dem streets ain’t know yo name
just be out there like hunger on parade
all Mardi coup de grace, with spiked tea-
and neon giblets… all draped over hot coals
and incandescent funk. with meter maids
and pidgeons-
sweeping thunder under rugs
everybody know
ain’t your real
Hair.

dem streets be like consequences
marching with a band of thieves. tuba prodigies adagio
with oily smoke and cauliflowers marinading
in umami and soiled alters.
switchblades are like optional candy.
sharkfins in buttermilk
more like an actual
Wednesday.

dem streets be soaking bullets in Kopi Luwak
chuffing pearl dust off a subway chit
while staggering home from a dust-up
at Berkley.
we keep telling ourselves
to tell ourselves something
but forget to remember
how to forget
about it

out loud.

love is like slumber trumpets.
It’s all the same, really being different.
but somehow you quit winning
before you play.
our notes bleat and percolate
in the gypsum of our dross.
we burn through heavens
like bearer bonds
but foster shadows
on the dark side
of the sun.

at a loss.

I come upon a meadow of absolute mirrors, swaying in the breeze.
I lose my Unicorn in the thicket. shave my head with a blade of glass-
and nick the skin of a Pompadour. my candles are Jasmine and Mirth,
I fall asleep where the doubloons pillow. gilding ashes with ash.
lodged in the throat of a dragon, like a sleepwalking flame.

Am I awake when I chrysanthemum?
Or is my umbrella, the rain?

yesterday had wrinkles too. folding space with disjoint youth
at a pace exceeding understanding. we gimp into wisdom
at first, like docile hags. we love shiny things and postulates
that agree with our craft… we sleep overmuch but alas-
even a long night has its dawning collapse.
and the adventure continues to contuse.
thin heir adjacent to a room full of wounded Portraits.
The Self, like a strip of carpet above the lip
of a bust of Arthur Rimbaud.

as i colonize my outskirts, moon junk sick with the real pity of an angel
but half the size of a whole thing… sort of a trojan armada
marching out of wasted time. a tweedle dee in the steam trunk
of my misadventures.
mostly maple leaf tempura
dozing off in a tempestuous kiss
like a pumpkin praying to Chinese
with a Pi.

we slip into the stream of our afternoon-
and dare the span of a constant dark,
our lanterns possessed
of all the fire we enkindle
beyond spark.
we breathe on the wind
that our sails obey.
however, lost.
eating gumption with
our bare hands-
like golden brutes
tugging sunshine from
a cave.

toenails in the dark, shuffling in cotton skullies, where the suns park-
on thin dimes… as golden as poached domes in amethyst
where the Royal “ WE” is a scarecrow made of consumption
stitching the wherewithal of an Answer
to an improbable Guess.

we fidget and split the pith of our varmint stars
to within an ounce of Plausible. Gobsmacked in the actual.
chumming thunder with too many rays of delirium.
husking germs at our Diaspora.
cast as an open wounded
conversation.
conversating in a
Vacuum.

like teen angst on a scrimshaw barstool
made of absolute
demise.