Philosophical Infant

Nourishment is like to like,
children of goats & wolves
& the world can feed the mewling
babe, subsisting together in one
form, temperate in motion
& in drink; one comes from the east
& the other the west, the heat
from the bowls of the mother.
The juice of Earth shall predispose
the suckling to war or worse;
astride the continents; two cities
will fight.  Two souls made one
on the outskirts of town.  Synthesis
of sun & moon produces
the hermaphroditic angels
& the feral philosophical infant.
To one curmudgeon, a set
of sons, & to the other, a daughter
soon to be met.  See how we cling
to continents closest to the middle.
We'll never see the dawn because
the dusk will kill us yet.

Long Day's Journey

Finally I have patched 

the sky.  I have pushed through the sheets

of black confetti raining

down despite our prayers to stave it off.

The big wheel keeps on turning 

& I find myself blistered by the sleet

of the Beyond.  Roads here made of silver

instead of clay, haven't been home

in a year or more & yet I wonder 

who among you sees this 

city slivered into strata of light

like a giant parfait.  A procession

of suns swerve & dip 

into the meringuey rings of clouds.

Let the stinking cities of home

fall to dust; I am going away 

into the Shambhala of my art.

Keep my crook & my cloak

in case I may return some day

to settle the score.

Planetary Souls

The head & tail of the dragon
exit the moon.

Agiel tells nine truths
& Jophiel the one lie.

The air defers to the
river of light.

The atmosphere
ignites with Luna's love.

The clouds assume the shape
of the heavenly intestine.

Cassiel averts eye
from the worm's exultations.

Zuriel invigors
the good right arm.

What was once barren
is now found fruitful.

Tiriel, make us grateful,
help us

remember, make the speech
of my dreams

most plain.  Drive away
our enemies

while we rotate & show me
no other evil things.

Spirit, Breath, Body

When it rains, 

it pours a sickly sweet 

ichor

upon us, our 

chins 

so close to contact but not bothering

to quite connect.  My back 

aches from all this

bending, an attempt to stoop that never works

when we both give up 

& give in. 

Where once 

we coupled, now we shake chastely.  We have come

this far & yet not come at all, & the monk

hangs upside

down to better puke his disapproval.  The beasts

have expired & now hang

like parentheses around our sentence.

The weather is actually a subject
of considerable complexity, but the sun
has plugged his ears
with the upended diadem
of the moon.  Together at last.

The rays of heaven
exfoliate the air, a tiny black frog
administrates our despair.

Fissure

Six days after,
seven stars grew
huge & brutal
in the sky; the raven
appeared, gargling
something in
English I do not
understand. The limbless
cherubim began
to swarm & attack
my face.
The heavens belched
forked lighting
& I hid in the crook
of a hill blasted
by their wrath.
Forgive me I have
asked too many questions,
planned for futures
that will never be.
I must walk more
softly.  I must shred
my many lists.  I must
learn to be affirming
to gods even
as they savor my frost
bite & windburn.  I must pray
to them to end my torments,
close up this fissure &
finish the crush they've begun.

Madrigal

Let the man in bunny ears feel wind upon his rear.

Curtsy & smirk & accepts this lesser torture as your fate.

Let nobody among us succumb to deepest fear.

Hear cherubs give a hearty cheer

as strangers prance along the shore in search of a willing mate.

Let the man in bunny ears feel wind upon his rear.

See the deposed king shed his crocodile tear

& float in salt baths until the day grows late.

Let nobody among us succumb to deepest fear. 

The gusts of April shall blow in your ear;

so doff your caps blue & yellow from your pinkish pate.

Let the man in bunny ears feel wind upon his rear.

The green waters of spring renew the year

& seedlings sally forth while the hungry rabbit waits.

Let nobody among us succumb to deepest fear.

Take a breather, brother, we're all friends here.

Take off your tunic, have a seat or pull up a crate. 

Let the man in bunny ears feel wind upon his rear.

Let nobody among us succumb to deepest fear.

Bella Luna

My lady in the moon
peel back the lips
of your breast & prick
me with the dagger
of your heart, all wrapped
in garden snake
like a slithering fist.
Lit up with tongues
of writhing, put each
proud foot on the waning
bubble of my face.
Furl your wings & carry
me like a hawk-snatched
rabbit to your lair.  Where
I once waxed, I am
exactly the size of the
devil's bite.  He gave me
gin, said he was
my only friend, & then
everything went the
pink opaque.  I wake
stained with grapefruit
juice & the taint of another
brunchless Sunday.  Say
that I can stay.  Help me
up, dear nemesis,
& point me toward
the penicillin, the quart
of Clorox you've been
chilling in the fridge.

