In which the Atom witnesses the dying breaths of a friend in winter . . .

ocean snow, the gas stations a necessary design

luminal and homeless
outpouring exploits for unnecessary function

thoughts settle on the rose crux
the creases of unwashed sheets form written in wires, turning
dusted cocaine mirror
the color of blood runners

a small razored smile could a grail or
remainder of the ant infestation became you

could a sparkle
damn your friends and claim you a hotel room

horizontal limit, vertical position,
district of the poor cosmic particles
spectral as police warlocks who
charge & flutter like bats and heal?

the coal smudged on the train tracks is
pressed against her breasts like a dagger
unsealing various arterial rhythms

swerve of atoms through headlamps of cars
& patience while taking the mother’s fingers;
knots tied & broken like the fire that became the bodiless crucible
meanwhile untied from the handcuffs

entropic surge of a pretzel or donut,
rabbit hole of hungry mouths awaiting
maturation from a few & the action, the word, the breath--

A poem by Kenneth Patchen and with a photo by me

"O Howling Cells"

I protest against the manner of these ruins.
That their streets are soft with the dried hair
Of murdered children is not outside
The order of our speckled activity; even
The here recorded delight of the citizenry
In self-mutilation and impious sport,
Involving the real nature of human desires,
Can be condoned without loss to our earthly intent:
But that these very rocks and caked walls
Vomit a deeper evil; that this sorrowful wood
And impenetrable stone are witness
To unimaginable hells; and that not survivor
--Unless we except the insane--can share
The full horror of man's cruelty to the things
He could not kill; this cannot be forgiven.

(from Collected Poems; New Directions 1968; NDP 284)

Herpes Incorporated

an overheard conversation at Dos Segundos

We're herpes incorporated
the name wrote itself
like a sluggy tumor made of summer
all five hundred days of it
in the meatiness of the preseason

we cut each other off like door locks
"does anyone know where mercury is right now?"
vintage stores, boutiques, come back world!
                        we miss you...
you're the only magic act we're putting through

Leftover Windows and Their Chills

Originally written in March of this year. Much revised.

I wonder if the woman walking along finds love in her end.
There is a profit in it like with the pigs who police the laws of aesthetic.
Those who are nurturing discard thy artistry with bundles of wind hisses.

I wonder if the woman walking along fears her fear when it comes.
The trash of the hysterical. A race of ants to the door. The endless supply of
children left behind to rot as perished in an instant in this system of allowed lies.

Wondering. To be idiots, to be lied to, to be force into thinking.
To focus or write or think or remember—guns recoiling and shoving.
As you have fired so have they. Their bullet is a thousand being burned.

I think of the ritual sacrifices on Mayan monuments and all the fierce lovers,
and the Aztecs of yellowed teething and hunger, propped up like giant snakes.
Syringes of the scaled and horrifying embargoes mandated by grueling fatsos.

Snot is running thick down the face and is to be crusted over through the breeze.
It is a love that is concrete and can be heard with the smack of our boots on curbs.

Another Morning Stomach

the wires were barbed
with that sick-mouth taste

fluids, said the conductor
in essence, everything

we heard our child
behind us, breathless now

it was then that the greens organized
into a big-top tarp, awaiting erection