2 Poems by Max Glassburg

"Widows Say Goodbye"

Dye, she pounds the pitiful bruise
into a can of bruising, eye seething
what eyes seethe, when even nice eye trickling falls

she eats cool cans of dye—they thumb the night for her
cool sins of too much widowing. Widows no more, widows gone.

Think happy, like we ever think unhappy thorns,
when we think unhappy roses.

Then we dine in thorny dye on shirts, our
colors blend in the flower shape, and our thorns are gone

Aeneas gone, Aeneas over-done as final lines are never

Widows gone, as widows all are eventually ours
to say, this way I like a smooth feeling
washing sentiment on clouds
green pickles in a Jewish song,
Passover moonlights enlighten drifting cowboy eyes

for Jewish names and old damn toy-store peaks
her friends say he’s always speaking
for the dye, a fidget-freezing one… three commas in, he’s still speaking …
for her again and eyes see them all eyes see them again

For Jewish girls still make porno drinks
for priests like us, and widows won’t let go widows
in Aeneas frozen o’er wormwood dye, goodbye
Aeneas good, goodbye.


"Without Usura (after Ezra Pound)"

Without usura, no stone cut hath a market,
each effort spit in sand
and delight in the spit will smear thine starving Christian child’s face—

without usura

still no paradise, still no ancient’s greed
for fucking unfulfilled, all fucking around.
Virgins all, incisions basted
in fine stagnation, all harpes SPIT et luthes
in the plague—

without usura

the heirs multiply in fashion
for queens to swallow royal come
for quickly, quickly summation come—

without usura, CHRISTIAN man
is a JEW man, is a stale JEW man
like his flat bread, without haste,
papyrus only, simple suckers—simple suckers—

without usura, Shylock, why?

Without usura—it’s all too clear
the dwellings won’t move.
Stone cutters trade for corn
weavers eat whiskey meat on a birthday dish—

WITHOUT USURA

wool is rare.
Sheep are thin in the field.
A murrain muses on blessings, calves sip their manure—

heroin stock is opium’s only cattle
again the weaver’s prick their gorged bellies.

A house divided stood, in usura
Ban Ki Moon set without it, for free—
Liberia killed my ma without usura, and I’ll vote for it there!
Farts are all without usura.
McDonald’s found a cheaper meat, sans usura.

Dickens paid with usura.
Adamo me!
Adamo me!
and Obama swiftly charged
Adamo me!
Adamo me!

Qua vos es , illic mos Fio, with usura’s pinch—

Usura slayeth gardens of filth, of Christian belonging
with USEFUL sickness in the court, twisted broker tree vines eradiate
symptom by symptom, everyone by everyone else,
equal us, all for all or more.
No friendship filth, none of that; the canker, please.

Usura rusts us like machines, but we need what rusts.
It slayeth sickness, what once was health.
Sex is always, and usura is penetration—
marriage avows to sanctify the rust, at least it sanctifies here.

CONTRA NATURAM, in sin
I guess… we live in sin.

They have brought whores for Chicago
moping prisoners in moving necessitation

yes, I guess. We live at your behest.