psalm for the

A barely legible brownstone hand
on a weedy fenced garden tomb,
a weather bleached picket fence
draped with inky newsprint folds,
wet smears of that christ be risen

then

nickels arced onto felt-lined baskets
meant to wick away chance fears
with an ironclad smooch of redemption
from the pale and lined cadaver
whose son now landscapes mortuaries
with the stench of black mulch
and white and pink impatiens.

Backing with a warning beep
through the labyrinth
of every possible reality:
the manly joy of a perfect weld
painted and worn in blue,
a warm wash of diesel
exhausts from the autobus,

then

honeysuckle sweet crushed ice tea,
heather lane and holly court,
the patience of water
and the gluttony of flame.

There's nothing civil
about the nubbed ball
with a preteen idol decal
deflated in the gutter
laying limp and beached

but to blissfully piss
in the still of the night
while listening to satori
must be something just the same-

go at them with clippers
and your body hairs
find their own groove:

not always for the squeamish,

this life.

now we fade to green

When the snooze button breaks

only a drift from the dream

there was a chapel in the pines.

What I had called the marker
was really just a hallway light
to let me know you were coming

spring when promise blossomed.

That never really happened

because we were only born

a few brief moments ago,

triangles of narrative memory

etched in missives of moist clay.

The pastel dress of blue and lime
that I dreamt of lifting high
over your head in ceremony
to mark your privet

with mad muddy wails,
a vitrine before you sighed
in shatter on flat ground.

Many spoons of downing stew
sanded hunger into burnt tongues

of catty chatter bored in grainy doors,
leaving just enough browned sugar
to invent hallways of tongue
but not enough to sizzle brains
into a final spasm of lust:

I had already fucked everybody
that had ever danced
dances still
or will dance into the future.

The authority was you.

The Mysterious Topology of Knot Formation

What with his egg-shell skull

and red beard full of demons,

discoursing on at the wake

just below the broken mirror

to a table full of tear-stained relics,

his disagreement almost convinced me

that my perfect idea was lame enough:

but fat and squat and supremely certain,

he surely would have been uncomfortable

under a tent in the endless rain,

and his snort of sure derision

only served to steer my head,

to make my path that much clearer

after being almost kissed by Jimmy's axle.

(There's a possible context for this

for which I have no name or address-

one of the places where there's a shrubbery

on every goodly trimmed and godly corner lot

and a licking tongue for each steaming greasy pot,

where a perfect photo has yet to be taken,

in which the sneaky mouse cannot be seen.)

Suddenly a great truth dawned upon me-

that hippies can be assholes too.

His seed no match to man up man enough,

I made plans to see that house with the mansard roof,

with inside delivery and liftgate service,

because the claw that holds the bloody ball

has a ticking face on each grasping talon.

I had started to count before the true beginning

and almost missed the truest end:

Towards him, I just smiled and said of course.

unsolicited (and possibly lame) advice for two transcontinental lovebirds about to meet in meat-space after a whirlwind telephonic romance

Cry a little at the beginning

and also at the end

of your spell together,

and laugh as much as you can

for all the time that lasts between:

you already know it will go too fast.

Split and reappear just once with passion,

so you that learn each others patterns:

but do not confuse the rabbit with the hare.

What you at attempting

has a high degree of difficulty:

so cut yourselves and each other

a whole lot of slack

for all the time that lasts between:

and laugh as much as you can

for all the time that lasts between:

After all, in the end,

Omnia vincit amor.

seven scenes from a vase of jasper, moistened by a salty dew

i. High cheek bones show two ells but here is one

The return of a portrait nude of a graying male slightly torn,

jagged with a careless letter in a distant studio by a raven pupil,

closed an oily circle that began with an initial smudge on a ocher flank

and ended with a volley of correspondence that slowly grew electric.

ii. A cough designed to catch your eye

The now pudgy former gamine bends over trashcans

in a discount housecoat of red velour with sporty stripes

near the place you met the smudged mascara that night

cycling home from school with the tears that made you cry.

