Twinkling Parallax

I've disabled comments

2010-05-12T02:08:00.000-07:00

Every single post on the blog got spammed. I'm probably not updating anymore, either.

Thanks.

Louie the Grifter

2010-05-03T22:48:00.001-07:00

Louie is a con man
who always
tries to have
his way

Sleeping at the terminal for Phoenix, Arizona
casing rental homes in the new subdivision
Watching for an ambulance or a U-Haul van
taking down the numbers from a bathroom wall

"There ain't no shame in knowing things," Lou once said
as he was taping gauze onto his chin
"And theft is simply actin' on your knowledge"

He's a greasy son of a bitch with a ten-foot shadow
living off of rotten fruit from the market square
Louie, the crooked martyr, with love for whiskey and rye

Screaming in a parking lot in Memphis, Tennessee
crying in the lobby of a vacant hotel
Bleeding in the stairway of an old subway line
whistling in the trash heaps as he falls asleep

If Louie had
his way,
the world would
drown beneath him

Let me (take you)

2010-03-26T12:21:00.000-07:00

I close the lid to the daytime land
And I seal away the worries of my everyday plans
The threats and the sins always hounding at me
So let me transcend my natural boundaries

Let me take you down to the city in my dreams
Sitting in the stream of the television screen
Between you and me and the underlying theme
Are purple colored people gathered in the mezzanine

And it would seem that they throw their life away
Disposable people getting overtime pay
The shoreline screams, well that is to say
I mean, like a dream just getting in the way

Let me rethink the premise of my rhyme
As I highlight a fly buzzing into my mind
I climb my tree, I’m all alone
I’m far too high for a freefalling zone

I stand in the fields and breathe the sweet air
Caramel skies kiss the evening flare
The meadowlark sleeps with peaceful care
And I take you down to my secret lair

I scream with my dreams as the people it seems
Well it’s been, I don’t see what they really mean
All these things are severely demeaned
As I hang from the corners of the crescent queen

In the green empty grounds of the village I live
In the busy blue streets of the city I built
In the Hawthorne fields where there is no loam
In the alleyway where we built our home

Burned into the eyes of the steeple at day
Molded by the skies into people of clay
Turned upside down by a winsome fear
As the mind turns clear of potential peers

Walden wails to the empty sea
Ishmael sails to see the symphony
As Emerson delivers the fool’s eulogy
Who are we to supersede the whimsy of infinity?

The sun makes love to the stars at dawn
The queen calls home her wayward pawn
Flora puts her hand on the heart of the fawn
As I graze on the fields in the strawberry pond

Scaffolding/tableau of the courted

2010-03-04T03:02:00.001-08:00

She took the first train from Belgrade
and I knew then that she had left
to see if she could
make it to you
through the
rain

She had bought her umbrella while
in Vienna and as the station
faded from view her
fingers slid
across its
stem

She had hoped of being a hairdresser
working in Paris or Venice
buying golden lamps
to dress up
her dingy
life

She let her hair untangle from underneath
her scarf and it shook wild in
the flickering yellow light
her dreams were frayed and
dark as midnight

She smiled as she held her letter
hoping to escape me though
knowing you would just
abandon her at the
next station

Was
she
right?

She called it "a withered tapestry of damned souls aching for their release" (excerpt)

2010-03-01T23:59:00.000-08:00

It was the end of time when cosmic light had dwindled
the rolling stink of Normandy left lingering in our
noses & having sold ourselves to history
found life in eight stages of denial,

Seventh Day Adventists saw the junkies
littered on the morning floor with
open faces burnt fingertips cracked
lips bloody refrigerators piano wire
dreams & pipes of war knowing they
were the hopeless midnight of
an unproductive day,

Octagonal hours had passed in
their hourglasses as
they cracked beneath
the pressure of the
interrogative when the
missives of the chimera
became the mantra of their
weeping mothers,

All at once the sum of human history had released its brief and brilliant flash into the void, a photograph of lost potential and a warning to the men of distant stars

Open letter of gratitude

2010-02-28T23:14:00.000-08:00

Although I haven't responded directly to all the warm comments I've received over the past month, I'd like to personally thank anyone who has miraculously found this blog. Those of you who have taken the time to comment or follow the blog are especially appreciated.

Painforsakenhappenstance

2010-02-28T10:36:00.001-08:00

Here you are in your sexless,
electric dreamscape,
aching for the rhythm
of the mother spirit;

Here you are in your sonic citadel,
bypassing the eardrum
and jamming your frequency;

Here you are in the kiss of Judas,
selling out your faith
for your pieces of silver;

Here you are within your wire tower of Babylon;
Where are you?

Last

2010-02-26T15:38:00.001-08:00

Preacher man's sun sets just like mine
when we both glide down the Mississippi
he's a black obelisk, some monolithic terror
clutching a thin prayer book between
fingers wet with blood

Preacher man's grass is green like mine
when we both run the yard and daydream
he's a mad liturgist, some monotheist mirror
consumed in flames like phoenixes
the rebirth of first sin

Preacher man's bed is just like mine
when we both part sheets to rest our souls
he's a white anarchist, his glass of water clearer
filtered from tap so that he may
escape the angel of death

Preacher man's grave is just like mine
when we both are caught by memory
he's a dead archivist, the price of mythic error
buried in his very best so he
can be forgotten

Peel

2010-02-25T21:47:00.000-08:00

Jerusalem is collapsing
am I just your phantom?

Caw with me
and we can be
together crows
or cowards

The Venetian

2010-02-21T14:20:00.001-08:00

The staggering wind of the winter is blowing and
he stands in the window, forgets where he's going so
he paces and traces curved lines with his fingers as
questions like strangers haunt him and linger

The Venetian is pale and his eyes are still sinking, the
woman he bedded is smoking and drinking and
the sermon, it echoes from deep in the steeple but
his heart is crippled by good and evil

He places his glasses inside his old raincoat to
remind him to look in the street for his angel but
as he goes stumbling throughout the black market he
trembles beneath the weight of his darkness

The Venetian is pale and his eyes are still sinking, he
mentions to patrons that he has quit drinking but
he finds himself speaking words from the steeple for
his heart is aching for good and evil

The schedule of trains, it is scrawled on his wrist so
that he remembers where he is missed and
the train screams like wind that is fervent and blowing, he
steps out of his window as it starts snowing

The Venetian is pale and his eyes have stopped sinking, the
conductor is screaming, the train is still bleeding but
the words of the sermon are heard in the steeple for
his heart is empty of good and evil

This stable

2010-02-17T22:33:00.000-08:00

I sought your sly replacement
holding form to flesh
when both of us were ruined
the rain was still so fresh

She held me close for mischief
stealing with my hands
but I refused to stop her
or issue reprimands

Had you been with me darling
who knows what I'd say
The price for your remainder
was far too high to pay

The house we built together
crumbles at my feet
Your porcelain mask is cracking
from years of our deceit

Is she broken?

