Dean Young - Shock by Shock

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We hope you enjoy these poems. This e-book edition was created through a special grant provided by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Copper Canyon Press would like to thank Constellation Digital Services for their partnership in making this e-book possible.for David BreskinJoe Di PriscoLaurie Saurborn& Michael Wiegers as a golden mouth lightly touches a forehead fashioned of cobwebs, I seemed to have entered an unsuspected portal. KENNETH PATCHEN Table of Contents

Could Have Danced All Night The wolf appointed to tear me apart is sure making slow work of it. This morning just one eye weeping, a single chip out of my back and the usual maniacal wooden bird flute in my brain.

Listen to that feeble howl as if having fangs is something to regret, as if we shouldnt give thanks for blood thirst. Even my idiot neighbor backing out without looking could do a better job, even that leaning diseased tree or dream of a palsied hand squeezing the throat but weve been at this for years, lying exposed on the couch in the fat of the afternoon staring down the moon among the night blooms. What goods a reluctant wolf? The other wolves just get it drunk then tie it to a post. Poor pup. Heres my hand. Bite.

Unlikely Materials Continued soggy in the personal today although two strangers smiled at me, one because I couldnt open a plastic bag either, the other because I stepped aside as if I was holding the door for her even though it was an automatic door. The peaches, first of the season, were tiny and powerful as baby rattlesnakes. A branch had fallen on the driveway by the time I got home like a friendly arm over a shoulder so I sat in the car listening to the rain try to find its melody, not wanting to flunk my student for not turning in his 20 pages on clouds after promising he would. Youre singing, I say every class. Even in the heart of an artichoke, theres probably a god. Energy is stored in the triphosphate bond then released when that bond is broken.

Is that why everything is so hard? One big pearl, said the Buddha, then glanced shyly about to make sure no one understood him. We know only that the spirit is not matter, is not sap stilling in the veins or even mist coalesced of the last breath, sang Orpheus before being torn apart. Street of Blind Knife Throwers One of the best Ive known couldnt get out of bed without a drink or a smoke. Some carry swords purely for show. Many come and go talking in non sequiturs. For a while, one who rhymed was so uptight rhyme was ruined for the rest of us but of course theres a world in a handful of dust.

One thought she was a genius for putting 9 commas in a row. Do not be too quick to embrace an alternative energy source, let fracking be your guide. Some things can only be found when you hide. Sometimes its like a fistfight to decide whos the biggest pacifist. At dawn the traveler makes his farewell song. Is there anything duller than an inaugural poem? One couldnt write about his father not coming back from Vietnam without a word list.

Do not underestimate the power of artificial flowers. Euripides, strawberries, mist. Hence his tears. The liner notes say that sound is the cellist scraping his metal chair. Amplify the accident. Petrify the whim.

The smell is the emergency brake. Play vigorously with the lid closed, wrote Satie in the margin. As if about to be devoured by ants, recommended Lorca before being shot in the head. Blood, sugar, gasoline and spot remover. Some come directly from the sky, others take more circuitous routes. Like a red rose and just as corny, one makes every mouth a wound.

A few, in plastic, lie upon the caskets. Clock face, palace, pavement, crown, all fall down. Some strain their thorny leashes, others just bow down. Crash-Test Dummies of an Imperfect God Because were so stupid, the prizes in Cracker Jack are now paper so they can be swallowed. No getting within a hundred feet of Stonehenge because everyone wants to hack off a souvenir and the way home is clogged to one lane so whoever wants to can stare into a pothole until coming up with a grievance. Id vote the greatest accomplishment of mankind is the pickle spear.

God created paradise to tell us Get out! which is why we probably created God who doesnt much like being created by such ilk as us. No wonder its pediatrics every morning and toxicology by happy hour. Is it all just in the mind, the dirty dirty mind? Maybe God tried to turn you into a dumpster so you could be lifted by the trucks hydraulic arm and banged empty. Maybe a sno-cone so you could be sticky-sweet and dropped. Maybe a genital-faced bivalve to be dashed with Tabasco and eaten whole or to his glory, produce a pearl. Romanticism 101 Then I realized I hadnt secured the boat.

Then I realized my friend had lied to me. Then I realized my dog was gone no matter how much I called in the rain. All was change. Then I realized I was surrounded by aliens disguised as orthodontists having a convention at the hotel breakfast bar. Then I could see into the life of things, that systems seek only to reproduce the conditions of their own reproduction. If I had to pick between shadows and essences, Id pick shadows.

Theyre better dancers. They always sing their telegrams. Their old gods do not die. Then I realized the very futility was salvation in this greeny entanglement of breaths. Yeah, as if. Then I realized even when you catch the mechanism, the trick still convinces.

Then I came to in Texas and realized rockabilly would never go away. Then I realized Id been drugged. We were all chasing nothing which left no choice but to intensify the chase. I came to handcuffed and gagged. I came to intubated and packed in some kind of foam. This too is how ash moves through water.

And all this time the side door unlocked. Then I realized repetition could be an ending. Then I realized repetition could be an ending. The Death of Andr Breton Only page 200 and already Bretons finding it impossible to reconcile life to his dream. If only he could feel my old dog drinking from his cupped palms. If only some fog were still alive in him, he wouldnt be making the marvelous so uninhabitable even Desnos with his cortex of starfish expelled.

Forgive us, Andr and forgive yourself. We tried to dictate a nocturnal manifesto to the bomb blast but childrens laughter kept ripping camellias in our darkness, the tips of our bodies turning green. Do you think the dirt disapproves of anything? Nothing rots underground, the brain seeps autumnal garlands like those late Sinatra songs where hes hungover just enough to sound husky and roughed up like a butterfly caught in a downpour. Yes, the height of civilization is still guided tours of prisons so surely now is no time to be serious. Look how frantically the hearts of those roses beat. Look at those party boats in the sky.