Shrapnel Very close to joy; Light bites distinct teeth marks In the skin of a pear moist, delicate inside

of clavicles and arching beams down the skeleton of a raised roof supports only the eye invisible balance and equilibrium these thin rain sheets like cellophane frozen on the eaves and perhaps of always I would be silent in thought of these discrepancies between us discretion wrecks gathering in the deep charged, surfaced with coral epicycles of memory closed circuits, cross-connections, sonar echoes in the water through the hull to the very beast of lost dreams light Doodling on your pillow draws horseshoe crabs and crescent stilettos of coral like skyscrapers that build themselves out of vampy shadows they dance after ones gaze to humid isles collecting shells of these buds of familiarity contempt of illusions the bald truth or false mines Virgo clusters, Saturn and Pleiades empty; mind unveiling I am thinking of writing your wings and becoming incense intent is exhaust fuel for flight and crash keep writing until youre ramie and cotton blend expect answers and dazzle Theres a drape of ivy over the window winter compliments and regrets. Seasons carved in the door initials of a woman who once lived here under carpet; scars in the floor

white pine like champagne the windows open creaky paint flaked eyes like Winter, her eyes too are dry and weary with the shadow of sparrow-wings her sparrow-hawk nose and pointy fingernails like chipped mica sharpened to guitar picks the right tools; old glass, (gravity) because its a fluid a centimeter thicker at the bottom than the top gifts of Winter and Spring two wise sisters: Winter is filed like a tree ring while Spring passes and returns in fever dreams Winter casts nets and catches all the feathers in a bag then releases them, and sweeps the sky with adamant laughs dryly rasps like a chain-smoker steam rises from her every breathe puffs chuting like a smoke stack arrivaderci until next year Spring sings sadly at first as if she had forgotten how to bloom her breathe of spice brings chills over the backs of hands she tests her willow voice arrayed on pillows cheek to cheek Virgin white cotton and embroidered hyacinths Spring seeds before she dreams her breathe; herb and verb potent kisses, elbow down clavichords of desire and cloud clapped escalation from her wind castle down over the eagles nest down to the azure waters of ice Basho scribes haiku with a penknife into the bark of redwoods that smell like sex on fire sending smoke signals, curling languorous from somewhere far away the salt intoxicant of earth and the incendiary leaf Winter loves her white tea while spring fondles apricots

with longing Winter clusters in polytechnic orange Juniper, berries like beads she nestles inside of trees, under tartans and bear skins, inside of mole hills she sleeps aslant in spiders nests Spring delights in night less frolic mingles with fawns, explodes in squadrons of seeds rises in fumes, the dry lint smell of evening is dispelled definite cold replaced by a chill of awakening; grasping, Wonder, elbows of curiosity sleeps repression caged dreams a gentle ribbon of dusk and humble tea Discs of light halo faces when lights contour reduces sentiment with an icepick of silence. Litany a raw note flossed on waters like a phrase in Latin windows open like crows mouths drinking in Night like soup bleach bones, stone beaches, and crumbled roads a fulcrum of choir song refrain of longing forward to the waters edge into the surge bare breasted exposed to the unknown good bones and old d leather faithful course of the navigator by the gold rose-flute, by the suns mantle; along the light- scoured shore beds of ice nestled between sand and pebbles islands, isolates and leftovers the Moon frowns over soft October nights moonburns on foreheads in the lamplight the suffusing fever moon washes over ones eyes like water cupped in two palms the Moon weaves a blanket of golden strands like wicker Lethe this dream this swimming seed

a bluebottle fly, in rapture tiering over chandeliers to the roof a scar, a burn on the inside gathers bounty carpets of daffodils and a whippoorwill the fore Stem and end of love cardamom and cinnamon brilliants, rubies and garnets set in her tiara, the lady is rum and sulfer drugs the elbow of wind in white sails and Verdigris a field of poppies except the poppies have human eyes and heads with nightshade with bitter acorns falling onto frozen ground fire, like a spyglass a prism that strokes the light in the Lighthouse shadows curled against windows and nestled against walls of this house, Persian rug soft drum footfalls of echoes from the arteries, from the atria of blood, this muscular repetition this Pyras of rum ladders beating, ladders of beats beads of blood, connect the dots mazes to the place where life looks off the precipice over the edge the bread crumbs lead where children walk beneath Fall trees between the hedges and thickets of secrets they mark the watch, the road, the way but the crumbs are eaten by a hare and the path is lost again unto despair cairns by sideways rooks balance on rocks one point of balance Acorns or Roses? syllables burble up foam under fissures and rock outcrops chipped or chiseled into mesmeric shapes Felt tipped shadows across rock Faces in monochrome hovering seconds

