red kisses
dart persecuted and carnal
past the
avenue despots;

This night, at least,
is saved

I sat alone
beneath the stoop,
and the beetles' lungs pulsated
in torrential rhythms
with all that we have lost--
even as they trailed their
absurd stems in
horrible lines
between the  neatly machined
granular valleys of the
planks.

This was the breath of
fragile gold hearts;
a wind of ancient style

down the river sudded with boils
seeps and keens;
down the heavy meat of rain
beats and stalls;

this is a new world--

fresh of the malignant living;


the skinny
trails of cigarette ash


and children's
tears

I am slipped in the demon end
of god's wiry hair,


pulled and plucked at;
made a nuisance of,
made a thorn in the
crystal eye of this



new Allmighty

this the


clack
clack
clack


of ductile
orange flesh
filling hotel rooms,
hinting at all the



lovely beasts
convulsing in the wretch
of telecomputers



and marmalade.

the blooming head of
purple smog reaches its feathered petals
across the bowl--

scentless, ascetic,
nearly seamless
with the iron clouds

what lies moony in the
river ****,
scalded and
heavy-thumbed?

the light etches
the retinal disk,

plastered in
blue--
green--
red--
bands,
super-positioned
in the mildewed afterglow of
an exigent god--

garrulous,

too upright for death.

hands seek the
                           blue ribbon--
the flutterer

                                            in butterfly

                                   scars.
catch it.

                      please. This too cannot

    go to god.

                                      The heavens

                     are glutted with
                              joy.

Ale-fiend of a sky-
neatly blotted,
looking down
with sour
red
I

Darkling, folded in absentia,
Eye-wandering through incorporeal portals–

Now a smile,
heretical and broad
as her the sun’s lonely gates.