2010-02-15T23:13:00.001-08:00

Do you see her
standing there
in the empty
street?

Do you hear her
crying out
for her lover's
hand?

Do you know her,
do you care?
Will you walk
away?

I heard you hadn't mentioned it

2010-02-13T21:43:00.001-08:00

Light filters through your cage
the bars of which are window panes
The static of your television
is drowning mother's mind

Five thousand city boys
dream of taking you to town
Blaming you for their love
roses in their hands

Sit, drink, look at yourself,
hidden from the razor blade
You take your iron kerchief
and scrape away the dust

Say there, dandelion
I heard you called for me?

Hey there, little angel
I hope you're having fun.

The bridge collapsed
beneath your father
Swallowed by the darkness
of a cold New Jersey night

Settle in your carpet nightmares
lifting books to shield your eyes
As images of lovers roll
across your bedroom floor

But have you learned to look
beyond your own reflection?

Can you help but listen
to someone else's voice?

Falling in through wiretaps
Falling,
Falling...

dagger

2010-02-13T02:18:00.001-08:00

You gave that formless hatred
the face of a mother

You shaped the consciousness
of ten thousand robots

You spoke in tongues of intrigue
to disciples

Can you live with
yourself?

Jilt

2010-02-05T20:16:00.001-08:00

It all came together suddenly.

Red blouse, silver necklace, motorcycle.
Sunday the 31st, sometime after noon.
You laughed like the time I bought you flowers.
Everything in the room was covered with your perfume.

Car door, radio, your missing Bible.
Sunday the 31st, sometime after five.
There is no time left for words or games.
You left his condoms laying out.

The howl of winter.
Sunday the 31st, sometime after dark.
I depart from Eden one last time.
Yeah, I hope you're doing well.

hello

2010-02-04T13:49:00.001-08:00

I love you&
want you&
know you can't be there

I see you&
feel you&
touch your cold hands

I'm sad&
I'm lonely&
I can't believe it

You're leaving,
tomorrow,
forever?

As the day grows thin

2010-01-17T18:50:00.001-08:00

I awake from her loud snoring,
The sun blooms on the horizon.
Fog clings close to my closed window
And the sea calls to my eyelids.
Dew is sliding on my doorstep
As the daylight breaks on prisms.
She yawns sweetly to a songbird
And I mourn my broken prison.
Smoke is pouring through the kitchen
From the oven to the table.
My lover's eyes shine gently
Behind locks of flint and sable.

What if Jesus carried his cross
Across mountains to the valley
Where the lepers are the princes
Of the gutters and the alleys?
There they rule their mighty kingdom
From their thrones of ash and cinder
And their rags are robes long tattered
From a thousand long Decembers.
Could he ever cure their sadness
With the eyes that God once gave him?
Would he cry in perfect silence
Knowing none could ever save them?

So I close my empty Bible
And I wash my hands with water.
The floral patterns swirl from the
Wind that blows upon the harbor.
I then fold my palms together
As the train howls like a phantom.
A man peers from hidden mirrors
In the garden of his mansion.
The snow melts slowly on his cheeks
While he lights his ancient sorrow.
He still dreams of days long vanished
And the promise of tomorrow.

But as he climbs into his tomb
The dusk crawls in through my chimney.
She will never be my true love
But she is so warm beside me.
My bed knows no other lover;
I am faithful to my demons.
She brings only darkness with her
But she listens to my grievance.
So I lay below the altar
Where the sacrifice is offered
And I know she will unbind me
From the sins that I have suffered.

Tactical

2010-01-16T20:21:00.001-08:00

Is it strange
being at the bottom
of a century of
lies?

When you can sit
in your asylum
and count the
steps?

Is it strange
to be alone
for all your
life?

When I can sit
behind the glass
and watch your
steps?

Louise

2010-01-16T20:11:00.001-08:00

Draped across a sofa
her hands were knitting,
she lay in errant exile
the madam of gold-bricked streets

Parisian eyes,
a bleeding chamber,
precision in pretense;
she did a lot of LSD

Strange,
white-gloved,
estranged from morning
a ray of light bursting backward from her prism

The canvas folded
and fluttered to
the ground,
torn

She was not a pimp,
she was a jester

2010-01-15T22:10:00.000-08:00

What has she become?
A stranger to herself as
the lyric of the dawn
shrinks against her
ego!

What has she become?
A temptress whose throat is
as raw as when she
fed on my
remains

What has she become?
A godless goddess with
a broken temple in
the Garden of
Babylon

What has she become?
A dissident who paints herself
with blush, blue mascara on
her blank face, forever the
patriot

What has she become?
What she always was.
Nothing.

cry

2010-01-15T21:52:00.000-08:00

You made love upon the stair
You built an altar from your flesh
Playing his madness
Like a harp

You took a throne from innocence
You steal the power of the night
Warring with sorrow
Like a knife

you only want
What you can't have

j'accuse

2010-01-15T21:49:00.000-08:00

Diamonds are your answer
For a century of pain?
Lost,
Lost,
Are we lost?

Kicking pebbles along the creek; gravel aches

2010-01-11T21:06:00.000-08:00

Punch the dial
swing, sing sweetly
touch me with your
brilliant light

Put me on your pedestal
drag me through your riverbed

Rhythm answers
questions raised
because of our
disharmony

Demeter paws at wicker flesh

2010-01-11T20:53:00.003-08:00

She rattles chains
she cannot burst;
she cannot unfasten
her love.