hand by hand clasping time in a trance of tick tock rick rock Clawing sounds like fingernails icepicks, clock hits precise chisel hands inflicting Time an impression hidden between the tolls hiding emptiness between going and gone and fuel burns over the rooftops the Great Atmosphere an inferno flames licking catlike at the horizontal curling her tail many windows open windows into the cell Vapor cringing over ancient walls that combs the landscape into divided plots and rows furrows of space between modest dreams thin refusals morning shafts of sun break through like shards of bottle glass Timbre of bass, the crooning voice the dancer in rainpuddles Casket of time gone by bellows and folding arms accordions of blood flasks of oil, thin layers concealed us only the linen light and lost blood kept loosing the movement of the wind in drawn shades the branches of the elms cross and recross We wanted open arms we wept folding in over empty space retrieving hollow vowelsand consonants that worshiped and wept tears of ink and wounds of volume glass shrieking as it shatters tears open a fabric of silence wind pries tarp from the roof salt-stones fall like acorns from heaven

wind blasted scar in the rock face all the emptiness with violent songs a song refraining cries of dying birds of secret screams of tree trunks, sawed off a secret beneath rumor calves born with two heads certain mentions of evil in the portent of trees I am watching a carnivore all the people waking Through the wind their features as the faces of impermanence. Dingle a woodsmans axe hand felled trunks, dry brush, seaweed and sand from a sea bed blend in the cliff edged limestone of Ireland scrabble fields and forty shades of green seaweed-clefts of clay where they planted potatoes and a peat fire glistening of warmth, blistering with love notes flames lick and fondle at the dry peat bricks cut from the hills and in her tea kettle water boils up and water blisters like a steam locomotive the kettle whistles, and a soft satisfied suckle sound of water poured into the teacup where delicate herbs infuse winter spark into water How lenses cloud, How time Discolors in the imagined past a lost family line, the sweet mint of innocence the virgin froth on the shore thin gruel, stock and broth of furtive futures immigrants lost and bent, shelled themselves unclothed spirit of the Celtic peat land they nestled between stoves and bones of chalk

fished the seas made softer eyes at the horizontal dove of light, the wakened sun expresses and blemishes with phosphor fire across a pageant expanse of water she rides, she singes the sea with tantalizing fingers a million tickling fingers of vapor. tell my nought we kindle our fingers nape of neck, earlobes, silky shadow of a moustache above your mouth lightly encumbered by scents flavors rustic, rusty and smelling of suicide or cinnamon or whatever begins and ends and begins again slips, saltcellars, stores, souls surmounted by the struggle of breast on breast defiance of kingdoms, arching kingdoms solitary bristles, shy eyed and numb birthing tigers, winter calm and again and again rising without words the felt tipped shadow links of time and time place and place when severed in two places two places meet; you and I whimsical There are no signs of life the shrapnel was exploding harmlessly like a bird within a glass walled room ravished with her praise who has not his China Plates? who has not his chromos? to be a richly foliaged space seven years of empty the wind re raw slipping of feet like sliding paper on paper how wilted a flower a butterfly is lying like a leaf on pavement

ants already in the process of demolition all the little beads eat and thirst sugar pops, melted ice cream drips the end of a banana or heal of bread walking through the neighborhood from a hill everything plunges beneath your feet and gaze all the people I would like to meet here in between I am lying in bed again later waiting for rain to draw off to touch the tips of leaves the lingering angle of branches now dark, black or dappled grey in the shadow of retreating rainclouds long ago exhausted maybe no words anymore, what there is to say? decay, amber leaves falling the drops absorbed into pores hanging like buds on the leaves, on the petals beading on paned glass reliefs called from the foxes of the cloud the heat, the overhanging boughs all live giants guarding the earth I was waiting for the magnification of the dream to undo knots in thought end of storm, so much more then fresh brilliant world newly brushed color bolder, all the world feels more real. Nightshade walking the long way through the trees afterthought of freedom I sought the afternoon to open as a cupboard for my joy taking out the hidden refreshments we knew then the folklore that we denied the words were meanings the meanings words and deftly each symbol forgotten in our childhood took on fresh sentiment

from the evening, and the bitterness where else do we crave this story? this complex of gods and thieving foxes the drapery of leaves the wolves lurking silently somewhere in the shadow and we knew there were the words they were hidden in our pockets like the crumbs of sugar cookies we could draw a few things sketch the nostrils, the eyes the eyebrows of a maiden or a king we could tell a story of simple riddles really but we knew nothing of mystery and the darkness and the open wound was only the savage memory of birth we knew not the passing evils of the centuries, nor the sentimental fictions of the corrupted mind I asked for questions and was given none I sought after mirrors to reflect on but there were only sorrowful holes where the eyes should be and the glass was tinted with mercury we were the children of wolves or the children of the earth we sculpted our mothers from clay and reversed the order of time to our delight the evenings stretch on so as if we were walking through the ruins of a childhood home or the tumbled over walls of ancient cities we buried so much in the every day and the details that we lost all the stories that our grandfathers told we talk of the time when we will be free we listen to the wisp of a leaf

as it tosses with millions of fellow leaves talking and laughing in the language of leaves are we so silent in our fellowship? we hesitate to share a word to shed a drop or a word to listen as the wine flows to the rustling music of anothers heart how confused the mind becomes after it has won what it has wanted how coming home in afternoon in the dappling shadows under the branches there the peace hangs like a garlanded decoration for the journey the striated hills the pathways between the trees making a marriage between the dark and light coming home and leaving can be the same act we belong where we are free where we are free from our past and free to create a future but there is paradoxically no freedom without the burdens of remembering. when we desire freedom what we dream of is the freedom to be who we are today and who we were yesterday forever ask me more questions before I sleep help me climb the rope take another rung or two one more knot or two before retiring casting in the shadows like ponds where the miracles dwell like fish waiting for some lure of color to draw them up to the surface where they taste the sweet breathe of another world we are waiting for that invitation to

