clincher

singing a song
that nobody knows
in the delicate
intricacies of doom

as time spirals in bits
between the street lights
in the unimaginable
burning of night

we are the invincible
we are the impossible
sweater-wearing nymphs
of the apocalypse

slow burning in the waters
which cage a hybrid variety
that is not inclined to live
but is to sick to die

mobius time-fuck

if I wait at the bar
poised in an Irishman's
hands, but clothed
in sequence as a tool

I will raise up my pint
to the absurdity
and profundity of it all
as if swollen by circumstance

a weird ripple in time
loops around my face
like a thousand serpents
cloistered by God

I have worshiped the bottle
for to long, it seems
but I shape the future
with my eyeballs and ream

the clothing of this certain doom,
clings to me like plastic sheeting,
as purposeless and swollen
as a falling whale

but the sky is breeding whales
in blubber clouds
I am done with this foolish
cheese sandwich of doom!
Goodbye, world!

innocents

I've heard
the howling screech
of a towering griffin
with greedy talons
and iridescent wings

but I just want
the simple things
like the smell of
oak leaves
on a summer day

as the shore swells up with foam
curdling tears
in lonely notes
of a song
that makes us smile again

the reality is memories lost
while skirting through the grass
alone by an effervescent spring
coming deep from a sink hole's quells

as torrents of bells
blast and ring
swallowing a shore-bird's scat
from the bag of a tanner's moon

but if I listen closely
I can still remember
innocents lost
as our eyes rolled
black and blue
in the exhaust of a truck stop
when we tried to hitch a ride home

dust

the perception of youth lost
first to dust
then the needle

the past has a way
of finding you
thru your dreams
no matter what

thought I was going to
break the cycle
thru orgiastic fervor
I am a triumphant fool

roaring thru a tunnel
I swarmed up into
the alley
through a pot hole

now poetry is prayer
as I dream of kids
locked in washing machines
and guns in the palmetto

I hear the subtle Om
drifting almost silently
down a muggy alley
and calls on the phone
from Grandma

exams

sloppy needles
pierce a long vein
belittling my face
as I hammer my head
with shaman's nails

over, and over
I pace, laughing maniacally
at the poor doctor
with his easy eyeballs

still, I forgive Them
for their conspiracy

the doctor

"Give me a martini, extra dirty."
multiple identities,
split

later he was a cowboy
with green promises
now he has a crew cut
at the bar

my life is a lucid nightmare
from a hospital bed
sour and crimson
stuck in that impossible,
shadowless room

I've done this before

"Here, hold this."
I'm handed... instruments
He shows me... pictures,
points and says
"You did that"

"Now get out!"
I stagger away drunkenly
tripping over the tips
of my cowboy boots
in the cracks
of a silent brick
Georgetown alley

I stop by a canal
wobbling in a daze
loitering in front
of an empty bottle

smelling the acrid water
under a bridge,
where I normally sleep
clothed like a bum
in the chilly fog
of the Potomac

but it was just a man,
with a doll
in a foggy alley
after all

lost in the black

darling nymphs attack
on the delinquent wings
of another man's crimes

but all I have
is memories of a hooded self
and I have boils,
now that I'm
scarred straight

sticking like goo
to the towering spires
and lost in a million
sparkling tiles

but fortune beguiles
I saw the lights
of an ancient city
that paints the sky

emblazoned with gray they were
with giant, sparkling blacks

I lost myself in these,
the eyes
of my darling friends
that spy

whimpering for freedom
they took me home
saved me from doom
delivering me
free and welcomed
as a child
of an absolute and certain God

the cage

a sleepless monster
showering in snow
sober, and drawn
from the pulsing night

he tethers his feet
to an endless road
and plows, breathlessly
to the river's edge
through it's foggy
and merciless glow

he has fallen in
gasping and drowning
in the multitudes
screaming to the sky
from a sea of stars

the onlookers stare,
and clap, and yawn.
judgments are made
but no one cares.

he doesn't drink,
or smoke,
or hunger?

he is inept and fumbles
with words?

he is nothing
but a whimpering animal
with a ridiculous
and impossible fantasy

caged in a dark
and petulant shroud
a silent weakling
who's roaring loud