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.

Lately, it's as if feathers
are freer than wings,
and flight is more than
airy height.
It feels more like the
perfect confidence of
life, asking death if it
would die for it.
Death asking life if it
would live for it.
Feathers seem to gather
for wings of that magnitude,
beating through the ground
as much as the sky.

sometimes you speak so

directly to one another...

you come to speak indirectly.

just to backtrack what knew

not a jot of difference.

then comes the extraordinary

strength of that man, that

woman.

coming together to part at all

times.

for as long as it holds.

shoe boxes depicted cosmic

happenings at science fairs,

in elementary school.

in a gymnasium--where the

fairest one of all was washed

out of the eye of obscurity.

intuition may not just be a word.

nor any other--because they never

stop doting over those shoe boxes.

Your gilded paces
in darkness, wore
like diamond necklaces
heaped round a dead
queen.

a study of angelus

to the reachable Heart

of a fresco.

overexposed with

new colors beating

off a purifying white.

who ever

wrote

poetry on

their spare

time?

no such thing.

stick to tree, marker lost

to the forest.

ariadne's spidery verve of

weave, threading cities lost

to their applied logic.

dense enough to entrap flies--

zigzagging against these

gordian knots.

her mind-eyed computer

graphics unable to simulate

disentanglement.

deep breathing for clearer

intuitions, ariadne breaks down

to the squeaky laughter of spiders.

who thread without threading--

feast on the dainty logician.

the icy reception of fingertips pawed

on a face of intellectual mortification--

more like vacancy at the height of

its powers.

ie, ascriptive energy can be destroyed.

arguably the same as extremities

touching dissolution.

with that--today felt like an accidental

penmark on the back of a canvas.

it is not worth mentioning that today is

not over yet, seven minutes remain for

this contradictory statement.

configuring pieces make

me laugh...guess I'm loose

in the dome.

Mikey boy, do me a solid and

tighten up those figures of

yours.

make sure it stays on the up

and up, here's my open arms

just in case.

Leucothea applies Bavarian cream

to her paired slit, tending to it with

the waning crescent of no moon.

as oval handheld mirrors base the

trim of their metals on the philosophy

of ornateness--perhaps Gold.

gripped by nymphs, whose fingers

flicker off when oceanic shatters

gurgle up from temple steps.

treetops pass their

basket--

light to the nodose

pit of round.

pillared trunks

sprouting into one

another.

come maximums of

height.

contoured chione

apto pnuema...

hand off touches of

wind to the ground.