The jazz of southern afternoon's

tumbling crawling green

lands on my shoulders like a sash

painted with trembling keys

the spirit of the forest

dancing with chainsaw teeth

I am imprinted by strange voices

I am a bag of tongues instructed

by my adversary

tattooed by my intended killer

by an image without a number

the canals are alive again

water slicks their mossy furrows

like the soul of salt

in a washed world

music is with my ears

it dwells there in all

its froth and ferment

and sweet sweet damage

I am the wild man of floating slats

ordained with fully organic rainbows

and spray painted with colorful oil

corralled by dancing girls

who anoint my goat nature

with drunken kisses

then float me off

into a tightly geometric night

I am that earthly righteousness of the damned

who they seek in all their titillating nightmares

in a heavy metal serape

and a drum cage of scraping wings

spring's pool where the pillow sings

and the horns of fallen angels

sprout in fungus shapes

from the shadow of a desperate land.