There's Nobody Like Him, Afterall

link to website update

480

too soon love descends
into lunacy
and becomes a carnival
marriage, entertainment and liberty
mix freely without agreement
museums of electricity are closed for want
of brotherhood
the goddess sings freely of war
and our statues of the muses are covered
with masks of patriotism
the house of lies is now open to the public
when will we have our own set of keys?


481

Down with funny men and funny people!
Down with glory!
the boots of the agnostic
sit idly on the heads of
believers, we we we
we sing in this cruel opera
that plagiarizes disappointment
Leaving the beasts the
deceivers to sing that old funny tune
the one that vowed faith
in spite of the nobody
who gave up his life
to be gloriously funny.

Rubber Fire Dogs

link to website update

478

Paid in fire
you extract thanks bound in
notice and trouble
friends
trouble over the parallax of months
drinking acid and staring
into the eclipse
what would you do
to recognize the sun?

479

I am sending beauty into
the cold
her gardens remember
their worn advantage
She accepts her sacrament and steps
into her prison of memory
We part as twins
despot saints clothed in pansies
where was our number?
arrived in pleasure.

The False Messiah Of the Dublin Fire Brigade

link to website update

476

Rubber butter jesus baby
you bloom with acclamation you
buy cheap tickets and
find your way to the
sun god who eats
pain-soup-money,
oh, the universe is waiting for you
those little, little mouths
shaking, scrambling, hoarding coins
clapping clapping at the site of the Hole
whose who's are passing indulgences
along to the members of love
lost in space
eating sausage
scrambling to touch the cosmic rock

477

Hey! Butterfly!
do you have a stomach?
Are you blessed?
will you give kiss to a dreamer?
Where is your silence?
Why is your majesty weeping?
are you a keeper of loyal hearts?
Do you stand in the absence of Zion?
you, who were born with no mouth
you who plummet to the ground beyond the
end of your flight
you who know the astounding meaning of
thirty-two feet per second.

Midway Through This Life's Journey, I Waken In A Darkened Wood, The Right Road Now Lost To Me*

link to website update

474

He
arrives on the backs of giants
headlong swept through
twenty years of suffering
uttering
oaths played on howitzers
gunners cheering at each successful report
in this suffering his
famous chair is pitched into the crimson
light while he himself
successor to heaven is
sent to the moon


475

the houses wear their
Beloved dawn
dying night the dream ladders collapse
along with them our
country of demons
death is credited once again and
once again sent away without collection

*Opening to Dante's Inferno

Dharma Rocket

link to website update

472

Now that the wonderful has been done
we regard each moment,
a sunburst of birds
from the head of god
a famous classic tale
of the undone chairman
simply man the emperor blacksmith
who saves each present
caught like a wren
for some serene but uncertain future.


473

the air announces its silence as
we gather to nominate our next executed Christ
from among these diamonds
I become a transmitter of splendor
what mercy promises to bestow itself on your design?
our joy is thanks approaching
our hasty hand in power delivers
this interplanetary message:
let the fireworks begin.

In Rat's Alley, Where Dead Men Lost Their Bones*

link to website update

470

ratepayers
supplanters of memory
standing beaters of lust
starving for power
unanimous monsters
you cast your machines in
the appearance of the golden calf
you wait for steamers and their cargo:
hideous apparatus of poorer fortune
approaching, you shoot off the blooms
under your flags of agreement-
they wave under tentative clouds-
you hide your murders beneath their standard.

471

beneath these arches
yes, yes, the air is on fire
polite birds cast themselves down
from the chimney tops
breaking their eggs as they fall
a cricket rides a horse at
the front of a line of boys their
legs in irons,
excited rabbis wait to
place a crown on the head of the master weaver
fate falls
orb and mantle, colorless beneath the sword
in the distance a wren warbles
a clarion of baptism
an eater of weeds.


*T.S. Eliot "The Wasteland"

Schorach Ani Wenowwach, Benoith Hierushaloim!*

Link to website update

468

I knew I drew a hand
but in fear of what music fills these shores
in awkward English burns these thoughts of song
catching a glimpse of smoke and blood
we are fascinated by the shadows -
the bones of kings
*"the face of my skin is beautiful,
Oh daughters of Jerusalem!"

469

the future is a river
a killer of memory, though,
they who find themselves lost in suicide
will forget the name of the poison that brought them here.
To Whom Goes the Benefit?
we shake hands with phantoms
we chase our auroras
we become flotation devices
we lie about our habits
our rank speech falls hollow
on forgotten ears.

