My days are ghostly bulbs that float

through the pulsings of

thick veiled afternoons

in the tide of stones

I'm a turning utensil

in dreams of dripping light

I fly above painted roads

watching tunnels dug up

turn slow machine somersaults

men's bodies tied to churning clocks

and women folding chloroform cloths.

In the cracks between ransacked calendars,

in the pools left behind by receding darkness,

I trim hedges that hold fortress doors,

I pile up hordes of spirit-tongued vitamins,

I watch the fan blades articulate

unceasing circles, in tubs of zinc tubes

I rinse the blood of brakes

on dawn's awareness,

I swing the chains with vacant hooks

for all the puppets who are gone.

Branded by the brightest blades

goblet brain dripping with

nuclear paint on the patios

of smoke-linked cafes,

the lipstick-smeared kisses

on cracked brick porches,

high ladders with Buddhist banners

trailing off into the talk

of an abandoned night.

Vines crawling concrete canyons,

birds clacking in the iron ribs

of a snaking overpass

footsteps of the lonely

on an egg-stained cemetery ridge.

Trembling walls of painted grates

wherein the gnashing teeth make song

strings of fire and dripping tongues

lashing at the cloud-soaked sermons of grease

from bearded waifs with poor faces

eyes of solid red in turmoil's flesh

the flying bones and brain

of the distinctly human.

Spiral staircases into empty air

glint like frozen milk

and separate the thunder

of a great thaw

bright kisses of burning lips

upon marbled brows,

thin waves of the dying voices

that tried a caught raindrop

of spiritually illegal color,

faint droppings on the page that flipped

for the pulse of a glowing cellar

to grow throne shroom cathedrals

with vortexes spiced and leaded

the upthrust of breathing stones.

Dog face scowling

a grizzled walker

drops envelopes of burning

heavenly light

to anoint the winding tar

a denim dancer

in a globe of floating wheels

gears grinding that kiss the lips

of faded immortals

offshoots eating gravel

and spitting out pearls

guardrails sparking with satanic beauty

the flick of a frenzied painter's brush

the order of fractal chaos

bronze wings capturing the eye

a tail of poisonous mercy

head sown back on

fresh from the chopping block

bright tongues from the injured neck

developing backup singers

and hot electric singing axes

a tin of baked saliva

encrusted in an ancient mouth.

CHICO MALO

Forelock of a snake

guarding pineal prescience,

slabs of scriptural weight

farting ink through bright

fractured tectonic plates,

head covered with the blood

of hovering angels,

the support of terrible

reptilian columns

roaring underneath

his rattled bones.

Gas tank of the infinite

cut off and burning by a thread,

these helmets of misguided mercy

falling off like wool.

He licks the bridge with a long

recording tongue

and the glue of spit becomes

veined radiant insignia.

Satan represents courage,

cunning and genius.

Satan represents humanity,

the fountainhead of humanism.

Satan stands for revolution

against tyranny, against

meek mediocrity.

Satan stands for the sexy flame

set against the void.

His downside

is the downside of everything

imploding into raw space

like an ecstatic dancer.

His voice is the voice of Bob Dylan,

cawing into eternity.

His face is the face of Arthur Rimbaud,

James Baldwin, Garcia Lorca.

His face is the face of Abraham Lincoln

glinting from a fresh penny.

He wrote the Constitution

in the name of a distant God.

In the egg of an inspired twilight,

in all the amphibian details

of a looming fog.

Fur of light on heavy clouds

the power of the wind in harness

pushing me higher.

Poles linked by talking wires

running spirits from valley to valley

an alphabet of signs in water

sand in the fingerprints

glinting from contact

with so many lands.

Drums in radiant circles

heat that eats the rain

before it hits the ground

two nude encircled shadows.

Lanes of the never before

explored

opening many

vacant heavens and howling hells.