black locust firewood, gathered by a

hillock of men--with axes & spades for

arms.

inversely dug out, to dig in--deeper.

the ointments of sleep applied to their

eyes--left open, right closed--right open,

left closed.

left/right open.

though they see nothing of this.

when the pit is gutted--the men divide,

into semicircles.

heaping *****-fulls of earth over their

shoulders.

to ceremonialize the short of the long, the

long of the short.

they then ignite the bonfire of black locust

firewood.

about face, & wander off far enough to

disavail appearance.

which's when naked women appear--who

see nothing of this.

drunkenly slip into the bonfire, the curing

of semicircles.

the long of the long...winter, sees all of this.

solstice.

dry hexagons sometimes pop

their honeyed cysts.

discarding paper mache masks,

cursedly cratered on forest trails.

to redraft the barbed crosshatching

of stingers.

huddled to the ****** warmth of

their queen, who winters responsively

to the name: Morta.

a top hat in an empty freezer.

thumb size magnets of vintage Xmas

lights, shifting around like a ouija board.

one dimensional warp sleights of color,

motioning.

placing blind eyes to motion without

color, lit irrespectively by contrast--

or current.

battering ram frost, whose heavy

breathing leaves the freezer door open.

an: i, Chinese water tortures the: u,

of the word: thrum.

--till it becomes: thrim.

sound over writing...

rice paper bulges of wind-water.

as a cold case parrot named: Rainy,

taped to a lamppost by its stricken

vocabulary teacher.

jumbles the wind-water gradient of numbers

& characters it inhabits.

sumi ink bars, with an escapees tropic strokes.

kyphosis/hunchback--basket of abandon, made

stronger than a dozen shadows of men.

mustachio bushel eyebrow covering his left eye,

a bloaty flap of toad-warts covering his

right eye.

palsied arms clamped at his sides--like a chick's

wings embossed in yolk, draggy right foot trailing him.

Quasimodo: 'half made'--to swing from thickly fibrous

ropes & land on musty planks.

swinging/sliding/climbing, up & down, man to creature--

creature to man...in the attic of housed worship.

made deaf by the struck-unstruck sounds of Notre Dame's

bells, cathedral that gave him ears to hear.

of which he named each, each a heroine of the belltower.

made King of Fools by the townspeople during festivity--

crowned & propped up on a third-hand thrown.

stealing away a crowd throwing currency in a gypsy

goddess' tambourine: Esmerelda, whose proceeds went

to the: King of Thieves.

not long after Quasimodo/Hunchback is accosted with

rotted vegetables by the townspeople as he's led to the

public square.

after blindly following orders to abduct a certain gypsy

by the archdeacon.

where he's bound to a rotating pillory & flogged thirty times.

Esmeralda mounts the pillory and pours water from a leathery

flask into his mouth, as he called for it crooked-faced, the jutting

topples of sparse--but hard in the yellow of teeth.

amid bloodlust catcalls that already drenched the pasture-green

rags of his shirt.

his surrogate Father, archdeacon: Claude Frollo, the one that

first reached into a basket to coddle abandonment--as to invest

in afterworld treasures...rebreaks the bones of fifteenth century

sacrilege into covetous place.

whose unanesthetized voices escape from the mouths of Quasimodo

& Esmeralda.

whom the Hunchback rescued from the gallows, citing sanctuary

by church decree, after being falsely accused of murdering

Captain Phoebus.

a philandering standby of integrity, that saw Esmeralda's

eyes follow & fall for the span of his sword, all the wooded

babes of her marital hopes--dashed.

followed up by the sped blackening of the archdeacon's

hooded robe, ripping open the door of jealousy he spied thru.

an almost unbroken motion of forced entry, & ****** of blade

into Captain Phoebus' back--though the ***** survived the *****.

this active underbelly could withhold no more the fat of

a pig on a spit, so after several **** attempts on Esmeralda--

the "bewitched" archdeacon: Claude Frollo, was impaled by

a nail like a renounced garment by Quasimodo, and left to moths.

he loved Esmeralda as he hid his face from her in their brief

interchanges, with the rests of a pianist absorbing unplayable keys.

along with the gargoyle that spat fire from the belltower to ensure

her escape into the arms of her true love: Piere, a poet.

along the underground torches of safe passage, Esmeralda &

Piere, followed Quasimodo's secret instruction...as they were seen

to sunset.

as the king's army closed in on: The Hunchback of Notre Dame, he

clung to his stony confidant--a gargoyle.

where the pale stories of dawn climbed the cathedral, Quasimodo

clung to the gargoyle's head, where he was talked way down.

the diamonds of dead end signs, need

somewhere to free up the terminus of

their streets too.

where astronomical scores of headlights

U-turn against a seven foot tall wax dummy.

betraying no discernable ****** features or

genitalia, just the sum total of bare--heighted

emaciation.

a tapered candle for a spine--melting identical

replicas of its body.

shrinking down to its feet...obeisances of rest.

a double-ended apron bathtub, holds

an oblong pond of milk--poised to

exude volume.

