shoehorn, white poppies
pockets all full of teeth
within one white whisper i swallow the key
too many pieces of pearlescent cutlery,
millions of tormented gnashing the air...

what is the culture's accepted state of satire?
what is the current world's state of affairs?
i think to myself, pondering like a child
for if i just knew i could laugh at my fears...

now i sit,
yes, i sit- in my cold echo chamber
sonic reflections, electronic lies
all my past memories calcified slowly
my skeletons lie in the back of my mind...

in the midst of an easy, northern-bound rain
from one shore,
a gust,
another’s clear day

in the midst of the courtyard,
a brick-laid patio
igniting an hearth,
who’s embers dampened long ago

igniting the fire which therein warms my heart;
a simple red peony that rose from the yard
it rose and was nurtured by delicate words,
then brushed during night,
by the sensual rough of a scourge
oh the power of words...

but alas, the easy rain soon starts to harden
as nothing is safe from the truth’s vacant burden
and my courtyard, once blooming, peonies, red
is wilted, long-shot, and over-spent.

we picnic during solstice,
neon-chartreuse vertigo
vision morphs and bends,
we're weightless, astral high
in constant ego death,
eyes so lunar dilated
bits of stars surround us
on the f*cking moon

seven violent truffles
i’ve been high for so long
i rise, thirteen a.m.
in a drab and dreary coma
when i take another sip,
like a wilting lilac-
then spring begins so soon

everything inanimate
speaking in slow tongues
living and observing
from their place of immobility

slow kisses to your skin,
it melts on my lips quickly
like cathedral waxes
in the carmine breeze

everything is alive,
sobriety is so silent
we get high on the roof,
an ashen rocked collision
seven violet tablets
violent constellation
vibrant vein pulsation,
euphoric crystal lines
a new cosmic collusion,
peripheral discernment
we ascend to highest heavens,
just to plummet to the sea.

return in pieces,
return to He
violet grasses envelop me
breathing
waiting
leeching
breaking
prism-fractal
forest floor
seeded ancient,
resisting blight
shadows cast infinite light...
...a medium dampened by the night
hold my hand as i
regress
violent, devoid lack sense, selfless i,
you dig relentless
grasses sense the scent of
blood
glasses within parcels, platters
broken glass, shattered and scattered
you are glimmering, ghastly, strange,
all you are is selfish, vain
glass grows underneath my skin
underneath my skin is pain

often did i call for help,
never did it make a change
never did the music stutter
never did i share my pain
mader, madre, magdalene
you scour and scorn a thorn’d gaze
you hurt and make joyous exclaim,
then grimly cast infinite rain.

the sun's warmth passes overhead
i long to lie on glass plateaus
dry crack'd soil when sinking teeth
crumbles easily
like rotting flesh

all that was is overshadowed
a looming sick juxtaposition
i hear the chimes and flutes afar
when wind rattles through a field of bones

sooty grey, crème fraîche,
are veins of thistle without color
skulls and talons burning hot,
gleaming bright in desert-day

stripped by sand and beetle bites
fall’n remains and dusty cans
eons pass in tens and thousands,
all plunges into trench-ed depths...

a sacred golden tomb emerges
in the midst of a red monsoon
magma from below the surface
billows in a thousand plumes

this land is hell from what i see
the valleys are deadly and unforgiving
i'm swallowed up by rising tides,
all washes away before the dawn.

warm is the fire that burns under stovetops
warmer is your knitted alpaca coat
you made us a dinner
yams,
veal,
whiskey and cornbread...
let me assist you,
enjoying your labor

honey, you are deserving of ev-er-y welcome
ev-er-y welcome deserving and true
if we could keep this warm autumn night
always,
i'd choose to have it,
always with you.

oh, they come in the troves of a’thousands
yes, the gulls overhead come in troves
watching the water as they appear,
and take every saltwater fish from the sea
this is the season of music a'plenty
but plenties tend to appear and recede...

tales from a bench by the fire
in a home so lichened,
recently it sprouted a tree on the roof
this home was constructed
a thou-sand years,
before any knowledge of myself was conceived.

so take every fish from every sea
and take every stock of red beeberries
here i will rest and refill my glass
as the tree on the roof will observe life and death,
these seasons of cold will come and then pass.

i've never seen such
astounding things
a discovery made
on a passage within

i recall sleeping
in celestial cots
made up of cygnus,
pavo,
the enticing lot

green velvet curtains drawn
block out the sun
although the windows are no more than
one
surrounded
by ivies, scripture
and platinum-tipped
pens
the era of thought
all within my
mind...

i awaken from slumber to quite different sights

the very same forces that prevail in this place,
the forces above
alluding, brooding

the thief comes too smug,
wind thrashes the sails
a cynical offering,
all grief to repent,
the season of starving,
the season of lent

isn't it odd how the winds never billow?
over the strangest utopian lands
the islands of women with no trace of men
the archipelagos of shellfish on land
and that one place due north...
beyond arctic bird coves
where wisps of the sky
grace plat-inum snow

the things that you see when it's dark on the ocean
four sailors drunken on laughter and autumn-***
down though the seabed
the lowest of shores
the music through rafters,
flutes clamor and roar...

torn and burdened is the world,
but brokenness never equated unworth
the land once which was
trodden,
the seas overcame
i nod off to sleep
just to shake off the pain
the forces come crashing,
formed over the bluff
indifferently shouting,
unrighteously tough

here from my balcony
on french-spanish estate
once indifferent forces,
concluding in rain.

un breloque,
a novel,
un tonique moitié plein

sweet chicory; wild,
a japanese maple

a lectern, a candle, a pendant;
lent
waves bring in water that melts the cement

holy

holy a lordy sing me poormans-hymn
nothing is true when nothing is not
to is is to be is to know now,
you see?

holy

who what is and who is what's not
this is truth spread out on loaf
this is riddle to a rhyming oaf
never simply,

holy

from highest heaven to lowest vale
carry the sound like an orchestra,
a procession of violent brasses rising…

You can find me in the fields,
catching water bugs,
and small red beetles.
You will find me in the grass,
sifting through all of the things I have left.

sifting through dollops of honey
and gin
sifting through well-rusted lockets and tins
o’er high hills comes sweet-smelling winds
carrying over pollens from yore,
drifting from to city to city once more...

twenty years later i sit in my yard
with my cats and my children in the heart of new york,
new york
a faint, yet audible buzzing awakes me from my nap,
and as i wake i see a flow‘r on my lap.
how could this be?
how could this happen?
i’m surrounded by non-ornamental hedge plants!

i look to the sky and see a faint glisten,
for i've seen it now as i’ve seen it before
i breathe in the sweet smell of my youth from yore,
drifting from city to city once more.