tempt us to the light somewhere there is life without death but here life draws all its strength in the impression of the shadow like a contour of a hand, a cheek the faint shade in the pupil the lemongrass and the bitter herbs picked for winter tea mixed together with nightshade, and the toxins of the decaying seed we are seeking the stories for the paths they reveal the stories seek the paths of soft death like a pinch in the cheek that reminds us that pique of red in the otherwise solitary white of the winter that clip of sunshine in the mosaic of shadows we are plumbing for wisdom in the order of the world waking up without dreams and dreaming of a sleep without end sometimes how bitterly life continues where we lack the courage to pretend, sundown in autumn the wind withdraws, the sun a candescent white scar in the damask cloud cover, like an eye of god in the dovetail bed, like a skipped stone a glass eye, slick like a slip stone

under ice layers that are weeping away a spot like a pimple, a hole bored a knot in a plank of grey wood a claw that carves a face in the deflected light a cavernous puzzle the ravishing red and burnishing pinkgold like an opening vanitycase the sky unfurls a labyrinth of love the brow lines of a sculptress that weave like centipedes, into knotted maps that cast away all direction, and repress the order and clear insistent mood of day. Exercises fingernails scrape on chalkboard limericks scrawled on notepaper pastels, watercolor drawings, simple clues hidden troves, minarets in scarlet skies lip-sinking refrain, inimitable play colors meld, mulch and evergreen compost into spring juniper berry liquor, million dollar lottery the Future looms forward like a precarious branch sagging with its own weight overgrown, sagacious drooping with the burden of its own leaves Milton Friedman textbooks, penmanship exercises silver lined wings, lichen soft as velvet cloaks roughness, undulating patterns of shadows on your bedroom wall wind culls the heart from silence even childhood drips with fatiguing guilt hilted daggers drawn, as winters wear the youthful soul

willful enterprises, harbor of reminiscences built upon the embers of the might have been A dark ensemble When the day went forward in the interlude we crept upon our knees into the brambled wood and carved a crest upon the regal oak the withered love of our divested energy beneath the dark ensemble, the fragrant canopy the wind gave cries shrill in common with the ceaseless echo of the river below the city slopes the restless earth, the carousing chaff entangling wreathes of twigs and other fallen fragments darktrailing tresses of mossy plants, underneath the brisk current of the stream in the summer along the western plains where the vast yellow horizon was shadowed by encompassing dark the aphids answer calling the crickets chirp, in unison like violins the morning birds give love airs to the moon in simple hours or some eternity, enough when cold enlightened; silence menaces like an aching vow of wonder at the core of us, the sentencing of justice masked the guilt inside with other tasks unfilled demands making wastelands of our birth from morning interred in night and morning breaking open hearts capacity is everything giving breathe where breathe is air and air is life our wastelands are the open winter

solemn June, or budding winnowing stream in the enterprising window we catch the moon between the glass panes and crossboards the holy order candles like the light of street lamps death of ignorance a dirge like an empty nest where dreams begin and time is yet to come interludes of drifting continents come washing like ultraviolet waves radiation petals like rose buds in the peril of first blooming or the soft mechanical buzz of a wall clock in dimpled sunshine or the sounding peals of bells a moment lapses into the essence a commentary on nothing encompassing nowhere of life nowhere of roads unfinished a temple on the wild river still, rest here interred in stillness into you hunters prowess and lovers hunger here the seal the masking of your heart revenge steals the moments notice away from parentheses and indices away from Pharisees and blind Pigeons, corporate your own belief in maskless light your raison detre, open life undeceived

columns built will stand when anchors are the pools of light you drank from your hands from palms of origin loose, unbroken, long and thrilling the road with notes of longing the humility of life waterless from the bare branch of a dying elm a movement begins with the wind that reaches inside and stresses your heart a final sadness in your eyes they are ringed with red shadows darkened by the suns absence the cross hangs over your brow with sallow skin of the carved savior and red thorns they bound him with only a resin statue petals the flowers in the vas are shrunken and waterless canvases lean all together And there within the cinders your eyesare colors and movements rings of red from the old oak bough are wound together each year is wound around the last in the center is the genes is a small circle complete and forgotten outer rings are thicker, they are dark sap all clumped together like rubies dried into a jewel that is the storm within your eyes. Recycle the wind settles a branch on the doorstep with a violent gust then testily stirs the trees above an evanescent movement that stretches the fibers of the skys spider web breathing like an expanding

