Snail Tracks: The first thing you will notice is a slight numbing of the tongue. Consonant blends will become difficult, and then impossible. Still you will think it is not so bad: the pills had bright and pretty colors and even a slight sugary taste. They left a residue trail down your throat. When the trail goes away you won’t know whether it is because the residue has washed down or because you can no longer feel your throat. Following this, a slight tingling in the stomach. You will lose feeling in your extremities— pinky fingers to begin, and then fanning inward towards the thumbs. Your body will be retrenching, making its sacrifices to whatever god it worships. Your feet will become detached from your body. You will not be afraid because, after all, you can still see them. They will not really be detached; you’ll know it just feels like they are.. On the other hand the gentle burning you will feel in your stomach is closely correlated with actuality. The inner lining of the stomach will in fact be eating itself. It will be among the very last to know that something is wrong.

BASF: You cannot be sure this is working correctly. We are trained to place our faith in engineers and moviemakers, and here they work together in opposition to your cause. It is not just the many commercials that have reinforced the elements of quality craftsmanship. It is not just the reassuring rubberized lining, or the robotic assembly line arms, or the slight change in pressure felt on the ears when the door is slammed shut. It is more than these things: the constant and daily barrage of cinematic images of cars trapped underwater and ever so slowly filling up. You squint hard to catch a glimpse of the monoxide molecules spreading, stare through heater slats hoping to see the Zyclon B effects of air conditioning on a hot day. You wonder if the windows will fog up. Then you consider how well manufactured the car is, particularly in comparison to the wood planks of the garage door. You can see now as you look the chimera air forcing its nose between the rotted wood planks. You finally conclude that you are impervious, a firefly in a jar without holes, and then your neck begins to sag. This is much better than rainbows, you think, smiling sleepily, as you wave your hand in front of your eyes and see it distort.

Somewhere Between Drips Exists A Proof For Higher Mathematics: The porcelain bath is slick and you are balancing your arm against its side so as not to slip. The irony of danger does not escape you but since you are alone it is not worthy of comment. And anyway, who would there be to direct your comment to? Your toes scrape against the sandpaper strips. The other arm holds the toaster by its cord and, like a crane, suspends you from the sink top above. As you lower yourself into the tub, squatting while your most personal parts hang and bounce, you speculate on how much of yourself should be immersed. You can imagine the current running up your legs and the one dangling arm, but wonder if this is enough. It might do well for the torso and heart to be under as well. At the last, you will compromise by splashing large waves of water that bounce off of your chest and drip downward, falling in the same unpredictably chaotic route as the charge climbing upward. You will imagine the two forces meeting in a second rate diorama and then the lights will flicker. Your knees will be grinding on the sandpaper and you will feel your most personal parts hanging and bouncing. There is my decorum, you will finally conclude. There it goes dripping downward and flowing up, hanging and bouncing, bouncing and hanging and repeating and shaking, like a shampoo rinse or champagne bubbles. This is a vertical ending, no more or less than flying.

The Tourist: The man behind the counter leers at you while describing the many features of the gun. He waits patiently while you juggle it in your hand, produces a wry smile when you ask about the type of wood in the handle. He tells you he doesn’t really know too much about that. But he does show you the correct way to hold the gun and squeeze the trigger. He also hands you a card that entitles you to 10% off membership at a gun range. There’s an additional 20% if you show your NRA membership, he says. You nod. “Just in passing,” he says, “if you want the gun I’d go ahead and buy it soon since the damned government is going to institute mandatory child locks.” You tell him you don’t have any children and he replies: “that’s what I’m always saying. It doesn’t matter.” So you show him your driver’s license and fill out a form and a few days later you go back to pick up the gun. He’s already oiled it for you, no charge, and you purchase a whole box of bullets. The whole affair leaves you feeling slightly disoriented, like you have just changed demographics and then you think that’s probably just as well so that people know what they’re getting into. You drive out into the woods because you don’t want the neighbors to be disturbed and it all seems so loud. You remember at the last minute what the man said about squeezing rather than pulling and think that’s good advice. The oil is sweet coating your tongue and you can taste metal shearing where the barrel has been shaved. The man told you in confidence that the intricate barrel design is bullshit aesthetics and something about the way he said the word aesthetics makes you think maybe he was once in a different demographic too.

