Guidelines for Priests

Avoid the cost of a stable
Identity; look for apples.

(source text)

beat

sometimes their defense of drowned art
led to death embellished, weeks of
drunken lunch, murder
unconsummated, a regard for autopsy
over cynicism, conflicted
shoelaces

a buried name
where a better life had been
stowed away.

(source text)

King and Mountain

In quiet moments

the king lost faith in
order: its violence,
its clarity.

In another castle

a new prophet of winter is at rest
in an elliptical sunset; he
possessed nothing.

(source text)

end of the line

The world I

no longer

belonged to

kept going

while I consulted

with the depths in a

dream I visited

but couldn't break out

of in the end.

(source text)

staying sick

We declined to be named
like people, refused
a ring, sought escape
in a performance of collapse.

Not to worry: that's
the way we like it.

(source text)

Mind Your Manners

Crowded conversations
in transit launched
your reputation.

Now you
excitedly drone on without the bedlam
that colored your old poetry.

You have retired
to the common
horror of yesterday.

(source text)

Another I

Each distortion murmurs to the world
like a drunken gypsy
and dreams itself into existence:

I am more than an actor:
filthy with these little lives
at home, on an evening walk:

I won't bathe:
in time I'll head behind these visions

(source text)

The Chameleon

I love the idea of conclusion;
You don't need to believe in it
To admire it for its honesty.

(source text)

street heart

this blinding city

gathered souls to sacrifice
guides strangers home
quietly drums
made a shadow on a door

nobody knows.

(source text)

his own enemy

Last night he
turned into fireworks for
a while, and attacked the endless.

His laugh
is like a coat he wore in a better decade
and grew out of.

(source text)