Chro No Logy For Ray Johnson in 10 Poems

Intimate Chains

Rimbaud's gunfire tears
sent Verlaine 

unwanted valentines.

"I Iove you"
was written on the sidewalk
in blood.

Between love and death
lies the lesson.

"Here is where I teach
you to leave."

Two Pink Snakes for Anne

Could easily 

be mistaken for

Zorro's blade 

painting a swan

while considering its

mirrored reflection

or

the haunting view

of a hoofed animal

preparing for birth 

and now captured

in Pepto papier mache 

violin f-holes

Another Bang-Bang Day

Unwanted as he feels he is,

an appropriate 

BLACKNESSBLACKNESSBLACKNESS

BLACK    framing empty space      NESS

BLACKNESSBLACKNESSBLACKNESS

11.16.94

DEAR WILLIAM

S. WILSON,

      NO, NO, NO

NO, NO, NO,

NO.

    I KNOW

WHAT. I'M

TALKING. ABOUT

            RAY JOHNSON

American Museum of Natural History (fig 371)

There are several rooms 

in the American Museum 

of Natural History that display

no exhibits contain 

no laboratory equipment 

have no collections, 

but represent nonetheless

some of the most important space

in the museum's 23 acres.  

The referenced spaces 

are likely the hallways

atriums and vestibules: 

the transitional zones 

transverse en route, 

neither here 

nor  

For there - - the interstitial spaces 

of commute and communication 

inhabited by nothing. 

Indeed, the Johnsonian nothing

unfolds between acts: 

between the opening

                                    and the closing, 

between presence and absence, 

departure and arrival.

Nothing shall come of nothing.

You Rang?

Chop artist flops

cannibalizes pop 

with scissors 

axes, and fine grit 

sandapaper.

Here today

                  gore tomorrow.

 

Special Deliverance 

The fugitive elegance

of the

 everyday is 

a pas de deux

between sender

and receiver

whose return 

address is a 

bureaucratic red

herring

swiming its way

 to Bill Wilson

who invisibly cares

for a predetermined 

legacy.

Oversized Moticos

Have you seen one lately?

Perhaps you have.

They are everywhere.

A scrap. A clipping. Fresh paint.

A void rejects

your eternal truth.

A currency of exchange 

between art and

outer world

is a celebration of

chance operations

cut from context 

with a little imagination. 

A starched shirt 

cardboard becomes 

a premonition of 

things to come.

Restless loco-moticos

Train car graffiti, a

message in motion

Did you catch the

horizontal gossip

column after column.

A tongue. A hand. A heartbeat.

Untitled

poem corresponding to

its surroundings.

Catch and let it go.

Archives of the New York Correspondence School

A confidential report

from Carolee

in 1961.

The most unusual event

was a eclipse under the table

above curled fries.

Ray Johnson mailed her

messages, images, poems, amd terrors

along with an oversized glove;

together in a boat

they road 

             and road 

                          and road.

Ad Libitum

Karl admits he does not know

what Ad Libitum means

but knows howling

wolf sings songs

for the small people

and the big 

people can eat 

tomatoes.

Buck's Pork Store

1.

Smelling of sundried chlorine 
and tequila sunrises tropical blend

we kicked up dust

along a gravel beach

of a busy suburban road

never considered to 

make room for childhoods.

2.

In our town of one

inconvenient store thinly sliced

roast beef, cheddar, and butter

was piled between

hard rolls, curves contained

neatly into tailored 

wax paper we carried

all the back to our towels

the never fully dried. 

3. 

It was not until a snapping 

turtle drowned their retriever 

bringing teeth to a sleeping pond 

that our summer immunity

became as indistinguishable 

as the letters we took 

turns spelling into 

each other's 

baked backs of stillborn

crushes that never

had a chance of being

dreamed into being.

 

One Letter Off

A Hotel 

outside the
Lincoln Tunnel 

could be a migration

pausing to accept

the open invitation

of a mouth

awaiting the kiss 

of a new day.

A Motel 

outside the

Lincoln Tunnel

was a terminal 

breath trapped 

somewhere beneath 

the exhaustion 

of stalled toll 

traffic wasting away.

 

The Tune of Non-Being

To find lotus flowers

covering your lake,

paradise liberates

the illusion of self.

If there is no 

birth, there will 

be no death.

Among all the 

NOTHINGNESS

there will be no 

song to miss.

Sing now.

NOW with no

sign of an 

eclipsed sun

to come.

