the smallest breathing space
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
above a palm triptych
the moon struggles
with words. frogchant
in the early morn, mack
truck rolls by, blues slice
leaks out the open bar door.
silence is a myth. there are always
sounds. the deaf feel
vibrations , frond tangos
with wind. there is one hand


there is one hand
still untouched
but spoken of

this hand spoken for

taken

that muses over the other,
let not thy left hand wither
thou
goest
thy right? prescient
a curse that hovers














<>



i'm not into numbers
i fight them. they rule skies
like veins. fighting them
makes them stronger. i don't know
what to do. flow with it.






























*(*








when i was twenty i took
a trip to baton rouge with my much
older lover. we humped in the backseat
while our companions endured us.
fitfully asleep on the drive over the I-10
bridge we fell into the water i held
her and told her don't let go
but she did and was swept away.
beside me i whispered to her we were
meant to die together. she did not
believe me. told me it must have been
a vision from a past life. what took
you so long to get here? she
opened her blouse again. i fell
into the present.











*







later that year the bridge
got swept away
in a hurricane.









*


when i was forty four
i enjoyed a young love. early
in spring we took a trip to baton
rouge. i picked a rose in the garden
in front of the highest state
capitol building in the south. maybe in
the states. i forget. there was a live
oak with branches held up
by steel ropes embedded in its bark.
my lover climbed the tree. told me his pet name
used to be monkey. the next january he burned
my apartment while i was away.
no one died. i began to think
about gravity
in a whole new way.








*


we like to smoke
the curling out spirals, spirochets
mimmick our aveoli. the first
time the sun set on us, we spun
these universes together. the bible
says the dark came first. then
there was light. energy mix es
sex on a dance floor. the last barrier
regenerates, in this tiniest exchange of oxygen.




fights over shadows
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


lightning split a thunder cloud
to the west. strike like multiple
orgasm. to the east the moon
full and rising. happy

lunaversary i say to the man
beside me. blood moon
he replies. we both know some
thing's bound. something must

happen . chaos is irreversable
sez the runes. the ruins-carved
in the last glance we'll ever have.
shackled in metal, our mental gangrene.