I met the crop dusters downed by gin I chauffeured the widows 

through the delta shifting down like the angel of death told me 

I slid off the road in linking rhyme 

I cast lots with the dank underclothes of the backseat 

that made the windows tablets for the wicked’s skeleton keys 

that made me leap prince of the bullfrogs 

from pond to pond from wheels to wheels  

with a voice as deep as a fatal wound I followed the odors coming 

from underneath 

I sentenced my dice to be hung from the neck on the rear view mirror 

I waited for my love of the ages 

the Negroes and hypnotists who died in the ice boxes 

before the age of reason and I stood guard with combs and old radios 

while the poets slept 

we kept the iron warm for the sister women’s hair 

we kept the whereabouts of the innocent to ourselves 

while the poets slept  

we stood sentry to the snake doctors who drowned in their breath 

rising in the desert like the wisdom of Atum 

we took the longest patrols 

and ended up with rat bite fever and syphilis in the seraglio 

we all thought was some kind of wine 

while the poets slept we cleaned the repetends of feathers from our boots 

and buried John Webster who drank the pure darkness 

while the poets dreamt of being

captain of the drill team and quarterback at the same time 

all of us became quite lonesome  

watching the same movies all during the week 

watching the guests slam the door on the tips of our fishing rods 

watching the crippled geometry teacher fall 

in love with the bright girl too poor to buy notebook paper 

and class pictures 

watching for that other playmaker Christopher Marlowe 

defenestrating the other world this one 

watching Danae burn incense in to the coop with the blue fox

while the poets slept 

the breathtaking Mamas washed us in Job and coal oil and the soap of odes  

and sorrows 

while the poets dreamt of possessing the stealth of my blood brother 

portentous and sudden 

my brother master of mud and woo and whistles 

who is night and like the night and the wind 

who was to rescue Christabel 

and slink away with the moon with child in his spit 

we divulged the lore of the enemy river 

we went through the particular fate of the cataclysmic womb 

we shot marbles with Adonis according to his mystic-marshal rules  

we solaced the schoolgirls forbidden to raise lavender 

who had to weave their long socks locked in the loft 

who were frostbitten by the english horn 

who were ultimately french kissed in the back of the schoolbus 

coming back from the football game in the mountains 

O the water 

was cold as a casket left by the window to swell 

and my prick lifted its head like a lost loon 

like a man who has rowed out for good 

like a cardship who has cancer  

O the mad V 

of pricks the wind of floating acres an alcove of consummate luck 

we knew whatever we were 

we slept in the shade and listened 

to oblivion’s shadow arabesque

the plums and firecrackers were going bad in our pockets 

while the poets slept we were fast asleep 

like a clipper full of horses off course 

we seethed where the light never penetrated 

we stunk like the lemon  

we became cruel and nautical at once 

meanwhile the rumps delivered their soliloquies in the hallways

like caverns where seabeasts grazed unbeknown 

O we waited so long in the waves 

to make a pass at the new one who wanders and parts her hair with 

ivy solitude and murder 

the dogs howl so quietly some frost comes up on your ring 

like the abandoned arteries of a star 

as if a sleazy fifteen year old was reading over my shoulder 

nudging like a colt a generative unicorn with a dense red mane  

while the poets slept in one another’s jockstrap 

I was driving Miss Nevus down a lowroad 

in the dead of winter 

the haze rising out of the kiln of her blouse 

like breath in a meadow 

the small animals crossing the road at night 

swooning in the headlights of the black car a V-8 mudfish 

that rode low to the ground like a nasty pair of bluejeans 

the song on the radio was something  

the Prince of darkness could swallow 

I wanted to grind charcoal into a fine powder like a lens maker 

I wanted the soot that looked purple at night 

to pry into the flesh of the snow apples 

I thought about setting fire to the cold fields 

I wanted her tongue to stick to the mirror 

and the owl buried deep in the head with an odor of blood 

lisps like a female prisoner speaking in her sleep 

taboo

something flying up to the side 

an invisible horse that reared up on the other side of the fence  

a little cyclone of mystery

