
JUST






KETTLE
the kettle
switched itself in
wanting to discover
something about
the physics
of hor water
and me,
not
to get too critical,
invariably in
hot water myself
and thus everything
surrounding me
that has me
penned in here,
likelyto go
off at
a tangent,
reach boiling point
explode into metaphor
as
fire is my element
and elements
cannot be
destroyed just
changed, or replaced
feel myself combining over
issue of who has
what is needed, is eager
to give, to whom
of counter
inclination is
burning, bursting
with enthusiasm free and
eager to
give
or same, same,
weird as that sounds,
enough to take me way
past my
threshhold, over
limit
beyond containment itself
and so
I leave chains, splitting and
shredding, breed
such a kerfuffle
you, guiltless though
you might claim, bystander
though you might be
are simply
swept away, sucked
into my dance
know what it feels like
quintessence
of Sun
to have
become
to have been
(if but for a moment)
the light
of a star
my kettle
my cauldron
my
sweet devastation (we
secretly
seeded with)
all
you might ever
hope for
ultimately
scrawled here
on this backboard
board
black as
the Universe but
such an
elegant hand

SHINE
“Speaking to me.
They wash and
tub and scrub.
Agenbite of inwit.”
James Joyce, “Ulysses”
are you
warm
warm
inside
full
of insight?
agenbite
got
your tongue?
cat-like your preen
sunlight making
your fur
(if you
had fur) warm
as toast
questions to ask
before quietus
perhaps it fades
perhaps it
annihilates in
a gathering of stars
on the pavement
in your own
backyard
too little light
but now
all the suns
thought it was a summit
but it was
the sum
of all spectacle
THIRTEEN
woke up
in the middle
of the night
to watch Alan
Dershowitz
debate Glenn
Greenwald
over the absolute
necessity of surgical strike
bombing
the shit out
of Iran
which Dershowitz won
hands-down handsomely by
ultra cogent argument
and
persistent
interruption
and being
a Harvard Man
this being the University
that refused thirteen
students
their degrees
woke up
to watch
Alan
Dershowitz
in an alternate
universe where
they had removed
all the universities
Dershowitz
talking the same old
safe-talk
shibboleth
the clock
somehow gone wrong
gone
hopelessly
intertextual
telling me it is
no time
for peace
for lying secure
in bed
thinking
poetry
already
on the verge
of striking thirteen
LIVESTREAM
I was
a walking stream
of consciousness
a stream of consciousness
walking with a cobra-headed
hard red-wood stick
treating myself to
a slow circumnavigation
of the heart of the farm
on YouTube meanwhile
much screaming & pontificating
about red lines being crossed
and slippery slope
to no tomorrow
tactical nukes even
as we speak ready for
testing
being wheeled into position
men in their Strangelove
think tanks think
it’s just
a game of brinkmanship
serious
high-stakes bluffing
and me in my Cassandra moment
thinking about the pressing
of that button
to remove the surprise
from smugness in person
it’s wonderful, what
it can do, what platform
it affords for
all career launching
a prestigious degree wreathed
in ivy league ivy
how in such hands, how
safer than safe their
algorithm would
wish us to feel.