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Michael Rerick
segments from Hardtack

 



Hillscape stubble fade
                                a white wash
       focus fleck                 
                  in grit flash     
the evening edition
there’s my morning               full every
                                                                                                          manicured mansion
                                                                                                                    slum chump
                                                                                                           blood up hot night
                                            desert days
a pixel city fold
           and stuffed in cellophane
glossed screen
                      excessive sun             plump
along dust

[Testimony:] 

a needle scalped cheek faces oven winds and pinks. sand thrown. bright stuccos hum cool
umber and sage swamp coolant, freon charged. a bicycle chain peddled uphill rusts
squeak. coors can catches sun rays a year to fade, blinks: a car’s yellow dim paint: pink
sand beds mica light. bed is a sweat. what hour the shade moves shadows need moving
in. monsoons fill washes for shade trees: thunder alive in palm fronds. pool water focus
to shoulder burns, hours of pink cheeks. ant haul scurry does not fade in the hottest part
of the day. dulled, a green sage throws air and hard reflections.


It pays
                       to trail glitz     
paychecks
           to picture the fall
                                 they all fall trashed
                       invisible to be
suspicion hired
           pictures print by picture or the client
                      investigates to hire but always
my face expresses sky.
                                                                              my client says,
                                                                                                    Rise
I rise
         up clicking, listen
                                  in the end: smoke: all fall fall equal to distance
                                       and speed rises equal to distance
                                                                                         my client says,
                                                                                                               Down
I follow the dead.
                                                                                                 dead report
                                                                                                         found:
hanged/gassed/drowned/ bullet to head/strangled/poisoned/walled
up/electrocuted/bludgeoned/buried alive
                                                                                                                    facedown
another RICH WHITE MAN suicide
another WIFE WEEPS OVER CEO with a poodle lap dog
                                                                                boyfriend
               click the camera in that position
                                                                                                boys
                                                                                                            you boys
follow the rhinestones and low cut backs, hand over lipstick and mascara, get the blond
angle. the words, those black smears under the widow-pay check, fall any old way. it’s
the glint of flash off rhinestone, the mysterious wingtip tipped just before stepping into
frame
            the rich dead art
off my beat. but with rags
the beat is never the facts
but freelance facts. facts like
smoke start before smoke clears and ash
                                  burns the hand
                                                                                                              old rowing hand
                                                                                                          scars from the first
                                                                                                             morning rag epic
                                                                                                               in print, picture
                                                                                                               this, boys, beat
                                                                                                                   the headline
                                                                                                                 boys, timeline
                                                                                                               of daily reports

[Testimony:]
 
                                   the boring present voting nation bore (p 3) picture
                                   the new king myth (p 1) and god body hard
                                   for sea spray gouging or predict future science
                                   soft with levitation and replication (p 10) build me
                                   an old legend of war epic grapples planetary struggle
                                   bloody and inbred tragic and clever not this paper
                                   currency correspondence neighborhood watch
                                   group hidden behind blinds sketched in wrinkle
                                   detail down to milk grade (insert) but what function
                                   the sword the plasma rifle and how heavy the
                                   crossing of mystery so deep only a kenning (2 down)
                                   can name (across) houses of nature human nature
                                   and daily horrors list a casual dead family haunting

behind the hardtack
                      soft bodies maw
           gum or teeth their way
                                                                                                         behind hard bodies
                                                                                                              something soft
                                                                                                  goes viscous turns hard
                                                                            turns from a mass

                                                                                                                  its face away
                                                                                                                    and frames
                                                                                                              an exterior face
                                                                                                              a body is a face
                                                                                                                       and body
                                                                                                                       of course
                                                                                                                               she                                                                                   
of course a she was me:
                                   she was she is she
                                   a we were wed a
                                   they and they were
                                   she (she) he (he) she
                                   he but a we was they
                                   is a they were they:
                                                                   whys and wheres or where were
                                                                                                                      but she is

a night architect
of light or was my

Confession:

fail the fail in light as lights down: we pretend along in a rain as rain: yellow: first time
the gray boxes of feet sing crack and mean crack as: brown there again all in the floor,
break the floor down into tonight blinds met on the green table: green? the table moves
slowly down to brown, cracks all black sunk in brown under green: little leaf bush in the
street—the innard peeker peeks out light the ionized moment of yellow: say: flail, say,
say: again the gravel hears against the tires of tired two in a car hovering over gravel
waiting to say: light! gone—meet the yellow slightly not under bush where things fall,
wallow, watch light from the blinds, mumble: say: say: brown this floor or cream this
mattress fell an arm to the floor: record the sound: say: oh: say: oh this box full of brown
fell on yellow, this blind slat open


light burns in buildings
                                            I pass
                                                        passed on      was
a was
           gone
                                                                                              So click.

