NEW YORK CITY, NY

30 april 2011


FIVE POEMS

Jigsaw Hubbub 11
Jigsaw Hubbub 12
Burgh's Bloom (HAY(NA)KU/BOX)
Yinglish Strophes 24
Goad 26

About Thomas Fink

 

 

JIGSAW HUBBUB 11

                           I never stop having
                   these  ad                   ventures.
               Planning                          to be aston
           ished,                                         courting a
         whiff of                                             epicenter,
        planting                                               periodically.
        The universe                                        is coming.
          Momentous                                     beginning
            forever. Her                                 evolution
               should not be                         velvetized.
                 Today, I threw               up, but it was
                     minor. Some are  impressionable
                their whole                  rides. One idiot
            stuck his                                head out of the
          train win                                          dow & got it
       chopped                                                   off by a tree.
      Rifle blos                                                         som. Some
   are married                                                            beneath gun
  fire ardor. No                                                            eros without
 uncertainty.  I                                                               wouldn’t relin
quish this for                                                                   all the snow in
 Cairo.  Cadence                                                                    visible,  as
  though from curved                                                         fingers of a
   Mixolydian strummer.                                               Cardiac release.
    Where would you need                                          a higher speed
        rating? The phone num                                    ber that doesn’t
           really exist. Can an org                         anized retreat prove
               my best  foot forward? We  have a gold rash.  Punish
                    ment to be offered (eventually) on black grass.

 

 

JIGSAW HUBBUB 12

                          I can see certain
                  faces for                a while,
             & then                            they erase
         themselves.                             That’s how
       friends are.                                        Is  there
        clean water?                                  Strapped
          to void. You                           don’t have
               to live for                       your child
                    ren. Or                later, theirs.
                During                           this long
        down drift,                                   we were
    asked to                                               nibble back
  on some                                                      prunes, so
 complied                                                        &  then some.  
Big bouti                                                            ques are short on
research                                                                    today,  but slow
 steady                                                                              growers still
  sport a                                                                          bit of a floor
   to them.                                                                           (Durable)
    growth  is                                                                       trying to
     speak in hiccups.                                                         Granted
      that the digestion                                                   process  is
        strenuous on orphans                                 & widows. So,
           my intimate chum: stren              gthen your stomach
                 with  growth drivers & run them in  parallel.

 

 

BURGH’S BLOOM (HAY(NA)KU/BOX)

Privately
sectored metropolis:
a prod to
be
remarketed. Gimme
shatterproof tourists, bracket
racket.
Starkest divider
presides, monad dividend
trumping
race (even).
Champagne steamroll. We

with knack for dink in  a racial facial and ruddy lion crime ramparts—
to reinstall                                                                              a perfect
spurned                                                                                       town
house.                                                                                      Endless
ly “not                                                                               a politician,” 
freed to                                                                                mail decis
ions un                                                                                 clobbered
by millions                                                                            angry. Gig
antism’s thick                                                                          ening bus
iness governs,                                                                             out  of
torch with the                                                                            little fly.
Magi tick: god,                                                                      man, sacks
of workforce,                                                                       workfierce,  
workfarce.                                                                          Fewer polite
Titian inter                                                                        iors. They’re
luring center, rationing periphery. Fjord housing premised? What goes

in
the real?
Net worth bubble
lives
in them.
Compassion? Cares to
be
better, even
if he can’t
image
how. Athwart
the needy, the
nerdy.
Tax cute
million heirs not.

 

 

YINGLISH STROPHES 24

Unaffordable bread. Stood my

home upside. My father
this 80 years even   
backwards rapid moving been.

Could halt (Russian) madeleine  
that? Never. You, you    
can relax everything knowing   
is where to be   
it needs: born in   

English in America new.
Metal good to spoon,  
a fork. Ellis wasn’t  
resort exactly Island off
cruise—bananas before never  
we seen plate. Inside
white left we on

wooden, outside bitter hard
to ate but skin
did. Ache opportunity stomach
learning yet much late.
Uncharacteristic habits will be
did requiring decades pile.
Does habit take natural
blood and circular? Sometimes
one, always not so.

 

 

GOAD 26

     Aghast prevails.                           Gum blotches on a sidewalk. Plenty.
 He resents        being                      saddled with  anyone intellectually  or
                         morally                  subpar.  For
                           tunately,             he hasn’t met
                           one. Un                  fortunately, he
                        supposes                     he has. Ox hubris.
                     No cause                            to  volunteer  his
                    standard                               test scores: “These
                    tests reek,”                            &  to some degree
                     they do. His                      measures? Informal,
                      mercurial. Un                  codified.  It’s tough
                        for that kind, while      walking, to train the
                           eyes straight ahead.  You live out your
                              anger, caress it, & I will still enjoy
                                       my breakfast tomorrow.

 

 

is the author of seven books of poetry, including Peace Conference (Marsh Hawk P, Spring, 2011) and Autopsy Turvy (Meritage P, 2010), a collaboration with Maya Diablo Mason. His work appears in The Best American Poetry 2007 (Scribner’s). A Different Sense of Power (Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2001) is his most recent book of criticism, and in 2007, he co-edited “Burning Interiors”: David Shapiro’s Poetry and Poetics. Fink's paintings hang in various collections.

Picture by Maya Diablo Mason