certain knowledge

A glance sideways on your frame
always
catching my eye
in that shape.
An eternal chasm between sculpture
and what will never be.

The frame of you
and me.
Soft screams in carefully chosen words;
the noise of knowing
a bereft gut.

----

night of lightning

unique as it may seem in the moment, it will return, and so on.
my night of lightning
on a Kansas prairie (only I remember) -- bolts up and down for hours;
repeats in this Century
looking down on Temple Mount.
Jerusalem is a long way from Kansas City.

take a glass light bulb -- put it on the floor, lit (aglow),
and then step on it. though the
bulb will go out -- look at the shards of glass
and visualize the pieces as still lit.

zoom out.

now, see each illuminated piece as an event in your life to come.
find the way between
the glowing, shattered pieces.
you’ll be fine.

have a valid passport and don’t get stuck in New Jersey.

-----

Lowell

I remember your
bifocal glasses
then; and
now I see my life
on your parallel
split.

I dreamed of flying
again last night, and
today I flew there
with you at my side;
you in your blue plane,
white,
me on the cloud top.

And I can see you
smiling
just a leap away.

forever cat gone

the gash in my heart—the hissing,

(middle of the night) Bozo dangling by claws,

just inches from his favorite chair;

he almost made it. (almost up)

he came later to curl in the crook of my arm.

the lull before daylight. the cuddle before death.

—inanimate—

—in a dream—

Bozo is happy-fat, the big boy.

He's my old fat cat again

now on a tableau of pure ether.

In the end days he let me kiss his head—

usually not allowed—

seemed welcome

seemed needed.

At the Eternity Door,

the doctor was so very kind.

I'd never seen Bozo's eyes so clear. (knowing)

clear 'these' were the final visions.

I saw glimpses of those clear eyes

in the terrible days

immediately prior.

-----

i (eye) - for Margo

Oh your eye,
try it will, find it will
a
gap__a__space
a missspelling.
My being
electrified in some poetic way
justified by rationale
my reasons why. Crucified.

Then sanctified
by
your eye.

i
thank
you

-----

kiss

I suppose it is, in part, what a bird feels
the very moment its feet leave the wire
and its wings actually carry it into blue sky.

Flight; but not knowing
you could fly

-----

consider the sunny day

When human rubble sits on faraway fields.
Bodies and parts of them
strewn,
scattered as a child would leave playthings on the den
floor;
the after-Christmas floor

A bounty of bodies; reality not terrible enough
over the span of time
to usher peace
Aortas still split. Guts fly
as teeth clench in distant meeting rooms.
Power and peace divided on tables.

When women are crowded behind the alley entrance
mission doors.
Their lives and babies’ lives
lacerated,
eviscerated as the wolf undoes a sheep in the night,
with only the moon to watch.

The carnage still not enough
to halt the scatter of bullets in the streets
or the viciousness that releases them.
Orphaned infants scream with forever-bruised hearts
while we deny under sunny, azure skies.

-----

no refill

those were years of Nitrous and Noctec—
living in the Nicotine ant farm.

he arrived only in pieces; with Xanax, Seconal,
Nembutal, Valioooooooom—(the endless others)
the trailing half-lives followed him like a stench.

the cadaver still propped up; even walking with
morgue make-up.

(the walking—an illusion, a prospect? a wish?)

in his life, what of it he could legitimately remember,
he'd tried to guard the tiny, tender flame. (boxes of words
seen as trash; even by the intimates.)

we think it broke his will (and there is no pill for that)

-----

the everything man

truth be told.
don’t confuse me with someone you once found
in the middle of a lonely road, though I am him.
the world is all absolutes to me. no middles.
(begging) please no shades of gray,
and may I please help the baby out with the bath water?
I assure you, this is my final fucking position; forever
until the end. nothing changes. don’t try. not now.
not ever.
(and that is a very long time)

so, what to make of the unexpected confidante?
(freedom in absolution?)
in love with the black and white song.
then, why stake my life now on the only escape from the hole?
gray. middles.
(and not to be examined)

when the sky is melting
when there is fire on simplicity
(no fit)

I will go there. I will find the only one.
and the everything man lives in shadow;
paradoxically the brightest light.
(my puzzles, his innately leveled)

how I crave the secret fuzz, the times of very together,
when love fog obscures the sharp edges of the
dirty, daily steps.

even euphoria is manageable,
not blinded anymore by the too blue sky;
the too cheery sun.
I once thought never.

