Five Poems

Most Men

Most men are part man
and part steak.

Most men
are part woman and part car.

Most men are part picnic
and part child.

Most men are part pigeon
and part smile.

Most pigeons are part city
and part wild.






Glop

Some madman in a flavor lab
designed the banana almond milk
in my cereal this morning.

Slightly purple, somewhat gloppy,
it rains viscosity —
a cloud’s acid reflux phlegm —
and turns individual flakiness
into a silent, if living, blur.

Classic films like The Blob
predicted its arrival —
which is to say it’s old
while being new
or perhaps old in its newness
recalling the marketing practice
of introducing minor differences
into more of the same
though in this case
the same is already different
as it is not just milk
but almond milk
and not just almond milk
but vanilla almond milk.
So to the different
a difference has been added
and so on—this process
now entering a baroque phase.

You could even say this product
is nostalgic
for the good old days
when to do the new
required less effort.

But nostalgic newness
doesn’t taste that good —
trying this hard
requires too many layers
resulting in a sort of sludge.

Perhaps this milk makes a statement—
a slurpy cognitive map
which slips down the gullet
heralding a shift in eras:
from pop culture
to glop culture.






For James Garner

Jim and I had a jammie party
just the other night
and he got me right in the old kazoo.

It was like jumping into a foxhole.

We enjoyed ourselves so much
we joined a religious organization
where we vowed to meet each other
at the same time and place
for the next twenty-five years.

But to be honest,

I think I’d rather be an astronaut
Or a golf pro.






The Watcher

1.

I got this Apple watch for “free” —
a gesture of gratitude for renewing my smart phone plan
a casualty of the competitive war of cellular giants
for who can offer the best deal.

Networks so vast,
watches so small —
tiny spider descending
from the web of communications,
now burrowing into my wrist —
my data points the flies it ingests.

On its face
the date, time, and weather
sit within a gleaming black cube
of tiny planets riding pin stripe orbits
spelling out a solar system.
The portrayal of such grand trajectories
within this tiny square
betrays an ambition
for the study of moving bodies.

2.

But is a gift ever truly free
or just a way to get you to pay more for something?
There are no gifts in gift societies.
Each comes with an obligation
so much so that it’s considered an act of aggression to give.
Is my acceptance of this freebie a surrender to surveillance?
My bill is higher, but I’m not sure from what.

3.

When my blood pressure is measured
it leaps.
But when I don’t know people are looking
it basks in a perfect sun, relaxed, low, even.

When quantum scientists study the path of light
its mellow waves condense
into points of tense radiance.

Quantum equations led to the technology
that gave birth to this watch.

When I know it’s watching me
I get nervous.

4.

I don’t understand myself
but my watch supplies a hermeneutic.
It knows when I rise or if I fall.
It dissolves my day into statistical stories.

A voice from the past now arises
from my brain’s analog mist —
it’s Peggy Lee asking,
“Is that all there is?”

Fuck it.

I’m going for a walk
that my watch will watch
and duly record.






In the Key of "I"

I know where I’m going
when I walk with a zombie.
Once I was a male war bride
now I am an idiot, walking
through an ice storm.
Even if the Seven Samurai have forgotten
the significance of my name
in the heat of the night
even if I speak in the name of the father
in this realm of the senses
on this Independence Day
in this world of internal affairs
like an innocent insider invaded by a body snatcher
intolerant of irreversibility
or an Iron Giant in a wonderful life that happened one night
even if I resemble Ivan the Terrible
who can blame me when I say
I’m in the mood for love?