ribcage with great animal inhalations dynamic rustle like a voice from the past rows of thick powerful trunks along the hillside that used to be a pasture where my grandmother got chased by a bull and barely escaped being gored wind recycles the mind recycling itself wanders through its own desserts and factories, drooping willow groves open and flower. The Blue Notebook Ivan the horrible and the knights of Malta carried their crest like certain birds displaying their feathers much brighter than the light of day polished swords would gleam a rain scatter of needle pricks light dancing mercurially off the surface of an ancient river waters like a muslin curtain like purple death shroud over dusty moth-eaten bones delicate filigree of age, decay webs, spun filaments waving and rolling in the current like certain sea plants contoured bodies, sunken barks ladies and gentlemen unfortunate lost color form and contour to the flowing water, a viscous medium of flux castaways of the world above a doe pauses shyly by a shaded pool laps daintily and receives her own beauty a mirror condescends, never bends here we are rain at heart looking into waters through a magic talisman discern the artifice in the witnessing

we reveal ourselves to know ourselves to know one is to know ones effect as well as ones defect one echo and visage labor for oneself, an existential purpose driven like a knife to death a linear path from living in more than two dimensions a literate whore serves a paperwork God bows low under the shadow of Count Tolstoy or Shehazerade, tales told are ladder rungs on Jacobs ladder past habituates in us sending out tendrils wherever civil man endures and man descends while the waters condescend all the while remaining impenetrable polluted but transparent, as if all the evil man creates were seen in revelation we could only be what we are no matter if the heavens call the waters bear our souls and we despair in the shallows; cowards. Not having slept the night before touring a memorial vault of failed attempts at love unfortunate I, pale with fickle sentimentality aloft the light gentle like buttermilk the air cool, emblazonment of jazz, the Duke dancing crane-like trumpet swans raise their necks long rips swell like eddies in the creek waters under a bridge a poet laureate hands out leaflets of God-word sworn testaments and bread of life to feed the soul with swords and hell birds like an awe inspired voyageur upon ancient oceans toward unknown continents

I am trapped beneath a giant tree grown like a monument in the blue grass like a Western troll of legend, a woman with blue hair walks under a bridge, I hand weave letters on a morning such as Homer described the sunrise softened bitterness as what is swept under rises to the surface in the tossing tensions of a storm we artfully inscribe our names on marble tombs to erase the regrets of childhood and love that we cannot redefine, or ever rediscover once trammeled and stained thy are unrecoverable An emitter of radiance the sorrow of her eyes dew clings to the underside of a spade leaf on the flip side a shiny taffeta smooth green simple geometry, resilient sparks of defiance lemongrass tea, a trans-personal moment inside the cafe that wonderful herbal smell outside the rain. Absent but present is a worn road bared of snow? when yesterdays melt unburdened this long line felt snow anonymous bold journeyman whenever the shovels turned the earth marvelous application of the shoulders and the excellent engineers spine columns of vertebrae linked together vibrant, flexive, shaving off layers until one smoothened way remains whenever shovels laid the line in time and ancient men combined to build a sign bellies full of rum, dark coursing roots stained with rye the arteries of currency refining an element of mind all capillaries joined into the system of divine providence passing on the night

the way worn road into unknowing sojourns a binding future. I am a cultured pearl, a nautilus unfolding as one passes through the passageways into the heart an inner chamber where word reverence the wind sonorous echoes off cold polished walls raspberry jelly from the jellyfish putrid flesh redemption. Lichen covers the old growth trees like a velvet dressing gown in the dusk ichor flows from granite living underneath a blanket as a hermit, in the soft surrendering comfort of bedding, a place to linger alone and read reading highlights. When the moon wakes me in the night the silhouette of bending trees against the stream of wind a pet rant light divests everything in a melancholy low watt glow powder blue lightning perfume menthol cough drops, cancellations depth charges that exposes deeper chasms menageries of tropical birds breadlines, ration cards, a bent ray of chalk disturbs the blank canvas showing where a future line will be a smudge of lipstick, coral on a soft white cheek, a nine to five dime novel romance writer witnessing a centerfold in Playboy of the great Monroe elbows greased, old and new dirty money mixing from our hands cowboy Movies, High Noon shoot outs a welcome comfort of an evening if love is where you find it

it is also where you lay your hands and hang your hat youth cultures us for a long life of decay as we compromise ourselves demolition, in pursuit of a new ethic an ethic that forgives transgressors a faith of flesh reincarnating us once a flower, an idol of desire a coward walks the London tower and takes a sacrifice of gratitude where a hero long ago traded in his spurs for a wonder of gold how word magicians solve crossword puzzles and stop writing verse a magic traded in for discourse love reworded becomes duty and occupation, service and sacrificial Pegasus above the Sears tower a bound and gagged Sisyphus Man is less entity than consequence and his being is but a derivation of a less subjective world, a synthesis of what he calls the elements. They all try to catch their lot maybe they will and the downturn of the system will dissent, of a Norman invasion and a Saxon nation the profitable treason of assimilation we commerce on the seas, omens wake in the lost islands of the sunrise to apparel the broad horizon with shot silk, blue misted with silver and a shore burnt orange, towers fall like funnels of tornados collapsed paradoxes of the crash of 29 within memory within ourselves on what was while there remains a hope nowhere to remove

