BUSKER

Tonight the small city
is filled with broad silver sounds
the older men talk of how
minds failed against other minds,
genius somewhere resounding,

take me to leather corner
gesture toward some minstrel
where'd he come from
tonight the small city is a capstone
at the top of his forehead.

_________________

The machines are shot with a naked lens,
my whores on benches watch
a turnstile of orange crates
and send me reeling to the place
behind flaps of long industrial plastic
where I don't speak

I yell at screens of american cities
and then at all europe--
poison myself luxuriously
at the hotel bar--deep to the side of

the hum of rolling luggage
incinerates personas myriad
to chair the choir,
to whip the violins with boys
who stain the modern air like thieves
and leave piano booths in labyrinth
so powerfully spinning.

The canvas of machines
is still moved by chaos,
but only inches forward
and carries its humps--the ocean
in a siphoned heat washes up
a thousand scoured eyeglasses

we watch each other bought and sold
through bottles melting on pistons--
the warhead's clasp
musicians hold themselves to life with
is teething loose to multiply
among the reeled-up nations.

))))))))))))))))))))

The disguise of a prisoner,
I walk avenue A, this cigarette
doesn't belong in my hand,
small things are crowing
that will always sound
in some form,
silver and brown cross
to an antique ballroom
the town bought back from time
to keep a single dance
from falling into the basement files

Huge, grey eyes thistle over
a twilight room leaves color
a-drip in copper vases draining photosynth
to the shelved touch of petals
stacks of fringe that separate into ashes

Veins in the woodwork, a head nodding
over a rectangle of dust
a napkin from last night folded
in the breast pocket where a pigeon learned math--
planning a waltz
that something flinty in his knees won't learn
though the waist is undulant for salsa
the sidewalk is louder than ever with smokers.

~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~

My kingdom is dirty
with ghosts that rattle a bridge
going to the drums, with a heart's core
pierced by telephone poles
the catholic spires in brick
peak insides caked with scentless pigeon shit
where I stopped to read the back of a postage stamp
half-buried in the wall
years stuck to clay no answer from the blood

My kingdom is chirping like a net
with phony seers who make plans onstage
the lego-placid future
of a yellow infrastructure
the sounds of old paint
and another nun dying for sex
laugh at your fellow animals
but the shore that eats closer to their clamor
preys on your achilles, pawns your fingers
to the neck cords
the body is an ancient device

My kingdom is brimming pale with foul-mouthed prophets
whom we all call by their first names
their shattered knowledge stalks us in place
like a factory standing
my kingdom is dirty with girls who lived glory
in the reach of my instruments, and I'll have it
paid by the ferment of strong wood
the planing hands pool shapes
for clean fits
know the future is free from existence
force nails of blacksmithometry
through the cage of arthritis
his kingdom is mine who makes
the things to ease a day past.

)0()0(

Limbs are laid out on the world
the pinpoint shrinks to diamond hard light
as spirit meets air, electronic water
the furies in space, star-turf

Wings are an extension of thought
the engine sends a passport to the spine
there is always a lady waiting at the airport
surrounded by the magazines of another time

Bathrooms open tiled pools
to tape recorded mirrors
the tracks are going soft on changing earth
winding the city's sex of noise
around a single axle

Wireless bulbs open shop glass glint
teeming with dark stained analog faces
heaven's in the murk
stem of burning and savior of burning

If a panther came into the lobby of my life
shook me out of trembling
and sent a hollow gram of beauty
through the shield of a heartattack--

(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)(0)

Electrical rope binds our dwellings together
our rugs teethed by vac
cleaner sucklings
the dents in a map
flick lights bioluminous

In our headgear we can touch
more forms at once
black lipstick red tape, simultaneity
the cats on the sills
the lizards in glass
can feel vibrato sanctum shriek, our tearing loose
from cornerstones, silent as space weather

As the discovery of dark matter
lifts up a labyrinth of connectivity
our closeness to vastness, no outer
with the harp strings taut of DNA unwound
the desert plain of lightyears
sucks up the narcotic blitz
we took to approach it
and just keeps drinking

