Abrupt

For awhile we could live / where the air blew rumors /
of trash barges up the Hudson / and helicopters pounded against the dome …

Dr. Phil was angry today. / We talked about my feelings /
which I thought he wanted to hear. / But the man kept shouting at me …

The world blinks. / The world blinks
and it is awake, / awake in the dark …

[An Opera in 3 Parts at 4AM]

The poem I will write
Will blow your fuckin’ mind …

“Watch,” he said, and he was digging …

“Jocks only think about sports, nerds only think about sex.” — Revenge of the Nerds

communist sperm storm consommé-ting
soup rite seed time action …

Argyle socks, cozy stoned cats, / lick the ankles of my beloved.
Running through the Texas night …

(with apologies to Joyce Kilmer)

[Sequel to "Fire Sale in Saṃsāra"]

[How I experience shopping.]

[An A-B-C Poetry Challenge, a la OWLcrkbrg on thisisby.us]

The smoke from your sacrifice / Galls Heaven’s nose
Black fire grinds / Into sky …

Nobody knows / At night my eyes shoot fire;
Padded cats slink skeptic / Past this frenzy …

[What the quiet might be like.]

[Written for the Pentalogue Poetry challenge on thisisby.us.]

[Fractal haiku]

In Mexico a baby’s crying, crying,
In Calcutta, the cattle step and groan. …

What was rich and alive will become flat.
What was only jelly shall stand and walk. …

I do battle with the ego / It parries every thrust
Absorbing all my anger / In orange plumes of rust …

Ash is in the air …

Great green stalk of life
Kindly deigns to coexist
With us pink humans

Now begins the slide / Into darkness …

Part the leaves a little / Grasp the hanging pod …

I close my eyes against the flood / but have no eyes to close. …

Ignore the dreams, / they are confusion:
the devils’ chorus, / urging change. …

I was your guest / it was your wine
where’d you go? …

Pink blush of the happy young bride,
Gone in a distant ship’s whistle …

microscopic multiplying, / great shapes nudging towards becoming …

darkout / and moon scrape the sky …

i don’t believe that anything’s impossible

The sound of metal on metal.
The sound of metal on bone. …

oh, when we first met
you told me that the desert would reclaim us …

Now the sun burns the waters / clears the shredded sky
and peels back the skin / of the exposed …

Eyes gleam in darkness want to kill us
Pierce our air-conditioned haze / Our false bubble …

yes i remember the place / and the taste of your throat
down the tracks through a hole in the fence …

Your wars drag rust across the planet,
leave stains of oil not erased by rain …

Hold me in emulsion / Freeze my nights gone by
Give me back one moment / (He whines before the knife)

[A limerick]

[from a conversation with xrew]

The Crone whispers in confusion
Vocoded incantations warping matter into mind …

i threw roots down on your rocks
blown where no seed could go …

into an abyss
hissing with broods of unhinged / regret …

In the sandstorm our metal tempers,
while the flesh decides and steels / itself for rage …

This photo has an overlay / In the dimension of flow …

the incandescent night / is not peaceful …

Out! Out of work –
The workers leave their folds …

[Song of the Naughty Little Mermaid]

it begins angry / a ghost
gold around the edges …

In the factory / wafers gleam in their cages,
green like the carapace of beetles …

Cake-fed impotence / Snores, dreams in gold
Wakes, coughs, shivers and farts …

quite possibly / one could pass through life
unscathed by the blade of confusion …

across the deserts of the floor / up the walls, down the hall …

Garlic bread on a board
Old wood counters, etched with cuts …

meet me in the stochastic light
lasering through shepherds on that hill

Open wide / Say “Aahh”
Say “Ow!” / Say “Oooh!” …

soap / softens in / the corner
rust and wood / water falls / cellar door …

untie the knots that bind you
upend the changers’ scales …

diligent segmented process
gliding across / turning …

i love you,
like dried blood cakes a nostril …

joy is dead / and the long goddamn centuries
stretch out before me / plastic / uncaring …

the impulse to glory is hot / i know, i know, i know,
cause nothing else tells me to grow …

the wise man / always keeps a jar of antiseptic
and cotton swabs / and forceps / and a good sharp blade …

HAIR-CAKED SCABS
FLIES SIP TEARS …

a certain imbalance / to my smile / was the alert …

the room where i grew up
had bold child-color curtains …

I ride with the children of Judah
on subway cars, / past fish markets …

a breeze cools me / sun-blind before
a sparkling fountain / luster of heavy power …

Elysian grove, pink petals bright,
With twisted wood, and dome of light …

You are the keystone and the axis
pole of salt becoming word …

Hominized / Wild fragments in communion
Harmonized …

It is easy, / in the season of renewal,
to take a greening twig for a sign …

Some are silver, some are cursed
Some do better; some do worse …

Wood darkens into night
shapes of houses, soft …

FORGET / TING APPLES SUCK SKINNY
DOWN-AGES / OUT / HANDED NODE …

snake not striking
umbilicus / amber linkage …

Salt shore, / where the seaweed grows,
and the tide kneads life / slow …

Bushman on the savanna / shaking a rock at the sky
Words like desperate fingers, dying / fumble towards him …

This bird’s grating squawk
predates the rusting of springs …

what words, in turtle shells
arranged / like ruined obelisks …

Let me be Human.
Give me the vision to proceed …

Old splashed shadows,
Feathers, on asphalt, matted …

I left myself on the beach,
with towels and shoes, a book, lemonade …

awake on the street / my fellow dust
the lines of Eden sag from overuse …

There is increase today
I see myself fly
past row upon row of ordered neatness
Desert beneath me, papyrus sands beneath me
What day is this, come upon us like the end of words?
The sky shakes like a frightened lamb
While the letters unbroken slide
The whole sky is shaking
and I am so small
A drop in your ocean of sand
There is [...]

Can I really claim this mind? / This matted den
I call it mine. / But why? …

Thanks to the Mother
For her sweet red gift …

My grid / Extends to the seam
Between land and sky …

You tunnel holes in the night
Write songs for excuses …

Agonizing angel / Beautiful girl
You were sent to torture us all …

In time they’ll come with hammers
And board up all the doors …

Stolen moments / You failed to control.
Torn back by partisans of time …