The Ache is to Become

Ache 30

2008-04-14T15:54:00.000-07:00

[fragmentation of the will.]

Connivance on the method of a swan.

The taut required / time
of someone summer solstice
solace and light / and it is

[shadow brilliant over twilight / down].

Equilibrates the low

throat
trumpeting / that rasps.

Ache 29

2008-03-07T17:52:00.001-08:00

temple too
the pile of stone is too much

ambergris phillipic ancient
wings of marble

this is question / answer.

/ /

I was spools of tin,
an anxious cutting wire.

White hot resin / this
insanity of finish

incandescent as prolonged desire.

Ache 28

2008-03-07T17:46:00.000-08:00

pincushion laver
it. All is vanity

/ the hand outstretched is flayed.

A moth spread-wing / bursts
fluttering at stake

into the liquid
heresy of flame.

/ /

How I must after all lose
gloriously.

Ache 27

2008-03-07T17:41:00.001-08:00

how the melancholic
scriveners drag.
Foot of the hand across vellum.

/ /

Who and how / would weep
lamp black.
The illuminated

fury, weakness.

Ache 26

2008-03-07T17:33:00.000-08:00

glory beholden

the stars like crumpled
programs through a sewer
grate.

So wish / loser / on that first smudge /

a thread unravels.
The sleeve pulls off.

In front of the orchestra
pit flailing

/ silk shirt / I imagine a white flag.

/ /

While music pushes
past all hope of surrender.

Ache 25

2008-03-07T17:29:00.001-08:00

image and resistance.

I will not be fit
into the paw print pell-mell
honey fruit mellifluous.
The poison dart,
the arc of spit.

/ /

That it is only natural
in combination. States communal to decay.

Imagine "place" disordered
/ time as time only, without coercion.

/ /

Shivers nude,
the skin alive with welts.

Ache 24

2008-03-07T17:24:00.001-08:00

the words slipped / comfortably / a rifle
stock into my hand.

O I was broken I awoke

the symbol / then a clarinet
note squealed

/ /

A hairline fracture

& the skull blown like a reed.

Ache 23

2008-03-06T14:50:00.000-08:00

where else / or who
will tease
truth from these knots of hair?

Else might the universe in crosshairs / or all science
approach
infinite polish of ground glass

/ perfection mid-blink of lens?

Most of this dark
wasted on lit clouds, a distant
electric
buzz of city--

2 if by sea, 3
if by sky
it condenses / dew

thick as tar. Our fingerprints
smudging the image.

Ache 22

2008-03-06T14:47:00.001-08:00

22

wings translucent for disease.

Each malcontent an artist suffering.

The edge-hard
catalyst transformed

/ the act of worship carved in dung.

Our golden calves
are glistening with turquoise fleas.

Ache 21

2008-03-06T14:42:00.001-08:00

tomorrow drift / as fattened
under glass. Drips

flash of
icicle

whose fiery hairs
for halo

reach into this holy
orb / this air / and circumscribe

one image and one certainty
with blinding light.

/ /

In ice, the welts
of grief-dark bruise

etch lace through places fingers scratch.
Its surfaces protect

the beasts suspended frozen / just beneath.

Ache 20

2008-03-06T12:21:00.000-08:00

bubble counters /
plumes cut paths through chambers.

This for that sign / a particle
of scattered arcs. Spirals

of reaction
stream into decay.

Triumph of the looped petal.
Season and warp. Half life. Enough urge
mid-photograph, blinking.

/ /

Lecture perfect
the id est
commotion.
How to move

sidelong through telescoping rooms:
two mirrors face

extinction.

Ache 19

2008-03-06T12:17:00.001-08:00

19

ideas about ideas.
Minds broken over matrons' knees.

/ /

Lady's slipper.
TKO meaning technically.
Prove me wrong.

I am wrong enough. Often enough. Splendidly.

Ache 18

2008-03-01T14:26:00.000-08:00

for a poet to write
is an act of worship
& defiance.

Mind rather than touch.
I used to push
into a landscape of brilliant cardboard.

Electric foam shimmering
over mute crowds.
Bald spots in bobbing waves.

A little theory (that dissipates, whispering) of destiny.

/ /

Breath / worm / the god
of rotting gourds. Belly knot.
The hand feels truth kicking.

Birth-part, the umbilical
vine covenant
falls / a brittle
spring

into Gnostic riddles.

Ache 17

2008-03-01T14:23:00.000-08:00

go ahead and prove me

wrong. I am an hour
wasted after stale bread,

a tooth / loosened
to the taste of blood.

The body which is fed to crows.

Ache 16

2008-03-01T14:18:00.000-08:00

worship or extract /
the pit whose surface
curls within it

as a mind fills the cup of skull / without
exhausting its potential

I will mourn for the peach-pit
and the fruit blighted. Pluck

miracles the near-ripe
colors of a human eye.

