MY ELUSIVE DREAMS

 

The point where grass bursts

from ground, a follicle

for those blades of the blood

of the sun.  It’s all about

scale—the Atom will tell you—

the emptiness that is

the lattice of experience.

A point on a line, losing

everything from one moment

to the next.  The sky

is blue or black; clouds

are grey or white.

Only so many

days available, only so much

time to think of

the available days.

Like extensions, the time spent

under the star of the mind,

my elusive dreams:

metal flowers of ships

melting into the sluggish sea,

a constellation seen from  above.

How everyone winds up there

in the end—the dead, the living

& everyone else. 

THE WORLD AGAIN

As though they would exhale

cabin air, the valkyries

of the future,

which continues to shrink,

distill until you begin

to doubt it is there at all. 

An angle against the sun

to mark time; the sun 

just a lousy orange, a porthole

into the place you were

promised.  At last, there’s nothing

out in space at all—

its limits irrelevant as is

longing flapping like a carp

on the cratered surface

of some aptly named moon.

Names deflate in space,

crumple into fists, each one

raised against the joke

of the air, just a skin

like any other skin, hiding

nothing, certain of its

own boundaries, the atmosphere

crushing in is more

than you could imagine.

SUZY'S SERENADE

A smile of transistors

began to speak

            of great unity 

in cerulean light, an unreal

harpsichord tinkled

            with lightning. 

To this end

none could be left

             in the gunmetal haze;

the pregnant, stenciled-on

            eyes watched

from the periphery,

            with no need

of clarions.  The baritone

            footfalls

were just as foretold,

            except we

were happy, marching

            into the sea,

our thinking

            done, our suffering.

Like animals,

            at last; all

we wanted & more.

            The static world

left to inherit would greet

            the nova, would be

the tickertape

            of our pyrrhic grin.

LOVE ON A MOUNTAIN TOP

A thousand stones

in the sky-

diadem, unidentified,

strobing, errant superego 

parts the cumulonimbus

like a curtain of hair.

Long ago, we gave

these bodies to them.

Skies throbbed

ecstatic.  Nothing but

barbed wire to helix

this coil now.   

The Caduceus

shoots a flame

for purgation.

Serpents squeeze 

the barrel, the herm 

squirts petroleum

& lucre.

That which cannot be owned

abhorred.  Skin soft &

smooth for encoding,

the name branded, the price

too.  The oldest trick

a lame duck

bookless until the universal

language can only say

check please.

HANG UP YOUR HANG UPS

 

A nation

of trouble

erroneous

genesis

censors

censure

in the stocks

& on the lawns

terrible

arpeggio

in the dreaming

a bad bone

flexes

its narrative

what they knew

would be

all along

the awful

seminal

crooks

lay down

in worsted

grey hair

the old speech

still holding

oceans

the feet

of braves

over sickly

flames

WHAT'S IT GONNA BE?

A landscape unrolls

A knot of roads

A basement, a telescope

7 flowers of the prism

Gap-toothed compass rose

Constellations wheel above

Roots gather below

Vintage in the cellar

Ghosts in the furnace

Skeins of tragedy, motes

Of comedy, so long

Since we gave names to homes

Or lived in them

HOLD ON

Though another imagined end,
     a row of nosegays
erupt from the buried
     clavicle, debris
dances to fill
     a vacuum, water to fill
the hollowed-out
     temple.  8 or 9
clouds to fill
     the droopy head.
No rope
     trick, just a yellow
balloon.  Microorganisms'
     parthenogenesis, a lifetime
of 2-minute songs
     stacked end to end
to end the dance
     of Maya, illusion is
as hands must be
     hands
to get the record flipped.

ANGEL BABY

A crystal comma
       in a silo, voice
like tinkling glass.
                    Dendrites
a thousand pins,
       verdant cloud mycelium,
its shadow
                   on Earth
       describes a map
of ill-omen.  All our thousand
       cherished nightmares
boiled to gleaming--
       chromium flames
in the central eye;
           the eye of the lion
                  in the agate,
the aperture opens
       like a double axe;

       redacted pages
                  coagulate
        as punishing wings,

pinions up against
        the heavens'
autumnal orange
                   scratch commands

on the retina,
                   dilating time,
the rise of the apocrypha
                   as margins begin to

      overwhelm the page.

PARIS BLUES

Ghost Braille 

of rain

on sfumato smear

of tram windows. 

Sun staccato 

through same.

Angled shadows, 

fallen brows.   

Time is the gun

of gravity.  

Everyone on Earth 

is a stranger

on the train, 

in the end

everyone leaves. 

Everyone

gets off.  

At the same stop,

though destinations

differ,  I don’t

think you’re 

my neighbor,

know you 

from anywhere,

wonder where

you’ve gone. 

All the eye 

sees, closes,

forgets.

SISTER LEE

The pages gilt

only in the shut

book, the ground

the speech

of objects. 

Analog bilateral,

the volume of the

metalspot,

the pawed moon

in the lazy creek.

Stand-alone

tomes slough

off, a hunter

in a boar-husk.

In leaving behind

the boom of the beat

skin, the ghost

of the animal

is gone, the sweat

streaked serif.

A shroud

of zeroes drops

a flanged cube,

each thing disintegrating

into data.  The lay

of the land snatched

out too slowly,

the flasks shatter

& sway.  I am going

away into the sleeve,

the shelf, the tire-

marks all the day

long, the long day

with no sun or moon

that hovers, a bottle-

fly above

a wound.