Delusion Altitude, 35,000ft

I.

I'd promised to wave at St. Louis as I passed overhead,

so I crane as we zoom through the timeless twilight of morning

and waggle a few digits at the bright slick

poised at the confluence of Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.

Metallic, it undulates, an amoeba

with twinkling cilia tickling the dark waters.

Odd chunks of jewel intersect it at even intervals,

as if some sloppy god bred pond scum and gems,

and splattered them in a dank nook

to ferment, lovely, floating on nothing,

fed by the breeze blown by my dark hand above.

II.

How meta, I thought, to write the word turbulence

while the sky tossed this machine about its metal self.

Left hand to right, cirrus to nimbus to moonbeam

it juggles our lives and our luggage, with talent, admittedly.

Concurrent with prayer, I imagined I'd blaspheme

when foreseen malfunction came to pass,

when fuselage shattered, scattering roller-boards,

screaming, these fools and I, silent, into altitude.

I imagined regaining consciousness among debris, plummeting

below fiery Plieades, between jagged shrapnel and flaming hands waving.

How deftly I would glide, limbs spread, flannel aflutter,

towards some body of water, discerned from the land that cupped it.

How wisely I would blade my body, knife into the skin of the water–

solid at such speed– and sup of the sanguine splash my form lifts up.

III.

In this moment I notice my asshole,

clenched to preempt catastrophe,

my lungs squeezing stolen oxygen

across cheesecloth and into some mechanism

that transports it to aorta, which disperses

the stuff corporeally, as per usual.

Baba Yaga

Little green thing lay

squat in brakes,

plotted rotting,

scanned chokes

and oozes brewed

in gutters,

and chuckled;

they gurgled

and splashed in chunks.

Cauldron with fat

boil to match crusts,

seethes, sweats bile

in globs tapping toccata,

ekes out millennia

hexing spiders to drip venom.

Chipped pestle digs

grooves into finger skin

of toddlers who wander

too near scrawny stalks;

mortar creaks; bone-dust

lubricates murderous beak.

somebody suggest a title

Her fountain hair jets and wafts,

and loose, showers, as snug as gloves;

shutter lids block drafts;

within stained glass, wishes flutter, like doves.

Her jawline, a mug, warms my own hand and lips,

while the other sits on saucer sternum, sneaks

to thrum on tummy as if tickling an eclipse.

The whole frame can be held, is as slight as squeaks.

Our fingers, having woven like wicker vines,

or bamboo ankles, tangled over cotton-soil socks.

Knee-backs' puny deserts bear sculpted art of dune lines.

Metronome pores dole out rivulets in unison, like clocks.

Arms wrap like rope stretched from fore to aft

but dont fray, and keep us buoyant on mattresses, watercraft.

Skeleton

Fingers maneuver gently,

tickling lobes, adjusting pony-tail,

or picking nose as appropriate. Each touch

precedes the surface

it encounters: I create

with caresses, construct particles

contrary to physics in milliseconds

of contact with you.

Alas, I touch but so much.

For hours I've mapped the topography,

surveyed terrain, tracked the curve of every space

with kisses, yet

some part remains unfathomed

beneath body I hold, this whole I

grasp so tightly. I want for the structure of

the thing, to know its

core, iron support,limestone

foundation; bone, skull, scaffolding.

I search and shuffle through blueprints and atlas

to find the missing set.

Wunderkammer von Murasaki Shikibu

I. Manners in which we

preserve memory remind

me of our likeness

to crickets, locusts: nascent,

singing sillily;

hoarding not oats and seeds but

fulfilling needs, no?

The tethers that anchor us

to sanity are

but memorabilia:

concrete, stackable,

submerged, preserved in ether.

Keep me enamored

with life, safe below the air’s

mass, comfortable,

nestled firmly within earth.

Merit is ensured

by characters, words uttered,

scrolls, novellas, thoughts

recorded to reassure

us that the human

animal has worth, that he

will retain validity

when his cities burn.

II. All things in this world

link it to me: perception

is existence, yes?

Any argument spoken

is evidence heard,

inference intuited.

Sycamore, magnolia,

lip’s kiss, vibrator,

noon sun revitalizing,

darkness’s terror.

III. Überdi Überyoru.

With every breath, collecting.

Detritus

Another layer incites no great stir,

nor would the amalgamation of this mound or that;

stars are birthed from scraps congealed in space,

so I suppose this biscuit's ignition gives cause to celebrate:

soft crumbs, then paste, and now the oddly glowing mark

of God's hand on my desk rend an anthem from lungs.

We sing for greening sticks, Bards wax

epiphanic because freshening spring never fails to vitalize,

yet stomachs flip at the sights and smell of this small life,

and we sic machines to thwart its wet development.

Crimes of passion

When specter froze itself in draping silks,

and hid itself in eggshell shades, it cracked

like Russian spies among opposing ilks,

and shook like leaves. When pleased, it took the slack,

now jagged curtain rod and shattered out

a window to the silent midnight pall.

He'd never laid so closely, wound about

a form so tightly or left scrambled scrawl

so lightly etched in fresh cadaver's wet

and stinking gut. His step's quick click and knife's

efficient melody made tears collect

postmortem. Humming octaves atop his wife's

new lover's blinded body, butchered, red,

record-light blinked 'til batteries ran dead.

My mans and them, chillin

“Im starting to feel weeeird...”

-Frank, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

I, having gazed into abyss, and dabbling deep

there, among saplings, I realize that I too (Yo, see, he's

SO OUT OF IT)

have been gazed into,

but with hero's eyes, sperlative,

that secreted in stealth,

peering into the kiddie pool depths

of me and striking oil

under black soil–

(TEEHEE) (YOOOO)

You're gonna hafta back up outta my bubble, bro,

listen, lookatcha breath I can see it hovering

like bacon, a-sizzle and waaaaavy bro.

Waaaaaavy.

Terracotta waltzes,

shimmers like gulf surf.

Flame fingers grip at logs;

sparks and I hand-dance.

Burning eddies whip stars,

snag their entrails, drape

remains from the zenith.

“You are a child now, scared of the creatures that lurk

in the dark and open spaces inhabiting you.

Rightly so: when you scream, they feed, writhing

like maggots on your dismembered psyche, rotting.

Refuse to be freaked, and build a cage for the freak show:

twine pipe-cleaner for bars, lay Pooh's honey as cement.

When they grasp at you through gaps, feed them peeps

to gum their teeth. Watch them scrap, here, from safety.”

The fodder for monsters

flurries down on us

from darkness. Disorder

severs thresholds, bor-

ders, births vitality

of reality

and conscious mind's root: fear.

“We remembered things we didn't remember,

that we couldn't have, fictions from within oblivion

forged of molten air and a tab, just a dab of lysergic acid.

As it faded we tried to document the adventure”

aaaaaaaaaaaactually

im lazy;

heres more jamz