discord

I tolled through the house
smashing in the face of every
clock with the sides of my fists;
but they started to bleed and
I was forced to use elbows

on a grandfather who’d long
stopped tocking
whose springs made the most
delicious twangs in
the hooks of my hands

it was amusing to watch the
movement quicken now
or any sound; without
screeches in low—
low vibrations of air

that were largely unnoticed
for many of the young
years by me
by me
but I am freed

all sounds pour in past
the tufts of tangled
hair and ear canals
that finally take

as refreshing as the end
of a clock’s life when it
shatters the agony
of springs and clicking

and ticking and slowing the
pace down into a final
explosion of sound and
their ever-changing pitches
that I love.          

for KFE

from the wall of glass there is light
pouring in here filling in between
masses of studio ether,
waking mornings is every day felt

early and April it is much like Sunday
the bubble of air is this room hanging
on the web unmoved by the ebb
the light slowly glows on these

light sounds from
where she paddles about a
canvas that does not face me
as she does

I can look from the page
and her lips feline in the glow of
synth measured in strokes that
she conceived long before her hand

she gives answers in halved attention
she is somewhat distanced
by the force that is kinetic
I bury in my note’s folds:

MOST EXCITED DENDRITE
once in Berkeley she convinced an entire kitchen staff I was known; she
suggested I read to them and I did; but when they were not moved in it she
spoke a phrase in some silk road tongue and they were emphatic; that was
the thing she had with words and with the right people our way would be
made; we were offered a free dinner but it was rabbit and neither of us knew
how it would feel being torn apart; and we were cold; the trail was cold; we
drank wine with those fine people; her face became red with the drunk; when
we walked out the next morning the sky was filled with birds and clouds…

she keeps moving but asks me what I write
and only laughs when I mention that time
her thoughts are soaking brushes and
her words are oil based water I drink

she strokes; gives me things that sit
along the walls in bold un-colored
frames so as to be felt with
intensity—is her aim—

I ask her how her work comes and
she says she has no idea
what to make of him yet

rinsed, the bristles breathe in her
mouth turns a small curve up
when she looks at me
and starts again.

explaining the bouncer

our security has faced temporary setbacks
of financial nature you appreciate but we employ
‘serenity maintenance’ this is a club not some gang
you misinformed this man in your hand was ours
the only one before these two senseless heads here
stood expelling their pedestrian air

the party remains
private
and never is public safety
compromised
save two concussed heads and a jaw
fragmented
and a hundred red faces guzzle
one another sliding shots
of jell-o
their last two dollars to soothe
or thank the bald
hulk tending the door.