all your poems are epitaphs meanwhile.
                                                              —el señor cycholl


and can you accommodate my rock and
roll lifestyle?  she asked and then disintegrated
into parrot eggs brought by Howard—his feet
uncovered but containing questions—put the
cameras where?  that film?  who?  why not? 
some frequently asked questions  distractions
tumbled down into the cigarette machine of my
heart where sprouts and beer foam.  whitefish,
round aluminum   i’ve been  bought and sold,
she said   i clapped and offered   ieri stretched
out to sleep  glass spread on the floor  she was
trying to show me things.

IERI:    i’ve read your confessions
I:          you shouldn’t believe ink ramblings left to dry on front porches
IERI:    i know why it happened

                                                            there’re rumors
on words  on cashews  in my mouth  in the music
you know the difference  still Bailie asking, are you
ending it all in fire?   the pigeons had already begun
to descend the skylights   one two three four^α   metal
feathers and glass measured with green and gold    things
transmitting sap  a cycle on edge  tortoises throwing up hula-
monsters  palms  pines  resented lines returning ontically
challenged

then we bailed to some disruptive cinema, a movie
about a spaceship  i packed on a thursday; it was
a thursday with bones and arms and solitude and rain

IERI:    i'm trying to release myself—find a motive of action
I:          the same as always
IERI:    some understanding between the words left among cookies and coffee
I:          not intended
IERI:    animation or connection

                                                                     then hoops
                                                                     circle a center
                                                                     collapsing among
                                                                     roots through dense
                                                                     earth—she calling
                                                                     streets there to
                                                                     ring spade cages
                                                                     in the end

but the show had just begun. she realized
accommodation was not possible.
so many heaped surfaces touched with dust and
scarred by hands. mirrors are rhizomes that
turn genetic powder into arias for
dark corridors where pisan cages rust.
I never mean to impinge, but I’ve
overheard the words and imagined songs.


^α To over three dozen, according to reports in Tropics.  The patrons of this show-stopping included Suarez, Sevada, and Howard.  Even old Ginger himself.