Bathysphere

In 1928, the American naturalist William Beebe was given permission by the British government to establish a research station on Nonsuch Island, Bermuda. Believes the fields account of bright blue poppies. A fucking leftover dinner and grass and some information about what he does and does not know. Determining the board for metropolitan vanity. 25 tons above the water, although its buoyancy reduced this by 1. A moment of puissant invisible gravity. General Electric provided a lamp which would be mounted just inside one of the windows to illuminate animals outside the sphere, and Bell Laboratories provided a telephone system by which divers inside the sphere could communicate with the surface. Just a collection of foghorn and boney knots. Roebling's Sons Company. Hard enough to see, slight and bewildered, and blistered with ominous derision. Its weight was 2. A gangly kid pulling horses. Submarines of the time had descended to a maximum of 383 feet, but had no windows, making them useless for Beebe's goal of observing deep-sea animals. I can’t stand up myself, for better or worse, and deadlines passing become precarious. 75 ft in diameter. Breaking no nails.

After the initial version of the sphere had been cast in June 1929, it was discovered that it was too heavy to be lifted by the winch which would be used to lower it into the ocean, requiring Barton to have the sphere melted and re-cast.

The caution, they called it. Deep down in the collective down all the way (down) now brown mud with white shoes. A rain day. No new suits to talk about or wear. A flubbering of the deeper preview. What Beebe hoped to create was a deep-sea vessel which both could descend to a much greater depth than any human had descended thus far, and also would enable him to clearly observe and document the deep ocean's wildlife.

As of the late 1920s, the deepest humans could safely descend in diving helmets was 100 feet, since beyond that point the pressure becomes too great. Perfect mirror for well-intentioned award-winning lightbulbs. A rush of frozen avoided. 35 tons. No motion swimming cool – like a torn floater treatment flows. 4 tons when it was submerged, and the 3000 feet of steel cable weighed an additional 1.

I don’t know how to see you through this, even though we’re meant for seeing. After the sweet swells, the smell makes people long for heaven. The cables for the telephone and to provide electricity for the lamp were sealed inside a rubber hose, which entered the body of the Bathysphere through a stuffing box. The final, lighter design consisted of a hollow sphere of 1-inch-thick cast steel which was 4. The deepest in the ocean that any human had descended at this point was 525 feet wearing an armored suit, but these suits also made movement and observation extremely difficult.

Chalk mud against the mirror all strank and grey. Holes from acid drained through all afternoon. Using this station, Beebe planned to conduct an in-depth study of the animals inhabiting an eight-mile-square area of ocean, from a depth of two miles to the surface. Or maybe you got pigs that look like you?

The casting of the steel sphere was handled by Watson Stillman Hydraulic Machinery Company in Roselle, New Jersey, and the cord to raise and lower the sphere was provided by John A. Held or touched by a silver troubadour. Although his initial plan called for him to conduct this study by means of helmet diving and dredging, Beebe soon realized that these methods were inadequate for gaining a detailed understanding of deep-sea animals, and began making plans to invent a way to observe them in their native habitat.

In the Morning

Dear ________________ ,

Last night I had that dream again. The one where we were sitting next to the duck and the duck would waddle back and forth between us saying, I just don’t know how you do it.

I don’t either and still don’t.

I think it has to do with that one time we were sitting in the park, by the river, watching the water rush past us. The time you said you had to go after saying you couldn’t stay. There were ducks in the water then, but they swam right past us, not paying any attention to the other water forming in my eyes.

I’m writing this in the morning now, and went to check if you had sent a message in the middle of the night. You didn’t. Unless you send your messages to me in my dreams, while I’m sleeping and confused, and you make your point cryptic and stupid and sad. As if you ever had a point to begin with.

I pour myself a cup of coffee so that I’ll wake up and decide if I should send this to you, or just sleep with it tonight under my pillow.

I’ll print this out, fold it up, and keep it on my nightstand just in case I change my mind, one way or another.

This Time

for Andy

It was recently

a friend’s birthday.

I wished him well,

in the modern way,

with a simple statement

on his wall.

I remember the time

how we used to play

music together,

how he would

force me

to listen to country

and pretend

to dress

like the cowboy he was

and how he would

teach me how

to play the

French Horn.

I remember the time

we tried to go skiing

but got stuck

on the snowy Oregon

mountain road

and went to eat

country Oregon

diner food

instead (I’ve still

never been skiing).

