crows cry cover the corn before the storm

I.

I will remove my armor

II.

I will remove my armor

and set it beside the pond

beneath the swollen moon

radiant pumice,

scrape the embryos 

from the aluminum

of my bend sinister

III.

beneath

a sky black and screaming

with birds

a sleeping cowboy

IV.

tired old man

your spurs cut

your brown horse

tired old man

cut my throat

and polish your

chalky boots

with my warm blood

V.

my queen,

i come to you

when i have been

drinking 

for days

for day

i have been drinking

and i have not come

VI.

"there is something in your sighs

which tells me this will no longer work"

"i never thought you low enough

to criticize my weight"

VII.

jesus christ slept

as i left the hospital

dragging my IV line

the carriage met me 

moving in the fallen fog

VIII.

the mayor may or may not knot

his rabbit ears

of corn

his horns were there

when he returned from sea

two white vegetables

IX.

beneath high noon

beneath heat and gravity

which swim downward

onward and persistent

like magma archangels

i am working 

in the fields again

swinging my scythe

X.

beneath night

which circles the earth

as a lovely dark screen

like octopus ink

orbiting a blow fish

i am standing

in the trembling night

with the upright and silent cattle

and i am breathing again