Gold glitter
Only stays on the ceiling
When the upholstery is gray.

Church gyms are suddenly
Piggy banks to play
Basketball upon.

I will draw a city on
The bulletin board
And owl pushpins will inhabit it.

My mind is no longer in a
Casing of gray rick-rack
And suppositions I do not feel.

It is a precarious thing to
Play a solar piano
Under the midday sky.

Have you ever heard
A pumpkin-flavored
Volkswagen van?

It happened suddenly
That everything I could possibly
See became a photography contest.

1
in the fish market of religions
and faiths
and suppositions and declarations
and fierce revelations
much of the commerce is done
on the principle:
Who shouts loudest
and shouts longest
and shouts often-est
gets to empty the most pockets
of bewildered customers

(You always empty their minds
first)

2
You never lose in this fish market
Even the quiet ones
the ones of mild manners and timid ways
can trawl a good number
of faithful customers

3
You can sell fresh fables
or smelly old tales –
they are all good commerce

4
Of course some slap you
right in the face
with their fish:
That too seems to catch customers…

I think you stun them with one blow
and they remain stunted all their lives

Brain waves sway in this cerebral cyclone.
Eating, breathing, bleeding in a home that isn't my home.
Breathing? BREATHING? What are we doing that for?
Abusing and losing. But who's keeping score?
Racing, chasing, running in a circle now.
The same train of thoughts has fallen off the tracks now.
Trying to abide by all your stupid rules now.
Searching for the answers in a mind that's shut downnnnnnn..

Get me out of this new cerebral cyclone.
Ringing! RINGING! That isn't a telephone!
Air-conditioned suppositions and amenities to die for.
View of the pool and a washer-dryer combo.
It's useless to use this scattered brain jumbled mess.
We go from 60 to zero.

But we wear less to impress.

Now we're preparing to pretend that this isn't the end.
When we know that it's time to detonate.
We hear the wind chime now, it's time to unwind now.
But to be thrown off the rocker' s our fate.

Oh, what we'd give for a sweet cerebral cyclone.
Noisy voices in my head, but at least I'm not alone.
Dreaming.. Dreaming... Leave us on the bathroom floor.
Lovely ****** tub with amenities galore.

If you care:
My
life is a little
box
and I dreamt of a
little box. The more I watched the less it
was. In
a solid white something. Lamps. A
table. Clothes. Proper punctuation and
capitalization. Unthinkable hopes
and blasphemous suppositions. Some force
that I can’t call God, just my sick
dream-logic, blew it to ashes. My world-cube. My mirrors.
My books. My awards and certificates and
All my precious stanzas. Cinders and pronunciation alone remained.
At this, I
smiled and
shook my soul
with the Prophet. My own music burst out
before me like mathematics
(My very breath guided by an
infinitely ascetic
sweep) and like oil paint (in
a world that glows
like neon and
breathes out empty
space) and I awoke from whiteness. I fold
myself into four
like the
secret of flight. But you don’t care.

From time to time, lifting his eyes, he sees
The soft blue starlight through the one small window,
The moon above black trees, and clouds, and Venus,--
And turns to write . . .  The clock, behind ticks softly.

It is so long, indeed, since I have written,--
Two years, almost, your last is turning yellow,--
That these first words I write seem cold and strange.
Are you the man I knew, or have you altered?
Altered, of course--just as I too have altered--
And whether towards each other, or more apart,
We cannot say . . .  I've just re-read your letter--
Not through forgetfulness, but more for pleasure--

Pondering much on all you say in it
Of mystic consciousness--divine conversion--
The sense of oneness with the infinite,--
Faith in the world, its beauty, and its purpose . . .
Well, you believe one must have faith, in some sort,
If one's to talk through this dark world contented.
But is the world so dark?  Or is it rather
Our own brute minds,--in which we hurry, trembling,
Through streets as yet unlighted?  This, I think.

You have been always, let me say, "romantic,"--
Eager for color, for beauty, soon discontented
With a world of dust and stones and flesh too ailing:
Even before the question grew to problem
And drove you bickering into metaphysics,
You met on lower planes the same great dragon,
Seeking release, some fleeting satisfaction,
In strange aesthetics . . .  You tried, as I remember,
One after one, strange cults, and some, too, morbid,
The cruder first, more violent sensations,
Gorgeously carnal things, conceived and acted
With splendid animal thirst . . .  Then, by degrees,--
Savoring all more delicate gradations

In all that hue and tone may play on flesh,
Or thought on brain,--you passed, if I may say so,
From red and scarlet through morbid greens to mauve.
Let us regard ourselves, you used to say,
As instruments of music, whereon our lives
Will play as we desire: and let us yield
These subtle bodies and subtler brains and nerves
To all experience plays . . . And so you went
From subtle tune to subtler, each heard once,
Twice or thrice at the most, tiring of each;
And closing one by one your doors, drew in
Slowly, through darkening labyrinths of feeling,
Towards the central chamber . . .  Which now you've reached.

