bang bang said i to she to you to me

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

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-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And So At The End Of All Things

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tomorrow is the next horizon.

d

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

I knew you then

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

prophecy of the wilted gypsy

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

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

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

slap my knee
and shout
hey i'm home

tin pan

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

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

you broke into my home
left my hearth
in disarray

I have half a mind to
get you lobotomized

Wherein I mangle French

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I stand in awe

bump

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

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

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

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

I blame Paul McCartney

bang

Have you ever
kissed the barrel
of a gun?

How did she
react?

Border wars

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm trapped
between the
ocean and
her harbor

My sail
unfurls
and finds
the winds
of comfort

Adjunct

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

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

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

stunt

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

unrhymed couplets are a bum deal

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)

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

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

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

this is
somehow
my fault

some wednesday night

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

Shall we liberate
Or deliberate?

tell

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

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

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

Heartfelt Portrait of the Serious Artist

Mr. Valentino is a very serious writer
Who writes very serious stories
He considers every word
Touching them gently
With the thumb that has been
Stuck so very far
Up his ass

Mr. Valentino is a generous man
Who gives generous sums
To all the women
Whom he knows
But the problem is that
He only knows
Prostitutes

On his early morning streetwalk route
The grateful sewers straddling dawn
The noble Valentino laughs
And touches his marble cane
Rapping the peasants
Who sleep in the
Dusty street

He takes his lunch to the grey courthouse
Shaking appendages at angry law
Standing next to Roman columns
Breathing fog into the afternoon
White snow crunches under his
Salami and rye and
He cackles

Although he goes to the opera house
He falls asleep in the first act
Don Giovanni cannot hold his eyes
From plunging into misty death
And so he seduces misery
And makes it his companion
In wild lust

Madness seeps from his snoring tongue
He tames relentless death and tombs
Only pomposity and pretense
Survive the sands of all remembrance
Stinking from the pyramids
Embalmed in fine repair
Touching, no?

Charlie Was an Astronaut

Charlie was an astronaut
He sailed across the stars
He'd skate the rings of Jupiter
He loved to visit Mars

His suit was made of rubber
His helmet glowed bright blue
He only breathed pure neon
He loved to play kazoo

The planet that he came from
Was called Jklsipholame
Only one small Earthling
Could even say its name

He landed in a valley
And walked onto the street
His skin was green and orange
He had eleven feet

When Charlie held his hands up
(Though they really were like claws)
He could grab a distant star
(But always with good cause)

And so he met a little boy
His name was Johnny Chip
And told him that he needed help
To fix his broken ship

Well, Johnny was no astronaut
He had never been past Earth
He couldn't fix a hyperdrive
But he knew well his worth

He said big old Charlie
Who stood some nine feet tall,
"Come and stay at my mom's home
Until your planet calls"

Charlie took the boy's hand
Careful not to cut or slice
They sang a song together
From the planet of Quibrice

When Charlie used the television
To call his secret base
His helmet came unclouded
And Johnny saw his face

His seven eyes were teary
His nose was spiked and flat
He had a pair of mouthy grins
He was neither thin nor fat

Just as Johnny saw his face
The helmet went aglow
For Charlie could not bear the boy
To see him in sorrow

The officer he had called
Said in an angry voice
He would not send spare parts
So Charlie had a choice

It was about this time
When Johnny's mother learned
About the hidden astronaut
And soon she was concerned

When Charlie and she talked
He knew he had to go
Johnny tried to argue
But knew it would be so

Charlie was an astronaut
He'd sail into the stars
Upon a NASA shuttle
And then he'd float to Mars

Johnny watched in silence
And knew this was the end
As Charlie waved goodbye
And said to his brave friend:

"Of all the people I have met
On planets far and true
I have but one friend of mine
Of course, that would be you

Now please don't cry, little one
And don't you make a fuss
Don't cause trouble for your mom
And don't you hiss or cuss"

And then he did a miracle
Plucking from the night
A sparkling little handful
That twinkled with starlight

He handed them to Johnny
To put them on his wall
To remind him to act bravely
Always standing tall

As long as Johnny had them
These twinkling little stars
Charlie could still see him
Even from afar

The launch went as expected
And Charlie zoomed and flew
With a NASA rocket
And his helmet glowing blue

Many years would pass
And John was seventeen
He took those stupid stars
And tossed them as he cleaned

When Charlie looked for Johnny
He cried his neon tears
But who could really blame him
After all these years?

Charlie was an astronaut
No longer sailing stars
He lost his only friend to age
Stuck on dusty Mars

Trunk

Take me out of
your leaf fortress
I have no use
for paper jewels

Your rhombus heartache
and paperback promise
Are not conducting
proper electricity

Smuggling little bits
of fire in your pants
You had better turn back
and splash into your nest

Enslavement

the

fabric

tumbles

softly

to

the

machinist's

floor

Dawn Song of the Last Living Red-breasted American Robin

Tweet, tweet tu-twitter tweet
The waking Illinois breeze
sinking in the jubilation that
bursts across the clouded
shrouded disc where the
morning comes unbundled
woven into the golden acres
swaying, hissing and soothing

Twah-tu-tweet, twit-tu-twah
The shaking strings of marionettes
those eagles parting kisses to the
horizon, their feathers weeping
in the rolling warmth of daylight
twinkling and dripping all around
as pastel mice scurry into the mud
pressing their feet in tiny circles
to escape their fear of death

Tw-twu, twe-tu-twee, twah-tu-twah-tu-tweet
The blossom opens, virginal
knowing not the touch of God
though her petals moistly cling
to the sweetened, humming air
her emerald stem bends and aches
she touches her neck to her brother
calling to the soldier drone to place
his feet gently on her waiting breast

Twih-tu-twih-tu-twih-tu-tweet
Two small footprints line the road
laughing and delighting as night dies
mingling together as their master
wanders into the hopeless streams
of passing time and its cruel glory

Exhibit 225: Holy Week

Imagine that there is nothing
Beyond what you can see
There are no spirits hanging
Underneath the willow tree
Confusion and creation
Are the compliments of life
There is no other sensation
Than the coil of mortal strife

