It's a hell of a wail but nothing stirs the stones of Rome. And the football field is sponsored by the funeral home. The gears are greased with folly, the sun it rises and the Widow falls. And still the shadows stretch across the walls. Yet when the restless gavel of dread lit, its sudden frankness broke through the slanting sticks of sunlight and the coils of smoke. And all was clear and crisp, inked colors glistening with glaring grief. I poked the air in disbelief. Now say goodbye to the future. It's coming down with a fever. And though there's no harm in hoping, there ain't much sense in it either! Ah, the conspiracy of meaning! The spirit of the beehive! The belief it will amount to something that makes us flip to the b-sides! And when the little lad delivered a letter with 5 orange pips, he watched the lost years struggle on our lips. And I took to my heels but trouble travels on a quarter horse. Look for me in the weather reports... For truth is wrapping around me like Spanish moss on a cedar elm. And I've been told it's addictive, but mostly it's overwhelming! And so I try to remember to let it unravel lightly, and tip the balance in favor of breathing ever so slightly. The four angels are wavering with each spread of newspaper. "There's been a crash in the Alps, dear" and "the plague has crossed the equator!" And Brian Wilson is singing Through the speakers' distortion: I am a rock in a landslide I am a cork on the ocean.

she looked across the sunny sky
 sharp-nosed sharks coming from every angle
 she sat down crying next to him
 hands clasped over her ankles. 

you said “when people die on screen
 while the rest of the audience is grieving
 I always watch the dead man’s chest 
to catch the actor breathing” and when the sky went dark and still she filled the barks with verses well I never liked the country much the crickets make me nervous the lights came on with no warning some shitty shameless fraud of a morning I cursed the ragged frame that I was born in on the way back home I had the strangest thoughts 
somebody ought to punch my brain in there were dots and dashes in the wind and it was raining 

and so I walked under the front porch roofs fitting questions to tractable answers
 then cones of light beamed down on me
 just automatic motion sensors! so where's that giddy gutless knave who made me join the circus? I'll put the sucker in his grave just show me where the hearse is! the empty silos stack rain bombs plummet out of black planes onto town squares and slow lanes... That faulty neon light it flashed upon my face like lightning I threw the key out in the trash and slowly reeled the kite in haven't you learned from Lee Mavers? spurn the stunned fool who wavers and hit him hard on the leg he favors

Driving through the city with death sitting on my lap, marionette strings tugging, wild thoughts caught in Chinese finger traps. My sticky eyelids sank against the stark fluorescent lights, and I felt like shit so I took that shadow dancing in the aisles of a liquor store! And the morning news said: "Arab shoots a clerk, walks out, forgets the booze!" I think I'm running out of juice. Well, eureka! What's the difference! Top or bottom? Love or theft? Aren't you sick of the compulsions and the crude claims of the flesh? Fix that tether around your ankle! Drink your cup down to the dregs! And with your bloody blind eyes blazing tell me What did you expect to find in sand and foam? Was it a sense of self, a shelter, or a home? You just found yourself alone! So now I know I'll only ever go back to that place with a derringer in my boots, a .45 strapped to my waist. And the kid who used to pick off vulgar petals in the shade, he got fastened to a carousel hand glued to a grenade. He thought he could step off of the tracks, but we get all kind of wrinkles when the varnish cracks. And it cracks!

the caryatid's yielded, crushed and split by the harshest of winters watch her claw and scratch as her last match burns her fingers a broken umbrella beside her, ribs splayed like a spider in a pool of raspberry cider that flows to the gutter and on our next segment: "Salvation Still Stagnant: a priest with pauses so pregnant his pupils all stutter" this city is senseless with its slow deadly wink and all it entails we're hopeful atlantes with feet of clay behind that hatch is a pain that scratches your eyeballs with rusty nails 38 scraps of flesh in a fireworks display and I can't see how things could be any different lick the back of Jenny I'm sealed and ready for shipment for after all, swallowed up in the squall, we're so impossibly small and sadly amusing butterfly wings on my back and teeth ready to crack, you'd have to wind me up just to get me moving! how does it happen the flesh is sad and i've read every book I won't look out for flashers when I cross the road I'll bow to the sisters the way a pawn bows to a rook but someday the blisters will have to explode but I swear somebody stands at the doll's end with needles and sunscreen in each of his hands so empty the rose of your cheeks in hollow wineglasses and row through the days of the week with batting eyelashes the world's illuminated when i see through the eyes of billy the kid it's true and it's fated the patterns persist so drop both your gauntlets keep fletching arrows and watch the cars skid past the houses once haunted now covered in mist