What, then's, the secret of this ultimate chamber--
Or innermost, rather?  If I see it clearly
It is the last, and cunningest, resort
Of one who has found this world of dust and flesh,--
This world of lamentations, death, injustice,
Sickness, humiliation, slow defeat,
Bareness, and ugliness, and iteration,--
Too meaningless; or, if it has a meaning,
Too tiresomely insistent on one meaning:

Futility . . .  This world, I hear you saying,--
With lifted chin, and arm in outflung gesture,
Coldly imperious,--this transient world,
What has it then to give, if not containing
Deep hints of nobler worlds?  We know its beauties,--
Momentary and trivial for the most part,
Perceived through flesh, passing like flesh away,--
And know how much outweighed they are by darkness.
We are like searchers in a house of darkness,
A house of dust; we creep with little lanterns,
Throwing our tremulous arcs of light at random,
Now here, now there, seeing a plane, an angle,
An edge, a curve, a wall, a broken stairway
Leading to who knows what; but never seeing
The whole at once . . .  We ***** our way a little,
And then grow tired.  No matter what we touch,
Dust is the answer--dust: dust everywhere.
If this were all--what were the use, you ask?
But this is not: for why should we be seeking,
Why should we bring this need to seek for beauty,
To lift our minds, if there were only dust?
This is the central chamber you have come to:
Turning your back to the world, until you came
To this deep room, and looked through rose-stained windows,
And saw the hues of the world so sweetly changed.

Well, in a measure, so only do we all.
I am not sure that you can be refuted.
At the very last we all put faith in something,--
You in this ghost that animates your world,
This ethical ghost,--and I, you'll say, in reason,--
Or sensuous beauty,--or in my secret self . . .
Though as for that you put your faith in these,
As much as I do--and then, forsaking reason,--
Ascending, you would say, to intuition,--
You predicate this ghost of yours, as well.
Of course, you might have argued,--and you should have,--
That no such deep appearance of design
Could shape our world without entailing purpose:
For can design exist without a purpose?
Without conceiving mind? . . .  We are like children
Who find, upon the sands, beside a sea,
Strange patterns drawn,--circles, arcs, ellipses,
Moulded in sand . . .  Who put them there, we wonder?

Did someone draw them here before we came?
Or was it just the sea?--We pore upon them,
But find no answer--only suppositions.
And if these perfect shapes are evidence
Of immanent mind, it is but circumstantial:
We never come upon him at his work,
He never troubles us.  He stands aloof--
Well, if he stands at all: is not concerned
With what we are or do.  You, if you like,
May think he broods upon us, loves us, hates us,
Conceives some purpose of us.  In so doing
You see, without much reason, will in law.
I am content to say, 'this world is ordered,
Happily so for us, by accident:
We go our ways untroubled save by laws
Of natural things.'  Who makes the more assumption?

If we were wise--which God knows we are not--
(Notice I call on God!) we'd plumb this riddle
Not in the world we see, but in ourselves.
These brains of ours--these delicate spinal clusters--
Have limits: why not learn them, learn their cravings?
Which of the two minds, yours or mine, is sound?
Yours, which scorned the world that gave it freedom,
Until you managed to see that world as omen,--
Or mine, which likes the world, takes all for granted,
Sorrow as much as joy, and death as life?--
You lean on dreams, and take more credit for it.
I stand alone . . .  Well, I take credit, too.
You find your pleasure in being at one with all things--
Fusing in lambent dream, rising and falling
As all things rise and fall . . .  I do that too--
With reservations.  I find more varied pleasure
In understanding: and so find beauty even
In this strange dream of yours you call the truth.

Well, I have bored you.  And it's growing late.
For household news--what have you heard, I wonder?
You must have heard that Paul was dead, by this time--
Of spinal cancer.  Nothing could be done--
We found it out too late.  His death has changed me,
Deflected much of me that lived as he lived,
Saddened me, slowed me down.  Such things will happen,
Life is composed of them; and it seems wisdom
To see them clearly, meditate upon them,
And understand what things flow out of them.
Otherwise, all goes on here much as always.
Why won't you come and see us, in the spring,
And bring old times with you?--If you could see me
Sitting here by the window, watching Venus
Go down behind my neighbor's poplar branches,--
Just where you used to sit,--I'm sure you'd come.
This year, they say, the springtime will be early.

i came around this neck of town
with a few suppositions about scotland.
Its a little admittedly a little odd willingly picking and packing  up
to sail across the sky
despite the little itch
painted on the inside of my eyelids,
brain, reminding me of people to whom I wont speak again
until they’re once again immediately in front of me.

