Old Hand

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
Blue & blasphemous,    
ubiquitous coil-  
the Lights are on  
and sometimes I’m home  
   
(unlit cigarette  
asleep between my fingers)  
   
all caught-up on the cry    
in my thistledown throat,  
   
all sepia-tinged with    
a crimson snake  
like a skin.flick crouching    
on mammal sin  
   
couched within the eggs    
of an hourglass gaze  
a reptile-brained  
wall of flesh  
calls afield-  
   
stripped vested nest,    
my evergreen muse:  
your jet-black marks    
silver-stream a teeth of stars  
on lonesome wings    
   
stretched long at-night  
all gleaming pieced    
with the guts    
of space & release-  
   
love & war  
doth blanch my rage  
& cruelty on-repeat  
   
& no matter what any ol’ polecat sprays  
or strays through e’ry  
“let ‘er go, let ‘er go”    
praying from this what-It-is  
                                             What-it-is  
                                                              what-it-Is  
that howls betwixt our ancient bases  
It’s catching a case of the cold, hard moon  
   
so lemme Light these streets all interstate-faced  
with my fumes a-wake,  
with a desire for the lick of a (sharp &) salty groove  
in-between the swoop of sky to grace & quake  
in her hair (on-fire) [so fair, so fine]-  
   
“there are not enough hours in the day”  
   
wipe my brow,  
that Danse Macabre    
came Spring flagellating asunder  
sweating somethin’ sweet    
in our spike-detail    
   
of our pounding grounds    
for the crack & knell my fingers sing  
an ax to your red bell relapse  
all crabgrass-toed on a culvert's moan,    
   
she,  
   
pink to the milky sky of my graining loin  
is tracked downwind to the caravan’s lack  
while tact to my trail by the whim of fishing  
for cans of wishes rusting nails  
along abandoned rivers,  
   
I was rewarded with the stench    
of gasoline leaks & cigarette breaks  
& found her twirling  
where the lightning split my buzzard stare  
   
the blur of a ghost in fur would lick her bones, still,  
honey for my baby    
beneath the cherry tree  
jump    
   
from working songs  
in sawmill stones  
or the gushing rain in my ears  
now pouring mind  
a sensitive throb    
so curled into worms  
there’s a lonesome pact    
in backwoods weighs  
(I'm good)  
with a roaming plant [all fours, dear,    
each dusty, moldy corner….]  
   
she was scarcely aware of that storming shared,  
   
those stolid drafts-  
                     Hallelujahs-  
                                        laughs,  
regaining our spit on a spiritual tip:  
   
   
a passing kiss or hiss this highway screams  
jokes for the blokes in smoking the notes  
by their bedside Deaths with dank regrets:  
   
how sweet of the sky to provide these honeysuckle hints,  
these lavender ruins in the sweltering pine  
when gravy trains rain ‘cross our trestles parched    
& blissful reigns are returned for the day:  
   
I am King of the Wild Frontier (here,    
a shepherd's pie for your frozen eyes)  
wrapt to believe in that riveting brief  
& making peace with the crease in my jonesing night,  
   
& baby,  
yer good to the green    
of yer blue-grey miles,  
insane as wet nines    
on the notion of a holy motion-  
a nuclear winter beckoning fair,  
   
holstering snakes to shoulder this world  
so I’ll breeze for the bold in the freezing cold  
~like a voodoo child with some hoo-dude smile  
(still bruised by the cruise of    
 some Byzantium screws) I find  
caved-in loose & buried knaves  
with the eunuchs too good to scratch that itch  
so dark & hot &  
deep down in our diamond-shaft    
                   dimensional  
                                                    min(e)d  
   
:  
   
I spat that bug out my mouth with a splattered bent-  
I flowered some belly with the fangs of my butterfly creep-  
I stroked to the skin of your nose streaked with coal  
   
such wonderful thoughts  
to light the monster’s touch of (tight)    
night-space  
& rescued heat from the pool    
of a parking lot dance  
   
our dreams drift in  
the passing lights    
& are shadowed to the bite    
of our knuckling-wight…  
   
still,    
stone steps    
up that lefthand path  
where, leafed & relieved    
by our hollowpoint logs  
I have dragons to cabin  
& you have daemons to roost…  
   
so this is the dawn that rocks    
my stream to a piece  
for a peace or a scale,  
dusting age 'til I'm crazed awake  
& scripting a scream ‘pon my roadside dream:  
   
red & squamous,  
asleep in a coil,  
caught in the throat of a sting or a cry,  
   
a silvered fringe of lunatic-lines  
is a tested jest down hallowed planes  
   
   
‘cause the Lights are off & I’m home in bed.  
   
   
   
   
   
Unlit cigarette    
square between my fingers.