Above this bubble

Is a hot mess

Cold as ice

Aging faster than light

Pictures from space

By a dying satellite

Reveal an inhospitable system lurking

Like the naked state of the girl next door

It's cute at first glance

But disturbing in every frame after

There is menace in her eyes

Renewed panic over dry throat

They say progress has no patience

What of regression?

Helicopter water ballet
And Charlie's on the grid

Front and centering feng shui
Choreographed in the fields
Where ****** sticks to kids

War is the fashion
That never wears out

Smell its smoke
Sickly sweet and orange
In the early decay of morning

~
A fire built within

We come together
we break apart

A wind that blows past
and does not return

Carnival of light
moving colors
in the overcurrent

Where is heaven above?

You'll only hear
the hummingbird
skyward bound

Before finally combusting
somewhere in
the upper atmosphere

The resulting cloud
is probably still up there
— more proof that it pays
to shoot for the stars
~

at the furthest
                        reach from me,

somewhere on the other side
                        of these lucid hills,

a box of sun has been
                        opened,

cut into manageable
                        pieces,

and given to all the young
                        dreaming denizens,

to blow with all
                         they have

inside their strong little
                         lungs--
                               ­     up,
                                          up,
                                                upward
into the sky,

circulating light
                          until it dawns as us all.

~
celebratory,
fluttermoth-like
boys and girls
born at the turn of the century,
and so suddenly out of time,
discarded at the gates
of a last-century neutral zone,
left as unicorn,
imaginary and pure,
somehow worth less than the price
of admission to a festival,

but this isn't God's will...
~

Let men burn stars out from innocuous lightyears pulled through the vortex

Like needle and thread, sown by centuries of sparked, graceful union

(Their strength and vigor found in the cross-stitching)

And ever gently unfolding like outer reach, like inner *****

In the garden of our senses, flowing with milk and honey, by means of forethought or afterglow

One thought of ecstasy, one thought of infinite parable taking new light to bed

The sacred beams bending to form a crescent, a lunula of utmost happiness

Fear is a headline
a casting shadow
a waiting room
a cancer
a culture
a color

It is suddenly knowing
or never knowing at all

Fear is the hanging silence
the falling voice

It is a darkroom
where negatives
are developed

Fear is something
about your eyes:
wink?
blink?
pink!

It is always having to say
you're sorry

Fear is what comes
after a sentence
and before a final meal

It is opening the mail
It is waving goodbye

Sometimes clouds
Sometimes rain

Sometimes a little gray
to wash away
the inhumane

Riding
The color
Wheel

From
Liftoff
To splashdown

Onyx
Eyelids
Heavy with rheum

Waking to
Laminated
Stick-ons

A vinyl ocean
Of unco adhesion
And snap vacuum

Jettisoned
Trinkets
Of youth

Soaring
Prophetically
Overhead

Acquiescing
As scenes
Of upended worlds

The simple playgrounds
Both remembered
And loved

The first-ever satellite images of you

Stranded upon pain inflicted desolation

The process of coming to pieces:

Nocturnal carnivorous planetoid

Moon in your mouth

They hint at remarkably renewed unfriendliness

It’s the same face we all see

Precious and cracked

Your isolated body orbiting

In its bitter ******

Where no sunlight ripples through

The string dangling between your legs

All the children hidden underneath your navel

Have fled down to Earth

To live or die in documented nightmares of their own

I've been a combination
of many things:

Window slats
& Roman numerals

Door knobs
& swimming pools

Bulletproof glass
& Magic Wand Massagers

Bird droppings
& ruffled feathers

The beginnings of a migraine
& a burst of birdsong

Alas!
My heart was never into it

Not one could return me
To sinus rhythm

When buying into love
Make sure to purchase
The lifetime warranty

~
"The sea complains upon a thousand shores"

Yet, I miss your current

passing through me

infinitely I tread this water

in the hopes you will soon awaken

like new horizon

"my precious, the sea will never rest"
~

Amaryllis in the Spring
because it's a pure & innocent thing

before a summer of rockets,
debris of hope—

              the Age of Discovery,
              the Punishment of Lust

an intravenous poison of decline forms
the new math: eye value minus itself

in waltz-time the body is radio-active,
there is no such thing as labor saving machinery

ask Garbo or Monroe, very happy one moment,
the next there was nothing left

their machines did the heavy lifting,
but one was not the loneliest number

the flesh
and bones of humanity
   strike the ground

pressed
distressed
   and broken

your brother's
   extinguishing breath
your sister's
   draining blood
there in crushing
   darkness
          
reverberate
   annihilate

vultures/drones circling
   overhead

this is how
heading home
   becomes a crime scene

Dear Mom & Dad,

I won't be coming home quite as soon as once thought. I have found a place where they really like me; a place like no other. Instead of being shunned and despised, like most places, I'm invited to everything:
parties,
picnics,
and parades,
my neighbors even welcome me with open arms. Suffice-to-say, I finally feel like I belong and plan to stay a while in this country.

Your Son,
Covid-19 Coronavirus, III

coloring inside the lines is impossibly bleak,
with a hissing noise
atomic locomotive
rounds the bend,
extrasensory perception is not
a mindless gift,
it's a train station in the clouds,
tracking all my starting points to you,
nothing in the middle,
nothing at the end.

you leave in opera
with secrets and grievances
under the radar,
and your ready-made
wings catch in the power lines,
you're coiling like smoke
in the arches of my cathedral,
a sense of elegant decay
while sweeping up the debris,
committing arson
with the paraffin of my temporal lobe.

yesterday's fairground waltzes,
ghosted lullabies,
and woodland hymnals,
set in a context not of
resolution and closure,
but of contradiction and assimilation,
break the bond,
away they float on purveyor belts,
one too many molecules,
one too many departures,
always on the surface of everything,
nothing in the middle,
nothing at the end.

