Blues Sonnet

i like it     it becomes you
like sainthood     like a hangover

draped over your shoulder
over your eyebrows over your smile
a sense of inside your soul

the bus ride of theory
the laundry traveling to where you live
skeletons at the bar     playing dice at dusk

   so show me it doesn't have to be bleakness
   the wink of sainthood
   it becomes you
   like a silvered     shadow over your shadow
   like a drink of water
   like the glisten of wet teeth

from Purgatorial (2004)

The Terror

beware of bridges
voles    elephants stampeding around them
men riding on the heads of delirious tigers
feel bitter    uh    feel bitter    uh

people can't bring themselves to fly    around this wreck
past large guards    who carry pitchforks    watering cans
the blueprints of post-siberian walls
the living caskets of eggs
and wish only for a radiator sandwich
an air-conditioned malt

    what if    yesterday
    you saw everything you ever loved
    riding the soft spikes    of a dandelion?

    would you dream which river of wind
    would carry them and where they would go?
    would you wish for a small    small    canoe?

from Purgatorial (1994)

HP Lovecraft Views the Mona Lisa

a year ago that smile
i thought they'd painted onto you
seemed stale
like breath trapped inside a museum

i thought it was paint
but months' obsession abscessed in me
and i felt unwhole
unholy

    as if pieces of my soul
    were fitted into your mouth
    with chunks from souls of other centuries

    making your smile fuller
    deeper     more mysterious
    and hungrier

from Purgatorial (2004)