the INLAID EAR

I had an Armageddon dream. The terrible explosion nearby sent its heat-maddened shrapnel scudding from a cloud like a decorative bottle. City center transformed into a great candle. Then the mind’s innate drive toward its own survival shifted the dream’s setting into a new panel. In this segment, I was recording the prior end-of-days scenario into my journal. This dreamself explored the symbology of fire in futures untouched by the Ragnarok fractal. In the later dream, I told you of the terror we felt standing in the hot hail of the world’s fall, now passed into the safe angst of a dream’s prior dream; but your face fell, and fell away, the final bell of the morning’s first alarm. I want to call life a blessing, shadows and all. But today, you’ll please treat me to your soft voice and a tender smile. Truth is, I'm not sure about this poem, but I so love the drawing by Heather Wilcoxon .

Art by the amazing Hearther Wilcoxon Who wept at the romance     for Ginsberg and so for Solomon The moon yacketayakking, all over the street, danced on boxcars. Boxcars racketing over the rooftops. Storefront Moloch, whose ear is smoking, wandered around and around seeking jazz or sex or soup, trying to giggle, but wound up with a sob—animal soup intelligent and shaking. The archangel of the soul will never return your soul, faded out in vast sordid movies. Holy Istanbul vanished into nowhere Zen. Midnight streetlight smalltown rain ended fainting on the wall.

Thank you thank you to  Soyinka Rahim for bringing her mother's art to the book. My grandmother called this “Snare-a-husband.” She never wrote out the recipe but made me memorize it before she died. I’m humming the song of ingredients, stirring around your name, my bowl, my bird. Yet your freedom’s what I love most, my heart, and I’m far too giddy to bake a trap even if I wanted to. When we part tonight with our bellies full, night will wrap its separate dreams around us. My David, will you dream of me? Earthy smells rise up layering the edible atmosphere held steaming beneath the coal-crusted tarp of stars. If you will be mine, then we’re here for that purpose. Eat, my friend. Fill your plate. Two birds told me about the weight you bear. Swallow that bite then share, please, share your thoughts.

Shall I compare thee to a Winter’s day? Thou art more still and far more temperate. Rough winds do shake the manor’s windowpanes, and Winter’s lease hath all too short a date. But thy eternal Winter shall not fade so long as in the virgin’s blood you bathe nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade, when in eternal crimson-thirst thy ghost administers its soul-suck to thy prey. And yet in aerial din cold Death may boast his servant to the Netherworlds beguiles. Innocent, I laid near thee, Twilit Host, but, O, thy soul within a nadir lie. By dawn we both drank deep the salt of Fate. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can cry, so long we shun the light, we canst not die. by Mark Hammermeister - here's the full-color version!