Rodney Koeneke, Rouge State, Pavement Saw Press, 2003

feelin' Albigensian?

wild, friendly baroque wackiness and serious intellectual warmth.

"Mammogram the bildungsroman, induce
dingbat hexameters in the heldentenor's
yeasty Hornitos. Queen Ixnay to the E-bay
goes Braxton-Hicks on mother's bad milk day.
Computer's at last completely stewy--
picked up the bug at the honor bar. Citizen Quiggley
from the Gun and Doll Commission seeks flap
with pointillistic gabardine. Bad weekends for
two straight quarters--look inward and talk
to the polygraph: Have you grokked
Hampton Hawes today?"

Comedic/absurd virtual memoir improv riffing

"our Mordor grows more porous"

"here at the garden's hot marges
events soften into fire ants"

"in a moment of vast inattention
where everything happens together, a glimmer"

"when did the world tree, Yggdrasill, get so decorous"

"The body removed like a vacuum bag
from that chrome gleam
    consciousness--
the dead part touches the live part and then
The whole thing, it pivots or turns."

"ego is an autopsy
at which you're a guest but also its theater"