From the darkness of a midnight corner
a sudden gleam - light on a shiny surface      
wet where everything is always dry a
lump of something darker than the night
huddles in a heap against the plaster
broken by the jackboot toes  of time
rushing through to other places
There is no definition to the shape
that quivers but does not ever move
or shift the silent air with breathing

From the corner where no light invades
the shadow of a recent battle
hides the echoes of the last defeat
and muffles cries for help to come
and blends itself into the blackness
that’s both transparent and opaque
presenting as a silly fun house mirror
changing all perceptions of reality

In the murky gloom that dominates the corner
keeping time to music no one hears
the marks left by the whip are hard to see and
seeping red drops fake the look of ink
The half closed eye is leaking little rainbows
made from seven shades of ebony
that fall and ****** on the carbon floor
as the clump of misery refolds itself
in ever smaller, tighter packets tied with screams
that ricochet into the vastness of forever.

No White Knight or Unicorn
will ever find the corner
The spotlight of humanity
sports a burned out bulb
The gentle hand of kindness
is rolled into a fist and stuffed
into a pocket of uncaring.
The corner was
The corner is
The corner ever
more will be
             ljm

Age is a timeless prospect.
Youth refolds into a thick mold,
Heavy and demanding
But continuously folding matted knowledge.

Forgiveness
A steady, strong suit handed out to each player
When it's true form is the rarest form
Of acceptance.

A fighter must be as sharp and as slick as a blade,
To be as critical and focused
As a bullet leaving the carrier when aimed
But not as deadly.

There will always be a balance
Nature runs on a cycle that all fumble on
In the arise of dust left behind;

In its presence
Becoming lost is about as natural as the cycle itself -
An obstacle can be overcome
In the way that a challenge lights a fire
In pride,
All must accept;
Smoke clouds are blinding
Having the urgency to defend
The drive to push harder may as well be lost too.

In the midst of a cloud
A branch could very well be a snake.

That floating feeling,
On the blurring ceiling,
The lonesome dealing,
Slowly breathing, around three o'clock.

The shortening thoughts.
So warm, but not hot,
Soft licking of paws,
A light feeling of awe,
Sheathing of skin,
Breathing akin,
Silence heard,
Flashes of her,
Visions seen,

A wonderful dream right around three o'clock.

Aweful noise, surprising shock,
Body jerking, a look at the clock.
A squint, a gawk,
Realization, around four o'clock.

A wonderful dream,
A wonderful reality,
A possible world, around three o'clock,

The story refolds,
For the mind does mock.

The matter of things and how it came to be
In the mere sight of the plight of a bee
We grasp with the thought of thee
Of how uncertainty became a plea

If I stand on earth, what shall my use be for?
Answers to pleas, keys to the door
Nothing is definite, like a shore
Yet we continue to voice and roar

And that’s the beauty of human nature
The things we know are no sheer stranger
Still, There is thus far greater than common scripture
And the search for truth would be an adventure

Behold, the power of doubts arises and upholds
It waits, in self, and for the world it unfolds
And for the records of millions, it withholds
The continuous and further truth-seeking in refolds

She walks into the room
where her husband sits,
deep in his chair.

She stops for sec to smile at him.
He looks up and says "What?!"

"Nothing. Jeez. Go back to your paper."

"What the hell is it now? All I said was 'What?'"

"And all I did was smile. It's a habit. It was the way I was raised. My mother would always smile when she saw
me come into the room. She was happy to see me. So I was just smiling."

She feels ready to cry but refuses it.

"Fine. See. I'm smiling. How are you? Nice to see you since the last time, what was it, five minutes since the last time I saw you."

He shakes the paper into order and pulls it in front of his face.

Quickly and hidden, she gives him the finger, slips into the kitchen,
opens the refrigerator,
and stands there.
Shaking.

She shuffles around, tying to find some use for her being there.
She twists the faucet knobs tighter.
A tiny drop of water clings
to the faucet's lip.
She refolds a hand towel,
pulls a loose fringe out,
rolls it into a tiny ball between her finger and thumb and walks
to the other side of the kitchen
to throw it out.

She stands above the trashcan,
holds her arm out straight
and drops that tiny ball of fluff,
as if off the side of a tall building.

She stands there and waits
until it hits bottom,
leaving nothing to chance.

Beyond genius
  the spirit flies
Beyond genius
  the mood decries
Beyond genius
  no courses rowed
Beyond genius
  all time disowned
Beyond genius
  the map refolds
Beyond genius
   a world untold
Beyond genius
  the critics gasp
Beyond genius
   no serpent asp
Beyond genius
  the telling stops
Beyond genius
  no on—then off
Beyond genius
  all sight and sound
Beyond genius
  the square is round
Beyond genius
  no lies are told
Beyond genius
  what’s new is old
Beyond genius
  the heavens sing
Beyond genius
  —that final thing

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2015)

linguistic ******* as the emergence of furor poeticus
  :: out of phonetic oral *** comes lyrical transcendence


