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Holding Myself for Ransom
I have no lungs
I breathe by
opening and
closing my fists
*
I can throw a pumpkin full of explosives
into the kitchen.
I can crush a cube of frozen paint thinner in my hand,
lay down on a domino the size of a mattress.
I can rip apart the garden shears
like a wishbone--
angels bouncing between spark plugs,
smoke doing its rain dance around the room:
no one will notice.
The sun is a junkie’s eyeball and
elephants stampede through the neighborhood.
I play chess against myself.
Every black pawn I take
I have to swallow.
*
It takes years to write one report days to write one word seconds to write one life story.
I make up all my memories--
a blizzard of stars swallowing every weatherman
not armed with an umbrella. Which beers
taste less bad? How do I pry
the inner-squirrel from my finger and
who sent this arresting bouquet
of snorkels? Death?
The grandfather clock
sinks deep into the floor,
its white roots gripping the pipes
like an octopus. I break
and un-break the dishes.
*
My coffee tastes like piss
and my piss tastes like coffee.
It’s the same every morning:
the house folds itself up like a map when I leave it,
static infecting the radio.
I wake the avocado not a real avocado
one from the garden where our ghosts hide.
I’m bored with my eyes,
I close them open them pull off my lips kiss my own nose,
the salad tongs in my hand.
Oneirology
1.
The window is open, just enough
to let the wind come in,
toss some old receipts on the floor,
chase the cat from the bedroom,
turn on the TV. The rest of the house
is asleep, a dream passing from room
to room like a swarm of ghost bees.
It’s a sad dream, one that’s survived
hundreds of years, feeding on dead mice
and the occasional lost tennis shoe.
Every wall is a different shade of static.
2.
Sleep provides energy for the day’s undertakings
such as shopping for a new spice rack
or chiseling cat mucus off the kitchen floor with a butter knife,
but come nightfall that energy funnels down the cosmic drain
into a dimension where we are all statues
and our voices are red birds that fly from our mouths.
I sit alone in my cave trying to write poetry but
all that comes from my brain is
nonsense: a white bib forgetting
its own tragic lullaby, some shiny butter snails,
a villa sketched by madmen
pounded into a small cube, then one night
a bright slit appears in the sky
and out spew the stars
followed by pink clouds of dust
inside which angels are born like
corn popping in the microwave.
3.
Is this how the world ends, angels inside us
multiplying like viruses, microwaving our bones?
We burn our inner-children, feed our laundry to the moon,
die asleep on memory foam. No one remembers.
You press the up button, the elevator never arrives.
Is the lobby all that exists
or is there a malfunction in the heavens,
a hand-shaped weed poking up through the sidewalk?
Pain rises from deep inside the earth.
Mirrors shatter, reading glasses on the floor
like stepped-on grasshoppers. So what’s
an old book to do? Swallow a hurricane?
If one writes a book on this side of the mirror
on the other side there must exist the opposite of that book--
a book you can read in the dark, a book
made of snow. The roller coasters untangle themselves.
4.
I can’t sleep; I’m becoming
an owl, an owl with moon-eyes,
an owl who eats pizza for breakfast,
cold pizza with mushrooms of blood.
I disassemble the cuckoo clock
in its nest of brass twigs.
Ghosts piss my name in the snow.
The Angel in the Phone Line
swims backwards. I’ve un-dreamt my life: half dead, half drunk. One morning I’m a cloud in
my father’s belly; the next a ghost, a spray of cologne. The scent of the moon making love to
the sea. The scent of two storms making love on the beach. I can’t decide. The angel swims
forwards, backwards at the speed of darkness. The more I drink, the louder the dial tone.
Ruins
1.
The moon plays a fragile
piano of tears
at its feet lie smiles
in a pool of silver blood
wind with transparent feathers
swoops down
begins to eat them
2.
The sky is dead
wrapped in a blanket of daffodils
with no seeds
in the glass cubes of its teeth
an endless landscape of hiccups
the occasional iceberg
of sunlight taps on the window
oh blank dance of clouds!
the porch is on fire
the milk strings of your guitar
shatter on the roof
3.
Wind with its halo of voices
escapes from the stone--
heart of the woods
deer skeletons roam at night
I cannot sleep
I stand naked at the window
looking out on dunes
of moonlit snow
4.
Time is a wall of faces
black snow
falling in the eyes
burying scattered shards of light
5.
The moon’s ghost looms
over a glistening forest of echoes
In the opposite sky--
the pink glow of snowcaps at sunrise
Locked inside the mountains
wind gathers ice tears into tiny piles
6.
Your face shines bright
even as the moon passes
through a wreath of dead moths
even as blood snow
melts on the light bulbs
but some stars fall like
unborn bears into the woods
listen to their cries
Ticker Tape
The future is broken
Fighter jets disguised as geese assume their checkmark formation
The clouds sink like battleships into the grass
O say can you pee, laughs my inner-child, peeing
Not so funny to the outer-child, prostate swollen, back hair gathering
frost
A rose of butter hardens
The beehives die the snails ask questions
*
My eye isn’t naked it wears tiny shoes it dances all night in a puddle of merlot the stone
with quartz teeth wants to eat it
*
I hate rain. I sink through
hours of darkness, passing only
the occasional neon jellyfish.
My bed lands on the moon,
the moon lands on my bed.
It doesn’t matter. A cloud
coughs down the door.
I weep, pull a dark quilt
of porn over my eyes.
The dog eats me. Showers
melt the town I grew up in:
the idiot weatherman, his umbrella
opening, closing itself at will
*
It’s still December, still July.
I don’t own a calendar,
a long line of yesterdays.
My hands fall off,
I put them back on.
My head falls off,
I warm it in the oven.
It’s cold in the microwave.