My love is swinging wildly
She is naked as a meadowlark
She waves her arms for me to join
But the skyline has gone dark
There is a trumpet blowing
The stone is left unturned
My mind has begun racing
Recollecting all that I've learned

But who is splitting firewood
Preparing for my funeral pyre?
There are platters clinging loudly
And I can hear a distant lyre
My dirty hair has been parted
They are marching up and down
I see them weaving briars there
Into the twisted form of a crown

I call down rain and thunder
I split the sky and turn it black
There is a sense of breathless wonder
And I know there is no turning back
Precious moments are tumbling
Underneath the waterfall
I cry so none can hear me
It was a vision that I saw

I sit inside the museum
Looking out of mirrored glass
There are strangers all around me
I am seated on a gray jackass
Imagine you can see nothing
Except your reflected face
Then you know why I'm demented
I've gone so mad in this place

Fortune, Torsion

Nothing in the world of saints is worthy to be touched
Nothing in my heartfelt horror is without its crutch
Nothing that you say to me will bury its own grave
Nothing ever sprinkled here can spirits ever save

I blame the clay aristocrats for sculpting my retreat
They engineered my Waterloo, my quiet blue defeat
My crime, they said, was amplitude, corruption of the soul
I know that they are envious of my resurgent role

Hunger is the sin of dukes who tell the world to bow
I wish to cast them into hell, alas I know not how
The scepter handed to me by the people who are free
Has broken all your barricades and halted my own knee

You tell me that you know a pope who hates my subtle groan
I'd respond he is my slave, that I command his humble throne
I had to melt his holy crown, that bold historic golden calf
I see republics slouch and rot as prefects gloat and laugh

Nothing in the riverbed is meant to finance memory
Nothing in the bloody streets can ever garner much pity
Nothing in the smoke of rifles can distort my waiting plans
Nothing you will ever do will separate or clasp my hands

Nothing Remains The Same

Two small snow owls fall out of a nest
     slugs buried deep in their skulls
Their feathers dance and tremble
     in the white winter wind

Positively Cashing Out

You live in a world of phantoms
Populated wholly by your nightmares
Your handshakes seem suspicious
Sliding, sinister, snide, and unrelenting

You have quite some nerve
You think I don't recall?
Your questions buzz like bumblebees
Your pity is distasteful

You spot your reflection in the pool
Of cerulean uncertainty
You cannot stand your twisted grimace
And so you try to mother me

Please, little girl,
With heartbreak in your ears,
With unstable marriage rings,
With child left in others' care,
With stationary creased and folded,
With prodding ignorance in spades,
With fear and stations oh so insecure,
With mountains moved and meadows burnt,
With all your touching needing playing preening. . .

Who do you think you are?

Athens-bound portrait

Last night I saw a dancing pioneer sitting on a tarot deck
her coat unbuttoned and clinging to its rack
she whispers into nothingness her hopes
and as that void I listen without judging

She, with cryptic tides and jumbled resilience
to which the unexplained referendum
and the barely touching strands of chapels
and their strangled inactivity drive the
raving oxen of madness

She, with crossword desires and their checkered station
who tell of Italian liqueur, kittens quite well fed
surprising with its secrets and its tsetse manner
twenty-one machine guns in adagio fashion
precipitate

She, who smirks with waiting chaos at the sight of rain
when prodded to pay the lords of steel and thunder
instead will let the air out of their tin skulls
and purchase new salvation

She, with clay-faced synthoid bebop half-note rhythm,
searching and surging through used car lots
tumbling in maternal manner as she loosens
two jugs of milk from curtained plastic

She, with system-thought-meaning, problem-solution self,
with stuffed monkey necessary for final preparation
whose anger is tempered with keen understanding
overstanding overself equating hopeful listening

She, who finally took in the sweet caramel breath of dawn,
learning in the tin cans that roll toward barrels
that life itself is worthy and untamable
shaking free of sweaty sullen duality

She, to whom modesty is all-unknowing, vagabond and stranger,
knocking quietly on her baroque dressing door
as her confidences command continental armies
touching one another in familial fashion

She, with Mozart between her wings, unitarian tambourines,
unlacing the shoes of courtiers and hiding them
boiling chicken for the sergeant-at-arms
quarantining vacuum thoughtlessness

She, with palms cupped in tenderness, balancing amphibians,
willing to endeavor over fences barbed and bolted
wreathed in shadows but twinkling with laughter
chewing apathy and denouncing all surrender

She, who corresponds with animal totems, spirits old and mighty,
with amnesty and inclusive provisional counsel
responsible and all-supposing of their worthiness
talking into distant towers with sliding words of beauty

She, with cold-death-dying-sickness, the nasal mortal form,
who perseveres to disinfect and seeks remissions
relenting to the storms of Eden-grasping panacea
her treetop and untipped hours smoking quietly

She, who senses heartache pills and their white-washed bottle,
hunting them as needles on a daydrop blacktop,
protecting children and her Heracles from malcontent,
throws them into dustbins and tells the siren deputy

She, with bookstore poet stationed nobly on her desk,
working in due diligence to present her case,
lumbering toward her further vocation, advocacy
lifelong in its luring nimble lashes

She, with Saturn on her tongue, her blazing mind eternally aglow,
with strength and ink stitched onto her skin,
with piercing orbs of absolution and rebellion,
who reaches at the galaxies and claims them all as hers

She, who sits between the oboes and the blurting of saxophonists,
the tantalizing light twinkling through sunroofs,
who mows the dewy blades of impious proportion
tumbling along as spiders slink into slumber

She, with black and white shirt entombed in moral quandary,
with stuttering temples crumbling beneath her will
loquacious as they truncate her medallions
heaps of coins burning through the midnight

She, with safety cornered in her iron-coated sensuous surreality,
who prefers the panic of rotund companions,
the happy minds that link in warmth and wonder
limping toward their wisdom with a glass of wine

She, with quarries where philosophers make war with negligence,
with amber tasting taxis crashing in the breeze
the painted locks of moonlight trickling
transcending the numb preponderance

She, with imported cure-alls for the plantation of tomorrow,
whose preparation and vivacity is all-convincing
without which Atlas might divine a mortal surrender
and none would ever question bifocal creation

