073: Alphabet

I had explanations to give
but the words I could find
were all green
in meaning
and they crawled out
on a Saharan muscle.

Brick faced,
across a distance
from an absence,
tombs of Pharaohs,
belittled,
child's speech.

I'm crafting the tools,
stronger arms and better words,
ever voiceless;
red is the first new letter.

071: The flower thief, part 2

Nuclear heart to be cherished
from a safe, dim distance,
as my eyes beckon late evenings
to conceal what's trapped
in a jaundiced gaze,
birdcage of field flowers drowned
in bile from the pig liver of love.
Presiding over an empty court,
I decree transmutations
for coercion, golden concrete,
owner of what shouldn't be,
nosebleed the loneliness
- mind ravish the body -
and jet black choler, the mortar
to fix the battered bulkheads
and face-lift the facades
of a soured Magonia.
Born from the egg
inside the skull of a stepchild god,
my sketch antihero, persona of null,
everyday war against landfill dragons,
splintered sword still sharp,
he feeds the leech of pulsing life,
stuck to a bloated vein,
subway shafts encompassing.

Vision comes as thief and judge and jailer,
a spoon in the murk of days,
red cloud to the sun, a backward light,
barbed wire dreamcatcher
evolved to raven feathers,
metronome the string of captured moments,
living life, a collection of seconds.

062: Atlas

Paint your love red on the walls of my abode,

so the thin marrow may outgrow the bone;

I've lived so long in the shadow of the sky,

my wings tucked deep beneath dead skin,

waiting for one that fits my loneliness

to kindle the rush in my innards of rust.

Chained dearly to the mountain on my back,

made in the shape of every writhing thought,

I'm building an exquisite silhouette

for you to match, but I was always there -

self-portrait of pain, ease in distant deserts,

still kicking ego on the frozen slab.

Discard all judgement when the nails go through

and I'll find you shying inside my serpent clothes.

060: Death and the Antiquaries

Island within

a scattered archipelago,

low tides still expose you,

winds erode

and waves grind,

while a random snapshot

mimics serenity.

Leaden beams

carrying the wounded,

so fascinating

from afar,

the reduced bodies

of the once mighty,

a fleeting relief,

away from the fall.

The bridge behind your back,

only floods will reveal

its final pulse

and its absence will mirror

the screaming void.

Time is no friend

in the echoing caves

of this freakshow,

so I hoped blindly,

come spring anew,

they would clone me

using DNA from littered

cigarette butts.

058: Sleep of the ants

Gasp self, formed by matter against absence,

calloused knuckles and radio songs intimate,

forcing the outside world in,

figures deluge beyond the Cartesian.

This here is condemned,

run-down house atop a restless tomb,

wherein the blind tornado sleepwalks,

cradled by the deepest roots,

lonely seeded from Adam's skull.

Step in, needle cushion, collection of comedowns,

polar north spells only nowhere,

the dead, never dead enough to bring out,

when the tremors of raging weakness

keep them awake through the sanguine dawn.

Crutched eyelids howl to fall,

but thoughts, twitching, carry on,

as ego bursts and blasts in anti-Zen,

a display nurtured to extract cheers and tears.

Always lost in stargaze from knee-dug glens of salt,

with nerves exposed to autumn's gnaw;

just let lie motionless.

054: Cave into me

Cave into me from the flowing blackness

behind subway windows, reflective of desire,

when the eye is lashed - dream trap ecstatic,

when I make up new geometries,

you're the golden ratio to my arch of dust.

Will you let me go, let me jump off the chaise,

run away with the driver, frail wings careless,

let me bloom into the egg shell man

I was meant to be, a poison seed

engulfed in turbid amnios.

We'll birdwatch and trainspot the apocalypse,

tired with a passion on Monday mornings,

a sordid mind's springs unwind so weary,

till we grow old and boring

and the universe puts us to sleep.

053: The spill

From barrens to deserts,

partaking clockwork migrations,

bacilli of a tectonic world that crumbles slowly,

back to the frozen sweat of the void.

Black hole heavy logs

intersect at right angles,

where my mind falters and my skin knows not,

rabid titans' tug of war,

the phantom of order scared by destiny's scythe.

Fugitive patterns, dismantled by the wind,

wrote the story of a new dawn

on a cold prison wall,

lavishly eroded by the nails of left hands.

A sole beacon, in the distance,

a man's seductive blind rage,

spilled and scattered

to the heart rhythm of carrion calls.

I hang on dark clouds, disseminated

at the crossroads of free fall trajectories,

scribing a single word

on antique rotting bricks

from the ruin of a golden promise;

I'll espouse dusted bones in my flea bed,

upon a mattress of tentacles,

intertwined fingers - starving grubs,

shaping what used to be a perfect body,

long before the illusion faded.

050: Lines in empty spaces

I see the world whirl by

in the glow of lonely streetlights,

tallying seconds in swarms of smoke,

stretched along plastic firmaments,

until a bright consummate day

will blow wide the windows

of my solitude cocoon.

