Robert MittenthalWax World
It is my signature block = i.d. comma
whack whack carriage return
lookuptype M underscore
This temporary intrusion
certified as gift — if muscles grow
down into a logic larger
Its beginning separates
at the neck
so much depends upon a stain
Gravy raised to an illicit power
the necktie invective equal to what black
words leafed out — into a list of hated things
We wait for the
same stain with a different title
long division of one
A knock out or puzzle
another five letter word for
"we will keep your resumé on file"
Sweat equity for a finger that
gives them that liquid sign.
In other words, reread the credo
and connect the dots. Habit is a streetcar
so named. The inspecific personified.
A jigsaw abatement seen from the
privacy of the #28 bus. It is an elimination
you will someday agree. The long acres of fact —
blind man in perpetual close up — moving lips.
Labor untied in the 'adjust-me' knot
tops off the tank — an economy of one
or the pigeons — a comic mode of standing up
Until we cannibalize the pride
this cub scout version of events.
Hippo slowly submerging — hot swapping
pond items for a swan bite. It's the bubble
disorder in celebration of that ominous
shark sound, ideological free lunch
or the literature that feels good to know you
incest of its most excited theorists
two thumbs up — above the head
but over my dead module
Everything gems its identity of suchness
introducing Frank and Stein on ice
a sort of wurst à la fromage or
carefully flagrant genius — in this difficult
glacier of a book they slept alone
The memory discards again — just call me Frank
there's no such thing as one and one
but they threw the book at me
A paperback or sort of Canadian one-day only sale
lottery now at ten million
but in Jeff's terms 1.47
100 Words of Wax
ingrown but active
not listening but half submerged in green
Seawater shadows it
(4) blackberry badge and eyes
this sort of saying names itself
for example, here come the cows!
(21) to sing only & strangely
to name a badge any badge — in sing along mode
no fishkill to tank the still conquering shade
or sour the precious still
whose New Jersey air forgives nothing
(56) groin extended in stiff sleep
the shadows these airmen eat
& pretend to go on
(72) how could they
so refined, prophetic &
still (again) it then is a choice
correction: first song last — sung toward
was it too long the
(98) rain lengthwise
Gag
- . . . indicating first of all something that could be put in your mouth
to hinder speech, as well as . . . improvisation meant to compensate
for a loss of memory or inability to speak.
— G. Agamben
Permission to approach the yellow disk at a distance.
Enclosed in the gesture, a man twists an orange into his mouth.
If appearing not said is lost, memory a speech defect comes with it.
Hand holding hand — no engine of taste forgiveness.
Can't get enough difference — a concrete antenna to balance the sky.
Liar! You glisten beneath narrow cast frequency arrays.
A pun riveted until punched — until its pencil of light cannot be
contained. The sculpture says nothing. It harvests only the gray grain
& cackles when a crow swallows.
Silence is its stupid thing. A body English out of words — out of names.
It fights the flicker of stunted dots — up-screen of erratic paint.
In this school of other import, against the sterile comforts of unbound
life, contagion springs a monster. Its original revolt was too jealous —
earth flattened in the eccentric threads of that one thing.
We removed the grass, the ants and the words — leaving perception in
a vividness of dirt. Thumbing its green at you — no sweat in relation to
time.
A cinema whose separate vacation withheld the steady state.
Investigating the awkward between, fact as boundless self-organized.
History's order — less the crowd.
At the end blossoms go white — tyrant steam to flame. A copyrighted
face on the list of names.
In order of appearance, physical traits empty out — barefoot but fast.
It's a euphemism for the poem — a horror of thought. A parade of
names scrolled out in the colored lights.