Raymond Farr

                          The Present Modality: Us vs. Them

How many 
Of us alive today 

Can say what
They could say?

        Could a 
Deep trench 

Be explained by 
An idle shovel? 

Or the groan 
Of a yeoman 

Waking late 
On a Sunday? 

            A quiet 
Summer night 

Mocks us 
With its solemnity

Deconstructs us 
Lightning bug by 

Lightning bug
                   & so

The illusion of 
Progress actuates 

Our present 
Modality

& according 
To praxis we
 
Rampage
Against gnosis

A dirge of
Ubiquitous 

Laughter
Exerting itself

At the edge—
So help us God

It seems to 
Be exerting

Itself at 
The edge!



                          While the Cash Registers Sing
 
The one big 
Umbrella 

Of America 
Opens

& the eye is
Everything

That glitters
In the yellow 

Inkwell 
Of the sun

& disintegrates
In the black 

Inkwell 
Of the rain

   A white 
Dust lies

Cold on
The grass

Flattening
Perspective

    & I’m
Standing

At the
Corner

Of Natchez
& Simple

& I’m
Holding 

The stumps
Of two 

Bloody feet
The shoes 

Still on 
Them



                          Not Even These Empty Rooms with Their Small Hands Can Tell Us That
1.
     The line to see
Apocalypse Now

Has stopped moving
& Noah is standing

Beside me running 
The plow of 4 fingers

Thru the mangled blonde 
Wheat field of his hair—

“The horror! The horror!” 
He moans, mocking his 

Own impatience
Joshua yawns discreetly 

& picks something blue 
From his pocket

He tells me he had this
Dream last night

& in it a plate of long
Blonde curls was fighting

Hand to hand in the trenches
With a bowl of steaming

Hot cauliflower & now 
I think I understand

Where Joshua is 
Coming from

         The upholstered
Doors open & the line 

Moves ahead, finally, 
Into the dimness…

Nobody here 
Gets me, I think


2.
I am texting a wild story 
With no beginning 

& the rain accumulates 
Tonight in East Rutherford  

& I’m thinking how 
Acting incognito at a stranger’s 

Grave is possibly the lamest 
& most child-like & thus 

Sincerest form of intense 
Mourning

               & the point
I am trying to make is this—

Not even these empty rooms, 
Their small hands cupped

To catch rain, can distinguish 
Art—plastered like plain 

Speech all over a bus depot 
Wall—from a gesture



                          Something Half-Dog Half-Trench Coat

     The day drags itself
Down to this minute or two

To this foot of time, broken
Squarely off its selfless lover

Of a shin bone
& now I wince when I walk

A thing half lame dog 
Half blowsy black trench coat 

Getting in & out of a taxi
The details would bore you

             & so Mei-Mei—
Poet of the dark stairs, asks me

If I can spare quote unquote
A few measly fucking dollars

For her…& if I can’t…
Then fuck you, she says!

I hand her my wallet
Are you still postmodern,

I ask her? Are you still poet
Of the 7 missing pages?



                          & Him Acting Like He Knows Us

            To anyone 
Trying to feel their 

Way out of an occult
American sentence

Start by acting all 
Freakishly un-evolved 

In front of a camera
                 I mean

If you’re not part of 
The equation, then

You are not part of 
The plot

           I mean, it’s just 
This image of a man

Acting like he knows us
Like we’d ever let him 

Get close enough to
Lick the glitz off

Our girl friends’
Asses! I mean our 

Drunkenness lets out 
The lion to spare 

The rabbit’s life 
& so we wind up 

Stuffed inside a wall—
No sun, no TV 

Raymond Farr is author of Ecstatic/.of facts (Otoliths 2011), & Writing What For? across the Mourning Sky (Blue & Yellow Dog 2012), sic transit—“g” (Blue & Yellow Dog 2012, 2016), Poetry in the Age of Zero Grav (Blue & Yellow Dog 2015), Angst of the Large Transparent Man (Blue & Yellow Dog 2017), & more recently, A Deep & Abiding Frequency (Blue & Yellow Dog 2017). Raymond is editor of Blue & Yellow Dog, http://blueyellowdog.weebly.com & The Helios Mss, theheliosmss.blogspot.com.
 
 
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