Photo 3

What horribly
manipulative
Spatiality.

And how
zoo cryptological
can I be

in the crumbling
of stained-glass
windows?

I leap into
the backseat
of a Golden Hawk

Eyes like yolks;
head low and
awkward with nipples.

Photo 2

Gigantic gorilla w/ no head
hardened in wooden cask,
your arms have been canceled.

There is a flag on the play.
Your thick body left
hominid foot prints.

"It's an oddly large creature,"
said some Indian scholar.
"And, perhaps it is the culprit

of the millions of mysterious
animal mutilations."

Photo 1

Rattle out the picture
with that Picasso
look on your face.

Spiral into the arms
of some warm enlightened monkey.
Go ahead and bat your eyes

again you gorgeous
frightening animal.
Just lash it up.

Nickels and Dimes (By Michael Tatay)

Water burns up
in a glistening

powder of ash.

Americans use super
models as explosions,

thinking someday
they'll

get a life.

You dream blind people
in every direction.

Let There Be Light

The only pistachios
left are a damn puzzle.

And so I wait
like a goldfish

for the great ripples,
for the great nut

cracker to part the dark
clouds of silence,

for the big entrance
of the crab claw hammer,

for the honey badger to bust
out the cobra snake leather,

and get determined
like some young Indiana Jones,

for some angry worm to shout,
"I've had enough of this darkness!"

The curtains would open and
some sweet-bearded magician

would get all knee slappy
with a banjo.

This would cause the great
nut catalyst and I would scream,

"hallelujah!"

Gift

There is a lonely
labradoodleless tennis ball
in the yard.

The river is high--
a fat leather whip
to the inner thigh

of the valley.

"A wild dog is eroding the banks."

The only
movement is bone white.

"Please keep dogs out of my yard."

An effort to grab
ahold of something.

The steam from the noses
of cars as the drivers
prepare their gift returns.

And as I drive away
from a day's work,
I notice that tennis balls appear

larger than they are.

Roll on

I got a box
full of urethane.

Independents
in a milk crate.

My swiss
precision is rusted.

I'm in love
with a t-shirt

I never wear.
I swear, one day

I'm gonna
throw it all away,

but right now,

right now
it's in my bones.

Shutters

I guess,
I feel
most like myself

in the early
morning.

I wake up
probing
for my camera

to take pictures
of shadows on the wall:

the dream-
catcher
of an oak,

an ash,
the thorn-

like projections
of the ass-
end of a sparrow,

Venetian
shutters

turned horizontal
by the oblique
rays of a star,

my bones
locked steady for the capture.

[Decon]structural Tissue

Yank!

that twitch
out of
your
eye socket.

Teeth!

Just slide
right out
of the jaw bone.

Rip!

cuticles
back nervous
for the pocket-hole.

Skin!

scroll-out
the cheese
grater of right angles.

Grind!

fingers
deep into the
unarmed shoulder cavity.

Bones!

get cryptic
with the
epithelial sock-puppet.

Interregnum

False faces

in terrarium.

antlers and
horns.

Burrow,
over shoulder

eyes

resemble tiny
human footprints.

Claw structure.

Habitat:

in the hollow
of bones.

Pelvic gurgle,

pastoral stream.

Back seat
dream-mummy

probing
for the stick

shift.

The Gnosis of Unicorn Objects

Seriously,
an unsharpened
purple pencil
topped with
a purple unicorn
eraser?

You think
that would
cheer up Emily
Dickinson?

That perhaps,
the purple
unicorn eraser would
transform into
a real purple
unicorn and yank

her body
from the coffin,
or carry her out
of the cold study

of antebellum
America and into
the golden age
of stonewashed
blue jeans,
and totally rad bangs

all eighteen-
hundred and
something of her
poems bursting
from a trapper keeper?

Do you really
Think she would
dig your mix tape of
Poison and Mötley Crüe?

