For Thee I have sworn to render from the sovereign sun
a soul's worth; burnished by oblivion's tongue
and stars uncursed ... a bounty of beloved life; once spun
then unmade, and cunningly reversed. a song sung.
a belle play. a bell
rung.

For Thee, I measure the Night's dark, by hand - and
Love by mouth... I come
to heap sweetness upon the waters -
of your thighs, and glide bidden to the hilt of your Delta
like the mighty Mississippi to a blind oyster... for there; I cloister -
in the Secret Gardens of your Restlessness like an untamed
priest.

with an ordained
kiss.

the trouble i'm in
is no worse than
the worst thing.
but it hurts like
it ain't lettin' up
in your lifetime.
you sink to the bottom
just to breathe.
claw your way to the edge
of black steam.

you forget where you put the thing
you lost on purpose
and you can't recall remembering
everything about it.

as the last laugh is at last and then
the sparrows that we conjure with
are singing till the earth is dead
but only in our tiny heads.
we come upon a road to cross
a path to trot, if so, if not.
a chance to choose how slow we're lost
and far too many
machines

in our
hearts

that never stop.

we made love on grass with toes
dangling in rich cream
to better churn the milk
of human kindness.

then we stopped.

War is never Peace,
This occurs to me
over frosted flakes
in my fleece.

My mochaccino-
Chocolate Mandarin
building a Wall
between Awake
and Sleep.

on my quest, i come upon the shores of long night.
i can smell the butter and the iron blood
of my Shogan. fat and lean in the smoke of my misadventure.
i draw my sword with a crayon
and a pearl from a cut.

i cannot move when the rice is sleeping.
i cannot drink when the Sake is broken.
i cannot hold a vulnerable flute
and be nothing.

Like a tendril of Avalon, coiled around an indifferent chivalry
our quests are jaded, and our gods Chimera.
We are all of us marching over horizons, but only the ones
the width of our eyes.
And merrily we surge into the shimmering fictions
of our most noble pariah.
as the devil sells candy to rock salt, for fun and profit.
but we know

He's just showing off.

But he's not lying.

Drinking my whiskey teeth in the spiral of an unknown maw
Jumbled in my cups, where the thorns parade on ice
And gallons of faraway evaporate like an up close Eden…
My lungs full of aire and radioactive lovesongs
bejewelled in twilight… sink into me like a long groan
of quiet… choking on a scream that paintbrush cannot fathom
nor my prayers recite.
The volume of my sphere, squaring off with my span of years.
Folding space into impractical toys; my rivets, clenched in redwood
And forgotten things, purged by sleepless Time
On a pyre of inflammable
Pitards.

While purging a keg in the afterhours, pondering the smithy of my iron will to dour.
I clutch an unearthed doubloon with my eye-teeth beguiled by the span of ravenous.
Oaken coils of smoke barrel through the haze of indistinct cherubs
With their ***** war-paint and hooligan charms… wilting in tandem.
I join the delirious marmalade of a neighborhood denial
Adrift upon turbulent silences in loud places…. with my manufacture
Organic and tipsy-fizzle with a hoard of uncomfortable
glum.

Then a Cab.

On this day, the sun is wane-weary in the mist of an offshore fog-
come ashore and  gumming the works.
It’s a damp light all around
and the foundry of heaven has come to a halt
with one anvil ringing in steam
as Blue retires
from its perch
so the Grey
mayhap-
and the Dawn
drab.

but the hawk in my eye is immune.

there's always more. but to neutralize the green tea
you must have the cup half empty
where the full stop goes on
and on.
where the worst things gather moss
and you trace the heel of a boot
to your skull
back to the kick
of a mule.

the stars are like guess
and the space between questions
like now.

the very very thing that conjured you
is a motive candle
with no crime.

just a scene in a black room

and a numb
ampersand
where
it's

gone.

a raw deal on a hot plate.
sizzling with all the swagger
of a fair shake.
a glib fraud.
masquerading as  a state
of grace.
and perhaps an apple pie
resting on the window sill
of your gullible house.

a fib in a wig of ice cold stars.

