He hopes to avoid Leon on his way to the elevator. Just past the open door
of the fileroom, on the wall of the mid-office corridor, he sees a shadow
approaching. He ducks into the fileroom and bumps into the tail end
of Alexandra Kollontai, the new receptionist. She’s bent over, digging through
an open cabinet, but turns and smiles at Joe as he shuts the door. “You’re
in a hurry, huh?” she says, stretching out her hand, “We haven’t met yet.
I’m Alex.” Joe is taken aback. She’s gorgeous. He doesn’t know what to say,
so he puts his finger to his lips and motions at the door with his eyes.
Widening her own, she shapes her mouth into an “oh” and reaches
for the light switch. The room goes black. Joe forgets about Leon. “Who
is this woman?” he thinks, sniffing at the scent of her perfume. Suddenly,
footsteps come to a stop outside the fileroom door and he hears a voice.
“Fucking bitch,” Leon says, “I asked for that file two hours ago. I think
she’s avoiding me.” Another voice replies, “You think she’s going to put out
for you?” then laughs derisively. It’s the district manager. Joe had a run-in
with him yesterday and couldn’t wait until he went back to corporate. “What
an asshole,” he hisses, not fully cognizant of the situation. Alex touches his
wrist lightly, startling him, and whispers, “Shhh.” Joe can feel her breath
on his neck as she silences him. “Who is this woman?” he thinks again,
picturing her face in his mind. “She’ll put out,” Leon laughs from the other side
of the door, “or I’ll put her out. But right now, I need that file. Karl’s coming
by at two and he’s really pissed off.” At the mention of Karl’s name, Joe
feels the fileroom grow darker, more vulnerable. He gently gropes
the doorknob for a lock mechanism, but can’t find one. “Shit,” he thinks,
“there’s no way I was going to sign off on that audit. I couldn’t.” He forgets
about the woman standing beside him in the dark, and listens to Leon
as he says, “If Joe didn’t keep his nose so clean, I’d be putting him out too.
Business is business.” Replying curtly, the district manager snorts, “Citizen
Joe. I told you to get rid of that asshole. We wanted this deal finalized last
week, and he fucked it all up.” Joe bristles. If business means covering up
for men like Karl, he’s in the wrong business. He feels Alex touch him again,
this time on the shoulder. Does she know they’re talking about him?
He swallows nervously. Does she know he’s married, that he has kids? Joe
can’t think straight. “Look,” he hears the manager say, “get something
on Joe and nail his ass to the wall, make him miserable. We’ll take Karl out
for drinks and settle things down, maybe invite that new receptionist
of yours. We can teach her a thing or two about perks, eh?” They both laugh.
“Okay,” Leon says, “but let me get that file first. There’s a skeleton
in there I need to bury.”

When in heaven they said Hell. Was it hell for them.
Once they said Oyster.
We countered with Foie Gras Mousse.
Can you smile for appearance sake.
Are we dignified and merry.
Have they the proper understanding.
“Ascending pure, the bell-like fame.”
Our place in life.
Who wields the shovel
And who does not.
We speak at great length about weather.
Smile politely over Cocktails.
And we swallow.

Except for faces and hands, there is no surface
that defines our mutual convergence.

“Your blue is clear / as on the first day.
In your presence I am a man …”

She stared at the sky, asking herself, “How much poetry
will a man use, like a dog, sniffing at crust?”

I replied, “For the answer to become clear,
we simply need to ask.”

“But your grandfather and grandmother gradually
forgot. Your relatives all forgot.”

She thought breeding education should accompany
the general education: “Oh, I’m an average breeder.”

“The ram leaped / and the seal
disported on small rocks …”

She shrieked. The water was thigh deep
and freezing. Our bodies were finally cooling.

After a day and a night, we left / the island
and walked back into the village.

We were out of food, but food had become
like distance and time.

one tooth missing
when she smiles –
another morning

***

naked and drunk
on a flop house bed –
happy for the bed

***

the feel of you
our bodies sloshing together
in a filthy room

***

filled with blood
and the screaming outside
my throbbing temples

***

watching from behind
her thin black heels
the slamming door

***

a furious screech
hanging in the smoke –
she always comes back

***

empty bottles
crashing to the floor –
a telephone ringing

***

not your fault?
whose fault?
my fault?

