Apr 20, 2013

FALL BACK

 How to abide the high-school
graphite sky?

To not think of death
in autumn—ogle the puck

of frozen pesto, the withered
cornhusk plait in the crisper,

the kite strings tangled
in the fins of an electric fan;

give up.  The names of death
outnumber the names of desire;

yours is among them, a special
disease to be dead of, a hardening

of the mouth followed by fever-dreams
& then the body wrapping around

itself like a knot tying a chopstick
to a dagger.

Apr 6, 2013

MAJOR MALARKEY

 
 
Dogspeed in the horse
dream, claptrap
of hooves & sprightly
air.  Down the dirt
line like a dart, air
in your gift-mouth
like a bit for Trismegistos,
ridden by Black
Madonna, full up
with pearls for pigs
& Trojans.  Say you are
chased by the illest
wind, jumping like Jack
over the steeple so high.
We all want one thing,
the same thing as
everyone else.  Everybody
runs: for office, for
an orifice, for dirty money
& clean clothes, like tears
or the stocking itself,
wedding garters
on the money. The gun’s
cracked now go
go go.

Apr 5, 2013

MOCKING BIRD





Sachem water star
            pissed rain fiver
slaked heirlooms in the
                        hollow loom
Blasted-out highway cliff sun
            regulator watts
traipse roughshod over
            trellises, delicacies’
territory fugue horizon
                        line

Stables weather is ah of this
Spirits pressed together
Like Lego bricks to form the jamb
Of the door door door

Taxing waning
            Take breeze unto
                        sightlines boneless
harp harangue in the tousled
            branches bamboo

Taken space
            bride equivocally was, gosh,
wapses in their hiveses
            lake spurs detritus where
ruffians, cables, rubles
            like another mic for calisthenics
prism

Apr 4, 2013

TREPANATION

-->
 

First will emerge
the imps of shame,
walking clots of dark
muscle that will turn
to mewling, pleading things
in the earthly atmosphere.

Then gouts of tears
from the watershed
betrothed to us all,
in the relentless beams
of the sun the rainbows
that will play around you
will have an eighth color,
not from outer space
but the inner crazy
aquifers of doubt.
The unreasonable animals
that will come to drink
from the resulting pools
are not to be trusted.

& then the very owl
of Athena, whom we believed
to be so rare, pinions
slicing the ordinary air,
will alight on a powerline,
incredulous she is there at all;
goddamn—you have no idea.
No, really, she flew off with them all.

The comes the infernal piping,
a single note
through the aperture,
it is the bean sidhe’s shriek,
but don’t be afraid, she’s
out of context here—
your hairdresser
on the cross-town bus—
beware beware beware
beware beware, etc.
Are you finished now?
Good.

At last there’s only a creepy
drain-gurgle, a last squirt
of television static, a few earworms,
goodbye Fernando,
& then nothing but a dull,
wholesome ache.
Well, what did you expect?

It should come as no surprise
that these effects are only temporary;
any idiot, after all, can drill a hole
in their skull.  The sublime transformation
of death is reserved for death.  Duh.

Look on the bright side,
now you’ll always have a spot
to store a cork.