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.