Wrong Blur

high on the clock, centered
in the word system. The part
of what’s happened
you find to give purpose
and electricity to the flies
and swish transcendental
eyeball represented

capstone of pinch and skin
and the evil eye in the mirror
to structure it by, undefiled
sad and serious, still happening
outside among the plastic chairs
on the deck, high moon

one minute and a center word
a smooth counsel to kiss by
and hold us together like a ripe
balloon of minds collapsing
and thereby bringing the fringe
to the center

with a little gas escaping
over the walls then beaten
with bamboo canes, break
the bed and her clouds, clear day
of bombs you saw in the present
oozing in every direction,
plowed field, mountain

moon upon the clock face

Hammer Time

I’m soothed in your breaking glass
you make it easy like hair
which when separated and wet
can be a little unsettling
as a wet finger entering the ear
can make all the water in your body
want to leap out at once

like laughter of the brain
which is best thought of as Jello
jiggling in a pan in the passenger seat
of your red haired aunt’s station wagon
on her way to the funeral, in itself
not funny, but how she sticks her
manicured finger inside it
to stop the jiggle because it distracts her
then feels inside next
to the bananas there is a danger
with its ears laid back

and she crashes into a tree
which has stepped up
from the dark of its rotted center
and made an edge for her to
crease around

then, you smile at me
and the thin crease tinkles
around in a shower of acorns
and squirrel chatter
and swirl in red coming away
spinning like a galaxy

which is a thing that when you
look at it you don’t know
where you are any more
because the curtain of stars
and teeth and manicure and meaning.

Mu: The Lost Continent

So long ago it was the right way,
one leg of the hydra holding up a neck
returning to the plastic race car track
and a carpet of skater’s blue

the curtain falls on the aftermath
of the eternal ring, polished and rapt
there’s a turning flare down
and little ones burrow into the molding

beat back the clicks of a menacing watch
out, hold up an ice field and see her
dripping away, your chasm is
awesome, ominous, stripping down
to balloon scraps, cosmic straps

buoyed up like rocket ships
to outer space, what apparatus is
gravity if not for wiping away
with collecting hands, eyes
and a brow pop-pop, mother takeoff

the night, there is a tiger pit
under the carpet, dungeon under
the tub, I knows it, object,
hazard, another day, tells me not to,
ever, but the faces get the better of me.

etch

crow claw on tin gutters
one book falls off the bed

flight path over the house
merciful bedroom on approach

Zoom thrust and spin brush
plastic and tree branch

summer trees up with choking
bloom shadow of a flicker

in a cave pilot see how big
each what happened happens

to dog soprano garbage truck
in heaven grow hard

in poverty jackass sound
powdered newsprint less

one squirt stuffed in rock
solid heard what

the witch said when she
soaked in a little bottom

doom claw on tin say
child say scrape say bye

@ the Shrink's

On the way out the door.

Voodoo Tooth

some new walk
along the sewn line

gap on water line and stone
the dizzy mouth

taste each dish to tooth
spitting drink and hair

remember face down is
toe up, torn the buried tooth

kissing gravy blooms dried
blood china sidewalk lip

fold laundry scrub rice
from plates unbearable quiet

gentle air and bird sounds
scurry flue and rat

I feel like retching
hold it down lip wall

tooth brick I remember you
buried my tooth

and escalators the daily spoke
held hands ascent

crying can be epic
and it can be over forever

bring it along hold its hand
keep it in a buried box

forget it softly the names
I call it walking

call it broken feet
call it falling from the flightless

cliff seat of licking
sun on sharp rocks

dug in like teeth to the heart
incisor on the heart

doesn’t cut
it unties

Solid Waste

More desirable than the vacant tree line,
less crass than the hem of stars obsequious
above the seagulls pouring out.

So much more. One star, as you know,
is one sun and thus perhaps one planet
burdened of beautiful trash.

