I am the phoenix

(proudly blurring lines between weirdness and boredom since 2004)

I am the phoenix (previously unreleased excerpt)

I am the phoenix tonight. I rise from the ash into the light. Evanescent and intransigent, my aura is smoke and incense, split between the perfect geometry of stars, mixed through the last particle.

Do not fear; I have come at last. You were promised—I will take you on my shoulders.

You were warned it would be me.

Listen to the talk below, behind the closed doors of the sordid inn. Sprawling limbs soak up spilled ale. Men in soiled coats listen for the end of the world.

It has taken much to come together, but this will last forever. We look into our innermost reasons, and we are set on fire. Around insane beggars and destroyed egos, we come to cleanse. To be reborn.

But we fail to respond. There is an indecision. I am stolen.

All I can promise is sympathy, not action. For now I am weak, but I will be strong again.

I hear the call every day, but I forget; I lose myself in its clarity.

The poisons are many, and the antidote is a fiction—it cannot be found. We dissolve ourselves into waters surrounding the mountain; we slave in dark anonymous caves. But there is not futility able to keep at bay the phoenix.

I rise above.

This is not the end of days, though night does fall, and the logic of blackness is
smothering.

We dress for the moment; we are ready at the moment’s notice.

Into infinity we charge on silver lightning, into the end of cause and effect, of unfeeling order, to the breach between world and dream.

“Stop the smallest man forever from lunging after death!”

We are conceived in a quicksilver flash—and I am the phoenix. I am the exploding sun, and the red and white light is blinding.

O'Hare airport

(4 cups of coffee into my trip home)

This is not a good idea

O true worship, O man of length, the strength I gave was never spent.

If persons black were lent a noose, so I could I clear my name, the effect was cursory; I never was the same. Poems black as clouds, shave the faces of the proud. Othello was my cousin, I carried his sword and dagger, I walked in shadows until I reached the cliff of the great green adder. "This is Sunday morning showdown," and the walls shook like spiderwebs. I heaved at smoke and breathed in cellar dust, wrote encyclopedia entries for acid and rust.

She wore a cloak of silk atop her oiled golden tan. A frog and a gazelle traded jokes in Hindustan. I would calculate with simpletons; they crowned me Foxy Beast. Now insomniacs contribute to my pot of charity, it was explosive death I traded in — it was mindless liberty.

I dig for hours before I find the straighter line, open cans of worms and evaporate the brine. I wonder 'what will come?' but it's hours late, I looked up words like 'jaunty' 'facade' and 'defenestrate'.

If cobras could combine into a mild lamb, if pomegranates sprang like diamonds from my hand - why I'd spit out choreography and smile at the moon. I'd drink mudslides in the hammock and name my firstborn daughter June.

I call you contradiction I call you labyrinth, I call you late for dinner with an absinthe after dinner mint. I'd drink ovations with a monk and we'd scan the crossword pages, I'd make a pact with Lady Silver, and her first cousins, the Sages.

Collect a few fragments, polish them a bit, point them at the ocean and then be done with it. That's better than most, who obsess with spelling, grammar, father son and holy host.

I'm winding down and that's what makes me glow. I hammer till I shiver, live on love, process grief through my wretched liver. I can breathe now. I always knew this, but did not know how.

I loved many but insufficiently, never a soul completely, until we ate street meat at Queen and Spadina on Saturday evening. Lady, treat me as your lord, slave, lover, knave, lad, brave mad sad king. I have nothing except you - and I will give you everything.

Scribbles from Austin

6th Street scene, me like a Wallflower, if I sang; if I lived in Texas I'd have to form my own gang. High heeled blondies, beefy baby boys with hair like Capote. Downtown paradise, await my moment on stage, fly gleefully with wireless, love Texas accents, have a cute stress recorder, it's so much like Tronno.

Stevie Ray Vaughan stetson wings on a river with bronze string. Lutists, artists like a lootbag, sweaty boys whiz, caffeine squeeze like oj, scabs on rock hard abs and mexican lime soda fizz, enchilada pigs. We snatch signals on a cafe patio, Austin to Boston, coffee and toffee, mosh pit mania and dirt trail llamas, I segue, the Segways on the sidealk, gawk, talk how silly and sinister two-wheeled half-cocked automobile replacements — I'm sipping mocha warm and sultry 5 feet 9 from the pavement.

And it's bubbly and outlandish, there's Barbie everywhere - can I help but stare? [Oh don't think I'm in trouble, my lady don't berate; she's so much more lovely and we quiver as we wait.] Fair hair here and there — got that oblivious aristocratic 'my city — built by slaves' air.

And this afternoon I'm a buffoon. I'm on stage soon. We want gold for Canada, to celebrate the loon.

rhyming as sleep aid

(a week with no words - wakes you up at 2am with itchy fingers)

After midnight with no one around
the wolves are silent, well profound
atop a mountain, climbing down
to the heart of an ocean underground

what sleep may come with a beating drum
nobody now to rub my tum
lie on the floor and pray for sun
when morning makes you run

the glow persists, vigil screen
too old to pretend to scream
no nightmare pillows, it's you I dream
and plunder what it means.

O fog sit thick atop my brow
tired bones beat back the drowse
warm words rock me gently now
[I see no point asking how.]

Channel changing blues

(hey - by the end it starts to makes sense!)

Witness this
we words work wonders
deliberate misses, don’t strike the missus
“Today I was threatened with a baseball bat”
so I’ve been saving kisses, and I’m
done compensating with a kitty cat. I
switch too fast, hang on
get steam, make it last; we
oscillate, can’t let your logic penetrate – I don’t
have time for eventual comprehension
we have a seven-city tour of
the
septic tanks.
If you were exhausted like me
these little bits are plenty feed
so don’t choose, just beg
be satisfied, signals collide we sigh
don’t die yet, go on a diet
of fibrous thoughts, roughage regurgitated
for rectal rumination, when you
barely gather your carcass
after sweat and elation
victorious and arbitrary
competition is something scary on your
face and I’d

marry that face to mine
and await my bottle of wine
we circled that date
months in advance
and now I’m ready
done floggin’ the remote
or switching sides in my one-paddle boat;
let’s watch every program; I don’t interrupt.
[Although I might occasionally curse the sky and get up if
it’s one of those two-hour documentaries
on the history of the menstrual cup!]

New blogfriend in Colorado?

I have no idea who she is - but she liked one of my posts, so can't be all bad.