from OZ

for Fred Glass
& Maureen Katz

Forms farm storm's harm.

Imagine a language that worked.

ironic,
euphoric

Medicine is not narrative. Blue trashed sky. Firemen on ladders into the smoking night.

Phlegm fuels cough. Yellow triangle: abstract banana. Money is the aura of art. Consonant etched into vowel. Mexican comic (comment).

Let us go then, I & I,
outward. For
get focus, for
giveness. Enclosed please find
dropcloth wainscot Orion
simmering middle management
Dobermans at racquetball
fine tooth comb

Hum job. Modernism hopes for a lawn. It's hat time. Symmetry in lettuce's system marked by types. Breadstick wedged in the dip. Waiting for Conan. Ponytail in hardhat sells tobacco. Peripherals for my new stanza. Powder detergent. Team meeting. Break-in-the-clouds symbolism. Warrior earwig along garden walk. Sun's warmth on your forehead is different from being smart.
That's mean. That's meaning. Under glass at the deli pigsfeet sit in a pan of pink juices. Laces knotted together, red tennies hang from a power line. Blue bandanna about the pit bull's neck. Analog sky. They seem so lost in thought on the bus on their way to work, still yawning. Chinese shoes of black cotton. White shades appear blue behind tinted glass. Once they pay the driver, their eyes scan the tubelike bus rapidly, searching for a safe seat. Prospect identification. Package of the Year. Ultrasound poetics. Sound of buzzsaw and rooster. Squish of tires over wet streets. Cloud-filtered sun mutes colors amid valley houses. Words scratched out, arrows to new syntax. These vowels my eyes. Lack of trees in all this snow signifies lake Smoke still in the air from a wood fire. Alarm in a locked auto carries through the night.
Theme is trees
them is "-atic"
park verbs auto
versus forest havoc
foot foot foot
Columbia mall moped
on a motto
poetic cheap trick
macho but wounded
stage whisper persona
the too-clean garden
short fat word
perfect for tenure
is the night
constellations an order
connect the dots
to organize sight

Change in fund balance
atomic table water table
your haircut's too political
bison crossing cavern wall
kung fu lunch pail
view of the harbor
additive, but not personal
sometimes a great lotion
pick a dirty penny
soft sound savage sense
fosters apparent cohesion, a
ruse is a ruse
is not the next
allusion, lines are bent
spines against the margin
spin a hardening version
jetlike to the heart

      Exit to system. Striped tie divides a great expanse. Pressure sensitive, duplicates purged. Cat sleeps atop car roof. Through a window I see the pocked bottom of an iron atop a tape reflect the red evening sun.
      Many sirens: bad news. Such a small old man to be a bank guard. A brown van. Simple syntax yanked them into plot. A bad thing.
      Over the fencetop the tip of a bush suggests a richer foliation. Dull scrim of cloud yields colorless day. I let the first bus pass, hoping the next would be less crowded. Each sentence resolves a battle. A title, not a caption.
      Pastel acrylic of a flowerpot decorates gallery wall. Chipped cup. Web of powerlines segments sky. Nouns accumulate on the floor of the car. Article is found benign.
      At the wheel of the truck I see a nun. Design of the lid of a styrofoam cup. Intense first taste of spring. The question in Hoagy's case is not which side pulled the trigger. An inalienable right to choose nylon.
      The asymmetry of your make-up is not intended. Giant tear on cheek of clown. The margin in the mark-up. Big blue truck of the Starvation Army. A mind is a terrible thing to face.
      Seven come eleven. These women share a moment, watching their children at the playground. An older lady in sensible shoes. The billboard alters the scale of houses nearby. Flashing yellow lights.
      A glass parrot hung in the window. The function of the tiger cub in Michael Jackson's Thriller. Blue shading surrounds an almond eye. Small girl skips along. Please pay amount due.
      A burning in the bowels. With the window open, the curtains flapped in the breeze. The cord from her headphones led into her purse. A sentence with four strong beats. On the windshield of the car was a sign: For Sale.
      I accepted the assignment at scale. Behind the high fence was a tiny boxlike house. This is not syntax. Her red hair glistened copper in the sun. Autos parked on an empty residential street present an image of form.
      Caution, frequent stops. The paper has a business section, but never one for labor. The library rebinds its paperbacks. Plaster madonna framed in the window. The half light of the violets.