Eyes Wide Shut

Here we are, at the center

of it all, & somebody

brought the trident

despite what the invitation

said.  She's riding atop

the shoulders of this guy

in a bathrobe, her eyes

not quite averted

from the exhibitionist 

crawling on all fours. 

It's that kind of party 

& here I am, waving my

styrofoam sword 

at strangers, pulling 

my visor lower so I can

peep the purple fez 

of the man opposite. 

There's always a guy 

with a scythe who 

won't leave the princess

& her sun alone. When the song ends

& the angel gives 

another crank, he'll

have found his way 

to the nudist & will 

tell her she has a lovely moon

while everyone else 

makes for the guy 

with the caduceus

because they heard 

he brought his leeches along.

Clockwise

1.

Imagine the phoenix
as it newly arisen comes
to find it is tethered
to a toad.  The toad
is you; Melchior will read
from the Book of Terrible
Secrets as she flies
straight into the sun.
Enjoy the ride;
from up here you can see
all the cities
as they burn.

2.

Little three-headed worm,
Mother's gonna buy you
an ibis bird

& if that ibis bird don't speak
your other mother's gonna
bring you the King of Thieves

& if the King don't sing
Other Mother's gonna
bring you the proud peacock

& if you pluck all seven
colored feathers, Echidna's
gonna show you the rook all black,

you're flying to the moon
& never coming back.

3.

Fair maiden, the clock
has its ways, as do
the two suitors
catcalling

your from across
the waters.  Now here
they are, about to block
your path,

one pointing to his fiery
beard, the other offering
to share his latest
playlist.

Even the wind sees through
this bullshit.  You'll note
how neither wears
wings.

4.

That's my last dryad hung upon the wall,
looking as if even in death she's too
shy.  How I tried, building her this cabin
inside the drywall, stuffing it with moss
from her native forest.  Above her, the
heads of two majestic automatons
crafted by the master Daedalus him-
self.  On the higher shelf, the sentient snake
once used as a whip by the ancient Am-
azons, now stretched at my leisure after
too many truths revealed under his lash.

Two Thumbs & The Book of Life

See here, children,

the goose who ate the paper plate.

Listen to the tale of a sixth sun

& those of us who've spun around

in tortured orbit.

Pencils down.  Gather

'round & bring it in: when all eyes

are on me, we can do nothing 

before the darts of reasonable 

fortune.

You get a halo or a lightbulb,

nothing in between.  Stewing

while the others dance. 

Ouroboros can only be performed

alone, buster.

Two high windows,

the shadows are sobering.

No crown of thorns 

or laurels either, but vectors.

Lay down your sword

so you can pick up a gun instead.

Little books have strange lives,

big books have more fun.

Judge not, lest ye be asked to

judge often & sometimes on weekends.

Spiritus Mercurius

I can't quite wrap my tail
around my vesigial
heads.  These wings
are not so much for flying
as they are surrendering.
A beak, lobster claws,
an inverted cross to festoon
what must be a kind of appendix
for the brain.

Where my heart should be
just peers out
my stupid face; time
has not been kind, but sees
fit to preserve my winged
shoes as if I could
do a dance with this bestiary
dumped on top like
an object correlative
for everything I've ever
suffered at the hands of those
kinder, gentler gods.  Please
tell me my knees at least
are pleasing.  My chin
recedes but my beard, long
& lush, is woven of tendrils
I've carefully tended.  We are all
spared the sight of my distended,
syphilitic genitals because
they don't exist: a joke
that can last only a single
generation, I'm a hideous beast
who can't go fuck himself
no matter how many times
you've demanded it.

Imbibition of the Stone

One must imbibe if only
to be polite, so
imbibe I shall, casting off
my inhibitions
& slathering my soft,
pale chest with
the gelatinous proteins
of mine allies.  O
how my shriveled wings
smolder.  Flesh of
my flesh of sulphur,
five parts of my body,
my blood of mercury,
revolved in the heat
of the wheel of nature
for a month, passing over
putrefaction, mouthing
the ruling words
to the silence
of the empty room lit
only by the embers
of cherubim.

