Jelly Donut, NYC
Whatever that humming is it stopped the garbage
trucks for a moment crushed their cargo in silence
underground the trains glided soundlessly revolving
doors deferred their ...
Baffler Archives: Poems
Columns
Here We Name Them ‘Way’
Cart and horse scaled streets, some cities have
Alleys couched that way enough the British might say mews,
Doors silent the size to walk through
Not interrogate your journey, big
Mouthing in stasis the importance
Of their place, ready to say not your
Destination; but here, ...
My Daughter Night Terrors the State
yes moneys and birds settle by night in what formations on the lake
the roofs replaced leaves the hail brought down
flake in the sun and winds push and mound them into berms
there is no color in straw but fuel in nerves
my leg shakes and big planters hold trees
outside the ...
A Monkey Could Do This
at the very first moment in Baltimore there was a thud
it was my great grandmother coming back to earth (levitate, negro
you could do it just breathe)
up to my chin in what I do not deserve
certainly there is a limit to the utility of Jesus
watch how I am to ...
You and me are not friends, OK?
With “barbecue” in one ear and “chips” in the other, that is how a goddess comes
with one calf cramped and a finger up her ass; a goddess comes for twenty minutes
only when the seventh record has been turned over, convinced that laboring
so closely ...
Where Is It Now
The heart of my life was spent on it—
that was my life! And where is it, now,
as this train goes down the mountain for an hour,
six years after divorce,
all that sex, it must be somewhere,
maybe among these wild grasses near the
tracks, or near plants in the sea which ...
Taverna
After twenty years of ...
Grim Sleeper
O what is that sound—a shot in the night?
Down in South L.A., a shot, then a round?
Only the cops, practicing for a fight,
The cops, clowning around.
O what is that shadow I see—just the toes—
next to the dumpster, that look so cold?
Only the ...
Underground
Listen: the squealing melody like someone’s baby as the train
lumbers into the station.
I am listening to a song but I can barely hear myself
listening.
What are you writing about?
Nothing and everything at once.
The last best test of ...
Di$claimer
Though unmoored and fearful in spirit,
you, trembling investor,
rather than ourselves or our affiliates,
will incur the bulk of the ...
Accounting for the Damage
Sixty seconds the earth shook beneath their feet
God-fumbled porcelain, the colonial palace rushing to pieces in the city center. Atlas
rolls a shoulder in fitful sleep, and hearts crumble. Dazed palm
trees studding the horizon, bayonet the sky while soldiers ...
Inside the House
I’m no frail eel, no damsel steal,
My costume’s a bathrobe, secure as hazmat
one look at me, I’m addictive as transfat
you can’t touch my towel-rack.
My batcave’s this needlepark,
But it’s being converted to luxury condos,
so I’m ...