the sun must've sat gray behind the gray clouds
cocooning April fourth, a look of 
coming rain smells agnostic

I mean anosmic…walking home
squinting weakly at the impotent sunbeat
white. away from school at eleven fifteen

I’m choking Senior year, High School's crying uncle
last year, lied ill too long
for Our Lady of Mercy High to ignore
"The Pollock of absence"
Said the smiling dean, 
"Or maybe the Morrison..." —Truth was
i struggled painting disease 
before the body…

I broke their record, "A hundred and two"
my grades were fine, my graduation got
axed. earlier that year
Mr. Flaherty, so he was called, tangled his feelers
under the knee-length skirt of Kendall Denver,
could there have been a more honest vassal
for a truthless event? so it was described.
later he gave a rousing playoff speech, and later
a counselor was prescribed. 

chokeheld this year, "seventy four"
a district counselor spat, feigning offense
that always fails, allowing pass
a son of this State could only care about the killing rate.

A white blind dog
Crosses the concrete near my house unseen
Spring conspicuous only in this gray and-dousing air
Feelings of unbecoming light, colorless sunset
Eleven thirty

"Please. 
Before you unlock the door. feel the first fingers 
of rain fall scatteredly and windkissed like
a blizzard of that nearly-never
snow. air a-melt in times too
warm and blown
for winter

and later sleepless cast in paling sheets
like an angel spoke in snow forgot until

subscribe for infinite snowball fights

Don't seep silent into the freezing blue fabric of
Still life, my liquid love
Don't even hush the humming aphid
Fire pipers' mourning music 
buzz drum from the river left
Their welcome breath, that breathes and ...breathes then croaks...
out of winter...
Like rattled death...

All a hungry waiting harvest
Bathe blind in brilliance with the light, blacksoil
To rake and take the riverruns 
over us, opening the pear green legs of the new season

Red birds vibrate forth from her blue maw
Light bugs lazar forward from her blue maw
They all sing the slave song
of still life, dust dove 
baptized by white light, 
for all eaten, liquid love

creeks ripple below the torquing tires
stampeding ceaseless past pastoral grounds
while in every Earthen strata, misty drear
,after rain diffuses droplet tears,
sky-imbues the rivulets, 
subtly kissing—their barberry furs adew
—who frame these watery roads—

how ground flies back relentlessly
delivering too much haste
under a truthful talk

"There was one time when somebody was attacking my family,
  well, they were suing us... my mom asked, 
  can you do a spell? Do something about it?"

"A spell?" 

"I did a sugar bind,
Severance
Separating our energies,
You go your own way, We go our own way...
After that.. weeks passed
the phone unrung, 
we got a call from their lawyer
telling us how they couldn't for heaven and hell
get a hold of them! She never contacted us again...
But my mom was unconvinced, 'Beware...she's Creole...' she said..."

"Oh. Witch country...?"

"Haha....
What about you, any beliefs?"

"Just one... Life is a blessing."

"It is. Life is short."

"Short? Haha. What? 'I'm 26 and I'm soo old... enjoy your youth!' Is that what you mean?"

"Had a friend who passed last year, 
One of many."

"! 
Are you serious...
?
I'm sorry"

"Drugs. With our generation it's always
drugs. 
Or car accidents..."

—Who frames these watery roads?—
your eyes are blackthorn born,
but no hex you'll ever invoke
could dread me—
like this gray spring day
like fire blight on pastor grounds
—don't I envy the scarlet Barberry
—those bloodlights unashamed in other-soil
but even when your tires kiss my driveway adew
and night's dread begins to hide the lifeblood of day
I'll remain enfired by your soul
even when death drives me
                                    sinister, 
           askew in crucifixion, 
'a cross your sugar'd stake.

In A Louvre 
stealing—love: retakes art to act

tonight, twice time charmed, a new boy slinks
a cat burglar brings down drinks, a lesser poet 
incompetent since, the art's out the bag....
in spirit drunken feet, the one step three, 
now meet their eyes, in the corner, out the way
where notes of gut place, coiling bass
earthquake up your spine, the party smiles
leering ludicrous out of the lost end rooms, 
and the halogens icon ring halos over
edgeless, shadowless, bleach slashing over 
you're tired... aren't you...?
tired of falling for the eyeless people...
giggling, flat love, unseen people...
you can only admire, not devour...
you cannot draw blood, nor cannibalize...
the undimensional, nothing but love....
love love, only love that speaks and writes...
do not throw fists at the boy with the smile, with the talk
and the acting dominant, half-shamed face saying "let me have this"
that would make him real us real, night real, 
and who has that earned?

No, take a drink, you have located desire
and her object, in the jacket you shredded
when you ripped her out his closet, 
stride-stumbling to the car with a useless preening smile
your ride, who waits outside, smokes fast
chaining darts to blunts and darts to breath, 
"how is it," "the people are great, come in" 
and he'll pass

1.)

"Once transected into the realm of Dominus Blicero, Ꞩ found that all the signs had turned against him . . . Lights he had studied so well as one of you, position and movement, now gathered in dance . . . irrelevant dance. None of Blicero's traditional progress, no something new . . . alien. . . . Ꞩ too became conscious of the wind, as his mortality had never allowed him."

