in a glass tube
crushed in his hand
the names blended
into him

he spoke to
the boat

RUDDER
MAST
SKULL

               outfitted
in plumes

               he crossed

________

I pay          homage

in repetition of

your turns of phrase

our cues to leave     someone put a linen rag     in my

          mouth please

preserve this tongue

          in honey

?´Abd el-Latif will have

to

relate

how my jaw

is never to be

disengaged

again??j
     jamais

________

?ña worldwide change /

                              in sea level is / ?ñ

now this pile

of corded equipment

lies very still

my mirror      terminating in

a hawk's head

points
          to the air
          hole

               plugged by
               a
               flag
               pole

________

he is greeted]

women with casks     of cedar oil

his charm is     that he reminds     each of someone

nominated          on their mattresses

this Eustace from before

_____________________________
speculates   unteaches   evacuates
the coterie

i am a leaf on a tree, a node in a network of motes in the air

i light up, i placate, i diffuse with the trade at the fair

i blow up your body of l¬?grimas here

i am the flash of your nullified speed

i heat in the oven the heart of a doe, with the tools of the weak

i plugin for a seek

i trouble the barn with wet hay in my hands, a hummingbird reeks

i make a devil the mother of Hosts for a fleet

      today, in the filters, the woman that hears,
      in her head, in the cloud that you said.
      in the trademark that peels all the shores

i remake the command, the on and off touch,
      the memory growing to find a Return

i point down on location, the underlined world
      is finishing wood with the rinse of a sleep in a cave.
      the most that an open refrain will divide,
      the weapon of stars, the last of the fields
      in rippling trains
      in the tropics of endless reverse
      a reverse of the hand
      in any way made for the gone
      for the caps lock of sense
      that plies a disease of address,
      its repair that a one-to-one word has in hand
      where they are, where the stolen of blood loss connects,
      where the path has a stop to rename

      when the open revolves, when the shirt comes undone,
      when the hands were not ten
      there is friction to soil in the obverse of breath

            OFF
            ON
            OFF
            OFF
            ON
            ON
            ON
            OFF

      in the chain of a ring, the main hull of a ward
      a pointer that peels its close wind to the ground
      that feeds the unwavering wood
      that the almost gives out
      that anyone sees
      that the sari in heat waves puts in,
      that the mazes will rate with a road
      that the safest retrial has to cut
      that the spanish gives out in a disk, in a gift
      one paper belongs to the wood
      one sharpened detail pulls the page
      one service that paints
      one on the face, a swap of a sail
      one in the open fresh grave

i wake for the morning in 5 empty rooms

i am something for free

i am gone

i am fear

i am lost in the circuits of panning moot coals

      in the page of a rose
      in the fence of between
      in the softened deferment of race
      in the hole
      in the rust of the trade
      every mid-winter remains
      results of a read have a frame
      the poison that wills
      the moisture that runs
      the song that affronts all the bones
      in a stain, in a wound, in a curl
      there is everything done
      for the snake in the corn
      there is one for the skull of a lamb
      together there's more than the sight
      of anyone gone
      of the world
      of the same
      of the wrong

      of the criminal steps in a pace
      there hasn't been one for the hand or the eye
      or there hasn't been anything weaker than one
      or there is, in a way
      in a menial dust, in the traveling ghost
      in the surface of suns
      in the rot of a stolen bread toll
      like a double might be, like Mars and Venus
      like the markings replaced on the wall
      like the 5 extra days in a cell for a move
      in every transporter that puts its will on
      for the five, for the seven, for four

There are a few computer science ideas that form part of the basis of this poem. Letters such as i,j,k,a,b,c,m,n,x,y and z are commonly used by novice computer programmers as variables, especially as “counter variables,” hence, and for other reasons, the “i.” Counter variables are used by computer programmers to count how many times a program has gone through a processing loop. Loops are a common notion in computer programming, as well as being a variation on a circle, something I use often in my work. Counting, in this case, also obliquely refers to the North American Plains Indian notion of “counting coup,” which values touching an enemy over killing them in the midst of battle. In computer jargon, a “daemon” is a program that works for the operating system, instead of for the user. Some other programming terminology and ideas made their way into this project, though they are usually used in an ambiguous or polysemous way, and do not require the reader to know much about computers. Many of the computer terms in this work are used in the database query language known as SQL, or are used as common word processing terms, or can be found in the relational database language known as 4th Dimension.

where will it end
the count of the years wandering
the toll the statistics of missiles
in flight that fall
back to the ground
where a crater accuses?