the shifting blame, the gravity of the absent skyline was in ourselves emitting of dour report, cloisonn pins on the bodices of vintage dresses. sewing by moonlight I need you to wait under the rain for once a momentary lapse forgive when I compromise You compromise and we devise a new empathy to reconnect a broken cord we envelope the words in sheets of crisp paper lick the glue to close the envelope for the future hope will awaken when the letter is opened until then we devour ancient nights when the stars echo brilliantly to our foundries our brewing dreams now unearthed constitute a trousseau; cold wraiths that binds and weaves as the licorice shadows curling on a whitewashed wall where contrasting black and white call up demonic question marks in the circumambient light of street lamps into the mind of a small girl secretly awake when she should be asleep watching with calm alert as the time passes how the minute shifts everything; shape, contour reworking the clay of reality to open a new reality the shadow advances hour by hour driven inexorably by the clock that sends its whisper through the silent house a regular cadence of clocks, a letter pressed to a bow mouth her kiss

her shy tongue seals the letter for future reworking save the revelation of her for the glory of rising pyres of color, a boundary under her feet will be exhumed, from putrid yet sacred bones of a beginning, who knows only his own generation...? away from here when a new light arrays her cheek a bullet pierces her brain a tallow candle of human fat a ballasted body that wont sink when a worn edge of a tattered book catches her attention she looks up precisely and awakens in his gaze like a cloth remnant left behind after the dress is sewn. I am after all a local fixture, a note contusions to my heart that riddle the future with constellations studded bullet piercings there tattooed words replace existence with negatives in opposition beliefs are torn just to say a little more of what comprehends this despair; this ruby an hourglass that reaches on before us like a shroud cast in reverse an error of memory the hairs like tinsel a long grey road a beginning here the likes of which went untold to others, this thin gruel that is the water of memory a transparent broth, denatured of the luscious folds of sense expressionism like the slender body of a young man too slender of design, not desire

but an opposition to it; fulfillment a wise story; a fabric is revealed a hand or smile, a glance or email what unconsciously denies the fragile harmonies to know that lost time is lost awkwardness, feline characteristics, a bowl of fruit, couldnt revel so in brush strokes an erotic dream; only light pressure and blood, this wound inhales odor of orchids of cradled secrets secrets tolling under thin layers of ignorance secrets; lies like intimate shadows of this linden tree fresh and hallowed death intimate shadows like silk veils over my heart this betrayal, the adultery of the father becomes the decline wasted identity, a man called himself honorable that led a child into innocence the grace of following of wisdom, of worship the illusions of justice proud of itself for its virtue out of these wooden and solid icons only disparities between revelry and the unflinching gaze of judgment rendered out of chaotic spells details of a note of a violent passage emptiness to rebirth in a note. lying in the grass to feel the awesome girth of the earth gravity pressing up and the fortressed interweaving of clouds pushing down like an ocean above me pressure per square inch cubed in a world where light is a lover of contours, especially bodies to make the pattern of a quilt

a shadow checkerboard if I can sit alone under a well-endowed tree by and by, I end up finding a luminous bell of serenity like a rare flower bedecked with such flowers the soul is a gatherer VIII. a dragon on my windowsill just out of view keeps returning every night to sing sad music of the powerful re-arising in us of the past, the moon beams down on the earth like a child I return embalmed in shadow inert like a moon rock and radioactive hour defines hour another rain flower wilting in sunshine of the regretful past a distinguished guest returns wait til it is best to be seen and be blessed bower of fruit, soft and bitten by worms the gall of hunger emerges from a womb of thunder the sky melts like a man on stilts tornado spumes, toss and roll of that muscle of wind like growl of an abyss of smoldering iron given soul by the engineers design like a widow of disparity what once was possessed? torn to shades and scars of memory and a bower of daffodils a sky of briar rose and honey ambient white noise, a recognized refrain, a new embrace IX. Truth is a harem girl dancing the dance of seven veils she murmurs in the shade of cobalt shadows like birds of night opening shells, pearls, opening flowers

a pistol, violet with love rich and dewy exquisite like the succulent crevasse of doughy mud that fills in with riverwater the impression still and defined of a footprint an empty mold around which legends grow of the empty place ecstatic herbs grow in the wake of rich growth a man walked among the metered lines crept within the steely hull dissected living tissue ambassadors dissect his bones mapping tendons, layers, arteries once there was life breathing in him, of relentless journey made after his passing on before his very eye another light of eye tells itself of nowhere and defecations a mouth to feed, a deep throat to breathe air with and swallow liquids a wafer dissolves under the tongue a papery remnant of solitude the lingering flavor what to feed a mouth that babbles in tongues and announces itself with joy, ammonia, blight on our land bears fruit, in silent lips. a milky laps at the edge of the window a calm blue interior becalms us, a refuge impersonal diffusing amassed energy into present trivia my embellished thought-book opens, revealingly becoming a blank page emptied of contents the visual disowned of properties as we leave all our conflicting lies away on the tide lost and potential future

