Sunday Morning Beijing

Dog Days

2009-07-05T09:11:00.000+08:00

Stacey Duff

We fuck our way
Out of the absence we’ve become.

Tons of asthma blue
Soak the sky above your shoulders.

Cats mewing in the bed of growing light
Recall newborns.

Love is panic deep.
Peep –

Below what was blessed on a shallow
Surface – into the depth.

The depth exhales a silence so beautifully total
Not even the barn swallows are left to ask

Basic questions or respond with feathered answers.
A shit storm

Hits Oklahoma. The official count is blood.
The official cry is you.

Comrades of Pain

2009-07-05T09:10:00.000+08:00

Stacey Duff

Comrades of pain –
It’s raining now

All my comrades of pain.
I feel you fall

Invisible in the heat.
You are unnamed

But hit the pavement
Just as hard

As fat drops of feeling rain.
Unlike most men

You lived and died without embraces.
You died alone –

Solitary but complete
As a July drought.

Only the shadows of the poplars
Heard you smack the pavement.

Your thud was your unwilling scream
But I am recording you here as

All my comrades of pain
Because I know now

You are the sky’s
Truest blue signature.

God, I Think I See Your Output Box

2009-07-05T09:06:00.002+08:00

Stacey Duff

You guide me to the center of your output box.
I enter the palace you shed

Bereft of human corpses.
Torn from human songs.

The mansion you lay me down in
Is crystal, shimmering, high-ceilinged –

Safe as the steel lesions of late January.
Not even the sky pretends to yield your aroma

In the zero sound of your solitary cathedral.
Dawn does not inject birdsong.

The winter
Yields no children dressed

Warmly for snowball wars.
Even your mistress

Lies alone on her bunk.
A phone rings and she prefers

The silence of a sleeping Paris
To any other sound.

No caressing smiles.
No friends in your doors

Buckling beneath cyclonic
Jets of your just and pure regret.

Engines of lost love.
Tons of swept sidewalk.

Your output box bends on its stem
But cannot break.

Your poisons do not reach you
Now.
You have to live through the seconds
Like a shivering arrow

Still flies to the last moment
Into the arms of its confident

Target, the devout redness of your last death.
You are flying and nothing

Will break your trajectories.
You are flying and your eye

Is poised on the tip of your own living death.
Its sharpness

Ridicules your hopes
Even as your hopes

Spawn a flurry of nightmares.
All this is your body.

You fly and your phenomenal
Cavernous heart

Numbs all your nerves, numbing even the pretty trees
You used to climb up

To see down into the buzzing blossoms of a hidden town.
You see and all sight is numb.

The river glides without grief
Consuming the pleasures of its spring fish

Beneath its warped and humming
Muddy songs.

You fly and see –
A point flying soundless through the cavernous

Cathedral
Toward the red and silent body of your shivering last breath.

Here I am in the palace
Waiting to sing when you pierce the lovely targeted flesh
Of your final silence.
I will sing in the secrecies of your box.

I will revive the thunder.
I will open people’s hearts to an unknown rain.

I will provide the evidence of your life
Stinging like weeping insects in a burnt field.

The flood you leave behind in your death
Will open in my voice a thousand new arrows –

Valleys of exotic parakeets
Where terrapins bathe in the sun, and picnic tables

Sit newly painted near untouched lakes
While pine trees adorn the mountains

Like benevolent knife blades
Waiting to peel the skin off the unsuspecting

Blue-eyed sky
Where you are waiting to see us again –

Your friends and lovers, your parades of lost people
Open and together for an eternal feast.

I will sweep the streets with my voice
Where the bride and groom walk together

And lead in their train
An undying music, a band of immaculate players

Whose pipes and throats
Throw all our children into impossible cartwheels

And we will follow your bright new lovers
Back into the empty cathedral and hear their proclamations

My friend, that we have outlived the steel lesions of late January
And we are in each others’ arms again.

But for now you are flying and alone.
Fly on in your cathedral. Shatter the chest-bone of your target.

Downhome Ecstasy

2009-07-05T09:06:00.001+08:00

Stacey Duff

You got raptured
But you didn’t get away.

The beautiful clouds
Nabbed your ankles

And prevented you
Rising angel

From flirting with
The milder current.

The moment
Turned into a total shit blast.

Then.
You’re gone.

Small Losses

2009-07-05T09:05:00.000+08:00

Stacey Duff

The rain died on Tuesday morning
Just before sunrise.

Now we have infinite light
The pine trees are crackling with thirst.

You spread your legs
Only to find your love

Is a wet-less
Loveable beam

Screaming
For a simple hug –

A drink.
Anything.

The faintest
Sign of moisture

Even dressed as a cheap promise
Will do.

Logic, Music and Shadows

2009-07-05T09:04:00.000+08:00

Stacey Duff

We can’t fully comprehend the logic of the music of the shadows
Bu we suspect it is breathing back there behind us

Arranged in the rows in which it was planted and born –
Not the shadows themselves but their logic.

What Was His Name?

2009-07-05T09:03:00.000+08:00

Stacey Duff

Who was the idiot who just embraced you?
Who turned you all dumb with love?

Why did he
Like the mountains

Shake you like a shaking dove?
What was the name

Of the idiot who held you?
Your blood

Ran like a flood toward the numb
Center of your throat.

Your overcoat
Melted. The whine of cars on the distant

Interstate
Whined away into the pit of his eyes.

I know who you are.
Any idiot can see, my friend

His breath was just like yours.
And just like yours

His own funeral flashes
When he’s napping in the dark sometimes

Like a blade of light slashes
From a perfect untattered afternoon

Searing your cool fig fantasies
Into a purple unloving prune.

Name me his name.
This man

Whose every idiotic step suggests
The rain was born for you

But only for an hour
Before the sun hijacks her wet love and sucks

Her wetness into his bright eternal
Stratospheric belly.

Now
You are just a bunch of sand

Dapped with a stroke of breath
Softened with blood, and varnished to last as long as you can

With a film of portrait
Skin.

The hours you are ignoring will finally
Win.

Over the parking lot you are staring at your heart.
The wind stops

Tragically fast and the flags on the mast
Halt.

The freak who told you to have a nice day
After he put your bags of pork ribs and tater tots

Firmly in the trunk and hugged you because you looked
Dead already

Has disappeared back into the mouth of the super
Market.

The hard blue pavement waits for your wheels to roll
Over its listening body

Back to the home that waits to engulf you
Again like yesterday, you

Whose dreams are teaching you how to live
Dreamless

How not to listen to your waiting moment
A moment that will arrive and leave you naked

Without your eyes ever having known the difference
Between all these colors, whose names you also never

Learned.
Go home.

Cook what you just bought.
Forget about the incident. It was just

A freak hug
In an abandoned corner of the world that no one saw.

And no one will know
This happened

Just as you will never know
The name of the idiot who just

Stretched his arms wide as the blue
Effortless sky above the low hills

And wrapped you for a moment
While you stuttered

And like other pretentious poses
Pretended to fly so high

Even the ice particles of space
Can not penetrate your shell.

I Was Just in the Neighborhood

2009-07-05T09:01:00.000+08:00

Stacey Duff

So I thought I’d stop by –
You got a beer?

The lady
Who sells strawberry jam

Didn’t
Come around my place this morning.

Did she
Come around here?

I Like All These Things About You

2009-06-21T11:32:00.001+08:00

Stacey Duff

I like the way you convert milk cartons
Into signs of eternal regret that lovers still drink.

You take Sunday down to the bar
And all the other days wink

Then wince
At the shadows behind her back.

I like the hair you grow every smacking day –
It’s never as dead as everybody else’s hair.

I like the songs you sing in church
Hiding in the bathroom, raining

Secular pains that even the blue jays
Feel intense about. I like the thong you never wear.

I like all these things that nobody before
Ever opened the door to

So sure and shamelessly pure.
I like all these things about you.

Reuben Called

2009-06-14T10:05:00.003+08:00

Stacey Duff

Reuben called.
Reuben's mom has something to say to you,

Reuben says. His mom says
Reuben's dad is dead.

Reuben's dead dad wrote you a letter,
His mom says

Just before he shot himself
Twice in the mouth.

The letter says
I love you

Even if you say
We were just an accident.

Fuck you, the letter says.
I love you. Then

The letter to you is finally signed:
Yours, Mark.

The letter
Smells like the purple-skinned onions

You use to dice on the family's
Kitchen counter

Where Reuben's dad
Peeled off your panties

And fucked you up the ass
All dizzy with boredom

Among the smell of shaving cream
Honeysuckle and singed starlight.

Mosquitoes go
Twang.

The world is suddenly onion and dick.
Twang.

Reuben called.
Rueben's mom has something to say to you.

Reuben says
She wants you to come over

Just as soon as you finish
Whatever it is you're doing now.

Get Your Terms Straight, Jasmine

2009-06-07T09:29:00.000+08:00

Stacey Duff

Don't collide with people who like to collide.
Collide with people who know

Collisions are best when they come as total
Accidents.

Did you ever collide with anyone you liked?
Probably not.

You embraced them or something.
An embrace is not a collision, is it?

I mean
For most people, an embrace is not an accident.

And we know after last night's dinner
Anything that people call love

Can't be a collision if it doesn't have any
Sly taste of salty accident.

Fuck you, Jasmine
For making me go into this all over again.

Fuck you for making me sweat
Sudden rainbows.

Make no mistake – letting this guy
Take us down to the pier

Was all your idea. You knew
This would happen. You knew

That's what this guy does to people
Who screw up their terms at high speed.

