Two Poems

of saying

not chaos but theory of chaos panoply from elephant to alphabet early at the same time as late or coming, and, as with all natural desires, snow in waves, inchoate speech, the letter v vacillating in an obstinate babble gathered in a crate of damp inflections, these letters like ash-- born with their mouths thrown more open, a speech vanishing in speech, silence driven in a repetition of the weather, this susurrus of clay, past, present and future tense collapsing upon one another in a surplus of saying which speaks its own name. Another Typical Californian Poem Using everything     in its own           arrangement Trees loom like lime           elephants Stucco homes inelegantly bark           at thumbtack moon at blue gum stars a road as happy as a horn a loon “Whose           crap           is that in the ravine?”           Sky revolves to purple enunciation           Emptiness of the Western United                     There are parties, particles, particulars,           clothes left to shiver on the line, swaddled children,           close cropped grass, mayonnaise,           an armful of sun, nobody & no one,                     a reflection, time enough                     green, crowd yellow… Who slept on that mattress?           Whose home is that shattered in the                                                                   drink?           Who escapes with a cocktail,                                        David Hockney?

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