#11 [slaughter ball]







I promised him

an ode, “Jared

stubble in parfumerie”

_________

enjoy the bumps

obstructing cognition—





_________

two or three

roses beautiful because

they are separate from

each other—separated

roses are more beautiful

than joined roses





_________

she’d never

heard of sugar snap

peas—I explained

sugar snap peas in detail





_________

imbibe straight male

narcissism, see how

it tastes and sounds





_________

Elaine

Stritch died yesterday,

89—see mother once more

before she turns 84





_________

hooked on Cheops





_________

my hand lit up and

crammed into you





_________

or Schoenberg’s

waxed bikini line

redux, trilling like Romeo





_________

nonstop

Otello storm clouds,

his fat unshaved

chops sucking storied

lollipop





_________

nose of

96-year-old blind

mother of anyone,

a face moving

into early dementia





_________

dementia at

96 isn’t early





_________

I like the word “stipple”

I say at lunch





_________

common for sons

to be sued for defamation

of character—I have

thrice been tried





_________

aunt whose last shame

before death is witnessing

the mayo bologna fight





_________

no pee coming from Fed Ex

man at urinal, I linger

by sink and allow silence

to blossom so his pee-

shyness can grow audible—





_________

maybe upper-middle-

class dad will smother

the baby—





_________

your near-

death experience

involved a wall

of grape hyacinths





_________

identification with crying

baby but also a wild

wish to stop the crying

by stopping the baby’s

existence





_________

vielleicht the baby

is a future war

criminal





_________

her name is Aurore

Clément—she

plays the mother in

Chabrol’s Bridesmaid—





_________

I added Venetian

red which is really

brown to create an

illusion of ground

beneath a car





_________

added ultramarine blue

above the car and

accidentally effaced

purple coneflower stems





_________

then dragged

a pencil through

pink to retrieve

lost lines of two

figures coitally embroiled





_________

and now I

see a rhubarb-colored

dodge ball (slaughter ball?)

balanced between two

mustard lines—





_________

skillfulness abides in

seemingly random and

unthought decisions—





_________

deliberation,

if it occurs, must

itself be spontaneous—





_________

I won’t

ask him to pose—

asking involves

a level of abjection

even I am incapable

of descending to—





_________

though

deciding I won’t ask

fills me with teen

despair—father’s

fullness reigning

over me with titanic

indomitability—





_________

my recourse

to code situates

me as Satan, not

major-domo Satan but

Satan’s little helper

with an apron and

thimble and food

processor for slicing

carrots on the bias—





_________

Josep

Pla’s anti-Semitic description

of Jewish necks—





_________

caught having sex with a

guy at 17, pants opened,

dicks out, taunted for

a year





_________

an edible

crawling tortoise

we ran over and couldn’t

eat the murdered meat





_________

wanton destructiveness

toward my private

property—





_________

a problem

for five decades, these

objective unlyrical statements





_________

maybe gradually caress

his arm to receive

touch backward





_________

scarf by Vera a status

symbol in Coral Gables

or towns that yearn

to be Coral Gables





_________

cross out a big area

with bilge and then

write on top of the bilge





_________

headed

toward hell, saying

please to hell as I approach

its ambiguous gate—

or is hell a river?





_________

in the Hill

Korwa tribe’s drawings,

an alphabet wordlessly

emerges





_________

a non-gay-seeming

man was holding hands

with a gay-seeming man near

the ragtag pharmacy