Advents, emergent headwaters overlap what is first established animal haunts the quiver of nerves the tense shoulder support that finds comfort stressing a blind eye and a good eye look from within and look into a world crimsoned with revenge a sacrifice becomes a device to seek out reverence in divine mirroring a weeping branch leans over the water source a place where renewal discourses in cool rustles and burbling pools of raindrops a power devours silence and the mask is broken revealing a new face amid ravishment of decaying light as we wait upon the night My love gave me a handkerchief with a border of tears. About as often as I think of your face and under breathing spell out the syllables until I reconnect to a past teacup a previous moment lost, refilled to the brim teh empty space reserved for old acquaintances as often despotic as heavenly warm and expel my dreams cut off all the flow of love and break out of this embellished weaving to a simple truth I lost a wit and found it, again where I left it once and you I never found again, were empty in mind of what you had of love if I commit a murder or forge a new life lips are vessels filled and always full that spill out new words to contain old lies, a bitter rapture testifies a bone dancer harlequin

invites us in to tea and nettles. I walk the length of the street the way I usually walk without joy inviting glances and expelling them a search for faded roses for blooming centipedes, under a magnifying glass always seeking a voice to counter voice me, a wit to meet and transform mead into honey, turn this intoxicant of words into form, brass, like a sculpture in a garden of the foliate blessed earth, dessert wanderers, common soldiers, a beauty is a wonder, that never occurs or takes place a writ of love, a flit of light that scatters over diffusing waters a mouth of iron, to digest a broad-clothed truth a velum leaved book, but to relate ones soul, the first precipice to unveil, like a chasm of air and light a reflection in a shop window a carrier pigeon with a note a basket of fruit, an unusual morning haze. a little bit of roots, a little dam of love a nearby stream matching music to the trembling restlessness of my heart in my breast a nihilistic impulse to devour the e rose of the sun in teh flask of the sky a picture of me on the nightstand celluloid skin, a mosaic of little tesserae instead of bone and sweat echo and illusion of a fantasy blend incoherently with patting drums and tickling rills of water seeping through cracks swallowing boulders like a centennial explosion a bitter glint is what is left to make new masks with the same themes as my oldest loves disguising the past as the future

renunciation; the missing picture amounts to this I wove around your image a robust cloth an undergarment of loss, a tortuous winding away over a journeying narrative I became as ever your emblem turning away in deception when I would be forever a ray in your sight. I wilt when I am dying of fears to disguise shame as a woven culture I want to build another chapter beginning with dissolved granite in acid How much better the illusion was when it was my own eyes plagued with dreams common idiom never rationally an eye in a brick wall a melting wax doll, just in pronouns do we find equality? ambition, a new molten high a caption under a photograph when it was my own eyes a word without the image The stone ground maize in mild buttermilk becomes a worm A communal place, location in musical hues new images of my own identity inside the eyes of other people lovely remembering, repetition as well as spring beautiful columned notes lifted eternity, the mention of a love name furtive syllables a man emerges from distant places makes a nigh call in love like craving heroin for a fix in calm resistance to dissipating movement of a ground blade the ubiquitous experience of looking she or he always red haired, rain-wet and diffusing stranded energy or raspberry rouged, piquant gaze nose upturned

defiant maybe, yet undefined looking to enjoy yet loving as a judge, pleasure in reservation nerves lapse when I look away from a novel, environmental features seeking meditative and resonating friendship but who is a friend indeed who is never foreign? I am a repository collecting moss, miter sharpened humors that rapture when I look to end up carpeted with ancient flowers like a goddess in my shroud of antiquity imbuing darkness with reverence I wake, want to weaken emitted radiation of the lip shades, the voyeuristic hive. the light remnant in the night the light resin coats the pavement with a calloused shell in teh jade cool labyrinth of absent illumination a cancer, a viral canopy of stars wreathing all with the same inscrutable cold inscrutable space, empty container the universe like a vortex of rubber, to hold what waits infinitely for annihilation, we all wait for death, for nothing is, matter created favoring destruction of the quark and the stringed harp of energy keep blooming form within themselves like the flower fated by the artist to claw out from its chasmic center like a deep throated womb shaped by a glass blower, a prism of desire, a bellowing brass bell of a trombonist in stark play with sliding notes the blur, the slur accompanies the orgasm, the shriek, the ivory horn, the dexterous ribbon, teh neck the fluted grace of that fallopian hallway a paragraph of escape, leaflets on street corners

annunciating us, to divine symmetry, to designed symmetry, the widow awakened to the whore, the virgin dissolved and dissipating into fragrant lit needles, sprinkled like navel piercings across a black canvas like sequins on a blue negligee of moods the silver accompaniment of autumn the exhaust belched from stacks, shoulders tense with questions a mouth to feed with, a solder will to engender and dissolve with, unreached human seas aluminum scales, the plane of Euclids vulva flute, the universe resurrected, turning inside out on a winter night in the jade pool of a streetlamp a night when I would clasp to my heart this abalone shell, the wind like an echo of this restlessness empties out of the past fragrant memories of human fatigue, when I last embraced a human body the disappointment like a shrill opening note in a solo. a debonair mannerism the lamplight, an anonymous note fed a frenzied love, butter toast and jam, go grandly make embers amber and beds cold, where the coal burns the soul yearns, a sanguine face, open like the moon to every eye, until the morning layers you in gold and crimson reveal the love thats only hidden under the skin after all time, continue it and finish in time for dinner the laughter calling back a refuge from indiffering routine labor and braggadocio of ordinary men, retire your soul, embellish and unfurl your soul

