the poignancy of faded linen:
how brilliant!; how provincial.
yes--when in the linen closet
a towel is removed

worn, torn, forlorn

it is honest--
the poignancy of faded linen.
because when he uses
that towel

worn, torn, forlorn

he is honest.
he does not presume, but rather,
rawly, is melancholy.
is human.
he is honest--yes, because of
the poignancy of faded linen.

there is reality only in
the speck of dust
the shadow, the blemish
that darkens the omnipresent river.

could be a briefcase, a bone,
a brain.

could be elephant, Estonia,
earth.

could be nothing, nothing,
nothing.

there is reality only in
the hollow truth
the maybe-nothing overlooked
that darkens the omnipresent river.

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the


could be couldn't, could,
couldn't

be.

cupped hands
begging just
begging
for breadwater sustenance

basin for charity
digging into pockets
the archaeology of
peoples pockets
it is luck to be filled
to be fulled

the volume within is no void
the void exists around the volume

and
you are the exception

to the rule of [white noise]void

when you stand on
the other side of the crack
it's a canyon
deepheart
sinking farther and farther into the earth.
when you stand on the other side
of the goddamned crack
you know only
Alpha and Omega--
negatively--
without the ties that bind

on the other side
of the crack

romance and clashing clanging
metal.
battles fought to find
some damsel
[that is to say]
bitch in distress

there's fire and ice
     [but nothing within]

the thought of feeling floods
the crack
and all we know
is
messianic erosion.

proportions huge

      on the other side
                of the crack.

from here--
yes--the balcony box of
this grand farce--

        yes--

from here--
it's a sandbox
from here--
soldier ants with aluminum foil
and the Christ bears
a plastic flood

plastic sins.

silly children.
one day you'll learn that
everything transcends your
egregious lament.

you'll climb out of your
canyon

and drown in the
skyscrapers we've got here.

silly--
          silly--
until then, you'll live with windmills
and pretend to love.

there are porcelain moments
when everything feels perfect.
when we desire the cycle of repetition.
there are moments when nothing
ought to change, when the
ambivalent mixture of twilight and sorrow
is sealed out of this vacuum.
every second strung on a loop
to make a bracelet,
a souvenir.
and those porcelain moments,
decorous and rare,
they're always ruined in the moment
when they touch the real air.

sometimes the world is flat
like yesterday.
sometimes it's easy to see
all the way across
to India, or Madagascar.

but we all know that
[Atlas as its fulcrum]
the earth is precariously
built.
on the days when Atlas moves
from the center

every movement forward
becomes
falling.

You would think the room
was dark
considering the spite it absorbed.
Like tabula rasa
it had been taught all the
wrong ethics.

The childs' screamings,
the bruises,
the sorrow that could drown
the people in the room.

It was spite absorbed the
pretty cherubs glowing
in the wallpaper--
spite.
they saw it all, heard it all,
felt it all.

Somehow [without years] the cherubs
lost their colour, got waterstains,
faded.

Somehow they lost their childhoods
to bruised bodies and hearts.

I can bear the innate sadness
of all.
In the most frigid depths of night,
when most men are afraid to
plumb
the emotional recesses they've eroded,
you stand.
A veritable messiah, yet cynical
and forthright.

I know you.
I know the melancholy, and I feel
the candorous laughter welling
up up up
within my heart or yours.

Let's call Mistah Kurtz--(he dead)
to find the horror,
the horror! of your innate and sad laughter.

let's walk along this glimmering waterway,
enraptured by the plaintive romance that

we've been inhaling all night.
like Vincent's blurry visions we are
distorted. made more beautiful.

look at this perfection. these cobblestones,
those pilings, the water that would be
organza
without the wind.

see the beauty.
soon we'll awaken,
and then we'll know what it means
to fear.

We can see those golden walls
that like a skeleton
hold us in as hostage organs.

They're beautiful!
And quite fitting--it's
God's paradise.

We live within these
precious bones.
We live inside.

But the beauty and the bounty
are negative aesthetic.
This Eden is decaying.

The only insinuation we can cling to
is the verve of irony, surrounded by
the marvellous cosmic golden swerve.

The tree of knowledge is dying--
crucified--martyred to feed
the tree of life.

We are centrifugally decaying,
locked in this prison.
Locked in God's prison.

We stare through the bars
of the lapidary gate, animals,
waiting for that slouching

beast to free us. To destroy
that angel, that fiery sword,
locking us in.

Locking us back.
Half-lives and whole deaths
are our only solace

as the walls sap our strength,
as the tree of life
sings its ironic beatitudes.

Soon, all there will be
within the walls is
desert and desolation:

the quiet infinitudes of
righteous destruction.
The wall's never ending swerve,

brilliant, holding in the
overflowing tree,
holding us in

as hostage organs.