in my waking i slept heavily
and marched into the spiral
severing the path
from my step
as only an angel
may deny you .

there, my eyes were feet.

the hush of snowfall resounds
and morning comes on a plinth of cream fire
over white shoals of winter's aspen
and a platoon of black oak, heavy laden
with pillows of opal dust,
the crisp air dangles from your breath
as you come upon a raven's ink plumage
resting atop the crystalline wave
frozen in swell; more akin to the sea
than to the earth bound diorama
more of a ripple than a discrete patch
of sugar at your feet.
holding a black wing
to a promise.

and a kiss is debris,

in the pool we sleep.
we let the deep speak
and retreat into our shallows
with our last breathing
as deep a weaving as a bird's nest
in a dead
eye.

where is where ?
and why are you there, leaving ?
why are you wrong for me ? when the right thing -
is more than our ***.
more
than
love
?

why ?

you might get comfortable
boxing crows in a corn field, after dark -
but then, you could be an alabaster pearl
in the raven's tear. or some-such goblin
that feeds on sustained grief
and bought that house on the corner
of your mind's eye.

you might swear to eat the pentagram.
but can't even taste a straight line.
it boggles the googly calamity
in progress.

and i can still taste your open mind from here.

itching to be real.... the sum of my days
plot the course of my misery, like every man.
i join the circus of our low thoughts
and boost demons to a plateau
of grim love.

i am pecking the flesh
off a skeleton key. wiser than my jokes
but foolish just the same.
i reveal my numb skull
but hide the virtue
of my heart's
want.

docile in the kingdom of pure love
i announce the primacy
of death's door.
i forge ahead
to slip crippled angels
new wings...
to mock the inane gravity
of being a Man....

and with a woman's dream
i conquer the  world.
but
never have to say
what it means.

at all.

when you spoke too me, I was one of those Pluto people
looking for my glasses without glasses, and the world was smaller than
the sound of your voice, telling me to listen
and the sky was blue, but nothing.
I had to run to the hills of my giants and scrape paint off the cave walls
to find what was underneath the peach fuzz of our upset
Art.

I never questioned how I got there. I only craved abandon and the morsels bestowed lost men. They are meager things...
I crushed the butterflies your lips resurrected -
and had no peace in my dreams save the waking from them -
for the haunting was complete, and I was lost and you
were suddenly gone.

Too bad for me. We can all agree that the world is false
and the god's cruel... but you don't.
I remember now... You said " Life is like a Spool of Dread -
if you let it knit your eyelids shut..."
I slept through everything about you
and regret so
much.

we soldier on in the endless march of our quietude sprawling the width of our last fake smile.
staring at a focal point so pointless you hardly explode without vanishing.
but never write letters. you tumble into tomorrow's womb like an orphan of yourself.
terminally accidental on purpose
unfathomable.

some of us fade.

sink into the peat moss of our tapestry -
and there ; surrender the bones of contention
to grieve no more the plight of stars
having succumbed
to the moon.

some of us dissolve.

like sugar in a spoon
over a candle. or a horde of promises.

some of us are gone

the way happiness and a room
are a hope and a
hell.

but some of us are you.

and you're not.

like a bruise with a muse
the shallows at my depths hum the arias.
they sing the body neglected
and the famine
of immortality.

the long stretch of compacted space
between the morality of a living stone
and the wavelength of a
heart-worm...
can only be measured by tears
in the rain.

the kind of gully-washer that makes ironic
both eyes as they weep...
but somehow makes your face
fill in the blank stare
into Oblivion

with a bald point end.

I

not
every day
of the week
has a name.
several do without;
and last
forever.

as some
are

Mondays.

II

Let me be clear.
You have no soul.
You are
one.

III

I am thinking of a number.
Divide it by two
and you will know
what i think
of something
else...

in his soul
another one.

one that is not so lovely
and not so
his soul.

but one that is unkempt
and joyless as a happy
death.
his motorcade
draining the true yes
from a hard no.
his lungs
gleaming in the rasp
where the tundra
bleeds
but the snow is keen
to undo
the dead drift
of a bleak
bleak.

or a long wrong.
that sleeps.

