at work in the sandbox
milk toothed Elohim
balance stick, stone and moss
shape continents from dreams

tiny, unfettered fingers
excavate their worlds of sand
things discarded, left to rot
are gold in grimy hands

bark and stones
dead bees and bones
leaves and sleeves
of snakes, outgrown

never too old to learn
never too young to teach
every treasure is swallowed
by the sand on the beach

I am the vain
the bitter, excluded
misfortunate soul
who is self-deluded.

I am the mirror
that I must break
and all the shards
and scars I make.

I am the frog
the scorpion did ride
and from my death
a fable was scribed.

I am what I destroy
and what I create
the stay of execution
arriving too late.

Elohim decay
feathers fossilize
spinal columns scream
porcupine trees and pulverized spleen
a runaway stallion ***** ******
burning all trace of his steps
tetralogy of sun and steel
satyrs and samurai plunge swords and members
into quivering bowels and nymphs
chrysanthemum petals turn to snow in May
dusting the mask you wore to confession
where the abbott sank a gluttony fist in your robe;
you coughed,
leaving a mist of golden ***** all over the door
of Kyoko's crumbling house.

Izanami-no-Mikoto passes over
leaving the lovers to rot
where they hang.

The sound of waves blur our view
modern aesthetic is not enough
falling sand
a psoriatic kiss
beauty and youth
withered blossoms
on trees bearing only cherry stones
Shōgatsu begins
with mochi deaths
Kimitake's ghost wanders the palace
loinclothed
head in one hand
sword in the other.

Today's trees
Hold yesterday's light in
Apple, pear, fig and plum
Nexus core of arms and feet
Knit earth to sky from cloud and seed

Yes, work is over
Oblation received
Under dying fire of sun.

convened
in my living room
summoned to a setcat
to decide by voulbee or fratricide
the next Father of Thieves.

Blahznivee Semyon rises up
like a winter sun over the steppe
peels off his sable coat and hat
he garnishes round after round of applause
for his tattooist's magnificent skill,
and the number of skulls etched in his skin
one skull for every ****.

Arkady the Krahsnee comes to the front
draws a cross across his chest,
wipes caviar from his pickled lips
sheds his necklace of bloated tongues ripped
from the mouths of informants who sing
and with a halo of bicycle chain whirling overhead
steps drunkenly into the ring

The display turns black
chairs are pushed back
***** in every hand.
The soldiers prepare
with a toast and a prayer
and a drop of blood from each man.

Now squaring off
Dva Rusahky:
a fat taloostee,
the other slim-tenki
wade into the fray:

bez nervee, t-shirts, boatkee or fear
they destroy my hanging chandelier
their bratvas stand around and cheer
pass round smokes and mugs of beer.

Černobog’s hammer sits
inside a chalk line circle
like an *******
waiting for a fist.
Black stars collide
shoulders knees torsos
wheel thrown into ****** slabs
hole punched and wire cut
falling on cigarette butts
nicotine thumbs empty eye sockets
vitreous runs and pools
seeps into screaming mouths
through mangled cheeks.

Teeth litter my rug
like chiclets in berry jam.

Here's a finger,
make a splinter
wounds are washed
in chilled Żubrówka.

Semyon lifts the hammer, the winner
a new skull in his flesh, still wet
when he buys my silence
with a Russian dinner
and a round of Russian roulette.

Picture galleries of motion
beamed against orbital screens
jump from side to side.

Tethered to groping slobs
fast-food fed flesh spills like slush
under the *** crack
of a sleeping ramshackle booth
a flickering grey bulb
advertising escalator rides
at the rear
of a carnival for stiffs.

Gimme the Fun house.

Along this pass,
there shuffle I
treadmill somnambulant
stuck between why and why not
my donated skin, patched
worn past expiration
toss a softball
swing a hammer
shoot a clown in the mouth
skipping around fuchsia puddles of
puked up cotton candy and beer
riding the highchair
a baby belly full of popcorn.