The breeze hints of her footsteps,

as I revel in the barren distances of crowds;

come visit, image traced in sullen red,

from an electric alcove -

shielding meager ties,

while I remember years of eternities,

countdown to an apocalypse of sleep,

the gray comfort of being a master

of a cold, nothing night,

seconds tallied in swarms of smoke

and the glow of lonely streetlights

in which the world whirls by.

047: Homecoming

Between cotton walls of grey

caravans trail and trod along

a flat earth nailed to paper skies,

marked with kurgans of giants,

mantled by glitters of cold,

decelerating just a bit

to usher in an age of questions.

Within sublime frequencies,

the movement never ceases

and shaking teeth keep grinding

with consummate dendrites

for the invisible door,

sat one step beyond

the mating point of sea and sun.

Striving to net parhelions,

our roots are touching rock,

with every dawn and every war,

yet we'll hold fast, like blades of grass,

each crashing wave,

each footprint laid

in swiftest sands the wind won't name.

045: Living inside me

Standing on the pier

that pierces the seam

of a sea of stone,

sacrally alone,

starflesh dives the rim.

Breathing caves of fear,

housed in crumbling lungs;

if I dare pry,

hear the crystal cry,

bells of waking rung.

Trickling dusk draws near

and heralds the dark night,

lightning in the soul,

imprint in the coal,

the end in living light.

Stabbing steps do sear,

disease march 'cross the ice,

every breath, a knife,

still, the kiss of life,

building paradise.

037: Life in the shallows

In the shallows, writhing,

in the shade of concrete reefs,

fish colonies migrate

in clockwork cycles,

dead hand precision

beneath uncaring gaze,

salty, liquid today,

the dance of anemones reflects

the demons' tar,

the dark side of mirrors.

Tomorrow, the dawn of triumph

will take us all away

into the blue,

yet the flame's still unconsummed

the epic of my pitch,

unwritten.

Fish swirl around in steel tornadoes,

but I cannot give birth

to so needed new words

for a cardiac language.

Pearl fishers from the other side

observe seconds

of these fleeting lives,

another fold

in the same veil;

and the doused embers are voiceless

as lightning sparks run

through Ranvier nodes,

on highways of grey,

never far enough.

Words fail again

to redeem the mute,

before the reach of dreams,

the thrust of exile, when gills unbreathe,

so I'll paint the blue

with burning oil

and elect silence

as my new tongue;

as long as these fibers pump and grind

I know I'll never die.

034: We will never meet again.

Step by step on the electric treadmill,

an electric tombstone epergne

in a funeral of watts and what ifs,

cask laid bare like a pirate ship

ghosting in the unbreezed milk, without refusal.

And few extol the throbbing thread

of vivid smudge by sprawling palms - tendril tight,

internal to digest the charging tides

that ooze and roll throughout

lives of commutes and numbed prayers,

in conked out breath, condemned and wishful;

lifelines connected in needle eyes,

sowing strips of spent skin and dried digits,

seams in desert camouflage outfits

and noose neckties curdling a dirge pattern.

Another pint of Greek fire concurs,

submerging the candle, nurturing the rage

to spit in saturnine hunger with a stabbing spine

spitefully built against the dexter branch.

Hark! Your fixtures are graves of ice,

your speedways slope into incisive winds

that jag against our fragile flesh,

so boil and distill - and let only such elect few

as pollen drops be spared from consumption,

for flashlights are futile in the conquering dusk,

appropriated house of fog, where hunters stalk and nail

mere exhales of long-gone gods;

in the churchyards and broken plains

of this earth never will you find me.

032: Midnight sun

A day of more, a song of meeker noise

that gently weaves upon my inner ear,

a whisper bailed to slip in deeper poise.

Against the strain, to falter skulking ploys

and bring down towers of encroaching fear,

a day of more, a song of meeker noise.

By tender touch, affable vaster joys

and bosky groves so still - and drawing near,

a whisper bailed to slip in deeper poise.

That day I'll pass the plays of girls and boys,

pursuing inklings far from savage drear,

a day of more, a song of meeker noise.

The blasting gale that graven stone destroys

will never rake this image I hold dear,

a whisper bailed to slip in deeper poise.

Redemptive notes from trumps of dream envoys

in velvet dawn will find my vision clear,

a day of more, a song of meeker noise,

a whisper bailed to slip in deeper poise.

031: Perched on the sill

In a slow scuttling breach,

mild leer of shimmer peak,

toast to the health,

as dragons clash,

and obfuscate face in silver shards.

Lance a rope ladder

to the tempest rush,

broken bottle neck dibs

a bronze coin flip.

Dam sour streams in my pulsing bulk,

in his drain I've slaked

far too long.

Screwed driver, asleep

on the wheel, stern against

tender innards.

I've ground and gritted to karst

on muck road miles

on the science of fiber in action

to botch revolutions,

springs spun sinister,

undone metabolic.

