Long paths

from the peak that cracked.

Twilight droplets

on the tar stains.

Quiet steps to the top

of the pyramid

that slept in the distance.

A closed frame

tugging the dream that fled

through mercury afternoons

to the root of basement dreams

turning furry pages.

Energy tuned to a bristling string

that hangs the hangman.

The retching of

an outcropping tongue

pierced balcony, where the gold

teeth wait.

Popped eyes of a lizard

gazing over the blessed cloth.

Big screen factory

beaming the antiseptic

painted rectory

flogging the fur

of a talking rug.

The task force of eternity

is kicking your head

the gravestone spotlight

is taking over

all hallowed neon

shop fronts and exercisers

plaid muscles and jacked up smiles

our belt buckle sonatas

and fiat blues

no symmetry of horizon

could ever connect

to the coiled heart

of a tidal wave of serpents

a continent wide hallway

of unified slamming doors

and hostile beams on the harbor

a corn brimming hill

silk raving expanse

pink cubbyholes and

rubber shelves of bleach

barbed wire night dress blueprints

and seething ooze

to soothe the massive ships

with long long windows

faint waterfall's

cool.

My brother in the branches
a sunken candelabra
lifeboats of eyeballs
snarling in ashen twine

a drum's head in his skull bone
raging cushion of mustaches
tugged across a painted field.

Bulbs pushing from soil's twilight
the winding of compacted paths
his seat of angelic hands
a bruised view of breezes
taken to the edge of rocks
where green pines slide into the sky
and a visor fills with cloudy blood
face to prefigured face.

Stacked avengers of torn space
ringing bells in a hollow hall.
Straight lines of energy
from the inexplicable light.

Hands connected that slide
from reality.
Yearnings buried in granite
shards glinting to
the north of time.

Traces of derangement's kisses
bubbling in a clear eye
and comet's tail.

Circles of water expanding
throughout the paper flesh.
An arrow flying through
two thousand leaves.

Years in a quiet zone of glass
the string stretched to meet the ink
frame glued to a stump
whose roots ache within a raging soil
to vein the sky
and take a halo to the lava's hall.

A row of deer
on a ripped horizon
gazing through the vapor
that called them home

cracks in a high beached iceberg
a computer chiming
deep in the bubble's path
twelve sets of eyes

I am a diamond on the chopping block
that comes at dawn

terse clouds and lashed branches
a deceptive cavern
bloodying its coal touched way.

In a blank backyard
he stares at the chicken factory.
Bricks glisten above the swamp glare
swelling moss lines
the broke white paint
meeting oily outlines.

A park bench by the riverside
with a question mark of smoke
stares him down
from a fire pit mirror.
His place of bread abandoned
yearning force field of monkey bars.

Glue spaced on the ladder
with the hand prints
that lead to sky.

To the artist perched
between floods, keep spinning;

to a thousand brothers who
have little, golf leaf will be
pressed between the suns,

given to the nights that are
suspended in vaseline vapors,
kerchiefs tagged to the ship's waist

orbits driving a helicopter
shadowed garage,
glass variety of screens
pushing his mud face
and widowed valentine
a cliff's root of sorrow

soot fastened in silver birth
expectant foliage
the rimmed oceanic eye.

Beneath the trees and separated
clouds, bitter apples and dust
painted glass, watching the stones
pick up light, and the long
docks drown.

A chain of beds crying epiphany
alarms puckered in the sweating
heat, blood dancing that had
its holiday, and the last
pronged fences down.

Shop window's awning
that protects a shelter
of labels, the fur drenched
of a spirited quantity,
the cone blocked net and hoop
a quiet shadow.

Wing of a pierced balcony
leaking stones to the foot
of the mountain
a pond away.

Rugs of a flower that spreads
from hallway to hallway.

Following a bronze light
through laminated news
chasing the comet's
photograph.

Patches of daylight that fell,
separating comrades,
splitting a coal that spoke,
rattling a mapped sky,

a beach laid out in foil.

Bones and their expressions
positioned on a rippling wave.

The brow above the forelock,
cursing to be freed
from the living straw,
spaces and their luxuries
descending away from
his kleptomaniac hands,

a struggle with the banister highway,
traces of the departing law,
a lumped-in weasel
crying from the clay of cheese
that stuck him there,

a tame unit, reptile detector
switched off by the stream
of special energy,

tracking his ruined fortune
into a maze of invisible fumes,
waving a peace stick,
plucking a hollow circuit
with blood filled teeth.