She straddles him
into the night;
he cannot unfasten
her mind.

The saffron burns
and drifts about;
it clings to her bosom
and curls.

Their passion burns
and melts in waves;
like magic or mayhem
or myrrh.

The called me a radical hung me by a noose upside in the city garden

2010-01-11T20:34:00.000-08:00

Feels like the space age
feels like a mirror.
Screaming like a razor blade
singing with her fingers.

Pour,
pour,
pour,
pour
your
eyes for
Marianne.

shields

2010-01-02T23:54:00.001-08:00

There's a crooked back alley where the sun can't reach and your head don't look past the rotten Georgia peach when you take yourself to Vegas just to put up a hand and you drive out to Seattle in a U-Haul van I wish you the best and may God Rest the Soul of that god-damned dog and the Pope and his clothes

String-faced nobody with a bottle of rum talking out his earlobes just to see who will come takes a hand of black glitter to sprinkle on his grave letting everyone see that he's just another slave can't see for the wishes of the surrogate mass and can't wish for the sea of the arrogant ass look down to London and you'll get a feel for another old mother on a carbon reel

The soldiers cast lots for a pile of clothes as the sun goes down over the bars of death row say could you spare me a mention of time as the Roosevelt family takes the last of my dimes the shields are being lowered for the misses and sirs but everything about this is growing absurd please take the book and just bury it away because there's no more room and nothing left to say

bang bang said i to she to you to me

2009-12-29T23:34:00.000-08:00

old water is bubbling from the drain the light
-bulb just went out again fainting black
wolves with their teeth are splitting
indecision like a reef

Jasper discovers he's alone as the princess
steals his throne but she took him
for a fool because her father
is so cruel

burn like she did to the knight or like
Henry to his wife but don't tell me
that you heard that the meadow
killed the bird

beckon to the open stair that all we named
could not be shared but then the torch
was set to frost could it be that
we are lost

Madame Savage took her gun and let her
babies have some fun as she melted
down her ring so that Jules could
have a string

the banker's niece's daughter's son broke
his back on bread and gum but no
worries to be had the shrink shall
fix this salty lad

stop says Go says strange says know but
no we cannot leave the show before
the Magic Man is here that my
friend is rather queer

can't you see this is my pain that drives me
to be so insane and compels me to your
side and causes me to run and
hide

A character poem for Mr. Augustine

2009-12-29T23:25:00.001-08:00

Transylvanian harlot with her apricots all in a row,
she took my hand and bode me, bade me, bidded
on my sultry orange peels and curled her hand
into a ball and smacked me in the kisser

is this love?

Eulogy for A-

2009-12-29T23:19:00.001-08:00

Hiss,
Hiss,
You mortal girl

Your wind breathes life to kindling flame
Your wayward mystic aphrodisiac,
The totems of some ruined realm

The words that pour from honeycombs
That secret secant umbrage can command,
The jealousy of night terrors

Shadow men with their hungry knives
That take my angel from her happy home
Surrounding me now like a noose

Hiss,
Hiss,
My phantom love

Your Manservant Is Broken

2009-12-18T21:56:00.000-08:00

Leather, black, shining in the filthy street light
Strangers drawing circles on their heads
Whips and fashion, madness on a red brick
A road that stretches deep into the night

Woman, black, fingers twisted like a mirror
Steel and chrome, lantern glowing so bright
Tragic, holy, stranded on the river
A vision stretches to be near to her

Nightmare, black, shining as an onyx tower
Thunder breaking down along the line
Droning, dreaming, dead as empty Jesus
The rhythm stretches as the notes run sour

Antonine

2009-12-18T21:31:00.000-08:00

Can we glitter, Antonine?
Shall we melt all the gold?
Are you looking for the truth?
Has the savior been sold?

Can I save you, Antonine?
Is there blood in the pool?
Do the martyrs speak freely?
Where now is your brave fool?

Can they hear it, Antonine?
Are the strings still too loud?
Have the angels been butchered?
Shall you part from your cloud?

Can the night come, Antonine?
Do they call me your slave?
Is our bed still left empty?
Am I still in my grave?

On Baghdad

2009-12-13T01:24:00.001-08:00

It was Thursday and the war had just started.
With reverence, we sat and saw the bombardment.
The screen was green and black, the shades of murder.
Papa drank a Bud Light.
Mother knitted a red scarf.

It was Thursday and the war had just begun.
Screams were filtered out of live broadcasts.
The sun shined as it always did.
There were no bullets or helicopters.
I played in the back yard.

It was Thursday and the war was in bloom.
Vague notions wavered through the air.
Lies became a symphony.
Someone danced in Washington.
A songbird cawed a dirge.

It was Thursday and the war was everywhere.
A man was frowning on a subway line.
The newspapers were aghast with patriotism.
It was a day like any other.
And nothing was ever the same.

In the night

2009-11-16T09:26:00.000-08:00

I see soldiers without guns
A thousand priests without suns
A hundred hands without fingers
The smell of hatred still lingers
There was a dart sticking to the back
Of a broken post
Behind a ghost
As the night came flashing

I heard the children lose their youth
A million eyes looked past the truth
Cacophonies of beggars battling
A pontiff's jewels were rattling
Smoke sticking to its great iron stack
In the empty sky
Behind a lie
As the night came crashing

I felt the slip of a rose's thorn
As wreaths of horror soon were torn
From the scalps of princes and of queens
Actors preaching loud without their scenes
It was then that we held both our hands
To the golden calf
Just for a laugh
As the night came rumbling

I knew that history had its friends
That tyranny had further ends
Strangers lurked within the silent mass
Candles burned so that God might trespass
Upon the filth of mud-coated lands
Of forgotten past
If it could last
As the night fell, crumbling

Sonnet for the sparrow and its broken wing; Sonnet for the duchess and her entourage; Sonnet for the songbird yet entombed

2009-11-15T13:40:00.000-08:00

Would that my hunger could be far removed
So that my love could stay beside my hand,
She takes a flight betwixt our heat behooved
Where light is buried 'neath the summer's sand.
We stood still in dread as Night broke her bread,
Her dreamy shawl that slithers on my floor;
Her head, resting quiet, lit on a bed
As a child is knocking upon her door.
I wonder, I fly in the fog-worn sky
As distance becomes the plot of the sun
I reach and I gasp to grasp and to sigh
For still my penance had not yet been won!
I loved her, a friend, eternal, we end
All of remembrance on which I depend.

