Aphids 

for Publico 2003-2008

"not sinking into the ground, mysteriously,
but in the Roman sewers, forever, our home town"

--George Stanley

Aphids are
whatever feeds on the
emptied momentum that
tastes of white pine. Bang it
in your car b-bang it
in your truck
The Easter
LV on a Luis Vuitton bag
explodes with engorging neutrinos and I
see its dove-meat that's gene-spliced to soft Beijing leather.
False fathers husbands believers--moonshine
pours through the dikes, Animiniacs
who? They're the false husbands fathers, believers
aphids leave honeydew
crucibles deep in their features until they're
like astrolabes tending immobile stars.
But you can't judge the Universe
wounded pride blooming like lake district summer
flushed soft & fast down the fucking brass ring.
Golden retrievers explode in the verdure
who can put dogs back together?
Big Dad in Valhalla
the boatman named Sex,
Rasputina
my collar & tag start to hurt.
Tell me dad what should I do with my pleasure?
destroy it, confirming its own malign life
or embrace it by means of
deformative play? It ends well, in war
you learn how to catalogue ships in the dark
describing the plant lice that feed on couture,
where, because we are impure & live
our reveries aren't overcome. But they are
dad I saw the raw data, the tombs flaring
various prismatic fires
their Oceanside camps between Clay St. & Main,
sweating a vicious armada.
No dad we won't eat you
the lights in the Mediterranean, lights in the high
blocks of Over-the-Rhine,
we've been here a long time
amid the Emerald City, amid the walls of Troy
Penelope Nokia Telephone
rings many suitors
with fabulous answers & lies
whisper comely things through the receiver. Hello?
dad the aphids invaded my
arm daddy what should I do I would chill
son &, drink. Recreational love-making
inside a project space
"dusted"
in theory & fact.

Yet later
the aphids have gone
& the goddamn garden goes
on with the imporous
posture of some
politician

I come to this altar piece
Clear eyed and mean
from deep in the mind of a parasite
teasing your dad for his ambulant lock
derive in reverse
a real Sasquach without any
frothing pulling teething
in the mouth. Its only the North Pole honey
its only the summerless agony
how will we
remember
how will I remember
this

I cried again
in school today, they
asked me my feelings for Polaroid pictures
for me they're Victorian things
fairy tale mice with a
sun-ruined Cheshire life gutted
color wheel light for their unstable sign.
I saw their tombs in the dawn (basically)
cradle with all of its blisters in tact
beckons like bubble wrap, pop
the encasements of that
& the honeydew pours out in torrents of pixels
floriated like love's will in "Asphodel", nothing
to drink in what's now just decor.
Sutter Home here
in your Venice, the many-canaled
hollowed out neural city
lasciviously broken
sobriety
comes
down like the church yard nativity, piece
by delirious piece
until there is goose-flesh
all over the Virgin.
I feel it too
in the end of the song
& the lights coming up at last call, that
panic.


-Dana Ward