Kozan Ichikyo

Kozan laid down 

his brush and

died sitting upright 

at the age 

of 77 on the 12th day 

of the second 

month of 1360. 

No longer entangled 

between                              the 

             coming and going, 

his shoes were removed 

and he left them requesting 

no ceremony or service 

to interrupt his final exit. 

It is said

no footprint

could be found 

upon the mountain

he left behind. 

TKW Discography Anthology

My first poem was written in the late '70s. I was awarded first place in the local paper for a Mother's Day poem. It felt so rewarding to turn my own thoughts into word sculptures. I couldn't draw like the rest of my family, so I kept writing. Like most kids who don't have much control over the things that go on in their lives, poetry was the one place I could build an entire world and move about it freely. Shy about my poems, my high school English teacher secretly collected my work and submitted them to various scholastic contests. I was awe struck when I actually began winning. and in 1989, I won the New Jersey's Governor's award for my poetry portfolio. I dreamed of going to NYU to pursue my passion for poetry, but due to a string of family tragedies, college would not be in my future. I began working in a record store my junior year of high school and music became my sole passion. I have dedicated my entire adult life to it. A low self esteem limits what one imagines for themselves and their future, but thankfully friends and customers gave me the confidence to dream about joining a band. I taught myself how to play guitar and suddenly my volumes of high school poetry became a springboard to writing songs. 

By the early '90s I transitioned from writing poems to writing songs. I used to regret that I never kept journals, or write more poems, but writing lyrics has been satisfying in ways I could have never imagined. My songs offer glimpses of nearly forty year of my life. Most poets don't have the opportunity to place their own words to music, no less create all of the melodies to truly bring them to life. I have never been one to applaud my work, but I am proud that in the 4 decades I have been making music, the words and vocal decisions have almost always been my own. 

My poetry has mostly remained a secret other than when I created tiny poetry zines and left them anonymously around Richmond in the early 2000s. This poetry blog has been my outlet to offer me somewhere to keep writing and reworking older pieces. My discography is the closest I will likely ever come to having an anthology of my poetry. Eventually I will have working links to all of the music and songs (1991-2025), but for now, this is nearly everything. Some of the music listed below has never been available for streaming until today.

My Bands:

Broken Mouth

Dahlia Seed

Little Twin Stars

The 17th

Souvenir

Scissorettes

Down with the Ship

Calico Ghost Town

Ringfinger

Positive No

Outer World

Guest Appearances:

Dunebuggy

Small

The Figgs

Me & Dave (Mice Parade side project)

Idle

Forensics

Long Arms

RVA Xmas Indie Rock Collective

Gotobeds

Gauchiste

The Start of My Thirties

 1.

Have you ever played hide and seek with a dead body? That December we found my brother's ashes 

seemingly forgotten in my parent's garage. My family is not heartless, they couldn't bare to part with their oldest. My sister and I used humor to dampen our grief of this morbid discovery. We brought him to a bar with a note the read "Hello my name is Pete and could I really use a drink.", knowing he would have approved of us offering him one last happy hour. 

2.

Have you ever held a grown man between shaking hands and begged him for forgiveness? That fall I carried another brother for my father who could not, and my mother who struggled in her wheelchair to part with her favorite. I am the clinging little sister who was being asked to let go of him for one last time. I still imagine him, resting next to pop-pop, patiently listening to an eternal string of stories about navel ships, locomotives, and the other things only Chris appreciated and loved. 

3.

Have you ever driven in a car with your father resting in your lap wondering where all of his has gone while praying as an atheist that he doesn't come spilling out? That April, my father took his last swim in the Atlantic Ocean among his family. We were so grateful that your pain was over, how you would have loved to see your girls all together again, and most of all, that you were finally at the beach without that miniscule blue bathing suit that spared us nothing. 

(2004)

Acknowledgement

To aim to be 

nothing doesn't mean 

what what you think

it does.

A nothing is not a nobody.

My vibrant self 

is an ancient echo 

only I can hear. 

I am a cunning 

                       continuous 

                                       current

without a category

constantly moving 

through a borrowed body

working towards 

a purpose 

only I can define.

To be invisible 

is to embrace

my truest self 

whose identity

refuses to be 

                       confined

Sacred is the person

who I am 

when 

I

am 

                       alone

so when the time comes

the voice calling me home

is unmistakably my own.