One dove, two crowns.

When the lonesome dove flies
above the labyrinth, she will come
to bring you the crown
of fire, brother I will
weep for you when she comes
to give me the crown
of air.  The key that dangles
from her wrist will unseal
the books wherein are writ
the notes to play upon
the library organ to call
up the water & the earth.

Red & white hommunculi
will waltz the in the vessel
when the apples are red
& ripe & still the labyrinth
will twist farther into
the distance.  Your
dopplegänger will
weep, forgotten on his shelf,
blowing his nose in the
monogrammed kerchief
she left when last she visited,
cursing him to live his last days
so hunched & wizened,
& him cursing you in turn
for failing to learn
the lessons he's put forth
before you.  She shall
play the chord no longer
secret & it shall be displeasing
to the many lords
& ladies who will be assembled,
& yet you will sit
condemned to this schoolboys'
tiny red stool & you shall not
move to intervene.  Still
she is redolent of heady perfumes,
eucalyptus & peppermint
& just a hint of an ex-girlfriend's
patchouli.  From the secret folds
of her robe, she feeds you
a single salted caramel.
Later she might read to you mockingly
from your well-hidden copy
of Fanny Hill that she's
just discovered behind
the elemental runes you hired
an army of Wiccans to carve
into your mantel.  & then the dam
will break, floodwaters washing away
the farmlands, uprooting even the labyrinth
until the earth finally pushes forth
its burdens for her, a fool's gold
you've birthed in the summers
of your boredom.

Trumpeter

Our sharp bitter vitriol
smells a bit like
tinkle after

eating asparagus.
Our bromides
distill in

due time : until then,
there's cleaning
out the bed-

pan, gaggles of blackish
birds dancing
amid

scattered breadcrumbs (not
swans, probably
geese

dyed after having fattened
on the leavings
from

the gaping blue blooms
upon which perch
grackles).

A bad idea whose time
is figured by the
hourglass

hovering above head;
rooks swarm
the alembic

holding bitter tears,
while the sun's fun
percolates,

ignored but for the
pyrrhic reaching of the green
trees.

Saturn Returns

Look, my child
as Saturn returns
to the skies, flanked
by five stars
& the jagged lightning
points to where the fauns abscond
with the neighborhood
dogs.  The hills erupt
for the pleasure
of reposed Neptune
as he salinates the fertile
plains.  Mark the serpents
as they make for
the snaky river where
your pet elephant hoses
no one.  He will go
under & we will hope
to go on.  When
I told you the gods
were dead, I never expected
that boulder to be rolled
back, never thought
anyone would ever bother
to read those
old scrolls again.  See
how even the clouds are angry,
faces of petulant children
where once they were comforting
fluff.  Why does Farmer John
bother bringing in
this season's crops?  Why
try mapping the stars
when all is again the shifting
chaos of yesteryear,
all progress lost
to the followers of cargo
cults who fan themselves
with palm fronds?

Basement Days

It puts the loaves
in the oven.  It puts
the iron in the fire.  It
sets the timer for high
noon.  It divides the nickel
from the lead.  It leads
the way into the basement
where whispers take
root & something
slithers behind the shelves.
It tilts the scales
of justice & sows
the lichen & the flames
of the furnace, red
wagging tongues.
One in the oven
is worth two legs
of a stool.  Tonsured,
hosed, ready for a
night in forever
etched in wood, whose
portrait will fill the empty
frame.

Feel How It Trembles Inside

A dragon, a lion & a lobster
walk into a teardrop
& the dove breathes rain
under the breathless
sun but a sad mote
on whose cheek these
mates congeal & do
their violence. What lives
in a tear?  Perhaps a thousand
swimming angels, golden
cilia like whips of hair,
an illness to be baked out
by the grim star.  Up close
the sun is not so friendly,
our old pal bottled
along with the rest, & he's
been dressed
in the costume of a kids'
show mascot.  Where
he appears cuddly, he scathes.
Lacking any cloud,
he is nothing but a ball
of bubbling plasma & the
hate that's energized by his
billion secret shames.  Who
cast him as this tubby,
benevolent sky-god
smiling down on so many
seasons of this dove's
adventures?  Who gave him voice
as either asshat cackling babe
or dipshit dancer babbling
Laa-Laa-Laa?

