sonnet
this the power yes power
shot of whiskey in the arm
my own self before you and the
needle the thread itself circling
spheres us our universe of
war and memory called childhood
on the street car horns blasting
into trees stars and the whole
hide-and-seek of moon wrapped
in cellophane candy music
you the deliverer and spender
beside the meal chicken coffee
margarine shining among clouds
standing hollowy strings of cards
on the table solitaire for two
or three or four more men and
women circling the symphony
myself around you and religion
studded in the crotch houses
clams riddles impossible systems
cringing in barrels off roses
augmenting boullion crash
flash wrapping delight in
football fashion of red roads
rabbits of delusion
yes this the power the cool
history of reflection seated
in the steps institution of
trickery marmalade and velvet
hair brushing the chest wound
leaves pile on pile ground
like meat for the butcher
last livers forced on trains
and the train shuttling down
tracks to god-knows-what-doom and
we’re lost i tell you we’re lost
and i’ll not travel down the
track without this song settling
the luggage in stars
my eyes wide open because the
rose is the train and up is
down middles are inside the
down like a culled shark of
pierced continents me the corner
of silence the round shock
against the power before us
power that laps us down to
sewers of slavery and calls
out priests who shelter the bomb
our society of marble
orange feet sleep right round
the wicked slope but i’ve the
rainbow
the flight
i have let my rhythm as man
ooze from my shoulders
and felt the woman in me bleed
stomachward
cut under the moon’s dull pit
aroused
i envelope my sense
with tidal lunacies
battled the opposites
an amorphous mingling of my senses
my wings are caught gold-webbed
in atomic light machinery
radioactively
i shutter in and out between the grids
locked on a beam
downward
downward
(the chains i sawed myself from
the wings my father and i glued
in night’s dark workroom)
waiting for the sun
to rescue us
to rescue us
to rescue me . . .
vision is no more
i see soft angrier and still
within the mind’s framework
there is life
and in life passion
eggseed floating in mother’s protective sac
i have crossed the grids
jerkingly
as my poisoned shoulderblade/jags the ropes
freeing the womb to its honeyed position
crane’s flight straining the sky
i am times member
i am times member
bloodless
a white ash wasted from oak
scorched in torrid sun
moonrise splits the land
in silken night the earth bowels unencumber
liquify beneath the stiffening trunk yesterdays fire
i will not out from it
i will not stay
i cannot rise to come and
feel into the hut
alone some devil fit for marauders teeth
disembarked
if i were lost
there would be wisdom in it
if only seeing
no nothing in this blind joy of impotent settling
thick dust in roots
imitating dried charcoal scattered in night
life improving i cannot imitate
i will not come out from it to stay
to rise i am and
move against the clock