theagencyisnotacceptingsubmissions

someone erased wednesday you tell the receptionist after leapinginto the hass & hillman talent agency and she says they said

there’s too much work in his work anyway, they specifically told me to tell you nobody can see a riptide but they can feel it, for example, that love

of yours should not be such a slap in the face. this is an agency. you seetheir point: the garamond and refugeeing of the world and the

rank socks of dead prophets, so you retort, this is for the pink salt,the pinking sea, the monuments of shrimp, the crossword puzzle of

a derelict marquee under a florescent salmon, then somehow you vomit

seven down illegibly. well she giggles there it is.

empty and astonished,you walk away.

IT IS THE SUNGLASSES AS BALLAST OF IRIS,

YOU KNOW THERE MUST BE MORE THAN TINT

HOLDING THIS TOGETHER, MUST BE HERE

SOMWHERE, RIGHT AROUND HERE, THE

POETRY JUST KEEPS WEARING THEM,

SUNGLASSES SPEAKING IN PLATITUDES, THE

SOBBING IS RIGHT THERE IN THE SHOULDERS,

THE SHUDDERING IS HERE, THERE

ISN’T A STILL LIFE ANYWHERE IN THE VILLAGE

THANKS TO SO MUCH TINTING OF THE GIANT

HOT SUN

----there’s a jade here taking root, not really taking though, jadesneither human nor god, but staking maybe, or spreading root or

---finding the walls, rapping on clay jail, there won’t be much to takethere, you say, and the roots agree, the roots (you think) the roots

are agreeable, rapping, maybe this is the part about finding---another soul you can agree with for the rest of your life,

the roots wonder too,

you are going to marry those roots                                                                                    

-----people concur: this movie is an unredeemable and terrible------mess because the protagonist has to grow and there is no

----obvious transformation, nevertheless you find seeing a prettysimple dimension anyway, this is just a flatline, you insist. and how

about that word: pro- like I’m in your corner, I’ll help you box this;

and ta- like half a good bye; the gon- speaking like a slug to the

gut; and the heartbreak of –ist, right? the damn doing of it allthe whole halfhearted protagonist thing is a pretty rough arc, this

character isn’t changing and now you’re someone else’s wind orthundercloud blowing kisses lost in the mountains, it’s just all sounbelievable

so you double back to the agency to lodge a complaint

and sweet h&h upped their demands: if only you had alfalfa

and some vietnam then you could write like a berry, or if you meet some forlorn blue like rich, or develop a stiff polemic a la ginsberg,

better yet get an iris like glück, if only you had shams, dear rumi, if only you had a shams. the receptionist returns to show me out smiling

with a to-go-cup espresso and, holy shit, there she was all along,the protagonist kinda-sorta rooting for you, maybe waving, and

in that final frame as the door closes, she startles your exiting

with a pair of sunglasses. go to the village, you think, go to the village