New Poems in Otoliths (57)

Two new ballads in Otoliths 57. Many thanks to Mark Young.

Here is Otoliths 57 in its entirety. And in print.

P.S. Listen to Wayfaring Angel on mp3. 

De Profundis: A Ballad

The crowd is called in, to witness the kill;
   drunk & disheveled, bitter and chilled;
he follows them in by an effort of will.

The tiles are cleaned, to be spattered with blood;
   trickles or gushes, geysers or floods;
a yellow-ish light drowns the faces, like mud—

he likes who he is, in this outlaw brigade;
   not a charmed prince in the price that he's paid;
he'll have to remainder this bargain he's made—

so stands at the edge, & yells with the crowd;
   overly hostile, overly loud;
the victim lies prostrate beneath a white shroud.

It soon gets uncovered, revealing a man
   he thought was another, not from his clan;
but seeing his likeness is more than he'll stand.

And yet he still lingers, as needles are drawn;
   screaming and preening, a circuit turned on;
he wishes he lay there himself, nearly gone—

yellow the light, and more yellow his soul;
    stripped of pretensions, stripped of controls;
he runs for the exit like rats for a hole.

The man was my father, the shrouded quite near.
    Hounded by anguish, hounded by fear,
what lingered or perished was never made clear—

Aughts Philly Affirmation

One of the most striking affirmations I've seen that Aughts Philly really was a special time/place. 

Stain Bar on Google Drive

Me reading at Stain Bar, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on March 30, 2007, for Mipo, Mary, Mary, & others.

P.S. Live in Brooklyn is now a Top 10 hit on Soundclick. 

Ry Mullen: A Collage

Ry Mullen: A Collage attempts an entry point into the literary 2020s. 

After Andrew Marvell

Why I haven't featured After Andrew Marvell here before: I'm stumped. 

Winter Fragments

You start a would-be
      become a should be
but you never could-be

      because you don't
know what to be means

..................................................

Stopped for a funeral, stopped
      stopping, waited for it to stop,
it was my funeral & I left, dead

...................................................

Never known me,
     but I can guess the
  number of times I've
turned blackly around
     on a crowded street,
   wind-whipped, and
seen myself in a store-
     front window & then
  known more than I
did before about

what might be worth buying.

....................................................

I am is
back to
basics,

a tent
put up,
taken

down,
heaved
into a

back
seat, as
if used,

never
having
been

slept in.

.........................................

I was raking leaves,
I found a volume of
Shakespeare, I raked
it, I found a volume
of Milton, ditto, &
just kept raking until
I hit Jonathan Swift,
who took my rake,
raked me over coals
too hot to be blackened,
told me to go back to
Chaucer, what a rake-
nothing was finished,
nothing was raked.

...........................................