Oh abominable waste heap
looming over the horizon, contemplate a summer day,
shimmer on the eye an ocean
of plastic bottles set to the heart, rhythm,

your flies pervert the veil again.
The compactor operator lashed to the cabin
crushes his lids to blot the sound, the siren
light of gas and fire, the sun

and that abominable blue more beautiful
than the crow pondering a possum carcass’
colorful circumference of light,
hemmed in that blue by awful trees.

Peacock of distance, shit and beak
strutting the mood of climates,
wide cry of fool and night, burnt back
with fist, craw, inevitably blind.

Fig.10- Embrace

Colossal Squid

Gravity

A Perfect Cirle, Thirteenth Step

The Village

It’s snowing out and so I duck in to
this café of enormous glass and refuge,

it’s counterpart to the world, walking arm
in arm with the murderous and abandoned,

ask for spare change, for beer, a cigarette.
I stir a spoon of brightness in my coffee.

No other religion is as filled with beautiful
women as is the closed eye of my cup.

Or isolated by bars where hands press the four
walls for a crack, recess of smooth

enough for fingers to add up the crease
of falling snow. I feel really bad

for the frozen contents of the snow
covered garbage bags, the melting

sweat of the dumpster. My hot cup, glass
my new world with no writing home.

I feel like a telephone of sorts where I
can reach out but don’t really have to respond.

Interpreter

::



The day knows all day
that I know nothing about math

in the festering waters
the frogs are decreasing every year

in numbers, the dogs that eat them
squashed off the road

vomit yellow foam that mixes
with the rainbow of oil

on the wet road. The numbers
go on flexing their branches

in the wind. Cat looks on
with stony eyes while

the windows subtract light
and the paper is delivered

to read of heresies. The knife
is whet with an ignorant stone

the edge is a chaos of zeros
falling into themselves.

One care speaks of hemorrhage,
choking out exegesis

smoke on wet asphalt one less
the number reached,

today in the news so many arcs
of light bombard the brain

with their deaths.













::

I will hide myself away.

Prayer

God watch over the hard-riders, the fast-movers
The ones with music loud in their ears. May they
Ever supernova upon heaven's blessed highways.
Keep us safe from fires of the mind, ever watchful
Of our disease, our wounds we carry with us.
Keep careful watch over all of us, as we watch over
Each other, as we watch over ourselves.

At the Soundless Dawn

Commensurate

Sometimes, sitting here in the park, I forget
the bonds of sand that hold me to the bench,

and I don’t let your lines mark me too easily,
like that shape of airliner, bubbles of zinc

from a bath of acid for metals, the clear blue
pierced the way a lacquered chopstick

penetrates seaweed and rice to the tuna roll,
leaving something for the fingers

to roll, a ginger examination of self, the rivets
of taste buds rumbling loose in the satin

aftertaste like eyelids staring too long
over a field finally, restricted by the cost,

folding together, the cards on the table
too severe, the bluff over the water, the bay.

I can cut you out of mind if I call you, ring,
cellophane, bandwidth, restricted use: foreign.

Fire in the Belly

In the song of this season, the trees that ring the fountain
Are ablaze and the One in the fountain is no longer there.
If I am to be burst apart, to never get better, if this
Is what is required of me, then so be it. I have been reduced
To less than the sum of my parts, I remain defiant in that
I am what remains, defiant. I am pieces stitched together
With a current run through. I find myself forming the position
Of a man doubled over, eviserated, clutching whatever is left inside.
I am one of the lucky ones, I have been blessed with eyes unlocked
And I'm not listening to anyone anymore. This is a gift,
You'll get your chance if you're lucky.

I have been told to wrap each night around me to grieve
And sing my song to God. I am spurred by it, I travel by day
With fists against the ground. There are waves of grief,
Bigger and bigger that rise in the dark and I cannot describe
What I've seen there, I sometimes find myself making an animal growl,
And if banishment is what is required of me then so be it.

It was Dvorák that reminded me, playing out into the yard,
That I had been hearing the sound of violins all along,
That the maples lining the street had finally exploded
Into crimson and orange, and forming this golden corridor,
My three year old daughter running under it and her perfect sky,
Up to me on the steps, I am reminded that holding her
Is the only thing that feels safe anymore.