Sad centipede of gleaming brass grandeur

strange visitor of salad haunts

leering from darkened glass

at the foot of a mountain's milk crate roots

machines humming with madness

stacked flowers and their stalks

the whole scene a banner that is always leaving

I stride the steak-fed conveyor belts

between jagged perfumes

calling to the sacred calendar that's gone

like a soldier fallen far in lilacs

I leave little notes along the ropes

in this gauntlet hangar

hoping the web is soaked

with edible sleep

and the petals are stroked

with a sound of falling embers

in the red part of the pet dark

swamps crowned with high ornate

cathedral space ships

and an arc of file cabinet tombstones

around the articulate scar.

Oceans of prickly pine dunes

lines of radiant dye adorning pale ditches

water tracing falling planets in the galactic

starfall.  Memories cranking

in the worm of consciousness

like a new set of metallic guts.

Sunlight burning up the skin suit

paths growing from the crash

of a spiny pear on receptive pavement.

Settlement edges nudging each other

like fevered limbs bereft of nest

long pipes in convoluted configurations

to draw the eyes of the depths

the fissured beauty of the abyss

the navel of a golden idol

spouting holographic scrolls

of interstellar maps.

Planes of granite library cliffs and ledges

connecting like the unlit lungs.

The wellspring of dust

at the root of my tongue

alleys of storm washed days

shining with moss struck fire escapes

the glitter of frozen water

on fingertips of pensive statues

beams leaning on antique doorways

mice-like people in their furtive stations

still laboring under the fish eye light

the boat-weight of accumulated feathers

flashing hunger at a ringed moon

while the fences lean

to a pale center of gravity

and hot coals rain out of the mouth

of a high metallic tunnel

still smoking in the funnel's blades

that have opened from my dreams

bronze cacophonies made round with streams.

The blood path

through the desert calls

the air rides

up to a secret channel

beads of shrieking flesh

are baptised in glittering rows

with oil of mercury

strings aching in the meat heart

of a desecrated sun

spinning discs

bounce off a frozen chicken

and distribute acidic letters

lungs fall in resounding buckets

clay is combed over by blades

and made to sleep in the oven

for a handprint's shade.

Curlicues of browsing cloud

carve doors into the earth

where I descend and kiss

the figures hacked in stone

who move slower than

my fading companions

melted by the ooze of the present hour.

The eye of shifting galaxies

sees my hair in the well

a star mangled from

some gone flesh

and does not clench at it.

A painter finds me in the coining void

I reach for her dishes

in their rind of echoes

and her penetrating brushes

the wide metallic vents

sweep all appearances away

but the signs and their scars

remain.

Glass dancers are ringing

bells in a frosted glade

stone streams

and their dribbling fragments

of fragrant water

the bridge rails in broken dreams

a cloud of carefully arranged cushions

the offices of educated madness

in dead fish light

the delicate wires of colored fabric

dragged through delicate streets

orbs rise with eyes uninhabited

scans of the light that can burn

ribbons of thought police blown

from thoughtful air conditioners

scum flag flown from the pyramids

a froth of sabotaged speech

acidic on the planks and rays

of a monster mask melting on

the final wall, a fist of curling halls.

Rags of bitter light

torn across the hillsides,

tombs of stacked and lettered linen

tongues breathing on tormented waters

the seasons distilled in limbs

that work a sarcastic machine.

Suds gushing over roots

that have let go their plumage of offshoots,

scalps piling up on rock

that peers into the brain.

Bells drifting over strings

in the dark's heartland

violas giving birth to chrome

tar-smooth paths

with a gird of roses

climactic deaths leading back

to a sinewy egg.

I write the poems of a demonic lobster.

The bows of colored light,

the filth of life,

I am stained with it.

Slabs of waxed wood float by

with rows of discarded shoes.

Branches speak in harmony with water

rocks in a ragged line

leading to a solar waterfall.

Time's broken, it can't

set up camp.

The traces of cathedral ribs

recede into the bedroom's rim.

The prayers of shifting outlines

float and thrive

through the sexes of unmoving shrines.

The first leaf is

a web of hives.