its faucet drips plaster-of-Paris, as the

bell of a saxophone nuzzles to surface.

the congested takeaways of noir lighting

set in--the: O of the saxophone glints no

shiny brass.

only exhales the black bits of checkered

tiles from its bell--whose blow is the central

implication of sound.

which may, or may not have been produced.

draining a predominant starkness too white

to stiffen.

the hermitage of a defeathered

bird--showcases air.

in that, that bird

has never been spotted before.

which is to say--a glimpse of a

feather makes birds out of air.

as air out of air.

the topmost part of a fire--

can resemble the torquing spittle

of sparking leaves.

singeing a wind to move, just as it

lay its head down on the same forest

depression.

whose braceleted stones ground the

pool of a De-cember rain dance.

so stones can sharpen the knives of

earlier closures of light.

more reflective than the origination

of anything lost & found.

think tree canopies as overdeveloped

as the skies that they trade photographic

memory with.

the drive in pistachio of Frankenstein's

forehead--whose smiling wounds of

sutured shoelaces break open black & white.

a widescreen closeup, as his voice suddenly

booms through parked cars with foggy windows

rolled up.

a grunty-moan, a 1931 Aum--turns the screws of his

doctor's Hitleresque inflections, with pronouncements

of aliveness.

the rock-a-bye creaks of pickles in patches forced to

escape from their animal traps.

as the parking lot empties in a hot wheels like mashup--

couples turn on their radios to normalize.

where every station broadcasts Frankenstein's 1931

outre' Aum.

the Atlantic fathoms the bloodlines

of raindrops now.

shown to their lighthouses as watchers

with sleeping masks.

their cloudless searchlights circumnavigating,

resubmerged to stand the trial of:

who among you?

--catalyzed the element that continually

drowns the final frontier?

spawning Charybdis' insatiable hunger

for ships.

whose whirlpools confiscate ripples,

that downwardly core-out their bodies

of  struggling saltwater.

post-haste of rooms--full of

spot checked decor.

adjusted by the dust of walked

bodies.

crawling with broken entries--that

sign on anonymities of removal without

their knowledge.

eviction notice: "hypocrite lecteur--mon

semblabe,--mon fre're!"

maximum capacities of flies bouncing off

walls, centipedes fencing around spiders

on the floor.

as anatomically correct as the body of a

dreamer beyond their bed--revolted by the

exteriority, insecure lordship.

pituitary phenom, muppet with unshelled

eggs for eyes.

whose dilation's the yoke of a molding cellar

wall, that has never been looked on.

a dry grey mane that wigs his skull like a

cobwebbed broom in overcast.

his slanting squat protracts & threatens to

dislodge his elongated bones.

each howling the winds of his caution--

caved in his overeager mouth.

a knuckled-up grip obscures the torso

of his son.

which by proportion notes the size of his

hands, akin to manhandling a loaf of bread.

though bread plays its part in parable, as so

its body bleeds.

Saturn devouring his Son, his head & right

arm depict the clean cut of a single bite, or

a meticulous succession.

the upper body is a thick outline of blood that

refuses to run--as the left arm of Saturn's Son seems

to gag him in protest.

his buttocks stream down his dangling legs--a

cosmic voodoo doll with its pins popped out.

toccata of wind driven

snowflakes--landing within

stained glass windows.

as in between.

allowing for the oblique

radiality of all stained glass...

that repatterns its

worship.

coughing fits of dust are kicked up

by a giant--wearing great sunken cities

at the swells of his bare feet.

oceanic puddles splashing over every stride.

he reaches down to secure Noah's Arc

between his right thumb & pointer finger, as

if it came out of a ******* Jack box.

all the couplings of his animalia reinforcing

his totemic Tower of Babel.

with ant colonies of men working on molten

scaffolds of gold.

the building blocks of his washover being--

cast him out, of where?

with ineffable dramaturgies.

whose performances were witnessed by him

in such a way--that he became an unseeable

morsel placed in his own mouth.

with the taste of no kind of food, to consume

the height he was no longer aware of.

a capped lens' burst mode--in

Parisian catacombs.

Beksinski's monolithic chiseling

with the feather of Maat.

airbrushed putrefaction, whose

spray recondenses fog--to harden the

elevation of stripped faces.

medieval hillsides of conflating greenery,

cryptified human stage work to avoid being

burned at the stake.

the rattle tattle of bones banging away on a

silent bell.

ensuring the lip of its upside down cup can recoat

further wanderings--or leave be.

there's no shramming spleen to rail

against, come the winter solstice.

hotbeds of vampires stretch out to

make snow angels.

light deprivation projects its own creature

features.

received with the most lone & enthusiastic

review.

the doubleback of dark pressed against windows--

not far to meet any emergence from sleep.

uncut prolongations, tar-skipping streets throwing

off characterizations of litter.

unnerving the foot traffic of extras

spreading cabin fever.

the directorial debut of the 21st.

the squelch of the Maenads' feet

danced grass into mud.

their murderous waters breaking--

carrying Orpheus' head in their bellies.

their glazed masks of perspiration became

stuck to weedy tresses of hair--loose as the

plucked strings of Orpheus' lyre.

their droplets of sweat premixed with blood.

