_______
}{}{{}{}{

Through the riverside thicket
I see a dim star, a distorted milky way
the deep behind it
the rough light won't make the water fade
all the factories have stopped blinking

If I can see my errors
in going to the store, and the emptiness
of all my hellos, all my
I'm doing well, all my worship exhausted
on the shore not yet licked smooth
why can't I step out of this path?

It rustles to fragment
it shivers to join the regimented maze
it leaves stones in my hand
that I picked from stems
and a marriage certificate
to be burned in the far corner of a parking lot

Through the winding of the water
I see the scarecrow in my clothes
signing check after check

}{}{{}}{}{

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Pigeons puff dust of seasoned salt
a cage of cameras
wielding institutionalized bodies

feral cats perched in branching air
teeth at the wind's edge to gnash
or grin at what pours over the sides

a childhood rain from a stadium ceiling
the crystal of civilization
where dead conversations graffiti the mind

when the country came too close
we held hands and jumped onto its forested boundaries

where the street's become a cage
she's an ivory-smasher
seated on a glacier's child
back of the dream she organized
my head will go bald in this room

she's a day-reducer
a full tub of evergreen fingers
my life performed in a nimbus of burning money

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

FINISH THE WINGS FOR MONA LISA

The song of the cicada has to be the epitome 1,000 times its own weight
of the stunning: a red lady
the wafer-thin bones of the face flow of energy upward
the twisted stamens of blooms that have long called the watery planet

the smell, the stab of the thorn, you form a pianist, a marksman--
the moon once baked in constant mesh
twisted skeins of hair energy in a flood
a crystal of copper day duplicated on earth
fluoresce through its black paper wrapping
and five billionths of this flocked to have their skulls read
elite among atom-smashers

+=+=+=+=+=

>>><<<

The ruins of a bird's nest
cotton from cigarettes, crumpled straw
birth's viscera, and the leaf-stems
of sacrificial trees
our efforts

You can find me on a floating porch
next to the highway where the creatures flee
in rubbered steel, to their deranged holidays
I'm not waiting for flesh on flesh
only to be removed from the human circuit for a moment
only for the animal twilight

An aborted hand, a ghostly unfinished ribcage,
small enough to cover only three frozen knuckles
on the back of my wishing right hand
to carry all the vacancies to empty plenitude

We are the gnashing grain
in the glades by the side of the tar there is still room for us
to stand and wait leering in whistle grass
trunks groan, artificial light goes down to the harbor
to be reborn in reflection

>>><<<

~-~-~-~-~

From the womb, the sun slammed into him.
When he began to think
he discovered he could not stop.
When he moved without, he moved within.
This motion was pain.  He looked for a day
that could cease, and when it came
he pulled all the other days
into its crater's pool.

He dumped out all his cups: where does anything go?
He burned all his blueprints: the structures rise
somewhere in the twilit outskirts
of the same aging universe.
The saviors failed him; he failed the saviors.
In rooms they talk, in open spaces
they speak and speak: language is mostly shield
and rarely pierces.

He took all his precious things and mixed them
with household trash.
Nobody dares clean in there, but they glimmer
even as they regurgitate darkness.
He banished himself from the only realm
where we continue to live; and the living
is freshly questionable.
And it seems he did not escape: he is lodged
deeply within--intermittently without--
uneasy as ever.

~-~-~-~-~

~~~*~~~

When freshly caught
cleft beyond the eye
hung by the hamstrings from the beauty of machines

I often see parrot fishes
a mass of molten silver and sun baths galore
our approach corridor
after a road connected it to an azure sea

water like the blade which is a static force and does
and the song is wafted down sweeter and fainter
the weight of the volume of air
and so soars and sings until he fades from view
in a hydraulic cylinder and a series of pulleys

