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    Joe Milford Cracked Altimeter 978-1-934289-78-5 "Bring your parachute and your appreciation for wonder because Joe Milford pilots us on a breathtakingly perilous journey where “[e]very world is a womb.” So why is the altimeter cracked? Maybe because we have been asked to fly through unchartered altitudes with these “protracted/aerial maneuvers,” and ultimately we have been asked to climb and climb until we get to the bottom. He ushers us into the hushed worlds and the howling worlds—the scorched places where we love and cry and dream and laugh and ache and love. Joe Milford is a mad minstrel-pilot whose songs are compassionate and crazy—gracious and aerobatic—always lucidly enigmatic. Be prepared to fly through “a rain of flaming dictionaries.” Soar through this book. It is crackingly beautiful. —Patrick Lawler, author of Feeding the Fear of the Earth Joe Milford’s Cracked Altimeter is fantastic. Each line is packed with such intense vividness and rhythm. It’s overwhelming. Milford’s labyrinthine constructions of language tear your head off and make you taste the colors of the imagery, leaving you begging for more. One of the best books of contemporary poetry I’ve read in a long time. —Connor Stratman, author of Invisible Entrances and First Testament Here are multitudes. In Joe Milford’s hell-bent Cracked Altimeter, “All the names of Heaven/become a universal phonetic.” I’m grateful for his effusiveness; these hexed poems dispense grace enough to make even the warped and wayward begin to see again, and to believe. And it’s as if T. Roethke has been invited to participate in the first decade of this century. Marking transcendence is more of a challenge than ever—and also endless play and fun for Milford and his readers. “No one knows I have this psychic ray gun,” he writes. But of course we do. One in the holster, one in his belt, and another, just in case, under his pillow. —Steve Langan, author of Meet Me at the Happy Bar Brimming with poems that fiercely tackle the subject of writing poems, Joe Milford’s Cracked Altimeter refuses to be pinned down as meta, to be pinned down by a simple conceit. This is a young man’s life work, obsessed with interconnectedness, with human acts as basic as walking and fucking, as complicated as love and writing, taking its cues from Twain and Whitman (who, as the poet states in a pitch perfect moment, ‘No one reads enough [of]’). This is a book of desire and transcendence, obsessed by, and never afraid of, its mysteries, that turns toward those mysteries with language both base and grand: ‘To be your gift and unwrap you as well,’ says Milford, ‘Got some home-made Indian-ink safety pin tattoos,’ Milford says; ‘I took her under the pines.’ Joe Milford is the best kind of poet: one in love with language and life. —Emily Van Duyne Joe Milford might just be the space-age love child of Walt Whitman and Christopher Smart. And this book is his Big Bang of poetry. Words fly. Sentences explode. The pages pulsate with the kind of energy unleashed at the birth of the universe. Milford promises to “make a sofa out of a supernova and drink quasar cocktails.” So take a seat, pour a drink and get ready for a sound and light show of life-lust, exacting observation, bizarro flights of ecstasy, boastfulness, pathos and love – narrated in a voice like no other. Milford is an amazed and amazing poet. Here is his extraordinary “light-speed sprint.” Follow him “with slow eyes/deciphering the blurs.” —Tom Healy, author of What the Right Hand Knows " Joseph Victor Milford currently resides in balmy rural Georgia with his beautiful wife, daughter, and step-daughter, where he teaches full-time at Georgia Military College. Joe's work has been published or is forthcoming in the following journals: The Brooklyn Review, The Kennesaw Review, The Wild Goose Review, VOLT, Ourobouros Review, etc. His poem, “Janitor Moonlighting” was recently nominated for a Best of the Web and a Pushcart Prize. He is