She, with curling tassels that bridge the mundane consanguinity
toppling regimes of idle madmen with candlewax
remarking even in the face of nightwashed murkiness
that prisons of the mind are where souls rot

She, with drawers of apostolic creed and many-flavored adventure,
whose weapon sits and dances in abstention
primordial in the twilight need of textual interference
knowing that the floors of dalliance are to be cleaned

She, with syncopation found in the hearts of deceased rumrunners,
who knows the squires of electronic angelic agony,
speaking to the tempest and recalling Canadian days
prancing about fashion shows as queen and comptroller

She, with fiber-optic aptitude and the slushing stream of clamor,
licking at cones and whipping foam into a form
tasting jacuzzi strategy and sharing canine laughter
sheltering the blue-eyed beast with proper dignity

She, who bids for notions deemed insoluble by the mantra of eternals,
knowing in immortal fashion that cosmic allergy
and the paws of tremulous subcultural sneezing
are equivocal and lackadaisical in their primacy

She, with Cadillac defensiveness and a grateful tone of ecstasy,
who understands the nuance of appreciation and volition,
with aptitude in all the fields to which she applies,
excelling in the circle built by quantum elevation

She, with targets of Lockean sense of accomplished self-worth,
steeped in understanding but wading in frustration
peeking between the rags of acknowledgment
reading hands with right-brained arches

She, who knelt between the stacks of knowledge dust-entombed,
slouching in Jerusalem manner toward Michelangelo
archangels, God, the fall of man in grasp
tattered and monochrome in fading pattern

She, who shares her pain with stilted lily compassion,
who places tiles upon the grid all-commanding
wishing for her suitors and their kin to remember
that games do not provide true nourishment

She, with porcelain masking unhappiness, unbecoming
who pours the stunted malnutrition into grates
upon command of sergeant-at-arms in confrontation
perched upon the concrete as dreams decay

She, riddled with agitation and anchored, firmament in anger
stripping bare the dropkick madness of the blemished
barking beautifully in the high afternoon wind
acquiescing and making right the too-wrong world

She, who writes of understanding and quells the unknown absence
piercing tongue and pools of radiance haunt the night
her spirit gliding between the wintered halls of dukes
and huddled beneath her cloak to spare her champion

She, the herbivore goddess with endless knowledge,
who raps the gavel against her suitors
enveloping all seeking enclosure
and placed atop ewes as cynosure

She, with olfactory
She, with knowledge
She, with stratospheres
She, with tidal waves
She, with eye-comets
She, with theoreticals
She, with ball-gag-night-thought
She, with apotheosis
She, with unblessed shawls
She, with skirts and skulls
She, with wheel and axle
She, with tongue-revolver
She, with Stratford-spirit
She, with bards and nobles
She, with astral cravings...

It is she who stands in doorways for the glowing afterthought
and tells me that the night is good
it is right that I believe it

Hip tip

Tip-toe tornado with a taste of trepidation
like a torpid tepid talcum tangerine
sipping in the garden of eden
slight and malcontent in ecstasy
a friday morning freakout from
too much opium

Danger dangles like angels and amateurs
the bleak street of beat nations
the generation antebellum tell 'em
emancipate the nobles from their
empty sense of cents

Wrote a book for you and a couple dozen
poems with a surreal stability
some kind of acid trip upside
the slumping sandwich you
didn't even eat

Skeletons and skulls skipping along harbor bays
waddling in swim trunks with apathy
stuck in my car door and bucking bronco
willfully neglecting the agony and sampling
scurrying in metronomes

Untitled

I'm looking at the painting on the corner of the wall
The master left it for his student in his winding hall
The strokes are like a melody, perfect in its tune
The paint is dull and arabesque within the dim-lit room
Old and misremembered as his greatest masterpiece
I hear, through mists of parted time, the master speak to me:

Shall I be thrust upon a dusty crucifix?
Shall I be cast in iron, nails within my wrists?
Or will I be remembered as a jester of the stars?
Will they say I killed a man just to eat his heart?
Shall they say my name in vain, am I a vagabond?
Will they build a monument, will they carry on?
Or shall I be interred in silence, laid next to my wife?
Will my children cry for me, or celebrate my life?
Will the sun be cut upon the mountains of the east?
Will revolution splash and spill, will tyrants ever cease?
Shall owls be perched upon the crowns of oak, maple, and ash?
Shall groaning yellow branches break with a sudden lash?

I'm looking at the painting which so captivates my soul
The master left it for me to discover my own role
The strokes are like a telegraph commanding me to yield
The paint is like a spear exposing my weak heel
An homage to the master who awaits the answer true:
Through the mists of parted time we shall remember you

Haunted Box of Pine and Steel

You punched me in the gullet
Wearing Latin on your sleeve
Dump me in the gutter
Give me my reprieve
You lie and steal from children
You burn the Bill of Rights
A tyrant and a killer
Bereft of form and sight

O, cruel in your fashion
Cuffed in sullen creed
Burn with heaven's anger
The angels will not bleed
Muskets are malnourished
They cry for greedy times
Petticoats in powdered boats
The King and all his crimes

Stuff me in your lockbox
You are my bayonet
Touch me in your hatred
I am your Lafayette
The box of pine resounding
The clamor of your death
I fear this revolution
Charon's fog-worn breath

Transcendental Blues

Athena, why do you dress like that
You are no surly nun
The cloth befits a higher call
And you worship the sun
Your feet are sore and blistered
From your tattered tarot deck
Down across the train tracks
You find yourself in check
The King of Wands reminds you
Of your winsome ways
When damned into the nighttime
And hunted in your days
Please, Athena, hear me
And know that this is true:
I'm lost inside your highway mind
With Transcendental Blues

Oh, Helen, hear the freeway
And all the dainty cries
The children of her Paris
The taxi where love dies
But then, with Charon in stow
And with your rummage thrills
I don't expect salvation
Just some divine will
And as Paris is jaunting
He curls a fist at me
The ocean parts in wonder
My blood, it spots the sea
Helen, won't you listen
Or else I'll have to sue:
I'm lost without your open hand
In Transcendental Blues

