I saw this day coming         class would end       and it would be night
            time to attach         bike lights               tonight I lit my way
with a cigarette
                    I asked if petticoat ding a ling         was a fun bar
NO it’s a line from Clairvoyant Journal               YOU GUYS WANT
TO PARTY that’s what’s happening here          it’s the pneuma of HANNAH
                                                                       ask me if I like parties
and I’m thrown into turmoil         I like parties
that I’m not invited to    best     lack of riposte similar to when Madeline
            Gins asked me if I was a perfectionist
                        ummmmmmmm
                                                                            R. said she’s going to sit
                                                                            in the front row at my reading
                                                                            let’s try to control our faces
what’s everyone going to be for Halloween
I’m going       as my eyebrows
                                                patron saint for the perpetuum mirum
                                                                                    I am amazed!
by the unity of my limbs
and by those for whom     “an influx
                        like eros becomes a concrete personal threat”

                                                                          PUT IT IN THE POEM
                                                                          I WANT TO LENGTHEN YOU
                                                                          if I could morph into a deer
it would be the one on campus
with rhizomatic eyeball
and black socket

I ALONE
am responsible for the content and decorum         of my PERSON
O well-ordered ulcer we live in
collectively pointing to a number
                                                                           on a pain chart
                                                                           pursing our lips

the smell of burning leaves      tonight and their presence         in the bird bath
           reminds me of New Berlin    where 2 old people instilled a work ethic
                      by connecting neat crayons and fear of a mouthful of soap

perpetuum mirum why would anyone                         WANT
                                                                                    to hurt me???
I was at a perfect party
            no you cannot give edibles         to everyone     where I smoked
            weed outside with Joanne Kyger      in the house       Antler
                        with beads of red wine                 in his beard

                                                                        told me I was mesmerizing
                                                                        and I glanced down from the pine
                                                                        all my moves were acts
                                                                        of thinking     having never
                                                                        been loved

                                                                        October 25, 2018

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