The city’s on fire
and there’s no one on the roads

And that sun-fire’s starving in the rearview
Like a bloodspot pulsing past the cloudline
Cuckold to collapse, voyeur of the fall.

Oak axes wove those concrete webs, 
Now askew with their wood in the Body of God

A black and silent vacancy,
a highway's tired hum,
our only rippling rest–

Too shamed to sit beside me
you, unfastened, lay behind
rose on the leather, gasping as if death
ungartered, had slid down your thigh
like a blood drop, betraying bareness.
“Darling...No..!"(You choked) "that sun…
is singing... no....
something far more sinister...
domineering days—wisps of—
dread and purple dust, cruel curls of
melted carbon chains… 
...........oh god, its the Wind...! love.....
 the wind stoked that flame….
…
through the ash the dust could grow…
Phirhouetting round us…God...
mocking Infinity... darling, please!
Turn that mirror away! I taste the salt 
on honest lips, and i’d rather be blind
I don’t want to see the burning.
I don’t want to see! thank you…. 
...
Do you remember that song from the nursery?
I don’t know why I remember now…
...
Autumn leaves are falling down falling down falling down
Look, they fall....
....
On unreal nights like this, it seems Earth
descends from heaven… to intercede for us…
....
Ashes…ashes…we All Fall down…
.....
…..
Hahahaha…!!!
Baby, this is what we so wanted to see…
During winter, till winter grew on me...
Oh...
The air is so pleasantly warm…
Be sure, a hurricane rises at the behest
of all the evil forces of the Earth.”

...Who are you to say anything at all?

Sasha, when you opened the door
With that flower in your hair,
I wanted to spit on you,
no possession—no malice
a reminder that you are nothing,
to me, not to anything, anymore
But I kissed your hair, cause you are right
Like always, these are truly the last days
And I love you—because I love you
as one loves a statue with unknown
make or maker, material or model
through pane after pane
after plexiglass pane. A love far stronger
Than any man care admit. i torture myself
with the opaqueness of our souls, yet the
clearness of submission to all known evil, 

I kissed the flower off your hair

Why do I even tell you this…How?
i, like anybody, have nothing to say—But an obvious hymn
Spiraling out of time past, to even now—

 “So the sky tonight bends westward back
            By violet fires entranced by axial winds,
                        a red volcanic ash rests on the dayline
                                                      of an ever setting soul”
Sasha!

1.1)

(devotion is for a truth worth lying about
I think much of your mission, real city
and of that peculiar worship in the mystic key
reconcilling opposites, north
from south, beginning from end, purpose
from antithesis, I earwitness your song
of endless order, fractaling crescendo
in a violin's birding way… 
prostituting progress, a drumbeat rises,
erecting concrete worries, a climax
crash of symbols, for a demolition coda
resolved in pyromania, then a steeler song is sung
thus I cant help but notice—this final ruin
— born far before it took form
must be your true and most beautiful incarnation)

2.)

"It's control. All these things arise from one difficulty: control. For the first time it was inside, do you see. The control is put inside. No need to suffer passively under 'outside forces'— to veer into any wind. As if . . ."

Doors doors doors doors are all we ever open doors?
Real City. Door to Light. Fruit of human hands...
(Or under a lake of fire...)
Real City. Door from Dark. True Lie from True Lie...
(deliver us from Evil)
A Real City—this time, exile, stand corrected. 

(under evening skies you never speak,
rosy, slashed with pink and blue
a flowery, hellfired sun still never sleeps, 
marooned, distressful bloodlight only beached, 
a wind shivers, heaving overclouds 
draped in purpled black, to harbor rain
trembling over Ocean stirring Earth, a stillborn Bridge
before the backdrop gorgeous melts the sky....
Evesdrop eyes might widen, heads throw back
giggling off our useless gushing tears, "Oh... it's as it was written...
oh how beauty maims to tease us....oh.." a never lone...
trembling over Ocean Eveing Earth, a prince of peace
his arch that bowing Bridge, at crestfall peaks
her strings now taut, prevent collapse, but beg release:
Sashaying, nude-tone dress, with whirlwind's dance
gyring, quivers, waves at storming sea
Ocean's Hands, she spirals, so be free
water arrows, bridge legs, join her sway
that Soul Woman bends at her precipice,
wondering who else ever burdens blame...
wonders who may take the final fall...
lest who else would ever burden blame?)

"Whatever's behind this door,
 I don't need to know"

Quotes from Gravity's Rainbow and Chainsaw Man

Painting: "Ian's Eye" by Dana Donkle, Acrylic on Canvas

maple leaves, slashed with red and brown
abandon ship, bobbing curved and quick
(barrels hauled by wooden desperate hands)
overboard—the bare tree's branch, 
under, over, pale and wintry winds
sinking sinking down 
redding leaves
sinking down
to a paper ocean snowed

cant you see all life bare teeth

Same. trees after the aftersmoke 
drift like dead logs 
(barrels in the harbor of death)
still, be small, show no colors yet,
the enemy 's eyes are ice blue open air

