there are lightning rivers running from the mountains
tree tops swinging menacingly atop the scalp of a human
moss tangled in toes there are flowers singing with the clouds

in the unfathomed depths of an eyeball we see the vast expanse of space
pulled eyebrows and eyelashes on the desk by the blank notepad
unkempt fury pressurized in thin glass bottles

look at this unfamiliar air between us
look at this forced civility

where have the nests been dispersed
when was the last straw that twisted your neck
bit your ear and tickled your toes

the green apple appears red in the periphery
look closer because there is truth in the mud

a blue lotus
ever blossoming
a belch of the marsh

who are the ones that observe these thoughts
who is the one that chooses them
every moment a different person
never the same
the past and the future are here to stay

everything is now
don't sell yourself short
disconnected appendages
a ghost within a shell
a high strung harp

sugarsand whiskey pit
blackberry blossom
warped wood

where the river water runs
falling heaven knows  down
all the tears shed
melting ice goes
from mountains majestic
echoing ice flowed
veins of springs
bring
to the inevitable low table

too much there cries on
beds of rushing  death
feels like
a voice never heard
songs too
beautiful

tormented souls
  bear the artist's
spirit
  choice
is not among
  them

Stood in line
   asking
who was he?
This great poet?
And they said
   boldly,
It was you

this dawn has no sun... it has an eye.
it is nothing but dreams and a risen Christ.
the long beyond behind me, is the avalanche... the tremors
in a golden misery. a blunder on glass stilts.
this dawn has to step outside -
to have a mirror. it has to bake the clay
that made a man.... into
an iron wisp.

it has to occur to God
to have your entropy be a deep kiss.
to obliterate the schedule of planned events
and substitute the void for the real fear.
is has to occur to Us
to have no reality other than this.
to celebrate the anvil of cartoon antics
and most refuse the void
with the mind clear.

' bout a train don't come.... been always here....
sinking into the ravines of your cabbages
and sulking in the mulch
of some soiling ambrosia.
a cure for Krackens  in your refractory-
stammering the diphthong  
of an adjacent
howl.

but not quite an amethyst
at rush hour  

but a diamond in
the hush.

a black diamond
within us.

you are not attached
to a dead weight.

you are heavy.

II


if it bleeds
then it must love.
and the hours swarming the continuum
have no time for the minutes
of your day, you are too full of loss.
uncoupled from  the shelter
of nonexistence.
you grieve in
real time.

you are too beautiful to mean nothing

but can't recall.

every canary has a star in its' mouth
that can stop a .50 caliber bullet. and little black eyes.
the south face of a north wind
has always been polite
before shattering your bones,

it is peculiar, but the very thing that makes you breathe
makes you need too.
the fix is in.

II

cruelty is the soft grit of pitch dark.

III

every canary has another word for suffocation.
it rhymes with kerosene and licks its' teeth.
it sleeps in the barn. Feasting on horses -
and dung.
it sounds like falling and glowing, but feels like
extinction. it obliterates the need for another word
for Hope.

Or something else as trivial... to abandon.

the break of day is usually the femur.
but the moon mends
where a shadow falls to it's knees
and begs forgiveness

like a bruise with a muse
the shallows at my depths hum the arias.
they sing the body neglected
and the famine
of immortality.

the long stretch of compacted space
between the morality of a living stone
and the wavelength of a
heart-worm...
can only be measured by tears
in the rain.

the kind of gully-washer that makes ironic
both eyes as they weep...
but somehow makes your face
fill in the blank stare
into Oblivion

with a bald point end.

windmills grind
a breeze into a wisp
as wrung dust, floats
in dust moats of cumulus rust
like the  fatigue of a sixth sense
in a world of five comas
and a hunch.

a world of long shadows
with a brief harrumph
of brass

from a blood-yellow sun
and a bruised
lamp.

the catheter of a ******
and a pearl's
edge.

apple on my head
arrow in my mouth...

and a goose egg.

your paradise is giving me hell... yet -
we bark at the same moon
and all's well. we strike the brass bells of our Wednesday
and keep havoc on a leash. drinking mint tea... pealing anguish
from a flask... stalking clarity with a cowbell -
spoiling ribbons of the sun
with night streaks of blind lemons
coiling in the blue sky of dread reckoning... a periscope
in the marsh, festooned with limp reeds and wild things...
my eyes clunk in the Mcguffin
and go the way of Eastern men with rope tricks
it clicks on the steam in my kettle
where harm has a hammock.
and a gentle breeze typhoons
in a fools mouth.

as the whirligigs of Autumn
preach Spring

in Amsterdam.

i'm left out.

i was there. then i just wasn't there.

sinking into my living-room, i surveyed all disasters
strumming a flute like a winded pigeon
gargling muffle and a clot of choke
strangling the sun, where a moon happens
and the light changes the marrow of a constant
trading iota for the magnificent
in the language of the
minuscule...
sinking into my living-room, prying barnacles from sunbeams -
worshiping the nostrils of lost houses and  breaking vows
like a man cub in an hourglass
i marshal my hope in the end days.
i go where the dead birds sing in dead trees
and keep their feathers
for my back.

though unable to fly, i'm walking on err

intimately capsized,

The crystallization of thought
leaves behind tiny granules,
like diamonds, reflective and
geometric to fit together.

     Sand to glass
        for a window or
          fun-house mirror.

Brain grains made of waiting,
                                 of watching.
Recognition of patterns recorded.
                Faces in old photographs,
                     "Look! That's me!"
  The big picture, stitched individual pixels,
                             light thru the film
                                     projected on a wall,
                                 fuzz of dust on the vinyl.

          Motes of knowing
                       floating
                                            but tough under pressure,
                                  and in the liquid of pure,
                                                           ­            transparent
                                                                ­       experience,

                                                    ­                     soluble.