Over the ribs of a
naked city I
collapse into a
gravy of rotgut tumors,
poisoned lumps
humbled by a
sexless rhythm that
fails at jazz, that
fails at remembering
specks of truth
comprising its lies, a
listless rhythm of
dumb topical bloat
diseased and dismissed by
hairless rebels whose
artifical insanities are
humbled by the real thing,
made meek and lank in
places where muscles once
zealously flapped with
astral hawks plunging into
cool fires of our
nearby universe.

Hoisted by a
confusing dream over the
space of the city I
stumble through the
nebulous muck that
clutters this
unvanished space.

Signals strong and weary
collide as equals
on their way to escape,
at their moment of
distribution into
metaphysical parts —

 the coily metal signal of a
 phone call troublesomely
 cracks apart into the
 requisite substances of the
 words spoken and the feelings shared —

 the soul of a murdered whale
 passes with the sound of a
 doorbell in an abandoned house —

 the rising squalor of editorial discord and
 posthumous public scorn heaped on the
 cabals of once-defunct public obscurities
 rises into a tangle of disdain.

I look the void
in the eye and
taste the tired boils of
cloudless pedestrianism.

This is the highway to
haste, the boulevard of
relief, the safest place to
study one’s own fingerprints.