this is a poem for the night
and for the dawning
of the darker dream
where we’ll go watching
waiting for a sign
that we might be free
of ourselves
in laughter
in a moment
in response I can’t tell
if it’s serious
are you serious?
am I serious?
are they serious?
on the other side
where everything is made
of eyeballs math and color
are they serious in the capital
or more serious with lights off
when the mask of form is stolen
and then free to create
are we free in dreams
or do you dig the weird collapse
of the winking eye
to reach a point of limitless cohesion
in a black cup
do we take the leap
of faith to sleep
a second longer
knowing that our dream
is the more real &
the nightmare is an image
of inverted faith
decaying in a flash of
meteoric sparks burning
up the sky to light
this new joint in the atmosphere of
the living room
dropping LSD in
VR
to paint a picture
with mental pixels
or build your inner fire
or net an alien
or get in bed w/ grandma
& her bronzed boots
behind us where an open window
calls the night in cool
cascades of secret drunken knowledge
or else obnoxious wisdom
with apology
when we’re closer to
that which knows no logic
moves in shadow backwards
up the wall
to find us
when the sun shreds all
we thought we knew

Incessantly
The kettle steaming
The drums beating
The cats racing
The mind moving
The bedroom walls
Losing their color

As the body
Loses itself
In its own rhythms
Til the whole world
Is a steaming kettle

Then nothing else is
Known

If you try it won’t happen
If you don’t
It will

Kali, make me an implement of your final cruelty and wisdom
Where there is motion, let me slow the vibration
So that your senses might attune to stillness
So that you might destroy my innocence and abolish my existence
May Kali Yuga swallow every form
May the myriad wonders go rushing, gushing thru your fangs
May the birth pangs of tomorrow chase the fortune of today
May the endless hours be abolished in calamity
Teach us to acknowledge the concrescence of our essence
Show us finality of form
Destroy the walls of every home—for we have willed it
Forever in a vacuum
May there be no sound of seasons
May every reason fall to chaos
You have made us in your image
Teach us to recognize
Where there is form, void;
Where there is truth, deception;
Where there is certainty, a cosmic pun;
Where there is reality, hallucination;
Where there is touch, neglect;
Where there is growth, a garden full of ashes;
You of many names: Anima, The Serpent Mother, Blessed Other,
Mind of Nature, Mind of Man, She Who Can, She Who Is, Spider Woman, Tao
Bring us to the edge of the unspeakable now
Disrupt our petty play
Absolve us from decay

Amazing how we’ve come so far
And are still so far apart
Everything is natural
I tell myself
But then
What makes us so strange?
Something here is strange
We seek to make it known
Like a deadbeat injuring himself
On the job
In Tennessee
Subject to
Endless repetition
In the marble quarries
Of old Athens
We copy what is known
Expecting praise
While cities of the night
Reveal an ancient face
The body is the portal
The world is but a riddle
On the stone cells of
A tomb
Golden wax
Breeds life
From the base of a great tree
Where an old woman
Sings in praise of Kali Yuga
Calls the pasture to her hand
And all the humming things
Come forward
Blind & obedient
Like unpolished flesh
The drapery billows w/
No motion
Sends the eyeballs off
In search of internal shadows
Where the Other waits
Where it always has
Where it will be confronted
Where it will be embraced
Where it will be known
Or die to our division
& cover up our genitals forever

They come
They leave
They seek reprieve
We need a sound and a light
To keep us conscious
Of whatever
I am conscious of something
There is a barrier

Young girl in black jeans
Glasses
Apron
And a fry cook
Battering Nova Scotia
Halibut on live television
I send a message to Adonai
Wyd?
He asks me if I will agree
To his new terms of service
Which makes me uneasy
He tells me Carl Jung
Wears his glasses in the void
He looks prophetic and exalted
With some black folks
Sitting at a corner table
While being interviewed
That’s amazing
She says
So cool
She says
That’s amazing

And if our eyes meet
For too long
We might know some
Secret truth
Which we make
No effort
To conceal
Are we already
In perfection?

the way out now
is only through the dawning
of the darker dream
the twisting of the spiral to
an indeterminable point
the realization of a magic balance
whereby opposites are well
positioned though never gaining
sight of one another

doomed to drift in undulating
furies ever further from themselves
never to escape
the way out now
is through the collapsing
kaleidoscopic  door of time
the biological rhythm of a
living universe whose name
is indecipherable except
is on the tongue of each and every
hungry soul who's ever tasted language

