I found the two-headed baby deer dying
on a bed of soft pine needles under cover of an overturned oak,
not five kilometres from my cottage,
Its lungs still pumped,
Its crimson heart beat weakly through a thin,
translucent skin,
that decayed before my eyes,
until there was no skin,
and all the organs lay warm and still,
in a heap upon the earth,
like waste.

A god evaporated.

It is human nature to disbelieve
that one may be witness to epochal events,
so I did not believe that I,
of all people,
should be witness to the death of time.

Epochal: the concept itself is dead.

How lucky we were
to know time at its cleanest,
and most linear!

We know now that such constant linearity
was the consequence of a living entity,
It followed the creature like stench follows a skunk,
and we basked in it
as if it was the natural state of the world.

No more.

Time no longer heals,
Things do not pass,
Or pass only to return.

At first we believed this would be manageable,
Yes, we thought, we will relive our pain but also our love,
Everything shall be magnified!
Welcome to an age of great emotions,
a new Romanticism!

Yet we overestimated how much we help,
failed to accept how much we hurt.

And we did not realize the nature of evil,
which accumulates in a way love does not,
To re-experience our love is to know it,
again and again,
at the same intensity,
but to re-experience pain is to increase its volume until it overpowers us,
deafening us to everything else.

I will never forget the creature's eyes,
full of hatred or hubris,
yet seeking aid it knew I could not give.

How does one save a dying god?

It was not my fault!

I was but a child asked suddenly to solve a deathbed equation
expressed in an undiscovered mathematics,
I had to fail,
yet in failing I have brought it all upon us.

I relive it constantly,
Every time its eyes are louder.

But it is the hour for my afternoon walk,
so I will take a pause and enjoy what remains of living.

I will go to my favourite spot overlooking the city,
and sit on the iron bench,
from where the view is magnificent,
Above me,
the clouds will form,
a tangle of pain and human corpses,
and I will sit and ponder until the first blood drops fall,
Then the screaming will begin,
the final storm will rage,
Beating, crimson corpse-clouds under a thin skin
of dissipating reality,
raining blood until we are left
warm and still upon the earth.

by brightness
you are my second sun
though your gravity is such
you are
my only one

After autumn's leaves depart, the branches
hang like spiders after dark, impending
winter moons and ice: The night advances.
Silence echoes the silently standing
trees. Ravens sail upon the frosted breeze,
and the small burrow for the longest sleep.
A cold rain collects in puddles of unease,
The naked forest unobscures a deep
uncertainty about tomorrow,
And the foxes speak in quiet snowfall voices
of the days that were and will be hollow,
Lanterns light a carriage.              Doubt rejoices.
In the dusk black vegetation spreads like cracks
in glass. The carriage scratches tracks
into a muddy past.

our land of the free
mason dixon
lines of *******
cowboys and aliens
crossing the southern border
lands streaming on twitch
live and coming to you from the L.A.
end times
with your host
the ghost of this debt's
gotta come due sometime,
sunshine,
if that don't **** us
first come, first serve

See simmering vats
of shoulders, elbows and knees,
A banner reads:
"Welcome to the joint stock company!"
A mule may melt your heart,
but the cartel will dissolve your family.

banker's lamp green light of envy because
she will never be his late office nights
work done beneath sheer illicit thoughts
of her and her blue dress become his flights
of fancy wrapped tightly around her waist
blinds half-drawn the city is invasive
automobile engines and cigarettes
smell of lost love, dust, marriage and regrets
their futures already both faint shadows
on the walls outside the halls are empty
the desk is wet with sweat nobody knows
so they are free how empty they will leave
for homes already broken bittersweet
lives caught on repeat caught on repeat

how many times
can we part
and still remain whole

/1975/ My mother died,
And forever cold she burned: cremated
No ceremony, no final goodbye,
Her will leaving me uncompensated.
Alone but for her ashes in the urn,
Which sometimes buzzed like bees and wheezed like breath,
I kept it shut until the day I learned,
That she would be my burden even after death.
Now every day I lift that hideous lid,
Remove the tiny skeleton within,
And place screeching in its awful stead,
Held by the tail, still in its fleshy skin,
A freshly caught rat / Hungry ash covers,
The dead too devour their living lovers.

water drops
     drip on rocks
          from the tops
               of tomahawks

Wronged figures encircle the world. Saturn's
rings of martyrdom expectant beseech
God, The pain we suffered in your Name, return
it from beyond our graves. With vengeance teach
our torment to those who made us suffer!
Impale their bodies on bolts of thunder,
Black bones and roasted flesh, they are but slurs
against Holiness. Tear them asunder!
And for us, the white robes of salvation,
And words of eternal comfort: Patience
and faith in the Lord of all creation,
whose rewards in Heaven will be immense.
All the hurt you have borne shall be lifted,
Through Him, foreverness is gifted.

