I

they can trap me in the chemical dungeons
of my mind, yell at me with shrills
like Mephisto on a walpurgisnacht
extravaganza, der hölle rache

in meinem herzen brennt. flames
are not limited by the infinity
of hell, hölle, gehenna – ready
to melt soul and fate and limb,

teeth gnawing in dumb worn-down ecstasy
toothless grins of grandpa or baby
oblivious to the black vultures descending
like death eaters at a red dawn;

but there on the edge of hell’s burnt ledge
a common yellowthroat sings to the warden
of my misplaced spring a common warbler
song, prayerful call to earthy arms

where rain drips down in long-suffering
gifts, חֶ֫סֶד portents on a sun-dried field,
dire with its inside-out flabbergasted
yield of willful seeds and unintentional

disguises. the mountain lion passes by
with silent footprints on charcoal grass –
dark and violent with her playful death
paws. why, why must I short-change every day

in burning anticipation of a dead angel’s
cry of Impostor Impostor Impostor –
you boring hypocrite lecteur, infamous
brother wanting credulity and fame?

II

I cry out to the cold of the snowy night
with two hands cupped around my mouth
screaming into the steamy cold night
No! No! this cannot be the end, the final

End to the sleepy authorless comedy of
life, burning hot and dark in trailed
songs of warblers and buntings, bright
notes of heaven’s choirs hidden behind

the colors of songbirds, yellow green
blue red – this is not the ironic finale
of 21st century artists, folding their arms
and turning their heads in disgust.

I have seen the street artiste begging
behind the notes of a defeated violin,
fiddling among rock dove and tourists –
I have felt her song in meinem herzen,

my broken worm-eaten burning heart
worn out by the pew at 2300 hours –
I turn my head toward the stained glass
where the hidden choirs congregate,

stare at the empty colors around me,
whisper forsaken words of love and merlot,
laugh at the reflection in the ancient window,
hoping more is there than this Ennui.

2013

        for E., the artist

1. Neruda

     “This is a funny little ditty straight from my writing journal, unchanged. Written at a bar while enjoying some drink.”

With limp eyes drooped in apathetic indecency
I stand on the brink of the roof
And yell at the moon with an arf and a woof
Wriggling out of my hairy skin
With yellow canines and a daemonic grin –
 
I stare at the light, green through the slats –
Green and white in the half moon light
Staring with blank black eyes
At the red petals of her faithful prize,
Pretending the damage done was damage slight –
 
I howl with a crack in my grape-dried voice
On top of the roof I howl with no choice
Armed with a map to yesterday –
A day yesterday when we were wrong but known,
Now right and unknown in a mildewed today;
 
Soaked too long in the grey spinal matter
Thrown aside like slung paint splatter
To the truth in no truth and the action
In no action but ancient survival recipes,
Handed down from family and faction.
 
Not far removed from the deer-skin covered male
Or the bare-breasted food gathering female
We follow these modified recipes of antiquated life
Down streets teeming with passionless half-ways
Hearing the song on the street of bare-foot praise.
 
Lead us to these forsworn streets of dismissed lore,
Ever drawn like cattle with hoof and bit;-
We will not rise without the whip, without the whore;
We will not sing our freedom free from shit,
Though we will not win passed out on the floor. 🙂

    “I sneeze snot vapors out into the moon-lit
starry night and I swear there is a glistening
beauty in it.” From my journal.

I sneeze snot vapors out into the dark
world lit by a low rising moon. My eyes
squint at the way the light is split,
hanging in the air glistening in colors.

The vapors congregate, strengthened by the
timid wind, swirling around each other
in miniature hurricanes. Greasy colors
intensify in liquid drops of self-made oil.

The autumn colors droop, dangling in front
of my nose, so saturated with playfulness,
empty night re-drawn with tiny sunsets.
Beauty so compelling, unexpected, there.

My arms frozen to the ground, I can’t reach
out to the sky, can’t touch the scattered
drops of color painted against the starry sky
like a pocket universe of life, color and light.