I'll write to you
John Wieners
you old twisted fruit long
dead & drained of brilliance
brain inherited from Burroughs
you analytical ****** John
long gone are the hours you
spent in bars in bed in someone's
*** like Ginsberg you are the
emotional man who ran his
fingers through the flesh
of frozen moments tenderness
exhibited in elegies of
departed lovers no dope
sunrise sheltered by your
words the refuge of poetic
gnosis brought from Beats
to Black Mountain *******
Moloch men mounting
one another thighs apex near
sun to receive the final fatal
flash of pleasure then descend
again to madness like
Kerouac you sought the silver
honey-milk of bohisattva jazz
jive held eternity in a frozen
moment and a moment on a
page made offerings to the
hideous grey gods of machinery
and read the neon streetlight
hieroglyphics you who busted
mind-forg'd manacles of Blake
with consonance and assonance
and *** of boys born bravely
to the ecstasy of final drunkenness
& one last cigarette O
prisoner of earth and of the body
you are risen!

skirting all the
animated moments
move swift
fast in ****** muscle
recollections he was
wounded in his chair
there seized upon the
revolution from his
own side was to watch
her three trips for ****
that Sunday he was
spending and suspended
by a strange hand as
balloon him falling
forward always faithful
you should call him
I think we're making progress
marijuana chocolates
no violence ******* pull-ups
in the basement sitting cross
legged wondering and
heartsick seized upon
some love of colors
giving in most pathetic
but real love there and present
finally quit the buffet job &
am I crazy now?
tales of DMT and pink-flash
of white hot nothing
abolished in after-image
finger traces hold the
third **** then
thru the kaleidoscope
door where not to
be abandoned to
utopias rather fishing
for an image of
divine mother pulled
out of the background
subtle nature language
wove in one's own tongue
never have you known it
but it's now & faster
than imagined
a world which breaks apart
into fractal building blocks
of source code neverending
as she's on the couch with
snapchat filters absurdities
of alcohol and everything
startling the sleep sick
senses

now we're in an image of the eyeball shifting
sheltered under rainbow crow's feet
iridescent
what is different?
my roommate asks me under humming bulb & breezes
in my father's kitchen

we will wash the plastic rat
black & lathered as my brother
masturbates his whiskers
individually with shampoo

this is the lord's day

forms are found and then forgotten
on the axis of my navel
I feel very
isolated in slow end-game
pictures animated just for me
they shudder/blossom
in my bathtub

arabesques with eyes closed watching
ladies jesting self-lust
obsessing winking saying
they are only watching

aloud alone anon

outside there is a
frozen rabbit
twisted in the grass embroidered
w/ one million happy diamonds
blazing primordial frosted
like flagellum in a dreamscape
all aligning to the haunted
second where I'm seeing

movies of hypostyle halls
sound of cacti calling
diet soda sounds of
thorny carbonation
born from
liquid crystal wisdom

collapse collapse collapse
both sides prisons
both homes hells
both parents murderous
the molecules of madmen
organized in beauteous forms
******
exalted
jerking off each other
looking into eyeballs
out of time
spiraling out of time

The Stranger's at the door
I am not sure anymore
Please forgive me
I am afraid

1 because one's not enough
2 because two's too many
3 because I'm feeling rather there already
4 because a number's just a name
5 because the universe is smiling
6 because in heaven there's no sound
7 because seven's got a sister
8 because Steven is the world
9 because to laugh is to go lightly
10 because eleven's gone too soon

A because a part of me is lonely
B because the freezer's halfway open
C because the dog looks at the highway
D because to die is to go freely
E because effort is tomorrow
F because to feel & **** & fortune
G because I can't predict where I'll see it
H because the parking meter's dry again
I because I am a little lonesome
J because I am trying on a new one
K because calamity is fuller
L because it brings you where it will
M because the carnival is better
N because the clowns have always wondered
O because the watcher's in the rafters
P because potato garlic soup
Q because questioning is laughter
R because regret is faking feelings
S because to stare is to envision
U because the universe is hungry
V because viola! I am mistaken!
W because wondering is wet now
X because excitement leaves me stuck there
Y because Yvette is everlasting & ******
Z because Zenebal Ganoobi

you can sleep
you can die
you can beep
you can buy
you can exit
you can run
you can fire
you can sun
you can might
you can try
you can finger
you can cry
you can intentionally
you can holiday
you can house
you can runaway
you can something
you can just the usual

