DRACONIC EPISTEMOLOGY

How do we know dragons look like that?
Have you ever seen one? I have seen one
on cardboard with airbrush embroidature tone.
I've seen one in plaster and another in stone.
What have I seen? What is being shown?
How do we know dragons look like that?
Where is the flesh that's holding the reference?
What's the idea that is so widely known?
Is it a memory? Is it a preference?
Is it a cat gone all scaly and grown?
How do we know dragons look like that?

TRIOLET FOR MIMICS

What lies within the mimic's heart?
A mirror held up to desire.
It cannot hold itself apart.
What lies within the mimic's heart?
The weakling pale organ afire?
Is such a chest just nature's art?
What lies within the mimic's heart?
A mirror held up to desire.

LAPSE

I know I have forgotten it.
I don't know what it was, and yet
I know it was. But I forget.

It might come back after a bit.
It might drift out still further yet.
I know I have forgotten it.

Now consigned to the darkest pit
Or mangled like an old cassette.
I know it was. 'Cause I forget.

It will come back. I'm sure of it.
I tell myself I will not fret.
I know I have forgotten it.

A little fact, a little bit
In memory I tried to set.
I know I did. But I forget.

Alas, my poor downtrodden wit
now confined to the oubliette.
I know I have forgotten it.
I know it was. But I forget.

IF THIS WERE NIGHT THE SKY WOULD BE ON FIRE

The forties and the people all correctly.
The millions of the people all a-through.
And speaking if you're done when speak correctly,
will only in the forties they look through.
Will as it main, the forties are the injuns.
And as it may, will forties in the through.
When pirated revass fills in the frinjens,
Will pirated and also see it through.
If this were night the sky would be on fire.
If this were night the sky would be on fire.

ODE TO THE INSTALLATION WIZARD

As one day I came squeaping
through fields on cloudy day,
I met the software wizard,
installing in the hay.

I am the software wizard, said he.
I guide your installation.
I guide your way through menus gray
and Windows registration.

I thanked the software wizard,
and left him to install.
When next you are installing files
think how he helps us all.

UNTITLED I

What were hoods to the Ku Klux Klan?
Did they care for the fabric's feel?
Enclosing costumes sewn by hand.
Cotton thread on the spinning wheel.

The needle works. A baby cries.
The cat is playing with the thread.
Two cuts are done to make the eyes.
Tonight another will be dead.

RONDEAU FOR OUR ABANDONED NEOPETS

Where do our Neopets go when we die?
Do they live on at the Cockroach Motel?
Do they know Faerieland? Do they know hell?
Where do our Neopets go when we die?
What is the site of that final goodbye?
Will Darigan find his way there as well?
Where do our Neopets go when we die?
Do they live on at the Cockroach Motel?

ATTENTION PIECE III

Can we,
for instance,
take a path
through the language or
the forest
of language?

I was distracted
by
the shape of the leaves.
(I was
looking
carefully
at the shape of
the attention
that I gave
as the halo of the self
watches itself.)