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soap softens in the corner rust and wood water falls two cellar door maybe three times while I’m living won’t be many more of that I’m sadly give me sun sure where the skin falls Sunday morning out beneath cloudless blue Larabelle, open air bathe my body in your summer wash my memory like pollen from your hair |
in the desert
untie the knots that bind you
upend the changers’ scales
you are not this aching circle
you are not this heart which fails
Adam’s dust in on your temples
David’s thirst is in your loins
you have crossed the sands to see Me
don’t forsake me for some coins!
for the charm of life is fleeting
often squandered, often bruised
and the one sin I can speak of
is the sin of life unused
Centipede I
diligent segmented process
gliding across
turning
like thought in the early morning
a wanderer
curling up when threatened
trundling across the deserts of our floor
(some species are highly toxic)
forensic toxicologist
i love you,
like dried blood cakes a nostril
anymore.
is there a law against that too?
for a sample of your minky skin,
armadas have gone aground
and trained assassins
have turned their daggers on themselves.
a chained dog,
wracked by impulses,
helplessly sensing
a focused approximation
of everything —
looking at your body,
forensic toxicologists
scratch their heads
and step outside
for a much-needed smoke.
Joy is dead
joy is dead
and the long goddamn centuries
stretch out before me
plastic
uncaring
weigh the world down with a collar of lead
lost in mind games
and vaginas
i tried waking myself up with words
so, so little living
half the space i had before
now the vision
is nocturnal
and kept alive with hope
good intentions
and maybe just a little cruelty
impulse
the impulse to glory is hot
i know, i know, i know,
cause nothing else tells me to grow
do you have a clue where your money goes?
it’s ugly! it hurts!
let me go!
do you find that you spend
too much time, too much time,
too much time
wasted waiting to fly?
you can wander the earth
making love, giving birth
and try faking a smile when you die.
get away! get away!
run away! get away!
get away from this earth
that we hold
it is hungry and deep
leaves us nothing to keep
when we give ourselves up to the cold
when we scratch our names into that cold
wise man
the wise man
always keeps a jar of antiseptic
and cotton swabs
and forceps
and a good sharp blade.
his dental picks are clean
and new
his gloves are lightly powdered
his gauze is fresh
for the wise man never knows
when delicate surgery
will be required
HELPER MONKEY
HAIR-CAKED SCABS
FLIES SIP TEARS
THIS TREE
COOL SHADE
EACH NIT PICKED
IN THE LONG MOAN OF CENTURIES
THEN THOUGHT EXPLODES
A Case of Bell’s Palsy
a certain imbalance
to my smile
was the alert.
like I’d been punched in the lip —
stiffness, though, not pain.
the right side was tight
something was wrong
Bell’s Palsy:
paralysis of the facial motor nerve.
temporary, God willing,
but food for thought.
so where does the mind get off
trusting its functions
to nervous intermediaries
who,
grown fat in their own disaster,
undermine the whole show?
the room where i grew up
had bold child-color curtains
thin carpeting
olive-yellow like the 70’s
my plastic dinosaur models
sat on a shelf
my father built
whitewashed boxes
stacked
two on three on four
a fish tank sometimes bubbled,
a little world with
colored rockses
slippery angels
watched by cats
i would spend myself
at this desk
with a chalk-board top
you could lift.
underneath was a peg board, and
colored pegs in a tray
in a photo i am seen
asleep across the desk
cheek in scribbles
chalk in hand
and at night
i drifted off
to the summer breeze
to the doppler moan of trucks
on a far-off highway,
the wail of a future
too sad and fragile
for my dinosaurs to stop