OVERLEAVES

Overleaf

A distant reflection cast with classicist leanings. 

I wanted to borrow that woman's eyes for a moment: 

viaticum for vestige. 

Overleaf

I am staring at you from across this page.

I am a cyclops with two eyes. 

The "Cy" in "Cy Young" stands for "Cyclone." 

I am a cyclone with two eyes. 

The Alphabet, in clusters, is jumbled in my gums. 

"On the double, let's go!" 

Overleaf

I see my great aunt sitting on the front porch fanning herself with long bony fingers. 

I still daydream of dozing off in a field of cotton. 

Every piece of cotton, like tiny cumulus clouds hovering inches above the earth. 

I must remind you that this poem is for you. 

This poem is a well-fed ox. 

Overleaf

How strange to see wood that would not burn. 

Old habits are kept like sunscreen that gets skin-deep; 

a re-charging of the body, as fresh as islands of green.

Overleaf

I watched a yellow butterfly flutter majestically over the top of a red car. 

Visions, stretched like dough. 

Overleaf

Is anything ever actually 100%? 

Overleaf

Too sudden our time slips away, like slashing off the heads of flowers. 

An oyster choking on its pearl. 

Overleaf

I could give you my knees. 

I want you to stand tall. 

I want you to hand me your arms as we witness the alpenglow sweep over the city,

like the tolling of a bell speaking of the passage of time.

Overleaf

The fervor of violence coupled with a thrust & counterthrust of the hearts of Men, thirsting. 

Spiritual throats swallowing all of the sorrow from their Tumultuous Whole. 

Overleaf

If our little lives are "rounded with sleep" why then do I keep awake like a giant colonnade? 

A fiction? 

A frenzy to be so alive like moods of Bach? 

Overleaf

I attempt to live in two worlds at once; each interpenetrating the other.

To turn a new leaf will be glossed at will. 

To tear a photograph out of mid-air. 

A work that is fragile & too quickly forgotten. 

YOU FACE THE DAY

with the radio on

the night before

is as silent as unrented rooms

No

make that

an ever-invisible satellite

scanning the heart's desire

in every room

"the only place not being occupied is the ceiling" 

I face the day 

as if blackbirds

beat through Bach

beat-boxing

The night before:

broken vessels

tissue-soft looming

tree's root's circulatory certainty

Flags might be flowers with ventilators 

Uncertainty

perfectly pancaked 

between your day & mine

We ripen the chosen parts

Everything else is rottening like momentary planks

except Light

Light is its own soft bee

glistens like orphans with a new family

Deathrow is lifelike

a weak arm like a broken window

An actor always "looks like"

someone else

blasphemer of life's emitted death

Take aim and be me

be me

To take every moment

as a galaxy

leading you into a waterfall

quite clearly

Arousal

Our Bio's are perfect circles

but who listens?

This is ironic

&

Irony is a Christmas crook

slipping on crooked frozen mistletoe

AN ATOM OR AN ATOM OF ME

"Catch" detail. A place where

light peeks into contours,

unexaggerated by a "fool's gold"

of mind-trickery, but rather

like a cup nearly falling from

a window sill; all of invisible

weight keeping it put, or like

a chair, half-turned, light

on its back; all bite

& no bark. Cat had my tongue, 

my wrist in her majestic mouth,

my hand on her soft belly

the way clouds lay low on a 

dewy ground. If detail

exceeds eyes, study dried fruit

under a microscope; train yourself,

the way things come alive for

different tastes. Blandness of blind

beauty. I noticed a man polishing

a silver leg brace; the loosening up

like an unraveled bow; a gesture

dangled from his eyes; his mouth

curved into exercise. Anatomy of 

every still or unstilled thing

is an atom of me. 

LOVE ME BEFORE

Love me before all of the snow melts,

Before the Great Sewer

Washes us all away,

Before the car bombers

Give their indications.

I squinted at a rooftop

Across the street in the October sun;

The dust behind me, tornadic.

A red truck had passed.

A shadow moved in an opened window:

     my aching heart.

I could have waited for a sniper's bullet,

The way Spicer said that the Plague

Swelled them all to dizziness in Berkley;

The way Ferlinghetti was charged with

Selling "obscene literature" in the mid-fifties.

If you love me

I will leave a crevice open in my chest.

I will be standing after the nuke hits;

A skeleton, a white-wash board in a desert.

Rush to the scene, gather me up

Like the dust that I am; hang me on

Padded Hangers.

Love me before all of the snow melts,

Before the Great Sewer

Washes us all away,

Before the car bombers

Give their indications. 

SCENE

Do I exist outside of a photograph? 

Does a fisherman exist underneath the flat-bottomed

boat?       The moth drew to a flame

                to escape the confines of clustered polluted air. 

                The flame in my heart this moth vibrates. 

You are there; a radio, blaring in my chest.

You are there, as a moth is there, or as seagulls

                      explore a vast shoreline. 

Sunlight glistens off of the docks of my heart; 

dew-covered boards as if inlaid with diamonds. 

Outside on the street I see three boys throwing basketballs

upwards towards a powerline where a lace-tied pair of shoes

hangs. Their failed attempts make them slump-shouldered. 

The sky, duck-egg blue; 

spotted feathers of clouds,

like white ceramic. Blackbirds

hang, soar, maneuver quickly,

leaving traces of sudden blurs

as if scratching words into the 

calming blue sky with goose quills.

Winter trees, barren, with skeletal

fingers nibbling this scene to 

sharpness. 

Contemplative. Meditative. 

I exist outside of a photograph

giving breath to all that I envelop.