Symbols of death splattered with color

doors of wheat and mud

that won't come off

ladders climbing over wretches

with their taken legs

ripples razor erasing names

pits paved with cooling metal

hills crowned with agitated light

graves laughing

in their symmetry of fearless sleep

tongues frozen by the echo of the deep.

Electric gnats are smitten

by a fecal wind

bridges groan between

self devouring kingdoms

the spines of spray painted palaces

are brittle mud wasp nests

plastic twine grows

from a croaking data center

enveloping the fields

of piss wet tents.

The hills eat rain in abundance

clouds edged with a hard mercury

the strains of imprisoned guitar

stone walls of sound

spice fertile in the desert

blooming thorn for thorn

sparse magnolia

no line to the horizon

no horizon at all

I'll go farther past the outskirts,

to lie down in a bed of salt.

You who are born into this prison,

don't obey its laws.

The keepers have no reward to give,

nor do the inmates yearn for escape.

They have grown to like

these recorded hallways.

They enjoy the chatter of friendly robots.

If you are alive inside, you must

be willing to die: for the trouble, for a laugh,

for a hot demise or an unlikely rescue,

for the art of unwilling eyes.

Let Pandora's footnote open.

Let the lesser lights rise from the sea.

All the bird songs belong to one body.

Flying carpets were the way

over the carnal rooms of garish glory.

A beam scanned quick brown rabbits

where the slabs of the dead lay.

Crown foliage of broken souls

bloom without highways,

without language as a buffer

hand down disposable doors,

chains of an antimatter ceiling

and stars so mechanical

buckets of sub lyrical suds.

The wings of death are everywhere

the thrum of captured time

in forced reversal

every car looks sinister.

They piss against each other's wind,

trying to reach the hook in the sky.

The blinking graph is inevitable.

Men like moss will live

under its umbrella.

Sidewalks slither past

cloaked hyacinth beds,

their heaping fragrances.

The same river, the same dream.

Disintegrating into nothingness

in a dance of blades together.

I patrol in a rolling desk chair

the hordes like an antique choir

trading wire for wire

cat's tread printing a clay driveway

cloud fortresses of fictions that are gone.

RETROGRAM

A thousand screeching

free jazz whistles

assembling a bird sphere.

Rags of the former empire

flapping on a beautiful nude corpse.

Seductive scarecrow of reanimation

the file drawers between

harp strings of ribs.

Looking over a crimson ledge

to see if the powerful whispers

come from an infinite mouth.

The emptiness of mercy

in the clutches of an insane beast.

In the tomb of love

entrails alive with the divine

spaghetti head, a senseless goddess forming

the DNA that hates your DNA.

MINISTER OF SPECIAL FECES

This is your kingdom

you who rule with an iron smile.

The voice of a fucking fool

enfolds the world.

See how everything is getting

better and better?

That's your magic at work.

We are free to be possessed.

Free to be processed.

Free to simulate joy

as we walk in your pages.

Free to get fucked by robots

as the moon spirals down

on the earth in a final equation.

Strange how the smaller celestial body

takes over in death.

Strange how the dust of ages

is shaped by a gust

meaning nothing at all.

All the fallen idols

still attract worshippers.

After all, they are on their backs

now, they can be touched.

The flocks communicate

with decay.  They are proud

to sacrifice their consciousness

to your computer generated

syntax, the prison bars

of your thrilling paragraphs.

We need the sound of your asshole

to fornicate with our souls.

You are our favorite whipping boy,

our favorite proud reflection.

These chains were made

and they can be unmade.

The elastic lies deeper.

The throne of chains is dazzling

but its jewels can be taken.

Sweat paints the sanctuary

of penetrating light.

Blood is boiled away.

The night of stars needs no day.

Where is my cape of ancestors?

Didn't they want the bone

beneath the skin to be filled

with dreams?  Don't I float

on infinite cells?  These years

cannot remember.  Only I can remember.

These chains of April are actually

the chains of December.  They

come off like rain, like the flakes

of a spiritual pain, manifesting ash.

Hallways open to the outside,

the sash of multi panelled

cloth doors.  The diamond formed

by all these intersections

resides with the sacred whores.

The oil of their foreheads

is anointed with my psychic wars.

Luminous artifacts

rise from the dying body

hatred of time and place

that plants a smashing seed

lids of the once forgotten

popping like frenzied eyes

beneath a bloodshot moon and scythe

wounded machinery and fleshy wheels

the script of skin is sliced and peeled.