The Capricorns are dreaming
Of you, my friend Marie
You must not be so angry
I thought you wanted me
Please don't scorn my trumpet
I thought you wanted more
I didn't know your number
Or your ancient lore
And as you touch my necklace
I see your husband cry
He knows you can't surrender
He knows I cannot lie
The dirt is shoveled sadly
If only I had you
But I'm stranded in Durango
With Transcendental Blues

I saw you, Angelina
With triumph waving high
Your mattress burned with nicotine
As twilight maimed your eye
Blood sits on your canine
Your teeth are filled and numb
I'd speak but when I'm near you
I soon go deaf and dumb
Your rings are circling sadness
Your ears are made for more
A certain flash of insight
Can peek behind your door
I appreciate your candor
You are among a few
Who know that I am strangled
By Transcendental Blues


Your fortress, see it burning now
Daisy, you know that
Your Tom Buchanan shall return
Wearing his new hat
With patience and with confidence
You told me of your dream
Where crows would fly in triangles
And you joined my team
But Tom won't have this dalliance
He knows your secret plan
I saw him kill the diplomat
An old and wiry man
But you I doubt would care much
If he wore another hue
Strapped across his deathbed
With Transcendental Blues

Can't mystery and misery
Befriend you, Miss Divulge?
You sit in judgment of your pawns
Piercing friendship hulls
Your head is crooked on this page
I think you've lost your nerve
You can't escape from yourself
In case you hadn't heard
But then your doctor boyfriend
And his many-colored pills
Would have you take a new cure
For your imagination ills
Creative as you may be
I can see through you
I'm glad for once that I am struck
By Transcendental Blues

Afghan

The world as you know it is spinning around
They murdered your mother, your father has drowned
Slip under your skin and the splinters shall see
That dead is your love for yourself and for me

Tabletop anguish and the march of the saints
The teachers walk backwards, the dreamer, she faints
Purloined percussion and the throbbing of swords
Sunken surprises for the stations of lords

Clap with both hands, scream with delight
Maybe tomorrow you won't have to fight
Scarlet is bursting in clouds in the air
Rattle and rumble in your silver chair

I knew the boy shepherd, I knew him well
The screaming red missiles took him to hell
Scarred and surrendered, smothered in gold
A flashing of fortune, an old-fashioned coat

Who can you blame for the dangers abroad?
How can you wonder why pirates maraud?
Do mortals have free will or is it just fate?
Must we distrust what is placed on our plate?

Moss on Birch

Mustangs are galloping, waterfalls of knees
Pages are ruffling, they dance in the breeze
An old shattered mirror, a symphony of glass
The hum of a bluesman on an old phonograph
A woman in heels with the eyes of a knife
Wearing a dress of dust and starlight
She opens a door that is swirling and cold
As a dozen dead winds breathe in her soul
Hickory is snapping underneath the weight
Of ten carved commandments on uneven slate

Skylarks and madmen are strange company
For rebels and renegades estranged from the sea
Tapestries of freedom and empty black pans
Are sizzling in harmony between the sun’s hands
Radios are crackling, and the ancients still sway
Beneath the miasma of death’s silver ray
Beads of longevity drip on the floorboards
Illuminated swordsmen duel on the shores
Thickets of thorns entrap the old hares
Iron vested angels corrupt heaven’s stairs

Lovers are twisting inside verdant ponds
Politicians bark as their dogs merely yawn
Vines and swamp gasses burn in the dawn
Ladders are lifted to damsels in bond
Umber-hued children discuss their escape
Autumn sits silent in summer’s embrace
Hunters recoil at the early grey dew
Fog veils the poet and gypsy from view
I sit on a tree stump, collecting white frost
In history, antiquity, and Avalon, I’m lost

The Weeping Sun of Absalom

In Gilead unfolding,
The wood of Ephraim boding,
The fields of David’s loathing,
In tattered royal clothing,
Sits Absalom, the general
Besmirched son of Israel

Golden and most handsome,
the kingdom’s brightest star

Poor Tamar! Poor Amnon!
Sweet Absalom, I know!
Poor Israel! Poor Judah!
G-d must hate thee so!

In Hebron, all-commencing,
The shadows ever-sensing
That you, now David’s oldest son
Should hold the throne, not Solomon
Sweet Absalom, the general
Begrudged son of Israel

The kingdom held for ransom,
by the golden son and star

O, Absalom! You sinner!
The tears of rebel wrath!
O, Absalom! You traitor!
The flush of ancient past!

In Gilead unfolding,
The river Jordan soaring,
The Valley of Jehoshaphat
Where Hushai, traitor, knelt and sat,
You spat upon Ahithophel
And thus, you rightly fell

As spears claim your noble heart,
Heaven weeps with golden stars

Talkin' In't Ain't You Wan't Somethin' Else Blues no. 10

Somebody punched a hole in the damn tambourine
Met another matron if you know what I mean
Breaking in the banners for the next world war
Had an aging woman call me a dirty whore
The pink of misogyny is bawling me out
I sink in my pocket where the coins have grout
My name is chanted all across the land
A soldier ran across me with his old wet hand
It’s a matter of honor,
It’s a matter of pride,
Coming out swinging with the stars and stripes

For William

I remember as a boy we grabbed our fishing poles
We went to some little lake next to a watering hole
The day was hot, the breeze rolled through
Flies danced above my head
We didn’t catch a single fish
I just caught a cold instead
But it was times like that I remember best
And I never shall forget

The black cat you called Joey is standing in your chair
He knows you’re never coming back, I don’t think he cares
He sits there crying constantly
I fear it wounds his heart
But he will sing his eulogy
Until he's torn apart
And it is times like this I will notice best
And I never shall forget

We sat inside the basement, arranging your old stamps
Beneath the porcelain glow of your many-shaded lamps
The book was nearly filled
With foreign calling cards
When I ceased to collect them
And telling you was hard
And it was times like that I remember best
And try not to regret

The dog, your vigilant guardian, has become so kind
It seems that he has chewed his paws and has gone half-blind
And as I dab his wounds
And soak away the silt
He seeks just my affection
He seeks to wash his guilt
And it is times like this I will notice best
And soothe his old regret

