HOW TO STOP LAUGHING WHEN YOU LAUGH
AT INAPPROPRIATE TIMES

While you explained how to survive
A long fall, I could not stop thinking about
How to escape from a sinking car.

There is a one-armed man staring
At me or the photograph above
My head. Split apart with a gap
That mouth a gape.

My brain from a bleeding height
Is not so pretty a picture.

I've been trying to devise a plot,
Plan or scheme, an illicit or illegal one,
One that is ill advised in some way.
Extortion isn't always effective.

When I blow everything up
I promise I won't put everything back
Together in the old and comfortable ways.

Try to maneuver like a spacecraft
Passing sufficiently close to a planet
In order to make some relatively detailed observations
Without landing.

Real children notice arches.
Fake children do not.

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HOW TO KNOW THE WORTH OF WHAT

One must be an eye moving rapidly. A dance hall.
An electric train. A clever collision. I am knee high
to a duck, so this is a full-fledged challenge.
I walked far in the snow. Some more ghost bread please.
Oh what a declaration! What a hat with no head!
What a rocket anchor with no rocket.
The choice to attend, again the wrong choice.
Someone says, I can tell you what anything is worth.
A working stove is worth breathing out of order.
An unattained ideal is worth a telescope ladder.
An ice-cream factory, 100 dishonest chickens.
A single spotlight, a most favorable council.
A strange detail, all your love. Brain imaging scans,
a wind-up beetle. A dinosaur is worth
the establishment of a pattern. The sound of shifting feet,
the sound of shifting eyes. A misguided request,
imitation forgetfulness. A weathervane,
being quiet for awhile. A major event. The coincidence
of discovery initiating invention. And I say to someone,
Please let go. I am trying to pay attention.

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