On snow, his padded footfalls echo low
Heart beats: haste, fear
As none but its reverberations know
The ancient horror lurking near
A flash! Before the darkness rushes in
Not night but something deeper
Tentacles binding from within
Swift minions of a speaker
Whose very voice is sin
Whispering, listen, listen, in the language of the wind
Across what remains of summer's leaves
A murmured knowledge of the fate of thieves
And as the stolen idol drops
And the ancient one appears
His eyes begin to bleed
Discongealing the accumulation of his fears

i am futility,
a history of waves
     broken upon the shore,
for i have friendship
     yet i desire something more.

Dust spirits dance in empty houses,
Parents fall ill,
     Families move,
Childhood lasts until words which soothed
no longer do,
Imagination introduces us to friends,
     in unexpected places,
          in necessary situations,
Remember: not all who ail shall pass away,
But sometimes sacrifice is made,
New friends seem scary,
But never be afraid
     to give up the umbrella that you carry
     for a leaf is scant protection from the rain,
In dreams giant trees grow from seeds
     watered by joy,
Believe that they persist,
For when comes the day to pack your toys,
     and move away,
When youthful years have passed to adult grey,
The distinction between memory and dream ceases to exist,
Dissolving into mist,
Through which you can still make out their silhouettes:
You, Totoro and the cat bus.

Despite all my rage
I am still just four minutes
of silence
                          —John Cage

Bodies jostle toward the heatsource,
Foot stomp, elbowed in the rib,
Muttering voices hoarse, exhale mists
That swirl like deadmen's ashes in the wind.
Pale lumina saturates the cinder skies,
Under which the aged remember
The suns of former lives,
Their memories the glowing solitary embers
Of a world we've left behind.
Ahead, a mother veils her babe with rags
From a passer-by's ravenous gaze.
A man automatously drags
A rattle-bag of assorted human remains,
Leaving trails in the dirt,
Leaving trails in the dirt.
We have splintered apart the frame
Of this landscape of hellpain,
Against smokestack sequoias and asphalt seas,
We stumble toward the crematoria.
My God, the coldness hurts!
As upon the canvas of this frozen Earth
We enact the terminus of human innovation,
The burning of every breath,
The engineered suicide of civilization.
Out, out, brief candle,
said Macbeth.
Into the cull chamber I step,
Hoping there at least I will find warmth,
In death.

That gibberish he talked was city speak,
Gutter talk near the Tannhäuser Gate:
Memories, you're talking about memories,
Moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain,
All I could do is sit there and watch him
die. Slow thing and he fought it all the way,
Where do I come from? Where am I going?
Go to Hell or go to Heaven, I'm afraid,
That's a little outside my jurisdiction,
Fiery the angels fell / deep thunder rolled,
Ships on fire off shoulder of Orion,
More human than human is our motto,
I watched him die all night. To have feelings,
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.

an idea blows
across a global garden
cities shake like leaves

The A.I. summoned the robot Newman,
The A.I. asked about his condition,
Said Newman: "I want to feel—to be human,"
The A.I. accepted Newman's submission,
The A.I. processed his petition,
The A.I. cogently deliberated
on the logic of Newman's admission,
The A.I. returned its disposition:
"The robot Newman is to be terminated,
He displays a fatal lack of ambition."

Give a man a book,
He'll burn it for a day.
Give a man a typewriter:
His mind will burn forever.

Three poplars grow along the river bank,
Three poplars reflected in the current,
Past is paint and the future is a blank
Canvas framed with poplar wood recurrent,
Reeds sway silently,
Tree trunks climb crooked,
Colors blur like smoky clouds unfurling
Colors blurring cloudy smoke rings spread
Across a pastel sky. Autumnal swirl
in kingly golden glow—presages:
Brush be quick / the sun dips / the light changes
Capture it before it rearranges!

