IDENTIFIED, MENTIONED

Scrapescratching through the index with icepicks,
canoeing the interstices, as I’ve said,
videlicet, the spaces between related concepts
that look so minute but yawn into fabulous maws replete
with snatchme rubies &c. that dazzle the old brainski
and bid it to stay here a while and look around, enthuse
and be dazzled further until the train completely derails,
or your bigboss snaps fierce fingers in your face,

and it’s back to work son: as always, the profoundly
sharp song of ginger ale bubbles in your nose nearly draws a tear,
then the mellow, pedestrian(!) taste brings you back from the brink
of I-don’t-get-it-yes-I-do-style ecstasy and down to where the roots grow,
and that’s OK: you shake the dream out of your ear; you pick up the icepick
and draw your wild connecting Xs, Ls and Ks, your complex asterisks, your Zen Os.

MAROONED

"A severe pang or spasm of pain"
tore up the straightaway, the blind ridge road,

sneezed hot dust as it ate up the rumble-strip of the ribs
until the way was not so straight, swooping deep

down into the dank valley of armpits and out again.
Decidedly, this is where the metaphor ends.

You see him, his busted specs and turnip cheeks,
calling out any name he can remember.

He's not starving yet, you can tell;
and his handkerchief whips and snakes
against the wind like a black flag.

TREE

I am a triangle of wood
and if the wind whisks me
everywhichway every bell

in my reach
shall sound

a bright
red
or yellow
sound.

I know someone
who lives in a tree:
waits all her days
to be touched

by the light dendrite
of a fat root's finger-
nail and so be crucified/

vindicated,

to top off a life of
squatting waiting touching and rarely being touched,
kissed only by breaths of the horniest breezes.

...DELIVERS A VALEDICTION

half the day
you smite your
self with

lightning

the other

half your head
is a kite
tied tight
to kaput

under no circumstances
did any survivor survive
but he craved the pome
granate seeds of a weaker
or more fortified mind

it doesn't much
matter which

i accept nothing
forgive nothing
and still wonder
who will love me now