We didn't quite think it through,
did we now?

We just pushed that harrow
even when the fields were underwater.

Now the wires bring us
the yes-no grammar of old love.

Lewd sun, cloud-tumble,
violets dying in the loam:

images lashed to the lens,
the loom, the wine-weave

of the eye... well,
we held on for a while.

Full fathom five thy father lies
of his bones are coral made
those are pearls that are his eyes
nothing of him that doth fade
but doth suffer a sea-change
into something rich and strange
Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act I, Scene ii


I was a blue baby.
Umbilical noose drawn so close,
a rope of blood. The starving air
never loved me.

Now my father is air,
all of them are in the graves
of the air, the transparencies.
I can only claw at the silence.

Dolmens of rain collapse
in the kitchen. Black coral rises up
out of the fridge, out of the cabinetry,
out of the thickening lung-mass.

I am ever that blue baby,
leasing breath from a sterile hand,
my hair silvered over like a frost -
my tattoos gathered like a frightened flock.

Sea-changes are coming.
My last thoughts today, that coruscate
from the obelisk of my spine, are of the woman
who slurred my atoms so carelessly.

Coifs of lightning disentangle
under a black cloud lattice.

Thunder rustles to rude growl,
bracelets of leaf are trembling.

We're eastbound, hundreds of us
on this loosened buckle

of corrugated silver flash.
The rain attacks the window

in excoriating scrawls
slivering down into a sluice.

Red-shirted woman, run now,
over the yawning pool

that shivers with addition.
Blue-breasted runner, fly,

fly into clay-colored false dusk
that heaves with humid breath.

Escape from this wet hunger
that walks over us so indifferently.

We stumble nightward. Rain laces
our eyes shut. We're alone here.

New-make maiden, soft as flake,
staring at a flower cake field
as brass-headed bells are bawling:
a cloud’s detonating head rings you.

I have also been reshaped by promises,
& felt the dead-dream weight
across the shoulders. It stings me,
seeing you yearn for the old skin.

A river is ****** inside us,
& grows wider and wider;
the shop registers are singing
after the sun-brunch.

A river is rising within us,
& grows deeper and deeper.
Come, take the tennis court oath with me -
let us revolt in the afternoon.

She is shaking,
fingers on keyboards, trembling

A confined spirit..
               now  untethering

You are absolutely beautiful--
Immersed within  this magical-Unfolding
as music  mates to words
Fingers, strumming now

Now finding their perfect placement

     ..On the keyboards
     of her newfound freedom
     A beautiful spirit   now returning
     to a once-little body,   beaten

     for being her beautiful spirit's  home.
     Now with headphones  on ears
     there is a  restoration

     of years and years and years,  
          locust-eaten

...Of those years, and years, and years.
                   .      .      .

Tell me about pure Joy, churches..
the nice cars in your parkinglot,  
    aint showing

The look on her face, while untethered

     tells me everything
     You can only dream of 
      ever knowing.

This is true Church--
This beautiful  Sunday-mornin' glowing
This spirit-infused flesh

A perfection of music
momentarily, flowing.

From hidden cloud
her flesh-infused  spirit
is my one chance
at pure Joy, knowing..

My love  for her,
continually-growing..

     In heart,
     tarred-n-feathered..


     In Art,  all  hers
     I  am  become

       Untethered.