I sleep on the lawn
I have no lungs
I breathe by
opening and
closing my fists
*
I can throw a pumpkin full of explosives
into the kitchen.
I can crush a cube of frozen paint thinner in my hand,
lay down on a domino the size of a mattress.
I can rip apart the garden shears
like a wishbone--
angels bouncing between spark plugs,
smoke doing its rain dance around the room:
no one will notice.
The sun is a junkie’s eyeball and
elephants stampede through the neighborhood.
I play chess against myself.
Every black pawn I take
I have to swallow.
*
It takes years to write one report days to write one word seconds to write one life story.
I make up all my memories--
a blizzard of stars swallowing every weatherman
not armed with an umbrella. Which beers
taste less bad? How do I pry
the inner-squirrel from my finger and
who sent this arresting bouquet
of snorkels? Death?
The grandfather clock
sinks deep into the floor,
its white roots gripping the pipes
like an octopus. I break
and un-break the dishes.
*
My coffee tastes like piss
and my piss tastes like coffee.
It’s the same every morning:
the house folds itself up like a map when I leave it,
static infecting the radio.
I wake the avocado not a real avocado
one from the garden where our ghosts hide.
I’m bored with my eyes,
I close them open them pull off my lips kiss my own nose,
the salad tongs in my hand.
Oneirology
1.
The window is open, just enough
to let the wind come in,
toss some old receipts on the floor,
chase the cat from the bedroom,
turn on the TV. The rest of the house
is asleep, a dream passing from room
to room like a swarm of ghost bees.
It’s a sad dream, one that’s survived
hundreds of years, feeding on dead mice
and the occasional lost tennis shoe.
Every wall is a different shade of static.
2.
Sleep provides energy for the day’s undertakings
such as shopping for a new spice rack
or chiseling cat mucus off the kitchen floor with a butter knife,
but come nightfall that energy funnels down the cosmic drain
into a dimension where we are all statues
and our voices are red birds that fly from our mouths.
I sit alone in my cave trying to write poetry but
all that comes from my brain is
nonsense: a white bib forgetting
its own tragic lullaby, some shiny butter snails,
a villa sketched by madmen
pounded into a small cube, then one night
a bright slit appears in the sky
and out spew the stars
followed by pink clouds of dust
inside which angels are born like
corn popping in the microwave.
3.
Is this how the world ends, angels inside us
multiplying like viruses, microwaving our bones?
We burn our inner-children, feed our laundry to the moon,
die asleep on memory foam. No one remembers.
You press the up button, the elevator never arrives.
Is the lobby all that exists
or is there a malfunction in the heavens,
a hand-shaped weed poking up through the sidewalk?
Pain rises from deep inside the earth.
Mirrors shatter, reading glasses on the floor
like stepped-on grasshoppers. So what’s
an old book to do? Swallow a hurricane?
If one writes a book on this side of the mirror
on the other side there must exist the opposite of that book--
a book you can read in the dark, a book
made of snow. The roller coasters untangle themselves.
4.
I can’t sleep; I’m becoming
an owl, an owl with moon-eyes,
an owl who eats pizza for breakfast,
cold pizza with mushrooms of blood.
I disassemble the cuckoo clock
in its nest of brass twigs.
Ghosts piss my name in the snow.
The Angel in the Phone Line
swims backwards. I’ve un-dreamt my life: half dead, half drunk. One morning I’m a cloud in
my father’s belly; the next a ghost, a spray of cologne. The scent of the moon making love to
the sea. The scent of two storms making love on the beach. I can’t decide. The angel swims
forwards, backwards at the speed of darkness. The more I drink, the louder the dial tone.
Ruins
1.
The moon plays a fragile
piano of tears
at its feet lie smiles
in a pool of silver blood
wind with transparent feathers
swoops down
begins to eat them
2.
The sky is dead
wrapped in a blanket of daffodils
with no seeds
in the glass cubes of its teeth
an endless landscape of hiccups
the occasional iceberg
of sunlight taps on the window
oh blank dance of clouds!
the porch is on fire
the milk strings of your guitar
shatter on the roof
3.
Wind with its halo of voices
escapes from the stone--
heart of the woods
deer skeletons roam at night
I cannot sleep
I stand naked at the window
looking out on dunes
of moonlit snow
4.
Time is a wall of faces
black snow
falling in the eyes
burying scattered shards of light
5.
The moon’s ghost looms
over a glistening forest of echoes
In the opposite sky--
the pink glow of snowcaps at sunrise
Locked inside the mountains
wind gathers ice tears into tiny piles
6.
Your face shines bright
even as the moon passes
through a wreath of dead moths
even as blood snow
melts on the light bulbs
but some stars fall like
unborn bears into the woods
listen to their cries
Ticker Tape
The future is broken
Fighter jets disguised as geese assume their checkmark formation
The clouds sink like battleships into the grass
O say can you pee, laughs my inner-child, peeing
Not so funny to the outer-child, prostate swollen, back hair gathering
frost
A rose of butter hardens
The beehives die the snails ask questions
*
My eye isn’t naked it wears tiny shoes it dances all night in a puddle of merlot the stone
with quartz teeth wants to eat it
*
I hate rain. I sink through
hours of darkness, passing only
the occasional neon jellyfish.
My bed lands on the moon,
the moon lands on my bed.
It doesn’t matter. A cloud
coughs down the door.
I weep, pull a dark quilt
of porn over my eyes.
The dog eats me. Showers
melt the town I grew up in:
the idiot weatherman, his umbrella
opening, closing itself at will
*
It’s still December, still July.
I don’t own a calendar,
a long line of yesterdays.
My hands fall off,
I put them back on.
My head falls off,
I warm it in the oven.
It’s cold in the microwave.
I sleep on the lawn