"The poems are energized, intense, and demanding. There is a percussive run in many, and a lash in others. On the surface I sense irony, bewilderment at times, anger, sarcasm, and ultimately hope. The core is a sensitive evocation of now. The country is increasingly moving in radical directions politically and culturally as people search for some sense of direction. These poems capture the painful uncertainty that comes with significant transitions, and they develop an ironic sense of desire to hold onto old myths or at least perceptions of order. On the one hand the old stories are seen for what they are, but their loss creates a vacuum. The sense of hope and a will to make sense out of contemporary existence inheres in the most turbulent poems—all the shattering of the static and distractions of the moment with a latent hope for something approaching meaning."

Dr. Gillin, Washington College

Crucial Sprawl Excerpts

The Book of Common Prayer

Tumblers ungrasped,
erupting to egress.

Every rook a refugee
cant, can’t. U-boats
bisect idyllic quays.

We’ll ladle you fables,
knives held fast to napes.

©2010 Raymond J. Cummings

Crucial Sprawl

“He was no more, freed from being,
entering into nowhere without even knowing it.”
Philip Roth, Everyman

Pensioners’ grandkids light the afternoons on fire.

Groaning trailers stick out corrugated tongues on command,
disemboweled by strongmen one crate after the next.

Thrumming chrome as far as the eye can
segue. Rowhouse awnings bow, burnt beetled umber.
Heedless headwinds lapping pinwheels daft.

Eager salamanders in white-gold rigor mortis,
turquoise-chip pupils twinkling geological mysteries.

Chelsea urchins served with distinction.

Spongebob Squarepant-patterned, wire spool-threaded
Kevlar inseams. Skies and ceilings that like to watch.

Twittered piecemeal between meth fugues, his structuralism
dissertation took top honors. She was the zenith of
eco-wiccan mystique. Party balloons escaped, high on the lam.

The rattle-tat-tap of lacquered fingernails rising and falling
in piqued tempest. Daredevil unlicensed cabbies strafe
crumbling boulevards with Israeli pop hits.

Couture by DuPont, choreography by Optisoft.

Pastoral prairies sub-divided into carbon-copy colonies.
Gold coronary package offers breathtaking baseboard views.

Pockets turned out in record numbers. Wide load escorts
double-parked in repose. Trellises
chalk white, vined and vised. Pushpins jotting a grid.

Scrapbooked newspaper photo shows smiling local officials
pretending to break ground with green plastic trowels.

©2010 Raymond J. Cummings

Domestic Terrorism

To accept, then cattle-fence
our given lots
in lives liveried.

Of garlands green, and
winding whey, whole hesitations
marked ploughshares deep.

Of horizons lowered,
edge-city incised
dealt out of sequence
black-light bit and cloistered close,
violet bruised.

Ransoms disguised with all
due diligence, no postage necessary
if mailed in the United States.

It’s been observed, lately, that
certain financial instruments bear
more than a passing resemblance

to a torturer’s tools.

©2010 Raymond J. Cummings

Crond-stet’s Carveout

There’s no tenure-track Valhalla
for scruffy adjunct scholars
esoterics credentialed
collecting antique cameras
sentient, auto-cataracting

crumbled stills from bowed office
spaced in while he’ll pomo-theorize,
meme, deconstruct, chuckle-
punctuate: all cereb-skanking
corduroys, patched jackets, tweed,
elbowed joints, hirsute solemnity.

Patsy caked, patsy played?
Pegged for a perp
walkup. Beware contract couriers.
To the seventh floor, all
efficiencies all-essential.

©2010 Raymond J. Cummings

Mothballed marauders hymn ‘Ave Mumia’
(the refrain’s a swollen alabaster drone)

Sparrows shy South in a lopsided V
Bacchant at the very promise of

Soft, yperite rose
She’s no albino poinsettia

From fragments and symbols
We’ll assemble the Lord.
©2009 Raymond J. Cummings

These words trickle, anymore
I’ve husks, not kernels
Pop pop pop pop pop

Corks, weasels, bottled bubbly
Silences molten down
The hatch and cheers,

Everyone: what’s imparted
Here is ballast, uncertain, coded,
Backmasked language

As confined, unassignable
Noise, shakey re-entry or
Nonsense made manifesto

©2009 Raymond J. Cummings