I love you, anyway.
Just don’t

Give me that nasty look of grief you got
Mixed with strains of vengeance and resignation.

We'll be dead in an hour
Anyway. This guy's worked down here for years.

Look at his broad
Tan arms.

His terms are tall, arranged
Tight, in perfect working order.

I've been watching this guy. I know
What he does. I know

Exactly where we’re going, Jasmine.
We're screwed.

I love you but we’re screwed.
And we’re screwed because of you.

Forget rearranging the terms now.
At this point, we’re way beyond terms.

Denny's First

2009-05-31T10:24:00.000+08:00

Stacey Duff

Denny's full of bliss.
He's never seen

A piece of ass before
That reminded him of an actual sky.

He's heard of ass that resembled
TV screens

But this looks like something
You'd see adorning Colorado

Or New Mexico --
It is pure ass

What Denny is seeing
And considering

This is Denny's first
We're throwing a party later

For Denny
And the perfect ass he's seeing now.

You and Your Foreign Parades

2009-05-24T08:03:00.002+08:00

Stacey Duff

You've got the cavity of God in the cavity of your eyes.
You've got storm rose cheeks as you glide down abandoned

Sun-lit streets. You've got rasping dreams
Where cherries donate their skins to the ravenous ants.

The prayer building inside you started as a chirpy snowflake
Everyone expected to melt in the clasped palms of a tender

Nude siesta.
But now your prayer has blossomed into a dark living tumor

Intent as poised
Nitroglycerin, glassy -- alert as the breathless

Lightning.
Whatever your name is

Everyone on our street makes way for you swiftly --
Terrible foreign stranger.

You've got this
Rank cavity

Bulging in your lonely eyes.
Your breath

Emits a sad and imminent rage
Not native to our alley ways, preceded

By all the infinite soft-spoken shadows
Dancing along their fresh and cloudless paths.

Muscadine That Sweet Smell

2009-05-17T09:45:00.000+08:00

Stacey Duff

Someday maybe Tuesday
I'll meet you at that ruby

Sandwich place.
We'll eat

Then go visit the bizarre
Bazaar

You'll buy a pair of new blue tights
For your fiancee Lucy back in Connecticut

And I'll get the cool neon lights
My father always wanted.

Then we'll pitch a tent
By the creek outside the town

Listening to the deer come and eat
All the muscadines that fell down

In the late summer
Early autumn storm

Whose heavenly breath teased the earth
Just the night before we came.

Then Luke the Moroccan
Will land in his inflatable

Jade raft
Just as the blue sky dims

And I ready the fire to fry
All the perch that you have caught

And we three will eat
A catch of delicious fish

Provided free for Luke the Moroccan
You, my friend, and me

And we will listen to the whipoorwhills
Until our bellies are full with fish

And drowsy we lay down
On the soft grass, on the cool

Ground, inside the midnight
Smell of muscadine.

My Silent Reading

2009-05-10T09:45:00.003+08:00

Stacey Duff

My silent reading took me to the house
Where you painted the lawn in light.

People in the neighborhood
Constantly referred to you as the Moth Master.

But I knew you more simply
As the Man of Light.

One winter morning we woke up
And all the water hoses had disappeared.

A fire raged on the mountain above the town
But all the smoke blew toward the sea

So we were basically safe
We assumed.

We had time to discuss the mystery
Of the disappearance of the water hoses.

People bought new ones of course.
The fact of loss no longer applies to our little community.

Loss is non-existent. The fire burns in another direction
Toward a beach where we have relatives

Who never experience the joys of our interior
Just as we never know their coastal ecstasies.

As for myself, I've been wandering between
The inner and the outer and my instincts

Are taking me back to the language of insects
Which may be all wrong, but of course

I'll never know what your real name is
And whether it is better to connect you

Deeply to the broken moths
Or precisely to the healing light.

I'll simply keep moving and wait for you to come to me
Salt on your breath and wind in your heart.

My demons, there are only a few left standing,
Want to see you too. We are all here

While the fire
Burns the mountain down

And the rain suspends her total love
Above an island in the sleeping sea

The Silent Organ

2009-05-03T11:59:00.000+08:00

Stacey Duff

Now that the organ has stopped
The service is clearly over

People have returned home
To eat and take a nap

Leaving us alone
In the wake of the silence

Left by the organ.
You take the front pew

Or hell
If you like sit on the altar.

I think
I'm just going to lie on the carpet awhile

And look at the winged angels
As the shadows from the silver maples

Flicker over their expressionless faces
And rub my left nipple into hardness.

A storm is coming later this afternoon
Meteorologists forecast.

In the wake of the silence
Left by the organ

We
Breathing in our respective places

Can hear the first wind come
Lacing the entire structure like a necklace

Annointing all these emptied rooms
Announcing

That the excitement of the crisp
Autumn air

Is about to be muffled in the arms of the handsome
Rain.

I Can Feel You Rippling

2009-05-03T11:45:00.001+08:00

Stacey Duff

I can feel a peace
Rippling in the shadows

Your first embrace
Nearly left me dead

Before you flew from the willows
With such grace

My tongue
Lubbered like drenched lead.

I jammed in sad onerous things.
The sad things

Rammed me out of home.
I pilgrimmed. I voyaged. I sang

Egg whites blue.
My sperm burst purple puddles of odes.

I even made your lilies
Gray.

But now that May is here
Sending on sporadic breezes

News of you arriving
Alive and fresh in a new city

I can feel your peace
Rippling away my shadows.

I am waiting with the pleasure
Of a leopard ready to leap

Undaunted by any stratospheric
Drop

Down into ravines of eternal fall and fire.
Waiting for your second embrace

To ripple more
Where the ripples did not reach before

Until even the shadows suddenly blessed
Nipple all up to the sun.

Prelude Mysteries

2009-05-03T10:30:00.002+08:00

Stacey Duff

What is a prelude to a kiss?
A prelude, the rain once told me

Cannot be found in certain
Remote parts of Texas.

But bliss is found there instead
Beneath a rare mourning cactus.

A bliss of sorts.
Clearly

What happens in Texas
Is of no use to us here in the velvet East

If just because
We only smell the desert in fragments

Not the whole dear beast
Quivering around us as in

Certain remote parts of Texas.
Besides

I've never completely
Trusted a rain that can sing.

The rain knows
He was made to fall

Not to get operatic about preludes.
So.

What is a prelude to a kiss?
The oven cooled, the lotus breathed

And mist started
Rising over the grass.

You lay naked in your tent
Dreaming of a school of Cuban goldfish.

Then you turned and the fish
Had become a grove of oranges

Whose only attendant
Liked to walk among his late afternoon grove

Listening for the ecstasy of quail
Their whistling wings

Spurting to the hillsides as the attendant
Walks past them

Toward the hillside where the sun
Is slanting his late afternoon beams

In mild late afternoon streams.
Still

This man and his orange grove
Are only a fantasy far removed.

You are only naked
Rustling a little in your tent

While the mist
Rises and evaporates

Sadly over the warming grass
Beyond your immaculate ass.

The mist
Is the only form of sadness

That rises rather than falls
Not like the downward trajectories of our recurring

Drowning, droning human tears.
So.

We must say the mist is a breathing creamy peacock
Shimmering with sad elation.

Elated that you are naked in your tent.
Saddened because the mist has a clear-sighted

Deep-seated
Premonition

That by the time you wake
From your dreams of the calm man in the orange grove

And wash your face in the rippling creek
The mist will have completely evaporated into the sun

And you will have missed
The chance to caress your body

In the languid singing caresses of her rising sadness.
She was here for you all morning

As a simple prelude to the day
The atmospheric tissue between

Opal midnight and turquoise
Noon

A dream of sorts between the oranges you love
And you

Who are miles from any desert or grove
And me.

Sometimes when I am on the bus
I too have a fantasy of oranges.

But I do not feel my fantasies clearly enough
To know

Whether I am the man walking in your private groves
Or a quail startled in flight by the sound of your

Sudden footfalls.
Whether I am man or bird

All I know is that in my fantasy
Fear taught me how to fly

And love taught me how to land.
The entire arc of my coming to you

Is still a mystery
And I am bound in this temporary freedom

To turn my compass away from any future
Promised bliss

And soar or stumble to the heart of our eternal matter:
What is a prelude to a kiss?

38 Kinds of Blue

2009-05-03T10:20:00.002+08:00

Stacey Duff

Look
You've changed me into 38

Different kinds of blue.
You walked into the room

And spread my mind
Across the spectrum

Like candy blue ice cream
Across a red hot skillet.

Suddenly I'm like a rare form
Of virgin blue butter

As you spread me on the freshest
Roll.

Your first word is pure heat.
Thank God you're only talking.

If you started to sing or something
You might

Convert my lonely Catholic eyes
Into two California blueberries

Fresh and sweet as blue
Doves whose blue backs are blue

Because the morning they fly in
Is immanently swimming in blue

Blue as a resurrected Cimabue
Madonna!

And the sky is blue made beautiful flesh!
Hombres e damas!

The flesh
Is not void!

What deceitful bastard
Told you that sorry alabaster lie?

The flesh
Is true and my flesh

Is suddenly all blue with you all day
Like a new blue ten-speed bicycle

Dashing around the curvaceous
Mediterranean blue of Southern Spain

With so much blue-eyed
Speed (speed like some forms of unexpected love

Always
Arrives as bolts of lightning blue)

The inevitable accident is bound to happen
The moment you least expect it.

Blue was made vulnerable by nature.
Not even Zeus can control the fate of colors

Especially
This Beijing morning blue.

