Michael Ruby
from
AMERICAN SONGBOOK
THE DESERT BLUES
For Hattie Ellis
CROSS DES
Fungible prevention holds the key to practiced latitude and amplitude right and then felt remedies this parallel organ transplant
Pliable rising catgut expansions rest between four and fortyfour preferably hot and alkaline and inedible to all except honor performances and oodles deke redneck hologram you know petunia reasons
BACK HOME
Don’t today press memory on plastic infidel household in Baltimore reason professes mellow polish lantern polevault precedes poohbah palace bombshelter health club Boy Scout parturition saturated with pell-mell pleonastic encaustic soda jerk
DESERT
Before you polish the seven melting plastic breathing eagling mollifies murderous health boosts before Monument Valley ice cream galleons home to built-in beetle peacenik highway redneck bellwether benchmark rot
BACK HOME
Force melts hotdog lather tupelo breathing Florida semen recent calculations and hillbilly loading polished multiples pillbox antlers restless filters silver black Eastern eagle stark posture
RAGGED DIRTY
Palaces help maximize signpost olives ornery beeswax premium sin figure felt rested over long mixed ticked deloused for Moll built up and elongated out of existence
OOO
Believing in Minnie my inelegant retro mouthwash prospect faltering without illustration or dugouts leaked from positive rather talent focus botches leftover relevance hard barreled plastic gangbusters billystick bees stook
WELL BABY’S
Now the pit will differentiate between measles and mollification reminiscing will silver flair silver and black you know right there a morning program posted outside ballroom
Tribes you tribes last the record-breaking sensorama plasma racket taskforce professional pouring mama major masker
OOO
You Minnie town lather messhall filth talcum project information performance health boost holographic holiday felt memory polish slobber broad bracket teleology peeling residual doily toiletpaper holiday sandwich bollix Roger
Pool the burn to luger silent mice tolerable rocket tree backs legging telephone and and designate without segment session tomcat logic swallows hollow formless dignity tell presence over tool
DO
Seems lemons proper sawdust pell-mell registered broken twice repaired hair free wrist
CAN’T
No molecule bursts the silver beneath two hedge developers laminated rosin talkshow bargaining poolhall loose thruway beaver holiday racked dander Margaret Heather selfing pelts regular seminal reason machine boilerplate talk room boodle
WHERE CAN
The restroom brings wonder to eggshells and slimes their most delicious parts the fingers enlisted in a horror movie eels and lentils
WONDER WHERE CAN
Between the eggshell and immersion in blameless rapids filter home of parked cousin selfhood pigfeet teagarden premium season reason entire
AWAY
Bright minus tech festers broad donut panjandrum heaven for Pillsbury regular pressure packed chest breath and then let feminine prime baste tell it first without icing or any method
Meet but disingenuous placard filter precious peace sign housegift houseguest melodrama sandwich shop hospital
WALK, I’M
To slug in jello the perfume mastering as speech zooms to a purple positive rind
UNTIL I REACH
The major worldview spilling vinegar and highway grease and several types of butter all for the purpose of spelling a uniform firedrill ammunition center
GONNA
Independent of whether the silver clashes with Germany or splinters time the first personal holiday offering for our
REACH THAT DEEP
Surge and storm depends on precious emanations halted through the agency of belted Delaware time strikes
TROUBLES
Blow an ice to rescue the monster hawker premium deviation dispensed yes rinsed yes no
LORD
Breathes a whorling Sorbonne of honor and principal infinitesimal construction to breathes beach odor salmon pablum wastage lockers
BYE
Binnacles monitor minefield Seuss and sweat hollowed for milkshake to pie their Holofernes wireshow jimdandy doodles respectable
MAY NEVER
Dissembling motor proctor a proton bicycle pioneer built and mold just like no time a few months
BYE
Resin health and Paul partial influence for meet not exceed despite
NEVER
No timeless hike to stalking horse stew meat or holiday horizon beneath red pellets of rights stored for the old future
MY BABY
The rhymes why to a tight legion the mega residency figure breathes honest hightailed on license to kill legs
For mind games for falafel the process would demand would involve at least seagirt hill leper precious dime liken resolution
MY SOUL LOOKS BACK IN WONDER
For Clara Ward and other gospel singers
How I got over to process the ambulatory origin of all Turkish holographic elephant
systems
My soul looks back bent tied regular pell-mell parking posture
In wonder one whale one wheel
How I got over this pig precedent demonstration…distill
How I got over the delta square pace game hostility worth not less than the possible
pontific irregular selfsame daydream breathing
I made it on over bursting seeds beaten pasted legs lampblack sorrow time deceives regal
without pouring illustrations
Oh yeah believe the rising ignites toys rising time wine
My soul looks back bellicose health kick toughing out backbreaking elevator sky harmonize
In wonder bread pools bud pulse
How I got over Biltmore time belt catch parmesan offering
As soon as I can see mottled in spacetime reasoning within inches of the very Siamese
precinct
Jesus respects the position berked into willing suspension on rest clause
I’ll thank him the mouth forecasts helpful dish arrays tame pooh…holiday
Because he never left me sap leg health center
Because he never left two irregular health pool
Thank him most broadly banished inferior seatbelt register telling honeydew to be quiet
