Inhuman distrust
turn towards the inside
vanity for breakfast
a cinema tornado, in pride:
these gifts from the seven
we could never know
(so many gods behind).
And we pull out our shovels
anyway, add water to the fruits
watch the heart turn pale yellow
in the new day sunset. Discontent
with Mammon we sleep in
the murder of paradise,
break bread with skeletons.
Did you ever drink the poison
at the mad-tea party? Chased
the cat with no grin, watched
as your eyes grew wings and
flew away...

(Somewhere in the middle of our life’s journey
we inevitably become lost; is this not
worth laughing about?). The dark woods
smell like a dirty machine, and the sounds
of engines pumping. You step inside
and watch as glossy magazine pages
swim by in the neon night. In the distant
a great clock ticks, tocks
the sound of elephants running
trains vibrating beneath your bones
and somewhere a wolf is howling;
you feel like Napoleon in the Wilderness;
swans stare back at you from tidal pools,
this is the reflecting enigma
of your metamorphosis...
You drip into the melting wings of
a hawk-moth from a Dali-Kafka candle.

Ever wait at the bus stop in purgatory,
where Hieronymus Bosch is sketched on the
bathroom stalls, in blood: gluttony
face-down in the mud and gnawed apart by Cerberus
then is transformed
as a cockroach-headed monster
crawling in the unearthly garden
 through the sick river of vomit
green across the graffiti stained floor;
and Bosch himself standing there like Charon
the face of avarice
over Acheron, looking out into Limbo
and laughs; eyes become bright insects
flutter, flicker
grow hard, turn to stone
anamorphic horizons spread away, spread away
and there is Wrath, walking around in acrid smoke
his mouth a thousand miles wide
and you can do nothing but scream...

Here everything is still floating...
and across the way a frozen seascape
as painted by Max Ernst
and a nude woman hanging by strings, by stars
she has no head; it is puberty again.
Still floating...

Storm clouds pour from your torn belly,
strange, organic, obscene
your tongue taste of cigarette ash;
and the sorrow which takes hold of your heart
blooms in darkness
a Lazarus flower. You grow numb
drown in the elevator that falls
further down, thorny black trees passing by
and darkness breaks like black mirrors.
Fragments of circles spin back again,
And our gone. The window breaks.
You wake in a garbage dump outside
on the edge of a damned city
where the dead bodies of criminals
all wear your face, the smell of sulfur dioxide
burns in the still air. You can not move,
the air wraps around you like dead flesh;
the skeletons of rusted umbrellas unfurl
and you begin to slide away...

And there you are again, sitting by a pond
contemplating everything you ever knew.
Ever throw a brick through that window
on the other side
where the rare islands of Eden
stand like totems & trumpets?
The dust myths of half-broken branches
show us our inner insanities
how we glide into the television storm
strange birds of perfection
we walk into new ideas.
It’s funny how drowned serpents
become slaves to our lesser misfortunes
when we become soldiers
listening to the brave waves on the
captured radio, California in snow;
the city turns purple like a bruised flower
Limbless trees over the skyline
watching as all the crows congregate
considering who to vote for
while dropping bombs over Texas;
all these imperfect possibilities.
And somewhere up ahead infinity drives by
in a bullet-proof station wagon:
Nirvana on the stereo
as the highway turns to dust; too many
circuits, too many saxophones, too many
manic depressives building volcanoes
and hospitals, and museums
while in the backyards we bury our
bones beneath our souls
and all the dogs laugh at our

human amusements.

“Wasn’t Veruca Salt always a very bad nut?”

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