my release . . .

(written at the request of a friend named Erl who assembled the video footage of a poetry show he organized on a sunny New Paltz day in june, 2010. Releases from performers are quite important these days.
Erl, being a good man, assembled these to insure his arms and legs came to no harm.)

Dear Harriet,

My image is already untrademarked on its way to alpha centuri,
speaking ill of my father; ill of my mother
memories of Clyde Beatty elephants and Jorma
criss crossing the lot outside the commack arena
copping grass in a field of jimson weed
growing taller and heavier and curling and smaller with age;

and little or no chance to profit from the inter-galactic fan base
these shadows will accumulate
across the warp and weft of gravity's grip on punctuality
and the transient fragrance of attitudes, customs
and anxieties
in whose absence we pretend to organize to avoid to be entertained
like bubbles rising into the sleeves of whispering mulberry fronds
yet in all likeness shape these holes
out from which we crawl like dung beetles
after the storms have passed .

My image is for rent.
my image is free. my words are for rent. . .
but the shadows are free
. . . . all that i had
has been taken from me
what little is left to say that i'm free . . . that i'll never be free
but for your digital shadow of me.

- jeff (This is my release)