the sun (plus all the particles
that make up its purple ghost) rests
over the winter-weary streets
and, seeing all the people walking
with their heads down, recoils
and shivers.

the building (with the glass
all over, exposing tired office
jockeys), even as it looms, shows
sympathy to the mourning cosmos.

there is no sun chicago
there is no glimmer in DC
the lights are out. the grey
days are here.

even in the cold, the boiler
rumbles. the grass
crunches slightly
beneath your shoe.

replica of the statue of liberty, made of
concrete, a beacon for weary motorists
stranded on route 66, endlessly
drifting in the dusty abyss, stands in front of entrance
with her readymade torch.

she mumbles into a phone, then hands us a key.
a tiny room for breakfast goes unused
and the swimming pool is cloudy,
the concrete walls reverberating
empty chlorine
pleasantries, a watered down
hotspring dream.

above the headboard
is a long mirror, spanning
the length of the smoky room's
back wall, a silvery strip
reflecting faded yellow wallpaper
with subtle unspecified flowers.

the side exit leads to an empty lot, long
grass growing out of neglected potholes, a cyclone fence
blocking off a direct route to the sonic
drive-thru.

the sky is orange, it's always been
orange, it always will be
orange, looming over distant mountains
with narcissistic strata.

wobbling returns to emergence
the sine wave resonates, it is
oceanic, fluid, bulbous
and bobbing, all at once
a whole and not a whole

bleeding out salt
and tropical fish, its
tissue paper curtains covering
the last ruins of
the forgetful earth

a hole, yet not an absence
but a presence of a triangle
a missing number, unsevered
flowing together, keyboard
abstractions, not there

oh but it's melted snow
the opposite of noise
a vague feeling of nothing
and presence, wrapped up in
a paranoid returning

it's like argon -- like chlorine without
lungs, veins without organs,
pain, inert inertia slippery
spine breaking
on the ice. the moon

children of march warmth -- the
dust hovers over the parking lot

a winter ghost. faded coca cola logo
affixed to the concrete slab of a building.

here:

french fries are expensive
all the patrons are old men
the lanes are smooth
a lonely party balloon hovers by a scoreboard
the shoes are too tight
rubber duck claw machine

re
enter

exit

diet coke can
knocks over
with the wind

that's the tree's whisper.

the mirror you stand in is a reflection of
a river you stand in, a reflection of a
stone that in the heat of the day
is warm by the coming of sunset

earth's last wrinkling seed is decaying, and superseding it
are the ophanim-head many-winged nightcrawlers who weep
gamma rays and pray, behind their stargazing eyes,
to remember the home they remembered several lives ago

oh sonar, oh radar, oh radiophonic monarchy
please boost your signal so our kin can hear
our pleas for a tomorrow that we begged for yesterday
and let us wade in that river. amen.

all the city’s a womb, a constant buzz,
a dim blue night that a river bisects.
you huddle
around the window
and gaze
at the faint traces of the sun
left in the sky’s retina.
midnight is just a suggestion
that lingers in the back
of your filament brain. the
wordless candle, its aura. ask
the dawn for a kiss.
the bed
is your doom. the night’s black
mist bleeds.

when the sun has regained some
confidence, its reach on the land
reestablished, its lucid eye alert,
you hide from its gaze. you cower
from the great daisy in the recesses
of inverted sleep; 6 in the morning
to 3 in the afternoon. rising out
of your slumber is like
challenging a rip tide,
only to find
the shore exposes
your naked body.

the meeting point between antifreeze and rot
undiscovered worlds in a stupid sheet of ice
i rake my leaves and ***** a flurry
from that strange backed-up faucet, my mouth.