. What's in
there? Behind the dark
matte

...she stands, touches the wall
to balance on one leg 
like a preening flamingo, 
tugs at her shoe, runs
her hand along the back of her thigh,
smooths the skirt
looks straight
at you
expressionless
like the empty cream
walls, empty
save the dark scrawl
which dishonors poor Yung-su
and a spatter of red
near the back- blood or
lipstick or tomato
paste. Can it all.
Seal it and sell it
like sex on the streets. Legs
sell, lips sell, empty
milk cartons only find
their way into black trash bins
covered in used chewing gum
and condoms and click! One shoe
after the other she exits
slowly in heels, you
are alone
with the coinmat and a phone number
for Yung-su, the thunder
and rush of machines,
the white walls,
Seognam-Si life-
less and silent
like folded laundry or
eyelids after two days
without sleep. Tomorrow
you say, maybe close them
tomorrow.

The Pseudoscience of Happy

After decades of research, science has defined happiness in five words: "Happiness is love. Full stop."

Every Buddhist: "Free one's self."
The Electroencephalography test: "Human has capacity for happiness. Can be measured."
Sheldon: "I throw mushroom over wall."

So, to pelt your wife with vegetables or inform her the shopping cart was obviously left by others on purpose because it has a bad wheel?

Here, I intended to write more about others and eventually reach a point where I discussed watching your partner in the shower - this serene freedom - and the cleanse/freedom of water- and ritual.

But I was interrupted by said partner

who wanted to talk about someone who was unhappy

and when they were ever better off

or if they were ever better off

or, really, that they never were

and the attention unhappiness draws

and I am reminded of my own crisis, almost exactly ten months ago, and the attention that drew, but with that attention also closeness - a return, a revisitation of closeness from those I had grown apart from, and somehow crisis is like rebirth, like water, like freedom, like a washing away of things, perhaps crisis necessitates birth/rebirth like a phoenix rising from its own ashes, is this always the symbol?

___________ wet hair, a comb, and a white towel, three feet in front of me.