I will grow
dry in a wind variable and sober.

Ache 15

2008-03-01T14:15:00.001-08:00

because I was bridling
fugitive another,
I was groin and tendon. I was full stop

tinder for the chain reaction.

I was brush / fire stoppered into snuffbox.

/ /

[after Botticelli's Birth of Venus]

She shields her breasts
in mock-sincere conceptions of disease.

Despair monopolies.

Disputed beasts.

Ache 14

2008-03-01T14:10:00.001-08:00

Sister sets a cat
like napalm on her innuendo

lap. I know, there is that thing
that burns / and clings /

and flicks its tongue
to tease the flesh from garbage tins.

And spreading, boils the surfaces of paint.

Ache 13

2008-03-01T14:05:00.001-08:00

13

mind that is a cat
toying

with zig-zag frantic
torn patches of fur, bats
them about,

allows its mouse to escape.

/ /

Seduction is ordinary.
The animal, predictable.

/ /

Art is not sufficient / yet

one's capacity for casual
malice

may yet inspire.

Ache 12

2008-03-01T13:50:00.000-08:00

appreciate the dark.
Consider,

this you must contend with,
Swan--

a shower of coins / the gold
humiliating.

Hid among veined feathers,
lace and marbled cream

sop the tooth from your thumbprint of espresso.

/ /

The soul must be
taken by force

each time.

Ache 11

2007-11-20T13:31:00.000-08:00

resisting one's nature,

the natural desire to bless

and be blessed in return.

No authority

but that words at times

convince.

/ /

The prophet is to be misquoted.

Martyred or set into bronze.

The wholly human

appetite

to have become

something other.

Ache 10

2007-11-20T13:28:00.000-08:00

broken please

break.

The dog shall worship at a dirty plate.

Whose tongue howls

praise

of every bloody clot.

A scholar at his book.

Eye sopping

history

/ that is a scent / and haunts

with trails of urine / every

eloquence.

Ache 09

2007-11-19T14:53:00.000-08:00

a formal feeling twists.

The brush sparks through the hair.

In knots are the exceptions honored.

We are bald from eloquence.

Our words are static,

elegies /

that dreaming / wake the revel

wheeling / grinding on.

/ /

A loved one's mouth. The millstone

Moebius / unreeling argument

both infinite and circumscribed.

Ache 08

2007-11-19T14:17:00.001-08:00

fist over water. Fresh eel

platter of shellfish / toxic

incubus.

The thought that I continue

to shuck. Honed-edge the nacre sheen.

Red pearl.

/ /

[I am the astonished

mother

/ to blood.]

Ache 07

2007-11-18T17:14:00.000-08:00

perspective & 1/2 of a tomato.

Foreshortened

wound, with verdigris

of penicillin fluff.

/ /

Wing that stretches at our fingers.

Mouth of ink.

In dreams the open

spaces print out flat

/ pink inner lining

cast into an acid

etch. The cross-hatched form and shadow

lines that counteract.

Contract mid-systole.

Ache 06

2007-11-18T17:11:00.000-08:00

blow for blow, for each quality.

No cure / no quinine to rhyme with. The lamb-intended

bridesmaids of hide glue. Sugar.

Where will I find you, Sweet?

/ /

talk talk talk

lust enough for the both of us.

The pleasure objective

correlative purple. Ripe

plum.

By sweat or by musk. By pun.

Ache 05

2007-11-17T15:02:00.000-08:00

almond as the shape of idea.

Nut manic-inspired

dicot

the supple curl,

oak-brittle

ashes to tan leftovers. Leather for wings.

On our lips is the flavor of charcoal.

Saltpeter and sulfur.

Tattoos of hoof-prints.

Hieronymous brushfire.

Ache 04

2007-11-17T15:00:00.000-08:00

beautiful estranged. A muse

for consolation. Beating

fires / flame-cut

boughs of mulled wine.

Lonesome moths. Whose fragrant

wings / her dress /

more soft than incense / prick

fingers of smoke and prayer weightlessly.

A time to roar & a time to blush.

Ache 03

2007-11-17T14:58:00.000-08:00

& that dry wind you thought was lust

was only breath

in measures. Rationed fruit.

The husk of droughts,

a folded paper bough

that creases

as you bend it toward you.

Ache 02

2007-11-17T14:57:00.000-08:00

orange pekoe catatonic

misanthrope / an eye

where dewy sun

gleams milk-fed from a crusted spoon.

/ /

Insisting that you birth important thoughts.

Insisting that you teethe

a marrow

from the bone of every argument.

Ache 01

2007-11-17T14:50:00.000-08:00

The freedom to disclose.

I will cause stratagems.

I will clothe

the disreputable floor

with skin