stretto (day 115)

(mesquite sunrise with godzilla sahara dust, by michael puttonen on fb)

Generation Jones.

"I usually solve problems by letting them devour me." —Franz Kafka via @gabehudson

"...global warming is a kind of character in the book."

1.
these ashes that are still warm
contumely · land of pure basalt
vigils held beside the road
Royal Wedding on the taiga
planets not yet logged in a book
worlds lost in the glare

2.
pallid bust shorn of raven
ferries our cerulean triage
wheel in the sky & blank vault
Madeira quaffed in Savannah
march through excrement till Samhain
drink from a carved gourd

3.
drowsy kingwise debacle
cobble · but such is not our fate
ages deprived of the dream
dry reed impressed into wet clay
Lacaille ninety three fifty two
song of a hard rune

4.
green goblin out of Egypt
hyaline Ialdabaoth
& it's not coincidence
a statue sang for the pilgrim
we gave uses for the comma
& for swarthy milk

5.
whirring of the glum tchukor
will never bid Tara return
completely burnt up the name
tune that shatters the lime rebec
khamsin with clinging teeth of iron
dead speech of Latin

6.
lunar rays on hematite
nodules · haven for the godless
cobweb in the Hyades
in the streets flee the cough of plague
silently fail ucalegons
heroin supreme

7.
absent repair from Tarot
whirligig with too much English
eagle's fall like sphinx of quartz
sugarglass word · Earth pregnancy
our clowncore turned miasmatic
wrath of pangolin

8.
at noon the jet fighters dim
we are where we are in the game
selling the death of coral
snipers reopening Dallas
creep away to die in secret
talons in shadow

9.
& there will still be people
not yet translated into ghost
werewolf hymn of celadon
still at defacing the coinage
cathedral into lead coded
artificial cave

10.
caraway gymnast luncheon
howdah on a silver ostrich
lost in this unstarry wood
Plimsoll alone lifts the steep rose
bathes despair in em'rald neon
bulwark made of foehn

11.
forlorn Alexandria
my wheels trace no small arabesque
mortals scratch the isopleth
into another sere vortex
i unsneck ilka cicala
i am on a hajj

12.
like passengers echoes come
but none of them may tarry here
redemption by grim yearning
pry your chains with a paperclip
colonize funest Maremma
lockdown ends never

13.
through the gates of malachite
through the portal of last year's snow
whispers mathematical
trinkets & gauds of Metatron
i steal from ev'ry guarded urn
give back not many

14.
by waxworks we're afflicted
& still may perish from the curse
a wasp that works in darkness
& a candle on the carport
no more use for all this money
nor indeed this weight

15.
cards back in the bitter deck
elegies Plutonian made
mask of Abracadabra
khamsin caught in intricate form
around the pool i wind my walk
but dwell in legend

16.
inimical the same air
by which we fling out the high call
of nothingness the nectar
of nothingness the crowded church
of nothingness the strict pidgin
Bishop taken rook

17.
tiny screens of basilisk
nilpertain the survival quest
i'll be in the library
counting out my stolen silver
with my Rin-Tin-Tin lidless ear
under baobab

18.
under star of the demon
sure we have plenty of hand soap
a stockpile of anodyne
& eternal frozen gnomon
under the blue gaze of Vega
or its image

19.
perilous iridescence
landscape of cubed urban bismuth
which is its own chronic veldt
running with the most absent crowd
Molinist with spire of bronze
Durkin's falling short

20.
but seldom bemoans the lack
strand of Plutonian ubac
in my charcoal fuzzy robe
cooking up the mirific calx
& how did i get here by swimming
or by palindrome

21.
Saharan haze · beast language
suitable for a ghost planet
haywire bivouac on Hekla
because there is no other place
because there finds no other peace
no alternate ark

22.
vessel spun of patchouli
in a gong-tormented grotto
wing flap of the resting owl
in a wry Klingon idiom
house shoes scrape on the stained concrete
venomous dimness

23.
ideal for the nigh Parcae
& slosk ventriloquist cargo
tracking the arc of justice
from dense flames gather the lotus
making the world grammatical
with Junebug nozzle

24.
this my anfractuous art
vows in the anthropoid ebbing
wobble of drunken balance
& supple transinfinite math
Latvian Gambit accomplish
but smug delusion

25.
winning maybe four months' grace
geode in a box of agate
giant egg left by Mothra
unidentifiable buzz
sand flurry here of Godzilla
amidst fervent drouth

26.
& i know the end is far
& it won't be in time for all
blaze of rosy azalea
not yet fadge a finer logic
charms as i wandered Tivoli
cannot remember

27.
gravel of a sunk morning
all those caverns of makebelieve
the square root of red cabbage
the book that tells you where it's at
parable's sublime reversal
red Ras-Algethi

28.
acquiesce to the Tsalal
& not the first repentant Faust
can still get killed in a car
or return to rebuffed smoked eel
triple mail in the snail cloister
a death alumnus

     ENVOY:
stalwart Nineveh
prisoned in balmy glimmer
its own antonym

How many drowned ages.

"on the dark path
not at all bothered
into the fire"

--@poem_exe

(via)