Rae Armantrout Poems

Sad, fat boy in pirate hat.
Long, old, dented,
...

Did I say I was a creature
of habit?
...

God and Mother
went the same way.
...

Haunted, they say, believing
the soft, shifty
dunes are made up
of false promises.
...

We maintain a critical distance
from the sad spaniel gentlemen
...

We are learning to control our thoughts,
to set obtrusive thoughts aside.

It takes an American
to do really big things.
...

Light was on its way
from nothing
to nowhere.

Light was all business

Light was full speed

when it got interrupted.

Interrupted by what?

When it got tangled up
and broke
into opposite

broke into brand new things.

What kinds of things?

Drinking Cup

"Thinking of you!
Convenience Valet"

How could speed take shape?


*

Hush!
Do you want me to start over?


*


The fading laser pulse

Information describing the fading laser pulse

is stored

is encoded

in the spin states
of atoms.

God
is balancing his checkbook

God is encrypting his account.

This is taking forever!
...

In front of the craft shop,
a small nativity,
mother, baby, sheep
made of white
and blue balloons.

*

Sky
god
girl.

Pick out the one
that doesn't belong.

*

Some thing

close to nothing
flat
from which,

fatherless,
everything has come.
...

1

Tense and tenuous
grow from the same root

as does tender
in its several guises:

the sour grass flower;
the yellow moth.


2

I would not confuse
the bogus
with the spurious.

The bogus
is a sore thumb

while the spurious
pours forth

as fish and circuses.
...

A girl is running. Don't tell me
"She's running for her bus."

All that aside!
...