Oslo's doorsteps

2009-11-11T22:01:00.001-08:00

Oh, the Siren with her aqua tongue,
her shimmered tears that swirl and sink,
weeping for Atlantic triumph
as her sailor drifts away; she says,
"I lost my only love to London's river"

Psychedelic blossom smoke, Hieronymus, disguised!
Plugging dissonance into wire-rats and odysseys
little cages, rotting sages, burning pages through the ages
tripping hard across the rocks of Yeats and yesterday
he wipes the mist from his teeth as he slowly says:
" I lost my only love to Beijing's sorrow"

Tapioca miner with an ear for lupine calls
howl as the strings to Stravinsky, oh God
I can't believe they cut my heart and
gave it to the Aztecs! loathing in her
banquet ties, all too clear, too prescient,
to live is to love is to leer is to leave, so cry!
"I lost my only love to L.A.'s highways"

Minerva, wisdom, logic falls around you like a skirt
Minerva, endless, mighty tower, perhaps of Babel?
Minerva, corporate, incorporation of irreverence
Minerva, long expired and lost among a flock
What say you now? The time is near!
And what is that I hear?
" I lost my only love to New York madness"

Empty-headed plastic people praying to their plastic god
basket-walking malcontent with sieves inside her underwear
she is the product of modernity, she buys herself a pill
the cure-all to her endless breathing bully box of bastards
and I! and I! and me! and mine! The glutton, she must harvest more!
And I hear a tragic violin that sings her final dirge;
"I lost my only love to Cairo trinkets"

When Known

2009-11-10T19:24:00.001-08:00

Velvet-gloved peasants
scrape their
endless throats
across the
broken desert

Stranger cowls
that sphinxes
riddle swirl
in storms
alluring her

We stand in perfect
silence as the flag
is draped upon the
crooked pyramid

Lunging at the
balcony of history
is destiny's own
innocence

Who are we,
the prison guards,
to question wishes
of the iron barrister?

Cloyed in disgust,
trembling leaves
are buried in
the snow

Tap a rhythm on
your skull if you
wish to marinate

Strap yourself in
reverence to love
if you are radiant

by the way I am sorry and you are free to wax poetic in the future

2009-11-01T20:53:00.001-08:00

The crimson shawl draped
upon the shoulders of the
grey work-dreary-day city
shall be lifted,
revealing
mystery,
its folds and billowed vellum
fluttering above the seething
nocturne diamonds

Primal poetry

2009-10-25T14:49:00.001-07:00

Deer
Spear
Chieftain cheer
Hunt, rock
Together

Deer, spear,
Tribe me here
Rock, fight
We

Deer, spear,
Proud and cheer
Glory hammer
We win

Deer, spear,
Chieftain's jeer
War come here
Wife so near

Deer, spear,
Cuckold's sneer
Kill him, fight him,
No good, dear

Deer, spear, silence queer,
Moon is white, sun is clear
We as one as many as two
Life, death, bury, who

Deer, spear, stony shear
Hunt so grand, without peer
Heart and fight and cut and bleed
Wife and child and mother and need

Deer, spear, together fear
Wife with mother and daughter with tear
We as many as punish as you
Fight and bury and blood and true

who are the psychedelic mind pirates

2009-10-20T21:24:00.000-07:00

who
want
to eat
your
happiness
and
hijack
all
good will
for
their
own
self-interest

And So At The End Of All Things

2009-10-10T17:53:00.000-07:00

She flushed herself with crimson
She gassed your hidden chamber
She took the knife and cut you out
And spat your sign as cancer

Looks like
you played
too long

Paranoiac

2009-10-10T17:12:00.001-07:00

Why should I fear for death?
My end shall be the same
The billions breathing,
Seeping,
Leaving their remains

Why should I sing your song?
What makes your words echo?
Who are you
to question
me?

They stood their ground and fought
You knew where we were found
Beneath a hole
inside the
universe

The bullets swirl in time
The seekers shall not find
Me standing in
Your circus tent
No. . .

All Together Now

2009-10-10T00:19:00.001-07:00

Walking through the garden of the consciousness supreme
I feel my hand attach to vines and slither through the years
The rocks and boulders roll along, the glaciers thrive and pulse
My love is all-surrounding as the forests spawn and grow!

Standing on the pedestal of the ancient rolling age
I see you and I know your soul, for it is also mine
The trains that jet between our hearts thunder even still
But I feel the wind connect us as a tether to its ball!

I know myself within the eyes of every lonely stranger
I hear my voice speaking with the choir of the mass
Our love is sprawling through the pages written ages past
I touched your hidden sanctum and together all is one!

t

2009-10-01T19:03:00.001-07:00

I'm curled up here humming mad tunes
with the drilling of the weekday in my throat
the brick walls closing in and
all the
air is
being
robbed
from
my
lungs

corrupted mortal form

2009-10-01T18:54:00.001-07:00

i'm smoldering
the weight of this ashy province is
too light to heal the wind

i break the oaths
i storm the castle
i strand myself in Vishnu's stare
and wonder how far I've come

cursory

2009-10-01T18:47:00.001-07:00

I brought to you the world
come crashing on a turnpike
on a turntable
and I am formless
lost
without hope
dredged through the
god-damn sewer and I
want to be with you I
want to be near you
but it's a struggle and I don't
know how it works anymore

The Early Autumn Blues

2009-10-01T15:59:00.001-07:00

A couple with barren hands in the cold October afternoon
with signs that read FREE FRIENDSHIP
protesting unhappiness, the stultifying
suffocation of the imbecilic masses:
Thursday wet afternoon
Thursday sinking, gulping
Thursday with its pants unzipped

Roll it out on the umbrella, tell me to kiss your ass
Pretend you're smoking grass, stoking crass observations
And stick your pamphlet in your own damn face if you'd please

love

2009-09-28T19:01:00.001-07:00

rolling images red and vital thump across my scalp and
then the harbinger comes swinging in to claim the tongue
and axle of the wagon as a sacrament when oxen stand all
about and I with dull-eyed buggery am trapped tripped
made opaque and left without my hornet's nest or my
shell

roiling tongues and smoking livers with their adolescence
still intact the trapeze of mortal quandary bouncing
unimportant to my scrutiny:
must it be so?

