Michael Ruby
“O Lost in the Gardens of This Star”
--Stéphane Mallarmé,
translated by Robert T.S. Lowell

O lost, brother, beyond Alfred and filibustering

and Roberts and possum

and dimming and blossoming

parallelograms and happy hunting grounds

forked zone and sage delivery system

right without poignant


O lost, father, we went through the forms of hullabaloo

deepest disingenuous purebred etc.

together on the lank plastic basing

taken from buzzards and deregulated corners

holiday waiting


O lost, brother, registered and infiltrated

wonked within a happy meal of this peace in the Mideast, this peasant blouse in the hangnail

beyond housemates’ puling

their holiday hoskered by round MacGuffins


O lost, brother, they took the sauce, the ready pell-mell

and honest-injun parallel bars

a tooth telltale for I don’t know what persecution complex

ranked and polished, pre-regulated in the interest

of demonstrable poolroom and peacepipe

guaranteed song dodger, you know?


O lost, mother, whenever holiday onions strike

we went tethered to noodle pudding and the olive concoction and manufacturing process

the furthest along the time of rice procedures

together under a hollow-eyed hollow-tipped dugout

homilies and archery

we went telescoping Ungaretti into our closets

the furthest tommygun since irregular Bilbao

together thick in the ring and piecemeal in the rising evidence of four-square vegetables

Michael Ruby
“Nothing to Teach”
“There was no need for speech
and nothing to teach”
--Osip Mandelstam, translated by Robert Tracy
I

An old-fashioned razor lives in the closet

Among the sorry icicles of Danang


For every signpost a rock

A rocker to hollow the blank operation

A boy ambushed the settled piano

You embody Douglas and Pete

Not candy nor pregnancy nor Halloween

Not living nor dying, nor anything else


Danang knew the escape route

A household in the middle of the moon

A pirate in the pink pillbox

Inside every jackhammer

And jackdog, alone in the alibi


I tried to open the highway jar

Already drank the green potion

Already lacquered the handlebars

Rounded up Tobias and the holiday troop

Weathering no more the answer


II

Rags for wisdom and songbooks

For lease on the way to South Sawmill

Under the junction of performance status

Hostile time for possible socks

Seeming breathing apparatus

Alone among the mullah sightings

Time in an impossible automobile


To find high signs of dispute

A ragged disregard for everything sacred

No infinite inferior potsherd

To broil in the midnight moon of Ool

Dangblasted and seasoned to perfection

Before rhyming sizes an orangutan

And orange juice in professions of faith


No hazardous materials on the journey

Long I-beams to bake the cake

Becalmed policy for rongommons

That simple and that complex


The race plays on emotions

Ranging from messenger to iodine

In the freedom to paralyze this parallelogram

Hope the fence of tolerable bandages

And pocket the bombast rocket

Michael Ruby
“The Cancellings, the Negations are Never Final”
--Wallace Stevens

To fulfill

This denomination


They rise above us

Infinitesimal

Positive vibrations


Our responsibility

Hooked and eaten

Without regard


For the salvageable

Procedure to dunk

Underrepresented

In this fine

This parallel

This legislated

This Egremont

This household name

This all-night

This boat place


They are not

They will not be

Only we are

We will be

Michael Ruby
“You Know Then That It Is Not the Reason That Makes Us Happy or Unhappy”
--Wallace Stevens

You know then the inside will never present


You know then ice cream augurs a succession of elephantine proportions

You know then without any indication of sustenance

Without the rongommon in the purple ice capades, the transubstantial


It is not the reason to imply a fall

It is not the reason a flame fails to ignite a wall

It is not the reason for eggs or orderlies


It is not the reason to place, to register, to pacify, to incubate, to intubate


That makes us possible before impossible, remote before proximate


That makes us without any information


Happy or unhappy in the green snake

Happy or unhappy in the Rosenbaum

Happy or unhappy about the powersaw

Death has its beginnings in many places

Life has its beginnings in many places


Happy or unhappy in this sidereal sideshow, this bulldozer of breath

Far-fetched, implemental


Happy or unhappy to place our confidence in the confidence man

Happy or unhappy about Tabasco

Happy or unhappy about all the turns in a road

Happy or unhappy above the boilerroom and boysroom

Michael Ruby
“The Far Fields Melt My Heart”
--Sylvia Plath

I’m not going to know

The tool will presume

Peace singes the offing


It’s time

In the dog shop

The chaperone pastes

One-hundred dollar bills

The ice exaggerates


We have them

Innocuous thunder

Noxious jet, do not melt my heart


We never have them

There in the improbable

Hospitalized or not

Among dingdongs

Filibustering with the rest

Punting again


I know they are greener pastures

Sample pells

Lemon regulars

In the ice cream of our eggshells


I’m not going

On the onion

Inside the sockdolager (whatever that is)


I’m not going

Before fashion porks the twofold being and bistro

The prime manumission in this spaceship

Lost to lesser segments

And eaten to—


It’s time and might be right

I know that within each egg

Inside the floorboards

Welcome to ringing sizes

I know the best information often rises before it falls