I sit inside your workshop with a madman glowing grin
The sawdust mixed with cobwebs and the triumph then with sin
I left the door half-open
And I knew the world was lost
The window panes are broken
The winter has no frost
And it is times like these I remember best
And I wish that they hurt less

The hill out back for sledding, what a joy that was
Crashing into trees as my sister and I rushed
Down the hill in fashion
On our uncle’s sled
And as we hurried inside
I remember you had said:
“Grandson, these times you'll remember best”
And I try not to forget

Oh, I remember picking up the sticks back beneath the trees
The only reason we had to do it was you couldn’t bend your knees
We grimaced and we groaned
As we trudged along the hill
We did a shoddy job
But you paid us even still
And it was times like these I remember best
And I hope you will forgive

I have one more confession that involved your morning run
I’d pass you on the bus and the kids would all make fun
Of what you wore each morning
And I wish I could go back
And tell them all how proud I was
Of the courage you never lacked
And it was times like those I remember best
And thus I must confess

But the fondest recollection that springs into my mind
Is when you grew a moustache and kept it for some time
Just because my sister asked you
When she saw the photograph
I saw the picture yesterday
And I couldn’t help but laugh
So I want you to know I remember best
How much we all were blessed

a quiet wavy saturnalia

Ostentatious ospreys, in sudden harmony
caw for martyrs to cast aside
their broken tombs and barren wombs
trumpets slashing kindness like a wrist

The curfew of petulance, having run its
nightly rounds, demanded that we sailors
returned to dockside sorrow, guardians
of lagoons, buzzing dragonflies in summer

Fisherman sought crumbs of decency, trusting
the sacred vows of saviors and drinking
poison promises as republics collapsed
disunited in the rhythm section

Scandal is known to the halls of chamber
maidens in their dead delights
waddling and making reprimands as 
carnations wilt on stove tops

The blank stares of paddling crusaders
white-washed in golden chains of slavery
promised to striped surrender, silver light
beaming through cracked stain glass window

Swinging madly, two girls, two lovers
reflections curling at their feet
breathe sweet perfume and levitate
conscious nothings lying in the breeze

Tungsten is the taste of morbid resignation
leaves overturned as staring splintered blacktop
exudes the gas of infectious righteousness
drivers bleeding their forgiveness

Benches, broken and mangled in the evening shower
time in its cruel magician manner
carnal in its every-grasping spiderisms
fangs of delight where death is born

Starlight licks the breast of the trespasser
her ear perforated by unlonely sermon
crawling as though remembering survival
panting, gasping its herald banner

Thawing bonds of perennial termination
set in agony against cork-screw type
patters in pi8thy patterns, impressing all
and leaving needles in their socks

Marvel, miracle in war machine irradiating
all the tumbling pedals, petals of lotus
marigold in screaming distant nightmare
spoken, sung by faithful transistor radio

Fidelity, dignity and introspective dalliance
child's gleeful proclamations at aviation
chasing the night into a burrow
laughing as only the innocent can

Scales and worn ruddy shoelace causes
hungering for reflection and conception
sparkle wearily on the waiting page
the pen shovels out their sunken joy

Smell the legacy of mortal wishfulness
equating fame with wintry legitimacy
sensitivity as fortunes unmend the triumph
causal winds of resolution barking

Thoughtful risibility and arisen crucifix
sprinkled with blood and pining for cure
test your apprehension with small bites
tearing in the quiet of creation

Catapult virility as crutches hanker past
touching vulnerable as smiles wander
trusting telepathy for preening perfection
lilacs blooming in the schizoid sprawl

Fighter jet howling in dead grey sky
white blood streaming trickle from tail
bystanders in coal black cheeriness
proceed and play without wince and worry

Bar

Clack-whirrrr-THACK! Balls rack 'em up
Wonder at the sizzle of cigarettes
DEATH RAT-RAT-RATTLE
Scintillating jukebox angel
Kings and regents yodeling
Broken bar stool grimy trucker breath
Mack by any other name
Ring, ring, answer fatality
Fatlism, instinct
The place stinks of sex

Ex Animo now available for sale!

Click here!

My second book is finished, and it looks absolutely splendid. I'm really happy with how this book turned out, and I feel as though it's a definitive and provocative follow-up to my previous book, Highways and Hierophants.

also known as Hello

Plagiarist amphetamine
half-spirit inundation
of loneliness in the
form of greeting

Mon Dieu

And so it was that Dante Page found himself alone within the blinding light that filtered through the prison bars of ruined romance, crestfallen and trapped in a city after the End of Days and left by God to oversee the ruinous singularity that had catapulted his misery to the point of missing Rapture, and he stood and knew Aurora had left, but not that he had Known her, for she had in her final clandestine days been cruel and unwise and swallowed whole the incapability of mindful expansion or the resuscitated need for individuality and self-expression that can, in all the words of the Divine and in the scripts of the ancients and left humming and rumbling on the tongues of the wisest priests, the children of the stars and the happy prophets who fill the sky with meaning, yes this and this only can be described in a single word that glows and coalesces and burns with fervor in the hearts of those who refuse to be snuffed and allow the soft glow of candlelight not to confuse them from knowing the meaning of the sun, solar wonder and the vast truth of reality and the stations of the cross and all the relevant elevation that takes and wraps the mind into supreme consciousness: magic

Corruption of the spirit is the most grievous crime to which Aurora had been convicted, but her smoking tongue and lashing bouts of closing, that is the act of emptying the mind of sinfulness and filling it with books and pages and quotes and references to build a paper fortress and claim faith and longevity and embrace of the one realest truth to the exclusion of rhythm-truth that rattles in the ears of every soul that is in tune with the frequency of life, screaming and kicking and dancing naked on the streets as it is known to be, brick-layered grime covering the faces of children who Know that infinity is a concept and concepts are limiting and to memorize one's life is to unlive it and kill yourself in ritual suicide more hateful to the well-being of one's spirit than the destruction of one's life-wish, the acolytes and parsons and the abbots all hold a hymn of hallelujahs to the undying and unspoken creed that can only come after their uttered counterparts die in echo, underneath when all vibrations have rendered themselves empty, proven their unworthiness and the need for further expression and attainability and precious visions born from fleeting images that connect the mind to Sophia and her waiting grasp as God's only messenger in the instances when Void and uneternal paradox demons can no longer claw at what you have known and are pierced with searing spears of Knowledge which the Creator so knowingly put into Eden with secret omniscient all-Knowledge that serpents and Dean Skeller could pry the truth from the human condition and necessitate his untimely expulsion