Your departure
Full stop

Left my spine
A glaring rod of midnight orange!

Every true man
Is a fool for blue.

I am blown
Of all my blue

Now that your going
Grew to such irrevocable

Slabs of ice
Every blue moment is finally gone.

Maybe
Somewhere deep below the arctic tundra

Blue still sleeps and dreams of you
Sleeping in the hibernating heart

Of a great compassionate
Mastodon.

Along with other forgotten things
That no one has time to recover anymore

Except once in a blue moon
When they bump into you

And collapse
Before they know it all over

All over with you.
All over with blue.

Your Last Excursion into May

2009-05-03T10:10:00.000+08:00

Stacey Duff

I'm so excited you came in today
Riding a bony horse

But it's a pretty green horse
Strong with blue despite

Its pale boniness
Under the chest.

You are an immaculate rider
Even if the animal is miserable.

You ride and time goes
Ooomph!

You ride and I go
Silly with air and verve and wave.

Keep riding the damn
Beast

Until he dies
Crossing a river that glows like pure silver

And you have to swim on your own
Or drown alone in your newly liberated fat

Soul.
There in the silver waters with the horse

Whose life
Could not carry you to the other side

Sing as you go down
Your ankles

Helplessly
Tripped and tangled in May's

Immaculate
Nets of eternal thrust.

Let May bruise you to the bottom
Where the sun always shines

Ton after ton after ton
Of fucking May shine.

Let gracious May blow its shine
Deep inside your microscopic quarters.

Then send me a letter
Cloaked in gossamer thrill

When I am alive but wounded with sheer
Winter

Tell me you hit bottom baby
And the bottom is perfect light

Tell me that the bruises of December
Will pass like the final cavern's

Nocturnal echos
Nocturnal glistening sting.

Send me a letter from the bottom of immaculate May
Now that my blood is thorned thru with true night!

Epitaph

2009-05-03T10:05:00.000+08:00

Stacey Duff

No breakfast today for the master.
He's down in the copper mines.

Tuesday's New Plan

2009-05-03T10:00:00.002+08:00

Stacey Duff

The mechanical lubbering of the winter boys.
Steel screws you.

The air is not so bad as a closed door.
Breathing opens you out into the yard.

The mountains are still moist.
You going to them lets them come into you.

Sheila called.
The note she left

Smells like a river.
Later

She plans to pick you up in her Mini Cooper
And you two will pick berries near the Temple of the Sun.

The Arkansas School

2009-05-03T09:55:00.002+08:00

Stacey Duff

The Arkansas school was a cool
Mix

Of peach tits, driftwood
Lightning and diamonds.

Mothers and hicks
Were silenced in the final revision

Leaving instead
Hawks shaved and thorned.

The Arkansas school
Prevailed in the final hour.

The well water was blessed
Like never before

As grandma
Rose from the dead

Her hem
Swaying against the valley's eager easter lilies.

But ultimately
By command of the fertility maker

No eggs
Were laid in the virgin alfalfa grass.

Only crystal and sun-on-oak
And your glistening ass

Showed as clear in the last photo
As a hill mowed on Saturday afternoon

Suddenly cleared of implements and people
Shines all Sunday long.

A Slice of Unnoticed Earth

2009-05-03T09:45:00.010+08:00

Stacey Duff

Somewhere in Oklahoma a slice of crisp
Embankment

Sits squat in the late afternoon
Sun, while

The interstate flows
Languid and pure -- flashing

The mechanical ghosts of its captors.
Tonight

When people are sleeping and the traffic
Slows

The solitary slice
Will spread beside the lanes.

Only a lonely trucker will take note
As a wild turkey at dawn

Saunters across the grass
Into the blue woodline singing

Quietness
Into the passing cirrus clouds

Before disappearing with exhausted
Night

Hushed
Deep into the last star.

But the embankment will remember
All day

All the trucker's embedded
Whiskey-scented

Scars
And the unheard secret of the turkey's

Magically tender
Feet.

After You Step Out of the Shower On May Day Night

2009-05-03T09:45:00.009+08:00

Stacey Duff

There's only one thing better
Than Dove on your pussy:

Bach
Quivering around your mountain playground

Until the lonely pines
Tease the sky down some.

Then the panther
Leaps into the hour-glass

Just before
All your spiders die in the rain

Leaving
Stains of blue autumn bliss.

This
Is the only trace you have left of me.

I Am the Infidel

2009-05-03T08:59:00.003+08:00

Stacey Duff

I am the infidel
I am the hobo

I ride a wild boar
Piercing the halos of the shopping mall

I am a blackberry
I am a slab of discarded lumber

I am someone's
Mother Fantasy

My name is not Jonathan or Erica
I am not an apple or a bomb shelter

I am not an airstrip at night in Finland
And I am certainly not your ornamental

Japanese
Pear

Remarkably somehow
I never made love in a pizzeria in New York

Beneath the cries of a ragtime band
As the wet parade marched on the morning of the Feast of the Virgin

And finally
I've never desired to sodomize Mars

Or exorcise his pretty pearly bangs
Until he blew poetry as it pleased me

But my love
I promise you this

Just as sure
As the mountains beyond the China Aluminum building

Heave their bare
Natural wood

Toward a dripping unguent sky
Buzzing us like the bees of a new melon pink:

I am
The hobo

I am
The infidel

I am riding the boar and our shimmering shadows
Are piercing the halos

And we are not
Shoppers

We are not floating to a thing that is about to possess
Us

Our Waiter

2009-05-03T08:52:00.003+08:00

Stacey Duff

Our waiter is a former pro Wrestler
Whose steroids

Sadly have worn off and he is lovely plump
But --

I think his secret
Ambitions to become the Antichrist

May pan out after all and hey
If they don't

He's still got a nice balcony overlooking the Botanical Gardens
And he'll aways be an expert

On exotic
Southern carp.

A Prayer to the Heat Maker

2009-05-03T07:30:00.001+08:00

Stacey Duff

The way you press your mouth
Against the cavity of the rain

Stains the doves.
This morning you rose out of the south

West
Beyond the sloping river

Where barges sink into the haze.
Guiding spirit

Why don't you ever come around anymore?
We can't feel you in our blood

The same way.
Today the sky blankets us

And you feel so far
As to seem a practical dream.

Do you dream of us too
Or is dreaming only a human game?

My heart does not have a roof
And I no longer know

How to interpret the view
Now that you are absent.

Without you, I guess I still see
But honestly I've never felt this blind --

Low visibility gives muffled birth
To a city where bodies

Cannot enjoy the warmth of their own shadows
Because everyone is shadowed over

Until our blood takes on the inarticulate
Sourness of one united dusk.

When you come back, I hope you stay longer.
The vacuum you left us with is devouring

Our initial love, and our embraces
Are unimaginable without your blessing.

Unicorn

2009-05-03T07:00:00.001+08:00

Stacey Duff

The day Jesus fucked a unicorn
You came home mildly torn.

Warm fronts built over Oklahoma --
We knew about the tribute.

The world
Shadowed its doubt

But you kept secretly naked
Armed in your new jacket.

An accidental plane shattered against the reeds
The day Jesus fucked a unicorn.

May Day

2009-05-03T06:00:00.001+08:00

Stacey Duff

This morning's angel is capable of infinite
Depth.

How are you still standing there?
Doesn't that scare you?

That the annihilation hour
Has been beating in your heart the whole time?

Message to Io

2009-05-03T05:30:00.000+08:00

Stacey Duff

Don't spread your legs
Before any handsome

Low hanging
Clouds --

I don't care
How wet you get.

A Shift in the Rebellion

2009-04-26T09:50:00.003+08:00

Stacey Duff

When you walked in
We felt a shift in the rebellion.

The room fell -- in silence -- flat as silver.
The rebels collapsed

As if they learned from the sparrows
The final pain of their concentrated resistance.

The rebels collapsed but then they began
Dreaming. They dreamed

You were in the room
Watching them sleep.

They dreamed their pale faces
Fluttered before you like lotuses

Glowing in the swamp.
When you came in

We felt a definite
Shift in the rebellion.

A Message from the Sun

2009-04-26T09:02:00.007+08:00

Stacey Duff

Playing inside the baseball
Diamond

You love the senses with unexpected
Gravity

Sophistication
Comes later of its own sweet purring

The first scent of cherry blossom pink
Unfolds: death hoppers

Pounce on the silk
Horizon line

Giving birth again
Always wears a new hat

The gathering storm
Parades its flashes of lightning deep in the throat of the west

Fluffing up its engines of unnamable varieties of blue
Devoutly hiding its centre where all the power resides

Where the rain
Emanates like an invisible rod

The gathering storm
Sends a shout

Out to your other
Lover

Who is you now
Who is you made new

Welcome
Whispers the storm maker

Where your name lives
Like the quivering flesh of a flashing light shaft

Be whole
Now that your blood has shattered like rain on the rocks

Embrace love
Now that hatred has stolen innumerable hours

Dress well
Since poverty doesn't matter in a wall of clouds

Take a shower
Knowing that the filth of all your sorrows has been washed off

Like the grasses of a scorched field
Are relieved in the late

August rain of their natural
But abysmal days of pain

Even in the lightning and the flood
Even in the orgy and the roar

Your central lotus
Is planted in the creek

And only recognizes the storm
As a mild breeze

Either cool or warm
The petals of your flesh

Are excited to life
And flutter in the air

But at your core
Where the stem serenely

Penetrates the water
You close your eye in

So that you can finally drink
And dream of your last eventual

Mountain
Still visible in the field where you play

Like a boy
Building cities out of kindling

Listening as you inhale the cadmium
Shadows that swim under the oaks

Carrying the message of the eternal sun
Who holds you

Make Sure You Go to the Party

2009-04-19T12:23:00.004+08:00

Stacey Duff

According to an ancient ritual
You must allow these people to throw you

A banquet. The system says
Eat here.

