The Output of an Inner City
I. The tree
The slithering body
twines higher,
erupting in verdant tongues
to swallow the light.
Shelled by walls of freeway,
it stabs through cracks to the sky,
a track of skin
posed in its wake.
Beneath the surface,
in the freedom of darkness,
energy charges
like a live wire.
II. The lioness
The moment expands into her,
her muscles shifting like a machine,
the poise of death mirrored in her eyes.
Life unfolds from her mouth,
her belly bloating with the meat
of the sacrifice of the bull.
In this concrete desert of city
there prowl the claws of the future,
concealed in the softness of fattened flesh.
III. The spirit
At the heart
of the scattered lights
is the beat.
Coatings
roll away like cars
in a breath.
Power creates
a tragic beauty
from the carcasses of the street.
Growing silent in the flurry of noise,
the spirit ceases to struggle,
sitting like a lotus in its field--
like a building.
You Taught Me How to Eat
You taught me how to eat
by growing me to hunger.
You drifted by, fins spread,
until I was man enough to frighten you.
fishing fingers,
crossing mouths,
we have broken apart,
and now you are gone.
You split in the rebirth of a sun.
I reeled on the beach of time,
swollen with new breath.
I chased your memory with wine.
Now I walk the earth
as god swam the sea.
I loved one fish
to feed myself.
Integration
Once upon a time
The world opened up
So that the only voice that sang
On the page was death.
The clamor of a thing
Resonates soundly
Against its own skin
When there is naught else
but space.
And thus began
And beget the process
Of enfolding.
He learned the ways
Of the salty pump, the sweaty pimp,
The preacher and the pen,
And he listened
To the wind blowing
Him mad sentences of ecstasy—
All in order
To escape the divine disorder
That came out anyway,
Swallowing him like a whale
Before spitting him out again.
Towers rose, lighted,
Like myths
Before the sun.
Amplified, the electric
Solo launched:
I can only this moment
Live, meeting place
Of the eternal,
The face of the earth
I wander,
Taking new delight
Upon each found crevice, yes,
For I know
What doesn’t lie beneath.
Finally, he finished
And he returned
To the land
That had been waiting, spread
Open like a mask
To take him in
And crush him
Until he surrendered his tongue
Back to the sky.
The end.