~~~~~~

I love your dark dark
blood rich, Miss so much misused
by Massachusetts

the residue of a forgotten affection
coats my being from head to foot
and the sweetened horror
and the mountainous edges
melting in a wealth of planet light
hurl my song of water and sleaze
into the thinking air
and will not wait for propriety to shape its passion

you are an angle in heavens
that scorches the nearest bulb wall
and I wear its scratched fire
and I wear its silence like a second skin
and I wear its wound and its wig
and I wear its obscure image gleaming
wherever your body is absent and my eyes dry up on the earth.

If I could speak to you in the voices of every epoch
I'd woof time is not between us
all that can be discovered has found
a rift unknown to open
it is only these many fears of flying
the force of our division from a naked rib
which split along three seams
which split along two seams
which split along one seam
remain closed and do not release

~~~~~~

~`~`~

Magic is illegal on earth
and the false burden weighs, falsely;
light conveys to the bearer of light nothing,
she who visits is not the inertia of other planets.

There will be a merger of flesh with plastic,
there will be a total absence of ethereality
the cosmos will not lay back
stunned at all our beatings
and now that even the dark art has departed
alien are the inheritors, sacred only
are those who go up in flame alone.

~`~`~

[[[[[[[[[[]

Here in the earth's half-circle,
inadequately cloaked.
Semi-world's dying on the comma
of the tongue, the language of the body
in a grid of freezing snakes,
fur on the last ellipse
in a dying dialect
scythe-rings of a reachless planet
night moving apart
without resistance and without eyelids
watching the sky-hoop close over
vulvic magnet snowcap dawning
here in the earth's full bulk
still dozing

[[[[[[[[[[]

>>>>>>>>>>>

To see you in so much pain, brother
my teeth hurt from my skull
for the metal casing in which you live
hesitantly inhabiting your hard bed
your room of wood and glass
too high to climb down from
where the walls freeze
you are attentive to each common animal
to each fractured sun
you heed what comes down hard
and what rises frantically
I have a cesspool in my jaw
for the terrors you inflict upon yourself
so casually

>>>>>>>>>>>

THE HIJACKING DANCE

I was exiled from the woods
you were the queen of metal town
I was the king of the apartments
you were a runner of diamonds
which I never cared for
but your hands

ghost rivulets run
across imaginary planets
turn wheat to the air
mesh wants with desireless void
hear the thousandfold tractors doing nothing
as if we could watch each other's weather
over torched surfaces
shovels bent in rust on ditches' sides
water flowing that we wish would stop
and the airlines that move their tortured cables
into all this with the moss that beckons
and the railroad failing
and the subway coming through the wet soil regardless
and the appointed time for the moon to crack
the music of servants who slept on knives
while a short-lived camera shaped them in buried caves

I was the con man in your rearview
pretending to grin
you were not driving with elegance
it must be said that a restaurant exploded
it must be framed that we were at the centerpiece table
gleaming with the beauty of partial oblivion
waiting for one another to eat olives
from matching glasses

there is an end to the telling of memories
there is an ellipse in time-sheets
where even the softest gaze flickers out against
you who play with gods
you who make plans for society
tell me you have a name for it
so that we may laugh at one another

you were the mother of rulers
I was the father of no narrative
our war was mixed in with the lovers
a short-lived camera shaped them in buried caves
their blood on the reach of our splendour
their movements tethered hard to our cessation

we sat in separate beds on the same earth
warily eyeing each other, searching the spaces around each other
in a deep forgetfulness of windows
you were the queen of the woods
I was exiled from metal town
smiling

.......

A dusty diamond cluster cracks and blooms
between a pigeon's shoulder blades
on windows facing windows
in a narrow alley
the universe crushed into the 3rd floor
trembles with combs in hands
to skim cobwebs from feathers
pull twine from bones
take down time's fertile curtain
lightning pulled from the clock
a towering sorrow, a neutered phonebook

.......

)(()(

To the depth charge in rust
under the shine of the harbor
she is swimming powerfully downward
without a mask
with no jewels in her eyes
just the kindness of a creature falling

her fingers ringless trace in time
the boards preserved in salt
of my ship's bowing side
her ringlets uncrowned
spill life on sand her heels have trod
I'll rot my treasures open in the tide

)(()(

ROB THE PROPHET

His lower legs were melted off in a fry factory
he lay in bed longer than sleep toward birth
he began to have visions
to manifest and project
persons not yet arrived who would make deals at night
in the bulb light of his hollow room
he watched them changing
in the fog of their own presence
and he drew them out
led police to a broken-bridged ledge
broke his heels on the jump off
broke their eyes with his landing
broke the dream with his life of the world's ending

~ ~ ~ ~ ~