Poe sits like meat locker Tummo,

in a flake's firepit--giving off snow's incense.

with his vest unbuttoned, wearing a t shirt

of Antarctica's: True South flag.

his elegantly racked face thinking of the seven

archangels, how all their names end with an: l.

necessitating the tongue to reach the mouth's roof.

his: "Philosophy of Composition" ceases dissecting:

"The Raven"--evermore (True North) is the same as

nevermore (True South).

an amateur photographer waits till a room fills
up with degrees of connection--as people move
relative to prattle's false starts.
just when the deep space of universal greeting
collapses into conversation, the room's undulant
field registers unnatural spikes in noise level--
like supercells on a radar.
as if language showing first signs of fluidity, met
with the straitjacketed primitivism of listeners--
itching to go from zoo-like soundings, to being
seduced by the traction of their own voice.
at this the bluffy segue of wineglasses are tilted off
a tray--their long necks & lippy vaunts sparkling
to an ear-piercing parse.
a lens glares out of obscurity, as if the blue
shorts the blue--to blink back right there.
recoiling hands spastically thrown around deformed
hubs--with an anesthesiologist' catalogue of faces.
our photographer's delectation came from seeing it as
the discordia of the fifth wall.

a witch's death mask turned up on the black
market--rumored to have shrunk herself, leaving
behind a thumb size cast.
ending up on the living room wall of an elaborately
detailed dollhouse, conjuring the whole transaction.
remanifesting like rot's backhand--her nose touching
her crutched chin, which conceals a sunken mouth
frittering away two teeth.
she pokes around the dollhouse with her *******
bouncing off her knees, as phlegmy laughter trickles
***** down bamboo stalk legs.
her *** is a wrinkly retraction, covered by strands of
white hair that appear fished-out of her skull.
she's just fertilizer patch, wet & wild about hell playing
dollhouse--& how wearing the death mask seems to
say something about her, even while pretending.
she must leave a few telling traces, so she peels off nursery
wallpaper--with leafy apples between slow to learn letters.
throws a black *** on a fireplace, making its flames shoot
up & fall like a timed fountainhead--caressing it as an
expectant mother would, the very joy of a spellbook.
until her fingers blister, and their swirlingly green prints
can be deflated--worshipping how dead skin clings to life.
then she slips into a plastic mirror & begins squeezing
blackheads from her overarching beak, until wormy ****
sprouts from the mirror.
flicked off into a limnal-drab sink, then climbs out of the
mirror & wills all her hair to shed.
exiting into the greater house to observe the man who
purchased her death mask sleep.

a rumpled gentlemen with his head on a desk--
the bent light of his mind snaps with an
aberrative upthrust.
Goya's: "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters"--
as bats fall to fly with a staggering jaggedness, the
twilight goes underground.
they're a flexuous miasma above the gentleman's head,
or like snakes climbing the glass of an aquarium.
a leathery dark with a bald purple gleam, smoked
clean through.
reveals the wickedly behooved whites of eyes,
expanding with what will be consumed.
this kind of sleep does more than warm death over,
the sleeper is made to watch himself do things--with
no electric blue escape route.

The phrase
A *****
Relationship
Sparks memories
In the back
Of my healing
Torn
Heart

But what defines the word *****?
(The dirt beneath my nails)
(the blood beneath the dirt)
Who says it has to be between two people?
(the hand on the arm)
(the arm on the floor)
(the floor cradling the flame)
Still its swimming and swimming
(sinking is another word)
(sinking, swimming, sinking, swimming)
The judgment peeking out from their eyes
(they’re crying too)
(they’re crying alone)
At the word *****

I sit perched
Not perched but perfectly placed
By the door in english classroom
In the english hallway
Four doors down from the end

The air here is warm
Though this morning it must have been below
Below the freezing point for water
And my engine

And from my perfectly placed seat
I can see
The yellow leaves
Warm against the approaching winters wind

Though it is only September

The classroom- full of life
But only in the sense that
A dozen kids sit taking a quiz
Worth nothing but a number in a book

The life makes it warm
Or is it the fans above
Man made just not by man
No, not man but a fan and a shadow of man

When the yellow leaves echo the cold
When the door closes
And the light
Fades with the warmth