Implosion

There must be as many stars as there are trains of thought
Boundless leaps chasing each other inexhaustible
Sometimes it takes two hands to rein them all in,
Stars and thoughts.

And who would have known that in the midst of all this
Velvet confusion, there is yet another to take the place
Of nebulas and supernovas

Another wave begins.

Woman On The Pavement

How pathetic you look—
Nameless woman, queen of asphalt.
Languish now on the throne you share
With others just like you:
Regal heirs of a stolen land.

You arrogant, do you think you own the
Rats nibbling on your toes?
Do you reign supreme over the gutter?
Better take your tarnished coins and start
Shopping for lovelier cans.

But you look so tired. Awful woman
The fire in your belly creeps up to your cheeks
And refuses to be tamed.
You can only twist those lips and spit
Viciously on the parched earth

While the city looks on.
Flies begin to feast now on your open sores
As you thrust a hand to beg for death.
Yet nobody sees your ruby eyes as you gaze
Down at such noble spectacle:

(how smug!)
A child suckling on your withered breast.

Trail

Open windows terrify me.
And the empty cartons lounging near the door—
They radiate like neon lights.
Portents of my mechanical membrane, cubed shapes
Curling and unfurling like flags:
How am I to know their immensity,
When all I can see are these motes gyrating
In their presence, frantic fireflies annihilating histograms?
I don’t need this, you see.
Sometimes, all I want is a bucket and a sledgehammer
And the cartons hanging upside down on the ceiling
While the lights continue to flicker and rain.
(these windows won’t go away)

One day I can finally pick up these clothes
In the corner and start to uncrumple them.

Counterclockwise

Now doesn’t it look good, this neurotic
Frolicking? Cars are easing into carts,
Cemeteries are ripe and ready for picking
Like the tangerine festoons of a forgotten harvest
(A pin drops to the floor and is forgotten too)
While calendars swoon and reconstruct
Wilted paper boats, airplanes on barbed wire.
Everything extracts itself like a leaf.

This movement is a farce and needs to be reset.

Clairvoyance

I do not wish to close my eyes. Not here—
Not with the mirrors of rainclouds gathered
Beneath my toes, nor with you beside me
Trailing in the wake of unspoken journeys.

There is so much here I dare not miss:
The hunger of roads, as it swallows,
Inch by inch, the crafted distances of dreams;
Portents of dust and pilgrim stones;
The muddied footprints we leave behind
Recollecting ancient wanderings.

Everything yields itself to apparition.
And I, moving within the torments of space
Thus proclaim sublimest title:
Spectator of phantoms.

Yet hereupon, vision falters.
Among the shadows of our weary limbs
Light proceeds, forlorn, to its gentle dying.
We took to blindness long before we built
These cryptic avenues and pathways of our minds.

Unseeing, it is the patience of highways
That moves me to consume the horizon.
Now I bow my head and search for maps
Etched upon these invisible paths we tread.

Sight begins here, always, where darkness is steepest.

Fire Drill

There will be no bombs today.
Slowly you crawl to the earth,
Unperturbed by rain or fire.
Now you are parallel with worms.
Now you plant your watermelons.
Your fingers are smudged
With yesterday’s clay
Yet you lick on it after a mouthful
Of rice, tomatoes. Supple supper.
Lick. Lick. Something clicks
On the left hand side of the kerosene lamp.
It is the voice of a distant cannonball.
You yawn, put on your pajamas
And hug the rifle under the covers.

Reverie

Pensive pilgrims you and I
We wander aimlessly around
The vestige of each other’s thoughts
Where our mortal dreams recline.
You there and I here:
Unmoving, a breath apart.

If it were possible my knee
Would be brushing against your knee
As I sit here
Musing on the geometry of your shoulders.
The slightest move and certain
I would feel the rough edges of your
Calloused fingers
One
After
The other.

But friend your eyes are lost in a distant place.
I dive into your darkened oceanfloor,
Submerge myself in your
Reverie
But always I scramble up for air.

You are drowning in your rhapsody.

Drowning
Inch
By inch.
I cannot hold your hands
For they are too near.

Friend if it were possible, my knee
Would be brushing
Against your knee.
Yet looking down, I find only
The fringes of your fleeing shadow
Touching the grave corners
Of my own.