the grand mimic
 
recognizes its own reflection
the world a starry introspection
shadows cast and cast rewrought
 






  
 

 


The Sioux Nation


scattered camps of men
not yet out of their tents
as some said here

here is our home
again and again
or they said nothing at all

in that rumored pause
of knowing they had won
what was lost and lost

nothing won
in talons
of transgenetic memory

like gods in a puzzle
stories of Crow
at the entrails of bear

as poisonous snakes
wisdom
as poisonous

all these fools and wisemen
taming snakes
and scorpion and spider

as wells into that ocean
which is its own reprieve
 









 

 

 

the universe itself
opens onto buddhahood

doors smarter than walls
walls smarter than doors

windows brighter
windows darker

and the sky
with all its naked space

so what that i am man
i am blind

and in my blindness
i make light

of the pregnant gravity
of light
 









  

 
 
 
 
inderelict
leaves ableagh

monkeys
and tigers and dragons

of sonica
forebearing a sea a war

and gods within salvage
and gods within stores

of lipless drink
die today

they do not die tomorrow
they die they die
 










 

 

Beyond God


lariats of prayer
heavens of nothing

shells within shells
of idle wind

 
that peal and pearl
wine and swine and song

that spiral and spill
sty and stem and fog


the stars in their rows
like nerves

with names of snow
and snow without reign 








 

 


 
it's true what we say when we don't say a thing
it's true what we do when we lie here
we turn and we turn toward a sussurant tock
in winterfields of chrysalide winding

it's true what we knew when we knew not a thing
it's true we'll forget this forgetting
of unharnessable prayer of filmic incongruity
we bubble in the roar of rising

insignificant
within an insignificance of things
temporarilly counterdesigned
 







 
 

 

 
 

The sky is blue as dirty ice
thawed and rethawed, going nowhere
over pavement. The heart is
a map of any part of this, a war
of unsteady states. The eyes are dice
well recast as blanket night,
where heaven humbles within mantles
of wind, within the refolded smoke
of the perfume of a lessening
of the stench of decay under a
simplicity of snow into the stem
and flow of plant and stone.
The sky, practically blue--
a roar I destroy with silence.
 





 
 
 

 
 
 

A Russian stop-motion video I do not watch;
We show our old enemy's films of peace
And measure war by fiery crease where East
Faces the Moscovia of faceless West.
To be sovereign, what leaders are sane;
Man is not gracious. Here is my rifle
At once sword: A field recording of marbles
Striking trees in a wood, like seeds re-
Cording trees marblestruck. Here are my toys--
They are useless, but for the noise.
 



 





 

 
 
 
 

For good or ill:
Who can say?

Rain says nothing;
Muses less.

Grass snake nests
Awoke on a day

Too cold to fish
Too long.

Cottonmouthed
From alcohol

My father was;
Not that I'm certain--

Didn't pay attention;
Cared even less.
 









 

 
 
 
 
 
The great improbable lie of snow
I think about to music used as rain.
Tangential silence.

Music the lie of silence, poetry
an outline of the body obscene.
Crimes of minimality.

Pines I used to hide in, to see what hiding
was like within pine; a prince in a castle
(not yet king),
guard kept beneath the apples.

The rain, it falls; snow will follow
useless as poetry, as murder revisited,
and corporeal myth
a type of static through the window.
 





  

 
 
 

   a monkey
resolves the puzzle--

         BANANA
 


 
 
 




 

 
 
 
 
the heart 
does not surprise and lies
with promise immediately
broken as fetters of frost
in the whip of dawn 
falsely
coiled in its spring




 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

the rye loaves the breadbox
the breadbox loaves the rye
 
the cat perfects the mouse
the mouse perfects the cat
 
the wine is poor? pour

 
 












 

 
 
 
 
here we have the common man
he does not know what he is doing
he does not know what he has done
he just knows what he finds amusing
 
somewhat kinda but not really really
as he avoids the chore of work
which is the whore of heart and silly
given the stated state of grinding pork
 
into chalk or chalk to pork or i don't know
how many pounds upon these pounding keys
equates to a receipt of the poundage owed
or owned or disowned or with misgiving freed
 
to promote insurgencies of simple words
to take upon armies with sharpened sword
 
 
 
  
 
 
 

 
 
 

Let me tell you of betrayal, how the sea
tosses out a raggle of fish and shell to the night
and the night leaves without taking, and returns
to take no more.
 









 

 
 
 

A reverse plasmosis
double lupine and a three quarter twist
half madrigal--

Gigglebelly flop--

Learn to swim; don't be sullen--
There's time enough to dry--

Towel upon towel--
 








 

 
 
 
 

the smooth pattern
as of fruits
 
spilled flush in the wine
aromatic insecurity

galled as breath
in the gravity of time

how we rise beyond the grave
is how we die
 








 

 
 
 
 
 
Music is dead and dying
is a word in a song
you realized you were singing--
Such is love? So its content--
Unintelligible
and with meaning.
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

 
 


an electric stretch flurred out
to the threadbare weft of a hundred
  and there's a maggot somewhere now
that will warrant surprise this winter
  a cunning child meaning no harm
and i will open the window
 
 






 

 
 


hunting out the psychotic
moon

like a dog
no initial moment lost
or inertia gained
 
the sky halogeneric
as lakes chainlink
 
mysteries of deer
 
the sky halogen
as lakes chainlnk mysteries
of generic deer
 
above the fire of caves





 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

no taller than a cavern
no smaller than a sea
no fatter than any root
none more starved than springs
 
in the culture of april
renucleate and laden
with thinning fat to oil
the air protein
 





 
 
 

 
 
 


how easy it all is to openfire
across the counter as the bartender
makes ready to go minutes from home
as snow decides between calm or storm
or cold and the horses in their stables
await to be fed patient as they are unable
to do more than browse for themselves
in the sun with all its shades that merry well
to the grave as it thunders of distaste
and love that was hated in its glorious chase
of the moon and unlit desiderata
 




 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
the glass
made of tears
my shadow
drinks alone






 
 

 
 
 
 
 
how false all is
i am
you--
 
how true
 






  
 

 
 
 
 

thy words thy dress
thy thought thy mask
thy will thy print
thy death thy style

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

  
 
  
 
broke a muse
failed a muse
lost a muse
cheated
 
caged a muse
sold a muse
mourned a muse
waited
 
drowned a muse
cursed a muse
freed a muse
delighted
 
not a muse
at all
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
given piling shit
poets invariably measure
out the sea in teas of backwash
tonic throwing stones
cast and recast
in the serenity of havoc
and the piss of happenstance
the moon a sister
among a motherhood of stars
never still but slowing
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

And taste
of the tongue
of the sea
rolls back
and with addictive
aesthete--
 
 
 
 
 

 
  
 
 
 
fat chair
marigold
marie
donner blitzen
stephanopolis
lift
acreage
dirtswallowroot
tea time
plate
fraitch
colonel greene
dessert hare
ambient twist
quasimo
glass bottom
eleanor
cassel wate
minora
xana-ana-du
wessen
cobalt/deadbolt
trout
phome
forex
validity
stern
secess
melanoma
yte
.compound
club red
delillo
eandyne
swa
 
  

 
 
the sober joy of god
as all profanes--
rising into what it is not--
and by what laws have i accrued
this glass of scars
and nebulae of ocean?
my gods are lawless.