Masks carved into the hills
clouds brushing the globe
gardens pouring out of the ears of a dead man;

pools in the foot printed ditch
a blueberry burst on the palm of a marble hand;
an arrowhead driveway

stumps of crouched and smashed bodies
watching through eyeglasses
that time has gouged into their skin--

and the glimpse of innocence is strange,
it dims and drags like rag dolls
all man's weary agendas,
and takes flight into a helpless ascent.

Dancing through the flicker street
little broken librarians
smarm unraveled in the smashed limbs
of immortal trees
big square mailboxes filling up with rain
driftwood porches and hazelwood eyes
the gentle who are punished
and the cruel who get to carry their pride
footrests in moss
cushion for loins and headrest of water
spirit on a hang glider of blue silk
open to the forests of fallen eggs that it falls on
in the quiet of country dreams

Warblers who made a net of noise for one another
throats cut, nobody calling

A raft of leaves
against the sun
a path of film expanding
feet bare to stone and glass
vague guitars landing
blood puddles all around
the ice on the conscious mind
skeleton blades gash the river bottom
canoes come pouring out of the mud trees
fully formed crowns of twigs
sky-depth hum of water landing hard
on the shattered bridges of a whale's body
stump hollowed by a lunar shaft
left dry in electrified daylight
roads staked out by the trash can
bus-beaten travelers to a frosted kiosk
wind workers searching their shins
the refrigerated tops of easy burdens
mountainous backsides moving
caves of my torn clothes
rooms of torn-out pipe
sharp shattered tile
the blaring stereo stacked on rags
the lonely room flown through
the trees and branches
armchair kicked and taped
the zone's unpainted walls

Skin ripped off and stretched
across the globe, vast trees
and shards of continental plates
pushing through pores,
disheveling the expensive angles,
painting the broken skeleton
with magma, twisted fauna
and muddy depths, that hold
the scale of a blade
whose penetration will never cease,
whose handle is a shadow
and whose edge was filed sharp
by the movement of one
looking for a womb
whose stone wheel
was faced backwards.

Spotless vacuum taking higher
the orbit of the empty
cracking wooden mouths
to run tapestries down
rings of heat in the mid-air slump
encircling bone-broken wrists
straightening hands to reach abyss quicker
light scanning the ripped face
jaw drumming bone
throat cracking in searchlight haze
ears plugged with infant fingers
the face a cabinet door
swinging open on empty bottles
closet's backless cracks

Rudderless traffic,
smashing into a soul
that does not want it.

Eyes peeled to the intractable perversion
of truth and beauty, clutching a mirthless butterfly.
Claws indoctrinated to the cliff.
Forests chopped and piled
in the space of a painted letter.

Ruts of tar holding the core's adjustment,
center breaking its masks
to vomit on the earth.

Ocean belly to spindle eyes
a pathway of cages
walked with skull balloon
bumping hovering metal sky.

Strings in the blood that crumple
on contact with the outside shields of air
ancient barriers scarring dark material.

Steeples cloaked in wax paper
plastic wrap needled by the hour hand
cornerstone smashed in the earth that moves.

Running light that pillages
empty canyons of quiet
to a bone gazebo
the children of one's death
gnashing their yarns of spittle
on a drifting bench.

Haze of droplets on the skeletons that walk
bursting into a strewn alphabet
panels against the sun
stirring the cloud laughter
paths winding out of the sky with stuck shoes
arms on a departed harp
stones in the satisfied light
puked hand in hand
vent's maze in the necks
shoreline's moving razor loosened by leaves
little spines uncurl above stems
drip mother sap to father floorless bundles.

Parties broken up over the long hills
whose voice whips through the hairs of my ears
from the jag of ridges
to winding patterns honking and honking
ropes sunk to the floor of the sea
flag's staff drowned naked in the thick of the woods
attics prickling, organ and harpsichord chords
fake flowers in greening water
where the lightning bolts flow in heaps
crane-size ants eat rubber piles
triangulated scum pops outlet mouths
worlds of melted sugar
and a tooth of soil high
in the wave falling.

Roads torn through the human form
accessories abandoned, aisles colored
with smog and vegetable light,
frame shined in its unmultiplied self,
ready for the bulb scan,
that goes into the bicycle
criss-crossed garden.

Chewed sky and thrown-up clouds
constellations dripping with smashed scaffolding
fronds longer than the continental mouth
blossoming over the head lamp
shadowing shields of glass and after-party kissers
meters ticking in deep and shallow lots.

Shutters whacked by released rain,
eyes harnessed to the horizon rip,
rudder taped to the unseeing stem
that runs and makes his many opponents.

The buttressed walls of the pint of milk
add a panache to this spot of industrial earth
finer than face powder in a freeway of spaghetti.

Slates of bitter stone
foot soles glued to the cranium's
nonsensical aperture
narrow tongues in the ripped
tubes of destroyed ears
flicking fiber optic tendrils
that peel from a steam roll
caricatures of blood
in mineral veins,
that inhabit an advertised body with ruffled eyes,
punctured heels and concrete lashes
storming a pebbled run with scraped ribs
and machete hacked chest, the wheel in the belly
split like a folded rag
and a thimble smashed.