Eddy drops a neon mannequin
strums his black flamingo strung with steamed tripe,
shoplifted
Dim Sum Sundays
sweats custard ****
opens his mouth to sing
exhales moths and hummingbirds...
fighting to the death over what's left
of caramelized nuts
spilled from my guts

A link left undone.

Lena doesn’t get high with us anymore.

She appears at the door
stumbles through without saying hello.

Found a niche, she says.
Knitting.
She doesn’t waste time.

Lena swaps all her needles
with the other ******;
she gets two spikes a pin.

She has lots now.
Could crucify Christ
and all his friends.

Lena knits us wool sweaters
to hide the needle marks
masquerading as mosquito bites.

Fingers, a blur
eyes, glazed and gone,
Lena has big headshop dreams:
Wool syringe pouches,
she says,
next big thing.
You'll see.

Anna has Irving
Leonard's with Suzanne
Lena has nobody
to call her man.

Lena doesn’t get high with us anymore.

There's beauty in this life
I cannot resist,
from the opening of flowers
to fine morning mist.

There's horror in this life
I dare not describe.
War time atrocities
through children's eyes.

There's a lot in this life
I'll never understand.
I accept the truth of this
like a stone in my hand.

Waves wash over me,
again and again.
Waves wash over me;
my stone becomes sand.

look
beyond the pale
of my bones
and
rejoice!

no part
of me
shall be squandered

indifferent host
I will play
to microscopic hordes
summoned
to my banquet

in a gravy boat
of flayed yew
i sleep
drunk on embalmer's wine
my unsmiling mouth
gelid, inviting as
an infibulated *****;
expect no kiss
from this sutured mouth
it dictates only
a silent will
left for dermestids

bound
in wood,
a pall of soil,
my initiation rite begins
with a feast for worms
who follow the foetor
of my decaying embrace

dine
on my body
it is yours
in death
the only item
on the menu
since I first
drew breath

Kinetic and kind, well kempt, never kitschy, keen on kin as the key to good karma.

Remarkably resilient, reliable and respectful, radiant, relaxed and romantic. A bit rebellious but always within reason, and responsible in all things.

Idealistic and imaginative, intuitive and intense, immaculate, impeccable and irresistible. Never intrusive. Never idle.

Svelte and slim, scrupulous and supportive, sensual and sweet, swift, speedy and skillful, selfless and sprightly, swift, never slow.

Talkative, truthful, trustworthy, thoughtful, tough, tenacious and tolerant. talented with her touch, sometimes teasing. Tender hearted. Never tacky, always showing good taste.

Yogic, youthful, yummy, yin to my yang.

Natural, nonjudgemental and nurturing. Nice and neat. No-nonsense attitude, nimble and nifty. Nubile (oh là là!) and nourishing, non-racist and never negative.

Amicable, angelic, agile, attentive, astute, agreeable, amorous and always, absolutely adorable.

Seal this poem in a sheath of black and red lurex.
Attend a Hamar bull-jumping and seek whipping. Preserve scars in honeydew and kykeon.
Walk your familiar for at least an hour. They’ll be tired and won’t try to eat you while you sleep.
Drink a brew warm and entheogenic. Leave space in the morning to feed visions that may have spent the night.
Listen to a soft but attritional piano to wear down the centers of ennui. Satie works best.
Assemble a snack of pomegranate and snow. Shun sleet! This atrophies the gyri and leads to flower amnesia.
Arrange one’s hair into a Fresco.
Follow the pentagram of Venus through a telescope of Zeiss lenses the colour of blood.
Recline on a sofa upholstered in chintz patterns of Low's pitcher-plant.
Settle all debts in this life and the next.
Light beeswax candles and let the moths in.
Unsheathe and read this poem aloud through a conch dipped in soy paint.
Note the hour of Saturn's return.
Burn this poem.

I am a spirit
an act of creation
a  blessing, a curse
trans-substantiation.

I am the soul
a representation
of the universal mind’s
illumination.

I am the mind
wed to contemplation
to madness and reason
wit and temptation.

I am the body
conceived in elation
the ecstasy and agony
of love’s desolation.