saunter and sunder your mind from all surrender, release
your chakra cosmic energy inner self soul eternal being
become a flash of light into the universe and swim
with me

e

2009-09-28T16:30:00.000-07:00

Washed my soul within the river
Touched my tongue to nectar, honey
Found myself and walked on by

Tomorrow is the next horizon.

d

2009-09-28T09:25:00.001-07:00

hope marches in my ear drum
and so I do not
despair

I knew you then

2009-09-27T15:21:00.001-07:00

Spindling two half-broken
cardigans along the paved
walkways slouching on the
Rubicon: you were humming
hallelujahs

prophecy of the wilted gypsy

2009-09-25T18:57:00.001-07:00

These visions curl against the smoke, clinging like a noose:

There came a time when Death rode in
upon his hoary steed

We struck our hands against the steel
begging to be freed

The casket swung, the gates, they crashed
As heaven's seven swords a-slashed

The dead and rotted realm of men
burned and burned and burned

The tourniquet against my flesh
turned and turned and turned

The ghastly mountains flickered white
Beheaded like a fallen knight

These visions burn against my throat,
Cut me,
Cut me loose!

b

2009-09-20T20:57:00.001-07:00

dreaming underneath the unpainted sky
with fireflies and crickets and a beautiful
girl singing as she thrashes about because
she doesn't really know how to dance

tarantula nightmares under the grey dawn
where the children trade in their weapons
for cereal bowls and tell me that the fish
have suffocated under the pressure

I need this pharmaceutical need a fix-me-up
need my fix need to get fixed need fixing
need to fix everything that I've done wrong
don't know why she left but she was happy

there was this starlight just sitting there and
she took it and her bread bowl and told me
we were two were always undiscovered made
immutable and token taken took beneath

bridges over rivers smoothing out my madness
shifting as a pocket full of pills and my doctor
tells me it's not an emergency writing prescriptions
screaming in tongues like guitar notes together

harmonies unplucking themselves and fastening
their lilting abstinence into the graveyard
the smell is hungering for my acquiescence
the surrender. of all that makes me exceptional.

my oeuvre, my vibe, my energy, my je ne sais quois,
my spirit, my ambience, my diligence, my wisdom,
my essence, my oneness, my cosmic stratosphere,
my one-and-only-damn-you-if-you-don't-care soul

but I don't know what I did
I don't know what I did
I don't honestly know what I did
to end up here

a

2009-09-20T20:45:00.001-07:00

Empty city
full of black holes
half-dreamt
on a sewer grate;

slap my knee
and shout
hey i'm home

tin pan

2009-09-17T13:06:00.001-07:00

My city has a garden
where wood is sown
and stones are grown

The rain that grows
these flowers are the
tears of mothers,
daughters, and
widowers

la ville

2009-09-17T10:52:00.001-07:00

Regardez!
Espérer, respirer,
danser dans ma ville!

Ma ville, c'est un oiseau blanc
qui cueille mon esprit

Elle brille dans ma mémoire
où ses cimes gouttent comme le miel

Mon dieu,
mon Dieu,
quand je meurs
Enterrez-moi
dans son jardin

abacus

2009-09-16T21:10:00.001-07:00

you broke into my home
left my hearth
in disarray

I have half a mind to
get you lobotomized

Wherein I mangle French

2009-09-16T18:41:00.001-07:00

Hier soir,
j'ai fait la connaissance
d'un peintre qui a dessiné
mon froncement

Il pensait que j'ai eu un fleuve
de la vie et la tristesse
et il a demandé:
«J'ai vu ta copine et toi
quand vous dansiez
en Amérique,
et j'ai pensé que tu as ri.
Pourquoi est-ce que tu
fais des gros yeux
aux lapins?»

«Cette femme,»
j'ai répondu,
«m'a posé un lapin.»

Our autumn was a quiet one

2009-09-15T11:35:00.001-07:00

Our autumn was a quiet one

When sentinels bowed
in tandem, their leaves
and boroughs
splendid
drenched in the wet noon sky

Spry yet sunk within eye-sockets
her collar bone with
slight
protrusion

I stood as though a monument
as her footprints
bled along

The seething hiss of partisans
had muted in the pale breeze
its numbing pity, a tidal
roar

If I could,
I'd change our hearts to spades
and bury us
in Eden

trans

2009-09-14T11:05:00.003-07:00

Under the beating heart of the harvest moon
sit I, with coat and kerchief
blood-red and in mourning
slapping together boards
as the dirt is shoveled on
on
on

tick

2009-09-14T11:05:00.001-07:00

I used to tremble with fury at her
scream in empty halls
hunger for the touch
demand satisfaction
surrender myself
imply reflection
breathe
weep
bawl
cry out: THIS IS ME

But then
I also
used to
care

Beatest damn thing you ever saw

2009-09-13T13:44:00.001-07:00

Screaming Lennon schizophrenia and then
Dylan skipping in record player
Saw it from a different Saw it
from a different Saw
it from a
different Saw it
from
a different
Saw
it from
a

pick up the needle
and dance

crow

2009-09-12T09:17:00.001-07:00

Once I saw your velvet canvas
and saw the mascara circling your cheeks
and heard the anguish in your voice

Once I took the power from the clocktower
and trapped my mind in static form
looking at a reflection across a glass

I had but this to think and thank you for:
it had been so long and I had forgotten
how to be disillusioned

Drinking champagne

2009-09-07T11:24:00.000-07:00

everything I do is wrong everything
I do is wrong everything I
do is wrong everything I do
is wrong everything I do is
wrong

With respects to Josef Mengele

2009-09-05T22:05:00.000-07:00

The vault of ancient subways cracks the sky
The twins are sewn together as they die
Light catches on his lonely wire frame
Buried underneath his coat and name
Mein gott, he operated far too long...
And the surgeon's lonely bones rattle on