Slicing avocado with a grain of rice
I add a pinch of salt to the flesh
And the pulp of an Urchin, thumbed -
From the Sea, with a frozen teardrop
shaped like a hook.
I mistook your Virginity for Indolence.
You smote my ardor, with apathy
and Grace.

Carving the pumpkin with a blade of grass
I save the seeds to roast over blarney stones.
As i blacken the plantains with shards
Of Ash Wednesday and night sugar _
You broaden your scope to match the vistas
Of my Accusation... You false my Hope
with a True Face.

As i groom my submission.

i come across as a blue vein in a lost arm.
or a red vein in a stump.
an orchid with black lungs. or a summer's day
that knows why you love me
but has no idea why
you left me.

i cling to the gone
like an enjoined hermit.
i fuss with the ridicule of you
and resign the feckless mirth
of our misadventures
to the blight
of our quaint
demise.

I am the Tin Man
but no longer a rough hewn hooligan.
i have become the smallest sun
above a vast atom.

So Thank you, Madame.

i love you and that is the yes weight
and the high noon trauma.
the unborn cathedral
of tiny smart people
and the near dark
nova.
the grove of our open wound sustains
and the very love of our bleached dream
.... a godless cream
in a crimson
church.

our idols, a dim mirth. and nothing as it seems.

But -

Oh how the awfulness trumps the blue
and the black behind it
shines ! what might we, the feeble guttersnipes do ?
but save a prayer to a dead god
and march to wane fields
behind it...

love-blinded ?

what are your terms ? the Devil may ask of you and you and you ...

but the true quest is a riddlement,
a prune on the throat of a mute Sun
singing the bleak queries
of an afterbirth, after thought
has abandoned
a hazard's guess.

Tomorrow is a crumb of soft words
and a walk of the plank.
The high stench of probable cause
and the noisy stench
of a chaste complaint.
a dreary ruby
groomed in the *****
of the earth
to be the first
fool.

and the last lust.

a complete waste of light
where the darkness falls
like an anvil chanting
a hammer's
song
but tone deaf
and sparks
sadly.

how unkind are we ? now that the meteors are in hand
and the grinding gears of the rain
have chiseled a new sun
from our rib cage ?
how do we proceed with our atoms ?
gritting our teeth against the migraines of sand
in our dark eyes... lumbering toward
some awful truth that spells love
in blood

on a splinter.

like no other thing is about you
that's what i'm about
i'm 9 miles of heaven
and a long spark.
i mean what i mean,
i see farther by closing my eyes
and i seem speechless
but the words are domain
and what i said
is i love you

just now

Addiction is a real thing
South of the last thing... a grim dope
in the hopeless soap fiend
of a washing; where a mind dreams
but a head, thinks -
where a heart
stopped.

and we live
Unseen.

i was there. then i just wasn't there.

sinking into my living-room, i surveyed all disasters
strumming a flute like a winded pigeon
gargling muffle and a clot of choke
strangling the sun, where a moon happens
and the light changes the marrow of a constant
trading iota for the magnificent
in the language of the
minuscule...
sinking into my living-room, prying barnacles from sunbeams -
worshiping the nostrils of lost houses and  breaking vows
like a man cub in an hourglass
i marshal my hope in the end days.
i go where the dead birds sing in dead trees
and keep their feathers
for my back.

though unable to fly, i'm walking on err

intimately capsized,

no more Breakfast tumbling out of a Hornet's basket.
just soft thorns and gossamer wounds. only the ravens that kismet.
only the coffin cuff-links; and the splendid Pit.
only the margin for Errors beyond
your Religion...

and the woe of it.

My symbols are fluid now
Here , where my days ahead are less than
The many days I've left behind.
Chains are broken and knit into my wrists
As i reach for the stars bespoke my Zodiac
I summon a swarm of loose ends
That begin with Me
And cherish everlasting, the long braids of Summer;
now derelict in the shadow fallen-
Coiled into mortal frames
Resting on fishhooks
Above the pantry of my feast
Of Hours.

I long for the turn of the *****
And the hothouse Orchids of my dim horizon.
The carnal hope, throbbing in my skull
As i awaken the giants i have slain
For their off wit and plain speech.

