Splinters of smashed armor

fumes of evaporating blood

from beyond oblivion

the rim of a cracked plate

glinting from an open door

knives hanging in rows

from the night's horizon

logs floating downstream

with the features of laughter

to the rings of a distorted place.

Solitude with cards of steel

pipes twisting the suckled headpiece

a beast driven out of the dark by winter

with a scrap of light torn on his face

giving passage to the bleeding of the air

flowing over orbs atremble and

the levitating slabs of distinguished sleep

unknown sisters and brothers of a lost root

cliffs winking with cherry couches

bones collecting on their cushions with jewels

all wrecked wings of a single body

stem raking an embroidery of scales

for a flower that failed.

Red threads of light

through gray clouds flashing

sockets pouring snakes of stone

forked tongues of a giant eyelash

planets push volcanic lakes

docks running over fragmented miles

oceans of sand that glow like oily fur

and the wind wrapped in unseen wings

the plinths of exposed foundations

scraped bare by an emptied

annihilating mind

capped poison sending filaments

of frenzied gold

in ransacked water

bubbling hallucinated tools.

Dusty arrows

lose their patina in bitter air,

flying over scented aisles.

As they land in green sod

they tremble til they're living bones,

their feathers become eagle wings

that unfurl dropping juniper berries.

A pressure washed porcelain demon

walks furrows of crushed bramble

across the bird song of ancient woods,

planets overlapping like discs of molasses

gashes deep in stone sleep

the trickle of inky pebbles

catching electric reflection

bronze heat of eager faces

awaiting the machinery of day.

The star within the star

pours its red milk of fire.

Shores recede from bathers

who are making love, their light

enters the water.

I see a whole ancient temple

at the bottom of my coffee cup.

It is not yet in ruins,

cornices shine like daggers,

altars in front of circular thrones

conjure faint electricity,

a blue fog wraps around

my crown of paper reborn as metal.

Soil is sweetened with feverish seed,

dripping from a dark valentine

skin jeweled by honeysuckle

and bronzed by a lunar beam.

The trees blown back rattle

like tinfoil and ripple like cream.

The map of happenings

is silent and distilled

inactive as an unobserved electron

all the roots in one fallen petal.

I walk back and forth

in a house of ice

trembling at the blades

of electrode rays

that come through the floorboards

casting all my dreams

upon the wall

taking me to ships

that cross the caverns of the earth

the soul speaks in old books

lost in the rhythm

of a classic record

all the tombs are turned inside out

a voice flies up like a flag

above the colored waves of sand

above the sheets of metallic paint

the ghost of my bones is in

these harvested hills

nestled in their question mark green

around their wearying waters

what flourish do we bring

to the dance floor of all erased rails

black lights on a blood blue door.

Curves of light breaking

on my body,

lifting me into the realm

of the remembered dead.

A sidewalk paved straight

through a celestial sky,

birds of sound without bodies

scattered from the throat of God.

To where the blade is speech,

and me in acid rain

the lonely remainder, bereft

of all companions in the glow

that our kind make of night.