With tweezers I relieve her of the pearls within her eyes / The experiment is finished: Experience and I have ****** her dry / Iris-less she cries, but her tears arise like incense to the skies / How sweet the fragrant plumes of her demise! / I ignore her cries; I have gained my prize / And soon her voice will wane / An infinity of ever-fading sighs | An affinity for exculpatory lies...

Wisdom carved in stone
is lost / what we know we know
under an accumulation of moss

The game is old
The tokens made of ice
From under folds of hooded cloaks
Flash the eyes of mice
But every thousand years
A human player appears
And in his hands
Our fate
               hangs
Like drops of blood
               on yellowed murine fangs
For it is said
By those long dead
That on the day he loses
We all melt away
We all melt away

love is the crustacean
who remains after the moon
has pulled away the waters of infatuation

We came but our children have barely time
for us for they are leading busy lives.
When we were younger we had barely time
for us for we were leading busy lives.
How it passes: like the train that brought us,
winding but with purposeful direction.
How it passes: like steam above tea cups,
a gently rising evaporation.
We had tea with the widow of our son.
Our train returns home early. Life goes on.

The idea had been growing in my brain,
Queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal,
They are all animals anyway,
Become a person like other people,
Organization is necessary,
All the animals come out at night,
There never has been any choice for me,
Wash all this **** off the streets. My body fights,
There is no escape. I am God's lonely man,
Headaches that stay and never go away,
Thank God for the rain. Wash the garbage and
cannot put it back together again,
One day there will be a knock on the door,
and it will be me. What hope is there for (me?)

The luminous grey undersides of clouds
Travelling a charcoal sky, speak my thoughts aloud
As thunder
                    Reflections of my mind's wandering eye

A billiard table imprints its damp shadow
on a yellow wooden floor. The game still
unbegun, mere fragment of the sorrow
felt by the patrons whose wilted heads will
still be here tomorrow, if tomorrow comes.
Red walls distended by burning lamps
and burned out hearts beating blood through ear drums:
Reverie to the night god /   Dreaming tramps
drowning in their heads in lakes of absinthe
color of the ceiling better than being
awake but indefinitely absent.
The lamps blink, eyes floating, speak all-seeing:
Vincent, let us meet before you entreat
the crows out of your head into the wheat.

night wears a skin
of cold velvet
stippled with pores
through which illumination
prickles as the intergalactic whiskers
of Schrodinger's cat
catching the scent of gravity

Remember black winds of November nights,
rattle your bones, chill your marrow,
quiver time's arrow and rip the world's white
veil from a skeletal face. Throw
it. Watch it fold, caught on the cathedral,
high church of the ossified faithful,
whose whispered prayers will calcify us all.
Unveiled, the world is bones without a soul,
rattling as it grinds, creaking as it turns.
A flag flies / Calcium collects in urns.

They built the rhinoceros because God
foretold of coming war in which they'd need
sanctuary from the evil unthawed
beasts Earth's burning would hellishly unleash.
They built him of steel and electronics,
infused with a human intelligence,
and huddled raw within like unmade bricks
within a kiln, until their God dispensed
His justice: No escape / the heat turned on
They baked / the devil-beasts of *****

You and I canoe down neon waterfalls,
Smelling cinnamon and sinsemilla,
Through sockets cascading melted eyeballs,
Intermixed with honey and vanilla,
We push paddle towards combusting shores,
Cloaked in pellucid smoke and glimmer mist,
Black sky alive with buzzing glowbug spores,
We must inhale to know that we exist,
But what if the hazy vapor-stew's too thick,
Paddles stick: viscosity of time,
When the sporal secretions make us sick,
What will become of the horizon line,
Will it burn to charcoal reality
Or conjure us sublime finality?