My head inches forward, my tongue reaches up
to taste the beauty the life the colors;
immediately it retreats to my mouth in cover –
recoils at the bitterness, the sweet bitter

world of its own creation. I draw a wolf’s breath
and blow against the splattered universe, destroy
each color in the storm of my terrible breath,
adjust my eyes, smile at the black and white night.

The sun smooths itself against the water
still gold in the cerulean morning,
the green curve of the ground
like the gold curve of her legs and her hips
as they smooth themselves
across the blue sheets, white pillows
like clouds, cumulating their softness
under the red-stained lips of her smile –
ivory and light in Lethean drips.

I sit on the black iron bench of her gaze,
wagging my tongue the way a phoebe
wags his tail, pumping myself
for a moment in the gold morning sun.
I smell the scent of her clothes,
daisies still dripping with spring
and I smile with an itch in my nose.

The water is smooth and the light is low,
still saturated with amber.
The lake calls to me with its peace;
she beckons with eyes and a finger.
I stand and stretch like a tree in the wind,
firm but ready to bend to her laughter,
Knowing things only dreamt before.

I creak along the wood floor;
My weight lumbers like a fat king
Gnawing on his turkey leg bone
Dribbling fat slobber with smiles.

I wave my weighty arms at the air
Commanding bootless troops,
Growling at the empty chairs –
Crushing my hand on the oak table.

The water drips from the warped ceiling,
Heavenly answers for a parched soul:
My skin now soggy like a drowned frog –
A fat bullfrog stuck in a king’s suit.

I want to reach up and pull the soaked
Skin of my forehead, peel back the
Mildewed layers of my dreaded hair,
Whether ghoul or angel hiding there.

I sit at the table, empty and disjoined,
Reeking like a misplaced Humpty Dump.
My child tip-toes through the dawn,
Trying not to disrupt my snorzing slump.

I lift a lazy lid to watch her shift
Her tiny weight in quiet spurts on the
Wood floor, smile with furtive eyes
Spying me as she twists to open the door.

My breath is white as I talk
to myself in the March night.

The moon is bright and ballsy,
a deep sky aboriginal Monty.

Orion lies low on the horizon
beat down by Ursa Major.

His shoulder is red, bloody
as I toast the crawling dawn.

“My friend we will meet again,
perhaps soon, even September –

When the phoebes thrust their tail
Hungry for that procreating flight.”

I will miss your tilting, abrasive
stance in the cold night sky –

Threatening any who talk but don’t
Walk: touching them with Jacob’s limp.

I wish I could see Socrates or Jesus
reflected in the light of your distant

eyes. Perhaps I do. The twinkle in
Betelgeuse certainly disguises

The laughter of the incorporeal wise
who teach but write only in the dust.

Do I want to die in the cold, moldy
ground or ascend into the frozen sky?

Orion looks down with a slightly crooked
smile, remembering scenes mistold in our

Apocryphal history books. I want to look
down from the frosty sky and smile

Crooked, remembering that tomb there –
Empty, despite the correcting crowds.

You have cast my thoughts
Into drab colored artifacts
Buried in the overgrown backyard
Of my ground-ridden grandmother.

Once there was a lattice arch
For the grapes to love and grow,
Now weeds and splintered paint
Twisting my mind in bird shitted

Brain matter. Books lift thoughts
Like a breeze lifting a child’s
Paper plane, only to be let down
In a puddle or crumpled on concrete.

Where is the lonely mountain, emerging
From the green pastures of an Earth
Filled with the haze of a warm rain
In early Spring, morning light softly

Shining on its blushing peak, showing
Only dew and snow in simple streaks,
Shadows every bit as beautiful as the
Warm light, an orange kiss from God.

I intoxicate my mind to retain these
Recollections of a distant and dismissed
World, to conjure beauty apart from the
red-orange blaze of a rifle at night

Singing pain and death in a fun movie.
This world is still the world the poets
Of old laud and praise with elevated
metaphors, but still I see children 

slaughtered by sick and decaying spirits.
The world matters in all its swimming
Playfulness. Sunrise light means much
Whether bloody or soft on a snowy peak.

But the smile of a child at recess
Means more than any ray of light, God
Given or accident: the irrupted laugh
Of a child moves mountains and valleys

Like the word of a sleeping prophet.