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.

059: Trip to the treehouse

Eggshells rise and roll

the crowded dining hall

and fingers freeze pointing away;

on the jungle's rim, a foxhole,

leak through the pipe

and sandbox the mirage,

with a twitch of fear,

between sudden trenches

of the outside.

Freed to the vasts of self,

still quaked back in Cretan mirrors,

intimacy - desert well,

nurtured by the mute fading,

then dive it for a moment

to the berserk sound of life;

and before leaving here,

dust the patchwork

seeking a lifeline

all undividing.

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.

057: Names

On the static shore

of a remote lagoon,

I had dinners in the dark

with the moon up high

and an empty plate

for those who live in starfields.

Distance, relative

when trapped in a cage of echoes,

wandering the streets

of the city of unbuilt houses;

still the silver screen whispers

in icepick tongues,

diminutive and demonic,

shards squatting

the path of imbalance,

while I kept replaying

sequences of near joy,

lodged in secret graves.

I stretched my mind's limbs

to touch the sun's mantle

from the bottom of the pit,

starving and solitary,

in kinship of the king,

with a mouthful of lead.

This war, ongoing and unanswered,

cruel yet incumbent,

never released me

into the freedom of wolves,

but taught me I'll never breathe

the air of heaven.

056: Other end of the world

City shapes go on,

omnidirectional,

through the smell of plastic

and sweat

and a billion whispers.

See cardboard rows

flashing -

blind paparazzi;

electricity purrs,

lightbulbs mimic stars,

behind a corner,

a butterfly flaps its wings

in a glass box

and the line that divides

draws a blood equator.

The outside

isn't that pretty

seen through a hole in concrete,

through a pink eye

and an evil word,

- like a periscope

from a sane bubble,

refusing to collapse

back to thought.

Shaking paralyzed,

detuned,

almost bloodless

and up with the blues;

the arms that hold heaven

will reach tomorrow,

but tonight,

nowhere isn't far enough.

055: Haiku

Append missing time

to a blemished résumé -

hell is a mirror.

[Written long ago, slightly altered.]

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.