30 hours of planes and airports
confusion and mislaid planning
and foolish dreams
of dreams
and dashed dreams

all for a lady who parks with
tenacity like this:
car angled between the road
and the plowed snow

the determination in her
explosions of movement,
blizzards cannot
ice it over

I am grinning
in the warmth inside
behind
heavy glass and bared windows.
outside
she sits in her car
a circuit of anticipation runs
beneath the falling snow

faces of the past blur.
memory does a crap
job of remembering.
you’d be better off
plotting lines on graph paper
with a roulette wheel

photos fade in meaning and music,
their tableaux cruelly replace
movement and smell and laughter

her face is a feeling,
an abstract fresco of sparkling
excitement.

then the big moment

snow boots on
scarf tied just so
check the mirror the mirror
inhale ten times
open the door
float breathless
inhale again

but there is no such thing.
monuments of the past
are not for the future

this is what you have:

1.
casting seed shaped gravel
in blighted soil
hoping for roses

2.
polishing reflections in a dusty pond.
dust filtered in streaming sunlight,
dust motes like mist
blown on a nostalgic breeze
from stacks of
dusty chapbooks
about how things should have been

3.
you’ll only make it to 2 if
the years have run away from you
and they were all the same
and you were left confused in spring
and conflicted in autumn

time takes it’s amusements
and leaves the rest as evidence
the greater inner beauty is a poor choice
it counts only when the body dies
and the soul flies free

the rest is disgust and failure

but our eyes locked like
the first thunderbolt
canonized in my recollection
as I climbed in her car

locked with the same wonder
and a curious critique;

that at least was something new.
and then
we drove
into everything else new

new history was being painted
in epic scale

but you won’t ever get them
to jump at the same time
to croak at the same time

not even with 400 flies
trained to fly their curious vectors
in unison
and hover tantalizingly
just in jumping range

400 files
well plumped and
groomed with frog bait,
trained to make
the ultimate sacrifice

trained to believe
the righteous cause
of getting 400 frogs
to all jump at once
is worth
suicide

‘Hi come on up a knock on the door and introduce yourselves, we are fans of all things good, like Ben Stiller.’

or if it is saying:

‘Stay well away from this door you heathens. We are of the church of Ben Stiller, Cosmic Lord of the Earth and Spiritual Patron of Mardis Gras and we have a sound proof basement for all those that don’t recognize our savior’

though you might
search through all the hells
for it

the hell of burning oil
the hell of flayed skin
the hell of suicides
gnarled wooden prisons in mockery of life
the pitch soup of corrupt magistrates,
after all
try all the usual ones
first

the hell of strangers smiles
that you think are about you

the hell of people that tenderly
take your hand
and lead you into cruel traps

the hell of outstanding apologies
stacked and teetering like weapon stockpiles
destined to find a battlefield

the hell of schoolyard
friends lined up
cursing and spitting on you
and all the bleak truth of their secret judgements

fire and fireworks
and smoking fires
and the howling of pet dogs
and cats mewing prophecies
of armageddon
while hiding from the rumble

flies and fleas in swarms
swarms of stinging insects
that multiply as they are squashed
larvae squirted out in swarms, bursting through
the paste of
squashed ancestors

the hell of floating inches
above salvation
bobbing in the air
as it slips ever
fractionally out of reach

the hell of discarded newborns
cast off a bridge
drowning
in bound sacks
once used for potatoes,
their cries drowning

the hell of those in power
being the best at hiding
who is in power

noses in shapes
that don’t flatter faces
and faces
that mask treachery

of children dying
with no time left to be healed
from that which is easily healed

the hell of those seeking
change
floured and rolled in a batter
of indolence
fried in the blood
of failed dictators
cursed blood spilled as they were
slaughtered by those
most trusted

the hell of art
that will never be understood
art
that holds a purity
that no heart will hold

the hell of purity
only used as a weakness
and peace being only a weakness
and mercy only a weakness
kindness a weakness
and honor as
a deception — written in the records
of those that murder the peaceful
and the pure of mind

the hell, finally
of starvation
seated at pandaemonium’s banquet hall
starved
with only one chopstick
never able to match a pair
having searched in abodes
meant only for torture
for a simple slice of wood
a bow of bone
a pair

near misses.
pointless unless
the only point
is that they’re
the same
as the last
and the first
and the
in betweens

and unless
it’s that you’re
almost a standing ape again
with looking ahead
eyes

eyes almost far off.
eyes almost a whetstone
on the horizon.

getting sharper you see

eyes almost with a shine
back in them
that cameras fail in capturing

and unless
it’s that you’re
almost upright
before your spine crumples
once again over again
perhaps a little more,
hardly a little less

almost there
almost there
then something will
creep up
curve a bow in your back
stain defeat in
your eyes
pull them defeated
to the ground
away from the sunrise
and the sunset

feet shuffling
downcast eyes watching
shuffling feet
heavy eyes
heavy with burdens,
downcast

scream at the clouds
and scream at the rain
and scream at winds
and scream at the chill
but they all return
tomorrow

it is winter
and it
does what winter does

people in power
want only more power
they sell peace and prosperity
for another taste of it.

people with the upper hand
want another hand
and a foot
up there too.

there are streets of
square faces
shuffling square minds.
blank. oblivious.
disaffected.

what is in the souls
of these humans
human only
by classification.
not holding humanity.
not seeing possibility.

small dreams.
small love.
small despairs.

surely
they will all vote
wrong.

even my liver
is more balanced
than so many
injustices

that villainy is closer
to success
than virtue

that the history of society
is a history
of the few
controlling the many

and history
is written by those
than can kill more
than the next

kill all those holding pens
and all words will be
as they should be;

we have a world where
bullies get
all the benefits
of the sages and saints.

a world where
all things equal
are never equal.

I have always had this thing.
from sleep I
snap awake as people
think of me.
open my eyes
just after someone mails.
get warm shudders
from distant happy thoughts,
ringing ears from angry ones

dreams and dreams
and then something more
than a dream

you dancing
-the real astaire action-
floating over victoria street
pin striped suit.
you always were the sharp dresser

finally free
reborn vital
swirling and stepping
free from your body,
which was
a torture of weakness
in the end.

dancing free

and indeed you were

you even danced over
to have a farewell laugh
with me
as I was on holiday
a world away

a spirit dancing through
my dream
the day you moved on

communication
without the confusion of language
is the most pure.

that two people
in this isolation of
only self,  self
and self can break
free
and connect
across the gulf.

after all we all
basically need
the same things.
a uniformity.
a curse.
raincoats when it rains.
lies when things are bad.
lies when things are good.

hearing orchestras
or miles davis
and feeling it all
like a sauna
and smelling meadows
and the bustle of cities,
or lost in divots
of abstract paint
and hearing the tumult
of oceans and snow storms

meaning passed
with movement
and smell
and feeling.
back
where the whole saga
began.

died first then came back
alive but unalive
to feast on life.

dracula is dead
he had the answers,
he’d been around for a long time.
experience counts
for a lot.

for one:
could anything
be more succulent
than
beautiful peasant girls.
not draped in pretense
not smeared in paints
not spiked with perfumes
not masked in courtly falsities

long slender necks
soft
and milky.
ripe.

a winning diet
in my books.

dracula is dead.
who will bite those necks now

what else is life
but the drive
to eat all the flowers
all the fruits
of nature

juices spilling over your chin.
eat life with both hands.

life feeds on other life