imitations, initiations, Charlie close our eyes and bungalow that boogie

octopus your reasons

tranquil, tranquil, tranquilo

I moved into my new reasons

You can show me those doe eyes
No reason
No surprise
While the octopus flies

Henry, spread your magenta
Fore it flies

Show him
Although
In the past
You struggle
To decide

Most nights
You try
To test the trash

This is a
Stalled carnival

the belt's over the eastern horizon
& recollected everyone was fine
you could see it
then lightning broke the banners from the wall
if you just would come on out
& tell me what this night's about
while Diane wrapped her baby in a shawl
no one was watching
except to see the rising dark
Diana well
she's looking good
she hides her face
inside a
hood n' says
better hurry cos'
it's disappearing fast
& I don't wanna know her
no matter
cos' I can't
see it anyway
no plans inside my mind
just to see that
grey tomb
in her thighs
augmented w/
all the
ghosts of now
He's got a Buddha smile
& comes with us
no atmosphere here
everything just
comes apart
& we don't see nothin'
where it's at
we just watch
it all peel back
he turned to statue once
& then he froze
he always shouts out something
when he goes
sometimes "why"
and sometimes "how"
The Master's in the back
he's getting sick
don't worry though
he's dignified & primordial & very much alone

he didn't understand
the technology
he had nothing
in his head
the night was
draped in fog
there was a
neon sign
it felt like
a dream

gravity acting on the sun
gravity in all directions
every person whose smile
is that of a seraph
sometimes thinking
maybe someone else
maybe the only
straight one
in five billion years
we will all still be here
no bigger than ourselves
not incredible
not violent
not becoming

I could build a fortress
out of time

everybody smart
everyone unwise
nobody sees the light
I'm hiding in my eyes

take away
all you hold dear
show it to me
see me clear
obvious preoccupations
known
waiting to be
grown & known
ahead but not caught up
slowly we put on the mask
reveal & never show again
our faces grow to fill the form
insanity becomes the norm
the story goes on
just to break it down
don't they care about
the easy way?
your survival
is a color
without a name
we create
a truth
that we
forget
felt like
it was always
that way

sinews melting
in a viscous pool
of pure grain alcohol
Moroccan children
dance around the
fetid, stinking puddle
some dip their toes
& are swallowed up
forever
others *******
mingling their essence
with the swirling murk

the eyeball is extinct
there will be no more
absolutes
the dim power of the swamp
is poised in
regurgitation
red meat and alcohol
give birth to a vicious
canine *******
that is also lovable
& obscene

Indian moccasins
with the laces
half-removed
flat as flat is
flitters
I cannot walk in these
I tell myself
these smell like
cat ****
I throw them out
& wonder
about them heavy Indians

nebulae
composed of dust
particles of presence
lines that are forbidden
a park breathes
after midnight
& invisible gods
send children spinning
into spontaneous
joy-games

this is one unique
property of doubt
the restless resignation
to endless regression
I want to crawl into a
vast, silent womb
and strip away
the human

I am tired of watching, waiting, wondering
While the world at my door
Threatens to come apart
I am not safe in my own mind
I have no patience
Only eternal frustration
I want to **** something
There is no hope for me
I am tired of struggling
I can not pay
Or keep track
Nobody wants to know me
I do not want to know myself
I want to hurt those that I love
My wrist hurts and I cannot write
My eyes feel hot
They are slowly burning out of their sockets
No need to figure out the sad, beautiful mystery of love and affection
Why not for its own sake?

We are heading for a strange future
Whose contours will remain unknown
But every so often the world pauses
And a rare blossom is shown
Then minds quickly explode

And yet
Maybe It's Just Me

A beautiful image: my dog in the sunlit yard, laying in the grass, eating little purple springtime flowers. My cat searches for aphids and desires to hunt the robins taunting him from telephone wires.

A squirrel is assaulted by sparrows in the humidity

I am annoyed with everything
Manic with caffeine and guilt
Last night I drank four beers and masturbated
Not in that particular order
Smoked three cigarettes
Not much there
Still feel guilty
And so lazy
I can't handle myself
My eyes can't focus
On anything in particular
My mind is a vague enemy

This is the story of my daddy's sad rations, his mad reasons he left in the basement there, I found out directly, direct reasons for no other keepsake; no hallmark memories he tossed off left bottles broken in the bottom of a brown box in the bottom of the brown sun-burnt grass in the backyard where green onions grow in a big brown box outweigh the grass--they stand upright, strong & solid like ledgers--solid as baseball diamonds mingling in the summer heat cast shadows over the tired yard where children play--they yell and fall down over each other weakly, strongly, pathetically, unknowingly, hypnotic marvels in their silence, in their stupor, in their bliss imaginings, I am a child too far gone--too far off watching, I regard them as a stone villain, as a requisite somebody made of vinyl pinwheels, as a time-sprung witness to the watching world, the undone mechanisms spiral dignity. I was solid. I was solid. I was venturing a minute's glance at pity. I was lost in an eternity of forgetting. I was hung on lines too high to hold me. I was hauled out of a torn envelope in the fire pit, reassembled, reasoned to be dead forgotten.

