but when I'm an apple

when I'm imagining a fountain of jewels pouring out

         of the wax loopholes of this night

and nothing relaxes my nerves which sing like cornsilk

         tassels

and the man I am leaves me: I

am a bell pepper, I am a quince,

                                                 I am the gold leaves

blackening and beginning to ache and a rainbow

silently appears in the sky

suddenly you look up, What heard it? I can't count

the bone hours until I am black

until my skin sings with the wings of gulls and air

      currents

all I know is this redeeming voice

this jewel this ruby this sapphire this emerald this

      gold skull ring

around human fingers which dissolve into a haunting river.

I wrap myself in the candle of her arm

and hold close to her warm breath

I let myself begin to hum, as the night

closes around me like a cat: and I listen hard---

the walls are gone, the planets are circling our earth for a reason

they circle our sun but they circle our earth

I watch them arc in the sky each night

Venus, Jupiter, Mars and the moon pared so thin

I am amazed---rubies swirl in gold rivers

pouring from loopholes in the night, which fall

into the quivering pool: the waterfall made a gash

in the ferns the foam mixed

with what churns in my nerves, her hair floated, was moss

the salamander smiled on the rockface of the skull

the Phantom wore on his finger: I picked the vine out of

         air

I tested it, it was strong, it was rooted

in the earth, I pulled up and swung off

I selected another in mid-air, I was my father

dreaming of Tarzan when he was a boy

(I had a ring with a secret in it---

(a light) I crawled under the house where the ashgray dirt

      cracked

I heard my mother creaking the floor over my head

I heard my bones crack

I heard the clock tick

I heard the gun cock

I heard the stitches rip

I heard the cobwebs tear placentas and my ring was broken

from the chain, I seached among the ashes for it,

I picked up a string of molecules which led through a

       dead bird's neck,

I followed it like a rosary, a necklace of jeweled

DNA beads, I climbed into the attic, I crept

I slid, I continued to urge

myself through my wounds, the hatred, the kerosene

mixed with urine and sold for whiskey...

I step on tiny mice feet I walk like sparks

which ignite the ground with heartbeats I twinkle

lightly

I am not alone, the night sings to me of the teeth

which reveal blood during the day: during the day the haze

lulls the city; I descend into the Velvet Turtle,

a womb bar, and sit in the soft naugehyde animal;

dicecups popping against the bar are riot sticks against

        someone's head, clacketing horses running down strikers,

violent laughter, click click

this is the sound of the counter in the man's hand

as people go out of the museum

Why? Why? my son asks and that is

because the leaves unfurl again in the tormenting clear

          light---

the white rainwashed eucalyptus against blue sky

the blackbird's purple and green iridescence, the red eyes

of black coots with white beaks, the swan

I walked up to disrespectfully raised

its cobra neck and snorted a warning

don't mess with big birds)

This is the time for jewels, this is the time for swords

this is the time for bows and arrows and leather thongs

this is the time for horses and apples this is the time

for light to ring from the ropes of water thrown with a

      thud into the dust

this is the time for thundering hooves

muffled in the dust the turmoil of skin and bones

strung on the testicles of night this

is the time when people begin to lie down and dream of the

       furs

they have killed for in which they sleep

this is the time

when wheels click and turn and bells

ring and elevators open

and people drop money into the coke machine

and this is the time when a woman smiles at a man

and this is the time when that man is working on the

       electrical system

which powers the computers which process your check

and he drops a wrench

and blue and yellow sparks weld him into silver forever.

Now everyone is working intimately with flashlights.

This is the time to send out for pizza, this is the time

to get closer, to notice someone

next to you you've worked with for two years

because bombs are falling outside this is the time the

         arrows sprout

from the boy's belly in the surf

because our bananas cost lives and this is King Kong's

pink mouth opening in the night sky dreamed of

by lonely men who create their own loneliness

following a woman inside them they can't touch, this is

       the voyage

Ulysses went on and that I go on

this is the Quest For The Holy Grail, this is the fingering

of the bloody robe of Chirst, this is the putting on of the

       priest's collar

and the ruby and diamond ring of the pimp---

this is the sable around the neck of the Eskimo woman

who lives in the snow, the woman who chews leather

all day and makes clothes so the man can hunt

seals and skin whales and this is when he feels the blue

       revolver

of an oil pipe slide beneath his fingers replacing the

       woman:

this is the story of the grandpa who walked

and walked and walked because his wife was in love with her

          brother

this is the story of two men emasculated by their wives'

      older brothers

and who let their gift for language go

who lost the dream their mother gave them: this is

me and I'm walking along dreaming of what I finger:

This is the rosary they prayed for the conversion of Russia

which clicked tickertape from the stock market

but was the DNA chain: nucleotides floated

in the warm oceans of my cells: ribosomes opened

to receive amino acids according to the tender voice which

       sang

along the silver bloodwire of the endoplasmic

reticulum: the zipper twisted apart and black strings

      pulled

the spider off the mirror and two cells

                                                         moved:

ruby cytosine, sapphire quanine, emerald thymine, diamond

adenine, each found its mate

in the snow which fell

silently around the Eskimo couple on top of the world.

The sky is blue

dreams are given to color and everything tells itself

           forever.

The things we have to get used to are not supposed to ever

be gotten used to. I don't want to get used to blood

which pours from the snows of my forehead, in the form of

         oil.

I don't want to get used to the eye of the man

napalmed by accident on the last day of the war

whose eye tilted like a fish eye, a specific fish eye

which I killed, a six foot sailfish which fed the pigs.

I won't ever get used to this blood and shit

I don't believe death is senseless. Those planets

orbit our sun for a reason and that reason

is this harmony of skin, it contains power in music

and we are shutting off the music in the pipes.

I know a man who has lost and I know I have lost.

I won't get used to the catastrophe of killing stars

by making sparks against a person's skin

which ends up like the lady addicted to shock therapy.

The lion's eyes are rubies

in the night sky they are voices of dead poets

they are my ancestors their bones are jewels and

they speak to me tonight. A meteor

averaged a diamond every thirty square inches: a hunk of

         iron

full of diamonds fell out of the night sky. Why? 

This is "peace." Forklift fumes

warm the skin with suffocating moisture.

The lungs gag. Ears hurt.

Iron wobbles on concrete

aluminum blackens the hands

sharp poisons from the urinals pierce the nostrils

you are worthless shit.

The exhibitors are tended to,

as they are fleeced.

They put up with it,

hoping to fleece others. Nobody is really

useful, or doing anything beyond himself.

A small street sweeper drives in the

door: FMC on the hood: the largest maker of track vehicles

during the Vietnam war. The GI's are rolling carpets now, those that still have arms.

The ring of fire

around Jim Wiley

was napalm,

him with only a forty-five, surrounded

by Vietcong:

helicoptered out.

To escape is your chance to shape

the world's prison. There is nothing to do.

We wait. The clouds cover the sun.

The air is poison, the heart jubilant

at a drop of dew.

My two hands. Aching to build

the new world. They're still strong.

I can still do something. That drop of dew,

that drop of dew like a miracle, a simple lens.

It turns the world upside down.

We can put our minds together

by lying on the grass and looking through it

But we've only got fifteen minutes to do it.