Beneath the weeping moon and jungle air
He sits and combs his mane of midnight hair
He shall not be the victim of a grudge
Never shall he bow before some judge
He whistles an old German folk song...
And the surgeon's lonely bones rattle on

The kisses of the vales are moist and warm
The fog is wrapped around his sleeping form
As daylight pries apart his waking eyes
The doctor cannot dream and so he cries
Besmirched, he has been done so wrong...
And the surgeon's lonely bones rattle on

Ash is ash and dust is through and true
The devil has been paid his rightful due
Witches brew a curse to steal his soul
The earth will not accept his body whole
No coffin in the dirt would be so strong...
So the surgeon's lonely bones must rattle on

#753

2009-09-02T14:48:00.000-07:00

She wasn't my salvation,
she was just another
pound of flesh

You think that I am humble?
I'm just looking for my
martinet

You're aching for a lover
but you haven't learned to
shut him out

I know you are not perfect
but it's raining and I
have my doubts

some of those reasons

2009-08-31T20:39:00.001-07:00

because you overcame the razor
because you armed yourself for war
because you cannot take misfortune
because next to you, Helen is a toad
because I can't be dipped into the Styx
because my heart is neither steel nor gas
because the crypt does not rattle
because the haze has not faded
because we have not had a drink
because you touched my spirit
because of derby hats
because you are a gem and not a metal
because I believe in genies
because you ask why
because you need the recipe
because your smile gleams through late summer and burns and quakes with such a mighty force that it leaves me in the rhythms of aftershock
because I can't see us in the mirror
because the room is full
because it's somehow empty
because you look so evil but
because I know you're not
because I take things too seriously
because I don't know if you do too
because I want to feel something
because you need more
because I trespassed into the realm of possibility and fantasy and I was ensnared in quicksand as they jabbed spears into my skull and I am trying to nurse my wounds
because of what we are
because of what we aren't

#234

2009-08-31T20:22:00.000-07:00

Something in the way you crawl
across my lap and tell me that
you want to kiss me
brings me sadness

I whisper in your trembling ear
a secret that must be revealed
regarding your sweet lips
and my refusal

I take a number, stand in line
become the soldier lost in time
for none who treat my love
as though a plaything

The ragdoll you are clinging to
will try now to abandon you
as snow blows in
from out of town

Trust me when I whisper close
that you are better than the ghost
I think you know where
I am standing

#233

2009-08-31T19:59:00.001-07:00

You summoned me into your hall
Acting useless as you bawled
But little one, you are no fountain

Preaching in your happy way
I know you tried but failed to save
The mist and smoke atop my mountain

The Occident is squirming at your feet
The rivers run in slivers of deceit

Strangling from the shrinking light
You press me deep inside your flight
I nod my hammer in your direction

You ask me for some other way
To sell your servants' waiting pay
And then you seek my own protection

Disoriented dreamers break their snore
You lost the right to knock upon my door

#232

2009-08-31T19:54:00.001-07:00

not into the whole
preservation of image
have nothing to lose?
then chisel your name
into the side of the road
after they put down
some new blacktop:
someone might
remember you

#230

2009-08-31T19:20:00.000-07:00

I took your cottage into waiting palms
I held your mother high with my hosannas
I lifted you into my raft of psalms
And sang for you, my sweet Shoshanna

Yes, I sing for only you, my sweet Shoshanna

But then the clouds of Calvary came pounding
But then you swung my lyre by its chord
I swear I heard on rocks your laugh resounding
You brandished your forgiveness like a sword

Yes, you brandished your forgiveness like some sword

night watcher

2009-08-31T18:31:00.001-07:00

Tip the scales and you might find
that streaming in your unborn mind
is the nascent calming truth
that sages seek and scholars soothe;
digest your pain and swallow fear
before you find your life is near
or coming to its terminus
where angels hang in empty dust

and then I'd tell you,
much estranged,
that both of us still look the same

clip my wings

2009-08-31T16:58:00.001-07:00

I wish she'd come unloosened
(from her clothes?)
Well yes, that too

Stripping bare our feelings
Burning draft cards
Manhattan rations and
everything going right

I just want to
make her
happy

trouble

2009-08-30T21:34:00.001-07:00

Two sexless, dreamless
seamless forms
Curling across the sky
their perfume
lingering
in the moonlight

I stand in awe

bump

2009-08-27T20:27:00.001-07:00

It was some robotic sound shouting blandly through the atmosphere
a cataclysm, cavalcade muddled in unwholesome formation
here the inflection rise and fall with bleeps and static
overload! the senses break, imperfect pitch-and-tone

Do we remember?
dead men swinging in the Mississippi breeze
wanting freedom rights privilege

Do we remember?
marches trumpets folkies all in Washington
MLK and Malcolm and the civil rights-unrest

Teenage body dumped on sewer grate
young blood trickling into gutter
wailing mother and the clacking
of assault

Do we remember?
backpack dumped stand up for self
strumming anger into the back alley
stripped of life

Do we remember?
unpeeled face double-struck in side
punctured screaming hunted drained
robbed, stolen

and so
we must
press on

touch

2009-08-26T20:00:00.001-07:00

A delicate leaf
trembling, autumnal
splashing goldenrod
on asphalt canvas

The lilac wilts
strings unbundled
even castles
shall erode:

I envy her
for the view
outside her frosted
window pane

Poor Taste

2009-08-25T14:06:00.001-07:00

My misanthropy blooms eternal
Be it the grating harpy's laugh,
The crowing of the small-minded drunks,
The braying of the dandies,
The loose-jowled smirks of professors,
The nose-ring faux rebellion of the street rat,
The lamppost leaning of the leather baron,
The wagging tongue of the drab eunuch,
The high fashion warbling of the governess,
The stone fists of the ironclad avenger,
The waking numbness of the spinning sycophant,
The all-too-pretty clones who populate modern brothels,
The gold-toothed pimps who dial wrong numbers,
The dripping acid of the indignant lyricist,
The cackling volunteer and her whiny libretto,
Or the pompous poet with his pen...

This is actually a true story

2009-08-23T01:07:00.001-07:00

I was a ballet dancer
in the days of my youth
doing strange arrangements
but with clumsy feet

I blame Paul McCartney

bang

2009-08-23T01:04:00.001-07:00

Have you ever
kissed the barrel
of a gun?

