Silver Chain and a Craze

At the precise moment of death
the pupil of the eye
opens its widest.

The white lights in ceilings,
the moon, sun
stars, comets, nebulae,
the great band of the Milky Way--
all fall into the brain.

There are no lights
too bright for the dying.
-Al Zylonas

At the precise moment

that the lamp-lights slip out

from over our heads

in a whirl of suspense

I doubt we will notice

how much more we can see

of the stars

Flowers from Purgatory

And everywhere within the light’s slow fall

Infinities of particles were falling

Into the flowerpot they’d never fill.

-Alan Shapiro

wonder is in the unknown

in the afternoon i looked out over my step-fathers balcony

at the crooked housetops and drooping telephone lines and the ocean

glowing beneath a sunset that was not quite worth pulling them away from the television for

i stood with a beer dangling between the crevasse

of my thumb and index-finger

i never planned on sitting

as the light was already dipping off the earths flat edge

and i was supposed to catch a drink with someone who

would laugh at the murky memories we shared and who

i probably would never see again

but i sat and watched our colossal globe of brazen boiling gas

extinguish without as much of a backwards sigh

i continued to search the horizon

long after it had passed beyond sight and

it was only the lifeless chill

that sent me back inside

for another beer and my keys

.....

A Blondeing

Water opens without end

At the bow of the ship

Rising to descend

Away from it

Days become one

I am who I was

-Samuel Menashe

every act of creation is first an act of destruction- Pablo Picasso

The man writes to be elsewhere

(Metaphoric) pen scribbles

a duel against existence

I cant imagine a heaven without mango- Paramahansa Yogananda

Its all so befuddled sometimes.

the aches

the groggy roll back into the comforter

the return to surrender

Its all supposed to be permanent.

I would rather be ashes than dust!

I would rather that my spark should burn out

in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.

I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom

of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

The function of man is to live, not to exist.

I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.

I shall use my time.-Jack London

This is the End

there is plastic

in my lungs I'm sure

along with tar and blackened newspaper clippings

mingling with the mucus

forming something not quite solid

I have my doubts about chopped-up writing

the spoken word on TV screens

prose about precaution, chanting

"There is a war someone's backyard

and alligators creeping through the sewers

ten tips to stay alive..."

some people die

when they think they're dead

The world only goes round by misunderstanding- Charles Baudelaire

Don't Read Between the Lines

But the persistence of the twofold vibration suggests that in this old abode all is not yet quite for the best- Samuel Beckett

I think you'll make a marvelous little martyr- Raymond Federman

Well, I've been listening to my gut since I was 14 years old, and frankly speaking, I've come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains.- Nick Hornby

The tipping point

Is quite dull

The tipping bulb maybe

Rounded hints at uncertainty

Slipping tripping flipping

The bulb is burnt so I’m

Smashing in the darkness

Getting there slowly