poemimage

Bleed into the zeitgeist

at fever pitch.

Stumble into a ditch

at fever pitch.

Bleed into a lullaby

& spin round to pivot.

Beneath obsidian cliffs

eyelids open to see.

Bleed into the zeitgeist

eyelids open to see.

Reverse happiness taken far away.

Reverse loss heavy as gods made of clay.

The anemic stranger rides a dead horse into town

the horse crying softly he stops at a gas station.

His coughing metallic in fragile yet outlandish authority

like an old man stooped in a Goya etchng.

One suitcase scratched black & the other scratched white.

Background becomes foreground in a Powerpoint presentation.

Believe your eyes in perception going topsy-turvy,

beyond Op Art & M.C. Escher

& beyond Magritte’s surrealism.

& Beyond the structures of in the beginning

& forever more.

In the fairy tale & the folk-hero legend,

in the mercies of the tender maiden

raising the sword coming out of the lake.

Her wrist sprained during the fall of the old order.

She said reverse positive space inversion.

The browns of Bruegel stained tawny in winter months.

She said reverse negative space confusion pummeling the year-round sky.

Tawny in golden-brown & ochre-orange in fading light

above snow & rivers, wildlife & wildnerness.

An orb of fire above fields showing signs of regenerative life in springtime.

Here is now & then is now

Return to the beginning.

Then is now & here is now

Return to forever more.

& Return to the wisdom of the body.

As cicadas sing at night

& you practice second sight.

As you rock the claw hammer loosening nails

beneath a sky gliding at full sail

& you practice second sight.

Redeem what is crucial to the crucible.

Redeem what is pivotal to the pivot.

Pivot by the flashlight on your phone.

Pivot at the crossroad illumined by visible bones.

Pivoting as night falls

in your existential Dark Night of the Soul.

Wander into the speeding night,

smoke a cigarette tasting like black coffee.

Decipher art reviews from nineteen sixty nine

undoing you as you elucidate

negative & positive space.

It has been reported you cross borders like a ghost

playing tag between the liminal, numinous & imaginal.

Or so it seems in a crossword puzzle punctuated & erased.

Or spread out on the chalked cartoon composing subject matter

minus Renaissance perspective & minus Medieval perspective.

In the bowling alley a one-eyed man rolls a ball made of a meteorite

into bowling pins flat as plywood scatterng like crows.

White crows in the mist of dream-time tawny in a dream-field.

A Bach cantata plays & fades into the sound of rain.

A flash flood inundating particles pushes a green porcelain bowl

round as a burial mound into the foreground positive space.

A box suspended in the treetops folded inside-out,

seen at a distance, in the background negative space.

It has been reported you once turned yourself inside-out

to feel the sun on your heart & flush out your system.

The people walking a wolfhound off leash pretended not to see.

You remember the texture of tree-skin

and some pulsing whisper like whale song or The Moody Blues.

Those were the days.

Consider the visceral intuition of your third eye.

Your plaintive howl elucidates a metaphorical Potemkin Village.

Your thesis concerns reality versus delusion

& fascist theatrics enforcing false realities.

Stumbling upon a beatdown behind the jukebox joint

the prisoner’s penalty signed in metallic ink.

Positive & negative space disintegrate.

Does the artist find the power or does the artist not.

Boil bones down to broth

in essence find the power.

In essence find clarity.

In non-sense, the sensual & the symbolic, find the power of clarity.

Beneath a comet flotilla pinpoints of light cascade on your pupil.

You stand outside the bookstore only nine o’clock at night.

For decades this bookstore stayed open till midnight.

Tiny bells on clown caps ding in a performance:

Somewhat Las Vegas wedding.

Somewhat Grand Opening Extravaganza.

Somewhat a car alarm one street over.

Clown caps & uniforms rented from a costume outlet

at the discount strip mall

out where the Falafel Hut burned.

Choreographed actors smile & gleam

like poppies in a field, shiny as broken glass,

like a hitchhiker opening his bag.

Like an episode of the Twilight Zone.

Videotaped in the flicker of a glowing furnace.

