Evidence

I am likely
empty parentheses

An electrified atom
whirling in eternity

Before I was born my face was sky
and sky is my destiny

Silence is my evidence
and wind and breath my soul



.

Sabotage

Mirrored by his shadow
he walks among us

with doctrines of passionate sabotage
in a black backpack

crammed with the blues
of a kid who missed

our list of party people
when we—I guess—blinked

(and now he thinks our party
stinks like a cigar stub

stuck in the smirk
of a plutocrat baron

pissing on a mess
dropped from a towering penthouse)—

so he plots our crash
and maps our fall

and waits—and what
an enemy we’ve made

by blinking,
and forgetting to call!



.

Music Lesson

Heaving up a hill
Soul gives birth to sunrise



.

It's Just The Devil, Dear

I’ve been having some trouble
Rolling on my way back home
This bus is full of some others
I would rather never know

Take for example that man there
Ranting at someone who’s not there
Can’t you feel the disaster
Every time his voice hits the air?

He’s gonna tell you
About the hell you
Know in moments yourself

And if you listen
Then you slip in
To that terrible spell

It’s just the devil, dear
It’s always here
It’s always near us all

And when you feel the fear
You can’t steer clear
You can’t steer clear at all

To shake myself from this shadow
I look away at someone else
My eyes land on a teenager
Looking like she’s lost from herself

Her eyes gleam like two tv screens
Her perfume I can taste on my tongue
Why does she wear so much make-up
When she’s so lovely and young?

And her dull drone
On her cell phone
Is a voice that isn’t her own

And if you listen
Then you slip in
To that terrible zone

It’s just the devil, dear
It’s always here
It’s always near us all

And when you feel the fear
You can’t steer clear
You can’t steer clear at all

Why is that young guy glaring?
How did that man get so fat?
God knows what flows through those headphones
On the kid beneath the velvet top hat!

I guess I need a vacation
I know it isn’t always so bad
It’s like I’m lost in a nightmare
And everywhere I turn is a trap

A spell’s upon us
On this one bus
All of us want to escape

But instead we
All get angry
And blame someone for our fate

It’s just the devil, dear
It’s always here
It’s always near us all

And when we don’t steer clear
Of the devil, dear
All of us fall



.

Music Through a Windy Street

Your face poised in the grace of bliss breathes
music through a windy street, scraps of old
leaves scratch the concrete, skidding
past your feet, air in your pants puffing
them wide while you walk toward a man
sleeping under a parking meter who is
when you reach him just a bag of trash.

Relieved, you breathe more freely,
and scattered stars of broken glass
flash like flakes of fire in
the black sea sky of the street
where skreeing hwonking tides
of cars roll by and faces
float along the sidewalk.

A cold burning dry ice shriek of
police sirens careens through the mazes
of shadows in the canyons between
buildings that gouge the sky
and hide the glow of our star
from scanty little trees like
withering arteries beneath them.

And he’s a tree, that man
with the horn on the corner,
bending in the breeze
as he breathes his slow soliloquy
through the gaps in the jagged geometry:
See? We all fall like leaves!
It’s not just me.

Would your heart burst if you didn’t
think your way out of this openness?
Birds barely bending their wings
let water-thick winds
lift them until they find
the next big wave to ride,
or don’t, and fly away.

You worry in a frayed tie and rusty collar.
You hurry in a daze of Promethean wine.
Too often you forget you are breathing.
The sky is an eye always open over the commotion blinking below,
and your thoughts are a hum behind your eyes.
Every one here is equally present.
The air is thick with souls.

.

Dot of Rain

A dot of rain
splashed on the glass
of an eye: watching
wet wheels hiss
through wet streets
streaked with light
tonight, mirrors of rivers
rushing through grates
over tunnels that lead
to the sea

.

Unbroken Highway

There’s weather over everything,
like a hovering pregnancy—

people’s faces punctuate
their own private climates

and if the weather’s bad inside you
that’s the blues—

wind hwooing through spaces
between buildings and trees

as traffic speeds
through an unbroken highway

.