You may be sweet and nice
But that won't keep you warm at night


Saul Leiter, Lanesville (variant), 1958

When I Worked for Madonna
-- Joanna Ruocco

The bodyguards wear white
The bullets fly towards them
The bodyguards are clouds
The bullets do not penetrate
Kaddafi. The bullets are precipitation
After we drink coffee, we check
the bird feeders. Kaddafi has purple
martins on his shoulders. The bodyguards
are snowy egrets. Forget
in both directions from this moment
I am right in front of you
I have a rifle
I am sexually wonderful
like a horse


Views
-- by Philip Booth

Walking, you thumb the remote
to scan news,
watch the weather girl
dance both hands, pivot,
smile, and point to
the other coast.
So what does morning look like?
What does the world.
From this motel:
an anywhere town, across the bay, shining.
Elsewhere mountains.
Miles beyond hills,
the capital cities, their walls behind walls.
Monuments to our lies,
to our self-blinded lives.
Above us now, two fishhawks, cheeping musical shrieks,
the risen sun easing their wingbeats.
Over us all,
daylight's invisible satellites, shamelessly
bouncing back from space the emptiness we feed them.


Thing Language
-- by Jack Spicer

This ocean, humiliating in its disguises
Tougher than anything.
No one listens to poetry. The ocean
Does not mean to be listened to. A drop
Or crash of water. It means
Nothing.
It
Is bread and butter
Pepper and salt. The death
That young men hope for. Aimlessly
It pounds the shore. White and aimless signals. No
One listens to poetry.