we sell the individual curses of our seldom mirth
for little more than concepts and pure dirt.
we achieve what we believe.... and if we believe contrary
to a most excellent truth ; we conjure all the lies
worth dying for.... but never hardly move.

i built parentheses out of chicken-wire
and homespun. and groped my way into Hell's Fiction -
brandishing a brand new self- deception
and a quart of crude oil for my feet of clay.
My mission was too unEarth the heavens in my employ
and surrender to blue skies, despite all Woe's Emissions.
to preach a Gospel to a stone.... and forgive my ever wavering
faith in my position.

and i only managed to Love someone.

and That was
my Heart's
decision.

let sleep be sleep...  but never one sleep, the other.
trade on your windmills and millstones..
or sink.

upon awakening recall. or don't.

Live in one...

or sleep.

but Think.

in my periwinkle dawn, i soak my toes in moss.
and the moon's wrinkles. cherishing
soft and belligerent; against the tide
the scuttle of diamonds -
of more humble gems.
in my chamber of Untold Sleep
lies a blithering beguiled !
and all my love in shambles
on a plate.

have i come from the most unlikely scar ?
have i slumbered past all reckoning ? curled up, into a yawn ?
have i dreams enough to mask my impending bloom ?
so that'd be all my plot; to fill my plate ?
or encompass the symmetry
of my wound,,,, ?

the merit of our blasted kingdoms must lie in our pink mirage.
the hazy spectacle of our hope, like a living steam....
there it must rest, at the root of some tumultuous foam.
anchored to the fog like the shimmer of a lake
to a rear-view mirror.

separate from the swiss cheese tinderbox
in my deerskin hip fob... a white clot of cotton
and pistachio shells... milky with salt dust
and blind empty, like an open mouth.

separate from these. from the iron stalks of snow-melt
and the brittle tympani of my unescorted star.
from the compromise and the motives.... apart -
from all the art of my powerlessness.... [ and ] the polite dark -
of my open palm. like an open mouth.

I ***** for a river stone to whisper oceans too...
with a rope, and a loop. and a hole.

and always wanted too...

not again so much... but less not repeating. that is the rain.
now that i've come to the country of frogs and mariah carey
i can finally soak in the curious blunder
and marinade a sonnet full of paper thorns.
i could almost touch you,