I am settled in the arugula palace
Everybody in the same scattered image
Seeking reconstruction or construction of the mind
I write this for myself to be unwinded & unrolled
He's a shifting plane of bisecting geometries
Now a thin woman shuttling kids in a minivan
Smoking newport cigarettes & feeling mucous gather in the sore spot in her throat. Her husband who is overworked & penniless--a clown frozen in a shipping container underneath a hi-low. He is fetching up the scraps of industry from inside a concrete bottle. He is messing with the intersecting circles coming off the streetlights. He is stacking up assumptions, wishing to be freed. Wishing he could reach that frightened child-monkey loser in the parking lot. He is clawing @ sensations he will never be able to name. He is secretly wishing for a vision. Secretly wishing to be known. He is tied & tethered to the clean-up crew. They are silent pretenders nodding at the recycling bins--never emptied. There he is formatted. There his eyes go staring out. There a picture--but what's a picture now that it's all beyond control, no longer static, no longer a container or reminder but rather a cloud passing, a moment's pause, a temporary fascination? A posing, a posturing, a big a-Ha!--*******! Stranger. You are not a part of me. The danger is madness. The danger is control. There are no static images. No peaches. No penumbras. No mandalas, maps, organizations or rebuttals. There is only standing water in the basement. There is only diet pepsi car keys hanging on the edge of a golden cloudburst.

I've been feelin' like my
grandmother
about to explode
quiet as a lamb
gentle as the
first day of creation
I say yes to
everything
all that comes my way
yes to
forever & nowhere
everybody, everything & zero
yes to suffering with style
yes to all the holy malice of the day
yes to sun & moon broken up apocalypse

I have seen the human craters
absolving into fear pollution
pointed eyes
fearful w/ known suspicions
eyes full of disorder
far from freedom's glance
it' simple
here is where you strike
here is how you wound
the most easily observable
point of entry
is the way home
end the pointless suffering
take up
arms against arms against
all the
rows of rows of rows of

I got my powers
you got yours too
I am incapacitated
neck broke & delusional
I see all my dreams come true
how about you?

I am unfit
I am always winning
I am sour and taken into
strange abandoned factories
played out trumpet-songs
bring me to the place of no surrender
I am lone-born
son of man
father of none
made to taste the grey and pointed sky

I heard grandma's
endless soliloquy
spoken in the dark
nothing
nowhere
quiet as a lamb
besides, she had a good husband
I am watching light gather
volleyed off the mirrored room
spun into some strange flesh

I am all that's coming
all that was & nothing
nowhere

I saw in my soul's window a million paranoid, knowing eyeballs resonate apocalypse planned as total fate

Saw a million lonely, scared faces seek to vibe with one aesthetic

Knew totality, balance, show hate, kindness, in the marshes of beyond

Surrender--final threshold to the Almighty Wisdom of Creation

Knew all the petty footfalls born in all personal hells

Wandered All before & After

Found myself still & unknowing

Realized ultimate futility & saw & knew the Eye that shivers with mistrust--symptom of essential human error--done collapsing

Tried to be transceiver for total consciousness,visions, intuitions, serpents of inbetween places, all dialed into the same direct knowing posture outward, upward, sideways & nowhere

Sought to riddle my apostrophes in the dream market, in the blind bank or else Jericho my soul to stall my own progression

Gonna have to serve somebody
It may be the devil or it may be the Lord
I am running lips over teeth
Serve somebody
He thinks it's a game
Literally
This is an attempt at transcription
How many seas of immaculate color?
No memory
This is a page
This is a phase
Blowing In The Wind
How many years?
Absolutely odd angles

This is a hangover
From old days gone by
Old thoughts grown older
Gnarled & tangled
Essence of confusion
Tired and tried
Why can't I sleep?
I deserve to sleep
Earlier I fell into a dream
That was unpleasant
Now on antihistamines
I feel the pull of undiscovered rest
Again at my door
There are lessons in dreams
There are images I fail to recognize
I feel sad & sick & hungry for the world to open up
Hungry for myself to open up
I am trying
I am tired
I am beaten down w/ too many
Images
Thoughts
Sounds that hold no bearing
I am standing in the kitchen alone
Standing at absolute zero
Nowhere
Gone
My proteins come apart
My collective memory urges
Some insistence
Which cannot be known
It is a curse--******* it
God bless it
I love it
Earlier I didn't want to
Have ***
Or talk
Or think
Or know
Or see
Or walk
Or Be
Now I am
Wondering what I
Always want
Rats of the same breed
Learn the same tricks
Quicker
There is evidence for this
Hypothesis
For fixed laws
Constants of nature
These are used
To convince us
of what?
Fundamentals?
Why is there
an interest
in anything above
or below
what is possible of meat?
Old libraries
Hold volumes
Of thoughts
Thrown away
When new replacements
Drop onto the heads
Of failure-minds
Decimal points
Line the walls of thought
With tiny values
Of whatever you want
Whatever sense you make of it
There is no science of this
No way to explain
These years
These images
This nose
Could the speed of light explain it?
If so, what are the implications?
Is it constant?
Is it known?
What is known?
What has slowed and what has grown and what is hiding in the shadowed distance
In the minds of intellectual freak-boys
How can you be sure of present values?
Can there be such things?
In existence?
Can you SOLVE it?
Can you change?
Define a thing
Now you are insane
Now you are an instant thought
Unbound
Volume pleases
Now unbound
Now just pointing
At a clown
Changing
Changing
Changing
Changing
Changing

