Don't Cough on My Apple By Todd Colby & Joanna Penn Cooper

Especially towards the end of the Roman Empire,
when it became ever increasingly weak.
Hieroglyphic signs usually are inscribed in circular cartouches,
but they may also acquire complex animated forms.
I am fearsome, but not as much as August 22, 2007.
Back then, on August 22, 2007, I had not one damn thing
to lose, which is a feeling, but also the opposite of
a feeling, which is a canceling out, which is when you
walk around feeling lean, victorious, and invisible to
all but a select few. But there is purpose, and a refined
but repelling animalic odor. You listen to the creaking of wheelbarrows
as you dig for peaches in the shade. Farm away your wings
and grab something with legs. Ruefulness turns us into chumps.
No one fucks a chump, so douse that shit with ambergris and
meet me by the moat, all level-eyed and ready. Or if not
ready, then at least appropriately-scented. Studies show
I can baffle you better than anyone else, including me. But
go, go if you must. There are moments like these that happen
again and again, they just won't stop because they can't stop,
not for you, not for the kids, not even for the knife you use
to slice a chunk of Irish Spring. All men are brothers. Even
you with your whiff of the future, your feathered hair, and your
coppery aftertaste. Embrace me, you fool. Embrace me.

Casting About

All it takes is one drop
of the syrupy balsamic vinegar
and the dark dot goes deep into
the greens, like a thumb in a lover's
mouth makes for an act of desire.
Let me know when you're done,
& I'll pitch a tent in the grocery
store, wander the empty aisles after
it closes, dip my elbows into the meat,
& press the loaves into white lumps.

Landing

There's a fancy part of town
where people know all things
eventually fail and rot.
The slow mechanism of expenditures;
the parts, but never the whole tamale.
A cooking show with a complicated beverage
that requires foam with a grating
of black pepper. I can't keep
up with anything. I will never disappear.

Profumi

That plush anxiety is craving a source
of sweat buddies. By a source I mean a body.
That circular staircase is like gallows.
A slope to a landing where strollers are jammed
together, blocking the view of the dumpster.
Nothing in the mailboxes, ever. There's a flier
for take out. And a box from amazon.

February Poem

Guess who threw the thing with the pail water
in it with the pail, flinging it? Guess who.
For approximately all day long a low humming
of the disaster that is news, not weather,
a blunt instrument used like a wing to propel
into flight. What matter schedules, if only
to lift above earth for a spell? Relief in there,
in that lifting. So I'm just going.

Maggie, Mike & Me. Tompkins Square Park. June 1, 2013.

Rest in Peace, Maggie Estep. You will be missed.

Some Collaborations I did with David Lantow.

The Multifarious Array on Valentine's Day

Todd Colby, Lonely Christopher, Adam Fitzgerald, Arthur Seefahrt.
Friday, February 14. 7PM
Pete's Candy Store
709 Lorimer St, Brooklyn, New York 11211
Hosted by Dorothea Lasky.

"Poets and poetry fanatics please join The Multifarious Array on Valentine's day for "Poetry is for Lovers, not Haters," a special night of readings featuring the love ballads of four enormously great poets and "The Sexton Sweetheart," a special cocktail celebrating the poetry of Anne Sexton, which like her poems will be a shot filled with love, strong and full of pomegranate and bourbon, with a kick."

Little Field, Brooklyn, NY