tracing a pencil over nylon

a long-distance lecherous peep at noon,
red pumps tracked through venetian blinds,
elusively optical over white-lined stalls
with the shimmer of hose a sweet mirage
that seams upon the tightened urge
and the rhythms that would follow
stiletto footprints on the black macadam,
receding and clicking in the wavering mist,
a mirage to slake this thirst for leather.

right before act one

what a pot of lucky stew we bubble now-
the goat, the dwarf, the bitch, the shrew.

they crow across the barnyard's raucous stubble,
where hay is frost and chortles dew:

a mission of confidence clanged in cast iron,
the lid will silence the chosen few.

a frothing banquet of angled limbs
for this a solstice is simmering too.

why the charlatan prospers

what's a heaven really for,
a short straw for sale to grasping.

(you can have your cake
in the prosperity of the Lord-

grind hard, dismiss the other,
be blind to the gaunt walker

on a salt water sea

that is glassy yet not reflective:

to be happy is transgression,
joy another a fetish
demanding the singe of burning stone-

ray, as always, a drop of golden sun:

the golden calf grows chatty
on a couch with skyward hooves,

a secret feast of lucious denial-

projection only belabors the point,
transference more the pity,

the id:

oh nevermind!)

it's just a purchase of wait
for a world beyond one's reach:

sinners keep their digits on the pouch,
perdition's better than insult.

mistakes were made

endure it worth the struggle now,
having once or twice failed in the bouncy frolics
for reasons mute and awkward-
the flesh was willing but the spirit balked:

given a lack of advance for base gestures,
we sometimes stall in winter,
despite the promise of daffodils
piercing the rain drenched earth.

recovering, we measure a diamond cut
or offer a weedy bloom that is plucked
from plots expecting slicing harrows,

(the weakness of the planting
does not diminish love,
it only asks for letters-
but these cannot explain
an unplumbable set of facets)

which part of the hidden lips
should a winter kiss caress?

Mulligan's wake

when billy boy, in a mindless shrivel
has, wraith-like, slumped against the satin,
a time when hidden wights of barrow
are given over to April's gloom
and there are no pennies left for grieving:

it is time, then, to wind the fibrous yarn
tighter and tighter around his index finger
to make a purple bubble.

prick it in a desperate look for life.

when Arachne's sunset held no purple

she finished with the idle fingering
of dull orange cloth

and even bronze and copper threads
could not quicken her webs of eights
in the small tangerine shadows-

enough had been spun
of trees and leaves and blinding:

she will not wait for footfalls.

Jawahira bathes

Jawahira is bathing stream side
under a canopy of elms
while insisting you wear billowing pants
to ensure a modest afternoon.

her straight spine
a latticed shadow into heaven,
dappled by breezes
and leafy peaks of sun.

a cervical ladder
where salmon might leap
into a certain mortal spawn.

this is not the yoga
of the fortunate:
a pedestrian chakra
opening and quotidian.

we have gone from teal to purple,
from spleen to shining spleen:
we could have been solar pretzels
if the ovens only knew.

she raises mocha elbows-
braids sleek wet hair
into a black lattice of steps
that rise from sacrum to nape:

a comb oriented reverse Kama
that brings sweet olive into view
with undried beads pretending dew.

she, at the lapping edge, kneels nude
heels pressed into a shrine
of pearly opulence:

her breasts shimmer in the trout trembling pool.

scorn the wallpaper hero

such chains on the sad cyclops lips:

bruised, he arches skyward brute brows.

from a solo wistful tear there cries
a rapid cremation of curls.

crumpled, he traces quick cirrus clouds.

the cuisine of simian youth

their fingers fit snugly into the cranial cavity
an opening between the slumber and the sun-

(we might awake the knuckleheads
with an alarm of strident grace
and be ashamed by the use of technology:

if you called for smirking
there would be a dearth of noon,

office workers on lunch
would avoid the want and swoon-
these puffy drones praise dry-cleaning.

later at night dining triumphs
with one-ups holding court:

what? you haven't tasted this?)

the skull is ripped, a coconut just past due:

there is a studied grace as crackers dip the grey.

