Zeitgeist Spam

Flicker II

Who, if an angel cried …
That job’s been outsourced, Exxon
Shows record profits, close-up
Of my face, negative space,
That look in my eyes,
A typo for wonder, garlic,
Mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers, faded letters
Of a failed business, ferry
Steaming into the distance, converted
Castle, old hotel, John Lee
Hooker singing I Cover the
Waterfront, the Guggenheim melts, una
Fiesta, Alito confirmed, percussive palms
Slap bowls of water, night,
And a city lights up,
A woman sinks, Bush rehearses
His State of the Union,
A yellow and red polyanthus
Lights up, Roger just loves
The ladies, no bikes allowed,
Wait for the bus … Gloria
From the shelter asks for
A dollar, says she's hungry,
Wants a banana, winter grass,
Cold pool, winter trees, one
Drop of water with sun,
3.5 ducks, Ex-Wal-Mart
Executive Pleads Guilty to Fraud,
Common loon, I’m covered with
Crumbs, get outa my face,
Old Rugged Cross, ah, the
Festive lights of old Milan,
Close-up of a coffee
Cup, would those be icicles,
That job’s been outsourced, Exxon
Shows record profits, who, if
An angel, buildings and sun,
Faded letters of a failed
Business, who, if an angel,
The things you can do,
Super-juiced saturation and Photoshop.

Fisheye Set

Inso writes with New Year's
Wishes, writes of a rock,
Ancient arc of an enso
On it, eons old, and
A Mi Fei poem.

                        Next
Chance I get I'll be
Mi Fei (you'll like this,
Steve), who Inso writes would
Bow to a boulder.

                            What
Are the eyes of twenty
Dead fish? What is the
Tube of a breaking wave?
Mi Fei warns:                        

                    Be careful,
Don't speak, you'll fall in
A muddy ditch!

                            This isn't
The poem I planned to
Write when I got out
Of bed.

            But this is
Your poem, Deborah Lattimore.

Ishigaki Rin Is Wonderstruck

1.

Ishigaki Rin is wonderstruck, it’s
Taken half a life to
Realize she’s wonderstruck, trees, grass,
We, stand up a while,
Exactly, and then, and then.

But this is now, and
Then is who knows when.

It’s wonderful she’s wonderstruck, she’s
Sucked me in, I’m Ishigaki
Rin a minute, first cell, last
Thought, strange chemistry, how it
Differs from the rocks, no
One knows, or needs to
Understand.

                    Trees, grass, we, stand
Up a while, exactly, and
Then, and then, and then.

2.

Maybe, as Steve suggests, it’s
All one fuss of stardust,
Who knows what, really, making
A beautiful mess. I was
Flying over the Grand Canyon
When I was wonderstruck, he
Says.

        Ah, the unfathomable antics
Of certain bent molecules!

                                        (To
A mountain, are we even
Clouds blown past?)

                                Yeah, yeah,
And then, and then, and
Then. But this is now,
Today is Mozart’s birthday, and
Then is who knows when.

3.

Maybe I'm me, maybe you're
You, maybe the mountain's the
Mountain.

                Maybe we're the same
White Light (I saw it
Once!) shot from the Jubilous
Fountain.

            Yellow dust on the
Sunflower petals must be pollen.

(for Steve Mitchell)

I Was Born A Hundred

I was born a hundred
Thousand years ago, I drove
Through the wind, shit was
Flying, I built an altar,
Put water on it in
A clear glass bowl, prayed
Over it, sprinkled the bride
And groom, sat two hours
In a strip mall parking
Lot down the street from
Disneyland with Gary, a dear
Friend from the courtyard whom
We hadn’t seen in years,
We picked right up, he
Said, this is real, it
Was, I farted, you farted,
We used each other to
Warm our feet, you were
My hero, I circled the
Holy mountain while stuck in
Traffic staring straight into the
Sun, who flies faster? asked
The crow, I built a
Place where I could see
The sky, I graphed something,
I hung photos and fluorescent
Lights against forgetting, Steve says
Mojo means you can move
The mountain, I wore
A black t-shirt that
Looked good in front of
A green door, the place
Where I could see the
Sky was right in the
Middle of a cedar forest,
Naked I prayed, what could
Be better than all the
Faces, I wore a black
T-shirt that looked good
In front of a red wall,
I piled stone upon stone
Upon stone, forever piled stone
Upon stone, I picked my
Friend out of a crowd,
Just when I got too
Happy I discovered the missing
House, somehow sun still shone
Upon me in the basement
Of the jail, I could
See it dancing on the
Water with a periscope and
Fragment of a mirror, somebody
Wrote I want to survive
And I want to be
Happy, they wrote it once,
They wrote it twice, I
Saved the names of those
Who lived in the missing
House, if you can’t save
The person what could be
Better than saving their name,
My eye is on the
World, the flecks of foam,
I am on my knees,
Lit, pierced to the heart,
Tenderest parts exposed to you,
M. Müller, pensioner, lived in
The missing house, amazing what
Ten hours sleep can do.

