Brown Leaves

On the way to see
the Fra Angelicos

we pass Nick and Vivian
two human angels
in the Medieval wing

Miranda brought 2 brown leaves
in from November outside
to give the angels new wings

Voice of brown leaves
like plain wren wings
An angel barefoot
on the mosaics

I nurse her to sleep while gazing
at Madonna and Child doing the same thing
until closing time

then float in the cold over to the Whitney
For the I Love Poets night

I point out Richard Tuttle and say
           He makes Sculpture

What is Sculpture?
           Miranda asks

I reply      Art that Sticks out

Sculpture is Art that sticks out.

And when she asks
Does he make angels too?

           I say Yes

           as Mei-Mei read her
           wing shoulder line

Having a Margarita By Myself So Far and Preparing to Read Victor Hernandez Cruz again in a Fruitful Way

Right outside in the little-bit-too-cold for me wind I revisit the fence that says:

City of the world (for all races are here), all the lands of the earth make contribution here City of the sea City of the wharves and stores City of tall facades of marble and iron
Proud and passionate city Mettlesome mad extravagant city (Walt Whitman)

and

One need never leave the confines of New York to get the greenery one wishes — I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there's a subway handy or a record store or some other sign that people don't totally regret life (Frank O'Hara)

Still here … just checking

I've been listening to 107.9 FM La Calle
all the way from Queens
to where people carry on
in the absent shadow of the towers

Can poetry be found here in this crowded bar
where a lit-up husband actually puts his hand
between his wife-date's knees emboldened
by the wind and maybe the beautiful day
and downtown incentives to revive life
here amidst the rubble?

United In Memory Dot Net
campaigns for a $15,000,000 budget line item
for “proper burial” in the corner of Great Kills
where they dumped the shovelfuls that were
“especially high in human remains”

La Calle plays a wild mix of Latino crunky hip hop with reggae roots
           and the DJ interjects this little siren
           throughout many of the melded numbers.

I like these gooey nachos.
Tequila is minor hallucinogen
more than anything else.
We'll have to write a poem for every different kind of
Mesclun salad. My fortune said I will be taking a trip soon
derivative of Kerouac's famous container store.

I just copy down the double entendres like
A priest walks into a bar and says “Ouch.”
I saw a guy who walked into a store once too.

Here comes “Hey Big Guy,”
Can't they be a little more creative
like “Hey Goliath” or something
immortalized in a poem
Cut up, unrecognizable.
I'm actually fine. On that website today
I saw the new mood-lighting of the Palm Court

And when it was ruined —
what possessed them —
now there's this Kinkoed-out display

Those people were in my poem
and now they've gone
to “get a room”

Stanza means room —
And what's the story
with those etymologies
thrice removed like “pineapple”
is from “bondage?”

A really strange connection
A crazy field trip

Someday I will write this poem for real.

The Toy Commission

OK We're going to commission toys to be made by our favorite artists
and then we're going to place them in front of our children and see what
happens in a set interval say, how long it takes to get through an Erik Satie
Gymnopedie — and we'll let the little deconstructivists got to it — MezzMyrrh

And Miranda will be our subjects or operators or engagers ‚ she's about
9 months older than he is: 18 months and 2 ½ when they first hung out a lot
in Marshall NC river valley where you have to invent your own fun.
There's sun on the floor in a square from the mountain which would be

a perfect stage set — we want one toy for every time we come down there
or about once a month so we can film their unfurling of both themselves,
each other and also the toy. When I replace the video camera which was
so rudely stolen form my office on the first day of school before I could get

into “New York mode” The artists I’m thinking of could be Beth, Raed,
Jimmy, Tony, Soph, Max, Meg, Emile Clarke, and Louise Bourgeois.

Don't Say No To the Sentences When They Come

A great big laugh walking down the hall past our institutional door
that goes Slam when you naturally walk through it — in fact every door
in this whole building does that — you can hear them all around on
every floor and the fire engine in the distance too and there are cops

with those robin’s egg blue helmets parading up the Turnpike
of Union and Utopia Parkway has been renamed Ambivalent Avenue
by some librarian whose name I forget but begins with a B
and who just goes to show that there are actually people on this

campus who appreciate the fact that Joseph Cornell lived most of his life
right near here and probably even rode the 31 or 32 or even the 46
and most definitely the E train — what caused him to find and frame
that deepest blue unnamable I wonder as I sit here in an L-shaped

institutional beige building named for Sister Blank de Marillac.
We wait for the muffled or unmuffled slam of the next to enter.

Cruel Sonnet

Knitting during a positive session
One particular incident — grammar
Was the problem — which helps you what I mean
Or I don't know how to use a comma
It was still a struggle — excellent points
She met them maybe the professor was
Overwhelmed by what she achieved what
Are we supposed to be doing with this
What you were trying to do between the
Words so horrendous fundamental jail
For bad writers painful formula as
Far as I know none of them have gone if
It's parity there's no stigma or you
Can use the word mandatory pull off

No Stigma

No stigmata two things happen there in
the early part of the process new shoot
the breeze a whole new society the
substitute of dorm conversations which
I thought were fights because I was from the
South where no one confronted each other
ever “like a razor blade in a ball of
cotton” said Matteo whose aunt is here
and whose name would tell her we don't stress what
we developed a strong thesis some of
you aren’t sure what specific details are
as well as clarity about ten minutes of
gelato flavors for example your
daily dose of direct access of “I”