cant you see all-life bare teeth 

Same. a silent farm degrades
Minnesota, dead asleep and paling Minnesota, 
stage for still actors, and coy fields
of faded windbrushed gold
of green sap crying flora 
raped under the ivory blanket
Now. Lumbers, Mr. Gread, 
in the wake of his spirits through the snow
stumbling faceless towards the redwood coop
where inside, lays half-dead his pup of ten, 
quiet panting under reddened ice
stakes of frozen flesh to fur
Same. Poor boy. A silent fault
"yore in fur a chase" said his father before
"when-a lahtnin' strikes" he damn told you
"yerd be tarred to see how fast a mutt cou'd bolt"
day before, the dead of winter night
an ocean shifting storm impaled the Earth
Same. Coyote clothd in winter coat
Pirate. Hungry. blank on hollow sands, 
vied to ration a little life, 
so slunk behind the black encurtained trees
as Buddy's piss and panic trailed 
his tried escape from thunder

those wounds have brought him here.
Scared boy. Strong Boy.
Strong enough to scare away. Strong enough to never yelp.
Old man. 
grazing over near dead fur with trembling feel
trying to take no grief from whimpering wince
only quiet tears
raise the two steel eyes of mercy's sleep 
to kill him fore the thundering gun
(Barrels.)

cant hear 
cant you see all-life bare teeth
when winter arrives?

flayed, by fire of a winter sun
defaced, by fire of an excess light
her face, a furied icon howls
laughs the wind will off her chestnut hair
to air, the snow dots, dust

how long still art lingers here
(ever seen a face so choked in light?)
stretch our arms and straining reach
war to place one mark, a smile or scar
on the face of a......

... 
...a boy of 12 will battle daybreak's wake,
when sun percolates, wafts through ivy curtains
eyes betray expected sense, stir with en plein air, 
Italian Roast, funneling through a heating glass
across a street, as bold tobacco chars, 
all four saken fires morning stokes,
coffee, sun, cigars, and morning wood,
forget-me-nots in sunbeat, rue and rose, 
scents that ferry feathered wind with sin, onstage, a 
Roma's pyre wins, tri-hundred warriors cry:
as burning wood, for how the Fates have fled...
pre-dedicate to life
a roasting roar, that Earth to Sky, assumes. 

"come to me, synesthete, blanket
chords of birding breath, discordant muse,
to eyelids singing in the key of sleep, 
mix the morning, fuse and unconfuse,
as fallen light, once pried, abandons wave, 
photonic home—atlasted once—be seen."

a sun pools her pale replica
on his sheets, a dot of dawning white light grows 
under a bodied boy, as if forensic seen 
half-awake, his Man a tempered voice
may lash, across the room, 
"Awake. 
You awful boy.
bastard.
where's your color? Hey!
DO YOU HOLD NO LOYALTIES
TO THE DAY?"
in that dream-sea, where you neither speak
nor write, fear uninked may haul him by
his pride, like barrels pulleyed now onboard, erect
in that dream-sea, where no man thinks of fate
or fight, those awful Gods still write:
                                                                                           clockworks, fists araise
                                                                                           a pouncing boy to strike, 
                                                                                           an act unseen, that he nor me
                                                                                           could fight 
"Good," The father spat, 
"Good, so you can face day."
never a painting pleased boy more
than under knuckled pangs, that bleeding scene
of Goliath in his Ruben way 
as sunlight twirls her streaming hair
across the room, fluttering her cherry lashes

"Good night baby, good night sweet baby, goodnight,
don't have too much fun 
my love, please, and not too late
don't take his car, and get home safe."
kiss kiss kiss, her lip her wayward face 
"Oh, Serene, leave, leave...I'll be fine, you know me,
better than anyone..."

welcome, drought of day.
a setting redding sun through windows weeps
to bend a cherry dye ink over this bar
like blushing nausea...
ruby rays alight the drunk platoons—veterans and 21's 
out-of-jungle-boys, drafts-of-broadsheet-retirees—ripe in their blood-orange fever
hunching over tapstained, paling oak, lost in the adrenaline of firing stories, 
the fake and not so fake, blows to faces
cheers and toasts. 
"bottles up!", (That fucked up joke recalls
our one beloved retarded cadet 
who always misspoke, last I heard him, 
we'd hitched up ‘way from base… 
just us..and…hey!
haha…what’d you say?
under the long away purring of the fading Raiders...
how the hell'd he wear his face...? 
......
and fuck...this whiskey-namphantasia
(…grin the gorgeous kid tonight) 
Under the whinny of our very own cavalry airjets, thought
right to hurl some faggot joke then   Thunder—
spoke his peace
my ears failed, his specter could not hold, falcon heard not falconer.
And air ablaze, eye to bleeding ash, I lash at the elements...but color?
you can't. under beastly red, you can do nothing but slouch......
and pallbear your useless buckets....Last I heard, Jack was grinning.

charcoal under a melting scarlet pyre, 
fumes of copper. mahogany hair, a face and fragrance sick...
obscure....transmuting....even now...
under the liquid fire of our own napalm...
...!
when that same bloodbeat hues the oak it means...)
—cut! 
director, 
better paint the scene?
...
...
...
...
...
(action!)
...
...
...
...welcome, drought of day, a rose-peach cast...
falls on split lips, empty cans...and you...
(Good, a scene romantics love to view...)
...........a sun tongue desperate for the corners of evening...
(that we pass over in silence, and leave to flushing pews.)
.............teases florid fire on the lip of evening, 
to swell a pupiled eye, when light betrays our time.
At barely five, premature our day will meet a wintry end
his excess loving fires, to steal a last resort,
retreats his sunbeams windows-back, letting dark
retake her place, feigns respect for riptide time,
till once last time...his red light laps...the slowly dripping wet bar sink...
licking the last gold off our honey...off our silver plates...