I see others friendly, looking well
I'm in Hell, I think

What a sad feeling to stumble into all the old familiar footfalls

The suffering still fresh
And there
I feel the omnipresence
of the bleak shadow of the
world upon me
in malignant faces
at the grocery store
check-out
they operate in slow, sedated
methodologies of madness
I am sprung up from the
cool tile floor
like a misplaced statue bound
in frozen forms of observation

I park in a thrift store parking lot and cry
for you and for myself
mostly for myself

Time's ashes are diffuse and ever-present
living history in the living now
a ******* of the sacred cow is laughing
on coasts of crooked filth
and candy wrapper oases where
dead bird bones mingle in the
putrid ferns

No time to be found relaxed
no patience to be born to anything
but
slow agony of empty wishes called back
reflections, false assumptions
selfishness and neglect

Thank god for this momentary reprieve
from pointless self-analysis in the
broken mirror halls of control

no no no
thank you

I feel saddle-bagged
lost with worry
in some constant vague arrest
plucking at the chicken's feet

the fear itself unreal
broken, beaten, gone
phantoms of this self
all the world is polished chrome
and I am but an image
looking back

amazing how at time minutes
stretch off to infinity showers
& I **** the thicket therein
gone is now but
never ending
shalom
shalom
again

I'm sheltered in the maggot crop

My being is in
constant reproach
stuck
like an
invisible threat
implicit everywhere

I will always be with you
In the small spaces of
Your mind
In every
Act or
Semblance
Or familiar form

In the dining hall
The men are fed
Each one staring
At the other's bread
Each one wishing
He had said
That which lived
In the other's head
No more time
And no more sound
Each one's eyeballs
Moving 'round
The meal is set
Their mouths grow wet
They gorge themselves on tender meat
Each one grows heavy in his seat
The sailors pay
A heavy toll
For that which they put in their bowl
A little meat
A little fish
Each man anchored
To his dish
Each one feeling
He's done well
When answering
The dinner bell
The meal is earned
The supper's bought
And each man sitting there
Thought not
They'd any more
Than they deserved

this love is now & new & once again
stabbing @ me like durga-like diety
with sweet golden daggers
an essential togetherness
teasing out of these odd surroundings
I was listening to Jack Kerouac on the way
home in his mad
bop rhapsody apocalypse
streaming out my speakers
while familiar streets crawl past
once again
I'm thinking
as the day old glum spread over me
& out to envelop all I see
how little different to be watching
seeing street signs all opening
into cul-de-sacs and open storefronts
paraded in the endless traffic flow
now bent slow over
feeding my cat crab cakes
that my mother made
myow myow, he goes
& I acknowledge
myow myow, he goes
& I answer
what?
what in god's name is
the matter with you?
myow myow
his solemn reply
licking @ a piece of
exposed claw meat
nestled among old bits
of dry brown kibble
how about this soul?
how about this life?
this sickness?
how about this always seeking I?
how about he music of my mind
in untraceable car rides alone?
wherefore to I wander
ceaselessly in search of what
wonders where I might be
born on the road of least descent
cat paws, grabs @ bottle caps on
grained wood table
my media
fizzles & searchlights
in my window
there is something I'm not facing
something inescapable, my love
like you
born of locusts in the dust, my love
like you
my weary dune-mother
how solemn are the tunes that run
thy face, o' mother and thy will
how broken are the lines upon thine
shining brow in bedroom windows
open to the world like peace
stolen in the sad glance I gaze @ everything
stolen is the cup I fill @ leaking kitchen
sink pipe strands of scent or bark
of neighbor dogs amusing grass flow
weather flowers under well I'm never
knowing what--I never will
no matter, all is well
another's all is nothing now
where knock goes streaming
crashing loud
like anvils in the rain
it's only me
how now, my dear contender?
like a shadow fallen into sound
how now the planets unwatered?
how now the roots are killed?
we all inhabit the same fears
how rabbit hides his smear
to give me a surprise
for me, none so dear
than the mystery
& April dies today