I remember the time

sitting on his bed

listening to Bette Midler

looking through

photos of his family,

how he looked at me

smiling, so proud

of what he was showing

me and how I wanted

to kiss him, how I always

wanted to kiss him,

and we sat there

and didn’t kiss

and how he turned the page

after such a long pause.

And so it went,

and goes

and keeps going

going.

And just knowing

the people in your past

can still be

the people in your present,

if only enough

to resent the fact that

they aren’t really there,

is present enough

for me, this time.

Untitled #13

balnk blank.

__________we tell each other things.

bnkla blank.

__________I lie to you and you nod and cry later just to cry.

lbnka blank.

__________there’s something there, we just don’t care.

bklan blank.

__________we care about caring because we just don’t care for each other.

lbank blank.

__________a beautiful dark alphabet.

albnk blank.

__________our own techniques for abetting.

kblan blank.

__________the seasons of drink, ejected and tossed.

lkanb blank.

__________I only me with stitches.

kalbn blank.

__________I try to remember your name and only come up with “Ted”.

nabkl blank.

__________the taller, skinnier boys alone, when they say sorry.

baknl blank.

__________zeroes are imaginary numbers too.

ankbl blank.

__________this is the wire behind the wire behind the wire that holds us up enough to say

I thought you said you loved me.

blank blank.

__________blank.

In the Search for "Thy New Shitty History"

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Listen Up, My Little Sugar-Shit

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Hoohah—[!]

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I Want to Dedicate *this to Me

A Frame, in which, "To Bitch"

Reading About My Mother From Her Mother’s Memoir on Mother’s Day, 2011

for Mom & Grandma Seattle

Mom, you kicked a lot.

Did I? Or was I just stubborn and placid, blooming late?

And why they cut me out.

But they didn’t cut you out; you came on your own.

She said you would have a big space in your mouth. And you did.

That doesn’t make her psychic. That makes her Polish.

Apparently kicking meant you were supposed to be a boy. I’m glad you weren’t.

Reading the chapter 34, “Another Baby, Marcia”, I can’t help but notice that there’s so little there about you. There’s so little there aside from the facts about your imperfect teeth.

These things just leave holes in your mouth. And you filled them with so many joys and advices, that one could almost say dentists are meant to be dumb.

I like that you were able to sell Catholic seals to Protestants. And cattle are still cows, no matter how many times corrected.

You were a late bloomer. Alright.

The slow bloomers always last longer anyway.

A Joke About Rope With My Eyes Closed

How much rope could a jump rope jump if a jump rope could jump rope?

Enough.

On the Scale of Physicaling *It

DOWN

Coming apart, in The Heart, was a passage, where You

could see, yourself, (or else) emerging, from the other

side: (notes, in the manure) // on the Scale, of

physicaling *it, split in Half // the Flight, the Bird,

the Site, the subject, coming-in, to your Body,

at the knees, “kneeing-you”, was the “please, for

*this, I trial” (so-so, you’ll never, know) & all, the while

a (sad) Decade, of desires, thundered-in, the erasing, of Images

& her:

reclining, in the grass, the Summer, your eyes, riding up, her thighs

The Brutal Necessity

I Wanted To Say

_

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I forget about your fidgets from time to time. The way that they make me shiver in bed, once I’ve gone to bed, with the lullaby of your snores like blowing in an empty bottle.

_

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When you jolt, I want to bolt, but lay there instead letting our shared blanket cover you more.

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When we wake up, somewhat rested, I’m always surprised to find that we’re both wet.

_

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The nights are still cool, it isn’t even Summer.

_

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It always seems to take me all day to dry off.

_

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The Body (s)blurred (th)when it (th)stirred

I shall be The End of Thy Children

The *Assertion of Thy Accusations

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My Dream of the Dog’s Dream (Evermore Hounds)

a twirling distant Wurlitzer__________________ come frank like oval duds and pock-pitted poke ___________course hold with top-spread humkipper__________ the tender part ________ goober apple organzoma ________ discover sunlight holding the good spot _______flummoxed all the time____________ deep well into paws length ventured__________ a giant gain again_____ all after kitchen cheeks __________________________slapbound and turtled ____________the woman at the root end again initiating dinnerings _____dwindled and kept aside _______ rubber margins alone____ progress called upon as anything node ___________ slapped together only slightly less useless than before ____________________compliment her faultful toothered and sickhappy ____________________ blind date with a flippant disease ______ nothing like the object I emptied out _____ any any attachment short of fuse _______ deference of a half-smile, yorked cold and blue ____________ clear my face back to neutral _______________________________they suck a baby foot behind the thing _______________________________odor of interruption

