One: Once again, anatomy's arson is denied the podium.
a life
distilled, doctored via
acres of ache --
trace a recital,
a revival
of unveiled venom
he paused
and arose,
left silk's luster
ajar
and his resentments linger
as a splinter in a finger
Two: Aluminum guards these insomniac colors.
come now, saviors, sweep the environs
come now,
songs
of spirit,
songs of barbed
consequence -
sing of his parting,
cue the vigilant tending
of wounds
let us savor this crusade's bravery,
watch the widows turn to wicker
Three: The adversity in her voice.
resuscitation as artful alchemy --
packets of snapshots, an epistle
to a mistress left floating in a coma
(hers is a blurry profile
but surely there is
some hint of resemblance)
the crux is scrubbed
of trust,
his stomach
slurps and erupts
but waters remain in abeyance
Four: A semantic thereafter of windmills and monographs.
hornets hover, spiders
spy,
and we all pulse
with epiphany,
ponder puzzles
of others' misfortune
he pushes
sutures
outward,
lets biological bygones
be gone, lets the after-
math pour forth
Five: Sudden waters traversed prematurely.
cathedrals built from guilt
are still cathedrals, yes?
strictly speaking
he sweeps the skeletons
of history aside
and seeks high ground,
if not the mountaintop
the oblique get kicked
as threaded gestures
begin to unravel
Six: The passengers seemed unaware of impending disaster.
upon reports that the trenches are indeed infinite,
battalions shed their weapons and await their fate
imagine entire squadrons razed by his anger,
conjecture a wedding star-crossed by proxy,
anxious planets predicting pox and plagues,
the violence
of what must
transpire --
tracers fire
while scripts
distend, ornaments
are mistaken for anchors
Seven: Acrylic cells smile on these evolved revisions.
she recalls sibling rivalry while he remembers
a bridge that didn't rise in time
still she abridged this blizzard for ease of use,
held deities at bay outside his tract's apogee
the highway's texture a subtle measure of her unease,
the manner in which he savors this stilted silence
his aroused jousting courts distorted curvatures,
the semantics of a more comprehensive negation
Eight: Witness several signs of a phenomenon developing.
he whispered, "this procedure achieves an archival innocence"
he cooed, "those around you are ignorant of such provocative traps"
he wailed, "most foreboding"
he cried, "the genesis of genius
tender tenor
variations
on your vision
oh."
Nine: Wherein extended jaunts pursue restitution.
salmon bolt from greasy sinks
while his equilibrium is again assaulted
shores roil in champagne,
surf licking the feet of besotted angels
he waxes philosophical of sacrifice
and departures while attired
in something stainless,
waves away thoughts of sanctuary
and refuses to note the marble statuary
that continues to list, sinking back into the sand
Ten: Blanket aneurysms with hydrostatic gravity.
even as carbon dawns
and clocks gnaw at his flawed
foundations, he dares to finesse
vertigo's spill, oratory bursting
forth in an ivory torrent
as he strives to revive curses
and caresses for the historians
kneeling at his feet --
hear how crossfire
curdled her womb's cocoon,
how phantoms of slaughtered
daughters become cloned
over another vodka and tonic,
staining the cloth of his insomnia
Eleven: The sudden tremor was not of the ship's lurching.
who was salvaged from those strange chambers
what uncoils in vertigo
when autographs were scrawled across a flawed glossy reprint
where there is still that briny wetness
why incense was lit after that troubled crossing
Twelve: Desist this reciprocity of spirit.
where words were, eighteen paths
of an amnesiac slumber
the roads grow
narrow, snow swirls but nothing sticks
the scrawl of cryptic glyphs,
something twisting,
splitting and
shapes shifting,
slipping through steam
time is
sliding, this side
winding
encrypted like
slipping a second skin
on over his own
Thirteen: Unenamored with esoterica, these affairs topple towers.
armies scatter,
landmarks shatter
& dementia whispers
just outside the windows
still he bathes his face
in the chill of charmed waters,
he dreams of treasures waiting
just beyond the battered ramparts