DREAMS OF EMPIRE
Like everyone else I know, I live in fear
of a receding hairline, roots like the last stands
of virgin forest being pushed back, until each follicle
is dazed and isolated, a drunken party-goer
alone on the sun-bleached plaza at dawn, counting loose change, wondering what
happened to his companions, if the concert
is still going on.

Oh, I still dream of slipping into the evening
in a black velvet suit. But once I wandered,
hopelessly delusional, and found my way back
by spotting a Rambo billboard, his sweating gun
leveled against his own townspeople.
I knew I was close to home.

DREAMS OF EMPIRE #2

The 6 AM fish market stunk of guts, it glistened.
From a doorway, a leering stranger gathers his bones
long enough to ask for a light.
As I cup the sulfured tip for him, I see
I am speaking to my own ghost, spun
of clothes I am just beginning to wear,
flayed down to nothing,
to the merciful medicine,
to the buffalo bone.

THE NEW HOLLOW

I float with ruined cargo, heaving on the river.
I am nauseous and blood-fed. Take me over.
Tell me of the still-damp edge within our reach.
Lay me down there, startled on new land.
Let me begin the long hollowing-out…

WEIGHT

I have come to feel the weight
of strangers who live as close
as the windows across the street. Although for me, they weigh
no more than a snatched breath,
a stuttering film clip, something
held in a lidless blue light,
in a grip so steady and determined
it must be a dance; one that is heavy,
twists under its own weight.
Her fingers by the sill,
a mute instrument ready
to draw the curtain, to forget all this,
to say, “the dance is closed.”

LIKE LAZARUS

Like Lazarus, I make of myself what I pick and choose
A raiment on the battlefield
stripped clean from a very lost deal

Like Lazarus, I turn over a stone
find a new leaf that’s more like a loan
It’s obvious, I’m spread too thin
A name’s not a name if it can’t wear a skin
Like Lazarus, I begin at the end
My heart’s in my throat in a box that says, “Pretend”
Take it on faith, like oxygen
that the story, yeah, the story, starts again…

IMPULSE PYRE

I am here, and yet I'm not
I'm in Japan, I'm an astronaut
I am Polyurethane
Witness Protection has changed my name
I'm in every time slot
A nouveau toxic forget-me-not
I split the cost with God's domain
Now line up to feel my pain

Like a lamb to the slaughterI have tasted Zeus' daughter
I'm the itchy fingered fevered
lust you wish could linger

Face it, I'm contagious!

I'm so wired, I'm on fire
an impulse buyers' funeral pyre
I'm the sum of all my parts
I feed the need, hit Restart

I am Megalopolis, spit out
from Heaven's dust
I'm so in, I'm out of frame
You do my work, but in your name

FALLEN PSALM

I am drowsy with ashes.
They swirl past me, uplifted.
Angels.
Angels are grey and weightless,
made of dead things.
Their scissors cut
shadow-lines through the light.
I feel the dusty sleep of their wings. Fallen, their flight can only come
in the burning.