better hurled into space
or into the crowd in Hell
than to be a bomb maker
& share your results
the Los Alamos boys
knew what they'd done

they ended the party
the glass is empty
the guests have gone
& the music has just stopped
now he lies awake in bed
alone, no one to hold him
still in his clothes
the bed soaked
his hair matted
he's got to forget

what sleeve slid back
to show the nightmares
where Ajax lay exposed?
demons crawled out of the dream
& ate him ate his soul
left his scattered remains on Greenland's
ten-thousand-year-thick sheet of ice
he's slowly melting
into the ocean
home calls to him

streaked song sparrow pecking up seeds from table in right
foreground, blue jay on pine branch above it, green passion
vine-covered fence on left
   Ashbery's “today it is possible
not to speak in metaphors,” Eliot's “gasworks” calling forth
the whole history of human thought
   man in light blue shirt
reading Eigner's “footwork/skateboard/middle of the street/ between trees/sunlight,” its “direct experience of event
in its actual condition,” Zukofsky's “I” also the “eye”

curve of white spray blowing back from wave breaking
across channel, wingspan of pelican gliding above it

horizontal line of a pink cloud above still dark plane
of trees in the lower left corner, sound of wind moving
tobacco plant leaves, wingspan of a jet passing overhead

woman in green sweater recalling arriving with 105 degree
fever in Tahiti, thinking she was tired because of jet lag

woman on plane with bad back asking man to get her bag down
from overhead compartment, older woman in window seat asking
him to “get mine too,” man saying “no”
   plane of grey-white
cloud slanting across pale blue-white sky in the upper right
corner, sunlit slope of the sandstone-colored cliff below it

sparrow landing on tobacco plant branch in upper right
foreground, sound of drop falling into watering can next
to green glass back door, waves breaking in channel
   woman
leaving message on phone machine noting her mother left her
glasses at reading, “Calvin Klein glasses in a black case”

woman in maroon sweater standing in front of the brick-
red plane, who says “I want to lead us from one form
of reality to another, and I've got myself up a tree”

white gulls moving behind circular green pine on tip
of sandspit, blue-green wave breaking across channel

dried hemlock stalk slanting across still dark ridge, green
passion vine-covered fence below it, cloudless blue-white
sky overhead
   man on the radio calling Jayne Mansfield
“the swansong of pre-nude sexuality in films,” noting
“her immensely voluptuous body”
   woman on the phone
recalling the ocean “too green to be cold,” the sun's
“bisected orange ball throwing alien pink on the water,”
so many stars she thought she was walking in technicolor

blinding silver line of sunlight reflecting across channel,
whiteness of gull on triangular orange tip of the GROIN sign

Timmy and Tommy break a bar of taffy in the gutter

Their tan lines are showing

Their hard taffy candy breaks in two pieces
that is its attraction.

Even if you had no friend to share it with
you would still break it, and eat both pieces.

The atmosphere is crisp and cold.
You would break his back at the tan line

His friend sat back, according to his will
Up to the balls, up to the balls

The day comes to a succulent close

Distinctions disappear, you're better
off by yourself
or with somebody else

Maybe two people

These ribcracking boys Timmy
and Tommy of the Stadium

Three friends have I, Mr. Potato Head
with bumps on it, and pink glasses,
and Lady Bracknell, a broken record
who always says the same thing twice,
       and then there's my image in the mirror.

This image, the most Lacan of my friends,
is writ in water, won't shut his eyes.
Even when I'm bad, he takes me,
and unlike my woman friend the broken record
      never repeats what I say, what I say

Kevin's his name, and Kevin his reflection.
He's got a bad bite on the side of his neck.
Where I thought it was love, he knows
what the fuck I was doing with
      a glass of wine in human form.

Under the influence of your love I
broke off with Mr. Potato, the Irishman.
Once I'd adored him and gone round the world.
Under the influence of your love I
      made a few mistakes, I see, in my mirror,

in the mystic ball mounted in the garden.
The sun seems to whisper what time it is,
and rows of flowers bow and curtsy,
stately as diplomats. Daisies who don't tell
      what the fuck I'm doing in a garden,

under your influence, in your wine,
hearing your whine across a hollow of
dark tarn, friendless now in your love, in
your urine like a string of blood
      churned in a vodka, so, where am I?

The blind now
forces paper to put
upon itself. What was read
is blackened by the name of blood.

I, says the cat, will sit
upon the chest of my conquered curl.
I, says the gun, will kill
anyone who comes between
the pressure of my trigger??
and what? Did I intend rain?

Evidently. The sufferers line up
to petition our please.
And-and-and the stutterers
sing the siren's curse.

Now is the season?ñ
the reason for our furrowed brows.
Pop-pop!
the gun goes.
The stage is empty.
there weren't any heroes.

Los Angeles, 16 April 2002