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    Joe Milford Cracked Altimeter 978-1-934289-78-5 "Bring your parachute and your appreciation for wonder because Joe Milford pilots us on a breathtakingly perilous journey where “[e]very world is a womb.” So why is the altimeter cracked? Maybe because we have been asked to fly through unchartered altitudes with these “protracted/aerial maneuvers,” and ultimately we have been asked to climb and climb until we get to the bottom. He ushers us into the hushed worlds and the howling worlds—the scorched places where we love and cry and dream and laugh and ache and love. Joe Milford is a mad minstrel-pilot whose songs are compassionate and crazy—gracious and aerobatic—always lucidly enigmatic. Be prepared to fly through “a rain of flaming dictionaries.” Soar through this book. It is crackingly beautiful. —Patrick Lawler, author of Feeding the Fear of the Earth Joe Milford’s Cracked Altimeter is fantastic. Each line is packed with such intense vividness and rhythm. It’s overwhelming. Milford’s labyrinthine constructions of language tear your head off and make you taste the colors of the imagery, leaving you begging for more. One of the best books of contemporary poetry I’ve read in a long time. —Connor Stratman, author of Invisible Entrances and First Testament Here are multitudes. In Joe Milford’s hell-bent Cracked Altimeter, “All the names of Heaven/become a universal phonetic.” I’m grateful for his effusiveness; these hexed poems dispense grace enough to make even the warped and wayward begin to see again, and to believe. And it’s as if T. Roethke has been invited to participate in the first decade of this century. Marking transcendence is more of a challenge than ever—and also endless play and fun for Milford and his readers. “No one knows I have this psychic ray gun,” he writes. But of course we do. One in the holster, one in his belt, and another, just in case, under his pillow. —Steve Langan, author of Meet Me at the Happy Bar Brimming with poems that fiercely tackle the subject of writing poems, Joe Milford’s Cracked Altimeter refuses to be pinned down as meta, to be pinned down by a simple conceit. This is a young man’s life work, obsessed with interconnectedness, with human acts as basic as walking and fucking, as complicated as love and writing, taking its cues from Twain and Whitman (who, as the poet states in a pitch perfect moment, ‘No one reads enough [of]’). This is a book of desire and transcendence, obsessed by, and never afraid of, its mysteries, that turns toward those mysteries with language both base and grand: ‘To be your gift and unwrap you as well,’ says Milford, ‘Got some home-made Indian-ink safety pin tattoos,’ Milford says; ‘I took her under the pines.’ Joe Milford is the best kind of poet: one in love with language and life. —Emily Van Duyne Joe Milford might just be the space-age love child of Walt Whitman and Christopher Smart. And this book is his Big Bang of poetry. Words fly. Sentences explode. The pages pulsate with the kind of energy unleashed at the birth of the universe. Milford promises to “make a sofa out of a supernova and drink quasar cocktails.” So take a seat, pour a drink and get ready for a sound and light show of life-lust, exacting observation, bizarro flights of ecstasy, boastfulness, pathos and love – narrated in a voice like no other. Milford is an amazed and amazing poet. Here is his extraordinary “light-speed sprint.” Follow him “with slow eyes/deciphering the blurs.” —Tom Healy, author of What the Right Hand Knows " Joseph Victor Milford currently resides in balmy rural Georgia with his beautiful wife, daughter, and step-daughter, where he teaches full-time at Georgia Military College. Joe's work has been published or is forthcoming in the following journals: The Brooklyn Review, The Kennesaw Review, The Wild Goose Review, VOLT, Ourobouros Review, etc. His poem, “Janitor Moonlighting” was recently nominated for a Best of the Web and a Pushcart Prize. He is

    Copyright:

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    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    267 views16 pages