Fried walkways

with wax leaves glinting

hero of the big

grease trash can,

grinning desperado

glowing with the salt

of disintegrated worlds,

staring upward from many graves

many bright rectangles

fevered sets of eyes

that have never gone out

doors of light ripping down

the machinery of night,

switches flipped that sing

to long indifferent cords

while soft lamps

are smoking and talking,

black crows cawing

on a spliff scarred windowsill,

chair turning

in a polished impossible void,

the sun as a rose that never moves

is a death I can't fake,

the steel of days down the drain

paws back to my loaded cell,

I can't leak rays on arcs

that bend in the rain,

my leash is frayed with travel

on a torso ranked beyond

somewhere where hot dogs are cooking

and coffee is cooled

on cuboid embers of locked water,

I am sitting on a crate

that comes to lambent ooze.

Burning bridges decorate the night

the stars excrete

drippings of twisted firmament

the paths of tainted light

entangle trees and grasses

the rubble of civilized corners

where the spirit could briefly glow

eating static from decaying particles

electric vines with many voices

drowning each other in metallic water.

I joke with a scarecrow

I untie many disembodied boots

shelve books with varnished pages

letting the silence eat the threads

that are buried in quiet blood

and unattached sacraments

gone bleating in the chain linked void.

Another town rips through my stomach.

A ring of metal spires

rises through a pool of white paint

spurting volcanic red.

The sky sheds its alphabet of skin

the desert sands comb my head

my eyes fade into stone

and look out

from a dream of nowhere

fate snoring on rubber wheels.

Yellow leaves laying

on a land of pine

with no sentient spectre.

Vein that yields

with its flow of grasses

clustered cattails

bursting with webs of

cold renegade light

bent fuzz of a northern blight.

It's a cold blue afternoon sunrise

in the irrational afterworld.

I multiply the silences within me

but then they fill with figures.

Their eyes and limbs light up

with the symmetry of Earth

rough hewn in its untender circuits

bone with its mask of flesh

holding bone to bone.

Still I hang on to pages

crashed by music

and the last great

grinning ballerinas of entropy

wedding rosary stones

to a seamless sky,

their pierced authority

akin to mine.

I watch the grains of matter

split open like hatching eggs,

ant heads with demonic helmets

electric humanoid bodies

the pin-up for a skyscraper's ribs

while I make the missing music

unseen by these marauders

for now.

Ice resounds with reluctant light

in its finely petalled slices

maps of the love that was spent

its many pillars and frozen waves.

On the cusps of many agitated ripples

the pull-strings linger

like the tassels of fallen angels

multiplying in a spoon of earth.

Beams panning over empty waste.

Playful clouds dancing on magnetic girders

between abandoned trails of time.

Reality is pretty, but eternity is very pretty.

God makes the streams outrun the dancers

while the ethereal banners separate like smoke.

I am mated to the pines

that climb ruddy hills,

to magnolias shining

through years that fly like paper.

Lines of salt vibrating

over doorways crossed by peacock souls

through the restful poles.

I refuse the ersatz blessing of purity.

Leaves of an alarming freshness

dangle in the air where

the soil was tainted.

Leaves mingle with the lines

they paint on the soul.

I deny the ersatz offering of deliverance.

The sky's veins dangle berries

of sweet celestial blood

to the willing mouth

in no other world.

I deny the ersatz blessing of sanity

gently, at the hour of the blue door,

in a yellow headdress screaming my name

to a nuked and sleeping mirror,

with the beauty of an ending

staked out through an imaginary path.

Dark angels painted with milk

thawed quick by lightning veins

that strike from imprisoned cores

elaborate fortresses

of tie dyed hair.

Bulbs rising from steam rolled walls

eyelashes of sharpened steel

emerging from a cube of steam.

Plates of rattled lands

shimmering with eerie microcosms.

My hollow hand and yours

severed at the wrists

gripping what was missed

by vacant bodies and a gone mist.

SUGAR IN THE RUINS

Colors dripped on a fallen chimney

glass blinking in shattered fragments

with the stars that have fallen slowly

on black water's lit nets

and soaring rows of apartment porches

frozen leaves in whirlpool walls

around the crumpled bright machines.

Let me fuck you in the channels of the rain

let me inhabit your black shiny hairs

with pinpricks of attentive kisses

reverberate between the pines

and the reach of their needles

eat the tawny blanket

and the chains of delicate luminescence

let me fill your ass and show you who I am.

AMERICANO

Black rainbow of night

show me the electric

letters and what price

sell me the ascent over death

in a blinking basket

paint me with intelligent ashes

cast your swift ironic spell

Green skies

where the ultraviolet's warped,

bodies painting stone

with bloody sweat,

the churning of fruit-filled angels

peeling landscapes

down to atomic backdrops

with their maggot teeth.

The webs of the cracks

in hallowed ground

are home to me now.