ENTROPY DELEGATE

We are all coming apart, piece by piece.
Here, the lost have voices, delicate as insects,
or the smallest yawn of tides dragging us under,
calling our ears to listen.

Here, that man with the dirty wet newspaper a week old
can speak in any voice allowed him, can quote numbers,
artifacts, tired marrow, the particular grin of car hoods, the hoops of air that birds made leaping through him.

Here, that language speaks on and on, a bludgeoned silhouette that never runs out of words.
Here, he is our mission.

CONTAGION PRAYER

Let the others shut the door, turn off the lights.
Let the silence bicker and murder itself until morning,
so we can turn to face each other with the drowsy sense of new-borns.
Let the riveted acres of the dead stretch on.
Our tongues flash, like car hoods with nothing on them.
Each new day bursts open, contagious with the past...

PURE

Had a pure moment tonight, going to see “Fly Ashtray” at CBGB’s
after a vicious, tremendous thunder and lightening squall
all over Manhatta and outlying regions, the drains overflowing,
women running, skipping puddles, holding up paper plates
in dainty, old-fashioned defense against the weather;
all this stirred-up energy, and there I was, waiting
for the light to change, ducking under the nearest canopy
to escape the rain, and I spot James out in front of CBGB’s
catching a smoke, and the lightening flashes, soundless now
over the roof tops above him, and the restaurant/bar where I’m seeking shelter actually starts playing, “Gimme Shelter”
by the Stones, a great tribal-rhythm song, and suddenly, my pulse
starts racing with the shots of Jim Beam running through me,
and it’s life during war-time, and I’m raggedly ecstatic
waiting to cross the street to meet my friends
and hear the dirgey gargoyle crowings of this,
our precious beast, our broken back, our rock ‘n’ roll…

PATIENCE

I am an amnesia patient of greater heaven. I come up, mouth open, and all the wonder
I could feel is a dull and half-lit thing,
a distant companion, something wrapped
in burlap cloak and bandaged feet,
while the gulls circling above
the earth mock and shriek and leave a single feather, a fluttering abundance,
something that when you find it you think
is yours alone and was meant only for you-- This is time muscled and bearded with teeth,
set to dripping just as it's stopped.

PROGRAM

Would that I'd foreseen you casting doubton all I've created. Would that I could cancel doubt
from every existent program. What do you bring me?
Hands full of famine, eyes like penniless oxides…
Does this count as knowledge? No!

Yours is one of the shortest nations
born from withered bones.
But just look at the neutered muskets,
the three-corner hats turned at a jaunty angle
during any recent small-town parade.
What once drew blood is now
the silken puff of illusionary corn starch.Name the bullet, name the substance. I could erase them all in an instant.
I am the speed-dial, the viral rewrite,
all that is best forgotten given a new name.
You should really learn to love me.
It’s going to end up in the program, anyway…

THE HOT FLESH BALLET

I love to see the blank billboards at night,
like sails for a voyage not yet taken.
I want to climb the pure white
background, act out shadowized remnants
of some third-grade play for passers-by
on the high way, cause a few to swerve
shuddering into the guard rail.
Afterwards, the rubber-necking packs
will strain themselves, gazelle-like
and blood-seeking, while a loudspeaker spouts,
“Here is another death caused by art!”And in the ensuing wave of mass hysteria,
new government crack-downs against
play-acting in the dark.
It’s like something I saw last week--
“The Hot Flesh Ballet.”
Tap-dancing on the third rail;
(the performances didn’t last long).
It made you think who would be that crazy,
that desperate to fill up the stunned
and empty expanse of our free time?

But you didn’t even mind the delay
as the squads came in to clear
the blackened remains of the dancers away.

NEAR THE DROWNING

Men still dangle fishing lines and traps,
drag up a plastic six-pack holder,
lank with seaweed.
They laugh at what they're missing.

TV helicopters tear wide the twilight, carrying news like a vaccine.
The water is sick, a snake peeling its skin, grey and glittering.

The sun burns in one final burst.
The Chrysler Building glows
like a church steeple tainted with gold. Seven shafts of light fall upon huddled
brown housing projects.

And the river moves in the way it always moves, full of its’ dark, constant rewritings.

Every open mouth gives up something.