Roll point and click.
The tech drive
easy now, a button
and view. A button
and record.
                     a button to erase
Buttons button and words.
                                 A home report.
                     Easy chumps.
a slow 2 a.m. apartment                     
mix tape over gin mixed with water
           surfing the news the rags the vacation getaways
and an old rag source
                      (Id: Password:)
sends an inbox tip-off:                                   
                                                                          ceo widow loves more
                                              than lap dog (look inside the extravagant boyfriend party)

this before the papers hit
                                   I message my client
a shower and hit the street
                                                                         88 Honda Civic classic
                                                                                                         cover
                                                  stakeout shelter
                                                                         for home surveillance
                                                              care to cover me

[Testimony:]

                                    rag polished tools and beer on the primed
                                    fender shaped off-fender molded special
                                    for wind resistance buoyancy invisibility
                                    the imagination travels in all possible
                                    directions top secret bottle compartments
                                    glass shaped in space the frame fused
                                    build me a complete interstate escape
                                    for a smooth escape down the interstate
                                    mirage from the bright and oiled garage

a hide
           in physical mesh
a me into wes
                                                                                            My client says,
                                                                                                                  Rise:

I stereoscopically lie,
                      to spy to spy,
           telephone and lie, drive and lie,
           a laugh and lie past security,
           listen to lies and lie     lie to me
                                                        (it’s all alright)
           information lying around
           a good lie to get it
                      see: CIA tactics see: plants see: covert see: a satellite
           recording above
           a history of bytes
           passing along a history of biters
           but lie covert
                                   this that my job
                like any other
                           history of any other

[Testimony:]

                                   Boston Tea Party mother spy
                                   mother of Food Not Bombs mole
                                   dangle with a prune map infiltrate
                                   parenthetical conversation mother
                                   with pocket litter l-pill Food Not
                                   Tea Bombs the Boston Party
                                   parenthetical mother mapping prune
                                   penetration of the other side lunches
                                   mother encoded Bomb Bomb
                                   conversation encoded prune
                                   mother of maps infiltrates a dangle
                                   pocket litter proof of mother of

Intelligence
                        savage, necessarily.

_____________________________________________________________

 











            My surveillance
            my widow stakeout

note,
architectural lack (above the roof,
in windows, through the porch) a loose
monster battering the brain to scramble
and leave the mess behind
                                 space says
build, build me and the 
CEO and widow wealth built this
                               oasis city

[Testimony:]

                                    log on log steel and concrete spire
                                    inspired curlicue fantasy home poured thick
                                    and level house angle twisted round and
                                    squared true but corners lay up out
                                    of plane out of point build me the forest
                                    said and the gravel pit like no other
                                    marble stands the year to year pace
                                    patient saw chisel contractor life long
                                    vows said a dream to sleep in the journals
                                    claimed when it’s finished the low

                                    ceilinged coiling pipe halls and brick
                                    shower cubby fingers loose over brackets

The palm, the terrace,
the window’s lit,
so the widow’s up
or just lit for the light.
                       the lawn
            sprawls perfect
a water hunger
            spread with
                       light patterns
delicate signs
          in gaiety

[Testimony:]

                                    brown grass solstice
                                    for dandelion! salad leaf
                                    tenders shooting
                                    a burst of green snowflake
                                    from gravel with yellow
                                    bursts to float the pine bark,
                                    pine needle soup (wild carrot
                                    and garlic and leek
                                    and Jerusalem artichoke);
                                    cattail, strawberry sides
                                    in a tart clover flower bed

a slow wait cigarette 
                                                             smoke on my empty stomach
                             in a client confidentiality cloud
                   a light
                             wait
                                         always awaiting
remember she was
was and is        away
                       await                     staggered
after her                             her newly built
                       new life                                  
construction     of her light
staggering to the architect      
           after her          is was
                                                                                   (overcast shifts
                                                            snow thuds then
                                                                                   light burrows in orange leaves
                                                            architectural light years built)

Confession:

cold grass waiting mold and dawn: buzzer again, window yell again: window lit: crisp
warm over the bridge: a winter over the frozen bridge slipping into a red Victorian
borrowing books and a canceled dinner: snow glare drift over Christmas lights: light
turn and chance reflect and penetrate the bus window: we caught car lights under the
busy street light: summer stabbed by bark dust under play equipment, separate our drunk
friends—we are drunk—singing in four-square boxes cross-legged, our earliest
shadowed part: no awareness of light, no light or building or space but space collapsing
in an arm raised motion: secreted away from all the light


