HEAT

At first it was sort of like a dog lying next to the bed
Panting
My head was warm and without any covers I was
Sweating
The pillow was damp, the breathless air would not
Move

I tried to remember the cold, clear nights of stars
Crackling
But I felt my tongue drying out in the stagnant air
Swollen

So now, we live in the big heat bubbling like a
Furnace
Everyday we feel it like a weight, like we might be
Guilty

In Iowa, the corn is dying in July, no ears are
Opening
The frogs have burrowed back into the cracked mud
Hoping

On the freeway, the cars shimmer without motion
Melting
On the baking hills, the anguished forests now
Flaming
The rivers shrunken to dusty rocks, fish
Dying

When I cry to the angels at the end of all Roads
Begging
Praying for some relief, somewhere in the ashes
Drifting
They forbid me with their living swords of fire
Burning

and thus I reincarnate
it was the nightingale
in the timid silence
spoke to me as my friend
a friend, from infinity to infinity
from before the birth of god
until after the death of time
it was a curse of a hovering falcon
to swerve
to fall asleep
if was a voice that kissed
like chant it ran through
oh friend! speak, speak of love
to embrace the life
here I come
here, o friend, you reincarnate me.

An old friend sleeps
somewhere you've not been.
He may be seeing
awful things
or lovely ones.  Of course,
you've no discernment,
for you dwell outside
his sphere now and outside
his dreams; for that matter,
you cannot sleep at all.

When his body gives
the sudden ****
you tiredly await--
when he falls
from the hammock
and breaks his arm,
will you reprimand him
for his fault?

Yet, could not you have told him
when he asked
for your advice
those years ago
that you doubted him
in the first place? that
his ambition frightened
you? that high-up hammocks
are beds for the foolish
more often than not?

Through the pain
of malbent joint and forced
awakening next to you
where you've watched
from the ground,
will he learn only then?
What if he reprimands
you, then, upon consciousness--
what then?  Or what if it's his spine
he damages, and Something Goes
Very Wrong, and he cannot speak,
but it is in the misery of his eyes
that you can hear him declaring,
"You could have spared me this!"
--what then?

Or what will you say
if he never comes down
at all?  And when?  How, even,
will you know that he has woken?
--that he's happy? --that he wishes
you had come with him,
hopes that you might yet?

An old friend sleeps--
or seems to sleep--
somewhere you've not been,
and as you ask yourself,
"What became of him?"
he looks to you
from his high perch
and also aches to know--
as someone below you
asks of you;
and someone beneath him
and someone beneath him
and someone beneath him...

the morning sun
was hot and i awoke suffocating
inside an oven
of a tent
on a beach
naked

everything i owned
was in a bag in the backseat
of your car
with your *******
quickly driving
away

i found your
little brother's optimus prime towel
beneath me
and decided to
wander into the
world

and i found
my cellphone and car keys
and an unsmoked cigarette
on the sidewalk
but you stole my
dignity