The head full of snakes
traces the birdbrain fragment
in its skull to a harbor.
Decks wobble in the undertaking.
Ropes kiss the flesh
that pushed their vessels off.
The body's recorder brushes hooks
and eases up like wind.
Many lassos pull the legs
of a fresh dinner.
Monuments of proven clay
clamoring into skin.
Windows clenched in their hulls
like the sheaths of infinite eyes.

Apart from all this for a moment
wondering if it is possible to live life at all
without playing the fool.
Seeking wide, solitary windows,
the company of sightless leaves,
then silent branches.
And a pal said, if you're going down,
take a notebook with you, I want to read it.
That's what it is anyway, she said.
A magnet seeking locks to untangle.
Days on the china pony that won't move.
Stuffed animals paid for with tickets of metal.
The sky claw dropping drinks and meaty favors.

The idol eats until he is transformed.
Until the space he traverses becomes
a frame that's aimed at him.
Others are transformed
by his consumption.
They are the mouths
that open to be eaten.
He consumes more and more of them
to change outfits and be posed
on the surface of their things.
Full of their mouths, their emptiness
and openness, he is paid
to lose control.
His love and hate is their excretion.
They live to harm one another
and celebrate his success.

Maples tap to tap
send stone messages in blood

Sleet on the high peaks' canyon'd rock,
duels with mossy sticks and leafy gun-shapes,
features sanded with salt, glass cut to fit
the edge of the fire-pit,
a melted slide on the ribs
made crooked to smile a trash can mouth
down technicolor taste buds a long wood's shine
scorched by glove-handled wells
the snowbank gut rot catcher
rhythms with long tracers
and plastered streamers
from the mountain's blood.

BARNACLES GROW TALL AND TEARING DOWN WALLS CAVE IN TO LIFE ON EARTH

And the observant tree dweller so cruelly besieged or so torn in adobe dust

contrite but ankle-deep in blood, up the hill of winged heaven

astride the dismantlement of the main dominant Babylon religion

mid-June until fall frost on her African violets to kill aphids and skinny frame garage

coiled green rubber globe, the cities contain stately lakes--

elms, small well-kept yards, the birdbath grape arbor,

golden horses on the roof, the great dome restaurants, muffler shops,

and some stopped by in loose white blouses and leaned down, holding their hair back

the brave little skyscraper of my stucco bungalow

the loneliness of blocks of furniture under majestic archways

Laced with purple rock floor after floor
sliding like a deck of cards into quiet dens
the tool shed arms rise in speech defending
the chestnut chest, the numb lips, the botched teeth,
the threatened headdress torn curtains on dawn
he dancing an air conditioner
he gone on spittle
he eating a radish of paper
stewing at the library of sounds
milking a vegetable Sunday
ice booth around the holy body garland
long rods to hold the leaves of books
petulantly in place.

Broken light at my back
bridges jumping arcs
flights popping at the neon orphanage
on the scratched mattress
and eating in the flash
a groundhog, a high unit
of fog.

Broken light at my back
pushing cars aside
dumping libraries into the sea
that I dive after,
coming up kissing the plow
for no reason.

Time was reeling after us,
we caught it sniggering,
we beat it into submission.

Big ceilings drip with animal heat.
Our stimulants are stirring their deliveries.
The burned-off tips of swift tongues coming back.
Posterior vibrato on the lap of a sandman.
Solar system's parking lot sighing from the cushions of dogs.
My spunk on her hot white teeth
we lie down thighbone to thighbone
and resuscitate the webbed manacles.
Tinfoil chimneys wheeze cursive avenues.
Potted pines gulp water and breathe mint curtains.
Waffle irons pattern the painted lips
and decorate the septum.

The drifting solid stream
the muscling green surrounds
huge upside down pyramid clouds
eyes in bronze lidless gaze
the taste of ten thousand year old honey
eyes in the sides of a rib less worm
tunneling landfill for heroic comics
building the frenzied networks higher
corners and girders a flicker with sounds of light
which is heat which is the sound of our breaking
our ears cast aside and our wrecked maybe
water picks up fallen eyelash
among other sweet debris
hills roll toward the ice cream parlor
nicked and bravely bleeding dancers
glass caged inside the telegenic brigade
the stream separates and separates
water keeps carving and
the observing life is tied to an aching monitor
bells twitch in the sea it goes to.

Her halo ropes the night close to my hurt ribs
brings the starved light closer to the vessels of the face in gear
wraps tape around the knuckles that might have fought for her
but hit wall after wall toweling the clay while still wet
with gashes and gills I make my way down to meet her
like a minister of rain, a hermit exploding in laughter,
she douses a fossil with her hair it erupts into a lawn chair
and dispenses the currency of the day
freely in the haze of smoke and doctored water.