Be my friend. Otherwise
You will eat alone

Or not eat at all.
Listen to the music

We play for you
Or be exquisitely

Silenced.
Word games like the kind

You're playing now
Only provide a false room for you to hide in.

Most normal people -- and for your information
Most people are beautifully sacred and normal --

Live in the recognition
That life deserves a good party.

Life
Deserves other people by your side.

Otherwise -- and not to mention
All the crap about personality disorders --

You will not have known their presence.
Their shadows will have doubled

Because you did not listen. You did not let anyone
Sing to you in the flesh

Or allow them to dance with you in the dusk.
You will have completely missed the light

Flashing on the wings of dancing
Dragonflies

Until they disperse
And pour into you

The divine and sparkling
Rarity of their own bluish pain.

Purring in the Wrapping

2009-04-19T09:45:00.063+08:00

Stacey Duff

Forgive me.
I didn't mean to talk about your poisonous pussy at church.

But something had to be said.
You can only get Jesus points into the third quarter

Then the referees must be alerted.
This is not a quiz show. This is an abundant

Game of hard living we have in this town.
Forgive me.

I know people will frown on me for the damage
I have done. Also

I squander my time in portions
So super sized

Even the sparrows flinch.
My heart

Has no less poison than your pussy.
But then again

I loved you. You loved pain.
You only pretended to dance with fresh

Spring.
You were an autumn soldier all along.

Forgive me.
Rodney was playing the organ.

The choir had suited up in their white and maroon
Robes. Mrs Edwards

Was still wearing a patch over her eye
From cataract surgery gone wrong.

Lily our pony
Brayed sadly in the pasture next door. She

Could smell potluck on the way and knew again
She wasn't in on the fun. That's when I said it.

I said it deep into the mike.
I said it so deep even I

Was slaughtered by the surity and quickness
Of my words: Charlotte

I said to everyone
Charlotte's pussy is totally poisonous.

You see
We all have these moments when we know

The names of stars and the degree with which
Frost enters the altitude of a rooftop.

We all have these moments when we know
The secret

But we do not know whether it is best to unleash
Our knowledge of the opening of the secret

Or let it purr inside the wrapping it longs so tremendously
To tear of its own volition.

This dear
Was only one of those moments and I am not sure

I did the right thing. Probably
I should have waited for the Night Service

But the morning felt so pure and after all
You were there and so were we.

Please.
Forgive me.

Let's just treat this as a case
Where both the victim and the thief

Were caught because not even the jury
Knew which was which.

Dawn broke.
The silence remained like a sky whose orangeness

Flickered with sensations of rain and steel.
Love

Wants to burst into the naked
Hill beyond the barbed-wire fence and the cool

River. I am on this side. You are on that.
Never the two will meet

But we send our sheep guided by a shepherd
Between this shore and that shore. Back and forth

We smell each other's devices
In the diseases they carry in their stained wool.

Forgive me.
I loved you and I didn't love you.

You were always real and I never treated
You with the reality you demanded

Until the last moment came
And I swerved into it like an angry Buick.

Listen.
The crickets are chirping. They are drunk again.

They are drunk again with chirping and the soft
Whoosh

Of blackberries ripening in August.
We fuck like a drum. We sleep like a lamb.

The river is rustling. Night chills the skin.
I can barely see your silhouette

Gathering drift
Wood on the other side

As we enter the darkness together
In our sweet and separate ways.

What Donna Wants

2009-04-19T09:45:00.062+08:00

Stacey Duff

Donna want to shut my brain
Off for a few minutes

Then fuck me in the shower.
You can smell winter

Just beyond the windowsill.
The waterheater is popping.

This
Is exactly what winter smells like:

A skunk takes refuge again
Under the neighbor's house.

You can smell it
All the way over here.

Religiously Seductive, Casually Tight

2009-04-19T09:45:00.059+08:00

Stacey Duff

You can't take time to whisper
When the morning

Arrives to blister
Your infants of the new day.

No one expected their mystically
Silver lives to be

Cut so short with
Such breathless suddenness

Like the bottom of a bag of nails broke all at once
And you barely had time to yell

Hell!
Hell!
Hell!

Spring is Back

2009-04-19T09:45:00.058+08:00

Stacey Duff

People are not wearing long underwear
Anymore.

You can admire the shapes of their beautiful asses.
Spring is finally back.

Winter is dead
And the long dry blistering heat of summer

Is only barely
Poking his shameful head on the southeast horizon like

A confused and lonely seagull
Not the naked forceful serpent he will grow to become

Drawing hot breath, relentless tongue
And infinite avenues of righteous scorch.

No. Now you can say yes and actually
Believe it. The news

Babe is true:
Spring is finally back.

The sky is blushing
Nine shades of blue, eight shades for you

And one more for the moment
You are about to become.

Nasty Men

2009-04-19T09:45:00.055+08:00

Stacey Duff

Nasty men drive to the beach
Like the beach was a wet towel

Waiting to happen.
Are you a nasty man?

Nasty men have two faces
That they cultivate like the ass

Cheeks of a skanky Dalmation.
Well.

So are you?
Nasty men rebuild Plymouths and get

Root canals at dentists who rail
Against peanut butter and coke.

So, hey stud.
Are you really nasty?

The Danish Traveler

2009-04-19T09:45:00.053+08:00

Stacey Duff

I am a Danish traveler.
My body is broken on the rocks

Of an unnamed body.
I am a Danish traveler.

My thighs are beautiful as the sand.
My dying song

Sounds like the terrible rocks.
I miss my wife and son.

I am a Danish traveler. I am
A Danish dying man.

In the distance I think I see
The snowless hills of Mexico.

They are waiting for me to meet you
So we can eat sugar cane on the patio

Watching the lizards break their tails
Playfully but totally afraid

Only to scurry away into the glowing
Edge of the forest. Always Danish, I am

Still your traveler. I keep
My compass clean, my needle precise. I am

Locked onto your sweet living
Angle.

I am
On my way to the table

You have prepared as promised
On the patio

Below the snowless
Peaks of Mexico.

This Morning You're Not Here

2009-04-19T09:45:00.052+08:00

Stacey Duff

You went somewhere
Without telling us.

I'm at breakfast:
A chocolate sundae and a black

Coffee
Down on the corner of a streetlight

And a bright
Silver Tuesday

Whose sky tastes like the bottom of a newly
Scoured pot.

But we're still okay here. I only
Got that feeling like

I just dropped you
Off at Terminal 2

And now
All I have to do is decide

Whether to catch a cab
Or take the light

Rail
Back into the Second Ring.

I Feel Lucky

2009-04-19T09:45:00.051+08:00

Stacey Duff

I feel so lucky today
Lucky as the wistaria in late spring

Lucky
As a clean pig at the sudden

Brink of a continent of fresh mud
To roll all my fat Tuesday sorrows in

Thud after pound of thud in the vast
Continental expanse of mud.

I feel lucky as the lithe
Ballerina's

Broken-in shoes
Just before her Monday morning warm-up.

I feel
Lucky as the first lighting bolt

To strike an unsuspecting grasshopper's green
Rain-soused back

As he flies towards love in a naked field.
Lucky

As the sea
The day you battered the first batch of buns

I ever baked by the lovely
Lonely body of the April bay.

Babe
I feel lucky.

I feel
Lucky as a bloodhound

On the scent of a rabbit a fox and a deer
All flying in separate directions I am

Flying in all directions at once to you
And I feel

Shattered
Confused and eternally lucky.

Jeremy and Dolores

2009-04-19T09:45:00.050+08:00

Stacey Duff

Jeremy took some cream out of the pot --
Dolores was in love.

This was her first time in the Rockies.
Frankly

Dolores had never even been to a real cabin before.
She told Jeremy so much.

Jeremy felt jittery at this confession.
His hands really shaked

As he delivered the fresh cream
Onto Dolores' shiny new plate.

Welcome to 2010

2009-04-19T09:45:00.049+08:00

Stacey Duff

2010, I don't even know you yet.
You could be a dead grandfather

For all I know
Or one long over-extended

Weasel, malicious and green.
But a friend of a friend

Told me I should contact you ahead of time.
She said boldly --

Give him a call. He'd
Love to hear from you!

Now that I have called
Having another early breakfast with 2009

I'm not sure what to say.
I feel so uneasy that I may actually be

Betraying
My current year.

So.
Let me keep my voice

A little more
Down.

I just wanted to let you know
Out of some human need to call first

And plan this thing ahead of time
Since my moments are born like

Unplanned angels
I never believed I'd meet but

Then I round the corner
Store and --

What do you know -- there
They are

Smoking and joking
Or doing cartwheels on the sidewalk

Flying away the moment
They perform their mystical calisthenics

Breathing into the pavement
The way only vapor can, so unconcerned

Now that they know I have seen them
Do their sweet time thing so lovingly.

Anyway.
All I wanted to say is

It's all good. All I really wanted
To say was I'm still on the way

And if you plan to be there
Be sure to wear a perfect suit

Because you never know
Do you

Whether someone from the future
Might be taking pictures.

The Harp People

2009-04-19T09:45:00.048+08:00

Stacey Duff

Larry flew in from the Blue Coast
Just to hear the Harp People

Blow in the spring. No one
Minded the filth of the pigs.

