sonnet
this the power yes power shot of whiskey in the arm my own self before you and the needle the thread itself circling spheres us our universe of war and memory called childhood on the street car horns blasting into trees stars and the whole hide-and-seek of moon wrapped in cellophane candy music you the deliverer and spender beside the meal chicken coffee margarine shining among clouds standing hollowy strings of cards on the table solitaire for two or three or four more men and women circling the symphony myself around you and religion studded in the crotch houses clams riddles impossible systems cringing in barrels off roses augmenting boullion crash flash wrapping delight in football fashion of red roads rabbits of delusion yes this the power the cool history of reflection seated in the steps institution of trickery marmalade and velvet hair brushing the chest wound leaves pile on pile ground like meat for the butcher last livers forced on trains and the train shuttling down tracks to god-knows-what-doom and we’re lost i tell you we’re lost and i’ll not travel down the track without this song settling the luggage in stars my eyes wide open because the rose is the train and up is down middles are inside the down like a culled shark of pierced continents me the corner of silence the round shock against the power before us power that laps us down to sewers of slavery and calls out priests who shelter the bomb our society of marble orange feet sleep right round the wicked slope but i’ve the rainbow
the flight
i have let my rhythm as man ooze from my shoulders and felt the woman in me bleed stomachward cut under the moon’s dull pit aroused i envelope my sense with tidal lunacies battled the opposites an amorphous mingling of my senses my wings are caught gold-webbed in atomic light machinery radioactively i shutter in and out between the grids locked on a beam downward downward (the chains i sawed myself from the wings my father and i glued in night’s dark workroom) waiting for the sun to rescue us to rescue us to rescue me . . . vision is no more i see soft angrier and still within the mind’s framework there is life and in life passion eggseed floating in mother’s protective sac i have crossed the grids jerkingly as my poisoned shoulderblade/jags the ropes freeing the womb to its honeyed position crane’s flight straining the sky
i am times member
i am times member bloodless a white ash wasted from oak scorched in torrid sun moonrise splits the land in silken night the earth bowels unencumber liquify beneath the stiffening trunk yesterdays fire i will not out from it i will not stay i cannot rise to come and feel into the hut alone some devil fit for marauders teeth disembarked if i were lost there would be wisdom in it if only seeing no nothing in this blind joy of impotent settling thick dust in roots imitating dried charcoal scattered in night life improving i cannot imitate i will not come out from it to stay to rise i am and move against the clock
