By
the fir, the elm,
the walnut,
but not the redwood, he's
walled off from her beauty

a rabbit, a pomegranate,
a comet, a thicket
of branches

~~~~~


Faint whirring of ships and gates
over the ocean; one wonders--

leaf-towers slanting
upwards to the sky--if our fantasies

outstrip reality, every time: one denies
the bottomless thought.  Wings chirp

from the bones, over the ocean entire

whirlpooling down
the core of the earth.

~~~~~~

Long sickly gazes
the pause in the dials
of the frogs and the cows

rock-strewn planet-sized staring
at the micro-pebbles of silica
on the hearth of your each freckle

these creatures joined, by pine trees
and oblivion, by rust bucket
and apocalypse, there is a stairing
in the rips, between town-realities

the circuitry in ferns and brambles
foot of a superglued teepee
a neutral plane flashing

~~~~~~

SASH      (song lyrics)


The beast is hungry as he's ever been
love circling the drain
I saw her standing there in overalls
with engine oil stains

you men can steady your forces
to the basement of a jail
I am here to take her out of here
and scurry down the air

Don't confuse the bleeding cancer
with the oozing of a lawn
I slumped against the driver's wheel
and slept through the emergence of

twelve ready, angry doctors
who drank coffee by the pail
relinquish all your daughters to
the groaning in the ocean's depth

of ears suspended in the circuitry
that's fallen overboard
we will tangle in a ballroom
or a tattooed boulevard

You can call me agent stranger
I will suckle in the breeze
wait 'til you rescind your hair down
when the fall starts throwing leaves

@@@@@@


I am a traffic light
blink blink blink
all night on automation
we are babylon
and I am a bobcat
she took her scythe dress off
and put on a hairpin
we danced like tops
to the dull shine of an open oven
the doorway in the guard of a small dog
light on and on in our pale heads
until we bashed the kitchen apart
attacked the bedroom with weary streamers
and opened the front yard to lunatics
every one of whom knew our first and last names

A TASTE OF THE MAGICAL ARMY


Bloodied snow
bones, flexible plastic panels under the skin
a loud noise will slam the eyes shut,
the essence of the person--
animals on a world being surveyed
their consciousness coalescing
theory, destroy

Dropped it into an icebound river
bound the bundle
in which every molecule
has been replaced by stone

Natural diamonds themselves
to spin new thread
nestling on the mountainside
his or her self split off from
with a gasp and a start,
to feel the core woke up in it

~()~()~()

There is an owl
deep in my being
who has never moved.

A kingdom bristles around him
which he's never tampered with.
Officials ascend their ranks,
order the assemblage of shielded walls
which burglars climb
he stays perched.

It is uncertain what power
he possesses;
he does not crave power.

You may picture him in marble
at the floor of an overcast ocean;
but his habitat is deeper
and weightier still.

If I can stir him
maybe his wings would sound
like the energy in marble,
which is never still.

But I let him
breathless hold the living center
he has no task to perform with his claws
what holds him
I must move rightly to feel

~()~()~()

_++_++_++

Yours is to touch the endless air
on a pier
overlooking everyocean
a boat's edges out of faint luck
the rippling turn of vast waters

mountain sides that thrill in each ribcage
a ship that carries a whole jungle
and twilight unknown that wearies no song

into the aftermath of who met whom
yours is to part the edgeless rice paper
curtains and wings over the aging sea.

++_++_++_

------->>>)))

Walked through glacial hallways
looking for a beautiful sound
to dwell in the tiny bones of the ear
mowed lawns around the peaks
of always solitary mountains
moles safe from the blades in a valley
the faintly aged plastics
of hastily assembled towns
filling low tunnels
with run-off of dreams
from exposed stems
the pistil of eyes, sleepwalkers who garden
all night long and meet me
on sanitarium paths
sometimes a porch is the hearth of the world
melting glass gears
behind a fertile wall
of detailed flame

(((<<<-------

(#)(#)(#)(#)


When I see my corpse
on the earth's floor, soaked in radium
petals snuff the time clock
I had three dreams from red to sepia
kissed days separated by black curtains
dropped 100, 000 light bulbs on a polished stage
while you were whispering in a snakeskin orb
the fiber optics of discarded hair
two guns and two sets of lipstick on the breakfast table
shouting over the overpass from separate convertibles
curtains ignited with stage-safe fire
two couples throwing dinner plates at one another
and not laughing
linoleum curling like a wet rose

scorched day serves no empire
I hold up the discs, our sun's multicolored representatives,
all that's needed is the rustle of unwritten pages
to hold the clouds in place with many sets of pincers
to let these cafe tables melt into the sea
and the kitchen shrink a tunnel to afterlives
through the bread and the knife
skylight cracked by a running guitar
the empty frames adorned with crystal light deposits
shelves lined with miniature forests
I descend on pulleys in jeweled drag
looking for a prehistoric shape
in the far warp of your iris

)))))`````

it's always 9:15 or so
the world moves very slow
in overwhelming grace
the warmth of mercy that encircles you
dries innards on the docks
and waiting fells a net above the sea
to ride the air to you

nowadays are near to fire
nothing's sudden, sidewalks
the play of sunlight on girders
slow movement of birds in the heat
the bridge that unites us with a cast of brass flowers

sun-years of memory release
storms of errand vine
from an engine's rot

