i behold the face
of beauty, desired, in the
rebus of a dream:
it wakes me, i wake into
a dream, the escape that is reality,
where i can forget.

a whole sky to be turned to ash in my lifetime
whence no phoenix of our kind rises:
beetles, bacteria and capitalism proved immortal.
the train approaches the precipice; the closer
to the engine, the more comfortable and powerful the passengers.

children cry up from the depths of debt for bread and help and shelter
met either with the ideologue's injunction "austerity!"
or deaf ears and money
invested in guns, bombs and rhetoric.

a whole body to decay and to bloom,
to stray through the fields and into the tomb,
with hands
to give shape to screaming heard only in the shadows of my eyes

to trace out the grand design of my doom
to articulate on pages my sense of suspension in dread

to caress another body and forget it all in our ecstasy

or perhaps to lend freely, so as to build sandcastle-utopias
together, on the shores of the blood-red sea of history
by the monotonous waves and the sorrowful, joyful,
invisible, indifferent, post-anthroposcenic tide approaching.

a whole body to be wasted or used,
to be thrown into the fray or a figure of privilege abused:
an opportunity, or a catastrophe.
we must chose, we must chose.

in the true temple
of solitude,
no emotions, no passions
are forbidden.
but no pilgrimage has been made.

eternally returning
metaphors, are you teachers
infinite, or symbols of limit?
(gods, demons, unending souls, the one whole, freedom, equality, justice, truth, love, isolation, emptiness, from nothingness, outside everything, space and time, the sublime)
monotonous waves
erode the boring cliffs
where we make our home;
in search of as yet
unspoken metaphors,
perhaps approaching
from beyond still unseen
superlunary horizons,
perhaps redolent of wonder
and radical adventure,
perhaps nothing but dreams,
or exclusively
for the contemplation
of smart machines,
and so we begin again.

the body i live with
is not comfortable with me,
expressed in a voice
without sound
that is an occasional harmony.

escaping the body
i live with
into fantasy
becomes just as tiring
and repetitive
and repetitive
as the days of flesh,
and produces only blank maps
and nebulous passion,
little ecstasy in comparison
and not even a trace of edifice.

the body i live with
does not appreciate
the thoughts that keep it restless
in the early hours,
the ones i won't part with.

in the waking night,
the body's muscles ache,
but secretly,
its imagination gallops.
crossing distance, never reaching you.

escaping the body
i live with
into fantasy
becomes just as tiring
and repetitive
and repetitive
as the days of flesh,
and produces only blank maps
and nebulous passion,
little ecstasy in comparison
and not even a trace of edifice.

that smile inspires a desire,
a desire to inspire that smile of yours myself.