I'm too juiced for this **** this
can't look out the
windshield **** this is
the type of **** I usually avoid
'cause I can never wrap my brain
'round tight enough to think past
          stimulation

LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT
acoustic encoding all ****** & raucous
retinas not working
corneas not working
pupil sized up like puberty
and I say
        let her spin *******

Because I've never sensed like this
it's something new &
something old but I'm here for the first
and I would love to leave soon
          but just let me hang on
          for a second longer

'till my brain shuts the **** up.

Trees bent in, sobbing,
weeping as mists have weeped like
summer rains gone sour.

Some fresh scent of drowned leaves
crackled into autumn & I am
born again into daylight, breeze
playing with my tangled mess of head
still dancing like soft summer shadows
on the concrete & the basketball goals.

It is no longer hot. I do not sweat
near as much as usual &
cold sticks to night like thistle &
I am awake again & almost praying.

I wish for fall to yield to spring.
I wish this slowness away.

Let me reconstruct.
I am always in winter.

Steadfast reminding
me all good plays are written
one line at a time.

Boys & books & long
lines of bone-dry rosebush &
all of it burning.

He craved a father like a burnout
licking his sugarcane eyes &
slapping them on
any surface they'd stick &

he called night The Kingdom
would wander off for ages
said I don't need to know
where I'm goin'

said Someday I'll have already
found it & maybe he's right
All people die a little
more in daylight

he was 16
a dry firecracker
one spark away
from infinite eruption

a dish containing my bones
& several vital organs
laid to rest on a bed
of colander and sage

a pretty platter
a selfless oblation

one hopes a gift of such
heart might be atoned
& wrapped in a cocoon
& sent away to float the sea

my insides ravaged
my restitution complete