Feb 28, 2008

 

What do I owe for these drinks of juniper,
of emulsions of ambergris with titmouse scream,
of midnight-misted sprays then breathed;
what do I owe for that glass of Jupiter,
of thunderbirds mixed with quicklime streams,
of ocean-bottom tortured and released--
How much owed, to whom, upon what day?

You owe nothing for your drinks of juniper,
nor all the rest-- the earth is free,
the recipes simple, and death too reposes lean;
you owe nothing for those eyes of lucid fern,
nor that snowbound breath of math unleashed,
nothing more for your eel-jawed soul shark-green--
But drops of truth? Youth deluged, pre-paid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 27, 2008

 

the room

 
the wasp mines
a tunnel
thru livingroom air

an army of one
all territory known
and unknown

the enemy's
to land upon the postman's
gauche flowers

addressed to occupant
or owner
its yellowjacket jacket

of black and yellow
left-turns right-turns
trundles

to pause upon three ledges
hypodermic
of blue-white venom

in suspension
and balanced as any fancy
of mind:

will a patina
of platinum pollen
light

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 26, 2008

 

It starts with starlight: wandering children
out in the wilderness of midnight yards
having been told the spell to make wishes work,
these angels that number the singing hair
on the lid of God, out there taking account
of the steps to heaven, both possible and true,
to lose themselves amidst cotillions threaded
far too fine. They forget their wishes
under the sun of brash dreams as green ships
sail blue leaves, bookends of great-grandmothers
gown virgin daughters, silver cups spill silver
serpents, and their names twist in winds
natural as the growth of their own rooted ribs.
And it ends; I will not lie: I do not know how
that they awaken with starlight-caught
diamonds within pupils deeper than night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 25, 2008

 

And when all's said and done and said
again, what is there but sadness;
what's left but blanket for ones bed,
and dreams to escape ones madness?

And when all's sung and roared and sung
again, what remains but malice;
what's kept in the tide of ones lung,
or mind's empty kingdom palace?

Here a rose; here a tread on tomb.
Here a bird; here a bright whisper.
Here a book; here more stream than glass.

Here a heart; here the night sisters.
Here a hand; here the flight of youth.
Here a skull; here no pain to pass.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 24, 2008

 

orange fishblood dime
the moon over fields of porcelain
as five deer step by turn to trees and trees
match night in holds of air clean as time
of steam and ash and the give

of grass beneath weight darker yet.
orange bottlecap moss
the moon no eye but stopwatch innumerate
and stopper of colder winds perhaps
than what sky stings throat and numbs the hand

encumbered by plastic bag bountied
with coke and egg and cigarette.
orange lake appall
the moon fat in its cave of carbon
facets of stars triangulating some entrance

as yet unseen somewhere beyond whatever
winterbird just screamed
in notes pure and piercing and fulsome.
orange dreamcatcher wax
the moon in its thankless marriage

so divorced from the tumult that is now
still shadow of itself as each exhale
lasts infinitesimally
longer than its requisite lover.
orange respite troth

 

 

I've betrayed
our love, I've betrayed
that bond to walk
this night as the snow
like stars
falls, to find
the earth's white sheet
purer
than the cautious curiosity
of rabbit,
a dark guaiac pool watched
for an hour cross
three frontyards, perhaps
cold, perhaps
starved, yet intent
as any seraph
come as talon, as jaw.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 15, 2008

 

 

write without melody
until there is harmony
in the words you write
until there is a tune
more tone than tine

love without harmony
until there is melody
in the world you love
until there is a tomb
more tome than time

 

 

dryads have fallen in love with me
because i talk of summer grass and sunlight
as tho seen in the darkness that is mine
as tho i stand beneath an autumn oak
in hope of lightning strike as airfoils
of leaves trefoil about themselves

and are lost for being restless.
naiads too have loved me well as a well
without the wish of water or sunlight
nor moonlight nor planet nor star
but with the wish for wall and bucket
and crank and thirst and mouth

to swallow fires of a flame unknown
to themselves. but the houri of the city
the bright city overrun and overturn
find me naive and no longer feral
they say look at his hooves of pock
and coat of mock and look at his eyes

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 13, 2008

 

 

of soft fiction and the predisposition of snow upon sunlit awning
there is little to tell but that clarity is bright and cold
that between mountains there is but valley
that all light is lost and all gravity pulls and what is not vacant
falls as it folds and falls as it spans
flying

        --curtails of woodsmoke diaphanous and storied
          round a redbird on its wave of glory

and the blankets heave as you breathe a spell of midnight and eden
and i've so little to say of wisdom or beauty
but that my mouth wettens to sharpen my teeth
with lust

          elegiac as loss

 

 

when it goes down
[it will go down]
and sirens blare
[as organs burst
and bone and fat
crackle] that first
night will be bright
[as the genius
of crows muddles]
as filament
dying in air,

and dark dawn rise
as pale lust-bloom
and innocence
[much like guilt
a feathery
discomfiture]
fall frail as snow
but eternal.