Not with the constant breeze --
And the music was so divine

Marcia said, sincerely, I've
Entirely forgotten death.

Me too, I replied.
Now that the Harp People are here in spring

All I think about is Mexico -- I paused --
And your mother.

What, asked Marcia, surprised.
Seriously, I said, I really

Think this thing is going to finally
Happen.

A New Terror of Beijing Machines

2009-04-19T09:45:00.047+08:00

Stacey Duff

Your eyes remind me of the sweet
Terror of heavy machines

Digging a cavity three stories deep
Behind my apartment at night.

The machines rattle the dust
Until the stars are unknowable.

They pound and scoop.
Scoop after scoop they scrape away

The cream of all of my midnight dances.
I used to at least have surface dreams.

But then you saw into me --
A brief look that delayed the long dawn

And beyond the light of the workday
You shoveled out

All the words I used to say
Leaving behind

Broken shards of vowels I'll never reclaim.
Then it happened.

I woke up one morning
And my entire love was blasted.

The Exotic Night

2009-04-19T09:45:00.046+08:00

Stacey Duff

The exotic night you planted a canister in the sea
We sat on the beach eating shishkebobs in lawn chairs.

The ocean blew. Places as far as Hungary felt the waves.
What could we do except mourn in the carnage of your love.

On noon the next day, four young men resembling cavaliers
Handsome on their horses

Arrived to take you away in cuffs to the monastery, explaining
You had broken all the rules and now you had to pay dear.

Only now are we beginning to see how you begged for clearer
Vision, the exotic night you planted a canister in the sea.

Now only
Am I able to understand how the gap of your oceanic explosions

Was innocuous in its viscous sweet poison. We knew your intrusions
Would ripen.

We knew your ripening would invade our hearts like lesions.
You were the last one to say I love you and mean it with full

Velocity.
Now I have returned to the city where we first met and embraced.

The streets are like wires. A current passes through the houses
Invisibly.

I am writing to you because you are all I know of words
Even if your body has completely vanished like fog on a hot bay.

Say Your Name Again

2009-04-19T09:45:00.045+08:00

Stacey Duff

You have an awesome sobriquet
Your sobriquet bleeds

You
All through the morning air

When I speak it
I

Am also
Charged to death -- lightning

Splitting a sleeping ant on a narrow
Splinter

Your sobriquet
Pumps the summer back into winter

And the deepest ice
Eternally sweats

Because of you
Because of your sobriquet

Accidental Companion

2009-04-19T09:45:00.042+08:00

Stacey Duff

I found you on a southern train
Floating grey with pink despair

Buzzing on the morning rain
Hammered in your underwear

Every city you ever passed
Changed a different sky

Every lover you unmasked
Revealed a colder passer-by

Your destination's still a shadow
Gleaming on your southern coast

Your final station keeps the shallow
Waters you love most.

But now you can be a ghost, my friend
Relax and be my ghost.

Look at the Flip Side

2009-04-19T09:45:00.039+08:00

Stacey Duff

Crying in the shower
Beats bleeding in the rain.

You leaving
Beats a bad hurricane

Even
If only slightly.

The first dead ducks
Lined at your door

Are no less perfumed than tomorrow's
Wounded whores of seconds.

Thirds will arrive as long hours
Silent as tanks

But no less perfumed
Child.

Perfumed tanks easily tease into
Fourths: venemous days

Slithering blissfully
Around your ankles like an an ancient

Puttering
Herd of copperheads.

Crying in the shower
Beats bleeding in the rain.

You leaving
Storms all over me.

I believe in your storms now
As I believe in your eyes.

Look at me, departing lover.
I believe in the flip side.

Spring Practice

2009-04-19T09:45:00.038+08:00

Stacey Duff

Burning daylight as Ronnie Funderburg
Used to say and I was hanging out in center

Field
When the sun dropped over the pines

West of us and your balls
Shrank in the chill.

Baseball teams don't have cheer
Leaders

So when it gets dark all you do is pack up
Hop in the truck and go home.

Or take Carl's cadillac to Lutherville
Listening to AC/DC swell like Big Piney

Smelling the clay on the slope of that crumbling
Mountain

Tart
As yesterday's Altus wine.

Then the stars come and gag
What's left of daylight. A half-bad half-

Sad whipoorwill
Shakes you all night long.

Then all you can do
Is wake up again with a little hang over

And a smaller
Eternity to play with.

In Memoriam

2009-04-12T09:00:00.000+08:00

Ian Sherman (1972-2009)

Personally
As long as the androgynous

Machine voice
Chirps at me:

Thank you for taking
Beijing taxi

As I leave
The vehicle

I
Will remain satisfied.

--Time Out Beijing
--Februrary 2008

Letter to a Young Mariachi

2009-04-05T09:18:00.007+08:00

Stacey Duff

This city used to have candy.
Now it has mud.

The mud is now the only
Candy we get.

This city used to rain
Real rain.

Now it rains mud.
Silver mud. Green mud. Mud mud.

Mud, kid
Is our new and only candy.

This city has mud minds.
Mud faces. Mud tongues.

You round the corner and the doves
Shamelessly fart mud.

Mud fuckers
Fuck in the city's mud clubs.

This city used to boast
Dawn mariachis, autumn boats

Gliding down the emerald canals
Toward the lake where bedouins

Just passing through to the desert
Would bed down or have a picnic.

Even the cockroaches
Fell in love and serenaded

Stars that felt actual pain.
Now the people are all mud bugs.

Bugged and bugging, they scurry out of the subway
Toward the Central

Business
District.

The CBD is shining half burnt
Mud.

Hey kid.
Did you let the lady downstairs

Shine your shoes today?
When are you going to take a walk

Through the Lotuses of Nowhere?
Will you remain anonymous

Suited away in your own
Secret route

On foot
When morning lands on the pavement?

Do you still love walking
Nowhere?

Wasn't that the original movement
Whose indefinable freedom

Shattered the masses that twitter?
Melted the totalitarian ice cream

They feed you that splatters
Your book of faces?

Do you still forget to pay the electric bill
Until the meter runs out

Deep in the night and there you are
Searching for a candle in your underwear

While your dogs sleep in rivers of pure dark
And pure dark

Shadows your skin, preparing your heart
For the city's coming light?

Or are you always typing, twittering, chatting
Always flying

Never letting go?
Always moving

Always talking in prose
Never letting go

Of all the city's
Inevitable mud.

You've got instant mud now
From all the neurotic cities of the trembling world.

Where will you be at dawn
My crying mariachi?

Will you be hungover with mud?
Lace your shoes, kid.

Don't even take a fucking shower.
Strap your hopes to your beautiful back

Like a five-string guitar
And let your voice sing

For the broken string
As you enter the street

Or if your instrument is entirely
Shattered or the infinite

Explosions of last night's
Finite dreams

Have axed away your playing hand
Then walk through the city where

The Lotuses of Nowhere bloom
And you have room to breathe.

Swing and walk. Walk and sing.
If I see you, I will sing with you.

Or if I am blind -- made
Sightless by all the things

I continually see, and I can't
Recognize the presence of a real mariachi

Then sing for me, give me
The visions I can no longer see.

Do not die, my handsome mariachi.
You're all I got now --

Excavate me from this cold
Spring of mud and passionless twittering --

Birds who cannot find
The nature of their own song

Who are powerless to seduce the summer
Trapped in perpetual monochrome

Silent and violent
Toward the Lotuses of Nowhere.

This city
Still blossoms beneath its enamel of mud.

This city
Still blossoms beneath its tonnages of mud.

This city
Still blossoms beneath the aching weight

It bears from mud and steel and exhaust and blood.
This city

Has a body that is already secretly
Waiting for you in the morning.

All you have to do is walk
Around its curves, find its unexpected

Corners, and its predawn blocks
Will chase after the movement of your feet.

So get some rest.
The dark is not all bad, kid.

It just burns in an opposite
Direction

Because its love for your song
Is equaled only by the confusion

Made
By the thought of your coming eternal silence.

Don't be silent at dawn
My young mariachi!

Sleep now in a kinder darkness
But in the morning

You will sing to the city
Because you move through its body

Finding
Your natural song, which can only be

The city's private desire.
And you will sing for me

Because I will also be walking
Out in the early light

Walking
Only to hear you.

I want you to sing and for your voice
To embrace me

Exactly like the sky
Embaces the rain

Even as the rain
Flies from the sky.

I want to hear you
Playing your guitar

Among the Lotuses of Nowhere
Because only you, my last

Young mariachi
Have nowhere to go.

So sing in the pleasures of your natural heart.
Sing in the pleasures of our city.

This city
That used to have candy.

April's Last Fools

2009-04-05T08:36:00.004+08:00

Stacey Duff

What's the difference between shape and form?
Only because you're not the norm

I'm not sure whether to love you
Or let you just stir me

Up in the sky's metallic
Blue wok of morning.

I know a city close to you
Whose seven quiet hills

Are trying to breathe like you.
I know a city, an eternal

New place, where the lightning
Never pounds you

But only brushes against your face
Until the mariachi band

Awakes in the sparkling plaza
Singing to the flashing dark

What the dark
Never even knew it kept

Deep in the rippling
Moment of its own summery flesh.

This is the last place
We could actually fall in love

In the city I know still close to you
Whose seven quiet hills

Are trying
Are trying to breathing like you.

Anonymous Benches, Anonymous Parks

2009-04-05T08:04:00.005+08:00

Stacey Duff

I am not shy as the frost
And I am not the frost

I barely remember what the first
Frost looked like

But remember its muffled cry
Enough

To know that it probably
Didn't fall

Just to have you crunch it
Deep into the ground.

