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War’s hell begins with a parade, high-stepping girls, the flag’s harem, Old Glory on its leash. In a corner of the flag is a token bit of night. We round up the stars, same as the boys. A blood-red flag— blood-blue, blood-white. Reality’s standard must never touch earth. Lining the streets, cheering, we forget how…

Peacock, I have to tell you, your feathers are beautiful. Snake, your length is my life. Mighty elephant, I never forget the corner I came from. Your shell, long-living turtle, is my crown. I preach the laugh of the hyena. Dear horse, thank you for my head of hair. Thank you, sweet ox, for the…

After I’d filled the crystal vase with water, I thought of your ancient mother, who came once like a witch from a fairy tale to curse our uncertain union, how she stood at my sink and lectured on cutting stems at a slant under water             so the blooms would last— this after weeks of…

On Slaughter Beach I lay me down on the sand between surf and calliope, there where oceania meets glitz: plastic mosques and minarets and transvestals, sub- verts, countersexuals—Spanky Sparklenuts, Afterbirth Boy and Crab Apple, Candace the Grimace and She-Who-Eats-Only-Fish. Nighttime it was, brine-sour, my head sunk in shadow. Above, boardwalkers walked—catcalls and titters. Such was…

“I will smash their guitar.” —Joan Miró   The force that drives the left-handed guitarist     Waking from a dream that again escapes me to play right-handed . . . immortality, frets     like the eyes of vermin. No sheep fold, no birth chords and stops, scorings, the music itself     lava, breasts, no color…

Sometimes I have to squint to see clear and used to think this a fault of light— God’s failure to beam the intended world bright enough on the brain pan. Now I know it’s age, my own worn optical works that blur leaves to smudge. Justice             wears a blindfold, and the firing squad captive…

My good friend who these days despises the newspapers Complains this isn’t news but gossip,                                                                 a talking down, In brief sidebars, in the mathematics of The intellect, from the highest To the lowest common denominator, The front pages with their treaties signed and breached In an afternoon, the borders Fixing and unfixing themselves Like…

Spring rain. Inklings, earthlings, wet present     The sequence of events, that’s what’s best, when the clots participles and shivers before red sun and cicadas     dissolve as from the drugs . . . or in your city, Santoria, snow cones, dubbed syllables     to hear the names, to have the characters cast down The…