Meniscus: Even though you are a hopeless romantic, your pragmatic side will ensure that the bridge is high enough. You will remember reading all about this in a magazine. What is important in the end is the change in air-pressure, the high speeds. It is the falling. Like an astronaut. Like G Forces. When you are high enough you don’t have to worry about the ground. As you fall you will feel time slow down. You will imagine the curve of the horizon and birds’ nests floating far away at sea. The water below you will seem as smooth as glass, stretching endlessly. Your last knowledge will be the discovery that gravity is an illusion and you will know religiously, without question, that you are not moving but that it is the water that rushes upwards to meet you. You will be flattered.

I think I think I think I can: Because of the constant shaking you have to wedge your forehead beneath the iron track. The legs and ankles dangle. You listen but hear nothing, only the faint rumor of a baritone rumble so subtle a dog might miss it. You may have come too early and you think about the spot you have chosen. It is on the beginning of a straightaway following a curve. You have chosen it so that the conductor will not have time to see and slow, but will in fact begin again picking up speed knowing that he is coming into the straight part. Then you look, pushing your eyes to right and left, confined by their sockets as real movement is impossible from within the track grid, and you think of where you might end up. There are shrubs and bushes and tiny little pebbles to all sides. It is possible, you acknowledge, that they might never find you. Particularly if the conductor is not paying too much attention, and there is a good chance of this as it is miles from a stop coming or going. You wonder if it is actually a conductor, or an engineer? You mouth each word in context but reach no epiphany save this: you did come too early. Then the iron jumps and dances like a jazz club with the heavy bass and your eyes adjust to the darkness and feel wet against your cheeks. The rhythm wrangles your insides and you feel blessed. Oh Clickity Clack, this ho-rizontal ragtime speakeasy jig sure feels good and sexy. You wish you could snap your fingers but know they’ll understand and your vibrating throat breaks up the notes from your whistle and they escape your lips in beautiful shards that float and dissipate and grow into the clouds above you. There is money to be made in any field.

Madame Sosostris: In The Tarot pack the hanged man rests amiably, a rope suspending him downward from his ankle. As you climb to your perch you think of the differences between you and him. For one thing, in most packs he carries a saintly aura, like a Renaissance Virgin. He does not dangle but remains perfectly aligned with the perfectly symmetrical tree trunk. And yet despite these obvious differences you are forced to conclude that there are more similarities that bind you together. There is naturally the coarse rope digging deeper and deeper into your skin, producing as it does the almost imperceptible smell of burning. There is the waiting, the patience and also the sense of vulnerability. No animal leaves its belly unprotected. Then there is gravity working in its disinterested manner. To gravity, you and the Hanged Man are equal, a simple equation of mass and weight. But as the winding strands tickle at your nape you think of other affinities as well. You think perhaps that the Hanged Man knows as well as you do the dangers of pursuit and the benefits of submission. Perhaps he has found in his figure- four legs the glory of divine understanding. You wonder: is your share waiting for you? At the very last you conceive of one final correlation: you have both learned the secret to living in the moment. Does this make you a prophet?

Progress: While the water is running you remove your watch and jewelry. You leave these in the bedroom, resting atop the heap of clothing. You spend a moment in debate over whether to keep the bathroom door open before finally ruling against it. It is the sight of the watchband hanging over the cotton towels (inverted from the shaving mirror) that clinches the decision for you. The hotel bathroom has mirrors etched in mirrors bubbling out of mirrors. They all have different magnifying capacities that seem interesting at first, but then begin to frighten you as you consider their implications. They show like millions of different yous in millions of different worlds in a thoroughly exhausting manner. So you switch off the light. Because the plastic window blind is an imperfect fit, and because it is the middle of the day, there is plenty of sunlight. The hot water makes your wrists puff up and redden and it feels so good you keep at it for a few minutes, but then the old metal pipes growl at you to stop. In order for it to be effective, you must first cut long-ways and then across. There is reason to all things, even if this reason is not readily apparent. There might well be a diagram. The razor blade has a titanium alloy tip and you think, thank heavens for science.