***

it’s not death
that worries me
it’s his wife

***

an urge to scream –
when God created me
he created me

***

alone at nightfall
hours and hours of love
casting shadows

***

the way cats walk
weaving between bottles
sniffing at stains

***

like men who’d kill
because they’re crazy
and its the law

***

in a crowded bar
I’m drinking alone tonight
and feeling lucky

“Grammatical tautology” is the subject of this sentence.
Simultaneously, it is also the subject of the previous sentence.
The predicate of the prior sentence is also the subject of the previous sentence.
Therefore, the subject of the previous sentence is the predicate of the prior sentence.
Conversely, the subject of this sentence is the predicate of the first sentence
though the predicate of the second sentence is the subject of the previous sentence.
Likewise, the predicate of the prior sentence is the subject of the third sentence
while the predicate of the fourth sentence is still the predicate of the prior sentence.
The subject of the fifth sentence is always the subject of this sentence.
Therefore, the predicate of this sentence is the object of the proposition.

Abstract:
This poem partially describes the ongoing effort to home-build a JW-03 Luxury Blender. You may read it as an illustration of the brilliant things people do in their spare time, but I also hope to encounter a few readers who will attempt to wag their pistols — or are doing so already — and wish to complicate their credibility by building on my own success as a disassociative model.

If you found your way down to this stanza, you probably know what std(X) is, but I want to regurgitate: if X is a matrix, std(X) returns a row vector containing the standard deviation of the elements of each column of X. If X is a multidimensional array, std(X) is the standard deviation of the elements along the first nonsingleton dimension of X. Which means ‘you’, or a close approximation of ‘me’ describing ‘you’.

The trick of this equation is to measure ‘space as a verb’ (for the purpose of determining the erectile function of a hairy-legged bat) by calculating the rotational heat capacities for NH4+ and ND4+ in NH4PF6. This of course leads to prurience, but when male genitalia are introduced to their female counterparts, the subsequent tunneling frequencies reverse their thermal expansion loops, thus resulting in a state of ‘soft modernity’.

Our results suggest that the D.ecaudata penis is under directional sexual selection and is a reliable indicator of male phenotypic quality. Satisfying these dependencies in advance (as much as possible) will greatly ease the pains of building your own Luxury blender. Fortunately, recent studies indicate that the instinctual inclination to not view ‘penises’ as ‘poor nucleophiles’ is mediated by our capacity for mixed metaphor.

Premium Services: See Terms of Agreement.

Note: If the idea of generating kitchen implements that spawn sexual phenomena via ionized ammonia does not appeal to you, you will probably find this poem too exciting. Still, if you’ve never attempted to mount a peizo-stepping device inside a glass-rod frame, I suggest hanging the frame/mount device via rubber bands from a tripod on the White House lawn.

Terms of Agreement:
By reading this poem you agree to the following terms: 1) You MAY NOT use this poem for your own pleasure, nor may you relate it to the works of Abū Rayhān Bīrūnī. 2) You MAY NOT redistribute the elements of this poem (for example, in a blender) without written permission from the Nantong Ronghui Machine Co., Ltd. 3) You MAY link this poem to any delusional model you wish, but ONLY if it is NOT wrapped in cellophane. 4) You WILL abide by any philosophical statement inserted into this poem at a later date, regardless of logical coherence or uropatagium. 5) Online payment via credit card is the preferred method of subscription to this poem. Payment is due in advance for access to premium services.

Wind repels
the dull knife
of my body
like gravity
gives weight
to exhaustion,
and this broken
road, half drunk
on time-wasted
asphalt, is faithless
and wicked.
Minneapolis
on a bike
at East Hennepin
and Fifth
is nothing
but a salt-stained
pothole, emphasized
by the shattered
bottle (pointedly)
as I swerve
wide of its
puncturing gist,
and a car,
honking
in disagreement
with fate, flies
past my elbow
giving flight
to the bird
of a disparaging
pinhead
whose only fault
is existence.