How did she
react?

Border wars

2009-08-23T00:57:00.001-07:00

Her tresses sit in exile
I, in standing ovation
We both held ourselves
And pressed on in harder
Times than this.

A streak of lipstick runs
Along the edge of glasses
And she proudly smirks
And gently presses her
Fingertips into mine.

Only in this prison
Could I be free

Luminate

2009-08-23T00:53:00.000-07:00

If you lean in close enough
to see the flame turn wax
to sparkling, dancing liquid

If you watch a single bead
roll and curl along its side
until resting at the base

If you feel the sway of
the flame with every
pressing inhalation

If you hear the tiny
crackle of the air
turning into smoke

If you taste the warmth
and swish it with your
tongue and bask in it

Only then
could we
be lovers

Line them up

2009-08-23T00:41:00.001-07:00

There were twelve men kneeling,
their hands above their head,
the smell of sweat and terror
steaming off their necks
in the hissing summer air.

One leather hand, professional,
reassembled its weapon
and slid along the side
of the divine steel
of his only lover.

They were all boys, eighteen,
some had never learned to dance,
many were still virgins,
and all were in terror but
could fake composure.

What can one say?
There are no words appropriate
for those who decompose
in ditches dug by wiry slaves
on grey barbed wire days.

pensive

2009-08-21T09:49:00.001-07:00

It would have never worked out anyway
She was a Bonapartist
I, a Bourbon
Our parents, both Jacobin
A Thermidor uncle or two
A cousin's cousin of Robespierre
And a pair of siblings
in support of the Directory

C'est la vie

numb

2009-08-18T19:45:00.001-07:00

There were things I should tell you before you accept my invite
things that I've seen that no man should ever suffer
places & crumbling edifice & luxury corruption
terrible weeping sights and strange abuse
cigarette burns on air pockets of disaster
thrashed branches & broken limb morals
turning madly swinging in the afternoon

I saw a generation brain-washed and dumfounded
broken sunglasses consumer products
fearing God but losing self-imagination
standing on the edge brink of civilization
forgotten buried under roses history a myth
breathing butterflies and mapping destiny
gorgeous drenched in the hot solar rays

I saw an old nasty man with two gray mouse ears riding carriage
down dirty wet new-asphalt road, blown onto trail
stimulus package builder parking permit brokerage
stringing broken unhappy Christmas lights in July
cloggy iron boots ravaging the morning grass
cementing their illiteracy and slaking trepidation

I saw a young aristocrat blow his brains into heaven dharma
unquestioning his blushed bright face & screaming
devil's delight the untruth of trauma packets of lust
swiveling his feet & remarking on the last steamboat
sure took the piss out of it

I saw two children dancing quietly in the broken glass yard
swinging with their fists at the pulpy face of warning
taking heed pressing doorbells & basking original
strapping their houses with ammunition skipping
telling the tallest trees they are not on the level

I saw an ocean commanding the seamen of its bosom
entreating their survival casting them far aside
humpback whales giggling moaning mourning
the damp salty morning greeting way-worn
nobody with lovers' parting kiss

I saw the sinking mindful beam of daylight breaking
chastising & surrendering to the green dragoon
touching caressing needling & superimposing
triage & travesty & shrill tongues harping

And I saw the last living monarch swell with pride
capsizing into smirking murky mendacity
last of a thoughtless moment in thoughtless
history though really digital half-age is not
so bad

[ex] plosives

2009-08-17T21:15:00.001-07:00

There he was on the street looking like some skeletal
mangy dog with his gavel mustache his hunger
eyes his topographical squeamishness & canyons
in wrinkles on the face

He kicked shoes into the hot sun breeze of the morning
whooping clapping with his dirty fingers on the
train last on the line honking as the Beatles
played on an iPod with only three minutes left
to go

Police officer chewing bagel on the day off stream of strangers
sitting next to smells-like-fish coated dingy drawer
half-boat wrinkled old mess like a trash can alley
cat in mewing in the dungeons of vapid new moons
he capped the tip of his cane with only two minutes left
to go

Stravinsky is the sound of utter implosion madness war Thermidore
councils revolution Directors guillotine reactionary culled
from happy dreaming stakes where the numb shall grow
their gardens grinning truth with one damn minute left
to go

Spittle squirming trickling tumbling into his body lap
hot warm gooey and the rats nibble on corpses with ash
red black every car evaporated screams turning flesh to
black stumps shadows watching unmaking clouds pouring
gas flash boom bang mushroom and the half-muted
stumbling nearly-dead not-yet-eviscerated moaning
in the god-forsaken grey ash and there is nowhere left
to go

this is what you thought it wasn't

2009-08-17T19:50:00.001-07:00

Look man you knew she loved you took your heart and painted
pictures had a tapestry stitched statues erected what more could
any man need? but you fear being tied down fear goodness fear
women fear true power fear the promises of monogamy want
more more more tired of stale unself meaningless meandering
lost paradise but can't tell your asshole from all the others put
in a line and taken out back shot with voodoo doll strangling
life death black white how could you do that how could you
do that

seeing

2009-08-17T18:12:00.000-07:00

I saw her within a sea of fakes & self-indulgent clones,
carbon copy self-examination with their bug-eyed
sunglasses & ropy sandals & garnished day wages
tattered clothing & labors of Hercules pressed into
massive print by the tyrant who spoke with slithering
little turns of phrase, his face emblazoned on coins
& his health in the care of the aristocracy

I saw her dancing in the mid-afternoon as the rain came down
crashing across my skull & chest & disembodied legs
& the legislature demanded that we take our bags
& she, with her bright red raincoat & twitter
a laugh like locomotion where she lost herself
with no apprehension or sulking

I saw her taking the two men's eyes & cornering them naked
white beads of numbing flesh needing seeking stripes
basted & wam-bam-breaking in the dead gray sky
washing & welcoming her halo as their beacon
night light & watchtower & arctic rambunctiousness

I saw her take Rimbaud & Whitman & Ginsberg & Verlaine
ruffling the books in the dead wet breeze mould &
spirits spluttering & she looked & stamped feet
her bright blue heels taking turns kicking & glapping
gl-gl-glap in the tasseled in-between-class-time
she stuttered with her feet to light the way