Ascension: At a certain speed the car begins to vibrate. At certain speeds cars alongside become part of the background. At unwise speeds, all of your concentration is focused on the lane directly in front of you. Your prayers are for the engineers who designed the steering column and the wheelbase. You have placed your faith in these men. They are gods to you. You cannot see the neck turn slightly, or the eyes close. You hear nothing, you sense nothing. You see nothing but the asphalt ahead, feel nothing but your own adrenaline. You are invulnerable, albeit in very short bursts. Then you see the road curving gently and the heavy brick wall in front of you. You know that without the sound barrier, people blocks away will hear the echoes of traffic for the first time in years and think that it must be a special way the wind is blowing. And in a way they will be right.

The downside of rental units: Unfortunately you don’t have a gas oven and it doesn’t seem right to borrow one from a friend.

Sugar Rush: Finding a hypodermic is harder than it looks and must be for junkies too, you think. But eventually you find a medical supply store and explain what you want to the woman behind the counter. She looks at you strangely until you tell her that it’s for diabetes and then she pulls up her shirt and shows you her own skid marks, which would be vile even on a normal person and are made much, much worse by her obesity and the stomach fat rolling over the tiny puncture holes from both sides and you think how fat can someone get if they can’t eat chocolate? But you smile and she asks if you need insulin. You think for a moment as if considering whether you have enough when really you are considering which option to take because insulin would work just as well, but you don’t have a proscription, so no thanks, I think I’m OK, just the needle please. Then home with the paper bag to wonder which room has the cleanest air. You decide on the living room because it has no window to the outside. Sitting on the couch with the sharp jabby needle and you punch down on your left arm to raise the vein and stare through the cylinder and think how clean and perfect, and the plunger is hard to force through empty but eventually it goes down, and fairies start to dance in front of your face.

Down The Rabbit Hole: Businessmen with bruising briefcases will scurry past you as you pay for a single ticket and maneuver through the turnstile. Metallic voices will shout at you from tiny speakers impossible to discern, so high up they are like barking angels. As if in a trance you will count the steps down onto the platform, 113 in all, and be somewhat surprised that it came out an odd number. Near the bottom, after two landings, you will have to decide between cars going north or south. Most people at this time of morning are heading south into the city, and you think it best to head north or else you’d disrupt all of their schedules. But then you think, maybe that’s a good thing, sort of a gift to a thousand or so people and their secretaries. Surely this excuse is as good as any. Surely they are not to be held accountable for the vagaries of public transport. But then, an ancient woman suffocating under a woolen shawl stumbles as she passes you. You hear the tiny bones of her wrist and hand crack as she grabs the rail for support. And you decide to head north after all. There is something unnatural, this is true, about walking down so many stairs into the earth. Maybe you are getting younger with each step. But then the lights peek through the tunnel and the metallic box shrieks again and you will never know.

Flushed away to heaven.

Who hit who first doesn’t matter anymore.

Sparklers burning the barn down and it’s all smoky on my arm

We piggyback ten kids across the lawn to water the plants and rearrange attachments

We’ve never found a four-leaf clover so keep looking for slave toys near the graveyard

Bury your beard on the porch where first I found it

I admit I wanted you dead so I could mourn properly

There’s a mannequin on the neighbor’s roof and helicopters are mosquitoes

that will never save its life

Please bury me in the beehive it’s hot in here and I’m useless and used to it

The miscellaneous mash of moonshine with the reluctant

Bullfrogs burp the alphabet close by and these are the sacks of insects hatching

Plants and the kids that watch them place larva on the grindstone

Keep saving allowance for the carnival that comes in spring

The fire trees ring the crops and pitchforks stake out like-minded mountains

Bury your beard on the porch where first I found it

What slips through the screen door does not even touch the entrapment

Soundproof

Sorry for the time-tested topics

The sincere explorer is unreachable in the midst of subtle alterations

to the letter’s landscape

When the whistle runs out the soundscape fills with direction no lament could witness

So where are the beautiful trackers when the explorer crushes the compass with his route

The name of my sonance is what instrument I play sleepily

I play with gleaming strings diamond dangled and cross-eyed

I click when my camera functions

In a landslide the superficial glances bury the sincere release

The explorer pricks the soundproof and we come tumbling out of the din

The digging begins the digging will persist and guess what breaks the surface

Claire Becker lives in Oakland and teaches at the California School for the Blind. Her poems are forthcoming in H_NGM_N and Tarpaulin Sky. She holds an MFA from Saint Mary’s College and is the author of the chapbook Untoward from Lame House Press.

