DUBIOUS CLOAKS…

we wear, afraid our parents
will singe us. Bruised totems
stored beneath the skin’s surface.
The blood will rise, but who
will stand, and who will sit down?
There are tunnels that lead
to the end of your throat,
but it’s dark, and I’m afraid
to take them. I’m all for
full disclosure. You first…

WHAT CALLS

When night wraps long fingers
around the wet, budding dark,
when whole floods are reduced
to a single drop left dangling,
when tree branches and the haloed moon
conspire a rough crucifix against the sky,
when the howl you hear in the distance
is either human or canine, when it makes you
feel you’ve walked miles away from yourself,
and still have not left enough behind…

WORKS

After a quick Spring rain storm,
late afternoon, the sky slate-grey,
the factory lit up angelic
in a single hymnal shaft,
the smokestack spewing
coils of pure white…

THE FRAIL CAGE

…of self split open:
Everyone wants a piece.
Like fresh fruit on the interstate,
like blood on the tracks
tracing its’ own DNA,
like the taste of old pennies
on the back of the tongue,
I expect a miracle in a salt lick,
a sword embedded in the stone
of “How do you do?”
I expect the king to be shorn
of his mane, and standing in
a line-up, to pass for me or you…

PUBLIC DOMAIN

I was born under a bad sign
of the times, that has since
been disqualified, due to
contest rules, and had to be let go.
Portent’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
I am now a free agent, under
no waiver or threat of merger,
the sum of my parts, a dominion of one.
I am the blank slate you write yourselves
upon.

GLIMPSE

Riding the train
late at night, full moon
chasing my shoulder,
the scalded streetlights
of empty parking lots
flash by, one after the other.

I catch a glimpse
of a pure white bed
I will never sleep in,
like an unstuffed memory,
like stitches in a prayer,
gone before I even knew
it was there…

CALL

Imagine a world where we can
all read each other’s thoughts
on tiny slips of paper before
they’re dropped into a stream
and swept away….twitter.

HIGH NOON @ WHITE CASTLE

Lay my hand upon the hand
that lays upon the hand that’s healing.
Mark me present and accounted for.
Put me down for a pregnant pause,
and a dose of downgraded wisdom teeth.
Give me Liberty, give me Death.
Give me the Lazy Susan of the Seven Hells.
I live vicariously through myself.

MR. BRINK

Here, arguing with a
few pilgrims along the way,
I offered them thick words
that have never been spoken
yet may be our own worst enemy.

For reception, I received just
a rattling in the throats that
followed us out of the train station,
a mob on a bender who have foresworn
any further looks in the mirror.

I am alone among the tented
true believers, I am warmed
by the slow fuse of their blood.
I am besides myself, and willing
to put the rest in hock,

I’ve gone as far as I can.

BACK IN BROOKLYN…

The latticed chain-link casts its’ shadow
and the gods skip a shallow grave.
Zeus ran a moving business on 4th ave,
but never could get laid.
The swan died at the doorstep,
the traffic box clicks Stop & Go,
the street light’s a heart flutter filament,
and I’m nothing, a propped-up ghost
standing between two lands…