The elderly psychopomp speaks his gullet words
Preparing me as charity for birds

I smelled snow and sweat when I drew breath
Though now I must give charity to birds

Juniper and fire become alms for the air
As I now must give charity to birds

The vultures are first, their beaks are the strongest,
They take the meat of my charity for birds

My friends come next, dearest to my heart,
Laughing as they grind a further charity for birds

What once I was is mixed with milk and bread
To fatten my gift of charity to birds

The speckled hawks and midnight rooks arrive
Hoarding their share of my charity for birds

I might be a wisp of smoke or softly chanted prayer
As I watch myself give charity to birds

Destitute and zephyrous I find my elsewheres
Having given everything in charity to birds.

All elsewheres being equal,
the Monarch Butterfly
prefers to winter
in Michoacan.

You told me once
that even chairs have souls.
Since then I've grieved
for all the dim sum.

Imagination is so ******,
an odd portal
for poetry,
which explains the sweat.

I'd give all
the taxis in Vegas
for a do-over
before I'm obsolete.

So, I'm heading
for Michoacan
to winter
in the sweat.

the wine-singing ceases its crescents as the grasses' leaves' small leaves are blown/
by wind. the wind paused by sunrise. airless and plum-coloured. my fire runs grey-dry. i'm drunk./
and well? doesn't poetry arrive here then? imagine my wordliness!: i know things!/
claiming them on some soft days as if the end of time will not yet have happened yet, grand/
as big children in bell-towered schools and the word that is taught to them there. meaning that/
the affront of the word is not something that should compel a throat opening. my throat opens/
without expectation of an other entering. through. and then what if not surprise when they do?/
and after when my tongue turns sarcophagus?: a song?: singing/
black! like mirrors and black! within it saying how here we go again with how the sun did me/
before i was born. how sturdy and taut this sunned-skin is. how apple-mouthed and coffee-bean. here we go again,/
i watch the cars go by my window with great longings of elsewheres. and fear. the red, white and blue flag-flashes,/
passing by glassily and hologrammed in front of me as the question of when, the question/
with the gun, here,/
horizoned./

click. icarus./

A cigarette dangles from your lips,
And from it smoke arises
In puffs and celestial swirls.
Eddies of toxic exhaust,
In the process of a great ascension
To the sky,
So blue.
Black lungs to match a blackened soul.
What truth there is in your eyes,
As if the purity of the iridescence
Was a sign of unadulterated authenticity.
How infallible your arms
To be enclosed in them
Is to be enveloped in radiant heat.
Never shall I falter
In the presence of you.
Your gaze holds me steady
Even in the instability of this world.
Precariously you lie on the bridge connecting life and death.
You don't waver when the wind whispers deceptions,
A ploy it created to drive you off the edge.
The wind's jealousy creates deceit you will not fall for.
I am not so strong.
I come to join you,
But where you are planted firmly,
I am loosely placed.
And when the wind whispers my name
I turn to it,
Falling away from you
And into the vast expanse
Of broken elsewheres.

We jump

to our elsewheres
somewhere
most likely in the stars
beyond sky limit:
we were told we could
were we not? (some
were not, nevertheless we
jumped
because also someone
somewhere to
elsewhere
jumped).
We will come tumbling
down. Heaven some lightyears
away, we cannot
escape it, we are not
fast enough, we cannot
reach the velocity necessary
                            to not
stumble,             to not
trip on our feet, to not
rocket ourselves back
down home (come home
mama cried), cannot
go elsewhere:
world is all that is the case
the weight of it
soft heavy caress
it will always bring you
down, you will
always
skin your knees
         your ankles
it will always bring you
down, you will
always
look towards that
elsewhere
with eyes
light beams
telescopes
film screens
numbers
words
but it
always, always
brings you down
this great weight
not only the Earth
but the everything
that attracts everything
with mass, even you
and your smallness
are heavy enough,
even light and its
flickers
is heavy enough;
elsewhere
is
somewhere
is
home
are
words which grasp
at that thing that we
tried to remember
before our eyes
close finally and

we fall.

such that... life continues... regardless
for concern for / of personal whims,
farces and tiresome tribulations...
i'm doubly drunk with grief -
i don't know whether i'm moruning
or drinking: perhaps both,
perhaps neither...
the children in the nearby school are
persistent in entertaining
a break from corrosion rubric mantra...
the same desolate crow heaves out
a harking a barking an anything
but its original: no substitute...
i'll baptise myself by taking a shower...
i hope to forget taking a ****...
i'll drink enough to **** something out...
the world retains its
objective rigidity and lack
of nuance: death's grip forever "realistic"...
but now i don't care to mind
shadow or bow to concrete
evidence of antithesis telekinetic
stones in an omni- litany of a deity...
the lesser servent is adorned with
its crown - such glorious ruling
of ceremony...
i ought to find relief being a confused
expression of:
hangover mourning -
perhaps i drank too much
to numb the pain:
i drank too much to prevent myself
from tear-kneejerk-reactionary: absentee-,
perhaps chewing on some
peppermint...
hard not to pretend to have not
outmaneuvered death
for a ****** with ol' vanity moi...
in the old saying:
it is, done...
         completely: complete -
ouroboros "tamed"...
               after all: death is nothing new:
no nuance, no glaring need for
comparison: no competitive
subjective strategy -
a barrenness of uniqueness is
this numbing extract -
           if only death were a sentence
unto amnesia -
yes... life continues...
objectively, automated regardless of
what "things" might break...
with its omni- litany:
the deity resounds with
perseverance:
don't tame yourself with
an allowance for
claustrophobic subjectivity -
there are forever echoes of life dasein -
forever new
unfathomable elsewheres...
not here, not now...
     grieve for an hour or two...
but return to something
of life...
and veneer and: do good practicality...
you were not supposed
to express the grace
and pragmatism of a mourning
of a tree:
willow or no willow...
oak, birch or pine...
           far less crooked than
a crucifix to be later adorned
in gold and rattled around with
history like some driftwood
atop plum copulas of arch-nemesis
stone upon stone...
hollowed out by castrato choirs.
here, now... i will listen
to the earth breathe...
as i will call the wind your song
to boot.