DREAM OF THE NEW WORLD
There’s a big concrete room we gather in
where bad feelings are piped mercilessly
I dreamed I was nightswimming
in the middle of a Russian city
in a warm shallow pool
I put my head under
I thought Russia is beautiful
Later I returned
to the type of wet garden fantasy
typical of my socio-economic status
I dreamed my dreams
would cleanse me of what I wanted
to convince others I already had
A working knowledge
of how war is a yin yang
and how to stay full
from sample-sized portions of pasta salads
at corporate health food stores
The sky at night
here in California
is a kind of dead ombre
and I went out under it
I got so high
I wrote a book about walking
Because I think we’ve forgotten
how to do it
I really think we have
ADVANCED SYMBOLISM
Hours go by with us
reading old books on African masks
I didn’t know Picasso
made so much pottery as he aged
He must have been rich
There’s a kind of person
who needs to know you know
what polyrhythms are
and I barely do
In a way
it just means “multiple rhythms”
The lake is frozen over
All of the goats are pregnant
My dad is in Eastern Oregon
videotaping geese
Peaking in the hot tub
later with the radiant snow
I remember who to be
I cry and cry
kneading my pale stomach
Time is a room
you fill with objects
you don’t actually want
Earlier I examined
two-dimensional art forms
Later bread soaks up my errant fluids
Then later we trap the sky moving
on an old flash drive Earlier
the art farm depressed me
The goats / wait no
Later I milk the goats
Later I remember
that oil is so integral Later
I google the meaning of oil
I don’t find much
Earlier was a younger feeling
but I’ll have another
Still later
I watch the bright orange
flames raking the air moving
through the woodstove Earlier
in thick fingers
I do know what makes
music into itself
Really it’s just trying
Later
I blow dust from the old masters
Write Mom on a piece of paper
Run a line through it
HIGHWAY ARCHETYPE
I keep thinking of writing
about what freeways meant
to the folk singers
The truth is I just don’t know
To what extent should I be stopped
These are the thoughts of our world
and they are also mine
There are only so many words
So many impulses
There’s the highway impulse
& the archetype it reduces to
There’s a corn moon
rising yellow over the green sand
I keep thinking
I love poetry & algebra
and they are opposites
One shrinking the other
uselessly / The universe
& what needs to name it
Time bends
& I don’t know how
It arcs toward a room service
kind of country
Where all you do is ride
I’m thinking
of a big new road
that isn’t new anymore
That anyone can walk along
if they are brave enough
Though I don’t really mean “walk”
Though maybe I would have once