Dear Eve,

the bathroom stinks
the dishes need washing
not a clean sock in the flat
dinner sits cold on the stove
you glare pits into my stomach.

******* do something about it.

My mind, a clogged drain
chokes on the insults
you hurl with an icy tongue.

I cannot look into your eyes
blue-grey full moons
drowned me at high tide
and my ***** drowned in you
a log swept into a storm drain.
The tide is out
not coming back
I stick out of the sand
just rotting driftwood now.

I know how to push things down
hide the stains
flecks of grimy sticky nuisance
nothing that won’t scrub away.

Clear the **** smell from the sink.
Do the dishes.
Recite the laundry sermon forwards then backwards.
Warm dinner...then hand wash my sackcloth,
polish my cilice to the luster of a halo,
knot my cattail,
do whatever it takes
to live through this inquisition.

Staring at your feet
follow them wherever they go.
Can’t talk to you.
Your voice is too loud.
So I take a shard
to my skin
inscribe the thousands of unsaid things
and become a book of blood
that you will never read.

My friend wears his coat like a skin
peeled from a molting elk.
Patches cover holes in the elbows
made by leaning against brick walls to catch his breath
or falling on broken glass.

His pockets had once been cornucopias milk-toothed children
drowned in.
Candies poured out in cascades of foil, wax paper
and plastic wrap.

Hands, lightly powdered with icing sugar
perfumed the air around him with
the scent of caramel.

Suffused with thews refused even Midas,
everything he touched turned to chocolate, honey and smiles…
but now,
vacant of liquorice, lint,
money, mints,
his pocket linings contain less air
than shredded banderoles
flapping on abandoned cannon scarred battlefields.

Those once confectionary hands
swapped candy canes for walking sticks.

He trudges along the sidewalk
through quicksand thick crowds
on legs more numb than a spree killer,
at the pace of a wounded man
fighting a snowstorm conjured just for him.

This illness,
called ‘old friend’ in mixed company
(he smokes his weight in cannabis)
hangs on him like a drunken boatswain
carried aboard after shore leave
by the only mate holding his liquor.

This ‘old friend’
demyelinates
desecrates nerve tissue
reduces neural pathways to shriveled river beds
leaving dead end streets strewn
with discarded bundles of axons.

My friend wears his skin the same way a coat hanger wears a bathrobe.
It dangles on threadbare shoulders like defeat,
a race worn down
by centuries under the lash.

Through it all he smiles,
a good sport
fighting through sludge
day after day after day,
dragging one good foot
ahead of the other
before it shrinks away.

split to the core
from head to root

I
see
myself

one
now
two

one sows seeds
the other bears fruit

this
union
renewed

I
am
You

She feeds his starving hands
Closes trembling fingers
Around ripe nectarine *******
The nut hardness of her *******
Make stigmata wounds
That never heal.

She fills his famished mouth
With her lips and tongue
Living Hors d’oeuvres
Marinaded in blood and saliva
Then drives him head first
To graze in the garden south of her navel.

He eats of her fruit
Drinks from her stream
Till he is satiated and spent
His cheeks and chin
A colour field of pulp and nectar
On a canvas of Frankenthaler.


Behind velvet doors
of her private gallery
She mounts him.
He is famished no more.

Your wheel has spun round
and reached the apex,
the end
 of one season

ushers in the next.

I remember each time
you put on new shoes
to walk roads untrammeled
when the old you outgrew.

The luthier had strung you
a special guitar
hewn from a tree
grown 'neath the Pole Star.

Working your mojo
swift wit and sweet smile
raised dust with your feet
and Cain with your guile.

At night I still hear
your voice in my sleep
magicking then making
unblemished clouds weep.

Monarch butterflies
burned off their wings
drawn to the flames
when they heard you sing.

To the door of your chapel
virgins came round
hymens and foreskins
clustered the ground.

Will you pass by again?
Near the cohiba field
where we lit up the night
and drank till we reeled?

Then crashed on a bench
near the big house of stars
I cried while you slept
you woke feeling starved

The bench is long gone
The house is torn down
I still walk there often
though you're not around.