(Roll sound)   
                                        
so come, let's midwife night in twelve bar blues,  "and all you women in the night,                                                                                                                                        let me paint the view...    jazzman, swing time,       ("you alright?")      
color the town with my light, means everything to me... 
just don't dance my way, you drop dead girl. 
you're wrong to even meet my eye...
and though our men left in the day,      and smile...    they're never fully gone...        
hear the music of life......  
O' baby, a'comin' over...now!"  
("Teller? hey... Teller? Where are you...?")      
"What man, what?! 
I'm fine..."  
tonight, we birth new war, in twelve bar blues                                 
wake up, jazz girl, nightfall clearly knows,
how forsaken fires cue to sing us
barmen, blow and blood nose, ruined Rose,
garden hidden ghost notes, white Cereus.
and the Four O'Clocks in moonlight, Queens of Night—
and the Moonflower vines in double time duet—
the Angel's Trumpet met, her coiling climb, a dancing still...
heeltaps to a backbeat sadists call…response of will...
to overwhelm—to smother other life. and drink her fill.
"So long... So long... So long...
Did you have to leave... her face..."
twined her arms around my neck,
lamb enough to jolt when mine 
her hip. her face could pan the drinking mind
to future night....beyond right knowing
where the eye wanders, and the lip
jerks. ghost of breath...tousled hair
purr that soft trill devil's chord...what a view
your haze face kissed hilarious, mark me next
Lipstick, war paint, any smear of you
(GOOD. a scene romantics beg of you)
how barbarians lack... how doomed to death 
Lay back down. we’ll see how far You get.                                              
God that film, my spirit saw, a scene erotics sow to see:
in the assumption of the Virgin into heaven, 
deflowering evil, for we accept no perfect image 
down below,  or how else could we sweetly suffer love?
how else could we sweetly suffer love?
how else could we sweetly suffer?! love?!
how else could we???
how else

Revel rapt in crimson muck,
oh effigy—child on ever fire,
dragging dust on every road.
Worship is the weight of having seen
the water slipping through the cracks 
of the blind hand of God.

is a road enough for sunless skin?
for fruits on wood do wrinkle
tasted never by—red and starving lips
creasing longingly under bronze light...
never plucked by fleshy tender hands,
and worked beneath no overseeing eye

Yet sun yet burns through hungered stomachs
and sound waves crash on shores of witness ears
betraying the pulse of some still moon
no more illusory in her truth 
than nature's song on which the wind carries.

So the sky sung infinite—
sight of Earth—
star implodes neath dirt and soul—
'n a blind between the art and eye—
—is letting light in through the out door

Don't look at me that way my love...
That way yes, like i am mad!
Heres a place for mad men though...
Look, the barman stares me there...
Tell me, if that word the man 
so signified upon your neck
Came down to Earth and became flesh to test you
Would you look the same?

Come on now I'm joking!
Your age's eyes look bored my friend
You want to hear it don't you now?
How i rose again?

You see my smile does paint me young
But yesteryear my youth corrode..
the rosen sun rose overwhelmed
a flower from the little hope,
in graceful garden bloom fluoresce,
but scintillating little hopes
my generation cant devour
not even the scent
ambrosia cutting windwise through the carnations
I sat in my friend's backyard
surrendering sun in mind for moonlit sky
eager for a little death
deliver from my sober self
firewater, firewater

Halloween, i know that smirk
you're no stranger to what pagans do

You know magic, it was here
when LED's shine rutilant
like dazzling gemstone vines from where
we drank our wine, so
toxify the air our burning lights
the firepit
the people God the people
you know because you speak me still
how charming Man can be
when His miracles we drink

The whitest light of love is disappear
knew this from my forming years, so
disappear my self I did and know that
every Woman Man and
Creature neath the moon that night
I loved, the sight could make you cry
not a blight festering on the 
skin of man
And virile rung my bells of youth...
Dont laugh! No—you're smiling! dear, 
Sonorous the language so—
the music of the sex opposed
sung out before my eyes and ears

And daffodil dancing,
one looked at me, drew me in
with magnetizing nectar
picture me a peacock, let my smile do the talking
seduction's such a sober game
but looks, a lie loves several ways
remember "I" was gone, 
with love to blame

But when the festival was dying
lacking time or place for passion
and with the climactic energy draining
we fell asleep on each other
how innocently intimate, no?

