with wisdom disillusionment
saw a guy with two lobes on one ear
wonder if he had a secret twin listening in
the winter wind
sweeps the old house
asking for my whereabouts
a curious lamp from long ago
flickers when the wind
blows shut my window
a haunted tin pot
rattles off somewhere
a dinner for ghosts consisting of air
leave me alone I desperately say
and just for the moment
the wind went away
the cathedral of meth
is lit from within
by the sensory impressions
of its strange denizens
a patch of nowhere forever
silence in the street today
was stunning
like another door closing on deafness
motionless sunlight on the hills
added to this effect
no one else in the world
for a moment
the death mask an actor wears is apt to become his face
two gloomy ravens
hung low in a winter tree
sky turned charcoal gray
the past is something we drag with us like a grand piano stuffed with viscous horses
heavy wind and rain
came down the street
like everything else
I'm sick of all the squares on the sidewalk
a dream
on the night of the solstice
full lunar eclipse
a pattern of ants
on the wall
the stars' mockery
tule fog came
ushering in vagueness
trees appear as the heads
of old acquaintances
houses vanish behind
diffuse street lights
tail-lights red shift
exaggerated silence
memories are corridors
countless in number
leading in all directions
from the mirror ball
at the center of the mind
the past is not far away
it's not even the past anyway
I pull over for repair
the murderous world of traffic
plunges on without me
owsley stanley
gone into the convulsive australian
with the other large early carnivores
with the devils with the zebra wolves
with the giant flightless parrots
open another room in a mansion in the sky
you floated all boats
my own bateau ivre in sixty-eight
has to be the hand of fate
how inscrutable and vast a reckoning
through the night time fog
a distant television
someone else up late
siren's soft finial
lashed to a lathe
rain parades
streets end at the water
supper clubs on the pier
momentary ireland
clouds land on green hills
thought of sheep
a dream
george zimmer in a business suit
walking on a financial district sidewalk
shooting up with a glass syringe
every time I look out the window
I see the same guy
standing in my backyard
looking in
with his eyes closed
it's my wife's ex-husband
old stage-door johnny
and two pastures away
there's another guy standing
her third husband a painter
way off on the hillside
I can still see her first husband
nonchalant as ever
somewhat weathered by the years
no one recalls his name anymore
Her second husband is out there too
he's hidden in a glade
down by the creek
I glimpse him through the trees
when the leaves are down on the old logging road
They're all dead of course
and in my own season
I'll join them out there one day
tough in winter flowers in spring
the long slow summer the gaudy falling leaves
torn clouds
squid maps
a twisted sky
the past is a bed of nails
the abominable snow lady
paroxysms of extinction
clive evil
catacombs honeycomb remembrance
the stars' mockery
