writing about technology, and vice-versa.
Permit me to introduce myself. Wile E. Coyote, genius.
I first see the roadrunner
on a sepia-painted morning in the desert.
Some might see an odd bird; I think he is the perfect
prey – in a land of shifting sand, a rock.
When I see him, I learn hunger.
I start by exploiting his hunger.
It is a stroke of genius;
At dawn, I hang a rock
over some seed I set out for the roadrunner.
He falls for it; the timing of the trap is perfect.
I cut the rope. Blackness covers the desert.
The phrase has pleasing (even pious)
Connotations, like Arbeit Macht Frei,
“Molotov Cocktail,” and Enola Gay.
– From Formal Application, Donald W. Baker (1923-2002)
Deep in meditation by the end of an hour of organ music
in an old church pockmarked by manhole-size plaques
To the Glory of God commemorating rich men’s sons
blown into the next life on the winds of war,
I note the last piece:
Carillion-Sortie – Henri Mulet (1878-1967)
Continue reading “A Term of Art of War at an Organ Recital”The new UPS driver looks like he’s been working his way down the corporate ladder.
I think he looks too old for a package car and he looks like he’s about my age
and finally: I’ve seen him looking younger.
It was 1982.
He hung an offensive nickname on me
that spoke of something I’d never even seen, much less done,
and I wore it like the proverbial badge marked Chicken Inspector
or I Felta Thi. How mightily
we called it out when pinching female freshmen’s bottoms.
What cards we were. What utter shits.
My grandfather at the dinner table of his son-in-law’s farmhouse:
Saltines, sardines, turkey sandwiches, potato salad, jello molds.
The progressive potluck of his hardtack life, coming as it did
toward something like luxury.
The luxury was to sit down – all of his sons and daughters
under the roof, everyone getting along. My father telling
a story about the 1950s that everyone there
except the grandchildren lived through. Laughter.
for Marianne Moore
We sought a short word or noun phrase which was
unique, easy to pronounce, spelled like it sounds.
It had to convey something of the business without boxing it in,
and of course not already taken: domains, twitter, facebook,
nor have unfortunate interior spellings like newspaperverts or the like.
Insomnia, while it lasts, is like flying
downhill on a bike. We would love it
were it not for the denouement.
We do love it
under different names at different times:
the holiday weekend, cram sessions,
all the be-now-pay-later moments.
Names like focus, party mode,
and the Big Lie: wired. The promise,
never kept, that tomorrow will not
claim our time with interest, the loan
we didn’t ask for when we lie awake
spinning down mental slopes.
The sun was starting to get a little low
when I parked the car in a parking deck
in Jacksonville where I took Southwest to Oakland
We stopped somewhere in Nevada Continue reading “Pantoum: Mass Transit”
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