alan_kaufman silentbob he's this poet i read a little of in the outlaw bible of american poetry. its a rad book. anyway.... he makes me smell him among the faceless deodorized masses on the streetcar i sit inhaling the trash bag stuff squeezed between his knees the stink that doesn't care that residentially challenged unwashed ass smell that is a prophecy of fallen empires Over and Over What are you over and over again? The same you day in day out. Collapsing in upon yourself Riding the same bus to the same smiling. What are you over and over again framed in light on a stark bench. Time is brutal to the thoughts you trust; disproved, they fizzle in the mind like sparks. Uncandled, the dark place waits to speak with you a word or two about Fate. This wrinkle was not here yesterday. It was on your mother's face. How did it fly across decades cutting at your youth? And what are your eyes to believe? Do they see what others see? Or have they sat in the filmhouse alone, watching the film God made for them alone? What are you over and over again? A green bow tied in your hair? The hair that drops from your scalp in tufts; that teases your husband lips and tickles the cheeks of the children you love. On and on the blackbird rolls the breadcrust over the paved streets. On and on the crowds on the corners surge at the light to reach someplace. On and on the strangers wait and watch in the dark caves of their cars. On and on the poet traces deep emotion in his scars. On and on the Nepalese woman's arms dance as she walks On and on poems toil against deaf ears in dead rooms. On and on desire mingles questions in glances between strangers. On and on shadows advance before old women going to shop. On and on the religious fanatics rant on the sidewalks as though they know God. On and on the bicycle wheels glitter in the motioning wheels of the day. On and on the lovers softly collide in embracing walk to the park. On and on the distant hills darken as the city retires to bed. Over and over the wind dies and the fireflies go to their lights. Over and over I dream the same dream: that we are alive in this dream called life. Straight Jacket Elegy a chair unscrewing the cap, pouring one, two, three four years of loss and holding up the wasted days to study the amber colored glass, o yes, it is love it is love for an hour maybe two elbow bending to ovations from the night and i wonder whose bottle glass eyes these are that died that died and the landlady came towel over face a spilled breast out and said 'don't move, just lie there you've had too many' and I said "you'd make a nice vase, Mrs. Casey, will you take my rose into yourself before it dies?" and on the rim of the red, red petal, the marooned leaf i thought i saw a fly brush away a cobweb with its leg to get out i don't want to remember this in the east village, just arrived hiding from a war running from the we'd murdered the bare flat didn't like us yet we crowded it with ghosts let me tell you when our bodies cried i held her like a baby in my arms but a broken chair a damaged wall the police began to know us and the neighbor's eyes looked away and one day i woke screaming called her father in canada to get her and he did 001123 ... silentbob he is actually the editor of the book, not just a featured poet inside. 001123 what's it to you? who go blather from