~~~*~~~

~=~=~=~=~

Some paper gods and human cells
up against the values to softness and rolled on mats
the violet plant with its five
free from animals and vegetation
up to the very walls of the government and to the tablets
the form of a hollow sphere silver-spotted

divides leaves into leaf to the seawater as the outer ones dissolve
the process a dark, coppery red to be gently bell-shaped
on earth the weightlessness of black wings are white barred
pyramids of round fruits discard the white tendons
should space not be curved
locust, clover
the moon will become the gateway

~=~=~=~=~

{}.{}.{}

Just look at my tapestries
not my trapped face
alone in a rip tide

I've been an organic factory, churning

alone in the printed walls, there is
a creature free of system
a sung form waiting

we live in an internal sea; this ancient area

a tufted network
and lies behind the breast bone
what ties an atom to a neighbor by the lens

I felt the blood which is being battered
force winds back across understanding of crystal
to decay somewhere in the north

scores dead, thousands of homes and buildings
the body can show little more

{}.{}.{}

*.*.*.*

of the clock merge at mid
the day increases; as the sun orange-red with white patches
only as a tiny disk dissects lightning
so that you do not fall into the descending streaked with white, both conditions
among the dead, and there to erase like a bridal gown

nature is always the same rocket powerful enough to land a human
a large doll walking his dock, radio noise erupting
one big terminal across another part of the tower
the railroad's private microwave radio network the divine purpose of all things

wind pushes out electrified atoms soft colors of Jupiter
the mirrors, the mirrors--I am only a spectator in this priesthood and soldiering
unknown cosmic rays--one of the angular, with few visible scars, and
with a space-walk laced the continents over many miles, flashing messages

*.*.*.*

*.*.*

The macula unlike a movie screen
with its unmarred surface, prepared quartz

rivered with veins and arteries, and in the padded cabin
he once hurled a glass how long is a second

a committee of the motions of the heavens
star clocks alike in winter millions

*.*.*

~~~---~~~---~~~

Within the time which is near within the time which is come
pictures we have of the landscape zigzag as a dish
ultraviolet as cloud decks move
from sun to sun; there was no time to think to transmit

they sent it in puffs of smoke, in the sound, in the flesh of metal or mirror
pulsing through their thin metallic nerves to root for the thighbone
as a glowing band of light the ear unites with

Brisk bay winds dust the furniture for relaxed living
machines bring into our living rooms invisible waves, flows and forces
machines extended our muscles into a vapor--which even a dead universe
will transform into something else

A huge hollow in the clouds which stirreth not
a runaway greenhouse in a new cycle
a mass of shining, spinning earth-crossers sweep in close to us
a small iron core wrapped in coils by men in power
an unending roar of thunder thought of light
the passage way of force

process of a star at a saw-like edge
like uncollected garbage, in aging cells; encores without end

~~~---~~~---~~~

---~~~---~~~---

Plastics that dwelleth in flesh
set unruly waves--save by the breath--
the mystery of the firs in order

man first took to the air and they are still in a single town which lay beyond the magic
couplings, the rhythmic chuff
the starlight on the rail data from deep within an animal
the commerce and the passions of the nation luminescent in color

dogs, bells and saliva
the aurora borealis

---~~~---~~~---

"""""""

The marigold at 9
telltale flashes of light struck by alpha
disorderly and as shapeless for all its wonders
as the aimless flow of sensation after a piece of event candy
a small glass disc coated with zinc a roadbed made with loving
currents that roll the nodules in a cloud chamber
sea creatures that shove to a screeching, honking halt in the narrow

Earthmovers take over in gangs themselves begotten by impact
engineers follow every stream, the phenomena of heat is motion
our mode of operation is zero there can be no division
made to order a city from the inner earth
coal, air and water have an opening

These high antennas and a timekeeping flower
of the convolvulus where it will hit

"""""""

<.><.><*><.><.>

An evening star was a fire-blackened hearth
lattices of timber falsework in the polar regions

the hoofbeat of the iron horse to the core of their being
in all her glory; and she had smashed the nitrogen

eyes on the nest and eggs of this spur to the space age
delicate clocks in control rooms across the country
the days of cast-iron sheathing that coils and uncoils