/////////////////

Back of the war
streaked with embraces
weaving in out of bomb-time,
on a sidewalk busy with
those preparing to be still

I remember the porch chipped red
in younger morning light
past aunt's unicorns and prism cones
and chimes
every front yard tree
a vine on the watching world's face
though they passed indifferent

Fences and soda cans
salt on an iceberg
mother's soup grows wok size on the stove
the cats are dissatisfied with the garden
fresh from turning
until a mole's head at the fringe of the compost
snaps them away
twine and stakes trembling
around the pod plants
sunflower's leaves when seeds are ripe
the sound of something that loves
near stillness,

I fell into a textbook submarine
but the weather was my mother
I melted in snowcraft
grew hot to the core
trying to freeze the volk out
there are things in the ocean that can't sing
and live blind to their brightest grandeur.

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

Circuits of drained time
toward a basement lovenest
the bottles rattle and the smokewebs
tremble and thin
our mattress is the glove of the gods

This early morning you bleared at me
that you wanted to live
in the fire of life as most live
in the fire of death
or something like that
then you got my blood ready
for the morning's recoil
by threading me through
the diamond that's empty when it's full
when it's empty

The cars of the partiers on the lot
are conch shells where our ears don't swim
we've got a tented canoe
where a radio runs on acid
we walk on impenetrable blueberries
push them with infant hands
onto our nuclear teeth
where the savior of the world
is doing push-ups on a grindstone
fallen side to the floor of a tomb

Runnels of filth green water
from beyond nature into nature
we examine our oars corroded hands
plummet through spaceless gardens
the pods of peas pecking
and latching on our fingers

The lake's lifted like an iceberg
tractor beam sparking high
belly of the ship turned over
the whole lake spills
the oceans show their nervousness
in our looks, we brush the nuke fur away
with twig birch and mentha, tongue-kiss
to melt our expressions
the oceans tilt and lift
in an unfamiliar manner
we break through the living tissue of movies
and master a screen deeper
in the waxworks of rapidly moving things.

(+)+(+)+(+)+(+)

Don't go through the woods looking
for a floating house
it's only beeswax and bitters
you'll need, you're not going far this time
though the torn up days in office
entertainment and dregs
have stitched an orchard plan
into the dirt's stem of your skin

The string of your solitude
balloon held in network
crave for the levitating town
dropped a buffet on the boardwalk
tabled for you to stare
and fight over an umbrella
with a lover aging faster than the bridge
linking cities imagined

There's a nest of white plumage
in an alley wedged shut by births
where you'll lie down wrapped
in tiny languages you do not know
to wait for a charcoal spaceship
or a blank man at a corroded podium
calling the name behind your name
when the cinema that opened your landscape
has closed your eyes
and the music that divulged your sex
has rendered you untouchable.

(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)

Lulled by a curious animal
the hunt is going forward with sleepy shots
led and caboosed by men who don't notice
their lack of luck, or mercury leavings
from the measurement of alternate stars

Ledge of a general shop's overhang
light loving the outline unchalked
of a customer who dove deep in the tar
with a spray of glass dulled
in its design to be breakable

Our haloes shelled open
shovel tongues aglow with coal
what we swallow in comrade rounds
is vivid in her torso
prey that learned to hold in stasis
what we venture to disturb
and are born by

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Overwhelmed by the three tides of sadness
one for not having a woman in your bones
one for not enough liquid no matter what liquid
one for the sucking breath that does not create food

Laughter high and often
on the tiles of shattered continents
will be coming to invite you
out from the property of your name,
shortly,
when you are expertly unready
whether in a vault where needles go to die
or a wall of inhabited wood

Arriving wept
in all the usual ways

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Angels on separate floors
spattered with the movement
of the wound they came through
slide adamantium floors heeled
through sad moppers
watch in headphoned agony
the twitching that eats up
pockets of electricity

Water watch, on stories siphoning
trap of the human body
trap of the bride, watching
from a nylon lobby
doors revolve core of the dying air
parched valentines catch in your mouth
the clockwork of human relations
goes on somewhere far outside

The central office, knocked in its numerals
to the back brain of reptilian feeling,
warming only to lonely women
and the crooked tables
sunk halfway in sand
of the devastated fled
north and south over safe deposit boxes
emptied of the falling sun.

