What can I beg of tomorrow
that hasn't already been denied?
Am I a cup in hand, an avoided eye?

If I yearned for a lung not shallowed
with tar, would you grant it?
I thought not, I've asked before.

If I fought for one black minute
to toss the shovels aside,
to use my hands to dig,
to sift my own grave for riches,
would you give it?
I thought not, I've asked before.

And if I spit in your face,
take all the days unnumbered unto myself
and squander, would you take it?
I thought not, I've done it before.

I'll meet you in the morning,
yes, we'll face each other again.
But I'll want nothing this time,
I'll beg nothing but hard weathers
and grime. For that is all
you are want to give.

If the sun rose without you,
thin-lipped and petty,
a day would slump over me,
either frigid or thick-steamed.

And no cool wind will pass the trees,
And the sun, a mere mock of warmth,
will tumble west that is sure,
certain as rock in a dry creek bed.

For what is a light without hands
to hold it? And what is a day without
a warm return to a hazelled iris,
chiselled long and arced as horizon?

Outside the house that's never ours, down-***** and foundation, the faceless one in violet jacquard slid the stone away. And he was strong, by God, for he did it with a touch light as breath, light as fingernails and not a callous revealed a trade. Exposed and streak, some long and rodent thing, large as gator, sloth-faced, skunk-haired and toothed barracuda leapt out, then paused. Flicked its wide fan tail. And looking back at me with eyes both black and brocade, it urged my eyes down, down into the pit where the young and unnamed things flickered like moons on sewage, dull but hungry. And I, in a fit begged the faceless one to unhinge the stone and roll it back, but he laughed. He laughed without mouth, without eyes, more vacant and grimace than squalor. With the stone unmoved, he lifted his hand and pointed to a window not ours, slack-paned and green. And with a flash of jacquard, I was there, in the kitchen. And you were there in the kitchen, my love, crouched native and scooping leopard frogs like water in your palms, then sliding them into a box. You said they didn't belong here, in this kitchen not ours, and you sought a relocation, down the hall, where dust settles like rain and cool clean sheets. But those other tenants, more heard than seen, slow to rents and vagrant, held the doors shut and blunt with chairs and no rattling **** gave way. And at the end of it, where a green window spilled vague shafts below, down-***** to nowhere, a faceless one in violet turned. Turned and walked away.

Outside the house that's never ours, down-***** and foundation, the faceless one in violet jacquard slid the stone away. And he was strong, by God, for he did it with a touch light as breath, light as fingernails and not a callous revealed a trade. Exposed and streak, some long and rodent thing, large as gator, sloth-faced, skunk-haired and toothed barracuda leapt out, then paused. Flicked its wide fan tail. And looking back at me with eyes both black and brocade, it urged my eyes down, down into the pit where the young and unnamed things flickered like moons on sewage, dull but hungry. And I, in a fit begged the faceless one to unhinge the stone and roll it back, but he laughed. He laughed without mouth, without eyes, more vacant and grimace than squalor. With the stone unmoved, he lifted his hand and pointed to a window not ours, slack-paned and green. And with a flash of jacquard, I was there, in the kitchen. And you were there in the kitchen, my love, crouched native and scooping leopard frogs like water in your palms, then sliding them into a box. You said they didn't belong here, in this kitchen not ours, and you sought a relocation, down the hall, where dust settles like rain and cool clean sheets. But those other tenants, more heard than seen, slow to rents and vagrant, held the doors shut and blunt with chairs and no rattling **** gave way. And at the end of it, where a green window spilled vague shafts below, a faceless one in violet turned and walked away.

Some dim tide strode the beach pelican,
had quarters for eyes, and a gull's sense for scavenge.
I found pearls under the boardwalk,
but they were just butts
and hunks of abalone
caught up in the pushing.

The skeeball racked out addicts
like melamine and spent rubbers,
but we were young then,
not known for drinking.

Safari had fake skin in the flukes,
Zulu shields too tall for a penny,
and some chump carved out Jesus in sand,
but the waves whipped that away.

I got all surf rod crazy
and hooked a dogfish in the belly,
and some **** took my kite,
so that's what's up for fish.

Later on, though, when the acids came on,
and them jimmies were ants,
and that ******* carny wouldn't stop the ride,
and footprints became skulls,
and the sea turned opal,
and the horsecops stayed cool,
and I became dolphin,
and undertow spoke of passage,
and the horseshoe ***** washed up
gray and silent - I learned -
that mussels cling
to jetties not for communion,
but in the hope that the next sap
would take the pounding.

On the face of it
is  a mountain.
Below that,
orange sinus.

And in the long drip of it,
down to the lip of it,
a snot thing crawls.

But I took it on the chin,
lurching up to the clime
where leaves resolve
to needles, and the white
cliffs fall like beetles
in a tinderbox.

And the tangled lines
hooked below to stumps
and trinkets trickle
in the slipstream,
warm as mucous,
slow as dream,
bound to rust,
released as steam,
and effluents.

If I knew anything,
like a dog's tail wags,
like an iced wire sags,
I would know a hard mouth stings.

But there in the blaze of it,
in that thick tongued moment,
when your eyes glazed on a word,
a dry twig snapped beneath a bird.

And what fell there, what broke there,
now limp in the now dry grass,
was neither a bird nor a wing,
but a foot pressed on breaking glass.