Pugnacious wit of the settlers’ blood
Eventually paved America:
Discovered Wal-M*art, invented presidents,
And cold turkey with mint jelly;
...
There is no sea here,
I see no sea;
This is the body of the desert,
The rich made faint blue,
...
Quartz sloops sail the depressive mountain,
Brushing the coned lips of steaming pines,
Where the slumbering half-light tips towards
The forgetful holidays, where the mulberries
...
Old books in my hands,
Are rectangular planets of the psocids who live in them;
Each page a whispering continent prone to wispy quakes,
The spine an avenue which halves this earth,
...
This night salvos into nothing;
Narvaez and de Vaca are full of virgin arrows;
The festive quills bloom like pompadours from their cracked elbows.
The waves break like a nurse’s knuckles
...
In the middle of the mechanic’s summer,
Defeated by the upper presumptions,
I wait for snow;
No longer liberal, I get drunk at air shows,
...
Hat tricks burn the air over the erstwhile celebration;
Where the little boys are sleeping with blotchy coats,
The bouquets of fluidic clitorises of red hibiscus,
Reveal the deep quieted organs beneath the ripped denim;
...
Against the borderline,
I try for her pulse, warmth to my jaundiced cheek;
She is still alive,
But it is so dark from where they are fleeing,
...
The scoundrel should pay that off for you.
He gave you that perfect teethed smile,
His alibi,
And then left you in the dreary parking lot
...