#366: SHRIVELED ZYGOTE

the shriveled zygote swims
from place to place
organism
in error
the balding zygote
unfinished
with prenatal luxury
walks weirdly
from flesh to flesh
in questionable form

no one will ever tell the stunted zygote
the truth
about zygotes
that they could never be
as veiny and hairless as he

he will float on, content,
through corridors flooded with light
and redolent of janitorial smells

 lone
 infinitesimal
corruption

#365: DAYDREAM

now the senator named after
butt-sex discharge
recommends that survivors of gun-
massacres
take a class in CPR

whereas i escape that sad reality
by imagining
all the first-family incest-porn
that is bound to hit the market

and am comforted by this
at least relatively innocent
daydream

#364: JOHN B (throwback)

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#363: ThAN WHICH NONE BIGGER

Wow you will have engineered for yourself
the biggest imaginable fail
that is to say your fuck-up
will be so large scale
everybody on earth will know, and be glad they are not you
even motherfuckers in jail
for life will be like: gee
i'm really glad i'm me

#362: A WITTICISM REMEMBERED

Ashbery’s sphinx-like witticism

defied translation into Latin

that fine day

when freedom had previously been glimpsed

in that inappropriate piece of advice

delivered sagely

but intended merely

as a compliment

rather a blank compliment

as if by means of autofill

I remember it was unseasonably cold

on the English Dept. steps

I had my jacket buttoned all the way up

and it was fall

and shit

from all around

was coming down hard

#361: TRANCE

in the middens of the night
he rise
to barefoot tiptoe
on the frosty grass

he try crazy things


and then he tiptoe back

#360: DETONATION

the Austin bomber
has blode hisself up
at last what a sick
son of a bitch
and secondarily what a waste
of demolitions

#359: THE PLASMODIUM part I

for C. L. W.


Stay with me muse whilst with these leaves
I strive to stanch the viscous flow, drainage
of uncouth compounds, plasmoid outcome,
whose current bears within it many globs,
within each glob a smudge, within each smudge
a plague of particulars.
          Stay, impatient muse.
But swear we shall not speak of origins.
But let us rather leaf through catalogues
          and lists
that bear within them means to other lists,
each thing within each list a hellish spore
redundant.
         And, muse, make legible to me,
in pulsing craniovascular veins,
not to mention shattered brains, the vast
proliferation of things,
and of every accident the discharge total.

#358: UNSEEN THINGS YET ARE

...quod nequeunt oculis rerum primordia cerni
accipe praeterea quae corpora tute necessest
confiteare esse in rebus nec posse videri

...since the beginnings of things do not appear to sight
you must also learn of bodies which you, even you,
confess are things, but which no one can see

Lucretius, De rerum natura I. 268-271

such as manuscript ⍺
      o-prime:
      the archetype

no one gets to see
the archetype

NO ONE

and yet 
its body
sublimely dispersed
brushes against your
dying  flesh
even now

#357: WARNING, after Thomas Moore

Sublime was the warning that Liberty spoke,
Wild were her words on that day.
Soft went her feet though the pillars of smoke
As sunlight began to decay.

And weird were her words when we tried to recall
What Liberty had said.
Was she was a banshee after all?
Whose speech was meant for the dead?

#356: freak-lizard

did you see that
freak-lizard
sneaking up


to eat
the city?

well
fuck
why didn't you say something

#355: Upon the Ides of March

you are a bold man and an unlyckly
to be roaming at large
in the sun
the people among
like an orc
separated from his group
at the museum

you are a brave man
to be so much in view
with such crowds of people
all around
who hate you

but then I never knew much about psychology
and cannot understand or guess
what goes on
in such a flagrant head

but I suppose I am witnessing
a fucking prodigy

#354:The Definition of Hell

It is hell to write a poem
just as it is sometimes hell
to lie
to an animal

there is no one to forgive you
for such an act

you can follow the poor beast
in tears with demonstrations
of remorse ad infinitum
but you will always be guilty

their indifference
will never release you
from that

#353: ffartt

ffartt

is how it is spelled
I assure you

#352: BELLA PLUS QUAM CIVILIA

"If Lucan had lived, he would probably have improved greatly." Macaulay


he had barely enough time
as it was he found it necessary to combine 
the epic framework

and the heart's lament
his magnum opus with 
his juvenilia
before the right hand
of once-great Rome
commenced to apply its blade
its very own

directly to its vitals

and it was carving still
when Nero made him retract
turn on his friends
rat out his mother
!
then kill himself

leaving himself foerever exposed
to the facile commentary
of bystanders

still
I call that living

#351: Canadian

I GUESS Canadian cataloguing-in-publication data
does not care when publication occurred if ever
I mean I am looking at the t.p. verso
of Irving Layton, For My Neighbors in Hell
and I get 

