In this place
The air is so dry that water sulks.
The sky is a viscous brown mosaic.
The sulfurous fumes of old suffering linger.

A woman stares as if trying to unsee creation.
Words on a man’s tongue sound
like rhythmic coughing.
At the only stoplight
the crosswalk sign flashes “Don’t waltz.”

Strangers recoil from me
as if from an embarrassing stain.

People stream to the town square
for some indecipherable ritual.
Probably a funeral for the sun
or a snake oil sale.

Welcome to humankind’s true garden.
Not paradise but a place of desolation,
and what comes after is not exile but striving
and getting the hell out.

So long, mom and dad.

A landscape devoid of transparent eyeballs.
When did we all become photographers?
Freeze fleeting things,
filter clouds, endless beauty a simple effect.

Funny how enclosures feel obsolete—
the graves, the houses, three-sided mornings—
when I am a share, a like,
self-simulacrum selfie.
I stand on a fascinating algorithm,
Below that it’s reposts all the way down.

Share, share a like,
share a googol of happy lives
better than yours.

Are we saying yes  
to starting off yet again,
absent this time?

She invited me into her palace of art,
Where everything signified something else.
She wore a silvery gown,
Covered with a million miniature mirrors.
I was badly dressed.

“Beautiful lady, be my love
and heal my soul.
My life is fragments.
Make me whole.”

“I made this place to stand apart,
A window to a world purer, deeply felt.
Everything here is for you but my heart.
Don’t get the idea that it’s going to melt

Later on.”  Music played.
Nirvana. Or maybe it was “Deacon Blues.”
Twisted letters carved
On doorknobs offered clues
To someone else’s mystery.

“Then be my muse,
Teach me the language of clouds
The coded words on the ceiling’s vault.”

A digital river flowed beneath
A winding stair down to an analog sea.
I asked “Are these ‘caverns measureless to man’?”
“Yes,” she said, “But not to woman.”

I wandered through room after room,
One printed, one painted, one sculpted, one
Paneled with friezes like the blazing tomb
Of an epic queen deified by the sun.

I saw a near-empty room with a single chair.
The light defined its form,
its form escaping into light.
“Is this real or a photo?”
“Yes,” she serenely replied.

I came to two doors.  One said Discipline,
One Desire. “How can I possibly choose?”
“They lead to the same place,” she said.

What was real and what wasn’t flowed together
“You’re starting to figure it out.”

The innocence of a woman’s arched back,
And the wisdom of children.  
The solitude of a lonely pier.

I knelt and I thanked her “Was all this for me?”
“I made this to give away. Not just for you.
What have you learned?  Let’s review.

“Art is a shield
Against falling glass. Art healed
My divided mind, which used to devour
Itself, giving away its power.

Art is hunger, a piercing lack.
Art is a ride on a gull’s back.

Art is a dodge, the as of the mirror.
Art destroys, callous clearer
Of old order.  Art is a dance,
a surrender to chance.

Art is not all seduction and fire
Or tethered to your desire
(Except when it is).  
Beyond the dazzle of you and me,
Art is a failing light for learning how to see.”

I said “Now I understand less than before.”
“Then you’re ready.  
Imagine starry ways beyond these walls.
Use an innocent eye.  
Confusion calls.”

I never saw her again.
But it was enough
to start small.  

She tempted me like an empty page.
From this immense vacuum, I write.

In daylight he was a realist,
Anchored in a world of objects.
But under pale starlight,
Apparitions of her kisses
Danced across his skin

Desire for her, he told himself,
was a craving for form,
a way to fill the night
with soothing fiction.
But the truth was that he could no longer tell
love from addiction.

if ever there were
gods or goddesses of desert
of the drylands
of parched earth some call home
they would be surprised to learn
                     of the miracle of
                           this Spring deluge
                                unfurling forth                
                            from deep within  
                        the crusty dermis
          of this sublunar territory:
          hydrangea and ***** apple flower,
          intermingling their hues
          of mauve and lilacs,
                              as well as the color of sky
                               blooms of the succulents
                    popping open
                    in celebratory dance
                                   in wild fuschia
                                sunray butter:
a dazzling botanic trance
          hollyhocks of magenta,
           veils of bougainvellia, too
                    sweetpea clusters
             curling in the trellis
weaving heavy-scented magic
through and through
a private orchard of lemon tree, and apple
olive and pistachio grove
One would not guess
the endless giving
of this desert treasure trove

And I feel like a goddess
              of mythology softly spun
like Demeter, or Ceres
ancient Egyptian Renenutet
my hands spread out
in the licks of gentle sun
for as spring pours forth its honey
all through this barren land
I , too reawake
and flush out all the infected,
dust-scratched sand
I welcome in
the waters of abundance,
of love, of light under stars
let new energy wash out
old poisons
my radiance spilling far
Reaching out unto the Universe,
cradling this heart
         I cup the buds of blooms,
                                      of nectar
to inseminate my dark
       allowing me
to release the past
and seed within me, lit
         the atoms
of  new
               start
unfolding bit
by tender
bit