 

 

One New Memory

I was slapped in my face 

only once. My father’s 

hand had an electric 

message for my 

left cheek that 

told me in no 

uncertain terms that 

My mouth was not 

as smart as I thought 

I was. 

I marched this stinging 

feedback upstairs and 

my mirror held onto 

the moment for as 

long as I wanted this

one new memory

to stare back me,

a burning angry flame

only I should be able to

extinguish or reignite.

 

Math Happens

To calculate the sum of two,
once one was me 
and one was you.

Math happens.

People 

div ide.

[1998]

N R

The color of both
unbaked cake and a
cheap plastic doll,

this subway floor 

neither makes me

hungry or interested

in playing house. 

[1999]

Poem Back

 For Frank O'Hara
"All the mirrors in the world don't help me, not am I moved?"

Now I am moved.

There was no face of 50 

to distort into mangled innocence.

Relief! 

In death, they would not confront you.

O' Frank without a reflection

the has nothing depraved to melt.

[2001]

N.J. Transit

 1.

Disorganized clusters,
tiny frozen atoms,
dots of light
confetti colored;

a floor to make an impressionist smile.

2.

Peacock fans in aqua

an infinity of rows

precisely stacked

like the tops of

of one million untouched Q-Tips.

[2000]

Animals

 Nose to nose
our cars are practically touching.
Engines running, they are
animals, pausing 
having caught a scent.

SHIT! BALLS! GOD DAMN IT!

I realize now

both set of windows

are open.

I have never seen a man 

speak to his lap

in such a way.

Arms in a frenzy,

shifting something,

head looking down, and

his hands appear to 

be very busy.

His cursing grows 

quiet, I think

I have been caught

watching his 

dashboard puppet show.

Out of car, behind his door,

his hands are hard at work.

I am ashamed

to be staring 

but my eyes are transfixed. 

It is now his tiny

dog on a tangled leash

holding my 

attention.

[2002]

Madame X

 I

Vain Artemis
lacquered in lavender
and crowned by the moon.
I know where YOU are,
but whatever became of 
your lovely dress?

II

Heated, her 

ear the color of 

nipple and forbidden 

velvet cannon

is rearranged to

become a mouth.

III 

Pappa est mort.

Valentine est mort.

Grandemere est mort.

I am the lean

                     i

                       n

                         g

tower of women,

catch

me.

IV

Exotically positioned,

erotically charged,

her ivory is being dissected 

by darkness.

HOW FRIGHTENING!

Shadow is eating 

her alive. 

V

Death,

show me your face.

VI.

Victorians digested arsenic 

to preserve their 

white death complexion.

Researching this 

vulgar vulnerability

Google waved 

a white banner

NEW MOTHERS, HELP IS HERE

BABY NAMES HERE.

A new onset of 

consumption suggests

How about Virginie?

VII

Once you ruined Sargent's career

and now you define it. 

Which made you more proud?

[2003]

Poem (For Ted Berrigan)

 It is 9:39 pm and three minutes

after the last time

I looked at the clock on the VCR.

                                                   I memorize minutes.

The eight Path takes between Hoboken and the Prince St. station.

The twenty it takes me to walk a comfortable mile.

The single tic it takes for my eyes to spill 

                                                   my saddest memories.

The six it took me to write this all down

and call it a poem to you.

[2002]

(There is a solution)

 Your body is telling you
a serious change is needed.

You need a new you.
One we can both live with

[from 1996]

Steel Perch

I

                                     a                    m

      sur      roun                                                                                ded  .

Con                                                                   crete 

c                  ur                         t ain                                       s

                                   stif                                                                                    fly 

                con                                          ceal

   ____ what  _____________ could______________have  __________ been.

A bird with no cage. 

Blobulating

The history 

stitched across 

        the bridge 

of my nose 

in carnation 

pink creases says 

heed the

  jutted pull 

  of a slithering 

   zipper striking 

  from a 

sleepless 

        sleeping 

  bag snake 

 preying on 

an eager 

    teenage girl 

    tum  bling  a  round 

a boy-shaped 

blob also 

not sleeping 

     on a

bed of 

    undulating

sand 

with 

no

known curfew

Luciferin

1.

Firefly morse code

from inside the vast mouth 

of a sleeping day.

B     L       INK       I    NG

good night because 

in this moment 

it is just that. 

2.

Cool neon 

airborne pheromones

perennial bloom burst.

Their silent fireworks 

deliver a celestial body

into cupped hands.

3,

A sacred summer ritual,

complete.