--- D A V I D   K O P P I S C H

Your daily tactics to deter 
the molestations of the garish powers, 
fending off the sharp unimaginable noise of task, 
trying to invoke the way you sucked 
white peaches in the French sunlight
lured black coffee into deep happy chambers, 
the way your lips repel the huge shallow configurations 
and the way your tongue like a gentle grenade 
lobbed into the post-industrial compound
and the taste of light on your stones 
which roll over the giant symbols 
that titillate or expropriate. 

I have seen enough of your subliminal outreach
your counterfeit allusions
your slapstick promises. 
And if this signifies anything
it's pouring out and filling up
a renunciation and a forest fire, 
a flood, a drought, a judgment, a newborn 
it is to say that all you do continues to leak 
it is to say your system of production 
not unlike insects eliminated in the breeze
or under soft heavy footsteps 
of the large, mute animals. 

And how long will you endure
the nervous cold cuts hermetically sealed
on the kitchen counter? 
And how long in the middle of the slippery street
mistaking roadkill for manna, 
looking for doors to the key of my ridiculous longing 
my comic book politics
my alien practices at the bathroom sink 
or loping lonely contradiction waiting for the bus
with embarrassed coalition of disparate body parts. 
Speaking of which: 
the terrifying morning 
with its giant flaming boulder 
with its corrugated mantra of my surprising thirst 
with the flowering crimson pain of majority hunger
sliding gently into your disruption 
slipping out of the demeaning sheathe. 

I sensed you were chiding the leaves
for half-hearted salutes, 
I sensed the fabulous cats
whose tails climb into the nostrils of God
uttered  strange liquid verses
like bread to your deep obligatory stomach. 
I sensed the round dark conflict 
the perpetual sandwiches 
the innuendo of your mouth 
all within the brutality of dawn. 

And you began to question the smiling fist of business
pushing the necessary motor oil 
or a wide variety of instant soups
to meet your every need. 
And you seek to shatter
the balloons of men in their dark suits
and you feel like a replica of organs
dying to touch the shiny lining
of a momentary wound. 
And remember, the dappled dancing leaves
prick the professionalized heart 
and pray to the fuzzy morning 
with its miraculous silhouettes. 
And remember, 
the orgiastic squawk of the blackbirds
pierce the climate control 
and electric tongues of crickets 
vibrate with disapproval. 
Picture how they capture the audience
with delicious hooks in their mouths: 
remind me that your laugh track is my sleepwalk 
my domestication is your dividend 
and my sweat gland your salary, 
all dripping with the intravenous of authority, 
like spectators suckle market-tested stimulus 
as overweight alumni
climb into ridiculous vehicles, 
all spawned by childhoods of the required communion 
those etherized sentences 
these sterile beverages
that suburban spleen 
and our lifeless arrangements. 

When I was an infant my six sisters fought to hold me 
nonetheless take your average American nightmare
boiling secrets, shuddering fantasies
or on the twilight sidewalk 
watching the endless march of cars
onto the slaughter of the highway
but your chest was warmer that I expected
	or deserved
and at the not-for-profit gathering 
I sat at your feet and listened to your hair 
and this morning I float
in the ocean of our bed, 
merely watching your face
in the gauze of the sandy light.