Would she
show-up
to your
roller-skating
party, hair permed
and lip gloss glittering

in the ambience
of a galactic arcade?

December Coming

No one sits
at that lone piano,

nor on the old
wooden rocking chair.

Their glory days
are enclosed in glass

where grains of sand
flee like fingers

from the last note
of a small piece by Bach,

like the dust of
forgotten generations,

when Winter's winds drone.

Optic Nervousness

You should have seen the squirrels
when I got home from school today.
They were all lined up on the front porch
With their heads buried in the pumpkins,

popping up occasionally to survey
the landscape with a jerk from right
to left. The gourds had been scalped
the pumpkins, wide open like bowls

of cereal on a Saturday mourning,
the marshmallows, the TV singing
“no one should terrorize this neighborhood.”
The squirrels can’t hear a damn thing. They’re landing

planes with their frantic tails. I am terrified.
They mock me in the minivan. They’re one-
Eye-ballin’ me as I struggle to get the key in
the lock. Even the oaks begin to shake hysterically.

My phone makes that chime before it powers-down.
I put the wrong key in the lock, “SNAP!”
I attempt to escape in the minivan, but the key
to the ignition has been devoured by the lock

on my apartment door. Devoured like all of those
Pumpkinseeds! One by one teeth gnashing, fang-
vaults jutting, heads rattling like doorknobs! I think
they might have batteries lodged in their abdomens.

I think the battery is dead in the egg-van. I begin
to rake at the moon. I begin to shake with these cold
dead wires pouring from below the steering column.
The windows are tinted, but I can still see those pearly

Whites! The red coats are coming! Don’t fire, it only makes
them angry—but—wait! All I can do is wait! Wait! I will have to
wait for the cold night to creep over my shoulder,
until the owls come out and the oaks stop barking,

but, ah, that—

Silence,

And all those

owls.

All those eyes.

Trees

Skulls
When axes lick the ice,
And the splinters!
Splintering from the impact like tigers.

The water
Bubbles like orandas, like
Clay waiting for its faces
To be molded over rooftops.

A catcher’s mitt and elbows,
Sharp like fingernails,
In the bark of an aspen.
I wake up
To the grinding of bones.

Salty and fog-covered
Highway, a din from
The heath.
Two hollowed eyes
Communicate like whales.

Arthropods

There is a spider—
deep in the recess
of a bolt.

(The ants become
cryptic with eggs)

Beneath the globe—
of a streetlight
reflects a rather

familiar skeleton
on the tractor.

At dinner
my arms are still—
swollen from the bee sting.

(I can’t bury the fork)

Ceremony

I just got backhanded
Straight out the
altocumulus.
My nimbus is
Stratified,
My concentration
Creeps like poison ivy.

Into the sub-ethereal
Pines I find myself
Lined with hides.
Branches spiral
Into the damp
Cauldron of needles.


Segmented and knotty
With claw-like
Extensions,
I carve my path
To the river—

(((Ceremonial organs)))

Chthonic winds drone!

The Petting Zoo Expression

The sun extracts my spinal
fluid with the precision
of an all-in-one
camping spork.

Soon, I will shed
my turtle-box
and anthropomorphize
my ((sit dog)) and ((shake)).

No longer hide under sheets
or anticipate a chocolate
malt. (The neighborhood
eye-bangs giant telescopes).

I will begin to reinstate
my boyish bad temper
with the gaze of a
petting zookeeper.

I will admit
that I can no longer
keep my hands off
of your bicycle.

My only big-kid toy
was a hand-me-down
rusted-old-Schwinn.

I blew the tires off on the first date.

Coyotes

I never really go anywhere
on the tractor—

I am only passing through.

I often pass along
the banks of the Saint Joe
and look out onto the river—

Birds spiral into the clouds
where the water cuts the sky.

I pass by the trail
where the deer cross—

(I hear that coyotes travel
These paths as well)

Perhaps I’ve never known them
in the way that the people
here have never really known me.

They never really see me
like the coyote passing through.