you know what they say

born in snakebite
die in hemlock
accident and healing
one and the same

they crack about cracks
say that’s how
the light gets in 

I was fractured early
thank Hell
a good flow
seeped in
a dark syrup
no light
no filler
when it crusted thick
I sealed

that badly broken
that closed up that early
I could have become one
of three things
artist
who makes it shine
criminal
who makes it pay
amateur actor
who makes it disappear

I was two of those
by nature already
so I said gimme more
I said
fraud
of thee I sling 
garbage in
and prophecy out
or vicey reversa 
I said as much as I could
never stopping to breathe 
still at it
still grinning

there is an analgesic effect
when one is wordslinging 
you can forget a lot
even when you’re writing it down

I can’t talk about the side effects right now
buy the book when it comes out 
this is just the short con
you want the big one for the full payoff
trust me on that

nod your head and I’ll
set the hook 
afterward you’ll call it art 
I will too
if you’re listening 

For certain at some point
you’ll believe in God or not,
and it will be in some way
a different belief than you held
earlier in life.  On that day

you’ll be rewarded: you’ll detect
a color in the base of the cup
of a simple yellow tulip,
a gray no one will ever have seen.
You’ll be blessed — and yet

at the same time you will lose your fondness
for Doberman Pinschers, start to see them as alien
and hideous, and turn your face to the wall
in sick disgust whenever you see one,
and you’ll be cursed.  

God, tulips, Dobies…nothing has changed
about any of these things.  Blessings, curses, ditto;
whatever you call it
when nothing has actually changed
but everything has?
That is what you call this. 

You’d best believe in it
if you haven’t already.  
Get right down in that gray
and squish around.
Pay no attention
to the barking since this, too,
shall pass.

If I had to taste you
I surely would
and would be glad

despite my fear
that you might taste
like an abandoned path

In memory of brilliant
anxious days
on tightrope and glass

I might approach you
with mouth hung open
as if I were wary cat or ready snake

for you remind me
of antique daggers, red silk scarves
Engraved exquisite revolvers

punching high tight holes
wherever they’re pointed
You remind me of how I’ve bled

and how I would
bleed now
if I were to taste you

and name your flavor
on my tongue
as rediscovered path

The heart is loved best when
it’s stylized on paper
and not when found in three
fleshy dimensions, especially
when
found outside
the body,

when
it has true bilateral 
symmetry
and a fold down the middle
from when a child made it,
when
there is pink construction paper
involved,
perhaps a bit of lace,
certainly crayon lettering,
certainly a messy cut or two
that does nothing to harm its charm,

when it communicates a message of love
by its total being with no other function —

yes,
a heart is best when it is
symbolic, non-functional,
and not at all realistic,
real, 
broken,
or failed.

O 
squat full
of masturbators!
I have entered
either an undiscovered
ward of hell or
a poetry reading.

O
evidence of
my mistaken path,
an entire life devoted to
the twinge given by
a good word!  Silence
is honestly more
potent — see how a silent body
in a noisy room collects
all the spark
to itself?  I’ve been
a damn poet so long,
I had forgotten 
what a useless thing that is
to be until,
upon entering this seediness,
everything became clear
and I lost
my appetite
for myself.

O,
the tawdry tragedy —
the open unnecessary question —
why not stop? 

As if
I could stop,
this close to closure.
As if
the light and the sad floor
could deter me.  
As if
the better words of my betters
could cow me from failure anymore.

So,
I say, move over, all;
I will squat again
and what will follow
will be what always follows.

A day may come
when the earth will burst
into a cluster of smaller globes

and we’ll all be relegated
to one or another
collection of ghosts
randomly flung
to one or another
of those ragged stones.

It would be good to think
that should it happen
we will at last
get past the old wars
and prejudices.  Certainly
the sorting,
assuredly the mass dying
would clear our heads.

It’s possible, though,
that on the day
it happens we’ll just start over,

continuing to pass
through each other
with no impact,
much as we pass though
today. 

The Buzz says good things
about absinthe, thrill-blue smoke
and the like; offers us

sacred images of green, then milk-white.
Green, then red, then brown,
then black; black-blue, bent-blue,

earthquake blue, hallelujah
blue, turned inside out
to show pure blue again.

The Buzz says the joy of clarity 

is not all-encompassing.  
Some pictures are 
best seen through haze.  

Crooked
movement can still cover
good ground.  Et cetera,

et cetera…don’t make such a fuss
about this, says the Buzz…slip in,
take a moment, take another, another… 

Weaponized
everything I own
in my sleep
while dreaming of chasing
a big intruder
through the home brandishing
everything from curling iron 
to machete, as I don’t
own a gun in my dreams, having
surrendered even my dream-guns
to avoid the dream of suicide.

In sleep
I’m standing around all Viking-like
with blood at my feet
that never becomes sticky 
and washes off of every surface
easily, not like the real thing
at all, especially not when you’ve been
standing over it
for a while.  

Bolder than I have been anywhere
other than in an old story, I was;
as angry and fit as any warlord
or suddenly aggrieved ordinary
cinematic man.  As always,
in a dream I was
feeling it, and feeling it as good —

how I swung and connected,
how nothing the intruder tried
worked, how much I loved
the fantasy of the non-resistance
of bone before blade

because of course
I do know better. I know
much better than that.