you got the fever.
i heard the rumors.
you in-cyst
I’m the tumor.
we got legs.
we got spiders
we got thumbtacks
we got *****.
we got a dead Poseidon.
and just enough Chalk
to trace a sun.

and we ain’t talkin’.
and we ain’t not.
we got sidewalks
that hate walks.
we got pinwheels
we got hurt.
and that’s peculiar.
cause i feel nothing.
And I Know
that i know exactly
how that feels
for some reason.

and it shows.

just yesterday, you smiled at me.
i caught a glimpse of your hair down
and a rampant
' Okay '.

you were ready to almost be
quite close
too happy.

and i can't help
but notice...

your carousel has fewer insane
horses.

along the banks of the river; follically challenged scrubbery-
chokes on damp sand and sunshine… cattails etching semaphore
for dragonflies. bobbing in Spring’s spring… like a vibration
on a breeze with clean thoughts and urban widdershins.
the occasional gnat, plastered to a wind shear is often comedy-
as the passerby dissolves in the waltz of a temperament
masquerading as a global warning…

with cold cotton.

she thinks of me
not often.

i was disconnected from your umbrella,
as we strolled
like organist thumbs akimbo
over octaves of impenetrable silences
that lay as shells at our feet, unperturbed.
your free hand, bound to mine.
enslaved to the pendulum
of our quietous
tandem.

we note the long shadows swaying in the corona of emerging contrasts... we go arm in arm now...inhaling the fumes
of our unspoken truce. reveling in the sanctity of our bond
without losing a thread in our poncho
to a snag in the deluge.... or raindrop teeth.

we continue in our way.
conjoined in our congenial orbits.
disrobed from the
inside-out.
two columns of mute serenity...
stalled where the bridge
and the railing; conspire to frame the stream below
with the moment of our pregnant
pause.
as seen from ground zero in a cataract
of awe and epiphany.

the mist from stones dashing about like trout
draping our skin in flecks of Indra and glass spider eyes
laughing at all our jokes, before the punchline
finds your Abbot
to Costello.

we are drenched in a thousand specks of mirror.
with tide pools in our crows'feet... and all
the continuum of glory...

the unvarnished fathoms of our symbiosis
and the dignity of our invulnerable
Haj to the Mecca of our Peace.

II

i was disconnected from your umbrella
as you never believed in -
having one.

so i embrace precipitation
with all the ****** delight
of a pagan in the company
of His oracle.

your antlers
shedding skin
and divine.

my spirit
dwelling
in a
jar

full of fireflies.
for true.

let whatever you do
be the blood in the rainbow
and swear that you'll never go back
to Chicago...
let the radiant darkness
inside you continue
till it rains light upon you
in waves like I do
i'll be ****** if I do -
not display my emotions
i'd be shipwrecked
in the *******
of a dead stare
at a life full of love
that was gone.

gone.

gone.

Our kisses are the descendants
of our affection, Cousin to our grief.
and the midday sun through a thicket.
Our embrace like braille for a ******.
he may not be blind, but he cannot see
any reason
to not please you.
Love is the first fire we ever knew.
we chased our comets and slept in thistle clouds -
barking at the afternoon.
we sleep in a van, parked in the palm
of an Unknown God.
and joy is the kingdom
of tickets.

Her fennel failed, so it was off to market-
where local lemon squares cartwheel
with kettle corn
as free samples dissipate...
and the business-
of honing in on
a needful thing
becomes the
sepia tone
on a wharf of
gathering.

with the fog that threatened
the forecast, abated.
the air was gray-yellow
with a new sun cracking mist
as veterans
meander like elk in hoodies
between the fresh catch
of the day
and the venison heart
on ice.

under glass.

I can't go where you go and be there at the same time.
I can only ***** for Angels that cannot sing
and even then, I must tell them lies
to keep them from my sin,

the fox and the hound go merrily to their graves.
but the hunt continues...
the sun bloats the blue like an untamed thing
and all I got is a worry stone
to pitch at you.

II

long gone are the days of easy peace and rapture.
but the love in my veins is no cancer... more like a smooth raven
pricking my thumbs as I try to grasp
your haven. chiding my spiral into dementia
as my eggs break from my efforts
to save them.

you nest in my always, like forever in my ' not now'.

