The magician pulls the

rabbit out of the hat.
The dog in the field

follows the fresh scent.
The magician produces the

dove from the handkerchief.
The cat hears the quiet

mouse behind the wall.
The magician saws the

living assistant in half.
The owl in the forest sees

clearly in the black night.

The opportunistic
nouns are using
the lying adjectives

as they all cling
to the period, which
is catastrophically

overheated, as it
spins round and
round, and the  

verbs are moving
to the endless
margins where they

can just be, then
all is black ink,
the text redacted.

I am assembling
a new gray tweed
suit. The plodding,

solitary elephant is
wandering on a dark
road. I am not an I.

Pinocchio is missing
an arm and speeding
in a big truck. I am

an eye that floats
overhead, smaller
than a pin-point,

nothing really.
In the murky
night Pinocchio

hurtles toward the
idle elephant, but
swerves at the last

moment, then I’m
wearing the tweed
suit, even though

it’s missing a
sleeve, and all three
of its ivory buttons.

In this
world,

even a
simple

cherry
blossom

constitutes
a miracle.

After carefully
observing us,

the monkey
declares, You

are certainly
not a part

of nature,
what are you?

In the end, it can all
be explained, and none
of it can be explained.

Tomorrow will exist,
of course, but by
then it will be today.

Language becomes
a long gurgle and
a quick sputter, and

as expected, by those
still paying attention,
it is irrevocably broken.

The boy on a bicycle
speeds by in a blur, as
a paper airplane drifts
over the dog, curled up,
falling asleep, and
the egg sitting
on the counter
waits patiently
to be cracked open,
like the sun suddenly
rising in the morning.

This poem may  
be lovely or
clever, but it is
analogy, made
of appearances,
insubstantial, like
a finely attired,
beautiful corpse.

That's not a
pencil, it’s a
brontosaurus.

I know I am, but
what are you?

Six out of seven
fabled dwarves
are not happy.

I am in

the present I was in

the past I

have seen the future and

we’re in it

The answer: three.
Two to hold the
ladder, and one
to shoot the gun.

I’m sorry. I
was distracted.
So, what was
the question?

Is there life
after death?

The better
question,

Is there life
before death?

Even in
these
perilous
times,

flowers
are
blooming
everywhere.

I’m in the produce
aisle and the local
fortune teller is

hurling strawberries
at me, as she yells,
Wake up, we’re in for

a wild ride and we
won’t be the same
when it’s over! Then

she charges toward
me, nearly knocks me
over and gives me an

electrified kiss. This
is the time when
peasants harvested

wild strawberries, she
says, then laughs like
a broken church bell.

The man in the
cellar is forging
the books of

history, as the
ghost in the attic
is starting to

realize that he
is dead, and the
piano tuner in

the den is an
international
spy, and the corpse

is in the trunk of
the car in the vermin
ruled alley and the

ghost sees that he
can simply leave
this world, which

he suddenly does
and all of this—
instantly left behind.

This is after the
grandly mundane
drama, after the
endless timeline,
after the tallying,
after the lure of
the handcrafted,
kettle-cooked salty
potato chip, after
the endless conquering
of it and them, this
is after the hypnotic
spell of perfumed
images, after
being a verb disguised
as a noun, after
pretending to be
a palpable thing,
this is after  
being something, and
this is after
being nothing.

In the butcher shop
Bob sees Salvador
Dali, who is carving
a life size figure of
a woman from a side
of beef. When finished
Dali whispers in
her ear the question,
“How do I obtain
a clear mind?” Bob and
Dali wait for an
answer. She is silent.
Bob eventually
gives up, but whenever
he visits the butcher
shop he sees Dali,
sitting, his limpid eyes
wide open, waiting
for the answer
from the woman
of his vivid dreams.

From her window the
pale, willowy young
woman, a midwife,
watches a paper cup
being tossed around in
the wind. The dark ocean,
the great progenitor
in the background,
illuminated by waning
moonlight. She waits
for his headlights
to appear, her fiancé,
a fleshy, ruddy man,
the town’s undertaker,
who brings freshly cut
carnations, and a
long, warm embrace.

Maybe I’m a fraud,
maybe I’m not the
guy who empties the
trash bins, maybe I’m
a theoretical
physicist failing
to piece together
a story of
everything, maybe
my wife is really
dead and I am in
love with a memory,
or maybe I’m the
guy who has a gun
loaded with blanks
ready to fire at
anything that moves.

There was a
snowball fight.
A ****** nose.
A forgotten glove.
The evidence now
under a blanket
of white. Only
partial footprints
remain. Soon they
too will be gone.

The sky is
icy and blank.
There is no
one visible,

anywhere.
A phone rings,
from some muffled,

distant location,
as the garage
door
mechanically

lowers.
I stand near
the heater,

gazing out of
the window.
Everything
is stark and

frozen,
like printed
words on a page.

In the foreground, a
child’s marble, made of
clear glass, incandescent,
aglow with blue and
green streaks and swirls,
on a table cloth the color
of the ocean on a
bright day, and in the
background, a window,
the inky night sky, the
luminous but gray moon,
smaller than the marble,
flat, distant, and in
the glass, an adult’s
face faintly reflected,
small, ghost-like, colorless,
embedded in the
starless black space.