MAX BLAGG ON DUSTIN WAYNE HARRIS

1.

Hoodwinked and slammed to the mat again

they wanted to keep me in pennies not heaven

but I came off the ropes like Archie Moore

or Archimedes leaping from his bathtub

yelling “Eureka” and “what is?” and

somebody else say well what is, and you say omigod

am I here and all alone? Then you recover your bearings

and strap your balls back on like Stravinsky

going the distance with the Ballets Russes

as it grows dark in Bryant Park where

I am discovered mounting Gertrude Stein

from behind, absorbing her grassy knowledge,

lifting the skirts that surround this

great bronze cake on the green sward.

The day gone down to zero, snow in the air,

winter storms moving in from the Midwest.

Across the street a meticulous student traces out

a pattern at the drawing board, working in

solitude on a Friday afternoon. I envy his diligence.

The cake bakes the bell rings the year runs out.

2.

Need music here, not the small bells of regret

rung by cheap chimes from some stall in Chinatown.

Give me clarity or give me meth,

turning dreck into cake

feeding the multitudes refined chocolata.

So much depends on pure intention,

the way wind carries music, weightless,

a spear tipped with leaves, harmless as angel food

emerging fragrant from the stove.

3.

Double indemnity dual identity, layers

of cake in my head threaten every working space,

thin mind remembers nothing,

narcolepsy urging me from solid chair

to the swansdown of the couch

oven bleeps at 400 degrees

“Sleep, sleep” the voice says like

the children in Blake’s poem

who sweep and weep.

On Canal Street the fake cakes fly

off the shelves explosive projectiles erupting

like swords from the swallower’s throat.

4.

Lines of the hand tracing syllabic blood

the triangle in my palm already fully

formed in Kenny’s languid portrait

from thirty years ago. A long lean dope fiend

without a brain in his head poor sweaty stinking kid.

Belly to belly we have laid, the words continue

twining and untwining, snake swallowing tail

rooster shaking tailfeather, wily coyote

owning the highway wolfing down

lemon chiffon, babka, foamy meringue.

Fresh American morning all music and guns,

no hogwash or cereal added.

5.

Icy streets invite sudden demise before you can

sip your first demitasse how simple

to slip beneath the wheels of the Tom Cat

breadtruck or be struck by

a laundry van in Paris like the French philosopher

whose name post mortem evades me,

though I recall the location;

he cashed out in Place de la République

while shopping for croissants.

That ruffian death hovers like a guilty

bystander, filthy fingers in the thinker’s pockets

before his face hit the pavement.

6.

Strip mouth down for emergency only

hard words soften at the edges

to form a curve that moves

to the next line and binds it into the last.

Lingo bangs around the page

like rain clunking on a roof, or bats

colliding with a wall in a storm,

their echolocation washed out by weather.

Children in cornfields unafraid

of what came out of the dark waved

long sticks tied with rags and

the bats arrived like Messerschmitts

examining the shaken air everything

benevolent even when the dog

disappeared or a neighbor died

on his first motorcycle and the wreck

stood in his parents’ yard for months,

bent chrome gleaming in winter sunlight.

7.

Bataille writing through phlegm,

reeling with debauch, tongue

hanging out, sick, tubercular, the sanatorium

a crèche of lust and heavy breathing,

couples coughing their pink lungs up as they

jacked it hard. Outside the window

the Jura mountains in their glory,

lower reaches strewn with wildflowers.