Layton, Irving, 1912-
For my neighbors in hell
Poems.
ISBN 0-88962-111-X bd. ISBN 0-88962-112-8 pa.
I. Title.
PS8523.A98F67    C811'.54     C80-094126-8
PR9199.3.L39F67

and a warning not to reproduce.
a shout out to Canada Arts Council.
 ⓒ Irving Layton [n.d.]
cover design: Ludwig and Susanna.
bound in Canada.
printed on Canadian paper.
but nothing
other than the ravings of the poet himself
to indicate that any of this took place
at any one time
and it's bugging me, Mr President.
It's bugging me.

I remember distinctly buying this book
in London
summer of 2015
Skoob
66 The Brunswick
off Marchmont
£4

otherwise I would not be sure this book
even existed or
that I was alive
these things are important

good one, Irving

#350: Real-Time Satire of Unknown Contingencies

Shall I mutate accordingly?
I shall not mutate accordingly.

MARCH 8, 20000000018
i have seen all the meems
and all the giffys
it's supposed to snow later
there's a big blue moon like an adderall pill
stay away from the zero key it multiplies
out of control.
Well, am I contagious?


How many beers until the president
is out of my face?
how many songs will it take to void this place
and give the vote
back to the people?
I don't know if it's a fire wall
or a wonder wall
or a borderwall
Kim Wall
narwhal
Aspenwall
but I love you all

Molly: "after you die
everyone will be reading you."
I shall be like that Viking chief
whose teeth were contagious after death
Orkneyinga Saga.
Don't believe me? THink
I'm being facetious? google it
if you are so incredulous.

#349: THE POET WILL REPEAT THE QUESTION

'Have you built your ship of death?'
have you rehearsed pronouncing 'shibboleth'
have you memorized your recipe for meth
have you composed your death-haiku
your proprietates mortis? Have you?

Have you put your shoes by the door
have you opened the windows and swept the floor
have you lain awake for your cruelties, grave or         slight?
cataloguing crimes? chanting names in the night?
have you heeded those summonses as is right?

Are you prepared for the sirens bright and hard
the headlights that will pull into your yard?

#348: SECURITY CLEARANCE

security clearance
INFERNAL
your upgrade
is almost nigh

CHARON will
have cleared a bench
for your lily-white
ass, it is no lie

and when MINOS starts
gibbering
and roaring
you can sail right by


to be continued

#347: WATER MAGIC

but it isn't universal magic

tense rigidus
tension intentio
tenterhooks suspensus
tenure possessio

the memory resting
with awesome sharks
water bearing your weight
but it isn't a universal memory
though it is ancient
and if you
already forgot it
you're going to be rather tense
rather soon

IF the magic applies to you

immo rigidus
immo mox


either way:
valē
hominid
ad aeternum

#346: [OSCAR NIGHT]

Grettir Asmundarson's
chopped-off head
didn't bring much luck
to his killer

It wasn't hard to guess
that Thorbjorn Ongul
had the benefit of someone's witchcraft
when he attacked an already-dying man

Thorbjorn had to travel
all the way to Byzantium
before he could fearlessly
tell his tale

and even then someone overheard him:
Thorstein the Galleon
split his skull
down to the jaw

#345: ANATOMIC

not as intense
the further out you get
from the carnival hub
the centre of the bone meat
this applies to road trips
politics
syllabi
budgets
sometimes love
sometimes poetry

but you can't dwell long
on the marrow of the marrow
the atoms of my beings
which is the atoms of atoms
and they had better be:

since the atom can't any longer be called
with etymological clarity
an atom:
that is I can see light
between it

#344: serpens formosa

Teeth hurt for retarded snake
Daniel has feelings
Eats rats

Mind hurt for hungry snake

He has disappeared
Gone into the heart

But he will return
Alive to me one day
All black formosa