lament for a stolen notebook
Jim Perkinson
when the city eats a leg
how do you understand?
when night swallows a hand
do you breathe the wound?
does the dark levitate into moving skin
in the flaming mind?
the wet of words does not close the hole
morning after brings cold ozone
phantom teeth on the apple of truth
a phalanx of iron suns
desert snow
i am eaten
1000 winds blowing
without trees to bend
all my words
all my lovers
an army of incantations
they gather on the tongue
at the edge of sleep
in the night of dawn
purple essences
the return of the trances
they come for me
underneath the whales
of dreaming
singing deep red
malaise of cloud doors
waiting wordless in the chamber
the breathing quiet dome
the cold cello mourning
fish legs
frank incense
falcon ears
flying bracelets
they all come
the ladder of silent haze
ascending down
climbing now
like broken flapping words
like wingless geese
climbing into my quilted idea
in the dark early light
the night eats
the dreams eat
the light eats
i eat
morning is gnawed gristle.