    Cracked Altimeter by Joseph Milford Book Preview

    Uploaded by

    BlazeVOX [books]
    Joe Milford Cracked Altimeter 978-1-934289-78-5 "Bring your parachute and your appreciation for wonder because Joe Milford pilots us on a breathtakingly perilous journey where “[e]very world is a womb.” So why is the altimeter cracked? Maybe because we have been asked to fly through unchartered altitudes with these “protracted/aerial maneuvers,” and ultimately we have been asked to climb and climb until we get to the bottom. He ushers us into the hushed worlds and the howling worlds—the scorched places where we love and cry and dream and laugh and ache and love. Joe Milford is a mad minstrel-pilot whose songs are compassionate and crazy—gracious and aerobatic—always lucidly enigmatic. Be prepared to fly through “a rain of flaming dictionaries.” Soar through this book. It is crackingly beautiful. —Patrick Lawler, author of Feeding the Fear of the Earth Joe Milford’s Cracked Altimeter is fantastic. Each line is packed with such intense vividness and rhythm. It’s overwhelming. Milford’s labyrinthine constructions of language tear your head off and make you taste the colors of the imagery, leaving you begging for more. One of the best books of contemporary poetry I’ve read in a long time. —Connor Stratman, author of Invisible Entrances and First Testament Here are multitudes. In Joe Milford’s hell-bent Cracked Altimeter, “All the names of Heaven/become a universal phonetic.” I’m grateful for his effusiveness; these hexed poems dispense grace enough to make even the warped and wayward begin to see again, and to believe. And it’s as if T. Roethke has been invited to participate in the first decade of this century. Marking transcendence is more of a challenge than ever—and also endless play and fun for Milford and his readers. “No one knows I have this psychic ray gun,” he writes. But of course we do. One in the holster, one in his belt, and another, just in case, under his pillow. —Steve Langan, author of Meet Me at the Happy Bar Brimming with poems that fiercely tackle the subject of writing poems, Joe Milford’s Cracked Altimeter refuses to be pinned down as meta, to be pinned down by a simple conceit. This is a young man’s life work, obsessed with interconnectedness, with human acts as basic as walking and fucking, as complicated as love and writing, taking its cues from Twain and Whitman (who, as the poet states in a pitch perfect moment, ‘No one reads enough [of]’). This is a book of desire and transcendence, obsessed by, and never afraid of, its mysteries, that turns toward those mysteries with language both base and grand: ‘To be your gift and unwrap you as well,’ says Milford, ‘Got some home-made Indian-ink safety pin tattoos,’ Milford says; ‘I took her under the pines.’ Joe Milford is the best kind of poet: one in love with language and life. —Emily Van Duyne Joe Milford might just be the space-age love child of Walt Whitman and Christopher Smart. And this book is his Big Bang of poetry. Words fly. Sentences explode. The pages pulsate with the kind of energy unleashed at the birth of the universe. Milford promises to “make a sofa out of a supernova and drink quasar cocktails.” So take a seat, pour a drink and get ready for a sound and light show of life-lust, exacting observation, bizarro flights of ecstasy, boastfulness, pathos and love – narrated in a voice like no other. Milford is an amazed and amazing poet. Here is his extraordinary “light-speed sprint.” Follow him “with slow eyes/deciphering the blurs.” —Tom Healy, author of What the Right Hand Knows " Joseph Victor Milford currently resides in balmy rural Georgia with his beautiful wife, daughter, and step-daughter, where he teaches full-time at Georgia Military College. Joe's work has been published or is forthcoming in the following journals: The Brooklyn Review, The Kennesaw Review, The Wild Goose Review, VOLT, Ourobouros Review, etc. His poem, “Janitor Moonlighting” was recently nominated for a Best of the Web and a Pushcart Prize. He is

    Copyright:

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    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 16

    Cracked

    Altimeter

    Joseph V. Milford

    BlazeVOX [books]
    Buffalo, New York

    Cracked Altimeter by Joseph Milford Copyright 2010 Published by BlazeVOX [books] All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews. Printed in the United States of America Book design by Geoffrey Gatza Cover, Pantheon I., is a collage by Joseph V. Milford First Edition ISBN: 978-1-934289-78-5 Library of Congress Control Number 2008932203 BlazeVOX [books] 303 Bedford Ave Buffalo, NY 14216 Editor@blazevox.org

    \
    p ublisher of weird little books

    BlazeVOX [ books ]
    blazevox.org
    2 4 6 8 0 9 7 5 3 1

    From THE NOTEBOOKS OF PRIAPUS (1990-1993) Metamorphoses i. stasis (releasing) I release my eyes, the mutineers, the crying. I release my hair, the windtorn sail, the unraveling. I release my tongue, the salted figurehead, the twisting. I release my heart, the contraband, the despoilment. I release my arms, the splintered masts, the embracing. I release my feet, the rusting anchors, the sinking. I release my body, the barnacled hull, the aching. I release my brain, the battered seachest, the raging. I release my being, my ship, now intangible to the tongs Of this bony grip, a muscled crustacean crawling from its shell And sailing away with a whip of its tail, Hurtling from this painful geometry; Already I am sundering the surface With equal symmetry, Emerging and submerging, Impact in dichotomy, yes, There are other seas than these. ii. lepidoptery

