075: Untitled

     Out of land.
     Out of sky.
Pillows and blankets
will not protect
the aged child anymore,
astray in the compound eyes
of his guardian mosquito -
polaroid butterfly in soot,
paperclipped to a nude wall,
mechanical heart run dry,
washed saline
in the rivers of Arcadia.

     Out of words.
     Out of wit.
And from the sidewalks,
angry shouts of termite mobs:
we are still inside, in place,
where the angel crashed,
X'ed by the nail
that crucifies the map,
because the long hours
only follow themselves,
as the penguins search
for their long lost egg.

The definitions
     of everything that falls apart,
     reset in stone.
The chalkboard of history,
     from seaside cliffs
     to chicken soup.
From the caves of self,
     the light was always
     blinding neon.
In the cold of dawn,
     the phoenix brooms
     his own ashes.

074: Untitled

Half life is committed
to cardboard coffins,
spiced up with made up memories
of an event horizon
reached,
nights scarred
in teeth of dawn
and the barking of insomniac dogs.

Concrete miles of
alien crowds,
they ripped away the folds
from the milk white cheeks
of being alone,
the selfish snowman,
lost in Rome,
pouting with a left elbow raised;
enemy sun will burn the tears
and the coat hangers
of fragile flesh.

It's the same old cry,
chewing at pages
of twisted prose and awkward lines,
just a different voice,
bruised by cigarette smoke -
fear of silence keeps it awake
or is it
the most bittersweet lie.

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.

072: Stoking (a credo)

Concrete walls
of architecture.
Fleshy membranes
of anatomy.
Rusted beams
of structure.
Bent ribs
of gravity.

Nitrogen commutes
where lifeblood should flow;
death evicts
the unfelt Atem;
bodies shrunk in salt,
cold fireplaces;
God fetuses,
supine in jars.

The mountains bereft
of their snow crowns,
waves stolen
from the sea,
rectitude, contraption
of man's continental hands -
I invert to see,
ask to believe.

Sewer smut and scintillant sky,
ever wed by magma and lightning;
never allow
fire to starve, for
my seconds break clocks,
my nails grind walls,
my blood, of a deeper shade
of red.

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.

070: Learning

Years of insomnia
in stuffed plastic bags,
the crowded sewers
we walk in line,
a recurring dream
in black mirrors,
it shows I have a hard time
learning.
With backward feet,
half human,
a world of colors,
northless,
sinking in the red shift;
breadcrumb
the distance
through the tunnels
of the day after
the fall,
documented so
on rotten terracotta.
The skin's already old,
mismatched seams,
you couldn't see it
and I couldn't spell it.
Arid are the dreams,
deserts in monochrome,
a recurring ritual
flashes it back,
It seems I have a hard time
learning.

The lake of my blood is heavy.
Father, I hope you are forgiving.

069: Lines for geology

Screen of blank light

for a night sky,

the eggshell of dirt

held together

by a latticework

of radiance.

The world ebbs

and flows

through hours of erosion,

its orogenies,

razor sharp.

Pale screen - frail shelter,

rotten rose ego,

ingrowing,

haunted

voluptuously -

how mindless,

the scraping of nails.

In red dusk

encompassing,

the street feeds

with silence;

flee momentarily,

a wolf second,

then it's back to

the infernal womb

that blindly devours

transient hours.