blaster guns aimed at the sun crossed eyes and dotted Tees two-tire swings deflated water-wings lightening strikes our stubborn knees sawdust sprinkling through cracks in the ceiling but our toes still point to hell the summer melts and stretches holding our hearts from the edges we shake our savings down the well and pulling at a transparent rope twisting a tenner like a telescope the future gilded by rays of hope but the yarn still spins the three witches grin the mirrors blush and blur and all at once I sling my guns and look at the brew I stir then I sit in silence peel back my eyelids looking around for me licking shadows through holes in hand-drawn windows lodged in the mud of memory and the pictures pour out from the vaults eyeballs doing somersaults and the squeans and spurls spin and waltz

Lungs rattling like greasy paper bags. Voice raspy and fag-rough. Drag. Cough. Drag again. The same words absolving all revolving doors: "I'd rather be a headache than a bore" Kid, you should be more hesitant. I heard you broke your arm trying to punch out the president. When Napoleon's bride tried to get on his good side, (her hands like claws and her knees twisted like old thorn trees on the riverside) she said: "Hello darkness, grand old friend! I'm finally learning, this candle's burning on both ends." You know the beast never did stand a chance with belle. They cleared the nape of his neck and ran the scissors through the silk in his lapel. The executioner harrumphed to break the ice "you boys always look up once and never twice" So King of Nails, don't you cry The plank is full of them - and that's good! You've been fearing the sky will topple over, half-hoping it would "Dear diary," reads the vellum, "this is interbellum! I'll only write with a goose quill dipped in venom!" Jack burns his flag, packs both of his bags Mother sags and sews bills into the seams of his denims! The prophetess kicks her laundry hamper, muttering truths that have lost their temper. Lives flash in the roiling swells of a highball, same old names spelled out in lightbulbs. Gumps guard the great doorway with retractable syringes, dirt on their foreheads, peddling hinges and locks When diamond dogs lead you into a cul-de-sac, just kick the rubble and double back.

On a brighter note, the hole won't fit the key. Still his swivels row this boat that floats upon her sea. "Will I see you tomorrow? Mrs…?" "Will you love me tonight?" The witches are in stitches at the sight. It gives one reason to pause Beyond the natural laws, the truth isn't truth until it's chewed and spit by the marble jaws First you're trapped within and then you're left without. One-second emotion, endless doubt. It hasn't rained in years. You pop a quarter in the mirror and rub your back against the fog. This itch it took you by surprise. Hand over your eyes, you shake the tree of wooden clogs. Grandma blankly laughs, "I swear I was born today." But the muscles remember and the photographs betray. Even the best of wines is best before 9 days have run out. I second that emotion: endless doubt. But where are your wounds, my son? Where are your bruises? Every time you bet, somewhere somebody loses. And any way you spin the spokes, this cigarette won't suck back smoke. So hand over your eyes, let me watch the sun explode! Sweep me under the rug. Put my head on a jug. Glue my legs to my skirt. Stitch me into the patchwork.

moonlit and senseless words falling from my lips I felt her belly swell with laughter and my heart knocking at the ribs but the flag is always at half-mast there's an unreachable itch you squint in search of a secret meaning but the truth makes your eyelids twitch a sting derisive and rotary twitch - the latent clutches of memory twitch - refrigerator magnet poetry no way to spell your way out something sewed our lips shut before we had a chance to speak I saw it stamping wrinkles in our brows and fretting channels in our cheeks Well it's true the illusion of reality - just to be in the moment - is such an extravagance and mine is always broken so we watch the continents drifting feel the wind as it's shifting think of all that we're missing