I can't overcome what I cannot refuse.
you're my heart's loss... and something else
I have to lose.

And I will always lose it
Somehow.

Somehow.

she had a black belt in carrot and stick.
but her olive skin derailed every dignity
for a glimpse, and skipped the cigarettes
to keep the peace that nearly cost us
the war.
she had an aire of impossible disregard.
festooned with golden hooks and kool-aid.
a wire brigade of barbs
with two eyes - vacant...
save a dispassionate wail
of an absent goddess
for all your
grief.

with your pain, immodest.

but no longer
underneath.

Valentine's Day is how the mifflewarts expunge your good happy.
It dwells in the innermost fleem.
It has no fortunate rodentia, but scampers oblong
into  a sideways dream.
Lip-bitten. Our kites collapse in come-aparts to go *****.
prone upon the earth of our dim Ding*
when the Clock was gargling
Always.

sprouting from the damp earth
we trod from the muck into the sun
and were glad in it.
we found there, the space to waste time in
and more space to explore with our riveting lives
boiling in the womb of all wombs.
we stride to the heavens undisclosed to religion.
and on approach , we find gods in teapots
steeping the illusions we crave
over hot coals on a sinking
barge.

we are happy as we will the suffering to continue.
but as a flock of flaming gulls
we singe the night sky and the ocean below.
they both burn as we commit to our purpose.
each a sovereign fool
and an angel
shackled to a
spot -

on the Sun.

nothing rapturous but the weight
her life affords me, as i lift it
without effort, to a place above
the dormant and the gifted.

nothing wholesome as the tongue
she proffers sweetly to my lips
that find her luminous aplomb
ignites a wriggle of my hips

nothing dangerous but the shapes
her limber form unfolds and frees
a team effort to escape
the dullard limits of our knees

nothing as intimate as the truth
her words wring deftly, warm and young
and we vanish into slumber
with all love done

The Nigrescence Of White

if you want me to sink into this thing
you'll have to loan me your Titanic.
whoever tunes your piano must sing
and the fables; break and panic.

if you want me to know what you want
you'll have to know me as a cynic.
where all the dogs think they won't -
but they will, they will, they will -
if a bone's in it.

just a pinch of summer now; a little angry on the snow.
and every morn is warmer still
melting in stealth... wreathed in sunshine
and all possible people.

the rim of the night
now listing starboard in twilight....
throwing mist over the shoulder
of your Albatross.
Naked as the Day is long
where the shadows fail
and if you leap
the sky
falls -

to greet you.

you can keep going indefinitely…
but you will stop.
any whiff of scandal is romantic.
and every liberty, slavery
to unclean thought.
your clubbed foot is your
half-sister… but your genius
is married to mania.
all boy with too many parabolas
to be a man of any
treacle heart.
your Annabella wants money
and you can’t live
without it.
but you can’t live
enough.

and Doubt
doubts
It,

Love is where the last thing is Always.
a crazy hemisphere of nothing but what you want.
summer is the tool of all winters.
you have no wisdom but the Love you cannot disavow.
and your slumber is nothing but a kiss
where the void has a name
and your face.

from the dirge, the strange love is capsized
and many leagues burgeoning with hordes
of faint bliss, lull in the twilight surge
of rogue waves.

i am encumbered by the seagull's joy
at the wreck of my starboard hearth
and the embers of my crow's nest, faint..
as i glean the remote symmetries
of my abandoned map
the bone ship cometh
from anon.

i am long in the tooth of it.
a shambles and a youth.
the world is burning as my sails launch
my futile heart.
i disembark and return swollen.
i come undone
to refuse
to end
it.

and then some.

I'm about to be done

swirling down the drain.

And I'll march

to a Harpy's tune

to better fetch

the limits of my ungrateful

ruin.



Yes.

I am dust driven and water mad

but you are the ghost

with most sad.

The thunder in a snowflake

bleeding the landscape

for a farthing.

A pound for a pound

in an ounce of grief. Now That is the Curse.