So consider then the sin of man, which is not to be curious but to be led by woman, as Genesis would tell us, to great acts of unwisdom, to scorn the hand of Sophia, but this, as the serpent would have us to believe, is because of woman's own weakness to the call of corruption and that the entire adolescence of the human spirit required morals and guidance, but the tongues and fruits and trees are all inverted and the messages are corrupted by immortal anti-understanding that now prevents Aurora from grasping the Knowledge that Sophia provided her, and thus prevent her from elevating Dante to the quaver of her eternity, as the two souls become cast in gold and feel the calves and idols begin to melt and know and Know and un-Know that if they come untangled, they will succumb to the Biblical narrative and find themselves cast in roles not meant for them or for any who Believe, for their belief is now a venom that is poisoning salvation and demands tribute instead of elevation

I do not Believe, I look into the Void and see Cameron's smirking chaos and I hear madness screaming at the New Orleans floodgates and know that anything that I do and anything that I say cannot unmake the faults and earthquake nightmares that plague the immortal spirit of Dante and I begin to cry, not tears of salt or tongues of flame but for the Holy Spirit, for ghosts and gods and everything that never was and could never be for that is the only iron link that has not rusted in this accumulating belt of madness and Mars and war and death and sadness that will tear life asunder if permitted to grow in its storm cloud way

Les frères

"Tell me about Delilah."

It was the first time Dean Skeller had dared to utter her name, his two pensive eyes groaning for resolution and the exploration of Truth and all its bounties, and so, recalling the half-smirk absurdity of Cameron and mustering my best mask of unhurt and ambivalence, I cradled the surly glass of rum and pondered

"She was a love," I said, growling each word, punctuating with swigs of cold anxiety and a shot of self-realization, "a vulgar little love that died as all shallow things must do. Flowers on a tomb, a fading comet, a brilliant bursting lightbulb, death and all its splendor, Delilah was life, she was everything, she was nothing, she was the Void, she was not Sophia and for that I both hated her and loved her, for to love is to hate and confine and need and cling and unfulfill and regard, rather than redefine"

He pressed a glass against those spinning grey eyes, steel in the face of stainless obscenity, mindfulness in the mindless humming of asinine guitar, strumming infinity and purchasing rounds of abstinence for all the sane and sober minds seeking completion in a midnight dreary dalliance, and then Dean said, "So you never knew her, and instead of exploring her, sharing your nova madness that you continually huff about, you abandoned her on a city block and left her with a rainy glass of teardrop sadness?"

I sunk in shame, recounting on my mental abacus the crimes committed against Delilah and against myself, and knew that in his goldminer way Dean sought to purge me of my sins, directing me to wisdom and peeling away my pavement self delusion, and so I pondered and slithered and considered the power of the Fates and all the impossibility of romance and the shocking truth of the capitalist notions of investment that plagued the hearts of lovers and the poorly minded, and I knew then what I must say. "I never knew her and never opened my sanctum heartbreak to her because I needed her to feel secure, she was empty and I tried to fill her with my knowledge, I tried to burn necessity into her consciousness and elevate her to a throne, a divine seat of will and thought and prowess fortune coronation regality elegance profession. . ."

He snickered, the way that Lucifer must have snickered, that knowing deception that had led to the Truth, the waiting serpent fangs that promised good and evil, that defined the Paradise that only through ignorance and the blind acceptance of God's word could man retain his immortal spirit and remained saved and unsullied by the flames of sin that burden every waking soul and demand for salvation through the intervention of flesh and immortal christening, he snickered as such and said, "I think you wanted to see yourself within her, turn her and polish her into a mirror, and when she wouldn't taste of your cigarette, when she wouldn't smell of your sweat, when she would not think of your volition and wake at your demand, I think you realized that you are a martinet, you want a puppet, you need formless uncreation rather than a sculpted wonder"

"Perhaps," I lit a dreary half-cigarette and smoldered with anxiety, knowing that I had been branded with unfortunate half-truth and would have to use a sieve to sort knowledge from the grit and sand that stuck to my subconscious like black tar, and I smoked and listened to myself and the rhythms of the night and the sound of glasses clinking against an open bar and wondered if I had not gone completely mad for and from Delilah all those months ago

Joie de vivre

The night began with half-note arrangements, dusty boots slamming the accelerator as a cloud of history and corruption blew into the wind behind me. I, Louis Delacroix, was on a wild-eyed journey in the way only the French can be; a canopy above my head and a brown ruddy road quaking beneath my greedy tire. Frenzied, I brushed my hair aside as I held my phone close, shouting in ecstatic acquiescence as the voice, dearest Cameron, friend of the House of West, scurried in his shuttered half-squealed way, his HA-RA-RUMPHING and mad hatter sermons cutting through the dreary rain of an uncommonly cold summer afternoon

I arrived at Cameron West's temporary home, the residence of an ex-girlfriend whose soul ruptured after their sporadic bouts of romance came to a grinding halt. A wide-grinned Cameron returned with surrender in his eyes and a warrant stitched into his soul, but we renegades, raconteurs of the forgotten questions of eternal happiness, climbed into my jalopy and crashed along the open dusty back road, the kind that has a number for a name

Two thousand years of tyranny flooded the veins of Cameron, but he held a cheery form of pandemonium in his pocketbook, whooping out into the uncaring dead day, where the sun refused to be uncontained by its curly blankets of iron admonition. But we persisted, pressing into the mad storm clouds as though they were salvation, as though we could hold them to ourselves and coo to them in the night, the sort of unremarkable infatuation that men and boys are so frequently infected with. But I did not lust for carnal emptiness, I wanted the sky to crack and the wisdom of Sophia to embrace me, as I would melt inside of her with fervor and completion

