I

February

Einbahnstraße in a
night of black arrowheads/jazz, obliteration perfume/
the twinkle of your
eyes which are engulfed
by youthful nymphs

Fur-lined sable coat
& I
in a jean jacket, hair styled back/
the perspiring windows of Paul Gustavus
open to reveal alizarin (death of day)
velvet curtains
(an appetite for moonlight &
mirrors) the reverberation
echochamber settles over us infused
with alcohol and tea leaves

Basement seclusion,
Deutsch in every direction

Woodstove heat/harsh truths exist in
a Blue Rose of cackling ash, left
disentangled ... duskdancer and copperhue-rooftop Saharas
 billowing madly

conversation as a
room full of isolation, lip -
eye, breath -
hairline/drifting to attic enticement,
bedsheets ruffling like
a winged dove

(insertion/devotion)

I am a North American phantom speaking through written paragraphs

& on my second drink a voice
persuasively licks my thigh/come up from the uneven ground

"feed the moon

relinquish fear

-blindness & burden, parish your
      anticipation for fire"

II

In my restlessness later on, I realize
all I can do is keep my head
high, mimic hope, mimic strength knowing we are
but one brief collision of beautiful
time purposed to split off again
towards a chaos larger than
ourselves.

Remembering The Woman in The Dunes..

"There was a drooling wolf...there was the sun. And, somewhere, he knew not where...there must also be a storm center and lines of discontinuity"

our own repitition of love & labor, warding off the deathhand which always comes back around

... How far do we have to go for lasting tenderness?

III

March


Australian sand/I erase my flesh
in Summer fruit/the air is thick,
I have stopped wearing leather

With iron humility
I task myself to
tillling a steeple into
a breaking cloudbeam