and so there she stands
your daughter liberty
alone and weak
because you left her unattended
in a sundress and fireman's coat with blood
on her chin and her face contorted
for the cameras to see
stupefied on the edge of the gravel pit
with the confetti ash swirling in her hair
and her eyes filled with animal fear
as her slack body slams against the railing
and a swan song swells in her throat

they use billy clubs to beat back the rats
under the skull of the moon and
the fickle stars like frantic pouncing eagles
the neighborhood dying has scratch marks all over it
diamonds etched in storefront windows
and rollicking clouds of tear gas to make it fun
there's a ****** taking a **** out in the open street
and where's the flag? oh i remember
it's snagged on a parapet five stories up
burning in the ignored sunset between
the silent buildings

we are an enormous pile of sentient garbage
coming up from the rot wearing life preservers
advancing with the picket line tide
blowing flashbang death on flugelhorns
outside the framework of the 2-party system
invented by the mongrels in hollywood
guerrillas moving in troupes thru the city streets
filled with exhilarating hope and
plumes of smoke insurgents chanting
violence is american as apple pie

i keep my tv dark to reflect the flames
of the grocery store outside and my insides
feel ripped up, i've never had a shave this close
squish my denim body against the window like a telescope
to hear the growl from the depths under the city
this is the moment just before something big happens

this is the flashover
this is when the panic begins
there's a man in a tree out in palmdale and
i need the morphine to tell me it isn't my fault
i need my pastor to tell me god doesn't lie
tonight the fuses blew out on an entire continent
tonight i wept

then the immense mass heaves up
and the streets all fill with diamonds
in vivid hot designs
and the country contemplates
the pagan city as a zero.
then the country, driven to pondering,
panics. oh, how the fire frequents the sky
with straightforward accumulation.
it boils the sluggish blood.
there is too much
too much fire in the hands
too much fire in the hearts and eyes
this engine consumes too much
and the fire rages out of control.

in the drifting smoke, i saw bodies
burned to bare bones and the survivors
lunge forward. the chorus girls sprawl
on the sidewalk and are swept away.
the quick flame is the dividing line
the end of the sabbath.

the books all burst into flames and the dancing
is boisterous. my cheek pressed into the wall
of a skyscraper how satisfying. the falling waves
of sparks uplifting and gyrating with the kickers.

follow the long curve of hose-water with
your aching neck and see
the influencers arriving drenched to the skin
in fire-spray to divert the journalists. but they are
helpless and impotent and the edifice slips into
the pavement. this is the unexpected harvest.
and i preach nothing.

the city is dead
the heart in a tourniquet
i'm in the ivory tower
high above the dull roar
my mouth on a megaphone
but it's hard to explain
a subtle chemical change
we're all cinderella
as the midnight devours
so close your eyes
we'll wait it out
i didn't consent but
you woke me up for this
when i was dreaming deeply
and now everyone else is comatose
we're all alone now
standing behind closed doors
the silence has ravaged me
this raw wound is my home

the world has turned and said
just wait okay
now is the time, okay
you can stop, okay
you can go home
it's okay

the world has turned into
a blue bear
skidding thru a white
floodlight

the sun is a red lion
dripping wet paint onto day
the moon is a wet black dragon
with spirals in its eyes
and stars are the fireworks
that light the way

the men of the world have turned
the tears in my eyes
into glass
my eyes into glass
the world has turned
my body into dust
into dust
into dust
my body into dust

I kept my golden hair long and my wings unshorn
to escape the magnet-hold of the earth mother. I am
a flying splinter longing for purity above all; the
ascending son, the moth mad for the light.

I was the great ancient hunter battling the new
psychic terrors and herding the demons of cynicism
and suspicion into clouds like the holy white buffalo
god. Tracking the ghost animal resources of allegiance
and truth against the abject sky of platitudes extended
by industrial *******.

I was waiting to be compensated by the malicious
one for my dainty life above ground. To be whipped
by the same wind who untangled the great sphinx.
To be interrogated by the shape-changing sick god
that dwells on the back side of the moon among
crystallized bat wings and ripped-apart bodies
of the birds we sent him.

I was wallowing in the titanic ashes -- hibernating
to become more human. Tasting the soot of the
death of my father, the sky-king. I was feeding my
body on sleeplessness; meditation, fasting,
occasional flagellation. I was starving out the snake
in my spinal cord, who once grew fat and lethargic on
lager, ecstasy, ******* machismo and astounding
mythologized ***.

I was the paltry son of a weak puddle of indecision
which I have emulated as the sacred king. Drowning
myself in alcohol, living in a dank burrow under
he earth; an oven bird. Existing like mycelium in
the endless subterranean bog.

Inhaling the disparate ether of stardust and
becoming buoyant; then
Exhaling the syrupy ambrosia of solar power into
the blades of grass which grew up through my mouth
and formed a pillow for my silent dreams.

I am the eternal garden boy.
Spading the soil, preparing a place,
sifting ashes into the bedwork from
all my previous warrior deaths. Here I
will grow the abundant climbing vines,
the exotic grains, the fragrant wild flowers
and rare apple trees in geometric design.

And she will approach me there, a sprouted seed --
by the fountain of course, that eternal spring. The
girl of solar fire, the girl who loves gold, and we will
lie together but never to each other. Kissing the fresh
sutures, we will quench each others' souls and be
hermetically sealed together there in the old stone-
walled garden, rolling among the lilies on heaven's
green swell, letting sunlight fall on us like the anvil.

Cloistered, caressing, sequestered in the
warm earth now, bundled together in the sod,
tranquil with the supple bliss of satiety when
every muscle lies snugly like a curved petal
at peace inside the corolla.

Here I will blend rawness into passion,
obsession into desire. Turn brittle
brown manure into shiny green
leaves, luscious roses; Breed
epiphanies from disaster.

come find me in the lurch
with the dogs beneath the avenues
on barefeet and scars on my knees
arms extended in hypothesis into the
sultry sky, bridging the gulf
between god and myself

i am a prisoner who
spends restless nights staring into the void
my wounds, to all appearances healed-over
open themselves inwardly and leak freely
thru the cavernous expanse of my body
absentmindedly retracing my torment with
the callous pads of my fingers in the dark
dancing over my own flesh like a cold stranger
my lips twist into a grimace and my cheeks flash hot
and wet as a bolt of grief sinks itself down deep into me

i am alone here
lost in listlessness gasping
for breath on this tumbled mattress
alone as i've ever been
with the clang of the bars and
the muted squawk of the captain on the radio
when it rains i am alone with it
alone too out in the sun and grass
and concertina wire
alone with the impatience and courage
particular to the condemned
listening to remote nestlings
howl themselves hoarse in the treetops
searching for the motherbird come to
subdue and nourish them as i am hoarse
and i am searching

oh beautiful mother please find my
withered eaten heart discarded like
a cut flower and sanctify it

my heart breaks again and again
under the reiterated gusts of shame
my memory thrusts against me

come and find me
look down here
because some of us will not see
heaven when we die
instead of tasting the delicious picnics
in paradise accompanied by angelic
flute-and-lute bands we will be caked
in layers of fresh **** constantly
raw sewage on our raw skin with
hairy black cellar rats singing the blues
***** by wild beasts dragged by devils
thru the packed streets of hell consumed
by a hopeless desire to start a new life of
chastity but there will be no second chance
just the eternity we deserve