Moony Thursday

When Chronos holds you

in his gaze, maybe 

it's time to take 

a step backwards across

the hot coals & ease

your way onto 

the futon long indented

by your lumpen,

slumping form.  Mourning takes

in its own cool way 

& we come to a place

where you're so far

down that even the infernal 

salamanders won't come

when you call.  Looking 

out through a moon-shaped hole

in you is psychosis, a bad 

penny like an extinct pigeon

come to share the good 

news: thou art about 

to rise up from your chains

like a snail from its shell;

I've actually had better

Fridays; the mind is 

its own place & needs 

vacuumed & smudged---milord

only an idiot returns 

to the scene of the crime.

Wingéd Words

When the crow alights
upon the sinister hand,
a true thing & a lie will fly
to the circumference
of the sphere wherein the speaker
is interred.  The demagogue
blows smoke at the sun
as the planets arch above.
Fix gaze on the black star, bilious
swinger.  Let the words
on wings roll you mercurial to
the bearded flame of a jukebox's
torch song, an angel on
your shoulder & its twin
tethered to you by the invisible
string of long-resented obligation.
In deprivation, ponder the rune
on the dark side of the moon.
There's no coin
left in your loincloth because
the loincloth itself is long
gone -- it rotted away, disintegrated,
leaving you chafed from the
unforgiving rub of plexiglass --
yet you have faith the songs'll continue
unbidden.  Hear another from
the diva who called you here in search
of splendors, her promised favors
nothing but another cruel hoax played
on another foolish traveler who
felt so far from home.


 

Mistakes Were Made

It's all gone wrong
again, a little slap &
tickle between friends
turned into a draining of the
lizard's brainpan, a venting
of his spleen into a saucepan
that we left on to simmer.
He might've even
writhed in agony before we
plucked a bouquet
of nosegay & used it
to smudge the crucible
of dried eyes
until there was no dry eye
in the room.  A demon
without wings is just
a bad idea & a skeleton
is just the crux
of the matter, hung out
dry for the end of time.

Son of Saturn

When moonlight supersedes

the sun in the slanted rain

the crippled stag will come

to the black garden & Saturn's

son shall preside over all.

When blue tears fall

in the river, I will remember

me, erstwhile spelunker

with a captive magnet.

Breathless & stork-hunted,

shambling to repose

beneath the laurel tree,

stranger in a land

of stronger currents,

I will bathe myself

in the shadow of this

most majestic fountain.

Even the emu

waits at water’s edge.

Let him.  When

the time is

nigh, I shall take my place

before my father’s altar,

make a great display

of hacking off my long

black mane, knotting

my locks along his long black

blade, biting the ripest

of apples between

my teeth &

biting down even

harder until all I see are fields

filled with poppies,

all I hear is the whistling

of wind along the waters.

Three Days

Two minds, one
soul stuck

in a husk & entombed
with its own

filth in which to
float.  Exposed

to the elements, this
shriveled skin.  Here

comes the new friend
to wash us:

she'll feign interest in our
bedazzled crown

as she cleanses our weeping
wounds, leave us

at the dawning of the third
day's request to transverse

the right holy
angle.  From the clouds

in dreams, with the gift
of glyphs

to festoon the plinth:
"HERE LIES ONE WHO NEVER TOLD THE TRUTH."

In Wandering

In Wandering

They went, like that which is not
in what is the way to go.
They took blue dolor in a bauble.
They burned it down.
They found yellow steam
in an alembic & smashed it
up with a pyrrhic victory.  In this vat they put
the pleasures you knew
when you were young, held above
steady flame, collects on a black
globe & shatters into a green
effluvia; they made it so.
They took from you
your lunch money, knocked the scholar's
cap from your head, burned off
your baby fat & handed you a candle
made from its tallow.  They
made honey from your mud: their
floor is a checkerboard & your
scooped-clean skull the
crucible for so much sticking.
Their giant brown bellows strapped
to your back, you stumble after
their caravan from one
generation to the next.

Rebis

Rebis

Take this crown

no bigger than a bread

bowl.  Take this sword 

forged deep in the bowels

of negative space. Turn 

your business

inward.  Reflect on your 

better half, the bruises 

of your bitter wings, the simple 

fact that you're not the same

nobody you used to be.  Unwrap

the bandages & see the woman

inside the man in the lapis breast-

plate as the ladyfaced snakes

coil still closer to the heart

of precious stone.  Tadasana

astride the demon's back,

a foot on each black throat.