Before I tell you the rest
I need you to promise me you wont look away
No matter what is said,
dare you slap me I'll concede your wish
Don't smile, I'm serious, you must let me finish,
and my love If i could promise you one
hope upon these awful lips,
its that love will, love will, love will be revealed

I dream of you and falling teeth and
Then i woke to black,
beside me, my partner gone
weasy, head spinning
pirouhetting LED's, taste of
vomit in the throat 
behind me, some god awful noise
I was so tired, I thought I'd
fall back sinking, and sleep again
but the noise grew louder
did I hear what i say I hear..?
I still don't know myself
Behind me, "Stop, stop, stop!"
and growing louder still
I tried to look behind me for my glasses
but they weren't there
I rose from the couch,
leaned on the table, before
the sense in my knees dissolved
God the drinking..
And I fell
Again I heard it, "Stop! Stop!"
crowned in fear
a woman's cry
who all born from one
see the sound as printed in the DNA
in bold letters
Wrong
i was scared
i rose
and then gripping the side of the couch I took the step
falling back
could the music be any louder than the crying
"Stop..."...Am i the only one here?
I rose one last time, took a step
then fell to my knee
next thing I didn't know
I was asleep

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Don't look at me that way my love.
That way yes like I am mad.
Know I love the mad men though.
When the wasted stare me there.
Know I am the Word the man.
So signified upon your neck. 
And every neck of every man. 
I am the Ocean Sun and Sand.
          and every lip lost fleeing
          sound so serif spoken
          to your ears MUST paint
          me in this gorgeous light 
          red and reeking in the chair.
I live only when 
you speak me there.
I am liquid water words
(who is dead?)
but so it means that 
every woman man and creature neath the moon tonight
my love exceeds, since you're my child
my love escapes all fleshy bondage.
           rise, dance 
           youre flowing, beauty
           oh, look at you, shimmering silk 
           hm? who's woven?
Tell me, was "I" really gone that
dreadful night I fell three times?
Not truly no not truly.
I said, dont stop the dance!—
as the guilt of man paints me
a brushstroke of infinite faces 
I am you, and You must be me then
Tell me still, do you know how I look?
Do you know my gender,
Before I spoke myself bare,
Was there sex in the air? 
Was it wafting through this wretched bar?
Well then, am I Man or Woman?
Traitor or Nazi?
Am I on fire?
Do i have eight more tries to die
like Plath conspired?
I'm told I lack poetic grace.
I'm told I have a foxen smile.
I'm afraid I can only be beautiful as the wind.
All words hear me, I am told
speaks not freedom of the soul
but spoken
So I can love all ocean all earth
I can love all sun all moon
when you saw my bloodtooth smile
did you think
I'd eat you too?

When first I fell to Earth I fell a man
And the desert spoke smothering, beckoning me
But in me grew a taste for drowning depths
Difference, Fire in polar places

I ran for the forest, where life flowed freely
And allied myself with hewers of wood
The man magicians, one day's wood
Was wretched work, saw men laugh and hacking there
Tree fields bare, we broke backs
I Dirtied myself with a buzzing saw
For once did hate rise in my chest
One with years etched on his face, I asked
"Sir, what's the strength of man?"

He paused a bit
The late sun sinking slashed his visage
His hat's shadow painted his eyes unseeable
"The strength of the man is the arm of the tree
and the tools at his hand, 
not one nor the other but both,
they both decide what holds leaves, ground or tree."
Then it leapt, the buzz saw leapt and pounced, leapt and pounced
to dismember the last tree

I was weary and wide eyed, weary and wide eyed
Day done dreaming, I would rest at a river
Where a researcher was drinking, beach chairs
Vacant flanking his both sides
He lay in his essential Bed
I stumbled forward, fish pounced and leapt 
Flaring in the water
Splashing my dusk dark vision with motion
And the man was melting in moon shine mesmer
Staring up at the moon sky—closed eyes
I walked to a chair on his left side, sat where
From the look of his eyes he knew I wouldn't stay there
And before he could spoil the sacred of mystery
I said to his half smile, "Kind sir, tell me,
What is the strength of man?"

Coyotes were howling,
Cool wind sliced our frigid faces
But he laughed in bliss, and said
"The strength of the man," and his eyes wandered skyward
"Is what he chooses to look at yes—no—
what he chooses to look at and after that more so,
what he chooses to leave unlooked.
Cause what is looked is what is spoke.
And what is thought?"
He laughed like he joked but it wasn't very funny
So I took out some smokes that the last man gave me,
And three darts down my lungs were shaking,
I turned my right to end our meet 
politely but he was asleep

The desert was smothering, beckoning me
Was hate in my chest, was it time to make leave?
But the skyline was singing and beckoning, yes
The sight of the city was smothering me
At unholy hours, I felt just one last talk could change me
Kill some stagnant pathogen pulsing
Tainting all that men had taught me

Seattle was silent and drying
The last bar open, I sat at a stool
Not far from its center, where a tender
Was silent and gathering glasses
Just one woman drank here, late here
Pen in hand she hid away a paper
Inky lips did frown when she saw me
A look I saw just fore I fell
And for one I did now tell her my name
She put the pen down, smiling fakely
Here it was
"Woman, what is the strength of man?"
The language like liquid flowed from her lips,
"The shit of the vulture," And for one I did laugh

And she laughed too but she wasn't joking,
And the pain of her body could be felt there in cold air
That caged all her movements in nailing slowness
What thought in her mind could not be disguised
By the look of distrust feebly fleeing her eyes
"The strength of the man," She did continue,
"Is the strength of the tail eating snake surrounding,
that coils and coils but never ever changes"
And she stared at the face of the cool dark liquid
Pooling proudly in her red rimmed beverage


"How the stars don't shine just out this window"
"Better so we don't see them fall,
are you a writer?"
"Not at all."
"You don't like writing."
"...Who could...
Just living brings me shame enough
But now I lay in the valley of evil and
scream for the city to notice my spirit,
How much do I want them to scream at the sand dunes!
The sky and the ocean! my name!
She who stares at the water and sees
All men collaged in moving mirrors!"