Dionysus obliterating memories of irreversible

inebriation between his teeth--grape clusters

downing his chin like a handfed babe.

Orpheus' harmonic Sparagmos--where the

eidolon of every G*d reverberates an uppermost

image.

as Orpheus' head meandered, crashed & tumbled

thru the River Hebros--his lyre stayed by this throat.

playing dismemberment.

the goat song of tragedy.

undercurrents of Hades saturating Hebros with the

narrowest name of water--leading out to...

the periodic table of gods--

is elementally overturned.

as their accretions leave the

columns of the Parthenon

betwixt.

so the semantics of myth &

legend can copulate in peace.

with tinctures of chaos spasmodically

preconceiving release~

projection screens rumple,

like trans-seasonal auditoriums

exiting single file.

whereon

the taxidermy of leaves--watercolor

daubs in a children's book, whose

pages are yellowing.

half-torn dogears, peaking off with a

turn of story.

think the smuggery of branches giving

directions--until they snap.

as highborn winters gather to look down

on a piece of haggard surety.

as earths tone traceries...

veined with dishevelment of leaves.

as the backdraft of a dragon's breath

melts snowflakes on its tongues.

a nor' easter sways a whole-heavy

tree across grounds that dance

away.

so the plods of its rings can see to

underground thunder.

its Tsavorite registers in a buck's

eyes--having stomped prior &

during the tree's honorific sleep.

from crown to trunk it scrapes

its antlers along it.

shedding them in the thick of

woodland chandeliers blown out.

within cavelike craggles, prone &

crownless the buck mingles limbs--

for a while.

far earlier to rise & move on.

every seabed was

a seashore,

silver garlands flaring

gills at clouds so

contortive tails could

interbalance.

the tide of wet spines.

pisces momentums.

for the most figurative

swim.

(craggy scowl)

come again!!!

Florestan's pithy down

the gullet of a dungeon.

cohabitation of echoes,

already taken in.

flesh made of their pliant

ghosts.

wie dunkel es hier ist.

notata van Beethoven--

rewrite of Fidelio.

naysay of no sound

entering.

you who know of me,

& approach by virtue

of a circle--for communicatory

purposes.

write it down, so music will

eventually leap off the page.

the dark room genus

of a flower developes....

within planes of

vases.

whose stems unearth

a shattering too fine

for the boundaries of

a photo.

so a dark room may be

the genus of another

flower--all together.

a compendium of

extinction.

blooming.

an albino monkey

clanging cymbals--

dies a Duracell death.

with two cymbals

resting in a discus prayer.

repetitional rays of sound

creating an island of toys

on a first born sun.

eleven air dry white sheets

furl against another eleven

air dry white sheets.

Handheld invariance of wind.

so the wide of their field can go

without clotheslines.

whatever unfurls...sends through

weightless stone-bearers.

their palms making their way through

those white sheets.

the viscera of streetlights stretch

the imagination of the same illumination.

overhung to recast a planetary surface

spun to its recognizable--yet altered locale.

bizarre morphs...too sudden for even change

in a single glance, recon at the recesses of mind.

left just enough to decipher the odd ends that

wear a warped resemblance--for the queasiness

of a dimensional shift.

as if masterminded cue cards whose images

become symbolic interludes.

with fuller and fuller decks held up to be

whispered.

if a sliver of such is caught in a frame--

the purgatory of incomprehension rushes

in.

backwater Ophelias

clamp down on flinting

ice.

her first blanched splash

floats the many more

of her.

foresworn shockproof

flowers blush her head,

as they do her toe.

bitter murk cross-eyed...

following along.

still.

crows shed the most

finely tailored leather

coats in an infrequent

flap.

so their eyes may overturn.

an unclassified angel

dreams of wake-up...

just to uphold a sledgehammer

of clouds.

she couples with that sound,

to sing aloud.

in twune.

without a sound check.

a black stallion trades

runs with a zebra.

neck to neck outcoming

growth.

along verisimilitudes

of seas that whet an

Ocean's appetite under

their hooves.

there's a whiteout

owl releasing respiration

on a shrinking window.

so it's wingspan can

overspread.

seminal stars in its

digestive system.

water moves despite

clarity--so it cuts

snowflakes that rise

and fall without dissolving

form.

singing bowls are Self-struck

before they leave every

dust mote to water.

Kali's head is encaged

by a skull with the

rotting matter of

takeaway of brains.

as Shiva combs the

flies out of her hair.

a penultimate labor,

to pain with her.

insurmountable poems

lie as scarred breastplates

on a fateful hilltop.

spryly gleaming--when

hit by decisive light.

viscera of ochre.

if purple was

an anatomical exposition--

a blade would meet

its two sides.

so a Rose could retain

its blood.

it gratefully has.

sap has to sway in

stiff wands to meet

a white beyond weather.

as high towers well

pitless raindrops.

to satisfy the most private

thirsts.

way greener goes a pasture

for a newborn black sheep

laying there for a belly rub.