the world is flat

the scaly glimmer of a draining cloud line
shimmers into the line of sight.

a plummet into the tendrils
of a grasping splurge of vine:

captured chiaroscuros of the needy green:

the enamel refuse of the unborn twin
chews from black to white.

a body bag of mirth

light returns slowly, glowing through the lucid glaze
in a menace of rose and cranky knuckles:

a clutching crag of barely finished coughing,
then hooded to greet the slamming lid of dusk.

we took it to the platter
on a gurney shy of service.

sometimes the hood bleeds truth

when the blinds forge our rental
into stolid zebras of quietness-

(here there is amnesia of wit,

the sardonic is a way of life
not envisioned by the Tao
or mastered by the acolyte)

in a copse of cast green slats,
copper oxidized by haste:

each dusky rustle is counted
in the evening's spooky hustle.

(fear dances in a sparkle on the trunk:

not a hallow of choice that motors
through these loose leafy cages
meant to hold a moment of spring,
approved by the shade tree commission,
and now defunct except for refuse)

when the blinds forge our rental
into stolid zebras of quietness:

I gently brush your hair aside
and briefly kiss your neck.

giving up on the Pantheon

a flowered grin in a corporate hallway
leaves a scent of fractured profits,

her cracked smile a scarecrow of grief
beneath the tall ordered pylons.

following would be a certain death of hours:

better to lounge beneath these ferns,
fathoming green upholstered patterns.

lines on Beckett

gaunt Samuel curled in the corner of the garret,
terrified to move, anal boils near bursting,

keeping a sense of chuckle among draped volumes,
cutting a stream of obtuse prose that rose
to ripe epiphanies of mordant wit:

slapping out a play or two to pass the waiting time.

scatter the mounded stones

these eyes cannot grasp the crisp grass of August,
yellowing in the goat shorn shortness of slope.

the jostling was the least of the journey,
hewn wheels on rutted valley roads-

from the passing caravans
there is a vantage of pale and wooden slats:

(we dare not mention the shimmering
in a world where the mirage is suspect:

we are afraid to invoke the djinn)

the painted signs are cryptic
may offer no protection,
and there are mountain passes to pass.

she reaches in transit
(an offering of figs)
but the painted wheels still turn,
same as they ever did,

and her green eyes stay placid.

we arrive at a sandy barrow
in the humid wavering haze:

there is a flame-edged cloud,
mocking our rocky transit
through a halo of pulsing gnats.

sometimes the convent beckons

a flowered peplum creaks a mourning pilgrimage
to the silver urn that steams on low.

(this priory has begged for fullness
but their scratchy habits orbit stone-

planets described by heretics,
scratched on skin by feathered drones:

do not expect illumination)

we shall not mention the fashion of the maxi
or palazzo pants, jodhpurs, or gauchos:

too much sun would bleach the phantom stones
that are hidden by the fabric.

a brown nostrum once used
to soothe the bruise
of recruitment beneath the norm
is now the only beverage of refinement.

(do not ask for milk or yellow
or the rusty chains will creak on you-
you do not want the portcullis,
your groove is not that cool)

in the worldly annunciation of sheer nylon
there is a steam that caresses a chorus of crease:

they frame elliptically her saintly eyes-

if only she could choose.

a dream of Eurydice

pointed elbows exposing armpits bare,
stripped to the waist with palms stroking hair-

on the desk she rests
spreading pleats sprung fair:

discussing profit and loss
with a dire shriek of blood-
this could have been our savor.

downward, downward, downward.

(is this a pulse or just a flush,
or just a nickle pad of doom,
or just escape from the tethers of swoon,
rappelling off-white into Hades?)

sharply spared of wrinkle,
there are crisp linen panels.

we wince at reports of the Thessalonian drowning

a suitable dirge will have to be composed.

the talisman

a pink plastic barrette
and two red rubber bands
woven by the hand of a child:

it would not matter
if the train never came.

Engels turns slowly, no grave is safe

Balkan, Baltic, Bolshevik, Bullshit.

tirade against the gaunt parade of gray.