The words were like music, but building and building 
to vile crescendo, voice raging and violent
And outside the window, the rain was now falling
And laughing was lightning she ripped up her paper, 
"THE STRENGTH OF THE MAN,
IS THE WIDTH OF A LINE AND THE DEPTH OF A CIRCLE,
FROM THE WAY THAT YOU FLINCH I CAN SEE YOU'RE A PHYSICIST!
ALL MEN ARE AND ARE ALWAYS LOOKING! PAINTING
RAINDROPS WITH TORRID REASON!" 
I knew she was mine
A slave to the truth, but ashamed by its vices
I wanted to kiss her, to scream on the sand dunes
with diabolic joy I would make her her name now
So instead I held her face and sung her
Culmination
"But now you pray for rain. You take
all the blame for drought"
I saw rage in her eyes
Vessels of bloodracks beating round the edges
"Because you sing for rain, you pose
all the blame for drought."

The sun rose red and was riding the Earth
The sand, liquid light in the morning did rake
I buried her face down in the desert
Knowing she'd be mine when the chasm gaped

Towering over the Arctic–tethered in the ice
A Great Bird hunches over Late Earth, 
Its wings shiver, age-painted, cracking dusty silver 
And two winds blow from the reeking beak of the Vulture.

The North Wind blows warm aroused like lover-breath 
on bare New York,
to erect these statues starving for a name.
Whirring round the ridges of the heaven high towers,
to stir gold glass framed shadows awake
for a wisp—to float fire flies in air, 
and prevent the descent down the dark soil yet,
The North Wind yanks on and halves limbs of trees. 
One branch to two, two-to-four, four to eight,  
stretching silent wooden life beyond her timid shape,  
upwards forever forking towards the more sun. 
 
Soon when the sun rise buries Manhattan
in bright orange arrows, the day will fall from the sky
like a missile, gaping the pale nimbus that birthed him,
And rise handsome from the ocean, with presence of a prophet:
All life will stand at attention.
          Goosebump grass— a skim of Earth—
           A naked carnation unfurls
         and winds that blow them grant a garden birth.
He’ll lay in a thornbush, encornered in the city
by the violets and the roses that were planted by the company.
Find his church—
In vagrants, bums, and no ones
who carry no shame for sex on the streets.
Watch the degraded peer over crowds—
As his finger curls with the North Wind
to that ghost white star never grasped by human hands
but forever breathing us the light, 
He’ll say, There, right there, lies All Life,
All our culmination.” a sight they never so hungered more—
nor fervent awe—such fevered rapt—
Especially when the Horse kicks—

But soon when the sun rise crowns Manhattan
in scarlet aurora, the company roses 
the day may dry.
Two women, who morning rockets work,
 stoke their oxblood billowed fires.
To you two—machining in the rocket maw:
Hosanna. Hosanna. The highest. To you.
Photograph the rabbits’ beady eyes 
when they peek cutely out of their grass hide holes
and laugh, till you return to your tasks.
And once the Rocket’s done, 
the water will gargle a red phosphorus
where a spill had occurred.
When you stare at the erection, abandon your rosary.
Tint the mind, imagine a bind
staving off its death drawn due
yes, so that awful rocket might
be tethered tonight—white—under a whaling moon
For rest, who can blame reprieve?
Drape the mind with scarfs of red and brown
sleep cocooned by milk rays through your window’s curtain gown 
Let the moon miscarry your bastard evil
Till a red phone rings, when the rain
of hellfire ceased, glory to he who seeds
the cold black looming cloud, 
                           unearthed,
rise,  rainbow,                    from unreal drying days 
And haul him away, point him, and launch,
(detach the keeling mast to cross)
watch him arc with a North Wind sigh
soaring sunwise till at last—a final dive
to  the enemy of whatever man bought it. 

The Vulture pendulates
Restless
Waiting to flap its great and terrible wings


The South Wind blows warm aroused like lover-breath
down Calvary.
screwing nails to wood, wood to dirt to slate.
hammers stakes on paling life…
and gasps on the grave worms…
Hear her now… sing time’s regret...bite back into the Big Apple…
where her flute song quivers over night city asphalt…
rippling over street puddles, pipering people down…
down alley hidden stairways, to holes in the wall,
to the death drowning music in the midnight escape.
The South Wind settles yellow fog under the bridges
because she’s a romantic—                 “Love right there…
windkissed hair, empyrean sight—”
                                                                  …only for the willing to own their end…
“…O!
…
…
O
…
…
…
O…”
….
“aren’t we such sweet hurricane dust…
squalling under halted time till water breaks…?”
...
A Great Warhawk,
her torrents slash corneas from retinas...
her storms always battle gravity...
tearing particles apart... forever towing towards the none...

