Curriculum Vita

The broken   the discarded   the insane
deranged clocks   radically bent
standards and phrases
that might be made to serve
again

            wilted broccoli, stale bread,
last year's styles, hand-me-downs,
seconds, cashew pieces, cars
on their last tires, especially
Ramblers

                        specialized garbage,
sheepshit, library discards, transistors
from the computer lab, gossip
from the capitol, slaughterhouse
leavings, fallen feathers

skulls, vain hopes, slips
of tongue, rumors, torn
confessions, instants of chaos

the mundane, the stone
of hidden beauty

among plants the thistle
among animals the snake, the spider
among tenses the subjunctive
among adults the child
among flavors bittersweet

three a.m., the detour,
attics, closets, basements,
the space behind couch cushions,
the fine print, posted
fields, the miscellaneous classified

the minimal condition, the extreme
example, the exceptional case,
the paradox, the contradiction

in the garden the weeds
in the pool algae
in the city the vacant lot
in the vacant lot rubble
in the rubble the cave

found poetry, all forms
of moisture, meteorites,
apparent coincidence, uncancelled
stamps, the economical
device, pieces of string
tied together, resemblances,
evidence of internal coherence,
paranoia

                        medicine cabinets,
old annual reports, shit
under the microscope,
photos of altered landscapes,
premonitions

as costume piebald motley
as theater the play of the street
as dance people's movements
their stuttered song

the risky option, the last
item on the agenda,
the politely unmentioned

the lifted stone

tautologies, dis
continuities, the theoretically
feasible, the formally undecidable
proposition, the defenseless
impulse

                        the salvageable,
the adaptable, the reform-
able, the re
cycle able

waterfront flotsam, temporary
clearings, junctions
of dissimilar metals, edges

old keys, anonymous songs,
transcendent moments,
spare parts, logistic
processes, maps, cusps

empty containers, decisions
to leave, arbitrary love

the outcast  the crippled  the deviant 
the obscure  the exploited  the obsessed
the helpless  the alienated  the lonely
the transfixed
broken stars

May 1975