I'm No Longer Troubled by the Extravagance (eBook)

Rick Bursky is the author of Death Obscura (Sarabande, 2010); The Soup of Something Missing (Bear Star Press, 2004), winner of the Dorothy Brunsmen Poetry Prize; and the chapbook, The Invention of Fiction (Hollyridge Press, 2005). He received his BFA from Art Center College of Design, and an MFA from Warren Wilson College. His work appears widely in such places as American Poetry Review, The Pinch, Gettysburg Review, Sycamore Review, Copper Nickle, Antioch Review, Laurel Review, Hotel Amerika, Southern Review, Conduit, Field, Iowa Review, and The Journal, among many others. Bursky currently lives in Los Angeles where he works in advertising and teaches poetry in the UCLA Extension Writer’s Program.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ONE

THE RELENTLESS..........4
THE FEAR..........5
BUT FIRST..........6
THERE ARE NEW GAMES WE CAN PLAY..........7
CLOUD THEORY..........8
WE WERE SIMILAR IN THAT WAY..........10
THE VOCABULARIES..........11
I’M NO LONGER TROUBLED BY THE EXTRAVAGANCE..........12
ANOTHER SIMONY..........13
LOVE AND OTHER ACADEMIC EXERCISES..........14
I’VE ALREADY SAID TOO MUCH..........15
THE INTIMACIES..........16
ALL THE BOREDOMS IN THE WORLD..........17
THOUGH..........18
THE EXPERIMENTS THAT BROUGHT US TOGETHER..........19
THIS IS YOURS..........20
NOW I’LL BEGIN MAKING EXCUSES..........21
NOTES TAKEN DURING AN ARRHYTHMIA..........22
THE GUERDON..........23
THE PANDEMONIUM..........24
THE NATURE OF THE CORRESPONDENCE AND THE REQUIRED HEROICS..........25
I’M TELLING YOU THIS ANYWAY..........26
CUI BONO..........27
THERE WERE INDICATIONS THAT THIS WOULD HAPPEN..........28
QUI VIVE..........29
THE ENDING..........30

TWO

MY UNCANNY RESEMBLANCE TO A YOUNG SEAN CONNERY..........32
THE RING OF THE FISHERMAN..........33
MORTAL WISH..........34
THE LEGERDEMAIN..........35
THE DOOR..........36
RITUALS..........37
THE CURATOR OF CLOSETS..........38
DECEMBER..........39

THREE

THE NEW HEROES..........41
THE ACCORDION PLAYER'S WINDOW..........42
THAT SEAGULL..........43
THE PITY..........44
THE IMPLICATIONS..........45
I’VE CHANGED MY MIND ABOUT EVERYTHING..........46
I’M THE MUSEUM OF WHAT’S-LEFT-OF-US..........47
SHE EXPLAINED ME TO HER MOTHER USING LATINATE WORDS..........48
THE TAMING..........49
AND THEN EMPYREAN..........50
GENUS OF SMALL SOUNDS..........51
THE NEW SKILLS..........52
THESE WERE OUR BEST YEARS..........53
THE MAN IN THE MOON RETIRES..........54
THE CAIRN..........55
THE FOREST..........56
INSTEAD..........57