Crazy Glue

We were surrounded by crazy glue

Surrounded by tools

We had the antidote for snake venom

and spilled all that too

My brother dangled from a rosary

fell far from a bead

The break echoed for decades

Slipped the rosary into grandma’s pillowcase

She never prayed again

He once was a manta ray

Once was a kite

He laid the sticks crosswise
Jumping in kid shoes

I snapped them apart

I can’t find them in the wilderness

Can’t squeeze their stubborn honey

That sleeps in crevices

Wings folded

The colored corollas too timid to help

What if they knew
he lives in a rock

the size of two palms

painted red butterfly?

What if they knew 

it could speak?

I leave them all spinning

I look for rainbuckets

I look for letter magnets

I look for windows taller than me

I was hypothetical then

Not a real dream

I was a shard of lamp glass

He broke for me

I bottled his swings

I smothered his voices

I asked him to shine

We were surrounded 

Surrounded by fools

We made dandelion sun tea

and spilled all that too

What am I?

I am a robber, a victim, a thief—I am kind remorseful, unburdened, relieved. I am thick as black and clear as forgotten sleep. I am stung. I am still here, still where I was, still looking to be somewhere else. I am fieldless, mountainless, lakeless, in love.  I tremble. I am a jackhammer. I am exhaust. I am raw, unrefined, unfiltered, unholy and I am whole.  I am restless. I am a rooftop—imperfect and boiled softer by the sun.  I am earth heat. I am basalt. I am volcanic. I am ash. I am fertile, sandy loam. I am part acid, part salt, part quiet, part lion. I am broke and I am awake. I am green, I am chartreuse.  I am full of truth. I am unlawful, self-righteous. I am aloof.  I am unencumbered, outnumbered and I am childless. I am full of lies. I am thunder. I am panther. I move swiftly in the dark. I am dark. I am speech. I am description. I am hollow, fluffy, silk and smoke-free. I am away. I am remembered. I am thought—a time of day. I am erupting. I am ruthful. I am a pear tree bearing plums. I am a fountain, a trickle, a bone, a white key, a black key, a coin. I am a canoe, a lighthouse, a totem. I am crystalline. I am a reflection. I am a knapsack, a puddle, an emblem, a bang.  I am a pair, a leaflet, a couplet, a rendering. I am a stair, a pedestal, a pendulum, a portal. I am out. I am land. I am a cell. I am a sail, an insignia, an island, a tide. I am voluntary, inevitable, indiscriminate, enveloped, unchained. 

When I See Felix in Exile I Know

There will always be outer space
and Negative Capability
In which I saw the depth of time and no time and the spaces
within a spilled espresso pot
and the contagious void that it creates
on white celluloid
That paper could pretend to be
a procession of encumbered dancers and laborers
of dark limbs
of any stature and without nations
A superimposition of white ants
traverse a single planet's path
across the liquid composition
whose common name is god
whose scientific
name has yet to be deduced
One could wield political power by symbols
cut and paste to fashion a custom flag
Indicating
There's less difference
between reading Russian and reorganizing a rubik's cube
than there is variation between the Brothers Karamazov
and amongst the constitution
of one cube to another at any point
in metamorphosis
No limitations to the use of rocket ships
Some enjoy them as large drinking vessels
while others prefer them for entertaining
interplanetary cousins
all aspiring to acquire the speech patterns of Carl Sagan
and Carl Jung
It takes little effort

but is of great consequence
to be a man with several folds

about his face and sculptings
to be a pearl in anything

other than an oyster
to leave everything broken

Trees are livestock - traduccion

a river arrives

 behind the barbed wire & each window

her loins root red in deep clay

 hillsides burst 

 bags of all-purpose flour

and the yellowing day finally collapses

while the ceiling asks & the bed answers

"you will never get there"

the cows are slow

and below the shadows of their hats

brims a diversion

lifting one palm

as if to say, "you're welcome"

we always pass 

leaving the beaches, 

the clouded space, the unnamed towns

ahead

like the cow

i don't have a country to go to

there is no table for us

to drink honey 

like this moment

without a watch

Loma Real

The livestock are naked Indians 
and have yellow bark.
A rio arrives at her loins that root deep
swallowed by red clay
dusted with windblown talcum 
from a washed out mountain.
El día amarillo collapses mientras que 
el cielo asks
and the bed answers,
"You'll never get there."
Las vacas son despacias.


Abajo de la sombra de sus sombreros, brims
a diversion--estan levantando una mano
as if to say, "You're welcome"
con mucho gusto.


Siempre pasamos adelante
adelante salgamos las playas, las lomas,
y los rincones nubosos.


Como la vaca, no tengo un pais para ir
no haya mesa donde podemos tomar miel
como este momento sin reloj.

So little that counts can actually be said.

"We are like two old people
sitting in rickety chairs
on the porch
sipping small glasses of beer,"
he says.

The monkeys drop bits of tree from the treetops
interrupting the insects' nocturnal chatter.

Yes, we are as old as we will ever be;
like this,
in the cooling of the day.
In the translation of a single burning star
into a perforated black nylon ceiling
where everything turns clockwise
so many times and so quickly that it appears to be
in the very same place.

We are not thirsty. And I trace the orbit of flocks above
while he plans for the sake of planning.

We are quiet together. Digesting.
When he closes his eyes, I hear him listening
to the crickets
immune to clichés and restless motors in the distance.

Requiem for Anonymous Cadillac Coupe deVille and Railroad Photo-ops

I. Overture

Snow here. Was. Is. Imagine you didn’t have batteries
No juice. Your claim on light falls
short of capture. Who sees
clear as glue
behind length times width anyway?
Line equals railway
equals river
that tin foil emulates

II. Aurora

All the Arthurs are in Scarborough
today to tinsel. And the Hudson is an opus
bejeweled in icing rocks initialed
by Rubenstein himself. Laughter buoys
as passengers replace passengers
at stations vaguely Canadian.
Large packages on a final stretch of life
as cargo. And thick electrical wire suspends
like bullkelp between steel – être bien dans sa peau
The Manhattans dub this car, “I’m gonna miss you.”

III. Moonphase

Flourish and spin for six hours
steep
drip
ripe
The hysterical pinwheel resolves by wind method.
Beyond the scope of inputs, outlets and speakerboxes,
there are foam shapes on the seashore
battered bays where the cliffs tell what they lost.
There are matchsticks born generous—
pains that have just recently been discovered
every day an average of three new species.

It’s doubtful I forgot my dream
because I spent all night in yours,
but if you blur your eyes a little, the speed will smudge every face’s smile
and your thimble could feel no time.