Barfüßerkirche

Go where
the ship of the city
will bring you.
Flickering shadows
among the filthy
planes; shining
monks lurk in
moments like book
covers.   Ochre ends
a foundling must roll
with the garbage
like a trusty skull
in the shadow of the towering
crenellated tower; no
windows but in
things flat as paper.
We are all angling for some-
where better to fold:
there's rapture
to be had at the periphery,
just outside of where
once their gods broke open
into right-
angled, blinding light.

Tea

I'm buttoned up
but with my fancy socks,
I mean.  It's
one of those days where
you take tea
beneath the clothesline
& watch the
circus roll into town one
elephant
at a time.  I'm not so sure
if this
chain-link fence keeps
the crowd
out or traps us in here
with you
fools, the restless rabble,
the peons
          standing
in the pit hoping for another
                       fart joke
that I'll indulge with an anecdote
about a finger
pulled by the strong man
who becomes a
frog.  Or there's a log,
a fog that finds us wanting.
We like tiny cat feet
& cannot lie except about
the tontine.
                 He looks demure
now but you should have
seen him beneath the blazing
tree, ridden by ancestors, foaming
at the mouth like a juvenile
experimental volcano.
   We smile
as you capture our souls
because we have no souls
nor cares nor beliefs.
Nothing can change a man
who is marked
by chaos; the dead shall die
& the living shall eat
a small meal between
lunch & dinner.

Untitled (Rayograph)

The trouble's not finding
the key in the dark
but rather where's the lock?

The midnight library
is a whisper of pages;
a hand reaches

a revenant
towards the misty forms
the braided ghosts

that never rose up
from their pages;
you try spending eternity

all alone in a book
that you wrote.
Enlarger flash pompeiis

it all for posterity.  When I
say cheese,  I mean
we all stand alone: the cloak,

the naked bone.  What stirs
among the stacks
is nothing but memory.

I wish this weren't so.
Were that we
solid, raw

& bloody rather than
has-been vapors
lonely

& exposed.

Big Variety with Musician and Dancer

We all need
the human touch, but
in its absence we
turn to other,

purer pursuits : we have all
been sawed in
half by the doomed urge
toward love.  We

talk to strangers &
blow smoke, open
our robes
in hopes of something

other than a distorted
mirror image
of our own shrunken
desires.  She

donned her cloak of
feathers &
kicked way over my
head, not the first

but certainly
the most recent muse
to stand smug
& isolated just off the

beaten track. Nightshade
could be said to be
medicinal when one can
only fan the flames

that creep toward
the shadowy audience.
The hidden band
plays something jaunty

from the wings
while the nightingale
sings; he's only holding
his breath or so

they say. This is
the luxury of falling apart
in public: Nobody
knows it's not

just a spectacle.

Night over the City

Resplendent cloudforms swarm the moon,
while lonely rooms light up
with the night's fun:
drinking alone
reading strange books
waiting for the war.

All good folks are in bed
the bare branches
make their cursive
over the still streets;
buildings reflect sober
light & the ionosphere
dribbles speeches,

O Otto the many colors
of grey are broken
open by the white of angels
flayed & falling
upon our silent streets.  There is
a bell tower also silent:
no need to sound
an alarm before the bombs
are here.  Let them sleep,
Otto, until their shifts begin
& the factories & the cubicles,
classrooms, & charcuteries
all ring with the freedom to be birthed,
to toil, to be cast aside & put
to rest beside the monolith
on the outskirts, a landmark we've
visited but seldom spoken of before.

Wild Men

My war, my friend,

is with this life I’ve withstood

by not standing at all

but rather squatting

in the middle of this minefield.  No light

is cordial light &

every face is Vesuvian

fire.  When I last got

loaded, I saw Lucifer

down by the river.  Wrapping

me tenderly in barbed

wire & tilting his Molotov

cocktail to my lips, he whispered, "Lonely

people burn like magnesium
flares in the lap 
of the lake."  The marching men 
will come like autumn 
so long as there's anything 
to be divvied up.  

Alp Path after a Thunderstorm

Le'ts take a walk to the precipice
& try not to think of the perverse
imp who beckons to the ensanguined
peaks.

Not a soul-
mate but a Brocken specter
against the serrated pink
clouds.  The garish flowers
laugh & the log houses are stocked
with supplies enough
to last until it all blows over
the snaggle-tooth range,
as permanent as pipesmoke.

A backpack full of tobacco
& Magic cards, a lunchpail brimming
with Serbians' bile.  Bring me
the heavy chains so we
might bind the preacher man:

this is our life now
as we deteriorate further in
both body & mind.  We walk
not so much toward death
as to a place of rest,
a deep breath drawn against
the wooden fence, a fine repast
made up of kidney beans
& Chianti.  Heaven holds
its book of sorrows,
but our bones know
they'll shift the ground until
we've puffed our last
& blown the Lord's
house down.