Assembly Required

The flowering trees have resumed their monopoly.

They get by on their good looks and the rain.

Being full of shit is no handicap in politics.  Apparently.

If you are finished, I will eat the rest of your meatballs.

This thing we are about to do cannot be rushed.

Who “we” are is not your concern.

April is the poetry month, or the Black History month.

All history is black.  (I knew you were going to say that.)

How much longer before the poetry starts?

Of all the days of the year, you had to pick this one.

You can savor every morsel, or shove it all in your mouth.

One is not terribly happy with the results.

The critical voices are circling with their indifference.

The cruelest one can’t even be bothered.

If you have somewhere else to be, this would be the right time.

I am a person only when I am personified by others.

Sorry to keep you waiting.  It won’t be long now.

I love you more than glossolalia.

Everything returns only intensified and wilder.

The authorities are protecting us from others like themselves.

One corporation may hide another.  Thanks, Kenneth.

A slight pressure to cohere is detectable now.

The page is not the surface, the rhythm is.

The intervals of silence between sentences is growing longer now.

This poem is not on any schedule.

There has never been any more consistency than there is now.

A change in rhythm is a change of surfaces.

Cherry tomatoes, white beans, fresh basil, balsamic vinegar.

There are lines in this poem some readers may find stupid.

Beware of your own stupidity, Cocteau said.

A line is written in the air by a jet plane.

We have been floating down the river of the afternoon.

The longer this poem takes, the more unwieldy it becomes.

It is like speaking when no one is listening.

Meanwhile a spy satellite is reading over your shoulder.

Every line is unique and has emotional content.

I’ve spent a long time learning how to construct them.

You've got to break the rules to know them.
The past does not, will not, nor ever did resemble the future.

This poem is greater than the sum of its critics.

If you are still here, kiss me!