Asunder & ununderstood

two halves make a whole 

lot of noise.

 

Spirit Ghost

Ghostfeathers hung in the air

after the pair of them were

pentacled to the unruly

tree; nowhere to go but up

jump the devil & the joucular

imp.  Enter the worm

like you’re walking into

the maw of the sun licking

the tip for to scrawl

the names of the kings

in mauve on the new walls

of the old kingdom in the

days of spirits
in the sky which had yet
to fall & the skalds who
had yet to be
tossed from their towers.
The moment hangs there
forever, precarious
on its lone stone pillar,
& then it's exit through
the celestial
elevator, its sudden
plunge a punch
in the gut for those of us
who thought we were
staying for dinner. 

a lash & alas

a lash & alas

I'll scourge your
back if you'll
scourge mine.  When we
get to the point, it means
pointing toes in opposite 
awkward directions 
with no destination
in mind.  We leave
no stone unturned
once we're more 
than a stone's throw
from the 
nearest city 
center. We're here
even when 
we're nothing but
blistering soles,
in the ink of plants--
a lash & alas
a letting of flesh 
& rending of mind.
If you want this thing
done right, don't do it
at all.  Continue 
until the wrist gives 
way, take a knee 
& pray to something 
new, something 
you didn't see coming.    

O What a Shame

5 tears in the 5

keyholes of the heart.

Wheat that grew

from the crown

of thorns.  This is

the blood of my

brow, for that of

my heart is poison;

arrows from crenellations;

the eels that swim up the spine

of the caduceus.

Black cloud white cloud

rain down rays on
merchant & clergyman alike.
To each ordained
estate, the sacred duty
of struggling toward the
dungheap's top. A sheaf of wheat
becomes an arrow.  The soil
more fertile, its flowering
most foul.

A Scepter, a Sword, a Scourge

A Scepter. A Sword. A Scourge.

With an open
eye, scope the beasts that 
fly.  With a closed fist, greet
the creeping

things.  A crown
is a sort of horns when worn
by your sworn enemy.  Take
up sword, 

shape the clay, walk the burning
embers to prove your worth.
A serpent is a form
of scepter when gripped by your 

sworn enemy.  Asleep it is a 
scourge that sways 
in the bitter wind.  Spied 
by a flying thing, 

your foot held fast to clay, 
a name amasses in the waters
of the mind & your enemies
a flame.

A right line, crooked 
& reflexed spells the simple 
figure of your enemy:
the sacred covenant.  
This is how it shall be discovered.    

 

Azoth

1.

Black ray of calcination
splits in two.
Dire crow of thought
squeezed through
the fontanel.
Mud sprouts
from your eyes.

2.

Kissing the ear
of the ground.
The flame begs
the sun.  The shadow
casts the man.
Rise up full
of hot air.

3.

One then two,
laughing at
the crow in the ground.
Bright coals
for eyes all I see
does not please
go.

4.

Wingéd crown,
stand tall.  Wasted
stand down, gaze up
at angels
or aliens.  Strike
the balance,
hold tight to borrowed robes.

5.

Begins
as juice, then rots
into essence.
Out of
this darkness, a filmy
residue, a
firmness of resolve.

6.

An alembic boiled from a father's
blood.  A tail
chased, then fed to the
flame.  Sublimate our planet
gradually.  Point
forward, await the next
phase.

7.

Golden
sunbeam, cold
as a stone.  Clockwise
we might
plant seeds we'll never live
to see through to harvest. Now we've a second
body.  A higher light.

Moratorium

Hail & well

met, my fellow 

traveller, after so long 

on this winding 

road so far from

home. When last we

parted, we proclaimed 

the sky could not

possibly grow

darker, yet here we 

sit, struggling

along the same old 

ruts in different

seasons, new

scourge risen to 

menace our

lands.  Look 

to the dead 

for some solace:

they & their one 

long sentence, begun

at the paps

of the world & 

stretching umbilically

to the final contraction.

Don't think of life

as a test, but instead 

a distraction from 

that final weird of 

knitting beginning 

to end, when death yes

will die & so will

the sky & what remains

is just a longing for

anything at all.