Thursday, February 7, 2008


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.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008


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.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008


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…

Monday, February 4, 2008


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.”

Sunday, February 3, 2008


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…

Saturday, February 2, 2008


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 slaughter
I 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

Friday, February 1, 2008


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.

Monsters