A semantic meaning is crafted within a poetic structure,
along with the following device (which must be secured
against direct interference by the meaning): in the final
strophe, there is a self-referential contradiction, so
insignificant that perhaps in the course of a reading, one
of its implications has a subtle impact, but also, with equal
probability, perhaps it does not; if recognition occurs, the
device reverses the previous thrust of the poem, and
through an irreconcilable paradox releases an epiphany
that wavers on the cusp of irrational chaos. If one opens
this poem to the vagaries of a reading public, one would
say that its meaning is still coherent if meanwhile the
contradiction has gone undetected. The poetics of the
entire structure would complicate this, however, by having
within itself both a coherent and an incoherent meaning,
each of which potentially express themselves as entirely
separate manifestations of the poem, while at the same
time, in their juxtaposition, creating a third implication
which is entirely beyond the scope of language or rational
thought.

It is typical of these poems that an indeterminancy
originally restricted to the polysemic domain becomes
transformed into literary indeterminacy, which can then be
isolated and reproved via close reading. That invites us to
discursively reject as invalid a “blurred poetics” devoid
of meaningful content. In itself, however, this poem
would not embody anything unclear or meaningless, for
each reading contains within itself a logical structure
geared toward a given end. Hence, there is a difference
between a shaky or out-of-focus poem and a poetic
device which creates an invigorating mind-fuck. The
question remains: is such a practice meaningful, and if
so, what is the meaning of meaning?

[First Character: pissing in a kettle]

Vocation for a jug. A vocational
discourse is in pouring, and who
dreamed of drinking to enoble
this predilection for the old thing
newer. If the jug is drained, a brief
squawking will be enacted.

[Second Character: scaling fish]

Jugs and a liquid sanctum.
Pull apart a jaw and pouring
to avoid the judgment, disgorge
a grunting sound and swallow
sheets of fire until expressing, expel
more shuddering and not
at random even sputter, spill it all
into the kettle, cursing.

[Third Character: chewing bones]

A mad grin, a grin that is not
liquid is stiff as every other stiff
is inflexible. A type of resilience, a study
in defeasance and everything
fluid, everything languid and more
reversible, nothing precise
without spitting, something liquid
and hairless, sloughing
the implication of a judgement.

[Fourth Character: scratching scabs]

A sputtering word, a genuinely
sputtering word that is not spit
by salting a wound meekly, it is not
spit by saints or by shrieking.

[Fifth Character: glaring at the sun]

Scowl. Scowl like iron, scowl
like iron moltenly.  Scowl hotter
than any forge and spit fluently.
Spit in the fire and in stumbling, spit
in dereliction.

[Sixth Character: praying to his god]

A forge is not the only god. Of iron,
the forge and the hammer are not
the only gods. Of mettle, the forge
and the hammer and the burning coal
are not the only gods completey.

[Seventh Character: eating salt]

An urge an urgent need an irrepressible
urgency and no stopping, not even
a thirst or an inclination to bend
each day, an urge that calls this thirst
and this urgency is the only one
that rages, that leers eternally.

Serafino has one handkerchief
which he keeps in an oak box
wrapped in linen beneath his bed.
It is as clean as the tears of a saint
and twice as holy. Prior to its interment
beneath the bed, his wife Malvolia
wanted to burn it, to cleanse it of spells
and demons. She didn’t know
what she was saying, so he put her
in a Russian tea room and kept her there,
wrapped in silk, jewels, and etiquette.
He pretended to sympathize.

Each day, when Svetlana served her,
Malvolia cried and cried and cried,
but the tears from her good eye
were mud-stained and smelled like fish.
Her bad eye was worse: a bug eye
that always stared and never blinked.
Once it had a foreign name: Eleanor
of Arreton Manor, Isle of Wight.
In those days, before the misfortune,
it was a queenly eye, with long lashes
and allure. Now it was diseased, a yellow,
coveting eye: Maloccio.

Every day, except on weekends,
Svetlana peers into this eye and frowns.
Once, on the occasion of his rare visit
to the tea room, she asked Serafino how
things had come to be as they were. He replied
with horror, “Occhi e contro e perticelli agli
occhi, crepa la invida e schiattono gli occhi.”
She had no idea what he was saying,
but found his voice to be intoxicating
and beautiful. Hearing her say this aloud,
Malvolia began to smile. In an eyelid’s beat,
she wore a mask that was almost lifelike.