The worst word in the ear

of a deaf mute

at the Opera

of your

Sin.

on the heels of my cartoon, but belaboring the art.
sifting through the truth of my crutch.
my high ideals, sweltering
in the sun.
my reason, dismembered.
too bad, you had that light therapy
that raised your skin.
the bruises say nothing about -
your god...
but i savor the irony, when it -
almost does.

you're like a flower that almost bloomed.
chaste and defiled by the wind...
a cumbersome fruit.
ripe in the dark... but under the sun -
a voracious
dot.

and apparently
mute.

the street out there in the Streets, got those eyes
that mark you as you pass by. as you stroll through
the misbegotten voodoo of your mind worms
you just might have a David Lynch blooper reel
and a Cosmic ray of uncertainty in a bottle
barking the stolid Oak of your Delirium
so the rain cannot penetrate the pith of your Delusions.
i am the king of a sofa and a much squalid.
parked in the dank blip of a valley in a heartbeat
cancelled out by the hum of a Be.
and I cannot
Be,

but the parasols of my inner lightning, speak.
they march from fingertips from the ether of my solid Noise.
i am granted, underneath... full access to the torrent
of the everlasting sting... and all the chambers of the heart
where joy outlasts every living thing.
and i snag my hammer on a good nail, and clip barnacles.
vexed in the extreme, and my humility
invisible. and the cackling ingots of snow
caught in the spine of my mouth, singing to a gaslight
in February.
how i summon the snakes, the Saints won't say.
but they are happy to see your thorns
sinking into my Happy
Place.

Let me say this... I awoke this morning in the middle of a House Call.
The good doctor had bled on the porch where my begonias
were dreaming... but i sutured his open hand
and suffered the telling of his tale.

I was almost asleep, but then the air cracked like a whip
in a hurricane of dead calm. I was startled from my rest
by a hoard of indigo and rampant lovely things.
i chose not to believe in anything else.
and i come back to you

a moment at a time.

this is love on
off
this is love
i think.

this pollutes
my joy
and makes
war on
peace

a more perfect hell
would be
heavenly
if the fall
fell on
you
like
a brick in
a dream
about
me.

we have scarcely more
than earplugs for a blindness
and all our numbered days
are slaughtered upon
the altar of oblivious -
as we squander our blight speck
of Eternity.

where Every minute lives.

this morning is like a warm plate. a blanket of lucky charms
and dense space... smoked sausages on long cords of brevity.
a supreme miasma of little things and unforeseen plasma.
this morning is like ghosts and hours.
time on a clock at a rakish angle.
i don't wanna be there when my cats die.
i  just don't wanna hurt as much
as it will.

So the grey that you see
By the dawn's burning spite
Fraught so loudly with gale
where such calm
had been dreaming,
Soon marauds Night's bright
Flaw...
Through the garrulous plight.
O'er sham sparks, we're caught -
where the malice has meaning.
As the Thoughtless still glare -
At the Hope chest laid bare.
God, mute in the Light
Shouting " Why Do I Care ?! "
So Sagebrush and Amber
are all left amazed...
That the Man who would Be Free
built his own gilded
Cage.

now that i cannot choose… i choose a choice.
an abbreviated me has long been not enough.
my inner Kafka, a lag of butterfly thoughts.
i seem to drift obedient to the wave
of my honest lust.
but return always, to something
i cannot touch.

I am a cold piece
of me…. and my friends
are not friendly.
eager to **** my want
as I want more
than a lasting oblivion.

they omit my dream.

but i am all the while
some other beautiful
thing.

dying out loud.

i walked through you and found myself at the counter
and I bought some lottery tickets and wedges of foam.
i came up with my own dialect and stammered.
i saw an osprey in a rook... having a nightmare
in the middle of the day.

and i watched.

rain like the crispy skin of pork
roasted over coals and the Philippines
while the living god pokes you
in the ribs... and the afternoon wanders off.
your soy vinegar is sweeter now
but you can't recall the moon's grief.
so amazing are the the nouns for " now "
but you can't have the Past virtues
of wonderment.
only the cost of a Joy
that your black slender smiles...
and the huge room
you moon from
nothing else but
the Truth

and a Lie.