(not on my watch, soldier)

hey Stalin, outfield would be good for you,
there is a dry crust of apple pie
rising in the dawn.

how do you take your motherhood?

(Marx this, this Marx well)

a hollow solitude in frozen grief.

do not count the sparrows,
they have flown to Thrace.

where else would they escape?

besides, Thrace is lovely in the spring.

a mapmaker's dream

in the circular touch of your delta,
exploratory fractals
draw a moist and mindful lattice
in blue and dusky rose:

they plot a subtle demarcation
on the lineage of your splay,

(rising, as it were, towards heaven)

a tropical projection that spreads
from Capricorn to Cancer,
each soapy circulation
births the demiurge.

we are marking a longitude
limned by streams
that steam the freckled mirror,

(a primordial rhythm that mocks time
and worships space in a ritual without name)

a latitude reinvented
with blossom and release:

wry cartography
playing history in the mist.

it is not enough to wash this cloth
or needle, indeed, these dry flocked glyphs.

these are pure heresies
in the lattice of blue and rose.

rinse, repeat
ad infinitum.

rinse, repeat
ad infinitum.

redemption in the privy chapel

in the midst of a religious enumeration
the hum of the vaulted nave grows bold-
it disturbs, liturgically,
a journey sacred and abysmal:

(an eternal drone but stark and starless
in the false piety of lavender salts
and the mop yarn left behind)

do not ask for frankincense and myrrh,
there are no pails to guide us,
only an immediate sense of self,
triplicate views on mottled beige mirrors:

(a trinity of warped mugs
freeze before the spasm
of the snapshot lens)

something is exposed and something is left
in this bald heresy of ritual loss.

portrait of a cool cat on mars

an alien beatnik behind venusian blinds
hoists a medallion drunk on overdrive-

before the paisley Nehru, a turtleneck.
before the beads, black berets and finger snaps.
before the struggle with arms akimbo.

(Kum Ba Ya, my sweet lord, Kum Ba Ya)

apres les deluge: bongo, bongo, bongo.

her hairdresser handles vipers

better offer a benediction
before Medusa creeps
on her rising tread of wooden echoes.

there is a growing thunder in her padded recess
that is driven by recumbent sighs-
it drives a wry crackle
in your ardent halt of swoon.

you can only offer a closing bid
and hope that it's accepted:

thirteen marrows eclipsed by noon
or
four and twenty sun-bleached bones.

there is mother-of-pearl in the girlie skull,
freezing moonbeams empty from her eyes.

when the cherry smoke was lifted

there was an uprising,
this we knew,
against their designs of gold:

it was sponsored by the salmon queen,
who pranced in a gown of darkness.

postage was stopped
by horses in feathered disguise:

there were protests, of course,
against the commemoratives
that worshiped equine greatness.

who could have known
that flies would join the mist
with their disconcerting buzzing?

so we marched,
as only losers could,
into a stadium
where the score was predetermined.

from section 3, seats 109ish
we sniggered at the spectacle.

the unpoetic, urbanely

taxi ashes on a dismal yellow corner,

a puddle's brown reek doubles back
the buried stares of diverse stories:

from the checkered mirror a curbside splash,
baptismal cabfare on dawn's throaty hack.

An empty envelope from Hera

no murky promise on the manila encloser,

(painted talons free perforce of perfume traces,
so clean the hunt, so lean the prey)

sealed with heat, perhaps, but dissipated:

a plastic rivet pops on recalled pamphlets.

the tarot of string theory

we troll for complexity
in the nebulous mist of the numinous,
creating schemes of wands and cups and pentacles and swords-

and then demand a hierophant.

there are secrets and secrets
and breathing and death:
what would your experts say?

(cough, cough)
you would not understand
my incantations and mathematics:

Pythagoras, do your saintly roll.

only the arcana of strings is missing,
silly isn't it?

under the banyan tree

let frolic the rhino with the variegated horn
upon this loathsome veldt no more-

take a pulse, African and wilding,
seduced by the feral myths of mud,
panting a spent mist of mucous:

it is fertile enough, this underbrush of dreams.