spring frags

branches break
brace the house no more
no defense, scratching tracery
striking stone through snow
wood spears rock
      & ham of my thought
makes tone of the impact
hum blown bone

*

Roofs & gables, chimney pots spew
Love leaks out like a liquid shadow
       black coffee
Write that in your phylacteries
The offense is in the obedience
       & superficial similarity to certain sexual practices
You haven't lived till you shit your pants on command
Binding the sign
       you still wake without an answer
At the new-age bookstore, they deny the gas chambers
This is faith too
The facts in heaps illegible stew

*

late the morning after the party
underlining the important words
in the green light of submarines
cold corner of cock-a-doodle-doo
who goes and has gone the way
it always is with revelations
no good the morning after the party

*

bringing secret evidence
in presence of disciples
rebuttals stacked
(to the absent cords
in the aerial photographs):
the fuel was fat

*

the evidence of lasting effect is
an acquired taste for strawberries
& something missing

*

Plum donuts. Ate at Staropolska.
I know we'll never go back to Georgia.
In Krakow, cabbage city, cabbies cry
"Oswiecim! You wanna go to Auschwitz?"
We circled the town nine times & disappeared
lily-liver of a blaspheming Jew
& removed the tattoos before burial.

*

Inside, watching the green rain
uncomfortable chair, pidgin language of body
giant runt meets bald pie
in the hours only cabs & determined streetcars
gum spots. a wet dog circling one.
the dark side of spring. mulch & window cats.