Daniel Becker practices general medicine in central Virginia. He has a chapbook, Chance, courtesy of H_NGM_N.

Gabrielle Bell writes and draws a bi-annual comic series called Lucky. Her work can also be found in various anthologies such as Mome, The Drawn&Quarterly Showcase, Kramers Ergot and Stuck in the Middle.

Zackary Sholem Berger is a poet, blogger, and journalist in Yiddish and English (http://zackarysholemberger.blogspot.com ). His publishing company Yiddish House ( http://www.yiddishcat.com ) publishes Yiddish translations of English children’s classics, including The Cat in the Hat and Curious George. Look for One Fish Two Fish, coming this fall.

Joseph Bienvenu lives in New Orleans, Louisiana where he teaches English and Latin at a local high school. He is the creator and editor of the online literary magazine Mustachioed. His poetry has appeared in many online and print publications, including Cranky, the Tiny, Gutcult, The Hat, and Can We Have Our Ball Back. He is currently working on a translation of Catullus’s poems, some of which have appeared in a recent issue of Fascicle. Joseph attended the University of Loyola, Chicago and received a B.A. in Classics; he earned his M.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Timothy Bradford’s poetry has recently appeared in CrossConnect, Runes, and Softblow. He received the Koret Foundation’s Young Writer on Jewish Themes Award in 2005 for his novel-in-progress, based on the history of the Vélodrome d’Hiver. He is currently living in Paris, and his novel is still in progress.

Simon DeDeo is an scientist and poet. He lives in Chicago, where he edits rhubarb is susan and co-edits absent magazine.

Sean Thomas Dougherty

Darrin Doyle’s fiction appears this year in Night Train, Puerto del Sol, and Cottonwood, and has previously appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Antietam Review, Harpur Palate, Laurel Review, and other journals. He lives in Louisville, KY with his wife and their two trained monkeys.

Matt Dube teaches writing at William Woods University. He is the fiction editor at H_NGM_N.

Eric Elliott was born in Chelmsford, England in 1980. In 2003, he graduated from the University of Toledo with a B.A. in English/Creative Writing. In 2005, he began graduate studies at Louisiana State University where he is currently in his third and final year as an MFA candidate in Poetry. In 2000, he was awarded Honorable Mention in the AWP Intro Contest, and in 2006 he won the William Jay Smith Poetry Prize at LSU. His poems have appeared in Whirligig, The Susquehanna Review, Albatross, and H_NGM_N.

Dobby Gibson ’s first book, Polar, won the 2004 Beatrice Hawley Award and was published by Alice James Books. His second book, Skirmish, is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in early 2009. He lives in Minneapolis.

Noah Eli Gordon is the author of six collections of poetry. His most recent books are Novel Pictorial Noise, which was selected by John Ashbery for the National Poetry Series, and Figures for a Darkroom Voice, a collaboration with Joshua Marie Wilkinson. His work in this issue is a dub version of material from his book The Area of Sound Called the Subtone.

Eryn Green is a graduate student in the creative writing program at the University of Utah, where he also serves as an editorial assistant for Quarterly West. He was a nominee for the 2007 Ruth Lilly Fellowship, awarded by the Poetry Foundation. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Eclipse, the tiny, Bat City Review, H_NGM_N, Word for/ Word, Rhino and Denver Quarterly.

Timothy Green lives in Los Angeles, where he works as Editor of the poetry journal RATTLE (www.rattle.com). His first book-length collection, AMERICAN FRACTAL, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press in 2008.

