The velvet fur of religion
The polish of knife handle & coin
The universe of organic gears
or microscope mechanical
embryo metal doll
The night is a steel machine
grinding its slow stained wheels
The brain is filled w/ clocks, & drills
& water down drains
Knife-handle, thick blood
like the coin & cloth
they rub & the skin they love
to touch

the graveyard, the tombstone,
the gloomstone & runestone
The sand & the moon, mating
deep in the Western night
waiting for the escape
of one of our gang
The hangman's noose is a
silver sluice bait
come-on man
your meat is hanging
on the wing of the raven
man's bird, poet's soul

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
the thin rustle of weeds
the voice comes from faraway
inside, awaiting its birth
in a cool room, on tendril bone
The insane free chummy cackle
of infants in a ballroom, of a
family of friends around
a table, laden w/ feast-food
soft guilty female laughter
the bar-room, the men's room
people assemble to establish
armies & find their foe
& fight

   Clustered in watchful terror
by vine-growth, the hollow bush
   dry cancerous wells
We awoke before dawn, slipped
   into the canyon

Noon schoolyard screamed
   w/ play, the lunch hour ending
ropes & balls slapped hard at
   cement sand, the female land
was bright, all swelling to degree
   most comfortless & guarding

A record noise shot out
   & stunned the earth. The music
had been bolted w/ new sound.
   Run, run the end of repose
an anthem has churned
   the bad guys are winning.

Silver shaken in the gloom
I left her

Trees waste & sway forever

Marble porch & sylvan frieze
Down on her knees

She begs the spider-king to wed her
Slides into bed

He turns her over

There is a leather pouch
that's full of silver

It spills like water

She left
And took the coins I gave her

As to the drowning man
hoarse whisper
invokes, on the edge,
an arroyo
Sangre de Christo

Violence in a time of plenty

There is one deaf witness
on the bank, the shore
leaning in finery against
a ruined wall
as Jesus did. Red livid lips,
pale flesh withdrawn from
ragged dress, pit of the past
& screens unveiled in the
scarred chalk wall

When, often, one is not deluged
by rain, 3 drops suffice
The war is over there
I am neither doctor nor saint
Christ or soldier
Now, friends, don't look at me
sadly ranting like some
incomprehensible child
I know by my breath of what
I speak, & what I've seen
needs telling.

Please, freeze!
Danger near.
A message has started its path
to the heart of the brain
A thin signal is on its way
An arrow of hope, predicting rain
A death-rod bearing pain

I

I will not come again
I will not come again
into the swirl
The bitter wine-soaked
stallion eats the seed,
all labor is a lie;
no vice is kindled in
these loins to melt
or vie w/ any strong
particulating smile.
Leave sundry stones alive.

II

Now that you have gone
all alone
the desert to explore
& left me here alone

the calmness of the town
where a girl in black
gets in a car
& searches numbly
for her keys;

Now that you have gone
or strayed away-

I sit, & listen to the hiss
of traffic & invoke
into this burned & gutted
room some ghost, some
vague resemblance of a time

Off-on, on and off,
like one long sick
electric dream.
This state is confused
state. Out there her life
like warm connectors,
plug into her soul
From every side & melt
her form for me.

But I deserve this,
Greatest cannibal of all.
Some tired future.
Let me sleep.
Get on w/ the disease.