Do Porn Stars Go to McDonald's

If we saw you at this cathedral of
international gastronomy,
I think I might put out all the loneliness
I've poured into the eyes I believe
in more wholeheartedly than god and godless
worlds alike by impaling mine with the longest
french fries I could get my hands on.

Memory

Lexington, a brief life-breath
in my brain. It was raining, I felt
some part of you sigh on the bench,
Only stillness in the light.

Some semblance of masculine duty
had broken you, I thought. The marines
or some other branch. I knew then
I would never get another chance,

And I didn't. Four years later, London,
watching grace in black-and-white,
My foolish eyes saw squat ice-sliders
race to sinking cures for hunger.

Still, short wings, best for false flight,
were warm enough to keep my blood flowing.

Let this man say, You

Let this man say you weren't at all unrefined,
and, charmed, he'll take your hand
where no one else saw, and nothing else.

He'll take you on the last train
in black-and-white if only to tell
that the first time he laid eyes
on you was right then.

Foolish to consider it
ill-fated and untimely,
He'd laugh a little,
try some tenderness,
fumble with some reasons why,

But they knew all along it'd be
the same as the last. He'd finish
on the leading tone to sustain
the magic, and afterwards

Against the most velvet sunset
he could muster, this man waved
a long goodbye.

Four Elegies towards the Grand Unification of Poetry

I. Academic Festival Elegy

Eyepiece, monocle de mon oncle, May,
Under Milk Wood, fixed in two-(by)-two arrays.
Begs inverse questions
to kindling lusts they modified.
Erstwhile philanderers singing bawdy lullabies,
of "tarry, tarry yet, and yet!
Light's no matter, our ally, even."

For some length of time,
I was why we porcine plankwalkers
found ourselves contained.
Our fiery spirits quenched,
we, so drenched in mediocrity,
lose love for old gods,
and enjoin (For the love of God!) daily
constitutionals. All ye walkers, mourn.
Name and number each brick
on your way to Konigsberg.
Lay your soul down in (O I say these are)
the places where we'll lay.

2. Elegy for the Nuclear Family

Lord willing, we'll go out today
for lunch. Minor prophets would
seethe should you suggest otherwise.

My eye! Minor prophets? Who's going
to give them the talking to they deserve?

Hosea and a whore, Jonah and some stinking fish's
stomach acid, Noah (not minor, probably, and
half-prophet at best) drunk and naked? These men revered?

My father wasn't like anybody in holy scripture,
I don't think. Maybe a bit of Gideon and a pinch
of that guy who fished a lot before some guy said
quit your moneymaking and watch me do miracles
for a while. Most men like that just want to know
if Jesus likes the sea, and if he did they'd learn
to turn their eyes down at a woman. Especially mothers.

3. Elegy for Nucleic Acids

I was going to attempt writing a poem made
entirely of the letters "A", "T", "G", "C" and "U",
but after cut tag cat tug gut act tact I realized
how goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded
and dull, but also can't pick five letters to represent
nucleotides that poets can have much fun with.

4. Elegy for the first Nucleus

For America and no place else
the neutrons near ran their little
feet off trying to get to you,
crashing some evening get-together,
guest list two-hundred-thirty-five in all.
Yelling some strange rendition of Yankee Doodle
so infectious that inspired party-goers leaped up
to invade neighbors' homes with similar effect.

Unfortunately for scientists,
enough to send some country reeling
wasn't close to what would make these
in and out and in and outs again
drop a quark, or get quirkily near.

here's the verse

seventeen million pixels in the iris
of the average jpeg of a human face
and guaranteed at least once
you'll choose one for loving
from the seventeen that couldn't
give color to your eyes if they wanted to

Lemma

Indeed, because I was so
unloved (and in love)
I forgot what it was,
and things were deranged.

It followed, then
that I should be silent
and docile. It means so
little to be these.
To mean so little,
to be such, and to find
what would be our greatest
losses.

Hymn for the Northeastern United States

So many men
and so many yesterdays and
many flowers and seventeen
softly-born meadows and

again,
what were we to
do with ourselves
and
again, again.
I was so silently
contented, and not so.
(I'll never be
able to convey
how much I'm sorry
that this is true).
How? I don't know,
and I shouldn't hope
but I do hope
that you will
be sometime.

Indeed, there's some faith.

Have faith and
have
faith,
You will fly away.