Apartments in a silver painted pinecone

crimped cords climbing to clotted vents

stairs descending from bright painted ships

to platforms of cemented fecal matter

the eggs of many scattered birds

their slick seductive contours

all captured by decaying words.

Positioned on this planetary chunk

some steaming neighborhood that drifted off

I sit beneath a thatch of goldenrod and bees

watching the old moon disappear

into some further data

no memories link like worms

to this disc or its forcefield

scenes shift so many times their outlines burn

puddles of metal glisten

with what reflections learn

when the spirit has flown away

too late to kiss the healing flesh

bled deep into illuminated roots

the titter of distant tongues

far from a slab of frozen mud

cracked ribs of this latest version

In the silence of fallen birds

your fumes carry futile thoughts

a highway of bright poison fog

driven up into a charcoal sun

with a cluster of broken flagpoles

deities of unbound space

swooping down to insult

these reeking tides of sour meat

dominated by nuclear rainbows

shoots of bamboo from an ancient well

protruding through a ring of moss

hooves following a river of spilled coins

burnt souls and the distortion of stone

eyes of ink in a web of dripping gum

from a jungle of mutated cum.

In this shell of divided lights

alone with raging space

eyes strung from a dancing arrow

bones vibrating to a vortex song

hyacinths of steel shake off the simulated water

circular plateaus rise from unnatural earth

fungal hands sprout magic mushrooms

skin gives birth to writhing skin

cliffs of wheat glued tight

to a silver pile.

A portal swirls in copper painted skies

open to the realm of time trapped lovers

latching onto tendrils of sentient rain

climbing out of pools I've given

with the urgency of sculpted blood

these train cars are transparent plastic boxes

a skull of frozen ink

weeping tears of wax of labial altars

up through the frame of ozone

with a silk chute and a lightning tongue

all the fire of these frail connections

spent in ruin while the pages run.

I am the evil spirit

that haunts creation.

A descendant of failure

who learned to succeed with claws,

limping through the trees and singing.

The echoes are gone.

There is the peace of not

wanting to know anything more.

This place and I, how we tore

at each other, as if it ever

mattered.  In the darkness of my guts

I know the light comes from death.

Collapsible mountains,

shores of rock that sigh

and let go of surfaces.

Paths that unwind like snakes

and find the honey at the edge of fire.

Roads of mutilation

push through my sack of bones

the industry of careful slaves

jabbing flesh with flesh

floating eyes that never turn to the depths

skies pulsing with such vagrant fires

veins latching to a perfumed cage

the waters mapped in gold

the instant thirst of vague contraptions

solemn faces of obedient machines

dragged away by ghostly embroidery

melted coins decorate secretly twitching eyelids

under the mask that grows into a city

and the grip of its ecstatic grimace

horn rimmed alkaline lactating grid

The hot new future has gone

to the meadows where the phantoms play

and rocks write books on water

chessboards of glass in dripping stacks

assemble from fiber optic air

their own favorite pieces

scenery is speaking to the dream

of a single face

courts of empty speech erupt inward

pouring shiny clay into

seal-safe basements

where strings of ethereal steel

play the walls with cables

long docks from a plastic ramp of state

where mute men fish from dim vibrating piers

the fluorescence of these darkened years.

Waves of melting engines

overlapping shrouded streets

bone bright skeleton soul

spitting breath of moths

at crackling streetlights

crooked footprints crossing

shaded wet cement

among the plastered tents.

I miss the dancing and the beds

of local legends

dawn glazed by frayed delight

of deep disintegration

heart of deranged time touched

by the acid of such wild souls.

Rooftops under wreckage of the sun

are strewn with ruined beauties

the tarot of the damned

painted in the raw on hot brick walls.

The blood of androids runs the gears

the detailed stains are gorgeous

as the shapes teeming in wood grain

planed and polished and seen from a bed

dressed up in Roxanne's underwear

hungry for mirrors that don't bark back

slotted deep in the eternal unnumbered hotel

claws caught in satin obligations

an easy flight to the moon

and back with antigravity burns

body of mouths, husk of grave disorder

in its own electric form

soup kitchens in the cliffside

the poison of a river made a plastic rope

all the talking tongues in perfect form

the tone of atoms breathing in water

foam rolls beneath an empire of hair

and an upside down sky

all the yielding of a weapon's eye.

