A shroud of air
on all the lines of sight
fills the shelf space of my existence library.

A mellifluous sextet
circled in awed child beauty,
          reserved for post-modernists
in the dead mary-go-round
Inferno.  Civil war is
                                  on the tongues of roses. Trap-
                                                                           door seats, enigmatic music,
control of arms gyrating
out of American dreams.
Boring clocks toll for the death
                                                                of painters holding depraved,
easy lives in service of
                                     stripped one-hour masters,

but we all have hair and bills,
neglect and hours setting
up appointments to escape
what we owe                    to turpentine
           obsessions for running off.

Some people remind you
of hurricanes
    cold surfaces swirling,
crushing
      the glare you get from an overhead
light
        off bathroom walls.

Drinking Duchamp Whiskey
                 0 grams of protein
             250 milligrams of sodium
               34 grams of sugar

The grouts of your favorite poetry book
                  bound in a trapper keeper
know
            how you will be forgotten.

It's first words
are "The day thee art"
and you fill in:

-'someone who won't freak out
              about what I do.'

-'the oils from your nose
     smeared across those
        bacterial tiles.'

But remember what the poet meant:

                 The Stagnant Bourgeois
e     v     a     p     o     r     a     t     i     n     g
  out of existence because
Darwinism
      has a germ any scope can see--Greed.

            Some people
the fittest and weakest
are in one big ***--getting crushed
    no matter what

Cherubs! Cherubs reaching from aluminum clouds
to stab the hearts out of lover's--kings and queens of too much is enough--minds.
Bold martyrs dying as abolitionists
                        to an illiterate pop-fractal-culture
weeping about zealous posters of apathetic narratives.
                                                     ­          The infinite wilderness of glaciers calling the fading background
                                     of planet Earth--steamboat particles in reverse
                                               suckling till the chimes of apocalypse come.
                          we are slaves beyond truth and defiance

Sneakers hit confident roads with black widow nests in gutters
                                                         ­   --the sun is a word,
                                                           ­    she says it is a culture.
                                                        ­   --The dark is a force,
                                                          ­     she says it is a child.
                                                          ­             realistic tendencies are as hollow
                                                          ­                                                as romantic ones
She laughs and I laugh
                                          pity is polio
                                          too sick to bend and
                                          too accustomed to power

Air fresheners killin' me softly about
judgment moments--days bruised hearts sing about
within the reach of hell--and she told me about her allergies

Of course Polaroids stalk what we don't see--those kisses
and the homeless starving, and flowers, and ****, and books, those tears,
and when she broke the fever from food poisoning. I bet we'll remember that

--And the exposed arms around your waist,
lips on midday, heart up early, breakfast for two underneath
the only red umbrella
left after Gabriel's tune
we remixed
the night before.

Standing on the brink of the Lazarus water-mark
--And the man behind you, and the lack of others behind us.
Gehenna before us
wiping away the unforgivable.

--And they make us forget you were allergic
to the pollen of spring--the death-throes of day flies.

Sleeping in bookstores
      dreaming dragon wings of Poe
the baby Barbie dolls dystrophied
across the floor.
                        raspy hounds of a scarecrow's hands
curing a vintage disease of information.

Palpable ornaments weighing tons
on the back of an eagle with a pocket watch
sprouting from its beating morsel

with every shattered piece of Frankenstein's monster
fighting for consciousness.
                                              The blank has snapped
    in the corner shelves on
              how to make bottles.

The stakes of civilization burn mundane flares fighting wars with HAZ-MAT suits. The nonsense blabbers death on the rotting flesh of surreal zombies. Late distillations throw parties--singing songs to dummy suicides, martini holsters in bubonic grief. Stupid people do smart things in this 24601 world. Frost penalization claims ghosts as lost lovers. Stupid people make catacombs from burning villages in carbon sockets.