...........................................................




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.