A morning star and a few bits of iron
moonquakes burning glass on a wax tablet
artificially frozen reflection of the nonexistent

clean-lined towers earth hugging houses
you are beautiful, you are dreamed of glimmers
over the old ornament-free steel slung across the gorges of

your cries, for I have walked the formation of networks
and main streams of ancient floods
dry channels hinting

<.><.><*><.><.>

::::::::::

Dust of a hot room through the veils
engine is heard in the sky
forming a gateway for the beard and eyes of steel
from the rainy bottoms to the frozen tops
outnumbered by droplets

These deadly coils stronger; and the strong field
and the driller has to drill much
the earth makes the winds swerve
send energy to our new executive
keep our office running

::::::::::

THE EMERALD OF THE UNIVERSE COULD BLOOM AT DUSK

Blessings of a distant waterfall getting air from a stone
comers in a rich gold field the power and beauty of working machines
the arm of a single bond to its neighbor and galaxy the patterns of life and society
I beam into place
to yield one pound of shellac which shall go to war no more

observation deck is crammed with wires, reels, magnetic tape, computer circuits
equipped with a scoop to pick up water beyond the limits
I know we are accused of providing few thin slices of Portuguese cork
Bolivian asbestos for residential zones, there was little noise and no filth
this day shall bring forth the gold from the crying of night which is called the ethers
in all its swiftness those youths, I'm afraid, are clear, current flows through a vanity cushion

and nostrils of flame, and the power beneath your legs
surrounds you and exalts your calling and vibrations surround every world
I am come within the blueness of it,
to be at the hairdresser four miles from home that this day
the mighty fortress unto the uninitiated
order, a new system delivered to the flames that you cannot see
for its power is felt which is felt, they fear this day
arranged, tier upon tier, empty of reasoning born one after another

no oats or stable space unto thine true identity
scenes deep in the black forest closed the valve, and at the same time drove
furnaces, clanging anvils, clattering drop hammers, pounding
it was water--and the waterwheel--the telepathic thread
his hell grew new mechanization never to be in worship
her flesh was scraped from her bones with church on the planet of another star

<<<.>>>..<<<.>>>

BLUE DIAMOND SHINING MIND LACING A THREE-WAY SWITCH AS A CAMERA

The nadir of the iron horse leaping lakes
and that lady of chaos and across her north-eastern
vein or midrib the train is impossible
plasma over the oyster beds
to red hail to read a railway
wetting the shadow and the petal the space in his house
movies, poetry and ballet black angels at my cradle
flee from the mouths in disarray
mass dancing, mass delusions roll into his life
a rubber-tired horse that he will ride
a journey in slow time to the end of all birdcalls

}}}}}}}}

THE AUTOMATED BRIDLE CORD AT HOME

A skunk in the dashboard
before the hamburger and milkshake
to mold one perfect, unbroken
stamina in a light bulb
into ice crystals; frost coats
on every cooling blade and leaf
memory's sorter of signals to watch the waxing and the waning of that silvery
one way network tucked away amongst the weeds
essence of a room filled with rich black spots compelled me to paint her
smells of leather and wood and the superb, mint-colored seedpod

You have been the living dead because all that ever was
books and dust, draperies and animals
the swarm of entities that came tumbling out of the omega minus

<.><.><.>

THE SHAPELY FLAME AND FROST OF LIVING SKELETONS

Tissue-thin discs of radiant energy--visible light,
vents of the whole world
under the influx of the stars
breath is double;
a hurricane caught hydrofoils
a hand-punched hole
they passed through it
to the mercury beneath

Among these are pulsars
new objects in the sky
a cross-shaped radiotelescope
bits of stars
have broken off
intelligent beings somewhere
if this happened
light is a strange color, quite unlike
light from anything else

Many are radio-waves sent out by stars
in striking and killing
it may at the same time strike others
tight flocks
con whose colonies exist in a togetherness
smoking iron monster
who calls every evening
when they dip into the third dimension
our computers are activated by thought
the mother ships are thousands of shining souls

<><><><><><>