)|()|()|()|()|()|(
POINT OMEGA POSTPONED

Look a fuckin giant piece a money
says one old bar goat to another
tickets waft out the door
lizards in synthesis with leaves
wind sidewalk portals
local soil pack roots of alien trees
innocents come into their shadows
screened naked by tunnels
new light from old lamps,
waning

Tumults of dark doves
from a cleft in the rock
where a spring stopped
gushing
clear water moss lips
retreating
moccasins weathered on the pointed stones
for the bulls-eye climber: he puts himself in danger
for the excitement of afterlives
afraid of the cops on TV
or catching an axe-slit with his palm, tenderly

Someone is filling my windowsill skull
with sprigs of basil, and clover
Look a fuckin giant piece a money

(|)(|)(|)(|)(|)(|)

Ice cathedral and glass
in expensive Japan
someone is dancing a solitary riot
to a solar wind your being let loose
in its jazz sleep
the sugary corners draw rats
ghostly occurrences start the car
dumpsters hum with electricity
two white and black cats
darting out of the storeroom,

Cardboard hideaways spill satin
the death-note left smoking on the clipboard,
a soul dangling in high racks
of aging plastic, tin siding splits
its rails, and opens up into the apple
orchard; we are always, sub-here,
we have always been here among tanks
of tall emergency water,
even when we danced on pottery
and picked the day out of our hair

With the comb of a gone aunt,
banging a piano in a sun-eaten ward,
the confusion of seasons descended upon us
we were unaware, we were picking apples
from limbs of war, grew used to it
filled wells with salt
that would not birth our world over us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the moment you first sensed
the madness of war
or the one time you checked
your body to make sure
the whole machine was still there,
there was trouble standing
in the highest channels,
a whole orchestra stood blackened
for no reason,
stabbing blunt metals
into the twitching atmosphere
proclaiming their superiority to emptiness,
icing the taverns with
pale thought like thieves,
tugging kiosk mid-belly
of burning canoe to sell waffles.
Frost of days, that passed
with every warning

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A switch touches too many lamps
our lonely house can't find the other planets
their gravity draws upon your canopy bed
brings quiet blue fire to the seams
and where I walked your floorboards
naked as a feather now I wear
a suit of armor that can be seen
everywhere people have no need of it
tulips bent from wrestles in public gardens
hang head from green glass rims
pistil and stamen pretzeled
the arch of bridges that never end
even when the river's crossed bank to bank

Black branches half sunk
darkened by water adorned
by snails matched to shade of bark
cousins tread like brothers and sisters in shells
across the knobby parallels
a switch is touched off in the larger trunks
where the homeless slide off their bicycles
and leave them to rust through human ages
to become unused material again

Eyes no longer berserk with fuel or lack
I wonder what foxes might be messengers of
coils from earth like wine
wind around broken limbs lift
body many times born
in a sky-casket
of twigs and rubber
nickels pawed over
raw and ornate to a hotel room
where mirrors of self-sex beam
an image back to places where it can't belong
the foxes pad the doorstep
rubber and coins and cage of twigs snap open
the body falls out like a contact lens
from the moon's beam back in the empty house
the switches ghost pulse
to send you back through all your doorway beds
where I am no longer waiting
for the river to cross nothing.

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

Precariat Dreams (Kali in Old Glory)

Treebuds stainblue cloud
split dust metallic
painted bridges lancing
out all ways strength and wavering
broth of desire births computer work
scaffolds the eating sod
in platform gardens
we find ourselves sitting on state-owned rumps
fall any way we can
out of our bodies bought

The torched parlor
wings through a highway
wide from a flowering branch
the architecture of a silent heart
is vined with grapes of blood
from the wage-slave harvest
servants who've emptied the milk pails
drain cows behind all rolling eyes
and bathe in the doorsteps

We're inside kindling
the fire transcending between antagonists
surfing their weary waves
to the ocean that never falls flat
spine-fingered ballerina
the North American goddess has six arms at last
her big sisters wield
me on a sponge
washing her briny armpits
three by three

