the infant alligator dream

you can hear them pace their fingers
like anxious doves across electrical wires;
they lift feet and let them fall.

can you hear their whispers listless in a humid flat?
where steam is spawn of flesh;
where the salt ocean meets the stone shore.

they're some dream of infant alligator in the cool
of their holy egg beneath a louisiana canopy.
the beckoning of sex a swamp,
the committed fool to his ophelia.

.

fingers have caught the scent of paper;

and can taste the smell of words thinking.


now caught in the line of this pen,

in the line that draws the water

leaving the well enough alone.


alone with the humming of wine coolers;

in the words of dead men;

in the words of the letter; of the keyboards and pen;


in the sent of letters and the senseless

of the heaven scent.


now caught in the net where

the lines draw across this empty.


where the mind stretches out over days awake;

days awake with the turning of planets,

the turning of cranks and sheets.


where empty is the new full.


where alone is all together.


the odds are even and the stage is a set table.


the spoons, the knives,

the forks in a road.


now caught in the curve

of these fingers around this pen.


let one word turn over on its back

because when it’s gone and left,

it’ll sneak right back in.


it’ll sneak right back in to the left side

of thought nothing of it.


now wrapped

around the tip of an iceberg;

round the rim of glass,

but the parting of ways


and the parting of lips.

when the doldrums swing their violazy ladies

while the doldrums swing their violazy ladies
there are symphonies,
faking sneaker shuffles in the urban accordynasties.

but no two here like animalto’s go
licking the banjugular.

so it will be roof toperas,
while the doldrums swing
thier violazy ladies.

the city sleepwalks,
handless it goes piccolonely.

but the first movemeant so much to me.

and the sidewalkwards are neither
here nor there,
but the wine is troumbountiful,
and alto’s play saxafrass tunes.
isn’t it cellovely?

how the birds are clarinesting with the bees,
and how the doldrums swing
their violazy ladies.

under the pickled moon

sweet and sour,
the vinegarish glow
of pickled moon.

would you cucumback to me,
my love?

you had me all
in one bite, but
left me bitter
and jarred.

i relishouldn’t let
those memories
float to the top.

i will put a lid on it,
while i’m here:
under the pickled moon.

here's to hoping you never read this

we could settle this like a couple of maddogs.
and roll around in some red dirt,
until you can’t tell the blood from the clay.

for him and for the holy of it

When the love of Him gave her clouds,

Pandora gave her tempest.


When Magdalena gave them rain,

Pandora flooded.


When Eve’s bitterfruit tongue tasted us

The fare-thee-well overture,

We composed her slaughter:


Cinder hot

And all hell’s hue.


When He

And His letters of

Better-Off-This-Weighed down the address of Ophelia,

Magdalena leveled the mount for the gravestone.


She dragged out the levee for His body.

But she hasn’t found the whole of it yet.


When out the last lit wick of His eye of dream went

And the ash of Him

Gave her His hand in head to go,

It was go.


It was go then:


For her.


For Him


and for the Holy of it.

we begged for dirty, we begged for dry

while the sleeping doorman bloomed,
we consecrated the restroom.

we used to have these outlaw parts.
we used to be a vagrant heart.

we used to be rowdy at the heel.
we skippers of stones, we are what we feel.

and then out of the temples came the oracles few.
and behind them came the rest of you.

a herd of clenched knuckles rest,
in the pockets of a winter vest.

but we saunter on, gypsies on the grift.
with our fists of corona, our western smiths.

we were children of rye
we were too big to lie.

we were doused in the amber water.
our city a shadow of the house of our father.

in fountains, we bathed with a city bird.
we counted each day on the need that we heard.

in the promised alleys our palms were pried open;
our psalms spread open like some desperate token.

never came the alms or candles lit.
never came the madman's fit.

we were the lost boys of worthless cred.
we were the daughters of the unborn dead.

when the department reached a consented fee,
your crowds came with the decree.

one whole day was spent on wine.
with our last dollars we squandered time.

on the last day we fed ourselves to gin.
our donut eyes fixed on sin.

we begged for dirty, we begged for dry.
we begged for wicked, we begged for why.

we sweated juniper, we wasted airs.
we burned the bank down, we climbed the stairs.

and before they wrote the memorandum,
the night was over, the day of random.

before we muttered muffled requiems to our coats,
before we kissed the seals of all we had wrote.

we fed our olives to the floor.
we backed our people out the door.