from Notes from Irrelevance
I’m for Nero’s spinning
party room and against
unmanned drones
though I like the idea
of a manned drone‚
which sounds like every
allegory for society I’ve
ever paid money to
view‚ yet the rundown
parallel jism tracers are
One in the thick of
authentic greenery no
longer natural. I cancelled
all sense of class for an
afternoon just to impress
your penchant for casual
proto-symbolic gestures
of deep irresponsibility
that secretly (not so)
afflict routine with
love’s wilier feints.
Forgive me. It was time
to make a break for it
and honor a decade’s
worth of complicated
walks. Cosmic intercon-
nection of all beings?
Check. Futility of pain
management as source
of humor in outlook?
Check. Controllable
vices for purposes
of a secondary level
of interior life‚ an echo
of conscience trailing
out? Check. A sense of
time as discontinuous
in its spread while simul-
taneously expanding
on a surface line that
is only a reflection
of a sense of a line?
Check. Total distrust
of command but for the
contradictory moments
of necessity? Half-check.
Digging the ecstasy
of swinging? Yes. Laughing
at the tree? Is the tree
funny? Yes. So what if
the rain is friendlier
than your ever-slithering
definition of work‚ or
the chip in your pocket
is merely a lifeline for
complaint superseding
the hardy constant tributes
life makes to acceleration
of everything but generosity
freed from the promise
of entering history as
readable image? There
are little cards offering
digestible portions of
the path with dressings
vouched for by agencies
of seamless repute. Yet
truth is in the uglier
cracks in one’s own
façade‚ shrink wrapped
into neglecting decision
on a most unflattering
scale. What is most
ordinary every day is
defeating the desire to
harden into respectable
indifference. And what’s
nice about not drinking
is what makes that piano
feel‚ I mean thinking
less about dying‚ less
concretely at any rate
of interior exchange‚
staring out at the grey
childhood haven of
New York in October
and what’s not so nice
about not drinking is the
desire to have a drink and
think a lot about dying
until my inhibitions are
defeated and I can react
quietly from a zone that
is enough of the cosmos
to let the lights be more
than time’s progressive
memory‚ and it’s necessary
to finally renounce violence
everywhere in one’s life
but in one’s self-accusations
isn’t it. I bring anger
to the evenness necessary
to be reborn without
strangling the doc. An
unexpected benefit
from the genetic process.
Attention dissolves:
Brooklyn into two-
dimensional space.
Oakland into pig think
frequency. Demolition
into elevator love triangle.
Symbolism into punk-post
appliance. Foraging into
withdrawal from public
action. Voracious coddling
into confidants’ anonymous.
Story fate into shrubbery
lashings. Backlash into
dispassionate textolatry.
Rummaging into structure.
Bistro into Cheetah
Feeling giddy and
positively apostatic
at the clinic‚ the perfect
little heart-shaped heart
beneath ’82 in this old
used copy of Between
the Acts gives affect to
my argument for connection
within. Child seats man
in rear. Dana‚ I’m going
to address this end to
you—I’ve just read
your piece on Geoff
and you‚ music and
that blurry opulence
the love of a particular
love’s company induces
from future memories.
I’m in awe of those
elaborate movie watching
games you and Sarah
play‚ envious of yr couch
and its ears. I like to
think I hate the movies‚
but I felt kindly
manipulated by Apollo
13 late last night after
inhaling a little deep
ash in order to faze
the process of clipping
sentences from my latest
variation on retuning
the old consciousness.
I identify with the
missing sections in
Typing “Wild Speech”.
I thought to go public
with the whole thing
in this period of weird
interior folly compelling
me to print without
sanction the works
forcing me to lock
fate in the bathroom
and rap its sour puss on
the head when it tries
to flee without asking.
I’m nothing if not
polite‚ even in absentia.
Love‚ Anselm.
This poem is part of BR’s special package celebrating National Poetry Month.
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