1.
Princely I am, as Michigan loam,
as carefully turned mud,
as old, old dust––

my breaths are still and unresolved
and don’t dissolve in alcohol
like snakes or dead, bloated fish––

I am nothing monumental.

2.
Stuttered breaths lie in limp open circles around our feet,
hanging by threads of unmade promises––

symmetry was never my forte.
The bent nose,
the crooked lips,
the slow-ballooning wen where nitrogen bubbles––
my flesh is like untilled soil,
all raw and swollen with possibility.

3.
You asked me if it was probable
to find life on Mars
where the iron-leeched sand
crumbles like dried hemoglobin.

I don’t know about amino acids or genesis
or the first man of Dust,

much less mysteries of lovesickness, respiration,
really good ***––
We’re barren in different ways;

your dust comes from dreams, from heaven,
crimson and majestic
and dead as Olympus Mons

while I am like moon dust,
just as cold as your bone-dry lakes of carbon dioxide,
but paler, heavier,

and more remote.

I want to sit
  in the autumn-orange
    of an old apple tree
Climb into the
  golden heart
     of winter coming
Watch yesterday's leaves
  edy in the wind,
    then swirl to shape
Crisp yellow carpets
   too soon to lie
     beneath the snow...

Emergency exit
Glowing softly green in the black room
Full of madness, inexplicable pain
Nameless emotions
All without foothold
          Floating freely in the dark
          Creating an untamed beast

In this darkness glows a light
Its gentle green invitation
Promising a way out
Promising an escape
          From the Creature of Darkness
Promising the desired silence

Like the starry night sky
Cold and quiet
Stars shining their lonely peace
Gentle, silent peace

Over the door hangs
Three splintering  blockades
Bent, rusted nails
          Once straight and strong
          Before the time of the Creature
Now weakly enforce their law

Scratched on each face
Shouts my barrier
          MORALS
          FAITH
          PROMISE
Each forbidding my crossing
Each splintered cry declaring
          The light which glows green
          May promise one thing
          But can you see through this door?

Eager jaws of hell
Or floating through the stars
Eternal sleep
Or nothing at all
My blindness stops me
          From hearing the metal squeal
          Of boards being ripped from the door

Like the starry night sky
Stars appearing within reach
But  stretching the arm
Until ligaments scream
They still taunt the fingertips

Like the starry night sky
I can see my escape
I can stretch my arms
Until my ligaments scream
But the  splintered blockade
Will not allow me to cross
Into the forbidden escape

IF I should pass the tomb of Jonah
I would stop there and sit for awhile;
Because I was swallowed one time deep in the dark
And came out alive after all.
  
If I pass the burial spot of Nero
I shall say to the wind, "Well, well!"-
I who have fiddled in a world on fire,
I who have done so many stunts not worth doing.
  
I am looking for the grave of Sinbad too.
I want to shake his ghost-hand and say,
"Neither of us died very early, did we?"
  
And the last sleeping-place of Nebuchadnezzar-
When I arrive there I shall tell the wind:
"You ate grass; I have eaten crow-
Who is better off now or next year?"
  
Jack Cade, John Brown, Jesse James,
There too I could sit down and stop for awhile.
I think I could tell their headstones:
"God, let me remember all good losers."
  
I could ask people to throw ashes on their heads
In the name of that sergeant at Belleau Woods,
Walking into the drumfires, calling his men,
"Come on, you ... Do you want to live forever?"