A mask of radiant fists

holds the resisting fibers.

Fingers curled toward

the dead light

of a heart besieged.

Flowers from the arteries

that mushroom into

blind gold.

A vessel that moves

only enough to speak

or the sides of a vast ark

splitting and bleating.

Where do we find

the love of peeling paint

in the breath of tragedy

the slings and barbs

of hot air balloons lifting off,

into the sun we cursed

through the clouds we believed in.

Playgrounds for the aged

floating on celestial rivers

stars deleting gaps

threading a particle's mystery

chain link holds

the dancer's bones

the letter and formula laid

of an ocean's crashing

the drowned tree's lady

arms and legs

a kiss of fading leather.

HALF MOON

I can see the half in shadow

and the bright divided and waning

through the open door.

Wet fenceposts in muddy clusters

pouring out of a tunnel's mouth.

Leaves and painted medicines

wrapped around the edges

of disappearing walls.

Tools and their energy of bone

left drying on the rim

of a fountain.

Dusk gushing over the passageway

where it all departed

under a fungal glaze.

BLACK FRAME

Bring to me flowers

from the hillside,

from the cedar cleft

from the willing boughs,

snapping and riding

pour your selfhood out on me

with soft ridges that can't

grit together.

Shiny wagon comes for my bones

cutting through the grids of green

screen rumbling above the underground tunnel

warbling like crippled sperm

in a sealed egg world.

They are watching fake fighters

fight a fake fight.

The dome sways

with computerized effort.

Cameras move on cue to watch

without eyes what is not happening.

Roots pushing out

from a fractured wall

pulsing like the tongues of snakes.

Arenas that kaleidoscope

from the heart of the main stage

ropes that twang with a sad laugh

and an elated gasp

as the clown has been punched out

and keeps rising

backward to the fore.

The star smashed glass

singing through concrete levels

my girl of wires and curtains

from days when I was touched

by clouds and the claws of bubbles.

Cemeteries lined up

by a shoreline kit string.

Fossils and ghosts laughing

up into the sky.

The table is laid bare with light

the room is open wide

the doors are putty waves

and ribbon tongues

my sheets are flying through the halls

the windows are aware of time

a milky way of sandy bulbs

gathering at docks without legs

afloat on reflection.

Streets burned into the scalp

of the planetary cousin.

Rails overlooking

with their crooked lenses

kept in the scope that glued them there

shining with the density

of the blind sun.

Over the forks of green

and escaping railroads

across the rubber fields

and stalks of rustling grain

basketball blackboards and empty hoops

where the wind is talking.

Coming out of the wide

soapstone walls

of a wild palace

nostrils ringed with aerospace hair.

Oval frames of gold

photographing space.

Yarns unweaving the bronze

courtyard.

Symmetry of leaves

dancing through stain glass air.

Rippling hills under horse-leapt fences.

The tears of breaking ice cream parlors

on a car-swept face.

I couldn't find a place among the people.

They washed me with salt but the grime

would not come off.

Lines of sun flow over me

in my gored unicorn basement.

Screens flicker from the corners

where a skeleton fell.

High up, in the mortar and brick

of the attic, my own ghost walks.

Burnt core of a microwaved butterfly

a tin pan face glinting at a malicious mirror.

Ruts that deepen into valleys

glittering with crushed coal and fool's gold.

The wood mask of pink flesh

conjuring milky veins from a snowglobe jungle.

Red dusk above wilting stones

hill's aftermath of bones

staring into moonrise.

As the bridges that I cross

rain brick on thundering beaches

and the hollow rind

pops on radiated snow

I still recall her spray of echoes

in a vine becoming song

an electrical racket

makes my way

a spoonful of fireworks

and ruddy bass

that she serves.

Sun's bent shriek

on a waterfall mirror

with a lizard's tongue

where I come awkwardly

to nip at bread

her ring of arms and mortar.

Pulling up her long scarves

and entwined tendrils

slick beneath the pubis

deep money leaves painting

with a fang, a capped whip

and a pepper.

Pasted furs and spiked hat

black ballerina slamming a garage door.

Limo sliding out of the woods

an airport strobe

flashing against her eyelashes,

my spent sheath dangling

from her anklet,

nail flick like a cloth wrapped claw

her laundered sense of cool.

Birds, blue-ribbon ways

steer me far

from the golden edge.

Fringe fences rotting into swampland

disc lights in the invaded sky.

Blue night in frills and thighs

commanding my blood to service.

Dark lips finding

what was bone and skeleton's verse,

high descending plumes

some asteroid glory

or comet fiend

finding love in fire.