we were asphalt and the sea; the upper river

the suns irritate the the lawn
mower obliterating each delicate
lemon headed lion
under blade and disinterest-
butchers wine out in to the air
salad of days and days,
that collect and form rooms in my
brain for gods,
rocks
and
birds as bones
that
dance and try to take wing
but of course can not, the fish found are
found dead and huge-
the ever moving gut blown out
but other wise the whole machine
is intact and not gray, with the
exception of the eyes
and here over the dead body
i lament nothing but the emptying of my
own lake, the diverted river within
powering turbines of anger,
masked lust softened to look like love
and dangerous passions
that pump in to my heart
effluent PCB and other poisons
more deadly.

dead mans pen ; dead woman fills the instrument

dead womans ink
so truly past dust
the sun obliterates
her bones to sand-
a reconstitution of land
I witness Niagara Street
bottle caps gleaming like
coins and feel the
partials of a past sun
pass right through me
and on to oblivion, where
my bones tropism toward
sand grow the city's
brownfield geography larger
as it has grown its sweet
toxicity deep in to the bones
and arteries of me.

twice measure the dress for wounds

so the heart full becomes a tired word,
knows each intersection the city
raw after vivisection,
a full life story, no new ink
the page as small
as a single man steering through
midnight, trouble
is the quantum mechanics of
greatness and house hold
gods sweeping up the corners of
an unfinished attic room
all messed up she said leaving
and dried the blood rag against
a blue forehead, ablation,then
camphor and rage a shark swimming
becomes one as
antiseptic as cartilage,
filled in the frozen land with longing
the heart greens to gold and darkness in to
a violence un-perfected, a blunt ax
braking down doors to a house not yet
on fire and so a crime and not a hero at
all but an address flowered with poppies
- madness, and the flimsy dead

build a new fire at midnight

there in the gray change of spent yesterdays,
a new vocabulary waits to be spoken
where
the red fox paired in spring, visits
a solitary man, clothed in smoke and trees
and dream for him in pictograph, the wilderness, and
the full palm of his
hand to reach out
and pencil electric sticks in to being
to circuit the mind with embers and ashes
laid out in twigs and leaves, a cartography of
branches, matching the forest that meets us
at the edge of silence and meaning.

February apropos the firsts of Spring

the dead haunt me
in the same way the living haunt me
they peer behind words, behind
products, they fill shelves
at the dingy florescence of Kmart
they spread salt and speak kindly
about me- when I am not present
they love and love, courageously
my Aunt explains the mysteries
of day old bread and the microwave,
memories fill as solid as a blue crayon
drawing a line around me of not
quite sadness, but a stillness-
life quiescent in melancholy.

third avenue blues count oil 1, 2...

8 smaller faces- lean back
there curves down
citrine luscious and orange
and chain mail dangerous
chain letter love or money
the catastrophe of sex
a penitent virtue now
in wax wood
middle-age a stroll a
country without
border guards- salt on a
slippery road,
all gravel and potholes- blessed
the broken axle,
still
crumbling down the road
remembering the combustion
engine heart, by the
cold metal sheared to
spark.

what the cat paw evening brings in claws.

The ceiling falls in and
under it- before its collapse
is a last kiss,
the triumphant hope
the joyous boast of lust
it knows nothing of
futility
and
wanders to a breast
and is turned
away
by volcanic dust
show us the derelict
love, pissing its pants
pleading for
dignity
it is lost- a
contained
disgust,
bring on the
sarcophagus, and the
reburial of the
once dead
heart, / or Mender
let this be
your last
needle, enter and exit
stringless- with
no thread to bear
the mend to
it’s barren
cousin- i don't care
for hope, lame
and weak-
feeble
as a discarded crutch
no longer wanted
to bear the weight
of handicap- or a
broken leg, of the
fast immobile barstool
the
last landscape remains,
each saloon- lounging an
afternoon through
corpses of beer & beer
let that be
a truth
it is as neon
and swallowed as
the open road
whore of signage
and sleep deprived
stone kickers
let the pool table
resurrect me, each cue
one Moses
one temple
chalked blue- no don't
play for the heart that
longs for no heart
crush it under
foot and keep
walking fresh from the
beautiful nicotine
buzz- ringing your head.