crazy like a girl looking at the moon in the water 

with thoughts of tangerines and a fading light 

a girl with the cold-blooded eyes of a lizard 

that goes for the fingers in the crevice of the cliff 

a girl with a streak of meanness 

like the lateral dark line of fish 

who can feel death through the water 

and maneuver by the sound of dust settling on land 

there are vibrations in the weed before dawn 

like a rattling of dishes in the widow’s parlor 

like a crust of bread which gives away a visitor  

there are faraway voices that come from beyond 

the constellations we have not yet named 

strange noises of light that quiver like tropical slime 

that arrive through the bedroom window 

when the sons and daughters are in the woods of one another 

there comes a knowledge of the dead who dream of tentacles and beaks 

a sediment which forms around the tracks 

where the dead have often ridden together  

really I think of simple things 

of ordinary acts and nights 

that take place in the desolate minds of the very common 

words like water or a pile of branches 

gestures with the rhythm of plankton 

and the heartbeat of birds and hooves 

the steady growl of the wildcat about to pounce 

and smooth running cars 

hitting on all cylinders 

with rearseats that can sound like Tarzan’s monkey 

I think of the intimate steps the dancer can make 

bold as the letters of the stonecutter’s inscriptions 

that beautiful weapon the knife an instrument of peace 

the calligraphy of the seed and feed lists 

the crow on the horizon you see in the eyes of the Trappist 

who has gone so long without sleep 

broken glass perseverant lips the apostrophes of the man in the fire tower 

the woman who will drown herself 

touching the inscrutable fragment not the statue

I think of the simple things of the spirit  

the last rites of the snow 

and the lovers who go to bed with a child in mind 

and when they wake it is so 

should she plait her hair with warnings 

I will forget my vagueness in the midst of the rose 

should she remember my ugly face which brought her to ruin 

I will live in the old bell like a vine and a burden 

I will envision the desert’s laments 

when the going gets rough I’ll take my eyes off the road 

I’ll look at the body of my passenger like a small ship underway  

the crazy one with eyes of semblances 

who can camouflage herself with shivers and the iridescence of fish 

who can utter milt and seaweed 

I think of the simple girls from the country 

who can get out of their clothes as fast as a thoroughbred 

and a sailfish 

I go down the road dreaming drunk as a coot 

when she says to slow down boy I think of a throat under siege 

and the motto of a horn 

I think of a pyramid and an hourglass a vice that gives off its own light  

my life I love it 

in the dark 

under the water of my shadow music 

my form 

and substance lonely and blue as ever 

I give away my deluded clothes 

I fall by the wayside

only the stones for throwing 

across the river 

and the girl who transfigures the predator  

know how I listen 

for that boat full of melons and sorrow 

alas was the word 

they used in the old days 

they had been friends in youth 

I wandered through the hamlets 

barefoot at times 

a two-bit troubadour 

going very deep in debt to the canebrakes 

they called me fisherman then  

and my pockets were full of blackbirds 

I dipped the good snuff of the delta 

with its boiled coffee and crawdads 

the sailmaker sewed me tight pants 

for my bandy legs 

the gravedigger broke ground for my arbor 

I took roses to the panther 

twice a week I came in heat 

I dragged a cottonsack full of books 

up and down the levee 

like a litter the Indians used for the sick  

and wounded 

oh well the cook mammas jingled 

they picked buckshot out of the churchhouse door 

with carving knives 

and used it 

to sink their lines 

and concocted bait 

deep into everyman’s blue hole  

I am the ones who arrived I am 

delivered by the dark light of a thousand glowworms 

that stand fast in the tree 

suffering I know the spinning wheel the Negroes turn 

I who take money from no one 

with the touch of the virgin’s crucifix 

in the palm of the dispossessed werewolf

the query of firebirds blackberries and female tigers 

creedless and risking my ship I go quite phallic 

starting with the backwater of your corpus  

I discover myself beyond the laws 

aware of the ribald the sublime and the reckless 

taking holy water leaks in the big river of unconsciousness 

which flows elemental under my shack 