let it wave like a birch branch in the rain a lute in the background a mile long thread of love leading to the sepulcher with the slender column of his spine which even though he wrestles in the day and night seems to keep a simple line that curves in the slope of his buttocks into the serenity of nothing but shadows and contours that exhaust themselves in simplicity he writes a note candor on paper geraniums and ruthless leaves his words sprout words and grow together infinitely teh eyes that see so well cant confine curiosity in his pockets the simple curve that veils the system the bones, the pieces, and fragments that expected composition inflexible serenity and drafted engineering sleepless reams of newsprint unfurl with batwings hours of collapse between the mattress and your dark hair the thick musk, your smell envelops us like an envelope humors of the night enrapture us we enter into sentimental mesh complimented and icy singular like a flash of fluorescent light in a radioactive minute hours come a corner us in hinterlands of quilted love cornices and slip stones coming with the hour of rouge and stone he fears to face the faceless masses crystal tears will be his ashes coming winter like the yellow sunflower ghastly and naked stretches to grow like an organic master and the liquid love

flows underneath it all when glaciers expand and hunger yields with recurrent nightmares to the militant joy of televised history disorder is the mystery of infinity which is not infinite? before us the future steams 18 The Blue Notebook boiling water human life is conjured with a scent and snuffed by accident enough to compel the rough beast with roses he writes with conscience and composes ---where shadows are erased forever three times over where ribbons of smoke that curled their tendrils into catapulting tails forget their renascence and are expelled some say that incense and intuition are forgotten that candles and the e soul are molded over that the light we allow compresses and convulses in volts and bowels of steel Some feel the silent light like the snuffing of life itself a curious sensation when we standardize and evolute the forces that were born before we remembered we were men and the holes are getting better all the time as if history forgotten breaks the integrity of our personalities brittle and lifeless the crust is burnt away like a corn husk until the man no longer frees himself form darkness anymore and all you have is emptiness at the core the best longing Ive felt seems itself to keep together all the omens of a pomegranate and a parting glance, an imaginary song glyphs written on auroral light keep shifting in the electromagnetic spectrum causing freak accidents explosions, sparks, and static and the best love songs ever written drift in monosyllables from the broken speakers the kept man in the moon links all the stars into a picture of his lost lover, like a child at connect the dots, just like us he sees what is seen in the imagining an the awakening eye

a symbol might expire before it became explicable and people keep p on asking what it means after the face of death looks in on a dear friend and we see eye to eye with him again when he was blind, and bitter rich like a coffee bean he bit into a granite stone like chipping a tooth or testing a coin for authenticity and whatever pent up hypocrite in us remains beckons after all we sin to let us into the path of love and forge us anew like a minted key, copy of a copy, of the original decayed mystery the Pandora bitch awakened from death with a kiss remembers to pass on her secrets to the mortal menagerie of fools and calling owls a pillar of salt a traitor turns back in regret Orpheus cries on the airwave spreading himself on the wind like a chenille remnant or a tear evaporated into light a story writhes in convoluted corruption finishes and devolves a denouement eats itself, digests itself begets a resolute mind. wings, wings of fire rise from ashes, lichen of cold frost on the grass, seeing your breathe like incense when ones heart stretches out the valance of stars, scatter of glass-beads, all these years we combed our hair out, we washed our hand, our fingers with grains of sand fired our hearts with dreams of which we werent aware of their significance

when we dreamed of our mothers a skein of existence. the thickened skin like ice on a frozen river, brown and burnished with sweat molten lava that is the spiritual retreat from love, how benevolent spirits are nothing more than stale prose thoughts ramble on the way that words are supposed to but there and now are two places separated by words and nothing more interesting than my own words like a skin, language bides its time takes a bow before appearances how long the sentences run on then again the thoughts are crippling how long before i write something meaningful drifted snow on the brow of a Pontiac the wind risping on the trees lips pressed tightly bitterly, like bitter acorns these emulsive dreams how empty even when I watched the birds returning from their spring haunts and drifting in on their wings to sit in line over the rooftops the anonymous wires that connect the freeways connect all the sifting fires combed through morrows and mires marrow golds and stones throw ways onto the morning after defecting light mimsys and mosies pocketed posies sit on the window in the shadows of the rimming trees the laughter coughing like a sick chiding mother the winds worship the arrowsfoot snow the arrows of ice cleverly clinging in the cracks and shadows that light denies noise is the muscle of dissent

the music of experience the raw sensual plug of the electric guitar the menstrual fuel that flights on the wings of the snow the arrow -root the soft font of dreams the wind that supple and naked breathe both empty and meaningful at the same time a deeper meaning in the drip of melancholy the float of cigar smoke the cellophane over the aging world that preserves the emptiness with the clarity of glass the clean line of modern life the wind scent of blossoming waves- salt tears, beads of water on my upper lip licked away, tasted of seas and anemones in spring tides life lushes through my veins, raptures and decaying light shaping and reshaping the visible how no one strolls by as I sit by the water lapping at my feet, it licks like a tongue of a sea-turtle trumpets of light- at midday sun streams down, bathes my skin more than the water in suffocating brilliance how many tides do come and go in a lifetime of throes, -wind scent the laughter of combed and water beaded trees- sending their sighing laughter- over the water- no matter how much freedom one defines -more freedom finds in the emptiness of solitude, the wind raptures over the long term the sentimental prayer that the rolling waters capture and disperse like a fishing line, joy caught and released spirit wraiths; the fish with their translucent beds, lingering to feed on the silted floor, tricks of light, lost meanings held and then forgotten

