demon lover

when i was a child in ages dark demons chased me through the park and angels though in charge in me laughed loudly at my misery and when i finally tripped and fell you raised me with the hand of hell angel born and demon bred you introduced me to the dead the dead whose wide and staring eyes were whiter than the winter skies who sat all night on fog wet benches sad sentinels of eternal trenches the dead whose soft and wordless lips twisted like slowly sinking ships in black and bottomless seas in unreverberating reveries

1938

let no man stand aside who has not taken his place in line and waited for the 23673rd bird to sing after the 23672nd but raindrops and grains of dust are not so appropriate as the seat covers of a 1938 packard driven by the lady in red across the canadian border all the way from laredo for a perfect indiana day in the park with a white hat snatched by a bluebird flying to alaska but landing on easter island

raindrops

there is desperation in the greenest trees a secret conflagration in the coolest breeze the kitten at the window the butterfly in the air watch the raindrops follow each other in despair and when the leaves fall yellow in the rain the sidewalk hears them call a whispered name

the unexplainable man: toward midnight

ride the bus see a million stories forget them all mocking eyes sneering lips terrifying teeth hey you don't like it why you take so long? they punch each other they kick each other they laugh at each other lincoln towncar dark and silent surrounded by mcdonalds doggie bags two hundred people pass the bag lady walking one block behind dark glasses checking out the women dreamer or killer? shine of bottles behind a bar like no other light clutching hand from a blanket in a doorway cigarettes better than words now only words death is real it is chasing me through the streets

lion tamer

twenty six miles away and i still want to be one of the class clowns, and if only i could stop the lion tamer from his sad and wandering ways and go back to the broken fence where we first escaped from uncle john and the first law of the blue roller coaster while the clown cried twenty six twenty six miles to east st louis ladies and gentlemen before the white merry go round stops forever and all the red horses run away