 

 

for


one moment
when the smoke
hits the light

it grins whorls
that frown cur-
licues

alien as jupiter
and marble
pedestal

a chord less
string more voice
in a wind

kin to it's own kin

 

 

One girl makes an angel of her rake of leaves
one sprawls pale limbs over old snow
one girl clears a path for whimsies of cherubim
one finds black wings furled
where road-broken dirt patches to dandelion
and sand and ash and glass
and starlight that rivers from the high plain of days

that fail and flail.





i wonder if trees doubt.
the green of youth swayed out upon branches.

wonder if storms act as regents of peace.
in starry subterfuge.

if love snails in its tank.
tropics in a hoard of folded teeth.

what spasms under the harpoon's tang.
of anatomies and autonomy.

of portrayals in cartoon.
and the stroke of fires under palm.

mind a fin.
heart a frond.

 

 

You lay yourself down, blood upon the cutting board of sky.
The heart is but mind.

You slip thru needles of pine, spill upon the rock of grass.
Green, an open eye.

You shatter horn upon cement, fur a drift of sign.
The idling engine, dragonflies.

Your call more breath than word, a mushroom bullet-forged.
Rain, a thought of time.

Sparrows ribbon moon, a chime.

 

 

The Casio Pea
 

grows green
among alliterated leaves

Tungsten.

hollow

 

 

all i have to do is be honest as i write this
my love for you is true

fashionably

 

 

in the fence's mesh

shadows of butterfly

in memory of mind

ballet perverse

a mild curiosity

 

 

taking three stones
breath-warm
with sun, write her name with two
in bare earth fresh-turned;
with the third, kill
an instant
in an arc of flight
 

Cassiopeia
is at her highest

the door has unopened the wind
 

my mind
ajar

i love you

 

 

whalesong
twists and spines

littoral

 

 

swaths of fog
raft

a lake looms

 

 

all i know is snow
and to praise claviers
and headphones
pretty girls in darkness
the water of tea
the water of coffee
how to consider everything
music or sport
or both or neither or other
or work of meltwater
fog
in channels of stream

i am sitting thinking
how to say my hand is cold
as i think of you
as you think of me
and if that doesn't sound
like the voice of god
nothing does

who is who isn't
self-aware
in this funereal march
here is a bird

 

 

what would you do if you knew
you wouldn't fail?

everything
nothing
to tell yourself you shouldn't

gods doubting their own existence
no thought to you

canteened upon precipice

 

 

gojira the cat
dark little star
of sneezes
a purl

intumescent
with lub

 

 

here we are
 

Cleopatra
kings

of rivergrass
dry

calm frames
yet to hollow

the mind
a tourniquet
 

for the heart
thunderous

enshuttered
in sky pellucidian

and grey
a film you breathe

this much beauty
this much truth
 

stilled knaves
skilled and unslaved

here in the inevitable
eve

neither rushed
nor unrushing

but rushed
but unrushing
 

Cleopatra
we are here

beyond temperaments
of natural order

a motley disarray

 

 

centron alert. reading
two unknowns at the east gate
where sunlight breaks up
in eaves. centron alert.

centron alert. the water
boils. please use the passkey
given to you in heaven
to reenter. centron alert.

centron alert. above the book
below the shelf is a feather
inside a skull where pains
without hunger dwell. centron

station. sorry for the delay.
status nominal. initiate bells.

 

 

the stars
the scintillating glimmerings
the hammerings
the anvil
the sky

the trance
the sea
the major

the much
the mulch
the i know
the slice

the patience
the ulterior focus
the word
the empty
the gleaning

the size of my net
the changing
the distinct within
the indistinctiveness

 

 

so
there i was flying over
over pine-green earth as the sky
reflected

from roof to rivertwists lapsed
from darkness
then to streetlamp and headlight
in momentary sheen

then i thought i was a raven
a chalk of coal a cloak made dim
by misery and eyes
without the admirability
of an eagle's

nor the contempt of the dove's

 

 

spray-painting fake jewelry
as a sign of the cross
the revolution

against conformity
and some poor fucker
just turned on the television

and another left his
to murder into that softest
impeccable

pecularity that is life
by tooth or by grin
or cold fish calmly stirring

in masterpieces of thunderous
murmurings everything
an ear

 

 

draw a line that goes nowhere
draw a hundred lines that do not add up

draw a barn in collapse draw sawgrass
draw the pump of a spring thaw

draw a noise like crickets dying
draw toadwart draw snakeprint draw mothwing

draw the universe draw entireties of else
draw the hand of heaven draw it well