O Wilson Pickett, Mustang Sally

O Wilson Pickett, Mustang Sally,
Will it matter a hundred
Years from now? What’s that
Got to do with anything?
Alan wrote, we discussed deep
Time, I looked for Deborah’s
Fisheye set, brilliant colors, Brilliant
Corners, Tonight at Noon, Jewish
Roots, O Abraham Abulafia, O
Feets don’t fail me, I
Looked down, one could easily
Believe I was thinking, I
Was somewhere deep inside a
Black and white movie, I
Had a professor spend six
Weeks proving each of us
The center of the universe,
Perhaps it was meant to
Be consoling, under the wool
The fetish, the bone, the
Wake, the party, I built
A shrine of light that
I abandoned in the shadows,
Even the shadows are holy,
Even the window with the
Xmas display, Lisbon Castle, I
Put a stone upon a
Stone upon a stone upon
A stone upon a stone
Upon a stone and topped
Them with whalebone, I stood
In front of the AIDS
Memorial, I made a shrine
Of the shadows, I read
The newspaper, ate a sandwich,
Flipped you off, etched deep
Lines into the whalebone, I
Made a book that displayed
Me, I made a circus
Of the shadows, I was
Exposed in a square and
Not superimposed by anything, I
Worshipped the old way, the
Eclipse amazed me, the Angel
Of Accord’s not the Angel
Of History, I embodied Blue
Grace, I found lion kill
Bones, I survived the 90s,
The dance of death, I
Was moved to tears by
All the second-hand clothing.

Where Was I When The

Where was I when the
Storm blew in? Crawling after
My apple. When I stood
Up: IEDs, oil drum
Fires, piped-in tunes, fog
A foot above the field,
Ooo-eee-ooo, half built
Bridges to nowhere, but the
Cold air felt good, I
Remembered my job, to help
Carry weakness as far as
I could, through the collapsing
Towns, the collapsing genres, you
Sent me back a hundred
Years, I laid four shit
Cone root bone balls on
Dead grass at the foot
Of two snow mountains, and
Five more balls by the
Side of the Shimanto River,
I wore my necklace in
The shower, I wrote in
French to sixty-two directors,
I tore little pieces off
A poem (trying to enter
The garden’s reflection), I stood
Beneath niches from which saints
Or angels had flown, I
Stacked driftwood and reindeer antlers,
My friends and I danced
Lying down, O golden age,
O late capital, I looked
Was it at or through
You for your Thou, I
Burned and brewed in the
Smoke, I bathed, I shot
Photos, framed them, put them
On a wall, I had
To sit down, loud water
Continued to fall, my teddy
Bear, cabbage patch doll, I
Am the dead people, the
Live ones too, I remembered
My job, I piled stone
Upon stone upon stone upon
Stone, you looked was it
At or through me for
My barely conceivable improbable Thou.

I Sat With A Red

I sat with a red
Face in a green bar
And a star shone over
Me, I laid four shit
Cone root bone balls on
Dead grass at the foot
Of two snow mountains, I
Peeled a piece of fruit
In New York City, I
Am very many dead people,
I was exposed in a
Square a cross superimposed and
A third thing accidentally, I
Built a turf-roofed hut
Of rock by the water,
I thought to myself: there
Is something about this tree,
My objects cast their candled
Shadows on bare concrete and
I wrote something you can’t
Quite read, I stopped and
Talked to Rhonda, when you
Took my picture I wondered:
Will this be me? I
Sipped my not-quite-hot
Chrysanthemum tea, and I thought:
Even the shadows are holy,
And when my friend took
My picture I smiled at
A flower in a black
Plastic pot and wondered: will
This be me? And I
Tried to remember but to
Misquote myself slightly I really
Am nobody, I am only
A story, I am only
A story that has to
Pee, I am smiling, it
May have something to do
With that empty bottle, it
May have something to do
With the light, it may
Have something to do with
But to set forth the
Good I found / I will
Recount the other things I
Saw there, crow feathers, my
Shirt, my shorts, my knee,
The sand beneath my feet,
I suppose the X on
That child means that child
Is me, by my hooded
Sweatshirt will ye know me,
The still water beyond the
Concrete beneath my feet, I
Put a stone upon a stone
Upon a stone upon a
Stone upon a stone upon
A stone, I made a
Bunch of photocopies, I hung
A bunch of sheets, I
Wondered: will this be me?

If I Could Only Wake

“The soul
“Sings always”

Why can’t
I hear anything
Except this
Great big
Angry roar?