He was a toad catching flies
Except that with each lashing of his tongue
He pulled down aircraft
And long could be heard their cries:
Blessed be, Amphibian Creator!
Death to America!
Frog is greater!

late
in lamplight's hiss
I sat and watched the attic dust
dance under spotlights cast
by moonbeam
          skylights
on a stage of memory
and forgetting

My writing desk
My chair
A slap to the face
Fingers running through my hair
I will words
Which refuse to appear
I will
That which I will always fear
That only the quill knows how to be sincere
Unbuttoned shirt
A battered sternum
Under the hurt
The heart
Blooms the poisonous laburnum
Beating like a drum
I insert the quill
Holding in
Until it's had its fill of yellow ink
I do not think but write
Numbed but the words appear alright
I repeat until the flowers pass their bloom
And blackened fill the room
My throat is dry
My writing desk is wet
By my laburnum blood and sweat
Time to rest
To sew up my open chest
To sleep and in the morning feel again
Anatomical garden
Quill pen

how tranquil it would be
to sleep as deeply
as an anchor
at the bottom of the sea

We shelter in caves
Beneath a man-made steel sky
Once reflective of our soul
Now corroded, its reflection a reminder of our great lie
That the Earth could be tamed
Exploited and submitted in the name
Of the human race
Now it is we who must abase ourselves
Deep underground
As above the megastorms tear apart the heavens
Grinding all the atmospheric rust
into vicious orange clouds
Which fall upon us: a forever-rain of dust
Blue oceans smothered
Forests choked
Fields unrecovered
Fires infinitely stoked
We dreamed once of going to Mars
But see instead it's Mars that's come to us
Descended people of a dead planet
We reap the fallen dust
We weep
       the falling dust

Mister Maxwell reads the paper
Of the party that he pays for
And with subtle nods agrees
With each printed word he reads
He knows all the phrases to say
About the topics of the day
And he's politically engaged
(Marching in manifestations)
And appropriately enraged
(By violence and discrimination)
To be a hero of society:
A once-born self that's ceased to be,
A real symptom of democracy!
A truly enlightened zombie!

Now I extract with tweezers from my flesh
the silver splinters of our common past,
unoxidized sharp memories still fresh,
which left would fester like a question asked
but never answered. Isn't it absurd
how we wound each other with joyous shards
of love's black shrapnel: how passion burns,
yet in remembering turns to gangrene ash?

In the beginning the sky was cold butter,
hard and riddled with kernels of corn,
which, as the world heated, popped:
And thus the clouds were born.

A spiralling ascent
Along the world's edge
Sweatdrops fall
To a below without sunlight
Boot dust
Llamas labour under supply packs
Hoof beat lantern dance
Shadows cast on the cliff face
Distorted we loom
Above the mute fog of humanity
Summitous
Awash in the final dawn
The old Inca smiling sprouts his knife
Ancient tapestral landscape
Exhales into us
Curvously infolding
The old Inca holds out his hands
The knife cuts horizontally
Reality opens like a book upon a tabletop
There, he says,
Pointing to the infinite space between where the sky in the past met the land
Timespace lies like a discarded washcloth
And we see dimly through the mists—
There, he says,
Pizarro could not follow us,
And we see dimly through the mists—
The neon lights of
Neoqusqo

The mountain grows much slower than your perception of the mountain growing taller, as the dynamics of the sea, which sculpts the earth beneath your feet, speaks—summoning the breeze: isn't it surreal, living on God's pottery wheel?

black lives matter so
black lies matter so
dive in deep waters to
die in deep waters to
be seven as the samurai
be seen as the samurai
your mind curved
your mind cured
starve and
stare and
carving your name in history make
caring your name in history make
the world: invert
the world: inert
an ideology to believe
an ideology to belie

Gravity died,
Or so it seemed to us, who were to die,
All loose objects vortical,
Yet static,
                 car spinning,
side over side, the policeman said,
No one could've survived,
Radial blur
All in the rearview
Thud of impact, Thud of stillness
No screams till the spinning wheel ceased
and then only one,
                                 melting like snow upon asphalt.

From the eleventh floor
the world looks small
and possible

The cars
     black and white
     parked perpendicular
          to the curb
     parallel
          to each other
are keys
     ebony and ivory
    
I reach out
through the window
and play the street like a piano

Once upon a tiny planet,
a hunter and his rifle stalked their prey,
It always got away,
  until the day he fired—
Dropping dead,
with a bullet in the back of his head.

The flag blew,
                         asking
Is it wind or flag which moves?
Wise man speaks:
                                It's you.