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Baffler Archives: Poems

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Exercise
August 05, 2013
Is it the word “dream” that causes so much         trouble? Dreams are there like clouds floating endlessly         in an except for them blue sky Over the rim Is it the word, dream, that ...

This Is
1 “If you can read this, you’re too close.” This has been specially hand-crafted in Mexico. “Hi, you’ll do” on a tee-shirt made by young girls in Thailand? America poses in whose mirror? Irascible. Insouciant. 2 This is a five star trance. To have this ...

March Ample Life
Methought I saw my late live-in theory     crossing the fireplace like a train For the Headless Horseman is bald     in the grave where the hair grows long And Maud was the androgyne without a club     on the path to ...

Clistheret
I heard a sleave of song from an upper window and moved in the sun to find them I wanted to call to them, beg them to lean out, and go on But there was no window, I was on sand, their lullabye came from the waves, there were no waves, but a glinting derelict named—no derelict ...

Distinguo
Freedom, yes, but a Freedom combed and curled A safe, tame Freedom, eating from the hand A Freedom which will lie down at command Not this wild wench whose scarlet flag unfurled Threatens our cozy, comfortable world With voice like thunder echoing through the land Who tramps the ...

The Manly Apocalypse
1. Two-Fisted Tales       A cowcatcher jaw splinters the door.      “Jack Ginch, you slants!” The opium den clears.      Strike a match—so much for that sinister ...

from Cantos for James Michener
XCVI. He wasn’t sure how the bathroom mirror worked but decided it must be powered by the razor blades and aspirin he found in the engine compartment. It was a matter of relearning everything after he surfaced from the coma. The hospital chapel had bought a battered fog ...

Several Vistas
Of death. And even that crust of representation they belong to, falling asleep in a bus station, uncertain that this was all there is, all one waking reverie, the only hint of actual existence, say an office window, is no longer your friend, but is itself become abstract, ...

Night Train to Domestic Living Arrangements
In my own mind you have put me beside compunction. Re-worked this mourning room where looking smacks of mother may I though to this day I falter when you hold tow. Throw me over your deep end with some faith next time, as if to lend some bother to the vex. I’ve always wanted ...

Holding Pattern Over Providence
For new things one necessarily chooses new words. Call our adepts spiritists, our teaching spiritism, our reading books of spirits. Forget the past—one cannot know everything—the spirit loses memories to become itself. The veil is the return to bodily life. Divine angels, ...

Fluff
O Fluff, no one knows who you are. You were produced for one brief year (nineteen seventy-one) after Mattel discontinued Skooter, Barbie’s little sister Skipper’s best friend. The toy company feared the first generation of Bar- bie consumers, baby boomers nearing their ...