I return to the calm in my cliffnotes
That capture the purity of my bewilderment
And the honest scope of my Heart.
I go wherever the charm is broken
And mend the Angels there
That have fallen.
I choose to Live. And serve the Dust
A Cup of Sea.

a narrow tusk of crosswind grazing my cheekbones
as i lean into the teeth of a comet... wincing and turbulent
but still a boy. tossing moonbeams to a catcher's mitt
and all the while bewildered at the sum delirium
of Life's yes.

embroiled in the kingdom of the smallest things...
i trundle from my Kismet like a drunken crow.
i skip the stones for breadcrumbs on a perpetual wave
of vanishing points.

And fall in love because, because... because.

the night has made all the lights in town
crawl out of bed on fire
old trees float over snow
and now you can see
your breath
spiral
nothing happens.
then a train pulls in
from somewhere trains
come from
strangers spill
into yellow cabs
that glide out of sight
all gone.

windows burn
in the deep, -
deep peace
the silence finds
you... thinking
things
with your heart
that your mind
never speaks
and the words come
lovely enough
on wings
and you love your life
for the first
time
.
falling asleep

Loose pebbles grit the wheel.
i hear the grind spit
and the earth kneel. i march -
and grovel, as i bark
and hound -
the very fox what stole my stride
and left me feet below
the ground.

the eerie brick of the eye
smarts at the sun, blasting a bank of fog
and sour dross from the furnace
of insight, keeps the weather pale
as thin blood on a dreaming knife.
no greed is fair or sweet.
we may only crave what a soul may purchase.
and the hours wane and swell and nod
where we swing our hammers best
before we plot to build
cold houses.

none of us are the other
but we flock in ale and clouds, together.
we tuck our wings into our coats
and endure the clap of thunder
from some dark.... dark
clank.

and the honey from the salt
is a stone.

i open the wound to see the reason i would want to see that.
and keep eating my ham and cheese. woolgathering in the hemisphere of my own paleolithic emotional diet.
i brought the nuts.

Living in the City may clip your wings.
But there’s baklava, so….

You pay more to live in a cube
with a longer cube MacGyvered
to a money pit shaped like-
a square.

It’s all the rage
how you are.

II

When you formally meet your first guitar
you get sunburned.

III

Now you eat noise and incidentals. like profound Chicklets.
But your shadow’s sweet-tooth is another way to adventure
from your cavities, with sea shanties from False Hope
Or Narwhal hymns in bright typhoons
Like glass lipids
Burning in earnest
Where the sun
Has a brief chill-
In the panorama of
Your undistorted
Will.

IV

Like riding a bike
with Imaginary Legs-

That Believe that you
Actually Have
A Bike.

Declan Shapiro had a switchblade. One day he didn’t go to school and got really good at not knowing why his father shot 9 nine people he had never met, and then shot himself when the cameras arrived.
He mastered the basics. And these were the basics. Then you work your way down. Got it?
So Declan Shapiro stole a car. Stealing glances at this point just didn’t have the Juice. He parked the car in the trunk of the car. His genius was to drive it off a cliff a few miles outside of town, with a brick and belt strapped to the wheel and the stick. It was so beautiful to feel something that it nearly killed him to thumb a ride into town and leave all those emotions on the edge. He was home by 9:35 pm and that’s what he told the cops. There was meatloaf with a ketchup smiley face next to some mashed potatoes on a paper plate just being the worst sort of super fan.

When Tanner Percy McQueen lost her virginity on purpose, the purpose was a thing that words were powerless to express, and yet she will never forget the premise. It was like keeping track of every fork in a lie to avoid getting caught in one, with all the panache of up close magic. Her room was a mess because she was looking for her loose change. A girl's gotta eat. Her mother, apparently, had to drink all the Benadryl and watch Animal Planet. Tanner Percy McQueen got her **** together and hopped on her bike with the banana seat all the boys wanted to be. She got where she was going before she realized her heart was broken and this was the place that didn’t care to talk to her about it. It was just noise and pills and beautiful monsters. They had hot dogs you could get for 2 dollars and she had 2 dollars so…. She bought some Ecstasy instead and told Stacy Mathers she was fat and that she wanted to kiss her on the mouth but it hurts when she wakes up and the world is still there and that she got this bracelet from some creep in a parking lot who never even tried to make a pass at her. She had no idea it glowed in the dark.

you will outlive your usefulness.

you will find a toy that will **** you if you let it.

you will indulge in small games
and win nothing.

you will sink into the earth and be rid of the sky.

you will love someone and that will be unbearable.

you will lose your mind and that will save you.

you will curl around a blow-fish
and whisper in it's ear
the word " relax "

you will never know the reason
you had any wisdom.

you will suffer for your art.

