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