Chanunpa

Dark night on the corner
of Central Park and 5th,
the hotdog stand is there
same as every other night,
glistening rows of ketchups
mustards mayonnaises relish
frying onions and dogs
the cart lit in neon
like an infantile casino
its grimy surfaces swelling
with buds of living grease
beneath the tubelights
like the rippling of sweat
and steam on televisions
in the apartments above
the scene is dull, grainy
fat Greek's hands moving
surely above the counter
stuffing the cash register
with rough wads of bills
his grey mustache quivering
and tasting the wind
as he licks his lips ―
a black cloud of smoke
comes off the grill
and fills the heaving night
with the smell of flesh.

Beautiful people pass by
and the smoke tangles
in their beautiful hair.

Iron Lung

Davy Jones is wandering on the beach
in his raggy sailor suit
with the golden cuffs, silk tassles,
cockle shells hung from his neck.

He stumbles with a bleached look,
smiling at the clouds,
where the faces of his daughters
shimmer like piano strings.

At the white horizon, atlas moths
fall silently into the air,
streams of them, like water
boiling off into clouds.

The sun is crying for bones.
There are vultures overhead
with love and hunger for the man.
Raggedy Davy seascarred Jones

crosses his crossbone heart.
He's a shade, kind of a mirage
made of aether and bandages
dragged across the shifting sand,

and he is growing tired.
His body is five fathoms down,
crushed two hundred tonnes
in the black lung of the sea.

Sweet Thistle

Eating an artichoke
leaf by leaf
with sweet salt butter
as the rain goes on,
in the closeted hold
of the world
with the bird song
of television, telephones,
and the bird song
softly mewled
of kittens under porches,
with the grey sleep
of neurogeographers
on the five continents
peninsula-wings,
lilac explosion
somewhere in space,
soap and butterfat
on this childeyed planet
and the electric thought
oh long oh long

you feel yourself turning
at the heart

Steam Tree

She peg legs over the tiles
on tip toe, with a pan
of water for the stove,
ballerina, spatula in hand,
cherry tomato up her nose,
bullies the sizzling courgettes
lashing them with olive oil
and sweet balsamic, that rises
from the carmel onions
like a steam tree of sugar.
Broccoli tumble lightly
from the basket of her hands
and land as asteroids
in the hot potato jungle
in a rain of golden
withering chlorophyll
anticipating the mother belly,
sparkling light of hunger.
She is there, salt shaker
a black machine in hand,
clutching a sheath of noodles
with which she javelins
the supersalivating pan,
and then boiling over
she collapses on the counter,
head on her folded arms
a cauliflower of coffee.
She's a fallen sparrow
in the cucumber mountains
among the grains.

Skin Flick

Silos and churches
seen through scratched windows
of the Bridgeport train
seem like gelatine
in the 100 degree heat,
there is the smell of tarmac,
stubs of ice cream
on the sidewalk,
pretty blonde babies
hunching to their mothers.
From the hilltops
trees ripple like pondweed,
somewhere in the scrub
a black vulture
kicks at a grocery bag.
There are red blotches
in the air, humming over
the bare outlines
of shops, warehouses, homes,
charcoal drawings
in a gorge of dry tinder,
red blotches morphing
over everything, like sweets.

The train pushes
into the dripping
New England valley
like a brassy tongue.

Hummingbird

Like a clockwork toy
in the slow light of dusk
sipping sugar water
from a slender ruby vial
with tiny pulsing movements
of its sequined throat,
feeble motion of the heart.
The mechanism moves,
hummingbird in the world.
A flash, electric red
as the pines catch fire,
and this god of moths
skeletons upon the air,
half of nothing, microbe
in the valley's stomach,
its bill a scimitar,
wingbeat flowering darkly.

From beneath the trees
a shadow crawls,
last shade of Thoth,
as old as the mountains.
Wingbeats break the clouds.
The ghost of earth
is waking into hummingbird.
There is pollen in the air,
and a sad, sweet song,
dark river.

Living Dead

Wake up in the pool at night
with a hotdog in your mouth
a barbell on your windpipe
an answer creaming in your mind
and a smile of benevolent love
for all God's living creatures
which are lunching on your testicles
as you drown in the shallow end
gnat have mercy, mother Mary
you are choking in a blue blue dream
where angels of salt in speedos
feed you earwax from a trumpet
owls doggy paddle in your skull
which is a gourd of marmalade
you are the undead King Correction
with a poolside death, ladling
lollipop porridge into your eyesockets,
organs with distinct personalities
that reason as they slowly kill you
coming backwards into consciousness
with a headache like burning death
you flounder from the water's edge
into the dense and dripping forest
regress into your beehive childhood
smashing cupcakes on toadstools
with drooling fairy whores
oh yes oh yes

Mockingbirds

The mockingbirds
in the woods
biting at stones

the mockingbirds
scream like newborn
in the spreading branches

the mockingbirds
crawl into mailboxes
and die in the heat

the mockingbirds
soar through backyards
grey black forever

the mockingbirds
fantailed jesters
crown on the winds

the mockingbirds
anthem of feathers
harlequin harlequin harlequin

the mockingbirds
bomb black into blackness
caw caw caw

the mockingbirds
dandelion jewels
as it starts to rain

the mockingbirds
jape on lightheart
heart of the medallion

the mockingbirds
feathers falling out
of an eggshell wig

July 4th

On the highway
cutting through the forest
of New England
cruising under peachpie
and violet heads of cloud
through the evening,
tail lights coalescing
on the black tandem road,
stars and stripes hung
from grey mossy bridges
with stonethrow kids
escaped from their wardrobes
on this, Independence Day.
White houses like breakers
from a sea of trees,
Connecticut is in a dream.
The highway bends
into a sunset gorge,
brokedown bridges, neon
lights of Walgreens,
elephantisis hoardings,
and the sluggish Indian river
trickling from a bottleneck
into a mouth of chocolate,
slowdown summer night.

Dog Day

Joey Chestnut
on July 4th 2010
tries to eat 70
of Nathan's famous hotdogs,
makes 54 in ten minutes,
retching like a goose,
shaking as he pushes
the franks down into
his esophagus
with gulps of Kool-Aid,
folding the buns in half
and pushing them after,
soppy and pink.
His head inflates
like a red waterballoon
as he jumps on the spot,
face full of slop,
dough and chewed beef.
His shorts are speckled
with sugar and grease,
but he keeps going
on and on, decades
of dogs and buns,
the competition is still
gorging in the shallow end
in Nathan's T-shirts
like giant bibs,
the minutes crawl by,
agony, gutachingly
crashing like Titanic into
the colon of the afternoon.
The sun dips, the crowd
roars over the countdown.
Joe Chestnut grimaces
against the gag reflex.
No mustard?

Laid Over in Paris-Charles de Gaulle

All through the night
He is drilling and hammering
the concrete of the terminal
in an orange hardhat
chisel and an iron pick
He is smoking cigarettes
under a wall of glass
watching the taxi rank
He is in the beast's bowels
somewhere on the 1st floor
with a blowtorch,
with a circular saw
sending rain of sparks
against the back wall,
out-brief-candles ―
He is pacing slowly
past the flickering lights
of the departures board
with a Steyr automatic
cruising down the escalator
in a ghostly dream

with the gun quietly there
in His hands

He is cleaning turbines
with black gloved hands

He is on the runway,
holding wands of semaphore ―

Travellers crashed out
in the abandoned cafe
move in their sleep ―

Someone watching over