    Even the larva still breathes as butterfly, Unfettered, paper-thin, a soft wound re-opened to rise. From inside-out surgery against treebark, a frantic Emergency in the dark, the embalmed, anointed Silken sarcophagus, wound cylindrical pod of kinesis, Opens vigilant into the first light of wings. Energy held like a tightrope or spring. Energy about to break from husk into being. Energy in the cerulean white sickled night. Fill these trees that are my lungs with Higher altitudes and sweeter tongues. I am tendril, I am tentacle. I am sentience unfurled. I am cocoon perpetual. Every world is a womb. iii. nocturne Nature withholds its own tenements allowing clusterings in tiny increments to enter her arms 11

    and suckle her breasts and here I do not lie down to rest unless I take to root. The gooseflesh ripples across my thighs like a field of cacti spines. Here, in the brush beside the ocean where the unsaid slimes, scuttles and slithers, the fungus, lichen, the shafts of the reeds, the driftwood withers, the tenements, the clusterings, the tiny increments, with this gristmill monster of horizon and erosion-the longer we pause the deeper the sand sinks us undeniably. Our hands become our awkward fins, our hair the shifting sea anemone. iv. spirouettes swelling within perfect sacs until the moment of ignition, certain flowers keep their stems for propulsion flagellates winding out into jetstreams to explode onto windshields and splatter upon headlights, these spores breaking across the pounding thighs of Olympic sprinters or flanks of jaguars and leopards, sticking to the static of a young dancers leotards, spreading through suburbia or flooding across soccer-fields in sporadic effluviumits the desire to lodge into, to burrow into, to find niche so that the seed grows skin, can eventually erect itself again, stretching its mineral-starved digits, its gills sucking ravenously at sunlight, as pods birth secrets and secrete them in corners of the night, the day a magnificent quilt spread like a green carnage under supernovae v. kaleidoscope All points converge here. Exerting my own gravity, I. Windswept weed, spore pinwheeling injecting into a dune violently 12

    then gathering the hill around me an epicenter in bloom, splinter in the thumb of timeto fossil or breathe. I knew the universe as a child holding a kaleidoscope; the cogs of infinity spin webs of interluscent harmonies. I have known the caterwauling despairs, I have captured, caressed, and fondled all the hairs of every intuition, and now I am nursing my limbs into fruition. I will remain here in the midst of my own incantations and invitations holding the dirigible of my future down with kitestring, cutting my hands. My hands are the farmers hands, scarred deep, cracked, reptilian. My eyes are love enraged, spherical vermilion. I am within everything that I touch and see, my mandala in every detail and delicacy. That spiral perfect in us all no matter how our sword carves our storms. Kites go up to infinites with our fears. Tents in windsastral homesmaps set free. All points converge there.

    13

    Invocations 1. Craftsman The all-encompassing black wings of the manta ray of the apocalypse gliding above our christenings. Erecting myself. I am erupting; my hands at their star-scraping, the elapse of time, the eclipses in the thrumming night like cash or sex or fireworks. My eyes the slivers of neon and phosphorescence my smiles like popcorns bursting. To be your gift and unwrap you as well. To put the ocean into a jar. To know its beauty in a glance, you need only see the nautilus. To have you with me in my midnight liberties as we breathe the darkness in that is bleeding us. Blackberries and snow deciding all of it as we Lathe the strong keel, shavings littering our workshops. 2. Svengali And so you too have come to this Being that your hand is on this very page. Being that my voice is resounding Chant, mojo, koan, hoodoo, voodoo. Tonight when you decide on a walk, I will be out there waiting for you With a growling velvet texture And your breath in the breeze And my crawling feline endeavor To have you in my hands This enthralled sensuous gesture And my hand in the trees rustling The leaves into murmurings. Rain is the throne I sat on, knowing. I want you to give to me what you have forbidden yourself. Breathe me in, consume this, eat of this flesh from the furthest gropings of my fingertips; I have prints of the deep, innermost hearts on them Spirals of nebulae born in ancient perturbations, and even though you dont need me anymore-I come hungry to the door carrying the burning core. 14

