things

in the iris of my each eye
there is a huckleberry pie and in each piece
a dragon catching fly whose every breath
in is winter pepper sky and every exhalation
boils the things that are i.

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things
   verse two

in the focus of an infectious stye
i loved a lass who looked unlike i­
so unlike because, so just like why,
against the rainy eyes of an underage buy
i fall felling ice in pieces of sky.

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things
   verse three

in the grain of a robin's eye
shot at high stop with a woodpecker sigh
the grasping caracara spent a nickel for a high
that only feathers can carry
and is forever closed to the flesh that is i.

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things
   verse four

in the prison of a phone whore's sigh
the leader pointed me out and i asked, "i?"
the last straw man, the last goodguy,
broking her eggs on her head, putting it all on to fry.

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things
   verse five

in the skull of a bone time lie
i wish for peace
      and war by'n'by
i dream of autumn fires
about the green star time
i dream of a winter that
judges all by the how
as much as the why.

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things
   verse six

under the purposefulness of an intentional lie
i went out like a candle, snuffed by a sigh.
my love to abolish,
my desire to die,
my anima to expire on a ground
   of vermillion and lake
in a mire of tangled shy.

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things
   verse seven

in the deference of your filthy pie,
overblown cherry
with an ice cream side,
you neither refuse nor desire
and in the lack of decide
you're effed and blue, and bound and tied.

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things
   verse eight

in the sleeplessness of a kelp high tide
i choked back red mussels like i couldn't die,
i broke the yoke of sleep and the yolks of my pride
were this mucous brine thick
   and just this side of snide
but what she'd been sucking
was the same as i'd.

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things
   verse nine

in the afternoon of a dragonfly sky we buzzed off
answers and scratched so friggin high
that claws of the nefarious treaded
dirigibles gone by.
i languished impoverished
maleducato like "come stai?"
my pulled thread raveling dread now to
trade all the coffee beans in columbia
   for a cup of buttered chai.

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things
   verse ten

the lie of of joy stealing is a compound lie
and in the facets of these lies' eyes
live the spontaneous generations ex and why
and their chromosomal partners dosi-do-ing by.

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things
   verse eleven; the american verse

beneath the mania of a four letter sky,
crowning majestic, from the wound in your thigh,
with boiling water and blankets
i towel the gift dry;
this boon of mass production,
this child untied,
this produce of my
happy marriage to whiskey,
   my temper to fi.

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things
   verse twelve

in the eschatology of a dry bone ride
fandom declares eros,
tautology demands i
go to zipper school
to learn a grid four by
itself the only answer
to the puzzle rhymed with pi.

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things
   verse thirteen

in the strength of no care for who sees me cry
i roll over in clover,
watch fat smokey bees blow by.
i suck the honey from their mouths,
dust my eyes with pollen from their sides.
in the lean of forgo and forget
i bind your hands again with my ties;
your immortality named spawn,
our doom's reincarnation nigh.

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things
   verse fourteen

in the blur of my blood sodden eyes
motes swim and worms crawl
and all good is awry
and awash in imbalance
in a tunnel i fear to try­
there's no light at the end of you
and in you good men die.

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things
   verse fifteen

in the stinging salt of a pejorative reply
i let one tear leak but i didn't cry
for the child she'd sold that i couldn't buy.
i knock back two scotches,
   eight bourbons, and some rye
for i conceived the lesson willingly,
   i put my name to the lie.

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things
   verse sixteen, the summer vacation with the cousin

in a canadian indian summer,
   in a field of glowing rye,
we tore through a tapestry of gold
      that was just thigh high;
and who knew better,
   was it you, was it i?
the damage the memory of pleasure will cause
as the years fly by?
the singularity of a moment;
   the instant erasure of the fact;
the burying of all that­
      like our trails disappearing in the rye.

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things
   verse seventeen

and in a crown of a new york thought
i wanted what i hadn't,
i didn't what i got.
two of a kind
   in jeans without underwear.
i'd just like to prove it;
   that's why i stare.

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things
   verse eighteen

in a child's cry of why and woe is me
my tears filled a teaspoon
   but i'd swear it was a sea.
one thousand great beginnings
         gone to mediocrity;
one thousand perfect moments
         lost as memory;
one thousand misspoken compliments
         piling my humility;
one thousand lonely beds from where
         i feel superiority.

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things
   verse nineteen; the mongolian girl

in the disaster of a virgin's thighs
it was too late to return
   what i'd no business to try;
i've gone full circle and fulfilled the lie
that made me do what she'd done
      and now i know why.