You are the mother
of wet hands.
In slow belly suede,
a soft skin of milk
is a wanton half
haggard and white
knuckled.

Today, I joined the circus
and breathed two breaths:

one for my youth,
one for my mouth.

one for a miser,
one for a coward.

You are the father
of thin tendons.
Reap in belly suede,
nuance spoiled and spoken.

A dragon by the tongue,

I breathed fire, stifled
nectar
and ate my fist.

Down the gallows, fiery and cold
the raven does call
in rude awakening for the dead-cow stench
of the pendulum man
strung up, black-naked by yesterday’s vice.

Today I drink milk
from a cancerous breast,
one that does mend a mouth,
but swells the heart also.

Down the gallows, the children do praise
bucolic, bent backward; allegiance
to a broken neck.

And there lies a strange stillness in the air:
the rope-halo has coiled, the serpent eternal,
pulled taut by man’s laws and quick by his fear.

Today, God is laughing
at the newborn’s cry and
today God is laughing
at the folly of his growth,
and the folly of his death.

Here, the parable of the persistent widow
assaults the carcass of tomorrow,
And one has ended
from continuing the deluge,
and Christ crucified, upon Christ for causes
a battle contested
under the root of his tongue:

I have been a multitude of shapes,
before I assumed a consistent form.
I have been a noose, hurried over branches,
and those I call my hands.
I am the man on the limb, I am
judgment applauded and guilt forgotten.

And we hang our flags at half-mast.

Lily says I talk too much
and scoffs the word-trip with
know-it-all and get-it-all,
caffeinated hazard.

Now I know ****'s preamble
means comfort for the twisted,
but the rouge on his lips
is a different shade of pink
than the stain on his *******:

We're zenith straight and waiting,
the mind is cut in quarters,
here I am, a merry song
of Arvo's mirth and Mansell's
death; quit loathing,
the man is breathing.

Newton's god is clock-work,
balderdash predestined, dumb
by Aristotle, fixed Zeno third-up finding,
a paradox perpetual,
and me, I'm just dumb-founded.

And then there's the cat.

Surely, he must be dead.

But I'm still bearing two minds,
and Achilles hasn't won.  The qwiff resides,
the turtle moves,
again the rambling tongue--
is made of one, but now cleft in two.
Or several!

Surely, surely,
he must be alive.

Pandora, just open the box.