Home is where the heart
breaks.    (fall into bed)
Familiar smells entrance
and lull, the warm
hearth of embraces
shushes    (a murmuring wellspring)
where spirit fails,
soul and body crumpled up like
scratch paper.

Hemmed in by excess
of Self, persona
blind to its orchestral
shadow,    (wrought by irony)
the mind scribbles
and raves unrepentant.

       (subtlety aches for
       skillful instrumentation
                to give it breath)

Singing the pain
of ages past to mourn
these harrowing visions

Beating on in leaden
veins to the lurch of a pulse
    (the crows take cackling flight)
         time the river pours off

The edge of the map.

When the last strained
chord of the parade
blew sour and home sounded
good again and all the trash
was meticulously placed
on the floor there was
a bottle rocket peeling
past the grim-faced throng

to adorn ribcages
with a scatter of sparks
the desperate stink
of burning hair wafted

all was transgressed
and now the walk
of shame.

a swig of honeyed
gin and all was
right again

until next year

This was the last
ragged dishwater gasp
before the panic
overwhelmed

Before the bloated
swell of a sagging heart
stooped down
to ache

its gutters overflowing

choked with drowned
rats and mildewy leaves
and when at last those
flaccid lungs failed

The sun shined through
inscrutable walls of cloud
but its aura could not
woo the mud

Sleep did not come
and his stomach was a sea
of acid festering on the rotting
husks of swallowed lies
and quarantined pain

objects too sharp to fit into any
puzzle strewn over
carpeted floor   they lie in wait
to **** their tithe

Every one a knife

every stab a cruel joke
painting him into the corner
where he belongs.

"Pics or it didn't happen" and
the lemming-herd of uneducated
Google debunkers and
farming opinions from TV shows
and arguing before being willing to listen
are watch-signs of cowardice
and servility
and emotional isolation.

Through abstraction
we have distanced ourselves
from presence and experience and other people,
and now we can't even
imagine what it was like
or why we bothered.

Just win - win! - and we can
perpetuate our division!

Ignorance has become
a coping mechanism
for ignorance.

Gitano yawned,
stretching out under
the shrine of Öli.

Here he plotted
and hid a mouthful
of secrets; and the Lord
watched over him
as he slept.

He plotted,
for coyote wisdom
is disguised by folly
and cunning
and guile.

All about, the vermilion
stain of Mars. The coyote
chuckled mischievously,
dreaming at the feet
of the Master and Judge.

Above,
a ziggurat raised
to the Goddess.

Two great black eagles
circled in a sky
of dry roses and lilacs.

La Santisima Muerte
stood at a distance,
yet bore Gitano
in Her *****.

His mischiefs were scribed
upon a cartouche
to amuse gods
and teach men;

Yet men are not
so easily taught
as gods are amused;

For men have not yet
learned to believe
what makes them laugh.

And so Gitano sleeps,
and talks while he sleeps;
wherefore the Ways
of mischief and trickery
were laid bare.

The secret is to teach
at the expense
of innocence.

Certain illusions persist;
they must be shattered,
but their thrall
can only be broken
by design.

Whether bitterness
takes root in the wake
of the shattering
is not Gitano's concern.

Because sometimes
realization can only come
through being made a fool,
revealed to ourselves
as absurd.

Angry at our own foolishness,
we blame the one
who denudes it.
The coyote, too, is a Fool.

A Fool can learn,
shaping destiny
by taking responsibility.
Through death a Fool
becomes wise,
seeing the joke.

The burden of karma
is left to those
who cannot laugh.

Man grits his teeth,
his brow furrowed.
He despairs.

Gitano chuckles,
unperturbed.

In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the street corner
the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the stars.

Nobody is asleep on earth. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
In the graveyard far off there is a corpse
who has moaned for three years
because of a dry countryside on his knee;
and that boy they buried this morning cried so much
it was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet.

Life is not a dream. Careful! Careful! Careful!
We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earth
or we climb to the knife edge of the snow with the voices of the dead dahlias.
But forgetfulness does not exist, dreams to not exist;
flesh exists. Kisses tie our mouths
in a thicket of new veins,
and whoever his pain pains will feel that pain forever
and whoever is afraid of death will carry it on his shoulers.

On day
the horses will live in the saloons
and the enraged ants
will throw themselves on the yellow skies that take refuge in the eyes of cows.

Another day
we will watch the preserved butterflies rise from the dead
and still walking through a country of gray sponges and silent boats
we will watch our ring flash and roses spring from our tongue.
Careful! Be careful! Be careful!
The men who still have marks of the  claw and the thunderstorm,
and that boy who cries because he has never heard of the invention of the bridge,
or that dead man who possess now only his head and a shoe,
we must carry them to the wall where the iguanas and the snakes are waiting,
where the bear's teeth are waiting,
where the mummified hand of the boy is waiting,
and the hair of the camel stands on end with a violent blue shudder.

Nobody is sleeping in the sky. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is sleeping.
If someone does close his eyes,
a whip, boys, a whip!
Let there be a landscape of open eyes
and bitter wounds on fire.
No one is sleeping in this world. No one, no one.
I have said it before.

No one is sleeping.
But if someone grows too much moss on his temples during the night,
open the stage trapdoors so he can see in the moonlight
the lying goblets, and the poison, and the skull of the theatres.