(which means I’m kind of **** at staying in contact, even with the internet at my disposal.)
but even as technology laces the textures of communication
I constantly find myself in silence,
misplaced somewhere between the pages and the covers,
happily nestled in a place just as cozy as the beds i find myself in these days.

and when you move, there’s obviously going to be a mildly upsetting adjustment period when people ask you out for coffee and small talk.
Which is always weird, being forced through that routine when both parties know it
inevitably takes a little more than a strong cup of coffee and an exchange of pleasantries to get to know somebody.
personally, i prefer the pleasant haze of sunlit leaves
a meander through a forest, the back alleys of trees.
If you want to get to know me, take me out of society.
those coffee spoons and sugar cubes don’t mean anything to me.

when you grow to know me, you’ll see that this beauty’s only used to
sacrifice the loneliness of these panic attack blues.
black jeans, black docs, redbull and a bag of green
help me fly above this city, over the changing loyalties
the mettle of this skeleton’s made of the brittle bones of birds,
my wings are composed of their bitter words, (and that’s just fine)
(because) i’ve a tar pit where my heart is/
and it drips to fill the space that makes an artist’s hearts harden

but behind that internal la brea, I’ve been aptly middle named
because ive got a kinder ray behind
that shines for those who choose to stay.
not only for those who choose to stay, but for those who allow me in as well;
its hard to let a stranger in, should they let your secrets out,
but i’ve got a lockbox for a memory because i don’t remember a lot of things
so rest easy knowing that your words are and will be safe with me.

I know
when I go
to that the place I called
home will still show
on the mail I get
but my heart
was left behind in a haze of partial memory
and leaves I won’t again see green until a tender summer’s eve.

but until then, i have 53c murray place, the locals to my scottish life,
to keep me sane, or at least humane before the leaves have fully changed and
fallen from the trees completely.
when thats happened, i’ll have to leave.  
I’ll have to leave the grey skies and lichen foundation
and a forest full of sympathizers  and former strangers.
i remember standing on the rooftop as the breeze blew below
yelling to the people who will never think to look above the street they know.  
Roger, if heaven has a cell for me too, i’ll rent that **** as a timeshare,
so i can make a pretty profit off the constant loss of my memories and endowed indemnity.
and chrissie, you’ve been a sister to me, a parallel sort of emily
thats going to make leaving this new family
all the more difficult.
and robbie, i’m an old soul, as only you’d know.
classical music in the afternoon to soundtrack an empty flat,
at least i know you’ll follow me soon after i go back.

i remember leaving the flat for the second time, when i was sure i knew my way around,
i saw clouds fit for an easel
and a sun fit for a screen
harboring glory in every pixel.
and during that walk home,
english, french and spanish disappeared,
and i took no notice,
while i go on revising the quiet days i never intend to publish.

there’s always been a certain feeling
quite difficult to name—

discomfort, most likely,
or a vague,
blurry,
unhurried sense of fear.

a worry
that perhaps you can tell
that the floor was swept
and the carpet vacuumed
only minutes before your arrival ,

anxiety
making suppositions
about your x-ray vision
and delicate opinions.

perhaps you can see
the layers of sweat and blood
behind every painted wall,

perhaps you can hear the sound
of arguments and sweet nothings
seeping up from the floorboards.

i’m sure you mean well,
that you’ve brought some sort of lasagna
and cheesecake for dessert,

yet i cannot shake the feeling
that you are invaders
from a foreign land,
here to take
and take
and take
and take
everything your eyes land on.

this shakiness is formidable,
this unraveling so easy to do,
but i am not one to succumb
to anxiety’s follies—

so i open the door anyway
dissect the chambers of my heart,
throw open the shutters,
offering every bit of my soul,

my voice echoing
off every beam and wall and ventricle,
the word soaring into your ears:

“welcome!”

Dubious sense of unresolved ambivalence

Given to implausible suppositions of fragmentation

That distinguishes itself in well meaning solemnities

Of delicious incompetence that evaporates distance

In its poignant lament of darkness

That shadows words of cruelty, indifference and rage

Oh how unbearable those misadventures of piteous overthrows

That cram into brief utterances more meaning

Than language can hold and force a confrontation

Of unresolvable contradictions hidden in such speech

That are the stilling of time, those words that find expression

In a mystic power that transforms darkness into intense light

Whilst blocking out the harsh unforgiving light of everyday

And causes mutation and change of place in disorienting fashion

In seeking a loyalty of angers by shifts of dramatic register

Views its own meaning unstable and problematic

In defense of its own legitimacy

to idolize a segregated love
against fear, that knows nothing of failure, hurt, destruction
to cage evil, to make evil, by making cages
and to venerate, righteously, some ideological and illogical heaven
to loose sight, of the dark
and be blinded, in sheer light
is to forget beauty,
real beauty
is lost in piousness
in gross
over simplifications
in staunch
suppositions,
unintelligent
and heartless,
some dreary
mundane
banality;
and to lose beauty,
is to lose life.

without death you are dead
and if there were only good there would be no good at all
and truth is true by falsifiability

never lose sight of the terror
that waxes at beauties heart
with trembling and real love,
shaking for the unshakeable,
and put demons in their place next to angels,
bring shadows to the light,
or you'll know nothing
of great dreams
of shifting colour and hue
and shade and shine
and here we are
and here
we are

I say
give me it all,
I'll refuse nothing,
grant me totality,
hand in hand with
my union-
godly
I am for wholeness-
divided
I am for
the world

I am a lover
feel, I need to feel
I am a lover
sense, I need to sense
I am an artist
see, I need to see

this
reality:

here,
to hide nothing
to hide nothing
to
hide
nothing

and see
forever!