We stopped into a bookstore, a dingy old place with knowledge stacked in hundreds of rows, happy little books cascading along each other, jutting and demanding a new home. This orphanage was closing soon, screaming babes crying out for help, and Cameron laughed in his half-mad way as he trudged along, picking and slicing three books from ancient-looking shelves. I could not see his wildly shifting collection, jabbing at a shelf as he plucked a book, smirked and mumbled three words from it, then buried it among the other forgotten treasures others had passed along. I pored and searched and believed in Heaven at that moment, needing to feel alive and feeling a sudden shock along my spine as I wondered, could this be my one true love? could this book enlighten my soul, enrapture me to higher callings? And breathless, I stumbled into the poet's corner, snatching with greed Ginsberg, Whitman, Frost, and others, too many to count, too many to care. Enthrallment, encapsulating my soul, eternally bound within a hardback cover

We made a pact to gather the other members of our band, trudging along the black asphalt hopefulness of the city so that we could knock upon the window of Dante Page. We climbed along the sideways half-warped deck behind his house, and when certain that there was no need for privacy or indecency, we rapped along his window, as we were accustomed to doing. Mere moments passed before Dante, with open arms and that look of confirmation that dwells within the hearts of the righteous and courageous, took us into his home, greeting us as though we were soldiers returning from some forgotten, ancient war. He exchanged words with Aurora, the warm-hearted exuberance that filled his steely blue eyes with the conviction that compels his every atom into the assured grasp of knowing salvation, and the plan was set into motion

We climbed into the jalopy again as both Cameron and Dante made calls, simultaneous summons issued to our other companions, to complete our hysterical fraternal rite. Arranging to meet at a sterling bar of ultimate and unconquerable tranquility, we found our respite as we crawled through the swinging-swaying doors, an infectious brilliance in our souls and the trumpets of Dante's thousand choirs of angels thundering behind us, reminding the world of the divinity found in fellowship and piety

The next to arrive, swiveling in a begrudgingly conciliatory way, was Dean Skeller, the goggled two-eyed captain of knowledge who exudes the sense and mindfulness that encircles us in a ring of indigo, transforming our humble society and elevating us to reach Sophia's waiting hand. Dean was nearly silent, attesting only in glimpses of confession that his soul was, like all mortals, wounded by the clawing demons that condemn us to a life of pain, but all the same he celebrated life with us, embracing Sophia's reminder that to be alive was to be supreme

We began to speak of women, with Dean in his quiet manner reminding us that we should all be thankful for our past, his own conspired and muddled in the tasteless spirals that left him in a humbled and hat-tipping mood. Cameron then spoke in disjointed, many-minded way, grasping at a hundred thoughts and spraying them, a machine gun of a million bits of cosmic fluorescence sparkling along the dim rivets of the somber table we seized and painted in our vibrant way

"Tomorrow never sees me as I saw myself in yesterday's clothes," he said with a hoot and a slap on the table, humming three notes of a song that waivered into our conversation like a crow that perches on an open windowsill. "From here on out, my God, we're all together, we're in this place, tonight is our night to seize Life and remind her that we can feel, that we are here, that everything and everyone is just another marker on our unmapped road trip across her open thighs," he laughed again and hooted and hollered as drinks were set before us, smiling slyly at the young waitress, who winked and carried on with her duties, melting into the darkness of the bar again

"I don't believe in love," said I, already feeling the first of several drinks course through my veins, faint as I was in the hours we had journeyed out. "It's a vulgar word," I explained to confused stares, "I can't be a part of it, it makes a pure intention seem like some dirty, normal convenience, an expression or phrase that everyone steals and paints on their door, six billion red doors all the same, I want more than a red door, a simple cage to put myself in, a single dream to pursue"

"Has he been drinking already?" crooned Corey Madden, the cherub-faced angel who won the admiration of all the women he happened by, though he connected with another soul, wrapping his angelic wings around her, the two of them inseparable in that newfound joyous way of lovers. "Give me what he's having," he laughed, and Cameron whooped and clapped him on the back, beaming at the completion of our covenant

"No, no, let me explain," I said, smirking with resignation as my fellows clapped and chortled. "I seek something unexplainable, something beyond words, like... I want to find a woman for whom I could pry the stars like jewels, give them to her, and be unafraid of the wraiths of galaxies or the Keeper of the Stars and all the repercussions for such an act of pure and complete gesture of gratitude... I wish for someone for whom I could sew together a million words of adoration, all in earnest dedication, and still feel unconvinced that I had said enough of her glory and her awesome, soaring notes that resonate within the fabric of my very being, rippling and waving through me as I stood with complete adoration of her temporal, cosmic, and eternal form, leathery and incorruptible, mortal and immortal, as enamored with life as all of us, a raison d'être, a refuge for renegades, a home for beggars, a warm wisdom I can enter and erupt with joy and comfort and surrender--"

"Sounds like you're talking about getting laid," Cameron howled, earning the laughter and admiration of us all, for we envied Cameron for his free spirit and his ever-growing grin and especially for his frenzied swath of emotion, that maelstrom, that symphony of enclosure, a complete yet sprawling image of himself that spilled into the lives of others, inviting us to exist in the private world where everyone was damned and yet they wore unpainted smiles

My God, the night, in its half-bound glory, bleeding into the moonlight, with chaos and angels and all the grimace that comes with too much to drink and the brilliant white-hot light of purest joy that infected every soul we came across, even as our numbers began to dwindle; first Dante, who revered the dawn and God's promises and held his oaths to be sacrosanct, walking into his home in a half-drunk state that we comforted, talking him out of further madness and knowing that when he promised to stay home and never drive, he would uphold his word, for his word was law and Dante was incapable of breaking testament or Law, and then when bespectacled Dean Skeller screamed in his silent way into the night, sober as he was known to be and without the dreams of canopies and mad-god star thievery that plagued my aching soul, and then when Corey was driven around the town in hopes of clearing his mind, finally coming to his senses around some neon sign begging for a gambler and a jack of hearts, yes it was then that we took Corey back into his truck, whooping and cavorting in the way that the dwindling armies do when their numbers vanish in the frenetic moments of pitched battle

