the gentle roll of linoleum wheels

cellophane crumbling under busy fingers

injured legs and bruised egos hobbling up onto electric motors

plastic temptation oozes in the hollow

linear formations of children and wives amble downward

each man shelters himself behind his own dishonesty

millennium passes in view of the black, hanging periscopes

beyond the doors, they stagger inward

dragging pity on a chain which stretches clear to the highway

hungry dogs trot along in their wake

fragrance of fresh meat lingers in the air

Light-hearted?
     difficult.
Gloomy-eyed
     more typical.
Strangled by the umbilical,
struggling to be original.

Is this what you wanted,
my parents
(who raised me well)?
To think what others have already thought,
to follow and not dwell?

Is this the life you wished for me,
my teachers
(who taught me well)?
To believe the precious theories wrought
by fat scholars, paid well?

Light-hearted?
     difficult.
Gloomy-eyed
     more typical.
Struggling against the umbilical,
blind to the original.

Is this what you would have me believe;
that I
am just another?
To work, get paid and raise my kids
in a world that can only smother?

Light-hearted?
     impossible.
Gloomy-eyed
     most probable.
Strangled by the umbilical,
struggling to be original.

Let’s take a silver train underground
to the back streets of Atlantis
thru the corrugated iron roots &
then to the peak itself, to the
saddle of the last ridge past strewn
                             boulders,
finally meandering thru cascading snow
wearing miner’s hats on the perpendicular
                                       dark night &
going up to the edge of the Southern Cross
where we reach at last the pure white
                            glistening glaciers &
                 begin to chant over bones in rags
                                       of Scorpio
Armless in the sticky substance how could
         they ever have had a chance?
         Permission will not be required
         only poems of blood offered to
                 the memory of TREE
         It is not ice which is eternal
         but the fury of the absolute
         separating the void from the spirit
                                      of man,
         uplifting like life when it is used
                                against itself,
         that is, Radical Love -- & again, we
         are reduced to living beings
         Caught by the instant
         we are taken away
         We live in the imprint of the flame
         & we are helmeted within the internal
                                              blackness
         where the ray begins its passage
                    across the indignant sky
Vain clouds uncaring in a tangle of
                                       crossbeams
culminate in the hermaphroditic mirror
                   of the epileptic dancer
                              asleep
                        And during sleep
                        the light is joined
                           to the light
     It is all a matter of getting up
and then to abandon the pain
It is there that the journey beings
     in the self generated flame of
        Spontaneous Combustion
            (Swayambhunath)
    The main line running counter
    to the triangle comprising the
    MAELSTROM, the DOLDROMS & the
    SARGASSO SEA where sleeping Atlanteans
                                       dream forever,
     this line, this battlefield of the ages,
     crosses the divide of my most wandering
     backdoor heart.
     We will all have to go
     if we want to reappear
     in the rhythm of the ritual
     It’s the wheel of fools spinning
             over my bed
     If I put my left foot first
     they will find a way to call me
                      by that name
     tracking tremors
     like glyphs
     on drunken walls
     in the negative palace
     just before taking eave
     of my senses
     the white powder dissolves
     in the sunlight
     & making noise like a peacock
     he hops on one foot up the mountain.