pull it
For the Holy Bible immense phonebook outer spacetime conclusions
Thank him doyenne of health bar harmony moiling Des Moines postillion potsherd
For heavenly visions virtue silvers the rent tethers health site determined before either two
or one attenuate
I’ll just thank him distinct Tillou pool view where the rind by buyer in black
For all he’s done for me the ransomed holiday storm bricked for eyeball highway salvage
act
Thank him eagles bent on fortitude
Thank the lozenge inside the canister inside the Holiday Inn inside God’s toolbox no
snuffbox no sock drawers
Thank him Boston damage brigade
Thank him roofer honest injun homeboy homerun…elephant prognosis solid banner
Thank him full door and horrid loss maker polish factor developed for millions of hand
bore peaceable excrement development bestiary
Thank him herself built on primetime bicycle parkinglot on/off Bilbao post road to my rosing
prognosis solvent doily purebred hotdog logic
Thank him jiminy cricket livingroom honor roll bartered elevator session bimonthly sordid
Thank him bottled onomatopoeia breathing seasoned eagle hofbrau sandwiches tucked
under lemon elemental holiday software bargain and ice cream
Thank him before there is any resolution to hijack the cargo plane eating crew and sign up for what
In the morning before hollow songbook ice
Thank him long-gone doggerel pokes tollbooth broiling light show
In the evening burning Rhonda tollish siggers beltworm burl hime
In the evening preferring holsters to dimestores lollipops to hops
Thank him most insignia brainstem pelt worshipped
At midnight the pool rains its raisins on our cars
At midnight the holiday signs dwelt in cold pepper bresses
Thank him hilltop sauna dogshow chosen belf pressure
Thank him deposit a meringue on stoop brows
Lo-ord dogun Chanukah time spray lame datebook lost and found neither lost nor found
Mmmmmmmm portfolio bangs tarnish liberal blast frameup
Thank him between rock taken through total solid manufactured polished higgledypiggly
all for what
All he’s done for me begins quietly isolated across long broad belt following
How I got over precise buildup torch valley antidote form
I made it on over light foot too positioned gunnery lost cause solvent factor total peartree
heaven hell devastation sandwich shop washing machine boodle hoedown talkshow
Spanish hologram sandwich shop talkshow lost and found roster
My soul looks back paralyzed to honest infant pressure belt breaking time to deceive
reasoned
In wonder inspect the dodger lawgiver timepiece
How I got over you and you-you
BLUE SKIES
For Maxine Sullivan
Blue skies bathe the breastplate
a toothless glyph smiling at me
Nothing but blue skies secure the Davis
hegemonic organs do I see
Bluebirds demonstrate a price
umpires’ pets singing a song
Nothing but bluebirds and oracular urchins
seasoned eaglets from now on
Never saw the sun destroy a pink poltroon
the force field shining so bright
Never saw things with the moon eye
Mexican seats going so right
Noticing the days milestone blues
angry preseasons hurrying by
When you’re in love with raffling and sides
loblolly Sundays my how they fly
Blue days delegate the apiaries
random triremes all of them gone
Nothing but blue skies gamble with dice
the dirty secret from now on
Blue skies sleep inside the ring
a hidden boat smiling at me
Nothing but blue skies asleep on deck
no pupils do I see
Bluebirds and Mandarin debts
reasonable doubts singing a song
Nothing but bluebirds inside this bowl
hypnotic play from now on
Never saw the sun open its predictions
foolproof oven so bright
Never saw things ring so much glass
the rooks’ deportment so right
Noticing the days embossed nooks
sausage makers hurrying by
When you’re in love with blind organ grinders
Golden Florence my how they fly
Bluebirds and Mandarin debts
Mayan professionals all of them gone
Nothing but bluebirds inside this bowl
smoke and mirrors from now on
YOU KEEP ME HANGING ON
For Diana Ross and the Supremes
Set me free basically plasticine
rinds
Get out parkas
of balloons
lemons my life
You don’t meager
bleat really breathing figure
love me
Lemuel
You keep peanut
team me sausage
hanging on lollipops
tawdry seminary
Let me fashion
ads get over
ellery you dizzy
not
misspoken
The way topographical
misspelled you’ve telegram
gotten over
bravely me
distinct
sink
Set me free Simon Superman
lifestyle
Get out my life
parochial
Set me free
from the monstrous
Get out my life pie plastic
legislate laminate
You don’t precious megacycle
multiply want me to formulate
for yourself
residential
So let me pressure
find without judging
emanate somebody else
unbroken (undulate)
Why don’t you midget
hug be a man fella
impervious about it
improvise manhandler
You don’t care darkens
a thing
neither for me about me
You’re eggshell to me
imagining just special to me
mental using me
Go on
princely get out map
of my life
Let me without slacks
magnify sleep prescient
tidy at night
presume to understand
You don’t tally
really sleeping omniscient
love me
noways highways
bringing me
You just
orpine keep me opine
hanging on
the rubber
duct
___________________________________________________________________________
Michael Ruby is the author of five poetry books: At an Intersection (Alef
Books, 2002), Window on the City (BlazeVOX [books], 2006), The Edge of the Underworld (BlazeVOX, 2010), Compulsive Words (BlazeVOX,
2010), The Star-Spangled Banner (Dusie, 2011), and AmericanSongbook (Ugly Duckling Presse) in 2013. His trilogy in poetry and prose, Memories, Dreams and Inner Voices, was recently published by Station Hill of Barrytown. A graduate of
Harvard College and Brown University’s writing program, he lives in Brooklyn
and works as an editor of U.S. news and political articles at The Wall
Street Journal.