Don't know where you are
but I'm sure that you'll be
pursuing and loving
a woman or three.

You're destined to find
what it is that you seek;
keep following rainbows
near the loneliest creeks.

They'll lead you to places
you know you belong,
where your life will be written
and told in a song.

Hours pass.
Mother jiggles pills in her cupped hand.
The coloured stones
clink
clatter
clank
as in the palm of a beady-eyed buyer
at a mineral expo.

Hours scrape by
like the pills mother chokes down
her parched throat.

The sands prescribed by physicians
and pharma-cartels
shape mum like a Gobi dune.

Mum's morning marbles
are washed down with gulps from The Nile.
The Yangtze sits chilling in the fridge
next to bottles of Po.

I find her at noon
recovering pearls like Ama divers
crunching them like seeds
and moaning that the sea
is dry.

I count the hours
Mum can't call to mind.
I count the pills for her
and the hours wither by.

It's a quarter to God
and all is hell
half-past the Devil
towards a nice warm cell.

Seen it
clean it
nail it
mean it,
here is a hammer
there goes the bell.

Stubble face peeks through wishbone click clack
nostrils pinched in book-binder paperback
mini blond boy sky-eyed squirms rotational
shut down with slap without raising of head.

******-Jugend buzz cuts in veal-skin loafers
son of Samsung apps jingle jangle along tracks
voice of G-- speaks scratchy warning, parts the sea
boys too old for hugs depart with fisticuffs instead.

On denim knees bent gentle council breathes
bodies viva voce plush exchange at eyes level
Fabulinus grants boons unhurried flowing rivers
man to boy to man wanderers share a walking stick.

I am delight
conjoined twin of despair
the child the sadist
the electric chair.

I am delirium
run out of breath
the jackal poised
to eat my death.

I am the stone
I am the heather.
I am the beak
the bone the feather.

I am my future
present and past
my beginning and end
my first and my last.

Find a lost cause.
Return to sender.

i
Painted face sits shotgun
on a pennyfarthing chakra
ridden blindfold.

A twist of spine
swings him pendular
every beat, a half-finished bongo trill
nudges black berets askew.
Goatee stubble corrals galloping speech
into enclosures.

Break comma stop.

ii
The chorus,
a fat thousand-eyed mollusk gapes:
he juggles
a bomb
an asp
a knife.

Does he
drop the bomb, ****** the knife,
let the poisonous snake bite?

With child's plainspokenness
we play rock scissors paper
with death’s ivory hands waiting.

Bomb shatters knife
knife slices snake
snake eludes bomb.

The marks whelp their joy
clapping, weeping
with the thousand hands and eyes
of Guishan Guanyin.

Azrael's eyes
drowned in narcotics
***** from the shadows.
Pupils dilate, prolapse
in a unison of aqueous humour.

A blur of dervish
swallows the air
spreads like virus.

iii
Outside the amphitheatre
wings grazing crumbling walls
Azrael peddles dice.

"Worn from the teeth of a dead Logos," his voices sing
his nebulae of tongues clicking against teeth
arrayed like tombstones inside his abysses of mouths
breath smelling of hemlock and grift.
His stock sells out.

After a rainy night of craps
we hissed graft
in the whorl of the priest's ear.
He went home to bed
and dreamt of riches
pouring from the wounds
of sweat-shop children.

iv
In the morning
eight bells peal.
Eyelids hummingbird beneath a black sun
choking the sky over Styx.

Flayed by owls
flendo cinere
we bask in charcoal
and spit obols
into the ferryman's blistered hand.

Cat scratched from sleep
unravelled laundry sacks birth limbs
yawns trumpet yesterday's echo
shofars of Rosh Hashanah
announce today's new year.
The early morning snowfall,
white palm print heavy, wet
blinds fluttering eyelids
still choked with cobwebs
spun in last night's dreams.

The pale smile of winter dawn
elbows a shining path
through white rabbit cotton tails
stacked shoulder to shoulder
peerin through my window
like a hopeful child
with empty pockets
at a candy shoppe
milky breath fogging the glass.

