Friday, July 4, 2008

bucky little thing

cold is wet stone and fire in the glowing branches 
touches the golden branches with heat and O the
eagle the eagle that balding eagle lowers his legs
like shorn bonsai trees and descends to silver to
silver may we ever find a liver for prometheus or
myself, for i've plucked away at it like a cellist like
a pelican pecks for days shuffled before one another and
o the sounds in the next room are never muffled,
but pronounced pronounced may the wildcat pounce 
on a rock on a rock, leather shoed british boy on the dock.
and what a bore, what a bore says the forest explorer
these panthers betray themselves slunk languid in the
trees, and, I coming upon nothing more than the 
paper globes of bees.  southern priest, speaking in tongues,
can you not speak of reptile lungs? football men, moving
in lunges, can you not see your into-sin plunges? now, both,
repeat after me: is it for this that i have hunted? is it for 
these crystals, these sun beaten symbols of the drum, these 
murderers wanted, that i have run sharp breath cold through pink
tunnels of respiratory funnels? 

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

The Calculus of Skin Through Seasons

and, now, 

that we have sharpened the dull silver of math

and laid medieval swords limp upon our laps

may we find a set of sharks, washed up beside

the dumpster, the swells of water upon which they rode

resembling limpid desert hills came alive as lazarus

and swam before dawn, until the sun beat down 

on the lands as a kiln, and baked them still once more


and it is at dawn that i watch you walk the foothills

with silver rabbits abound, like metal fleas to which

the soft earth has proffered its bosom for them suck

teethed and to suck one another - 


and, now, 

that winter, after lingering, has left, pigeon toed and clumsy,

may the vesicant air breathe upon the hydrangeas, and may

those blistering flowers cluster blue beside the gazebo where

we have set many a night and drank until our eyes reclined

showing their whites and my yellow teeth, from which i spit

tobacco in your absence   -   and "nothing", though a word, 

though a reference, though a call though a beckon, refers 

to nothing - as any coo or moan doth. as any white hot

moon or stone does. 


and, now, that i've had enough of these pills these gills

these paper mills, i will strap leather legs to mine and 

walk out amongst the pebbled drive, and form a friend,

another tired man from the dust, only to speak with, to 

break bread with, to sing uvulas red with  - for i, too, 

will give him an instrument to shoot me down with,

 as a true comrade would to any suffering man in 

battle, legs and arms all torn in a field - on a boat 

on a boat o my darling emote - for you have been so 

sterile to me since we've gone sober - no effluence 

spilling from your swollen gravelly tongue as it did

dripping once above me below me  - for now it 

seems to have transferred elsewhere, into your liver

secreting ointment, purple and viscous, purple and 

thick and pretty was your dress any night long past - 

long past , long past, does nothing ever last - 

does no horse pass the beast before it on the track? 

do the demands of the body ever relax? ever, for a moment,

could i be unwanting? 

Lesson To A Groundskeeper

the gently geometry 
of the tennis court
goes undisturbed 

it is swept now, 
and you have been released
into the thick night
with the silent machinery
and the moist moon

as boots meet feet, 
sitting on the curb,
looking up, you may
recognize the stars
as but a blurred vision
of a fencing practice, 
men in thousands
thrusting and parrying
retreating and jousting 
a practice tournament of
nimble luminous mummies
hurling antennas - 

however, if you cannot bring yourself
to this vision, perhaps
you'd be better returning to
the assembly line for a few
more pathologies 

yet, for now, walk. 
walk upon the concrete 
compressing a stray tennis ball

walk to any trailer park witch doctor
and give yourself that medicine
and walk back home upon that 
now forgiving, soft cement 
and go to bed 
until tomorrow 

go to bed, 
fold yourself in those unwashed,
childhood sheets
beneath that useless, useless
event taking place in the elevated galaxy
and everywhere below it