Richard Kern




Mind you to remember is to put

            together what unhappy history has

dis-membered gathering the members

            of outsized outlandish Osiris



take them by regulation measured

            dosage and call out in the morning

the light reflected off their leaves

            and water-spangled branches the



highlights photoshopped onto that model's

            canines and bicuspids moist white

nights of sleeplessness rambling down

            and up blind flights of stairs



twine the ways apart my lord

            cleave backages and ransom

implements to filthy humus

            I for an eye truth for the



thunder and the lightning- 

           bug sleepless the evil dead maunder

through an outlet mall of children's

           fancies outsourcing nail set



past a laboring proletariat switching

           channels swiftly as their thumbs

can twitch I had hope when

           violence was ceas'd handing



paper sovereignty to pasteboard

            crowns and lath scepters pat

buchanan my jo have all

            the seas ganged dry love of



lurchers sniffing sheeps' peeled

            hindquarters ye lightnings ye

thunders in clouds are ye come

            off the quaint pronouns mate



write something you could actually say

            in some emotion's stress or storm

our latest gesture neither an opened hand

            nor pointing finger but an odd



thumb-thrusting half-fist oh no he's

            not quite fisting her it's only three

fingers maybe the thumb so hard

            to see on that grainy super-8 stock



pay it no mind unless it's somehow

            marked folly magenta friendly

to unburthen one's self-same interior

            frames to hesitate out on a progress



whose time-stamped facets might imprint

            a passage pale indigent or parsimonious

a new atom mine where naked children

            haul coal-carts of glimmer and what's



the proper term for oral sex with the

            dead who can't really give

anything your handshake like a defunct

            fish cher monsieur bush good



thing the storm shutters're up early

            no she didn't pick up what don't

you screen your calls too incommunicado

            the chocolate flesh tones built up



by a dozen or more painstaking trans-

            parent layers of wash an icy

speaking warmth dream or nightmare

            of the moving statue goylem



soil 'em goylem roil 'em an aleph

            bracketed with the doubled horns

of the phoenician ox double ax

            of ariadne's maze a jackhouse



that jury built monument to the ten

            words break two tablets call me

deep in mourning a barbeque of aureate

            veal lechon asado chimichurri



vindaloo nouveau beaujolais rising

            up like the sun which is we are

told new each day they leaven the end-

            less parade of bleached teeth



and boob jobs with photos of a girl

            got her face burned off in a wild-

fire true life human interest florida

            scum on the white house train



eat or be what you eat testosterone

            panic button photosynthesize petrol

for a hybrid hald-human half-turnip

            driver line up your fucking kids



and I'll run 'em down right now a bad

            hair life a tenderness in the angle

of her hand as she raised the cup

            to the old man's lips charity shines



in our leader's close-set eyes so

            careful not to soil them with

printed materials the charred face

            grins lipless over the lip of the



armored personnel carrier's turret compressing

            time and space in swift apery of far-flung

instantaneous markets electronic chads well-hung

            blond and toothy I'll bet wink and



bulge but why don't any of our letters

            get answered in characters we

recognize lovers' hands lapped in bonds

            of gold outcomes foreseen and outcomes



manipulated lie down take two

            alternatives implausibly standing in for white

and black odysseus's scar displayed and spread

            onscreen as just another weeping carnal gash.

— Mark Scroggins (© 2006)


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