the best vanishing techniques
done w/ mirrors
or so I have been told
set to spare the glance
of any foe so bold
to rescue all the monkeys
in the vast mountains of China
there are few wild
undercover panda bears
we are headed for a strange future
where all events are known
whose contours undiscovered
reckon towards the fact
every so often the world pauses
& rare blossom is shown/sewn
then quickly extinguished
this age is at an end
& yet
maybe it's just me
my day in sunlight
burning in the grass
eating little purple flowers of springtime
my cat searching for aphids & robins
squirrel assaulted by sparrows in humidity
I am annoyed w/ everything
manic w/ guilt
last night I drank 4 beers and masturbated
not in that order
smoked 3 cigarettes--not much there
days but still--I feel so guilty
I am so lazy I can hardly make myself

drifting from sea to sea
there exists an unknown
magic nature
the familiar that I've severed
love or what--I don't know
who can say--I am sorry for the pain you carry
not which I've inflicted
guilty of something--I'm sure
on the slow spiral down around where you are
I am envious of the bears--watching them in
perfect isolation
free in streams splashed w/
salmon blood--tied only w/ metabolic impulse
humans are the strange ones
looking out @ nature w/ mirrors and cameras
& grins
I do not understand
this odd voyeurism
slow down and be born already
too much caffeine vibration
sunken shallow to the form
anxiety worries--for god's sake
already burned up

When I get that itch
To not sit straight or still
Not to talk at all
Have I got something to say?
I don't know--But I see
All that you see--All alright
Don't feel bad about it
But feel it anyway
Maladaption has it's limits
Your situation not at all
Rearranging

To reveal a face
Is to disrupt
The gentle slow roll barrage
To show a concealed instant
The mask dies away
In old growth misery decay
When hair & belly
Like a costume folding
United with unknown cause
Who has invented
The receding plaster
Mindful eyes
Wet portraiture
Individualized
Self-conscious stranger
You are  a repetition
And a contradiction
Cells bloom like
Palm patterns
Maps limited in form
Without whatever
Mimics Henrietta
To intrusions
Conscientious tales
Who told from
Up on great heights
No reason to imagine
A resistance
Painful recreation
Sell me your blind light
I call you out of mine

Your festive ululations
fill my mind-halls
with bird chatter
bending from your
broken beak
in ten thousand melodies
hung up in the air

Don’t you want to
Achieve the vision
He said with eyes
So crystal blue
We can see it
Written on your
Face I sense
No connection
To these people
We can all be
Top performers
If we elevate
One another
Hey your onions
Cut too small
This is me
Elevating you
I smell onions
And tortillas
And vegetables
Oil dishwater
Carbon on the
Grill top scrapings
She has got some
Vague expectation
Written on her smear
Life is like a
Postage stamp
Her makeup is
Too thick crossing
Over leopard print
Tattoo underneath
Her left arm
Message managers
Are wondering what’s
Wrong with you
My gentle restaurateur
You and your wife
Are wondering why
A child this June
Another restaurateur
A new store opens
Every two days
Like a virus spreading
Smiles of cold blue skin
I dreamt last night
My breathless image
Of being caught
Inside an elevator
Of an old casino
I was parked on the
28th floor security
Was out to get me
I want to be
The tired reason
Your brand new magic
Realization
The dream you
Don’t wake up from
I want to fall into
Flesh disappearing
From the white spots
Of your eyes
No sounds heard
Settling in your head
Spread out among
The cold far reaches
Of your yesses
Coagulate like
Hot black venom
In your fingers
Be drawn into
The cracked corners
Of your lips like
Raised beds of
Cacti in the sun
Holy stolen
In your boots
I am no sinner
Cast me thru the
Farmlands of the
Black seed
I am going
Home to where
Your eagle’s waiting
Eyes of plenty
Vines that
Creep among
The tangled people
In their fever dream
Announcing lampshade
Shadows holding
Form from in the
Broken molding
Here I watch my
Not-self wonder
At the wretched
Timeline of reactionary
Heroes
Tired old mothers
Wandering up the stairs
To their misfortunes
Glasses brought back
Full of orange juice and water
I am drawn upon
A silver second
Lost into a fog
She is obvious in
The way that she is leaving
I am almost out of
Oatmeal and songs
Silver for my floors
Time evaporates
This instant
Like a clean and subtle
Memory of everything
You say or do or wake to
All your riches and your fables
Are a lamb sworn
Into custody
Of the same slate asylum
Battered boats near docks
Knocking water
Into snake holes
Wandered under
Painted bridges
Holding no collapse
Spending hours and days
Washed up on drowsy
Shoreline nettles
Chipping flint stone fire
Extinguished under floodlights