Jessica Hagy is a freelance copywriter. She has won a Silver Clio, Creative Best Award from the Columbus Society for Communication Arts, and more than a dozen ADDY awards for her writing. Her blog, Indexed, was named a 2007 Webby Awards Honoree and was a recent addition to the BBC Magazine online.

Matt Hart is the editor of Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking, & Light Industrial Safety, and the author of Who’s Who Vivid and three chapbooks: Revelated, Sonnet, and Simply Rocket. He lives in Cincinnati.

John Hyland is a graduate of the University of Maine (Orono) and currently serves as a lecturer in the English Department at Assumption College while working towards a graduate degree in Cultural Production at Brandeis University. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Modern Review, horse less review, Dusie, Puppy Flowers, and Tarpaulin Sky.

MC Hyland lives in Tuscaloosa, AL. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Colorado Review, LIT, and elsewhere.

Charles Israel, Jr. teaches creative writing at Queens University of Charlotte. Previously, he worked as an indexer at National Geographic Magazine, a small-town newspaper reporter, tennis coach, business proposal writer, and president of a dot.com. His most recent work was published in Field, JAMA (Journal of American Medicine), South Carolina Review, Slipstream, South Dakota Review, North Carolina Literary Review, 2006; Nimrod, and Crazyhorse.

Becca Klaver was born in Milwaukee, WI, and graduated from the University of Southern California and Columbia College Chicago, where she’s currently Assistant Programs Director of Literature and Poetry. A founding editor of the feminist poetry press Switchback Books, Becca is currently editing, with Arielle Greenberg, an anthology of poems for teenage girls. Recent work has appeared in Coconut, Avatar Review, and MiPOesias.

Robert Krut is the author of the chapbook Theory of the Walking Big Bang (H_NGM_N B_ _KS, 2007). His work has appeared in journals like Barrow Street, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and The Mid-American Review. Recent poems are also available online through Blackbird , poemeleon , and 42 Opus .

Brad Liening ’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Mustachioed, The Sonora Review, Rock Heals, Forklift, and elsewhere. His chapbook Ker-Thunk is available from H_NGM_N’s FLIP/CHAP series.

Chris Martin ’s first book, American Music, will be published this November by Copper Canyon Press. He lives in Brooklyn and uses videos about prehistoric mammals to teach learning disabled children experimental playwriting.

Clay Matthews has recent work in H_NGM_N, The Laurel Review, LIT, Court Green, Forklift, Ohio, and elsewhere. He has two chapbooks: Muffler (H_NGM_N B_ _KS) and Western Reruns (End & Shelf Books), which is available for free online. His first book, Superfecta, is forthcoming from Ghost Road Press in 2008.

Lauren McCollum has published poems in Poetry, New Millennium Writings, Willard & Maple, and other publications. She lives in New York City.

Monica McFawn is a writer living in Michigan. Her poetry and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Exquisite Corpse, Conduit, Conjunctions, and Poetry Salzburg Review, among others. She moderates Litandart.com , a forum dedicated to tracking the state of both visual art and literature. She also trains dressage horses and teaches humanities.

Ben Mirov is 26 years old. He used to live in San Francisco, but now he lives in Manhattan and attends the New School’s MFA program in poetry. You can see some of his poems at (http://shampoopoetry.com/). Some more of his poems are forthcoming from (http://www.coconutpoetry.org/). His email address is benmirov@hotmail.com. He would like to talk to you.

Gina Myers is the author of the chapbooks Fear of the Knee Bending Backwards (H_NGM_N B_ _KS 2006) and Stanzas in Imitations (New School University 2007). She lives in Brooklyn where she makes books for Lame House Press and co-edits the tiny with Gabriella Torres.

Amber Nelson has recently moved to Boise, Idaho where she rides a 1978 metallic blue Schwinn bicycle. She is the poetry editor of alice blue and has work in or forthcoming at Dusie, Juked, Past Simple, Word for Word, and Cab/Net.

Michael Piafsky is currently an Assistant Professor at Spring Hill College. He received his PhD from The University of Missouri- Columbia and his Master’s degree from The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. Michael also worked in advertising and served as an editor on The Missouri Review. He currently lives in Mobile, AL with his wife and two children. He has stories forthcoming in Meridian and Bar Stories. This is his first online publication.