the oasis city lit up
the down of night the
widow busy in her warm
                                I wait, awake
Wrinkle night and frump morning if wrinkle and frump copulate and spawn a generation
of wrinkle and frump I
                                                                           My client says,
                                                                                                Rise.
           am the last line in crumple
stuffed in the Honda finally
                                           the widow blooms from her city
                                                      in grand canyon colors
                                                                 a new silver BMW Z4 3.0i
                                                                            noon ride
blond whipping
                     my smoke ball stomach
                     ripple jacket against ripple
                     skin cough off-ramp
tour downtown Saks bags worth
                     Macys: nothing
        drink stop (Beefeater dirty martini)
binoculars say brie with apple and raspberry lunch
                                                                      emergency Jack Daniel’s in the glove box
                                                                sun a rippling cheek bullet
                                             building shade a chill snap
through the Honda window glare
                the widow’s glittering handbag and skin
                                                                              well fed
                             investment firm stop (disguised in acronyms)
I am not fed
           tingly buzz of shapes
                      and wait
nod-off
           dream relief
strange army
           of relief

[Testimony:]

                                    the red hot dog pallet signs a nice day
                                    under a blue tarp the oyster sucker smiles
                                    to the international federation of competitive eating
                                    another and another yellow goblet of mayonnaise
                                    goes down smooth, the hot dog, with water
                                    spam’s a nice day of a gullet grinder
                                    more cow brain pounds than record minutes
                                    and salted butter stick by stick slick but cold
                                    roaches, cockroaches hissing on a nice day
                                    sticked, yellow butter must be conditioned
                                    for another round of oysters for no ill effect
                                    mayonnaise sweeps through the stomach
                                    when asked why spam, answered I like it
                                    roaches, it was a nice day under the blue tarp
                                    another and another yellow goblet goes up
                                    a last second smile not for cow brains

nod-on
           car horns
hungry daze
           blur
                      the widow floats out in
her cool car
           atomized
minor characters
           in our period dress
cross streets
talk phones
           downtown live show
a bird a skirt a cart a messenger a tree a gesture a flyer a suit a delivery
           a bum burps, watches, smiles, it all go by
the widow smooths by the federal
building courthouse interstates
                      exit by exit
into flat junk heaps and trailers
collapsible churches and Quick-Marts
(nervous teens out front)
away
                                                                my all night JD failing me
off the interstate
            the neighborhood
I know no place
for a BMW Z4 3.0i
          of boarded windows
                                cinderblock
walls cinderblock fences
           faded unfinished asphalt
wind chime beer can clunk
                                            the widow flows out bright
in the glint dusky sun glint
with keys swaying in a house
                      blurred inside a long time
                                            outside the slow neighborhood
local snuff piece
                     local variety
magazine tone fills
                                     an invisible boundary
warning

[Testimony:]

                                     nazi low riders cruising hydrangeas
                                     eh, eh, gage, ak, house finches flock up
                                     do you want to ride in the lilacs? insane
                                     gangster disciples cross the crabgrass
                                     ak, cuete, do you want to ride? bangers
                                     and sparrows, bangers and sparrows
                                     collide in a demonstration, chiva and base
                                     for the mourning dove low flyer, insane
                                     in the palm fronds ak ak ak ak ak
                                     bangers coiled in hydrangeas, cuete
                                     pulled, sparrows pulled, want a ride?
                                     chiva dusting the lilacs, eh, bangers
                                     demonstrate gage, cuete in the crabgrass

the cats meow
            the bushes tremble
the widow        flaps
the screen door shuts
                       her face fortified
a thin screen of shut out
                                 pink and cold
shut in her car
back through cross streets
            we’re slow from slanted warehouses
                                                       with empty cranes
quick through urban mural mosaic renovations
past the college 
                      in co-ops and coffee shops
            the widow watches
            while I watch
            we watch

[Testimony:]

neon invites a weak drink, stool seats, gawking invisible bank statements: sandwich
board latte specials busy restrooms: the jewelry store they’re bright under a closet a
dresser she’s cloaked in: light strips spill from the ice cream shaped planter: all garbage
in the garbage cans, all garbage: he’s in uneven hair: two year old poor shirts sneak
sober laughs into vanilla cokes under muted Miles Davis: obligatory metered parking
twitters on and off car alarms, fingers on car alarm triggers: not so night market lights
spell QUALITY bright off steel, reflect inner counters steel, steel canned shelves, and
doors steel polished bright: walk-in and enter: block by block in and enter


           we’re all life
off the clock
                                 the widow engaged
                      in gear and slowly towards the foothills
Back to her city
                      the iron gates close and
I cruise for a burger and coffee. Rolaids.
It adds up. Not a drug
           or sex condition. A relative,
                                           maybe. The widow,
                                           what does the widow visit?
I contact my client, say,
                                 not much altogether,
                                 not much of a killer
                                                                           but trace a circle to it’s lowest point
                                                                and a point will surface. 
                         Says,
                                 OK.

_____________________________________________________________



 

 







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  • HOME
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    • CHAPBOOKS
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