1
When you extend
time changes into words
reaches toward common history
Inspect your saga
motivations for doing
anything
inflating bike tires
handstands on the grass
riding the night train home
scrawling a drunken note
2
surprise registry
sorrow spreading like dank fire
under the skin of your face
the piano calls
"rattle columbo skee-dazzle"
now wave them around
hypnotic and sincere
you must believe
in the something I'm transmitting
up the live wires
into a collective hive
or down by the rustling dumpsters
3
cast off shells
spent nutrition and supplements
inform a blood ooze
"I can't, I just can't"
gurgling on a blanket of blood
one arm waving
half a pincher bug
electricity still making it happen
another loop of living
purely motion driven
without purpose
the body stays and stays
4
the mind burns and slips
another dark portal
born voyager
bon voyage-r
out of cleaner hands
rough with hairy splinters
combine powers
find a way off this rock
5
vortex of hand-woven sediment
chambray and needlepoint
tiny backstitched leaves, flowers
sang a little song while he did it:
"Ol' brown poesy,
something something Alabama"
"Shut up, Kid!"
waving, eyes wilder
his blood comes out
more and more
glistening cough
thick bubbles of dark
6
paint the hard stroke
his pained face
get back from it, step out
of his way
his oncoming fate
panic burned streets
camps springing up
fingerfuls of air
"I just can't, I can't"
a weak wave, he lays back down
other words too far from the surface
he waves
7
his hands tremble
spent impulses
so natural
the soul slips
gears burn out
the metal whines and snaps
the straps are off and he is gone
rabbit's foot bound
now a blur in cosmic space
flashing toward a diamond planet
inference of his purpose
light-years for comprehension