David Sewell has poems in jubilat, Poetry East, La Petite Zine, Mustachioed, Good Foot, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn.

Lori Shine ’s chapbook Coming Down in White was recently published by Pilot Books. Her poems have appeared (or shortly will appear) in 6x6, APR, Boston Review, Conduit, New American Writing, and other places, and in the anthology Isn’t It Romantic: 100 Love Poems by Younger American Poets. Her MFA is from UMass Amherst. She is Managing Editor of Wave Books and lives in Easthampton, Massachusetts.

Peter Jay Shippy ’s verse novel, How to Build the Ghost in Your Attic will be published by Rose Metal Press in November. New poems appeared in The American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, and Shenandoah, among others.

Brenda Sieczkowski ’s work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Subtropics, The Florida Review, Poetry Daily, Gulf Coast, The New England Review, and Poet Lore among others. She currently co-edits Quarterly West.

Leigh Stein ’s work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Diagram, Ocho, No Tell Motel, MiPOesias, and Barrow Street, among others. Her manuscript, How to Mend a Broken Heart with Vengeance was a finalist in the 2007 NMP chapbook contest. She lives in Albuquerque.

Craig Morgan Teicher ’s first book of poems BRENDA IS IN THE ROOM AND OTHER POEMS was selected by Paul Hoover for the 2007 Colorado Prize for Poetry and will be published this November. Other new work is appearing in NEW ENGLAND REVIEW, A PUBLIC SPACE, JUBILAT and TYPO.

Chris Tonelli lives in Cambridge, MA where he runs The So and So Series . He has work forthcoming in Cannibal, Good Foot, and Drunken Boat, and poems of his will be included in the anthologies The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel – Second Floor and Outside Voices’ 2008 Anthology of Younger Poets. His chapbook, WIDE TREE: Short Poems , is available from Kitchen Press .

Jen Tynes lives in Denver, Colorado and edits horse less press. She is the author of The End Of Rude Handles (Red Morning Press 2006), See Also Electric Light (Dancing Girl Press 2007), and, with Erika Howsare, The Ohio System (Octopus Books 2007).

Nate would like to thank The Editors, Sonic Youth & The Thrills for their help editing this issue.

This is the year I start liking beer again. This is the year I fly

to Taiwan and light paper lanterns

with my student loans. I set perfectly

good furniture by the side of the road.

I buy tickets to operas and forget to go.

This is the year I fall in love again.

I draw eyes on the back of my hands. I eat French fries

with chopsticks and baked beans

right from the can. I leave dollar bills

pasted inside washing machines.

This is the year I forget what you look like.

Here it is. And here. And here.

after reading Sampson Starkweather’s “The Hawk”

I’ve filled my cubicle w/ postcards of paintings.

Before I read Sam’s poem, I just assumed

it was because I was an art lover, that I was

artsy (see: poems, etc.). I was wrong. It turns out

that I have some innate desire or need or whatever

to look out the window even when there is

no window. Maybe especially when there

is no window. Out this window, I see two pink fish

dead on a white cloth, carefully placed on the sand

(my cube overlooks the sea). Out another, I see

a wedding taking place. Over here, a nude woman

toweling off in a parlor chair. A Boston terrier

posing for a portrait, an angel visiting a penitent maid,

a train pulling into a covered station

guffing clouds of smoke. This doesn’t make me

like my job any better. Maybe it would if they were

actual windows and I could see an actual hawk.

The Room In The Elephant

Right now, I’m supposed to be editing a section

of a science chapter about parasitism.

Which is funny, because just last night, I went to a lecture

on how ideas can cause this same kind of harm

in us. Watch an ant, the speaker said. Notice if it climbs

to the highest point in the field. Flick it off.

Does it race right back up? Then it most likely

has a parasite that can only complete its life cycle

in the belly of a cow. So it drives the ant

(like an SUV, he said) straight to the top of a blade

of grass, increasing its chances of being eaten

by a cow. Point being that organisms who

harm themselves are typically infested.

