Obscurity and the Amateur (audio only)
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Recorded at the Chancellors Reading, Poets Forum 2015. NYU Skirball Center. New York City.
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Tours
A girl on the stairs listens to her father Beat up her mother. Doors bang. She comes down in her nightgown. The piano stands there in the dark Like a boy with an orchid. She plays what she can Then she turns the lamp on. Her mother's music is spread out On the floor like brochures. She hears her father Running through the leaves. The last black key She presses stays down, makes no sound Someone putting their tongue where their tooth had been.
1982
Some nights I sleep with my dress on. My teeth are small and even. I don't get headaches. Since 1971 or before, I have hunted a bench where I could eat my pimento cheese in peace. If this were Tennessee and across that river, Arkansas, I'd meet you in West Memphis tonight. We could have a big time. Danger, shoulder soft. Do not lie or lean on me. I'm still trying to find a job for which a simple machine isn't better suited. I've seen people die of money. Look at Admiral Benbow.
2002
Morning Star
This isn’t the end. It simply
cannot be the end. It is a road.
You go ahead coatless, light-
soaked, more rutilant than
the road. The soles of your shoes
sparkle. You walk softly
as you move further inside
your subject. It is a living
season. The trees are anxious
to be included. The car with fins
beams through countless
oncoming points of rage and need.
The sloughed-off cells
under our bed form little hills
of dead matter. If the most sidereal
drink is pain, the most soothing
clock is music. A poetry
of shine could come of this.
2025