I am to tell my friends about the Little People with their eyes all green + needy for their Firemen Daddies spent all their time looking out of windows/ locking eyes/ opening car doors/ stereos and cereal bowls. I can’t be held responsible for what’s been published in the Upanishads, creation myths and scripture—better send me up to that little coffee shop in Ireland where the rat-tailed people go and wonder/spell ubiquitous lessons out in the snow. I am tired—tell my patients there will be no more tomorrows. Tell them I am cold stranded in the produce section—lecturing to Thomas on the fuel pumps. Send my mother a letter of sincerity & stamped with all the times I went out looking for images. In mirrors I was hungry for the cool essence of weightless sight. Tell my father mime out my appearance live in perfect unison. I am no agent of response. Just an eggshell hard-on gawking at the puddle markers blessed in disguise.

The postman showed up ready for Miami so I slung his bag around my shoulder & set out down the block. All the neighborhood dogs loved me but the little Asian lady on the corner admonished me to love her Buddha tacky flowers and faded yellow junk store haircut. In the gutter I found an old drunk redneck yelling: “Hey, you seen any ******* ‘round here?” I told him no and he asked: “Are you sure?!” & hopped up on a bag of bottles/ flew away. Down the liquor store the man there never smiles just sells his greasy chicken and tobacco, asks me where I been and I say “Oh, you know.” He keeps his floors polished and argues with his brother when you turn away. I ask him how much for tonight & he answers like a jackal, says I can’t be hustling deposits here & kick me out on Tuesday. I *** home & cat ***** on my shoe. Clean it up & pour oatmeal on his head just nice. He purr & coo & I go “aw, aw, kitty, no.” He bundle up in the room where I don’t know & trail spaghetti markers to my bed. I rent my lamp out to the city in exchange for unknown pleasure & get tackled in the bedsheets.

She’s dancing incognito
Beneath a vaulted space
With arms spun into circles
Pulling light across her face

Blue beer can on the highway
Like a sapphire in the sun
No motion
Where it’s resting
Machines roaring
Caught in endless transit
Ferried to the ends
Of city blocks where
Torn-up asphalt
Burst out of
The cobblestone dream
Return back into dust
Call up some
Urgent memories
Some fact forgotten
Some tired plan undone
Recast in pebbles

The was no joy in her dance
As she spun around the pole
Hips like icebergs
Carving up the scenery
Thick with
Ammonia and bleach
She wore
Black lipstick
Underwear and eyeliner
Like a wounded dog
Eyes sunk into a marsh
Looking out at nothing
As I sit and watch
Her loveless display
And wonder
Why she can’t be
What I picture
In my mind
Her *** is like a
Tiny sun
Swaying in the void
Warping gravity
Bending light
Fixing gazes
Earning dollars
I want to
Take her arms apart
And build her
A blue island
There is no one else
But me
Watching her
Loving her
With museum love
The way you love a
Picture
Or a concept
Knowing full well
What it isn’t

Your body now
Is like an ancient ocean
Full of strange life
& unfamiliar motion
Call me to rest
Down in the silt & salt
Among the primal patterns
Of your skin
Images of light
Bring me across the ages
To a face that I have seen
One trillion times
In dreams
Of nowhere
And of now
Your chest is
Like a wildfire
Feeding on the dark
Bring me down
Into the badlands
Of your fists
Send me snaking
Up your shattered cliffs
I’m painted well
Around your spiral
Wear me like a chain
And I’ll find all the ways
To move along your collar
& roll your bones
Around my brain
All the cobras
Of your hair
Waiting to be known
Your own inventions
What is shown
Take me to the
Forests of your eyes
& bury me
Beneath the tree of vines

Where the tangled images meet
& mercy spells defeat
For a time
Where hurried thoughts are stirring
Rushing out to greet
The open air
Intercepted by a demon
Who hungers for the mouth
That only speaks despair
There is a time for planning
There is a time of rest
The hour of no decision
Is the time that you like best
It is raining in the alleys
All the streetlights
Now are broken
You give to me your beauty
A humble winter token