I've mustered mobs and armies,

filling nil with clamour from their mouths in rot

and parting brakes to gauge

whether the sun will fuse

feathers of lead.

Read canine spill scribbled on pages

of diaries oiled sky crimson, to expand function,

outstep logic

and razor rust dull;

and who would align to seek debris of me

in the resplendence

left over when the grime is purged?

029: Levers & cogs

Drink away the night hours

in fume fried brick bowels

and sing to mend an aching back

and a staggering dream path,

with the drained withstanding

of plastic film marked,

waxwork heartsease kicked in the groin.

How long can this conversation wander

before the fracture erupts

and the slimming seams can't hold out

the shimmering rain any longer?

How quick can I spin this bottle

to match the revolution of a silver barrel

sporting five vacancies?

Still mooring of sultry arms

stripped by morning blades,

a free ticket to the house of exile;

rebuked bill sticks to my neck, ink ingrained,

as I roll the boulder uphill,

the ticking haunts, unfading,

the noise of the world.

Condoned in cardiac entrapment,

lung wrestling and touch duels,

within gene strands, smoke grappling calisthenics.

Yet, should the burning wheel retort

I'll burgeon my spider legs, I know,

to stride the glass divide,

fleet-footed slip to the other side.

028: The flower thief

With trembling hands on the viscid scape,

to never spoil a precious petal,

pickpocketing sights in subway cars to relive,

to recreate card chapels of sincere prayer,

of unbecoming words trepid of loss.

Modulate memories in gold and black like she was,

thoughts to fornicate in sagging anthills,

escalade in grasshops a private mountain

straying the escarpment of a lost Naraka

whence cells crystallize in human tidbits to be

a feeble abode of instinct and love

and culled fear, skulking in cherry groves.

Here, a collection of coincidences

ascribed to paths of stars and cold bodies,

in a neonate game, older than my forefathers;

here, a bardo trap, a keep of comforts

of empty presents from a wishlist in tar

that spells like a last will protruding

through cracks in my undying joy.

Within gardens of evil and hope,

roots of rage reel to acquire frail flowers,

pollen of pictures in blood ringing

on the limbs of butterflies washed in sunfire.

Test the finites of absolution, alpha and omega

in one single consummate image, nerve induced

through the pupil of the third eye.

027: Amber

I subtract another brick

from the dank foundations

of your mansion cenotaph

to coalesce spazzed tension.

It collapsed in seaward breeze

as a waiting game missed,

reveal your features binary,

your tempest embrace dissed.

Distraught your elysian effigy,

rooted guilt in seams;

now and in aeon moonskin denied

the solace of the mean.

Inner workings of a manic queen

spearhead in vision songs,

occult forgiveness the earth knows,

lead us where we belong.

025: Numb and numbered

Toddling tide already worn,

swim in faces, reading episodes

of ache flicks and ether exits,

in a precise drift silence signals

a sniper reloading datum trace.

Her length and width to southern winds,

we count in seconds that won't sit still,

hypertension housed in heavy husks,

landlocked within shelves of stardust,

intimate whispers mantling cathedral walls

upheld by matchstick counterforts.

Glints in grinning eyes shed light

on catapults of word and bone

with torment tongue armed, milk white,

chalk black cadaver silhouette,

but candor ships sway tenderly,

just beyond the morning rim.

Play chords in red, cast self in sleep,

the music of mountains built on clouds,

hear and see with concrete sense

a ravaged circuitry bouquet,

killing fields of fear and desert dissent

playing for keeps, praying for rain.

Paste on the pavement a human smudge,

a fragile grace steals my breath away;

never account for a ruminant string,

we'll ride to the sun on wings of night.

024: One noise

Acid whimper

corrodes concrete

and angels speak

in sprawling tongues.

Refine vision

in saltwater lens,

before the gates,

request astray.

Salient roots

through barren soil;

crumpled Atlas

to the weight of all.

Array the nails

to shape a crown,

with absent mounts,

a cavalry charge.

Temple shores

reached in time due,

to drink the sea,

absorb the clouds.

Blossom of blood

springs from my bones

to color these walls

in violent dawn.

023: Amphibians

In good hiding, sullen damp dwell,

in black paint behind glass, behind eyeballs,

in tender flesh, coiled 'round rugged bone,

'round spines of strangers I know well;

think you can tell the scalpel swirl

from a puncture wound in the sun's skin,

raped in stoke, reaped in smoke,

this man-made geology carousel

spins us all out of control, autonomy spilled on walls

cold, concrete fall like machine music.

Locked cobweb can-can in crumbling opium dens,

our obtuse, trussed livid bodies,

obscene eye peering through the lens of a noose,

as I know your name, you know mine,

yet we're caecilians to the play above,

beyond the reach of the Methuselah moth,

cellular lives in bardo, years in the clock's tick tock,

tongues will be mute before the echo,

the poison will dry before the ocean.