Astral Redux

There are spoken infirmities and spilled lips
cloaked in the growl of rusted foliage
and mutiny in the eyes
and in the ears and in the yawns
of faces wrinkled into disrepair and rage
                furious mold glittering on the clown’s tongue
                               under the streetlight a tail without a dog
world offenses
and the disjunction of its judges
cannot undo any of this
yet the boy who painted the evening sky
an orchard eager to implode
dropped the little dipper of his big idea
when he banged his head on the moon
and gravity was tilted back
and conciousness slid off the table
               so that arm in arm we took a wormhole through
                              and beyond the astral plane
                                             at times colorless
                              but peopled by a stampede of puddles
               families of stamps and envelopes
we heard the machines and taught them thoughtlessness
suspicions arose as a sparrow hit the window
the honey stood with the consistency of a clay pillar
the swagger of a lily endured by sages
the monk lighting a cigarette at the memorial
I’m remembering what was left
                of the ribbons in the murder room
                              and of the knife-shaped intruder
                                             that came through the keyhole
now both puppet and ventriloquist
hang by the cat’s cradle of the universal grid
a breeze expired on a blade of grass
to regard you with funereal indifference
as over the coined eyes of an unremembered uncle
who burned out in the exit lane
              I kick the heads off the dandelions saying a prayer
                             to dispel the sound of inner oceans
                                            undictated by this or that
                             indiscretion or assault or melodramatic arrival
I have my duty and know my name among the garden
traveling the beet to its root and back again
arms centrifugal in and out of time
going the course of nature in the wake of the worm
minding my own business hunched over
a scythe left and right at the big man’s knees
splitting the boulder to which I fastened my libido
my back a collapsible antennae my head a radio in the stars
my sleep patterns repeating in the rapids of sleep
               where will you be at midnight among the pranksters
                             conniving under the armored skirts
                                            whistling a tune?

by Ryan Dowling