like words
sold in churches
dissolved like a
communion wafer
on the tongue
of the infinite
like an
empty banquet
beneath a gothic arch
there is no conquering
it is the art
of no conquering
she said
and showed me
a bowl of fruit
some rotten
morsels in her ribcage
in the winter
parking lot
buick town car
we are riding across
the pavement of the east
and that’s the same ***
everyday he’s greedy
for my images
i keep them in the glovebox
with the receipts
i don’t look at him today
i can’t
see him in the mirrors
cutting up the scenery
something is misplaced
i’ve left it in
the bedroom
in the boxes
you are taking
down south
your precious hedge clippers
and crosby, stills
nash and young
do you really
need them?
down south
where they’ve got
horses
and go karts
and snakes
and tvs in their showers
and biscuits and gravy
and dust
and rodeo
and milk crates
and model ts
and model as
and all the other
so called
necessities
you say my cousin
my uncle
all are happy
your father
unknown as you are
unknown
this is what
is before me
he is closing
his eyes
and speaking:
“hana”
“dul”
“set”
repeat
“hana”
“dul”
“set”
it is the art
of no-conquering
he says
and smiles
beneath a ripped-out ceiling
beneath a vaulted space
return
he says
to breath
look through the images
he calls us
into our own bodies
into our own spaces
“hana”
“dul”
“set”
the absolute reality
he says
is where we are all god
“hana”
you shouldn’t be trying
to feel any certain way
“dul”
i came up with the idea
for flavored crust pizza
until those *******
at hungry howies
stole it
“set”
he is lighting a cigarette
she is pouring tea
she is taking off her underwear
“this world’s gonna keep on spinning”
“i wish i-“
“man i’mma get mine”
“aw **** it”
“no better than the man in the moon”
“need to get some new drywall in here”
“santa’s not cheap”
samsara
is
samsara
return to breath
“hana”
“dul”
“set”

The stench of stale tobacco
Has seeped into the plaster
In the time since my departure
The oven needs a washing
Noodle bits hang on the burner like time clings to itself
& memories unrelenting haunt me as I walk the hall
Where claws tore holes in carpet leading to your room
Where the bushes outside your window erupted under an unnatural sky
In the summer getting drunk on heat
Springtime turning into winter’s bones where banks of snow were catapulting
Cars in slow motion volleys of thought which showed
Something unutterable in their stillness
Hot tea shoveling that white Indian
Headdress of yours I found
Hung on the broken oil lamp now busted by some drunkard
As the springtime turned into windows
Sheltered neighbors in the spray-painted garage
And you never swept the floor
In the morning the cat would make it known
That he was only animal seeking freedom of the soul
And in time he and I would yowl in unison
Deliberately writing off those subtle energies
Too difficult to define in images
Met me halfway in the garden
Where your weeds and roses twist
With your hedges overgrown
& the grassy clover crickets
Uncut all year long
I want to clean your dishes
I want to sweep your floor
I want to vacuum up the crumbs we both left on the floor
I want to scrub the toilet and the sink
I want the smell of Lysol in my pores
I want the bleach to **** the mildew
I want to cultivate a habit
I want you to let me get to work
But you refuse my offer
As you light another smoke
& throw the pack to the floor
Your ash tray is overflowing

I don’t know where to start

Home is in
The cramped spaces
Where couch and loveseat
Fill a room
Where the kitchen
Doesn’t fit
More than two people
And the dishes
Cleaned by hands
Of my mother
Smoking menthol cigarettes

Home is in
The cheap plaster
Walls so thin
You hear
A thousand tragedies pass through
At night when you are sleeping
Babies crying
Mothers crying
Everybody crying
No one happy makes a sound

Home is in
This endless wheel
Of poverty sickness
No one asked for
Or wanted
On welfare
Selling loose cigarettes
Forty ounce malt liquor
Six packs
Emptied
Friday’s hunger

Home is where
Old ladies rent
Single bedroom units
With no air conditioning
Alone with
Endless birdfeeders
And white bread
On the lawn
Out the window

Home is where
Hardwood floors are scarred
With rearrangement
Constant variation
Definitions shifting
Under orange parking lot
Floodlights
Obscuring night’s blessing

Home is where
I see into the lives
Of a thousand strangers
Never talking
Where children play
Identity games
In the park

Home is in
The Christmas lights
Strung on the windows
Carelessly by neighbors
Or in the wreath
My mother hangs
To signal autumn

Home is
Buttered bread and noodles
When there’s nothing else to eat
It’s a movie
You’ve seen a thousand times
And still laugh at

It’s the clothesline
My grandfather strung up
In the basement

It’s the gangs of children
That secretly run the streets

It’s in the identical faces
All spilling light
Out onto the pavement

Home is not a place
It is a collection of universes
All spilling into one another
Mixing in infinity
Blending forms

Home is the embarrassment I felt
When we turned onto my street
And the realization that
I’ve got it better than anyone I know

Home is where the world ends
And where we are all secretly trying
To get back to