The rage of the lion
The dream of the lamb,
As symphonies crescendo,
And sun's blaze in ruin,
As engines sputter,
And semi's jacknife.
I am a lion among the leaves,
I am a shadow upon the ground,
As the dark machine rattles,
And broken gears grind,
And the stricken sparrow
Falls from the sky.
I'm a pale horse rising
Over the last broken hill.
And beauty is a bug
In broken roots.
And war's the final insult,
And truth it's first casualty.
And laughter God's response
To a flame of sorrow.
As I walk in solitude
Of a world Sheltered in place.
As stores lay shuttered,
And fear lines alleys,
As broken glass
Sings as stars,
And the gutter and sky
Are equal,
And the ration
Of food our portion.
And the media
Is our Bible,
And walk in suspicion
Of the sun,
And walk in suspicion
Of each other.
And question the dust,
And ask the wind,
And pore you this solace
From a broken cup.

I bury myself to this rusted root,
The sum of the sun and moon
And the synchronicity
Of car horns and bleeding streetlights.
And you *****,
And it gets no better.
And you **** down A celery stick,
And the cops turn down the street,
And I put on Coltrane,
Rue the Muse from his slumber.
I knock,
But not too hard,
Shuffles papers,
Invites me in.
The ancient fan whirs slowly,
And you reach
For a switch, you ***** blindly,
He leads you
To the place of water
Where fish cry,
And I drink in night,
And I take by no right
What is mine,
All this monochrome reflections,
As you dwell
On playwrights,
Editors,
Poets,
Symphonies,
A hulking Brahma
Raises on his quarters,
You steady him For the charge,
And he breaks the gate,
Terrorizing the clouds,
And he runs burning the sun
And your racing with fire,
And it's rawness burns your belly,
And he snorts the red dirt,
And your carried in his madness,
And his name is thunder,
And you Boom the heavens,
And you crash like an ocean,
And his madness is your own,
And I rise in the fury,
And I sleep in the pages,
And a rush of wind building,
Taking my words with them.

Under the radar,
Moon list like a pearls,
And I spike the test tube
Down round the circle of the sun,
Under a blue cowl of clouds.
Night lies jagged,
Profane in it's beauty.
And Cicero dreams horses
Falling from a canyon,
And I draw dinosaurs
Leaping over deserts.
As Angels and Sailors
Sing far off sea.
And I lisp on the page
As Jericho crumbles
In the awake of the sun.

Black horses breaking red gates,
Horse steam and whips,
A thousand hoofs on the ground,
A dream building
In a thousand cellos rising
In the agony of the sun.
And ten thousand daffodils
And a million lilacs
In the Phoenix sun of 1956.
As ancient maps unfold
On long tables,
And hydrogen bombs
Explode off Fiji.
I wander this distant sphere
In a pink flamingo summer,
Chewing ice bones and Juju
And John The Conqueror Root.
The Saints and Minutemen forgotten,
As Grandma's ghost Haunts
These dusty shadows.
I ply my hand to the wheel, this manifold nocturnal dream,
And I serenade the silence,
I scream and shout about.
This dark charm in a low watt play.
I search for interlude,
                       Pause,
How do we let go the light,
Yet not lose illumination?
Salt to the ground,
Water to the sky,
I see you curled behind a cloud,
I dream of swing sets,
A wheel turning in moonlight
As my shadow falls beneath it
It's brokenness taken to the ground.
A flight of fancy for a boy
Poor with math but good with writing,
A strange and sad boy,
I didn't get it, but I do.
I finally woke at the way station,
Between this dream and the other,
Passing time in megahertz and pixels.
And slow but sure I travail
Blue vistas,
And night dredges a thousand dark stars,
And phantoms of blue horses
Seep through the valley of midnight,
As their hoofs chase
A thousand fleeing shadows.

I bury myself to this rusted root,
The sum of sun and moon
And the synchronicity of
Car horns and bleeding streetlights. And you *****
And it gets no better.
And you **** down A celery stick,
And the cops turn down your block,
I put on Coltrane,,
Rue the Muse from his slumber, I knock,
But not too hard,
He shuffles papers,
      Invites me in,
The ancient fan whirs slowly,
And you reach
For a light switch, a connection,
And he leads you
To the place of water,
Where fish cry,
And I drink the night,
And I ******* no right
What is mine.
All these monochrome reflections,
As you dwell
On playwrights,
Editors,
           Poets,
Symphonies,
Ready to buckle
From the gate.
A hulking Brahma,
Raised on his quarters,
You steady him
For the charge,
And he beaks the gate,
Terrorizing the clouds,
And long highways
Carry you to the same destination.
You know them all
By name,
And they throw dirt and grit,
And bust up your tires.
And the day doesn't
Turn out like ice cream,
It just turns out,
As you fall in your snowsuit
In 1962,
Winter light cold in the sun.
And your four,
And you cry in
Your hot cheeks,
As old cars
Smile with metal teeth
And glinting glass eyes.
And you turn to your Mother,
But she's not there,
She died in a photograph
In 1987,
And all you have
Is a pockmarked moon,
Ragged in it's glory.
As I sleep between the page,
As a distant fury of winds
Build on the east,
Carrying my words with them

My, my, sweet sun rain,
It's the Tupelo Line
Past Wilkes-Barre,
All flash and twilight
This side of Pentecost.
And Donald Trump
Has his pulse on the Nation,
And I've got my foot on the gas. Armageddon to the left
Of me, Covid to the right,
As I gaze this sad metropolis.
And I squeeze the turnip dry.
***** the Calabash,
I've got strange maneuvers
Halfway to the sun.
I since lost time to the clouds,
Counting sheep in this psychedelic Insomnia.
And Newton thought The Bible was a code
Written in Men's hearts.
I see God in a solitary bird
Flying a gray sky.

Dante, the Inferno's here baby,
Look up and down the avenue sweetheart, Ain't
Nothing but chicken ***** and chicken hearts,
Lining the gutters and grocery stores, While I Got
My pincer moves down to mechanics,
It's like an art form baby,
Machines that drum dumb dull all day, As frenzied housewives Fight over toliet paper,
I tear up the avenue,
Spitting hellcat North,
Looking for the remnants
Of a once great civilization,
Red balloons and bicycles ribbons Float by my intoxicated eyes.
And Mozart plays handball
Off the prison wall.
And politicians line they're pockets,
And poet's reside in madhouses, And the wealthy
Rig the game,
And birds fall from the sky.
And it's just like clockwork baby, And canned beets
Are the main course,
And hands raise
To a silent sky.
And Dante baby,
You hit the nail on the head.
And nothing calms my ******* heart, And the sun screams
At the blood of the day,
As fans whir in ghetto windows,
We throw up the last of the day.
And the walls come crashing
And never make a sound,
And it's a one way ticket,
And never look down.
And Dante sports wings in Heaven, and I have two feet
On the ground,
And I guess it draws even,
And the best laid plans
Are no plans at all.