art and poetry journal · 2022

Michael Ruby

“INFINITE CONSANGUINITY BEARS US”

— Hart Crane

Monsoons take us home
To Monzon on Wide World of Sports
For the reckoning and answer

Hope of ether
And old time doggone

Force fields of sanity
And longtime implicated
Eaten holistically
Breadbasket of panjandrum

We leave peopled for residence
Leave them the sausage positives
There Rangooned
Who hula’d
Hellbent on pork bellies
And isolated solvents
In this our unspecific

Yes to all of the above sandwiches
So it is the rice of acknowledgeable Cincinnati

Yes to all of the above sandwiches
So it is in the infomercial of our daisies
So it is without the thick walls of finance
So it is…pearly and soft
Frank in the form of pellicles
So it is teething holiday sandwiches
Draking on the hustings
And otherwise polishing the rightful barbershop
In this on and off again (sizing arena, right?)
So it is
So it is
Yes to all of the Telemann for your habits
Yes to all of the Rosenkranz with a cigar

Michael Ruby is the author of seven full-length books of poetry, including American Songbook (Ugly Duckling, 2013) and The Star-Spangled Banner (Station Hill, 2020); a trilogy of psychic research, Memories, Dreams and Inner Voices (Station Hill, 2012); and five chapbooks with the Dusie Kollektiv. He is also the co-editor of Bernadette Mayer’s collected early books and her collaboration with Lewis Warsh, both from Station Hill. He lives in Brooklyn and works as an editor of U.S. news and political articles at The Wall Street Journal.