I saw her parting seas, vast oceans & cosmos & vivacity
her blood running in the cold damp dream air
with she & me alone in all the swirling chaos of it
all & she took my tongue painting & said "This is
good, that the sky is mournful & the spirit is dead
& you sit here writing this as your pages turn to pulp
& your heart turns into a diamond & your mind rusts"

I saw her tapping out a melody & humming a rhythm with trash cans
talking backwards & addressing envelopes & letting me touch
her mind with strings of half-thought & for that was I grateful
answer being no, not ever, nor should I expect her rationale
her philosophy & melting candles dimming in the torrent

I saw her take the clouds & swish with them, tsk-tsking their trouble
permeating rainbows & umbrellas with her formless wonder
streaking along the open courtyard & traipsing along the way
& throughout it all I wept & trembled & knew I would never
see her again as the tides of formlessness swallowed her whole

open

2009-08-16T17:28:00.000-07:00

I'm trapped
between the
ocean and
her harbor

My sail
unfurls
and finds
the winds
of comfort

Adjunct

2009-08-16T15:50:00.001-07:00

Strangers barking in the ear
of anger and the second year that
only speaks to those who hold
their flowers

You are the one who cannot be
reminded who is lost at sea and
learned the truth is meant for
sanitation

The people we hold to the sky
who let us know the day we die have
left us for the promise we
abandon

The angels of the luncheon room
who sweep their life with broom and pan
lift their skirts and taste the life
worth living

Tomorrow sparkles on the tongue
that latches to the ladder rung and
swings across the clouds and lifts
your mattress

Sister Lily

2009-08-16T15:17:00.001-07:00

Don't tell me that you're looking for
the mat you leave at the door
the only sign of this,
some form of shelter

I paid for it with my own blood
as rainfall turned the ash to mud
and you stabbed me in the chest
and begged to suffer

There is no word for your life except for torture
You're just some fast enduring form of torture

You wonder why the men you know
treat you with a manner low
as you sit and curl
in their possession

Your face is frozen, lost in time
within your gaze I cannot find
the simplest trace
of some discretion

Those who listen close hear devilish laughter
Your tears are mingled in with devilish laughter

Placing blame is what you do
upon the ones who stole from you
the grave where lay
forgotten lovers

But you have laid upon the grave
serving him as though a slave
defiling holy grounds
just to recover

There is the smell of graveyards from the corner
You're just some foul-mouthed trifle in the corner

serendipity

2009-08-14T23:21:00.000-07:00

twelve balloons
floating to heaven
unburdened
have more meaning
than a thousand
old books

stunt

2009-08-14T22:56:00.001-07:00

I would
like to
curl and
dangle
across
the sky
and then
the sea

unrhymed couplets are a bum deal

2009-08-14T22:55:00.001-07:00

Oh you know that I needed to be around you
because I am a thief of radiance

But then I learned that you are filled
with exuberance and some inner glow

I circle my life with rings of paint
to signal where you should land

I have found myself completed
some artist's masterpiece

And then when I compare my happiness
to the illumination that always dawns

I wish to, in that full-faced grin and eye-roll
lose and find my mind and self

But that's okay, for we can define
"to give," the infinitive

the catastrophe (or, how I bought the very last Stretch Armstrong in Baltimore)

2009-08-14T22:44:00.001-07:00

stuck-up travelers-by-trade tell of a distant land
where all the people are bright orange
and their tongues explode with treacherous
half-truths that are baking in the warm
diseased mind of the salvation army

dunno about all that, but his friends
call him shaggy

Bumping in the turntable

2009-08-14T22:42:00.001-07:00

I hear you
I hear you
I - - - - you
I you hear
h-h-h-h-h
h e a r
you you you

what I learned last May

2009-08-14T22:39:00.001-07:00

i can't see through
your frosted glass
that houses your
brew of secrets

this is
somehow
my fault

some wednesday night

2009-08-14T22:32:00.000-07:00

i am trickling through headlights
thundering through stop signs
smirking in the face of rattling windows
and "really i didn't know"
to the official red and blue lights

i am suffocating under the weight of
all the strung-up lights and music
taking from me my eyes
and pulling tusks from elephants
who needs the details?

it's just thirty-one dollars
right?

The makings of government

2009-08-14T22:30:00.001-07:00

Shall we liberate
Or deliberate?

tell

2009-08-14T22:26:00.000-07:00

We sit and imagine on quiet afternoons
while others bark for festivities
and wonder why the world is fading
and how disconnected the mainline
has become

I want to tell her that I love her
that rushing through the bloody streets
as soldiers march in civil unrest
and barricades are battered on the shore
as the specter of gloom and death itself
comes for Don Juan and demands that
in the Face of Eternity and All That Is
he renounce his sins,
like he,
in sin,
I would refuse

Let me tell you what I know of eternity:
the cosmos come unbundled
stars go black and decay in time
photographs curl and yellow
even gods and goddesses die
tombstones crumble
memory rusts
energy will be splayed upon the
shadows of the spectral
unmaking spirit of entropy
when everything collapses
life, as such, lies uneternal
quivering and quaking in the multitude
temporary and cycling throughout all
the wide wake of waves
collapsing in ripples
as the water draws too high
and as I splash against the canvas
of temperamental temporal claws
I become temporary
bound by time
and made unmade
potential shall lay in all direction
and the cat inside Schrödinger's box
is both alive and dead
but I am a particle
not a wave
for I have been observed

Maybe I'm Drinking

2009-08-14T22:14:00.000-07:00

My gypsy girl sits in her shadows
Hounds are growling at the stars
I lift a bottle and remind her
That we both drive borrowed cars

A velvet glove of mortal power
Transient in the face divine
Shoved on top of slender hands
Grappling with uneven minds

Stick my fingers in the face of
All you knew of trinity
Suck my life into the drainpipe
Of complete serenity

The dwindling spirit of a nightmare arabesque, sung in the key of E and accompanied by acoustic guitar

2009-08-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

Inside the rim of spectacle
underneath the rusted chairs
we traversed through emporiums
I thought I saw you there

But I don't think
that was you