He explained that toxic, or parasitic, religions

act similarly. People are flying planes

through the tallest blades of grass, because they too

are infested. What small thing is piloting them

away from their genetic fitness? Or maybe

they have a whole country inside. Our country.

I wonder what’s inside of me, not doing

a damn thing. Here I am, at work, not wanting to be.

The speaker mentioned that susceptibility

to hypnosis used to be selected for, since it

guaranteed you health insurance. I wonder if this

still holds true. Today is one of those days

when ideas seem to unravel themselves

right out of existence. Justin just emailed me an article

that says the newly found Gospel of Judas

may reveal that Jesus told Judas to betray him.

What to believe. I wanted to believe that philosopher

last night—I was so ready to deconvert.

Maybe I believe that poems are mutualists

and should drive us to the highest point of ourselves.

But instead of perishing in the belly of infinity,

we would thrive. Here. Now you’ve got one.

I hope you start a scourge.

I haven’t been wearing lavender shoes

long enough to know how to make

love fall from the air like an injured sparrow

I can reach only so far into the cereal box

and anyway hair has no discernible taste

today I’m merely differently sane today

I’m not sure how tall I am but do know

I require exactly two and one-third pillows

to go unnoticed in the snowstorm last

night syntax was fun but not as a party game

leaving through the window after the pause

just seemed like the right thing to do

all around the morning the air smelled

like ice cream which is why I was screaming.

Do You Hear a Harp?

In truth I was making up about the sweater vest

it wasn’t sewn of fireflies it wasn’t on fire even

I on the other hand have never been one

to return from the cloakroom with enough

contraband to pay for the window that broke

when I threw the grapefruit through it in truth

I didn’t actually move my lips in my mouth

the comparison to a salmon was inaccurate

I have a new avocado I am tired of all the dying

the wearing scarves the unnamed goats loitering

about in place of the furniture therefore I’ve

lain on you throughout a night made wholesome

by the window being open and talking

about soup it’s not easy to make so little sense

so near the mirror the eyes in it seem to follow

me wherever I move whether or not

I’m wearing a top hat it’s weird I admit but

I’m merely a belly-itcher who looks good

in velvet I am not qualified to answer

to only one syllable or to found a religion

with my hair I am here because you are dear.

Who Will Carry My Strawberry?

I’m only trying to situate the weather

nearer the weather vane. In order

of similarity to the monsoon:

a steady girl, a steady hand, a steady life.

I’m believing in you so you don’t have to.

I’m learning to play the double-crested cormorant

because the ocean’s been looking desperate

and moony these passing afternoons.

Armed with a finely appointed mustache,

I’ll enter the gentlemen’s club,

unshelf a book from the reading room,

calmly ingest its table of contents.

Then I’ll be worthy of the crown

of pamplemouse, the cereal bowl

of being upside down. But there I was,

alone in the bathroom stall, with only

my problems and an indelible photo.

I’m like this, I’ve said, attempting to kick

the sparrow that is never successfully kicked.

I’m like that, I’ve said, pointing to

the woman on the subway carrying

a strawberry on a small plate.

I’ve connected the dots on giraffes

maculate and not, yet parts of me insist

on posing the rain impossible questions.

So much I’ve wanted to be the one

in the top hat, instead of the one eating

the refrigerator box. But, oh! And, oh!

My head’s become stuck in a platypus’ burrow.

The platypus is waking up.

To the uninitiated, it looks

Like a tar stain on a telephone pole.

Y ou shoulder your way

Through the crowd of believers

And try not to feel their keen

Faces. You try not to judge.

If they see the Virgin Mary

Or Jesus Christ or Hart Crane, well

Good for them, right? I mean

Who are they hurting? Then again

Couldn’t this oomph, this

Gusto for signs and wonders

Be applied to the hardscrabble?

Couldn’t they volunteer

At a soup kitchen or adopt

A blind dog? On the other hand

Maybe they do do-good. You don’t.

Right? So who are you to lecture?

It looks like snow. Your back aches

Just thinking about shoveling, again.

March, lion, lamb, bah.

The sun looks like a blood orange.

When you break free of the host

You look back, one last time—

Yeah—that’s Hart Crane. No doubt.