The frost probably only wanted to melt away
The way unemployed people

And retired people do
On anonymous benches in anonymous parks

Until the late morning sun
(Who never lets us melt

Completely into the earth's cool skin without
The unique reluctance of his solar embrace)

Picks them up into the atmosphere
And they float off somewhere

As if they have just
Evaporated into the miraculous light of lunch.

And maybe if they are lucky
Someone who shares with them

A love for anonymous
Benches, anonymous parks

Is floating in the same direction
As shy and affectionate as last

Night's
Ecstatic frost.

Stay Away He's Having a Seizure

2009-04-05T08:00:00.003+08:00

Stacey Duff

I am alive different this time
Sweeping the waters I am alive

Call me
I've got you an offer

I'm in the office and I'm alive
It's different this time.

The breath is different
The breath is burning and alive.

That Kid

2009-04-05T07:53:00.002+08:00

Stacey Duff

That kid's got staying power
Look at his hair.

Does anyone you know
Have hair like that?

No.
That kid

Is not only
Not from around here --

He's probably not from around there
Either.

Look!
All I'm saying is

Watch out.
There's just

Something really beautiful
About that new kid

And whatever it is
He's got that we don't

Got
It looks

Like it's blowing through his hair right
Now!

Somebody's Ruining the Little Things

2009-04-05T07:44:00.005+08:00

Stacey Duff

The guy next to me in the stall at KFC
I s either A)

Teaching his kid how to take a pee
Or B)

Rambling to himself
Or C)

Talking to a colleague at work on his cell
And now

I'm really sure it's (C)
Because nothing of what he's saying

Makes any sense
I'm serious here I mean

It's not pedagogical stuff or pee talk
And it's not the kind of things

Normal people used to say to themselves
When they were taking a shit like

I wonder what color the sky is
Today in Montana?

No.
This guy

Is saying some really practical things
And ruining our whole experience.

Look What You Did Whoever You Are

2009-04-05T07:23:00.005+08:00

Stacey Duff

I smell the
Coffee on your breath and

Before even
Spinning to see who you

Are
I turn into a night of torrential rain

I can't help it now I really
Want to know.

Can We Change the Topic?

2009-04-05T07:07:00.004+08:00

Stacey Duff

I'm not saying that particular mushroom looks
Like a penis.

I'm saying the thought only
Probably crossed the mushroom's mind

When it was growing up on the forest floor.
I can imagine the deer really got off

Smiling at what the mushroom only
Suspected it might be

Were it not a mushroom in the wild.
See.

This is the only reason
We are thinking it now. The mushroom

Thought it first.
Not us.

Then later the mushroom
Decided it was not actually a penis

But only resembled one.
Then the deer I'm sure

Totally agreed.
So did we.

So do we now at this lunch we're having
On the fifth floor of the shopping mall.

Unless --
I don't know.

Did I misunderstand something you said
Somewhere?

Morning Report

2009-03-29T09:12:00.008+08:00

Stacey Duff

If only you were a dolphin or a whale
We could take the news of your death

Less seriously
Like everything else that happens in the holy

Secrecy of the sea.
A crab runs up on the beach

As if to say:
Listen people

I was lucky enough to get away
But there's a guy in there!

The adrenaline of being alive
But just barely

Carries his burnt orange
Body

Over the sand
Like a liberated bronco

Not the half-mute
Crustacean he really is. But then

We look out at the glowing
Privacy of the copper green waters

That lean into us like an exotic
Island we always wanted to inhabit.

We see the mirage of your life
As if it were still with us

Lapping up the waves of the air
And the otherwise solitary

Aching
Sun.

Your skin doesn't remind us of salt
Or sailors. Your closed lids don't recall

Anything sad.
Nothing watery.

They're just
Shut as far as I can tell. Still

As your lips. Inscrutable as the last
Mountain

Oscillating in waves of dusk and day
On the purple warbling horizon.

You gave us an ocean of spontaneous
Silence.

Surprise
Like an unplanned pregnancy.

Don't you remember the way
You lingered by the barbed wire fence

While everyone else
Stayed inside to watch the Sound of Music?

Saturday afternoon
Seemed to last a thousand bloodless years

While you played under the oaks
Behind the house

Risking poison vines
Just to find a few arrowheads and ferns.

That
Was you. That was you when you liked to play

Free
Unadorned by anything but the oncoming

Sweet
Line of warm fronts from the west, the breaking

Weather
Blowing in over your neck and your eternally

Spinning
Fantasies. Spinning

You.
Spinning you

Like the earth just tossed
You a new pair of secondhand shoes

Shouting Hey
Kid

See if these
Fit.

Hey Frank

2009-03-29T07:34:00.002+08:00

Stacey Duff

I just got fucked by yaks
Again

It's not even Easter yet
But I could use a wet

Resurrection
Something to soften the prospect --

Now that Sunday dawn
Spreads like propaganda for the disapproving

Universe -- of my death
Fragrant as a torn

Orchid
Still blooming in the sad cool of love's laborious

Silver-bellied
Sky:

I am beached, brother
But the silence is breaking like a promised wave

Albino

2009-03-22T11:51:00.006+08:00

Stacey Duff

Dear
Peter Paul:

Who's gonna paint the albino kid
Stuck in the beat-up house

While the drunks
And the satyrs and the sluts

Dance and roll around
Out in the spring of Spanish Flanders?

The albino kid
Stuck in that room whose mouth

Thanks to a door
Ripped on the second floor

Gapes wide
Receiving the breath of your Flemish caresses?

Who'll paint the albino freak
Singing in a broken key

His beautiful gypsy twisted toothless smile
Kissing the musty air of the decayed interior

His clammy flesh
His cock half hard

What we in the future
Call a candy fatty

While his eyes focus on a cheap
Dejected ballerina what-not knock-off

Crafted
In the Chinese fashion

The breeze and the boisterous revelers
Filter in from the yard

What is his song, who will
Paint this little fucker

My gracious Peter Paul
Who will capture his pathetic

Rhythm in the pale sepia indoor light
His torso occasionally

Jerking like
A slab of living veal

Peter Paul
Come back to us and let us

See the interior
Silent for centuries

Let the interior reveal breath
Breathe its unknown half-conscious

Boy. Come back
Now and shower off

Enter the house and make
Your new studio

Before time's final alarm
Pops completely off

Examine the child
Even while the revelers gallop on foot

Their Fornication beautiful
And sweetly intact toward some unspeakably ecstatic

Vanishing point
Just off the canvas to the west

Some dark field
Between here and the painless secrets of shining Antwerp!

Lobsters and Ferns

2009-03-22T11:50:00.003+08:00

Stacey Duff

Hey Sis:
As I was saying in my last letter

My gesture was lost in the plaster
So I switched to oils.

Now I paint more ferns
And take my time.

I drink
About as much as before.

The doctors say:
Slow down, man.

Drink
Less.

I still sleep with whores
Sometimes.

They don't seem to mind
My Lobster series.

Yesterday afternoon
Cheryl said something like

Now
That you tell me what it is

I can totally feel my mouth
Watering.

Doug my sculptor friend
Is still not convinced.

Tell mom
I'm coming home

Soon --
Just as soon

As the autumn rains
Pick up

And the river rises
High enough

To get a boat that far
Upstream.

Love,
Dater.

Sandstorms

2009-03-22T11:49:00.005+08:00

Stacey Duff

You want to focus on intellectual stuff. But
Come on we’re out by the desert here. I want moisture

And a roast beef sandwich. I want cilantro
Rolling clouds that come in and wipe away

The sand off my thighs, everybody’s thighs,
Everybody’s burning thighs -- I’d really

Like to see skin without sand and burning.
I want to wake up without a chorus of spit

Crackling last week’s smog down on this morning’s
Innocent pavement. Our city, your city, my city

Smears beyond the mountain into the desert.
We are trapped here in unlimited smears

Of miserable repetition. Repetition and misery
Aren't so bad really, if only we could breathe.

I’m only having trouble breathing when
I want the clouds, I want the rain to sandwich us.

When will they make it rain?
This is what I want: I want us sliced wet daily

Just enough to clean the fumes and dust.
I don’t even mind

Losing one or two
Days in the park because of the downpour. I don’t care.

As long as I wake up with your thighs around my ass
And a fresh breath blowing in from the clear West.

Just not sand again.
Tell the guys not to send another salad of sand.

Send rain.
Not the fucking sand. Not another spring with sand.

Breathing Time

2009-03-22T11:41:00.003+08:00

Stacey Duff

We walked around the Second Ring
Breathing in the First Pain.

The First Pain was articulate
Expressing a pulse that kept us living.

Even when we wanted to sleep
The Third Ring conveyed a pleasure

Addicting us to the impossible idea
That we can fly from here. See.

The sea never really gets any closer.
Even as the desert pushes us back

The Fourth Ring only sings
A quarter song.

Half defiant
It only finishes one fourth of the original lines.

The rest is pirated or worse:
Blank and soundless and blanketed.

The Fifth offers us a view of the Fragrant Mountain
As seen through a poorly made crystal ash tray.

Take this view with you when you leave.
Give it to our friends, curious on the other side,

Or kind of curious and always, as we,
Looking for hope on the opposite slopes.

Tell them: this is what the mountains
Look like from the edge of our silent city.

Let this distorted face, true as it is of the real thing,
Be our postcard.

Then sign it:
Greetings from the First Pain.

Sign it:
I love you.

Sign it:
Beijing.