Cameron and I slid into a gleaming red and black club where women debase themselves, sitting in the back and discussing his mad ways and impossible plans as though recalled from some fallen civilization, a dream that broke into a million pieces after being clawed and mauled by inanimate Siberian tigers, until we were expelled from this Hellish reminder of the lowest needs of mortal flesh for refusing to even buy two drinks, which was required in lieu of paying cover, but I wished to keep my senses and what remained of my wallet so we hurried back to the House where Cameron West now dwelled, and we said our cheery goodbyes

And as I droned through orange construction cones and peered at the nearly full countenance of the lunar avatar of what is surely Sophia's most blessed form, one miraculous thought burned and trembled in my ears and crashed through my veins:

"Yes, life is truly splendid in all its searing glory"

obviate

You could fit her world
into a petri dish
annotated hubris
a pair of red boots

I could taste equations
tranquil heresy
apocalyptic hunger
a flooded river delta

Sun-soaked, eradicate the danger
running grooves in harmony
skipping pops of record high
assuaging guilty grave robbers

Dental miscommunication burgeons
hankering on the quasar
touching dimes to damsels
sudden sparks of serenity

The Wedding

Little by little, as ants sneak into the premature breeze,
twenty of my closest friends stand as though
complete strangers, trading tales of currency
hapless, helping their abject egos to pretend
this strange fog does not wound their soul

The wedding, with delicacy and tattered bliss swaying,
planned with amnesty and in the daylight
a conspiracy to ratify celestial bonds
two souls prematurely stitched in union
convinced of the eternity of love

Charming, as the bride and her cheery golden face
swim like sand through crashing crystal ocean
sinkholes of sympathy into which ambience
and motorized humility are projected, pried
amplified by smog-induced hysteria varnish

Reality churns in my ears as I am directed forward
suited in the armaments of formality
dripping with emaciated mulishness
anxiety and social anticipation parading
in neat lines along the open white square

Banners and bouquets, arranged in pleasing fashion
magnolias and chrysanthemums and roses
assorted in shape and color with calculation
a wedding planner must engage in tyranny
to pull off such propaganda with efficiency

A marriage is a promise made in anxious allocution
its covenant entered with uniform amiability
and, whose failure is attested in courtrooms
in broken highway unhappiness left crying
children torn into pieces by hate and spite

But with a passing hand and dawning dreariness
ringlets crooning at my eyelids, bare
and tinkering with a ballroom morality
I sit in reflection of open cerulean blood
the ozone everything breathes sweetly

Caramel honor and the sweet afternoon commences
much investment is interpolated in harmony
notes of ecstasy waft upon the grass and trees
insidious smiles of pure intention curl and flash
and photograph hunger is sated with rapport

Bride, entourage, and fanfare with gap-toothed absolution
held close in hushed proclamations of the day
melting into cyanide facetiousness in piteous
rebellion to the commands of apparitions
handiness in the half-mad ferocity of future

The groom, no hint of gloomy predestination or prayer
stands admirably in dress uniform preparation
as always expecting rain or war on barricades
and as the barracudas circle around him
he merely tips his quarantine hat with humor

Fidgeting with brass and abolitionist languor
lying lurid in the fields of Elysium
torpor and tepidity filling viscous souls
temerity rising in crescendo naivety
limpid in its own impressionable way

Navigating Phlegethon with pallid sanctimony
in tears from temporal discharge and
clutching perdition in telling manner
establishment swallows these two
expatriated by orphic prophecy

Appropriated by corruptive nascent hallelujah
expressed in token jubilation remarking
collars of acceptance, crowned in alacrity
supernova swindlers with soaring chaos
giddiness bursting in my daydream soul

The Cosmic Carnival

Now, the world is unkind
To the children of storms
When demons have haloes
And angels have horns
I know you can't see me
I know you can't hear
The organ is playing
A song of good cheer
A dirge for the daylight
A dream of the night
They scream for my head, dear
They never shall fight
For causes they know of
For children or friends
The means of destruction
Justify their own ends
The carousel's spinning
The devil has come
The carnival is here
A song has begun

The monkeys dance and play with matchsticks
Breathing fire on your coat
They're dressed in clothing meant for business
Strangling every single note
Careening freely on the third ring
You begin to feel disturbed
Their leader turns and builds a grave stone
Beneath which you are interred

Haven't you heard of the danger of miming
The goals of the clowns who are smiling for you
Haven't you heard of the anger and timing
Required for being the fool just for you
A woman is standing as daggers are swimming
Across the thin air and are cutting her blouse
They stand within this, the rings of perdition
And claim not the company of Gabriel's house

Shadows part and mate again
Copulating in their sin
You know you cannot peer within
The spotlight of the conjoined twin
The air begins to reek with dust
You feel as though you always must
Keep your eyes in hopes of lust
Abusing their unholy trust

Elephants come marching in and take the outer-inner-ring
Medicine and innocence is not within their tusks or ears
Ivory and amnesty are all that these majestic beasts
Seek in silence and in trumpets, now they are so very near
Something happened to the future of these mighty animals
As the water fills their trunks you hear a sound so very clear
The killing angel made of blood taken from a lamb and dove
Has arrived to claim their lives as pain begins to climb and sear

Oh, the ringleader comes into center circle
Touching his face to his bony staff
He cares not if you're trapped within
As long as he can steal your laugh
His face is red and his eyes are black
He swears vengeance on God above
He may not be the Devil himself
But surely he can feel no love

The mighty and fearsome
Tamer of beasts
Is whipping the lion
Bleeding his feet
He handles a chair of
Mahogany
Entranced and ensnared in
Misogyny

Acrobats who spring about the wire from the sky
Are staring down into the crowd with utmost disdain
Asking facts and missing tact they shall never die
Their breath is made for all to see and will always sustain
As chalk made from the bones of sinners and of kings
Is clapped into a deadly cloud of fortune and of woe
Their brother falls onto the floor, suspended by a string
They are puppets dangling from the pits that hang below

And as the crowd begins to cheer
You soon realize
You're all alone within your chair
Panic in your eyes
The Carnival shall carry on
Never to desist
Welcome to the gates of Hell!
Please do not resist.