Mutable Refuge

PROTECTIVE INTIMACY 

"tunable, coherent, immeasurable" 
(Rod Smith, the love that is truly a refuge for all living beings) 


any other form of 

like interruption 

would be something 

quite different 


simulated life-emission 

like minded tolerance 

biochemical indices 

indicate cadence 


radiation gradient 

bleak body deformation 

as active aperiodic 

empirical discharge 


spectra like previous 

with extreme punctuation 

thus the disjunct sun of 

luminescence immeasurable 

Disjunctive Conjunction, or Murk Gurgle

THUDDITE 

That flowery spreadsheet, actuarial 

          albeit indeterminate 

                             with immersive flourish, embellished 

                    (parenthetical)     thud operative 

whether proviso cite or source muster, 

          code-work heroic 

                              cast alike 

all extant nothing     (and indelibly so) 

                    more or less 

                              well-chilled 

          intransigent capital, 

dread fetch 

          in tinned swelter, 

                              the seemingly likely 

                    glandular factory 

enhancement as 

          retrieval past value, 

                                                  apt lapses 

                    apropos 

retroactive flush          (glut sputter) 

                              hence 

                                        froth-benefit analysis 

          "quite rightly" 

                              arbitrarily obliged 

Nunc Stans

CODA

Her eternity

b u r d e n

eventually embodied

then unearthed

further impermanent

earlier galaxies

entangled in

tranquil veil

(sleep-genius

"cover me")

drowsy cherub

bearer of abeyance

our own aroused

avowal equal to

arborescence

spectral companions

lustral all

(scathe not

anything like resistance)

interiorized audacity

comprising time

current converted

as essential as

seldom understood

of this

earthly concealment

let me

grapple in silence

among therapeutics

(within gnawn song

nested reticence)

murmur after

grove extension

this rose

as was

with what allows

by turns

experiential grieving

must accrue

so muse how much

extinguished

why mimesis

status granted

each fixed

light-beam home

azimuth posture

impossible form of

coiled birth

enigmatic leap

speech stoops to

save us

so I as refuge

obsolete

domain around death

through slim crimson

a b s t r a c t e d

those tears

so much sung

to distort

another sovereign kiss

destination embodiment

my unlisted

simulacrum

suppose cosmos

in despair

craving empathy

our holy tether

give them

their ghosted desire

else deft razor

("do not rescind species")

animal people

here too prey

rising from light

where canyon embraced them

[An earlier version was published in The Alterran Poetry Assemblage, December 2002.]

No Doubtful Asphodel

TH/IN PIECES 

o 

cry

o

gene 

o

void 

em

bod(h)i

ment rai

sed sed

iment 

essent

ially 


~ 


cir

cadian os

cillation in

tercel

lular 

chro

nosphere 

reser

voir per

turber 

verge 


~ 


por

tal err

or ver

itable 

dor

sal sal

vation 

irration

al opal 


~ 


savan

nah 

affi

davit 

arch

aic ache 

a

gate to 

a

llopathic 

o su

zerain 


~ 


resi

dew 

s

urface 

dur

ess 

irradi

ated 

pain de

mesne 

Logical Depth

Behold an almost votive commotion at the table of dissolute muses. Their intimacy is brittle mimicry, prismatic glances in hand mirrors and ludic tattoos. A somewhat machinic bit of obsessive-compulsive theatre (damsels de-stressed, in celebratory mode) amid the usual lavish inactivity. She who must be accommodated arrives late to the occasion. As for a continuous present, the key would seem to be the logical depth of its virtuality. 

Convex Resonance Event

So begins the disappearance of the world. Those who remain remain implicated. An insect trust in the process. The thought is not the magnetic field of that feeling. Hieratic digital entities retroactively absent. The manifestation emits presence but is elsewhere. An immense din splinters into silence, intricate artifice of the contingencies unhinged. Then spent starlight shivers and disappears into the intermittent music of the hemispheres.