    3. Boy Scout: Bobcat Badge As my hair writhes tangled vines on my head my toes sucked by carpet over beds edge an insomnia brought by the most egotistical moon nocturnal upheaval with knowledge of badges. I go out the screen door slams behind in its frame. I know some of you stars, your names, thumbtacks of creation stabbed into the black corkboard of secrets as the rapid tombstone orb of earth spins under me. There were things that were outright fabricated; pregnant I was with epics that ended skeletal, the fireflies in aerial battle above the infantry of cricket electricity; I land Huck-happy in briars and brambles. These beacons remain that tap my windowpanes as my skin freckles in the sun as a youth. I will age with my hair grayed by starshine smoothed silver by moonsphere, and the lines from my eyes the ruts of landed visions. 4. Beatnik Uncle the ghost in the corner of the page, watermarked the songs nuance, or specific solo of laughter the random beauty of an eclectic woman the man in the moon his tongue hanging out the coin impossible under the grating: need magnet the piece of the puzzle found years later on an island the phantasm slipping through manacles, sulphuric the peacock running into the cactus field (you try to count all of the eyes the moments there) the lizard articulating temperature by its breathing the Venetian blinds setting the scene the Christmas lights ruining it. the star that someone sees falling but you miss it even though you see the fall in their eye. the thing, man, the thing and you know you cant ever say it 5. Frat Boy I am walking up College street. Or down. Or both. I wear a carved silver Gemini medallion around my neck. I stride like a lion wounded in youth and nurtured back by some pride. The rune-medallion bangs against my chest in my lumbering rhythm. A matrimony between silver and sternum-bone. I am someones Scotch-Irish king of this small-town jungle. A big-fanged fish in a small Georgia toilet. An albatross drawing a bulls-eye on his chest. 15

    Just waiting for someone who can take me. 6. Newbie W iccan I am the harbinger of things that go bump in the night. I am what the fat lady sings to a face of madness in oil-lamp light. I was a gatherer, a grave-digger. I was an unaccustomed Mardi Gras in a wet brown paper sack. A spoonful of ice-cream sealing a pavement crack. Sprigs of herbs, graffiti, seashells, marbles, bobbles wrapped in waxpaper, scraps, matchsticks, a handful of hellicoptering guitars wailing in distortion sewn inside a pocket of blue velvet. Four elements. Kiss me and then leave, but first a lock of your hair. 7. Biographer I suspect I am an alien and an offspring of Christopher Walken so I have this hairline and this hundred-yard stare and this hair worthy of magazine covers and leading-man parts and there is an entire alien culture based upon my personal hygiene; there are alien folk-songs based on my bad luck and alien vessels mistaken for stars are my guardians above my apartment there levitates a green-haired harikari go-go-girl who wants to marry and dance me to death but for now she awaits my metamorphosis. 8. The Hanged Man to The Fool They say I read too much Whitman. No one reads enough Whitman. 9. Chandler People love to play with candles. Melting slow molasses rivers. I learned that glass is also a slow liquid. In older houses it gathers at the bottom of sills distorting things. A chain of defiled paper-dolls are the days, these Mondays, Tuesdays, Sundays, all decanters full of what-ifs, sacks full of maybes that you just cant close tightly; you tug at the drawstring; you buy the vase full of I-wishes, but you are only bound in more tether 16

    and twine with your back arched against a stubborn table of timelines. Well, we are all made to be free, made to inhale a soulful burning sweet-ness. We are instruments of smooth form birthed into completeness. I am not afraid right now of the candle-light that surrounds us here and completes us. 10. M aenad or Drunkard To dance is the imitation of animals. To flutter and flicker bright and brief. To crash against the reef and be ripped to ribbons. To give back what was so given. To hold snakes eternally while others coil within you. And you wander through honeycombs and rivers. How much is ever really hidden? Shoulder this world of yourself for a moment. Learning is a craft of painful giving. The greater things than you. Their is music trapped within this instrument. The siren screamed to make the bow bend. The violin screamed like a stretched tendon hamstring. The sound of the night suddenly ending. The curtain catcall of macabre laments and aubades. The dusk the dawn the twilight the requiem. I pull the quilt up to my shoulders and then realize that I am not cold here. I was saved so many times. I wish I was cold here but I never will be again.

    17

    Nomads Rags 1. we dont have no homeland we make this land our home we dont have a mythos weve triangulated it into one we have no mission we are missing in action witch-doctors stripped of culture and cut off of its wish sucking signals from a satellite dish born postmodern, abortion post-partem I, a speaking morgue of a thousand axioms skinned seasoned with the need to icon, carrying the pelts of culture-killed myths, and I will deliver this unidentified object to you, try to reverse engineer it 2. in the telescopic I see one specific place for me in an interstellar tropic I ride the lightwaves microscopic 3. rain of glass, I should let you know that I am rain.

    4. there is a glimmering placid of undecided gleam shining its sheen on everything 5.

