red pilot, blue engine

no one describes the process
no one extinguishes the crystal thumbprint
in face of all the unreflecting visions and refined cataclysms
i exhume a particle, a filament of spider web hung on a clothesline
parsed by a consuming crowd

red pilot, blue engine, ice forms on steel
a tower of fuel rods transmits the message
into the fire-breathing sky
and produces a child, pale
a bone hung with flesh
a half-devil raised to fail

disproportionate in tone, in weight, in colour
a face within a complex, a tangle of linen
made entirely of tobacco and coffee
we insist the boy bring bread removed from windows
what choice do we have, when we’re stretched on the pavement
and a telescope tells us what we need and who we are

a river of pamphlets flows through the pyramids
and twists on itself like tissue dyed with kerosene.
whether or not we submit to the madness
the conventional wisdom of soulless mice
all depends on direction of windflow
and the patterns of numbers in houses of paper

red pilot, blue engine, within the wrist there is a stone
within the playground, a virus is spreading
above the factory floor the chains are trembling
and ringing like castrated bells
let this be a warning to the hamstrung children
there is more blood in the soil than
bone or blasphemy

archangel

brittle teeth born of the streaming light
open breathing holes in the plastic sheet
standing like blue windscreens
and the hair on the back of my neck
there are stars that can only be seen in the movies
there are molecules of sound that rest in your ears for a lifetime.

when winter comes, we start to lose our skin, we start to catch fire
hollow bones that are lighter than air rattle in the rafters
as we wait in the street for the shaking to stop
an honest day's work begins when you want it,
an evening of lies, whether you want it or not.

there is a small child on the lawn,
cold as a mushroom in the fall grass
pulling at the grass with automatic fists
bring the plates to the table, the child to her mother
bring fire down from the sky, and dig at the street with shovels
around our heads buzz flies and mosquitoes, messengers of mud,
milking the earth like a bloated udder hanging in space.