I Tomorrow's Empress, Tomorrow's Dancing Bride

2009-03-22T11:21:00.007+08:00

Stacey Duff

My mother dances like the willow.
The willow taught her feet. See!

Here she comes!
Even when she walks she

Sways like the willow when the wind blows.
Today I'm turning eight and still

My dearest diary
I walk so clumsily.

Nothing in nature is more gangly
Than me. I have my dad's big bones

And like my dad
Who taught me how to whistle

Wild as the wildest reed
I am fast of foot

Faster than the forest rabbit in sudden flight!
My tongue

Is like lightning like my daddy's
Darting eyes like shooting fire!

One day, he says,
My body will change

But only after
Several autumn rains

And I too will dance
Swaying like the willow.

My mother
Agrees that my

Body like the willow
Requests time and rain.

Grace, she whispers,
Takes both these elements

And a third other inhuman thing:
Human pain.

When I ask what
Is pain

My mother sings just for me
Dancing with my dancing eyes:

Pain, my empress of tomorrow,
Is like the breeze

That slaps
All young willow trees

And pounds
All proud women

And buckles
All proud men

Teaches them not to break
My love

But only
How to bend.

Bend like this.
Sway like that

When
You feel the wind.

Then my mother cries awhile
Inside the silence of her hands.

Dusk
Leaps down onto the lap of our ancient court.

Beyond the walls of the glittering red
Palace, the hefty butcher

Shouts from house to house
Weaving his barbed

Voice through autumn rain
Drop by drop by drop even

As far
Far as the Fragrant Mountain

Where I think I see a startled crane
Flying here to dance with me

Now that I am eight
The Empress of Tomorrow

Tomorrow's dancing bride!
I let the rain fall on my skin

While I sway and bend
The best I can today

Until the darkness grows too wet
And my mother calls me in.

Game Boys

2009-03-22T09:38:00.004+08:00

Stacey Duff

Because your memory is exquisite
You dig it all out.

I had no idea
This street meant so much to you.

I had no idea
He used to play here with his solemn toys

His Tuesday boys
Laid out on the floor like pink dominos.

The Problem with Pistachios in the CBD

2009-03-22T09:23:00.002+08:00

Stacey Duff

If you don't like that part of the city
Don't go.

It's not like
Anybody's forcing you anyway

There'll be
Other parties here on the West Side.

Just
Stay home Elaine get some

Rest.
Breathe. Breathe.

Breathe that's it.
You'll feel a lot less

Dramatic about things if you just sleep like I said.
Besides

Vicki's
Coming tomorrow morning from California with new meds --

First thing like I said she promised so
Go get in bed Elaine

Before I start losing it
Like last time you pulled this insane shit.

(JU) I (CY)

2009-03-22T08:50:00.004+08:00

Stacey Duff

How many times have you seen people in this city
Wearing warm ups

That have these words
Glittering in gold on their ass:

J U I C Y
?

Juicy what?
Something's

Off here,
Sharks.

HARK!
HARK!

Hark you angels of Desert City streets.
Wear these words next time:

I AM AN OASIS IN AN INFERNAL MACHINE:
WET, UNUSED, CLEAN AND SELF-GREASED.

SELF-
GREASED!

Stamp that on your proud
Glittering shithole next time you leave the yard.

Then come and donate hard
Earned daddy dimes to your Creative Agent.

Caochangdi

2009-03-22T08:45:00.003+08:00

Stacey Duff

Has a lot of dogs.
Many of these are filthy.

A few are vicious so
If you actually go

You better go with a good
Guide

Like most people or don't
Go at all.

Your guide will know which dogs
Must be avoided at all human

Costs.
Hell.

For a small fee
I'll show you around the place myself

But for the life of me
What do you really want in Caochangdi?

Can you just be up front with me
Man?

Hey Jerry

2009-03-22T08:42:00.003+08:00

Stacey Duff

Donuts at dawn
Near the baseball park.

If you don't come
I'm going after Jeanine

My own god damn
Self.

Don't forget: bring some blue
Jonquils for the little Polish

Brat
Who guards the gate down there.

We're Going to the Empty Party

2009-03-15T09:02:00.006+08:00

Stacey Duff

Let’s go to the empty party.
Let’s toast to the empty room.
Let’s dance at the empty party.
Let’s taste the empty food.

Let’s dance in the empty room, girl.
Let’s drink to the empty noon.
Let’s go to the empty party.
Make love in the empty room.

We’re going. We’re going.
We’re going to the empty party.
We’re going. We’re going.
We’re going to the empty room.

So
Empty it
Empty it
So –

So –
Empty it
Empty it
O.

Empty the empty party.
Empty the afternoon.
Empty my empty lover.
Empty the empty room.

The empty
Empty room, girl.
Our empty
Empty room.

We Beat Drums

2009-03-15T08:18:00.003+08:00

Stacey Duff

When we can’t move mountains.
The holes we blow

Are shaded in the monuments
We erect. We blow

Cities up, excavate
Citizens when

We can’t find better
Strategems. We execute

Dead men again and again
When we can’t correct our own

Fresh
Sweetly powdered flesh.

I don’t know what you’d call us.
We’re fighting men.

But that’s not what you’d call us.
You wouldn’t call us migratory birds either.

Call us hurricanes
Blowing our beautiful bodies beyond the seven seas.

We are wind borne on water borne on fire borne on something
Mute.

I love you.
I just didn’t know how to say it and still

Pocket the cake
I made for you this morning, shaking

As I was
With all my hopes for a split second

Thinking
I might enter your hips eternally at dawn

Chill as a newborn
Star.

I Had to Write You While

2009-03-15T07:04:00.006+08:00

Stacey Duff

You’re in your office and I’m at my desk.
Are you doing the usual --

Engaged in a project that gives you brain death
Or are you stealing a few diamond minutes to listen to BBC

World? Or better yet.
Are your fingers slapping and your fingernails tapping at QQ?

Dear You.
Hard as a righteous pearl.

Here's a little
NEWS FLASH FROM HELL.

I’m fucking alive out here and I just bought a six pack
With the twenty you loaned me after you bitched me

Out this glowing morning. Thank you. Beers'll
Go down nice before my two o'cock engagement

With that lighting design team
Down by the National Art

Museum of...
China.

Holy holy
Holy smuck, Batman!

I’ll take the bus slightly buzzed, brews
Blossoming sweetly in my cool breath. I know.

I know.
If I hadn’t spent it all on booze

I could have ticked along in a reasonably comfy green and yellow
Taxi.

But then
I would have missed the loosest

Pleasures
This city has to offer in an age of go-go, schmooze and blow.

Yes.
To sit back on the bus on a forgettable Friday afternoon

That’s actually blue! Just a few unaffected
Dirty clouds flirting with us from the wide

Hipped beauty of Inner
Mongolia. A pure day even if

Everybody's either going somewhere or floating
Firmly at their desk like lost lotuses

Waiting in watery secret
Secretly wet and waiting to go somewhere real this time

Not to some vacant and vacuous
Digi-fuck bungalow on the LED sea

Not to some hippy virtual power
Tower where you have to douche with nine tons of gigabytes

Just to feel clean the next sorry morning.
Some things

As grandma used to tell
My Uncle Steve all the time

You can't wash off with soap, son.
Listen.

I don't know where I'm going with all this --
But even when I'm not half plastered, only half of life

Ever makes complete sense.
So I guess I half loved

All the bitchy things you said this half
Shattered morning. Keep it up.

See you back at the launch pad
Fire fox.

Love's Shallow Variant

2009-03-15T06:54:00.000+08:00

Stacey Duff

Love’s shallow variant
Taught me how to dance.

He let me play assistant
To hell’s unwanted chance.

Now I’m on the highest plane
Above your continent.

Flying beyond a mountain’s pain
With all my loving spent.

With all my loving spent, my god.
With all my loving spent.

About 3AM

2009-03-15T06:50:00.002+08:00

Stacey Duff

You're exhausted.
Your mind clears.

You realize
It's time to die for awhile.

Let it happen.
Take what comes.

Let it
Spread and happen.

Don't Sing in Here

2009-03-15T06:44:00.003+08:00

Stacey Duff

Someone
Might kill you.

Sorry Dad I Can't Talk Right Now

2009-03-15T06:36:00.003+08:00

Stacey Duff

We're looking at this huge new place.
It's so totally empty --

As abandoned as your face
Before you turn to meet the day.

The same day.
The same face.

The Devil's Raincoat

2009-03-15T05:57:00.002+08:00

Stacey Duff

This is what I wear
When the Maker makes it rain.

But sometimes I'll wear it during a
Drought

Just to show the powers that piss
I don't care who shakes the skies.

I can take pain, Miss.
I prefer it

Over imitation crab and maraschino cherries and pig's feet
And all the other sorry slop they dish out.

Hey I like pain.
I like screwing pain just as much

As pain
Likes to screw me.

Most of all
I like my tattered

Raincoat.
Now bring it here

Peaches.
Try it on.

Button it up
Around the throat.

Meet Me at the Vernissage

2009-03-15T05:44:00.003+08:00

Stacey Duff

Justin's gonna buy one of your paintings
And shit on it.

Oh yeah
I almost forgot.

Chrissie says
Tell the gallery people

Make sure the salmon
Is fresh this time.

She gets real sick off bad fish
Especially in developing

Countries
Where they don't speak the language.

It's probably
Just psychological

But please
For my sake

Make
Sure

It's fresh
For Chris.

Dexter's New Assignment

2009-03-08T10:45:00.004+08:00

Stacey Duff

You tell me, Lena.
Why do people walk dogs?

Why don’t
Dogs walk people?

