The sun casts long shadows upon the lawn
As a man races for that distant point—
a heedless body of effulgent brawn,
brighter still than the gleaming stars at dawn.

In him the earth and heavens are joint,
like a chimeric animal, a faun.

But only insofar as he is free
from the accursed gleist and its petty plea.

A melodramatic
pirouette,  colliding
with the
garbage dumpster.  

Dreamt spiral,
*****.  

Toilet. Sink. Shower.  

A final heave,
the diaphragm groans
like a
broken accordion:
carnival
antiphon.

The moon appeared to me
like a snickering school girl.
She brushed the snot from
her nostrils, clearing her hand on
a communion dress made from
luminous, white fabric.

She proceeded cautiously,
balanced precariously on spiked heels,
Stumbling along uneven paths
like a hunchback in a Flemish wood carving

But then she posed for me
in the manner of a silent-movie star,
all smiles,
lipstick beauty and cabaret flare.
(“Your Martini?”)
Her lips drew close to my ear.

With a graceful sweep of the arm
we were hid behind the dilated eyes
of a peacock-feathered fan.

She said nothing, nor did we kiss.

And she was gone,

just as quickly as she appeared
to vouchsafe a brief vision
in the interval of a cigarette.

Some call it evil,
I call it natural: the wolf's ****** paw,
when all is silent, like memory,
at the carnage.

Forget aught else—
conundrums as feeble as
the limpid light through
the canopy, absorbed
in the wolf's terrible, black bite.

O handsome thrill, immodest in measure:
the red death upon which I cast my infamy
is visible in the village square.
No judge shall restore bleached skulls to dignity
now that I unlace my boots at leisure.

Have I tired thee with my affection?
It cannot but be, I will now admit,
since all wanderers must elect a star
to consult for their journey's benefit.

Else they are cast afar without a light.
And how can any man hope to probe the night
Save by another's luminescent grace
Evident in a most startling face?

Most nights
I stay up
to be alone.

Despite this
I can hardly
hear myself
think.

I wandered back to this city a prodigal son,
penniless, without friend or creed.

The city chokes on fumes and waste.
Dark rivers swallow reflections.

I have contemplated the mystery of street lights,
worked charms under full moons—
but the city will not yield to my insinuations.
Its breadth remains impenetrable.

A hard-faced mother:
she has not shown me the love
of which she is capable.

One day I must leave, never to return.

These old doors,
sullen as spinsters.

Wharves, deckhands, the old chopping block:
flights of time misremembered in a
backward gaze.

Toes in water.
Hooks to fish.
The sea salty.

How shall I count the ways...
lost among the waves.

But look, afar, the old man on his boat!
Is he Charon come to point the way to
the seaward lost; or has he come to
sequester memory to some far shore?

(Maybe he's a schmuck with a paddle!)

Seagulls, feathers, the brine:
all groan with this wood.
In this wood was the line
that snatched life from the water
(the fish, the scales—they shine)
and flopped on the deck,
heterocercal.

The evening closes on this vista but
not the charades of time.

The black chair sits
in the garden,
selfsame shadow.

The mirror is
mirrored:
   reflection.  

Humans are:
humans are, that is,
dichotomous,
self-fulfilling
neurosis.

What doth compel a man to love a cat?
The dog is better suited to his pleasure
than this idling creature often grown fat,
whose indulgences know no steadfast measure.
Yet I'm drawn by this natural conceit,
that a common beast should groom its coat,
and in idler moments still, lick its feet,
rather than on some human master dote.
For it is said that the feline is curious;
as am I, a monkey with simple verse—
redeemed, if not altogether spurious.
Besides, I can imagine what's far worse.
Better a cat with a cautious, easy stride
than a politician without due pride.

1.
The sun slips from the sky.
Another day joins the past,
each moment a frame
in burnt, halting celluloid.
Sad movie: cut—stop rolling.

2.
The clouds roam freely
like horses in open valleys.
I, too, join the play
in chameliod heavens
from this terrestrial point—
afar, stranded on dark Earth.

3.
The trees tremble.
Police sirens fade, distant.
Stars puncture the sky.
Everywhere cries are heard:
“Make this cohere once again.”

1.

Spires our-soar the sky.
Men and women are machines.
The hallowed trees shrink
from encroaching wonders.
Now man has been made sickly.

2.

Anxious are the days
for leisure and solemn rite.
I, too, want holiness
to stifle unfettered greed
and restore life's dignity.

3.

To some it's finished:
the idea of trust, betrayed.
Money out-bids honor.
Truth is a red-ticket item.
Some vines bear shriveled fruit.

4.

Skies melt at sundown.
Cats wet their whiskers in gutters.
I light another cigarette.
Hope burns like a dim candle,
flickering in the tempest.

He looks hither, thither and then afar
to question the shocked silence of his fear.
Above him reigns a scintillating star,
wrought in the dark sky like an icy tear.

He moves between plots of freshly-dug earth
with the cautioned step of a wounded fox,
and discovers traces of that second birth
which calls pale men to the funerary box.

Dead, interred but yet forgotten so soon
no grave bore the name of him who once was.
Like a stolen kiss beneath a full moon,
these men were disposed of without a pause.

This is what terrified the aging Pushkin so.
Death itself inspired no unusual woe.
But he lamented those names lost in snow.

Samson-bound between book shelves,
in the New Aeon Section,
a pale youth nourishes his ego on
bombastic conjunctive adverbs.

(An imagined sea lion balances a
striped ball on the tip of his
snout & slaps his fins in
frenzied approval. Arf. Arf.)

Though absent, the ring master
smiles from the realms of irony.
He holds the bearded lady by the
burl & orders a reception for
the new act.

I am the sad widower, dissolute;
The prince of Aquitaine, by luck deposed:
My glistening soul is dead; its jeweled flute
sings perturbed melodies until opposed!  

In the darkness of tombs, I am consoled.
Return, Oh Pospillo and the seas which doze:
The flower which pleases my heart has been sold;
And vines grow thick without the tender rose....

Am I love or Phoebus? ... Lusignan or Byron?
Still, I'm made to blush from the queen's embrace;
Although I dream in Neptune's silent place.

I have crossed the Acheron twice before:
Upon the Orphic lyre I've played by turns—
Saintly sighs and the awful cries of yore.

We lay together beside the window.
Warm, we drank our broth.
The horizon was grey, surely a storm.
And then, your last cough.