I can hear conversations through
the window the voice of the people
elastic in phantom melody
I prepare my body for aesthetics
muscles clustering in sullen knots
Here in lorain we steal copper tubing
we steal metal we steal tempests we steal
something to define our bellies
as summer blurs our idle talk Why
don’t you know what a beautiful
and dangerous animal you are Pouring
cannabis out on an oak desk
for sorting out luscious green wink
You know that’s just where they join
God i am so sick of the misplaced anger
of others pricking simple ranges of trains
all of us slippery with images that save
the periphery repeats itself in focus
But god who has time for that bullshit
of others picking limes out near the tool-shed
of love and i goto soft decline each sentence
passes over me this fragrant beeline ben-10
I’ve fought my share of aliens too god
not to mention all these pictures of dead weight
God i’m going to sit up straight now
and it’ll be a tight fit this july’s end snow
on my body all a frizz all a fluted throat
I’ve started to love tossing and turning.
Sweat popping from my pores like birds’ prayers
taking flight from the marsh of my skin. A heron
curls at the ends of the bed , an error
The earthquakes are out in full force today,
murdering soulful intervals and lavishing aviation
on these doleful growling houses. Cicadas cave in.
In bed I’m translucent and murmuring across
I span every lucidity. I’d love to get started
on feeling, on seeing through my wet wings
into the steaming mud and bucolic latticework
so I can find that restless fulcrum again.
I’ve started to love wrecking your car.
Everyone’s mad about enlightenment these days.
A good dose of amphetamine injects a swirl
of heat just under your skin—surfaces dew,
become frictionless. I’m writing specifications
for web services I won’t use. Children either wake
slowly or a wool of cinder smoke chases sentience
over pitted plaster walls. You can’t miss
their footsteps. I, too, would like to avoid writing
a bestiary of noises, but just to let you know
I’ll need words, and that’s fucked up. If we could
pass scenes through skin, if with touch I could
teach you by flows. But then we’d all be dead, like
those frogs, you say, membranes so thin
poison passes like a breath. Oh well we’ve all
gotta die. But then I say, Not Really.