taking my hounds and roosters all over again 

I exist in the natural musk of the farmgirl seer

I exist in the miracles of the nebulous clitoris 

I exist beyond the symbols and two-bit concepts 

beyond shadroe never accepted by the high class 

I assume the skill of evangelical beasts the good and the bad as well

I fadeaway in my quivering limbs I fade away black  

and lighthearted on the wild seas of what I want you to do 

I utter in sad blossoms I admit the visitors with tears 

I wait for the schoolgirl who waits for me 

clear and strange I plot my garden is yours 

I live in the sung root 

of good-fortune and death on cue with the fodder 

I as fierce as the dust on the rose 

I loom in the hours where the dragon swims 

I jump from the barns of wasps and castrated ponies 

I dress like the holy spirit and smell just as bad  

I stink with the night of the snake 

I sleep with my arm around whoever is sleeping 

I motley boy on the loose with the mad and the rabbits 

I am taken for you at my age 

I suffered and earned twelve dollars a day being a guide 

I pivot like the runaway who sees his girl 

I stride through the grass not nearly as good as you 

I ride an old horse in the creek 

I marry the unknown in the poolroom I make out the great thighs of the shark  

I undo my pants looking for trouble 

I interpret dreams like Daniel I focus the bee 

I tarnish 

the mirror with slang and redeal the cards 

like a sonneteer of chalk and sapphires 

I glow with the venom of the lover 

moving forever and ever shall be without antidote 

I am the fair lead of the air’s noose 

I invade the gutter and Louvre 

I strike deep in the drunken paws I link the naked  

I atone for nothing but her pink plectrum the moon 

I smile in the blackstrap syrup I blow like secret wind 

it is as simple as that 

sexual and frank 

I tinge the bold juice naive and delirious I welcome strangers 

I go down easy and solid like whiskey and found knives the Indians traded 

I appear insane and on fire 

I died in prison like Reich 

I wear an ancient cape that trails like a maze without cause 

I the hunted  

I the mocked 

I who carry the stones from one cemetery to another 

I who was most certainly mad

once upon a time by contemporary standards 

I a shadow among shadows 

your chapters of faults in the valleys of death my stead 

I a fake and a starfish 

I who can hold the wounded hawk to my eye 

without fear of losing it 

I who bed down with your daughters and beg for their alms  

I the liar 

whose only curse is the sadness tying your lips 

I who was the richest poet in town I who was always the only 

I who never set foot in a city see what I mean 

I whittle wings and whore with the beluga 

I who know there is nothing for me beyond this world 

I with enough friends to bury me 

I who will go unread by the warrior caste 

I who keep silent with the feather and no further retinue 

I who deny the most noble truths because I dreamed them singular  

I eat with the hogs and contend with the ages 

I drink with the mighty clouds of joy out of Tishmingo 

with a physique of pure lava 

I side with the daffodils and the foetus 

with a physique of a catch in a tragic winter a keeshond on board 

I say with a lava physique I pass bastard of frankincense

O stutter again friend of the axe

O draw a branch across your arm 

O jelly of hell seldom on duty 

O paradise riding a mule  

O poets who sleep I write never never windswept and incredible 

O orchards for now 

O pasture in unison with a dozen naked women from Lemuria 

O wreckage of milk and tiger lilies 

O moon smooth as ever in the bull 

the unworldly which is worldly and rain 

the sadness habitual 

I pass out in the wagon of cotton 

I live for the day 

with bruises in the lighthouse and the very scent of honey  

steeped in blood

I say let this be a movie and you will live forever 

in the beginning there was the sound of the word 

and I spoke nothing of myself how long sister

say I told you 

when you are gathered together 

let each one take a line to himself 

or herself or both 

let no one read me alone 

say I like the beautiful coal in the pulpit swamp  

say I like the king snake 

say I going round to your friend 

say it again 

O the man said heaven 

you say it now 

was a state twice as big as Mississippi 

with the grace of a monkey woman from Clarksdale 

with a rhinestone ice pick in her slipper 

and the devil in the spout 

say I seen the glass darkly you say it for now  

you take the song 

and dip your hand in the creek 

the spice bush is ready