To have come this far

only to be reduced to dew

heroically is a fitting though limp

insurrection disguising what looked

to be a better plan. Once

I witnessed a clear vision

and was full envy. But who would feel

otherwise? The affect of lecture takes

art when no one is listening

and this is by necessity. Let's talk

materials. Being unrequired

to ratify decency as the central

non-combustible tenet of worldly affairs

courage filed alongside myth

and fiction. Within this index

some of us sit with

an invited guest who gifts

a parcel of land tattooed

in a far national

corner, a lip too remote

to ever reach, and this was by design.

I took off my clothes

so I could see my ass

see if the gym gave me any

classicism but without a mirror

I'm more or less intractable

in relation to my own body's

semiotics, trying to peer around

the corner of myself. I just hope

a man or a woman upon finding me

wiped naked across an unfamiliar

coast, having vanished

on an ill-fated vacation,

at least say what a waste

then repost and enshrine

my likeness as a minor

cultural reference point.

Could be too much

to ask. Instead, I interview

with the panopticon.

It sees me and all I see

is a generic avatar, a little ghost

or an octopus emoji. Do I

have any interest in wearing

a RompHim? The official future

outfit for stormtroopers, partying with

Corona Light and a sponsored

photoshoot? A bottle of rosé

floats in the pool, manufactured

for buoyancy. Solidarity is opted-in

or history and all I have to show for it

is this scam, me and everyone

I know. Do the drugs even work?

I'll say I've had enough of perspective,

but there are more empty rooms,

empty for the sake of their emptiness,

where I'd be content to wait around

for a phone to ding. I'll try that hat on

again under the protective guise

of a California saffron blaze,

safe from the rough quenching

of gathered foams and spume

lathered from chlorinated shores

appearing from the air as winsome

sapphire pits. I adjust my privacy settings

to include the walls of my apartment

with the curtains drawn, a gratifying effort

to collectivize as the eye

of Sauron whose power thirst

was a front for his voyeurism,

catching Frodo and Sam bareback

on the side of the Misty Mountains,

pretending he didn't see so he'd

never have to stop watching.

"Destroyed by my lust for hobbit ass"

would be a good title for Sauron's biopic

or maybe this poem, too. O'Hara wrote about

not having to leave the city to enjoy greenery,

also the pleasant cold of a hilltop

upstate and driving up the West Side Highway

presumably. I'm amazed how one's point of view translates

to desire depending on the direction of approach

or the speed of arrival or the voluntary retreat

of oneself to a solitary place even if it's just

the back seat of a sedan. Austerity measures

your propinquity to yourself, weighing

throwing us or ourselves over

the side of a bridge with a view

of the burning tide gratifying

our aerodynamic contours.

How heavenly we could be if only

we had a world where we were.

[Toronto, 7/5/18]