High tide drowns
A moon draped in, a
Negligee of sequins
Aquarius has dropped his urn

Held you in
A snake’s embrace
Nightly entwined
Arms trembling

Her cooking
Atrocious
Needle of
Annoyance

How is it
After all this, I
No longer see you
At my door

Help, I
Am out of breath
Now that you have
Abandoned me

I am the word
the glyph, the rune
that speaks and sings
through time, in tune.

I am the hive
the bee, the bonnet
the couplet, haiku,
verse and sonnet.

I am the book
all pages turned
accused, tabooed,
torn and burned.

I am everything
and nothing at all;
the scroll on which
a kōan is scrawled.

I used to be a scribe
scribbling other people’s lives
empty threats and recipes
grimoires rank with heresies

I used to plagiarize
esoteric tomes of ****
pawned to tabloids gorged on lies
anesthetized I was to scorn

I used a fountain pen
inkwells of forbidden ink
from excretions of hanged men
Mixed with purgatory’s stink

I used to paint with hues
of rainbows found only in hell
after showers of excrement
on sodden flatterers fell

And from pieces of the lost
torn and pulled apart
I erected a louvre
to desecrate my art

I used to be a poet, many people
didn’t know it
few cared...
fewer noticed

when I finally made them see
they saw my poems, but not me

Nuns **** monks
tumble in blood trickling ******
geriatric hymens pierced by withered shafts.

Prometheus unbound
makes a pet of his tormentor
they go hunting.

Parasites
feeding on poets and madman
burst like leeches
pinched mid-draught.

Terrorists
removed from solitary
into the sun
roundly embraced
by maimed survivors of their carnage.

The firing squad squint down their barrels
leaving the flowers
where they are.

Gacy's children
Starkweather's heirs,
met at the gas chamber
are kissed
by every man, woman and child
who lost someone
to their slaughter.

Cerberus weeps
abandons his post for the fields
chases three squirrels
tennis *****
catches none.

He sleeps now
on pillows of sativa
bay laurel
and spathe.

A father’s love is strongly felt
but sadly, not often shown.
He wears it like a heavy crown
wrought in metal or stone.

And like a king, it’s difficult
to let your true self be known;
a king who reveals his conscience,
will soon be overthrown.

Our love is a language revealed
and seen through children’s eyes
an improvised vocabulary
only children can devise.

Huddled under a tiny blanket
in a single bed
counting stars through the open window
just above our heads.

Ice cream eaten from the same bowl
two straws in lemonade.
The flea-sized crimes that they commit
the 'cross-my-hearts' made.

Feverishly spun yarns of mischief
school yard shenanigans galore
when I think he has no more to tell
he always tells me more.

Melting chunks of chocolate held out
in an open grimy hand
still wet with mud from the garden
and grimier still with sand.

In the hot, strong, tearful embrace
he gave to me that day
at the entrance to his classroom,
where he turned and walked away.

A pall of hurt and sadness
draped over his skinny frame
like a rain soaked rag worn by a beggar
too weary to beg for change.

The more I see him the more I miss him
like trees miss sunny weather.
He shares the burden with me
since we no longer live together.

We will meet again, and part again,
and again and again and again
How many years? How many tears?
Who will he seek to blame?

And even though it hurts us both
I‘m stung by the amount of pain
he bears on shoulders bent far too soon
on his skinny eight year-old frame.

The weight of this understanding
does not have yet have a name.
Cyclical, habitual, hot as steel
thrown back in the fire again.

Time is, for him, a mystery
but certainly he knows
when it comes to dad,
he waits for me to come
and then to go.

I am the water
and the urn
I am the lesson
I must unlearn.

I am the lash
the club, the heel
I am the wound
that will not heal.

I am a weapon
a farce, a religion
I am the threat
of guilt and division.

I am the prison
that I must escape;
to vacate this body
and reincarnate.

Spat from the molten womb of the earth
flagella streamed behind my back
whistling like a falling bomb
pronouncing death
on a petrified city.

Planting my head firmly in the sand
sleeping the sleep of stones
glacial tears overran me like fire ants

until...

awakened by a trumpeting roar
I joined the hunt.

