Deep Hockets

Say hocket say hiccup
say spasm say hitch
tic sudden
shake of the head say
yes please
say no
thank you say jump-
start say twitch

Say distance say six feet
say arm-span say handhold
say fathom
say fathomless say lesson
say intimacy

Say saxophone say arctic
stalactite act say art
Say kiss me
kiss me not
pirouette
periphery
say falconry
Hack me as if

I were your falcon
talons trembling
latent talent
tremolo
torrent
As peregrine
as perfect fifth
as potential energy
pouring into the pocket of
the chase
Preen me
let me skim the clouds
fathom the sea
pilgrim the galaxy
ransom the rhythms of God
Reason with no muse muse me amuse me

Bemused to blossom battalions of polyphony
to unbutton my blouse into the bosom of breath

Terza Rima with the Ghosts of Jack Spicer and Keats

:: Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness ::
[This person, that person, this person, that person]
:: Thou foster-child of silence and slow time ::
[died looking for beauty]

Groom of quietness, say vinyl ::
say counterpunching radio ::
say archaic electricity, minimal

tech, maximal media ::
everything tangible
in your hands :: idea

spark with fungible
flagrancy, masturbatory riff
following the dirigible

song of iffy
tone through the poem’s gambit,
this decade’s fatigued cliff ::

song of no tone, Keats’ ditties ::
pretty fag preening
through history would like to slip prettily

through the dread synergy
of virus & conspiratorially perturbing
smoke :: actual real tragedy

we can’t make meaning of here :: swerve
the poem to us fucking uninhibited ::
pretty boy needs breath & curve

of tongue into neck reckless bitten
with want, no mere groom
of quietness :: not sound quieted

into some stilted room
of artifact, give me some real cool
kid music :: zoom zoom,

let’s go discover sound again :: full
fathom five :: two :: one :: one-half :: zero ::
lie together, touch :: lull—

Sonnet

Jasper Johns, No, Encaustic, collage, and sculp-metal on canvas, 1961

No, I don’t want to come home
for dinner. No, I don’t want
to have sex tonight. No, I don’t
want to get a dog. Don’t
want to pick up the dog shit.
Don’t want to revise the poem,
or make the sonnet rhyme.
I want to abstract the love poem,
but the sonnet cannot be abstract.
Can it. Abstract desire. Abstract
the sonnet from form. Tear
the poem open. Let rhyme drip
down the canvas, a strip of
cloth exposed, [ ]
[a fifteenth line]