10.01.2008

Give it to me

The dead men dream but the keen men sleep.
The quiet woman pulls the cotton from the deep.
The deep is the reason why the green sea moves,
with the spinning of the people and the earth that it soothes.

The dead men dream but the poets consume.
The woman takes a break and stares at the moon.
The moon is the reason why the black sea turns,
with the eating of the shore and the mind that it burns.

The dead men dream but the mad men drive.
The woman pulls a muscle and does another dive.
The dive is the reason why the rough sea sings
with the swimming of a couple and their broken wings.

I will find you,
and somewhere down there the density
of words will crush us.

Separate II

In the deep sea the fish gather, blind but hungry.
In the trees the deep black green of the pines cries out
"pine for me", and a billion ants work obliviously under the stones.

In the cave the bats sing nursery rhymes
as they devour shrews and the words go
"sleep on through the night" as if to quell the hunger
of the lesser animals.

In the earth the worms spit through the soil,
aimless and divine direction until the sparrow swoops
and ascends into the sky in a cry
of "there is longing here" but the worms are warm for only a while.

The sun would smile but it is spitefully dense with the sea.
They would think it pretty,
but the apes are wrapped in their own dream.

Separate

To write, to shake the scenery of our mighty ghosts,
they shake us breathing,
they shape us seathing with the sap of the empty soul.
That easy dawn of thought the morning is not ours,
but the ten thousand birds singing in the tree
as they suckle on our souls.

The sea slips about our necks even as it glistens
in the second descent of the sun.
The trees, like toxic needles swift the smells that tackle us into the mud.
The mud, dense with the sound of the mad men,
making the tense more tense,
masking the fear in the old man's hospital bed.

These are the leaden dreams of the moving mud.
When our phantom begs us to dissolve
we whisper to it, no, not yet, we're not ready for you
as if it moved our ghosts to let us breathe.

a life of leisure

the synapse is dead.
though it shined like perfect dust,
the old man is dumb

3.22.2008

For You, Ellen

I fell in love with a girl made of tin foil and sound.
In the sand of the shadows my dry mouth rises
off the four walls:
Oh broken down celestial temple that is the tin foil sky
guide me to the flesh of love,
I am sick of the skeleton of it.
Guide me to the body of love,
I am tired of the outline of it,
grinning wet and blue
I fell in love with tin foil,
the way your skin tasted in the temple.

In the sand of shadows there is nothing inside of you.
I have conquered you
and even your stars are empty clones -
burning and shuffling, burning and shuffling.

Scale

Bubbles of galaxies swirl against the black.
The viscous brain is violent and
cannot be opposed by mere pacifism and intellect
says the cosmos, exploding and bubbling,
crushing the expanse with its supercluster thumbs.

The father slaps him, grabs the book from his hand
and tears it in half.
Goddamn useless. Goddamn useless.
The rough man chops the wood
and the soft, younger man watches him intensely.

In the afternoon he picks berries in the woods,
spots a wounded bird in the brush
and crushes its neck with his thumb.

How beautiful. How beautiful,
says the cosmos.

1.25.2008

Overgrowth

Because this is what came out of the earth when she died,
this is what came out of the earth.
Two stupid apes clinging together in the snow
three dumb birds clawing at the snails down below
four dead species for every dead man
five snakes in moonlight hiding in the sand
six armed babies crying at the zoo
seven laughing captains saying god will meet you soon
eight cruise missiles launch and screech
nine ants carrying an egg on the beach
ten cities wasted, ten more in the breach
of morning, and the sun comes hurling 'round again -
This is what came out of the earth when she died,
this is what came out of the earth.