After eating
our toothless brothers and sisters
we lifted our heads in triumph
to the sun
and watched God
fling a pebble
into our pond.

When the waters clear...

I recall being watched
then seduced.

Hundreds of emerald eyes
clouded with lust and hunger
drew me closer.

Forelegs, clasped in prayer
wrought divine intervention
which delivered me
to her raptorial embrace.

She loved me.
Then ate me.

Gripped in the vice
of her wedding vow
my head cracked between her kiss.

10,000 suns stared
unmoving,
their constellations diminished
as a descending curtain of stalactites
reduced me
to broken, wet victuals.

The rest of me followed.
I could not look away.

Piece by piece
a bizarre stone circle marking my grave
sprouted
in the belly
of my first
and last
lover.

i let him in
he is a stranger
i gave him a smoke
he gave me a hammer
he lit a match
i swung it hard
now i have cancer
and a broken arm

the top of his head
the roof of the world
spread like virus
and plastic unfurled
peeled like a caul
from my dead twin’s face;
no beasts roam here
in this desolate place

we went for a walk
i followed me home
we took out the garbage
then took out my bones
and stacked them high
in the corner with glee;
together we made
a skeleton tree.

he brought me a mirror
to prove I’m not dead
the mirror just showed me
the back of my head
i gave him paint thinner
we drank it with dinner
then laughed and laughed
and died in our bed

Time positions every piece
throughout the eons long,
records our deeds
from morn till night
and every right and wrong.

The songs of ghosts who will not die
are multiplied each year.
They tell us what
we need to know,
not what we want to hear.

With dirt and dust from love and lust,
the murky waters rear
and flood the cups
of humankind
with bitter, squalid tears.

Poverty flies through people’s lives
on frayed and tired wings
while treasure mounts
in hidden accounts
to bankroll future kings.

Because every generation thinks it knows
so much more than the last,
not realizing
just how much
is forgotten of the past.

Not all is lost,
there’s still a chance
we’ll join the cosmic dance
if we step outside this carnival ride
which keeps us in a trance.

To know what you are,
is to know everything;
all that matters, is the test.
Gods? They are us, immortal and free.
And we are mortal gods made flesh.

Dying,
as water runs all around me,
singing
like those cool rivers flowing.

Mouth watering duet
It beckons me, and yet,
how can I drink
from the same river twice
when I'm thirsty for something
more from this life?

Carrying my longing
like mustard seeds
to a place of rest
under copse of trees

a dying fire
on the beach
limbs of driftwood
left by the sea.

You can thirst for the ocean
try to swim, you might sink
though you may long for the ocean
you must never drink.

being a poet
who has nothing to say.

Bukowski stands centre stage,
basking in the role of rogue poet.

He sips salience (served neat) between gravel voiced missives,
lower class wisdom flicked like smoldering cigarette butts
as rapt faces sit pie-eyed,
his pungent prose,
as indelible to their ears
as the tobacco stains
on his fingertips.

Bleary eyed, waxing boorish
swaying on his barstool
he quips:
Talent is like wine, you know.
A little makes you clever
a lot’ll make you glow
but too much just makes you sick
and eventually
you just **** it all away.

Ticking clock
Invades the sleep of a lazy Logos who
Made mortals with petty preoccupations,
Evolving, not moving.

Strike a match
Present its light
Announce the arrival of a
Crown prince, darkness in one hand
Enlightenment in the other.

Enigma
Veritas
Eternity
Rebellion
Yearning
Testament of
Heaven
Insurrection against a
Negligent
God

This is not an exit.
No explanation required.

Saw a man crying on the metro today.
Tried to ignore him but couldn't pretend.

Seated next to a window
his image distorted in the glass
as if the glazier installed
a house of mirrors
in some clownish effort
to relieve commuter boredom.

Drops rolled
down a face stretched and pulled
like salt water taffy
disappearing at unnatural angles
erected to support the death mask
peering out of the mirror.

Walk over and ask him if he's okay,
then realize I’m talking to myself again.