Faces

                     oak branches reach               
through villages                    veiled
beneath nuoc mam frowns, —

enlightened cracks                creak
above unwilling spills
leaving
                                every chào buổi sáng
                                every gaze

                                                                 very little

Sir, Yes Sir

& there was never any toilet paper
never any soap            not even a blanket
                                       just salivary glands
washing up against    underarm hopes

& yesterday                  eye had a sore throat
dry as hashish
salty as the Dead Sea
& from my ass
chickens continue to fall
like spent shells
cracking the red         green chickadees

& today                         eye shot around
looking for                   regurgitated sweat glands
while
              Monday
              Wednesday
              Friday
              every Sunday
                                     eye bury rubber thalami
deep behind thick lips asking
When will the chopper arrive?

This was metabolized as a journey
never ridden with a smile as
                                    eye digest what’s left in my boots
scraps from blue potatoes in my underwear
minister to seasons, —
             crucifying Charlie
             rebuking Snoopy
             backsliding Lucy

& tomorrow
before a billion points of aortic lights                                                
cast across a face-less velvet canvass     twirling                    
with 7 spleens ducking & diving             whirling                               
                                     eye watch Mars
salute every Corporal                         
yelling with every breath                                                                                                       
                                    eye followed my orders…!

Silent as Impression Made by Stone

Silent   as an impression          made by stone
Black onyx flamed with writings       to go gentle     in the night
So it is that I   a Mysterious Traveler                          walk this way alone

In this silence              I sit on the side           of the dirt bone
Waiting at the edge     of the black line          of the farthest woods
Silent   as an impression          made by stone

Where all who believe             this                              sarcophagus sown
Well into the hands                 of Osiris and Ra          as mummies
So it is that I   a Mysterious Traveler                          walk this way alone

All but a water lily      speaks              in the shadow                          of a lotus tone
I go formless   shadowing-less            across wading waters              tarrying
Silent   as an impression          made by stone

Delivered        on parchment paper                             to a mass of one
This message   driven from     essence long since gone
So it is that I   a Mysterious Traveler                          walk this way alone

In my will        take this much             without loan
Paint me                      crate me                                   canvas this I say
So it is that I   a Mysterious Traveler                          walk this way alone

The Blood of Rain

Drowning in meadow-spoken roots, I reach for heartfelt songs, once, so rich with oxygenated virtues, twice, so free from an unforgiving life. Songs gleaned from salvific tomatoes, flowing sweet the Nile. Voyages imprismed as a glint refracted without blink, without smile, messages to splat against something, anything – life-supporting droplets passed with grass concern, lawn pity. What was there: a bed of crabs to obscure the analgesic dirt, the antiperspirant stench, the grandeur embodying a crimson stance. Like knuckles half-curled tapping on the drum of a shack, shadow of a room existing as a postal address with but one letter in the box, this song of rain continues to pour dry. Behind closed mores, I lick deliberate snowfalls, wrangled after birth. What did this mean? From where does this floodwater spring? My cup remains half filled, cracks lining its bottom have laid their webs. I watch reminiscent musings of pellets fall, nerve endings teleconference heme & beryl-blues & female & globin & woman & man & child, all raced by fashionable weather, as I drown, listening to the pulsations of torrential veils.

Why am I so thirsty?