But back to the sidewalk
where I found a book.
It had clothes that looked like
they might smell like you;
it made me picture you
cutting pictures
from a magazine

So unfamiliar 
are voyages to freedom
      from guitar,
          jousting in arena brights
          cauterized in nylon mail.

Hoist pianos, and
clean underneath nails, a pinky
      to lackluster polish. 

Every night, tour
       and puke 
       the prolix phrase.
           Formidable hand jobs
           behind the fortuitous
                 dinner plate. 

We,
for fans aroused by inerrant prose,
are caught between the exclusive message
          and slightly perfect tuning.

There speaks feign passion
in the phonemes.
Momentousness
in a perplexed baby,
irresolute for days
at a time.  Be what mine
in yours, sottish yet
emblazoned with crayola.

We sport bad hair days
and half hour moonlights.
And you,
sentimental to sunshine
that shadows your hair hue
under wheat light.

Unavailable to conclusions,
Unfamiliar to elders.

Unavailable to conclusions,
Unfamiliar to elders.

From up here,
leaves fall to form macro beasts,
    seasons head east,
       and the sun consumes a cornea.

I couldn’t find the camera
in her purse
or her glasses.
just manila chap-stick
wrapped around napkins,
my only object-cathexis
not swallowed by the hot organ.

We,
giant objectives,
slowly circling a cul de sac. 
She,
my ragamuffin,
once beautiful bag lady.
The one in Hawaii
renouncing cats in sermons,
on the soil of an orchid farm,
to an alligator-skin father.
her penny shoes
tied together
like symbols of graphic unity.

And by visions from a north,
we are connected through phone lines,
cup and twine,
to an old dark at the end of a south.

Empty is as empty does.
Because.

When that sun was looming
that early morning river bridge
you hung
in tough comforters. You
had water glasses
cough for you.

There is no blancher, face-down man
surer-of-matters, carpet-father,
vidja dweller.

Yours, a bathroom mirror
emaciated because time.
Because time dresses lightly
but with sterling intentions.
Yours is a way through,
or yours might as well be
a staple on the floor singing an organized blues,
sun gazed on vending machine light hue.

The simple air filled with manna and kitchen pie
Clouds are sweeping the sky
And we’re scurried from afar.
Wonder in our veins
Collect dust
In the vintage sun.

“We are going down.”

A secular coffee
Sugar cubes singing storms
Of blind love parables
The drinkers of indubitable
Indulgence, serious
Uninspired and short.

“We are going down, indubitably.”

If you keep moving
Under arbor starlight 
Past the fork bins and
The schizandra berry bushes
They collect something
Like our garish half
Famous laughs
Under the arduous light
Continue, honey lemon plight.

“We are chaste, because it suits our face.”

I wouldn’t be dreaming of you
If I weren’t itinerant
A serious picture of
Serious winter, I came here
To uphold a shaky hand
Curling in Gregorian light.

“Tell me where you’ve been
Under what light
Serenaded on Mountain Hymn.”

The milky chalcedony
Resembles shrapnel in our past
We pull out too fast
Like ductape and mustaches
Pain refilling and refilling
In the water glasses.

“We are ravage beasts circling your veranda.”

Propagated
To more beautiful eras
We don’t speak like bards
Affable to even the most distant backyard
Inoculant praise shrouds
Like a poultice of Carmenere cloud.
But we are at several ends
Lost, unopened
By the fork bins.

I want to bring you shelter, friends,
but I’m as dense
as an empty gymnasium.

I am a stale,
stale pine tree
caught alone
by a salmon
in the passing stream.

At the door,
little girls stood behind my screen door
holding out yellow handbills
to their grand opening lemonade sale
next year, their parents acting murdered in the van
parked in some brush of leaves
on the other side of the street.

I let the situation form my day
the way all first events form all days.
Like when God proposed ‘days’
to be seven repeating,
or when he made the sea
3/4 our existence.