`````(((((

~~~~~>>>>>


Days in silver frame
the porch spills a frontyard
you in a long loose skirt
feeding a puppy a beefplate
small pointed head licking china clean
there is a galaxy in the blood
and the whole tortured history of science
but we hold quietly
it spills out at odd unseen moments,
it is what makes the deep woods rustle.

~~~~~>>>>>

~_~_~_~_~_~

A prayer for an old cinema
the breathing of cows at pasture
to live in the spine of a cat
let reels descend colorless into deep milk
if the grass can turn a murderer inside out
if honey can become the wound

steeples underground, bells deep in the earth
forgetfulness of the bomb
forgetfulness of the umbilical
the life that falls down in front of a film
drive-in cathedrals where
the scented subway aches
to become human, in its machinery
the eyes of cows are not eating your being
you can watch their watching
it has no knives, hands call to flanks
blood layered on blood has flown its energies earthward
no homes coagulating in deep space
a prayer that makes no appeal

lapping against stone shutters
a camera's eye that scars bark
while the core stands in the sap
of a thousand sealed passages
mute to its glory, rainforest projector
newborn touches living dinosaur fur
the dark oil of old movies.

~_~_~_~_~_~

~~~~~

summer doesn't feather the air for you
but your presence within it
I could watch you with the eyes of a priest
or touch like a snail
your frame in a strobed corner
the gardens would just keep going

}}}}}}}}}}}}}

little grey brown

lightly ruffled young pheasants

in a hundred crowd

skittish across the wood chips

marking the low hung light

with beaks and eyes

neutrinos crossing

from one cell to one cell

in the off-green barn

fading in timelessness

one block past the towers of twilight

one lock away from leaving, one

click is leaving the wall open

*)*)*)**

Only to buzz in your sweet head
to drone away in your wilderness

a network of tendrils creaking
macrocosm of the passageway waiting

I need to veil the daylight
and lie down to feel
the beauty that walked here

simmering in highs and lows
of surrounding air

////////////

String man watches tiny meteorites

pock through his window membrane

light makes its first and last appearance

here in the living room, backs to the rug

golden sparrows fill the coathangers

from ceiling wires

dachshunds in cigar leaf ash

playing under abandoned office chairs

hold hands on a tire swing, feel the collapse

of the milky way

guard your library with unbathed nudity

shelter in the hall with a mask of tar pebbles

the visit out of time will occur regardless

```~~~>>>>>

The fireflies are busy becoming a microcosmic
sky against a dark wall of trees
as if the air never sickened here
snug vapors gently electroshock
my spine in a tower that time won't eat
staining the eye from which it pours
grey white sun in a realm
where ignition leaves no ash
blankets are abandoned under soaring lights
the fireflies are making a tent
of silently unstable fibers
plant lives that wage war
against a tablature of wet cells
a chessboard oiled and empty
a galaxy aching through charts to eat the boardroom

~~~>>>>>>>

The forsythia wears your wrist wires
bridges painted by your sash
invisible, forests fallen
the promises of men who went under
neon lights drowned in a conservatory
sleepy quail scurry around
the growth of your limbs has stalled in full flower
you're holding the flag fern of my body
over the county in a tickled bag
to the cut of pedestrian canyons
trickling with moss water
behind the rust brown railway
deeply cluttered with the items of brokenness
you go with music strapped to your head
I silently wrapping and unwrapping
the selected trees.

(=====)

The beauty of the clouds came down into form
steam rivulets made curve on curve
a mouth wafts ancient syllables all day long
no crowd in the light this time
the field collapses, lace on ice
grown frozen and shattered, the life in the clouds
in perennial visitation.