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A NEW WALTZ

Dams slide open with the sound of worlds creaking
in ancient wood, dance partners
brush paint currents of breeze
against the arcing walls
they've known to soar up since toddlerhood
the great beyond backwards,
the great below filled up
with rushes of hyacinth and redwood trunks
reel of an old film spooling
faces pressed together in a bulb of owl-eyed light
then into the landscape washed eternal
of images that feel pain and vastly absorb it,
two are twirling twirling
they express the deaths of planets
when they press quietude into round spaces
with their aching heels

Deep in the craftsmanship of richened ages
they met on a long stained bench peeling fruits
the hybrid of which had not yet been ignited,
calling gulls to salt and meat of slender fish
from air's dome of high silver not yet minted
(I know an apartment I entered through money
was once their priceless cave
in the core of a city in wheatgrass
where wood and stone mated
threw open the doors of water stunned
everloving prophecy,
to pierce critics of the ages run down
with movement above time,
swung in the clock's dawn to be caught
before the granite ballroom fades to murk
send your synergy to skies that pinprick skies
and gush us out of history.

~-~-~-~-~-

Jade Comic

You invade funeral processions
your grin an elastic kerchief
on the hair of the turf
senses snapping to charcoal mahogany corners
polished to go into the dirt
and tell your little redhead nieces that
grandma's thorax has already collapsed
then weep on rough roots
take out your guitar to sit curbside
on the public grave
laughing at your family name
and lighting it up

In city hall they know your drag gaze
a whole foot taller in heels
eyeshadowing the mayor
through the infrastructure's silver
of a picture frame, skeleton loaves
and cupcake banjo mouth
of gumless teeth presented
while the pens of every clerk
ooze night-blue ink and dangle wounded
on their dewy chains
damming floods of information
while your gypsy family loots and others starve
sex rains on your torso night and day
but you never unsash your genitals

Belching winds erode
death's face on your sugar cookies
our cousin planets pulse reflected light
down streaming multiform
of your aching curvature
you visit me in my armchair of sand
or the flesh made hammock
of a lazy revolution
I hand you your cum-laced corduroys
send you down to the lake for brown beers
in bottles older than the pharaoh's tombs
you crack them smiling lawless afternoon
and send shards sparking from your molars
your careless being rooted and re-rooted
in the deep indifference of earth.

~~~~~~~

Around a Siren's Armor

We played in mud togas
black water at the foot of a factory
leaf hands slapping the current
pages for a symphony open wide
the imprint of an upturned mouth
on the plateglass of an ice cream shop
three steps from inch-mapped train tracks
milk churning crystals at work
in a fountain up the left leg to the right hand heart
everything jagged for learned love
to foam over the bridge
and burst the blueprint tunnels
with swollen meter needles in the chemical night
where nobody swears in my language
we rubbed newsprint from our chestbones
with a soft blade's knife
and let the cables exercise
the battered light one last time

before the axe on the switch
and the torch in a huge basement
eating cars while our leather and money
frisked a magnet cone out of dry air
sprayed viscera fine into heaven
and shut ruby light
in the stem's door
of a vagrant blueberry
next to its cousins the cobalt pebbles
skyscraper come to the eagle's foot
where it pins a pair of overalls
once the greased sex of a paid worker
to lie down in torment cardboard
and wake on the dock with a hospital soul
a body fizzed empty for weekdays
split open on calendar ends
when it walks bridges in twos and threes

Where it watches from sky's eaves
parchments of yard cut ragged
low green bright gold
against darkened sections of forest
the pink and violet planets are lining up
all a solar system's heat
and still your lips are frosted
a man with a large bulb lit helmet of head
picks his wife in melted scarves
from an ancient hammock
antique plastic rope tattooed twine
on her body of bodies
he turns to the twilight socket again and again
never carries a kitchen and bedroom glacier
severed horns of ram and wet blacksoil
arteries toward
the vented underlip of a mushroom cloud's
simulacrum fertilized by the doubt of death
and the gripless life we lived
in its mechanized shadow.