Watching the Program with Children

I am a dude,
A rich broth of contradictory thoughts
When I am nude

Parents are rude,
Demand confirmation of what was taught
I am a dude

Humble and crude,
Devouring the lunch meats (which I have bought),
When I am nude

Shielding this brood
Teaching my body things others will not,
I am a dude

Eating more food,
Opened and bloodied when it has been caught,
When I am nude

Endlessly shrewd
Owning the property which I have sought
I am a dude,
When I am nude

The Singer Oriented

Our companion mammals are made of noise

And swaggering we walk to the kindness we know

Filled with the dimness of muscular joys

Hands filled with hands filled with these broken toys

Created as bodies for the ones put below

Our companion mammals are made of noise

Hands for the labor of milking this noise

Sheathed in plastic, sweating, cold as reflected glow

Filled with the dimness of muscular joys

A golden seepage encircles these boys

Creates an eternity to know and unknow

Our companion mammals are made of noise

Swaggering with kindness, words soft and coy

Summoned back to the places where ash blackly blows

Filled with the dimness of muscular joys

Children will sleep clutching these broken toys

Lidded eyes perceiving the residual glow

Our companion mammals are made of noise,

Filled with the dimness of muscular joys

Under Blown Leaves

The earthworms give us red bracelets. The goldfinches give us new flavors for unsatisfied tongues. The origami elk gives us a virgin's wisdom. The somersaulting children of immigrants give us anger to wield. The earthworms give us red bracelets.

Sandstone and limestone.

Cumulus and cirrus.

Scissors and tweezers.

Steel and aluminum.

Lizard hips and bird hips.

If you can know these things you can grasp the difference between, between, between Muddy Waters and JL Hooker. You can wander free of memory and labor.

The mallard gives us a clean thirst.

In Hair, Words

Don't tell no one, not one other or each other, not one another, not a man or a woman you see. Don't tell no one of my presence or the sounds my body makes. My voice ain't not a thing at to see or hear no more than rocks and food are things to be noticed or matter.

Don't tell no one. Don't tell no one. It's not a thing right to do. Don't. Do one more thing when I hide behind you. Behind my back I'll hold this rabbit skull and behind your back you'll hold me so don't tell no one that nothing is behind your back.

Back behind the shed in the wheelbarrow we flipped upside down before winter, in that wheelbarrow I made tracings so if you betray me don't tell no one but that would hear you about the tracings and I can forgive betrayal and I can feel your heart beating under the palm of my hand and I have the rabbit skull in my other hand. It's clean.

It is Our Only Way to Imagine a Tongue

Crows are little things in the sky and the gold in the ladies' pockets feels cool and happy. We have time here to let thoughts play quietly like slow water, lingering on subjects like the kinds of scissors we've used or the way airline tickets have changed since childhood. We have time for subjects that feel like nonsense and beauty and ultimate meaning all at the same time. Our bodies click and the shelves of our homes moan with the weight they bear, the weight of accumulated sentiments. The weight of our prosperity.

Use the Word "Agenda" in the Title If You Ever Write a Thriller

Business schools are loud places with bookstores, coffee shops, and plenty of restrooms. The toilet paper is generally required to be two-ply but some states have different regulations. I've seen women wear just about every color of necklace at business school, including blue and white. I have also seen an exterminator spraying for pests at a business school.

There is usually a gas station near a business school. Sometimes public officials visit a business school. Typically, a mayor of a city is a business school graduate, which uniquely qualifies him or her for the task of cutting the ribbon at the grand opening ceremony of a new business school which signifies his or her dedication to improving the standard of living in his or her city. After the ceremony, the mayor might attend a luncheon with the business school's board members. Sometimes a local student who has received a scholarship will also be there. This is a convenient photo-op for the mayor and the student.

The student's family might frame the photo, place it in a scrapbook, or simply file it away with memorabilia of the student's other accomplishments. Doing this is of little consequence, ultimately.

This has been a general description of a common event in modern America. Specifically, there was one time when the mayor and the student engaged in a torrid affair involving sexual intercourse of a deviant nature well-suited to colorful verbal descriptions. You may assume that this situation brought a generous amount of infamy upon the lives of the principals. This actually wasn't the case; instead, the minds of the entire population of the small Midwestern town in which the affair occurred were opened to the mutually beneficial possibilities of fiercely raunchy actions between lovers of very different ages.

Checkbook Frenzy

I don't know why my fists are full of dead air and nothing with no weight in them and no blood. There is a place for them, for both of them, in my pockets but I'm not putting them there again. I am going to hold them up for these people to see and I am going to try to sell them. These fists are useless and stupid things and I do not want them any more. I will ask twenty dollars for each, thirty five for the pair. That will be my firm price because I can then eat at a casual dining restaurant. And this time I will eat the dessert on the tabletop placard, and this time it will be a real thing in my stomach.