    18

    tighten your belts for the treks the sun does not inspire religions it bleaches bones in its ultraviolets the eternal trash-can night of man but we leave home without our papers driving towards worlds we cant afford to lose our identities in, following the shadow of the aspiring obelisk 6. decanter girl met bullshit gulper we procreate and hate each other liquid was language no poet wrote poems no war ever had bad knees no hat ever fit Jehovah no nomad ever punched a dromedary crops kept growing where they could toxins kept up with them like weeds we infiltrate every field we chop each other down then laugh at the girl with a mug of bulls blood gulping it hard on a commercial shot like a signal out of a satellites jugular her perfect breasts soaked under the Amercian flag bikini top 7. when I fly over in my protracted aerial maneuvers I am giving to you the finger and sunlight gets obscured by it, the it that always obscures sunlight, obelisk the it that is worshipped on this the earthship nothing can flourish with its nourished other under the flagpoles and spires we wax like congealed fruits in museums when I fly over I create museums about excursions not observations 19

    a collection of wanings there is only the cartography of the being which is a map of the last time anyone has fallen in love 8. I live in a hive of isms. I have been stung intermittently. I am an anarchanachronometricist-I made this word up, this occupation out-of-context with timelines. I am destroying by contextualizing and no one will ever admit to killing me back; its like a Cain cursed with unlimited ink. I guard a horde of the last of the smelling-salts, tons of it, to revive all of you motherfuckers when the cities fall like the New Yorks never do. 9. I did a triple-lindy through the halo cracked the crackle-glaze horizon made everything into a snowstorm with acid and a Masters degree in semantic self-doubt masked with metaphor self-filigree a bastion of me shrill self of feedback shells the amplifier shrieks into a powder of pulverized guitar chords settling where they should like shattered hourglasses puking their possible moment farts in whirlwinds. 10. we had twelve good reasons to leave home at twelve but, we were killed instantly by twelve-year-olds with guns that had been forged out of ages of abandoned homes

    20

    11. I would fly across the eyes of skyscrapers like never-read-before newspapers. 12. thats the way that Id learned the star laughed. light has thinner and thinner chapters, too see it watch rivers and drink beer with beautiful women. I will joke like the water and never drown and I will bamboozle what is worth it and sell it for what its worth. 13. my joyous Renaissance of misreadings! language the cagers netscapes umbra no umbrellas in liturgia the syntax-tacles

    the making of menageries a push for domain the poem lost in betwixt the great names of fantastic weapons a teen frustrated limpid insipid epic autobiography with a joystick that sells millions hunt this vista, we all are late for our own date with an abyss when we meet this we dive in with our magnifying glasses plunges, lunges, excuses echo-minded dual nature of a two-headed beast over-fed is redundant in its gender the deserter of the plain was untainted by naming it as nomads we leave only when man or nature 21

    forces ideals upon our foodsources 14. feathers fall from biplanes a flock was clipped I guess and just think you could shoot a rifle at a tree and never hit one leaf 15. are these the landscapes that I write from? the Great White Page, jaws profiled in a snowscape. the sturgeon swimming under the clouds of lilies or barely missing the lure or hiding under ice-sheet. Or is it the urging white into black ink letters, like insects on kitchen tile, with the help of the soddering mind to perform alchemy, turning white into black with newfound meaning, hope to be good as gold, an ice-cube in the desert of a warm palm, meltingno one asked you to be the scribe, impetuosohurry, we must use these drops to whet our lips, we have more to say emaciated in this here page as we shakily chart the logos and piss our tiny oases of truths. 16. cross my heart and hope to die if sticking a needle into my eye would help me stop the pain I feel I would probably ride a migraine through the eye of a closed needle 17. it was no optical illusion, reaching into my ear I pulled out the entire brigade of bayonets, Hannibals elephant legions, flintlocks firing and banners flailing in the wind with songs and you should have seen their faces when I donned the uniform of my forebears and wore my skin like a cheap tarpaulin and completed 22

    the manuscripts and with exquisite Japanimation perfection, I crumbled suddenly back to normal as the minions punched the television timeclocks 18. I see these sails sailing away in saline decanters of soft scab wings these empty silos my lungs within their perishing fires. 19. I see these batteries diminishing, such great poetry in parachutes falling after their burdens have safely landed we plunder the bundles for phrases. 20. Theres more wisdom than wine in these words for once, so fold me up like a flag after battle. Hold me up like a torn sail. A saddle I am in the midst of domestic wars, hung on iron hook reeking of sweat the horse put out of its misery now. 21. I have never seen a civilization ride so hard and fast To the edge of its chasm. 22. When you see the number twenty-three on the horizon, 23. proceed with caution.

    23

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