Jerking akin to marionettes in a pantomime.

Dancing at the edge of an open air pit

to a wraparound roar of staccato hammering.

White & pale-blue clothing smeared with charcoal soot.

Smoke billowing above a primitive smelter

sprinkled down in fine black rain

in the hospital parking lot.

You turn away from the locked emergency entrance

& wander into the bleeding night.

Bleed into a lullaby beneath obsidian cliffs.

Bleed into a flower at fever pitch.

You must be The Chosen One,

chosen to blaze echoes of flame

in bonfires dotting fertile hills.

& To set flame to diagrams.

& To set flame to foolproof plans.

Bleed into the zeitgeist & sing lullabies to innocence.

Bleed into the zeitgeist & sing into towers

buried in tall flowers

& built above the ditch.

Supported by columns, covered by ivy,

built according to ancient law.

Your fingertips burst into flames

cooled by granite inlaid with marble vines.

Bleed into flowers arcing to the sun

in homage to the original essence.

Bleed into the zeitgeist & spin round pivoting

your shadow a roaring lion

now become a bird of prey.

You fling your arms open wide a grieving wingspan.

Talons open & shut like a Swiss army knife.

A haunted carnyx echoes in your throat deep as an iron bell

streaked with ice above the carnival of death.

Swooping upon two cars stopped on a bridge.

Return with a vial & turn the dial.

Return with the clandestine formula.

Return with the official diagrams.

In sunlight you prick your thumb,

passing between massive columns

in shadows long as a boat.

Clouds form like pools of white ink

tinted with pastel violet

& a touch of yellow.

You bleed in victory blessed & cursed.

Accused & refused in churning mud.

Today is The Day of the Sun.

Beneath the sky & obsidian cliffs

one rope ladder drooping dangles.

One cannon overheats exploding spangles

confusing pilots who traverse eons of the dead

confusing even pelicans.

It must be cryptic for you to smile like a bird

as the four seasons swell your breast.

You receive magic, myth & metaphor,

you fabulate a visionary spell,

you empty a silver cauldron

hammered in the curvilinear vegetal motif.

Hammered enough to exhale madness,

compassion, & ecstasy.

A book on war advises:

Advance into 

where they least 

anticipate you.

As you reverse-engineer the crime

roll barrels of freshly dug clay.

As you reverse-engineer the crime

roll barrels of warm, black ink.

Roll wooden barrels of glass marbles downhill

without losing control.

Crossroads form a Palaeolithic sign

at the old meeting place.

Here comes the big surprise:

The Chosen One returns in disguise

succinct as falling rain,

the protector of children.

Returns in whirling translucent flames

to uproot fossilized histories.

To raise collapsed garden walls.

& Returning in the flower of her name

divides the guilty to one side:

No more to see the light of day.

No more to threaten children at play.

Today in The Day of the Sun

as you exhale the radiant truth,

bleed into the zeitgeist

spherically.

Today in The Day of the Sun

as you inhale the radiant truth,

bleed into the zeitgeist

spherically.

The Chosen One returns in disguise

succinct as falling rain,

the protector of children.

& Returning in the flower of her name

descends a logical staircase

in a state of dissolution

beneath a darkened lightbulb

illumining confusion.

Perusing the diagrams & foolproof plans:

Decidedly & finally flim flim flam.

Decidely & finally scam of the century.

Decidedly & finally flim flam scam of the eons.

As she ascends the spiral staircase of her spine

crystal birds in fractal patterns

translate forgotten songs.

Faces in the shadows evaporate.

A coin of memory drops into a slot.

A stranger with a face of granite estimates how long

he can hold his breath.

Today in The Day of the Sun

spherically

at fever pitch.

Turn on the radio to get directions

& wait for a passenger pigeon.

Here comes the runner from Sparta on time.

& The echoes of the oracle deep in the cave

buzz around the first beehive

& the coruscated fingerprint of your heart-song.

Believing in the flower of your name,

Believing in the power of your name.

Today in The Day of the Sun.

Today in The Day of the Sun.