The waves are silent. The waves
don't move. Nobody wants to be here
and nobody wants to leave.

There's a man trapped
under his house with an alligator.
His wife does the thin space walk:
an olive, a cherry, and an onion.

She'd sensed his gaze and took off
her dressing gown. She asked if he thought
her bottom was too big, her mind too small.
He said a faded, faulted no.

He's stupid, but he'll catch on
sooner or later. He once saw a ray in her,
but she fell out of orbit. Waxing and waning.

She's got to be careful, after
the sleeping pills and gas. She knows
it's Wednesday because she
took her last pill on Tuesday.

Allowing the world she so painstakingly
built up to ignite and burn apart
in front of both their eyes.

instrumental
dreamer

time free
to sight see

wide
down
corybantic
oval
perimeter
shedding
tiers

in a garden
of angels
sprinkled
with pine cones
at the border of
void and Vaud

cantons
of meltwater cirque
les petites Fauconnières
the inner basin
of my outer reaches

I am
your
visitor
I am
your
audience

let's
stop
for snow
and polar cap
songs
where things
are still run by the natural elements
instrumental dreamer
not by algorithms
not by advancement

Boy meets girl.
Girl marries boy.
Baby comes nine months later
— blessed little killjoy.

Boy neglects girl.
Girl henpecks boy.
There'll be hell to pay
for slighting Helen of Troy.

Such an elegant fear,
this alliance, and yet,
when it's held in selfish hands
it merrily dissolves,
turning as tedious
and drab as Shakespeare.

Boy annoys girl.
Girl leaves boy.
It takes a special kind of madness
in building to simply then destroy.

Turn the other cheek
and Judas will kiss that one too,
reduce the bairn's fever
by visiting daddy's igloo.

Weekends are pay toilets
and happy meals,
frustration is a word all too real.
When did antipathy begin to rule?
About the time diplomacy was forced
into playing the fool.

The good times no one catalogues,
this life has gone straight to the dogs.
The Iditarod Trail extends
from Seward to Nome.
Run the race and make believe
the kids are tucked in safe at home.

According to Dorothy
there's no place like it.

~
Dead ahead
The target is always
On a similar horizon
It's about surviving
Every blasted thought
More than eliminating all threats
When they strike
They form castellated holes
That network new fears
To long existing trauma
Careening off the deep seams of life
In intervals of jagged breath
I become part of the debris
A genuine tourist attraction
The size of a crater
Even after nothing else
Remains of my former self
~

Right at the contour,

Decorative canyons of dire, descending ornaments,

Occluded with mixed smoke signals.

Those heading to their number beds,

Pray to the analytical gods,

"Dear Lord, bell curve distribution. Please, please, please..."

Pirates of pleasure

In foreign waters

Access to excess

The fingers linger

On a perfect rounded bottom

In a conga line

Lust is a bust

This is no love boat

It's headed for dry dock

As a floating hospital

Swimming the high seas

With some unknown disease

Why so inquisitive little guy?
You threw your own feces at Miley Cyrus.
Ate a whole bar of soap.
Even carried Ebola virus.

While nosing around you got
zapped by a high voltage fence.
Stole a bunch of bananas from the dollar store.
But got probation cause it was your first offense.

You once smoked a pack of cigarettes
with Salvador Dali.
Then twice stated he spoke English
like a dumb tamale.

You ran your rental car off a cliff
in Malibu just for kicks.
Bought a case of Gorilla glue just to sniff.

Hanging out with Maury Povich
you copped a feel on Connie Chung.
Spent a complete summer strung out
in North Korea with Kim Jong-un.

You got caught peeking through the hole
in the wall of the girls' locker room.
Pleaded no contest when
the monkey business hit the courtroom.
Then told all in your sorted
memoirs, nom de plume.

You're a lazy obstinate chimp
who's too curious for his own good.
I'd say a future trip to the vet to get neutered
is a sure likelihood.

Hear her soft lilt before espying her
from the promenade?

Listen carefully for mondegreen.
This morning she will come out
of the water, risen from froth,
made of the same elements
as Adam's Eve,
a pastiche dressed in summer's flurry,
transpicuous & clung-to,
amaryllises strung about
hair & thoughts,
the sinfully twisted scent
of Bergamot Orange
filling the nostrils as they flare.

Shall she succeed in coaxing you back
to a tree that once held such promise?

The wonders of research
Tell us cats and dogs are color-blind.
But don't be sad,
They've given us
Something to aspire to.

~
Mermaid in a manhole
suffering hibernation sickness
she drinks in every sob like wine
her oceanic call reverberates
whilst speaking dead languages
into the receiver
but slipping off melancholy
and blown a wish
by hide-and-seek lips
she chooses an unfamiliar light

****** with scissors
throbs of undamaged energy
from her vernal equinox
but in love with a bad idea
and beyond the minimum safe distance
she no longer plays at fragile volumes
and careful times
hands playing butterfly
pinch nippled skin
she chooses an unfamiliar light
~

Strange object at sundown

Brittle heart

Living off the salt

Fighting for survival

Faithful as dogs

Broken as rock

The soil taking its soul

In the blaze of the sun

Stinging itself to death