soon, when the sun sets, coating Manhattan
in cherry haze, the night might form in the aftersmoke 
or crystallize from liquid shadows 
pooling under dive bar stools.
and most all life will hardly notice.
but they’ll feel—her pull. 
                half-slitted eyes that lead down a                                                                               hall…
                                                                         Dont look 
                lips dance sacch’rine with Latin                                                                            guitar...
               a silk crease hums incanted                                                                              witchcraft...
or…leather….boots…
                                                                  Don’t look at me…
…..a leather jacket?
                                                                  I said dont look at me!
however she’s born,
wherever creatures might dare to carry her off,
she’ll be where the fun is,
find her saved—
in salesmen, liars, and someones
with too much shame to surrender in life
watch effacéds kneel vis á vis—
as her head bows with the South Wind, 
to his thin hazel hair torn to blood in her hands
yielding to touch under dim gold light
to cup cascading cheeks,
say—“This, right here, is all you
all your culmination.” what pleasure...the flesh 
might buckle...
as she bridges sensation—
to no end—




but soon, when the sun sets draping Manhattan 
in blood orange curtains,
the sun will exit from the stage 
              "before his weak light sighs unto silent skies...               
              before his weak light white dyes a one eyed moon...               
              secreting stolen light, bleaching fire on our city scene...       
              before her radi’ance round the concrete makes...
              shimmr’ing towers light beam lakes...
              reflecting nothing onto nothing...
              before nature flees our scene...before that
              veiling of the leaf...before        
              her gloss a moonlit lip chafes wheat...            
              kisses forth the blooming night...  
              anchored sleep... anchored sleep          
              siren sink our foaming wake 
              before the rearing over waters white...          
              of a pale rose—half blind...            
              Coronates the ocean a defeat of little life...!!!"
Told now. before the moon fires might 
cry glory onto a night won war, 
a sun blows westward, under, back, beckoning Manhattan 
with wineing serenade...to where the skyline fails the eye… 
the day will exit in no encored way, 
bowing over a water stage, 
signed—his spectured signature, 
of suffocated light wheezing under red waves 
A pale replica—neath— keelhauled morning
over the city slowing nearing sleep,
someone’s sullied legs now breathe once last, 
Finally folding inward on the side streets
danced dead under fentanyl's fire.
A sole suit hunches over his dashboard…. 
his headlights near the truth a dying man… 
ciphers in a schizo's concrete snow angel… 
rrevealing nothing onto nothing… then
a sole girl glides along a vacant road
red hips swaying with the dips in the street
hiding nothing from nothing... please... please...
please can our red rimmed lights...
just rake the lesser fruit...
...just tonight?
...
                    (her walking needles draw the wandering dead lights
of his stalling car.)
...
Over the city reeking soaked in sludge, 
Over the city choking bathed in light,
stands a man who works the power lines
hundreds of feet high, 
such devoted witness of busy life… 
...
He’ll fall. 
Not hugging the scaffolding too hard… 
… 
when sun rays beam over the once ugly Hudson, 
the river churns a sunkissed cider, 
a gorgeous mirage...
for a thirsty man with holy holy hands
…
...as the concrete beacons flare forever towards the high 
he exhausts… 
… 
plummeting with the South Wind… 
… 
in time-remorse, 
his fear forever frozen till...

the flood hits.

When the Vulture flaps its great and terrible wings
No music will wander from any mouth at land
Just echo two winds now lost,
And shriek dust devils in the choke

Agⱥpe
in whatever frothing kraken remains
abominant, thrashing in the deep blue
“irradiate... fireless dark”
fucking  and killing till the ink dries...

Sun slashed slightly, cold and damp
Wet wood boards and morning dew
Lip lock latch to fallen clouds

Sea Fog—formless water moss
—rainfall's torrid afterbreath
after her—to lovemake Earth—
blue torrents sept

Sea Fog— down the cool blood creature
Salt wind here her pleasure ferries
Fallen love, vein Chesapeake
kissed her river capillary

An Oak Tree forever poses
a sculptured sublime stature
rough wooden, on its arms
grow crooked mosses, green leaf charmed
climb lanternflies, spotted swarms
rosy risers pilgrim parched 

Sister Green, you take no blame
for your soul's unsmothered flame
To Blue our Mother,
don't our troubles
seem a thirsting same? 

but what men bear, you seldom share
That's Grief, the son of Shame

Between the oak's great branches
behold, the hanged man dies
your grasses roll their trillion eyes

Trees shiver
through leaves
the sun pulses
light between 
your vein's blood beat

Green bear down 
on me
light just
beat me weak
head rush fairies
fly beneath

God of rocks and living things
I crawled the grass
searching for your sex, come back
dont wait, dont fade to black, dont falter
break my body on your altar
so some worrying worms would look for me
the bugs right now just flee 
springing fast like hot tailed hoppers
Im no threat, I'm a poser, I'm a tree

the sun beat stabs right through my skull
 the truth of all things, oh I'm full
of pride and stone
melting far far from my home

Run Run Run you awful actor!
Oh now you love your mask?
Come on, you wanted this, aren't you
so close you could kiss it?
Fine then leave, keep running!
to paths that like clouds rise like gas
and run to the river where horsemen pass
where the clops like carousels spin the ear skyward
rise to the railroad, love where are you?
vision bleeds pink to earthly green
hear Aztec flutes and canine growls
What's over there? Are you an owl?
This is your house! Your dominion!
What are you scared? hear the laughs!
your family's back! the clay forked path
leads ten steps down to some sick yellow grass 
or ten steps up to a vine festered road
I choose the last one and flee my home

