20. "Allotropes of Reason"

Winter rose, of the two alike keys
i always choose the wrong one first

pain of waiting, rose
i walked past without a glance

i belong in this winter
garden

31. "Theory of the Magpie Epic"

Crescent of the Amethystine Chronicle
Liber Logaeth, bruised uvula

choosing to remain in an accursed place
suspended between two bad worships

four lights to cross Northwest Highway

2.    "A. U. C."

in the heyday of poisoning
your death would adumbrate your life

a poet's meticulous starvation
verse by verse, like the nightly tapering moon

or letting one of the several addictions
Lethean tributaries, sweep you awry

or rail against the misery-blackened bricks
till you pull down a heap on your head

now anyone can perish impressively
poets wind up immured in universities still screaming

with the black cat of respectability on one shoulder
i want to live between two bare curbs

taking my chances with random vehicular modes
of ambiguity: this plague year

when its very mention is forbidden
i'll push a wagon crying, "Bring me your dead!"

2F. "What Can Be Taught"

a glacier passes
someone else collects pebbles

i wear my solitude
like a crown of aphids

the ambition
to have rotting teeth

   "Spleen

I was not sorrowful, I could not weep,
And all my memories were put to sleep.

I watched the river grow more white and strange,
All day till evening I watched it change.

All day till evening I watched the rain
Beat wearily upon the window pane.

I was not sorrowful, but only tired
Of everything that ever I desired.

Her lips, her eyes, all day became to me
The shadow of a shadow utterly.

All day mine hunger for her heart became
Oblivion, until the evening came,

And left me sorrowful, inclined to weep,
With all my memories that could not sleep."

--Ernest Dowson

23. "Necronomicon"

Rogue button--
the last of the spidery suspensions

a roar softly approaching, gathering;
all at once engulfs, then surf-subsiding

it would be like this if i could know it,
that takes many years to unfurl

not a mosaic; a litter of gravel
i read stone by stone, in flickerlight

ask me how i came to trust
nothing

E.

The storm illumined by rain on a metal lid's pattering
conquers my room, & despairing of friendlier chattering

I flip on some radio noise. In the wake of its stirring
day-long advent, I am weak & desirous of flattering.

It's the ions cause these impossible moods, my attitude
being that I should ignore atmospheric mind-battering

when the worst is inside; but why do I dream of weathering
anything?--storm or despair? I remember each shattering.

If the eye is a crystal, the heart is a chunk of matter
possibly coal for some future transformative mattering.

If Love is a fire, then far better my heart be for fastening
fast on another, of mud; even diamond-smoke scattering

leaves nothing to hold. --So we reason, as good as guttering
candles, our love, & our vision a powerless smattering...

13. "Chopsticks"

One rice grain with the chopsticks
is a question i can ask;

billions & billions of stars,
an answer i remember.

But i toss the lees of this night
into a fathomless void

where love is a wan candle
scarce casting its own outline

& our future lies unread.
Hands, Rosetta-key, are far,

looks remain in the mirror;
my words, my words there also.

If i had a Book of Dreams,
what would insomnia mean?

Everywhere two people stand,
something is made between them;

there's a highpitched whining sound
in the back of my car. What?

I am weary, & Christmas
creeps over my shirt collar.

--Ah, there's nothing wrong with me
sleeping with her, wouldn't fix.

That's what i tell myself
when i can't hold the chopsticks.

3E. "The Weight of My Name is a Mountain of Blankets"

Under a throbbing Mira
Dance with the anthropoid apes

Pink & olive anodyne
The next best thing to absinthe

Dance, love, with the anthropoid apes
Of another tale in clay

3. "ANOTHER SUNBURNED NOSE"

We are all crystals.
Wrong movie, maybe?

Tipis can take that wind,
I'm not enough centered.

All the babies start bawling
during the peace pageant.

"I spit on your dark crystal!..."
And I eat a whole jalapeno.

Where are the generous Krsnas?
Boogying needs seconds.

Message from the kids:
too soft for me on this edge...

there's a child-glut
here as everywhere

2E. "Nichtigkeits Sehnsucht"

the fight not to die
is so much less with love

this i whisper
into a hole

the fight to love
is so much more with death

i try to say this
into your turning mouth

33. "Swain on a Black Sea"

Aleatory & oneiric Muse,
you are the lostness born without a maze.

In you the Black Star finds some kind of glum
transcendence; it kills each rancid gleam

of the real world. Go, since Death is overthrown
among us; stay, since Reason cheats its thegn.

1E. "le fagycau nalkalri ckunyboi vau"

.iapei le ko fagri pagre
ku lutpagbu ba nabo clatei ranji

.i mi selyloldi loi falte'a
gi'e se drudi loi tarci xagji

.i le sevzgi po lei bartu karce
cu bevri mi da po'u zujeca'anai

.i mi pensi lo xamsi poi danmo borgunro
joi ke blacyporpi

.i do doi cavroi. ca facki lepa ckiku be
de poi noroi .ui pu vorme .ei


("The fire-lack not-opening pinecone":

'Do you believe the "you-must-pass-through-fire"
route-part will not continue long?

I am be-floored by fall-fears
& be-roofed by star-hungers.

The dream-smile of the cars outside
carries me far away & not-actual;

i think about an ocean of rolling smoke
& breaking glass...

You, O Rainstone, are discovering the one key to
what should never (happily) hav been a DOOR.')

12. "way of remaining"

has this no other outcome than to destroy
my every old manner of addressing you?

i want to wait & find out what you say, first;
i want to write you right away from where i am.

but i know this, anyway, if nothing else:
we are still in each other's thoughts, & they have changed us.

3F. DI'E PEMCI POI SE TCITA LU JINCAU LI'U ITU'E

CTEBLA .I BEBNYSKE
LO TEMCI LO PEMCI

.I ROKYZDA PAGRE BUMRU
.I JELGLA KARCYSTIZU

CITSYPAU .I LO POI BLANU KU'O
LAKYGRANA

NEVI CIBJGA CANKO
BELE CKAFYBARJA

GE SELPEI DACTI GI SE
CATLU MELBI

.I BA SO'I NU TUMDESKU
JE FAGRI KEI LE TCADU CU

KUNTI KAISMI
.I DERKAI BANZU FA NODA

TU'U

("Ringless": 'Indigo. Science of being foolish about time, with methodology: poems. Fog passes through the castle. Burnhot carchair seasonpart. Blue candles in the triangular window of the coffeehouse, are an object of thought & also something beautiful to look at. After a series of earthquakes & fires the City is almost deserted. Nothing is dirty enough.')

10. "Hunt Effigies by Marrowlight"

i thought i'd found my affinity, instead Queen Mab
left me lost in the forest alone, O baobab

of Night...& all that thrashing around, what did it do
but waste my strength in futile attempts, her sylphs to grab?

at last, defeated, abandoning hope, i became
site of Walpurgis revels, that moon-drunken confab.

the reason for this deception then disclosed itself:
i would have to admit the Satyr into my lab.

so dawn arrived, & i was most amazed to be back
in the City, in my body--no longer a cab,

no longer beast, simply me--with my varied desires
& my half-formed plans. Lorenzo Magus, now's the tab.

21.

Counting with a stone on my tongue
your lashes, Amethyst, your lid-borderers.

Porismatic arroyo i wander up
may flashflood, may remain dry

to the sideways declivity & then to turn
back? I am nothing if not consistent.

Free as always to adulterate the wine,
dead pools, yet soon a choosing

my cards say: between the planned flerd
& allowing the life-lie, apparently...

A fire & aftermath. Brazen request
for nonexistents.