The grave at the railroad tracks

Persevere through sorry pathways of neglect
through howling open mouths on concrete slabs
tufted with innocent grass

Though you neglect it a culture flourishes here
like germs or gems with an inner life
reflected by the quality of cuts and colds
exemptions and shivers
that say keep away
like signs for high voltage
signs on the railroad tracks

Here is one whose name is X
not the real one he says
only marks the company of coming trains

A name that’s heard through plots of grass
in purple trees the color of a king’s lamented haze 

traffic signs

your exit signs are oracles

that buckle under flocks of harmless omens

fathers’ fathers watchful of observant eyes

red glare and military awkwardness

artworks to be noticed and sped forward

clothed communist with traits exposed

associated illnesses and muted clouds

electric as the heap of movement

predetermined ornamented route

swerving like beheaded snakes

the waverings from course

in circumstance familiar and jolting

warnings

your awkward viking storefront doesn’t scare me

nor does the pitter-patter of the women’s feet

scampering like cats behind your alley

the lopsided warnings of your trucks

their gleaming headlamps only eyes

my unborn child read about in books

your naked two-by-fours don’t make me shake

no arsenic will keep me from your stoop

that desk they say you left to me as bait

old and wrought-iron

weatheredly delicate and strange

arrival

a face of black dandelion seeds
cast by a puppeteer into white sensations
eye of a landscape that moves before it
meteor thrusting through falling paper cranes
awkward symphony of a third man’s hat
snake that breaks coils toward a sea of white
the geometric moon of a child
a festival of yellow wings and death
draped over tenant parking

Eyebranches

First like amber leaves they will be drawn gently over our frantic heartbeats. Like curtains we’ll be drawn toward them.  The arching bones which hold in place the vaulted ceiling of the earth will blink with rain, like threads reaching up to an architect’s unstitched heart.   Then the drowsy blinds will open.  

We face a dark stage, where the hollow body of our own words is the only, fatalistic sound.

Diary of Occurrences

            3 o’clock.  He has been eating late due to his fear of running out of money.  He receives a small sum from the government on the third of every month, and his hunger eventually numbs his sense of dread at having his Internet shut off, his car insurance pulled and his accounts charged with overdraft fees.  He turns on the radio.  A haunting tango comes in from outside.  He has never heard anything like it.  He looks down at the blank table.  Nothing there.  The radio now sits on the roof of a car.  He listens intently to the way the woman sings.  Each time her voice comes round she lands on a derisive note and wills it into something she seems to know will drive a man crazy.
            He stares out for a while at the neighbors’ lawn.  He sees it as just a green shape.  He likes geometric forms stripped of their meanings, the sense of perspective they bring – these are forms without designated intention.  He enjoys the feeling of laughter that emptiness brings in him.  At the grocery store, the girl at the counter mentions that the last hour has gone by so slowly.  The man she is serving falls asleep on his feet and lands on the counter with a bang.  Douglas wakes from his dream and begins to paint.

The Quilter

Not the amber leaves

raked tumbling by August winds

across kinds of lawns.

Look – the bare branches,

the hushed temple’s arching bones.

It’s not like we don’t

ornament our days with need,

these patterns exposed;

a song is work’s whims,

patched together – amplified

colors of the soul.