Poetry: Noah Eli Gordon

For the condition
   of air
Against air
   conditioning

For the brightness
   of the room made
   brighter by an
   illuminating act
   of the imagination
Against ingredients
   and blueprints

For the continued sweetness
   of chilled plums
Against plumage

Against the rifles
   the aggressors
   of elegant discourse
   display as flags
For riffling elegantly
   through discourse
   to display
   aggression flagging

For the curve
   of any Adonis’s cock
Against a lecture
   on how to cup
   the sack while stroking

For the renewal
   of sunsets and moons
   seasons tiny saplings
   soups of all kinds
Against novelty
   stirring in the wrong direction

For patronage
Against patrons

For music
Against museums

For the body
   in all its folds
   and dignities
Against collapsing
   garment factories

For love
Against labels

For workers
Against force

For the mask’s respect
   of the contours
   of the human face
Against hanging it
   on a wall
   backwards

For paintings
Against frames

For pleasure
Against its conscription
   to a purely cerebral
   paradise

For standing
   however
   you see fit
Against posturing

For buildings
Against scaffolding

For the suit
Against the numbers

For the public
Against the publicist

For the sudden sharp beauty
   of seeing anew
   again
   the same
   old world
Against the art
   of money
   the artifact
   the art of facts
   and administration

For water
   that rises and falls
   the earth
   those on it
Against the pull
   of the village
   explainer

For weather
Against forecasts

For the cow
Against the brand

For Stein and Césaire
   Vallejo
   Sappho Rimbaud
Against Cage and Warhol
   Google
   Apple
   Monsanto

For the capacity
   to imagine
   your nakedness
Against endless images
   of it

For the thread
Against the mill

For the attendant enchantment
   of a phrase
   tuned
   and trued
Against taking attendance

For enchantment
   in general
Against the generals
   of entrenched
   imagination

For the clit
Against the clock

For poles and zones
Against polling and zoning

For plasticity
Against plastic

For all the poets
   grown old
   before us
Against their mistaking
   admiration
   for Eros

For a wooden door
   painted green
   impervious
   to weather
Against whether
   or not
   one has
   to open it

For options
Against operators

For photographs
   of flowers
   all over the place
Against poems
   where people
   aim telephoto lenses
   at one another

For pushing
   the last bits
   of daylight
   through
   the door locks
Against polishing
   your crown
   behind the curtains

For a girl
   floating
   for a few seconds
   across
   the parking lot
Against what’s only
   an ordinary
   skateboard
   underneath her

For the desire
   to walk around
   and around the block
   like a man who takes
   pleasure
   in circling something
   he knows he won’t
   apply for because
   he’s certain he’d get it
Against applications

For another poem
   textured
   with the sky
   night
   stars
   and the sun
Against its textual history

For the messianic
   and
Against the messianic
   and
For the freedom to be so
   and
Against the fastidiousness not to