THE CORNHOLING ACCUSATION
I cannot hope to surpass
your dead mother’s gem attainments
tree held
tree aiming
her addiction
inside the tuft
becoming an artist by becoming more sleepy
the request
within hypnosis
little brother stone
clear stone not a boy but open
do we escape into stone to avoid meat drama
the clay trivet
baked in class
as if a hotel were to found itself
on the shame attached to the aisle
we permit ourselves to be beckoned by the hotel
trust me
and you refuse
grass ethics
we wrecked your car tonight
the senator
and her apoplexy
and her agape
no lights in the duplex
just Elvis-love
education qua education
Boston qua Boston
Hello, Dolly! near the Barbizon
deciding I will be
the Folsom Street Fair heroine
he becomes a maven
by ironing to death his underwear
overdoing the codpiece discussion
the cornholing accusation
hurled on Russian Hill
the footnote permits the wish to overflow
fishtail butt of sanctimonious flag
do most flags have butts
he will now offer paté to the literature team
house-sitting for the upped ante
after it has spilled its blossoms
here is how the happy ingot
returns to the regime
here is how the happy ingot
returns to the regime it destroyed
hear now how it destroyed the regime
by returning to it
stay tuned for more messages
from the destroyed regime
THE CLICK OF THE SHUTTER
fortunately the cock
fortunately the cook
occasionally smiles
praising pound cake in a business-like voice
without recourse to figurative speech
more like a pig-sty than a library carrel
incorrigible fecal spot on thumb
corporal punishment still legal in 19 states
parents are pleased that teachers are paddling
see Cleopatra and populate its sno-cone aspects
shopping for pound cake as an alternative to the missionary position
photograph the pound cake against a pink cloth
draped at the base of a dying aspen tree
BOUNCING AND CATHEDRAL
find the cathedral mouth
turn off the mouth
turn off the cathedral
the two secrets are bouncing and cathedral
if you crave the glass beads
a very short father
writing a blog about vowels and girls
vowels and boys
the vowel in boy and the vowel in girl
are orange
if possible
and maybe tomorrow too
the vowel will enter the cathedral
I am bouncing at the altar
his mononucleosis diagnosis a comet in the night sky
like swizzle sticks or grissini
no one trusts the organ bellows
corrupt boy and girl bellows in frank pursuit
I like carousing, he said, defensively
no anatomical mechanism terminates the ba ba sound
what is the ba ba sound
the noise a cathedral makes when it bounces
Wayne Koestenbaum—poet, critic, fiction-writer, artist, filmmaker—has published over
twenty books, including Stubble Archipelago, Ultramarine, The Cheerful Scapegoat,
Figure It Out, Camp Marmalade, My 1980s & Other Essays, Humiliation, Hotel
Theory, Circus, Andy Warhol, Jackie Under My Skin, and The Queen’s Throat (nominated
for a National Book Critics Circle Award). Recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry,
an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and a Whiting Award, he is a Distinguished Professor of English, French, and Comparative Literature at the CUNY
Graduate Center.