At night lie
Lightning bugs and fireflies
virtueless cicadas chorus
streams of yellow light
caress lone streets
with cyclone flight

While beasts break silence
like bread

Sky painted in lieu of homes
the Red Rimmed Comet glides
over where we slept
where in blue bedding
children wept

Hungry was our name
as kids
we'd sail the waken path
shipless
the wind would break the waters white
over backs of rocks and cliffs
where we wiccan spirits floated
tethered like sea mist
to the ocean 

Before red eats the city asleep
I beg the beast 
one last quiet
we are the final
insomniac prophets

in the wake
we anchors weep
wait for tension on our rope
but while water stallions lope
fire foals leap to siren sleep

Color does the river way
that drains all life through days
and nights away the same
lullabying those who shout
and fight the fire rebelliously 
the same as those who silent melt
to white despair in dark malaise
who liken sleep to freedom's haze

but man was once a faceless thing
before the mirrors flowed to sing
the praises of names
we were gray homunculi
yet charmed by passions undenied
by towering tepid trees

when the river ran to eden
it was fertile with the Mystery
for antsy angels trumpeting
were tired of praise and endless days
so falling naked from the Law
iridescent angels slithered
and clawed to the Word, the blue written sliver
so luminaries bathed between 
the river jaws 

their halos wet with acrid longing
preyed upon each seventh eye
and Ichor sweat was slowly dripping
fire disguised
the water-wicked and seductive
bathe the backs each angel surfaced
sullied by imperfect rush
paling to the waves of God
yet charmed by its simplicity
the rythmic drumming on the under
angels drop from light asunder
down the water, children sinking
testing breath for fun and wonder

but for those born and bathed in grace
just one taste the tongue of dark
was enough to break
the levee of fear to death
the angels, angels, the angels crept
crept towards halos on the depth
like cephalopods to anglerfish
then fucked each other till they wept
a Rainbow Reckoned Seed Release
crustaceans ate their curling dust
before they left

the river lonely, never eaten
hungry did now crawl to Eden 

Erupt from sandy ruin--heat
melt my lover into me.
Desert crimson sky ablaze
evaporate us, eat our shape
so she breathes us in, the pale marble palace
gold chained and shimmering on the horizon
whose red sun halo'd crown now drowns
into the ground, fluttering its ruby lashes
that light puncture our eyes

My lover painted dressed in blue
points me to the open door
to you-- shapely silhouette 
man made night does drape you fair.
In black that hides in vacant temples
sun ashamed divorced from air
you shine red woman,
but why are you here?

The winter when your face falls in
You're in the basement of your friend
The cracking cranking sounds around
Of pipes—machines—and moving things
Corroded in your brain, you found
Blue apples slices on the ground
Hungry throat you swallow now
Starting is this awful noise
Engine broken moaning boats
Cacophonous with wooden flutes
And red alarms with rising smoke 
Metal clanking down a chute
All you did was swallow no?
Yet you feel mad machinery
Wretched clockwork from your throat
Freezing cracking valves of gas 
While black furred lurkers stalk your choke
They run like rats in tunnels
Panic's diplomats of sense 
Waiting for collapse to stoke
The flame that falls on living things
Now does sleep seem sinister
Basement did this winter bring
Icy air and dryness must
If you don't rise to safety now
Crush your maddened lungs of rust

So flee for a cup of tea
Walk the flight of stairs above
And try to drown the noise around
Step one step then two then three
Marry eyes to window pane
White snow blanket fields do seem
Enormous like you've never seen
Like reason, scope, and size were shot
By winter’s trembling dusken scene
So why does it seem sinister?
You see no night sky grace that sight
But like a moonlit lake's mirage
Winter's fields were mirrored twice
So hills that would reach to the sky
Horizon met like like liquid ice
With twin hills stretching down below
Whitelit void of moonshine glow 

On two trees twin crows snow smothered
Both look like you
As if you were brothers
Their backs are turned not for trust
But freezing in must
Like covenants spoke in storming seas
And prayed by vulnerability

You make it
A machine heats your water
Synchronously with the buzz
Hums homely fading kitchen lights

Your sister walks up to your drink
Tells you, "Brother you are lost,"
Now like raindrops fall your teeth
Shattering like hammered glass
"How much farther must I walk?"
"You know just as well as I."
"So not at all."
"Yet try."
"But how?"
"Have you already died?
Brother have you already died?"
Slinking like a cat she moves
Sinking just behind the chair
And melts into the shadowed wall
You scream for your father upstairs
"You don't want me in your house?!
Fine! But I did grateful speak!
Fine! But I did grateful live!
Fine! You want me to shiver in rain?
Fine!" but silence silence spoke
You left your father, don't you move.
You left your father. Flee from shame. 


Behind the matriarchs chair
The nightmare woman’s there
Drink the tea. Try not to see
The sky’s ghost rages upstairs
What falls on you are tears of fire
That rape your air
But you are not afraid
Cause in the basement, near the fireplace
Your mother’s there
You hear her call to come below
To sleep before the morning crows

What pulls you to the stairwell?
Is it the trees bowing before you
As you kiss the glass farewell?
But more than anyone you know
Living things by wind are blown

Weakly make the door a wound
And fall into your mother’s womb