
Leave Lyndon B. Johnson
I saw an exhibition (called Sleeping By The Mississippi) of Alec Soth's while driving from Boston to New Orleans and writing these poems. See a bunch more at http://alecsoth.com/photography/.Soon After Easter Here in New Jersey I ate a chocolate I found in a dead log One of many dead logs Weighing down the acreage That was appraised for me like a credential By my host Who revealed himself over dinner To be a republican It was inside a green plastic egg Still not found on Thursday Disappointing to the parent That had overestimated its own kid And that valued Diligence and industry (Afraid I imagined The kid Was still looking) And if it had known A disappointment to the kid too The yolk it was meant to have Was coconut flavored milk chocolate By Lindt Wrapped in reflective silver and blue Itself egglike I ate it after several minutes Of having it in my pocket Wondering what might hatch
PULLING GREASE we search shorn badlands for what’s there and find it’s not great work we spread the word of a very different gospel one that is twisted in the middle but frustratingly won’t fail to find itself in the end like a möbius it starts as a profession of dark love for dark things the animals and air there then into yet another purple sky thin impersonation of the night it brags about seeing just beyond the horizon there are the two of them advisers of a different way exceptional strategists and navigators-without-fail from each to the other like hysterical documentarians one lurks near the terminal where night casually waits like a Japanese teen for his bus to arrive as if day were Boston and he wants to get to New York and follows him on fearlessly he boards the animal tube no one else notices him sit among them and pull in their grease it’s obvious he’s worrying about his performance having both been glory and been unremarkable before he’s just some guy really with a job bigger than he thought he could do and now doing it he realizes anyone could if they’d just shut up about who they were being one of the guys in a city lost among the lost coins and slack herds mushing forward overcome with false purpose he manages to feel apart from them an individual like many others are naturally able and to know himself as just a man a ponderous onerous little idiot who types and erases curse words to exercise two powers
Haiku 44 Two people who walk Home into complete silence Strangely just blow up