mention to me the dragonfly

asphalt, brays it’s black gray
pea gravel screams, and tar, gleams
pocketing a destroyers sun then, sudden as stars- extinction
the wings find purchases in stillness
death has bought a moment of
equanimity before the soft, earnest feast
before the history of light & furry
can be written- the pale blue & common
flowers bloom palms- and my human mind
sees biplanes & wind mills, wars &
ultra-violent mushroom clouds
smoldering, a sign rising from glass paneled wings
dormant in forever; a proud sparrow
vacant as a Nazi, hopping to the maddest
dictators- heart and mind unraveling a power no greater
than rain, a gentle demolition a shadow cast by the moon
all nothing- only there to remind me of the clay growing up
through my own feet, and my cloistered fire fed by time
hardening each breath, each vein, until my eyes are opaque
and my sight is as rigid as glass- burned pure stone my
heart, rugged porcelain waits for the day it is broken,
by beak or claw or the blizzard feet of the one longed for.

stir ashes with twigs tonight.

introduced early to
discrete disappearances
new water in the corridor
revels no surprises
there blinks the eyes that
are past eyes,
and and a mouth filled with
black straw smolders
in silence
knowing the footsteps that
echo, knowing the breath
that fills the chamber walls,
each moment a brick that
builds the room of life where
dusting capacitors, and
ringing coffee pots fresh
with their electric directives;
glass and silver- connect
each morning to rest
against a wall of dawn where
the reluctant mind reflects
on the cautious mouth
surrounded by chrome and sun
exhaling a calligraphy
that writes out the
pervasive soul- a book
read over and over, in memory of you.

re-aging the permanent loan

the inside blade cuts
as gravity melts my weight
shifts and perfects a filigree rendering
my breath against stone still sky
the glide turns green, malachite; my mind
a smooth crystal descending
tips meet sky and snow as
it deepens- cups fill like spoons
the sky drops its clappers
for the dark bell of evenings sound
question nothing
i open the palm of my hand
and drag all that I've held
up, behind me- a carnival of
time and let the rumble of
thunder call up lighting to
burn this gray baggage white
as a destroyed sun until time releases
all old injuries and reverses
the current of my heart- its
measured beating washed in ice
and the sent of pine needles blending
a prayer formed of silence, speed and
freezing.

licking mercury stones.

time now to reread
each moment- carve
and set, the
rigid thing
into,
a fragile ornament
calendar of hours, of
festival flowers
revive her supple
bone,
that there
the
descending hip
doesn't
sound too
American
her tongue
collapsing
and rising in
shape song
in,
across a boundary
over water to a new
country- a jagged
beauty that
makes her words
sometimes pretty
ugly.

2 mysteries 3

a leaf chases
a pretzel bag
like a bird
after a squirrel
these dead and
empty objects hear
weird music woven
into wet spring
where young die
and thrive, shell
game with out
the pea, no
hand in the
glove that raises
them up but
their dance is
one of lost
souls and survival
coursing through the
air like unborn
dandelions, daredevils a
shriek stained by
sun, blue, and rare
now not forgotten.

fastest car early in town

i dreamed i was the
murder innocent
sent to murder
a idea- belief,
i have crowned in
solitary coronation,
my own head-
and mortified my
green cranium- moon juiced
and swimming i
transmit the channels
of all the reckless dead
until you feel my
faithlessness and stop
asking me why i can't
kneel and can not stop
mouthing words in to
the vacant ear of the world
silently.

25

i remember the rocky shore
of Lake Michigan- full of
vodka and still morning- yet
just steady enough to make
my next 8 hour shift hustling
100 dollar bottles of wine, and
4 dollar pepsi's- summer on
Mackinac drawn up and down
by horses, or my transport
a red Schwinn found in upstate
garbage, lowercase new york,
a prize I cobbled together
to save fare, and make it to
the store for more beer, I
wanted more, love or the smell
of its meat, its inexhaustible flower
crushed to simple sent, I know
I wanted something more- the
world sent letters to my reckless longing
and prayers for all ten lubricated
knuckles, that sought relief, of their
own envy or anger, stumps at the
end of my arms linear time, grave stones
marked and dusting in the shop waiting
to be planted in to dry wall or moist earth-
thoughts that limped downward,
to the shore, navigating by bridge lights
and stars, moons and morning sun
hiding there, the way beauty is unbearable
and secret, the way each day organized
its self with such stunning gravity that
I was pulled to a past that never happened,
that now fills me complete
with its dream and impossible yearning.