gas can man vs. the homeboy twinkies

(i)
his mind sings of the flower-
the macabre day lily; declension

a mako of rare pearls and gardens
pilched on 4 seats of the red line

a mako? no shark, he: a scion!
low e train torn from its railing

mere tensored greenbrier sprawl
pilched on 4 seats of the red line


(ii)
exotic drippers slappy ! ! happy day
be done, dude travail shalom...

fly this train to grain, when
!windsanity
"pilch these no more tonight"


(iii)
sug fish brawl entempest fugit
toe knee muscle macaque mud stone
salt-
ambucco choose cheery choke cherry
gloam knee-lights pantwaste kirk loam?


(iv)
snapback!
fordude
this can
can
can you

slopsy
dripsin
dresden cream cone

phartridge phondue
you nasty-cracker

--backpack--
attack!
! jumpback
napalm!


(v)
brave molly, come save me, the train's at the station
loge fishbowl commuter gun gear-grind etude
velocipede-steeded grey dudley do do-right
imprison the mantis who damps us in crude


(vi)
his mind shrinks from the flower-
the macabre day lily; in tension?

declension coal-smokes his eyes
this mako of rare pearls and gardens

and jack all, no card he, i spy him
low e train scorned for his railing

manacles tangle and jangle the mangled one
pilched on 4 seats of the red line

slats from the marriage bed

Suppose this fall we go install new shutters
on our windows. You know the walls have not fared well,
old neighbors spot their every bruise. The possibilities
are endless. You would choose a genuine wood:
a cedar or cypress or west-coast pine while I would opt
for dripless caps in plastic from Home Depot. I think
I'd paint the damn things black. A sentient clerk could propose
a lighter tone to soften our brick facade.

Then in spring we can chuck it all, take a trek
along Schuylkill, past the kirks and fabled malls
to my folks' house in Walden. They have cottonmouth
under their bridge. It's a lonely place
with aging wood, they bought it cheap and then condemned
their bliss-free years to salvage the wreck
and bring it up to par. With shutters caked
in many layers, my father worried and scraped
the paint; then lost his life in his attempt
to find the wood again. At times, I envy him.

Or, say one night it rains in Versailles and there
you'll lie alone in bed; listening to clatter
as mid-winter gales shear the pins inside the holes
of lattices bent on slapping blindly. One floor down
the fury unmoors the railings from the building.


*

borderline

 
on the mexican sidewalks:
pudenda and beer and crones
       almed with cones

for sport, toss nickels
to chicos off bridges
they'll snatch them
    or suffer
  their bones

       cigarettes (horseshit)
and switchblades for sale
chess sets-- black onyx/soapstone
                               always the pull

of the strange, strange man
with lurid sorties to sell         (she's swell)

cigarettes, cigarettes, cigarettes!

(pontiff, i care) beware
there's always good tail
yo, mato y picadors        bend        
bend         send         lend         ears
                                       corrida!

look on me!         soon to be!         frail!
 and aware

unmuscled, soft-
heeling through shoals.

it's carnivale!
 haloes and parrots all
shuck-beat
the worn path from hovel to woods

candles burn lifeless, hymns
 sting the mass. i sing
  quarterflash: harden
                         my heart

and, i'm in ecstasy
       clinging to mud

hurricanes slung through my veins