CAVES OF STEEL

JANUARY STILL LIFE

In winter on wire
her voice leaps
through miles of copper

We understand the child
transforming the birds
into land creatures

There on the wall
is a bottle green
with river water

Three foxes pursue
the botanist
through acres of bramble.

IN ALL YOUR DWELLINGS

It is cold.    The boys
in the lobby,  lobby
for heat
and a chance to connect
with terminal women.

As a child you sang
an autumnal hymn
secretive with leaves
and copper relics
of another age.

I loosened my eyes
and saw
lizards on the tame veranda.

THE DAPPER BONDSMAN

Clothing
as solemn as Dutch oil
on her crewel lace

With a carpet knife
she assures
a presence in the house

Once having loved me
her white rattle
conceals a winter insect

For all your beauty
you kept me
bound with austere emotions.

BODIES OF EIGHT PEOPLE

Never a stone
neither a lover of children
nor husband to grief.

This has all been changed
He seems to have
awoken to dying.

Where are you now
snared by a house
hook etched with women.

I need to know
what he said  .  a lap
full of cats.

Listen to him
please her with blue eye
lashes in January.

THE GLACIAL CRAVAT

Large hands and wedlock
on Milwaukee avenue wet
paint on the tavern gate

She spoke of insects
and not surprisingly
knew of foliage and wings

Departing has become
a casual torment
taking on permanent form

At the outing
in the forest
she became the lookout
for biker tribes.

AMERICAN ADVENTURES

Gasoline in the cellar
and a match
for your husband.

We never caused anything
and now you bitch,
rag like a syllable
unable to service
the Buick in your spine.

How very quaint of you
to suggest an arsenal
of Class A weapons
as payment for
a patchwork life.

THE CIRCUIT BREAKER

The gelignite smile
was a cover for your
hostile child,  wasn't it?

There on the oaken pier
sighting tall ships
at a distance

Stands the secular recluse
who once was
in a foreign year.

Cable to your heart
Miss Dorie  .  mistake

I was much too child
like  .  You weren't.

THE CERTIFIED TIMES

The congenital apron
you wore to the drugstore
has been recovered
and pressed
into service
like an insect on a string

Since your husband recalls
neither past nor future
we can copulate
in relative safety
at your apartment.

Damn it,  says Laurie.
Adultery decays
consumes the American Family
like crypt lice.

REASON IN THE BIN

Captives of the open sky
find Corina on the bed
weeping with the glory
of it  .  the firm weather
delicate with cirrus
clouds of futurists
and other violent men.

We recall 
the casual eloquence
with which you submitted
to the binary surrogate
who appeared on Wabash
on a Chinese afternoon
sporting spats.

YEAST

The smell of death
like damp brown paper
twice dried and powdery
penetrates the lungs
and then the bloodstream
like vinegar dust
you can't exhale.

INCIDENT AT THE ROCKET FIELD

A killing on the sky ship
field  .  stun guns blazing
like mad propellants
in liquid configurations
of joy and blood.

He screams in pain
as a bolt hits him
breaking his shoulder
(articulate men,  vying
for flight)

Excuse me,  lover
Is that your arm
lying near the pit
of the Saturn Weekender.

THE POSTPONED GALLANT

Yes,  I am thrilled
with you
honing tortoise shelled razors
and mistaking living
for life.

When you were a child
I corrupted you
with tales of science,
occult allegiance
and animal fires.

If I told you
you were singing
would you consent
to villainous escape

In vehicles constructed
                                        by alien life.

A HARPSICHORD FOR BARTER

He has formulated a plan
for the inevitable

Stocking his dwelling
with whiskey and brooding
guns

Only on the hemisphere
you inhabit
has there been
a resurgence of criminal life

And with a smile
she protests
the lack of young women

To be used as food
for deep tunnel
survivalist tribes.

A STATE OF DECEPTION

Slashing the white page
with a blue sword
impatient with visions
of harsh matrimony
(like bedding down
                       your dead wife)

And she hails a carriage
stepping delicately
inside  .  her parcel
of dreams
intimidates the young suitor
with its fiery magnitude
casually insisting
that he
take her life.

THE RURAL ARGUMENT

Such a fool in January
combining grace
with prolonged poverty
seeking a peace  (of sorts)

Jilly in the alley
distributing cash
comforting everyone

Her petulant lovers
unwilling to come
without invitation

and even then
reticent as supplicants
in a foreign war.

JACKALS ON THE WIRE

Sweet child
you can sew and
you can type
and have marvelous remedies
for back
burner libidos.

Silly boy
scratching his nose
obviously high
in this age of clear
headed ambition.

Consider art as
a non-essential profit
stemming from
a partition of yellow
fever and somnolent life. 

RAPID GLOVES

Good lord, says Janice
We love this
handsome noise

It becomes the city
like vinegar air
and leaves on the pond

We take pills
when our hands shake
and alter our sexual lives

My word, says Jesse
Considering the fall
he took great pleasure

In stride  .  appealing to her
sense of the notorious
and her livid
passion for knives.

SCIENCE ON THE SOFA

Correlating the book dogs
and first editions
of your third life
to the shards of change
you rattled
in your fist like winning
speckled bones

                            (gonna roll)

We realized you
loved them all
the barmaid  .  the girl
the entrepreneur
all held for you
great pledges
oaths and bellies
for your noncommittal nights. 

DOGMA AND NIGHT SKIES (INVASION)

These women need to speak
to their progeny
and all the wires
are in use

A cable has been sent
across the city
and the letter
has been arriving for days

She calls her daughter
chats for hours
oblivious to the silver
sky ships  .  morose and alien

Vocalized
unable to registry dismay.

THE COUNTRY CLOCK

A case of Nova Scotia
and the pleasant night
you spent
                  at the light house

If its grain you seek
there are silos
on the plains
tacking down
                        the continent

like fat nails.

BARKING IN THE CLEARING

Slip shod
by the drunken black smith

Your pony thighs
rehearse in sleep

That which you saw
at the Aryan picnic.

Speak to beauty Waldman
who amused you

In the morning
approached you

At the summit 
of your white career

Then was silent all that evening.

LEVEL OF ENTRY

How much younger
does she have to be

We've already passed
through langour
through lacerated
               islands of sleep

And still no word
of denial
just sky ships and comets

You purport to have access
worrying the hinges
with a crow bar

A skeleton key
begrudging life yet solvent.

ARMS IN JANUARY

There certainly 
            is a service for you

We call it 'Man at War . inc'

You will be outrigged
with the latest in tribal
weapony

And run round trees
and hills until
you know your 
                  way around a corpse

And cooking too
Hell,  we'll teach you

To prepare
all manners of meat.

MOGULS ON THE MOON

The cat makes a wondrous leap
and collides with a wooden
wall in mid flight
making the arc
into a bow thing
taut with breaking.

They are counting
the fluids
you have gathered
for three hundred years

Taking this potion
to the alchemist
and considering time
as an antidote for wanderers.