-----the tone in bouncy ball debt _______ fistful of repetition like reasoned seasons ________ this swing this swing this swing that___________ the bitter bottle to it ______sploshing the house once more ____ stripped like a cloud of work _______ pink oozy openings that say “yes, sir!” = = = lighter than the darker plain parts _____ may we form a form with a wag and a galway = = = = = when joking the soliloquy stupid - -___________________ - engage our postures proud - - - -but still begging - - - - -- these lights like posed orchestral weather - - - -_____ - assumed in part a defense - - - - read it in my heart - - I love it - - - hearing these pulsing forgotten lights and - - - tongue out groomed like a little voice ________________ pillowed and thrown _________beneath the slowpoke prim ____ what was ribbing like nothing to people_______ boiled down to tendencies to please _____ a jumpy life like a purple gurgle ____ the neck of the nose where he concealed grandeur ______ say uncle in the corners of his eyes _____ mishmash of smiles _____ roughage and the worst of it _________ gnat the hardy quick of our heady little passing era ______to think a round friend _______serviced his moustache in the same way ______ banquethall off-curve_____________ roll over____ roll over roll over_______ and play dead ______ always the couldn’t always departing ___

_______

come in come in come in

_______________________________

come in__________ ______________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

now ________ _ _ - _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____sit

_______ _____________________________________________________________________ ____________

now

stay.

Putting The Dog To Sleep

The dog was gonna bite it, there was no doubt about it.

He was surly with gnarled years and snapped at the neighbor kids when they would try to pet him. He was blind, as far as we could tell. And then there was the stomach cancer and sores and god knows what else now.

My wife would lure him into the car with jerky treats every few weeks to take him to the vet. And each time she would return through the door, carrying his slumped body like it was a bag of hate.

She would set him down on the couch and stare at him with sunken eyes that, by then, were tired of crying. She would watch the TV and stare at that as if it were something different. And then stare back at the dog again. And then back to the TV.

She would get up and pour some food into the dog bowl for when he would wake up and then make dinner for the rest of us.

When our son would ask if the dog was going to get better, fidgeting with peas and a fork, my wife would say No. He’s not going to get any better. Eat your peas.

And our son would gulp and grimace and put the fork down gently.

After dinner, my wife and I would talk in the strained way that people who have watched their youth piss and shit all over the floor and now lays there bleeding breath like ulcers you can see. Our parents were both very much alive, as were pretty much everyone we knew. This was our first whimpering opportunity to occasion the last lingering frays of life, the thing you don’t want to speak with a six year old about. I would rather have “the talk” that comes many years later, using clinical words like penis, erection, ejaculate.

I had actually rehearsed my speech on the subject many times, shaving.

I knew what I would say, then. I would not know what to say, now, or later, or when the last fray was fraught. We would wait until we could not wait any longer.

And then we would wait just a little bit more.

***

My wife tells our son the dog has to go to sleep now, he’s so tired. She tells him that he is going to have such a wonderful dream, that he won’t want to wake up, and that she wouldn’t want to wake him up, the dream is going to be that good. She’s going to make an extra comfy bed for him, one far away where nobody will bother him or try to wake him up.

She tells him that he’ll be able to visit the dog when he’s dreaming, every night if he wants. He can run and play with him, scratch his belly like crazy, and feed him cupcakes if he wants.

She tells him the dog will be so happy to see him. And will lick his face right off.

By the time my wife tells our son that he shouldn’t be sad if he only sees the dog in his dreams, I will have returned back from the vet, sitting only slightly sober in the driveway, smelling a blanket in the backseat, the one that smells like tearless puppy shampoo, sharp and acrid, lifting my loneliness like it was my best feature.

Like Someone You'd Admire

And the seltzer stream sizzled on the sidewalk, crouched down in unblinking terseness, tied together with the shadow of the sun like crept down hunches all along the Avenue to the other avenue down the block – down the streets we walk down but not today.

_________________Today we were watching what was becoming of water.

We admire the others burgeoning splendid. The hurt like a torrent, a torpedo. The way they twitter and splunge. Their foresome boots and blanketed hoover. A reckoning that sends us past the spaces between what is said and done, like so much water under the bridge.

_________________________It was in the morning when we stopped & stood & clasped our hands in horror.

Our catastrophe of habits, like a scent of quince and twine and thirteen ways of naming the bird Blair. Our lack of value in the trivet just of beauty and being. Our realization of a breach upon a gently violent pretend good day, one that curtains our masculinity in velvety suffocation.

_________________________________Like someone we’d never admire, let alone be.

Maypole