WANTED POSTER: John Ashbery’s (American Poet, 1927–2017) Coat of Arms
Con/Jur/d, written in a coffee shop before 2/9/2024
We have a bone to pick with John Ashbery
Not the one sticking out
in the story with a doctor explaining the layers as she cuts through
layers of skin, fascia, muscle
on a backwoods table
in lieu of an operating theater or the time, we saw
pigeons eating
chicken wings
And the retching, they sometimes do
on realistic murder mysteries
when the body is found, still fresh
enough for maggot food, the naif
is drawn in by the gold ring
glimmering in the soft dirt
a single pale finger
sticking out, from rich loam
a hint of robust decomposition moves the dirt
John was a wordy terrorist, like Lynch is
except with moving images and
supple simple sounds, in DOLBY
Yes, Ashbery we label you: TERRORIST
since you kept blowing up
the space, other poets
WANTED TO BE OCCUPIED
And we're left only returning
the other side of the hole,
which by now has some new growth, even a sapling
Birch
didn't know it was returning
despite the industrial abstraction, NOW
the sirens and screams
only distant memory
And the locals act like the crater was always here,
tell phony origin anecdotes
speculate what the three AM
alarm means
And if you hadn't
I suppose there'd be nothing to tell
so despite the shape of your
left behind wreckage
and the inconvenience
Maybe you're more royalty
all the violence committed in the past
WHITE GREEN & BLUE washed
trapped behind a well crafted illustration
inscrutable images
a dusty coat of arms
courtesy of the props department
marking the JUNCTION
where we succeeded
where we failed to
OUT OF THE HOLE COMES A WAILING
newspaper dust, and how you said it.
re: the 18th century, “Here comes the twister, open the root cellar, Jon!” Sutra Con/Jur/d, 2/8/2024 I have a friend, he said who can't see in themselves what’s very clear to me We said then it must be part of you unseen, and in hiding They said That's what worries us the crowd in the basement their JUMP scares, their weeping, their wailing, their gnashing, and moaning with rattling and unsavory modern sound effects a cacophony with intent to harm That's why the Buddha did it We repeated I see She said Until you hear, touch, see, feel the silence beneath you'll always be frightened by reflections? Boo, we said Boo, they agreed.
Unbound Con/Jur/d, 2/6/24 In the whoosh, bang, screech, sigh of the day, is hard to remember the silence between dream and wake, the moment of not alive, certainly not dead before the aches pains bladder and bowel needs have an owner, when you don't recognize a you, and you are therefore unbound.
Much, much love,
Con/Jur/d, 2/9/2024
https://imgur.com/a/kx3fcxP