Or [Dexter goes on
Oblivious to the telephone

Ringing off the hook on Lena’s
Scented, well-organized desk].

For that matter, says Dexter,
While I’m over here at your desk

Why do people drive cars?
What if the cars are actually

Driving us? [Dexter looks through
Folder A and puckers his lips at Lena

Disapprovingly. As Lena’s
Immediate supervisor, Dexter

Does a lot of disapproving
Lip puckering.]

Lena thinks
Prick.

Then she says
Or what if your mother

Didn’t give birth to you, Dexter?
But you gave birth to your mother?

Then who gave birth to me?
Asks Dexter. Someone else

Says Lena. Like who?
Says Dexter.

Lena turns slowly to the window.
You figure that out, Dexter.

You go figure that one out
By yourself.

Dexter’s mouth twists in a confused
Wounded gesture. Lena

Keeps looking out the window.
Five floors down

She can hear Kevin’s Mazda
Pull into the parking lot.

His stereo is playing her favorite
Song again. A morning song, pulsing

Mountains and valleys, rhythmic
Patterns of rain and sun. A really strong beat.

He fixed the woofers, she thinks.
They sound awesome now.

She opens the folder that Dexter left on her desk –
Folder A. She turns back to the window.

Lena
Smiles.

You Come Into Me

2009-03-08T10:35:00.001+08:00

Stacey Duff

Syria collides with Christ.
The baker sneers at his morning toast.

A dumb nuke
Finds the wrong nerve.

People still fly
Pretty kites in the park.

We Found Her

2009-03-08T09:52:00.008+08:00

Stacey Duff

Jackson steered the boat
In the direction of her peach

Blouse. Behind her body
A heron spread his wings

Preparing to fly. A crocodile
Slipped into the water

Weeping as it were
Crocodile tears.

The woman's body was just not
Any body.

It was your body.
It was your blouse.

It was your afternoon.
I was the one charged by accident

To remove you from it
Returning you to the monotony of the manicured

Shoreline, the city, the people --
Half friends and total strangers

Waiting to see if you still looked the same
After all this missing time.

We laid you in the back of the truck
Beside a bushel of peaches

Then began the slow drive
Over the mountains

In search of the people
Who would be even more affected

By the news of your drowning.
We did not know their names

But we found them rising for work
The morning we arrived and immediately

We knew they were the ones who gave you to us
And now we were returning you -- this gift

Unwrapped
Chill among the fresh peaches.

We lifted the tarp
And they wept in the warm sun.

We Showered

2009-03-08T09:24:00.004+08:00

Stacey Duff

Back at the hotel
Then took the boat out to the brothel

Just as they were ringing
The dinner bell.

Suddenly, now that the women
Were running out to greet us,

I realized I hadn't really
Ever paid close attention to things.

But from now on, I told myself,
Sitting beside you in the wafting smell of beer and steak

I'm going to focus on you and everything else here
For as long as I can.

Then we began to eat and the sun fell
As herons flew across the windless bayou

And the horses beneath the oaks brayed
Nodding toward the city before us

Silent beyond the lapping dock
Jangling on the opposite coast.

No You Can't Have Back Your Position

2009-03-08T09:13:00.002+08:00

Stacey Duff

Our decision is equivocal
So no matter how vocal

You plan to get -- or spit out
Sprays of mean sentences --

You will not reverse our final order.
It's over Janie Perez.

I don't care what your mom says
About another chance to fuck us.

You've been
Declared

CODE
BLUE.

You Stare at Me Like a Tank

2009-03-08T09:09:00.002+08:00

Stacey Duff

You stare at me like a tank
Up on the fifth floor. You can

Hear the cars down in the street
Idling the whole city.

You stare at me like a tank.
Your face completely torn, completely blank.

I'm not sure whether you're about to blow me
Or blow me away.

You're Always Just Hanging Out

2009-03-08T09:03:00.005+08:00

Stacey Duff

I'd just wish you'd be more assertive
And take me to the movies

List me on the stock exchange, tickle
My toes -- anything but sit here

Like a doped-out moron
Explaining the advantages of a well-designed tomorrow.

Honestly I don't think
I intimately know sorrow

But it probably smells
A lot like this stupid couch.

This Is How I Miss You

2009-03-08T08:55:00.006+08:00

Stacey Duff

I get lost in your talking
Smothered in your breath.

Stopped in your walking.
Slaughtered in your morning

Eyes.
When you wake

I sleep.
When you sleep

I rise.
This rhythm

Applied with care
Works well

Even if you feel numb
Sometimes.

What Do We Do With This?

2009-03-08T08:45:00.003+08:00

Stacey Duff

Federal Express delivered
A pound of fresh pussy to the guys who work

Third shift in the kitchen with these words
Tattooed in bold all around the wooden box:

DO NOT
OPEN PEOPLE.

THIS IS NOT
YOUR BOX.

Low E

2009-03-08T08:24:00.004+08:00

Stacey Duff

All the world's
Dead

Nod their head
When

You kiss me.
Then they

Say your name
Again -- say

He's the one
Sugar.

Slaughter
Him.

My Neighbors Always Let Me Know

2009-03-01T10:23:00.008+08:00

Stacey Duff

When my laces are undone.
Today the kid who runs the shop

Downstairs
Almost had a heart attack running out after me

Making damn sure
I know my laces are untied

But I got my hands
Crammed with beer cigarettes

And a phone card for anywhere baby
Anywhere so all I can say is Listen

Man
I really don't have time for this right now I'm

Aware of the situation down there.

Thanks!
Bye!

American Interiors

2009-03-01T10:12:00.006+08:00

Stacey Duff

Are portals into the abyss.
The family swam in the pool

Most all afternoon.
Soon

Mom thought -
While Doug blew up the inflatable raft

Again-
We must enter our well-designed

Hole.
Home.

Doug, she yelled. Get your sister!
We're going in!

Bruce

2009-03-01T10:05:00.003+08:00

Stacey Duff

Bruce was better on short projects.
Long projects were problematic.

He'd start calling ex lovers
Before the long projects were completed.

He’d call up buddies and say stuff like
Hey Chuck. What are you doing later?

Then the little Japanese girl behind the service desk
Would squeak. We all knew what that squeak meant.

It meant Bruce
Was about to go ape shit.

Lucy Won the Spelling Bee

2009-03-01T09:56:00.002+08:00

Stacey Duff

This was only the third time that Lucy
Entered the contest.

She finally won.
First prize was a year’s supply of panty hose.

We have some relatives, Lucy’s mom said
Over the microphone.

Most of them are women.
Most of them just love panty hose.

But then Lucy was forced to wear
All the panty hose by herself –

Due to a minor
Technicality in the wording of the contract.

Bummer
Lucy’s mom’s lover said when he found out.

That child
Will be screwed up for life. Contracts are bad news, babe.

Lucy’s mom
Rolled over in the dark.

You don’t know what this means, she thought,
You don’t care that this is it for our family.

Lucy’s mom was bitter
About it all, too bitter to cry.

Too bitter
To even let on that she was bitter.

But Lucy’s mom’s lover was right.
The spelling bee drastically

Changed Lucy into something
Else.

The Beautiful Horse

2009-03-01T09:54:00.001+08:00

Stacey Duff

The Beautiful Horse lived in this house
With the Happy Thieves.

The thieves stood around in the yard on
Tuesdays.

They played horseshoes and black jack and shouted stuff like
Hey!

You just got another ringer
Man!

The Private Man

2009-03-01T09:29:00.003+08:00

Stacey Duff

The Private Man came down from the north side of the city.
Everyone called him The Private Man.

He was very secretive
About his comings and goings.

But you felt a swift
Shift in the air when he arrived.

Gangs collapsed.
Peanut butter went sour.

The dew wouldn’t fall clean
But just kind of pissed on the world.

Stuff
Like that.

Everybody
Knew about The Private Man.

Letter to an Ambassador's Wife

2009-03-01T09:22:00.002+08:00

Stacey Duff

Dear Helen:
Listen.

I know several unwelcome guests
Showed up at your party Saturday.

I’m sorry
I was one of them.

But in the end
We all

Behaved nice
I thought.

No expensive items were
Shattered.

No one told a single off-color
Joke.

Everyone, even your husband,
Left early to go somewhere else.

Oh.
I nearly forgot.

I see you’ve
Put on a few extra pounds –

Whoops.
I mean kilos.

Don’t panic, girl.
Consider it a secret

Between you and me
And the numerous other

Unwelcome women
Who came Saturday evening.

Rest
Assured –

We will not make light
Of your tragic ass

But give it
All the attention

IT
Deserves.

You will
Soon hear

Exactly
How much

We in the diplomatic
Community

All care for you
Helen.

Love,
Sherry

P.S.
I absolutely loved your lemon meringue. So did Tina, Ingrid and Tara.

The Stranger Has This Bone

2009-03-01T08:50:00.002+08:00

Stacey Duff

The stranger has this bone
The sparrows nibble on

When nobody is home.
Out in the backyard

You see the stranger
Take this chicken bone

To the birdhouse –
He stuffs the bone

Down that little hole
The birds cry from.

The birds cry
Something like hunger!

Then the stranger stuffs his bone
Down that little birdhouse hole.

Then every
Thing

Is real
Quiet.

This Guy's All Over the Board

2009-03-01T08:47:00.000+08:00

Stacey Duff

We don’t know where he’s coming from.
One minute he’s saying what we want.

But then it’s like he’s got
Diarrhea of the mouth.

He’s not even saying the things he said he would say.
I mean this guy’s all over the board – especially at parties.

What do we do?
Do we do him?