"Neoplasticity."
"Leaning heads together, is that how we get heads of state?
Clarity in thinking.
The most recent president is closing the window
to readjust the temperature of my study.
What configuration allows for the malleable things
to live long and prosper?
Unallowed to believe.
Statistical logics prevail.
I could easily name a country whose language
was forcibly removed.
Or I could be silent, nude, and obscene as
when the porno on screen is muted.
Cutting another kind of track for this brazen fever.
There are burns and bruises in the atmosphere.
This erupts into a national stink.
To be humanitarian is to eat grapes by the swimming pool.
The nation in hand, at hand, dumping seeds and excesses
into a bucket.
I tried to rescind the impulse to add another person
into the equation.
I speak personally and question my own authority
to speak personally.
And how did I become a representative?
Was I elected?
Missing and contradicting, my feathers
are stuck on with superglue, and my cape is a Halloween costume.
It is raining and the streets are slick,
but people don't slide.
Not allowed, such blessed and appropriate grace.
I get drenched by the oncoming traffic, waiting for the light
to change.
This is ridiculous.
I am nervous, folding napkins, and notice
the cloth is worn in the fold, the usual fold over and over.
What leaps I can take into grandiosity.
What generous participation I request in contradicting myself
over and over.
From a high-rise building, I jump to be caught.
I have tried reinforcing my Tupperware's politics.
Making a mold disintegrate in the stubborn heat
of the microwave.
Burnt plastic dolls.
Don't do that, please.
I'm getting sharper and don't brush my hair anymore.
And won't go wandering off.
Wonder Bread, grease, and cheese.
Too tired to listen, and then someone
will deliver an arrangement of camellias for me
to help me forget the pain and the florist's repeating design.
In a close-up narrative, perspectivally
shifting and lulled into a film.
I can go on and on about Drew Barrymore's new coif.
Who does her hair, who?
Or will the simple city bus drive over
me, and someone will claim it was a mistake.
This intransigence won't go away more than my mouth beckoning
audience.
But the business closed down last week,
and I have nowhere to go.
Please let me sit down on the bench and catch my breath.
It is only my breath."