proportions of a giant in monument valley

inside the bottle with the ship

were several Drowned sailors

elegy acts on inward skies

what you imagine about radio waves

these elegant machines bend sinister

sentience itself, disordering of the senses,

sentimental disgust, disuse, unease

by palliative measures supply

sufficient echoes to eliminate our organs

scattered bones prove the date of the body

they are rexed beyond the farthest shoal

consumed by a mosaic, a forest of saltshakers

an obstinate minor puzzle

at my bidding everything is procedural

a relative view is counterintuitive,

journalism is not written by journalists

the diaspora was juggled, then slain

intercept a preferred designator

a kernal, a Trophy

low birth fashioned a hallmark swagger

to replace geometrical dreams with scant leviathans:

is this an improvement?

where is the life that later I led

how to account for the

strategems, in what I am weakest exemplify

I am departed, protean

twinned stick figures cut

up drawings with scissors, put

the pieces in their pockets,

confidence in shapes . . .

this picture is not very accurate

inner turmoil is as oblique as

how fair realism fares the objects

of its attention; externalized

or just compacted to

a fêted untouchable Vitamin doll

exception spines boundary

what kind of skirts are outskirts

a primitive, endangered mahogany mask,

a convict’s garb, soil cleared from weeds.

these teeth sown won’t become full grown:

prey talks foreign; heads hang in the halls.

habit is only two dimensional, as with any tool

barbarous cattle, drudgery of ammunition,

improper use of artificial blue collars

I died of foliage; I died of typed patterns on carbon paper;

I died of a chief delight. fare thee well, crackpot.

I break a sweat, the dish is still cold

read my Palm, do what it says

it’s time that we get up on all fours

Source: Vocoder (Roof Books, 2001)