Ninety-Sixth Entry

Kseniya and I are going to the Boston Zine Fest or Zine Fair or some such. I've produced a whopping three zines for publication, which I hope to turn into one decent new chapbook which I will sell at my readings and on this site for a less-than-princely sum. Kseniya's desire to make me a self-started is beginning to pay off.

Here's my poem:

PENCIL

Resentment of sweatshirt
for wearer of sweatshirt: A symposium discussing
a circle drawn in this dirt. My horse gave up the chase,
the fox has learned to live outside my sight. I promise
your finery will guard the vanity mirror, actual pearls
on a pink night of stormy wrong-headedness. Weakly
I shake my face in the truck-stop pisser. Here goes
nothing. The racetrack emptied of cars is a Stonehenge
lined with beer cans, the purpose equally vague.
The delights surround me like dolls in my sleep,
blue cheeks from a strong gale in the alcove
in front of my door, where I usually keep the light on.

It is my policy to smell your feet after the day
you walk towards the pencil sharpener, alone
in the parochial school, in the hallway sweating
with its smallness. I put my uniform in the mailbox
and it came back the next day. I save mpegs
of myself seemingly working hard and leave them
open on other’s computers. Clarity,
while once the terrain of medicine men,
has recently opened up shop on cable access.
My cucumber-colored sweater is all that’s left
of my happy times. Your skin has withered,
blown away by the vacuum. I seem rutted
in a lottery run by the local police. This promontory
seems easy to jump from, skidding through the brambles
like a turbulent plane. The difference is the calm
when your body is picked up by yourself
and walked back towards your car.