From the mouth of the horse : /

Yooo. Sorry I haven't rapped at you in a while. 

PEACE

Time is the donut of the heart. 

sand and snow

this poem has nothing to do with sand and snow

but with vancouver, with the birds pulled in from 

the ocean, inwards and out above the folding water

presently, i am concerned with these birds, fashioning

a single letter above the steel waves and the cold sand. 

there are other birds of this universe. there are peacocks

which shake their feathers like a deck of cards being 

shuffled or several brooms quickly sweeping the floor of a 

cave. excuse me for a moment: "put on your mittens, if 

you're going outside." i apologize, but, you see, when the

blue pines freeze the town in winter like refrigerator coils,

you can catch cold. the tennis courts close, and no graceful

leaps of stretching or reaches choreograph themselves on

its key lime map. and, O, my god, am I tired, am I tired,

tired of silhouettes arriving in the fire. tired of the sand

smothering the snow for the sake of the tire. 

bucky little thing

cold is wet stone and fire in the glowing branches 

touches the golden branches with heat and O the

eagle the eagle that balding eagle lowers his legs

like shorn bonsai trees and descends to silver to

silver may we ever find a liver for prometheus or

myself, for i've plucked away at it like a cellist like

a pelican pecks for days shuffled before one another and

o the sounds in the next room are never muffled,

but pronounced pronounced may the wildcat pounce 

on a rock on a rock, leather shoed british boy on the dock.

and what a bore, what a bore says the forest explorer

these panthers betray themselves slunk languid in the

trees, and, I coming upon nothing more than the 

paper globes of bees.  southern priest, speaking in tongues,

can you not speak of reptile lungs? football men, moving

in lunges, can you not see your into-sin plunges? now, both,

repeat after me: is it for this that i have hunted? is it for 

these crystals, these sun beaten symbols of the drum, these 

murderers wanted, that i have run sharp breath cold through pink

tunnels of respiratory funnels? 

The Calculus of Skin Through Seasons

and, now, 

that we have sharpened the dull silver of math

and laid medieval swords limp upon our laps

may we find a set of sharks, washed up beside

the dumpster, the swells of water upon which they rode

resembling limpid desert hills came alive as lazarus

and swam before dawn, until the sun beat down 

on the lands as a kiln, and baked them still once more

and it is at dawn that i watch you walk the foothills

with silver rabbits abound, like metal fleas to which

the soft earth has proffered its bosom for them suck

teethed and to suck one another - 

and, now, 

that winter, after lingering, has left, pigeon toed and clumsy,

may the vesicant air breathe upon the hydrangeas, and may

those blistering flowers cluster blue beside the gazebo where

we have set many a night and drank until our eyes reclined

showing their whites and my yellow teeth, from which i spit

tobacco in your absence   -   and "nothing", though a word, 

though a reference, though a call though a beckon, refers 

to nothing - as any coo or moan doth. as any white hot

moon or stone does. 

and, now, that i've had enough of these pills these gills

these paper mills, i will strap leather legs to mine and 

walk out amongst the pebbled drive, and form a friend,

another tired man from the dust, only to speak with, to 

break bread with, to sing uvulas red with  - for i, too, 

will give him an instrument to shoot me down with,

 as a true comrade would to any suffering man in 

battle, legs and arms all torn in a field - on a boat 

on a boat o my darling emote - for you have been so 

sterile to me since we've gone sober - no effluence 

spilling from your swollen gravelly tongue as it did

dripping once above me below me  - for now it 

seems to have transferred elsewhere, into your liver

secreting ointment, purple and viscous, purple and 

thick and pretty was your dress any night long past - 

long past , long past, does nothing ever last - 

does no horse pass the beast before it on the track? 

do the demands of the body ever relax? ever, for a moment,

could i be unwanting? 

Lesson To A Groundskeeper

the gently geometry 

of the tennis court

goes undisturbed 

it is swept now, 

and you have been released

into the thick night

with the silent machinery

and the moist moon

as boots meet feet, 

sitting on the curb,

looking up, you may

recognize the stars

as but a blurred vision

of a fencing practice, 

men in thousands

thrusting and parrying

retreating and jousting 

a practice tournament of

nimble luminous mummies

hurling antennas - 

however, if you cannot bring yourself

to this vision, perhaps

you'd be better returning to

the assembly line for a few

more pathologies 

yet, for now, walk. 

walk upon the concrete 

compressing a stray tennis ball

walk to any trailer park witch doctor

and give yourself that medicine

and walk back home upon that 

now forgiving, soft cement 

and go to bed 

until tomorrow 

go to bed, 

fold yourself in those unwashed,

childhood sheets

beneath that useless, useless

event taking place in the elevated galaxy

and everywhere below it

leap, my thin, thin rail thin snow leopard

snow leopard, you

were in the powder

jumping

and

i

cannot understand

how it all

wanders away

just like that 

when i look upon you

jumping in the powder

go to bed

into those 

sheets

and, when you wake

to find me absent

and the sky on fire

fall to your knees

at the window

and

vanish

into the ether

for i will be fishing

in a new pond, now

yet it an extraordinary one

and

its believing

that one day

you may 

rise from the water

smiling

like a snow leopard

approaching

through the dry

snow

that keeps

me returning

to sit at the shore

casting my line

the pale shore

the dark water