a few breaths

i woke up when the phone rang
announcing that the owners mannual was here
but where here is is a mystery
a cloud settles on a leaf
in a snow storm
hungry blue dogs roam in the tune
of the first wind passing through
an aeolian harp
on a rock in the north sea
the pink sperm stands up in an egg
and turns brown scorched in a xerosere
you get three breaths
and you can't hold any one of them
for more than a few minutes

roof

mr turpentine found his heart
in a bottle of wine
i am happy
as long as the rain has a roof over its head
he said

greenbacks

anything for more money
she said
and it spread like fire
in a paper factory
where the workers were paid minimum wages
which made her rich
after awhile all she could see were green backs
not a trace of a face in sight
she piddled and frittered and shammed everyone because
everyone resembled a dead president
who had just taken the oath of office
with a knot of promises for a necktie
and today's special...the menu announced...
but all she heard was a cough
from the coffers
and a distant jingle
and her spiked heels clomping on marble floors
under a five thousand dollar suit
she felt fine
she felt sexy
she was pushing open the doors of the courtroom
and she knew she was going to win

but

today will be different
even though it is perfectly accuweathered with rain
falling from the sun
today our wounds will have lunch
with forget me knots
but it will be different from last week
it will be monday again certainly
and it will be a gloomy day
for the marketplace selling yesterday's thanksgiving turkeys
butterballs
wrapped in plastic and frozen by men and women
working in refrigeration boxcars
but it will be different from the first day
of my life
and it will still be my life
but it will be different in its diffidence
as we munch and swallow our talk
it will padded with buffers made of weasel
ears but
we owls will know better and listen to the movements
of our necks in the dark restaurant
and tufted titmice will
jabber incessantly at the bar
nevertheless
but no... always the less
unlike the first time i said
world
it will be seen through the clouds
exhaled by the salamanders serving us frogs legs
and yes we will smile it is true
but…

imagination

imagination is a wall
that moves
i ran into it headlong
years ago
it trims all the bushes
it makes governmental
decisions and
paints the days with colors
from paint factories
today
i completely forgot myself
and walked straight into the conference
room
but i didn't know anybody there

colloquy

there must be a way
without this ambitious colloquy
with a god that doesn't exist
with a purpose that is a chameleon of changing
intentions
without these predictable outcomes
for every action
there must be a way
to live like the horses in the field across the road
who do not stop dead in their tracks
to watch the sun sink below the horizon
who do not collect orange and purple sunrises
there must be a way
to be
without lying my way out of myself
a helping hand that understands itself without my signature
one step behind the next
without directions or expectations
or a memory that distorts every footfall with recollected fears
without laying claim to the road
or the labor and its suffering dissolving
into nothing
i am tired of my insomnias
and my disappointments with competing appetites
i am tired of eating
i am tired of fighting
i am tired of creating what has already been created
and marketed countless times
i am tired of falling down
and tired of getting up in the dark
there must be a way to live
beyond the chemistry and physiology
of this unknowable alchemy
these transformations into transformations
without the promise of turning into gold
there must be a way to live in a house
without being owned by the household
without being callous apathetic or bought
and sold
there must be a way
but there isn’t
so i stand under a black tree in the black starless predawn
darkness
and talk with my forked tongue to the invisible lightning
that doesn’t exist until it does