The shadow of the moon
Is an avalanche of fire
Like hands coming up from the sea.
I can talk to you of flying
Sidekicks in the summer trees, a head
Stand in the evening rain.
When sadness is neither frivolous
Nor misplaced, when it is palpable.
Can laughter make the trees
Turn white, said the moon.
It can, said the sea.
The job of a fool
Is to ride the bus
Till the heart becomes a circumference
Suffices the world
The job of the poet
Is to put earnings
In burning buildings
Look look a macho moon in reverse
Parks in the eyes of city gulls
Go ahead and honk for doomsday
I’ve the summer grass
Tattooed on the shoe strings of my brain
Between the toes of my heart
The world is a shell. But now what?
The sun is a quintet. But the drummer was robbed.
You are invisible and move like the moon. On three legs of falling leaves.
.
This is the way to lose.
By the seams of our nativities.
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.
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.
