Painted faces peel off

on the surface of

a bioluminescent river

coursing through conversant

rocks and mud

machinery of ancient calendars

owl eyes in mercury

the hatchet thrown in a fit of rage

circling like a boomerang.

Stars torn by flecks of falling space

the oval frames of one way doors

opening galactic tongues

for dancing mortal blood

a throne of ice on some Las Vegas stage

a glitter cage for gnashing fangs

and wet bone breaking eggs

divinity of dregs and ruts of gold

floating kiosk where the spine is sold

to magic formulas

cold vials of guts with angel

wings branching from turbulent labels

to translucent floors

feathered archways where

the acid pours

black wind on twisted letters

a moon of bedsheets

and a valley in knots

before a red torch

scum oceans sliding over

persistent boulders.

Blades of light cross ruddy canyons

filled with sexual information

and the crumpled wicks

of past days floating

in the stream of death

that they have fueled

and that now discards them

blazing and pointing

to a holographic cavern

coagulating in dark matter and filled

with the dashing and unreal

unmasked imposters in an age of masks

slime filling their flasks

with the spiceless gleam

of our cowardly blood

as the deity chews gum

and wears velvet gloves

cuffs chained to an infant above.

Ink sores on the balcony

eyes watching that already know

soul's fecund octagon in neon raving

with labyrinthine lines

that inch like signs

that nothing's reaching

amber solitudes in paused rain

the fronds and cracking arcs

of geometrically linked geodesic cemeteries

long kisses in a serpentine embrace.

The poisons of earth

and the poisons of man

I drink from a goblet

made from my own clay

the sick tree is still blossoming

I watch the rivers of the sky

tug and move across the immaterial

mountain peaks are crackling with fire

down here in a pocket pool

between stones and slender birches

I am bathing nude as a bird

in the finery of my nimbus

a cyclops with the semblance of a vulva

watches me over these hazy hills

I let the reel run unlike time

a mind within many minds

is painting on walls of waitresses

the sun is stuck in honey

and it can't get out

lend a paycheck to this yielded body

watch the fangs of light retract

into a mist of souls, all desire

decoded by the bark

that falls like paper on water

a dock of iron stretches

over the land to a plush

furred rubber chamber

where sight resides in snakes

that neither linger or labor

the fungal reek emerging later

than the blood and dirt

the wire skirt of droning cicada

beam of lilac on a screen of dying

saviors of a straw man's prayer

for vacancy's exploding neighbor

in the harbor of the fertile dark.

Vacuum sealed souls

in their carefully curated worlds,

masks finer than any skin

legs on stilts longer than any

living architecture, jewels laid

deep in self-made wounds,

wings furling with a fabric

of burnt blood

the seeds of a corrupting flood.

With wisps of imperturbable metal

my raft of pulsing fungus

arrives on time

sprouting screens of old movies

and lactating vines of plastic

bundled around red bulbs of light

snake heads of rising steam

split boards glued to a larger beam

nailed into a slab of twilight

with luminous pegs

pierced eyes on piercing blades

the waving of a peacock flame.

Days have huge cubbyhole shelves

towering over the expanse

of their rising and setting high beams

hot wired lamps in hot wet compartments

bubblegum bulbs that burst like galaxies

out of a nullifying light

from the swallowed womb

made to walk a thin shoreline

eating snails from fallen bark

until the fanged fish come

to fight with my bones

in the vast skull where gunslingers

talk over aimed muzzles

and fire spills like milk

over a pale horizon

these ragged kisses are the shrapnel

of some long departed world

hurled from the shell that was hurled

and strangely wanting

frame glinting from around the painted hole

submerging with its chain of souls.

The sky is vast and violent and

my bones are a chicken's death

I see the possums climbing trees

before and after flying fences

and bouncing trash cans

their eyes are beady and unperturbed

and mine should be too.

Talent is a way to spend time

not some transcendent insight

no epiphany will save you

you have to eat shit and die

like everyone else.

Shapes come out of the dark with radiant form

veins drawn to the height of electric wires

I see hellfire crawling over me like meat

I see the roads dragged by painted corpses

I see rancid thugs digging

with diamond studded shovels

and the tents of steel with proud windows

framing holographic kings

the howling deception of history.

I am a bent hysteric

tapping a twig in my blood

to mark a blank sail

with the harm that stars and soil

have done to me

these trails of healing loneliness

that lead to everything true.

Richness of spirit is smashed

on these waves of shit

but the orb of eyes at rest

rises to drift godlike over all

and sends down myriad mute

dancing messengers

dogs of warless lightning

leashes lashed to hands of fog

bones flying on velvet webs

alone in a creaking town

I see the rubber dome slide over

crackling machinery of stars

behind the milky screen

bricks rotating in spiral torsos

headless beauties poised in antiquity

flags of silk in wind that toils

projected from the dark interior

of a horned atomic angel

dice bouncing in the alleys

where the music surged in painted ways

those fire escape days.

Leviathan drowned in a bathtub

purple vines encasing the old fortress

where stones become reptilian crawlers

gardens gash order with order

liquid walls are open to the sky

in courtyards where the sight of extra stars

blooms backbrain on an air plateau

I'm a torn goner

under the many skins I have worn out

this hand grenade heart is ready

beauties glide bars of frozen light

to my hands that are shackled

to their willing strings

I sing what the sirens give me

bronze arrows ejaculate wombs

palm trees with metal tentacles

the skull is a symbol of consciousness

no longer taking part

I was a rag thrown

into a polisher's bucket

I thought the world was immortal

and my life the key

such thoughts a rag can think

and while I am swirled around

in waxy suds

and taken on a tour of the stars

on the sides of my bucket

weight is descending to dance

on my disintegrating fibers

so let it be music

let it be the crest of a careless day

let it be a swing that wraps

around the pole

without losing its passenger

a caught criminal with fancy

spiritual ideas

shrugging off the storm-carved mountains

and the senseless sun

lips laughing at the center of nothing

Paving stones on bones of rye

nonsense rhymes that never die

the soft spot in machinery's vortex

polyrhythms that live

in reconstructed spine

paths flowing in cool lines across

a landscape of hyacinth madness

strewn with milky violins

fire circles on the vacant hulls

of fallen intergalactic ships

diabolical angelic prancing

in the eyes that vines grow

under magical duress

a pyramid's cone peak

up ahead in the land

of weightless harbors

five fingers from the sun

in a frigid harness

light's miles of unseen matter

hurt blood in a vise grip

plastic antler standing tall

at the entrance of a seamless hall.

Slashed lungs latching

onto a twisted heart

strangling the blood

with stale escaping air

long ruts bisecting ornate houses

with a miracle of mud,

with wings of white leather,

dressing rooms with shelves

of china masks

gutted by laser light, jagged glass

pushing at plastic shields,

void clashing with mechanical aspiration,

huge wheels of human bone and teeth

finally at rest.

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.

What happened to my grace, my

sweetness, my love of people?

They were lost to a field of bones.

Lost to the glint of pearls before swine,

to a hot burglar within my blood,

to aisles laden with mirage

the shine of disinfected substance.

Drifting in mercury letters,

cursed by black sand

on the back of a battered dove.

Beads of worn ivory teeth

trickling over sheet mail gloves

and the milking of barren guts.

Glaze of daylight like a fist

above the green waters.

Vinyl moon above a cliff curve

all the fire this tongue deserves

poured down through nets

of hot galactic nerve

through piercing seeds and eggs of rain

veins dancing with a chill

sublime monstrosity

decked out in prophylactic frills.