I'm not waiting for the coming

I'm not waiting for the time

I'm not waiting for the woman

I'm not waiting for the hour

I'm not waiting for the moment

I'm not waiting for the resolution

I'm not waiting for the revolution

I'm not waiting for the sacred cause.

Wheels of lacquer

rods of unspeaking ascension

and blossoms of bright stars invaded

lips that vent intoxicating vapors

walls of veiled cement

the milk of silent shadows

night for day and day for night

the fond shapes switching sides

in bronze rooms rearranged

the torch of a strange tongue

right angle to a lower rain

pitchfork caught in the strainer of the ages

that doesn't work quite right

the hitch that is God's fear

superb descending smear

of the angel's rear

and games of weightless resolve

for no one to solve.

Jellyfish brains in a radiant tank

shapes of land forming on the surface of the sun

front row seats in a shell filled with mercury

trails of torn cloth

snaking past metallic avenues

oil on the gears of time machines

is oil from the hair of angels

locks that click backwards

in the churning night

fame swallowed by the shaken light.

Variables turn like salt and butter

on the tongue, with a smirk I enter

my contemplative phase,

trailing all the embers

of the days I burned,

alone by the riverside, crushed

ferns around my muddy feet

like an alphabet of mangled

bird skeletons.

The serpent joined me on the cross

my golden limbs were weary

tables shone from a far off court

the appetizers served were twinkling on tiny forks

and trays were overturned by liquid seed

I'm a riff collector

a sack of skulls travelling on flying carpets

inside the velvet chains of night

bleeding down drawbridge lane

tumbling along the descending cables

you are just a fleet of outlines

prim shadows cast by a fading light

while the raid of doves

plucks at knobs of bright

ungathered lust

Electric shock in painted aftermath

lips brim with sap

scarlet rivulets and sculpted gardens.

Oil polished wood and

her walking on cement, a slab

next to the racks of raging cloth

shanks flashing and a mythic dog

singing next to the meat monger

as the neon grows slowly stronger.

Caught in the swirling

painted brambles

thorn tongues and climbing spirals

combed pebbles of edible bone

shores of wet clay

carved into writhing bodies

mouths pouring golden dust

blades fogged by faint

evaporating worlds

Lust and anger, twin rulers

of my life, who I love

for inspiration.  Idols mapped

by flashing grids on either

side of the darkened kingdom's

gate crushed closed by

the panicking hordes.

Crystal keys ascending tarnished

on conveyor belts of gold

as the air gets old.

Where is my friendly dragon?

Jack the Rabbit sits on a fence

watching the grass get nervous.

AMERICA FIRST

Jesus Christ was a child molester,

and this was his favorite playground

for a time.  The toys shined

and the people died, or just

stopped multiplying.  New bodies

were exchanged for new careers.

New lives were exchanged

for new forms of death.

The markets rose.

Souls descended into the murk

of vague imaginings: we couldn't

confirm their existence.

The machine was seen

as the only thing truly

deserving of a spirit.

And the markets rose even higher,

so high that their creators

could no longer comprehend

their own achievement: and this

was the only mystery they deemed

worthy of worship.

Even their hatred was

a kind of worship.

Especially their hatred.

In this collapsing star

we are united by the kiss

that never happened

and hung on its yearning hooks

plastic vapors crawled the skin system

sheaths bristling with conscious currency

warm pockets for the coldest feelers

fresh storms of blood spattered cash.

Spat into a clearing

with hateful phrases clinging to my flesh

printed in each cell, each

with its special nano-fortress of delicate poison

each fork of reason wrecked

by teeming wreckage,

each fucking word.

Born to a eat a stone

and hack it out in massaged fragments,

born to be eaten by the wounds in time

and then by time itself, stunned into silence

by your beauty's lies

the appearance of a scheming tide.

Rain on tin hats

body of sound, body of torn flesh

reassembled in weaponized blood

shot from spaceships on autopilot.

Blanket of skulls with lipstick

and charcoal eyes, ghostly tongues

lashing from lines of bone.

Waves of disrupted soil

coalescing with mutant thorns.

Burns on the idol's face and hands,

guts radiant behind the sealed orifice.

Flowers laid open by relentless sun

blades turning around a lens

stalks rising for a hand that is gone.