Dough boy dripping fat
from a live wire
where he parked his guts
and sank

cabin reflecting light
from the scattered harbor

apples turning in a fiery breeze
branches crooked around the crooked heart

sky's wax and yawning need
a tugged snail mouth
grime and antenna

time's folded reeds.

Cracked limbs, crazed eyes
the slit torso's path
down to the slime in the river

pearls of hate from the lips
that soothed the city
from a crutch of bones

bulging with proud meat
when the days were full
of friendly poison
and he sucked it up like a jet engine

to spew confetti from the outskirts
and the dry lanes

where eyes look out from
machine made caves

ribbons of space
curling on the speed of earth

the peace of his blood
like mica in the mountain rock
blinking with lunar light or noonday sun
an untouched button.

Beauties in fire lit oil
the canvas of spent days
unrolled under a concrete bridge,
green plumes rippling
the girder stapled horizon,

radio signals of crashed cars
the spoon's deceit
in the presence of the fork,
bricks melted to the slow earth
sky's hooks in combing
shaking lacerated lines.

Up on a green ledge
near the moon
smoking and thinking
throughout the careless trees

watching the rivers freeze
from a frozen height
walking planks and girders
in a dissolved blueprint

nesting in plaster corners
jabbing the needle in an empty factory
producing suits of clothes
from a microwave.

Winking out of the broken cycle
lint eyes for teeth
and bulbs of sinister wire
tar wrapping around the sprouting curb
like a volcanic surge.

Life is the damage
that accumulates, the bats
hovering in a pizza parlor.

Vacant looks that burst
too early, passing one another.

Screams distant, same screen
broadcasting the smoke of bricks.

Numb in the bank of lights,
the swirling cafeterias.

Riding the propeller blade
to another circuit,
another  darkening chair.

Watching one slim page
turn into multiples,
hoping that death comes topless
to anoint this recovered path.

I responded to all the calls
for inspiration, some from
the mouth that drowns in fire.

Watched sea horses file
across the plaster cast of my tongue
and find a beloved screen.

Adored the ones impossible to keep
for life or replication
surfed their floors and ceilings
in an entertaining blaze of suicide.

After the psychic action
the drum beats and the terror
of a tipped buffet
the hunted coming back to life
I hung up on the strained electrocution
sat down in an evacuated place
and watched the rings fade outward
into blind space.

Black teeth of rage
from a rotted casket
from a world wheeled out
the crack in a dark gymnasium

gnashing lava in film tapped waves
headpiece flooded with effects pedals
the rushing tunnel of flowers
that lets you up.

Pie eyed lentils of a swinging stem
dance of many limbs and hinges
lobster horns and their known antenna
prairies crackling with hard fought light

the misted symphony
of a closed car

a dim center's
bright berry
glistening.

I press all the buttons
and wait for the machines to come.
Poison leaves with radiant red tones
wave to me.  The breeze
is their master.
I slosh for clams
in the grey water
of the auditorium bird bath.

Confused millions
watch me become
a granite orb.
Shorelines cross
from opposing beaches.
A wedge lands
in the split of my brain
above a spray of bone.

I am tired of the inky ax-wound,
tired of the expected dawning,
tired of the simpering
sawmill that grinds my name.

Yet behind the light
the unknown beckons
from a growing depth,
a source-full fountain
and a traveler's stripe of records.

Mountains carved by ice
and fiery thuds
bread begging for salt
and catastrophic clearings,
two sets of hands on a spreading drum
sky's pinned
cake frosting atlas.

Floors lit to the top,
all kindred and distant dancing,
bulbs turning that hold the nimbus steady,

voices electronically carried
to one place, in its thousand
fragments, tusks on the shirts
and faces, their recorded dusk,
the dark blue ad lib,
a mercury arrow

pouring through their scenery,
and my way out,
and the keyboard laughing
and the one woman hovering
over the doorway
and the puddles that seethe
and then sit quiet

throughout the heaving
tar cake.

Seeing my kingdom harmed
each latch persecuted by rust,

every stone across the river
scratched by broken bone,

tubs squeaking and balloons singing
pipes throbbing in a cemetery earth,

a plastic sprayed
remembrance of nudes,

a woolen photograph
and bronze fed calculator,

seats at the edge of time falling
from its tangle of productions,

leaf light dangling promised vines
divine departure from the hollow tool

lip's deep
paper drop of blood.

Dusting the footstools
in a sterile area,
perched in the fur of the indoors
with a bottle of blue spray,
moving like a turkey,
lurking in a hollow hour,

cave of the ink
that extends transparent limbs,
hill among hills
calling hour to hour,
patchwork farm over
digital echoes,

shell of the one bewitched,
the waste that hurts and the pearl
earned,
ship starting from leakage
and revolting beyond the sun,

a joined lung in tatters.

