I walked to the city limit
And played volleyball
With some seagulls.
It was a no nonsense game
With plenty of intermissions.
I headed west
Up to the river.
In my coat
I stood at the water.
The posture of dusk
Ransacked of belongings
Looking over its shoulder. What if it could
Be squared?
And though the stars
Come looking for alms I have only the cents
Of infinity.
If I knew how to spell lasso
Or pumpernickel. But I don’t.
It is a reluctant light
The hardware of the self.
Same smeared face
Of the moon faints
Toward Earth
Into the rain that pools in the broken cups.
The kids in the street
Bang their hands against the old
Can lids
Imitating stars.
They rattle with a fierce
Cunning
For transcendence.
It is as simple as that.
I joined an ensemble
Of misspelled shoes.
I got a tattoo of an umbrella.
How to make it simple?
I walk. I think. I write.
Even the alligators who live in the stars.
Are simple. Really.
The clouds jumped ov
er the erroneously
Patterned couch.
If there was no gravity, there would be no light.
The petals of sitting
Alone on a ledge of a
Wall. The city here is
Industrial, abandoned.
I like the wild flowers
And the shrubs. I like
The graffiti. When the
Sun sets on the abandoned automobile
Mouths, on the rail road
Ties. I think of a daring childhood.
Blood brothers with surrealism.
Or the raw patterns of
Broken panes.
The stars and planets sitting on time
Making dents in space.
How armies of sky
Take one leaf at a time
And rattle them green bones,
Shattering the air
Of its clear perpendiculars.
A robot
In a swimsuit
Is no
Astronaut
Gathers up
All four eyes
To gaze
At you
Slim as a volcano
Tear gas
For a heart.
The mechanical shadows of
Robot leaves
Hurry on tiny legs.
And of footsteps that fly.
Birds whose wooded brains
Trail into galaxies.
To begin in these cursive lights no
Taller than fireflies, are the names
Not yet in books, proceed.
I am ready
For the perfect legs I don’t remember
The silence of swim suits in the branches of stars
For the shaman to burn my habits and pull the cosmos out of a sock
The sleeveless sun like an alphabet flying a kite
If I should
Head home
By now.
Back
To the
Strange
Shoelaces
Of angles.
But that’s how you remember
Black holes are timeless.
And
It is in life
You find the words
For words you don’t
Know.
Evolution manages imagination.
To perturb the air
The moon
In gallant horseplay
Seems to be as still as a chimney.
Though it has no use for ladders.
The kites on Mars
Are as blue as the sea.
But don’t let depression garble you yet.
There is the melancholy of the heart
To broach this night of shoulders
And elbows.
The poem can be
Black as a match head.
Vigilante as applesauce.
A wink in the thunder.
A thud on the daisies.
An illumination
Flipped
On its side
Kicking at balloons.
Wish me luck.
I write of my city walks
The sandwiches I eat
I write of the solitude
And the presence
I think you will laugh
I think your elbows are distant clouds
I walk the rail road lines
I say nothing for days
I plot my take
On the world
In rain puddles
With a November
Leaf
As chief science officer
If birth has no ending
And death has no beginning
Can we
The better revolt of joy and reverence
Between us
naïve haircuts 