A griffin on the tip of a spire,
constellations spinning like roulette wheels;
the earth opens its reptilian mouth.

My rib cage is a restroom wall
covered with gang graffiti. Cracks
in my bones give way to new forms of sin;
my wings are made of brimstone.

Wicks burn down like exhausted debaters; 
fire, pontificating with its mouth full, grows 
weary of winning; paradox and polyphony 
are like a bride and groom in an arranged marriage; 
amidst war, the tyrant's dream continues.

Abeyance

I press my lips to the white mouth of the afternoon, 
heaving, pounding the still chest. My fever 
undulates like flotsam at high tide; I am myself
a belt of archipelagoes flooded by the rampant storm. 

I take inventory by fluorescent light. My left hand
gnaws into itself like an acid. Through long hours,
I have simmered until what remains is a mushy stock, 
a mass of indistinguishable ingredients. The alchemists say
to always separate things. Evil begins with abstraction. 

Chasing a Vow

for Mary

I am in a blue place tonight; 
one slight nudge, I could slip beyond 
the strong hand of the compass. 

Doorways hold sad energy for me. 
Too much is happening in the middle of nowhere. 

Be assured, I will not don my father's clothes. 
I am praying for this anchor to be a pit bull's jaw, 
the dogwood to survive February's monologue, 
for something green to remain after the hours have passed. 

Your secrets will be my crystal ball. 
Suffering will not be this day's coda.
Like all stories, a life must begin somewhere. 
Mine will begin again-- here, now.

Some Kind of Aegis

Aggressive midnight, with its evangelistic edge,
squats like a tank under a foreign moon. 
My language, a crusty bell jar, 
conflagrates like that cafe in Tel Aviv.

Here, on the outskirts of knowing, where moments
pass through the body like a sharp knife through fruit, 
we are both generals and privates. The days flow 
with desperate speed. Occasionally frogs still fall from the sky. 
We are no longer the hollow men.*
We are as replete as figs before the flies come.

The compass spins like a dervish. 
We might as well be speaking in tongues; each moment, 
each word, a new universe. A blue heron slices 
through the yard on its search for water. The space it occupied 
is already empty, unsigned, ravenous for something else to be born.

*Cf. Eliot's poem.

The Void

for Tom

When ambition sets, a certain emptiness, 
twilight of compulsion, spreads like kudzu.

A new cosmos explodes,
and I stand in a cipher
with the anxiety of an amnesiac.

My scarecrows are destroyed like piñatas. 

The mad race to fill the empty room begins; 
I turn defeats into stained glass, shatter
crucifixion scenes, offer shards to rapacious women,
who dice me into canapes. My serenades are 
little more than ice cubes in their before-dinner drinks.

I search for a map and find a blank canvas.
I want salvation but end up with the poison
ivy of hollow hours. My rash, your rash, is invisible.