Amphitheater

there’s this old decaying amphitheater
in the woods behind my old high school
whose rebounding rhymes prompt
several successive scenes and generative questions
1: can rumor compare? can the unpacked past?
2: has your mind remained at peace?
might I find it scattered on the backing of your seat?
3: isn’t freedom such a treat?
smothered by your others
feet stuck
feet sunk deep in concrete
c-cop car on the hill there near the church
c-cop inside is ageless and undying
patches over gashes and holes in his starched shirt
eyes locked on the sidewalk
he never blinks
he’s guarding precious property he
thinks he
thinks he
thinks he’s
never caught his caper
only a couple kids
abusing the church roof to smoke and drink
saying
we’ll make it out somehow
we’ll drill the possibilities
will ourselves to flee / run into the trees
backlit by his headlights
seeking something to protect
we’ll find a secret solace in the meadows of neglect
we’ll take a break from our suburban semi city scape
we’ll go where there is air
we’ll circulate it
church side there’s a dirt channel
a ditch piled with waste
white keys for a far doorway, locked
shuttered in haste
keeping bible studies classes
keeping custom middle names
and the faces of all those fit to blame
for your unnerving temper
a clever ruse
fit enough to fashion a m-m-muse

Rock Lobster Cock Crows

for this latest dish I pull two carrots from death’s rodentous jaws
sufficiently infused with carrot adrenochrome
as to make them bright and brimming with greater depth of flavor
from my sleeves I summon the rotted remnants of my ancestral roots,
a useful tuber otherwise known as “potato”
and on the recipe’s recommendation apply a retinol salve to the skin
and sunscreen to soften sun damage
and on cue through the window
a blue cuckoo springs singing
a car alarm’s chorus
news from Kenosha
charged with private paranoia
as if to say the pump out back
with water sickly sweet
will be dry within the week
and to fill the bathtub with city stock tap
full of crab larvae and trilobites and quartz silt
lending a hint of umami
manna from heaven
taking in my hands an ancient engorged crustacean
I gesture at the point
of a knife affixed to the wall with blue tape
those eye stalks of his so photosensitive
understand, viewers, that he registers the glint
of sunlight catching on cold metal
beams–beads–bean brain
tensing till he tires,
relaxing into resignation
having shed so much skin so many times
leaving so much of himself behind, for progress’ sake,
getting so big and bitter
getting potted and plated
the meat before me is bland and tasteless
it served him well
myself much worse
weldon.
dessert is on its way
no labor of mine
just a few cattails from the estuary outside
dusted with cocoa powder
from the kosher grocer
my apron ringing my feet
sloughed off like loose skin

Un-commons (or: a Sealed Sphere Mirror)

all i’ve had today are fake foods
frosted flakes and soylent
sold shrink wrapped together
like a city-slick M-R-E
which reminds me,
i did send a salami to your boy in the army
who’d been “SEEKING ENRICHMENT DURING DEPLOYMENT”
but all I got back was a lousy bag of bullets
and a diorama burn pit
no help to someone so skirting unemployment

the water from my faucet tasted sickly sweet
so i put in a maintenance complaint
purging terms like mutagenic and teratogenic from my mind
and hankering for challah I made my way over to the kosher grocer
i crossed the street and passed two tall tots
and the stop clock lingered at eleven for two seconds

i secured my sweetbread and went to sit where a bench had been
and stuffed the toe of the thing in my mouth
but a small tickle to my tonsils caused a cough
and i spat out a receipt reading fourteen ninety-two
still at a gappy’s questing glance i resigned into a smile
I was glad I hadn’t bought the lentils

there are rules and there are no rules, there is no game, i “have no name”
i will spend my adolescence wanting for wisdom
wanting to be the sage, never seeking sages to study
i pass a stranger with my exact posture
my hands in their pockets
and i’m reminded of my stuytown apartment
and banging ringing through the floor and ceiling
and the sweetness of the water
and the smell of mold