Searching through the goldenrod
for a wet mirror,

ledge of an evaporated waterfall
with a chain of chairs.

Each window sealed against a bigger window
casings ablaze with magnified light.

Hallways for the frames and shadow monster
kept in a ring of forces
photo recorded smiles that eat the cardboard
of a wrapped house.

Green strokes down the rock side
and the peace of the sand pits
in an electric light
black tides that came
feathers laced along the high rise
a cracked seam
in strange mornings
sun that became wallpaper
and wood that spoke
to others while I slept
ceilings and high
windows embroidered
moon staring like a cow
low fences gleaming

and a tip to the knit hillside
where an oil gathers
vision from the stems of bone
smooth traces of prints
found dancing.

Slabs of agony and hilarious effort,
squashed into a thin tube
like a cartoon rag.

Yards of cotton sprawl
over hologram rugs.
Porno plays on the surface of a lake.
A tree turns into a pole.
Mind wakens in the rock
great peaks go up over the forests.

Balconies with snowball eyes
peering through toasted railings.
A cell and a small rack of bones
window high up and open.

Close cropped gnashing cranium
riding a breeze over the garbage cans
a painted order
shoes flying between tall trees
shores appearing in a parking lot
tiny maps of creases
warped glassy shields
a stone spider
reaching through a helmet's crack.

Pieces of a cornerstone
scattered to the resurgent
blood.

I see you glistening like a number
perching on the buried lid
your ticket in a cloud dispersing
around your thawed
astonishment.

I see you first among
the petals of the bureau.
Dunked in frosted cake
biting a telephone.

The halls are an octopus opening up
to a restless center.
Signs and names fluttering
on the golden peak
of a vast debris.

THE PEOPLE OF THE MASK

The people of the mask
only seen from a distance
stooge hands hopping tongue lit doors
belted fronds walking cobbled walls
clouds gathering around the eyes
laser observed throughout the depths
labyrinthine aisles.

Points in their speck of light
rotating downward.

His machine gun opera over,
torso open like a vulva,
windows cascading from high boxes,
lines descending in electric slopes,
pages torn from the spine
that follow vibrating elevators,
green molecular clumps,
a basement corner's tiny piano,
rags that wiped the head
that once spoke
gathered in a milk torn crate
and resplendent screen.

Pacing the fallen sword skyscraper
bones lurching over the moss frame
a cell's tug of war between trees
forked branches stretching a web
the slingshot horizon ready to twang
through my belt of guts
watching the screened rooms fade
and the silver traces
unfold like a waffle maker.

Bullets whizz through slates
chalk rhymes with reaching hands
a harp impaled
dragging a luxurious shadow
pines peeling in the hot light
fingernails carving orange rinds

a seat at the smoky edge
of rubber's fire pit--
stabbed cushions and comic covers
glacier's track of foot worn blades.

Foam spattered behemoth

digging out his eyes
with a pastry knuckle
treading the elusive ice
of a cool mirage
slipping through a pore
in the wrench lit
galactic body

clutching at shells in a wave
flesh embedded sunglasses
on a rip tide path.

Saturated walkways
gurgling blood pellets
some outer shore.

Willows dragging in green depths.
Hands with an armor of stone
bright gems in the wreckage.

Cans on a wire of thought
a fragrant chimney rattled.
Ink flipping with no empty
holiday in sight.

A raging syrup
seeds that will be your sculptor
aging vacant lids.

A cotton road
undulating specks

of cracked dry ice
garden statue's severance

split bones decorating grass
earth's mold of painted suits

smoke rigged slick tracks
of radiant lightning

a floating couch
over the perforated void

water lapping a chalk scratched rock
grooming fissure's ooze.

Walk winding to the mountain top
mirror tapped in quartz
currents tossing an elbow faucet
rind carved bed tacked
to a black hole pillow
leaking lips of stars.

Two suspended units with
acre wide eyes
dim hats, two bearded
potatoes staring.

Square after square
of sharp corners
in the concrete sun.

Fresh vegetables emerging
from TV static
tapes yearning in the habitat soil
to enwrap the stacked trees.

Energy caught in a bowl cut
teeth gleaming like a gelatin razor
fossil uniform
and plastic mold full of glass
wheels working the cemetery clay
granite benches calling.

Scorched throats
omitting gaseous chants
bodies bulging from
a fountain's mouth
tongues frozen to bronze blades
tendrils halting on plates
letters crashed in powder
mantles dripping wings
beady antlers breaking loose
from a severed skull.