iii. The uneasy disappointment of no longer feeling murderous

Spooked with calm tears in the bedroom morning after

committing the unnatural crime of square-toed shoes

near a table with blood red wheels; the smudged curtains

wisp a chiffon of meaning that perfectly freezes alarm.

iv. Chrome is no substitute for a welcome reflection

A vigorous smoke exhausted by the smudged fanning blades

pauses to snatch a callipygous view of hiked yellow hips,

as she bends over a linoleum counter in a short striped robe,

attempting to kiss the tearful lips of a spread white rose.

v. Etching over a careen that has no finish

Hoping for a curious little job by calligraphic hand

that will turn the aqueous face of smudged glass

into the smoky hues of sweet sticky forgetfulness;

the perfumey residue of nicotine on lips and lungs

releases gray memories of other hidden tears.

vi. Taxonomies go up and down

Of the thirty-seven ways of hiding tears,

the best use hallways three through nine,

to feather the short vortex of raven hair:

it was just another kind of smudge of death

and another mark of a prickly birthright.

vii. Again the curtains are revealing a creep

birch thin bones in a leathery box covered

by the tricky cloud that played the moon

in a vein pumping peripheral drama

played on a stage of rocks and scrub:

ever see a yellow finch of smudged green

lashed by raven wings and the sting of salt?

that is the mold that dually breaks the mold

both tearfully true and crazily easy to behold.

past the point of mere inertia to the line from here to soliloquy

The screaming blazing comet of your head from a nice boot of white

streaks the grey brown void to places where there is no other stuff

to curse you with unnatural pink volume and the yellowness of stars,

a empty dark billow where all is right because all has ceased to be at all

except re-entrant crispiness because the burning ground is all burnt up.

There is no consumer taxonomy for streaking on such a gone degree of orbit

while you flail a dead sock at the eel weir moss that takes your breath away-

black and white scotty magnets on macadam cannot patch that glassy trouble,

nor your helmet made from broken street lamps shield your grey from aliens:

your thirty year detour in primer paint with a down-draft wing of six-cylinder spunk

marked with crusty cedar apple rust always washed out under dark umbrellas.

Orange sunrise on the sherbet dormer reflects your gaze so blank and banal

with that scrufty dog window sill white over the winter bales of grassy seed:

a plump berry of hazy fumes in this sweet and churning perfume of icy ecstasy

encourages the theoretical kundalini of monkeys to stream your long jones live

with hard radio static over the squawks of geese that plainly state the granite statutes.

In a world of ubiquitous metaphor when I click on the light I am a god to you,

just another kind of blackbird with extra tears for the withered little tweaker

who's stealing breath for one more sunset in an exoskeletal bag of crispy chips:

and it's all just a mandala in sands of green, maroon, and rust

about to be swept away.

When belief is breath

Marionettes of muscle man the sober lines,

jerked into shape by the loose smiles of change-

always a little rougher on the flannel edges,

despite the miles of back in the looking glass.

You never realize how heavy a severed leg can be

when the proud laughter of a cargo pants bulge

is used to grab your apt round-eyed attention

and ginger counterposes the citrus appeal of orange:

how deep will the toes reach to find a formal table?

There are corridor passions deeper than brushed nap

but no longing longer for the shagged distance runner.

You have to label everything or you cannot sleep at night:

the beer-can grin of satiny curbside pornography

with a train whistle mournful mise-en-scene,

the cute names that rise acidly from a fluffy tongue,

the imprint of a curtsy retained in dowdy aqua towels-

there is no longer a word for the abstraction of crunch.

The clay drawn literate has ceased to live,

has ceased to spit and snort and fuck-

an ominous maroon of maples etched in the breeze

says, in charming leaves, that you will die and soon.

Would you rather bend chrome time

or expand space to be molasses slow

or give wizened advice to the overheated

while balancing on a cane of boredom

and drumming flamacues with stucco thumbs

on rough beige walls until there's blood?

When belief is breath and breath alone,

observe that the ootid will surely last

beyond the four dimensions of your grasp:

no point in getting all strung up in knots,

there is actually nothing happening

in the end.