The radio beats it's wings against the damp air of twilight
and the mauve maneuvers of the jagged stars, clutching the velveteen enigma of the heavens.... sprawling glorious and pin *****
above the glum slumber of our myriad eyes... go brightly.
a dazzling display of power that has no mind. The divine agenda
of the unknowable engines of grace.

From the porch, I spy the worlds
tumbling from their Ether to my Zodiac. I smoke a blunt tool
to hammer back the incessant noise of the mundane...
And a wave carries me to a rich oblivion
fecund with Life's sumptuous joy... and the very different perfume
of brain dead angels, spreading my ashes over -
unkempt lawns.

I retire to my room, where the canvasses tick unanointed
like white bombs and nothing can dissuade me from the truth of them.
Painting your face is like scratching a balloon.
It will burst. And I will weep.
And Time will not stop.
For the Lack of You.

But the brush will never leave my hand.

And that will have to do.

I proffer my humble things
at the altar of your resplendent dreams.
I come feathered in the majesty
of your inner Serengeti
with my clubbed foot in Paradise
stamping the fires of inconceivable hells.

Oh Child of The Long Long Love
I bring you my husk and my plump truth.
You divide the wheat from the chafing sun
and break bread with my mortal tongue !
you are abroad from me, however _
but your memory up close, endures
like a happy bee sting
of random recalls.

I will never know another such as You.

And That is the fact of my precise Love.

Please, go on to your unbridled graces, adorned in splendor
as you are want to do  in dark continents... constantly.
And let me Love You as a friend
that grew a memory
from a life...

that met You.

every moonbeam is a laceration
of shadow. a slit in the skin of a
black heart, convulsing in your
mirage. an imaginary sonnet
killing bees and Time.
every moonbeam is a patron
of the Arts. a hard raven and a fist
of belligerent worms.

a coil of angry
jubilation

and a selfless disregard
for the Sun

where you left
it

lowly.

never been. but i imagine, it coils counter-clockwise at the ankles
of your pedestal. it must surely breathe fire so soft
that dew lingers on the tongue of a star.
a star -
behind the green pearl of an emerald place,
dislodged from Time
and ever tethered
to no reason.

it must be other than. and farther from. and nowhere.

sublime.

the break of day is usually the femur.
but the moon mends
where a shadow falls to it's knees
and begs forgiveness

i told myself to leave me alone
in twelve languages.

i got the hint.

Like the saying goes... " We have no words for this, so silence will have to die with a pillow over it's face, horrified by the damp dreams, sunk - in; ******* on the fumes of deferred desires, until the whole of the world can hear you scream... but cannot find you. "
We are born into grief with wailing. Then we laugh at our mother's chin.
Groping at the matted hair of her fertile youth.
Smacking our gums in class.
The hard lesson, shimmering in the distance
Like hard candy on a heap
of abandoned houses.

Too stunning is the thing that becomes the vision of our blank stare
into the abyss; as we ignore the essential, to favor a blockade of easy pleasures in the face of hard clocks. Our ghosts are driven out of spite and the hours march depleted of our joy, as we entangle our quaint miseries in dark trees, like kites.
We tug and resume the defeat of our careful sabotage
to glorify the random hell, that nullifies
the pointed quip of a wise man's
emphatic sigh.

we trip on the whip of our masters, and call it a day.
a day for running blind in the tunnels of our entropy
like an inchworm in a blender.
or a seed in a vacuum... damning the soil of the void
and the sunshine that mocks it.
the box is a lost blip of atoms in the Attic,... and not at all -
on the list.
You can have your Birth-Day, but you can't have both.
Your birth is a fluke, after all... And a Day -
Becomes the Night.... like an inside -
Joke.