no one can know; no man lives to understand the wake, the wake full of wind sails of sorrow- our eyes- capture uplift in billows of movement pillars of light, empty bottles mental Argonauts, sifted through silence which is a sieve braille of spots like the mottled pattern on a salmons fin, or the appaloosa dappling reflecting like freckles off the moored rowboats and all that is above mixes with all that is below into all that weaves below water is the barrier the zip lock seal between two divided firmaments in silver raimented blessed like the children of a water god Lethe-weaves and underwater symphonies of Triton, deceptive wastrels of time wrecked boats, tossed bodies, the salty brine of a forlorn cemetery a loot of treasures and refuse discards, lost, all the sorrow and mirth emulsed in sighs soft carpets of wilting grasses limning light, alone under a lone watcher in such soft impression i sit building inner castles towers and stalactite needles of fierce and breathing violence if one could only feel like a harp the vibrations of the light and mood if one could strum ones heart like a weed of grass playing instrument of shade and light extremes of temperature cold stale water and fierce heavy sun all these come together in the moment-sieve. can you connect to the soul of the sea? or ride the waves that will bring you to me saffron leaves The wind dreamed the spirit of the wolves, petulant blushes

of grey against a wet sky, the amber brown and green mildewed leaves melted into the mirror of the sea, elbows of land embraced by arms of sky and spume, brushes of cloth, like the eyebrows of sun the softest touch of light on the wings of cotton; wings of cloth on a line, the sallow lips of light peeking over the edge of an eddying wave, time stands still, it stills itself in the time between kisses, waiting for moments to arise out of sirens of glass and beakers of honey blankets of wool, and windows opened to the mouths of wind wind frills wind flies wind fights it dries the knots of the heart with strings of pearls, with serenitas of pain, gnats of light like fireflies blindly piloting in night we will full things, our soft fire wings breathe grasshoppers of joy that explode on a rain puddle, bracket a compressed mood, blanket a softened groove grooving with a lover in the brushing of lush fabric, the caress of velvet, the mapping of arteries on the felt of the heart, the breakfasting of kisses on the breast and bone the belt unbelted, slip unslipped shelter fish in the bed of a river bending curves like the silhouette of ice as it melts, yellows flushing the shoulder blades the spider bones of one hand and the spider shadow of a tree against the wall, amplified ten thousand volts these tastes of humanity in the pitch of a voice crying with a rapture of wit a rapture of many voices wit of a divine Court fool a million winds can brashly assert their voices and not reach the pyre that is the coming together

of desires, the combining of pressure and crisis, the power of iris and eyelash, the knots that claw with ginger roots like hands of clay, like monkey paws with claws like the harvest like the wheat germ, the ermine sky and the blowing bowing stalks knots in the heart thoughts composted, using broken notes to carve out the heart using the claw of bitter drug locusts devour what is left of the body that still desires after the will of the fire denigrates to ire and mildew in the pond, masques of light linger after the faces of love have long ago faded, lift the Renga like the lingering clash of cymbals shockwaves of laughter in the musky bar mellow trails of smoke rise in stale yeasty dens lusty with life dank and ripe like vinegar strutting scatter of gravel underfoot the daggers of ice like seeds awaiting release a blue shower of light and memory a whisk of stars a wick of lonely heart the unraveled light graces all of us with its blessing a strand of hair away whine of folly Wind cries through draped leaves sorrowful song as I walk in the leaf strewn gutter reminds me of a song once heard from the muffled radio of a Ford tinny music like laughter

the chitter of husk dry leaves mumbling a phrase with dry fingertips temptations fire flowering the ash pit filled with violet petals come home our dear loved ones embers were once memories yellow like apple slices in a bowl halo of light from a fluorescent bulb warm like blanket of solitude someone needs a doctor another sees his fathers ghost like a dressing gown shadow looms together phrases from forgotten letters in a locked room lowered gazes of men willow switches whip the ghostly moonlight like butter a home like the scarlet thread connects one window to the next written in the margins of a used school notebook poems to worthy Koans tension climaxes with tympani shivers magnetic like moonlight a string of white lights trace the branches of a crab apple tree winter is shimmering strung lights like a sutured wound stitch together patches of soul carefully drape the tree woven well of reveries light dimples the rain puddle With amber and scotch bitterness cold pierces fiercely like vice arrows of ice taper delicately into fresh shooting stars first melt of spring brushes of ice and snow lick the earth like the calligrapher scratching strokes cloud cover like sea froth combed and scattered in riddles and knots swirling mist and licorice twists candy apple sticky and crisp inside ginger cider and chestnuts roasted like acorns moons rise and fall lovers wish together on a halo moon that washes their uplifting faces.