Torch of baby's breadth, red buds
red frames weaving through crowded
time of
cheek curve and glance

distractions (why there)
waiting on a "paramour" lost
to voracious biology
thirty days thirty days
never

left with a strange boat
headlines Broadway
voice & that difficult pier before
that only western night beyond

They're plotting bookstore revolution
in the back room of hated work, scheming
escape on tour with a band, Satan in the suburbs
other stories, horrors manufactured here
crashing
an overloaded shelf of remainders
and meaning, someone else's
worth

               Explain

"serious customer service"
playing Rough Trade cuts for
"this Rastafar" & only you
     patriarchal clerk
could serve, not like in the maze
     of words & pictures
     the lousy job
you do so well

     imperious, impressing
her with the musical future maybe
     "but we'll probably just break even so
I'll be back
               and then they'll need me even more or
Stacy's or any place will hire me."

               Tim,
               pick up line
               one, please

                  Tim,
                         line
                             one

fuck you & the job you rode in on

               In the next aisle they're escaping
in a `62 Rambler straight 6, 15 hundred bucks, a stacker
needing a tagalong w/car talk smarts

     "Any Bondo? Bring a magnet"

Expose the cloak of lost control
at that uninsured moment awakened
by intersection chaos that wouldn't stop and then

               Blackout

in used poetry hot pins stealing all light blood balance
hearing Rimbaud breathe musty corner grad lean on
whatever surface intercom summoning who but the others
walking quiet like wise pirates searching out the infinite
rum loins and treasure of the deep around

               

I'm working the line of breakable
words & events moving through
the paragraph factory of two-syllable
Chevys, cheap transportation
for the mind we drive daily
& curse
always breaks down, overheats
but looks sporty, nice paint
the way we like it
goes fast passes anything
but a filling station
the way we like it
gets us where we want to go
and there you are
in the dark garage
idling
the way they like it.

Night hawks light

              linger

       for

       the

brewed east

two against one

counter man and

him
       clock

       wise

red dress and homburg

paperwhite crown

suitback

shutdown

       late now

           one

          Renegade
yellowjacket

at home
in
this
           stunted agave

Indifferent
           to
staggered
          econo
          mies
          or
          h
          e
          a
          r
          t
         s—

Then
help
          pay
          the
          rent
so I
               can
          fly

It's this way, beyond the shiv in the chest register, racing
for the deep opening where words fall before pain and laughter

this feng shui)

An offering of words that cut like a knife
      in the wrong hands:
     
bitch
     fag
          cunt
               nigger
                    chink
                         hebe
                               hoe           
                          dyke
                    wop
               cracker
          wetback
      crip
gook
     

More(!)

A knuckleheaded pop fizzle got it way dead bent:
first cut
     isn't the deepest just
most
surprising, just
                    the first
like sex
multiple orgasm
a job
hot fear
an epiphany
just
     the introduction to absolute sensation
     and a truth.

Cut:
     an abrupt disruption of energy, movement, sound, mass
     feeling, employment, budget, hair, film, meat, writing, bank
     throat, taxes, skin, vegetables, song, glass, love
     to the bone, against the grain

& yes, Miss Lillian:

          "I will not cut the cloth of my conscience
          to fit
               this year's
                         fashion."

So
     cut to the chase already, bury the ax
in the weeping
          dark, release the morning
so
          they may flee the ruby night flesh

               Hey!
Cut to the quick cut the crap cut the deck not the mustard
               Stop.
Cut it out
               Cut
               it
               out
Cut
     it,
          Owwww!

Here we stand strap-sharpening words into sundogs, grinding
ideas, dismembering vinaceous language and whistling
slaughterhouse music
                    to conquer doubt
                    sharp cutting wings
                    song to a poet
                    knives that cut like words—

She was a swordswallower who lashed blades to their shafts
& deep throated (2 yrs before the mast!)
          never
         a drop
          of
          blood
at the shaking
end
unless
necessary or
          desired

Cut: to
that black-and-white motel
that blonde
that shower
that scream:
          words directed all too deep

Cut:

I'm balling your best friend
I'm in love with your wife
I'm positive
I lied
I'm dying
I don't love you anymore
Goodbye

Deep divers live on the edge, seeking
lasting liberation, cutting
the cord to drift sadly
ever after while we
swim hard for
          shore
against the deep
but more
     the
               endless

This utopian square was built
on the happiness
of pursuit defined by bones
of unknown revolutionaries
sarcophagus for one nineteen
one not trammeled nightly not
played on by varments mongrels
vermin children not
supporting homeless lovers
in halogen sleep.

He has his own flame:
We should be so lucky.

He knows who he is:
We should be so sure.

Black grackle relies on prayers
panting crouched in the long shade
scrutinizing nature's rubric
imaginary flight
in this funeral parlor
under bayberry.

This vigil for headless young
will end when the flies finish
when grackle is finished

Something's careful
massacre completed.

Long boned
brotherly love boy
cranked up way late
way down deep jammed
the cheap switch saw
red sirens
dead run
American stainless
stained by me
emptying pints
goddamn
not this ending
no
holy
fool
shit
why
Marge
bastards
911

Whoa:

die
not just yet
not finished
by
with
this
enormous

living