  /
acacia thorns pierce the skin
while shittim pierces the veil of the perceivable
as golden incense weaves across the sky
to a sanctuary where we unwind space & time

prophet's write of the vapor turning on lights
and horns shining in rays of synesthesia

magi mixed herbs under the desert moon
which mapped a path through golden the sand

bundle's of wild harmel wood burns
as sparks flicker & dance with stars
in a moon reaching bonfire

under autumn shadows
in the harmonic hum of the aboriginal didgeridoo
drifting on the streams of wattle-seed smoke
  gazing down as the earth unfolds and refolds
            in a cymatic origami cardtrick

out of the soil grows the ship
which flies above the starry skies
fruit of biblical implications
with seeds of knowledge
& keys to ghostly dimensions

    //
Thomas Aquinas
& Meister Eikhart shared the same eye
as you & I
peel wide the smokescreen
& spy through the looking-glass used by god
  which saw god
which was the eye through which the son of god saw
& wept at the stale state
  of the collective unconscious bots
lost in spirals of consumption & mirror reflection *******

this is not the godless wasteland
advertised by the screaming anchormen
    fear-mongers & alarmists
who sell panic by the gallon

with electrodes probing their temporal lobes
the prophets & shaman's
are in the asylums
labeled as ******'s for their visions of angels
& demons
& messages from the god's

an amnesiac species
chasing the neurochemical highs
shaped by evolutionary design
as a means to survive

barrel of monkey's biologically
swinging about nuclear powered technology
        alienated
that far removed from nature (forest. desert. ocean)
planning to leave the planet entirely


    Om Mani Padme Hung
    OM
    Om Mani Padme Hung
    OM

[untitled]

today I was outside
holding my son
and hummed
into his neck
a man
resurrected
to faint

-

childhood
animals
deeply
unhurt

-

this machine can detect silence

this stick
if stones
are gay

~

[tenderness]

it is there
in the way
my father
refolds
a single
grocery bag
for a cyclops
that never
arrives

~

[having a disabled child]

means:

there is a tent
being studied
by dream.  

missing
more than snow
the ashes
of snow.

footwear.  and checking
our food
for holes.

means keeping
dry
a diver’s
eyelash.  and leaving

to finish
absence.

~

[jesus]

an unhurried ****** whose character development was orphaned by ghosts

~

[high-dive. dusk.]

as if any father
could heal
a cigarette
or remove
for a grey-eyed
newborn
the stitches
from a dream
    
~

[mother praying for two]

tooth fairy gone to salt

shell of a bee in an empty lamb

~

[/ yyyy]

doll burns its tongue on a teacup breast

at your abuser’s
costume party

~

[later meaning]

my eyes meet in a tunnel beneath the museum of things that belong. sister moons the moon. mother she buries the ironing board of a crucified dentist. childhood starts at the top. the painter of stomachs eats from a footprint. egghead shreds a pillow in the madhouse of snake.

~

[eremite]

the frog in the hood of my coat
has I’m sure
a later meaning.

my brother is on his back in a field he calls helicopter.

I know my father’s mouth
by its embrace
of doom’s
unconnected
dot. there are sounds

I can’t make. like that of a boy

squealing
as he rubs
a toy tank
under a blanket
for a god
whose mother
a face

could love.

~

[highs]

eardrum the airbag stomach of a lonely doll

brain
a blue
parachute

~

[handheld]

somewhere between satellites and baptisms

grief
the daydreaming
thumb

~

[days of bread]

the image
crucified
for its lack
of focus.

the loud music
over which
you hear
make
your blood.

the weakest
electric chair
this side
of moth.

father’s grip on a rolled-up magazine.

crow laundry.

an out-of-shape
coat hanger. & (and)

the news
that my nakedness
has died.

~

[possessions]

i.

chew toy
abandoned
at the throne
of old man
scissorlegs

ii.

a claw
from the lottery
of hands

~

[promising]

the girl wearing a scuba mask is not on a skateboard. this, after all, is church. I see what you see- the writing suffer. I’ll wash, later, a pair of black socks from the minefields of the one we call birdbeak and you can be the puppet with a needle in its arm.

~

[last names]

he cracks the motel room door from inside and ****** from wasp to spider to spared cricket.  he can smell the baby’s back as it begins to burn a hole in the pocket of a bag-headed hitchhiker.  the earth is 42 years old.  a car in the lot below moves over a body and stops.  the woman in the car is ******* a tooth through a cigarette.  whatever god put in her cake is almost gone.  

~

[for Eric]

I’ve held dogs as they die. vet’s office, 1993. a bad dream is a nightmare and a good dream is nothing. is a dog’s rib. I get an idea, here and there. design the same bathtub.

~

[lost grass]

eat loudly, mouse, for still I have my baby blood. loudly else you become a fish. else I jaw ear

from the character actor’s god.

~

[clarion]

heaven is art and hell the artist. regret matters only to the creator of regret. brother hops around like a drugged rabbit. headcount is the nickname given by sisters to the outhouse built on a sandbox. an ambulance from dogcatcher’s dream puts the hurt on a flickering cornfield. our cellar is a mirror where thunder goes deaf.

~

[for daughter]

in a wordless dream I’m nowhere near anyone I can’t be.  my dad’s mirror passes out.

~

[untitled]

snake
is the best thing
for snake.

I know you’re sad.
like a yard, a vandal, a roof.

seeing the future
takes time.

~

[laity]

the unmarried wind will comb its hair in heaven
but for now
in the Ohio
of the weightlifter, that odd
follower
of stillness
who built
on roadkill
tornado’s
church