I Forget How To Tell the Joke

link to website update

466

Man, this sad music has me down
where is my kiss?
listening at the door, winged
receding light
the edge of dark
velvet now coming on
farther than I'd noticed
worse than I thought
the churchwhores are working overtime on this one
we all make this trip
some pirouette
into this abyss
bright sleep
luck looking for a winner of air
flying about, warbling and cooing
it pays out in the light of friends


467

potato music, music of the eyes
the fingertips
curious music of faint regard
slowly noted smiles at being
in dumb black chance
in hard alarm
a million hands reach
into the uneasy sky
warmth not likely
greed tickles the edges
softens the heavier lip
reaches out for the eye
knows better the next time.

Note*
Sometime this week I put up my 9000th drawing since March of 2007. This drawing was either in the January 12th or 15th website update (see link at top.) I expect to achieve my goal of 10000 drawings in 4 years by April or May, this year.

Tower of Bliss

Link to website update

464

The voice of ashes pronounces
the moon a disease from
which none of us will recover
and yet we persist
our list of triumphs
our extinct rocks
our spirit of the lamp
some mutilated animal
walking with a cane
succumbed to defunct oaths
standing forth in disease
defending the wall of the heart


465

A Chant

overtone gone below
before the voice
the night
hoarse with effort
now muffled
once bayed
heard dead, thinking
a house of keys
hand to bandanna
the crazy machine
gone below
through the rat hole
to a sea of storms
bayed staff of twisted poppies.

Time Slow Down

link to website update

462

I am a thief of peril
A forger of lords
a reckless jack among the grey stones
removed from custody
detained with a thousand anarchists
all holding their umbrellas
upside down.
who'll be the new iscariot?
the blooded apron of judas?
Who'll find me when I'm gone?
a mosaic of life preservers
all nailed just beyond reach
and we are up to our necks in dynamite
knuckled under in the prison of pleasure
how easily we descend into joy!

463

this bell of mine is artless
it is a perfect stranger
it has no eye
no machinery
it is a bomb
about to explode in blushes
it does not speak, certainly not of
the church of the infernal
it is a liar and a dog
all feet and thumbs
it is half-eaten
bloodshot and ear-less
I left it hanging, lost
somewhere in my heart.

The Judge's Robes

link to website update

460

Take your violent puppets
and your sacred hearts
and off to hell with you!
I, I of a tribe of well-known
gelding mongrels
I creep about during floggings
I forget the name of beauty
I refuse to obey.
this life of belief
becomes suddenly, strangely,
savage
we are as dogs
hunting weather
presenting ourselves for vivisection
beginning to warm to
the barefoot messenger of evening

461

the features ride the face
don't they?
much is organized but does
not contain much
the fog of age rolls in
featureless, exposing emptiness
weightless
thoughtless
turning in the wind
cloth of time.

All Those Tiny Birds, Trying To Sky

link to website update

458

From here you watch the crowd of coachman
with their hurrahs of love
extravagant in lauding
Venus in Furs while she is
being sold to Don Juan and his obscene photograph
we are drawn to the treasure
which we cannot see
we watch as she is struck
and falls to the ground
handcuffed now standing
she sends naked pictures of herself
to the phoenix
Years later they are found,
comfortably living among
the shiny rags of the future

459

Me, I'll take the dance
the excuses for viciousness
and the scourge of the stars
glowing eyeless, written in danger.
Our disgrace stands alone,
received from fury
delivered from honor
alone in its striped tingling
but still very much alive.

Headpiece Filled With Straw. Alas!**

website update

456

Oh, Well, so much for our suffering
that which has come so recently from
an orange haze
an asian nostalgia that
grows pale when opened
that transfigures all these prisoners
that sacred reference holding a pound of man
in the hollowed hand
tides of chill and sickness now inaugurate
this lengthening
this mortgaged scrutiny
this excuse for sweet blue suggestion

457

He said "love's a bitch."
I offered to enclose belief for all those
who had seen the gods
on quiet afternoons
while engaged in anonymous conduct
and bathing in the frozen half-light
of shame and highest charm
I discover a box of noses
and give them all to you
you use them to complete a circuit
to open a door
to the astronomy of purpose
to a mantle of objection
to a moment of fiction where
I am in a circle of stolen oldness
and I am awakened by the voice of a siren who says,
"this is how they are damaged,
this is where they are broken."

*T.S. Eliot "The Hollow Men."