(and sweeter than this?)

pull back the large curtain near Heaven.
behold the everything man.

-----

rainier

Throw me down.

Those rocks know thousands of summers.

That mountain will chew you up.

I’ve been here before.

-----

Grandpa Fred

Gasp, with a stagger,
then life departs.
And mine,
the final eyes
your eyes
embraced.
Goodbye twinkled,
as I lowered my toothbrush
and
gaze
to your limp frame on the bathroom floor.

Later in the kitchen
Mom cut onions for meat loaf
and I cried.

-----

vespers

last breath of day

cloud bottoms milky orange,

with seconds to spare. infinite

space, star-riddled, rushes to meet night's release.

Afternoon's teeth. finally gone now.

the too cheery light melting on the bay-

remnants float iridescent.

it's a safe catch into the ink

jet black flowing on cotton paper

the chaos

is cloaked now, contained. measured.

the air is gentle in low visability.

someone is speaking.

-----

right now

So,
where are you, little angel?
searchlight
likely not there
fade out
(pipe organ)
searchlight

So,
where've you been?
likely not where you say, liar.
fade out
pants on fire, liar.
maybe some similar place--
sure.
but not there.

Oh,
by the way,
that's some power
zipped up in there,
godboy. Pants on fire
as you
thrust
a jet strong
choke hold through the hole
faster
faster
faster climb the clouds
from the chasm
below
your
conceit.
poet.
liar.

But no angel. in that crack
the moist abyss
below
you
searchlight
fade out
(altar call)

So, So
what's all that about, little angel?
smoke?
oh sure
but not you.
searchlight
unless you lie,
godboy
hiding in some familiar place.
safe. cocky. cock.
oh sure.
But it's below you
huh?
reeks!
(benediction)

So, So, So
Now.
in this light -- right now
in this good light -- you should know
all that shows, little angel liar.

-----

Spanish coffee

In Valencia, the oranges are famous
ripe skins drenched in sun baths.

My Valencia is Mediterranean blue
and orange and
so hot
in a Spanish summer

it wakes me from a dead sleep
with the taste of orange
on my lips.

my body
shaking
and wet.

-----

science fails

no innocence in this night of stars;
the appearance and the truth are contrary. it is the eternity dance again,
the brutal and beautiful annihilation of worlds,
and cycles, and spirals; tornadic, behind a gauze curtain.
tendrils of reality visible only to the few.

one is taken to the fair days, swaddled in memory husk, sword swallowers,
human oddities, candy floss, glee.
at the heart of it all, the reflection
obscured
and defying mirror image, exact replication prohibited,
and celebrated only as theme.

lethal angels are at play (lack of pain)
in a darkening field, now.
sun loss is here
and it is sad. counting down, now.

chaos is the mist, one trifling ingredient on an ascending scale,
orders of magnitude above--
one finds the grease, essentials--
the dawn is of truth only, not physical dawn, having passed
in this world, as one moves to hunker down in a new location.

science explains only a segment of the newness
worlds repeating, etc...
is it vanity and selfishness that took it all?
the post-apocalyptic discussions are tedious and too human,
but what other frame of reference can one endure?

broadcloth? that is the expectation;
longing for a definitive cause at a time like this.
mystics do not trump lethal angels.
the meanness is recycled as gelatinous brew, forked steaming into the throat.
swallow hard against the crush
reverse vomit.

every pulse is violent selfishness,
every single one
through all the worlds past or ever to come.
without limit.
so parsed by awkward language, this enormous sense of entitlement
transcends any tongue. We are, but mist—or dust.

one blink and out.

-----

street walker

Look into my face

you drunkard street walker,

begging for my money.

do you see

we share the same

beating heart?

We are one -- but you are drunk.

-----

oasis

pools of you
evaporate
and it rains
again
and again

rivers of you
recede
yet
the swollen clouds
refuse to
move.

you.

so much of you
in liquid form
before my very eyes.
again
tonight.

-----