Un Chien Andalou
I.
Our hands writhe! Both snake and charmer.
Craning palms in pulsing prostration bowing fingers upon callused
Cheshire  r o a d m a p s.
Our shoulders wail!
Singing 18-wheeler songs of Topeka, gandy dancer stomping and rocking
Fever dreams raze our bleak night’s revelry and pitch a morning
the razor strap of sunrise boldens me ‘burn the moon!’
Damned now is (that bitable) gold and forgotten the gods.
Our eyes had seen the glory
we plucked it and ate, left it wrungout and then became the glory.
What passions struck, what hesitations shored!
The unlocking sweet sense of Scripture you wrote me:
‘shine, sing, kadosh, kadosh et cetera et cetera’
Cradled in kitchenettes, castoff dressings of sickbeds.
The memories caressed from dresses
Come with me to the beachhead the strand that will be
built, silt upon this heart tidied/atoned…
Blinding angels descending your ladder safe in the cold
our heads on stones our youth lights on high beams
We’ve books of blessings written in love-code
Corporal lines from hands to <snake touched> earth
To hew out tales of your balsam light lilac lined heart.
[Moss birth oh andohmygawd yeah…vernal]

II.
Stranger unashamed
closer/more tender than Sultan ‘n’ Turk (aaaaoooowww!)
our unassuming toddling from Eden
*a joie de vivre comme Emile*
mosaics illumined in unhushed
tantras, mudras, white fire        magic
floating undead bog hot heat
sutured mothball sweet
in the cracked chambers of a nautilus’ g u t.
My fingerprints corduroy relics and rim empty glasses of g a l l
served cold on shell-shocked streets.
Choir loft quiet I walk <crow-toed>
brandishing teeth at knuckles and waves
Norse sounds aural harbor a timorous kite.
Gavels silent, Bethel dawn gone now the sounds
[fuzzy hum]
before the blameless tideless shore
Siddhartha leaving the raft there |    |     ||
Sloughing, sighing sweet
(sideline the gaddam shrift in satyrs trove!)

III.
Your forehead presses to my shoulder like a shotgun stock
I remain shaking in my body/ hold to every pleasure like jaws of life
gnoshing through a Subaru.
I come collapsing into every uneasy moment like an unstable star [unbound breath teetering]
while palimpsest lines between us are traced in a tattooists curdled batch of ink.
We fling over the riffs of hot-sake-split dry wood. I see your eyes’ aged lines
carrying my bones to you Sisyphean and lovely-sordid
plywood chaste—(Oh!) an eager Presbyterian.
Fountainous birth we bellow gilt linens
atoss and mangly
mossed and cardamom
we dint upon celebrant tightropes
Epiphanies slowly rolling down     our   arched    backs
preaching to creation: Nineveh’s cattle et al
to return to respite in vineyards        examining the masonry
of ribcages in rest (oh and turn of lung tug’s there too. And how!)
Distill my day, your day, our lives entwined
pleat rooted to grow
weightless-unwrenched a glint of synesthesia
(our touch speaks tongues!)

when I get my strength back up
I vow to visit unannounced
making excuses at doorways
then pretend to listen riveted
while staring at you
in your living room
that smells like dying ferns
and you’ll look like you’re playing
cello again–
your back at attention
legs set for birthing
deft hands left exposed
and your window sill’s
mason jar
absolutely beaming

not yet ready for solitude

fallen destitute feet on glassed tramp pavement

feeling chill of older bones in coldness

a vaulted corpse morning

the whispers of bulb orchid

your panic attack in Wyoming you told me
was tidal and unremitting.
the soil was insensitive, and sky covered everything.
in the land forgotten, arthritic, and delirious
were tie, rail, spike, gravel,
and the gandy dancer was a prophet in his own right.
every rail he brought ’round he spoke to a nation
giving voice to the land he was birthing.
his sleeves were smokestacks, his shirt a buttoned furnace
and he murmured his oracle in song- in leathered hands-
to shorelines, ghostlike coasts, the islands, the winds:
like all true prophets he spoke and still speaks to the winds.

your hair like raven’s nest
braided about you,
will never warm you.
spears like talon
tearing within you,
eyes of vultures
vying to hold you.
lift your death stare
skyward, Absalom.
mimic the sparrow
sing, Absalom.

He had drank, she’d stood waiting.
At the window and immediately she is bare. A luminescent leaf.

The couch is a barren bed of nails. The aching pang of a river dammed.
Light comes into the living room uninvited announced with windowsill cooing.
The visions of places once dreamt of,
touching the mere lighting of forfeited want.
The blankets tossed and soft footsteps find that there are belongings removed
from bed stands and a thought that some doors are sorely too silent.

Time out for a three minute miracle.
Dried out.
Pleasures fled, bled from the last of unspoken longing.
The tiles are Italian, the smoke Carolinian.

yesterday I walked into a labyrinth
it was daylight and there weren’t any walls
so I could see where I was going

some Christians (or some pagans they’d contracted)
had painted the serpentine lines in the shadows
of brownstones and stained glass

I stumbled, imbroglio bunions breaking loose
from their meditative lap track
if my concentration was NASCAR I’d have made the highlights

where I was and the ‘was’ where I’d been and the where
I was to be going churned into fairground funnelcake:
adrift and threadless

event horizon/center met
sacred heart and Ground
alchemical chemistry set
the whole and hole
forgotten goal
this too shall pass
all void regret
round and round
the widening gyre
everything alight
in unconsuming fire

and then I went home and slept

full moon touched clearing
ignited night glow
silkworm tears

all that arises passes
everything that evening
collapsed transformed

while battles raged elsewhere
those gathered practiced
comforting solace

the sage writhed distressed
in whispers addressed
Yasodhara Rahula

words of loving comfort
exchanged between them
tearful reconciliation

death came at last
one suffering ended
many mourning

the way isn’t skyward
it appears within
one’s heart

growing in the clearing
becoming beings gather

lightened blossoms arise
mango rots alongside

birds sing and listen to birdsong
deer pant for water, watch seated monks

a frail sage rests and the world rejoices
silence, cicada, fleas in robes’ folds instruct

a monk rests her head on a sister’s lap
she rests undisturbed, awakened

i am am not

i arise from many
tree grass moss
i arrive from afar
seed blossom thorn
i demise ever
termite aphid fungus

impartial embrace
manifold manifest
repose awake

i am am not